Adam Boyes: "You can't hide from the realities of what's happening in the industry"

Buckshot Roulette is simple, and simply unsettling. Sat across the table from a mysterious opponent clad in a deeply unnerving toothy mask, you pick up a shotgun loaded with shells. Then, you decide whether to point the gun at your opponent or yourself, and pull the trigger. Some of the shells are live, and others are blanks. Guess correctly, and you get to go again.

Windows handhelds like the ROG Ally have specs that put the Steam Deck to shame, but are let down by Windows being terrible as a handheld operating system. So, what if you could have the best of both worlds?

The deck-fixing roguelikelike poker of Balatro is chuffing excellent, no doubt, but my main criticism has been that the higher difficulty modes are just a bit boring. Having beat them myself, I didn't find them a fun or interesting challenge as much as an annoying one that required too much to go right. I'm glad to hear that they're being tweaked in an upcoming patch, which you can now test in a public beta on Steam, and even the lowest difficulty setting will be tweaked. Other changes include improved (hopefully) Steam Deck performance, balance tweaks, and better Joker-related Tags.

Remember when Redbox or Blockbuster would let you rent some of the newest titles for just a few bucks a day? A new trend has emerged to fill the void left behind by the loss of rental services. Many public libraries have started to collect video games, and it doesn't cost a cent to borrow them.

Goodbye, App Store Suika Game clones. The real thing has finally arrived on iOS for players outside of Japan. Suika Game, the watermelon puzzle game that went viral on Nintendo Switch last year, is available to download for $2.99 on Apple’s App Store, making it playable on iPhone and iPad. The title for the official version is “Suika Game-Aladdin X” and it comes from XGIMI Limited.

I like horror, I like bunnies, I like cool little games. Hey, y'here that, Rental? You're alright, kid. It's a free (free!) little game originally made for 2022's 32bit jam that takes about 20 minutes to play through, wherein you play a child rabbit who has arrived at a holiday cabin with her family. You're the first to head inside and, oop, the door locks behind you. Classic twist. A further twist is that, while Rental is entirely free to download and play, you can buy a supporter zine as DLC to kick some funds to the devs. Noice.

Swedish indie developer Landfall has released the brand new game Content Warning, keeping in its long-standing tradition of April Fool's Day game releases that brought fans Totally Accurate Battlegrounds and Battle Simulator, among other things.

I, a fool, created my Dragon's Dogma 2 character with the aim of being a wizened wizardly type, focused on the mysterious Trickster build. Since then, however, I've come to the conclusion that I should have been an archer, a decision cemented by the existence of one particular ability - the Martyr's Bolt.

Helldivers 2 grunts can now call down the Quasar Cannon Stratagem, a heavy laser that's tailor-made for spreading democracy. The cannon is actually so efficient, that some helldivers are already begging developer Arrowhead Studios not to nerf it.

A free playable demo of upcoming action-adventure game Stellar Blade will be made available to download on March 29 for PlayStation 5 owners, ahead of the game’s full release on April 26.

Final Fantasy 14's Dawntrail will release in full on 2nd July, 2024 – the early access will drop one week prior on 28th June – so both you and the Dawntrail development team has «one week» to get through Elden Ring's eagerly anticipated DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree.

Call it a "walled garden" or an ecosystem, but at the heart of Thursday's blockbuster US lawsuit against Apple are the many ways the company gets customers to remain faithful to its products.