Dungeonborne Mixes Strategic, Extraction and Battle Royale Gameplay, and You Can Try It Out at Steam Next Fest

Hello Games released the Omega update for No Man’s Sky today and is making the sci-fi game free-to-play temporarily to celebrate.

So, there's pretty much a new Sea Dogs game, but first I have a lot of context to share. If you'd rather not indulge in the long and confusing history of a cult classic pirate series, just scroll down until just after the picture of some pirates in front of a ship and that'll take you straight to the point.

Rumors of Xbox going multi-platform have dominated discussion of gaming consoles recently, and as the time draws close for Microsoft to make an official announcement on the subject, there's already enough information out there to make a reasonably reliable prediction about what games Sony fans can expect to make the PlayStation 5 transition. Initial rumors of Xbox's transition away from exclusivity came as something of a surprise, especially considering Microsoft's recent focus on acquiring studios to push strong exclusives. At this point, however, it's hard to deny that there's a shift happening, whether Xbox fans like it or not.

We've eschewed any Valentine's theming this year, but Edwin put this in our news queue last night as a sort of dare for our evening shift, and let the record show I am less of a coward than Graham Smith. The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood, a visual novel Tarot-themed card game from perennial (perhaps perineal, in this case) favourites Deconstructeam, was praised by Edwin in his review, and I was going to use the same strapline for this news post had he not got there first. Because now, in time for the season of romance, they've teamed up with sex toy purveyors Uberrime to create a frankly prohibitively massive dildo as an official tie-in for the game, which can be won in a free competition by three lucky people living in either the UK, EU, US or Canada (as in, they each win their own dildo; they don't have to time share).

In one week, a free game called Sheepy: A Short Adventure has caught up to the likes of Palworld and Persona 3 Reload to become one of the highest-rated Steam releases of 2024, if not the highest-rated according to SteamDB's metrics. Utterly intrigued by its meteoric popularity, I rushed to its Steam page to download and try it, only to spot a familiar name listed as its developer and publisher: YouTuber MrSuicideSheep. 

Two classic games from the Saints Row franchise are currently available for a very low price on the Xbox Store. The Saints Row games began on the seventh generation of consoles such as the Xbox 360. While most would consider many games from that era as lost treasures, the Series X and Series S surprisingly offer a chance to play some select older titles. Some backwards compatible gems even go as far back as the original Xbox.

Students, busy-bodies, stoners, and gamers have been chilling at their desks with Lofi Girl - the YouTube channel featuring lofi beats and a studious anime girl - for almost a decade. One Steam Next Fest demo now makes that experience kind of playable with a life sim that's perfect for serial procrastinators. 

I can't stop playing the Steam Next Fest demo for this fairytale co-op adventure game as it's making the wait for Little Nightmares 3 slightly easier. 

Steam Next Fest has once again returned with another weeklong celebration of video games and hundreds of demos to try out. From major upcoming releases like Homeworld 3 to unique and interesting debuts from indie developers, there’s tons to play and all too little time to try everything out.

Microsoft recently cut 1,900 jobs from its gaming division and among the layoffs were many at the recently acquired video game developer Activision Blizzard. Blizzard Entertainment's President Mike Ybarra and co-founder Allen Adham are both departing. The tech giant also announced the cancellation of a Blizzard game, called “Odyssey,” that was already six years in development. On Tuesday, Microsoft reported quarterly earnings, posting its strongest revenue growth since 2022.

Publisher Bandai Namco and developer Spike Chunsoft Co., Ltd. have revealed 24 fighters for Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero, and they're all Goku and Vegeta. Unsurprisingly, considering Goku and Vegeta are the two main characters in the Dragon Ball Z saga (amongst others like Gohan, for example), Spike Chunsoft is giving players the chance to fight using their various forms. This includes Super Saiyan, Super Saiyan 2, Majin Vegeta, and more. 

Greetings, Polygon readers! Each week, we round up the most notable new releases to streaming and VOD, highlighting the biggest and best new movies for you to watch at home.