Arrowhead Studios previously announced that the team is working on a balance patch for co-op shooter Helldivers 2, but doing so has proven to be trickier than expected since weapons with higher kill rates don't always lead to successful missions.
11.02.2024 - 15:48 / gamesradar.com / Kaan Serin
Xbox 360 Arcade enjoyers might have fond memories of Geometry Wars, a series of excellent top-down bullet hell shooters that's since made its way to other platforms. Now it's back! Kind of. One Steam Next Fest demo unofficially emulates the series' blinding neon style and inserts it into the Vampire Survivors formula.
Geometry Survivors looks almost identical to my hazy XBLA memories, with the same claw-shaped ships and slow-moving projectiles slogging across a plain black background. This time, you don't have control over your shooting and instead of chasing increasingly higher scores, you're only trying to survive for five minutes.
As is genre tradition, our meager little ship also has access to upgrades when you grab enough shiny blue resources that enemies drop. There isn't anything too revolutionary in this roster of abilities, with the usual boomerangs, area-of-effect projectiles, and auto-shooting bullets included. Though there's also a currency that carries over in between runs, so maybe some game-changing upgrades are waiting in the final game.
I enjoyed my time with Geometry Survivors, as a more precise version of Vampire Survivor's moreish loop. Ships are so precise and thinly drawn that it's actually thrilling to loop in between enemies and narrowly avoid the spinning blades of death that spawn.
I'm sad to say that apart from the visual design, playing Geometry Survivors felt a little too familiar in a subgenre that's seen countless entrants recently. Maybe following its spiritual predecessor more closely - perhaps giving us control over our projectiles' direction - is a good route to take. For now, though, games like last year's Cursorblade (also a Steam Next Fest highlight) are still the best takes on the formula that I've seen.
As for the real Geometry Wars, series rights were once with Microsoft before going over to Vivendi, which then merged with Activision to become Activision Blizzard. And as you might have heard, Microsoft recently acquired that publisher and then laid off almost 2,000 employees. A full circle moment for Geometry Wars, I guess.
Other Steam Next Fest highlights include a letter-writing sequel , a lofi life sim , and a psychedelic Metroidvania .
Arrowhead Studios previously announced that the team is working on a balance patch for co-op shooter Helldivers 2, but doing so has proven to be trickier than expected since weapons with higher kill rates don't always lead to successful missions.
Arrowhead Studios, the developer behind co-op hit Helldivers 2, has warned players about "fake" versions of the game and other popular titles after a wave of illegitimate copies hit Steam overnight.
Elden Ring DLC is fast approaching and the new trailer has ignited a fierce online debate about Messmer The Impaler's origins.
After the previous concurrent player capacity was raised for the busy weekend, Helldivers 2 servers are once again getting buffed to support players buying the game in droves.
Ender Lilies - the brilliant indie Metroidvania from 2021 - is getting a sequel, so me and the other five fans of the now-series are very happy. Even if you haven't jumped aboard the train just yet, the upcoming sequel looks oh so good.
Until the sterling evaluations of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth dropped earlier today, the best-reviewed game of 2024 was Balatro - a deck-building poker roguelike that seemed to take over Steam Next Fest.
Waves of players are attempting to spread democracy and bash robots in co-op shooter Helldivers 2, catapulting the game to record-breaking success, as the sequel has now passed the concurrent PC player peaks of the biggest PlayStation or Xbox-owned releases.
John Eric Bentley - the actor behind machinegun-armed party member Barret Wallace in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth - has dished on the character's role in the upcoming sequel and his thoughts on the original's depiction.
Despite doubling the concurrent player capacity just a few days ago, developer Arrowhead has once again announced a huge player cap expansion for co-op shooter Helldivers 2 while the studio attempts to maintain its now overwhelmingly large player base.
I respect a game with wild ambition. Declaring your game "the spiritual successor to Freelancer" is bold and ambitious, considering how the spaceship sim is still so beloved after 20 years that our readers voted it your 16th favourite space game of all time. This ambition is wild when the tiny development team is led by someone best known for replacing Skyrim's dragons with Thomas The Tank Engine. So while I'm not much of a spaceship sort, I had to check out the demo for Underspace, which aims to combine Freelancer shoot-o-trading space action with a dash of Lovecraftian horror.
February's Steam Next Fest demo bonanza officially concluded on Monday, and Valve have now revealed the 50 most played games you all tucked into across the week-long event. Ordered by the number of unique players that spent time with them during Next Fest proper (meaning all those early demo plays from earlier in the month haven't been counted), the most popular game of the lot was one that was only formally announced right at the end of January. So congratulations Dungeonborne - your blend of PvPvE dungeon crawling and fantasy skelly monsters clearly struck a chord with this year's Next Festers.
Valve has revealed the 50 most-played demos from 2024's Steam Next Fest, and topping the list is the dungeon crawler RPG Dungeonborne, the self-styled "next-gen" RTS Stormgate, and my personal favorite, the moody survival driving sim set in the lush Pacific Northwest rainforest, Pacific Drive.