Hack & Slash News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

Sony is introducing a new Community Game Help feature on PlayStation 5.

Ah, it feels like only yesterday that Microsoft shut down Tango Gameworks, creators of Hi-Fi Rush, and now here's Matt Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios, telling Microsoft staff at an internal townhall meeting that "we need smaller games that give us prestige and awards" - a sentence we might plausibly lengthen to "...like Hi-Fi Rush".

"If only you could talk to these creatures" is never more funny or true than in games like Rotwood, where you play cat people and orcs sent to biff snail worms and flies with scythes. From Klei Entertainment, the gang behind Don't Starve, Invisible Inc. and Oxygen Not Included, to name but a three of their fine games, Rotwood is out later today in early access, ready to provide co-op highjinks in a roguelike dungeon crawl that is really a forest. A forest crawl. You'll get muddy knees.

Wanted: Dead is a terrible game that I sort of adore. Created by some of the people behind the Ninja Gaiden series, it's the kind of rough diamond or perhaps, chunk of lacerating windscreen glass you find at the bottom of a mouldy box at a service station car boot sale along a particularly depressed stretch of the UK's M1.

We first learned of Spiritfarer studio Thunder Lotus' latest endeavour 33 Immortals at last year's Summer Geoff Fest. They showed off some brief snippets of its 33-player cooperative roguelike-ing, where you'd beat up hellish monsters in a miniature take on MMO raids. If you were intrigued by it back then, I have good news. The Triple-i Initiative gave us more of a glimpse at how the game would look in the hands, with precious UI markers and the promise we'll uncover new "Torture Chambers". Lovely. No seriously, it does look quite lovely, if a touch predictable.

Did I ever my mention my, possibly unhealthy to the point of actually contracting something with buboes, obsession with Warhammer’s weirdo little rat friends? If, like me, you also derive untold joy watching these scrabbling binlickers go about their daily business, you’ll be pleased to hear that co-op ratmasher game Vermintide 2 is giving you a great excuse to pal around with the Skaven again in the form of free update A Parting of the Waves, out this Thursday April 11th.

Seeing as Path Of Exile 2 has already undergone a curious journey from 'sequel released as expansion' to 'actual sequel' in the four years since its announcement, not to mention years of delays, what's one more diversion? The action-RPG's developers announced last night that the closed beta planned to start on the 7th of June will now not. They think they could have something ready by then but it wouldn't be up to their standards, so what's the hurry?

Path of Exile 2 will no longer have its beta release this summer.

Granblue Fantasy: Relink's first major update releases today, adding a new quest and sees Lucilius from the original Granblue Fantasy mobile game return as a boss fight.

El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron HD Remaster is coming to Nintendo Switch next month.

Developer Insomniac Games released its much anticipated New Game Plus update for Marvel's Spider-Man 2 yesterday, however it slipped up a tad and also accidentally gave players access to a development menu.

We've finally got more information on Capcom's upcoming game Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, which was shown during the Xbox Partner Preview showcase earlier today.

Several months down the line from Marvel's Spider-Man 2's launch, fans have been discussing the game's ending and whether elements should have played out differently.

A beefy update headed to Marvel's Spider-Man 2 will add a wardrobe of new suits and unlock a fresh New Game Plus mode for Insomniac's enjoyable superhero adventure.

Steam Next Fest may be over for another few months, but dozens of demos are still alive and kicking, it seems - which is good news for me, who still has a good half dozen on my to do list, and also good news for you, as it means you still have time to check out the really quite good demo for Stand-Alone, a fast, 2D hack and slasher where you play as a robot-powered sheep packing a very large sword. Wolves have broken into your home and murdered all your friends, but you play as the one sheep who got away - or rather, a sheep that's been fused with a surprisingly powerful robot capable of producing a honking great greatsword to make their escape with. Thus begins the wolves' hot pursuit - not least because this robot also seems to be kind of sleeper agent for them - and your roguelike-shaped quest to avenge your fallen friends.

UPDATE 13/2/24: Granblue Fantasy: Relink has now reached 1m copies sold worldwide.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2's much anticipated New Game Plus mode will arrive next month — on 7th March — which means soon we can all swing back around and go for another spin with Peter and Miles.

In an upsetting confirmation that February is in fact winter (and that the year doesn't just start with summer like my brain thinks it should) publisher Whitethorn Games held a 2024 Winter Showcase, where they revealed the existance of a game that answers the question "what if the slimes in Slime Rancher were in mortal peril, and had swords?". The answer is apparently "be ruddy heroes in a cute Soulslike". I think this game, too, looks very cute, although Slime Heroes doesn't have a release window yet.

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth has become the series' most successful launch on Steam over its launch weekend.

A new update to Monster Hunter Rise on Steam which adds Enigma DRM has caused the game to no longer run on Steam Deck.

Palword lets players capture NPC humans in a tiny ball — and then sell them on the black market.

When Edwin popped the reveal trailer for new Metroidvania Deviator into The Maw this morning, he really wasn't kidding about it looking a heck of a lot like Hollow Knight. You've got a small, diminutive hero with a nasty little blade up his sleeve, a haunting and melancholy piano score, a beautiful hand-drawn animation style, and lots of mean-looking creatures to fight. Then again, the trailer also makes it clear there are lots and lots of spikes and traps to navigate here, which puts me more in the mind of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. Either way, I'm well up for another platforming-Metroidy hybrid, and developers Gami Studio have announced that there's Steam demo coming in February.

«Pokémon with guns» game Palworld has just blasted through yet another sales milestone — of 5m copies sold in three days.

Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth releases this coming week and takes the series' best boy protagonists to the new shores of Hawaii. It's one of our most anticipated games of 2024. There's a slight snag though: New Game+ mode, a staple of both the genre and the series, is this time locked away within the more expensive Deluxe and Ultimate Editions.

Palworld was obviously destined for success the moment a million games journalists and Twitter users wrote “Pokémon with machine guns”. (Acceptable alternate nicknames include “Eevees with uzis” and “Abras who’ll stab-ya”.) Having finally launched into Early Access on Steam and Game Pass this week, that prophecy has rung true as the monster-catching survival game has caught (ha, ha) so many players that its servers are struggling to handle the load.

Palworld, the upcoming open world survival and crafting game which the internet has dubbed 'Pokémon with guns', is already seeing some impressive player numbers on Steam — to the detriment of its servers.

A demo for upcoming action RPG Granblue Fantasy: Relink is now available on PlayStation 4 and 5.

Stephanie Tyler Jones, the model who provided her likeness to Mary Jane for the recent PlayStation Spider-Man games, has spoken out after «some followers crossed boundaries».

Platinum Games Apple Arcade game World of Demons will end service and no longer be downloadable from 18th January.

Marvel's Spider-Man developer Insomniac Games has now released a statement addressing the ransomware attack on its studio earlier this month, the release of stolen data this week, and the spread of information on upcoming projects now circulating the internet.

Earlier this week, hackers published over 1.6 terabytes of data stolen from Spider-Man developer Insomniac Games, with files ranging from employee passport scans, Slack conversations and employment records to details of several forthcoming games. Totalling around 1.3 million files, the hack includes a fully playable WIP PC version of Insomniac's Wolverine game, which has yet to be formally shown off beyond some initial concept images, and is at present only confirmed to release on PS5. Social media users have been playing the stolen build and posting videos, which range from early tutorial sequences to story scenes.

Marvel's Wolverine is still years from release, but people are currently playing — and uploading footage — of an incomplete early development build found within the files stolen from Insomniac Games by ransomware hackers earlier this month.

Detailed plans revealing the future projects of PlayStation-owned Spider-Man developer Insomniac have been published online, stolen from the company by hackers.

After threatening to do so last week, ransomware group Rhysida have published well over a terabyte of stolen Insomniac Games data, with files ranging from personal information about Insomniac employees to details of forthcoming videogame projects, such as the already-announced Wolverine.

The Japanese department store Parco is holding an exhibition in collaboration with the Like a Dragon series, which is themed around some of its most notable dead characters.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 fans itching to return to New York for some New Game Plus action will need to wait just a little while longer; developer Insomniac Games has announced it's delaying the previously promised mode — alongside a number of other features — into «early» 2024 for some additional testing ahead of release.

Spider-Man 2 studio Insomniac Games have reportedly been hacked by ransomware group Rhysida, which has led to the release of docs and screenshots purporting to be of the Sony-owned developer's mysterious Wolverine game. Sony are "investigating" these reports and say that "they have no reason to believe that any other SIE or Sony divisions have been impacted", which reads to me like an acknowledgement that the leaks are legit. Colour that speculation for the moment, however.

A ransomware group named Rhysida has claimed it hacked Marvel's Spider-Man 2 developer Insomniac Games, and posted files it managed to gain access to as proof. Sony has since told Eurogamer it's investigating the situation.

Nexon and Neople have announced The First Berserker: Khazan, a single-player action RPG from the Dungeon & Fighter universe. I’m not familiar with DNF, but going by The First Berserker’s trailer, it’s all about exceedingly grimdark blokes beating the paste out of each other. In this instalment, you play a once-proud general of the Pell Los Empire, who has been falsely accused of treason and sent into exile. He’s pretty miffed about this! Berserk, even.

God of War Ragnarök is getting a free roguelite Valhalla expansion.

Dead Cells developers Motion Twin and publisher Kepler Ghost have announced Windblown, a wholesome yet bloodthirsty new roguelike action game in which heavily-armed cartoon animals set out from a floating village to brave the horrors of the Vortex. It’s due in early access on PC in 2024, and we’ve got the first trailer for you below.

The Mercenary class has been unveiled for Path of Exile 2, and notably, it brings a whole new style of play to the game: shooter gameplay. It doesn't mean the game has suddenly gone first-person, but it does mean optional — and fluidly interchangeable — WASD movement is coming to the series for the first time. And that you can now move slightly while attacking.

If you are in the mood for a game about dancing around screens full of energy beams and projectiles, searching for that fleeting window of space in which you can stop and perform an attack, I recommend trying the demo for Ninja Issen. If you miss 8 or 16-bit platformers like Shinobi or the original Ninja Gaiden, I also recommend trying the demo for Ninja Issen. If you liked The Messenger - classique Ninja Gaiden's greatest heir - but wished it was More Cyberpunk with cheesy PG-rated holographic dancing girls and Comix Zone-style story panels, I also also recommend trying the demo for Ninja Issen.

Insomniac Games' take on Wolverine is reportedly set to release in 2025 as a PlayStation 5 exclusive.

Hades is one of the many GOTY award winners I feel extremely guilty about barely spending any time with. I think I've played a couple of hours tops. Nobody must know! Oh drat. Anyway, despite my lack of expertise, the Supergiant action-roguelite was the first comparison that came to mind while watching the trailer for Realm of Ink, which has just been announced.

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth will be a «monster-class game» longer than any previous game in the series.

PlayStation 5 accounted for 51 percent of all console sales in the UK over the past six months.

The soundtrack for upcoming release Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth has leaked online, following the release of Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name yesterday.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 has now sold over 5m copies.

Two members of Marvel's Spider-Man 2 narrative team have shed more light on the game's ending, and what it means for Peter Parker and Miles Morales.

Fresh footage as well as a playable prototype of a cancelled Daredevil game have appeared online.