RPG News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

I briefly posted about this in The Maw, but was unsure at that point if SteamWorld Heist 2 was coming to PC day and date with the launch on Switch. That date is August 8th, by the way, and the answer is: yes it is! Though it was revealed at Nintendo's Indie World Showcase earlier this afternoon, strategy action-adventure-with-robots sequel SteamWorld Heist 2 isn't a timed platform exclusive, so that's fun!

Every time Elden Ring challenge runs seem to have reached their peak, someone comes along to set the bar even higher. For streamer Silithur, who recently beat the RPG using nothing more than a Morse Code input, however, beating the Elden Beast was just one part of an immensely cathartic double whammy involving none other than Elon Musk.

Grounded's Fully Yoked update arrived yesterday, marking its debut on PlayStation and Switch. However, it also brought its fair share of issues with it.

CD Projekt Red has revealed The Witcher 4 is being "intensively worked on," and that most of Cyberpunk 2077's devs are staying on for the sequel to "preserve" its DNA. 

A highly ambitious Dragon's Dogma 2 mod is attempting to make the RPG far more challenging on New Game Plus mode.

Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree will release in June 2024, but even if you buy it day one, you might not be able to access the Elden Ring DLC expansion’s new overworld areas and dungeons right away. This is an add-on aimed squarely at those in the later stages of the game, as FromSoftware’s own Elden Lord Hidetaki Miyazaki has revealed in a new Famitsu interview – to gain access, you must first defeat two of the main game’s nastier bosses. Yes, I know that all Elden Ring bosses are nasty, but these two are among the worst, in my experience.

If you can't wait to start rummaging in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt's guts with its powerful new modding tools, you can now shoot for early access by signing up for a playtest on Steam. The new REDkit suite is based on the actual tools that CD Projekt RED themselves sued to create one of the best RPGs, and will let folks make a much wider range of mods. We'll be able to make new quests, new characters, even whole new worlds.

Is waiting for Hades 2 to release starting to feel like a sisyphean endeavor? If so, push that boulder no longer. Supergiant announced yesterday that fans of the action roguelite can sign up now to be considered for an upcoming technical test, via Hades 2’s Steam page.

Nintendo's next Indie World Showcase — the cooler, more rebellious sibling to the average Nintendo Direct — will air today, Wednesday 17th April, at 3pm UK time.

There are 25 games leaving the PlayStation Plus subscription service next month, including some of the best Final Fantasy games.

CD Projekt's official mod editor for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is now available for playtesting on Steam — albeit initially only to select registrants — ahead of its full release «later this year».

Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation Quest of Memories will launch for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Switch, and PC via Steam on June 20 worldwide, publisher Bushiroad Games and developer Lancarse announced.

Open-world hack-and-slash action RPG Hammerwatch II will launch for PlayStation 4 and Xbox Series on April 23, publisher Modus Games and developer Crackshell announced. An Xbox One version is no longer planned.

Larian Studios didn't so much smash last year's Baldur's Gate 3 out of the park as launch it straight into orbit, collecting countless Game of the Year awards and even a few BAFTAs along the way. But while the studio has made it clear it has no interest in returning for a Baldur's Gate 4, Dungeons and Dragons owner Wizard of the Coast is definitely onboard for more, and is currently «talking to lots of partners» about the future of the series.

Hades 2, the hugely anticipated follow-up to developer Supergiant Games' acclaimed 2020 roguelike dungeon crawler, is almost upon us — albeit initially as an early access release — and ahead of its arrival Supergiant is hosting a technical test, with sign-ups officially now open.

With the arrival of Amazon’s Fallout TV series last week came the dropping of another bombshell: the possible truth behind a mystery that’s gone unanswered in the video games for over 25 years. Before you read on, please bear in mind that spoilers for the Fallout TV show’s season one finale follow!

World of Warcraft is setting a whole new story arc in motion with its next expansion, The War Within. If you can’t quite wait until this summer to see what the first chapter of the new Worldsoul Saga trilogy has to offer, you might not have to wait so long. Blizzard are running a beta for War Within that will give testers the chance to delve into the subterranean addition early - and sign-ups are now open.

With Larian having now officially handed the reins of the Baldur’s Gate series back to Dungeons & Dragons owners Wizards of the Coast (and their Monopoly-making parents at Hasbro) - with the developers saying they have no plans to make any DLC or a sequel - the ball for a Baldur’s Gate 4 now sits in Wizards’ court. The good news is that, yes, they also want to make a follow-up to one of the most acclaimed and successful video games of the last few years. Just don’t expect that to necessarily be anytime soon.

Xbox has announced the next wave of games coming to Game Pass in late April.

Home, Planet & Hunters is the latest RPG from Black Pearl Games, the developers who brought us the gritty street action in Brutal Street 1 & 2. With the new game, they’re taking us through the ruins of a world called ‘The Ring’ where you’ll gather a crew of hunters to defend your home.

Fansipan just dropped its latest title, Mutant Llama, which is as wacky as it sounds. It’s a free-to-play casual idle game with elements of creature collection and battles. Fansipan has previously brought us titles like Shadow Knight: Ninja Game War, Family Farming: My Island Life, Stickman Survivor: Epic Soul and Summoners Era: Idle RPG Heroes.

Palworld, the viral survival game that stirred up controversy (and found plenty of success) on the back of being a Pokémon-a-like - with added guns and factory labour, mind - is now due to become the inspiration for its own generation of clones, according to the head of its developers.

An Elden Ring player has noticed an interesting change that occurs to the Erdtree after defeating Maliketh, the Black Blade. The game's world, also known as the Lands Between, is enormous and filled with various surprises that many players miss even after spending hundreds of hours exploring.

We’ve learned about the titles that will come to Xbox Game Pass throughout the back half of April, and several of them are games getting added to the catalog the day they launch. Of those, the most notable is Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes.

Nier director Yoko Taro says that the upcoming action RPG Stellar Blade makes him "quite jealous" as he reckons it's "much better" than Automata itself – strong words of praise, if not a tad self-deprecating from Taro. 

White Cat Project New Worlds just launched version 4.56.0, which features a fresh lick of paint and a new icon featuring the Lycoris Recoil collaboration that started earlier this week. This update also includes bug fixes.

If you've been narked about favourite bits of Fallout not yet appearing in Amazon Prime's unexpectedly good live-action show, hold your horses. In an interview, the showrunners have talked about holding back certain "iconic elements" to do them in a hypothetical second season right rather than cram in all the greatest hits—and also so the show didn't "seem like it was written by people who just like spent 10 seconds reading the Wikipedia page for Fallout and didn't bother to like bring in some deeper cuts."

As a big fan of Ori And The Blind Forest, I am very excited for Moon Studios' new venture No Rest For The Wicked, an online ARPG which swaps the cutesyness of Ori and that ickle wickle forest for top-down fights against abominations slathered in muck and entrails. A new early access release trailer highlights said fights, alongside the devs saying that there's going to be no microtransactions, no always-online requirement, and no anti-cheat software bundled in. I don't want to speak too soon, but so far, it looks like we're onto something pretty darn good here.

A mod lets players fully immerse themselves in the streets of Night City. CD Project Red's sci-fi RPG already had a first-person narrative for its majority, with players only able to swap to third person for driving, to make players feel like they were exploring its rich world, but a Virtual Reality mod has taken advantage of this to take things a step further.

Stellar Blade is better than NieR: Automata, according to the latter's esteemed director Yoko Taro.

Doug Cockle, the gravelly voice of Geralt in CD Projekt Red's Witcher video games, has shared his thoughts on the Netflix series.

Baldur's Gate 3 players who have modded their games are seeing references to a popular NPC character that suggests they were once set for full-on companion status.

The Collector's Edition of Elden Ring DLC Shadow of the Erdtree comes with 18 inches of impalement.

If you’re looking to jump into an adventure where you slash through enemies without the grind, Mobirix has a new game for you. The team has just dropped Devil Knights Idle, a dark fantasy action RPG on Android. By the way, Mobirix has built some other popular sim games, like Spirit Girl Idle, Ghost Hunter Idle and Demon Hunter Idle.

Nier director Yoko Taro says the work that inspired Nier: Automata the most was Neon Genesis Evangelion, so much so that the RPG's story is "pretty much just a retelling of Evangelion, so there's not much originality to it."

Publisher Koei Tecmo and developer Omega Force have detailed the story of Fate/Samurai Remnant downloadable content “Record’s Fragment: Yagyu Sword Chronicles,” which will launch on April 18.

ATLUS will host the “ATLUS Exclusive: Metaphor: ReFantazio – April 23, 2024″ broadcast on April 22 at 3:00 p.m. PT / 6:00 p.m. ET / 7:00 JST, the company announced (2). You will be able to watch it on YouTube in English and Japanese.

If you've been itching to dive into World of Warcraft's new subterranean expansion The War Within, there's an opportunity to do so ahead of release, with beta testing sign-ups now open.

A pair of scientists working in the Antarctic have managed to get their remote research station added as a location in Pokémon Go.

Magpie Games is a studio with quite the portfolio, consisting of highlights like Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game (based on the super popular Nickelodeon animated series) and Root: The Roleplaying Game, based on what I think is the cutest war game ever. And now, you can get those RPGs for hundreds less of dollars less than usual. Like any of the best tabletop RPGs, Magpie Games’ TTRPGs have plenty of depth to explore, and so they benefit from you picking up additional content to expand their mechanics and story elements. While building up your RPG library can get pricey, this book bundle from Humble delivers an unbelievable three-figure discount that makes the process far more affordable. Until April 20, you can pick up a collection of Magpie Games’ greatest hits for as little as $5. If you fancy going all out, pick up the full Best of Magpie Games bundle for $35 at Humble, containing 30 books to the value of $395. Not only will you receive the PDFs to add to your digital RPG library, you’ll also receive a physical copy of the Avatar Legends RPG starter set.

Quests from the Infinite Staircase, one of the latest adventures for Dungeons & Dragons, has roots (steps?) that lead back to the first editions of the legendary tabletop RPG. If you’d like to explore the origins of this epic anthology, you can currently get a bundle of seven standalone adventures that dive into the lore of The Infinite Staircase at DriveThruRPG and Dungeon Master’s Guild. The Infinite Staircase Classics Bundle is usually priced at $50.93, but this collection of one-shots is currently discounted to $31.99, making this a great opportunity to add some classic adventures to your next campaign.

Publisher Bandai Namco and developer ILCA have released a new trailer and screenshots SAND LAND dubbed “Sandstorm.”

Publisher Bandai Namco and developer ILCA will release One Piece Odyssey: Deluxe Edition for Switch on July 25 in Japan and July 26 worldwide, the companies announced.

Fallout: London, the Fallout 4 mod set in a post-apocalyptic English capital that’s large enough to effectively be its own game, has been hit by an indefinite delay just two weeks from its planned release date. The reason? Fallout 4’s long-in-the-works next-gen update is now due to drop just two days after London’s planned launch date, which its fan devs say will “simply break” the ambitious project.

Fans appear hyped for the highly anticipated RPG Light of the Stars, which will be released on April 18, 2024! GM Tia and the remaining MOBIGAMES team have been working hard to make this epic journey come to life. Light of the Stars is ready to sail a little earlier than planned.

PSV Games dropped a new action-packed title Battle of Mighty Troopers on Android recently. It’s a dynamic pixelated 2D roguelike shooter RPG. The game studio has published other titles on Android like Ninja Sword: Fighting Game and Lifeline: A Virtual Game Life.

As MMORPG Final Fantasy 14's upcoming Dawntrail expansion gets ever closer, Squeenix have released a benchmarking tool that lets you see how your rig might handle its graphical update. Not only that, but it also lets you sample the new female Hrothgar playable race. So far, folks seem to be happy with the tool and the catmoms.

The lead writer of BioWare's Dragon Age series has shared what games he thinks will make a great TV adaptation, and the BioWare RPG isn't one of them.

Final Fantasy 16 successfully expanded the audience of the series, though future games won't necessarily take a similar direction.

Square Enix has released patch notes for update 1.31 of Final Fantasy 16, which will arrive alongside The Rising Tide DLC on 18th April.

The live-action Fallout TV show has caused a huge rise in popularity for Bethesda's beloved RPG series, with concurrent player counts on the rise on Steam. Amongst the excitement, one Fallout lead has shared a previously unknown snippet of information connecting the original game to Fallout 4, but he's quickly backtracked on it due to how the fanbase received it.

Several games in the Fallout series have seen a spike in player activity on PC following the recently released Fallout TV show. 

The Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail benchmark tool is now live, allowing players to check out the graphical upgrade on the way with update 7.0.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth players have been perplexed since release over its confusing retry screen, but Square Enix has quietly tweaked it in the latest patch.

A Japanese Pokémon fan faces fines and a potential prison sentence after his arrest for selling hacked versions of the game's creatures.

Another week, another Monday waking up to find Edwin has trapped himself between the Maw’s cyclopean molars on what was supposed to be a routine scrubbing expedition. We usually get him out just fine, but today he’s become entranced by the chomper’s blighted runoff, and is busy stuffing plaque samples in his trousers to bring back and study. So, you get me instead. In other, non-affront to-science news, Warhorse are announcing a new game this week, Thursday 18th, rumoured to be medieval rpg sequel Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. Elsewhere, the Steam FPS fest kicks off later.

Fallout: London, the DLC-sized mod for Fallout 4, has been delayed.

Persona 1 and 2 are getting remakes.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth creative director Tetsuya Nomura has «completed» the story for the remake's final third instalment.

Among the onslaught of game trailers at the terribly named Triple-I Initiative was a release date for Gestalt: Steam & Cinder. It's a 2D platformer with a heavy dose of combat and a big upgrade tree, and there's a demo available now.

Larian Studios, the company name you've definitely heard of after Baldur's Gate 3's seismic impact, quietly backed one of the best Metroidvania games ever made.

Larian Studios, the developer behind Baldur's Gate 3, was one of the biggest contributors to the Kickstarter campaign for 2019's Blasphemous. The indie Metroidvania title proved to be a great addition to the genre, and the studio behind Baldur's Gate 3 was one of the largest donors to the project.

By now, you've probably heard the buzz surrounding Amazon's live-action Fallout show. And as it turns out, it is a faithful and fun adaptation of the hilariously grotesque post-apocalyptic role-playing game series. The live-action show offers a glimpse of the wild world of Fallout and all the bizarre hijinks just waiting to be uncovered, and it's likely got you wanting for some games to try out that have a similar conceit.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth has reportedly sold «about half» the sales of its predecessor Remake in the same timeframe.

If you're hoping Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's new grandiose Ultimania novel provides answers or hints regarding the ending's lingering mystery, you may be disappointed. 

Stellar Blade developer Shift Up, previously known for the likes of Goddess of Victory: Nikke, has repeatedly discussed the challenges of shifting to a more ambitious, current-gen action RPG, especially in a mobile-dominated market like South Korea's. In a new making-of documentary from PlayStation, some of the studio's heads explain in more detail that "many people felt we were out of our mind" for pursuing this project and platform. 

As if you needed more proof that Baldur's Gate 3 is, in fact, a pretty damn fine video game, Larian’s D&D RPG swept through the video game BAFTA awards yesterday, picking up five of the British entertainment org’s top trophies. Even more impressively - after all, Baldur’s Gate 3 winning a shedload of awards is old hat by now - its latest Best Game triumph means that the sprawling RPG-slash-fanfic machine is now the first video game to win all five of the industry’s major Game of the Year awards.

Blaze through the sky with Dragon Pow, a new shooter RPG on Android. Following a successful open beta, Boltray Games just dropped this game that’s full of colours and chaos. A while ago, they opened up pre-registration with rewards as good as $400 Amazon gift cards. Were you one of the lucky winners?  

Blue Dragon’s new RPG Firesky is now out on Android. It’s been published by Concept Haus who is known for other titles like Bashborgs. The action adventure RPG fighter takes you on a land filled with royal intrigue and samurai battles. Oh, and it’s totally free to play.

Final Fantasy fans have a lot to unpack today, as the Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Ultimania book has now launched in Japan, giving us more juicy details about the recent RPG as well as the next chapter in the Remake trilogy. Notably, we've gotten a little more indication as to how long we can expect to wait for Part 3, even if no release window has been confirmed yet.

Friends, there is trouble a-brewing down the radioactive watering hole. While Amazon's Fallout TV adaptation has launched to pretty positive verdicts, a contingent of Fallout players are up in arms over its portrayal of the Fallout timeline. In particular, it's being claimed that the show has written the events of Obsidian's Fallout: New Vegas out of the canon, despite reassurances from Bethesda Game Studios design director Emil Pagliarulo. Dare you read on? Let me just load up my Junk Jet with piping, hot Fallout Season 1 spoilers...

Fallout fans are scratching their heads over a plot point mentioned in the new hit TV show's sixth episode — which some say contradicts the game series' established lore.

Larian's Baldur's Gate 3 has been celebrated for the performances of its voice cast, who received several performance nominations for this year's BAFTA awards and which last night won the coveted Best Game award.

The version 4.6 update for Genshin Impact, dubbed “Two Worlds Aflame, the Crimson Night Fade,” will launch on April 24, developer miHoYo announced.

Baldur's Gate 3 continues its unbreakable winning streak to become the first-ever game to grab gold at all five major Game of the Year awards.

A hidden message has been found in almost a decade after its release. CD Projekt Red's RPG launched in 2015, so in 9 years most players would have assumed that they uncovered all there was to find, but it's clear the game has plenty more secrets hidden away.

With the Fallout live-action show now out and honestly far better than I was expecting, are Bethesda also brewing an adaptation of their other big RPG series, The Elder Scrolls? Not at present, according to Bethesda executive producer Todd Howard, and he says he'd "probably say no" if approached. Mind you, that was the stance he had until Fallout finally fell into place.

When I was a wee lad, my grandfather, an avid gardener, walked with me down to the end of his immaculately tended botanical kingdom, and bid I look upon his favourite flowers, bright blooms of Geraniums. He was a humble man, but even he could not disguise his pride at how wonderfully full and rich their colours and forms had come in this year. “Does the fragile beauty of these blooms not fill you with tender hope for the future?” he asked. “No, Grandad,” I replied, “these flowers are mid.”

I like co-op shooter Remnant 2, because it doesn't pretend to be much more than what it is: a dodgerollathon where, in between dodge rolls, you fill demons with bullets. I've been meaning to go back to it, so it's convenient that there's more DLC arriving soon. Dubbed The Forgotten Kingdom, it adds a new Invoker archetype, fleshes out an existing jungle biome, and introduces more gear, more monsters, and the like. Yes, count me in.

When the first trailer for Amazon’s Fallout dropped, the internet was hit by a familiar wave of eye rolls. Every aspect of it was scrutinized, from its Power Suit design to its title card gags. Now, days after the entire series was released on Amazon Prime Video to rave reviews, those preemptive haters are eating irradiated crow.