Simulation News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

Publisher Untold Tales and developer Mooneaters will release farming adventure game Everdream Valley for Xbox Series and Xbox One on December 15, the companies announced.

Whatboy and Paradox Interactive's 4X spin-off Stellaris Nexus has boldly gone where many other games have gone before and entered early access. Apologies, I realise that reference is more appropriate to Paradox's other recent strategy release, Star Trek: Infinite, but I don't know the Stellaris fiction well enough to think of an appropriate in-joke. If you are similarly lacking in Stellaris knowledge, please rejoice in the fact that Nexus is a stripped-down, sped-up, turn-based version of the legendary space sim, which emphasises snappy tactical and strategic relationships over backstory.

Publisher Devolver Digital and developer Free Lives will release ecological strategy game Terra Nil for Switch on December 18, the companies announced.

Dredge, the sinister fishing game from Black Salt Games and publisher Team 17, has teamed up with Mintrocket's Dave the Diver for a new crossover.

Free-to-play MMO Palia will launch for Switch on December 15, developer Singularity 6 announced.

How do you follow-up a game that attempts to simulate an entire universe for your exploratory enjoyment? Hello Games has just answered that very question with the reveal of its next title, Light No Fire, a co-operative adventure set on a procedurally generated fantasy planet.

Supermassive Games have dropped the first trailer for The Casting of Frank Stone, their single player Dead by Daylight spin-off, a collaboration with original developer Behavior Interactive that was announced earlier this year. The new horror game combines Until Dawn’s branching storyline approach with Dead by Daylight’s supporting fiction of a malevolent Entity, trapping people in fog-bound pocket dimensions with legendary killers, so as to feast on their fear.

Daniel Mullins — the creator behind the acclaimed likes of Inscryption and The Hex — is back with a sequel to his celebrated 2016 oddity Pony Island. It's called Pony Island 2: Panda Circus and is coming Steam at some currently undisclosed future point.

Look, they might as well call off The Game Awards. I thought announcing Pony Island 2 during the pre-show would be hard to top but to follow that up with the announcement of World Of Goo 2? Pack it up. We're done. The sequel to our favourite game of 2008 is due to launch in 2024, bringing not just new puzzles to build things from goo but exciting new fluids too. I can scarcely wait to cover my goo in goop. Have a peek in the trailer below.

The creators of Untitled Goose Game have unveiled their next, err, not goose game. Announced at tonight's Game Awards, Big Walk is quite a different proposition from Goose Game, not least because we've moved from the quaint environs of a classic English village to the wilds of the Australian bushland. It's also an online co-operative multiplayer game that will see and your friends solving all sorts of puzzles you find out in the wild. Come and watch the reveal trailer below.

After the deadly (and delightful) card game of Inscryption, creator Daniel Mullins is returning to his happy land of little horses. Today he announced Pony Island 2: Panda Circus, a new genre-shifting curio described as "a phantasmagorical voyage through time, myth, divinity, and video games." I like that this description is likely wholly earnest and accurate. This news came during the pre-show for Geoff Keighley's Shopping Hour and if a game like this is relegated to the pre-show, I can only assume the main event will include Half-Life 3, Elden Ring 2, and Deus Ex 5.

Mech-farming sim Lightyear Frontier has confirmed its release for next March, landing around a year after the delayed chill space game was originally meant to touch down on Planet PC.

Prideful Sloth will host a “Couch Co-Op Playtest” for town-building simulation game Go-Go Town! for PC via Steam in February 2024, the developer announced. Sign-ups are available here.

Snacko is now available in Early Access for PC via Steam, publisher Armor Games Studios and developer Bluecurse Studios announced. A full launch will follow for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Switch, and PC via Steam in 2024.

In a move you wouldn't typically expect from a developer, Studio Wildcard has admitted Ark's servers are basically complete «ass».

Boyfriend Dungeon developer Kitfox Games has announced Loose Leaf, an occult sandbox game about brewing tea and reading tarot cards coming to PC via Steam. A release date was not announced.

Popcannibal has announced simulation game sequel Kind Words 2 (lofi city pop) for PC (Steam). It will launch in 2024.

The latest studio to be affected by Embracer's «comprehensive restructuring programme» is Insurgency and Day of Infamy developer New World Interactive.

Phoenix Labs, the developer behind recent indie success Fae Farm, has laid off 34 staff.

It's taken five and a half years of asking from the community, but Sea of Thieves' oft-requested private servers are almost here, with Rare now confirming the feature will arrive as part of the multiplayer pirate adventure's third major Season 10 update on Thursday, 7th December.

I don't drive myself, and while that's mostly because I can't afford a car, don't really need one for work and have wibbly environmentalist sensibilities, it's also because the experience of driving, for me, has been thoroughly spoiled by videogames. I mean, just look at this trailer for Ironwood's Vandemeerian vehicle survival roguelike Pacific Drive. How am I supposed to drive on some stupid road after watching that? What's the point of cars if there are no floating cryptid lifeforms, inexplicable walls of energy or lost research facilities involved?

Pacific Drive is set to rev up its engines and pull out of the driveway on 22nd February, across PlayStation 5 and PC (via Steam and Epic Game Store).

Homeworld 3 will launch on 8th March 2024, developer Blackbird Interactive and publisher Gearbox have now confirmed, two decades after its predecessor.

Homeworld 3 will launch on March 8th 2024, completing a development journey that began with crowdfunding back in 2019. To give some insight into that journey, developers Blackbird are going to release a documentary this December, a clip from which you'll find below.

Dwarf Fortress is best known as a colony sim, but the wonderfully detailed fantasy world's it generates can be played in different ways. Adventure mode is a procedurally generated RPG campaign in which you control just a single character, and it's now on its way to Kitfox's DF-with-graphics Steam release in April 2024.

Sons of the Forest is leaving early access. It will be getting its beefier version 1.0 release next year, on 22nd February.

Cult of the Lamb devs Massive Monster seem to be staying true to their promise to bring a ‘sex update’ to the cutesy cultist roguelite next year, after their promise to satisfy thirsty fans ended up exploding more quickly than expected.

“Social slow-life RPG” FANTASY LIFE i: The Girl Who Steals Time will launch for Switch in summer 2024 worldwide, publisher LEVEL-5 and developer LEVEL5comcept announced. It will support English, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Korean language options.

Following a string of delays, Ark: Survival Ascended will finally release tomorrow on PlayStation 5.

Publishers Marvelous, XSEED Games, and Marvelous Europe and developer syn Sophia will release the “Winter Update” for Fashion Dreamer on December 4 (PT) / December 5 (UTC), the companies announced. It adds new content, new patterns, new items, more ways to curate outfits, and a crossover with Japanese monthly girls manga magazine Ciao.

There's a quote about early computer animation, which I can't track down now, that before Pixar came along everyone was using it to swoop cameras through outerspace and up a gnat's ass. Or perhaps it was a fly's butt?

Cutesy cult-management roguelite Cult of the Lamb is sharpening its ritual dagger as it prepares to lay out its next big free content update next year.

American Truck Simulator will head to Kansas next week, with the release of its latest DLC on November 30th. Before that the truck driving and management sim has received a new update which adds improved weather effects, revised mountains, used truck deals, and the Moon.

American Truck Simulator rumbles ever-onward, and developer SCS Software has announced it'll be making its next stop, this time in the state of Kansas — the destination of its newest paid expansion — next Thursday, 30th November. Plus, its substantial 1.49 update — which adds a dynamic night sky, the moon, HDR skyboxes, and more — is out now.

As families come together to gorge on turkey/give thanks for Doctor Who being 60, what better way to mark the occasion than with a bit of a (spacey) freebie from the Epic Games Store, specifically in the form of Deliver Us Mars?

Merge Games will release a physical edition of House Flipper 2 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and PC alongside its console debut on March 21, 2024, the publisher announced.

I was just pondering writing something about Subnautica, inspired by revelations that there’s a new Subnautica project on the boil, and along comes the decidedly Subnautica-esque Honeycomb: The World Beyond with a trailer. Developed by Polish team Frozen Way, whose other projects include, erm, Hairdresser Simulator, it casts you as Hennessy, a human xenobiologist who is starting afresh on the alien planet of Sota7.

Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew developer Mimimi Games has announced it'll release two DLC expansions for the supernatural stealth tactics game on 6th December.

Mimimi Games have announced two chunky Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew DLC expansions - the German strategy game studio's final releases, before they close their doors for good. Both are down to launch on 6th December, and will add "several hours" of stuff to the sneaky sea-dog simulator.

Dyson Sphere Program is already rather overwhelming - this is, after all, a strategy sim about wrapping whole planets in conveyor belts so as to build cages around stars and harvest their juices - and now the absolute madfolk of Youthcat Studio are adding combat features. It's like watching somebody upend a bucket of termites over the world's most elaborate model trainset.

Following yet another last-minute delay, Ark: Survival Ascended's Xbox Series X/S release is now happening later today.

The next Sims game - currently codenamed Project Rene, even though we all know it’ll almost definitely be called The Sims 5 - will “definitely” have a multiplayer element of some kind, according to its devs. As guidance on what that could be, its team are unsurprisingly looking at the success of fellow cozy life-sim game Animal Crossing, as well as a perhaps less obvious inspiration in murder-mystery argument-starter Among Us.

Roguelite city-builder Against The Storm found wide popularity during its year in early access, but developers Eremite Games are now ready for a full 1.0 release on December 8th. The game will also be hitting PC Game Pass, for those of you looking for a ‘no extra cost’ gateway. Launch doesn’t mark the end of the road for the dark fantasy hit, though, since the team has also detailed upcoming newness in the form of a new mode for players in want of an extra challenge.

Cities: Skylines 2 came out last month, and while a sequel to a mega-poplar citybuilder should have been cause for concrete celebration, the reviews were sadly mixed. Most of the criticism was directed at the game’s performance woes (not teeth-related, apparently) and bugs (which are always a problem in cities, no?) In an effort to iron out the game’s technical problems and implement the mod editor, Paradox and developers Colossal Order have now delayed post-launch content included in the Expansion Pass.

Cities: Skylines 2 developer Colossal Order has delayed the release of scheduled content within the game's expansion pass, while it continues to improve the main game's performance.

At the time of Star Fleet II: Krellan Commander's release, I was still learning to spell and wrestling with the whole "going to the toilet independently" business, but if I'd had access to an MS-DOS PC between potty-training sessions, I dare say I'd have tried my hand at being an intergalactic warlord. Originally published in 1989 by Interstel Corporation and distributed by a little-known company called Electronic Arts, it's an absurdly in-depth and fiddly-looking space sim in which you fly around a randomly generated cosmos in your horrible Klingon-adjacent battlecruiser, blowing up or commandeering other ships, bombarding or invading planets, and generally speaking being a nuisance.

Bliss Brain has delayed Princess Maker 2 Regeneration from its previously planned December 21, 2023 release date to May 30, 2024. It will be available for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Switch, and PC via Steam with English, Japanese, Korean, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese language support.

Many grand strategy games let you hop from a map down to a battle layer where you can control a real-time scrap. Kaiserpunk is the first time I've seen a grand strategy game that lets you hop down instead to a citybuilding layer, where the construction of alternate history early-20th century industrial towns will determine whether you have the economic power to win the war.

If my calculations are correct, all the buildings in PowerWash Simulator's Back To The Future DLC are covered in some serious shit. It's your job to clean it off, of course - off the Hill Valley clocktower, Doc Brown's van, and of course the Delorean. It's out now.

Arma Reforger, the latest game in the long-running milsim series, has been in Early Access since May last year. No longer. It's 1.0 update arrived today, adding helicopters, a totally revised supply system, and as close to fast travel as the relentlessly realistic shooter will allow.

House Flipper 2 will launch for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series on March 21, 2024, publisher PlayWay and developer Frozen District announced. PlayStation Store wishlisting is available now.

Ark: Survival Ascended Xbox Series X/S release has been delayed again.

It's a good time to be a strategy game developer, according to Oxide Games, developers of Ara: History Untold, which happens to be a strategy game. Speaking to me during a showing of Ara - which is notable among turn-based 4X games for playing out every player's turn simultaneously - the creators offered a rousing characterisation of the genre, suggesting that strategy games have somewhat shucked off their association with stifling complexity and elitism, thanks not least to the recent influence of board gaming.

Sony has released its PlayStation Plus lineup for November.

Ark: Survival Ascended — Studio Wildcard's controversial Unreal Engine 5 spruce-up of its dinosaur-themed survival game — will no longer launch for Xbox Series X/S on 15th November as originally announced, with the developer now hoping to release the game «later this week».

Tactical extraction shooter Escape From Tarkov is adding vaulting, a recoil rework and new armour, as revealed in a developer livestream. Of the bunch, it's vaulting - the act of clambering over a low wall - which has been greeted most feverishly by Tarkov's community, a fact which is honestly not surprising.

A huge part of Cities: Skylines appeal lay in its modding community, which expanded on the citybuilder's robust foundations with new maps, assets and more for years post-release. Cities: Skylines 2 is still waiting on its own official mod support, but Paradox have offered a new update on progress, saying that the editor is "a couple of months" from being in a releasable state, with no concrete timeline as yet.

2pt Interactive will release Heavenly Bodies for Switch via Nintendo eShop in February 2024, the developer announced.

Just a quick one before I clock off for the day: you would not believe what the kids are up to in Minecraft right now. Well, you probably would, because it's Minecraft, the sandbox building sim that contains all possibility and all human endeavour, with the exception of good PvP mechanics, yes I went there.

Publisher Humble Games and Italian studio Memorable Games have announced On Your Tail, a story-driven life simulation game coming to Switch and PC via Steam in 2024.

Indie darling Outer Wilds finally has a Nintendo Switch release date: 7th December 2023.

Satisfactory developer Coffee Stain Studios has released a new update for the Early Access game which upgrades it to Unreal Engine 5.

Official modding tools for Cities: Skylines 2 will take at least a couple of months to be ready for an initial release, developer Colossal Order has said.

Studio Ghibli's Spirited Away is a film about a spoilt young girl who is obliged to work at a bathhouse for supernatural creatures, after her parents are turned into pigs by a wicked witch. Spirittea from Edmonton, Canada-based Cheesemaker Games is Spirited Away in the guise of a Stardew Valley-style management sim. Released today, it casts you as a wholesome young entrepreneur who has just arrived in a town full of rogue supernatural creatures. To free the town from its spectral infestation, you must renovate an old mountain bathhouse and treat each phantom to a jolly good scrub. You might also need to deal with some Unfinished Business, such as tracking down a lost possession. At least there's no witch to worry about. That I know of, anyway.

Different Tales has announced Our Life on Water, a life simulation RPG coming to PC via Steam in 2024.

Japanese studio Apricot Heart has announced romance adventure game Koi-Koi: Love Blossoms for PlayStation 5 with PlayStation VR2 support. It will launch via PlayStation Store on November 15.

Teardown's first DLC will launch on November 15th. It's called Time Campers, and it seems to be about taking a time travelling caravan back to the wild west so you can dynamite your way through saloons, bridges, and steam trains. Also there's a horse. Find all of the above in the release date trailer below.

As we stroll gamely into month two of Sea of Thieves' extremely long-delayed Season 10, Rare has announced that the second of its three big tentpole features — the new PvP-focused Skull of the Siren Song voyage — will arrive next Thursday, 16th November.

Publisher LEVEL-5 and developer LEVEL5comcept have delayed FANTASY LIFE i: The Girl Who Steals Time from its previously planned 2023 release window to 2024.

Persona 5 Tactica was playable via Steam this afternoon, nine days before its official launch.

Chucky the doll will be the next Killer added to hit multiplayer horror Dead by Daylight.

Paratopic was a muddy, blood-filled VHS cassette of a game, a game of midnight highways, pinched, pixelart faces and acidic service station lighting. The next game from developer Arbitrary Metric, Roman Sands RE:Build, is... very different, at least on the surface.

Stranger Things has returned to Dead by Daylight.

Cities: Skylines 2 studio Colossal Order has pledged not to release paid DLC for its city building sequel until its heavily criticised performance issues have been «fixed to our standards».

Cities: Skylines 2 devs Colossal Order have said that the game known as the Builder of Cities and Destroyer of Framerates (at least, known as of me typing this) won’t get any paid expansions while they’re still getting its performance up to scratch.