Rusty Lake, the developer, was founded in 2015 by friends and occasional collaborators Maarten Looise and Robin Ras. Before that, Looise, who was studying landscape architecture, had enjoyed decent success making news-inspired Flash games in his spare time, while Ras, who was studying law, ran a number of gaming portals. It was when their paths crossed online, while Ras was looking to collaborate with developers for his website, that a successful working partnership was born....

We got a first look at Atlas Fallen tonight during Gamescom Opening Night Live, via a flashy CGI trailer which shows off its sand-covered semi-open world and superpowered beasties. Stick with the trailer - not that it isn’t easy on the eyes - and there’s a glimpse of what looks like actual gameplay right at the end. “Rise from the dust and glide the sands of a timeless land, filled with ancient dangers, mysteries and fragments of the past,” publisher Focus Entertainment says of the game....

Chicory: A Colorful Tale is a cute cartoon game on the surface about a (literal) underdog on a heroic quest. But beneath that, the game explores darker, adult themes that touch on perfectionism, imposter syndrome and issues of mental health. That song, a duet between the player character and the titular Chicory, strikes at the heart of the game, its folky melody and simple lyrics belying a serious message. “I think for almost no reason I was like ’there should be a musical number at some point’,” says game developer Greg Lobanov....

There is not too much longer to wait until Halo Infinite’s second season - Lone Wolves - makes its debut. However, following the reveal of the season’s new roadmap, many within the Halo community have started to ask more about their own hopes and desires for the game’s future. One such member made a heartfelt plea to see Cortana as an AI. But alas, this is one dream that will not be realised, at least not any time soon....

It’s not that they’re bad, mind. I’ve had a lot of fun with them, especially EA’s Star Wars: Squadrons. My problem is that they always feel like they do the bare minimum when it comes to immersion or run time. I think Disney’s episodic VR games like the Vader Immortal trilogy are a good example of this. The pitch for that series in particular is great. Use the Force! Shoot blasters!...

Another Princess Is In Our Castle is a horror game based on the N64 classic Super Mario 64 that has you exploring Peach’s famous castle in first person, spotted by Nintendo Life. Watch on YouTube Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – Booster Course Pass Wave 2 arrives August 4th! The aim of the game is to collect eight statuettes around the castle, all while avoiding the stalking ghost of Peach by hiding in chests and conserving your limited stamina....

“Activision is aware and is working to fix,” a spokesperson for the publisher told Eurogamer this afternoon. UPDATE #1 30/3/21 9.00am UK: Microsoft has now issued a statement on the ongoing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 issue causing the game to crash on Xbox Series X/S. Players have pointed to publisher Activision’s paid upgrade system for the game being at fault - the cause of a similar issue last year for Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War....

Gilray, who headed up the Leeds-based developer of Gravity Crash and various Oddworld titles after founding the studio in 2006, was hospitalised with Covid just before Christmas, and after fighting the disease over the last few weeks, passed away this morning. “A lovely, funny guy, family man, musician and game developer running @jawltd,” Jamie Sefton, managing director of Game Republic and Game Makers Yorkshire, tweeted. “He was one of us....

As previously reported, an anonymous hacker has published a torrent on 4chan that includes the Twitch source code and streamer payout reports. The latter has since been extracted and shared on Twitter, including the top 100 highest-paid Twitch streamers from August 2019 until October 2021, as well as more recent monthly earnings. It’s no surprise that streamers earn a sizeable sum through the platform, but some may be surprised at just how high these numbers are....

Specifically, the first of its kind agreement sets out minimum fees and conditions of engagement for voice actors. The hope is that other studios will follow suit. OMUK, the UK-based studio responsible for the agreement, has credits in the likes of Horizon Zero Dawn, Demon’s Souls, horror games The Medium and Blair Witch, and the Telltale Game of Thrones series. The multi-billion pound UK video game industry is one of the biggest employers of performance talent in the country, but until now no agreement was in place to protect workers....

Please note there will be spoilers ahead for both the film and the games, so if you don’t want to know any more before seeing the film / playing through Naughty Dog’s epics yourself, it is best to stop reading now. So, how does the Uncharted film set itself up for more installments? Well, much like its video game counterpart, Tom Holland’s version of Nathan Drake has a brother called Sam....

Now, the not-being-in-control-of-your-attacks bit. This is the game’s quirky ingredient, the part you notice early on and maybe wrinkle your nose at. I did; I honestly thought the game was broken and restarted it, silly sausage. But what happens here is the game attacks for you. Say you’re equipped with a whip, which you will be, then every so often, the whip flashes out and hits. It goes something a bit like whip, beat, beat, whip - it’s not a long wait (although it’s agonising later on if you don’t improve it)....

Though it has a slow fire rate and a clip capacity that you’re gonna want to mod, but don’t worry, since we’ve got you covered with our preferred ZRG 20mm loadout to make the most out of this new rifle. Either way - if your target isn’t wearing armor, the ZRG is likely to take them down. Arriving on April 7th, 2021, the ZRG 20mm first debuted in Warzone and Cold War: Black Ops in the second half of Season 2 - and requires a specific challenge or Blueprint to obtain....

In a blog post flagged via social media on Friday evening, Ubisoft said that the game’s 5.6 patch - released four months ago in September 2021 - was actually its final update. The game’s fifth and final multiplayer season, which began at the weekend, will now be followed by repeats of seasons three, four and five on a cycle until servers are eventually switched off. Set in a bleak post-Brexit London, Watch Dogs Legion arrived for PC, PlayStation and Xbox in October 2020 to lukewarm reviews....

If Boyfriend Dungeon seems like a name that’s been knocking around for a while, you’d be right; it was initially announced back in 2017, and successfully raised $272,000 in Kickstarter crowdfunding a year later. Since then, Kitfox has been hard at work on its genre-mash-up oddity - lovingly referred to as a “shack-and-slash” - that’s part dungeon-crawler (complete with procedurally generated maps and varied combat styles) and part dating sim....

In today’s episode of Weekly, Chris takes us back there, to Gamescom, sharing what it was like on the show floor, as well as the games that caught his eye and the gossip he heard. We also dive into the big review of the week, Immortality, which Chris wrote. This is the new game from Her Story and Telling Lies developer Sam Barlow, so it arrives with anticipation. And it seems it dazzlingly lives up to it....

Insomniac Games excels at bringing Marvel superheroes to life. The team distils the essence of what makes a superhero and perfectly translates that power fantasy into reality. They’re not alone, either. With the announcements of Spider-Man 2, Wolverine, Wonder Woman, Gotham Knights and The Suicide Squad it’s now the era of the superhero game. Spider-Man: Miles Morales established Insomniac’s dedication to disability representation, by introducing the deaf character Hailey Cooper who communicated using ASL to assist Miles Morales on a mission....

Now, his widow Bec Gilray has urged anyone who is yet to be vaccinated to come forward and get their jab. In an interview with the Daily Record, Bec said Stewart had resisted getting vaccinated himself as he had a life-long phobia of needles, and had always avoided going to see doctors in case he needed a blood test. “Stewart had a serious fear of needles. In all seriousness, in 25 years he had one blood test,” his wife said....

For the uninitiated, the aim of Wordle is to work out a daily five-letter word within six guesses. The fewer the guesses, the better - and if you fail to guess it at all, you’ll break your streak. The latter is why working out today’s Wordle answer is such a priority, as players pride themselves on keeping their streak going. So why gamble on a risky final guess when you can learn a few clues and, failing that, get the definitive answer?...

My Friend Peppa Pig is due out 22nd October on PlayStation and Xbox consoles, Nintendo Switch and PC via Steam. The trailer, below, confirms the game has the real voice of Peppa. Publisher Bandai Namco is not messing about. In all seriousness, I’m definitely getting this game. My five-year-old daughter and three-year-old son love Peppa Pig (sometimes they’re basically the same as Peppa and George, which I guess makes me Daddy Pig, which I’m fine with), so they’ll probably love this....