The collection comes from a mysterious (and fictional) 80s video game company
and includes puzzles and platformers, RPGs and category-defying hybrids, all in
8-bit splendour
When it comes to video games, one thing is universal: releasing one is tough.
But releasing 50? At once? That’s another boss level entirely. This is the
challenge for the team behind UFO 50. This much anticipated 8-bit anthology of
retro-styled games is finally due to release this September, seven years after
its announcement. With 50 games included, the wait is justified.
UFO 50 is a jumbo variety pack of complete video games, each with its own title,
genre and story. “They’re not minigames,” asserts developer Derek Yu and creator
of 2008 platformer Spelunky, named one of the greatest games ever made. “Every
game could exist as a full release on some 80s console or computer.”
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Tag - PC
PC; Blizzard
On the verge of World of Warcraft’s 20th anniversary, Blizzard appears to have
pulled off a tentative return to form for this historic game
World of Warcraft has an enduring identity problem. What was once one of the
biggest games in the world is now approaching its 20th birthday, and with every
year that goes by, developer Blizzard has the unenviable challenge of trying to
prove that WoW still has a place in today’s gaming world.
This goes some way to explaining the many times that Blizzard has tried to
reinvent WoW. Six years after its initial release, the developer attempted a
radical do-over of the game’s world in 2010’s Cataclysm expansion, in which an
ancient dragon ravaged and reshaped the realm of Azeroth (an experience you can
relive through the recently relaunched Cataclysm Classic). Since then, Blizzard
has experimented with numerous gimmicks to try to keep WoW current, including a
now much-maligned mechanic that saw players building their power level for two
years, only to lose that power at the end of every expansion cycle.
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It is beautifully made but achingly familiar so could struggle to lure players
away from what is already out there
It is fair to say that the video game industry is undergoing a period of
alarming disarray. Studios are closing, development budgets are exploding and
profitable genres are becoming saturated by mega-budget pick-me candidates that
feel utterly interchangeable.
Into this troubling market comes Concord, Sony’s new five-v-five “hero” shooter,
the subgenre of the multiplayer online blaster where players control characters
with elaborate special powers rather than identikit spec-ops soldiers or space
marines. Set in a warring galaxy controlled by an autocratic regime known as The
Guild, the game gives us control of various Freegunners – mercenaries who plough
the space lanes looking for jobs while also slinging one-liners at each other in
the game’s highly polished cutscenes. In the game, however, what they do is
fight.
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Firaxis Games needed to move on from Civilization 6 because, its developers
explain, ‘it was getting too big for its britches’
It’s been eight years since Civilization 6 – the most recent in a very
long-running strategy game series that sees you take a nation from the
prehistoric settlement of their first town through centuries of development
until they reach the space age. Since 2016 it has amassed an abundance of
expansions, scenario packs, new nations, modes and systems for players to master
– but series producer Dennis Shirk at Firaxis Games feels that enough it enough.
“It was getting too big for its britches,” he says. “It was time to make
something new.”
“It’s tough to even get through the whole game,” designer Ed Beach says,
singling out the key problem that Firaxis aims to solve with the forthcoming
Civilization 7. While the early turns of a campaign in Civilization 6 can be
swift, when you’re only deciding the actions for the population of a single
town, “the number of systems, units, and entities you must manage explodes after
a while,” Beach says. From turn one to victory, a single campaign can take more
than 20 hours, and if you start falling behind other nations, it can be tempting
to restart long before you see the endgame.
Civilization 7 will be released on PC, Mac, Xbox, PlayStation 4/5 and Nintendo
Switch on 11 February 2025.
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PC; Suspicious Developments
Guide a mismatched team including a Navy Seer and a necro-medic through this
smart, funny, and resolutely empathetic espionage thriller
As a game that relies heavily on glimpsing the future, the best place to start
with Tactical Breach Wizards is slightly ahead of ourselves. So let’s kick off
with the fact that this magical mystery spec-ops tour is the most significant
turn-based tactics game since the venerable XCOM 2. Its blend of ingeniously
flexible puzzles and deliriously funny writing would be sufficient to clear it
for active duty on anyone’s gaming device. But what qualifies it for the Special
Arcane Service is how boldly it stares down the murky morality of
military-themed games.
Placing you in command of a ragtag team of witch detectives, necro-medics,
time-manipulating wizards, and a druid hitman, Tactical Breach Wizards
challenges you with using your squad’s eclectic powers to overcome escalating
tactical siege scenarios. A typical level will require you to breach and enter a
room, disable a half-dozen enemies, barricade doors to keep out reinforcements,
and reach the computer that unlocks the pathway to the next room.
Tactical Breach Wizards is out 22 August
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The creators of the Lego Star Wars and Lego Harry Potter games bring similar
energy and humour to this gentle action-adventure
Ever since they first clambered into shops in 2010, Funko Pop figures have been
an unavoidable part of pop culture fandom, lending their black-eyed large-headed
charm to everything from Ms Marvel to Mr Bean. After a couple of minor
smartphone releases it was inevitable they’d eventually make it into a major
video game. But what could have been a lazy cash-in looks to be a lot more
promising. Funko Fusion is the first title from Warrington-based studio 10:10,
formed by Jon Burton and Arthur Parsons, the directors on most of the vastly
successful Lego titles such as Lego Star Wars and Lego Harry Potter. Their aim
is to bring the same energy and humour to the Funko universe.
Funko Fusion, then, is a classic cartoon-style action adventure, beholden to the
Lego titles naturally, but also to PlayStation favourites Ratchet & Clank and
Jak and Daxter. Players get to explore seven themed worlds based around Funko
Pop figures and key licensor NBC Universal. As Parsons recalls: “I remember we
got sent a spreadsheet, which listed everything that NBC Universal owns from
back in the 1920s all the way to current day. And it was like, ‘wow, where do we
start?’ That was the fun bit.”
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PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series XS, Xbox One; Red Thread Games; Spotlight by Quantic
Dream
Dustborn tries to be more than just another narrative travel game, but its
half-baked focus on serious topics weighs down great dialogue and beautiful
character writing
The story begins on the road, miles out from a state border in an alternative
US. The stakes are clear, even when nothing else is: Pax, the player character,
is a Black woman in her 30s, who has just completed a heist with her friends.
The border means freedom. The police car telling you to pull over means trouble.
Pax and co are Anomals, people who wield manipulative vocal abilities called
vox. Pax can bend people to her will by making them feel bad, using abilities
named “trigger” or “cancel”. Her ex-partner, Noam, can soothe people with an
ability known as “gaslighting”. Dustborn certainly isn’t subtle in what it’s
trying to say. Soon you encounter people who get infected by weaponised
disinformation.
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Running a tea shop in the woods doesn’t help arena fighter Alta to escape her
trauma. Designer Davey Wreden explains how his cosy gaming dream-fulfilment
fantasy turned into something much more meta
At first, Wanderstop appears to tap into the same restless urge as many other
cosy games: the wish to leave our stressful lives behind and escape to an
anonymous wilderness. The game opens with you taking an assistant job in a
woodland tea shop, where you spend your days cleaning, tending the garden, and
researching the perfect tea blend to satisfy the needs of visiting customers.
Scratch a little deeper, though, and you find a game tearing at the hollow
rewards of the escapist fantasy.
The bucolic setting is born out of an image game designer Davey Wreden became
fixated on in the months after the release of 2015’s The Beginner’s Guide. His
mind would repeatedly wander to a daydream of going to a tea shop in the woods
and lying on a bench by the water. He sketched variations of the scene for
months before deciding to make it as his next game.
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From the writer of lockdown hit Before Your Eyes, the new game uses VR or plain
old webcam tech to see how life looks as a paranormally gifted infant
How do you follow the game that made the world cry? It’s a question that’s
haunted writer Graham Parkes ever since 2021’s Bafta-winning Before Your Eyes.
Released during the height of lockdown, Parkes’ webcam-controlled yarn uses
players’ blinks to fast-forward through protagonist Benny’s memories, blinking
in and out of each uplifting and gut-wrenching moment of his existence. It
quickly gained a reputation for being a Twitch tearjerker, its affecting tale
and months of pandemic-fuelled misery creating a perfect, Kleenex-blowing storm.
“As a writer, that has definitely been intimidating.,” says Parkes, “I’m
interested in using games to tell concise, emotional stories, but we can’t say
that every single time we’re going to make you weep.”
Still, tears or no, things are already looking pretty promising for Before Your
Eyes’ intriguing followup, Goodnight Universe. Developed by Nice Dream, an
all-new studio formed by creators Graham Parkes and Oliver Lewin, Goodnight
Universe has already won the 2024 game award at the Tribeca film festival,
beating the brilliant Thank Goodness You’re Here! to the punch.
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Devolver Digital; PC
Playing the producer of a seemingly glitzy reality TV show, audiences and cast
must be kept happy, no matter how outrageous the request, in easily the funniest
game I’ve played all year
The developers of The Crush House, Nerial, describe the game as as a “thirst
person shooter,” and it’s a surprisingly accurate tagline. A grand
vaporwave-and-neon mansion stands on the Malibu coastline, and you – Jae, the
producer – sleep in the bleak little basement underneath it. Your job is to
stalk around the house behind a camera, filming the glamorous, sexy participants
in a reality show. You choose the cast every season, from a panel of 12, and you
trail them around the lurid property, hoping they fight, or make out, or both,
so that your ratings will go up and your viewers will be satisfied. You can move
about freely, but are warned to absolutely never talk to the cast. The game
certainly does, as the tagline suggests, take on the feel of a first-person
shooter, but you wield a camera instead of a gun. Think Pokémon Snap, but sexy.
Every night, a different set of audiences tune in, and all of them have very
specific needs – some want drama, some want to see the art that hangs in the
house, some want to see food being prepared. And yes, some want to see feet,
lots of feet – or other body parts, zoomed in on, and in detail. And your job is
to please all of them, or risk cancellation.
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