Rocket Arena’s headline addition is Flux, a child prodigy who reckons getting punted by high explosives is a small price to pay for extracurricular curiosity. Annoyingly, the Season One update post doesn’t give us much on Flux beyond her being “excitable, effusive, and easily distracted by anything that tickles her scientific fancy”. At least the video gives us a look at some of her abilities, with largely appear to involve robot cat heads at folks to blow them up / compress them into a horrifying singularity....

Of course, that doesn’t wind up mattering nearly as much as you think it might. Let’s say it upfront: if you’re looking for another roguelike that nudges you into the same comfortable, pleasantly melty brain space evoked by Slay The Spire, Monster Train and (to a lesser extent) Roguebook, then Rogue Lords will probably do the trick. There are no cards, but there are abilities that sort of may as well be cards, and the broader format is spookily familiar....

The aim is to pass four gates placed around the skating rink to open up the goal and score by throwing a ball through it. Doing more laps before you shoot for the goal increases the points you’ll score, and the first team to reach five wins. If you don’t have possession of the ball you can tackle opposing skaters to get it back. There’s some handy moves like dodges and dive passes to avoid being tackled....

Gilbert was lovely enough to tell us all about the next game in the Monkey Island saga - what it was like to return to Monkey Island’s world after so long, what we can expect from the puzzles, and snippets of the game’s story. Watch below to see the interview in its entirety and make sure you watch to the end to see my impression of a pirate - you won’t wanna miss that....

Nevertheless, I am able to give you some new and unteased Saints Row factoids, delivered via an earlier press briefing. It’s set in Santo Ileso, a fictional city in the Southwest of the USA - cowboy land, basically - and SI, like all good cities in the SaintsRowniverse, is beset by exactly three (3) distinct gangs with their own colour schemes and vibes. You and your mates are about to set up the fourth....

You’re a sword-wielding child of the end times, trapped in the shifting stone passageways of a monolithic podium that has laid waste to Earth. Your closest buddy is a robot cylinder who hovers over your shoulder like a fairy godparent. A fairy godparent who shoots bullets. You’ve got the double jumps and wall-running of a hard-nosed pixel platformer, and the slash ‘n’ shoot speedfighting of any number of combative roguelites....

Good brooding in Far Far Down, a visual novel about daily life aboard a submarine in alt-history 2012: The cutest little swamp in paper-folding puzzle game Paper Trail (coming to Steam, with a demo there now): I wish this retro space immersive sim would get a name, because I’m posting it a lot so a name would be quite convenient. Along with this lovely clean-up clip, the dev also posted a longer gameplay snippet showing immsim stuff like climbing a stack of crates to reach a vent, but cleaning up gore after murder is a far more enticing snippet: Cute virtual modular synthesiser music-making in Picosynth (out now on Itch): Pretty hoverbiking in this “yet to be named open-world action adventure” game: A fun way for new areas to appear in factory-building game Automation Station (coming to Steam): A gruesome scene and dev decision in the metroidvania The Spirit Of The Samurai (coming to Steam)....

Depp is not actually involved in the free expansion, titled A Pirate’s Life, having been binned by Disney. Instead, voicing Sparrow is one Jared Butler, a man best known for doing a spot-on likeness of Depp’s voice. And given that Sparrow’s in-game model doesn’t quite share the adorably weird proportions of Sea Of Thieves’ regular pirates, it’s impossible not to see it as Depp. I don’t know what state the actor’s public image was in when Rare started work on this expansion....

The new Chest of Rage, like the cursed Chest of Sorrows that’s already in Sea Of Thieves, is a needy little thing that you’ll need to babysit unless you want it to sink your ship. Rare shares that the Chest of Rage will heat up over time until it discharges a giant ring of fire that will light up your entire ship. To avoid that, you’ll need to douse it with water on the regular to keep it cool....

Granted, these aren’t quite the visuals I’d expect to run alongside Chopin’s Raindrop prelude. Oh, I’m not complaining. Running off the influence of old PlayStation fixed-camera spooks like Silent Hill and Resident Evil, Signalis trades macabre blood-and-guts for altogether more cosmic horror. It’s flight over fight, combat playing second-fiddle to puzzle-solving. Ammo is scarce, so you’ll spend less time gunning down shadows than fixing up old tech, cleaning up radio transmissions before the derelict facility’s unruly residents can bring our heroine to a brutal end....

Slay The Spire added The Watcher After a stretch in public beta testing, the fourth wizard has properly arrived. Fortnite started adding skins of streamers, starting with Ninja Alice Bee says she “cannot mentally parse it.” Epic also added the ability to “sidegrade” Assault Rifles into Heavy Assault Rifles at upgrade benches. Apex Legends started its Grand Soiree It has a fortnight of rotating event modes. Our Matt wanted something… a little grander....

I’m not sure what the crossover between Smite players and Nickelodeon viewers is, mind, and it’s hardly the most timely crossover (Avatar: The Legend Of Korra wrapped up back in 2014, far as I can tell). But they’re neat skins and, as cartoony as they are, do fit quite well into Hi-Rez’s godly fight-club. Avatar’s three magical kids arrive as skins for existing characters rather than heroes in their own right - The Last Airbender’s bald saviour Aang as Merlin, his brooding mate Zuko as Susano, with The Legend Of Korra’s, err, Korra and her big dog Naga taking on the role of Skadi and her bear....

While online multiplayer was in Spelunky 2’s PS4 version when it launched, that was wonky enough that the devs decided to hold off on it when the game came to PC a few weeks later. The feature quietly launched on Steam yesterday with a wee bug that broke invitations, but shh it’s fine, it’s fixed now - enough for the devs to officially announce online multiplayer is go. “What’s next?...

But, fans of the little yellow fella celebrated a mediocre licensed platformer, because it was a step above all the putrid Nickelodeon-branded rubbish that had come before it. It was Banjo-Kazooie, just not as good. And for anyone who loved the TV show, that was enough. Over the last decade, a community has formed around this game, and have refused to let it die: speedrunners. They breathed new life into something that many of us forgot even existed....

So! V’ger has been stopped but the goodies and baddies are still bickering and Squadrons drops us in that squabble, flying with squadrons on both sides. On the multiplayer side, you’re looking at plain ol’ deathmatch as well as a mode about destroying your rivals’ capital ship. Has cross-platform multiplayer, too. It’s not a serious flight sim, nor the X-Wing or TIE-Fighter revival some might hope, but it does have a bit of balancing power between ship systems....

The event saw four teams race to complete around 100 challenges in the time limit. These challenges included trivial tasks like naming a chicken after Barone, alongside time-sinks like completing the Community Center that would earn the team more points. Stardew Valley is known for its calming atmosphere as it encourages players to unwind, farm and befriend (or seduce) the various characters of the Valley. However, this cup highlighted that even Stardew Valley can be turned into a sweaty competition....

If you fancy even more of a challenge, ConcernedApe says update 1.5 is bringing some “Advanced Game Options” too, making community centre bundles and mine rewards a little more interesting. I think this may be the start of yet another Stardew playthrough for me, although I’m slightly concerned at the lack of sprinklers. Who will tend to my crops while I’m down in the mines? Also, I’m lazy. Luckily this update is adding split-screen too, so I could just drag in some pals to do it....

“Outsmart the superstitious armies of the Arch Duchess as they hunt you through lush forests, deep caverns, and over frozen mountaintops,” Sneaky Bastards say. “Find and free your fellow villagers from captivity, then lead them to safety to reclaim your home.” I’m a big liker of stealth action and a long-time fan of both Avatar TV series so Wildfire sounds like it could well be my jam. Also, did you hear the tunes?...

“As the catalog of titles available on Steam continues to grow, we’re working to make it easier for you to find your next favorite game,” says Valve’s post introducing the changes. “This update improving the ways you can browse genres, tags, or themes, allowing you to dive deep into each area and narrow down to exactly what you’re looking for.” You can see the new hub pages yourself by visiting any genre page, such as this one on roguelikes....

Hit Steam’s JRPG Sale page for the overview and a pretty forest. With 841 items discounted, it’ll run until 10am Pacific on Monday the 21st. Do look beyond the sale page for deals too, mind. For example, Steam’s JRPG Sale page says Yakuzas 3 through LAD are on sale, but Yakuza 0 has a 75% discount right now too. I strongly recommend Yakuza 0. I will always recommend Yakuza 0....