The obvious comparison is to say they look like Slenderman, right? And they do a bit, but the key with old Slendy is that he doesn’t have any sort of face, whereas Ghostwire’s creepy bastards kinda do (even though they’re named the Faceless). I can’t decide if that’s better or worse, to be honest. I hope they’re not like the Gentlemen, who were literal demons invulnerable to physical damage and went from place to place nicking people’s voices....

This guide will show you how to create the best Thoma build in Genshin Impact. Below we’ll cover everything you need to know about Thoma, including wishing, weapons, artifacts, ascension materials, talents, abilities, and constellations. Best Genshin Impact Thoma build for Support Best weapon: Favonius Lance Alternatives: Engulfing Lightning, “The Catch” Thoma’s best Polearm is the easy-to-get Favonius Lance, which boosts Energy Recharge and makes his Talents readily available. A much more expensive way to increase Energy Recharge is Engulfing Lightning, which is essentially a 5-star version of the Favonius Lance....

Worried about that last part? Don’t worry, we’ve got your back. This guide will show you how to create the best Xingqiu build in Genshin Impact. Below we’ll cover everything you need to know about Xingqiu, including wishing, weapons, artifacts, ascension materials, talents, abilities, and constellations. Best Genshin Impact Xingqiu build for sub DPS Best weapon: Sacrificial Sword Alternatives: Festering Desire, Skyward Blade You’ll be relying on Xingqiu’s Elemental Skill a lot, which makes Sacrificial Sword his perfect weapon, as it comes with a 40% chance of ending your Skill’s cooldown....

The best Project Zomboid mods Modders moved swiftly to support version 41 of Zomboid, so there’s plenty of add-ons to make the game more (or less) appealing. The hardcore nature of the game’s survival mechanics make for a great, long-term project, but they don’t offer an easy route or a long life. A few mods below will solve that issue, while others will build out areas of the game that are somewhat lacking....

Having spent some time with The Cycle: Frontier’s closed beta this week, I’ve come to realise that noise is everything. Whether that’s the pad of your feet or the rattle of your assault rifle. Any action you take better be well thought out, otherwise you’ll attract unwanted attention. Die and you’ll lose almost everything, depending on whether you take out insurance cover; no, I’m not kidding. Before you head into a match, you can insure your most valuable items for a fee, so they’ll return home safely even if you don’t....

We also bring you a long tangent about zoos, a brief discussion on the wonderful lack of complexity in the baddies in Indiana Jones, and a lot of anger at Matthew because he likes banging on the glass at aquariums because he is a monster. Nate threatens to bury him in the desert. Also, there’s all the aforementioned Ken Loach stuff, which goes on a long time. Plus, I bring you a Cavern of Lies that becomes, alas, a Cavern of Sadness....

As well as what I feel is actually a very productive chat about robots this week, we also talk about Miles Jupp and his thousands of children, Thomas The Tank Engine, and Matthew does a truly stunning Cavern Of Lies themed around Ace Attorney. You can listen above, or on on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher, or Pocket Casts. You can find the RSS feed here, and you can discuss the episode on our Discord channel, which has a dedicated room for podcast chat....

We also learn that Nate has dismantled his aquarium room (for a good reason) and that Matthew witness a car exploding the other night. Blimey! Plus, stick around for a Cavern Of Egg. You can listen above, or on on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher, or Pocket Casts. You can find the RSS feed here, and you can discuss the episode on our Discord channel, which has a dedicated room for podcast chat....

I’m ready to burden Second Front with onerous expectations not because I’ve played it (I haven’t) but because it looks from a distance like a superbly judged mix of several very special WW2 tactical wargames. Austrian hexponent Jo Bader seems to want many of the same things from his turnbased, honeycomb-utilising 1939-45 skirmishes that I do. The plausibility, unpredictability and camera freedom of first generation Combat Mission. The detail and drama of the Steel Panthers and Close Combats....

“In an endless night, you are stalked by an invisible, malevolent entity bent on your destruction,” say Hinterland. “Keep your distance from the entity for as long as you can. Once it closes in on you, you die. The only objective is to survive for as many real-time minutes as you can.” Excuse me, minutes? Survival in The Long Dark is normally on the scale of in-game days, usually working out a few real-time hours....

Strawberry Jam has been in development for over two years, and that’s evident from the trailer. There are a ton of new biomes on display, like the titular Strawberry Jam fields, a neon-lit urban area, and some dusty dunes. More abstract, spacy designs return from the main game, too. The trailer has a little bait and switch half-way through, transitioning from the eye-candy biomes to tough-as-nails platforming teases. Some of the twitchy jumps and last-second dashes look closer to Celeste’s C-sides that I was never good enough to beat (I did knock out a few B-sides, though....

With perhaps the exception of Gieger-esque spunkfest Scorn, The Medium was one of the stranger trailers announced during today’s Xbox Series X showcase. Using what appears to be infanticide to kickstart some supernatural shenanigans is a fraught angle, for sure. As The Medium’s leading medium Marianne, you’re caught between the worlds of the living and the dead, granting a unique perspective on the game’s plot, with unique vulnerability to both worlds’ terrors....

You generally don’t make a yearly football game without upgrading everything, but PE- sorry, eFootball, looks like it’s starting over. It uses the Unreal Engine, and promises overhauled graphics and animation. They seem to be focusing on those one-to-one moments that earn footballers sponsorship deals, so the animation gets bigged right up in the trailer. Apparently, the “Motion Matching” will select the most appropriate animation from a huge database, and will definitely not generate a hilarious series of bug compilations on YouTube....

It’s the mixed up civilisations of Humankind! Nate Crowley: The thing about a good 4X game (like Amplitude’s Humankind, for example!) is that - theoretically at least - you can play it forever. A 4X is a sort of fractally complex snowglobe, into which you tip a bunch of abstracted-down simulations of historical leaders, or alien warlords, or whatever, before giving it a good shake and… smashing it on your desk while bellowing Oppenheimer quotes?...

The Steam Summer Sale will end at 6pm (10am Pacific) on July 9th. Until then, hell, go to Steam and have a look. I hope you’ve been sitting on a wishlist because this is a bit too large to casually browse. The RPS Steam Curator page does have a lot of games we’ve liked and, while it is now a little out of date, we do plan to revive that with fresh hot picks....

Headlines and Hot Takes is full of chat on the ESA’s rumoured plans for E3 2021. EA, Microsoft and everyone in between were able to peddle whatever they needed to last summer, so we discuss whether E3 serves a purpose while we’re all indoors. Also, 12 years after it was first binned, the controversial Six Days In Fallujah is coming back in the form of an FPS. A far less sticky Tech Corner is able to lighten the mood as we end up chatting about Valentine’s gifts....

While our very fancy awards show makes up the majority of this final episode, it would be a shame not to include Huw Edwards. This week’s Headlines & Hot Takes focuses on all the rumours surrounding some Konami comebacks. Silent Hill, Metal Gear, and Castlevania are all slated to be returning, so we chat about that for a bit. And then we talk about being used… Tech Corner really is a haven for hardware news....

As we enter E3 season, Headlines & Hot Takes gets beefier and beefier. But, yes, we start off discussing the recent rumblings that there’s a Switch-like handheld called Steampal coming from Valve. We also discuss last week’s reintroduction of Dying Light 2, during the brilliantly named Dying 2 Know presentation. And we chat a bit about Final Fantasy Origin, the FF spinoff that’s supposedly in the works at Team Ninja....

Release in 1999, the WOT game was made by Legend Entertainment, the studio behind Unreal 2: The Awakening, Star Control 3, and Eric The Unready. Set before the novels, it’s a first-person shooter with a whole heap of magic spells. GOG say they’ve worked together with Nightdive on the re-release, tweaked and ready to run on modern systems. The game’s available now on GOG for £6.29, a price which includes the 10% launch discount running until Wednesday the 13th....

Perhaps you’ve seen footage of Dying Light 2’s rooftop running and wondered, “How much of that is me?” In a medium where climbing systems are typically automated rather than simulated, and first-person control tends to end at the waist, it’s natural to suspect that what you’re seeing is a fancy set of animations, triggered by pointing your character in a given direction and holding down the parkour key. I’m here to tell you that Dying Light 2 is not that game: it’s the real deal....