The Maw: what's new in PC games this week?

Escape from Tarkov will now grant players in-game currency as a bounty for reporting cheaters, as part of devs Battlestate Games' ongoing war against ne'er-do-wells in the extraction shooter.

Factorio's long-awaited expansion Space Age and its 2.0 update arrive this October, with the expansion costing as much as the original game - it sounds like you’ll get more than your money’s worth, though.

Battlefield 2042’s Dead Space crossover, which arrives in its final seventh season next week, just makes the absence of a Dead Space 2 remake hurt all that more.

Highly satisfactory factory sim Satisfactory has a 1.0 release date and yes, you will at last be able to flush the toilets. All those outraged letters to Sweden have finally paid off.

Final Fantasy 14’s Dawntrail expansion has only been out a few days, and one of its new jobs is already being adjusted in its next set of patches.

I've also got some hot, tasty brain emissions to share about Horticular, which is Viva Pinata with dead planets and gnomes.

Nocturnal 2 is a nifty, dare I say snazzy 2D metroidvania in which you have to light your sword on fire. Some quick impressions.

Former Rockstar senior camera artist and virtual cinematographer Joseph Rubino has shared a little about GTA 5's scrapped Trevor DLC, speaking to SanInPlay via Eurogamer. The key line: "When GTA Online came out, it was so much of a cash cow and people were loving it so much that it was hard to make an argument that a standalone DLC would out-compete that."

Capcom have ended support for multiplayer mechs vs dinos shooter Exoprimal, a year after launch. Online services will still be available, cycling the available four seasons of sweet, sweet Content.

As reported by PCGamesN, Bodycam developers Reissad have removed some neo-Nazi graffiti - the number 1488 - from one of the game's maps. "Certain players pointed this out to us, and we, like many people, had no idea that this sequence of numbers was a symbol," a representative of Reissad told the site. "It was also graffiti coming from an Unreal asset pack… which was not created by us. We corrected the graffiti as quickly as possible and notified the pack creator of the error."

Hark, a new Elden Ring patch. It makes changes to PvP, weapon throwing ranges and one of the bosses, while quashing a few bugs.

While we're talking charitable donations, Bit Golem have raised $50,000 in humanitarian aid for Ukraine via paid DLC packs for their free Lovecraft adaptation Dagon. Why, that doesn't sound cosmically horrible at all!

Annual speedrunning event Summer Games Done Quick 2024 has raised a lifetime total of $50 million for charity. This year's funding goes to emergency medical aid nonprofit Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières. The event runs for another couple of days - here's the full schedule

.

UK readers: without necessarily broaching the ever-delicate question of who you voted for, did you have an OK time getting to the voting booth yesterday? No dog-related mishaps?

Suicide Squad's season 2 roadmap is in the wilds.

To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Manage cookie settings

As reported by Eurogamer, D&D lead designer Jeremy Crawford has changed the legendary table-topper's rules based on his experiences with noted D&D adaptation Baldur's Gate 3. The spell Cloud of Daggers, for example, can now be moved around the battlefield because Crawford really wanted to do that in BG3.

IT IS NEW UK GOVERNMENT DAY

Well, that happened. FEED THE MAW.

IT IS UK ELECTION DAY

Being a bear of little brain, I forgot to mention a couple of things in the weekly round-up. Firstly, today 4th July sees the release of Zenless Zone Zero, the new free-to-play action-RPG from the makers of Genshin Impact - probably a bigger deal than Multiplayer RPG, with all due respect to the latter's developers. Secondly, today is the day of the UK general elections, and we've been given the day off by Ian Games of the Ian Games Network to go vote. As such, it's going to be a quieter Thursday with minimal updates, though Brendy did find time to rank the best JRPGs on PC. We'll see you on Friday.

Tiny Garden plants a charming, cozy farming sim inside virtual Polly Pocket toys. it looks very sweet, and it's already passed its funding target on Kickstarter ahead of a release next February.

New Transformers game Galactic Trials is part racing game and part roguelike battler, rolling out this October.

VA-11 Hall-A developers Sukeban Games' next project .45 Parabellum Bloodhound is a modern successor to horror strategy classic Parasite Eve, and that has me unreasonably excited.

As Edwin mentioned earlier, Tales of Kenzera: Zau developers Surgent Studios, founded by Assassin’s Creed Origins actor Abubakar Salim, have laid off over a dozen staff less than three months after their debut game hit PC.

Someone done a The Bear videogame mock-up and it is incredible.

Paradox have posted a video about the Byzantine Empire, this being the key inspiration for the upcoming Roads To Power DLC. It features actual history professor Anthony Kaldellis. Look at him go!

A Short Introduction to the Byzantine Empire - A Crusader Kings III Documentary

Watch on YouTube

Powerwash Simulator's Alice In Wonderlands DLC is out now.

Kring is a bizarre collection of festively fleshy minigames - "clicker, bullet hell, top-down platform, side-scroller platform, shoot'em up, beat'em up, and other strange genres that defy categorization" - that together wear the label of a god sim. It's from Italian dev Ivan Venturi, one of the minds behind Hell Galaxy, and has a demo on Steam.

Kring Announcement Trailer

Watch on YouTube

Game Informer have been talking to BioWare about Dragon Age: The Veilguard's difficulty settings. They are Storyteller, for people who are less interested in stomping Fade demons, Adventurer, for people who don't mind stomping a Fade demon now and then, and Nightmare, for people who only feel alive when they're almost being murdered by Fade demons. There's also Unbound, aka custom, for people who refuse to be pigeonholed. The custom settings include a no-dying option. Haha journalist mode, amirite gemarzs?

Nexus Mods have launched their "next generation" mod manager, though it only supports Stardew Valley for the minute.

Tales of Kenzera: Zau developers Surgent Studios have laid off staff, as reported by Game Developer, just three months after the studio's debut release (which we largely liked).

HAVE GENERALLY AMICABLE RELATIONS WITH YOU TILL WEDNESDAY

The beast frolics and fevers! Reload the 18-Inch Patch Noter and set headlines to "Dazzle"! FEED THE MAW.

Graceborne is a mod that makes Elden Ring all Bloodborne-y, with new weapons, costumes, and enemy redesigns. *Micolash voice*: Ah, trailer. Or as some say, tray-tray:

GRACEBORNE - Alpha Release Trailer

Watch on YouTube

Capcom still haven't heard our cries for Dino Crisis (see yesterday's Maw-ing) but they have given us a demo for dreamy yōkai slayer Kunitsu-Gami: Path Of The Goddess. This was Edwin's favourite game at Summer Games Fest, and the way he described it has made me immediately download the demo on Steam.

Resident Evil 9, a game we all knew would happen, is officially happening. It was confirmed in Capcom's NEXT showcase yesterday, and It'll be lead by Resident Evil 7 director Koshi Nakanishi.

CAPCOM NEXT - Summer 2024 (US)

Watch on YouTube

Hitman's next elusive target is punchy man Conor McGregor playing an MMA fighter called The Disruptor. Lovely coat, to be fair.

HITMAN World of Assassination - Elusive Target Reveal - The Disruptor (featuring Conor McGregor)

Watch on YouTube

LOVE YOU TILL TUESDAY

The Maw's sundering tongue-barbs glisten with organ-melting venom in anticipation.

"A UK employment tribunal has ordered Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium Games (CIG) to pay almost £30,000 ($38,000) in compensation for discriminating against a disabled worker," write Game Developer. CIG dismissed the employee after issuing a return-to-office policy, despite the claimant having made CIG aware of his disability at the start of his tenure.

The Metal Gear Solid movie - starring Oscar Isaac as Solid 'Solid' Snake - is still in the works, according to a recent chat between producer Avi Arad and Journalist Brian Crecente. "We're working on the script some more, but I can't talk about it yet. I think everyone's going to be really excited and surprised," Arad told Crecente, via VG247.

It's Dino Crisis' 25th anniversary! Hey. Hey. Capcom. Hey. Hey Capcom. Hey. Capcom.

Hey

Glass-shattering first-person shooter Selaco has been updated with a big patch that adds new weapons upgrades, difficulty mutators, and the ability to pet the vacuum cleaner robots. Among many other changes, you can also now kick people (hooray!) but only when you have your fists out as a weapon (booo!).

The upcoming Crazy Taxi will include multiplayer, according to a page made to hire fresh developers for the SEGA game. The company also released a recruitment video in which devs talked about working on the game, and series producer Kenji Kanno confirms there will be a multiplayer component (thanks, Automaton).

Poor Edwin, eh? Takes a few well-deserved days of, and immediately, an upcoming crowdfunding campaign for a Soul Reaver graphic novel prequel is announced. I guess I'll steal his chance to get excited about it in public for myself then. Cheers, Ian Games!

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2'S public beta - due in a few month's time - has been cancelled, with Focus Interactive saying they didn't want to take dev resources away from the full launch on the 9th of September. You will get a free pistol skin if you signed up, though. Cheers, VG247!

Modders have discovered a hidden bit of ending in The Witcher 3, thanks to the recently released REDkit. The cut section would have had Yennefer betray the Lodge of Sorceresses to Emperor Emhyr. Cheers, PC Gamer!

HAPPY MAWNDAY

I'm off on holiday till Wednesday, but there is yet time for a bit of housekeeping. Perhaps due to the dreadful lassitude, this week's liveblog has frayed away from the timeline and become entangled with last week's. Either that, or Graham accidentally popped Friday's updates in the draft liveblog I'd set up, because I did not tell him I was setting up a draft liveblog. I know which explanation I prefer.

Dune Imperium, which I adore, is getting its first digital expansion in July with the arrival of Rise Of Ix.

Deus Ex's Randomizer mod has just released version 3.0 and now you can pet the dogs and cats.

The Sims 4's next expansion is called Lovestruck, and it adds a dating app and outdoor woohoo on July 25th.

Valve might be trying to do something about Team Fortress 2's aimbot problem.