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I've played Resident Evil so many times that I would consider the STARS team personal friends, but I'm not convinced by their tactical prowess. Standing in the hall of the Spencer mansion, Chris, Jill, and Wesker unanimously decide (as I suppose is their prerogative, as horror game protagonists) to split up. Perhaps if they'd stayed together, that entire fateful night would have been, well, less fateful. Such is the premise of Critical Shift. Sent to investigate a top-secret research facility, you're accosted by an army of T-virus-esque monsters and mutations. But you're not alone. Combining turn-based tactics and survival game crafting, this feels like a Resident Evil version of XCOM. Read the rest of the story... View the full article

I’d so desperately like to do a graphics card review without the fug of a wider controversy (or cacked-up market conditions), but the RTX 50 series hasn’t been particularly cooperative in that regard, so why should the RTX 5060 be any different? This time, the sadness cloud comes wafting from Nvidia themselves, amid accusations of engineering dodgy RTX 5060 previews and attempting to trade access for greater coverage of its Multi Frame Generation (MFG) capability. Read more View the full article

It’s time for the mid-May update for Microsoft’s Game Pass service! After the earlier drop at the start of May ... Read more View the full article

Monster Hunter Wilds has had no shortage of worthwhile content updates to encourage players to keep coming back to its addictive gameplay loop. While it'll still be a few months before the highly anticipated summer update arrives, the wait is much shorter for Wilds' first of many collaboration events. While I'm always excited about an excuse to hop back into Monster Hunter Wilds, I can't help but feel this new update is a missed opportunity for the series. View the full article

Lies of P: Overture will introduce the ability to replay boss fights, and a new boss rush mode, it’s been confirmed. Players will be able to progress through five tiers of difficulty. Initially, the bosses can be played on tiers 1, 2, and 3, with tiers 4 and 5 only being unlocked when a player completes the previous level. Bosses in the Battle Memories mode will also have unique stats that change based on the tier. Lies of P: Overture will also introduce Death March, a new mode that will see players attempt to take down as many bosses as they can using a limited pool of health and items. There will be bespoke rewards for both of these modes. However, these haven’t yet been announced. Read More... View the full article

VGC recently got the chance to play Lies of P: Overture, the upcoming expansion to Lies of P. The gameplay, which can be viewed above, comes from the beginning of the game, as the player explores Krat Zoo, the setting of Lies of P: Overture. The expansion is planned for release this Summer on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and PC. The expansion will cost $29.99/£29.99. Read More... View the full article

Almost two years after its release, and with a sequel on the way, Lies of P is back with a prequel expansion that gives players the chance to explore more of Krat. The Neowiz and Round8 developed Soulslike, which drew inspiration from The Adventures of Pinocchio and other fairytales, is a firm favourite with Soulslike fans. The game is due to receive a follow-up in the coming years, and Lies of P: Overture sets the stage. The expansion begins in Krat Zoo, a location that was teased in the main game and serves as the first major location of Overture. The zoo, which is themed after mid-1900s European zoos, is opulent to look at, but it contains some of the grimmest horror found in the Lies of P series so far. While most of the zoo’s exhibits have died off, the ones that hadn’t have become mutated monsters, which are extremely tough to take on. Read More... View the full article

2025 has been packed full of great games, with potential Game of the Year contenders coming out of unassuming development studios. Monster Train 2 has just been released, and the masterful roguelike deckbuilder sequel is adding itself to that list with very strong review scores right out of the gate. View the full article

LEVEL5 Inc. are releasing FANTASY LIFE i: The Girl Who Steals Time today and the good news is that it's Steam Deck Verified. So it will work great on Desktop Linux and other SteamOS systems. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

Developer Ninja Theory has revealed Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 Enhanced Edition, a new version of the action-adventure game with new features and visual improvements, and has announced its release on PlayStation 5 this summer. The Enhanced Edition of Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 will also be available for Xbox and PC as an update. View the full article

Cyberpunk 2077's sequel will let us take a detour from the returning Night City to visit a new location which feels a bit "like Chicago gone wrong". Naturally, this news has me questioning how Cyberpunk's timeline might have affected the most prominent basketball dynasty of the 1990s. Read more View the full article

Monster Train 2 proves that there was no need to reinvent the wheels on the Boneshaker train in order to relight the fires of this outstanding deckbuilding roguelike. (Not that they ever really went out – I’ve played the 2020 original almost daily for years.) It’s very similar to the roots of Monster Train, with a three-tiered tower defense structure where you optimize your unit placement and spells against incoming waves of invaders and choose your path along the tracks, though this time that path is headed from a re-lit Hell up to the gates of a corrupted Heaven instead of down. The five completely new clans have given me an enormous amount of toys to combine and experiment with as I build up momentum toward the final boss battle on each run, especially in tandem with the new equipment system that lets you mix and match parts, and a healthy number of other smart tweaks to the original’s incredibly replayable setup. In fact, Monster Train 2 is easily among the most compulsively replayable games that’ve ever gotten their hooks into me – I’ve already sunk over 90 hours into it (mostly on Steam Deck) with no sign of losing steam. What makes each roughly hour-long run so gripping is that there are non-stop choices, and every one of them feels meaningful: which two factions will you pair up, which of your primary faction’s two champions do you take (and which of their three very different skill paths do you lean into), which Pyre Heart (with associated bonuses) do you slot in – and that’s before you draw a single card or choose a single game-altering artifact. All of those choices compound upon each other, and if you play your cards right and build synergies and combos you can become so wildly powerful that it feels as though you’ve completely broken something. But then, as you rank up and the enemies in subsequent runs become more powerful, it quickly becomes clear that if you don’t break it, it will break you. Like every great roguelike or roguelite, this isn’t a game you should expect to win every time, but every devastating loss makes the next win that much sweeter (and usually unlocks something new). It’s so consistently interesting because of the intricate way all of the systems interact, from the simple positioning of your units so that the strong protect the weak to the extremely important order of operations to maximize the effects of your spell cards as you try to play as many as possible in a turn by reducing casting costs and generating more energy to spend. Figuring out which actions to take first can often spell the difference between winning and losing, and Monster Train 2 allows you to experiment much more than the original did by building in buttons to reset your turn or even restart a whole battle (which, in Monster Train 1, you kind of have to cheat to do). This will effectively put an asterisk next to your score on any leaderboard because knowing what’s coming gives you a huge advantage, but I’ve found it to be an invaluable tool to help me learn the best way to play my hand – and let me salvage some really fun builds from premature ends after I made a bad move. (For example, if I forget to use one of the new special abilities that some units have on a cooldown timer, such as a shield slam, a dragon’s fire breath, or potion brewing. Those frequently slipped my mind, even though there’s a prominent icon reminding me!) Figuring out which actions to take first can often spell the difference between winning and losing. Randomness will always play a huge role in a game like this – sometimes I end up with a weak deck that bites the dust in the first or second battle (even after a few retries), sometimes it’s dynamite out of the gate but then gets utterly destroyed by a boss that counters my strengths. (It does tell you at the start of a run which major bosses you’ll face, so you can plan to counter them if you think ahead.) But one thing that makes Monster Train 2 at least a bit more predictable than the original is that there is now always a deployment phase at the beginning of every battle, guaranteeing that you’ll have a chance to plop down at least a few units before the action starts. Especially if you’re packing a deck full of spell cards and buffs, it’s reassuring to know that you aren’t going to end up without anybody to cast them on for several turns. A new layer of complexity is added in the form of Equipment cards, which let you buff a unit with more attack and defense, plus special abilities like growing Spikes when you’re attacked, Trample, Life Steal, or building more permanent attack power with every kill, to name a few. Some of those interact in awesome ways with a unit’s natural abilities, and you can even combine two pieces into one in order to, for example, create a weapon that both expands the capacity on a floor with every kill but also grows the equipped unit every turn, making them dramatically more powerful. As long as they keep scoring kills, they’ll always have room to keep growing. And because these equipment cards are shuffled back into your deck every battle, you’re encouraged to swap them around to different unit types for different effects (or you can pay to upgrade one so that it’s consistently available in the deployment phase). Some Equipment pieces interact in awesome ways with a unit’s natural abilities. On top of that are the new Room cards, which can be used to enhance each of your three floors with special effects. Some simply make your guys do +15 damage with every attack, others give them stat boosts on summon or Reanimation (the more you die, the stronger you get), one nukes everything on that floor for 50 damage each turn, one makes spells cheaper, another makes them more powerful, and one gives you cash for everything that dies there. That’s just a sampling of them, and they’re another rich opportunity to augment your characters with even more complex piles of modifiers and multipliers. What We Said About Monster Train 1 Monster Train is a ticket to dozens – if not hundreds – of hours of challenging and surprising roguelike deckbuilding runs, thanks in large part to its mechanically diverse set of decks and the way they interact with each other when combined in different ways. This spin on the idea appears similar to the also-outstanding Slay The Spire at first, but aside from some basic concepts and a similar (but not derivative) cartoonish art style for its large cast of monsters, it’s a radically different game. One where learning the ins and outs of its strategies is constantly rewarding. – Dan Stapleton, December 17, 2020 Score: 9 Read the full Monster Train review [/url] Another new swappable part is the Pyre Heart of your train itself, which sits on the fourth floor of your train and serves as your persistent health bar. It can now be swapped out at the beginning of a run to either give you a once-per-battle boost like a few points of energy or freezing your cards in place for the next round, or radically alter your run by ditching the standard starting cards and letting you draw some randoms to replace them. There are a bunch of these to unlock and try out, which further shakes up future runs. These five factions are just as amusingly goofy looking and smartly designed as those that came before them. All of that lays the groundwork for the colorful new clans themselves. These five factions are just as amusingly goofy looking and smartly designed as those that came before them, and there’s no end to the fantastic combos you can come up with by combining their special abilities. They have too many fun things about them to list – literal volumes of guides will be written about how to use them at high levels – but my favorite to play as has to be the *******-based Underlegion: many of their units and spells can build up huge stacks of damage-over-time Decay (similar to Frostbite) that melts enemies to puddles of goo, or they can focus on spawning increasingly powerful stacks of mushroom soldiers – and sometimes, when the stars align, the act of spawning mushroom soldiers triggers huge stacks of Decay and Sap to render enemies toothless as they die. The mad scientist-themed Lazarus League are my runners-up. They’re largely focused on the new gear system, and their roster includes several units with one hit point that come with equipment grafted to them. When they die, it becomes available to attach to anybody else, giving them a fun Frankenstein’s Monster theme I love to play with. If that’s not your style, though, you can focus on potion mixing to create increasingly powerful cocktails that grant Rage, Regeneration, Sap, or Unstable (which makes a unit explode if its health drops below the number of stacks), often with side effects like damage shields, Frostbite, and Resurrection, which instantly brings a unit back from the dead with one HP. Sometimes I’ll let fate decide by randomizing my selection, and I’m never sad when it lands on the Pyreborne dragons because their thirst for gold funds all the unit, spell, and gear upgrades money can buy if you can stack Avarice (granting money from every attack). Alternatively, you can focus on Pyregel, which increases the damage an enemy takes with each stack. With either of those approaches, you’ll also earn golden eggs that can be cashed in for bonus artifacts between battles, or held onto for bonuses for certain units that are more powerful the more eggs you have in your cache. The Lazarus League has a fun Frankenstein’s Monster theme I love to play with. Then you have the Banished, fallen angels who focus mostly on building up Valor (basically a new spin on Rage) to buff both damage and, for the front unit, armor generation. Some units earn Valor by moving, so using spells and abilities to shift them from front to back or between floors creates a highly mobile style of play that’s completely unique to them, while others build Valor through Revenge – which triggers whenever they take damage – creating damage sponges who get spongier (and hit harder) the more they soak up. Finally, there’s the magic-focused Luna Coven, who, like the Stygian Guard before them, are my personal weakest faction because I’m not as good at building spell damage as I am buffing up a juggernaut unit. Even so, I’ve found success with them by making use of units that build their power with every Moon Cycle – the moon alternates between full and new every turn, with each phase granting bonuses to certain units, like attack boosts or sweep during a full moon. That is, it alternates every turn unless you meddle with it using spells and abilities to run up that score, affecting all units you have deployed who like when it switches from one to the other. They can also specialize in building up Conduit stacks on units that serve to amplify their spell power on that floor, and if you slot in a Mage Blade weapon it enhances their attack as well. Naturally, all units can be upgraded twice by default from options in shops, and when you mix in some special options that you can only get out of a random event, it leads to some truly wild combos. One of my favorites I’ve done was to upgrade a Pyreborne Gildmonger dragon, who is a weak fighter but gives you a golden egg when he dies, with the Endless power. That lets you get him killed every turn to cash in on those eggs – but even better was lucking into the Worthy Sacrifice upgrade afterwards, which gave him a special ability that let me kill him off myself in exchange for more action points to use for other things that same turn. Then I duplicated that card a few times. Things got really crazy by the end of that run, but it still wasn’t enough to get me more than two battles deep into the new Endless Mode – the challenge ramps up to insanity in the second post-final boss battle, and I haven’t been able to beat the third... yet. Things got really crazy, but it still wasn’t enough to get me more than two battles deep into the new Endless Mode. On top of the traditional customizable runs with increasing challenge tiers that unlock every time you beat one (up to 10) and randomized Daily Challenges that throw in three often dramatic game-changing mutators, there are also a set of 21 hand-built Dimensional Challenges to play through. Those range in difficulty from pushover to a couple I had to try multiple times just to get started, but they do unlock some extra stuff, like new Pyre Hearts and the ability to cosmetically customize your train’s three floors. I wouldn’t say they’re vastly different from the mutators you’d get from a Daily Challenge, but I’m all for more ways to play. It’s a little odd that there doesn’t seem to be a leaderboard for each of these standardized tests of skill, but I’ll be able to make do with the boards for the Community Challenges, which anybody can custom-build themselves. Finally, there’s a bit more story this time than the first game’s simple setup, told through visual novel-style cutscenes you can watch between runs. We do get a little drama between the fallen angel Fel and her corrupted brother Seraph that’s taken seriously as the gang seeks to retake Heaven from the Titans who conquered it, but the rest of it is just goofiness between the greedy dragons, honorable mushrooms, wacky Frankenstein monsters, etc. It’s not bad at all, just kind of superfluous next to other innovative roguelike storytelling like that of Hades or Blue Prince, and given that it’s not voiced or fully animated it’s hard for there to be a break-out personality among them. Given that it’s entirely optional to read, though, there’s no harm in building a little bit of character around this cast of monsters and their creative cartoonish designs. Along with another excellent soundtrack of jaunty music, there’s plenty of personality on display. Overall, there’s just a tremendous amount of content here – especially because (spoiler alert for anybody who's been following the trailers, plans to play this already, and likes surprises!) it turns out that Shiny Shoe has pulled a Left 4 Dead 2 and included all five of the original Monster Train clans alongside the five new ones. (The only one missing at launch is the Wurmkin, which were added in an expansion.) So there are actually 10 clans to choose from, for a total of 45 potential pairs – as compared to just 10 pairings for five clans. Getting to play as the Umbra, Hellhorned, Awoken, Stygian Guard, and Melting Remnant with all these new systems makes this feel like the only Monster Train I really need (though I do miss the unit-combining power from the expansion). View the full article

Fortnite has shared new details about its upcoming Mandalorian Rising update, which will bring the fan-favorite warriors to the island with new items and weapons on May 22. Epic Games recently released Fortnite's first Star Wars-themed mini-season titled Galactic Battle, which has added iconic characters like Mace Windu, Emperor Palpatine, and General Grievous to the battle royale. View the full article

Arrowhead Game Studios have just launched a major update to the popular co-op shooter HELLDIVERS 2, and with that there's many new enemies to face along with more customization options. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

The game-changing update that's going to completely redesign how Phasmophobia works is officially being developed as of May 21, 2025. Horror 2.0 has been teased since 2021, and after quite a lengthy wait, it's finally happening. The devs shared that the Horror 2.0 update is now being conceptualized in a post on X (formerly Twitter). Before today's announcement, this massive overhaul was only in the loosely planned category, but it's now actively being developed. [Hidden Content] Horror 2.0 is a large overhaul of the "ghost and game mechanics," according to the official Phasmophobia Trello board. This update was first announced back in 2021 and was meant to be released a lot sooner, but has been delayed several times. This update is officially scheduled for sometime in 2026, according to the latest version of the Phasmophobia roadmap. It was originally supposed to launch alongside the official full release of the game, but it's currently unknown whether this is still the plan. There's a lot to look forward to in the Horror 2.0 update. The main goal of this refresh is to up the scare factor and give the game a more unique feel since many of the current assets are from Unity. Ghost models, which are the physical appearances of the ghosts you see in contracts, will be overhauled. Most of the current ghost models are from the Zombie collection in the Unity shop, so redesigning them allows the devs to make Phasmophobia more unique. Key features like ghost hunts, events, and interactions will also look different. It's unclear what types of changes the devs plan to make to them, but both are fundamental in shaping your experience in each round, so all changes made to them will drastically alter gameplay. Screenshot by Destructoid Perhaps the biggest part of this update is the addition of a hallucination system. There's nothing like this in Phasmophobia yet, so it'll be interesting to see how it works and integrates with the rest of the gameplay. Other details like new death rooms, sound changes, and death animations have also been teased. There's also likely a lot of important details we don't know about this update yet and won't know until it's further along in development, but it seems like the general vision of this update is to make the game a lot scarier and much more detailed overall. There's no official timeframe as to when this update will become available outside of a scheduled 2026 release. The roadmap says this update, along with a few others, will become available as soon as they're ready, so there's a decent chance it will be a surprise drop. There's plenty to do while we wait, though, like completing weekly challenges and tinkering with the Music Box. The post Phasmophobia’s biggest update yet is officially in the works appeared first on Destructoid. View the full article

Loading and transporting cargo is an important task in RoadCraft, but it can be a confusing one for starters. While you get the chance to carry cargo on your vehicle pretty early in the game, the exact steps aren't explained explicitly. This guide will help you learn the art of loading the cargo on a suitable vehicle before taking it to the correct delivery spot. Table of contentsHow to haul cargo in RoadCraftHow to load Cargo in RoadCraftHow to haul cargo in RoadCraft Cargo can be anything that needs to be carried over a distance in RoadCraft. This can be steel bars, concrete blocks, or something else. You'll first have to collect these items (you'll have to transfer preloaded piles in some cases) and pile them in the correct locations. Here are all the types of cargo that you'll have to carry in a suitable vehicle. Piles of construction materials that include concrete slabs, pipes, and steel beams. Most of them can be found in mission zones and warehouses.Debris and rubble include plenty of junk items. These items will have to be cleared, and you can then recycle them.Sand and gravel from Quarries are used to improve roads.Logs from forests are then usable as wood. To haul the cargo, you'll require suitable vehicles for the job. Cranes, which can lift and load heavy objects.Recycling Trucks for collecting and unloading junk debris from/at recycling depots. Flatbeds are also usable if the load is low.Rusty Mulcher for knocking out tree stumps blocking your path.Log Forwarders for hauling and carrying logs from forests. Screenshot by Destructoid The basic formula for hauling cargo is pretty much the same. Go close to the item that you want to carry and then use your mouse controls to pick/carry the selected item to the required spot. If you have to carry it to a different location, the next section has the additional steps. How to load Cargo in RoadCraft The first thing to do is to pick up the required item using a crane truck. Make sure to deploy the anchors to ensure the crane truck doesn't move accidentally. Next, adjust the ***** and claw with your mouse as required. After lifting the item, load it into the vehicle bed. If you're using a Log Forwarder, make sure to grab each piece separately to load it on the truck. The same applies to Recycling Trucks, where you'll have to push/scoop the rubble. Once you've loaded the cargo up, track the destination on the map, and deliver the items. Make sure to position the truck correctly at the drop-off location to deliver the cargo and make progress on your missions. The post How to Haul and Load Cargo in RoadCraft appeared first on Destructoid. View the full article

Setting creator Mike Pondsmith's latest reveal for the sequel to Cyberpunk 2077 has me worried about the future of the series. Pondsmith is credited with originating the Cyberpunk setting, being the sole author and designer of the 1988 tabletop system that launched the franchise. He worked closely with developers at CD Projekt Red on the first game, and is known to be doing the same on the sequel, codenamed Project Orion, although perhaps in a lesser capacity. View the full article

In key ways, Monster Train 2is indistinguishable from the original, but it brings more content to tangle with, giving this no-less-than-essential sequel a victory lap quality. But who can complain? The first Monster Train game launched in 2020, and it gave Slay the Spire some worthy competition. Developer Shiny Shoe didn't require an Early Access *******, extending a respectful challenge to Slay’s utter dominion over the deckbuilding roguelite space. Since then, it's garnered a strong fanbase, a new publisher in Big Fan Games (under Devolver Digital), and over one million sales with its thoughtful elaboration on card-based combat. View the full article

The roguelike deckbuilder is a remorseless evil that strives to colonise every dream ever dreamt by the human brain. It is a sparkling, shuffling plague, germinated by Slay The Spire, that threatens to absorb every other mortal pastime, from space travel through poker to carpentry. We must find a way to neutralise the entity before it assimilates us all. But in the words of the oldest proverb: just one more go. Just one more go, before I dissipate raging into that goodnight. Just one more run, before I play all those shortform avant garde releases in my Itch.io wallet. If Monster Train 2 were the last roguelike deckbuilder I ever played, I would consider myself fairly pleased, and also very relieved. While not a huge departure from the game that plunged Matt Cox (RPS in peace) into unholy raptures, it's a great pick if you're fond of numbers going up and realising it's 1.30am and that you are now too addled by card synergies to sleep. You do not have to like or understand trains, but it's a plus. Read more View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Dutch clearly needs more moneyView the full article

Monster Train 2 review: "A truly first class ride through deckbuilder roguelike heaven, and I'm already going off the rails"View the full article

Rebellion is even thinking about spin-offs for the very British shooterView the full article

The Mindseye system requirements have been revealed ahead of its upcoming launch, and they've got us worried about the potential unoptimized state of the game. Worse still, it's easy to look at these requirements and be concerned about what GTA 6 will demand when its PC port eventually arrives. While you won't need the best graphics card to get great performance out of Mindseye, its system requirements certainly sit on the high side. There are similarities between these specs and those of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle system requirements, but we know ray tracing isn't going to be forced in Mindseye due to one of the listed GPUs lacking any ray tracing capabilities. Read the rest of the story... View the full article

Is Elden Ring Nightreign on Game Pass? FromSoftware games are among the most beloved and iconic out there. The Dark Souls series even spawned its own genre. Following the success of Elden Ring, its DLC Shadow of the Erdtree was also critically acclaimed. Now, a new, standalone Elden Ring adventure is here with Nightreign. Whether you're a long-time FromSoft fan or diving into the soulslike game for the first time, you're here because you're interested in trying the unique Nightreign adventure. Like you, we also want to know if Elden Ring Nightreign is on Game Pass for a commitment-free playthrough, so we found the answer. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: How to revive party members in Elden Ring Nightreign Best Elden Ring Nightreign classes ranked All Elden Ring Nightreign bosses and how to beat them View the full article

NVIDIA have put up a new official forum post going over the level of Wayland support available in their current Linux drivers, along with what future plans they have. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article