Category: Technology

Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio first teased “Project Century” in 2024, and at Summer Game Fest it debuted a new trailer revealing the game’s full name: Stranger Than Heaven. The game clearly draws on the bareknuckle brawling of the Yakuza series, but this time is set in the jazzy Japan of 1943.

It’s hard to get a full sense of the story from the trailer alone, but similar to RGG’s previous games, it looks like Stranger Than Heaven will feature an open-world full of enemies to whoop and narrative choices that’ll be as determined by who you punch as who you help. If the player character Mako Taito isn’t a private eye, he does appear to be investigating something.

RGG’s released a Like a Dragon spin-off, Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii earlier this year. Before that, it’s last major entry in the melodramatic crime saga was Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth in 2024. Besides the gameplay similarities, it’s not clear if Stranger Than Heaven is set in the same world as RGG’s other open-world action RPGs. At the very least, it does seem incredibly stylish, though.

Stranger Than Heaven is still in-development and doesn’t currently have a release date.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/rggs-project-century-is-now-called-stranger-than-heaven-232848763.html?src=rss 

Fusing light psychological horror with the quiet melancholy of American Realist painter Edward Hopper, developer Thomas Waterzooi is following up his puzzle games Please, Touch the Artwork and Please, Touch the Artwork 2 by having you just watch the artwork instead. Please, Watch the Artwork is an upcoming spot-the-difference game featured during Day of the Devs that tasks you with observing a museum of living paintings and tracking down a sad clown that may be harshing the other paintings’ vibe.

In the game, you’ll observe living versions of classic Edward Hopper paintings, like Nighthawks or Automat, and look for inconsistencies, like a character behaving strangely or objects being out of place — what one could describe as sad clown interference. You’ll then click on the offending area and it’ll be repainted, restoring the living painting to its normal gloomy self. 

Please, Watch the Artwork riffs on popular horror titles like I’m On Observation Duty, Five Nights At Freddy’s and dozens of other similar games on Steam that make you look at fake CCTV footage of a garages and office buildings. Waterzooi’s game just takes a slightly classier approach. The combination of classic art and eclectic puzzle mechanics has paid off well in the past, too: Please, Touch the Artwork was nominated for numerous awards, including an Apple Design Award.

Please, Watch the Artwork will be available on iOS and Android for $4.99 and on Steam for macOS, Windows and Linux devices for $7.99. Waterzooi’s Day of the Dev’s presentation didn’t include an exact release date for the game, but he did suggest that it will be out around Halloween.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/please-watch-the-artwork-is-a-puzzle-game-with-eerie-paintings-and-a-sad-clown-000022744.html?src=rss 

Neverway already looks, sounds and feels like it’s going to be something special — in a grim, grotesque and hellishly depressed kind of way. (Side note: That could be a nice tagline, no? It’s grim! It’s grotesque! It’s hellishly depressed! It’s… Neverway! OK, I’ll stop.)

Neverway is a life-sim RPG starring Fiona, a young woman who quits her dead-end job to live on a remote island farm for a while, where she ends up becoming the immortal herald of a dead god. Fiona has to fight through nightmare realms and battle repulsive horrors, while also tending her land and maintaining relationships with townsfolk. She’s able to meet and date more than 10 distinct characters, and forming friendship bonds unlocks combat abilities. The game features farming and fishing mechanics, and there’s also a crafting system for secondary tools like the hookshot, which supplements Fiona’s primary weapon, a sword.

Neverway comes from Coldblood Inc., an independent Vancouver studio founded by Brazilian-Canadian developers Pedro Medeiros and Isadora Sophia. Medeiros is the pixel artist behind Towerfall and Celeste, two stunning indie games, and Sophia is an ex-senior software engineer at Microsoft and the creator of the open-source Murder Engine, which powers Neverway. The game also features music by Disasterpiece, the composer behind Fez and the top-tier horror film It Follows, with sound design by Martin Kvale of NokNok Audio. OuterSloth, the indie game fund established by Among Us creators InnerSloth, is providing financial backing for Neverway, and Coldblood Inc. is self-publishing it.

Though Neverway was officially announced one month ago during the Triple-i Initiative showcase, it still made a splash as part of the Day of the Devs event tied to Summer Game Fest 2025 this week. Neverway is heading to PC at an undetermined future time, and it’s available to wishlist on Steam now.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/bask-in-the-grotesque-pixel-art-beauty-of-neverway-000046814.html?src=rss 

Bandai Namco is making a sequel to the 2019 action RPG Code Vein. The sequel, appropriately-named Code Vein II, is coming to PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S in 2026. The announcement was made during the Summer Game Fest kickoff stream. 

The first one was a popular soulslike, and the sequel will probably follow this winning formula. It received mixed reviews, but the dungeon-crawling seemed solid and the difficulty wasn’t over the top.

The graphics for Code Vein II look sharp and the story seems convoluted, but fun. It looks to be carrying over some story beats from the first one. It’s still set in a post-apocalyptic future and still follows a protagonist with vampire-like abilities. We’ll have more on this one as it gets closer to the actual release.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/the-soulslike-action-rpg-code-vein-is-getting-a-sequel-214216149.html?src=rss 

Developer Cold Symmetry jumpstarted Summer Game Fest Live with the first trailer for Mortal Shell II, a sequel to Mortal Shell with what looks like an equal amount of gruesome imagery. The game is expected to launch in 2026, but you can register right now to try a beta version of Mortal Shell II when it becomes available.

According to the game’s Steam page, Mortal Shell II is a standalone sequel to the original Mortal Shell released in 2020. It combines deliberate, Dark Souls-style action with a grotesque, dark setting, not unlike Dark Souls itself. The trailer offers ample examples is full of over-the-top enemies — of particular note, a giant armored snail — and lots of sharp things piercing soft flesh.

Playing as “the Harbinger” you’ll travel through “more than 60 dungeons,” leveraging the “Shells” of fallen warriors to gain new abilities, Cold Symmetry writes. It sounds like the just the kind of punishing experience Soulslike fans get out of bed for.

Mortal Shell II is coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X / S in 2026.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/mortal-shell-ii-is-dark-gross-and-coming-in-2026-214811717.html?src=rss 

I have not played a single boxing game outside of Wii Sports this century, but that could be about to change. Summer Game Fest Live brought us the reveal of Felt That: Boxing, which stars puppet pugilists.

This project from the appropriately named Sans Strings Studio and Seth Green’s animation company, Stoopid Buddy Stoodios, is billed as “a comedic, over-the-top boxing game set in a world where the charm of furry puppets collides with the fury of boxing.” The clip is structured like a trailer for an underdog sports movie and it is just delightful. 

The snippets of gameplay suggest there will be training minigames that include dodging slices of burnt toast that a trainer hurls at your puppet (who is named Fuzz-E) and, uh, plunging a toilet. According to the description on the YouTube video, the developers are aiming to make the “boxing mechanics are intentionally ridiculous, favoring fun over precision, with [puppet] limbs flailing about with an insane sense of chaos.” Lovely.

This trailer was immediately the most interesting thing during SGF Live up to that point. Felt That: Boxing does not yet have a release window, but you can wishlist it on Steam now, like I just did.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/heres-a-silly-puppet-boxing-game-you-never-knew-you-needed-215616201.html?src=rss 

Killer Inn is a little bit murder mystery and a little bit third-person action game, and combined, it looks like a lot of fun. Square Enix and developer Tactic Studios revealed Killer Inn during today’s Summer Game Fest kickoff stream. A beta for the game is coming to Steam soon and it’s available to wishlist now.

Killer Inn is a lot like the movie Clue, or the TV show The Traitors, or the social improv game Werewolf, or the video game Spy Party — it’s all about uncovering players’ true intentions and concealing your own, with a murderous twist. Each round includes 24 players, some of whom are wolves, while the rest are lambs. As a lamb, the players’ goal is sniff out the wolves and survive their attacks, and the wolves are out to blend in with the herd, stealthily killing when they can. Each kill leaves behind a clue for other players to find. The game ends when one team has eliminated all members of the opposing group.

It isn’t pure social strategy — there are various weapons, traps, poisons, bits of armor and masks to use, and a range of characters to choose from. Killer Inn is playable solo or with up to four players.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/killer-inn-turns-werewolf-into-a-multiplayer-action-game-220859571.html?src=rss 

It’s been a few years since Yacht Club Games, the studio behind Shovel Knight, ran a successful Kickstarter campaign for the first entry in a new franchise, and now we know when that game will drop. The team announced at Summer Game Fest Live that Mina the Hollower will arrive on October 31 on PC. A demo is available on Steam until Steam Next Fest ends on June 13.

Mina the Hollower is a gothic horror-influenced, action-adventure platformer, so the Halloween release date is quite fitting. It’s styled after the look and feel of Game Boy Color games — so much so that the game has no 3D assets and a limited color palette (but Yacht Club did make one concession by opting for a widescreen display ratio). As the inventor and mouse Mina, you’ll have a whip as a weapon and the ability to burrow short distances to cross gaps and have a moment of invincibility.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/mina-the-hollower-from-the-makers-of-shovel-knight-arrives-on-halloween-222539705.html?src=rss 

Annapurna Interactive showed off a first like at Lego Voyagers at Summer Game Fest Live, the next game from Light Brick Studio, the developers of Lego Builder’s Journey.

Lego Voyagers is co-op puzzle game where you and a friend will play as two Lego studs, traveling through a realistic, brick-based world solving puzzles. The trailer showed off several different locales your studs will journey through, including a Lego speedboat and rocket launch. To make your way through the game’s various challenges, you’ll move and build new structures by picking up bricks with your studs.

The game looks like it builds on the calming vibes of Builder’s Journey, but with a focus on co-op gameplay. Light Brick’s first game worked like a riff on Monument Valley, tasking you with building a path for your bricks through a minimalistic Lego world. Voyagers takes things in a Split Fiction-direction, just with a lot more chill.

Lego Voyagers is “coming soon” to PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X / S, Nintendo Switch and PC. You’ll be able to play with a friend using only one copy of the game thanks to a feature called Friend’s Pass.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/lego-voyagers-is-a-co-op-puzzle-game-from-the-studio-behind-builders-journey-222331161.html?src=rss