PCGamesN Sunday, August 24, 2025 9:05 AM Bloober Team has long established itself as the supreme authority of the 7/10 horror game. Its breakout success, Layers of Fear, was a viral hit largely thanks to a plethora of jumpscares and one darkly funny moment where a baby runs into a wall. Good entertainment, but not quite elevated enough to compete with the big boys of survival horror. The reception to Silent Hill 2 Remake was brand rehabilitation in action, but standing on the shoulders of giants isn't quite the same as rubbing shoulders with them. MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best horror games, Best survival games, Best upcoming PC games |
PCGamesN Sunday, August 24, 2025 7:39 AM While we may have a while to wait until we can tuck into The Witcher 4, there's an underrated Geralt of Rivia adventure that you can try out in the meantime - a side quest, if you will. I'm talking about the time he appeared as a guest character in the Bandai Namco fighting game, Soulcalibur 6 (complete with a unique storyline to justify his presence in that universe). It's a cool crossover, and right now it's an enormous 84% off at Humble Bundle. |
PCGamesN Sunday, August 24, 2025 6:57 AM Gearbox has opened the proverbial Pandora's Box on the last of the four Borderlands 4 leads, 'Gravitar' Harlowe, and I'm immediately put in mind of some of my personal highlights of the FPS series. An ex Maliwan scientist, Harlowe brings all manner of gadget-based trickery to the table. She can connect enemies to make them share damage, lock them in stasis, drag them around and lead them into giant explosions, and all while looking great doing it. If you're a big fan of crowd-control effects, were a Maya main in Borderlands 2, or can't get enough of Mass Effect's Asari Adept, you should be very excited. MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Borderlands 4 legendary weapons, Borderlands 4 characters, Borderlands 4 system requirements |
PCGamesN Sunday, August 24, 2025 5:33 AM I always appreciate co-op games that have ways for your friends to join you without everyone involved having to buy a separate copy. Remnant 2 lets you jump into DLC you don't own if the host has it, simply locking any gear you collect until you buy access. It Takes Two and Split Fiction go one step further, allowing the second player to jump in completely for free with their 'friend's pass' feature. New gothic horror experience Eyes of Hellfire is the latest to offer such a deal, and to get you over the starting line we've got dozens of free Steam keys to give away for the game's imminent launch. Continue reading Grab a free Steam key for tense, gothic co-op game Eyes of Hellfire MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best indie games, New PC games, Best PC games |
PCGamesN Sunday, August 24, 2025 5:05 AM What was announced at Gamescom 2025? Gamescom is here, and with announcement after announcement coming in thick and fast for the next few days, following an action-packed Opening Night Live, you'd be forgiven for feeling a little overwhelmed. Luckily, we're both on the ground in Germany and working hard at the office to bring you news of all the upcoming games announced during ONL, the Future Games Show, and other showcases. We're also getting our hands dirty with the most anticipated games right now, including Silksong and Resi Requiem, so here's everything we're up to and the latest announcements live from Gamescom so far. MORE FROM PCGAMESN: New PC games, Best PC games, Free PC games |
PCGamesN Sunday, August 24, 2025 5:02 AM There's something inherently satisfying about successfully managing traffic. Whether you're adding roundabouts to your city in Cities Skylines 2 or ensuring your citizens get to work on time in Transport Fever, seeing those free-flowing roads hits all the right dopamine receptors. We chatted with Sam Bennett, community manager at Urban Games, to understand how its games are edging closer to perfection, what its perfect weather system would look like, and why Americans don't understand roundabouts. MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best city-building games, Best strategy games, Best RTS games |
Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed Sunday, August 24, 2025 6:21 AM  Sundays are for trying to work out why your feet don't work. I wore too-tight shoes during a house move a few months ago, and now if I walk for too long I get pain under my third and fourth toes. Fortunately, I don't read with my feet. Here are some internet worderings that caught my attention this week. |
Siliconera Sunday, August 24, 2025 9:00 AM
Logic puzzles sometimes, on the surface, might seem like the sort of questions destined for tests in school. I mean, I remember them most when trying to work out sibling order for a challenge. Is This Seat Taken is a game that takes the concept of these logic puzzles and makes them much more approachable thanks to stylish character designs, a charming sort of story, and situations that are more entertaining than stressful. While I would appreciate the ability to save or more challenging situations, the ambiance is ideal.
During Is This Seat Taken, the game takes us through many different cities in the pursuit of helping one particular shape named Nat pursue their dreams of stardom. However, Nat is a unique rhombus shape compared to other characters, and hopes to learn more upon meeting a star with the same look. While each puzzle does feel self-contained, the idea of the journey provides an excuse to experience all sorts of situations and set-ups that require you to figure out who goes where at any occasion.
Each Is This Seat Taken scenario is a multi-part puzzle in the game. So as an example, the tutorial mission in Barcelona involves a cab ride. You'll get tasks like two passengers saying "I want to be by the window" or Nat wanting to sit next to Alexis, Alexis wanting to be by the window, and Rei wanting to be by a window. Eventually, these situations will get more complex. For example, said cab leads to a level set in a movie theater. Some characters will be holding popcorn. This means that in the first round, all the seats are clean. In the second part, any character who held popcorn will have left popcorn at their seat, making it dirty. From that second part onward, you'll get some people who will refuse to sit in a dirty seat, but also might want to be next to a specific person or in a certain row. It keeps building.
The thing I noticed is, Is This Seat Taken isn't a terribly challenging game. I mean, it didn't seem that way to me. (Perhaps I'm just good at these types of logic puzzles?) It's more about experiencing silly or relatable situations and enjoying coming up with solutions. Which isn't a bad thing! This feels like a low-pressure type of title. It still might make a player think a bit, especially once you get to New York. For example, there's a situation involving a train that factors in sitting in the direction the vehicle is going or not, being around an air conditioner, not near people making noise, sitting alone or with someone, possibly avoiding smelly folks, and arranging baggage.
Once thing I did notice ended up being an issue, primarily because I experienced a power outage where I live while playing, is that there's no way to save in the middle of a level. Is This Seat Taken is generally pretty user-friendly, and it is easy to highlight someone to see their conditions. But I didn't see a way to save while in the middle of a stage. So you need to be able to power through all four-to-five parts in a stage or the next time you play, you'll start off again at the start of it.
Some minor quality-of-life ideas aside, Is This Seat Taken is a relaxed game filled with generally pleasant logic puzzles. Is it as difficult as I would have liked? No. However, the experience is so pleasant and the concept is so strong that I felt fine with not being really pushed to work out complex solutions. The concept is great. It looks quite stylish. It's just fun.
Is This Seat Taken is available on the Switch, PC, and the game is on mobile devices as well.
The post Review: Is This Seat Taken Makes Logic Puzzles Approachable appeared first on Siliconera. |
Destructoid Sunday, August 24, 2025 9:00 AM
Goichi "Suda51" Suda is one of Japan's most original and prominent action game creators, and he is responsible for the likes of Lollipop Chainsaw and No More Heroes.
Though rarely one to sit down and talk with a publication, Suda51 has obliged Destructoid during Gamescom 2025 and opened up about his upcoming project, Romeo is a Dead Man. This "ultra-violent science-fiction" game, as it is described in promotional material, is yet another high-octane action title, and one we are very likely going to love.
Suda51 told us about his inspirations for the game, the unlikely basis for the story, characters, gameplay, and a lot more.
Here is the full conversation.
Note: This interview comes by way of simultaneous interpretation. Parts have been edited to allow for better text clarity and avoid common speech repetitions.
So, regarding Romeo is a Dead Man, your newest game, and a very stylistic game at that, I wondered if you could tell me about the initial premise that led to it, and how you went about designing this game?
Suda51 (Executive Director, Grasshopper Manufacture): First, I came up with the idea of the relationship between the main character, Romeo, and Benjamin, who is his grandfather. It's really similar to Doc and Marty in the Back to the Future series. I figured, okay, we've got these two characters. It's going to be about time and space. Obviously, being a Grasshopper game, it's going to have battle action stuff in it.
I built off of that base of the time and space thing with a Doc and Marty relationship between the characters. As for the rest, as Grasshopper, we did what we do. We added a bunch of action and kills into it.
From playing the game, I feel it's very much a Romeo and Juliet storyline. It's very obvious to see the inspirations behind the classic Shakespearean play. Beyond what you've already mentioned, are there any other elements, series or games that you also looked at to be inspired by when making this title?
Suda51: As you said, obviously, there are the main influences that are pretty obvious in the game. A genre that I really got a lot of inspiration from was zombie movies. In the game, there are basically two types of monsters. They're called Rotters in the game, but there's a kind of Goomba-style bad guy zombie that Romeo goes around and kills everywhere. And there's the more boss-type characters and the bigger, weird creatures.
But in order to get some inspiration and ideas for the Rotters in the game, and also for some of the bigger creatures as well, a bunch of people at the studio and I pretty much just went through a whole bunch of classic zombie movies and got some inspiration here and there.
You are renowned for your style. Games like Lollipop Chainsaw, No More Heroes, all these are fundamentally in a Suda51 style. How have you taken your many years of experience creating all these types of games and used it to develop Romeo is Deadman into the game it is today?
Suda51: I thought about how can I take the stuff that I've learned and the stuff that I've come up with for these other characters like Travis Touchdown and Juliet and the game and the characters in Killer7 and kind of take parts from those and also take lessons I've learned from those and come up with this new character, Romeo Stargazer and how I can form him into his own individual, specific, different person.
One of the first things that I thought of when making the game was, okay, how do I take things from my older games and put them into this one guy, but make him completely separate from these other characters so he doesn't overlap too much.
You're very renowned for your characters and the relationships that you built. How important is it for you as a storyteller to show off and build on these relationships of your characters to help the narrative develop over time? How do you go about making the game fun, enjoyable, but also very in-depth and gripping at the same time?
Suda51: We've got a guy named Hirotaka who's been with the company for a long time. He takes care of most of the general action stuff, like the bosses and things like this. I also have some input into that, but it's mainly on him. When it comes to the story, it's either me or our director, Ren Yamazaki, or both of us together. We give each other input, bounce ideas back and forth.
The way Grasshopper is set up, each element of the game has its own person in charge. The story guy, the action guy, the art guy, and stuff like that. We've all got a really good understanding and trusting relationship.
So, I know that if I'm here writing the story, this guy is going to take care of the action part. I don't need to worry about him. He doesn't have to worry about me writing up some story that doesn't match the action parts at all. Having that trusting relationship among the different people in charge of the different elements of the game makes it a lot easier to put something together that really fits and everything makes sense together.
If Travis and Romeo were to fight, who would win?
Suda51: At this moment, I'd say Romeo Stargazer. Because Travis is having a rest.
The post Suda51 opens up about Grasshopper culture, Romeo is a Dead Man, and why zombies appeared first on Destructoid. |
