1st February
Howdy and welcome again to our common characteristic the place we write somewhat bit about a number of the video games we have been enjoying this week. This week, we hunker down from storms and pray for the protection of our tiles in Dawnfolk; we put a full-stop on Resident Evil Village however discover ourselves ruminating on the destiny of chickens; and we return to No Man’s Sky but once more, because it expands, but once more.
What have you ever been enjoying?
Meet up with the older editions of this column in our What We have Been Enjoying archive.
Dawnfolk demo, PC
Dawnfolk is a splendidly oppressive citybuilding recreation {that a} good buddy of Eurogamer really helpful to me. It is tile-based and has a beautiful pixelly aesthetic. It pretends to be a traditional citybuilder, however is definitely one thing somewhat darker and extra attention-grabbing.
The sport is a tile-based factor. You begin by turning the tiles you could have management of into homes and resource-gatherers, as in conventional citybuilders. As you accomplish that, you are slowly working outwards and gaining access to an increasing number of tiles. It is intelligent stuff even right here, with adjacency bonuses for sure buildings and little mini-games if you wish to hunt deer within the forest, say, or chop down timber.
All of that is nice, however then the sport’s cycle begins. Once in a while a storm arrives and there appears to be some malevolent drive on the coronary heart of it. The sport immediately turns from enlargement to a type of huddling down. The storm blows in and I hope I do not lose too many tiles and injury my economic system an excessive amount of.
Survive the storm and also you get to rebuild – however you additionally know by now that one other storm is coming. Human life is that this factor that sparkles and thrives between moments the place nature reasserts management. Beautiful, horrible stuff, and that title – Dawnfolk. What an ideal piece of creepy poetry.
-Donlan
No Man’s Sky, PC
Okay nice, Howdy Video games, you bought me once more. Not that I used to be ever actually out to start with. After not fairly managing to maintain up with No Man’s Sky’s ceaseless geyser of content material updates final 12 months, I lastly received the possibility over Christmas to knuckle down for its Expedition Redux occasions and scoop these limited-time awards I might missed out on. And whereas limited-time anythings are a little bit of an irksome development at the very best of instances, it feels a selected disgrace that No Man’s Sky’s Expeditions do not stick round extra completely given how splendidly additive so a lot of them are.
Simply this final 12 months alone, we received tales of a fisherman consumed by obsession, Starship-Troopers-meets-cosmic-body-horror, haunted whispers from cursed starfleet crews, and even temporally unstable adventures throughout a boundary fractured universe. Most of those refocus No Man’s Sky’s myriad techniques in attention-grabbing methods, and lots of characteristic aspect servings of narrative that widen and deepen its idiosyncratic, existentially horrifying overarching lore. Oh and so they all include some cool rewards.
However expeditions aren’t why I am right here, regardless of having wittered for 2 paragraphs now. I am truly right here to speak about No Man’s Sky’s first replace of 2025, which, it seems, is a cracker. Launched this week, it picks up some lengthy gestating story threads and births a long-dormant presence into the universe that poses an attention-grabbing query: what if No Man’s Sky gave gamers the facility of a god, letting them form the universe to their arbitrary whims? And having achieved so, there’s one thing genuinely thrilling in realizing an infinitesimally small however everlasting nook of No Man’s Sky’s universe has sprung to life in a particular type solely due to my fleeting fancies. Might such god-like powers be a glimpse at No Man’s Sky’s endgame?
And that is earlier than all the opposite cool stuff. Worlds Half 2, like final 12 months’s first half, may be very a lot an explorers replace, and Howdy Video games’ myriad systemic refreshes have helped even outdated corners really feel new. However it’s the new-new stuff that is had me gasping most this week. Fuel giants! Jungles! Planets affected by historical archaeological wonders! And maybe better of all, precise correct water worlds. These limitless expanses of ocean are intimidating sufficient on the floor, however slip beneath the water and so they’re terrifying: fathomless depths of impenetrable blackness; unimaginable water strain; wild, bizarre sealife, and much, far beneath, vistas of extraordinary bioluminescent magnificence. It is horrifying and I hate it however it’s beautiful and I find it irresistible. Sufficient writing, although; the Nautilon awaits and I am going again down.
-Matt.
Resident Evil Village, PS5 Professional
I’ve now completed Resident Evil Village and for probably the most half I feel it was fairly nice. In truth, it is solely the ultimate boss battle that I felt was underwhelming, in a method that quite a lot of closing boss battles are. The sport additionally throws quite a lot of correct nonsense storytelling at you in direction of the tip, however I’m nice with this as Resident Evil is not precisely a recreation I play for grounded realism.
Favorite components? Nicely, I really like the fish man and the doll girl, and a number of the manufacturing facility’s claustrophobic corridors are very good. Least favorite components? Nicely, it is a ridiculous factor given the content material of the sport and sequence, however I discovered it onerous to shoot the chickens for his or her meat. They simply appeared so helpless. I knifed one as soon as as I had no bullets and felt unhealthy about it for a complete afternoon. Individuals are foolish.
-Tom O
