Weekly Update 2025-09-07
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Sorry for the late and relatively slim post, but I’ve had a busy week. Doing what? Oh, not much…
Game Releases and Updates
Caput Mortem - what is apparently a short horror game leapt from the shadows… well, technically over a week ago but I didn't notice. This game is so openly inspired by King's Field that one of the control schemes is just called "King's Field" and that's the sort of thing that is laser focused on my stupid taste. It also has a sort of noodle-arm thing where you use one stick to swing your hand around in front of your face to use items and attacks, making this a sort of descendant of the Penumbra games. I'm only like ten minutes in, but it's already won me over.
Void War Doomweaver update - for the first time since release, the game has gotten a major update that isn't a new ship type I haven't unlocked yet. The Doomweaver is an entirely new captain with an overpowered sounding spell, but more importantly, a very cool name. You'll note I can't afford her… yet. That will change this week.
Helldivers Into the Unjust - another massive content patch, adding subterranean areas, escort missions, and dragon enemies. I haven't played it yet but I heard it's really frustrating, which ironically is one of the most positive things you can say about a Helldivers update. I still haven't unlocked the stupid teleport backpack yet, guys, wait up.
Devil Spire Falls dungeon update - I'm only mentioning this one because the phrase "Characters no longer fly above the clouds and thus suffocate" in the patch notes was too delightful to keep to myself.
The State of Games Played
I've nearly completed Shinobi: Art of Vengeance, which has been very good… but not quite what I'd hoped. There's a bit more backtracking I want to do for completion, and I have what appears to be a final gauntlet ahead, but unless finishing this unlocks a crazy hard mode or something I feel like it fell a bit short of Ragebound’s insanely high bar… which is still pretty damn impressive.
I also played a bit more VOID/BREAKER, trying my luck at the higher difficulties already in the early access, and having a pretty rough go of it - the intensity ramps up significantly, and while the marksman rifle and shotgun I unlocked after my normal victory are fun, they aren't as generically good at all ranges and with all modifiers as the pistol and assault rifle, making the boss fights in particular a lot harder than they should be. I am still having fun trying to stay afloat in the chaos, which is the most important thing I suppose, but I'm probably going to backburner this to wait for more content before continuing to beat my face against it.
I started the licensed D&D TurboGrafx-16 game Order of the Griffon after seeing a post from Magnvs of Magnvs' RPG Journey showing off its sick [albeit reused] cover art and mentioning that it was developed by Westwood and published by SSI. As a huge fan of the SSI Gold Box games, and the Genesis port of Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday, I was incredibly curious, and was jazzed to discover it is very much in the vein of those games. Then I got to the scene above and decided I need to try to finish it. Can you blame me?
And then I spent most of the rest of my free time grinding away in Siralim: Ultimate. I've unlocked all the new classes, slain a few more gods, and gotten my core Tribalist party to the point where I'm going to need to bust out spreadsheets and reference documents to take them any further along the power curve. I think I'm close to being able to write this one up finally, which is important, because I want it on record before the next essay.
But guess what I put aside some time for…
Writing
The Kingdom Come write-up took a lot more time and work than normal, which is unsurprising, as it is a pretty big game itself, and also a pretty noteworthy one that I've been mulling over almost all year. Besides which, I had hours' worth of clips to go through and edit, most of which didn't even make it into the final piece. Speaking of the final piece, I wound up trimming a decent amount regarding specific characters and plotlines, and that's because I thought it might be a better idea to do a separate character analysis piece instead.
But I'm undecided if that would be before or after my developing essay on the nature of JRPGs - depends how I feel this week, I suppose, and also if I decide to write up Siralim instead.
Other
Asteroid mining sim ΔV: Rings of Saturn has announced their Asteroid Opera DLC, which is apparently going to be a departure from the relatively hard-science base game and be more about flying around shooting lasers at other ships. A big part of why I adore ΔV is how grounded and boring it is… but I'm willing to see what they've got up their sleeves. It'll probably be better than their Furry Character Portrait DLC… depending on your taste.
Run'n'gun Neon Inferno has a release date, and it's only a month away. I thought the demo for this was pretty solid, and this has been a good year for arcadey action games, so hopefully this one sticks the landing and isn't just a pretty face.
The developers of VR ultraviolence simulator Blade and Sorcery have put up a preview for the upcoming "Rakta" update which seems to mostly be themed around East Asian inspired weapons… okay, more ninja shit. Totally fine with that, but it's not as though there aren't plenty of katanas and shuriken available already as mods. You really want my attention, WarpFrog? Let me toggle on a Mortal Kombat-style slomo X-ray vision of my fist rupturing internal organs on a solid hit. I want to FEEL someone's pancreas explode.