Weekly Update 2026-03-15
Everything's FINE now...
Game Releases and Updates
Haunted Lands release – the second of my Next Fest picks has already come out, and immediately sunk its claws into me. In fact, I wound up playing more of it than nearly anything else this week, and will therefore be discussing it more in the next section.
Daimon Blades major update and price reduction – this looter-slasher from E.Y.E Divine Cybermancy developer StreumOn had a rough entry to Early Access, but this week’s major patch has also included a permanent dip in the price – 20 bucks is a far more reasonable ask considering this particular insane French pile is even more unfinished than they normally are, and it’s low enough now that I can justify dipping my toes in finally.
Synthetik 2 Iron Fortress – Jesus Christ. More like Orange Orangtress. All four screenshots from the news page are like that too. Forget France, what the hell is going on in Germany? You guys okay? You know that’s just solid fucking orange, right?
Teardown multiplayer update – I don’t know that Teardown will really benefit from a co-op mode, or, like, some kinds of deathmatch modes too? I really don’t know what it is Teardown needs, though, and the specific genre of friendslop where you frustrate each others attempts to accomplish something productive seems like it would mesh well with Teardown’s sloppy and imprecise ‘puzzle’ structure. I won’t play it again, but this might make it more appealing for someone.
Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered Challenge Mode – this trilogy of remakes was one of the Christmas haul items I have been hoping to make time for this year, and an update to add some new bonus content, adjustable challenges, and new costumes sounds like a good reason to pick it up already…
Except the reception seems to be widespread repulsion. Recent reviews suggest that the update was outsourced, the costumes are AI generated, the content underwhelming, and the patch makes the game buggier than it was before, none of which is particularly difficult for me to believe. Huh. Maybe I’ll wait this one out a little more.
Solasta 2 Early Access – speaking of Early Access games that are acting a little too big for their britches… man, 40 dollars for one act? I get that they stepped up the graphics by about two generations but did a thousand people really pay 40 dollars for an early build of a sequel to Solasta? I don’t even know anybody who played Solasta but me. Where did all these psychos come from? And don’t say Baldur’s Gate 3 got everyone excited, BG3 was like 20 years ago.
Anyway, I didn’t like the first demo for this at all, but I liked the original game and what little of its DLCs I managed to try before putting it on the backburner forever and forgetting it existed so I’ll keep an eye on this developing situation. As a friend of mine said, Solasta 2 has ‘regular sized shoes to fill.’ But man. 40 dollars.
AOE 2 Champi nerf – speaking of throwing away money, you rat bastard fuckers, I paid for champi scouts, I should be allowed to rush my opponents three minutes in. It’s pay to win not pay to make a bad unit. I seriously cannot believe how hard the devs tore into the champis. It’s like they opened the spreadsheet of every variable tied to the unit and went ‘all of it. Just destroy it. Every single number here, change it for the worse.’ REALLY? Was it REALLY a problem that they built outposts TOO FAST? Was THAT why everyone was crying over a couple infantry showing up before they had their coffee? Outpost building speed? Give me a break.
The State of Games Played
The majority of my playing time this week was Haunted Lands. I can’t get over how good it feels, how diverse the characters are to play, and most of all, how genuinely brutal it is, in a way that is grueling but fair.
This is the first game in a while where how soon I get through it has more to do with the actual difficulty of the game than with me making time for it – almost every time I sat down at my computer since this came out I’ve immediately booted it up, psyched to claw my way to another checkpoint, and almost every boss so far has taken me longer than the damn bosses in Nioh 3.
The graphics, the music, the visual effects, everything feels incredibly refined, like a dream of retro gaming brought to life. Even if it completely falls apart from here on out [and I wouldn’t be surprised if it actually gets even better] it’s earned its price from me three times over already. If you’re not falling in love with this game already, all I can say is sorry, because this game is what I’m going to be focusing on until I get through it, and that might take a while.
But I did get around to playing a few other things – I wrapped up Toziuha Night: Order of the Alchemists after having picked away at it for months, and it was good to finally stick a fork in that one. Maybe someday I’ll give it another run, try out the Witch mode, see if the game is more enjoyable with a vague memory of what order to do areas in, but for now I’m just happy I saw it through.
I also finished the finale of Nioh 3, and puttered around a bit in the NG+, which is pretty open and free-form, though honestly not a lot harder so far. I remember starting the NG+ in Nioh 2 and getting demolished by the basic goblins, though to be fair I was very underleveled at that point in that game. The additions to NG+ in 3 don’t seem to be that much more beyond what’s typical for the pre-expansion games in the series, so I think I’m close to writing this one up and moving on until the DLCs show their faces.
While prepping my archival posts before the write-up of Toziuha Night, I took a look at the update history for BZZZT and realized there was one that addressed one of my biggest problems with the game at release – the lack of incentive for getting gold medals on stages. After revisiting the game, unlocking some of the new stages, and reminding myself how good the controls and music are, I have made the decision to unlock the write-up for it for public viewing. If you’re at all excited for Croak or the new Super Meat Boy, drop everything you’re doing right now and check out BZZZT.
I made a new character to explore some of the added content and skill balancing in Devil Spire Falls, and got a lot further than I have since the run where I ‘beat’ the game multiple times. Unfortunately, I also started encountering a bug where I would lose collision when going inside and just fall through the floor and get reset to the entrance infinitely. I can fix it by saving and reloading but it happened to an NPC I wanted to talk to for a quest and they didn’t get reset, and I’m getting to the point where I just want to submit a bug report and wait it out.
I have made it most of the way through the first day in Esoteric Ebb, met some great characters, had a couple hairy combat encounters, and ate a shitload of apples. I’m especially glad to have this sort of low intensity counterpoint to Haunted Lands, though I do feel a bit bad that Ebb got so rapidly overshadowed by another of my own picks.
I’m continuing to find myself clicking more with Battlefield 6, though I’m still extremely frustrated by the seeming lack of support for alternate modes and player-driven servers. The ‘hardcore’ experience especially is tantalizingly close to perfection, but spoiled by going too far in too many areas to still be consistently fun.
And finally, I have purchased the new Galactic Disasters DLC for Approaching Infinity, and gotten far enough in to an attempt at conquering The Blight to remind myself why this is the best roguelike I’ve ever played.
I also appreciate the developer’s comment in the latest news post regarding future plans and hopes for a sequel – you don’t really NEED to remake this game or go a totally different direction when the format is so easy to add to, append, build options for. But I would still be on board for anything else this dev decides to do in the future.
Writing
I felt a little useless this week until I looked back today and realized how much I’ve actually managed to do – including a write-up for a game that’s been simmering in the back of my mind for almost a year. And speaking of write-ups, I’m planning on dropping the Nioh 3 one early this week, as long as there’s no major disruptions and I can stop playing Haunted Lands for a couple more hours.
Other
I watched the 1953 movie It Came From Outer Space and it was amusingly bad, not just as a science fiction story, not just as a ‘horror’ film, but as a movie generally on top of everything else. The stilted lines delivered monologue style directly to the camera, the flaccid pacing, the aimless plot, it’s all barely elevated above self-parody. But my favorite thing was the aliens repeatedly and unconvincingly insisting that they are ensouled beings who merely masquerade as emotionless doppelgangers of humans to move freely in inhabited areas because we’re too racist.
We have souls and minds, and we are good.
The lady doth protest too much, as they say. If you don’t hear something say that and immediately have alarm bells going off in your head you’re probably already completely annihilated by ChatGPT so there’s no point in pursuing this further. Mostly this just made me really want to rewatch the FAR better Invaders From Mars from 1986.