Weekly Update 2026-07-26
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Game Releases and Updates
Requiem of Reuinis iron man patch – One thing real fans of optimization puzzle games might not have liked about this RPG hybrid is that, obviously, it’s easier in a lot of ways than a ‘true’ member of the Magic Tower genre, though I contend it’s still basically the same loop as, say, Tactical Nexus. You just get a lot more options a lot earlier, and can trivially ‘grind’ to max out your stats and unlock all your choices for each phase. Well, one of the first patches to this game in the week after its launch addressed this, by adding an ‘iron man’ mode which also tracks how many in-game days [i.e. dungeon runs/attempts] you take to reach each chapter. I have no idea how tightly this is balanced, how strict the rankings are, and I have no particular interest in starting it out right now. It’s the sort of thing that you would absolutely have to leverage a lot of specific game knowledge to optimize, and combined with the optional difficulty toggles already available as unlocks, specifically to liven up replays, I would guess that even hardcore Tactical Nexus fans could spend hundreds of hours fine-tuning a run.
That’s not the only change already patched in either – the updates this week include a list of quality-of-life additions, like map indicators for bosses, a difficulty scale for the overworld, and better search functionality. The dev also patched in shortcuts for all of the ARG/math puzzle riddles used to unlock some optional equipment, with the logic that, since people had already solved them all and posted the answers on the forum, there’s no point forcing people to go Google the answer if they don’t want to solve it on their own. You still CAN ignore the prompt and solve them all on your own if you want, and this feels like one of those features [like the screenshot map pins from Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown/Constance] that I’ll consider the new standard and complain every time a game with those sorts of ‘puzzles’ doesn’t do this.
G-Rebels EA release – I was able to catch this Blade Runner flying car sim right at the tail end of last year’s final Next Fest, and was lukewarm on it… until the developer declared that they would absolutely be including VR support right from the first EA build. That first build is finally here and it does, indeed, have VR support. Unfortunately, from what I’ve heard, the performance is pretty bad, so I’m going to hold off on it, especially since outside of VR immersion I’m not totally sold on the rest.
Max Savage release – now for a pick from the most recent Next Fest. I’ve seen mixed impressions about Max Savage since release, some people saying it’s got a satisfying amount of optional content, others disappointed by how linear the plot and player progression is. But the thing putting me off it now is the recent addition of full voice acting, which, to be fair, doesn’t seem to be AI generated, but also isn’t particularly good or necessary. I can read words on a screen, pal. I don’t need them read to me as if I’m getting tucked in for beddy bye time.
Battlefield 6 Season 4 - this most recent major update includes a massive island map, full of pilotable boats that bounce around on the waves, and the reintroduction of a series staple and one of my favorite guns, the VSS Vintorez. The new content is all… alright, though I struggle to say that the game has really salvaged itself or addressed the legitimate critiques its faced since launch…
Especially since the first thing I saw when going to try the new update wasn’t a news post describing the new things to see and do and use but rather this banner notifying me that there were four more ways to piss money away unlocking stupid bullshit nobody over the mental age of 12 could possibly care about.
When you can’t even please half the people willing to spend real money on Battlefield Bux, maybe that’s a bad sign for your business model. Or maybe not, what the fuck do I know.
Rubinite release – Rubinite is a Next Fest pick of mine from long before I made this page, an isometric boss rush with spectacular animations and a focus on building up Sekiro-style deathblows on enemies.
It also had the cutest animation of her begging you to wishlist the game at the end of the demo, which made absolutely no impact on my decision to wishlist it. None at all.
Atomcraft release – oh, yeah, more Next Fest picks, and this is a big one. I think the reason I’ve been excited to play more of this since the demo can be summed up with two things: the fact that the developers announced they added the ability to make nukes right before release [apparently so you can collect and use the radioactive fallout] and this patch note from shortly after release:
REACTIONS: made an adjustment so Vanadium Dioxide can react with Molten Aluminum (which makes more sense with the heat range) - should make Vanadium extraction easier
Gurei release – the final Next Fest pick this week, I promise. Gurei was an easy pickup for me, but whether or not this open-ended boss rush is going to be an easy completion is not as clear. I found myself relying a lot on parries in the demo, so I skipped the shield boss initially on my first attempt at the full game, and beat some other characters first, then found myself struggling on the now much stronger shield user. Maybe I should swallow my pride and start tagging this guy first.
Puzzling Places workshop update – I’ve once again been impressed by the quick turnaround these devs have made on implementing promised features, and this is probably the biggest one of all, or at least, half of it. The tools used to actually make your own custom puzzles are still in beta testing, but the Steam Workshop page is now live and populated with dozens of new puzzles already made by the beta testers, all free to download and fully playable even in VR. This is incredibly cool, and makes me think it’s finally time to give this game a write-up.
The State of Games Played
As was the case last week, I found it hard to pull myself away from Requiem of Reuinis long enough to play much of anything else. I’m more than 30 hours in, I’ve visited every location in the overworld, and I’m gearing up to confront the last few major bosses roadblocking my progress to what I assume is the endgame.
I’m also still being caught off guard by how well the game manages to keep things fresh and interesting within the optimization puzzle format. It feels like every time I unlock some new spells or equipment, there’s at least one or two that appear to completely break the game in some way, but then the next area will have some kind of gimmick or enemy skill that will throw a wrench in that… not even by outright negating it, but in more creative ways that you still have to work around. One of my favorite new items is a scroll that lets you access your full spell list, beyond the four active abilities you carry into each run, and cast one you didn’t bring in, though each can only be cast once per run that way. So if I get to a section where I’m like, ‘oh, fuck, I do have a spell that would let me get through here’ I don’t even need to restart and respec. So cool.
I did also reach what I consider to be a fair end point for Reactor Incremental, by which I mean I’m sick of it and no longer want to ‘play’ it, or rather have it open in a tab and check it occasionally.
Writing
I had a bit of a tough time on the write-up for Exo Rally Championship, mostly because I felt like I’d gushed about the game so much in various mentions and Next Fest posts that I kept thinking I’d started repeating myself, or that I was just reiterating things most people had already read, even though I know that the final write-up is intended to stand alone and not necessarily require someone have read the past year’s worth of my posts. But it helps!
Other
I was going to make a joke about getting really excited for Steam’s Train Fest event this week but I’m kind of tired and don’t have the energy for it. Somebody remind me next year, and I’ll go all out pretending to care about train sims.