RPG Releases
Cabernet – Feb 16th
Cabernet is a 2D narrative RPG from the developer Party of Introverts. It is a vampire tale set in late 19th century Europe.
Avowed – Feb 18th
Avowed is set in the same world as the Pillars of Eternity games, but takes on the first-person perspective similar to Skyrim.
Tribe Nine – Feb 20th
Tribe Nine is a free-to-play action RPG in the vein of Zenless Zone Zero with Danganronpa vibes. It is a mobile and PC game at this time.
Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii – Feb 21st
People were surprised when the Takuza series transitioned to turn-based combat, and the weirder it got, the more people loved it. So here’s yet another strange entry that people will no-doubt enjoy. After washing up on a beach, Goro Majima loses his memory and puts together a group of pirates complete with a baby tiger. Yes, really.
Peripeteia – Early Access February 21st
One of the most visually stunning and artistic RPGs I’ve seen in a while, Peripeteia is similar to Thief with RPG trappings from what I’ve seen so far in screenshots. I haven’t picked up the demo but it is available on Steam.
RPG Maker WITH – February 21st
RPG Maker With will release on Playstation 4/5 and will let players play games created on the Switch version.
Guns Undarkness demo – February 24th
Shoji Meguro, the lead composer behind the Persona series is releasing a demo of his upcoming sci-fi tactical RPG project: Guns Undarkness.
The demo shows off a vertical slice of the gameplay and stylish UI we’ve come to expect.
Digital RPG News
Stray Children Deep Look by Michael Baker of RPGamer
Michael Baker of RPGamer takes a look at Stray Children, the latest game from Yoshiro Kimura aka Onion Papa, the creator of inventive games like Moon, Dandy Dungeon, Chulip, and more. He highlights some of the gameplay features and difficulty a localization team will have bringing it to the West.
Rune factory gets 16 new bachelors and bachelorettes
Marvelous released two new trailers of the 16 bachelors and bachelorettes in their latest Rune Factory title.
Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma Reveals Its Bachelors and Bachelorettes – RPGamer
Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma – Bachelors of Azuma Trailer
Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma – Bachelorettes of Azuma Trailer – YouTube
Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition
PJ O’Reilly lays out the differences between the original Xenoblade Chronicles and the new Definitive Edition. Among them are the thing you would expect: higher resolution support, revamped models and UI, etc.
Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition – A Decade On, Mira’s Still Got It | Nintendo Life
Pokemon Presents – Feb 27th
Pokemon Presents will be hosted on Feb 27th on the Pokemon YouTube channel.
Solasta 2 Preview
Solasta 2 is banking on the commercial success of RPGs like Baldur’s Gate 3 to get fans interested in its tactical RPG goodness. With multiple ways to resolve conflicts and some beautiful graphics, Solasta 2 is looking pretty good so far.
Solasta 2 Preview: It’ll Get Recognized in a Post-Baldur’s Gate 3 World, But it Must Do More – IGN
Game Vouchers will not work on Switch 2
Game Vouchers will only work for the current Switch. They will not unlock Switch 2 games. They may do something similar in the future, but hoarding them until the Switch 2’s release will not actually do much for you. So pick up all those expensive titles now for cheaper.
Tabletop RPG News
Shadowrun and BattleTech Magazines looking for fiction submissions
Shadowrun and BattleTech magazines looking for fiction submissions. New Shadowrun and BattleTech magazines are looking for fiction submissions. They pay $.06 a word and recommend between 3k-5k words per story. See the official guidelines for more information.
Moksha (Augment – Shadowrun)
Moksha (Shrapnel – BattleTech)
Heaven’s Open Door interview
Charles Dunwoody at EnWorld interviews Dave Kizzia about his new game Heaven’s Open Door which was recently backed on Kickstarter and which will continue its journey on BackerKit. The game makes use of Monkey Studios Lazarus RPG system.
Heaven’s Open Door: An Interview with Dave Kizzia | EN World D&D & Tabletop RPG News & Reviews
Riverbank, a cozy RPG will launch in April
Cozy RPG Riverbank will launch in April. It has a BackerKit page dedicated to it. From the game description:
In a RiverBank game, you join an intelligent society of anthropomorphic Animals and enter their life of cake and teatime by the slow part of the river. Here, the charm of cottagecore meets the whimsy of sophisticated critters as they navigate the intricacies—and often the bedlam—of polite Animal society.
Weave farcical or dramatic tales of elegant characters on curious quests as you celebrate friendships, navigate social niceties, and weather the unique dynamics of Animal life. Attend tea parties, stroll through gardens, dance at fancy balls, and win the prize at the village fair—all while trying to dodge difficult relatives and keep a stiff upper lip.
Get Ready for RiverBank: A cozy RPG of elegant animals, chaos, & whimsy (BackerKit)
Kobold Press Announces ‘Cosy’ RPG Riverbank | EN World D&D & Tabletop RPG News & Reviews
Pretty Fairy Princesses
This seems to be a cozy tabletop game news segment this week. I found Pretty Fairy Princesses on itch.io from creator Jack Rosetree. From the description:
The game uses an original cooperative card-revealing mechanic for checks and can be played with minimal prep. All you need is a deck of playing cards and some (optional but highly encouraged) magic wands.
Pretty Fairy Princesses: An Unapologetically Dainty RPG by jackrosetree
RPG Design Zine
It’s from 2019, but Nathan D. Paoletta’s RPG Design Zine is a pretty solid zine dedicated to designing interesting scenarios for your RPG games. It is generic enough to be useful to a number of systems as well.
RPG Adventure Design Cheat Sheet
Xeno & Kraft created a nice two-page adventure design cheat sheet, and it is pretty slick. It does a great job at covering the basics in a quick and easily digestible form.
Game Development News
Viktor Antonov has passed away
Viktor Antonov has passed away. His work spanned from Redneck Rampage to Half Life 2 and Dishonored.
Viktor Antonov, Half-Life 2 art director has died | GamesIndustry.biz
Carter Libscomb has passed away
Carter Libscomb has passed away. He worked in QA, marketing, and business development at Maxis, GameTek, and Iron Galaxy among others.
Obituary: Carter Lipscomb, Iron Galaxy’s business specialist, has passed away
Layoffs, Mergers, and Acquisitions
- Toast Interactive cuts majority of staff and closes their offices. It was known for its VR titles Richie’s Plank Experience and Max Mustard.
- Prior to US layoffs, Marvel Rivals had topped 40 million players.
- Co-Director of Path of Exile, Chris Wilson, has left Grinding Gear Games.
- Netflix has terminated staff at Night School Studio. The studio is most known for its title Oxenfree.
- Liquid Swords has laid off several employees to attempt a “sustainable work model.” Which sadly is business-speak for sustaining less workers. Their unannounced title is a hard-boiled revenge story using Unreal Engine 5.
- Bossa Games has cut an unknown number of staff. They had previously cut their staff down to 40 people in 2023.
- NetEase will support overseas studios after laying off Marvel Rivals developers, but is still in the process of determining the viability of different studios.
- Funko Fusion, as much as I wanted to love it, was a commercial and critical failure, and 10:10 Games is laying off the dev team in response.
- In a surprise to absolutely no one, Phoenix Labs is ending support for their monster-hunting game Dauntless in May after shuttering their layoffs.
Square-Enix removes the iOS version of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles from the App Store
When Apple changed its App Store purchasing model, it seems that Square-Enix’s Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles was caught in the crossfire. Customers are unable to restore previous purchases, and because of the changes to the purchase structure, it cannot be fixed. So they have decided to shutter the game.
Square Enix scrapping iOS version of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles over unfixable bug
Unity reports downturn in revenue, but says there is progress in their rebuilding initiative.
Unity reports revenue downturn but says business rebuild is making ‘progress’
Pokemon Go Maker Niantic in Talks to Sell Game Portfolio to Scopely
Pokemon Go maker Niantic is in talks to sell their game portfolio to Scopely for 3.5 billion dollars. Scopely was purchased by the Saudi Arabian investment group Savvy Games Group in 2023 as they continue to expand their reach into gaming and eSports.
Nintendo Discontinues Gold Points
Nintendo is discontinuing its Gold Points reward program on March 24th. Gamers will be able to use their existing Gold Points for a year after the cut-off, but will not be able to earn more.
Nintendo discontinues Gold Points reward program | GamesIndustry.biz
Featured Game
The featured game for this two-week period is Etrian Odyssey. Etrian Odyssey is a grid-based dungeon crawler that harkens back to the time of Wizardry and Bard’s Tale and Eye of the Beholder. The player creates a party of adventurers and enters the vast world filled with dangerous enemies and exciting treasures.
The graphics are tight, and the map marking features were fun. While it did not have a strong narrative flow to the first game, it was nonetheless a ton of fun to play. It had some challenging battles and interesting townies sending me on interesting quests.
The first three games have been remastered for the Nintendo Switch.
Featured Tutorial
I decided to add a featured tutorial section because I run into so many excellent tutorials online. For this one, I chose a Udemy class by Cobra Code. It is The Ultimate 2D Top Down Unreal Engine Course. It is basically a top-down tutorial that will show you how to create an HD-2D style game. You know, like Dragon Quest III Remake or OctoPath Traveller. There are three examples presented: a top-down Pokemon-esque game, an action-RPG, and a 2.5D hybrid.
I’m not sure if it is on sale right now, but it will usually go on sale every few days, so wait for a sale and enjoy.
Ultimate 2D Top-Down Unreal Engine Course on Udemy
He also has a series of videos that are available on his YouTube channel that break down a number of HD-2D features.
Plus, he just released a free tutorial for it on Art Station. I have not had a chance to take a look at it yet, but if it is at the same quality as his other releases, it should be a great start for creating the HD-2D (or 2.5D) game you want to make!