Well? Do tell!

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/Old Book Illustrations/London, New York: The London Printing and Publishing Company, Limited, n.d. [ca. 1858]

Now that Halloween has passed us by, I’m looking forward to a more restful weekend. One where I don’t need to turn off all the lights and hiss loudly in the dark at any young ruffians that come along to part me with my hard-earned Haribo. I’ll need that Haribo for energy soon, as this is the last weekend before I move house. Time to fill it with games!

Callum Got a few games to get to. Bloodlines 2 is almost done, so I need to wrap up that. I have a ton of remaining Halloween games that need to be played in one disturbingly long sitting (I’m excited for Shipwrecked 64, which I’m praying is just Mario 64 if every enemy was that traumatising piano with teeth). And I want to take another stab at Outer Worlds 2, which I’ve started twice and, both times, found myself a little disinterested in. The zany humour just isn’t cutting the cheese for me right now, but I also think I need to find peace with the fact it’s not Fallout: New Vegas, and I unfortunately won’t be forced to negotiate with a tyrannical dictator dressed in a Roman centurion cosplay.

Edwin I might plug on with my Whiskerwood city this weekend. I’ve just about managed to house all my rodent pioneers and we’ve got a jolly foraging operation underway in the higher hills. So far, we haven’t been raided. I wonder if that’s because everybody dresses in burlap and smells of coal. I am trying to get my teeth into the local gold deposits without attracting the attention of the corsairs.

James I bought Arc Raiders the other day and still haven’t played it outside of work contexts, yet still can’t mentally rule it out. “You died and lost your shit in every game so far,” the angel on my left shoulder says. “You liked The Finals!” bellows the devil on my right. He looks exactly like Ollie. It’s weird.

Jeremy Those of you who have been reading these entries know of the house saga I am currently embroiled in. This weekend’s game is therefore “There Is A Leak Coming From The Kitchen Ceiling, Can I Get Mario Or A Similar Plumber On The Line”. I know this is a PC gaming site, but there are obviously Koopas in my pipes, dammit.

Julian I want to say I’ll be spending the weekend admiring the broad sweep of gaming in 2025 ahead of our Advent Calendar picks. I’ve even installed Diceomancer, Strange Antiquities, and Keep Driving in a token gesture toward my grand intentions. But I’m almost certain when I wake up crusty with post-dinner party wine fuzz on Saturday morning I’m going to return to Speranza and throw more hours into Arc Raiders.

I wish I could tell you I’m one of those players that reveal the goodness in humanity, helping strangers and sharing in the wealth I’m finding on the surface, but last night I ambushed a player moments after they took down a swarm of drones. A bad day for them, but I did get the dog collar I needed to upgrade my scrap-scavenging chicken.

Mark I regret to inform you all that I’ve finally got around to giving Mount and Blade II: Bannerlord a go, and it’s well and truly gotten its throwing javelins into me. I’m leading a band of around 36 at the moment, having just bought my first business in order to try and cover my growing daily payroll via some passive income. I’ll be honest, I didn’t think running a medieval murder band would require having a Companies House page, but I guess I can carve my financial planning docs into the corpses of my enemies to keep up appearances.

Ollie Between stints of malicious whispering atop James’s shoulder, Arc Raiders still consumes me, body and soul. My gear steadily improves in quality, but I still find myself drawn back to the familiar, calming touch of the starting Ferro Battle Rifle and the Rattler AR. What sound design! The Rattler is one of the most satisfying-sounding guns I can remember in any shooter. Keep this level of quality up, Embark, and you might start to challenge Hunt: Showdown’s legendary audio quality.

And you, reader dear, what are you playing this weekend?...