Asobo Studio and Focus Entertainment have announced via Twitter that their smash hit survival adventure game - A Plague Tale: Requiem - is now officially verified on Steam Deck. Valve has bestowed a verified badge upon the critically acclaimed sequel to A Plague Tale: Innocence (2019), and the official Twitter for the series posted about that confirmation yesterday, along with a witty tagline: "They say "keep your friends close but keep your enemies closer", so make sure to bring the rats with you wherever you go!"

A Plague Tale: Requiem has been granted "Great on Deck" status, but early user feedback indicates that the survival horror game is still not fully optimized for Steam Deck's hardware - stuttering in-game performance and crashes are being reported by early adopters. Asobo's flagship title has been quite demanding on home console systems and PCs alike - so it is not surprising that Valve's handheld is struggling through the technical showcase. Many hope that the development team will get onto optimization work, pronto.

At the turn of the 1980s, most PC adventure games were played using only the keyboard. In those days, adventure games didn't use action menus like more modern games, but simply presented the player with a command line where they could freely input text to decide the actions that characters would take and proceed through the story. Free text input systems like these allowed players to feel a great deal of freedom. However, they did come with one common source of frustration: players knowing what action they wanted to perform but being unable to do so because they could not find the right wording. This problem was caused by the limitations of PC performance and NLP technology of the time.

40 years have passed since then, and PC performance has drastically improved, as have the capabilities of NLP technology. Using "The Portopia Serial Murder Case" as a test case, we'd like to show you the capabilities of modern NLP and the impact it can have on adventure games, as well as deepen your understanding of NLP technologies.

As we're heading into the last week of April, we have a much anticipated AAA title launching, which involves light sabres and thus shouldn't be too hard to guess. Other games this week include forest rangers, lights and shadows, dead things that are evil and much more. Something for almost everyone in other words, we hope.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor / This week's AAA title / Friday 28 April
The story of Cal Kestis continues in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, a third person galaxy-spanning action-adventure game from Respawn Entertainment, developed in collaboration with Lucasfilm Games. This narratively-driven, single player title picks up five years after the events of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and follows Cal's increasingly desperate fight as the galaxy descends further into darkness.

Team Reptile brings you Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, a future world from the mind of Dion Koster where self-styled graffiti crews equipped with personal boostpacks are battling each other for control of the streets. Start your own cypher and dance, paint graffiti, collect beats, combo your tricks and face off with the cops to stake your claim to the sprawling metropolis of New Amsterdam.

Red is a graffiti writer who lost his head and instead has an AI robohead. In search of his roots he joins the Bomb Rush Crew, Tryce and Bel, who are aiming to go All City. Together they slowly discover who it was that cut off his head and how deep Red's human side is linked to the graffiti world. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is 1 second per second of advanced funkstyle. Battle rival crews and dispatch military police to conquer the five boroughs of New Amsterdam. Become All City.

Greetings brave Teslamancers. After years of work, sweat, caffeine and plenty of fond memories, we're finally able to say that Teslagrad 2 is available for play! Come, discover Wyrmheim. Uncover its secrets, meet the locals and embark on your brand-new adventure! Challenges and secrets abound, but we're sure you'll face them with the boldness and gusto of a true Teslamancer! Now, there are so many we would like to give thanks to. Family and friends that have kept us safe and sane through the bad times, as well as the good. And, of course, a HUGE thank you to YOU. The Fans.

For your patience, passion and support. Your continued excitement has kept us going and striving towards ever-great heights. Looking back at what we've been able to build, we're thrilled to finally have you experience it as well, and join us at the top of the Tower! We've kept you for long enough. Strap on your boots, and face the world of Teslagrad once again. Let us know what you discover. Regards, Your Rain Games and Modus Games teams.

It's time to tune into the next chapter. OXENFREE II: Lost Signals will launch July 12, 2023! Make sure it's on your wishlist so you can be among the first to play. This game has been a labor of love and we've been fueled by the passion of our community. We're counting down the days until you have the game in your hands. We cannot wait for you to finally meet Riley and make life altering choices while overcoming supernatural challenges that threaten to destroy her future.

Five years after the events of OXENFREE, Riley returns to her hometown of Camena to investigate mysterious radio signals. What she finds is more than she bargained for. In the small coastal town, unnaturally occurring electromagnetic waves are suddenly causing interference with electrical and radio equipment. Reluctantly, Riley Poverly, an environmental researcher, returns to her hometown to investigate the mystery. As you go on this journey with Riley, you'll shape every step of the story through your choices. How you choose to deal with the supernatural events at hand will forever alter the future.

New store page, new trailer... new EVERYTHING for our upcoming puzzle-adventure game Firmament...Firmament will release on May 18th! Firmament is a new puzzle-adventure game by the legendary game studio behind the best-selling games Myst and Riven. Featuring deep storytelling and world-building, discover the story of this seemingly abandoned world as you explore and unlock the mysteries of 3 unique Realms… and beyond!

EXPLORE THE WORLD
Featuring a unique steampunk aesthetic, Firmament invites you to explore the legendary deep world-building Cyan Worlds is known for. Firmament is a fantastic visual feast, with thrilling new sights to see around every corner. At the same time, the world of Firmament feels completely plausible; as though it were constructed with a bigger purpose in mind… A purpose you will be compelled to discover as you play.

Deep Silver's intended hype train, has been derailed slightly today, for its forthcoming zombie splattering blockbuster ARPG shooter Dead Island 2. A launch trailer was uploaded to the game's official YouTube channel this afternoon, in hope of generating more pre-release internet interest. The uptick in marketing efforts has gained some gaming community attention, but leaked gameplay footage was uploaded to YouTube only hours before the debuting of the official launch video. A streamer identifying as Lucas Cosmico is reported to have played a pre-release version of Dead Island 2 last night, and proceeded to stream the opening moments of the single player campaign - 30 minutes of gameplay footage is still accessible on their YouTube channel at the time of writing, but potential legal action is likely to result in a takedown order.

The Dead Island 2 development cycle has not been a pleasant experience for those involved, according to multiple news pieces reported across the project's lifespan of more than a decade. Several studios have worked on the game, but publisher Deep Silver sought to remove the involvement of Yager and Sumo Digital at different stages of development. Dambuster Studios was declared, by THQ Nordic back in 2019, as the final resting place for Dead Island 2's production push. The Nottingham, UK-based studio happens to be a subsidiary of Deep Silver - the studio was offloaded to D.S. by Crytek in 2014, following substantial financial difficulties.

In just over two months, players will finally get their hands on Final Fantasy XVI, the next mainline installment of the Final Fantasy series. The game follows Clive Rosfield as he harnesses powerful Eikons to overcome his tragic destiny. Today's State of Play not only explores intricate details of the story and world lore, but also gives a first glimpse into the game's party combat and colossal battles with new Eikons.

We hope today's broadcast was exciting for everyone, both for fans keeping up with Final Fantasy XVI updates, and those who are hearing about the game for the first time. Get a deeper look at combat, stunning Eikon battles, and the world of Valisthea before FFXVI arrives on PS5 June 22.

Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores launches April 19 on PS5! This expansion sees Aloy pursue a sinister threat in the untamed wilds of Los Angeles, now a treacherous volcanic archipelago. Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores takes Aloy to the ruins of Los Angeles. The past millennia has seen the metropolis wracked by tectonic and volcanic activity. The result: a dangerous archipelago populated by deadly machines. Among these islands, a large settlement of Quen fight to survive.

Aloy's journey continues in Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores - an expansion which sees the fierce Nora hunter pursue a sinister threat in the untamed wilds of a far-future, volcanic Los Angeles which has been wracked by violent tectonic activity. Pre-orders for Burning Shores, which launches on the PlayStation 5 console on April 19, 2023, are available as of today.

Nintendo fans have been counting down to today's third trailer for the upcoming The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom open world adventure blockbuster. The fan base tuned in this afternoon, with great anticipation and excitement, to the final pre-launch video preview. The game's producer - Eiji Aonuma - hinted that more was to come after last month's extensive gameplay demonstration, and Nintendo's marketing push has seemingly delivered on that promise.

The older trailers and press material have, some may say deliberately, kept major details to a minimum - Nintendo has become quite adept at controlling product hype levels in the Switch console's lifetime. Today's reveal smashed the doors wide open with major story beats, key allies plus foes, airborne shenanigans, a variety of combat scenarios, new environments and locations, as well as sharing a surprising dose of dialogue and interactions from Zelda herself. Team N has perhaps justified the increased asking price for Tears of the Kingdom - coming in at $10 more when compared to its predecessor - Breath of the Wild.

What do a Wizard, a Thief, and a Knight have in Common? Trine 5: A Clockwork Conspiracy will take Amadeus the Wizard, Zoya the Thief, and Pontius the Knight on their most action-packed journey in their fifth outing - and is set to to become the best Trine game of the series! Puzzles will change difficulty according to the number of players, the game also offers a skill quest system, and new tactical multi-phase boss fights!

This 2.5D puzzle-platforming game full of adventures is set in a fantastical fairytale world, offering players twenty beautifully designed levels to explore, from glistening gemstone caverns to perilous underwater passageways. But beware, the three Heroes are pitted against dastardly and duplicitous villains, who will stop at nothing to seize control of the kingdom!

Detectives, we have arrived! After much anticipation, Sherlock Holmes The Awakened has been released! Enjoy the Lovecraftian madness. We made this game during one heck of a time. We made it while our country is at war. We faced challenges such as constant power outages, irregular work schedules, air raids, evacuations, losing our homes, saying goodbyes to our loved ones (through immigration, or worse), and losing team members so that they could defend our country.

We worked from our homes, our office, and from underground bunkers or train stations. It was an enduring and unending nightmare. But with all this chaos around, working on The Awakened helped us maintain a little sense of normalcy. We truly gave it all - sweat, emotions, and spirit to the development of this game.

Electronic Arts has updated the listings for PC system requirements for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, and the gaming community has reacted to the refresh of the game's minimum installation storage requisite. It calls for a whopping 155 GB of disk space, for the base game alone, not including the expected routine of patches and extra story content (via DLC). The publisher suggests that an SSD is best used for an optimal in-game experience. The slightly older PC requirements specified a minimum of 150 GB for HDDs, and 130 GB for SSDs.

As it stands, the Respawn Entertainment developed action adventure game has one of the larger minimum storage requirements among modern titles - all the more surprising given that it will offer a relatively short and linear single player experience. Current installations of the PC version of Red Dead Redemption 2 will occupy 150 GB of disk space. Jedi: Fallen Order (2019), Survivor's preceding title in the series, demands a comparatively modest install base of 55 GB. It will be interesting to observe whether Jedi: Survivor will drive sales of larger storage solutions - in the recent past, gamers have scrambled to acquire higher capacity SSDs and HDDs in order to accommodate the ever-growing installations and content drops required to play the Call of Duty/Modern Warfare series.

INTERCEPTOR: INTRODUCING UPDATE 4.2 - Venture to forsaken Sentinel worlds in update 4.2, INTERCEPTOR! Explore corrupted planets, fight a legion of challenging new robotic guardians, hijack their technology, steal their ships, harvest their resources, destroy their freighters, and much, much more! It's been lovely to watch our players enjoying what Fractal (our first No Man's Sky update of 2023) had to offer and it's been thrilling to watch you all cruising around in your shiny new Utopia Speeders and filling up your Wonders Catalogues with your latest discoveries.

Barely six weeks later and we are delighted to launch another major update for No Man's Sky, and it's one of our largest in recent memory. We're calling Interceptor, with a brand new class of incredibly varied Starship, a bunch of new gameplay features, new world variants and a ton of new content! The ever-present tyrants of universe enforcement, the Sentinels, have become prey to a corruption that is spreading through their factions. Only the bravest Travellers will dare venture to forsaken Sentinel worlds to investigate. Those that do, however, will find abandoned encampments to explore, intriguing crystals to harvest and, for the most persistent, the blueprints for a hitherto undiscovered Sentinel Interceptor starship which come in a huge variety of models.

Nintendo is ramping up publicity efforts for its upcoming sequel to Breath of the Wild, which was a ratings and sales smash upon launching in Spring 2017 for the Japanese company. Tears of the Kingdom is the latest addition in the long running Legend of Zelda series and is set for release on May 12. In a newly released video that clocks in at a generous 13 and a bit minutes in length, the game's producer Eiji Aonuma demonstrates multiple aspects of gameplay - including Link's new abilities, refined combat systems, weapon crafting, vehicle building via puzzle mechanics and the transition from sky to land areas.

Aonuma-san starts off the video presentation by announcing that the development cycle for Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has been completed (reached gold status in industry terms). The game is due to launch internationally in mid-May, so it is encouraging that the development team is, allegedly, not tinkering under the hood until the very last minute. Tears of the Kingdom has been delayed since it was first teased at E3 2019 - development began in 2017 following the completion of its predecessor, Breath of the Wild. Nintendo initially announced an estimated release window in 2022, but presumably due to world changing events, the game was pushed back to Q2 2023.

Lucky number 13 is also the last week of March and this time around there are a lot of new releases, some of which are highly anticipated console ports, least not courtesy of an HBO TV show, but it doesn't stop there. We also have a WWI strategy game, a slow pace environmental strategy game, a game where you fight bugs and a rather different fishing game in this week's lineup. In fact, it's such a busy week of releases that we've thrown in a few extra games, just because we can.

The Last of Us Part I / This week's AAA title / Tuesday 28 March
Experience the emotional storytelling and unforgettable characters in The Last of Us, winner of over 200 Game of the Year awards. In a ravaged civilization, where infected and hardened survivors run rampant, Joel, a weary protagonist, is hired to smuggle 14-year-old Ellie out of a military quarantine zone. However, what starts as a small job soon transforms into a brutal cross-country journey.

Today Daedalic Entertainment and NACON announced that their highly anticipated adventure game, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, will release to PC, PlayStation, and Xbox on May 25th. A version for Nintendo Switch is planned for later this year.

Based on the beloved The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien, the fantasy game takes players on an epic journey across Middle-earth, starring one of the lore's most compelling characters: Sméagol - *Gollum, Gollum*.

NCSOFT, a global premier game developer and publisher, unveiled its digital human technology together with Project M's trailer at the Game Developers Conference 2023 (GDC), currently being held in San Francisco, CA.

On March 22, NCSOFT revealed the video at State of Unreal, Epic Games' opening session at GDC held to introduce new Unreal Engine tools and technologies in collaboration with its partners. Here, Songyee Yoon, chief strategy officer (CSO) at NCSOFT, was on stage to introduce the company's latest project, Project M, and its trailer.

French developer 2:21 this week announced its intentions to produce remastered versions of its Twinsen's Little Big Adventure games. A planned third game has been delayed beyond 2024, the original intention was to release this sequel in time for the 30th Anniversary of the series, but development has only reached a prototype phase. The remasters will serve as an interim proof of potential to prospective publishers of the third game. These updated versions have been assembled by a small team, with the Unreal Engine 5 serving as the technological base.

The original Little Big Adventure was released and published by Electronic Arts in 1994, and the second in 1997. Activision dealt with the latter's distribution in North America. Certain territories received retitled versions - Relentless: Twinsen's Adventure (1) and Twinsen's Odyssey (2) - this inconsistent branding by market departments caused much confusion during the nascent days of gaming discussion online. The 2:21 team has sought to hybridize the different titles, but the 'Relentless' moniker is no longer part of its new naming system, thankfully.

Get an exclusive first-look at the gameplay of Layers of Fear, the series' crowning work, in this 11-minute walkthrough. Follow the Painter from the original Layers of Fear, and join the Writer - a recently unveiled character - for a closer look at the latest installment in the Layers franchise.

As The Writer, enter the lone and ghastly Lighthouse - a newly-introduced location - and uncover an untold story that links all of the Layers' characters and events together. Unravel secrets, solve puzzles, and face the threats of the old Mansion that can only be solved with a lantern - a new and essential tool to confront the nightmares in the game!

In a new Grid, left alone to evolve without User intervention, you must forge alliances, make vital decisions, defrag Identity Discs, and, above all, illuminate the truth.
GREETINGS, PROGRAM. In a new Grid, forgotten by its creator and left alone to evolve without User intervention, an unprecedented crime has been committed. The Repository stands at the center of this society. In the aftermath of a break-in, the future of this Grid hangs in the balance.

TRON: Identity is a visual novel adventure following Query, a detective program tasked with uncovering the mystery of what was taken and by whom. Finding yourself in a world built on unstable foundations and filled with whispered knowledge, it's up to you to question suspects and investigate your surroundings to piece together the truth.

Microids and TMS are pleased to announce that Cobra, the video game, is currently in the pre-production stage. Adapted from the Japanese animation series produced by TMS Entertainment (based on illustrations and comic books created by Buichi Terasawa), the video game provides players the opportunity to step into Cobra's shoes as the famous galactic bounty hunter, in a futuristic and colourful universe on consoles and PC.

Created in 1978, the cult manga Cobra has fascinated many generations of fans with its complex plot known for its many twists and turns. With his legendary Psycho Gun attached to his left arm, and his iconic partnership with Lady, the notorious space pirate Cobra has captivated audiences for decades.

Tintinimaginatio and Microids are thrilled to reveal the first trailer and new visuals for the video game adaptation of Tintin Reporter - Cigars of the Pharaoh. Developed by Spanish studio Pendulo Studios, a veteran in adventure games for nearly 30 years. Inspired by an iconic adventure from the comic book series "The Adventures of Tintin" created by Hergé, which has sold more than 275 million copies worldwide. This new video game adaptation marks the return of the famous reporter and his trusty canine friend, to the world of interactive entertainment thanks to a dynamic co-production between Tintinimaginatio and Microids.