This Week in Gaming (Week 11)

[TheLostSwede]

Welcome to the second week of March, which takes us to the end of feudal Japan for this week's major release. This is followed by what can only be called a Minecraft wannabe, but with slightly less blocky graphics, a cozy game about tea, a PvP action roguelike, some H. P. Lovecraft inspired horror and finally some big guys and gals in tights pretending to wrestle. The rest of this week was pretty slim pickings, so there are no additional new releases this week.

Rise of the Ronin / This week's major release / Tuesday 11 March
An open-world RPG set in the Bakumatsu period, where players take on the role of a ronin forging their own destiny. The game features multiple possible endings, allowing players to choose which faction to support—such as the anti-shogunate faction, pro-shogunate faction, or Western forces—which significantly alters the story's outcome. Steam link





Voxile / Monday 10 March / Early Access
Explore gorgeous raytraced voxel lands, meet the local mutated wild-life, find out what went wrong, and quest, craft, loot, build, destroy and shoot your way to the top of the foodchain! Play alone, or with friends! Assuming you know how to share. Steam link



Wanderstop / Tuesday 11 March
Wanderstop is a narrative-centric cozy game about change and tea. Playing as a fallen fighter named Alta, you'll manage a tea shop within a magical forest and tend to the customers who pass through. But Alta does not want to be here. And if she gets her way, the tea shop will be nothing but a brief and painful memory. Steam link



Bapbap / Wednesday 12 March / Early Access
Join Bapbap, the PvP Roguelike where no two matches are ever the same. Round up your homies, pick a character, and build a giga-unfair build that'll make them hate you - then do it all over again. Steam link



Asylum / Thursday 13 March
Asylum is an ambitious first-person horror adventure casting you into the hallucinatory setting of the Hanwell Mental Institute. As an ex-patient suffering bizarre visions, you must explore the intricate layout of the building, research its past history, and march towards a shocking conclusion. Steam link



WWE 2K25 / Friday 14 March
Celebrate The Bloodline in Showcase. Compete online in MyGM. Expanded gameplay includes intergender wrestling, chain wrestling, barricade diving, the return of Promos + much more. Steam link

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Rjc31]

I WOULD get WWE 2K25 on PC if it were feature equal to the console version... But 2K decided to keep the big new thing on PS5 and XSX/S only.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Isnt voxile just minecraft with a few mods on top?

 

[Hyderz]

Just my luck… clicked on rise of the ronin steam link…. Sorry this game is unavailable in your region….

 

[TheLostSwede]

Isnt voxile just minecraft with a few mods on top?

Apparently not.

We built Voxile on a custom engine that we created completely from scratch so your game play will be as smooth as possible. We believe that player feedback and transparency are core components to building a great engine and game. We want to deliver large, seamless, raytraced voxel worlds and hope to improve the engine and support the game for years to come.

Voxile – Indie Game Press Kit | IMPRESS

Press & media asset kit for Voxile.. Explore stunning, raytraced voxel worlds, or create your own! RPG & FPS gameplay across many diverse islands ...

impress.games

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Apparently not.

Voxile – Indie Game Press Kit | IMPRESS

Press & media asset kit for Voxile.. Explore stunning, raytraced voxel worlds, or create your own! RPG & FPS gameplay across many diverse islands ...

impress.games

I should say a "new and improved" minecraft. Although Im aware of some mods that totally overhaul the graphics. Ive not been following minecraft enough to know if anyone added an RTX mod.

 

[AGlezB]

Another week of not envying your job. :saluting_face:

 

[QuietBob]

Voxile
It's great to see a creative game which utilizes RT and looks the part and doesn't need a flagship to run in 1080p:

 

[TheLostSwede]

Another week of not envying your job. :saluting_face:

Well, I guess it's impossible to have good new games every week.

 

[AGlezB]

Well, I guess it's impossible to have good new games every week.

Can you imagine a world where we get at least one good game every week? Productivity would go down the drain.

 

[MCJAxolotl7]

Just my luck… clicked on rise of the ronin steam link…. Sorry this game is unavailable in your region….

What region?

 

[Denver]

The games look cool and stuff... But what is Aquaman doing here?

 

[mechtech]

Voxile
It's great to see a creative game which utilizes RT and looks the part and doesn't need a flagship to run in 1080p:

View attachment 388690

Can it be turned off in the settings or is this an nvidia card only game?

I don't see Matrox listed in graphics

Edit - interesting, they uses to use ati chips way back, then nvidia, and now intel
"Matrox LUMA Pro Series is powered by Intel® Arc™ graphics."

Video Wall Products | Matrox Video

Matrox Video Wall Products offer the highest density per footprint, dynamic scalability, powerful video processing and a variety of modern API and SDK tools.

video.matrox.com

 

[QuietBob]

Can it be turned off in the settings or is this an nvidia card only game?

From the developers via Steam discussions:

It's not magic, the raytracing it uses is very simple but effective, with any pixel on screen casting a primary ray, shadow ray and maybe a reflection ray. The scene structure also has been designed for voxels and raytracing. Many of these other games uses inefficient polygon based scene structures, and/or are trying to approximate global illumination by casting many rays per pixel.
We have no other rendering method currently, so it is definitely using raytracing

and

This is an entirely custom engine, based on OpenGL, and other base libraries like SDL, FreeType, DearImgui etc. It is also on top of a custom programming language called Lobster.
Why? When you build something where everything is different from how traditional engines do it, such engines just get in the way. Our game (and worlds) load up in seconds, that would have not been possible with Unity or Unreal.

So it's an exclusive software solution where RT hardware isn't even required. I don't see why it wouldn't be supported on AMD cards.

 

[Hyderz]

What region?

Korea

 

[MCJAxolotl7]

Korea

Oooh, that... makes sense given the past relations

 

[Hyderz]

Oooh, that... makes sense given the past relations

On a side note It’s wierd because path of exile 1 and 2 is also not available here… I wonder what the media requirements are in Korea

 

[MCJAxolotl7]

On a side note It’s wierd because path of exile 1 and 2 is also not available here… I wonder what the media requirements are in Korea

IIRC they're quite strict

 

[SN2716057]

Well, I guess it's impossible to have good new games every week.

Unless...you add the nsfw ones

 

[Freedom4556]

Korea

That's weird because the Teamninja site lists Korean among the supported text languages?

 

[FoulOnWhite]

Just played voxile for 97mins, it is pretty good, and only minecraft ish in the sense it looks like it, it is not really the same kind of game at all. Imo it is definatley worth a buy while its on offer.