Remedy have provided an interesting (and very impressive) look behind the technical curtain of Alan Wake 2 and its engine Northlight in a new blogpost. AW2 has been universally praised for its visual technical achievements (among other things), so it’s great to be able to read about some of the tools and tech they created or utilised.

I wasn’t a huge fan of Alan Wake - and even less so of horror games in general - but this sequel is something else. Remedy have taken the entirety of their back catalogue and combined it all into a captivating and masterful nightmare. Probably the most graphically impressive game I’ve ever played, but its technical achievement would be hollow without the sublime art direction and sound design. The story is kooky but cool, even if the writing is a little overbearing at times. Absolutely love Remedy’s vision and ambition here - it won’t be for everyone, but IMO it’s a triumph.

Definitely a cool game - love the atmosphere, styling and general foundation. I can see this becoming something great over time, but currently the loop and endgame are a little underwhelming. Even with that though, the game is fun, fairly priced and an enjoyable little romp.

Ahead of Alan Wake 2 releasing on October 27th, Epic Games have unveiled a clever promotional tie-in, in the form of a playable custom Fortnite island. Alan Wake: Flashback is a ‘reimagining the iconic story’, available now with island code 3426-5561-3374. We’ve seen these sort of collabs before, but this is a bit more involved, substantial and creative. Perk of a good relationship I s’pose!

Valve’s Counter-Strike 2 is live. It replaces CS:GO on Steam, offering the “largest technical leap” in the series. Announced in March, CS2 overhauls almost every aspect of the game, with updated maps, dynamic smoke grenades, and precise “sub-tick updates.” This marks Valve’s fourth major release in the series, and CS:GO remains wildly popular, with a record 1.5 million concurrent Steam players.

Let’s get it out of the way: the game has fun moments. The visual and sound design are great, the music is really nice, and of course there’s lots to do. Unfortunately… none of it is revolutionary - far from it - and it has many, many problems (not helped by Todd still telling sweet little lies). I wish the experience was more freeform and seamless, because the overshadowing of dated systems & what it could have been are hard to look past.

FROM reinvigorate mecha gaming with their masterfully honed pedigree, elevating the genre to new supreme heights. The world is enthralling, the garage deep and addictive, and the combat tight and impactful. What can one say - they’ve done it again.

Just a few hours out from release, FROM and Bandai pull the hypetrain into the station with the Armored Core VI overview trailer. Let’s gooooo!

A new trailer for the Phantom Liberty expansion to Cyberpunk dropped, and in spite of the base game’s flaws (and not to encourage the same hypetrain mistakes again), this looks pretty fun! Credit to CD Projekt for reworking fundamental stuff, not ‘just’ expanding the world: all players will get the Cyberpunk 2.0 stuff, whether they purchase the expansion or not.

Ol’ mate Todd Howard took to the stage to talk, of course, about Starfield, which releases in two weeks. There was also a live action trailer, which personally I always think are kinda odd.