August had Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Control and Astral Chain. All great games that can suck your life away. But as the year ticks along, plenty of great, smaller games with stellar ideas and executions come out, especially on PC, and they won’t eat up dozens of hours if you’re looking for something fresh. But they’re easy to miss.

There are a lot of games out there, and we sure do play a lot of them. We’ve picked three standout games from August that which really sparked our interest and really captured our attention. They’re games that might usually fly under most people’s radar, but still great experiences in their own right, so if any of them sound up your alley, know that they have our hearty recommendation.

A Short Hike (PC)

If A Short Hike has a central theme, it’s that kindness is rewarded. In other words, be nice to those you meet and nice things will also come your way. It’s a lovely little game that will either make you feel better about the world or provide you with a brief escape from these dark, chaotic times.

You play as Claire, a teen bird who is camping at a national park managed by her aunt while she awaits a very important phone call. Trouble is, reception is non-existent so Claire must hike to higher ground, all the way to the summit of the tallest mountain peak in the park. Though she may be a bird, Claire can’t ascend during flight; she can only glide in a gentle descent, making said hike somewhat more circuitous than you might expect. She can climb though, and so much of her time is spent exploring the woods, lakes, and beaches of the park in search of the golden feather collectibles that boost her stamina and allow her to scramble up ever higher surfaces.

On her trek, Claire meets a cast of adorable animals who are likewise visiting the park, many of whom ask her for a favor–to find something valuable to them or maybe to just hang out for a little bit. These cheerful encounters work hand in hand with Claire’s exploration, sometimes rewarding her with the items she needs to journey further afield, other times encouraging her to slow down and breathe in the clean mountain air.

Running, climbing, gliding–and occasionally digging, watering and fishing–through the park’s sprawling, looping network of obvious and not-so-obvious pathways is a heart-warming experience. Revealing new corners of the pleasingly chunky, vividly colored, lo-fi parkland is a constant delight matched by the satisfaction of having performed good deeds for good creatures every step of the way.

Finding phone reception is a MacGuffin that actually pays off in a sincere and touching conclusion, after which you’re free to continue wandering the park to your heart’s desire. A Short Hike is honestly a misnomer. It’s more like a day trip that you’ll want to never end.

It’s Like: Breath of the Wild’s climbing and gliding mechanics dropped into a walking simulator with the cast of Animal Crossing.

You can find A Short Hike on Steam and Itch.io

Anodyne 2: Return To Dust (PC)

In Anodyne 2, dust is a catch-all metaphor. For repressed grief, for ennui, for illness, for denial, for confusion. For whatever is dragging us down, holding us back, stopping us from moving on. Dust is depicted as a plague, its nano particles clogging up the internal thoroughfares–both mental and physical–of those it has infected. As Nova, a so-called nano cleaner, you are tasked with eradicating such dust and healing the afflicted, and perhaps yourself in the process.

The first Anodyne (released in 2013) told its tales of personal trauma via a reimagining of an NES-era action-RPG. In this far more ambitious sequel the nostalgic palette is broader, expanding its sources of inspiration to encompass not just The Legend of Zelda but late ‘80s PC RPGs like the Ultima series, SNES era JRPGs like Chrono Trigger, and even the early forays into 3D platforming on the N64 and PlayStation. One moment you’re driving across the lo-fi dunes of a bleak desert, later you’re in a top-down pixel-art Ren Fair castle while in between you’ve starred in a wrestling show and run the gauntlet of a survival horror chase through the isometric maze of your apartment building. To call Anodyne 2 eclectic is perhaps an understatement.

Genre mashups can often have a hard time holding it all together. They can suffer from too many incompatible parts pulling in different directions. But Anodyne 2 finds a throughline in Nova. It’s her slow journey of self-discovery, even more so than the myriad side stories she intersects in her dust-busting capacity, that brings every perspective shift or gameplay refresh into focus.

Things can get ugly at times–in a graphical fidelity sense and in terms of the raw emotions at stake–but despite the stylistic detours and tonal swings, Anodyne 2 retains an unfaltering commitment to exploring the very real, very relatable struggles of day to day human life. By turns dark, funny, confronting, empathetic and inexplicable, it’s a defiantly weird game that will keep surprising you until the end.

It’s Like: The Legend of Zelda and Banjo-Kazooie pay a visit to the Psychonauts.

You can find Anodyne 2: Return To Dust on Steam and Itch.io

Eliza (PC)

Eliza, the new game from developer Zachtronics, best known for procedural puzzle games like Infinifactory and Opus Magnum, is a tight, thought-provoking visual novel that connects the dots of our disconnected world, tracing a path through the alienation of social media, big data, the gig economy, startup culture, privacy, gentrification and more.

Developed in the 1960s, ELIZA was a real-world, early attempt at programming a computer to speak with a user in what felt like natural language. It wasn’t an AI–it was more like a bot; it couldn’t learn, but rather called upon canned responses based on keywords and patterns entered by the user. ELIZA’s designer even wrote a script that mocked the popular conception of a psychotherapist, specifically the technique of reflecting a patient’s answer back at them in the form of a question. “And why do you think that you’re ripe for parody?”

Here, Eliza speculates a future version of the program that now operates as a therapist, harvesting data from its users in an effort to learn how to help them and make the world a better place, at least in theory, at least. Evelyn she isn’t so sure. She’s the former chief engineer at Skandha, the company responsible for Eliza, who left her job three years ago and has spent the intervening years battling depression.

Evelyn has returned to Skandha, almost incognito, to work as a “proxy,” people employed to read Eliza’s words to clients in order to give the appearance of the human touch. Proxies can’t deviate from the Eliza script, much like the gameplay. Evelyn’s story is a series of conversations in which dialogue options, where there are any, mostly exist to give you a moment to reflect on the issues being examined. In the final chapter, Evelyn is faced with a few choices that affect the outcome, but until that point many of the things you can have her say are deliberately non-committal.

It works though, because the game’s writer, Matthew Seiji Burns, is genuinely interested in understanding not just where AI is taking us, but how and why it’s taking us there, and maybe whether we should pause to consider whether there are other destinations we–that’s “we” as in the human race, not the technocrat class–might prefer.

It’s Like: If the movie Her was a visual novel that really made you think.

You can find Eliza on Steam.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/three-fantastic-pc-games-you-missed-this-month/1100-6469510/

At PAX West, Gearbox announced the first stage of post-release content for Borderlands 3. The loot shooter has three content drops scheduled to release this year, with more on the way in 2020. The full Borderlands 3 Fall/Winter 2019 content calendar is pictured below.

Following its release, Borderlands 3 will get a Halloween-themed limited-time event called Bloody Harvest. The event will include thematically spooky activities and side missions, and completing these will allow you to unlock unique rewards. Later in the year, a much larger expansion called Maliwan Takedown will release. This expansion adds a whole new map to Borderlands 3, and the area will contain brand-new enemies, a never-before-seen boss, and powerful weapons and rewards. Both Bloody Harvest and Maliwan Takedown will be free.

Finally, before 2019 ends, Borderlands 3 will receive the first of its major DLC expansions. These larger expansions are not free, but they include a lot more content than the free add-ons. The DLC will also be included in the Season Pass, so pre-ordering the Borderlands 3 Super Deluxe edition unlocks all of its content automatically. Like the free add-ons, this DLC adds new side missions, enemies, and loot but it also expands on Borderlands 3 with campaign missions that act as a sequel to the game’s story.

It will be interesting to see how Gearbox handles Borderlands 3 going into 2020, given the landscape of loot shooter games. Post-release content for Borderlands 2 was largely new playable Vault Hunters or additional story missions that could be tackled with another person if you wanted. Including free pieces of content like holiday-themed events and map expansions in the post-release calendar is a new strategy for the series. Then again, Borderlands 3 changes a lot of what makes a Borderlands game a Borderlands game–such as adjusting how skill trees and active skills work, giving the Vault Hunters more personality, moving the setting off the planet of Pandora, and implementing movement mechanics inspired by modern day shooters like Titanfall 2.

Borderlands 3 is scheduled to release for Xbox One, PS4, and PC on September 13. On PC, the game has a limited-time exclusivity deal with the Epic Games Store. Borderlands 3 is also scheduled to release on Google Stadia, a cloud-based game streaming service.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/borderlands-3-post-release-content-detailed-includ/1100-6469537/

Many RPGs often have complex systems and menus you need to manage as you build up your character, and CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077 is no different. There is a sophisticated inventory menu in the game where you can manage both your character’s equipment, how they look, and their cybernetic prosthetic loadout.

So do you want to deck your character out in that sick olive bomber jacket with that crazy light-up collar, or would you prefer the simplicity of a basic hoodie? You have the freedom to make your style dreams come true. Each piece of clothing has its own unique statistics; though, this probably has you wondering about the late game when you’re min-maxing while still wanting to maintain a desirable appearance.

According to Cyberpunk 2077 senior level designer Miles Tost, the team does have a solution to this often annoying issue. Though, he was unwilling to share exactly what it was during the recent deep dive gameplay stream.

While you’re likely to spend hours customizing your character’s outfits, you’ll probably be spending similar time tailoring their cyberware. These cybernetic prosthetic tools are your character’s lifeblood and what you frequently install to upgrade their capabilities. For example, you might customize your legs to double jump or install a mod that silences your jumps to make you more stealthy. You’ll typically go to Ripper docs to purchase and enhance cyberware, but there are some you can get on your own as you complete quests.

There are also ways to enhance your cyberware on the fly via items called Shards. If you slot these onto your character, you can gain the power of other cyberware and see how it would be if you’d installed it into your body. Shards seem to offer you the ability to experiment without committing to installing full-on pieces of cyberware onto your body to see if it suits your playstyle.

Cyberpunk 2077 is releasing on April 16 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. For more Cyberpunk 2077 news, be sure to click from the links in the list below.

• Cyberpunk 2077 Created A New Team To Make Sidequests, After The Witcher 3
• Cyberpunk 2077 Netrunner Class Seems Perfect For Causing Mischief
• How Cyberpunk 2077’s Sidequests Will Work
• Cyberpunk 2077’s Life Paths And Character Creation Sound Very Deep

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/this-is-how-cyberpunk-2077s-cyberware-will-change-/1100-6469535/

While The Witcher 3 saw you play as the fixed character of Geralt of Rivia, CD Projekt Red’s upcoming action-RPG Cyberpunk 2077 will feature a substantial character creator where there are few limits on who you are and what you can become.

CD Projekt Red wrapped up its Cyberpunk 2077 livestream, where we saw new gameplay showcasing separate playstyles. In the deep dive livestream, we also got a glimpse at the game’s character creator, which first has you selecting from different backgrounds or “life paths”–Corporate, Nomad, and Street Kid. Each path impacts Cyberpunk 2077’s beginning, with you starting in different areas of Night City depending on your background.

CD Projekt Red’s lead quest designer Pawel Sasko said this choice is taken into consideration throughout the entire game. “You, as the player, can actually associate yourself with Nomads [or] Corporate people, or you can be part of the streets,” Sasko explained. “It’s really up to you what path you want to pick through the main story.” You aren’t bound to your life path, but your origin will be “[taken] from the very beginning till the very end [of the game].” As such, Sasko said you can use these origins to your advantage, allowing you to exploit and, perhaps, unlock branching dialogues and quests depending on your interactions with your chosen group.

We also saw a brief look at the character creator screen in the Cyberpunk 2077 deep dive livestream. You start by selecting a body type, then you can define your appearance, fine-tuning things like skin color and facial features. Following this, you’re taken to the attributes menu, where you slot points into traits like “Cool” and “Intelligence.” On top of attributes, you have skills that further define your character’s intricacies. One skill is called “Cold Blood,” unlocked via the “Cool” attribute, and it grants you extra damage and survivability when your health is nearly depleted. Using skills repeatedly results in you getting better with that skill and unlocking perks in that skill’s tree. For example, with special perks added to your “Athletics” skill, you can run while carrying a dead body, potentially bolstering your stealth playthrough.

Cyberpunk 2077’s “Cool” attribute pertains to your ability to handle pressure, not how stylish you are in-game. The cooler you are, the better things like accuracy will be. And the cooler you are, the better you’ll be able to handle tense dialogue situations.

There are a few other details to note out of the Cyberpunk 2077 deep dive livestream. CD Projekt Red announced that it has hired real city planners to construct and flesh out the fictional Night City. The studio established a brand-new team dedicated to sidequests after how successful they were in The Witcher 3. Finally, you won’t have to worry about cool-factor and functionality in Cyberpunk 2077, as CD Projekt Red is aiming to address the common RPG discrepancy between how something looks and how well it functions.

CD Projekt Red confirmed Cyberpunk 2077 will feature non-binary gender options in the character creator. “You know, we really want to make a video game that’s really inclusive,” senior concept artist Marthe Jonkers said. “Of course, if you tackle certain subjects then you will expect people to have an opinion about it and we respect that. And it’s good that people give us feedback.”

Cyberpunk 2077 is set to launch on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on April 16, 2020. The game is also scheduled to release for Google Stadia some time in 2020.

PAX West is officially underway, and there’s a lot more news to come out of the event. Be sure to check out our hub for more news on Cyberpunk 2077 and more.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/cyberpunk-2077s-life-paths-and-character-creation-/1100-6469530/