Buggy monsters in Monster Hunter Wilds have sparked a wave of low-poly animal adoration

I’ve spent quite a lot of today trying to figure out why, exactly, some of the monsters in the Monster Hunter Wilds beta looked like bundles of copulating pyramids slathered in crocodile gravy. Nic clued me in on this reddit thread earlier, which cites unnamed Chinese players who’ve allegedly data-mined the beta’s monster models, and learned that they are extremely large, encompassing hundreds of thousands of polygons.

If every monster in Monster Hunter Wilds were that fancy all of the time, your computer would become a volcano. As such, the game resorts to loading-on-demand systems to ensure that you only see those gorgeous details when the monsters are close by and, as the case may be, angrily sitting on you. When they’re further afield, the flourishes fall away to free up memory and processing power. The popular Redditor explanation for the presence of monsters that look like Henry Moore sculpture is basically that the LOD systems are being forgetful, and neglecting to load the additional polygons at proximity.

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Only toilets will save you from the monsters in Labyrinth of Wild Abyss

From developers Cannibal Interactive, the creators of Purgatory Dungeoneer, springs forth a new labyrinth game. This one is called Labyrinth of Wild Abyss: LayeRedux and it has labyrinths. Except the labyrinths don’t just have single paths to their centres, but tube monsters covered in eyes who’ll stalk you slowly and methodically as you meander. Personally, it’s not the vibe I’m after when I sit down in the evening and I think, “I would like to play a video game that makes me feel somewhat pleasant”. But hey, it might be for you.

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Static Dread is Paper’s Please but you’re a lighthouse keeper besieged by Lovecraftian monsters

I’ve often thought lighthouse keeping would make a fine second career, albeit mostly because in my head, it would give me endless time to write (and finish Baldur’s Gate 3). You won’t have much time to write in Static Dread, sadly. The world has ended, the oceans teem with unspeakable biofauna, and it’s your job as the apparent sole surviving lighthouse keeper to distinguish vessels loaded with eldritch horrors from vessels loaded with people who need saving from eldritch horrors.

Going by the teaser trailer, below, this appears to be comparable to playing border guard in Papers, Please, but it’s less political and more tentacular. You field queries over the radio, run your finger down a clipboard, and decide whether to kindle the lamps or beg the coastguard to blast that ship back to hell. There’s a dialogue line in the trailer which I, personally, would consider highly untrustworthy. “It’s consuming my team!” screams a self-described ship captain. “Please, send help! Gosh…” Look, “friend”, no genuine human being says “gosh” in an emergency situation. Not even British human beings say “gosh” in an emergency situation. That’s what you say when somebody tells you the pizza-flavoured crisps are back on sale at Aldis.

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Alan Wake 2 Lake House expansion trailer hints at Control 2 overlap, also features ghastly paint monsters


Remedy have released the first proper in-game trailer for Alan Wake 2’s second expansion, The Lake House. It’s billed as even more of a horror experience than the base game, and takes place in a research facility run by the Lynchian ghostbuster organisation you may have encountered in Remedy’s paranormal shooter Control. As such, the expansion forms a direct connection between the games, and may – read: definitely will – harbour a few clues about the story of the forthcoming Control 2.

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In Starless Abyss, you play hex-based battleships with a fleet of eldritch space monsters

After a hard day’s editing articles about three Disco Elysium spiritual successors – each more politically outspoken than the last, in a kind of Sophisticated Pooh collage of escalating Marxism – I like to kick back with a nice chill game about Lovecraftian space monsters.

That game is Konafa Game’s Starless Abyss – a roguelite tactical deckbuilder published by Descenders and Yes, Your Grace outfit No More Robots. It puts you in command of a fleet of upgradeable spaceships, who must chase away invading Eldritch aliens hex by hex… and also, hex by hex. This is both hex-based and a game in which you can cast hexes, you see. Oh, don’t look at me like that. I had to distil several manifestos into an article half-an-hour ago. I need this.

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