This week in gaming features the major release Pathologic 3, a psychological horror game where you have 12 days to save a town from a plague, along with several other new titles including DuneCrawl, StarRupture, Past Fate, Ancient Farm, and Shadows of Soldiers, offering a variety of genres from survival horror to MMORPG and tactical shooter. The week also coincides with CES, which may limit gaming time.
Ball x Pit is a complex roguelike game blending elements from Breakout, Vampire Survivors, and city builders, featuring fast-paced combat, upgrade systems, and base-building mechanics, offering deep gameplay with multiple characters and strategies, available on multiple platforms including Nintendo Switch and PC.
Ball x Pit is an addictive, chaotic blend of gameplay elements like Breakout, Vampire Survivors, and puzzle mechanics, set in a narrative-driven world with base-building features, offering both fast-paced action and strategic depth on Nintendo Switch.
Despite initial reluctance due to survival game mechanics, the author became obsessed with Dune: Awakening, appreciating its streamlined survival elements, base-building, exploration, and unique desert challenges like sandworm encounters, making it an accessible and enjoyable entry into the genre.
The Alters, developed by 11 Bit Studios, is a sci-fi adventure game that combines base building and simulation management, featuring a compelling story about self-discovery through the creation of multiple Jan clones from different timelines. The game encourages multiple playthroughs to explore all character interactions and story outcomes, with an estimated total gameplay of 55-60 hours to experience all variants and storylines. It is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
The Alters is a surreal sci-fi survival game that combines base-building, exploration, and mind-bending narrative elements, featuring a protagonist who creates multiple versions of himself through a quantum process, exploring themes of corporate exploitation and dissociative identity disorder, with a visual style reminiscent of Bong Joon-ho and Kojima.
The Alters, a new game from 11 Bit Studios, combines survival mechanics on a hostile alien planet with a unique multiverse twist. Players control Jan Dolski, who must navigate a deadly environment, build a mobile base, and create alternate versions of himself to solve problems and escape an encroaching deadly sunrise. The game features resource gathering, base-building, and managing the mental states of different versions of Jan, each with unique skills and personalities. The Alters is set to release on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC later this year.
A Palworld player has impressively constructed a massive urban base called Palcity without using any mods, showcasing their ingenuity and creativity. The player, Commercial_Neck8986, spent two weeks building the city, utilizing in-game resources like stone and wood to create stone gates, multiple buildings, homes, and a surrounding wall. Despite the availability of mods for base building in Palworld, Commercial_Neck8986's achievement stands out for its lack of mod usage. This feat highlights the game's deep survival mechanics and player creativity, offering inspiration for others playing the open-world survival game.
In the game Palworld, a player accidentally destroyed their entire base by firing a Rocket Launcher while attempting to build, leading to sympathy and amusement from other players. The mishap serves as a cautionary tale for players to be mindful of the items they carry while constructing their bases in the game.
A Palworld player has amazed the community with a massive "Pal City" base they built over two weeks without using mods, sparking surprise and disbelief among fellow players. The impressive structure, shared on the Palworld subreddit, garnered praise and questions about base decay mechanics, with one user confirming that the base decay had been turned off to achieve the feat. The integrated base-building system in Palworld allows for creative freedom, and this player's creation has showcased the potential for ambitious and awe-inspiring projects within the game.
Palworld, an early access game, offers a base building experience that hooks players with a long list of objectives and tasks involving Pal monsters. While it resembles Pokémon, the focus is on using Pals to service base needs rather than battling. However, the repetitive combat and unwieldy controls detract from the experience. The game's world lacks depth and fails to ignite curiosity, leaving the base building as its main draw. Despite its flaws, Palworld's checklist-driven gameplay can still be oddly compelling, but it ultimately feels like junk food with little else to offer beyond base building.
IGN provides 5 essential tips for setting up your first Palworld base, including choosing a flat, unobstructed area, including harvestable resources nearby, building a Vixy Ranch, placing feed boxes and chests near workstations, and upgrading to stone structures to protect against raids.
Veteran Palworld players advise newbies not to make the mistake of placing their first base too close to the spawning point, as it leads to unnecessary daily trekking. They recommend choosing a location near resources and good Pal spawns or, if it's too late, building a second base and transferring all belongings there. Additionally, they suggest checking out guides for tips on finding and catching specific Pals.
Enshrouded, an action-RPG survival sim, draws inspiration from games like Valheim, Minecraft, The Elder Scrolls, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The game offers a vast open world, intelligent crafting systems, and limitless base building, but is marred by bugs, lackluster story, and clunky combat. Players can explore the world of Embervale, build custom bases, and embark on quests while facing challenges within the mysterious fungal Shroud. The game's stunning art style and deep crafting ecosystem make it an engrossing experience, despite its flaws.
Enshrouded is an open-world survival game with intricate mechanics and challenging environments. The Enshrouded guides hub offers tips and tutorials for early-to-mid-game aspects, including general tips, flame altar upgrades, surviving the Shroud, resetting skill points, and gathering Runes. It also covers crafting and base building mechanics, such as blacksmith objectives, glider and grappling hook crafting, and base building tips, with more articles to come.