Games

The campaign in Anno 117 is structured around a series of acts. It begins with managing the city of Juliana in the Latium province until the new emperor, Calidus, forces you into exile. The second act takes place in the distant province of Albion, where you must deal with a military conflict against the local Celts and their leader, Voada. Once you’ve either defeated Voada in battle or secured peace through diplomacy by completing three missions, Emperor Calidus will permit your return to Latium, bringing the campaign to a close.

To grow your economy in Anno 117, you’ll need to consistently find and utilize more valuable resources. These better resources require skilled workers to produce. You get these skilled workers by upgrading homes. To upgrade a home, you first need to make sure its residents have everything they need, like food and clothes, and then spend a little bit of building materials. When you upgrade a home, you’ll lose some of your less-skilled workers, but you’ll gain more highly-skilled ones.

Steins;Gate Re:Boot includes new artwork by huke, showcasing the characters with redesigned clothes and accessories. The game’s price hasn’t been revealed yet.

These new versions of Dragon Quest and Dragon Quest II aren’t simple remakes; they’re fresh takes on the originals, more so than what was done with Dragon Quest III. It’s unclear whether the developers avoided a direct port – considering there are already ten different versions of the first two games after about 40 years! – or if they thought the originals were too outdated for today’s players. I personally love the first two Dragon Quest games, even more than the famous third one. Dragon Quest I is a wonderfully concise RPG that cleverly works within the hardware’s limitations. Dragon Quest II, however, aimed for greater scope than it could realistically achieve.

The game puts you in the role of college students who also happen to be demon hunters. They arrive at a strange island university where saving the world quickly becomes as important as keeping up with their studies. It strongly evokes the feel of early 2000s shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Daria, with a visual style reminiscent of classic Persona games. From the start, the professors seem suspicious, young people start turning up dead, and the sarcastic, unconventional students are clearly hiding painful pasts. It really captures the vibe of a beloved, but cancelled, early 2000s WB show – and I’m completely enjoying it.

Demonschool is now released on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC (available through Steam and Epic Games Store). You can find our detailed review here, and a comparison of how the game performs on different platforms – including graphics and loading speeds – here.

Shuten Order is now available in the West on PC Steam and Nintendo Switch. Players in Japan will also receive a Nintendo Switch 2 Edition with an optional Upgrade Pack on November 27th. This new edition will allow players to choose between 60 and 120 frames per second in both TV and handheld modes, and will also support mouse controls in certain modes. The Upgrade Pack will cost 330 Yen. Thanks to Gematsu for the information!

Steam is the leading platform for buying PC games. A recent survey shows 72% of game developers believe Steam has a dominant position in the market. While Steam has always been focused on software, the Steam Deck handheld, released in 2022, marked Valve’s entry into gaming hardware. Many PC gamers already have large game collections on Steam, making the Steam Deck an attractive option because they don’t have to rebuild their library. Some fans hope the new Steam Machine will have a similar effect, encouraging more PC gamers to experience console-like gaming without leaving the Steam ecosystem and their existing games.

If you haven’t played all the Pokémon games recently, you might have missed Zeraora. It’s a rare and powerful Electric-type Mythical Pokémon, similar to Pokémon like Mew and Celebi, which were originally only available through special events – though that’s become less strict over time. The Pokémon Company recently shared details about Mega Zeraora on the Legends: Z-A website, confirming that it stays a pure Electric-type, without gaining a secondary type like Dark or Fighting.

I remember when Chained Together first dropped on Steam – it was June 19th, 2024. Seriously, it blew up almost instantly! Within just a few days, I saw it peaking at over 94,000 people playing at the same time on PC. It was crazy how quickly everyone jumped on board.