The next game from Cruelty Squad's creator, a 'policing and punishment simulator', has dropped a new trailer showing off its gruesome mech combat - Related to people, spate, combat, game,, given

Bulletstorm and Painkiller devs People Can Fly to co-develop Gears of War: E-Day, following spate of layoffs and cancellations last year

Painkiller, Bulletstorm, and Outriders studio People Can Fly will be co-developing Gears Of War: E-Day, the upcoming shooter in the long-running series of games about large men doing large violence at large bugs from behind medium walls. This is good news! People Can Fly have a pedigree for serving chunky gun chutney with a smile. They've also worked extensively on the series before, notably Judgement Day. E-Day itself is aiming to have a pronounced horror slant, with the 'Emergence Day' of the title referring to the insectoid Locust's first visit above ground.

This is good news, also, because last year was a fraught one for People Can Fly. Back in January, we learned from an email obtained by Kotaku that the Polish studio were laying off 30 people, alongside 20 people being moved from an unannounced Square Enix project named Gemini. They cancelled another project - a co-op action RPG named Project Dagger - in April. Last December, they parted wallets with a further 120 workers, shelved one project, and downsized another. "We are redoubling our efforts with new work for hire engagements and focusing on the development of a single independent game," expressed chief executive officer Sebastian Wojciechowski at the time.

I've enjoyed every People Can Fly game I've played, including Outriders - an excellent shooter, albeit one buried under a clumpy mountain of pre-peed live service cat litter. As for E-Day, it's primed to be a soft series reboot of sorts. "Gears of War: E-Day is not just our next major game; it’s a return to what makes Gears of War games special and authentic," unveiled The Coalition studio head Mike Crump in a press release. "We’re pleased to be partnering with the talented folks at People Can Fly who have been a part of our franchise’s legacy for so long.”.

Gears Of War has always been an interesting series to me because it initially got my - and I imagine a lot of other people's - attention through an emotional beat in a trailer that never really found its analogue in the actual games themselves. I sort of get the sense that's what E-Day is aiming for, especially if the strains of Mad World in the above teaser are any indication. I haven't kept up with the series all that closely over the years though, so I'm not sure how often they milk that song in marketing. I imagine it's probably a lot now I think about it. Either way, It's been long enough that I could absolutely go for some big man chainsaw misery. Perhaps in 2025, though no confirmation on that.

More Xbox first-party titles have been confirmed for PS5 - and it's good news for strategy fans, with Age of Mythology: Retold Edition and Age of Empi......

True to the word of Capcom’s German social media marketing, Monster Hunter Wilds has a new, generally less extravagant set of PC system requirements a......

Resident Evil Re:Verse, the multiplayer spin-off presented alongside Resident Evil Village, is being shut down. Capcom say that the game and its DLC w......

Less than 4 months after revealing his studio's new game, Michael Condrey has reportedly been given the boot by 2K Games

A Kotaku study says 2K Games has removed Michael Condrey, known for his work on the Call of Duty series and Dead Space and as the co-founder of Sledgehammer Games, from his position as president of its 31st Union studio. The decision was made, , after the lacklustre reveal of the studio's upcoming free-to-play hero shooter Project Ethos.

Project Ethos seemed OK when we previewed it in October 2024, if not especially remarkable or original—although as the studio expressed at the time, it was still in early development. But the timing of the reveal was inauspicious, coming just over a month after another colorful hero shooter, Concord, met with disaster. It's not an exact parallel—Concord wasn't free to play, for one thing—but the hero shooter genre in general is very crowded, and the mere addition of "but with a twist" to a game that otherwise looks pretty indistinct isn't likely to get you very far. And while it's hardly a precise metric, I think it's fair to say that Project Ethos hasn't exactly generated a lot of buzz.

Two insights told Kotaku that unimpressive showing was the reason for Condrey's removal, although for now at least work on the game is continuing, and Condrey is seemingly still involved in an undefined advisory role.

"We are grateful to Michael Condrey for the dedication, passion and work ethic it took to build an incredible team and shape the vision of 31st Union," a 2K spokesperson told PC Gamer, sort of but not exactly confirming that Condrey is out. "Michael will be transitioning his role in the short term to focus on advising on the future of Project Ethos. We remain very committed to the forward path for Project Ethos and the people and culture of the 31st Union studio."

It's also worth noting that 2K Games parent corporation Take-Two Interactive presented layoffs and the cancellation of multiple projects in April 2024, which among other things saw the closures of Kerbal Space Program 2 developer Intercept Games and Rollerdrome studio Roll7, and the sale of its Private Division publishing label. Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick presented when the Private Division sale was confirmed that the corporation is a "top-ten hit maker," and that smaller-scale releases like Obsidian's The Outer Worlds, which was , are "not big in the context of our core intellectual properties at 2K and Rockstar," even when they're successes. If Take-Two now views Project Ethos through that same lens, it may have decided that changes need to happen.

We may learn more about Condrey's reported ouster and the future of Project Ethos tomorrow, when 2K Games parent corporation Take-Two Interactive shares its quarterly financial results. We'll keep you posted.

Civilization 7's full launch is still a few days away, but the strategy sequel unlocked earlier today for players who purchased its Founders edition. ......

One of Marvel Rivals' most distinctive attributes (apart from all the superheroes running around) is the destructible terrain. If you press B, the map i......

It only took two decades, but Blizzard is finally adding player housing to World of Warcraft, which'll be coming with the Midnight expansion. That's s......

The next game from Cruelty Squad's creator, a 'policing and punishment simulator', has dropped a new trailer showing off its gruesome mech combat

Psycho Patrol R Early Access Trailer - YouTube Watch On.

Cruelty Squad is undoubtedly one of the weirdest indie breakthroughs of this decade, a wilfully obtuse and unpleasant immersive sim in which you play a corporate assassin in a lo-fi 3D world painted with vomit. But we dug its counter-cultural (and counter-mechanical) approach and, following its success, the developer has since been working on a new game called Psycho Patrol R, which has just dropped a new trailer in advance of its early access launch in a few weeks' time.

Psycho Patrol R is spiritually aligned with, but fictionally distinct from Cruelty Squad, with developer Consumer Softproducts describing it as a "policing and punishing simulator" set in a decaying state called Pan-Europa. In fact, I'm just gonna drop in the full blurb in below, because it's basically nightmare dystopian flash fiction that really got me stoked to jump in.

You play as an officer of the European Federal Police, a V-Stalker pilot of Psycho Patrol, a special unit tasked with counter-psychohazard operations and neural meltdown prevention using cutting edge criminological frameworks. The battleground of the 21st century is the human brain, the base unit of the hyperconjoined egregore Terra. The soul of the planet is on the verge of collapse. Your chances are [website].

Pyscho Patrol R likewise appears to play similarly to Cruelty Squad, providing an open-ended blend of stealth and first-person shooting. The world is seamless this time around, rather than being split into missions, and you'll be able to approach its objectives however you like, with the developers stating that "every quest is a side quest".

The biggest difference, though, is how you can switch between on-foot combat and piloting a big mech, which the new trailer dedicates a big chunk of its time to portraying. You might think a mech designed by the creator of Cruelty Squad would handle like a forklift on an ice-rink, but it looks surprisingly smooth and responsive. Indeed, the combat in general seems slightly more refined than Cruelty Squad, which I'll admit I'm relieved by. I liked Cruelty Squad's ideas, but I found it just too unwieldy to stick with. The textures still look like they were taken from a pub car park, however, so don't expect it to be in any way a conventional FPS experience.

Psycho Patrol R launches in Steam early access on March 31. It's landing in a big year for first-person shooters, with Killing Floor 3 arriving a few days before Psycho Patrol R, Doom: The Dark Ages set to rip and tear a big hole in your gaming time in May, and the likes of Atomfall, Borderlands 4, and Splitgate 2 all set to launch this year. Yet even among this packed crowd, I doubt Psycho Patrol R will have much trouble standing out.

Peripeteia feels like what I'd get if I asked a wasp to describe Deus Ex to me. It has sharp, insectoid qualities. Unwelcoming but oddly comfortable i......

You'll have to bear with me for this one, because the press release we received for Demeo X Dungeons & Dragons: Battlemarked contains about an 86/14 s......

Paradox are buying Bulgarian game developer Haemimont Games, the developers of strategy games including several in the Tropico and Jagged Alliance ser......