A while back we made a the change from the Underrail 1 style of inventory to a tetris grid based one. Originally, I was planning on keeping the previous inventory implementation because it was simpler and easier to integrate with other game mechanics. Also, not having to go through all the item management code would have saved me some development time. However, as we started adding all the different armor pieces and such, the difference in item scale and inability to render finer details on bigger pieces in the inventory made me realize this is not going to cut it.

It made inventory both aesthetically unpleasing and hard to read.

I was always planning on adding item volume mechanic to Infusion, so in addition to managing weight of your haul, you'd also need to manage the volume. You'd not be able to go around carrying a ridiculous amount of light items even if your character is quite strong.

However, now that we switched to a tetris style inventory, instead of giving every item "volume" stat, we can control its volume through its size on the grid and stacking behavior (how many instances and be stacked together).

Every character will start with 8x8 inventory grid, but will be able to expand that by wearing a backpack, waiste pouch or some other similar container. Each container will act as a separate grid (or a number of them, if it has multiple compartments), so when you, for example, drop a backpack, all the items that you have stored in that grid will remain inside the backpack and you can retreive them all at once when you pick up the backpack again. This will come useful when you have to quickly ditch some weight in order to escape an enemy or perform some athletic feat.

Before someone gets some funny ideas - no, you will not be able to put an item container into another item container, unless the former is empty. So - no infinite space through container nesting.

Other containers you encounter in the game will also use this grid system, limiting their storage capacity through volume. Depending on the type of container, they may also have different grid configurations. Some containers, such as shelves, will have multiple smaller grids, which may limit how big of an item you can store there.

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I also made a new UI for bartering. The system itself remains mostly the same - with merchants only being willing to buy limited amount of specific merchandise.

Unlike before, this demand now "refills" bit by bit as time passes, instead all at once at set intervals. Also, there are no longer any hard-coded restocking mechanisms, so each store will have its own restocking logic.

Ocassionally, merchants will have discounts or mark ups on certain merchandise that would last for limited time or until the circuimstances change. Sometimes, you may get a personal discount from a merchant or they might even allow you to choose something for free as repayment for a favor.

Finally, all the items the store has will be present physically in the store somewhere, so all you theiving sons of rats will have a chance to get your greedy paws on it for free. Of course, the more valuable something is, the harder its going to be to get to it. Don't expect anyone to keep their super steel bars just lying on a shelf for everyone to see.

Speaking of while, there will be two primary currencies that are going to be used in Infusion - Stygian Coins and United Stations Dollars. Nothing new here, except that we added a new denomination for each with 1/10 of the value - so 10 Stygian Chips have the same value as 1 Stygian Coin, and same for US Dime and US Dollar. Also, we added "Cerberus Bars" which are basically 1kg of super steel and can be used for trading when making a larger purchase.

That's it for now. Let me know how you like the UI changes. In the meantime, follow me on X, where I post smaller tidbits of development regularly.​

Synchro is a turn-based RPG about the confrontation with a sinister corporation conducting monstrous experiments on people. You are a young resistance leader whose parents were killed by covetous technocrats. Recruit and lead ordinary people, in whom true heroes lie dormant. Explore shady corners of a huge city of Solar-30 and fight androids, the mafia, and creepy mutants in a synchronous combat system.

GAME FEATURES

• Fight in synchronized battles where you and your enemies move at the same time
  Predict your opponent's actions, combine the skills of heroes and use surroundings to win!
• Build your secret headquarters!
  Build new sections like the training ground, hi-tech workshop, or the library.
• Recruit a variety of heroes to join the resistance!
  There are 10 available classes to build any type of team.
• Improve your heroes and modify their equipment and weapons!
  Develop the physical and mental abilities of your fighters. Help the heroes with their psychological problems that affect the gameplay!
• Explore a dark future world that combines cyberpunk and post-apocalypse vibes
  Talk with colorful characters and find stashes with useful items.

The time for making choices has passed, it's time to act!​

After 7 long years of development, Together in Battle has at last hit version 1.0!

Together in Battle is the follow-up to Telepath Tactics, set on the isle of Dese–a new location in the Telepath universe with its own culture, history, factions, and dangers.

Together in Battle takes everything good about Telepath Tactics Liberated and cranks it up to 11–more special terrain, more environmental hazards, weather effects, morale, and more–while reintroducing much of the freedom people loved in the old Telepath RPG titles.

The new calendar system lets you spend your time as you wish, and the recruitment and training systems let you build up the team you want. You can even make your own custom characters to find and recruit in-game!

Together in Battle also features a brand-new, dynamic relationships system. Characters will react to the behavior of their teammates–and to your own choices. Manage your time; navigate dozens of random events; battle through the arena; and unravel a sinister conspiracy against the kingdom.

Get Together in Battle now and get 20% off the game’s normal price!​

I remember vividly when I first caught wind of The Outer Worlds back in 2018 – my managing editor at the time talked about his preview of what developer Obsidian was working on; an original first-person RPG with the makings of a Fallout game. As someone who still won’t shut up about Fallout: New Vegas to this day, that was music to my ears. It turned out to be one of my favorite games of 2019, but instead of expecting it to be the next coming of Fallout, I saw it more as a new foundation for Obsidian to work within.

There were certain limitations to what the first Outer Worlds could be in terms of size and scope, and that much was clear in the several conversations I’ve had with the development team when reflecting on it. But after seeing the sequel in action for the first time and interviewing key folks at Obsidian, The Outer Worlds 2 seems like that original vision fully realized. For all the details I’ve been able to dig up about the revamped gameplay systems and worldbuilding, the overarching idea was that The Outer Worlds 2 needed to be a deeper RPG where player choice has more of an impact in nearly all aspects of the experience. And from everything I’ve gathered from our month’s-worth of exclusive coverage, this sequel looks like it’s stepping in the right direction.

[...] That sounds all well and good, and the brief gameplay sequences I saw were also promising. While the first game had approachability at the forefront, The Outer Worlds 2 looks like it’s offering more variability with a web of systems that come together for something a bit more sophisticated. For example, we now have actual stealth mechanics with a better detection system, proper stealth kills, and scenarios in which this approach would make sense – and features such as damage bar read-outs tell you whether or not a stealth attack will be worth it. The N-Ray Scanner is one of the new gadgets you’ll use, and this lets you see through walls and detect cloaked enemies or key objects hidden in the environment, but it’ll expend your mana-like energy – it’s a tool that’s conducive to this playstyle, and I’m looking for how this approach can be sustained throughout.

Judging from the brief run of the N-Ray Facility, for example, I saw snippets of that in action, which leans into this particular playstyle I prefer. This level was also ripe for playing it like an immersive sim, and it gave me hints of Deus Ex or Dishonored, especially with how you navigate the level and find different paths. I know the DNA of those games will always find their way into first-person RPGs, but it’s something that wasn’t quite as present in the first Outer Worlds, and very much apparent in this sequel.

And while I’m excited for stealth options and wielding the environment to create paths forward, the punched-up gunplay and addition of gadgets shows an improvement in combat approaches across the board. The aforementioned sprint-slide-firing Perk – along with the returning Tactical Time Dilation (TTD) – looks to be a deadly combo in a firefight, but some wild unique weapons like the crank-powered sniper rifle called the Planet Killer or the advertisement-blasting Pop Gun that’ll distract enemies, widen your toolset. When all hell breaks loose, the triple-barrel shotgun will probably be an old reliable in my playthrough. And I’m sure I’ll be saving those rare shots I’ll find for this game’s version of the BFG for the toughest fights.

But with Obsidian looking to games like Destiny in terms of reworking gunplay, I think it’s a net-positive for how the game feels on a moment-to-moment basis. There’s an emphasis on better mobility, smarter enemy behavior, and varied enemy types, along with that wider, more creative arsenal. But there’s also no more level scaling, and so there’s been more consideration in how difficulty works in The Outer Worlds 2 with tiered enemies and static levels for encounters across the game, letting encounters be designed with more intent, especially with where the designers will funnel players and create friction.

The more intimate details of level design excite me, and seeing interiors like the Zyranium Lab be noticeably bigger and intricate with multiple paths has me thinking about the gameplay possibilities. But its large open zones are also a key point in this sequel. I’ve said in previous coverage that bigger doesn’t always mean better, and Obsidian is aware of that. So, The Outer Worlds 2 has an emphasis on density and rewarding players who poke around its areas with more side stories and useful loot in a way that the first game didn’t. Points of interest out in the distance are built intentionally and are said to be placed for a reason and draw players to those locations and discover quests off the beaten path. This is all based on a brief walkthrough of Golden Ridge, which is the only open zone I saw, and it does seem like there’s a lot more going on at the ground level. And I hope that this design philosophy extends to the rest of The Outer Worlds 2's open regions.

Finally, Obsidian wasn’t ready to share many details on story or companions, but game director Brandon Adler hinted at a world-changing event happening early on when landing on Golden Ridge, and that being indicative of the types of narrative swings they’re going for. Creative director Leonard Boyarsky, who was one of the original Fallout developers, spoke to how the team is thinking about The Outer Worlds 2’s story. He mentioned being sharper with its humorous tone while going deeper on its commentary about how corporations, and those in power, will exert and abuse their power on those seen below them. It seems a major factor in conveying these themes will be through factions – The Protectorate, The Order of the Ascendant, and Auntie’s Choice (a merger between Auntie Cleo and Spacer’s Choice from the first game). While companions are optional, it appears they’ll be an important lens through which you navigate and understand the world. Boyarsky also emphasized the intention of making a story that can stand the test of time with its dissection of the human condition, rather than directly reflect the times in which it was made – and that’s largely been the philosophy that guided the old Fallout games, including New Vegas.

Overall, I get the impression that Obsidian is trying to avoid homogeneity in its gameplay systems, and build worlds with questlines and encounters that tease out the varied options you have this time around. You can have complex and creative systems to toy with, but ultimately, it’s a means for engaging with the captivating stories tucked within where we have a distinct role to play. If the original Outer Worlds was Obsidian building the framework, my hope is that this sequel is the series reaching its full potential. And that’s something we’ll have to see when The Outer Worlds 2 comes out later this year.​

Gates of Skeldal is a cult-classic Czech grid-based dungeon crawler from 1998 that captivated RPG fans with its unique gameplay, epic story, and challenges that will test your wits and strategic thinking. It was a big deal in Czechia in the ‘90s, but before you download and review it, please keep in mind that this is a very old game (your seller of the year!).

Explore the Mysterious Island of Rovenland

This mythical island is home to the ruins of ancient civilizations, treacherous dungeons, and forgotten temples brimming with magic. Journey through icy caverns, the heart of a volcano, and the windswept peaks of the Stormy Mountain. The fate of the world hangs by a thread—five rogue mages are trying to open a gate to the forbidden dimension of Zohar. Can you stop them before it's too late?

Assemble Your Party and Engage in Tactical Turn-Based Combat

Pick up to six heroes, each with unique abilities and skills. Every move matters—thoughtful strategy will be the key to victory.

Master the Power of Magic

Learn powerful spells, discover ancient scrolls, and combine sorcery with tactical combat to overcome any foe.

Solve Puzzles and Avoid Deadly Traps

Dungeons aren’t just about combat—cunning traps and mind-bending puzzles will challenge even the most seasoned adventurers.

A Timeless Classic

With its mix of 2D and 3D graphics, a rich story, and an unforgettable atmosphere, Gates of Skeldal stands as a legend of the genre. Join thousands of players who keep returning to Rovenland, time and time again!=​

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April 25th, Wroclaw, Poland.

After two years in Early Access and four years of development, the Polish Questline Studio is ready to share its dark, first-person, open-world RPG with the world in its final form. Become a crazy alchemist, a blood-thirsty berserker, a blacksmith mage, or a stealthy archer. Become who you want to be and play the way you want to play in this dark fantasy RPG, a love letter to all the genre classics.

Follow the game on Steam (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1466060/Tainted_Grail_The_Fall_of_Avalon/), PlayStation Store (https://store.playstation.com/en-us/concept/10009530), or Microsoft Store (https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/tainted-grail-the-fall-of-avalon-demo/9nql6tbgt1gc) not to miss the launch.

Watch the Release Date Announcement Trailer HERE to see what sort of adventure awaits you.
You’ll also find the free demo available in all the stores, which should help you ease the wait until launch.

ABOUT TAINTED GRAIL: THE FALL OF AVALON
Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon is an ambitious open-world RPG that offers 50–70 hours of exploration in a dark reimagining of Arthurian legends. Players will journey into the heart of Avalon, a land shaped by 600 years of Camelot’s rule, to witness the epic conclusion of this era. The game delivers an unparalleled RPG experience, inviting players to dive into a richly detailed world of black magic, intrigue, and heroism.

GAME HIGHLIGHTS:

• Three massive zones to explore: Horns of the South, Cuanacht, and Forlorn Swords.
• 250 unique NPCs, fully voice-acted, adding depth and a personal touch to the world.
• Over 200 side quests, ensuring countless hours of engaging gameplay.
• More than 60 unique enemies, each presenting distinct challenges.
• 70+ dungeons filled with secrets and dangers.
• A branching main quest with dozens of possible endings, offering deep replayability.

Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon is being developed by Questline Studio and will be published by Awaken Realms on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S on May 23rd this year.

Find out more about the game on the official website, YouTube, Facebook, and X.​

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered is here! Experience the beloved classic with a modern look and refined suite of features and updates.

When The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion launched in 2006, no one at Bethesda Game Studios could have predicted the lasting effect it would have, not just on the community that would continue to love it for decades to come, but on the studio itself. Bethesda Game Studios’ foundational open world role-playing game set the stage for nearly everything they have accomplished in the years since. Now Remastered, returning players and newcomers alike can experience the iconic RPG with a breathtaking new look. Get an in-depth look at all of the refinements in Oblivion Remastered, from visuals to gameplay and more.

What’s New in the Remaster?
“Oblivion is the heart and soul of the Remaster,” says Virtuos Executive Producer Alex Mur-phy.

It’s running underneath everything you see, powering all the gameplay and world logic. But to bring the Oblivion experience into 2025, it needed some modernizing, and that came in a few key places.

Stunning New Visuals
The Remaster uses Unreal Engine 5’s vast suite of tools to significantly enhance the visuals and performance. This means you'll experience stunning landscapes; more detailed character models and improved lip synching; and atmospheric effects that make the world of Cyrodiil feel more alive than ever.

Oblivion has been meticulously recreated from scratch. Characters, weapons, pieces of cheese, rocks, and even sweetrolls… If you can see it, it’s been remade. On top of that, the advanced real-time lighting system accurately simulates how light interacts with the environment, resulting in more realistic atmospheric effects.

It's not just the environments that have gotten the beautification treatment. The new character base meshes combined with the new lip sync technology further enhance the dialogue performance of characters, giving them much more expressive faces – even with races that don’t look as human, like Khajiits and Argonians.

Refined Gameplay
If you played the original, you’re going to recognize everything you see. But the teams at Bethesda Game Studio and Virtuos knew that gamers of today have certain expectations when it comes to an open world role-playing game.

Like… Sprinting! Sprinting was added to meet modern RPG standards. In fact, all character locomotion and models have been completely redone from scratch. Combat animations have been fully recreated, adding more flourish and separation between the upper and lower body. Combat also now includes sound effects, visual effects, and hit reactions, making it more engaging.

And if you love looking at the beautiful characters you create (or the horrifying monsters – we’ve seen your videos) third-person perspective has been overhauled as well. The third-person perspective now includes a crosshair and has been modernized to compare to Starfield, in terms of playability.

Quality-of-Life Improvements
In addition to refining gameplay, there have been tons of quality-of-life improvements to continue adding a modernized touch to 2006’s Game of the Year. The leveling system has been redesigned, inspired by both Oblivion and Skyrim, to offer the best of both worlds. Visual updates to UI and UX reflect contemporary gaming standards and hardware. New dialogue was also recorded for this Remaster. Where before some races shared voices, now each race represented in the game sounds unique, adding to the immersion.

And those are just three of the big QoL updates. There are dozens of others to help modernize and enhance your experience.​

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“One of the very first things we were targeting when we started The Outer Worlds 2 was to make these big, expansive areas. It's what players told us they wanted,” game director Brandon Adler told me when talking about how the team at Obsidian built the open regions for this sequel. But bigger doesn’t always mean better, and they seemed aware of that when building the more expansive zones across the different planets and moons you’ll visit in The Outer Worlds 2. There appears to be a focus on rewarding exploration, creating dense environments, and designing areas that pull you in specific directions to investigate points of interest off in the distance. So, while it’s structurally similar to the original, there’s a greater sense of scale this time around.

I was able to see some of these ideas in action with a gameplay tour of Golden Ridge, a new open region on the planet-moon Dorado that you’ll visit early on in The Outer Worlds 2. It’s an arid, desert-like region with trench lines from a war that broke out in the past, mining facilities run by a faction called The Protectorate, and a ton of hostile wildlife mutated from the polluted environment. Art director Daniel Alpert spoke about maintaining the first game’s decorative art nouveau and retrofuturistic inspirations, but going with something a bit more harsh for Golden Ridge. “We were able to pull from areas of the late old West to World War 1 and imbue the areas with little touches – you’ll notice a trench warfare line, and if they go a little further into a town, they'll still find that frontier colony vibe,” he said when working on Golden Ridge.

Adler spoke to how the art direction feeds into the stories they’re trying to tell, specifically on this planet. “Before we get into any area, we have deep conversations about the overall story, the factions and what they’re doing, what's important to them. Asking things like, why was anybody in Golden Ridge?” He gave examples of collaborating with the art team to have a sort of synergy between aesthetics and the game’s purpose, saying “We’ll say like, we want the trench lines here, maybe for gameplay reasons, but talk about why it makes sense story-wise.”

As any good RPG does, these kinds of stories are woven into the regions themselves, and Adler teased some of that, saying “I won't get into what happens at the beginning of Golden Ridge, but there's a big state change in the area when you first get there. It’s going to blow people away and make them really want to investigate what's happening.” That’s said to be indicative of the rest of the game, as he continued telling me, “You’ll see that throughout a lot of our areas as well. We try to do those types of things - let the players see big events that are happening pretty early and get them hooked into the area.”

With that foundation, the team wanted to pack the region with interesting things along the way with the main quest. “We made sure of that with big open sightlines and we spent a lot of time and effort on making really cool looking points of interest out in the distance to really draw players and really bring them off the beaten path,” Adler said. He referenced packing these areas with side quests, supporting characters, and smaller stories to unravel, similar to the first game. There seemed to be a concerted effort in rewarding players with collectibles (like a whole collection of tossball cards) and gear, even for exploring parts of the region that don’t really have a specific story or quest purpose. It’s an important piece to this style of RPG, of course, and something they were conscious of when it came to improving things from the first game, making sure all parts of the development team were involved in making that happen.

I also got to see the Zyranium Lab, which is an interior level on Golden Ridge, and it was impressive not just for its scale, but the ways in which I can see gameplay possibilities for how I approach these kinds of games. In a similar vein as the exclusive gameplay demo I saw of the N-Ray Facility, I got the impression that levels like these are more intricately designed and drawing from immersive sims like Deus Ex and Dishonored. They’re larger and have multiple paths forward, but still maintaining a focus on pulling the player in specific directions. “When we're building these more open spaces, we have a defined path that we want the player to go through. But in true Obsidian game style, we allow players to go everywhere and kind of experience whatever they want,” Adler said with regards to designing levels within the open regions.

Golden Ridge was the only open region I was able to see, so I asked about what we can expect from the rest of the game’s worlds. Alpert told me, “We intentionally design each of our worlds to feel different from each other. It's a unique landscape every time you land on a new moon or new area. So it shouldn't be like, you go somewhere new and it's a little bit more of the same. These other areas are completely different from the last moonscape you just came from, and the next one you're going to be visiting is completely different as well.” While that may seem par for the course in a spacefaring journey like The Outer Worlds, the conscious effort to address the limitations of the first game and be more intentional about how its worlds are built makes me hopeful that the The Outer Worlds 2 can be an evolution of how Obsidian designs its games.

So, from what I’ve seen thus far, The Outer Worlds 2 looks promising on several fronts. The reworked RPG elements look like they’ve been made to be more distinct when it comes to the role-playing experience, and the small snippets of gameplay show better accommodation for specific playstyles. And in taking a look at the open zone of Golden Ridge gave not just a better sense of scale, but a natural sense of exploration with greater density and purposeful points of interest along the way. Soon, we’ll be diving deeper into combat design and the evolution of the flaws system as part of IGN First exclusive coverage of The Outer Worlds 2, which also includes a conversation with original Fallout developer and creative director Leonard Boyarsky about how the first game was about establishing a new foundation for Obsidian and this sequel being the idealized version of that initial vision.​

Well folks,

This is it. Our final major game patch for Baldur’s Gate 3.

You’ve helped us make BG3 a bigger success than any of us could’ve ever hoped for, and that passion could keep us tweaking things and making changes until the end of time. But then we’d never be able to create something new.

Outside of minor bug fixing, Patch 8 will be the last game patch to introduce new content. That means we won’t be adding any new narrative content or significant changes to storylines, Origin characters, or companions. We’ve told our stories the way we needed to tell them, and tried our best to make them impactful and engaging, and we’re continuing to get better at handling our own chaos so that we can continue to create more chaos in the future.

From the start, your feedback has been incredibly important to us, and will continue to shape our future projects. As Swen said during the Baldur’s Gate 3 retrospective panel at PAX West in August of last year, it’s time for the team to go back to our cave and hang the armour on the wall while we focus on bringing you our next project.

If you’re already feeling nostalgic, you can click here to watch our last Baldur’s Gate 3 panel, where we looked back on Baldur’s Gate 3, from early access through to release, and answered some of your questions.

From patching in a way to change your appearance with the Magic Mirror, introducing Honour Mode for those of you looking for a hard time, and giving you new ways to make out with your romanced companion, to new cinematics for your most evil runs, and handing you the tools to create your own supported mods, Patch 8 now rounds off with cross-play, Photo Mode, and 12 new subclasses for you to enjoy.

To help us close the door on our last major patch, the party are back with their final animated short in collaboration with Spud Gun Studios - with a special appearance by the man in metal himself: Swen in his animated debut!

Larian: Channel From Hell
For a more detailed breakdown of each subclass and to help you settle into Patch 8, check out the videos in the below playlist. While this might be our final major patch, it’s certainly not the last time you’re going to hear from us! Tune into Twitch tomorrow to watch our first live stream hosted by Aoife Wilson, featuring a guest appearance from Senior Systems Designer, Ross Stephens, where we’ll be taking a closer look at Patch 8, including the new subclasses!

There will be more to come as we welcome you behind the scenes of Baldur’s Gate 3, sharing some secrets and introducing the developers who helped make it, with a new stream every Wednesday from 1pm UTC. Hopefully that’ll keep you occupied until we can reveal what comes next… we promise we’ll share more on that when we can.

For the full patch notes, please click here.​