All aboard 2024, my dudes! Let me tell you, I have started off the new year anxious as heck, and despite insisting I wouldn’t watch the Hootenanny (never the Hootenanny) I once again watched the Hootenanny. Jools loves his boogie woogie. I can’t say for sure the two things – the angs and the boogie woogie – are related, but I wouldn’t rule it out. You know what definitely soothes anxiety? Staring at a screen for hours and hours and not going outside or regulating your breathing! Here’s what we’re playing this weekend.
Alice Bee
I got sent a pleasingly old school point and click adventure called Twilight Oracle, which is about a failing-out student from magic school being sent on a prophecy-adjacent adventure. Use boxing glove on spring kind of stuff. There’s a big technicolour skull floating in space. Marvellous art. Also, in keeping with my quest to play a lot of Nancy Drew games, I’ve gotten the second one working by moving files around. It’s called Stay Tuned For Danger. 10 points for puns.
Alice0
I am instantly breaking my New Year’s gaming resolution to play more Darktide. Look, the loathsome loot systems finally gave me a good shotgun and I don’t want to offend the gods of chance by not enthusiastically and violently celebrating it.
Ed
I’ll only be about for a portion of this weekend as I’ll be travelling over to somewhere mysterious for an equally mysterious preview that I’m very excited about. However! During the portion I am around, I’ll be playing something new and sparkly and based in the Japanese criminal underworld. A huge weekend for your boy.
Edwin
This weekend I’m going to be working on a found texture literature project, made up of chunks of other texts – if you’re read (and enjoyed reading) anything that sounds similar, I’d love to hear about it. I’d also like to try out solo pen-and-paper RPG Lay On Hands from Alfred Valley, which was recommended to me years ago by Citizen Sleeper developer Gareth Damian Martin. It casts you as a weirdo healer in a post-apocalyptic setting. On the videogame front, I will probably play something a bit more actiony to offset all this bookishness. Maybe Alan Wake 2, which I still haven’t finished? Mind you, writing about dungeons this week has given me a hankering to revisit Etrian Odyssey.
James
Is on holiday.
Jeremy
This weekend I shall be alternating between Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous (honestly, most weekends I will be attempting to chip away at this sucker, since I resolved to finally beat it in 2024) and Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown, which I’m playing a bit early thanks to the privileges of the gaming press cabal. Anyone who read my selection box over Christmas knows that I’m a longtime fan of the Prince Of Persia series, and it’s been ages since I played a proper Metroidvania, so I’m quite eager to dig into this newest one and see how it holds up to its forebears.
Katharine
It was only a matter of time, but the secret review game train has pulled into the station already this year, so I’ll be ploughing through those this weekend. If I can wrestle the PlayStation away from Matthew, I might also take a few breaks from secret review games by carrying on with the FF7 Remake Intergrade DLC, which I started over Christmas but never got round to finishing. Gotta get that done before Rebirth comes out at the end of February!
Kiera
This weekend I’ll be returning to the stunning Lands Between in preparation for the Elden Ring Shadow Of The Erdtree DLC. This inevitably means I have a weekend of perpetually dying ahead as I have completely lost all the skills I previously learned. I think I’ll play it somewhat safe and just do some rune farming to start with before venturing into boss territory.
Ollie
I recently discovered the delights of two-player coop in Roboquest, a fast-paced roguelite FPS that looks like Borderlands but plays like Ziggurat. It’s got some great boss designs, some of the most creative I’ve come across actually. And we’re playing on the hardest mode, so we’re dying a lot. But it’s still great fun zipping around and bonking enemies on the head with a giant hammer.
But you, dear reader, what are you playing this weekend?
