Matt Firor of The Elder Scrolls Online was interviewed by SECTOR.

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At Gamescome, we had the opportunity to go to Bethesda's stand to find out more about the current status, stage version and future of the well-known MMORPG The Elder Scrolls Online, as Matt Firor, head of The Elder Scrolls Online and ZeniMax Online, told us.

Thanks Farflame!

RPG Division discusses which is better - Surge 2 or Code Vein.

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Surge 2 versus Code Vein. Which game is the better one? There is no simple answer here so I have tried to put all of my thoughts about these two games in this video to give you a proper answer.

Thanks Farflame!

@Bluesnews Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong has been announced and will be developed by Cyanide Studio.

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"At the studio, we're long-time and passionate fans of the tabletop role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade. We have wanted to create a video game inspired by this universe for several years now. This project fits perfectly with Bigben’s desire to expand its catalogue of narrative games. We are very happy to be unveiling it together," says Thomas Veauclin, Creative & Art Director at Big Bad Wolf.

"My past experience as an editor and author of role-playing games, and also as Editor-in-Chief of an RPG magazine, is proof of how important this project means to me personally," adds Benoit Clerc, Head of Publishing at Bigben." Just like me, many fans have been waiting a long time for a new adaptation of this cult game, which will be developed by one of the most talented studios of its generation."

In this narrative RPG adapted from the 5th edition of Vampire: The Masquerade, the player takes control of 3 vampires belonging to different clans of the Camarilla, the secret society to which most vampires belong. Weaving between their intertwined tales, the player has to confront the different points of view of his characters to unravel fact from fiction. With whispers of conspiracy, murder and power struggles, the player must protect his clan, discover the truth and above all enforce the Masquerade, the vampire law designed to conceal the existence of creatures of the night from humans.

Explore the ancient silk road in the simulation RPG Silk:

Silk

Enter the biggest handcrafted open world of all time, fifty times larger than Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall! Explore three million square miles of uncharted terrain from Roman Damascus to Three Kingdoms China in an exploration RPG that transports you onto the Ancient Silk Road of 200AD.

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From a parallel dimension where they still make keyboard-controlled, square-based RPGs in 2019 comes the new game from Chris Bateman (Discworld Noir, Ghost Master, Heretic Kingdoms). Can you puzzle out the secrets of the four distinct challenges await you in Silk?

• Explore the vast expanse of the Silk Road in an epic journey across dangerous wilderness as The Traveller.
• Overthrow Rome's greatest enemy, the powerful Parthian Empire, as The Rebel.
• Master the art of raiding to capture the fortunes of rival kingdoms as The Warlord.
• Carve out a trading empire between the brutal battlegrounds of the Silk Road as The Noble.

One colossal world, four unique challenges. Do you have what it takes to master Silk?

• Level up any seven of the thousands of Advisors in the game as you hire your perfect party, each of which unlocks hundreds of unique choices in the world
• Battle, Trade, or Explore: play the game your way as you amass a well-provisioned caravan or build your own renegade army
• Discover the lost genre of tile-based RPGs (Eye of the Beholder, The Bard’s Tale) remastered for the twenty first century

IGN has reviewed the dedective RPG Disco Elysium:

Disco Elysium Review

Murder on the dancefloor.

Like all good detective stories, what appears simple at first becomes so much more than that in Disco Elysium – and here it gets so, so much weirder, too. It takes the age-old mechanics of tabletop RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons and twists them in strange ways around a macabre tale of violence, poverty, and a society on the brink of collapse. Through sharply written dialogue and an expertly crafted world, it uses some unique game mechanics - such as debating against 24 different sections of your own brain - to create an experience that will stay with me for a long time. And, somehow, it manages to make all of this fun and, surprisingly often, funny.
The premise of Disco Elysium is straightforward: A body has been discovered, hanged from a looming tree in the backyard of a hostel, and it’s up to you to work out how it got there over the course of the 30-hour story. Everything that surrounds this core mystery is far from simple, however, not least being that you kick things off with an almighty dose of hangover-induced amnesia. You can’t even remember your name, let alone that you are a cop on a murder case. A part of your consciousness described as your ancient reptilian brain – which you literally engage in conversation with – attempts to persuade you to give up your quest even as your snivelling limbic system battles against it. As you stumble around your wrecked bedroom searching for remnants of your former self, it quickly becomes clear that this isn’t simply a whodunnit, but a journey that will challenge you to solve crises on both profoundly personal and societal levels. It’s a gorgeously designed isometric RPG that makes you think at every turn of its painterly streets.

[...]

Verdict
Disco Elysium is a unique blend of noir-detective fiction, traditional pen-and-paper RPGs, and a large helping of existentialist theory. Its twisting plot, cast of memorable characters, and sheer depth of choice combine to create an experience that begs to be savoured. A few minor gripes aside, it hits on almost every single one of the marks it sets out to achieve and left me yearning to spend more time in its world. 

Score 9.6/10

Thanks henriquejr!

Here's the launch trailer for The Outer Worlds:

The Outer Worlds - Official Launch Trailer

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A new build of Vagrus: The Riven Realms has been released:

New Open Access build is OUT! - Includes FIVE Milestone Deliveries

The Story Behind the Patch

We have had a busy two months: we got through a Unity upgrade (always fun), overhauled how we store and calculate stats in the game (Property System), added character idle animations, while of course continued to spend significant time with promoting Vagrus through various channels. A good example of this is when we showcased the game in Graz (AT) at GameDevDaysGraz. It was an amazing event, and the greatest moment of course was when RPG dev legend Josh Sawyer came to our table and played the game himself.

As the lead designer of many great RPG titles (Neverwinter Nights 2, Pillars of Eternity I-II, Fallout: New Vegas), Josh is a role model for us and his works are very important sources of inspiration, so him playing Vagrus and talking about RPGs was a dream come true. Our team was beaming when he joined us for a team photo, too.

[...]

Jay Krishnan has checked out the Early Access version of Encased: A Sci-Fi Post-Apocalyptic RPG:

Encased Preview- Making the Apocalypse Fresh Again

I’ve been saying this again and again. It’s a great time to be a Fallout fan. While a true Fallout 3 still remains a pipe dream, there has been no shortage of good post-apocalyptic RPGs taking inspiration from the original Fallout in the last five years. Wasteland 2, Age of Decadence, Underrail and ATOM RPG has proven that there is still a sizeable audience for the ol’ post-apocalyptic RPG formula pioneered by Wasteland and perfected by Fallout. Dark Crystal Games’ Encased, is the latest game to join the list.

After a moderate Kickstarter success, Encased: A Sci-Fi Post-Apocalyptic RPG has finally launched on Steam Early Access last month. I know what you’re thinking. Early Acess, ambitious RPG, yada yada. Not every Early Access RPG is going to be an After Reset, right?

[...]

While the 10 hours of content is not enough to form a full impression, the current build of Encased serves to give you a small taste of what’s to come, as well as help decide if you want to periodically check back, issue a refund or keep it in your wishlist.  Aside from some annoyances, I found myself having a good time with the current build of Encased. One of the most detailed prologues in an RPG ever and I mean it in a good way. I must have spent near to 5 hours on the tutorial section alone without being bored to death. It does a great job of introducing you to CRONUS, the world as well as get you acquainted with many of its systems.

Wccftech interviewed Brian Heins about the gameplay and roleplaying in The Outer Worlds, Microsoft buyout and more.

How many larger settlements can we expect to see in the game?

On each world, there's at least one major settlement. A big example is Monarch, we showed it at a press playthrough in July. There is Stellar Bay, which is the primary capital of the world. But there are also areas like Amber Heights and Fallbrook that are also two other hubs in the world as well. So that alone has three big settlements you can explore and find quests in. And then the world of Terra 2, which is more segregated, the corporations control it more heavily, so each area is more restricted and travel between them isn't allowed. Each of those has its own set of NPCs and quest dealers.

And how long has it been in development for?

Tim and Leonard first started working on it, just the two of them, probably around almost three years ago now. And it was just them for many, many months while they were figuring out what the IP was. And then they got a few people to start working on stuff and then got more and more people. So I think it was a small team for probably the first year or more, and then kind of ramped up and has been in production for about two years. And now we're kind of ramping down to getting ready to ship it out the door.

[...]

Thanks Farflame!

Twinfinite reveals some new DLC for Conan Exiles called Debaucheries of Derketo. Screenshots at the link.

If you know who Derketo is in the Conan lore, you likely know what to expect, and there is that and more.

The set will focus on roleplay and aesthetics, so it’ll come with more elements to express yourself and less functional stuff.

Starting with the functional elements we get 11 new building pieces including handy Treehouse Foundations, Hanging Bridges and Rope Bridges in different sizes, and stages in different shapes.

29 new placeables will include a lot of what you need to build a tavern in Conan Exiles including counters, barrels, tables, stools, wineshelves, and more.

[...]

Thanks Farflame!

Wccftech reports on The Bleachers - A Diamond City Story quest mod for Fallout 4.

Modder MunkySpunk has released an amazing new modification for Fallout 4, the Fallout 4 The Bleachers Quest Mod.

Earlier today we already covered the freshly-released NCR Veteran Ranger armor mod for Fallout 4, and now we another great mod for Bethesda’s action-RPG.

‘The Bleachers - A Diamond City Story’ comes with roughly 5 hours of new quest content, 5 new voice NPCs, a new playerhome located under the Bleacher seats of Diamond City, over 20 new loading screens, 4 new richly decorated NPC bedrooms and much more.

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Thanks Farflame!

OnlySP reports that Everspace 2 has hit a big milestone for its Kickstarter.

The Everspace 2 Kickstarter campaign just reached another huge milestone.

As of the time of this story’s publication, Everspace 2 has already reached a little less than EUR€250,000 – more than half its asking goal. Just yesterday in its first developer vlog, developer Rockfish Games was celebrating the €200,000 mark.

The update gives a few details on the game’s story mode and urges players to go back and play the first title.

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[...]

Thanks Farflame!

Owlcat is an independent studio now:

Big news for the Owlcat Games studio

Dear Pathfinders!

The recent anniversary of Pathfinder: Kingmaker made us think more about the future of Owlcat Games as well. Together with our parent company, we decided to change the format of cooperation with MY.GAMES and go for an independent studio. Both parties have agreed to this mutually beneficial step, which will allow continuing to explore new business opportunities while maintaining focus on core competencies. The parent company remains our strategic partner and investor. We want to thank our colleagues at MY.GAMES for all these years we have spent on the path together.

As a newly independent studio, we have already moved to the new headquarters, where we are actively making ourselves a new home right now. The move was not easy for us — we needed to carefully pack and transfer the countless boxes with small assets, shaman tambourines, all the dialogues, the bestiary and all the miniatures from the personal desks. Amiri's sword alone required an individual van!
But we made it! Here is a small photo report, so you can see the process with your own eyes.

Thanks purpleblob:

The interactive fiction RPG Six Ages: Ride Like the Wind has been released:

Six Ages: Ride Like the Wind

Life between myths. Lead your clan into legend or obscurity. Six Ages: Ride Like the Wind is a storybook strategy game, immersing you in a land of old gods and magic.

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Hundreds of small encounters build into an epic, multi-generational tale of survival and inter-clan alliances. Six Ages is the spiritual successor to acclaimed King of Dragon Pass, taking place thousands of years earlier in the same shared world of Glorantha. Part role-playing, part resource management, you'll always be making decisions with long-term consequences, for you and your clan.

Features:

• Design your own clan, visit the gods, become respected, raid your neighbors' cows
• Over 400 interactive story scenes, with deep simulation systems driving their appearance and outcomes
• Multiple difficulty levels, and the option for Iron Willed players to limit reloading
• Gorgeous hand-painted high-resolution illustrations
• Same world as King of Dragon Pass, but a new clan: the Riders, with their own myths, and 4x more world to explore
• Discover, appease, and make deals with spirits in your territory

Glorantha is a highly detailed Bronze Age world, similar in many ways to our own. But it exists in a magical universe where the laws of physics are subordinate to the whims of the gods and spirits. To understand Glorantha, leave our mundane world and enter the world of myth. The Sun is a living god, not a nearby star. Countless gods exist, some even more powerful than the Sun, and all have the power to directly affect humanity.

In Six Ages, you play specifically as a Riders clan, who revere various gods in their particular mythology, including Gamari the Horse Mother, and your culture hero, Hyalor... but you would be foolish to forget Raven the Trickster. He has not forgotten you.

Glorantha is also the setting of other rich narrative games/experiences, including King of Dragon Pass, HeroQuest, RuneQuest, God Wars, and others.

Turnbasedlovers has an overview of turn-based RPG Project Haven. You can find the Steam page here.

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Background Story

You command the Steel Dragons, a mercenary outfit fighting for survival in the harsh, urban near-future that is Haven City.

Gameplay info

Select and control squads of mercs as they battle gangsters, rival mercs and corrupt government forces in a bid to make ends meet, and make a difference where you can. Manage your crew’s stats and gear, wrangle a diverse range of merc personalities, and conquer the deep tactical elements that make Project Haven a standalone turn-based combat experience.

Boris Bezdar reminisced about the first five games of Might and Magic.

It all began in 1986, when Jon Van Caneghem released the Might & Magic Book One, after working on the game singlehandedly for almost three years. After the original release on Apple II, the game had achieved such a success, that ports on nearly a dozen different platforms followed shortly, IBM PC and PC Engine included. The Secret of the Inner Sanctum was even released on NES at the beginning of the ’90s, manifesting and celebrating the undoubted popularity of the game.

Though Book One was not nearly the first RPG for home computers, with Ultima, Wizardry, and SSI’s series of Gold Box games holding the vast majority of the market, it still managed to take a foothold for a franchise to come and sold nearly a hundred thousand copies by 1989.

Plotwise, the game didn’t invent the wheel. From the start, there are hints to some rivalry between two mighty wizards, named Corak and Sheltem, the good one and the bad one respectively. The later story falls in line with many popular RPGs of that time, with mixing of sci-fi elements into the fantasy setting. So, Corak and Sheltem weren’t actually wizards, but cyborgs, build by higher race of Elders to serve as wardens of the colonised worlds. Sheltem had gone rouge and went into hiding, and Corak had been sent to deal with him. It is upon the player and his party of six characters to travel the world of Varn (that actually is not a world per se, but a ‘Vehicular Astropod Research Nacelle’), find the main baddie, and follow him to another world. There are also lots of sidequests on the way to grind through.

[...]

PC Gamer has reviewed Disco Elysium:

Disco Elysium review

A cop adventure inspired by classic RPGs.

You are not well. You've woken up on the floor of a grimy hotel room with a hangover so devastating you might as well be dead. You don't remember who you are, which city you're in, or what happened the night before. Apparently you're a detective, in town to solve a murder, but you don't feel like a cop. You feel like shit.

Disco Elysium is a detective RPG of improbable depth. It's part Planescape: Torment, part police procedural, part psychodrama. Your fatally hungover detective peels himself off the carpet, naked except for a pair of soiled underpants, and begins the laborious process of piecing his broken mind back together, while simultaneously attempting to solve a gruesome murder on the wrong side of the tracks.

[...]

The thing about Disco Elysium is that my experience of it is completely unique to me, such is the dizzying variety of skills, stats, thoughts, and conversation options on offer. You could play through it five times and still not see everything, so there's no one experience to assess. But I can say with certainty that it's one of the finest RPGs on PC if you value depth, freedom, customisation, and storytelling.

Score: 92/100 -

An irresponsibly deep detective RPG that lets you be any kind of detective you want. Even a bad one.

Thanks henriquejr!

Disco Elysium has been released:

You are a detective:
Disco Elysium is a groundbreaking open world role playing game. You’re a detective with a unique skill system at your disposal and a whole city block to carve your path across. Interrogate unforgettable characters, crack murders or take bribes. Become a hero or an absolute disaster of a human being.

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Features:
Unprecedented freedom of choice​. Intimidate, sweet-talk, resort to violence, write poetry, sing karaoke, dance like a beast or solve the meaning of life. Disco Elysium is the most faithful representation of desktop role playing ever attempted in video games.

Countless tools for role playing.​ Mix and match from 24 wildly different skills. Develop a personal style with 80 clothes items. Wield 14 tools from guns to flashlights to a boombox, or pour yourself a cocktail of 6 different psychoactive substances. Develop your character even further with 60 wild ​thoughts ​to think – with the detective's Thought Cabinet.

A revolutionary dialogue system with unforgettable characters. ​The world is alive with real people, not extras. Play them against each other, try to help them, or fall hopelessly in love. Disco Elysium's revolutionary dialogue system, with partially voiced characters, lets you do almost anything.

Carve your unique path across the city​. Explore, manipulate, collect tare or become a millionaire in an open world unlike anything you've seen before. The city of Revachol is yours for the taking, one small piece at a time. From the streets to the beaches – and beyond.

Hard boiled, hard core. ​Death, sex, taxes and disco – nothing is off the table. Revachol is a real place with real challenges. Solve a massive murder investigation, or relax and kick back with sprawling side-cases. The detective decides, the citizens abide. 

The demo of Solasta will be leaving Steam on October 18, as they want to focus only on further development of the game.

Every good thing comes to an end. On Friday October 18th at 7 am PDT / 10 am EDT / 4 pm CEST, Solasta: Crown of the Magister's Pre-Alpha Demo will be leaving our Steam Page for good. If you haven't played it already, don't wait! The Ruins of Telema will finally close their doors to would-be adventurers looking for thrills and treasures soon.

The team will be switching focus to working on the final game to deliver you an entrée worthy of the appetiser that was the Demo! And don't worry, we aren't going to leave you hanging - we're still going to be posting news regularly.

An alpha version of Legend of Keepers has been released and is available for free in the Steam store.

Legend of Keepers: Prologue is a free playable alpha demo of Legend of Keepers. It's a tactical dungeon management game where you play as the bad guys! You're the Boss of the Dungeons Defending Department and need to protect the company's treasures against pesky heroes! This version of the game contains around 1-2 hours of gameplay and introduces Legend of Keepers mechanics, lore building and game strategy.

Features

• Place traps, launch spells and slay these damn heroes looting your dungeons
• Fight with your monsters and discover their unique abilities
• Hire monsters, manage your employees and your stock of traps
• Deal with employees strikes and other fun events

RogueDefender

Each run will be different but players will keep some bonuses for their master between runs. In fact, our game is a mix between Roguelite and a Dungeon Management. How did we achieve that? We've run many tests to find the perfect mix between a management and a dungeon phase!

Daedalic is going to publish Action Squad Studio's RPG Iron Danger, which is an RPG which features a rather unique combat system:

The steam page reads:

You have control over time

The core of Iron Danger is its unique time control mechanic. You can rewind time for up to 5 seconds whenever you want, trying different strategies and combinations of moves until you find the right one for the task at hand.

The time manipulation allows us to combine real-time combat gameplay with controls from more traditional, tactical turn-based combat games. This gives tactical combat a puzzle-like element, as you can continuously keep trying new approaches to turn impossible odds to your advantage and synchronize the actions of your characters for the perfect outcome.

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Thanks Kordanor!

ACG has reviewed Disco Elysium:

Disco Elysium Review "Buy, Wait for Sale, Rent, Never Touch?"

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Midlife Gamer checked out the action RPG Zenith:

Zenith – Review

From the outset, Zenith forcefully conveys its difference from other modern Action-RPGs with its distinctive aesthetic, satirical humour and ArcanePunk setting, and while it achieves this aim, it is not all a positive distinction.

When we meet our protagonist, Argus Wendell, he has been apprehended by Elves from the Homogeny, who are currently at war with the empire that Argus serves as an Imperial Wizard and member of the Infinigon. It is in this first conversation that the level of humour is established, as Argus attempts to distract his captors with tales of running from “Tenor Spiders” that sing as they attack, only for the camera to pan to reveal the very Spiders the Elves mocked awaiting their moment to pounce, accompanied by an acapella attack song.

The story continues apace with Argus and his mage colleagues racing to unlock a forgotten temple before the Elves, recovering an ancient artifact that could turn the tide of the war and earning promotions for their efforts.

The story then jumps forward seven years, to find Argus has settled down in a quiet town to become a potionist, (the most maligned role for a Mage), and the empire has collapsed entirely in the intervening years. It is not long before you discover adventurers are sniffing about a nearby dungeon and Argus is catapulted back into the world of elves, empires and ancient weapons.

[...]

Despite the clunky and sometimes frustrating combat, the relatively light touch armoury, skill and weapon systems, and the clunky controls I found I enjoyed the game overall. It was short enough to keep things interesting and moving along at a decent pace while the unique story, quirky dialogue and numerous nods to rpg tropes and pop culture hit the mark more often than not.

Score: 5/10

It doesn't look like Divinity: Fallen Heroes is going to be released, as all development on the game has ceased.

It is with a profound sense of regret that today we announce Divinity: Fallen Heroes has been put on hold, as we fondly celebrate the work done so far. We’ve been working with Logic Artists for over a year since before the announcement on March 27, 2019. Though enthused by the reception of the announcement and the energy of our fans, we have taken many things into consideration over the course of the last few months, and today we’re ready to talk about its future.

Originally scheduled for a November 2019 release, it has become clear to everyone involved that the game will need far greater development time and resources than are available now to bring it to fruition, in a fun and sustainable way.

Going forward, we at Larian will continue to work on Baldur’s Gate 3 with news coming soon, and Logic Artists will be focusing on their own Expeditions games. As an independent developer ourselves, we understand and value the importance of a developer investing into their own IPs, and their own future.

We’re sorry for the players excited for Fallen Heroes, who will have to wait an unspecified period of time, but we strongly believe that bringing Fallen Heroes to fans should be done in a timeline that allows it to be developed soundly.

We value the work that everyone has put in to Fallen Heroes, and though we lament its status as of now, we all agree that there’s a great game in there that will sometime reach the players who await it.

Logic Artists shared the following statement: “It's always sad to put an exciting project on hold, but sometimes the realities of development and release schedules simply assert themselves in ways that are outside anyone's control. It's been an incredible honour to work with Larian on their Divinity IP, and everyone at Logic Artists has been blown away by how helpful and welcoming Larian has been throughout the project.

There's no doubt we've learned much that will benefit our own projects in the future, and we'll always be grateful for that experience. As our own team pivots to focus fully on the third installment of the Expeditions series and a new IP of our very own, we wish Larian the best of luck with Baldur's Gate 3. We can't wait to play it!”

RPS has made a list of the 50 best RPGs, in their opinion, that are still playable today.

Look! A ranking of the 50 best RPGs on PC. I know, you never asked for this, but here it is. It is 100 percent correct, we double-checked. The RPG is a broad and deep sea and fishing out the best games from its characterful waters is no easy task. But we are capable fishers on the good ship RPS, and know when to humanely throw back a tiddler or fight to heave up a monster. Enough of this salty metaphor. Here are the 50 best RPGs you can play on PC today.

Last time we did this we tried to cover the entire history of computer roleplaying games. A daunting task. This time we’ve given more space to games you can feasibly play today without howling in disgust at low resolutions. In short: we sent a bunch of older games floating away on a slab of ice. Sorry, dad. That’s not to say you won’t find classics. Some of these RPGs are still more than 20 years old.

As with all of our Best Of features, the scope of the genre is broad rather than narrow. For RPGs, character development is important, as is a world in which you can do more than simply kill. Inventory management is nice, as is a setting that establishes a solid sense of place in which to play the role you inhabit, whether that’s wanderer, bandit, farmer, or pyromancer.

There are notes below the write-up for each game, telling you where you can buy it (or download it for free in some cases), as well as links to other articles about each game, and where to look next if you’re hankering for something similar.

[...]

1. Dark Souls
2. Divinity: Original Sin 2 (new entry)
3. Baldur’s Gate 2
4. Mass Effect 2
5. Dragon Age: Origins
6. Deus Ex
7. The Witcher 3
8. Undertale (new entry)
9. System Shock 2
10. Planescape: Torment
11. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
12. Dark Souls 3 (new entry)
13. Divinity: Original Sin
14. Stardew Valley (new entry)
15. Dwarf Fortress
16. Nier: Automata (new entry)
17. Pillars of Eternity
18. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (new entry)
19. Vampire: Bloodlines
20. NEO Scavenger
21. Skyrim
22. Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic
23. Sunless Skies (new entry)
24. Fallout: New Vegas
25. Mount & Blade: Warband (new entry)
26. Legend of Grimrock II
27. Darkest Dungeon
28. Fallout
29. Ultima VII
30. The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall
31. Banner Saga
32. Anachranox
33. Shadowrun Dragonfall Director’s Cut
34. UnReal World
35. Din’s Curse
36. ADOM
37. Titan Quest
38. Neverwinter Nights 2
39. Brogue
40. King Of Dragon Pass (new entry)
41. Wasteland 2
42. Avernum: Escape From The Pit
43. Wizardry VIII
44. Kenshi (new entry)
45. Recettear: An Item’s Shop Tale
46. Torchlight 2
47. Diablo II
48. Risen
49. Monster Hunter World (new entry)
50. Hand of Fate
51. The game you love.

The Steam page for The Dark Eye: Book of Heroes is up, offering some English information.

Also the first two pages of a Book of Heroes comic are available, here and here.

GameRant looks back at the Baldur's Gate series:

Remembering What Made The Baldur’s Gate Trilogy Special

With enhanced editions hitting consoles later this week for the first time ever and a Baldur's Gate 3 finally incoming, it's time to talk about one critically important staple of the western RPG genre. Over 20 years after its creation and despite countless competitors cropping up over the decades, the Baldur’s Gate trilogy is still among the greatest RPGs ever made.

The first Baldur's Gate released in 1998, with Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn following in 2000 and the final chapter Baldur's Gate 2: Throne of Bhaal concluding the trilogy's arc. Set in popular Dungeons & Dragons setting the Forgotten Realms, the Baldur's Gate trilogy functions like a one-on-one D&D campaign of epic proportions, with the game acting as Dungeon Master.

[...]

Game Space has reviewed WARSAW:

WARSAW PC Review – These Are Tough Times

Being an adventure gamer and playing games that are known to have a lot of text would have one think I’d be a better book reader. I love comic books, just not a big textbook reader. Maybe this is because they have too few pictures? It’s not a stretch then to imagine that I’m not very good with history either. So when a game shows up that mixes in some historical context, and one that deals with my Polish heritage, then it can only be a win-win for me to play it, right? This is our Steam PC review of Pixelated Milk‘s WARSAW game.

[...]

Summary
WARSAW is a deep tactical RPG with plenty of historical content. The game has a higher than normal difficulty level that makes winning even more rewarding. The rogue-like nature of the game also makes you consider your choices. You'll become so entrenched in the story and your resistance squad that losses will leave a mark. The only other open question is, when can we have this on the Nintendo Switch? 

Score: 9/10

Geek Dad has reviewed Ashes of Oahu:

Review: ‘Ashes of Oahu’ on Steam/PC

Ashes of Oahu comes to PC

Background
I have been playing post-apocalyptic RPGs on the PC since the 1990s, and even though the games have changed in look and quality, for the most part they were all set in burnt-out worlds without much color or flair. So when I first saw images of Ashes of Oahu, I was intrigued to see what the game had to offer. I have always been a big fan of Hawaiian and Polynesian culture. Visiting the islands several times myself, they have always been one of my favorite settings. In all of those visits, the one thing that never came to my mind was what would happen if they were a post-apocalyptic setting.

[...]

Score: 7/10

Fudj asks 'What Even Is An RPG Anymore?'

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What happened to the phrase "RPG"? When did we suddenly start attributing the phrase to what feels like 50% of modern games? What even is an RPG anymore? Should I let the robot in Fallout: New Vegas fist me? The answer to all these questions and more await you.
(I swear this video is not meant to be a Kingdom Hearts hit piece please don't hate me KH fans k thanks bye)

Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones has been reviewed by RPG Codex.

Controversial Features

The first controversial decision you'll notice is that there is no manual saving; only ten rolling autosaves and save-and-quit (which are also part of the roll, so they can be lost). There also aren't any save profiles, meaning if you want to try out another character before finishing, all your progress is lost. The developers have promised to patch this out, but as it is now, it's not so bad (other than the lack of profiles). Areas are small enough so that saves are frequent, and there's never more than one combat encounter per map. I lived with my bad substance-addiction rolls and some of my less-than-ideal decisions and made it to the end.

The second is the bane of numerous RPG players: time limits. If you go without rations, you'll go hungry, get stat penalties, and eventually starve to death. If you go without sleep, you'll get fatigued and eventually end up with heavier stat penalties, and resting is never free, requiring either money or camping supplies (which are rarely found in the world itself). Making matters worse, the passage of time is opaque to the player, though the developers claim the meters remain paused during dialogue, menu screens, and combat. A few hours in, you'll find yourself rolling in enough money that these will be mere nuisance mechanics, but I don't believe they belong here to begin with. Why make any player feel rushed? First, this has a relatively short length for a role-playing game. Second, it isn't a hardcore dungeon crawl or survival game. Third, there are a lot of text descriptions in the world one can read that a time limit will make one want to avoid entirely. It's like tacking on a day/night cycle and a periodically-draining blood meter to Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines; just obnoxious. It's also not like there are a lack of strategic gameplay elements; the management of health and sanity meters is sufficient.

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COG checked out Indivisible:

Indivisible Review – Mind Over Matter

Indivisible Review

Way back in 2015, when the world was still twerking to Uptown Funk!, Lab Zero Games, developers of the hit game Skullgirls, put together an IndieGoGo campaign for a brand new project. After 30,000 backers, 2.5 million dollars raised, and four years of development, Indivisible has finally arrived. Indivisible combines beautifully hand-drawn visuals with action RPG gameplay elements to produce a fresh gaming experience. Featuring a unique story that starts as a tale of revenge and evolves into an epic, world-saving event, starring a special young woman with the ability to absorb her allies into her mind. You probably haven’t played anything quite like this.

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Score: 75/100

Gameplay of Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthblood will be shown at PDXCON, Berlin.

Lesquin, France, October 10, 2019 – Announced for the first time at E3 2019, Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood, developed by Cyanide and published by Bigben, will be unveiled at PDXCON on October 18, 19 and 20 in Berlin. On Saturday fans will be able to watch an exclusive game trailer and then Julien Desourteaux, Game Director at Cyanide, will take the stage to reveal more information about the game during a keynote speech.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthblood is the first action-RPG game adaptation of the iconic role-playing game. Become Cahal, a banished werewolf, forced to return to aid of his endangered Tribe and master the devastating Rage within him to punish all those that would pollute, destroy, and corrupt our Mother Earth, Gaïa. On his bloody quest for redemption, Cahal will play a pivotal role in the Great War of the Garou against Pentex, a powerful corporation whose activities are upsetting the balance of nature.

The livestream of that event can be watched at the paradox Twitch channel.

The following teaser video has also been released: