The RPG Files

Absolver is a solid blend of Action RPG, Kung Fu fest, and mysterious Souls-like journey. Its real legs come in the form of PVP and sharing/creating Schools of combat, but the short-lived story campaign is nothing to be sneezed at either. Read on for our review of Sloclap’s online combat-fueled ARPG, Absolver.

Fornite’s Early Access version is finally out. Chris dug in and camped out, to take a deep look at the game and let you know just how it stacks up. After years in development, is it worth your time? Read on for our official Early Access review.

Last week, Chris was received his first VR headset in the HTC Vive. Like any RPG fan he immediately went about trying every RPG he could get my hands on. In his search, he discovered Vanishing Realms, the RPG that is not an RPG, and offers one of the best VR experiences he’s had to date. This small indie game has lessons to teach Bethesda as they release Fallout and Skyrim for the VR.

E3 has come and gone and in the wake of the incredible hype machine that is back to back publisher conferences, the biggest game reveals are clear: EA Bioware’s Anthem and Activision Blizzard’s, Destiny 2. Everything we know so far says that these two games are taking aim at the exact same group of gamers. It’s poised to be a battle between two massive publishers and renowned development studios for the time and money of you the gamer. Let’s talk about how that might shake out.

It seems like only a few months back that Lightseekers went to Kickstarter to build a new kind of Toys to Life Action RPG in the vein of Skylanders, but for mobile devices. Not only is there a Free to Play ARPG on iOS and Android, but there’s also a fully-developer physical card battle game out in the wild too.

Rumors are swirling about Dragon Age 4, and fans and pundits are speculating that E3 might be the place we find out more. With it being so far from release, we have to ask - would it be better if they kept it under wraps? Read this week’s RPG Files to find out.

Recently I spent some time with ‘Steam Hammer’, a steampunk take on the survival genre currently in Early Access on Steam. After several hours of digging, running, building and dying I have walked away with some mixed feelings on this Steampunk Survival game. This is our preview of the Early Access title ‘Steam Hammer’.

Clones: we’ve all seen them. As MMO players, we saw a whole generation of MMORPGs “WoW clones” attempting to cash in on World of Warcraft’s success. Deck 13 had the label thrown at their first game, Lords of the Fallen, a dark fantasy RPG which played it close to the Dark Souls formula. This week they released their second action RPG, The Surge, and are hearing it again.

To make this easy, The Surge is Edge of Tomorrow meets Dark Souls, which is a very apt analogy now that I think about it. The grungy sci-fi setting mixed with gameplay that can be broken down as Live, Die, Repeat, Break controller in an uncontrollable rage fit. Yup. Sounds about right.

Arkane Studios released their latest action RPG, Prey, last week and it’s already on shaky ground. Despite critical favor and a whole lot of positive word of mouth, we might be witnessing the biggest failure of Bethesda marketing in some time. This week in the RPG Files, we’re going to look beyond Metacritic and what our gaming friends are saying. Although according to Google Trends, they’re not saying much of anything.

I decided to take down the horse’s head. My party had been traveling for a couple of days, it was the middle of the night, and I was on a hunt. In the darkness, I came upon the stranger lifting the severed head on a post, mounted in the animal’s broken body. It was meant to be a curse on a man who had done him wrong, but we were desperate and needed meat. I told him what he wanted to hear and even helped him raise the head before he faded into the trees.

Expeditions: Viking, the indie RPG about raiding, pillaging, and excellent beards, is out this week and it’s worth your attention. No, really, go check it out. See, as a game’s media, we have a habit of collectively talking pushing what’s new and exciting only to turn to the next shiny game with a marketing budget. The little guys tend to get left behind. That shouldn’t happen here. Expeditions: Viking is something special and I’m having a blast digging into it.

Last week, we were able to go hands-on with a preview build of Galaxy of Pen and Paper, the follow-up to Behold Studio’s indie hit, Knights of Pen and Paper. After getting a taste of this retro-inspired lampoon of tabletop roleplaying, we had to know more. Saulo Camarotti, Co-Founder of Behold and Producer on Galaxy of Pen and Paper was kind enough to let us pick his brain.

Mass Effect: Andromeda came in hot and landed in a cloud of disappointment… or some would have you believe. Others shout from the hilltops that it’s a failure, as bad as a Mass Effect could possibly be, that it’s the Arkham Origins of the Mass Effect universe. We’ve come to a place where the power of expectation and Twitter group think leads us to believe that a 76 on Metacritic is a failure. This week in the RPG Files, we take a Twitter break and try to see things like they really are.

Vikings: Wolves of Midgard is an upcoming action RPG for Windows PC, Mac, Linux, Xbox One and PS4. It will set players on adventure through the world built around Scandinavian mythology sprinkled with fantasy and filled with many familiar characters and memorable places from it. As far as I am concerned, there are not enough Viking games out there. Ever wanted to visit Niflheim or take battle to the Jotans? Then this might be just the game for you.