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"Time will tell": Bit Reactor talk queerness in Star Wars: Zero Company and whether they'll keep working with Saudi-owned EA
PC

"Time will tell": Bit Reactor talk queerness in Star Wars: Zero Company and whether they'll keep working with Saudi-owned EA

In Bit Reactor's XCOM-style tactics RPG Star Wars: Zero Company, you play a custom character called Hawks who is referred to using they/them pronouns. With my armchair producer hat on, I suspect this is partly just a way to avoid recording several sets of voice lines for different player pronoun choices. But Zero Company as a whole does support expressions of gender that differ from heteronormative male and female archetypes – or at least, which differ enough to make me, a cisgender writ

Knytt, one of 2006's most charming indie platformers, has a surprise Steam re-release - and it’s still free
PC

Knytt, one of 2006's most charming indie platformers, has a surprise Steam re-release - and it’s still free

2006 saw, among such other major events as analogue TV being switched off in Luxembourg, the release of Knytt: a breezy freeware platformer in which you spend a nice couple of hours gathering up parts for your crashed spaceship. While not entirely devoid of light peril, so tranquil and airily atmospheric was Knytt’s run-and-jumpery that someone once asked, among these very pages, whether you could consider it a walking simulator. Solo dev Nifflas has long since moved on, but Knytt itself

Mortal Shell 2 will let you lower its difficulty by making executions refill your health, or up the challenge by turning off the sun
PC

Mortal Shell 2 will let you lower its difficulty by making executions refill your health, or up the challenge by turning off the sun

While Soulslike Mortal Shell 2 doesn't feature traditional difficulty modes, developers Cold Symmetry have included a set of special items that let you tweak the challenge to your liking. As someone who just got back from a three-day cycle trip with friends who coasted up the hills on bikes fitted with fancy 12-speed rear cassettes loaded with extra, larger gear cogs, while I huffed and puffed on my 11-speed, this is an approach to difficulty I both recognise and envy. Read more