“It’s something I think Valve does not get anywhere near enough criticism about,” said Hall. “I’m honestly disgusted with gambling mechanics in video games at all – they have absolutely no place.”

He went on to also call out other developers that don’t think that predatory monetisation practices are a problem. Hall says that they should start providing raw data to the researchers who are actually interesting in seeing whether or not there are actual problems that needs addressing.

“My challenge to game developers,” he said, “is that if they think these things are not a problem, they make the data available to universities who are crying out to study this stuff.”

Valve helped popularise many of the monetisation methods that we’ve seen popping up in games over the last decade. While Team Fortress 2 was far from the first title to feature loot boxes, it did popularise the system, which would then go on to play an even larger role in the in-game economy of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Counter-Strike 2. Similarly, Dota 2 helped usher in the concept of a Battle Pass.

Hall also acknowledged that his own game – Icarus – has several DLCs that have been released since the survival crafting title launched in 2021. Referring to this as the Paradox model – named after the publisher that tends to release several DLCs for its games – he also said that it was the model that studio RocketWerkz needs to use to survive.

“I’m not happy either,” Hall said. “I agree with a lot of the people who get mad about the DLC approach. I don’t really like the Icarus approach. We needed it to survive.”

“I actually think a lot of gamers don’t realise that 99 percent of devs out there are sitting there going, I don’t like this. So who’s winning? Because it’s sure not us. There’s a lot of game studios like mine that are just holding on and trying to keep making the games we want to make, but not necessarily happy with how they monetise.”

With the next title that RocketWerkz is working on, Hall has said that he wants to find a different method of monetisation. The title – dubbed Kitten Space Agency – is quite heavily inspired by Kerbal Space Program, and will have players building rockets and spacecrafts to fly out into space. It’s free, but those who like it can pay to support its development.

“I want to find a different way,” said Hall. “We’ve got to do something. We’ve got to try something. And if there’s ever a game that deserves trying that, it’s a [Kerbal Space Program]-style game. That’s one game, I think maybe we can try and do something different. We say games can inspire, and inspiration should be free, which is kind of a tagline with [Kitten Space Agency]. I think the game deserves better, I really do – I think the game deserves to be free.”

The Souls-like action RPG is playable for PS4 and PS5 subscribers. Based on the tale of Pinocchio, players control P, who must explore the city of Krat after all its puppets suddenly go on a killing spree. He must find Geppetto, his creator, and ultimately seek an answer for what’s going on.

Combat is a mix of Bloodborne and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, with some gorgeous environments and challenging boss fights. It recently received a paid story DLC, Overture, which you can learn more about in our review.

DayZ and My Hero One’s Justice 2 are both playable on PS4 (and PS5 via backwards compatibility). The former is a long-running survival game set on a large map with roaming zombies. Your goal is to scrounge for materials and survive, especially since dying will leave you with nothing, and either cooperate or deal with other survivors.

The latter is Bandai Namco’s 2020 fighter based on the My Hero Academia manga/anime. While it received praise for its visuals, the combat, camera, and story mode were criticized.

On December 5th, Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass subscribers can look forward to EA Sports WRC on cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X/S via EA Play. Overthrown also enters early access via Game Preview for the same platforms. December 9th sees the arrival of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, followed by Wildfrost on December 10th.

The second wave of titles for the month is unknown, but Microsoft already has the first week of 2025 outlined. It starts with Carrion for consoles, cloud, and PC across all Game Pass tiers on January 2nd, followed by Road 96 on January 7th for the same.

As for the titles leaving the service, there’s a double whammy of departures. The following titles will be gone on December 15th:

• Amnesia: The Bunker (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Forager (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Forza Horizon 4 (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Rainbow Billy: The Curse of the Leviathan (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Rise of the Tomb Raider (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Tin Hearts (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• The Quarry (Cloud and Console)

Then on December 31st, another batch of titles will no longer be available for subscribers:

• BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Close to the Sun (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Humankind (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Lego 2K Drive (Cloud and Console)
• McPixel 3 (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Party Animals (Cloud and Console)

DRAGON’S DOGMA 2

Most companies developing a long-awaited sequel to a relatively niche game that was considered too opaque by many who played it would have tried to streamline things to appeal to a broader crowd, but with Dragon’s Dogma 2, Capcom not only stuck to its original vision, it doubled down on it. Whether its through its lack of quest guidance, the by-design unreliability of its autosaves, its limited fast travel options, or mechanics such as Dragonsplague, Dragon’s Dogma 2 is all about creating engagement and memorable gameplay through an abundance of friction. Something like that can easily break an entire experience, but Dragon’s Dogma 2 thrives with that approach.

ELDEN RING

Elden Ring obviously had to be on this list. FromSoftware’s design ethos has always revolved around offering players as little guidance as possible, something that has enabled some truly excellent experiences over the years, and that same philosophy enables Elden Ring to craft a spectacular open world. Funnily enough, with its generous checkpointing and fast travel system, Elden Ring actually feels more hospitable than previous From titles in some regards, but the feeling of absolute freedom to go anywhere in its massive, gorgeous, intimidating world isn’t something that many other games have been able to nail in the past- or at least not nearly as well as Elden Ring did.

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: TEARS OF THE KINGDOM

Even if Tears of the Kingdom had been a cut-paste follow-up to Breath of the Wild, its open world experience would have merited it a place on this feature, with the whole point of these games being to place no restrictions and offer no suggestions to players about how they should play. All of that is, of course, present and accounted for in Tears– but this is also a significantly larger and more complex game than its predecessor, which makes it that much more impressive to see how well it balances its lack of handholding and how easy it is to grasp its core concepts. Tears of the Kingdom very rarely nudges you in any specific direction, because it has the confidence that no matter what you do, you’re going to end up having fun- and honestly, that confidence is well earned.

OUTER WILDS

Outer Wilds is obviously not your typical open world game, to the extent that labelling it as an open world experience almost feels inaccurate, even if it isn’t on paper. How it’s structured has a huge hand in that. As you go through multiple, repeated 22-minute loops and explore more and more of its mysterious space setting, the pieces of its narrative puzzle slowly start falling into place, and as its many fans will tell you, that’s only as effective as it is because the game goes out of its way to stay out of yours. You’re the master of your own destiny in Outer Wilds, and the game simply cannot be praised enough for how confidently it gives you the freedom to unravel its tantalizing mysterious however you wish.

SUBNAUTICA

In Subnautica, you crash on an alien planet and find yourself in hostile underwater locations. Your only objective? Survive, and find a way off-world. How you choose to do that in its oceanic setting is left up to you. Braving the surreal yet alien depths of its underwater locations, you constantly have an abundance of choices to make, with very little restrictions placed on you in where you want to go, what you want to explore, or what you want to build. The fact that the game manages to have the balanced progression curve that it does in spite of how hands-off it is for the vast majority of the times probably doesn’t get as much recognition as it should.

SONS OF THE FOREST

Sons of the Forest isn’t a friendly game. It’s setting is brutal and harsh, it’s brimming with nightmare-fuel of the scariest kind, and mechanically, it’s not afraid to piss you off with how opaque it can be from time to time. But though all of that could easily turn many people off, its harshness is exactly what makes Sons of the Forest the brilliant game that it is. Every second you spent on its cannibal-infested island is the definition of a waking nightmare, and the fact that the game makes no effort to make that experience even slightly pleasant for you only makes its terrifying offerings stand out in memory that much more.

OUTCAST

Easily one of the oldest games on this list, but a feature like this one would be incomplete without any mention of Outcast. Recognized as one of the first true open world games ever made, above all else, Outcast emphasized immersion. A lot of that came through the use of diegetic elements rather than the overreliance on UI that modern open world titles have become known for, which, paired with the game’s focus on player freedom and agency, made for a game that, for its time, felt truly limitless. Obviously, it had a great deal of technical issues (especially if you play it today, even if you’re playing the remaster), but from a design perspective, it was very much ahead of its time.

METRO EXODUS

Metro Exodus isn’t a fully open world game, instead letting players explore a series of larger, semi-open maps, but it uses its openness to great effect, because never does it feel like it’s inundating you with pointless, filler content, or offering excessive guidance in what to do, or how to do the things that you’re doing. That was, of course, the case with its predecessors as well, but Metro Exodus takes those elements and cranks them up to eleven. Conserving ammo, dealing with the dangers of a post-nuclear wasteland, finding your way around environments, and hell, even using a map- almost nothing in this game feels “gamified”, for the lack of a better word.

KENSHI

Kenshi is definitely a flawed game, especially from a technical perspective, but if you’re aching for an open world RPG sandbox that lets you have whatever kind of adventure you want, it’s well worth a look. The level of systemic and mechanical depth on offer here is almost staggering, to the extent that it can be a bit much in the early hours, but once you get to grips with it, it’s hard not to be taken aback by the agency that you as a player are constantly afforded in Kenshi.

ARK: SURVIVAL EVOLVED

Like a few other survival games (some of which are on this list), Ark: Survival Evolved prides itself on being almost entirely devoid of handholding, to the extent that it can be almost intimidating to completely new players jumping in for the first time. Its large, unforgiving open world is brimming with a variety of different challenging, and figuring out not only how to get past them, but even learning what those challenges are, is left entirely to you and your ability to explore, discover things, and improve at the game.

VALHEIM

Yep, another survival game- this is a a genre that lends itself incredibly well to the no-handholding philosophy. Valheim is admittedly a little bit more welcoming than a lot of the other games we’ve spoken about on this feature, but even so, when you first jump in, the game tells you awfully little about how to move things forward. Thankfully, everything from combat to exploration to gathering resources to building your bases is a hell of a lot of fun in Valheim, so even when the game’s being a bit opaque about what it wants you to do, it’s still a hell of a lot of fun.

The new patch, update 1.17, adds a significant amount of changes and fixes to the console port, such as new weapons like the CR-550 Savanna rifle, the Longhorn pistol, the P1 pistol, and more. QoL changes such as sensitivity settings for various scope options along with a new optional control scheme have also been added.

Additionally, tweaks and changes are also abound, such as a reworked Nizhnoye village on Chernarus, while audio fixes and rendering exploits have also been addressed through the update. Check out the update notes and the update’s new trailer below.

DayZ and its console versions are available to play on PC via Steam, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

DayZ Console Update 1.17

ADDED

• CR-550 Savanna rifle
• Longhorn pistol
• P1 pistol
• Craft-able Spear (Bone & Stone head variants)
• Pitchfork
• Craft-able Bone knife
• Cleaver
• Meat tenderizer
• Kitchen timer
• Craft-able Fireplace stand
• Brooms can be lit and used as a torch
• Improvised clothes from rags
• Improvised Rope Belt
• Improvised gas mask filter
• Gas mask filters can now be refilled with charcoal tablets
• Sensitivity settings for various scope options
• New optional control scheme
• Bark can be harvested with axes now
• Cookware is slowly getting damaged by being used
• Gas mask filters get damaged while in use
• Voice activation setting for voice chat
• Scroll through multiple actions can be now done via mouse wheel
• New point of interest on Livonia

FIXED

• Gear could not be added to other player’s inventories
  
• The sound of hitting an obstacle with a vehicle while reversing wasn’t played
• Dropped items were pushed upwards in certain situations
  
• During punching the player would turn sideways in some situations
• The sound of the Sarka 120 engine came from the front, whereas the engine is in the back
• Shelters weren’t build-able on some places
• A burned-out fireplace is no longer producing light
• Canceling activation of the bear trap and landmine caused errors
• The visual effect of the contaminated area partly persisted after it was despawned
• Focus zoom briefly reset during several actions in the 1st person
• Hair clipped with NVG head strap on female characters
• An incorrect texture of ruined wheels caused a server error on restart
• Fixed rendering exploits related to buildings
• Players could climb through closed windows on some buildings
• The Player was able to pick up the fire barrel while items were attached to it
• The sound of starting/stopping engine was not present for other players
• Sound of opening or closing attachments was not present for other players
  
• The sound of turning on/off the alarm clock wasn’t audible for other players
• A staircase handrail was missing a collision
• The attachment icon didn’t correctly reflect attached optics and rails on weapons
  
• Attaching more nails to the flag pole caused errors
• Sharpened wooden sticks caused errors when damaged
• Filtering server by favorited gives error: 9 in server browser
• Traps did not react to vehicles
• Light and heavy melee attack combinations would sometimes result in too much damage
• Fixed several environment issues on Chernarus and Livonia
• Certain gestures would make the character float above the ground when executed in prone
  
• Sound of ear ringing caused by the flash grenade could get stuck at some situations
• Ruined Zmijovka hat didn’t properly reflect its state
• Mouse cursor was invisible in the respawn menu

CHANGED

• Reworked Nizhnoye village on Chernarus
• Adding a favorite server when already at max (25) will throw an error instead of removing a random favorite
• VOIP (any) is not available while in inventory. If VA is active, the player can keep speaking though
• VOIP “push-to-talk” and “toggle voice activation” have been moved from DPAD-down to DPAD-left
• VOIP “volume range up/down” has been added as DPAD-left + RB/LB
• “Cycle fire mode” has been moved from DPAD-left to LT (I.E.  while in raised hands) + DPAD-right
• While in vehicle, “accelerate” now behaves as an axis and can be modulated (instead of being on/off)
• Heavy attack is now triggered by “Press Y” instead of “Hold Y”
• A new optional control scheme added
• Mic continues to listen to the player for 0.5 s after they let go of the push-to-talk button
• All heat sources are now emitting heat
• Drain and pour liquid actions are now properly separated
• Adjusted the wolf model to allow a more precise head-shot
• The burning duration of torches now correctly depends on the amount of fuel
• Cooking without lard/water now reduces the weight of the burned food
• Weapon sway increases while the character is rolling
• Fireplaces start heating up the player character faster now
• Position of the light source for Sarka 120 when only a single headlight is on was set to the proper position
• Players are no longer able to get into a vehicle while holding a heavy item
• Stone knifes can no longer be sharpened with a sharpening stone
• Action inputs will be prioritized over inventory actions (e.g. climbing a ladder before dropping your item in hands)
• Closing the inventory wasn’t possible with the view button after assigning an item to a quick slot
• Updated the game credits

Update: Bohemia Interactive remains independent according to the company’s head of marketing Petr Poláček. Speaking to Hospodářské Noviny, he said that, “It’s not true. Tencent didn’t buy us. Bohemia Interactive remains an independent studio. We don’t know where this information came from.”

Original Story:

Bohemia Interactive is apparently the latest studio to have a majority stake acquired by Chinese conglomerate Tencent. According to a report by The Information, which spoke to a source with knowledge of the deal, a 70 to 80 percent stake in the DayZ studio was acquired for about $260 million. Tencent and Bohemia didn’t comment on the deal.

The two have worked together before – Tencent publishes Bohemia’s Ylands on its WeGame platform. Niko Partners senior analyst Daniel Ahmad noted that this was part of the company’s plan to cater to players of PC sandbox titles in China. “Tencent is filling a gap in PC sandbox games as they don’t have their own self-published titles,” said Ahmad. NetEase is currently distributing Mojang’s Minecraft in China so this could be seen as means of competing.

In the bigger picture, this is another significant acquisition for Tencent. The company owns a majority stake in Path of Exile developer Grinding Gear Games. It also acquired a stake in Fatshark which develops Warhammer: Vermintide 2 along with investing in PlatinumGames as it looks more towards self-publishing its titles. How this affects long-term plans for DayZ and Ylands remains to be seen so stay tuned.

Microsoft has revealed the newest slate of titles coming to Xbox Game Pass for consoles in May, starting with today’s releases of Bohemia Interactive’s DayZ and Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption 2. The former is known for its long development cycle and survival sandbox mechanics. The latter is considered as one of the best games of the generation, with 29 million units shipped till date.

Old school Final Fantasy fans can look forward to the release of Final Fantasy 9 on May 14th. Then there’s Fractured Minds, an indie title that looks at mental health issues by providing challenges that affected invidiuals will experience. It’s out on May 19th for Game Pass.

Of course, there will be quite a few titles exiting this month as well. Rockstar’s own Grand Theft Auto 5 will be gone today, while May 15th sees games like Metal Gear Survive, DOOM, Black Desert, The Banner Saga, and Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus, among others. Enjoy them while they’re still around and stay tuned for more releases to be announced for Xbox Game Pass this month.

Bohemia Interactive has announced that a new map Livonia is coming to its survival title DayZ. It’s interesting because this is the second map ever for the game which has been stuck in Chernarus till now. Though no release date was provided, it will be out “soon” for Xbox One, PS4 and PC. Check out the trailer below.

Livonia measures 163 KM2 and is based off of ARMA 3’s recent Contact expansion map. Lush forested zones and rivers belie a relatively ruined world where you have to scrounge for resources. A new predator is also introduced in the form of Bears. Good luck figuring out how to fight them.

On top of all this, Livonia has rainfall and thunderstorms due to its season. How this will affect one’s chance of survival remains to be seen but you’re going to want to find some friends. Stay tuned for more details on Livonia’s release in the coming weeks/months.

DayZ came out on PS4 finally after a lengthy wait at the end of last month. It was big news for the game and those waiting, but it’s not the only good news  as it seems that those who have been putting off surviving in a harsh and unforgiving environment because of the lack of a disc will get their chance. The game is now confirmed to be getting a physical release this year.

It was announced today by publisher Sold Out that they will publish a physical copy of the game on both PS4 and Xbox One. The game is noted for its intense survival gameplay, where you are given minimal resources and must scavenge for more  as you face deadly threats in a post-zombie outbreak. Up to 60 survivors can be on one server, all trying their hand at surviving.

DayZ is available now for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC digitally. The physical release is scheduled to come out sometime later this year for the PS4 and Xbox One versions.

DayZ is one of those interesting games that has had a pretty wild history. Originally released as a mod for Arma II, it proved popular enough that developer Bohemia Interactive decided to spin it off into its own game that’s garnered it’s own following. Now that game is finally making its way to Sony’s PS4 after several years.

DayZ is a zombie game, but unlike many shooters where the focus is on gunning down as many of the undead as possible, it focuses on survival against the harsh realities of an outbreak. You start with minimal resources and must scavenge for more, along with weapons.

The game was originally released on PC in 2018 after a five year-long early access period, with console versions announced to come later. It made its way to Xbox One along with several updates, but is just now finally getting to the PS4 this week, according to the developer.

DayZ is available now for Xbox One and PC, with the PlayStation 4 version releasing May 29^th.