The biome is shrouded in darkness, which isn’t just for atmospheric purposes. You can’t attack any of the horrors lurking within without placing lighting. Iris is getting a range of new Eco-focused skills, which should increase your chances of survival.

Of course, the gameplay also showcases the overhauled Survival mode, which now offers rogue-lite upgrades. Players can select bonuses at the start, including +50 HP to all units or an extra Hunter. After surviving additional waves, upgrades like increased trap damage, additional buildings, etc., will become available.

Cataclismo launches on March 20th for PC. Stay tuned for more details on its content and features in the coming weeks.

The final Act offers six more scenarios, including a new biome, The Depths, where the darkness prevents units from attacking enemies. Players must build structures to counteract this, though it may not be so cut and dry. You can also look forward to Opaline Horrors, which are “more vicious and menacing” than other enemies.

The Depths will also be available in Survival, Skirmish (with two new handcrafted scenarios), and the Level Editor. Survival is getting a facelift, embracing a rogue-like structure with upgrades and “rock-paper-scissors mechanics.” Finally, Iris Renegade is getting some new skills.

Stay tuned for more detailed patch notes as Cataclismo’s full release nears. Digital Sun is also working on a sequel to Moonlighter, a fully 3D follow-up to its rogue-lite dungeon-crawling/merchant-focused action RPG. Head here for more details.

Compared to the original, Monaco 2 offers new crew members with unique abilities and roles. Some include Cosmo, the Socialist, who uses her charms to distract guards. Siciro, the Surgeon, specializes in knocking them out covertly, whether up close or at range.

Jobbie is the Inside Man, capable of hacking security systems and teleporting past tripwires. Finally, there’s Una, the Brute, taking down guards with bare-knuckle brawling, which is essential for escaping.

Overall, the sequel maintains the chaos and high stakes of the original, while the new 3D style looks sleek. Stay tuned for more details on Monaco 2′s mechanics and other rogues in the coming months.

In her post, Kwan stated that employees were told the company was shutting down, but Humble Games, which is owned by IGN, has said in a statement to Game Developer that the layoffs are a part of ongoing “restructuring” efforts that “involved much deliberation and careful thought, with the goal of ensuring the stability and support of our developers and ongoing projects”.

“We are acutely aware of the profound impact this decision has on our team members at Humble Games and deeply empathize with everyone affected,” the company said. “Our team’s contributions have been world-class and invaluable, supporting the launch of our games since we started publishing in 2017.”

Humble Games is the publishing label owned by the Humble Bundle platform. Established in 2017 with A Hat in Time being its debut game, it has published several other titles since then, including the likes of Slay the Spire, Unpacking, Temtem, Signalis, and Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical, among many others.

Utilizing a LEGO-like system for building, you can set up traps and choke points while moving units around. However, destroyed walls can damage troops, so monitoring defenses is important for survival. As players gain Prosperity, additional troops, upgrades, and buildings become available.

The early access version includes Campaign Mode with 11 levels across two biomes and full voice-acting, Skirmish Mode and Endless Mode. A Level Editor is also included alongside Steam Workshop support to enable sharing and downloading user-created maps and blueprints.

Additional biomes, levels and more will arrive over time, with the developer expecting to remain in early access “at least through the first months of 2025.” Stay tuned for more details in the meantime.

In a Steam Community post, the developer said the additional time allows it to “get everything in place for a successful early access launch.” It also clarified that despite being “fairly advanced in development,” Cataclismo is going the early access route for the sake of polish and to “ensure that the full release is as good as it can be.”

The early access version will feature the campaign with a tutorial and 11 levels across two biomes. There’s also Skirmish Mode, featuring two levels and biomes, alongside the procedurally generated maps in Endless Mode. Even the Level Editor is included, with the option to share maps among the community. Once again, only the two main biomes are available.

Digital Sun will add more biomes and features over time, with the campaign receiving new levels and Endless Mode slated for “additional content.” Stay tuned for more updates, and check out the latest trailer below.

During the daytime, players gather resources and create walls and traps while arranging their troops. The building mechanics are very LEGO-esque, but when at night, you must be ready for the Horrors. Be careful, though – as they destroy the walls, the falling bricks can slay them and your troops.

Knowing the best places to deploy troops and use their skills is important for survival. Stronger buildings, troops and equipment unlock at higher prosperity levels. Alongside a 30-hour campaign, there’s Survival Mode for fighting constant waves and Creative Mode for building without limits or combat. Skirmish, meanwhile, offers pre-made challenges to tackle. Stay tuned for more gameplay en route to release.

The story focuses on humanity struggling to survive in a world haunted by a mysterious mist. It generates various Horrors, and you’ll need to lead an expedition to a long-forgotten kingdom, building walls and towers to push them back. In addition to walls and assigning defenses, like crossbowmen artillery and traps, you can also “fold time.”

Different settings are available, like the Mist Sea and the Depths, necessitating different strategies. You’ll need to endure multiple sieges over time, so sending out scavengers for resources, researching new technologies and more is necessary. Of course, if you want to build without the tension of oncoming Horrors, there’s also a Creative Mode in addition to the campaign.

Cataclismo doesn’t have a release date, so stay tuned for more details in the coming months.

Moonscars is a metroidvania platformer with a dark, brooding art style. The game features a desaturated colour palette with highlights of contrasting colours like red and yellow.

Moonscars puts players into the shoes of protagonist Grey Irma. Sticking to its Dark Souls inspirations, the game hopes to teach players a new lesson with every death as they try and overcome seemingly-unsurmountable challenges.

As Grey Irma, players will be able to use quite a few combat abilities, such as attacks, parries, and even unique special weapons and magic spells dubbed Witchery.

Moonscars takes place in a dark fantasy setting, with a story described by studio Black Mermaid and publisher Humble Games as “filled with twists and intricate worldbuilding.”

Midnight Fight Express wastes no time getting you into the thick of things. With its story being told from the perspective of our captive hero Babyface as he recalls the various brawls and levels that lead up to that moment. These recollections are the stages you get to play through, and it only spends a couple minutes at the top introducing you to the situation. Babyface is a former criminal who finds himself enlisted by a mysterious drone into a final push to save the city from the same notorious gang of dangerous hooligans with which he was formerly associated, and that’s about all you need to know for a game like this, but Midnight Fight Express does make some notable strides to flesh out its world with highly detailed levels that really sell the setting of an overrun city on the brink and the occasional well-written conversation with foes and friends alike that you’ll come across throughout the game. Not to mention, the drone character dropping some exposition and gameplay tips here and there. It’s not a story or a cast of characters that will blow you away, but these efforts do bring out the game’s tone and personality well and add some extra pizazz that the game might have otherwise missed out on.

"It’s a genre that often finds itself far more concerned with style and execution than any major innovation, and Midnight Fight Express seems to have a very clear understanding of that with its attractive visuals, crunchy combat, and speedy sense of progression."

More important than anything though is how fun Midnight Fight Express makes bashing your way through its many altercations. The combat is fluid, fast, and kinetic. Standard combos are punctuated with lots of temporary weapons that you can throw or wield until they break, as well as throwable objects like trash cans and boxes that you can instantly send careening across the room to chip away at an enemy’s guard or just keep one occupied for a couple seconds while you focus on somebody else. I also like how we see any sort of hard lock-on function traded in for a subtle indicator of which enemy is currently being focused on, which makes aiming your attacks feel more manual, but still removes the mystery of who you’re aiming at. Which allows for the best of both worlds in a way.

The game has a healthy number of enemy types and after the quick introduction you’ll then be introduced to new sorts of foes at a steady clip and while they are nicely varied in concept, they do start to blur together rather fast. You’ve got larger brutes that are harder to stagger, blade-welding dicers, grapplers, and a nice selection of others, which, for the most part, don’t put up much of a fundamentally different type of challenge than their counterparts, but the variety still manages to contribute something towards the game feeling fuller than many of its contemporaries. As do some of the little scenes you’ll stumble into like enemies tormenting citizens or arguing amongst each other before they realize you’re there.

A stylish mix of occasional slow-motion finishers and an outstanding suite of punchy sound effects top off the combat nicely and keep it exciting well into the game’s 40 levels. As far as difficulty goes, I found it easy enough to mash my way through a lot of the game’s bigger brawls, especially if you upgrade the more passive abilities early on, but the game encourages variety and style so heavily, with bigger rewards at the end of the level and being able to save cool GIFs of your combat, that you’ll find yourself far more interested in mixing things up and challenging yourself with different approaches than merely surviving.

"A stylish mix of occasional slow-motion finishers and an outstanding suite of punchy sound effects top off the combat nicely and keep it exciting well into the game’s 40 levels."

Once you do claim those inflated rewards at the end of the levels, you can start dumping that money into the plethora of wardrobe options and spending unlock points in the game’s six skill trees that you get to visit in between stages, and if you do consistently well with keeping your enemies guessing you’ll get through more of them in less time, keeping you ahead of the curve. Mediocre performance will still keep you on a steady pace of unlocking new moves but again, you’ll find yourself organically motivated to overperform more often than not. Overall, I think it would have fared better with a slightly more nuanced combat system that made you pay for your mistakes a little more heavily, but it’s hard to complain too much when the short levels do such a good job of obscuring the combat’s few shortcomings.

The look of Midnight Fight Express is a unique one for the genre, especially among modern games. The simplified, sleek look of the characters pop off the gritter, more detailed backgrounds nicely and give the game a visual texture that fits surprisingly well with the overhead isometric viewpoint. It’s not the first game to look like this, but it certainly is one of the better ones in recent memory. More importantly, it runs well and should be pretty easy to run at full speed on anything with at least 8GB of RAM and a GTX 660, which at this point, covers a massive percentage of even the most budget-friendly gaming PCs.

Driving home the style is the sound and music, which I touched on earlier but it bears elaborating. The soundtrack in this game is stone cold awesome, and I can’t imagine a better genre of music for this game than this edgy-techno that somehow feels like a not-too-distant descendant of dubstep and early 2000s pop at the same time. The intensity of that coupled with the near constant cracks of you landing massive blows on enemies is a soundscape that does just as much to jam the game’s style into your ear canals as the graphics do to pound it into your eyes. It might lose a little bit of its luster after a while, but for the most part I was thrilled to hear every little thing this game wanted me to.

"Driving home the style is the sound and music. The soundtrack in this game is stone cold awesome, and I can’t imagine a better genre of music for this game than this edgy-techno that somehow feels like a not-too-distant descendant of dubstep and early 2000s pop at the same time."

Tense combat encounters that reward versatility and adaptation is a key ingredient for any beat-em-up to work, but the option to mash your way through a lot of Midnight Fight without thinking too much also means that the more casual gamers among us can enjoy it just as well. This could go down as a minus for those of us looking for the next Sifu, but from where I’m sitting it looks like a pretty well-maintained balance for what it is. Aside from that, and the numerous enemy types that never really add up to a particularly impressive roster of opponents, this game has plenty to offer fans of the genre with its finely-tuned style, aggressive pacing, and surprising number of ways to approach each and every dust-up.

This game was reviewed on PC.