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Where’s our MindsEye review? | Eurogamer.net

by admin June 10, 2025

It’s that time again! You might have noticed that MindsEye, the new game from former Rockstar North studio head and GTA producer Lezlie Benzies and his studio Build a Rocket Boy, is out in the world and available to buy, while we don’t yet have a review.

This one isn’t a case of any of the more cheeky picking-and-choosing shenanigans, mind, as it seems as though the issue is pretty universal: like seemingly every other outlet, Eurogamer doesn’t have any pre-release review code for MindsEye to work from.

The usual, genuine disclaimers apply here as always. We are not entitled to review code, and developers and publishers can distribute it however they wish. Access to games is a privilege we benefit from here in the games media and never a right.

That said, with MindsEye as with any big-budget game that doesn’t provide any review access before it goes on sale to the world, it is possibly just worth exercising a little caution before you go ahead and buy it for yourself. The extra context of MindsEye’s particularly odd launch period is also probably worth running through here as well.

In late May, for instance, Build a Rocket Boy’s co-CEO, Mark Gerhard, alleged on the game’s Discord server that some negative preview sentiment amongst members of the public with early access was “100 percent” financed by some kind of mysterious third party. That third party, of course, was heavily implied to be Rockstar and/or 2K – “doesn’t take much to guess who” responded Gerhard to other comments there, with a crying laughing emoji. For context here: Benzies left Rockstar under highly acrimonious circumstances in 2016.

Build a Rocket Boy didn’t respond to our requests for comment, but when pushed on that by another Discord member at the time, Gerhard added, “I just said that there is a concerted effort by some people that don’t want to see Leslie or Build A Rocket Boy to be successful that are making a concerted effort to trash the game and the studio. It’s pretty easy to see the bots and the repeated replies to any content that we put out.”

Then just last week, Eurogamer revealed that Build a Rocket Boy’s Chief Legal Officer and Chief Financial Officer, Riley Graebner and Paul Bland, had left the studio, only days before the game’s launch. Out here at Summer Game Fest, meanwhile, Leslie Benzies has pulled out of at least one appearance at the last minute, in the closing fireside chat at The Game Business Live. In a minor but maybe somewhat illustrative snafu today, MindsEye briefly appeared on Steam with two “Buy” buttons showing the same game at two different prices, as spotted by industry analyst Mat Piscatella, before that was fixed to show the second, higher price as the Deluxe Edition. And already here on launch day, full video walkthroughs of the game’s seemingly 6-hour story are live on YouTube.

All this comes amongst the still, frankly, quite hard-to-understand promise of MindsEye slotting into Everywhere, the nebulous metaverse-style project Build a Rocket Boy has been making at the same time, which focuses on allowing players to build and customise levels and gameplay aspects as they wish. Speaking to our friends at GamesIndustry.biz recently, Benzies explained it like this:

“Everywhere is going to show up again pretty soon. Everything we’re working on, there’s a story behind it – a big overarching story. So Everywhere will come back, and it fits into this story somewhere. I can’t tell you [where], because it would be a spoiler. But that’s going to reappear soon, and it will all be a part of the same product.

“… The bigger story will become obvious, once you’ve played through all of MindsEye. Then you might start to see how it all connects together, to the Everywhere world.”

We look forward to doing just that, and letting you know how it all comes together very soon.

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June 10, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Fulcrum Defender review | Eurogamer.net

by admin June 3, 2025

The makers of FTL and Into the Breach offer another ingenious slice of finely calibrated systems, and this time it’s all about that arcade feeling.

Up until now, Subset Games has made two games, and they’re both kind of ideal. Perfection has no place in art, but these things are really special. FTL is a terrifying and hilarious game about steering a ship across the galaxy in short hops, managing various stats, accidentally venting your comrades into space, and dealing with robot invaders who can literally shoot their way into your hull. Into the Breach is a game of tactics and positioning as you take three units into compact turn-based battles that clearer heads than mine have pointed out wouldn’t be out of place on the games page of a newspaper.

Fulcrum Defender review

Publisher: Subset Games
Developer: Subset Games
Platform: Played on Playdate
Availability: Out now on Playdate as part of Playdate Season 2.

So when I heard Subset had a new game coming out I thought: clarity and chaos will both be at the heart of it, but beyond that? No idea. I have no idea what Subset’s ultimately capable of at this point. Then when I heard that Subset’s new game was a platform exclusive, and that the platform in question is the Playdate? Mercy, as Roy Orbison so memorably said.

Anyhoo, Subset’s new game is called Fulcrum Defender, and it’s available as part of Playdate’s second season, in which new games appear on your machine every week or so and anticipation is a huge part of the fun. Subset gets the opening act, which makes sense as pretty much everyone who’s played FTL and Into the Breach has nothing but good memories. But on the surface, Fulcrum Defender is a very different design. It’s an arcade game, and it’s as twitchy as they come.

The Playdate is the console with the crank, and Subset’s decided to go all-in on that concept. Fulcrum Defender is kind of like a spin on Asteroids or an inversion of Tempest. You’re at the centre of the screen and enemies come from all around you, moving through 2D space as they zero in on your position. The gimmick is that you aim your weapons by turning the crank, and then you fire either by pressing up on the d-pad for a single shot, or down for everything in the clip.

Here’s a video from Panic offering a look at Playdate Season 2.Watch on YouTube

Already Subset’s particular interests are visible. Your clips are very shallow at first and they take a long time to recharge, so you’re constantly managing your aggressive tendencies against your resources. You have shields, which come with a meter that’s a classic piece of utilitarian Subset UI, and so you have a limited ability to let enemies slip through your defences and impact you.

At first, though, it’s a wonderfully weird game to play as an arcade experience, because it’s just so slow. For the first minute or so, enemies move slowly and so do your bullets. I got used to kind of winging a bullet at a distant enemy and then moving on to wing another bullet at another distant memory. What did this feel like? It actually felt a bit like playing Paperboy. You line up your shots like you line up those tightly folded newspapers, and then you have to have faith that they hit their targets, because by that point you’ll be busy with something else.

One of the mid-game enemies shrinks the playing field. | Image credit: Subset Games

Crucially, though, Fulcrum Defender gets faster quite quickly. You shoot enemies to level up and unlock a choice of weapons or upgrades, and in the early stages you’re often thrown choices that allow you a bigger clip, a faster reload or bullet speed, or a combination of those things. Enemies grow in complexity, moving outwards from the empty squares that head straight for you and take a single shot, to filled-in squares that require multiple hits or circles, which seem to orbit you, getting closer, and therefore providing an entirely different kind of target.

This is just the start, of both upgrades and enemies, and the game manages to expand outwards in its ideas without ever losing its internal harmonies. Once you know that a filled-in enemy requires more shots to kill, you’ll often find that you understand new enemies even if you haven’t seen them before. Changes to size and speed are pretty easy to grasp, and you’ll quickly learn that even bullets that don’t kill a foe outright will knock it back, giving you a bit of room to think.

Weapon mods allow for even trickier choices. (And spot the FTL reference.) | Image credit: Subset Games

Then there’s the weapons. Shotguns, that take out a wider angle of foes. Shotgun-thingies that leave little mines behind them. A flail or a mini-turret, both of which are operated by the crank. Taken alongside the need to manage the cooldown on your main gun, and there’s plenty of stuff to consider.

It’s fascinating to see Subset working with a different kind of focus and restriction to a game design. A lot of the time, it feels like the team’s seeing how much variation you can cope with when it comes to a very simple idea, and that scales pretty well, whether you’re the kind of player who likes to pick a thoughtful and idealised path through upgrades or clip together the wildest collection of upgrades and weapons just to see if they’ll work. There’s control, and there’s chaos – the twin Time Lord hearts of Subset’s approach to design.

Image credit: Subset Games

And best of all, there’s the sparseness and clarity that lets the really extreme unlocks and enemies do their thing. The whole thing, this whole galactic battle, looks like it could play out on the screen of a scientific calculator. The crank is responsive and quickly becomes second nature, and the expanding circle that shows you how close you are to your next level-up gives the whole thing a lovely newsprint vibe. There’s so much pleasure here even before you get into deeper strategies and combo-nursing.

Fulcrum Defender accessibility options

No accessibility options.

One last thing: each game is ten minutes long – unless you die first. Make it to ten minutes and you’re done. This provides the waves you face with a luminous kind of cumulative force, and it also gives each run a sense of familiarity as the two-minute marker goes past, say, and then the five-minute marker goes past. If you’ve ever got into running – particularly if you’ve used the Couch to 5K app to do so – you’ll recognise this kind of internal orientation that a time limit allows for. Hopefully in an update they can add the half-way bell and encouraging chatter from Sanjeev Kohli.

Oh, one other thing about the ten-minute limit. On my third game of Fulcrum Defender, I died with the clock at 9.59. If that doesn’t tell you this is a Subset joint, I don’t know what will.

A copy of Fulcrum Defender was provided for review by Playdate.

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June 3, 2025 0 comments

Game Reviews

Elden Ring Nightreign Review | Eurogamer.net

by admin May 28, 2025

FromSoftware’s multiplayer spin-off is an exhilarating rush and a celebration of the studio’s prior achievements Souls veterans will devour.

Elden Ring Nightreign review

Developer: FromSoftware
Publisher: Bandai Namco
Platform: Played on PS5
Availability: Out on 30th May on PC (Steam), Xbox Series X/S, and PS5/PS4

The first boss is a real hurdle. I’m not talking about the tutorial boss – you’re meant to fail at that one – but the first true boss. The Tricephalos Nightlord is a fiery cerberus with a chain whip, who splits into three separate dogs to chase you down. You can’t progress until this overgrown puppy is downed, proving a big challenge early on. But isn’t this sort of block always the Dark Souls way? It just shows how Nightreign is an authentic Souls experience. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

This time, though, you’re not facing bosses alone but in a group of three playing together online. While FromSoftware’s previous games have included co-operative play, it’s never been mandatory. In Nightreign, you team up to explore a map with randomised elements. You spend two in-game days here, buffing stats and abilities before facing one of eight Nightlords on the third day. Fail and you start the run again. In this way, it combines the soulslike and roguelike genres – two buzzwords that have seemingly dominated the industry for the past decade. Here, though, it’s a multiplayer concoction only FromSoftware could have created. It’s intense and exhilarating stuff.

You can ignore those genre descriptors, though. Really, Nightreign is a game about sharing memorable moments with others: moments of wonder, comedy, frustration, and euphoria. Seeing a volcano erupt mid-game for the first time. Being stuck in an underground maze as a storm of death sweeps over the map. Joining up with players around the world and joyously shouting in multiple languages after absolutely nailing a tricky boss. The time my front door went in the middle of a Nightlord battle and I couldn’t pause, leaving my teammates to survive alone (we still won the battle). And, of course, the elation at finally putting that flaming puppy in its place. These sorts of shared moments are what all the best multiplayer games are about, and that’s what makes Nightreign so equally compelling.

Elden Ring Nightreign Review – An Authentic Souls ExperienceWatch on YouTube

Let me explain how it all works. Players fly into the map and must spend an in-game day exploring and levelling up as fast as possible. Gradually, a blue storm of death encroaches on the map, funnelling players towards a singular spot to defeat a boss. Survive and it’s on to day two to repeat the process on the same map. Survive that and it’s on to the Nightlord battle. The map itself is static, but certain locations, items, and bosses are randomised each time. Plus there are environment-altering instances and random invasions to keep runs fresh. The encroaching storm adds a dash of Fortnite, its purpose to keep exploring players close together, but often useful items – or even your dropped Runes upon death – can be left agonisingly out of reach.

There are eight Nightfarers to play as, each loosely based on a class from the original Elden Ring. There’s the all-rounder knight Wylder, the black mage Recluse, or the defender bird-man Guardian, to name three. Each has their own skills with which to approach combat, as well as an ultimate attack to unleash. Take Wylder for instance: his clawshot is used as a grappling hook to dominate combat, while his ultimate attack has explosive force to stagger bosses. I love how the characters are not only distinct to play as, but had me rethinking old strategies from Elden Ring. I never once used a bow in that game but, having spent a lot of time as archer Ironeye in Nightreign, I’m now considering a new playstyle. The complex mage characters, however, are the real hard mode.

The playable characters take inspiration from previous characters and costumes | Image credit: FromSoftware / Eurogamer

Character skills are one way FromSoftware has encouraged co-operation. Through practice, these can sync up in exciting ways to make or break a boss battle. The Duchess, for example, has a rewind ability to repeat the last few moments of damage from any player – particularly useful after an ultimate or critical hit. What’s more, if another player is downed they can be revived when struck by other players, meaning it’s not only beneficial to stick together, but ultimate attacks can be used more defensively too, adding to strategy.

Nightreign does include a single-player mode for the truly sadistic, but it’s best experienced in a group on voice chat, bickering about where to explore next, exchanging strategies, and sharing defeats and wins alike. Matchmaking will team players up together and a basic ping system can be used to highlight areas of the map, but proper vocal communication really is key to defeating the Nightlords. Their sweeping AoE attacks and charges across battlefields are geared towards three players (there’s currently no two-player mode) and strategies to align moves at just the right time are often required. Nightlord battles sometimes feel more like MMORPG raids with certain mechanics I won’t spoil here.

Nightreign thrives as a co-operative experience. | Image credit: FromSoftware / Eurogamer

Finding teammates relies on matchmaking online, though, and in typical FromSoftware fashion, playing online has its struggles. During the review period, joining up via password or PSN friend ID often failed and matches sometimes had heavy lag and stuttering (beyond sometimes choppy performance). It never truly impeded on a successful run, but reliable matchmaking is essential in any multiplayer game and is something I hope FromSoftware will seek to improve post-launch. More crucial is the lack of crossplay, meaning you can’t play together with friends on rival platforms – a huge oversight.

Once in a match, though, Nightreign is a rush. It feels like speed-running Elden Ring in half hour bursts, containing a microcosm of exploration and combat before surmounting the challenge of a colossal boss battle. It’s a particularly demanding experience, especially for its sheer speed that rewards quick thinking and instinctive reactions. With the constant threat of the blue storm, there’s a real urgency to managing priorities, frantically swapping strategies on-the-fly, and maximising your chances of team success. There’s a pleasing scrappiness to movement too, as you scramble up cliff faces with new parkour abilities, speed across fields with a hasty sprint towards the next nightmarish boss, and leap from mountains in a last ditch attempt at escape thanks to the lack of fall damage. The map is a playground full of secrets to uncover over multiple runs, while combat itself is just as biting as Elden Ring.

From defeat to success, the ups and downs of Nightreign | Image credit: FromSoftware / Eurogamer

Early-on it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the breadth and depth of the map with all its varied locations and unexplained icons; Nightreign is as abstruse as ever, though that further adds to co-operation in sharing knowledge. Learn its intricacies, though, and strategies unfold. It feels particularly satisfying to gain full understanding of the map, but as a result runs eventually devolve into following the same optimum path as the lack of map changes become stale. Random events aren’t quite as frequent as I’d like to shake up gameplay, but at least if weapon and buff rolls are against you, skill always wins out.

Elden Ring Nightreign accessibility options

Subtitles on or off. Some button reassignment. In-game guide. No difficulty options. No UI customisation.

Thankfully, no run is truly wasted. Each attempt is rewarded with Relics, which provide passive buffs once applied to your character in one of three slots; while a permanent currency is used to purchase new Relics, or unique costumes for the Nightfarers once unlocked. Relics allow for more detailed build crafting with a major impact on the success of a run, though acquiring them at random can feel like a grind. Each character has a story of sorts too, with journal entries leading to special missions called Remembrances – collecting a certain item, or defeating a certain enemy – to progress the questline. This is by no means a narrative-driven game, but Remembrances add to the overall feeling of progression and provide some very useful unique rewards.

Familiar bosses from previous games make plenty of appearances | Image credit: FromSoftware / Eurogamer

In all, Nightreign feels like a thank you to the 30 million players who bought the original Elden Ring. It uses repeat assets from the game and the bosses encountered are taken from across Elden Ring and the three Dark Souls games, while the eight Nightlords are all brand new and rank among some of the most difficult yet beautiful bosses FromSoftware has created. As such, Nightreign is a celebration of the Souls series for veterans already versed in its calculated combat and able to spot familiar demonic faces. It’s as close to a party as this sombre, monstrous series of games will ever be. But that’s at the expense of newcomers, who may struggle with its fast pace. Nightreign is outstanding for fans, but has limited appeal for the wider gaming community, though I’d urge anyone with an interest in Elden Ring to try it.

I don’t expect Nightreign to compete for time with established online multiplayer giants, then. But what’s here is a brilliant foundation for a longterm game, if only FromSoftware would support it as a live service beyond its forthcoming DLC. Am I being greedy? Probably. But Nightreign has so much long-term potential, through adding more Nightlords, more Nightfarers (and costumes), more randomised map events. While I bemoan developers for chasing live-service trends – and we’ve seen plenty fail – Nightreign deserves to be a hit. It’s proven to me, a staunch solo player, that multiplayer Souls can be just as fun, just as challenging, and just as satisfying when played together. After beating that cerberus, I went back to help a fellow player defeat it too and shared in their elation when we won together. What a thrill! After all, a problem shared is a problem Souled.

A copy of Elden Ring Nightreign was provided for review by Bandai Namco.

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May 28, 2025 0 comments