The 2026 Game Thread: You Will Own Nothing and Be Happy Edition

Creepy game. And procedurally generated!

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Withering Rooms on Steam

Withering Rooms is a challenging 2.5D horror RPG set in a procedurally generated Victorian mansion that changes each night. Explore Mostyn House to collect the perfect items for your build and face a huge cast of overgrown undead, invisible ghosts, devious witches, and more.
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218K views · 4.5K reactions | One handed gaming? 💪🏼 Now you’ve probably seen me use the keypads from @azeron_com before well this time they’ve sent me the Cyro to check out! 🔥 I’m not going to pretend I’m good with this thing but what a cool devi

One handed gaming? 💪🏼 Now you’ve probably seen me use the keypads from @azeron_com before well this time they’ve sent me the Cyro to check out! 🔥 I’m not going to pretend I’m good with this thing...
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Alright, Shadow of the Tomb Raider and by extension the Tomb Raider Survivor trilogy, is behind me.

Fantastic game, but it jimmied with the formula a mite too much.

Tomb Raider 2013 was weak "tombs" but heavy on the shooting galleries, to the game's detriment. It was very much a corridor shooter with some puzzle elements tacked on.

Rise of the Tomb Raider was an almost perfect mix of exploration, combat, and hunting. All occurred in equal measure, all were handled well, stealth sections were spacious enough to allow properly stealthing to be a viable option.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider has by far the best tombs, but the combat was extremely sporadic to the point where you'd feel you were playing a walking sim on steroids at times, stealth segments virtually always devolved into gunfights due to the cramped and unintuitive layout of those sections. Hunting is an afterthought, and rarely are animals an issue outside of some prescripted sequences.

That said, visually Shadow was that first 30 minutes of Raiders of the Lost Ark on crack, which is really all I've ever wanted from a TR game. So i'm happy.

Game looks great, runs great (optiscaler with FSR 4.1 injection through DLSS hooks, 175+FPS on main sig rig), great gameplay, fun enough story, can be head for $5 for 40 hours of fun. Cannot recommend enough if the prior games were your jam.
 
I thought Shadow was the weakest part of the series. My favorite is Rise, although the first one is slightly more engaging in storytelling.

My gripes with Shadow are numerous:

  • Feels rushed
  • The game world feels small in scope compared to previous games
  • You're not allowed to use most outfits and weapons during the majority of the game
  • Puzzles are more about platforming than actually having to think about them. Rise was much better in this, even the main story had some great puzzles in it.
  • It would crash frequently when I played it
  • Underwhelming story
  • too many ex-machina moments
  • Most of the skill tree is useless
  • feels like a superhero movie where the main character can survive anything
  • The way difficulty settings are handled
  • Replace intuitive level design with yellow paint
  • Ending / final bossfight makes no sense
 
I am waffling a bit on what to play now that I've wrapped up Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Hue (both tons of fun).

Robocop: Rogue City - Ah Robocop, my first PTSD inducing ultra-violent critique of society movie. Must have watched it when I was 8 or 9. Didn't know the human body had that much blood in it or why someone would want to snort baby powder off a woman's chest, but I knew Robocop was cool as ****.

Rogue City is the most AA game I have played in a long time. Solid graphics, very true to form (weird mix of capping punks and issuing parking citations), almost there writing ("The New Guy" lol), and semi-open area sorta ARPG throw in the whole kitchen sink to extend playtime game systems.

I think I'll stick with this one till the end.

Chaosgate: Daemonhunters - AKA 40K X-com. Looks fun, been a while since I've gotten balls deep in a good X-com game (Xcom 2 is sitting there like UwU) but I'm afraid I tripped right out of the gate and wasted a bunch of research/upgrade points not following the Tutorial properly. I'll restart this one with some of my gained knowledge. Biggest downside of any Xcom game is the first run where you don't exactly understand the mechanics and your run is DOA 20 hours before you realize it.

Wh40K Boltgun - This one looks cooler in concept than it's turning out in practice. It looked like OG Doom/Quake with a 40K paint job but early on I'm finding the level design to be obscenely linear and the combat areas are cramped and it's way too easy to lure enemies into choke points instead of forcing you to move move move. Another 40K game that feels like it's leaning entirely on the IP rather than being a fundamentally good game. Its pretty short so I'll stick with it and see if later levels open up a bit, but the game definitely has not put it's best foot forward for sure.
 
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