Officially announced last week at PAX East in Boston, Corsair is adding a 27-inch OLED gaming monitor to it's lineup of high end PC products and peripherals. The XENEON 27QHD240 OLED uses the industry leading LG OLED display panels with a 2560x1440 pixel density and 240Hz refresh rate on the 27 inch frame. That's my sweet spot for monitors, QHD across 27 inches fits perfectly for my desk and viewing distance and I'm currently using mine with those same specs to type up this news. However I don't have the beautiful dark blacks of OLED nor do I enjoy the lighting quick refresh of 240Hz. (So if Corsair wants to send me a review monitor I'd gladly take one for the team... hint, hint).

This monitor is using 3rd-gen OLED panels with META Technology featuring Micro Lens Array. This uses a focal lens to add brightness to every pixel. This means more color brightness, more vibrancy, HDR10, 1,500,000:1 contrast, 1,000 nits peak brightness, and a 98.5% DCI-P3 color gamut. Translation: it's going to look gorgeous. It'll also move fast as the 240Hz refresh gives it a 0.03ms response time and 0.01ms pixel on/off to nearly eliminate motion blur. It's also compatible with both NVIDIA G-SYNC and AMD FreeSync Premium. Lastly on the picture, it has build in burn in protections and comes with a three-year Zero Dead Pixel and Zero Burn In warranty. 

You can customize viewing angles with VESA mounting or 60° of swivel, 22° of tilt, 100mm (3.94in) of height adjustment, or rotate 90° to portrait mode. And for ports, we've got two HDMI 2.1 ports, a DisplayPort 1.4, and a USB Type-C DP Alt-Mode input. So it can be connected to 4 different devices at once and two displayed simultaneously either picture-in-picture or picture-by-picture. There are also one USB 3.1 Type-C port and four USB 3.1 ports to connect devices. 

You can pick up this beauty from the Corsair webstore and select channel partners this May. No price has yet been announced, but more details are available on the Corsair website: https://www.corsair.com/us/en/corsair-xeneon-27qhd240-oled-gaming-monitor 

Spike Chunsoft unveiled a new character trailer for their upcoming lucid noir adventure game Master Detective Archives: RAIN CODE. The new trailer introduces Master Detectives from the World Detective Organization as well as an illustration of the new character Number One, drawn by Rui Komatsuzaki, who was the designer for the Danganronpa series.

In Master Detective Archives: RAIN CODE, players will take control of Yuma, an amnesiac detective-in-training followed by a Shinigami to solve cases by examining crime scenes and gathering evidence. Mystery Phantoms will try and prevent you from progressing, so dodge their lies and slash their contradictions with the Solutions Blade!

See below for characters and their associated voice actor/actresses:

• Halara Nightmare -> Amber Lee Connors
• Aphex Logan -> Stephen Fu
• Pucci Lavmin -> Lindsay Sheppard
• Vivia Twilight -> Aleks Le
• Number One -> SungWon Cho

Master Detective Archives: RAIN CODE is coming exclusively to Nintendo Switch on June 30, 2023. You can pre-order the Standard Edition and Mysteriful Limited Edition now on Amazon for $59.99 and $109.99 respectively.

Check out the new character trailer below:

Publisher SelectaPlay and developer DevilishGames announced that their rather unique social simulation game Minabo – A Walk Through Life will launch on April 28^th for Nintendo Switch, Xbox, PlayStation, and PC via Steam. It is available now for wishlisting on your platform of choice and will also enjoy a 10% launch-week discount.

Minabo sees players embark on an entire life journey as a cute turnip (yes, the vegetable) where they will build relationships and make tough decisions along the way. Will you decide to settle down with a nice turnip companion and have little turnip babies? Or will you stay single and focus on being a caregiver to your elderly turnip parents instead?

DevilishGames says the experience will be appropriate for players of all ages and features 25 quests inspired by psychologist counselors who collaborated on development of the game. You’ll be able to replay the game in quick playthroughs to try different paths and see how life unfolds differently.

Well, this is a pleasant surprise of a game. Check out the adorable launch announcement trailer below:

In a rather strange move, developer Player First Games announced today that their free-to-play Warner Bros. character platform fighter MultiVersus will have its open beta shutdown on June 25^th, which they say is to prepare for the game’s full launch in early 2024. Studio co-founder Tony Huynh shared the news today in a video posted on the game’s Twitter, adding that MultiVersus will include new content, features, and game modes when it returns.

MVPs, thank you for the support during Open Beta! The feedback and inspiration has been amazing. Open Beta will close on June 25 as we prepare for full launch in early 2024. #MultiVersus will be back better than ever with new content, features, modes & more when we return. pic.twitter.com/6NOCMRDBrp

— MultiVersus (@multiversus) March 27, 2023

Oddly, despite the game being characterized as an “open beta” since July 26^th of last year, it has been selling Founder’s Packs and premium currency called Gleamium the entire time. Some disgruntled players pointed out in replies that they have spent hundreds of dollars on the title since it entered open beta, and rightly want to know what will happen to their purchases. Player First Games has since updated their FAQ page to state that players will retain all of their purchased items when the game returns next year.

However, MultiVersus is being de-listed from digital storefronts on April 4^th, with online functionality ceasing on June 25^th. At which point the game will only be playable via local matches and the training mode, which makes this shutdown even more conspicuous, especially considering that the open beta has been receiving seasonal content and battle passes. In fact, Player First also revealed that the Season 2 Battle Pass will be extended through June 25^th after it was planned to conclude on March 31^st.

While it doesn’t appear that players will ultimately be losing any of their paid-for content, it certainly won’t sit well knowing that you spent your hard earned money on a game that is essentially going to be non-functioning for an indefinite period of time. MultiVersus appears to have fallen on rough times since releasing in open beta last year, with player counts on Steam having nosedived nearly 100% since July of 2022. Yikes.

It's definitely just a teaser, but the video below highlights the games Twin Sails Interactive is brining to market this year. The video debuted and showcases action rogue-like Ember Knights, tactical RPG Wantless, a co-op innkeeping game (whatever that is?) called Innchanted, platformer Amberial Dreams, and the newspaper tycoon News Tower. 

• Ember Knights - already in Early Access for $15, Ember KNights lets you play solo or co-op to stop the mad sorcerer Praxis from siphoning the life out of the Ember Tree. Hack and Slash and use aquired skills to defeat hordes, bosses and rescue the realm.  
• Wantless - a fast paced RPG that places the subconscious as the battlefield. Dice into patient's minds with a deep crafting system and turn based combat to defeat the torments you find there.
• Innchanted - a wizard has stolen your family's Inn. Team up with friends or NPC AI to upgrade your inn, brew potions, fish, cook, fight, serve meals to hungry customers and make that rent. Launches March 28th on Steam.
• Amberial Dreams - it's a 2D platformer, but no jumps here. Huh? Control a sphere and roll and bounce your way to the objective. Also currently in Early Access for $7. 
• News Tower - Who doesn't love a good tycoon sim? News Tower is coming to Early Access later this year and puts you in the shoes of a Newspaper founder in the 1930's. Manage your reporters, photographers, janitors and the mad men in the ads department chasing stories into sensational headlines, all under the next issue's deadline. 

Developer Fallen Leaf has partnered with publisher Dear Villagers on their upcoming science fiction psychological thriller Fort Solis and announced a PS5 release alongside PC this Summer 2023. Get ready to explore an abandoned mining facility on the red planet of Mars while solving the mystery of the missing crew and make crucial decisions that change the course of the narrative.

You play as engineer Jack Leary as you explore Fort Solis station on your own. Gather clues from various labs, crew quarters and bunker in order to figure out what happened here. You must race against time as nightfall brings new horrors and complications! The game features multiple endings stemming from difficult decisions you will be forced to make throughout the game.

Fallen Leaf game director James Tinsdale chimes in and says: “We’re all fans of hard sci-fi and horror, so with Fort Solis we wanted to create a tense, classic sci-fi tale that players are free to piece together at their own pace. To us immersion was the key factor here, and we’re very proud of all the work our team and our collaborators have done in bringing Fort Solis to life. It’s such a fully realized, lived in place, and we’re thrilled for everyone to discover it when it launches later this year.”

Fort Solis utilizes Unreal Engine 5 to power an intricately immersive setting and features a first class voice cast crew including Red Dead Redemption 2 lead Roger Clark, Troy Baker (The Last of Us, Death Stranding), and Julia Brown (The Last Kingdom, World on Fire). The game also features no camera cuts, load times, or HUD, for an extra immersive experience.

Fort Solis is coming to PC via Steam and PlayStation 5 sometime Summer 2023. You can wishlist the game now on Steam to support the developers!

Check out the newest gameplay trailer below:

Screaming Chicken: Ultimate Showdown is an upcoming multiplayer party game that encourages mayhem, chaos, and of course, sowing discourse among friends. “Dress up your chicken and jump onto the battlefield to take on your friend in physics-based challenges. Push your opponents off the map with unique and crazy weapons and watch as the play area collapses under the pressure!” Of course there is multiplayer, featuring online PvP, shared/split-screen PvP, Online co-op, and Shared/Splitscreen Co-op.

Screaming Chicken: Ultimate Showdown sports an impressive sounding 130 maps, meaning I may never have to play the same map more than once. Maps include areas like crowded city streets and sandy desert oases. If that doesn’t tickle your fancy there will also be a map creator where players can design their own maps and share them with the community with full Steam Workshop integration.

Screaming Chicken: Ultimate Showdown is headed to Steam on April 13th.

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide released late last year, and was received some mixed reviews. Repetitive missions, unfinished systems, and unfulfilling progression were some of the highlighted complaints. I reviewed the title myself and can agree on some level with those claims. Nevertheless I enjoy the heck out of Darktide. Darktide is the spiritual sequel to the highly enjoyable Vermintide and Vermintide 2 games. Vermintide had players in Warhammer fantasy, while Darktide takes place in the dark, grimey space of 40K. I’ve been into the series from the get-go and while Darktide is far from a perfect game it is still a ton of fun, especially when I can find three friends to play with.

Yesterday developer Fatshark released the Tools of War content crop. The new content adds ten new weapons, new conditions, combos, bug fixes, improvements, and quality-of-life updates. You can read the complete notes here, or watch the handy video down below.

A big part of all sports sims is the career mode. Select your favorite player or manager, or maybe even create yourself, and take on the highest challenges the various sports present. Golf is no different and certainly not EA Sports PGA Tour. The trailer below showcases that career journey the game will take you on across all four majors. 

You start by customizing your golfer’s attire, equipment, and even swing. Then pick whether to begin as an amateur or a pro.The amateur tourneys are only available for those players. If you want to start at the bottom and experience the thrill of putting in the hard yards, go through the amateur ranks. That's what I'd do. 

As you grow into the game, Career Mode will use XP and skill points to progress their golfer. Kind of like an RPG as your skills develop over time into categories like Power, Driving, Approach, Short Game, or Putting. Increasing the skills also unlocks new shot types and upgrades to keep pace as the courses themselves get more challenging. In the Season Hub you can monitor upgrades, peek at the calendar of upcoming tournaments, and track progression and milestones through ongoing Quests. Quests lead to increased control over things like ball and club specs and how they perform on the links.

Seems like a robust system to really grow as a player and live that rags to riches journey - actually this is golf so... riches to more riches? Anyway, EA Sports PGA Tour releases April 7th for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via the EA App, Steam or the Epic Games Store. 

Guerrilla Games announced today over on the PlayStation Blog that Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores is now available to pre-order, and it’s a bit cheaper than this writer expected. The PS5 exclusive expansion retails for $19.99 and takes players on a journey to a volcanic Los Angeles that has been ravaged by tectonic activity.

This new story picks up where the main story of Forbidden West ended, so you’ll be required to finish that before the Burning Shores DLC will be available to you in-game. I was of the mind that this would be a $29.99 expansion, considering it’s a PS5 exclusive and increased game prices in general, so I think $20 is actually quite fair. Check out a new pre-order trailer: