Wireframe Magazine #62

In one of the many goofy cutscenes in LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, a grizzled Luke Skywalker sidles up to the makeshift bar on his Ahch-To hideaway, a befuddled Rey in tow. A quartet of Thala-sirens – portly, walrus-like things with a cluster of udders – are hooked up to a milking machine. The Porg bartender draws a pint of their green milk and slides it over to Luke, who downs it with lusty enthusiasm. I remember when Luke’s green milk habit in The Last Jedi would cause a portion of the Star Wars fandom to have a conniption fit. You won’t hear them complaining now. LEGO Star Wars is so loving in its treatment of the franchise that it sucks the air right out of the cynical and…

There’s a vein of nostalgia running through this month’s issue, whether it’s the golden age of Konami (see page 38) or our chat to the studios who’ve set their games in the 1980s (page 70). Video games and nostalgia have long been natural partners, perhaps because most of us discovered the medium at a young age – several generations have now grown up with the sights and sounds of the Atari 2600, NES, Mega Drive, or later consoles ringing in their ears. But just as doctors in the 17th century thought of nostalgia as a sickness, there’s a slight danger of looking back at past eras of gaming through an overly romantic lens. Sure, there were some incredible games made in, say, the 1980s. Take it from someone (just about)…

Evidence of the singularity, or the point in time when technology advances far enough to negate the need for humans, seemingly surrounds us more each day. It’s there whenever you Google a question on your smartphone or scan something using a supermarket’s self-service checkout. Even then it’s still a struggle to imagine our fridge ever gaining enough intelligence to, say, want to put in a nine-to-five shift at the local Tesco Direct. The Last Worker, however, lets players inhabit a hypothetical vision of the future where society has already travelled far beyond this point. The robots are no longer taking over – they’ve already won. And now it’s your job as the titular worker to ensure things run smoothly. At first glance, the incredibly colourful, cel-shaded warehouse that is the…

Info GENRE Demon murder sim FORMAT PC, XB S/X, XBO PS4, PS5 DEVELOPER Damage State PUBLISHER Kwalee RELEASE 2022 SOCIAL @ScatheFPS Just as Housemarque’s Returnal fused the third-person roguelike with the danmaku shoot-‘em-up genre to award-winning effect, so Scottish studio Damage State’s upcoming SCATHE aims to take players to its own particular plane of bullet hell. Trapped in an infernal labyrinth, you’re confronted by an army of grotesque and deadly enemies – many of them capable of firing complex waves of fiery projectiles. Look at SCATHE in still images, and you’ll likely think of recent entries in the DOOM series, but programmer and Damage State co-founder Chris Dawson argues that his game’s mix of non-linear level design, drop-in, drop-out co-op, and its enemies’ aggressive attack patterns make it a markedly…

Info GENRE Puzzle, narrative, first-person adventure FORMAT PC / Switch DEVELOPER Cosmonaut Studios PUBLISHER Secret Mode RELEASE 2022 SOCIAL @Cosmonaut_Info A shared house in the north of England mysteriously burns down, killing the six students trapped inside. As 43, a time-hopping operative sent from the future, it’s your job to prevent the tragedy from happening. It’s a task matched in its ambition by the one Eternal Threads developer Cosmonaut set for itself: to somehow tie this butterfly effect-style story together in a way that made sense. “Our initial efforts became a much more supernatural experience,” says creative director Paul Johnson. “Then, we had a crazy idea… What if the entire story was open from the start? What if the player was free to go to any point in time and…

Info GENRE Rhythm, loot-shooter, dungeon crawler FORMAT PC / Switch / PS4 / PS5 / XBO / XB S/X DEVELOPER Drastic Games PUBLISHER Noodlecake RELEASE 2022 SOCIAL @SoundfallGame he debut title from Drastic Games is a head-bopping isometric shooter unafraid to move to its own groove, largely because it forces players into the exact same position. Soundfall casts you as Melody Harper, an audiophile-turned-weapons expert whisked off to a far-off land, the player has ample opportunity to keep an army of enemies at bay using creative gunfire in the endless pursuit for loot. So far, so expected. But there’s more to this synth-infused dungeon crawler than first meets the eye. Because in the rhythm-driven domains of Symphonia, your ears prove an equally important tool, as you must shoot, move, and…