Embargoes, Blackberry Pie, and Big Walk: The RPS Crew's August Gaming Plans
Key takeaways
- Hard Void, a cosmic horror 4X game with side-on battles, is available in early access now.
- Two RPS editors are under embargo on titles both describe as genuinely impressive, one a potential GOTY pick.
- Big Walk is earning co-op praise, with comparisons to Deep Rock Galactic and Darktide as benchmarks.
With a quieter-than-usual week behind them, the editorial team at Rock Paper Shotgun is heading into the weekend with a mix of early access experiments, embargo-shrouded mystery titles, and at least one trip to Felixstowe for a barbecue. The variety on display says a lot about where PC gaming sits right now — a sprawling landscape where cosmic horror strategy sits comfortably alongside cooperative puzzle games and open-world modding projects.
Edwin is diving into Hard Void, an early access cosmic horror 4X strategy game that distinguishes itself with a side-on battle view and a techno-heavy soundtrack. Early access 4X titles have a complicated reputation, but Hard Void's visual identity sounds distinct enough to turn heads in a genre that often defaults to top-down birdseye presentation. When he's not commanding fleets across the void, Edwin is racing to harvest local blackberries before the season ends.
James is spending his weekend trying to coordinate schedules for Big Walk, a cooperative puzzler he describes as deeply clever, with a strong grasp of how everyday interactions can become surprisingly challenging game mechanics. Getting five people in their thirties to align their calendars apparently rivals the puzzles themselves in difficulty. The game drew a genuine endorsement from James — high praise given his usual benchmark of Deep Rock Galactic and Darktide for co-op satisfaction.
Meanwhile, Jeremy bounced hard off Beast of Reincarnation, a recent release he felt leaned too heavily on current trends without coherent design focus. He's now playing an embargoed title that he says handles parrying — a mechanic Beast of Reincarnation also featured — far more effectively, and he's floating the possibility of a GOTY contender. Ollie is similarly tight-lipped under embargo but made clear the game he's covering is, in his words, really good.
Mark rounds things out with a relaxed plan spanning Dirt Rally 2.0 rallycross, some low-key Skyrim hunting and fishing, and a tour of Cyberpunk 2077's Night City via a newly released metro mod. It's a weekend lineup that reflects how modding communities continue to extend the lifespan of older titles, keeping players engaged years after launch.
The bigger picture
The double embargo mention from Jeremy and Ollie is worth paying attention to. When two editors at the same outlet independently flag that they're playing something they can't discuss yet — and both signal genuine enthusiasm — it usually points to a release with real momentum behind it. The parry-heavy combat description Jeremy drops narrows the field somewhat, and the GOTY language is not thrown around lightly at outlets that cover as much ground as RPS does. Soulslike-adjacent titles and action games with precision mechanics are clearly still a dominant force in the critical conversation heading into late 2026.
Jeremy's dismissal of Beast of Reincarnation carries its own industry signal. The framing — a game that felt algorithmically assembled from trending mechanics — echoes a broader concern circulating among critics that some studios are chasing design trends rather than building cohesive experiences. That critique lands harder now that AI-assisted development tools are more accessible, whether or not Beast of Reincarnation actually used them. The perception alone shapes how players and press receive a title.
On the lighter side, Mark's Cyberpunk 2077 metro mod weekend is a quiet reminder that CD Projekt Red's modding community remains one of the most active on PC, consistently finding ways to expand Night City long after the game's major updates have wrapped. For platform holders and publishers watching engagement metrics, the lesson from Cyberpunk's modding scene — and from Skyrim's enduring presence on these lists — is that longevity is built on community access, not just content drops.
We flagged this piece because weekend gaming roundups are easy to scroll past, but this one has more signal tucked inside it than it first appears. Two separate embargo teases from RPS editors, a co-op puzzler getting genuine word-of-mouth heat, and a pointed critique of a recent release pointing toward larger industry anxieties — that's a lot happening in what looks like casual Friday banter. We cover these kinds of community temperature checks at LagPing because they reflect what games journalists are actually excited about, which tends to foreshadow what the wider PC gaming audience will be talking about in a few weeks. Big Walk in particular is one we're going to keep watching. And honestly, the Cyberpunk metro mod made us want to boot up Night City again, which is its own kind of endorsement.
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