A horrific rape and incest video game has sparked fury by encouraging players to be'women's worst nightmare'. The game, titled'No Mercy', centres around a protagonist who rapes his family members including his aunt and his own mother. Players of the vile game are instructed to'never take no for an answer' in their ambition to'subdue' and'own' women. Despite its horrendous themes, the game does not have an official age rating and was available for sale on Steam, the most popular digital game store. The game's developer, Zerat Games, published the game on Steam in March where children as young as 13 can make an account.

There was a time when it was possible to play pretty much every interesting video game released in a given year, from nailed-down 9/10 blockbusters to that divisive horror curio. That's not the case now – not only because games have gotten longer and more involving, as I wrote about last week, but also because so many of them are released. The publisher model, where a few big companies controlled the release calendar, has given way to a mix of legacy megaliths (Sony, EA, Nintendo, Microsoft), indie publishers (Devolver, Annapurna, Team17), self-releasing developers and everything in between. How is a player supposed to keep up? Good curation is one of the most useful things a games critic can offer in 2022.

June is here at last, and with it comes a pretty strong month of game releases. Summer is usually the dead season when it comes to new video game releases, and this June is unseasonably strong. Switch owners will have a ton of new games and ports to choose from in June, continuing Nintendo's stellar release schedule into the summer. Here's the big list, with some highlights at the end: As you can see, if you're a Nintendo Switch gamer you're in luck this June. Alongside new releases, which I'll get to in a minute, you've got Wolfenstein II finally releasing on the Switch, as well as the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy.

A lot of time and effort will be spent discussing Middle Earth: Shadow of War's improved Nemesis System between now and probably about a month after release. And for good reason--the Nemesis System was the only thing that elevated predecessor Shadow of Mordor from another me-too Assassin's Creed clone into a technical wunderkind. Leaning into that aspect for the sequel is probably a good call, especially since we've failed to see similar tech make its way through the industry. The dynamic characters that made Shadow of Mordor such a joy are still, three years on, a novelty. But I had 20 to 30 minutes of hands-on time with Shadow of War during E3 and to be honest, the Nemesis System was the least of my concerns.