Terraria, the 2D pixel-art sandbox survival adventure has now officially turned 10 years old and it's going as strong as ever. Seriously impressive from developer Re-Logic!

I remember seeing it on PC for the first time almost 10 years ago while a friend was playing it, thinking it looked interesting and never thought it would go on to be as popular as it is. Frankly, I sort-of dismissed it entirely back then and went back to Minecraft. I was seriously wrong about it because it's an incredible game that deserves to be played.

Anyway, a fresh update went out to mark the occasion. Re-Logic mentions that "this update may not contain any new content (we were serious when we said 1.4.2 was it ;) ) - it does contain a very special celebratory world seed that is unlike any other that we have made previously". The wink face being an obvious nod to this really not being the end of Terraria.

Here's what's new in Terraria 1.4.2.3:

• Added Celebratory Seed
• Corrected the damage on Frost Armor's set bonus debuff from 20 to 25 DPS.
• Fixed Vulkan and Metal rendering issues that lead to crash, on FNA builds.
• Fixed a certain exploit.
• Fixed missing tooltip in Queen Slime's treasure bag.
• Fixed every vine type except Normal/Flower vines from passing on paint as they grow longer.
• Fixed King Slime's spiked minions being able to pick up money and despawn with it, similar to Queen Slime's minions previously.

The celebration world seeds are:

Across both GOG and Steam it's currently 50% off for about 8 hours, so the sale ends around 4PM UTC. Be quick if you wish to get it with such a nice discount although it's not the highest it's been discounted but still a fantastic game to get so cheap right now.

You can buy it on GOG , Steam and Humble Store .

Grand Theft Auto style mechanics blended in with some Minecraft blocky style and city-building, that's sort-of a basic overview of what you can expect in Voxel Turf.

Hard to really properly describe it, as there's just so much to it. Want to build a city? Go ahead. Want to get involved as a person and fight for territory against gangs? There's plenty of that too and so much more. Released back in 2017 it's been steadily improved and after a break of updates lasting many months it appears the developer is back with some big stuff here.

Returning players can expect to see a whole new biome, a revamp of the outback biomes with red stone and the plains now have patches of dry grass and salt lakes. Not just new content though, there's a big overhaul of performance with more multithreading and it should all be faster overall. Nice.

Watch video on YouTube.com

Need to be sold on it a bit more? From the developer:

Voxel Turf is a block based city builder/action adventure game. Build cities or destroy them. Start businesses or rob them. Nurture your citizens or subjugate them. Build a real estate empire, or perhaps just drive around and blow stuff up. Its your choice! Voxel Turf allows you to be the force of benevolence or the agent of chaos in a city of your creation.

- Have you ever played an open world game and thought "if only I could build something here?"
- Or a city builder and wanted to drive around and interact with your creation?
- Or even a building game and thought "if only these buildings would come to life?"
If so then Voxel Turf is the game for you!

You know Voxel Turf is also great? It's another game developed on Linux with the developer having their main machines and development done all under Linux so it sees first-class support.

Buy and play Voxel Turf on Steam .

In need of a new fun physics sim? How about one that's free, open source and can be played in multiplayer? Rigs of Rods might be what you're after and they have a new release.

What actually is it? Rigs of Rods is a free/libre soft-body physics simulator mainly targeted at simulating vehicle physics. The soft-body physics system is based on mass-spring-damper theory. It's pretty much a sandbox vehicle playground, one you setup yourself with trucks, cars, cranes, boats, bridges, aeroplanes and much more.

Not the most beginner friendly game, with it needing plenty of modding and configuration to get it where you want it but it seems like a nice option for some physics amusement. As it turns out, we've never written about it here, despite it being around since at least 2005 - madness!

Watch video on YouTube.com

Seems the team has been busy since the last release over a year ago, with a major new release landing on February 2, 2021. Quite a lot is included too, and much like Pioneer (another open source sim), they've moved their UI system over to the popular Dear ImGui . Now they have a modern UI system in place, it should be a lot easier to tweak it and work with it.

Not only that though, here's a bunch of what else is new:

• Major cleanup of the codebase
• Upgraded the translation system to work with popular Weblate
• A new Quake-style console variable system
• Vehicle speedometer will now be based on wheel speed rather than vehicle speed
• Added the ability to configure the blinker lock range
• Added the ability to toggle hydro speed coupling
• Added support for OS-specific input mapping
• Added a game controls information panel
• Added thrust reversal for aircrafts
• Added the ability to individually remove vehicles
• Updated Xbox 360/One controller and G29 wheel input maps, added wireless PS4 controller input map

Plus the usual assorted bug fixes.

Find it on the official site and download it easily from itch.io .

As impressive as it is, hopefully someone will be able to hook up a good introduction / tutorial for new players getting into it. While it's been around a long time and there's beginner guides out there, having something in game for people to follow would really help.

Minecraft in VR that's a bit more hands on? cyubeVR (pronounced Cube VR) looks absolutely delightful, and the developer has confirmed their full intention to support Linux too.

This isn't some basic block-building game that tries to be Minecraft in VR though, it's actually a lot more advanced than that with it being fully designed for VR. That includes proper support of the Valve Index controllers, along with fully tracked fingers and a control scheme built for it. cyubeVR works with a Vive too, so the Index is not specifically required. There's also no traditional UI, instead you build everything you need in the detailed VR world.

Some of it genuinely looks great too look the Gravity Gloves, that allow you to pull tools from around you right into your hands so there's less bending around to pick up little tools. Although, my favourite by far is the dual-wielding system because — wow that looks ridiculously satisfying:

Since it's currently in Early Access it's far from finished, with a full roadmap ahead filled with some pretty fun sounding features coming to it like Ray Tracing, new and more realistic foliage, online multiplayer (now that would be awesome), more types of biomes and the list goes on.

Check out the original trailer below to get an idea of what it looks like:

Watch video on YouTube.com

As for Linux support? It's listed on their roadmap and the developer explained on Reddit how close it is:

That is absolutely planned, yes! I've spent quite a while over the past few months working on native Linux support actually :) It's basically 100% working by now, except for one small visual issue on some particles that I still have to workaround in some way. So I hope I can release native Linux support quite soon!

You can follow cyubeVR on Steam in Early Access.

I'm starting to feel a growing need for a VR kit…

Continuing to be seriously impressive, the 1.14 update to the deep survival game Vintage Story is officially out now after multiple testing builds.

As mentioned recently , Vintage Story is the survival game for those of you who love the blocky style of Minecraft but want something deeper, something much more complex and exciting. This is actually a pretty large update to the base game bringing with it a character customization system so you can make it all feel a little bit more personal. Coming with it is also the Steel Age which adds in lots of new blocks, more metal working objects, a more expansive body temperature system, new shader effects and so much more it's hard to really sum it up correctly.

Take a look at their new highlights:

Watch video on YouTube.com

Honestly, I find it difficult to go back to Minecraft after spending a good few hours in this. Minecraft has its place, thanks to the simplicity it can get you easily into it and create and good for a younger audience too but Vintage Story is just a whole 'nother level of survival.

See the full changelog here .

You can buy it from Humble Store and the official site . I suggest you do, it's awesome. A community member is also hosting a server for Linux fans, check that out on our forum .

The huge open-world space sandbox Avorion has the first expansion releasing on November 2, along with plenty more details revealed and a trailer.

It's going to include quite a lot of extra content for those who wants it. Avorion already had a huge open world with lots to do, and you can spend hours in it easily thanks to the deep ship-building mechanics. This expansion is aimed it those who want more story and more game mechanics overall though with 20 new story missions, side-missions and events. There's a new hacking ability, a Black Market to trade at with illegal and stolen space goods along with weapons and upgrades only found there. On top of that there's The Convoy story event, that has a huge convoy attempt an expedition towards the center of the galaxy and you can choose to join or fight it.

You can see the exciting new trailer below:

Watch video on YouTube.com

When the expansion becomes available, a big free update for everyone will be released too which is currently in an opt-in Beta for testing on Steam. This will bring all players in Avorion a number of advancements including:

• Docking - Ships can dock to other objects and fly around with them
• New ship controls / communications like bribes and inspections
• The RTS style Strategy Mode got some huge improvements
• Legendary Weapons - need we say more?
• Visual Improvements
• Performance Improvements
• Bugfixes

They also confirmed all players can play together, regardless of owning DLC or not. Some DLC-specific events can be played by all players, as long as someone with the DLC is around to start it too. Seems like a pretty great way to ensure your community can stay together. That's if you play it online anyway, it can be played entirely solo.

If you want a space sandbox to play by yourself or with others, one that supports Linux then you should absolutely take a look at Avorion.

You can buy Avorion on Humble Store and Steam .

Terraria fans rejoice, as not only has the Linux support improved but you can now show off your vanity items in all their glory with the 1.4.1 release out now. When the Journey's End 1.4 upgrade released, they did mention a patch would follow to clean up issues and they stuck to it. They're jokingly calling this patch "Journey's Actual end".

So what's in it? Quite a lot actually. There's new items, several of which focused on filling out the early/pre-hardmode Summoner options, also new Achievements along with new Princess NPC which they said you have to find out how to get them and what they do on your own.

It also brings with it some new Vanity items as a result of a design contest, and a wonderful and much needed overhaul to how such items are displayed on characters. No longer will you have to choose between things like Wings or a Cape - have both! Previously one would overwrite the display of the other but thankfully that issue is now finally solved.

With an upgrade to the cross-platform FNA tech developed by Ethan Lee , it should hopefully sort crashing / resolution issues players on Linux encountered. So you can properly enjoy the experience once again. They also mentioned these other QoL (quality of life) improvements for everyone:

• The Journey Mode duplication menu has been overhauled, with the addition of several new filters to break up some of the larger categories
  • Additionally, the Misc option in the duplication menu should more properly encompass items that do not fall under any other category
• Torch God now plays an Otherworldly track when that setting is toggled
• Bestiary now indicates if a drop is Wave-based/if it only drops after a certain wave in Frost Moon and Pumpkin Moon
• Plantero's Sombrero has made its triumphant return
• Reorganized menu settings for resolution/fullscreen/windowed borderless to all use the same sub-menu, to reduce confusion

Full update notes can be found here .

You can buy Terraria from Humble Store , GOG and Steam .

If you missed the huge Journey's End 1.4 release, see the trailer below:

Watch video on YouTube.com

Hinterland Studio have given an update on the progress of the next episode of the single-player story for the survival game The Long Dark.

Like with a lot of studios, COVID19 has caused all sorts of issues. Hinterland's studio lead, Raphael van Lierop, said in an announcement they're all doing well but they did shut down their physical studio back in March, so they've been in lockdown since then. Working from home (as I would know), increases your distractions many times and when you need to work as a studio, it can end up consuming even more time to communicate on simple things.

On the subject of Episode 4, they said they don't feel good about releasing it this year. Originally, they wanted it ready for December but work has been slower. However, they are making progress on it but the main point Lierop mentioned is that they don't want to "crunch" and end up compromising on quality or scope. No one wants that of course. They also mentioned a "more uplifting update" will come within the next few months with more info on other bits they have planned.

Sad news then if you're waiting on more story content but the good news is that The Long Dark has an impressive survival sandbox mode, which had a big update earlier this year .

You can buy it now from Humble Store and Steam .

Vintage Story, the wilderness survival sandbox inspired by lovecraftian horror themes with some impressive depth to it has a huge new stable release up.

A survival game that just continues to impress me. Slow and difficult to get into but very rewarding once you learn the mechanics which have a surprising amount of depth. That depth gets deeper with the Seasons Update, which I don't think I need to explain too much with the big highlight being a full season system which includes: snow accumulation, there's season-specific foliage and temperature dependent plant growth.

Not only seasons though, graphically it got another bump. There's now SSAO (screen space ambient occlusion), specular sunlight reflections on water surfaces and more foamy water. Also added: persistent world map, lots of new flora for hot and wet climates like Fern trees, crotons and rafflesias, in-game help improvements and tons more. Have a look at the new trailer:

Watch video on YouTube.com

Not only did they focus on some massive feature additions, they also detailed a bunch of performance improvements that made it into this release so you might find it running a bit smoother in places.

In a previous article here, a user mentioned that they thought it had "constant-online DRM" but the developer cleared up that misconception in a comment to mentioned that it does a single authorisation check when starting up. You can even block it after the first time and it will keep on working. So DRM-free it's technically not but it's reasonably sane.

You can buy it from Humble Store , itch.io and the official site .