Inspired by the likes of Werewolf, Mafia and similar games Untrusted from evolvedlabs is ready to go out to a wider audience after releasing a few Alpha builds from their website.

On January 29, 2021, this social deduction / hacking game will be launching on Steam in Early Access and the developer told us over email that it will be initially free to play as it still needs plenty more testing (including ensuring server capacity is good).

"In Untrusted, hackers from the fictional NETSEC group are tasked in hacking a specific server on a computer network. NETSEC members must use their skills and wits to outsmart the undercover AGENTs that will try each night to perform arrests or have other players become snitches for them."

Watch video on YouTube.com

Feature Highlight:

• Hacking themed game focused on social interactions.
• Hack into computers and analyze their log to find out who is telling the truth
• Keep your personal log and cross-reference data to find out who are the undercover agents
• An amazing, friendly community ready to welcome you
• Multiple winning conditions for both factions: hack or murder your way to victory.
• 2 Factions and many neutral classes
• 22 Unique classes
• More than 70 unique skills

If you can look past the simplistic interface, it sounds like it could actually be a whole lot of fun to play.

You can follow Untrusted on Steam .

One of the most promising upcoming action-RPGs around, Last Epoch had a pretty great year expanding the content available along with a new playable class and they have their sights set to get you playing online in 2021.

The singleplayer is already a lot of fun, but being able to play directly with a bunch of friends in Last Epoch sure does sound enticing. In their new preview , they make it clear it's still multiple months away but it sounds exciting. They're working on bringing up all the social systems so that you will be able to form parties, inspect the gear from other players, show off all your loot and more. With a party system allowing up to 4 players, the game will scale the difficulty of enemies based on that and their planning lots of server regions too.

Check out their preview video:

Watch video on YouTube.com

Areas they're currently tackling include:

• Improving performance
  We are still aggressively working on performance in Last Epoch. We have even more improvements coming soon, and we recognize that good performance is important for an enjoyable multiplayer experience.
• Preparing for Scale
  Launching server-authoritative multiplayer is challenging and we’ve seen teams with greater resources struggle to keep login and gameplay servers operating well when met with demand. We will be scale testing often before releasing multiplayer to the public.
• Testing, Testing, Testing
  There are bugs and party synergies that need to be found and addressed. While we’re sure that some players will find more when we launch, there is a lot that can be addressed before it’s in your hands.

We'll keep you posted on any upcoming announcements for when it goes live. They're hoping to expand the testing pool for it "in the near future".

You can buy Last Epoch on Steam .

inXile Entertainment have today officially released Wasteland 3 for Linux (and macOS), following on from their successful Fig campaign in 2016 and Windows release in August 2020.

Acting as a sequel to their 2014 hit, Wasteland 3 is a squad-based RPG with challenging tactical turn-based combat and a deep, reactive story full of twists, turns, and brutal ethical decisions. You get to create and customize a squad of up to six Rangers, plus you get a powerful customizable truck too which you can equip with some fun weapons.

From the brief release announcement, "We greatly appreciate your patience as we worked to bring the game to these OS’, and we’re happy to have it playable for you before the end of the year. We hope you enjoy exploring post-apocalyptic Colorado during your holiday break.".

Watch video on YouTube.com

Currently, the co-op ability for both Linux and macOS is limited. For Linux there is no co-op on GOG at all as they depended on GOG Galaxy which GOG have still not ported to Linux, plus on Steam the co-op is only compatible between Linux and macOS together (Windows is by itself). The "Direct Connect" option is also not available but will be coming in an update in January.

You can buy Wasteland 3 from GOG , Steam or the Humble Store .

Developer SquareHusky has managed to have their upcoming casual life sim Everafter Falls funded on Kickstarter, so that's another wonderful looking game coming our way.

Inspired by the likes of Stardew Valley, Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing blended with some action-RPG element it seems like it's going to be quite an interesting one. If 2020 has shown me anything, it's that we can never have enough of these games to keep us going. The Kickstarter campaign has now finished on December 10 with it pulling in AU$ 52,536 thanks to over 1,000 backers.

Check out the trailer if you missed it:

Watch video on YouTube.com

Everafter Falls appears to set itself apart from other similar games since it's story-based and there's progression to follow there, along with the ability to continue on after the story is over. Not only that, there will be actual split-screen support too which is also pretty uncommon for these types of games. Lots to look forward to on this, including the amusing looking card-based progression system where you actually eat the cards to gain their powers.

Plenty of character and world customization are planned too along with various activities including fishing where you build up a big aquarium, mining, dungeon crawling with challenging combat for those who want it with progression outside the dungeons making them easier and much more.

Absolutely one to watch.

With a full release planned in 2022 you can now follow it on Steam . Since it's been funded, we've added it to our large list of crowdfunded projects .

One particular indie game I am very excited to eventually get my hands on is Death Trash, a blending of real-time action and RPG mechanics in a very strange post-apocalyptic world.

"A world where cosmic horrors long for humanity but meet punks with shotguns. Influenced by post-apocalyptic, horror, and cyberpunk classics, but with a fresh personality of its own. Death Trash combines the crunch and depth of old-school, role-playing classics with the controls and game feel of modern games."

In a recent update post on the Steam page , the developer confirmed that 2021 will be the year for Early Access and they're still figuring out an exact date while a few people have been helping to playtest. They're working on more content and will pull in more testers in the coming weeks and eventually a new trailer too.

When it comes to the first Early Access build next year they're looking at giving 5+ hours of the story available with "medium replay value" and all gameplay systems hooked up. It will have gamepad support on top of mouse / keyboard, rebindable controls, support across Linux / macOS / Windows.

For the full version they're hoping for at least 20 hours of story content, with more replay value. Further out, we might even see modding support and a level editor.

They also confirmed that online co-op would probably not happen due to budget limitations. However, local co-op will be a feature supported.

You can see their older trailer below to get more of an idea of what it will be like:

Watch video on YouTube.com

You can follow and wishlist Death Trash on Steam . Once there's a confirmed Early Access date we will let you know.

Might and Delight (Shelter, Meadow and more) are currently developing Book of Travels which they're calling a TMORPG (Tiny Multiplayer Online RPG) and it looks seriously gorgeous.

With a crowdfunding campaign well behind them now that was a success back in November 2019, they're fully into the production on it now and they put up around 30 minutes of footage along with commentary to give us a true proper first look at what to expect from it. I'm ridiculously curious about this since it will have small player numbers per cluster, it will rely on your character learning a unique symbol language and a focus on authentic roleplaying.

Watch video on YouTube.com

They also spoke to PC Gamer to get some more insight, and they make it sound even more interesting than I initial expected. There's no big-bad evil, or some sort of bad king. The world is already peaceful but there's still going to be some combat and conflict with combat being a serious event with lasting effects. Still, it sounds like Book of Travels is very much about the exploration, learning about the world and the journey, not constant encounters.

Some other features to expect from it:

• Authentic roleplaying and individual playstyles - Pick one of 20+ Forms in a detailed character creation sheet that focuses on personality and identity rather than stats and classes. The game allows you to play in a style that matches your character and to set your own personal goals. Are you a danger-seeking adventurer, a stoic practitioner of magic binding, or a carefree tea drinking gambler?
• Boundless narrative that won’t hold your hand - Your travels will present you with countless randomly occurring events making your story unique and each session different from the last. Peel back the layers of diverse plotlines and discover an immensely deep fairytale world.
• TMO - Tiny Multiplayer Online - Other players are few, but your paths will cross - it’s up to you to choose to travel together or go it alone. Find vehicles to reach far flung places or just amble through woods together. The absence of guilds and social structures makes your temporary fellowships unique and memorable.
• A beautiful world of uncertainty - An intricate and unique world that draws inspiration from old-world fairytales, Eastern mythologies and early industrial eras. Tons of intricate events chains that unlock items, characters, deep world secrets, and hidden gameplay features and tricks.

I can't wait to get absorbed into that world!

You can follow Book of Travels on Steam . They also have Shelter 3 coming up in 2021 too.

Daggerfall Unity is the open source game engine built with Unity for running the 1996 classic The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall and it's coming along very nicely.

A new release just went up with Daggerfall Unity 0.10.28, which the developer mentions is now "feature complete" and so it will be moving from Alpha to Beta status soon. Going by their roadmap , that sure is a lot of completed items. It's not finished though, as they will move onto bug fixing, minor adjustments, modding, translations and so on.

What's new with this release? Large HUD support, along with the ability to have the HUD docked or undocked meaning it can either stretch or have a more fixed size - good for bigger resolutions where it might get too stretched.

There's more ways to configure the HUD now in the settings file too, and a big overhaul to the movement system to better match the original. They can't match the movement system exactly, instead going for a system that enables you to feel more powerful and faster when you're a higher level. The biggest change appears to be the jumping ability, with it now giving small jumps to low levels and bigger / longer jumps for higher levels.

Plenty more smaller and varied fixes also made it in, there was a lot of little bits of fine tuning.

Since it's such an old game, it's also freely available as Bethesda Softworks put it up as a free download back in 2009. This means it really can live forever with an up to date cross-platform game engine. Daggerfall Unity isn't quite the same though of course, as it does have some unique enhancements so it's more like "Classic Daggerfall Plus" as the developer calls it.

Find it on the official site and GitHub .

This might actually be my favourite class so far in Last Epoch, the impressive time-travelling action RPG.

Last Epoch 0.8 is out now and adds in the 5th playable character class with the Rogue, giving you the chance to dance around your enemies with some blades. This new class comes with 2 mastery classes with the Bladedancer and Marksman, 17 skills and specialization trees, 46 class-specific affixes for body armour and helments along with it having a unique character model, animations and some wonderful voice acting. Easily now my go-to character because seeing blades spinning around and throwing shurikens is ridiculously satisfying.

Not all though, they also improved the multiplayer with this update. While you can play it entirely solo, having multiplayer features is a nice touch to expand upon. The social features are more stable, you can now whisper to other players, you can adjust more chat settings and manage your friends list easier.

Lots more than that! It's a huge update. Love daggers? Good news, they're in with 11 subtypes available. There's also now Bows with 11 subtypes and they're currently Rogue-specific and Quivers as well that you use off-hand with bows and they also have 8 subtypes. So much experimenting now possible with all the different classes and equipment. Additionally there's 8 new unique items, a new 3-piece set, visual and sound updates, performance improvements and quite a lot more.

Check out their new overview video:

Watch video on YouTube.com

Even though it's in Early Access and so it's not finished, Last Epoch might now be my go-to action RPG when I want to run around questing, looting and cutting up horrible creatures with blades. Eleventh Hour Games are doing well with it and I'm seriously keen to see how much they expand it. Definitely one to take a look at if you're in need of a new RPG.

You can buy Last Epoch on Steam .

Continuing to move through their library of classic RPGs starting with the first Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition, there's now the 2.6 Beta available for Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition. Eventually this update will also be coming to Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition too.

This is a massive upgrade for the tech behind the game, as well as solving numerous bugs and other issues. To try it, which is currently only on Steam until it's ready for everyone, you can opt into it by going into the Properties -> Beta tab and selecting "road_to_2.6".

What's new for BGII:EE in the 2.6 update? Some highlights:

• Changed to 64 bit executables; 32 bit operating systems are no longer supported
• Hundreds of bug fixes including many spell fixes
• Improved pathfinding
• Improved multiplayer stability
• Added Adventurers of Neverwinter content to all games
• Added French text localization to Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition

Plus plenty of other assorted fixes and improvements to existing features. The full list can be seen here .

Beamdog are looking for feedback on how your testing went if you do try the 2.6 Beta update. They need to know if you can Launch and Save + Load it correctly without issues and they want this tested on Linux too.

You can leave a comment on this Steam announcement post . Once ready, it will be up on the GOG store as usual too.