Enlarge / You might not like it, but this—along with a giant sack of burritos just off-camera to the left—is what peak cRPG gaming looks like. (credit: Jim Salter)

When I got the chance to play a pre-release copy of inXile's post-apocalyptic RPG Wasteland 3 , I jumped at it. As a huge fan of RPGs in general and a backer of Wasteland 2 , getting to play the next game in the series for my job was an obvious no-brainer. For those who aren't already familiar with the series, it's a darkly humorous tactical battler, set in an alternate-universe post-apocalyptic America divided into widely separated fiefdoms and sprawling chaos.

If you're thinking "like Fallout , but turn-based?" you're not too far off—there are a lot of similarities between Wasteland's and Fallout's versions of post-WWIII America, including some hilariously retrofuturistic touches. But where Fallout's world seems to have sprung from the late '50s, Wasteland 's setting branches out from somewhere in the '80s. The HUD includes an Alpine-style cassette deck with obnoxious graphic equalizer, the clubs have Discobots, the CPUs are "overclocked to 66MHz," and so on.

Wasteland tries to take itself a little more seriously than Fallout does, too—its humor is a little less over the top, its ethical choices are harder, and it tries more frequently to get you to feel the gravity of the plights its characters find themselves in, up to and including brutal murder and cannibalism. It's a fine line to walk, but the tongue-in-cheek cultural references and silly jokes keep the player from slipping into despair at the awful situations faced by the game's characters.

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With a style inspired by retro Zelda titles, Arkanya Team is working alongside Top Hat Studios to produce The Girl from Arkanya. A top-down treasure hunting RPG, with the protagonist Marisa followed around by a capybara.

"The Girl from Arkanya is the tale of Marisa, an aspiring young adventurer with her sights set on becoming the world’s greatest treasure hunter! She is accompanied by her capybara companion, and you will need to use both characters together in creative ways to solve puzzles and challenges."

Most developers go for a dog, a cat or something like that but a capybara? That's certainly a bit different to what's expected. Describing the game, they said it "takes a proven formula and expands upon it" with the two character control scheme thanks to the pet.

Watch video on YouTube.com

We spoke to Arkanya Games, who mentioned that Linux will be supported and it was an oversight that they didn't initially list it on their Kickstarter campaign. Since that message, they've since added a dedicated bit to the Kickstarter FAQ with a question of "Will the game available on Linux?" and a clear "Yes, it certainly will!" answer.

You can check out the Kickstarter here , it runs until September 3. Against their $10,000 initial goal, they're currently fully funded with close to $30K.

Dark Envoy is the next title from Event Horizon, creator of Tower of Time, and there's a bunch of new gameplay available in a fresh video.

Before that though, as a quick reminder. Dark Envoy is a non-linear RPG to offer exploration of a vast world with an emphasis on tactical combat layered with lore and strategy. A continuation of Event Horizon’s attempt, which began with the studio’s debut title Tower of Time, to shatter long-standing RPG tropes and to create something unique in the process.

When originally asked about Linux support for Dark Envoy, last year they said that after the effort they put in with Tower of Time and with their experience now they will continue Linux support. Catching up with them after the new gameplay video went up, they said to GOL that Linux is still planned unless something impossible comes up "due to strange linux variations". So, the usual. Anyway, check out the 9 minute footage below:

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In addition to the new footage, they also mentioned a delay to the release. It's now going to be in 2021, with an aim to be around April / May time. They won't release until they are "fully satisfied with the quality, to ensure that Dark Envoy is a game worthy of your time and which you will remember playing".

You can follow Dark Envoy on Steam .

Coming up on a year since the original release, Children of Morta from developer Dead Mage and publisher 11 bit studios has now formally added Linux support.

Children of Morta is an action RPG with a rogue-lite approach to character development, where you don’t play a single character - but a whole, extraordinary family of heroes. Hack’n’slash through hordes of enemies in procedurally generated dungeons, caves and lands and lead the family of Bergsons, with all their flaws and virtues, against the forthcoming Corruption.

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As of right now, the Steam purchase on Linux results in an empty download, as they forgot to add Steam store purchases to the Linux content depot on Steam. This is an error many developers make, which we wrote about previously . We've let them know to fix it soon hopefully. Will update when it's fixed.

We'll be taking a good look at it soon. Really great to see another crowdfunded title deliver on more of its promises.

You can buy it from Humble Store and Steam . Hopefully they will also put it up on GOG .

GemRB, a fine example of an open source game engine reimplementation for the Infinity Engine that powered the classic RPGs including Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale and Planescape: Torment games celebrates two big things.

The first, is that they have put up a new official release with GemRB 0.8.7 which is technically minor but still brings in some fun sounding goodies including:

• New features:
  • new smarter pathfinder with bumping support
  • animal taming, iwd2 hardcoded saving throw bonuses
  • vcpkg and out-of-the box msvc support
  • non-ascii data filename support
• Improved features:
• disk reading speedups, ease of setup
• iwd chargen, pst spell timing, hardcoded overlays, iwd2 casting ai
• better actor speeds & walk sounds
• audio, pst ini handling, savegame compatibility, morale handling
• effects, projectiles, actions, range calculations
• bugfixes

Additionally, they mentioned work is ongoing on their rewrite of  "drawing and GUI handling" which is currently their main priority.

The second major thing is that they're celebrating a huge milestone. As a free and open source project, it's now been going for 20 years which is pretty incredible.

Work on GemRB was originally started on August 21st, 20 years ago, as project creator Daniele Colantoni went to SourceForge to try and gather a team to work on it, "I missed playing D&D with my friends so much /…/ I wanted to create my game to play via internet. So I started my personal reverse engineering process on the base files from Baldur’s Gate.". Many years later, it's now capable of playing through the full Baldur’s Gate saga, the first Icewind Dale and Planescape: Torment (still needs polishing) and with Icewind Dale 2 having the first two chapters playable. Note: GemRB appears to not support the Enhanced Editions of the classics.

As GemRB marks its 20th anniversary, Jaka Kranjc, the current maintainer, is optimistic about the project’s future. "Our work is not finished, but this sort of thing is like an ultramarathon — for most of the run the goal is not within reach. Companies come and go, but FLOSS persists!"

You can grab GemRB from the official site .

Chronicon is an example of pure dedication, as Subworld developed this excellent 2D action RPG over the course of over five years and it's now left Early Access.

A game that won me over from the first time I loaded it up too, with the heavy atmosphere and intense action that really does give you a classic Diablo feel wrapped up in some nice pixel art with great lighting and effects. It has a curious story too, as you're in a world that appears to have been save already. You're granted the honour of using the Chronicon, a device that allows you to open portals to re-live old tales.

To give you an idea, see the launch trailer below:

Watch video on YouTube.com

New as of the big 1.0 release:

• Added Act 5, complete with 29 new areas, 23 quests (8 optional), 12 new unique items from 12 unique monster spawns, 7 new enemy types with a total of 27 variations, 6 new troves to find, and 5 new big bosses to fight!
• Added 24 new Legendary+ items.
• Added 24 new endgame Runes.
• Updated 26 items with new powers, improved powers, or power tweaks.
• Updated & improved 14 sets.
• Updated & improved 9 Runes.
• Added new Anomaly bosses, layouts, and rare modifiers.
• Added 20 new Achievements.
• Added many suggestions and QoL improvements.
• Added over 120 new sound effects to monsters, bosses, interface, etc.
• Improved performance.

The amount that's available to play through in Chronicon is quite ridiculous and impressive, with it starting off slow and steady it gradually expands into some insane fights against enemies big and small. And the loot, my word, the loot! You're going to be utterly spoilt by all the spoils. Even more impressive when you realise this was the first game made by a solo developer, Daniel “Squarebit” Stigsjöö is the only person that makes up the independent studio Subworld from Sweden. Something that was originally meant to only be a small rogue-lite that just continued expanding.

We helped the developer sort out their Linux dependencies in a previous release (volunteered help), so it should continue working nicely across various Linux distributions. The only issue I encountered was the Steam Overlay not appearing.

You can find Chronicon on Humble Store and Steam .

As a free and major upgrade for Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Enhanced Edition, the Definitive Edition upgrade is out now and it's a pretty huge update.

"Pathfinder: Kingmaker is the first single-player isometric CRPG set in the world of a top-selling D&D type role-playing game by Paizo. Being a tribute to such classics as Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights. Establish your kingdom to bring peace, hope, and prosperity to the land or take everything for yourself and drive it into darkness."

The biggest additions in the Definitive Edition are the ability to play it in a turn-based mode, which is a thoroughly different experience and you can also now hook up a gamepad. Apart from that, they attempted to address a pretty long list of technical issues both big and small.

It's the Console trailer below but it gives you a reasonably up to date idea of what the game looks like of course.

Watch video on YouTube.com

Pathfinder: Kingmaker has always been a bit of a mixed bag. It offered a lot of content, fun mechanics that mixes things up compared to other similar RPGs, an interesting story and so on but so many technical issues across all platforms made it a bit of a nuisance. Hopefully now it's a bit smoother for RPG fans. In my own testing of the Linux version, which they've kept up to date, both new major features work quite well. No issues with gamepad input at all, honestly, I might even like this a lot better with a gamepad in hand.

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

What's become quite an ongoing indie success story is Vagrus - The Riven Realms, an incredibly interesting post-apocalyptic fantasy RPG-strategy hybrid.

"Vagrus is an award-winning roleplaying game with a narrative focus, open-world exploration, and strong elements of strategy. The player takes the role of a vagrus - a caravan leader who strives to survive in a strange and dangerous dark fantasy world by leading a traveling company on all kinds of ventures."

A game that's been featured here on GOL a few times, and with good reason. The amount of promise it shows is ridiculous, especially if you love games with deep lore and lots to explore. Lost Pilgrims Studio have been funding their game on Fig for over a year, using a hybrid model of Early Access / Crowdfunding where you get instant access. This campaign has now passed $100,000 and continues to rise as they pull in funding to work on new features.

Watch video on YouTube.com

It formally entered Early Access on Steam and GOG back in July and it appears to be a small hit there too. On GOG it's gained 4 / 5 stars and on Steam they've managed to hit the essential Very Positive user rating from close to a 100 posts, a rating that's needed to keep Steam's almighty algorithm happy.

As a narrative-heavy game, you need to enjoy reading for pleasure. Personally, I think it's fantastic that we have such a ridiculous variety in our gaming. From fast-paced action to slow-burn games like this. I've played quite a lot of Vagrus myself and thoroughly enjoy the atmosphere and great design, the writing is definitely interesting too. Vagrus is a bit of a deep hole to fall into too, as it sprinkles in more and more game mechanics as you travel across the lands. Dealing with random encounters, keeping your people happy and paid, turn-based combat, visiting and interacting with different locations to pick up cargo and more. Lots to see already.

You can find Vagrus - The Riven Realms now on GOG , Steam and Fig .

Veloren is an in-development open-world and open source voxel RPG, it shows a massive amount of promise and a brand new release is out for you to try. If you missed it, we did an interview with one of the developers back in June which is a good read if you want a little more background info.

Inspired by the likes of Cube World, Dwarf Fortress, and Breath of the Wild it could be something special and this brand new 0.7 release is showing more of what it's capable of.

Release Highlights:

• Progression: crafting system, stats system for items, and improved character saving
• Exploration: dungeons, new world generation, and castles
• Combat: new weapons, pets, particle system, skills, groups, improved AI, and new SFX

That's really just the tip of the code, there's so much that's improved it's crazy. NPCs call for help if attacked, there's speech bubbles for nearby players when talking, a new context-sensitive crosshair was added, there's a Lottery system for loot, a server whitelist system, better pathfinding and the list just goes on. Amazing work by all the contributors.

They're also having a release party today at 18:00 GMT/11:00 PST/14:00 EST/20:00 CET. All you need to do is make sure you're up to date and logged into the main server.

Grab it free from the official site , using the launcher is the easiest way.