What we’ve been playing – kingdoms, underworlds and caped crusaders

31st May 2024

Hello! Welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we’ve been playing over the past few days. This week we return to an old series to see how it’s evolved, we go to the underworld and play with the gods, and we go back to the Arkham game that started it all.

What have you been playing?

If you fancy catching up on some of the older editions of What We’ve Been Playing, here’s our archive.

Kingdom Two Crowns: Call of Olympus, PC

It’s been a few years since I’ve played Kingdom, the side-on, pixelated, tower defense game by noio and Raw Fury. It’s actually the game that started it all for Raw Fury in 2015-ish, and which still underpins the company now. I’d forgotten how alluring it can be.

I saw the new Call of Olympus expansion at Raw Fury’s Stockholm HQ this week, and there’s a surprising amount stuffed into it – both the game and HQ. Call of Olympus is, predictably, an ancient Greece-themed addition, but there’s more to it than a reskin. It’s got a new quest system, for example, where you take on missions for the gods, who then reward you handsomely in return. There are multiple Greek islands to travel to and establish kingdoms on, and there are things like weapons and changeable mounts – bears! – that I’ve never seen in the series before. It’s impressive.

But what grabs me most about Kingdom is what grabbed me about it all those years ago – what turned my head when I walked past it at EGX 2015, and that’s its impeccable sense of atmosphere and style. It’s a pixel art fairytale of a game, and that presentation has been honed and made even more intricate over the years. It’s the way the water, which dominates the bottom half of the screen, reflects the world above; it’s the pixelated whispers of smoke that chug up from little campfires; it’s the serene peace of it all. Don’t be fooled, there’s a challenge here, but there’s also so much more besides.

Kingdom, I’ve missed you.

(Call of Olympus is coming out sometime later this year, incidentally, but the Two Crowns game it’s built on is readily available now, on just about every platform you can think of.)

-Bertie

Hades 2, PC

Playing Hades 2 has reminded me of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. ‘Oh it’s just more Breath of the Wild,’ I thought when I first played Nintendo’s latest epic. But I was wrong. Over time, the new systems and intricacies layered up and surpassed the previous game to become one of my favorite Zeldas.

I think Hades 2 could do the same. ‘Oh it’s just more Hades,’ I thought when I first booted up the sequel. The same visual style, the same structure and gameplay loop – it was all too familiar. Yet the more I play, the more it sets itself apart with new wrinkles and ideas, and likewise could well surpass the previous game.

Much of that comes down to new protagonist Melinoë. Her backstory adds a distinct witchy vibe to the setting, but more so her use of magic puts a new spin on combat. Her moveset is less fluid than Zagreus’s, but there’s a fresh rhythm with her charged magic blasts and high speed runs to avoid attacks, not to mention the new card system for unlocking buffs. I love the creativity of the setting and bosses too – especially the musical theme of its second level climax. Just when you think Supergiant has squeezed everything it can out of Hades, here’s a whole new experience that builds on what you know in ways you hadn’t predicted. And with this being early access, there’s plenty more to come. I can’t wait to see where this run into the underworld takes us.

-Ed

Batman: Arkham Asylum, PS5

I’m going to confidently say this game (alongside Arkham City and Arkham Knight in the rest of the bundle) has been the find of the year for me. Even though this is my first official playthrough of the Arkham series, I’m already itching to start it again. Partially, it’s because seeing Kevin Conroy’s Batman and Mark Hamill’s Joker going against each other makes me extremely happy, but it’s also because it’s everything I want from a Batman game. I spent my long weekend immersing myself in the story, finding new bat gadgets and getting lost in the various Riddler puzzles hidden around the infamous asylum.

Arkham does a great job of throwing famous Batman villains at you throughout the story and giving you hints as to who or what might be next. The build-up to your first face-off with the Scarecrow was top tier. I almost fell out of my chair with excitement when Bruce Wayne started to cough and the world began to warp slightly, and I saw who was on their way. The Scarecrow level didn’t disappoint, either. Timing runs from cover to avoid Crane’s burning gaze is not something I expected, but now I can’t imagine the game without them. It was equal parts terrifying and thrilling.

-Marie