Nioh & Sheltered Are Free On Epic

Monday, Civilization 6 is discounted until next Thursday, and a free-to-play shooter is fixing its pay-to-win issues. Tuesday, I got talking about the law in Texas and Tripwire Interactive taking swift action on their former CEO. Wednesday, Far Cry 3, or as it should be known, the model on which all Far Cry games are based-on, is currently free. One of Tomb Raider‘s creators has made a Souls-like, and CD Projekt Red are asking fans to put down half a million dollars for a Witcher-based manga. No, that’s not a joke! Thursday, Star Trek: Picard got a new trailer and a release window, while the LGBTQ+ game, The Gardener and the Wild Vines, was released on PC yesterday.

Onto the “Can I at least sleep sometime this millennium?” rant, also known as the free games on the Epic Games Store and my general opinions on them. Starting with the one I am not going to play even a little bit because that way madness lies, Nioh: The Complete Edition. As a Japanese Souls-like in the sense that it is actually set in Japan and not just that it was created in Japan, you do all the clanging and banging that The Rock was on about in the 90s. I’ll be honest, what little I’ve gotten into Nioh I’ve enjoyed, but it has a little bit too much Team Ninja influence sometimes. Which is to say, I’ve seen a Kentucky-based chicken restaurant that has been a little more conservative with the thighs and breasts.

You play as William Adams’ marketable Irish cousin in Edo-period Japan, slicing up demons atop a pagoda and doing all the usual Dark Souls business. That’s all fine and dandy. However, like most Souls-likes, there is just something almost indescribable missing that a lot of developers seem to be unable to recreate. Yes, the combat is one part of the experience I like and would be the reason my therapist keeps asking “why do you keep doing this to yourself?” However, the reason Dark Souls is throwing discarded bones your way Nioh is simply because it knows, or rather FromSoft understands, it is the whole package: The world, the story, the downtime, and yes, the combat.

Why yes, Dark Souls and I will be getting married, thank you for asking. In truth, I don’t mind Nioh taking steps to distance itself from Dark Souls, though when it does so by being the step between Dark Souls and Bloodborne in terms of combat speed, it has hardly moved an inch. The only time it does shift is when it unzips its coat and flashes the hairy abundance of combat complexity and weapons, something I’ve yet to understand. Yet as a whole, Nioh is a Souls-like that can pull you through until January when you spend the next 6-months calling George R R Martin a lazy git.

Onto the other game for this week, Sheltered. A SimTower-like, or if you are too young and hate having money, Fallout Shelter-like. As Mike noted just yesterday, the zombie thing that has taken over the last decade has become a bit too comfortable with some people. So much so that they regularly post online how they’d survive in a zombie apocalypse. This is from the same people that 18-months ago were bulk buying and reselling toilet paper, bread, and other fundamental amenities of survival while everyone else was too. How did that apocalypse work out for you? All of which is to say, on the surface Sheltered looks to be a zombie game with characters you meet in combat being greyer than the drains at a retirement home in Florida.

You’d never guess it, given the family you play are as covered up as a teenager on Spring break when they are out of the bunker. However, yes, the game is set in the desolate wastelands of the nuclear holocaust. The difficulty I have is with the art style. On one hand, it is at least stylized and distinct. Nonetheless, when I can hardly tell the difference between a child and an adult because they have three pixels for a face with that similar annoying low-poly thing going on, I have no idea. As a concept, I like it: There is a reason when Project Highrise or any other SimTower-like comes along, I get excited. It is just the art style that really puts me off.

All this week you can pick up Nioh: The Complete Edition and Sheltered for free on the Epic Games Store until the 16th of September. Next week I’ll be complaining about Speed Brawl, possibly for real this time, and FTL-like Tharsis. The former was replaced by Minit about a month ago for issues the developer had with integration (I’d assume) with the storefront so we’re getting a little bit of speed fighting next week, maybe. The other just gives me a mix of FTL and Frostpunk vibes, with the description noting its turn-based nature and “With dice. And cannibalism.” I like the thing in that group that you can roll down a hill