Insurmountable & XCOM 2, Free on Epic

Monday, Anime Overcooked gets a release date. Tuesday, Unsouled is another 2D Souls-like, this time top-down and getting a full release. Wednesday, if you are still stuck in the past of fighting games, pre-orders are available for the Capcom Fighting Collection. Thursday, Bugsnax is spreading to other platforms, as Blizzard rubs out the history of Vicarious Visions.

Moving on to this week’s free games on the Epic Games Store. Of course, any time I hope the workload will lighten up, someone has to pile it back on. Insurmountable is a Rogue-lite mountain climbing adventure game that is doing the most important thing, the same… but different. While other mountain-climbing things of late have been leaning heavily on the survival or “comedy” where it is near-impossible to climb even the smallest mountain, Insurmountable seemingly forgets those as basecamp. While there are a number of survival elements, it seems there is at least a more significant focus on the adventure.

Released last year, there wasn’t much fanfare surrounding it, and for good reason. The premise alone sounds interesting, and as I said, it is the same… but different. However, that difference alone doesn’t particularly light new fires to keep adventurers alive for long. On paper, it is a concept that can only go so far, and it does have legs, it just isn’t going to compete with what seems to be the goal for everyone else, length. Look at the best Rogue-likes, Isaac, Hades, and Darkest Dungeon, they are built for tens to hundreds of hours of play. Insurmountable seems to be sliding up against the unenviable task of crossing what seems to be the insurmountable 50-hour mark.

Nothing exemplifies modern tastes in comparison quite like XCOM 2, the 2K and Firaxis reimagination of the classic turn-based alien murder simulator, in which many players accumulate hundreds of hours. The 2016 sequel to the wonderful 2012 reinvigoration of the sci-fi turn-based strategy genre, did everything fans love and hate about sequels. It gave more, and while it did bring small changes, those changes are hissed at with flecks of venom spat from the fangs of the more ardent, immovable fans. I like it a lot, as I said when I reviewed the similar Phoenix Point from the series creator, Jullian Gollop.

Then again, take my opinion with a grain of salt, as I am the only one that enjoyed The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, despite it being easily one of the worst games. I liked the camp 1950s, almost Destroy All Humans-like style throughout the game even if it was inexorably the same third-person shooter guff we have elsewhere. Luckily, the actual sequel to the alien invasion simulator just continues turn-based fun, though it does have a history of performance issues for which I’ve experienced many times, ultimately worth playing for many many hours.

You can pick up both XCOM 2 and Insurmountable for free on the Epic Games Store all this week, until the 21st of April. So moving on to next week and moaning about horror once again, the big highlight is Amnesia: Rebirth. Released almost two years ago now, Rebirth is another one of those walking simulator “BOOO!!! did we scare you?” games, this time on the set of a film from 2010. Otherwise, there is Riverbond, a co-op voxel-art dungeon crawler with lots of lovely colors. Despite my predilection for colorful games, Riverbond isn’t lighting metaphorical fires in me.