There are no training wheels in this kingdom.
Buried deep within this insect infested land, each playthrough of Hollow Knight feels and moves a little differently. There are no waypoints or story missions - there's not even a right or wrong way to play, really. Developer Team Cherry doesn't care where you go, or how you get there. Even how much of the story you see is up to you.
This lack of direction is overwhelming at first. Even though I'm the kind of player that naturally double-backs on where I think any given game wants me to go - someone who instinctively scours for secrets - the dozens of pathways and possibilities trouble me. As I wander through Hollow Knight's early hours it becomes more troubling still, and I start to worry that I may miss huge swaths of lore and collectibles - even whole areas, maybe? - if I'm not thorough enough. But as I adapt to the natural ebb and flow of Hollow Knight's rhythm and concentrate instead on what lies ahead, that anxiety melts away.

From Software is making a game exclusively for PlayStation VR which was revealed in a trailer that screened after the end of Sony's E3 showcase. Because Sony aren't doing anything by the book this year, it seems.
The game is called Déraciné, whis is the French word for 'uprooted'. It has no release date. The trailer shows a large stately house with a clock tower, shot in scratchy sepia and largely empty but for a couple of unhappy-looking characters. There is some enigmatic voiceover dialogue. At the end, a dead flower is brought back to life by some magic sparkles and colour starts to seep into the scene.
What does it all mean? Who knows, but this is From's third E3 reveal in two days after Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and the Metal Wolf Chaos remaster. If it gets any more prolific, it'll be the new Platinum Games.

Modder mathy79 has released a brand new graphics mod for the Special Edition of Skyrim that aims to overhaul its flora. The Skyrim 3D Landscapes mod comes with more than 90 custom made vegetation models of all types planted by hand around the lands.

There's something magical about video games set in the real world. At the intersection of the fantastical and the mundane you get to become the hero of our very own world while taking in some of the most beautiful vistas our planet has to offer, all from the comfort of your couch.
For a long time, I had no particular feeling on the topic, since I had as much of a connection to contemporary Hong Kong or Seattle as I had to Skyrim and Mordor.
That changed on an overcast day in March 2012, when I was living my best life as an exchange student in Japan. I had flown to Okinawa with two friends to escape the surprisingly persistent, wet cold of early March, and on our first day, while we were idly exploring the town of Naha, it began to rain and we ducked into a roofed shopping district.

Summer landscapes can be taken for granted as bright and breezy backdrops to games. However, what spring started, summer finishes. Following on from , summer further fuels and invigorates the landscape. Lands become majestically colourful, gorgeously lush and bursting at the seams with life as the peak of the growing season and life cycle are hit. Bright sunlight basks the land in glorious light and stretches the days, while vivid foliage spreads as far as the eye can see, punctuated by glorious flowering plants, laying a carpet of life over the land. These are the hazy days of summer, indeed. Life breeds life and swathes of landscape are transformed, covered in lush foliage and colour, while the land becomes more productive, increasing interaction and function.
Summer has its own meaning, and this can be injected into games through the landscapes they have and portray - and all of their elements they contain. Smash this wonderful, bright season together with narrative and story arcs and there is a new side to summer environments to be enjoyed and experienced.
The success and majesty of The Witcher 3's landscapes are further elevated when examined through a seasonal lens as it can reveal even more environmental nuances and specific landscape features. The configuration of summer landscapes through fidelity, function and beauty underlines the environment's importance in contributing to The Witcher 3's place-making, story and atmosphere (particularly in Velen and Toussaint), but also demonstrate the sheer importance and power summer has over the landscape, guiding its life and character. Avoiding fawning over each individually hand-placed, wholly-accurate plant (this time) as examples of The Witcher 3's summer landscape, it is the active and productive horticultural landscapes that show summer's power.

In A New Dawn, the demo starts not with the main character, but with a sweeping overview of a lush rainforest. Ferns gently sway in the moonlight, vines sprawl across an ancient tree, and budding flowers cast a gentle glow on the surrounding bark. As our character comes into view, we find her swinging on a vine in her new tree home. The tree is rendered to the finest level of detail using DirectX 11 tessellation. At its peak, over four million triangles are used to showcase Dawn's environment.