There aren't many things I'm looking forward to more than Nightdive's remaster of the original Thief. Is this because I'm old? Yes, but it's also because Thief is an all-timer videogame and I can't wait to see Nightdive work its magic on it.

At the PC Gaming Show Tokyo Direct, we got a hefty helping of gameplay in a new trailer for the remaster, showing Garrett stuffing his pockets in all manner of poorly-lit, erm, manors, plus sewers, crypts, tombs, dungeons—you know, Thief places.

It looks great. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Nightdive has gotten 'making games look how you remember them looking' down to an art. No ugly uprezzed textures or weirdly 3D models, just a lot of deft touches that keep the game's original art style intact.

I'm also pretty sure we got a glimpse of the game's controller support, and it looks like the remaster is taking its cues from the (very good) already-existing controller mods for the un-remastered version of the game.

You can select items using a handy-dandy inventory wheel, which is just how the mods do it. Supposing Nightdive is taking its cues from them, then I imagine we're going to get something that feels almost weirdly well-suited to a PC game originally released in 1998. The mods make flicking between your various arrow types (remember to stock up on water and moss, hard-mode players) very easy indeed—I imagine Nightdive's version might make it even easier.

I'll say this, though: this trailer, with its driving soundtrack and ample blackjacking and arrow-loosing, doesn't quite match my memories of Thief, which mostly consist of a lot of standing in dark corners and memorising guard patrol routes. Where's the 10-hour 'Hanging out with Garrett behind a door' ASMR YouTube video, Nightdive? You're missing a trick there.

Check out our Steam page with all the games, updates, and DLC featured in the show. You can also read our roundup article which includes every announcement from the show in the order it aired.

Modder Doneda has released a particularly funky and exciting mod for elden Ring Nightreign, porting Dark Souls 2's Frozen Eleum Loyce and Frigid Outskirts as a standalone map. They also have a trailer up for the project on YouTube. Doneda's a bit of a Dark Souls 2 expert⁠—they previously restored the remains of a cut sewers map to the sequel for demonstration purposes.

Gun to my head, I think the Brume Tower is my favorite DS2 level, but Eleum Loyce still feels like a dear old friend. I enjoyed base DS2 more than most, but the Lost Crowns DLCs were on a whole different level. Other FromSoft DLCs may be better in a vacuum (Old Hunters, Shadow of the Erdtree), but there has never been a more staggering, exhilarating leap in quality between one of the studio's games and its corresponding expansion.

While Brume Tower may be my beautiful baby, it just wouldn't fit in Nightreign like Eleum Loyce does: The wide open Outskirts and walled city can mimic the mini open world of Limveld in a way the twisty, narrow Brume Tower couldn't manage. My favorite detail is that it looks like the night two circle narrows down on the underground chaos arena where you fight the Burnt Ivory King, a fun and creative recontextualizing of the level's original flow.

Doneda's new map is already available for download on the Nightreign Nexus. You'll need to install Mod Engine 3 beforehand to run it⁠—most, if not all Nightreign mods require the utility. Doneda seems intent on making more modded Nightreign maps, and you can follow their work on YouTube or support them via Ko-fi.

You talk about love/hate relationships, I'd say I have a ⅔ hate, ⅓ love relationship with Nightreign. Its Deep of Night update gave me and my friends incentive to keep playing, while it introduces some truly incredible boss fights⁠—stuff like The Balancers and Libra give me hope that FromSoft can still surprise, delight, and challenge in a post-Promised Consort world.

But Deep of Night also subjected us to the most frustrating, artless version of FromSoftware difficulty I've yet seen, and the studio appears to have quietly stopped supporting the game to work on The Duskbloods⁠—and hopefully something else, too?

Perhaps I should take the glass half full view of FromSoft releasing a multiplayer game, supporting it a bit, but not feeling compelled to turn it into a forever empire of live service returns. In the absence of official support, though, there have been some weird, exciting things happening with Nightreign. Yui's Nightreign iteration of her signature Seamless Co-op mod is a welcome addition for more "chill with your friends" -style play, while I've been intrigued by gameplay videos of TerraMag's SotE and ds3 weapons, a "no duh" addition that I'm still surprised FromSoft didn't manage itself.

Since the dawn of time, mankind has reckoned with one overriding question: how do I get in that building and kill everyone in it?

For almost as long, the Stronghold series has grappled with both sides of this conundrum, placing you in the mailed shoes of both defender and attacker in medieval siege after medieval siege. Now, 15 years (would you believe it?) after Stronghold 3, Stronghold 4 is here to put things in trebuchets and launch them at you, and we just caught sight of it at the PC Gaming Show Tokyo Direct.

It all looks quite swish—that good old, down-home Stronghold fun with plenty of refinements to make it all sing. Firefly's promising battles both big and varied, with stuff like seven-CPU skirmishes and 14 (count 'em) battlefields serving as the big bullet points for the trailer.

Me, though? I'm most enamoured of the eight distinct sickos who will serve as your enemy lords. We've got an old guy, essentially doing a medieval and elderly version of the old 'You can't cut back on funding!' character from Sim City, you've got a man with a profoundly punchable face and a zoomer haircut, you've got a fellow who seems to not quite be all there, and, my favourite, a goth lady who promises to break you apart piece by piece.

We also see a whole buncha, well, strongholds, which range in design from simple to labyrinthine and range in material from wood to stone, and which it looks like you can really go to town on, design-wise. I must say, I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the game's stronghold-making tools and building me a castle that will last generations. Or at least until someone puts several flaming holes into it.

Stronghold 4 is coming later this year. You can wishlist it on Steam.