Confined on the cover of this month's issue, a crim with a dark past, a cold-eyed con, an orange outlaw with a rebellious streak that can't be tamed - it's Prison Architect! This month's issue is devoted to celebrating the wit and inventiveness of indie development in all its many and varied forms. We go inside Introversion to uncover the story behind their prison-building sim, round up the most exciting upcoming indie games, cover 50 fantastic free games that you can play right now and still find space to review the latest releases, go on more adventures in Now Playing, and cover the hottest hardware.
What's more, this month you'll get Introversion's entire back catalogue for free . That's four games worth £12 in total including Uplink , Defcon , Darwinia and Multiwinia . The issue should be with subscribers now, but will hit corporeal and digital shelves on Thursday, where you'll be able to buy it via the App Store , Google Play or Zinio . If you prefer, you can subscribe to get each issue delivered to your door. Read on to discover what else we've trapped within the pages of issue 256.
this month we...
- Get an early look at Hotline Miami 2, The Crew, Space Hulk, Splinter Cell: Blacklist, Routine, Wildstar, EVR and Sir, You Are Being Hunted.
- Round-up eleven of the hottest upcoming indie games we should all be a bit excited about.
- Investigate how mainstream gaming has let us down in The Indie Manifesto.
- Discover how Introversion dodged jail by making a game about building jails with Prison Architect.
- Write about 50 of the best games you can play for free right now.
- Review Neverwinter, Magrunner, The Swapper, Deadpool, Marvel Heroes, The Walking Dead: 400 Days, Reus, The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing, Element4l, Rogue Legacy, Pinball FX2, Joe Joe Danger and Danger 2: the Movie and Night of the Rabbit. We also examine whether the StarForge and Project Zomboid alphas are worth your time yet.
- Pit the hottest CPUs around against one another in this month's hardware supertest and review the Geforce GTX 770.
- Dive back into the fiend-filled warrens of Torchlight 2 to see what's new in this month's Update.
- Let Craig loose on the SS in our Reinstall of Sniper Elite V2
- Recount the highs, lows and lols of Kerbal Space Program, Company of Heroes 2, Sleeping Dogs and more in Now Playing.
- Give Andy Kelly the keys to his very own prison in this month's Prison Architect diary.
- And loads more!
Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics lays off 17 employees 'to better align our current business needs and the studio's future success'
As layoffs and studio closures continue to deathroll the western AAA industry, analyst points out 5 of 8 major Japanese companies hit all-time share prices this year
