Play a traveling painter in the beautiful open world of Eastshade, coming in February

I first heard about Eastshade back in 2016, and the idea sounded immediately appealing: wander a gorgeous open world as a traveling painter, completing landscape paintings at the behest of NPCs. Originally planned for a 2017 release, it's obviously been delayed a touch, but it'll finally grace our monitors on February 13. Check out the new trailer above.

While you don't physically stand there with a brush painting your masterworks (for that you might want to check out Passpartout), you do pick your spot and canvas size, and compose your framing. So really, it's more like taking photos, which is a splendidly enjoyable thing to do in games, especially in games that look as lovely as Eastshade.

There are NPCs to meet and talk to, and as you complete painting commissions for them you'll learn more of their stories and uncover some of Eastshade's secrets. You can learn more on the Steam store page.

Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.