Waves: Arena Tactics announced, adds online multiplayer to the gorgeous twin-stick shooter

Squid in a Box made waves with Waves back in the day, which is an annoying way of saying they released a celebrated twin-stick shooter that involved pretty particles exploding all over everything. Now they've announced a sequel, Waves: Arena Tactics , that takes the arcade shmupping of the original game and pairs it with "more of everything", including new weapons, abilities, loadout customisation, and four-player online co-op and competitive multiplayer. It's due out in 2014, and even though I've broken the first rule of internetting and told you everything before the break, you should stick around for an expectedly gorgeous first-look trailer.

That is one seriously hexy game. (Was anyone else reminded of that fab new piece of art software Hexels ?) The original Waves is still available on Steam , if the trailer's put you in the mood to fire at things until they explode in a cloud of digital confetti.

Thanks, IndieGames .

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.