- One of the greatest roguelikes of all time is now less than $3 - 28 May 2025
There are a number of roguelikes that continue to provide an excellent time even after having spent dozens of hours with them over the years. Darkest Dungeon and Hades, for example, or, more recently, Balatro and Vampire Survivors. There's also FTL: Faster Than Light , a spaceship simulator that's easy to approach, incredibly difficult to complete, and endlessly playable. It's also available for less than $3 on Steam right now, making now a great time to try it out for yourself. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: 12 years later, classic roguelike FTL has a huge unofficial expansion How to transfer your PC and Mac progress in FTL to iPad FTL: Advanced Edition transforms the spacefaring rogue-like into a mind control space circus
- 12 years later, classic roguelike FTL has a huge unofficial expansion - 31 January 2024
Faster Than Light is the game that made stress, pressure, and the imminence of total annihilation feel like fun. Before Bethesda's space opera Starfield, or beloved roguelikes such as Hades and Dead Cells, FTL propelled us into the deepest recesses of the cosmos and left us to fend for ourselves. Engines malfunctioned. Airlocks were breached. Entire crews were unceremoniously ejected into the vacuum of the universe. But after enough playthroughs and some hard-learned lessons, Faster Than Light transcended its sharp learning curve to become one of the richest and most rewarding games of 2012. Now more than a decade old, FTL remains one of the best in the roguelike genre, and it's got a gigantic unofficial expansion - enough to fill a fan-made sequel - available right now. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: How to transfer your PC and Mac progress in FTL to iPad FTL: Advanced Ed…
- The best strategy games on PC - 6 November 2020
Looking back at it now, 2020 doesn’t feel like a banner year for strategy games, but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been a few gems. The list below – gathered by a panel of experts and regularly updated – contains games from as recently as 12 months ago alongside classics from as far back as 28 years ago. They’re all games we think you could play and love right now. (more…)
- The 9 best spaceships in PC games - 2 October 2020
One Off The List is our monthly list feature. Is there something you think doesn’t deserve to be on this list? Comment with your reasons why, and next month it may be struck off. Happy Star Wars: Squadrons day, internet. I have nothing to offer but the sneer of a veteran Elite Dangerous pilot. A disdainful scoff as you vroomify your engines in the docking bay, click-clacking your flight checks in the seat of some dusty Y-wing, some classless X-Wing, some bogus B-wing. Who do you think you are? Sitting there in the pilot’s seat of that garish tin can. Only an exponent of the foulest incorrectitudes would indulge a shipyard with all the basic-ass nomenclature of an episode of Sesame Street. Here, you fripperist, you child, gaze upon the true list of the 9 best spaceships in games. (more…)
- Game composers and YouTubers are in a murky battle for copyright control - 7 April 2020
Every time I sit down to write, the first thing I do isn’t open up a blank document, it’s find some nice video game music to listen to. And loads of it can be found free on YouTube. Ambient music from Skyrim, relaxing compilations from Animal Crossing, lo-fi Legend of Zelda remixes Sometimes, work or study just can’t get done without my 10-hour loop of Chrono Trigger’s Corridors Of Time. Looking at the millions of comments, uploads, and views these uploads get, it’s clear that I’m not alone. If you’re reading this on a PC right now, there’s a statistically decent chance that YouTube is currently open and playing some video game tunes in another tab. And it’s only possible because YouTube doesn’t treat video game music as it does other popular music. (more…)
- The 20 best space games on PC - 6 March 2020
Everyone loves a good space game, but sometimes it can feel like there are more space games to play than there are stars in the sky. Fortunately, we’re here to help with our list of all the best space games you can play on PC. Whether you’re a budding space cruiser captain, a wannabe space conqueror or an intrepid space-faring explorer, there’s a space game here for you. (more…)
- FTL Steam Achievements - 30 January 2020
FTL's achievements are now integrated with the Steam client! You will be automatically awarded any achievements you've already completed when you launch the game. For those that haven't unlocked 100% of them yet, good luck getting the rest!
- The best strategy games on PC - 29 January 2020
For a time it looked as though strategy games had sunk into a kind of deathly malaise, unsure which territory to claim next and which ones it should leave well and truly alone. Fast forward to 2020, though, and strategy games have never looked healthier, which is why we’ve compiled this best strategy games list of all time. Whether you want to conquer the depths of space, wage historical warfare or hulk around in big mechanical robots, there’s a strategy game for you below. (more…)
- FTL: Faster Than Light is getting Steam achievements later this week - 21 January 2020
Seven years after its original release, FTL: Faster Than Light is getting Steam achievements - and, all being well, they should arrive later this week. When developer Subset Games launched FTL - its critically acclaimed real-time strategy rogue-like in space - back in 2012, a total of 51 achievements were already baked into the experience. They weren't, however, part of Steam's achievement ecosystem. Come FTL's imminent update, though, proper Steam achievement support will be implemented , meaning dedicated players can finally share their FTL prowess with peers. Read more
- FTL is finally getting Steam achievements - 21 January 2020
They've been a long time coming, but soon achievement hunters will be able to feed off FTL, which is finally getting Steam achievements after only seven years. You can see them now, but you'll still need to wait to unlock them.  FTL will feature 51 achievements, rewarding you for setting fire to ships, winning games, hoarding scrap and lots of other little milestones. The whole list is available now, but Subset Games is still testing them. You'll be able to start unlocking them later this week, once FTL has been updated.  I'm not particularly fussed about Steam achievements, but it has been a long time since I gave the Rebels the finger, so this is as good an excuse as any to return.  If hunting for achievements is your thing, you might also want to check out the most obscure Steam achievements and net yourself some bragging rights. 
- Japanese Translation! - 20 December 2019
FTL version 1.6.12 adds Japanese to the list of supported languages. Windows, Mac, and Linux versions have all been updated to include the new translation.
- The best games of the decade on PC - 6 December 2019
It’s been an eventful decade for PC games, and it would be hard for you to summarise everything that’s happened in the medium across the past ten years. Hard for you , but a day’s work for us. Below you’ll find our picks for the 50 best games released on PC across the past decade. (more…)
- Games of the Decade: FTL: Faster Than Light - home amongst the stars - 30 November 2019
Alright, confession time: I have never finished a runthrough of FTL. FTL is probably my favourite game. I listen to the soundtrack every day, as I work, or unwind, or try to concentrate for just a minute. But the game? I can't finish it. In fact I'm not even getting close to finishing it, am I. The first run is just the beginning. There are all kinds of variations on your ship, that you unlock by beating that impossible final boss, that I've never used, or even really seen. But I don't care. FTL is not a game I play to finish, it's a game I play to feel at home. For some reason, I feel incredibly calmed by the fact that space is infinitely, infinitely big and I, as a result, am infinitely, infinitely small. I know some people whose stomachs turn at the thought of that, and to be fair to them I completely understand why. It's not comforting, at least on the surface, to be told that you'r…
- Video games in China: beyond the great firewall - 26 October 2019
Video games are a small window into Chinese life, but they're a window nonetheless, and video games themselves, in China, are huge. China accounts for more than half of the entire planet's PC gaming revenue. In fact, despite it being smaller than mobile gaming there, China's PC gaming market alone made over $15bn in 2018; more than half the entire amount of revenue made in the US gaming industry overall, including consoles, mobile, the lot. Going by the numbers of analyst firm Niko Partners, as of 2018 there were a total of about 630 million gamers in China - a little over 8 percent of humans on the planet. Huge. But we know there are lots of people in China, and we know lots of them play games. What's really interesting is that these people are playing games in what is, on paper, the most aggressively censored system around. I suspect this sort of thing is why economists love visiting…
- FTL Official Translations Available! - 28 September 2018
FTL: Advanced Edition is now available in 8 new languages: French, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, German, Polish, Russian, Spanish and Simplified Chinese! Теперь на русском! Już dostępne po polsku! Jetzt auf Deutsch verfügbar! Ora disponibile in italiano! Désormais disponible en français! ¡Ya disponible en español! Disponível agora em Português do Brasil! 现在有中文版! To celebrate - FTL is 50% off all weekend! Once you update to 1.6.8 it should prompt you change your language. You can always change your language in the options screen. A Japanese version is currently in the works and we may consider other languages in the future.
- Buy Into The Breach, get free FTL - 28 February 2018
This is perhaps a slightly perverse offer, seeing as so many folks who have been jonesing for Into The Breach have the jitters and the sweats specifically because it’s the follow-up to the revered FTL . However, if you’ve managed to come to this backwards, i.e. got all hot’n’bothered about Into The Breach’s ultra-deft, ultra-lean apocalyptic turn-based strategy without ever having played its brutal star-trekking predecessor FTL, good news! If you buy Into The Breach via Humble or GOG (and the former delivers you a Steam key, FYI), you’ll get a free copy of FTL. (more…)
- Our next game is now available - Into the Breach - 27 February 2018
In the long years since the release we've been working hard on our second game. We're happy to announce that Into the Breach is now available for purchase! Thank you to all of the fans of FTL and everyone else who has given us so much support during development. Cheers! Subset Games
- Our next game is now available - Into the Breach - 27 February 2018
In the long years since the release we've been working hard on our second game. We're happy to announce that Into the Breach is now available for purchase! Thank you to all of the fans of FTL and everyone else who has given us so much support during development. Cheers! Subset Games
- Wot I Think: Into The Breach - 27 February 2018
Look not to what high-speed, turn-based, sci-fi strategy wonder Into The Breach shares with its timeless predecessor FTL: Faster Than Light , but instead to how aggressively different it is. Though they share a soul of permadeath and moment-to-moment dilemmas, entire limbs have been lopped off and casually thrown aside, teeth and hair uprooted and plugged back in at strange new angles, eyeballs moved to places that were never designed to have eyeballs. Not in merely superficial ways either. It has moved from space-bound chaos to ground-based decisions, from spaceship crew management to mech vs horror-bug warfare, even from real-time to turn-based combat. Yet the really startling change is that, unlike FTL, Into The Breach is rarely a game of chance, of random, cruel loss or sudden fortune, but instead is almost pathologically fair, even if it often doesn’t feel like it. There is n…
- FTL-like Abandon Ship hasn t found its sea legs yet - 21 February 2018
‘ FTL but on a…’ is a formula that sounds like it can just keep on giving, but it’s entirely telling that the creators of FTL have moved onto whip-smart micro-turn-based strategy instead of more ship management-based roguelitery. People keep making these things – on a train ! on a post-apocalyptic battlebus ! also on a spaceship ! also on a post-apocalyptic battlebus ! – but I can count the real successes on one hand. Sadly, it seems I won’t be grafting an extra finger with ‘ Abandon Ship ‘ carved into it onto that hand – not unless this Cthulhu vs pirates take on the vehicular surviv-o-RPG format can perform some serious course-correction during its voyage through early access. (more…)
