Month: September 2024

The “hyper-detailed recreation of another fictional world in Minecraft” thing is pretty well-established at this point—we were reporting on this big Game of Thrones build all the way back in 2013—but it still never ceases to amaze me what dedicated fans will get up to in Mojang’s venerable voxel sandbox. It really never gets old, and I was particularly impressed by Minecraft New Vegas, a 1:1 replica of the Obsidian classic’s world map for a Minecraft roleplay server.

I think the thing that really gets me is their texture work—a lot of art seems to have been borrowed from New Vegas itself and filtered through Minecraft’s signature chunky voxel look. Coupled with faithful recreations of classic locales, and some of the project’s stills almost look like screenshots …

When Shadows of Doubt hit early access last April, we quickly became believers in the potential of its procedurally generated cities and crime solving simulation sandbox. After 17 months of improvements, additions, and tune-ups, we’ll see how well that potential’s been realized when the cyberpunk detective sim gets its 1.0 release on September 26, 2024.

Since its early access launch, I’ve spent a couple dozen hours navigating the intricate web of simulated lives that Shadows of Doubt weaves for the citizens walking the rain-slick streets of its sprawling voxel cities. Every NPC has their own home, occupation, relationships, and routine that intersects with those of their roommates, coworkers, and acquaintances. When one of those NPCs inevitably commits a murder—it’s a…