Grown-up Pokémon game Monster Crown enters Early Access

Way back in 2018 we told you about the Kickstarter for Monster Crown, a game of mad-science crossbreeding and turn-based battles somewhere between Pokémon and Dragon Quest Monsters that ended up being funded to the tune of $45,415, well over its humble $5,000 goal. Now, it's finally entered Early Access on Steam and is 10% off this week.

Monster Crown has you making pacts with monster, then breeding and fusing them to create new species as you adventure across Crown Island battling and trading (which you can also do online). Unlike Temtem, it's a bit mature in its storytelling, with a plot that could end with you becoming "a savior or a dark messiah" and the occasional swear word dropped into its blocks of JRPG text.

Developers Studio Aurum say this Early Access version of their game contains about a third of the full story and one-third of the monster list, with about roughly half the world map available to explore. They're planning to leave Early Access "anywhere from 6 to 12 months" from now.

Thanks, RPS.

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.