Where the Water Tastes Like Wine adds 15 more stories and automatic walking

We were pretty excited about American folk-tale travelogue Where the Water Tastes Like Wine when we first heard about it, but upon release our reviewer Tyler Wilde was moderate in his praise: "It tells over 200 tiny tales, and several bigger ones, at an agonizingly slow pace. There's truth to find within its choppy transcontinental trek, but it comes at the expense of sore eyes."

Since then it's been updated, and a patch from March added the ability to return to locations by using the mementos found there, and also increased the distance covered by fast-travel between cities in the second half of the game. The June 3 patch, called the 'Tall Tales Update', further tweaks the pacing, with an autowalk option activated by pressing F so you don't have to wear down the W key on your long trek across the United States (it's right bumper on controller). As well as modifying the way travel works, and catching a few bugs, this patch adds to the trove of tales you'll find while criss-crossing America.

As the patch notes put it, "We've released some new stories by some new writers! In the latest update you'll find 15 new vignettes scattered around the country, ranging from the terrifying to the disgusting to the hilarious." If you've been put off Where the Water Tastes Like Wine due to its stately tempo, seems like now is the time to give it another chance.

Jody Macgregor
Weekend/AU Editor

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.