Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2023 i PLAY

By the time you read this, there will be just one more episode of season one to go, but there’s no need to be sad – the Last Of Us TV show became so popular so quickly, a new season was officially announced before the third episode had even been broadcast. Just how popular is it? The series enjoys over 20 million viewers in the US alone. In terms of audience size, The Last Of Us is second only to House Of The Dragon on HBO (the American channel which developed those shows). It’s outperforming heavy hitters such as Euphoria and The White Lotus. These figures take into account both the original broadcasts and people catching up on the HBO Max streaming service. And there are, of course, millions more…

Typical. You think you’re about to sail past a lovely, unthreatening ship, when suddenly it hoists a new flag – the Jolly Roger – and you’re jumped by pirates. Who says you can’t have both a little bit of stealth and some bombast, after all? And that’s exactly what Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew brings, putting you in charge of your own crew and building on the sneaky tactics developer Mimimi Games asked of you in 2020’s wild west-themed Desperados III. While in that rootin’ tootin’ adventure each desperado had unique skills, this is taken to the next level in Shadow Gambit. Your cursed crew don’t just wave cutlasses, they wield supernatural abilities and items: a magic sword that can reach across spacetime, a soul anchor they can drop to…

“THE PEOPLE AND THE TOWN ITSELF ARE TURNING INTO SOMETHING MONSTROUS.” The corrupting substance gets into everything – carpets, upholstery, and the townspeoples’ minds. Undulating in the darkness in a small town somewhere in 1990s Poland are the terrible, reaching fronds of the ooze. The only thing that forces it to shrink back is the flicker of electrical lighting. Game director Rafał Sankowski explains the thinking behind this ever-encroaching threat, beginning, “We were looking for something that would cause a believable survival horror setting that wouldn’t be the same circumstances we’ve seen thousands of times.” He admits, “In many ways, it’s synonymous with the T-Virus spread in Raccoon City or anything that conveniently replaces humans with humanoid creatures that we can shoot, stab, and decapitate without turning the player character…

PREVIEW “HOLY COW! THIS IS ELDRITCH HORROR! HOW DO WE MAKE THAT ACCESSIBLE IN ESO?” Out of the mists of our cursed internet connection, a figure with a bird perched upon his shoulder emerges. It’s ZeniMax’s creative director Rich Lambert – and that avian is his African Grey parrot Poppy. Perhaps an irregular set up for an interview, it’s nothing compared to the strangeness that will ensue this June. Pitched as ‘Elder Scrolls meets cosmic horror,’ Lambert explains why the team chose to move in this direction for the MMORPG’s upcoming expansion. “One of the things we always make sure of is we want it to feel very different,” he begins. “If we can make it feel different than anything we’ve ever done before, that’s obviously a huge thing. But…

FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA SPRING 2023 / PUB TINYBUILD DEV NICEPLAY GAMES / PLAYERS 1 You craft potions in this one, surprisingly enough. Gathering plants from the garden, then crushing, boiling, and bottling them is quite a process in and of itself, but you also haggle with customers and decide which orders to fulfil with your reputation at stake. As you mix herbs, it charts out routes on the map where you can learn new recipes. Who knew alchemy could be so relaxing?…

INFO FORMAT PSVR2PRICE £59.99ETA Out nowPUB SonyDEV Guerrilla Games, Firesprite PLAYERS 1LENGTH 7-8 hrsACCESSIBILITY Extensive, including: seated/standing mode; auto-load arrows; slow time in tool selector; aim assistance options; modify climbing reach; visual vignette modes; dominant hand toggle; subtitles You’ve got to hand it to Horizon COTM, when it comes to making you put your digits to work few games are quite as good as this clamber-’em-up. While it might be a bit of a one-trick Strider, that trick is constantly presented in new and interesting ways across its lengthy (especially for a VR title) single-player campaign. You play as Ryas, a Shadow Carja who’s been broken out of prison and offered a chance to redeem himself for the role he and the rest of the Shadow Carja had as antagonists…

INFO FORMAT PSVR2PRICE £39.99ETA Out nowPUB Disney InteractiveDEV ILMxLABPLAYERS 1LENGTH 7 hrsACCESSIBILITY Extensive, including free move/teleport; adjustable player height; toggles for: steated/standing, primary hand, sticky grip and screen shake; subtitles; customisable movement speed Even though you play most of this game as a droid repair tech turned gun-toting hero, there are a handful of short-lived Jedi tales to play through in which you can swing a lightsaber and fling little alien monkey enemies with the Force. Almost as if to say ‘this is why the game isn’t about being Jedi’, they’re (pardon the Sullustan) kind of a load of drutash casting. Which is no big deal as the rest of the game is all rooty, tooty, shooty. Being a techie scoundrel is, it turns out, the bomb. Yet another game…

INFO FORMAT PS5 (reviewed), PS4PRICE TBCETA Out nowPUB No More Robots DEV Mopeful GamesPLAYERS 1LENGTH 6 hrsACCESSIBILITY Subtitles; aim assist; controller remapping Mopeful Games’ debut title is that rarest of commodities: a Doom clone in which no-one dies. Instead, those in your crosshairs in Fashion Police Squad aren’t so much meeting their maker as they are their makeover artist in the shape of Sergeant Des, Trendopolis’ leading sartorial serviceman. His firearms don’t shoot bullets, they stitch up baggy suits, add colour to drab décor, and drain the garishness from neon ’90s attire. This is, of course, a fantastic pitch for a videogame, the kind of winning idea that other studios are probably slapping themselves for not thinking of. Fortunately Mopeful Games seems aware it’s struck gold, and thus rightly embroiders…

INFO FORMAT PS5 (reviewed), PS4PRICE £19.49 ETA Out nowPUB Galdra StudiosDEV Galdra StudiosPLAYERS 1 LENGTH 7-12 hrsACCESSIBILITY Volume controls; subtitle display and speed options One moment of heroism can change a life – or, in the case of Arcadia Fallen’s protagonist, swiftly end it. When your character, an alchemist in training, sees a demon attacking a young woman, they step in and get stabbed for their trouble. Fortunately, they didn’t save an ordinary woman, but a spirit called Mime, who in turn saves their life via a magical bond. But drawing a demon’s ire isn’t without consequence… No sooner have you picked your character’s name, gender, and pronouns than Arcadia Fallen thrusts you into a surprisingly complex fantasy adventure that at times feels like an unruly tabletop campaign. You quickly…

INFO FORMAT PS4 PRICE £49.99ETA Out nowPUB Square EnixDEV Indieszero PLAYERS 1-2 local, 1-4 online LENGTH 25+ hrs ACCESSIBILITY Music and SFX options; visual sizing and transparency options; adjustable timing speed; simple mode The curtain goes back up as Theatrhythm returns from the dead to make its debut on PlayStation! From the classics to its own remixes and medleys, Final Bar Line is laden with (almost) all the Final Fantasy music you could desire. The action is, as before, surprisingly fleshed-out and brimming with series staples that makes Final Fantasy’s foray into the rhythm genre feel like a natural fit. The devs know how to balance complexity and intuitive mechanics. On the basic difficulty setting, easy-grab notes included within longer hold notes help preserve the melody even when there are…

INFO FORMAT PS5 (reviewed), PS4PRICE £47.99ETA Out now PUB 110 IndustriesDEV SoleilPLAYERS 1 With fights that see you outnumbered on all sides or facing devilish mini-boss cyborg ninjas and tanky gunners that can kill you in a few hits, Wanted: Dead is no cakewalk. But for hard-boiled cop Hannah Stone and her ‘Zombie Unit’ in the police force of a cyberpunk corporatocratic Hong Kong, it’s just another day on the job. This action game exudes PS2-era vibes, from deliberate jank to its bizarrely delivered dialogue. But it’s also in the gleeful amount of gore as you execute enemies with over 100 contextual finishing animations that might involve using the environment or the enemy’s own weapon against them. It’s touted as a hybrid of shooter and hack-and-slash but you’ll discover it’s…

INFO FORMAT PS5, PS4PUB 2KDEV FiraxisYEAR 2023 There are few games as tailor-made for DLC as Midnight Suns – after all, card games often grow into all-new experiences with the addition of extra packs of cards. This Deadpool-centric DLC, however, introduces an additional hero who’s nice to have, but who hardly feels like an essential in every deck. Available individually, as part of the game’s deluxe edition, or with the season pass, the DLC comes with a few Deadpool-focused missions, enhancements for the abbey and (of course) Deadpool himself. The merc with a mouth, voiced by none other than Mr Nolan ‘Nathan Drake’ North, is an oddball by design, and here he’s absolutely true to the Marvel original, but in this game he fits in weirdly, even among admittedly very…

FORMAT PS1PUB NAMCODEV NAMCORELEASED 1996 As a result of losing the King Of Iron Fist Tournament in the first Tekken, (the original) King began to lose himself in drink due to repercussions of missing out on the prize money for the children at his orphanage, his establishment falling into disrepair. That is, until the tournament that’s core to Tekken 2 is announced, and Armor King encourages his friend to give things another go and fight for the orphanage once again. But no matter how hard you blast through the game, canonically it’s fruitless for King. He’s once again unable to obtain the victory payout. Returning from the tournament, wearing a big trenchcoat as he trudges through a blizzard, he watches the orphanage’s children through the window. Unable to face them…

It’s a multimedia titan encompassing anime, manga, and an avalanche of merchandising. Getting you closer to PlayStation’s most exciting stories, people, and culture Boasting over 34 million players, mobile-format sky pirate JRPG Granblue Fantasy is elevated by by the music and artwork of Final Fantasy alumni Nobuo Uematsu and Hideo Minaba respectively, plus the talents of the team at Cygames. You might not be familiar with it as the mobile title is not officially available in English (though series spinoff fighter Granblue Fantasy: Versus did come to PS4 in 2020), but that situation looks like changing as the release of action RPG Granblue Fantasy: Relink approaches. Originally co-developed with PlatinumGames but now purely in the hands of Cygames Osaka, Relink, along with a new iteration of Versus, could be what…

After months of speculation and leaks, Ubisoft Ivory Tower has revealed The Crew Motorfest, the second sequel to multiplayer open-world racer The Crew. It turns up the feelgood dial yet again, taking place on the Hawaiian island of O’ahu and bolstered by crowds, coloured hoardings, and trackside lasers. There’s nothing ‘underground’ about this scene. The Polynesian island looks sumptuous in 4K, with dense, rich vegetation and sparkling water, all providing an idyllic backdrop for some of the world’s most desirable supercars as they slide across the off-road trails and sun-baked asphalt of Hawaii’s capital city Honolulu. There’s no news of a story mode yet, but it doesn’t feel like murder will play a part this time. Just a hunch. The trailer shows destructible trackside scenery and mud build-up on the…

The evolution of Age Of Wonders has been an interesting one. The formerly PC-only fantasy strategy series even received a science-fiction twist when it first came to PlayStation in 2019. This fourth numbered entry, however, goes back to the series’ high fantasy roots and focuses on what made those PC classics so great, with a sprinkling of smart evolutions to boot. “THIS ENTRY GOES BACK TO THE SERIES’ HIGH FANTASY ROOTS.” The most glaringly obvious of these is the extended list of unit races you now have at your disposal. After the sharp reduction to only six choices in AOW3, we’re seeing the return of feline Tigrans and even some exciting new races such as toad- and rat-folk. We always knew they were plotting something… In a series first, you…

The SteamWorld series is no stranger to radical reinvention. We’ve already seen its unique take on the metroidvania in both SteamWorld Dig and its sequel, and then there was the excellent turn-based strategy spinoff SteamWorld Heist. This next entry has its sights set on an entirely new genre. Part Anno, part Evil Genius, SteamWorld Build is shaping up to be an enjoyable, if somewhat unoriginal, city builder. The core gameplay loop is split into two distinct parts. Above ground, it’s your job to manage the growth of a small mining town. The focus here is predominantly on juggling resources and supply chains. You build houses, attracting basic robot workers whose needs you must fulfil. These range from access to repair facilities to requiring a supply of tools and cactus water…

INFO FORMAT PSVR2PRICE £24.99ETA Out nowPUB Coatsink, ThunderfulDEV CoatsinkPLAYERS 1LENGTH 4-5 hrsACCESSIBILITY Subtitles; colourblind mode; seated/standing and multiple directional movement modes; dominant hand toggle, customisable orientation, strafing and acceleration toggle; visual vignette and turning options Life, uh, finds a way… to make unwise individuals return to dinosaur-filled theme park islands. Set between Jurassic World and its sequel, through VR you inhabit a silent security expert sent to aid former researcher Mia in recovering data from Isla Nublar. When your plane crashes as a result of a pteranodon attack, she guides you over comms – because she’s injured elsewhere. Your mission to grab data and then escape the island alive sends you through most of the central institution’s many wings and buildings as you activate computer systems, process research, and detour…

INFO FORMAT PS5, (reviewed) PS4PRICE £24.99ETA Out nowPUB Frontier FoundryDEV Keoken InteractivePLAYERS 1LENGTH 6-8 hrsACCESSIBILITY Subtitles; sprint toggle; one-button climbing The first Deliver Us game from developer Keoken Interactive was the very embodiment of ‘less is more’ game design. It featured one location, a silent protagonist, and a single objective: to restore a moon base. In Mars the original’s interstellar ideas have been expanded upon, cutscenes, dialogue, and proper characters adding a touch of humanity to its lofty concepts. This second space mission sometimes struggles to reach full thrust, but is overall a more compelling story. Shoved into the boots of plucky astronaut Kathy Johansson (voiced by Poldark’s Ellise Chappell), you and the rest of Opera team are sent to the red planet to recover three colony ships, which may…

INFO FORMAT PS4PRICE £9.99 ETA Out nowPUB Gammera Nest SLDEV Blackgate Studio PLAYERS 1LENGTH 2-3 hrsACCESSIBILITY Colour blindness filter; text colour options; English and Spanish languages Lola’s evening isn’t going well – she’s been locked in her bedroom, her cat, Lagsagna [sic], is missing, and her computer has mysteriously booted up by itself. Our first job of the night in this housebound adventure game is to gather tools from around the room in order to break free before teaming up with brother Danny for a spot of pet rescue. The bedroom-set tutorial is great training for what’s to come. As you use the analogue sticks to pan over each area, a purple glow highlights what you can use the D-pad to examine, interact with, or even speak to. Delirium really…

INFO PUB Sony Interactive EntertainmentDEV Game RepublicRELEASED 2007GET IT NOW £3.99, PS Store NEED TO KNOW 1 The game was never available from the US PlayStation Store. 2 There was expansion DLC released for it, but only in Japan. 3 Game Republic sadly closed its doors in 2011 having finished Knights Contract. Time’s own dark mists are threatening to envelop this PSN classic, and it deserves far better. Made by the team that brought us Folklore (a cult-classic JRPG that’s still winning new fans) and Genji: Days Of The Blade (which isn’t), Dark Mist made the most of all PS3’s then-new features. A digital-only title, it sports gorgeous HD visuals and 2007’s finest waggl… er, ‘motion control’. You play as a goddess, Artemis, wielding a bow that fires arrows of…

FORMAT PS5, PS4RELEASED 2013PUB SQUARE ENIX DEV SQUARE ENIXGET IT NOW PS STORE (£11.99) L ong before the days of free trials up to Heavensward and thousands of fans eagerly waking up before dawn to run through a new patch’s dungeons with friends, Final Fantasy XIV was in trouble. A now-renowned complete rework, FFXIV: A Realm Reborn, was eventually released to critical acclaim. There are many reasons why it succeeded – but among them is the improved English script. FFXIV translation director and localisation editor Michael-Christopher Koji Fox tells PLAY that the project’s localisation came to life in a crucible of despair and new hope. “The mental approach [to the project] was far different from anything I have experienced in my two decades at Square Enix (before and after ARR),”…

INFO PUB Warner BrosDEV Monolith Software RELEASED 2014 Didn’t dance to the beat of this game the first time around? Then its inclusion in the Extra tier of PlayStation Plus is an excellent excuse for you to find out why, when it comes to games set in Middle-earth, this one dwarfs the competition. There’s a solid and satisfying combat system with amusingly gory kills, which leaves no doubt as to your success when you’ve hacked your way through a group of squishy orcs. There are also stealth kills for when you’re feeling sneaky, and plenty of things in the open-world Mordor to see and do (and kill). The star of this particular show, however, is the Nemesis system, which still impresses after all these years. DEAD AND GONDOR No matter…

There’s a simple pleasure to heft in the hands. Many a hasty Meal Deal choice has been informed by quick weigh-ups. And while PlayStation’s new, expensive controller isn’t a sandwich, it feels loaded in the same way as a good one. But the £209.99 price point may rightly make you balk. However, beyond the approximately 50g extra in bulk compared to the regular DualSense controller that comes with PS5, there is a nice premium feel to the package as a whole. While the shape remains the same (why change the DualSense’s already great design?), the grip feels better, and extra detailing like the black highlights gives the pad a premium quality. STICK IT TO YA The new features have a pleasing tactility as you adjust them. You can release the…

The city of Helianthus is ready to be fed and Nori Kaga’s the perfect chef for the job. Armed with lofty ambitions and a cart full of grub, Nori hopes to slice and dice her way to becoming as successful as TV cook extraordinaire, Chef Rhubarb. Your main job is to prepare delicious dishes step-by-step by following the on-screen prompts. Throughout our hands-on, the dishes and locations are selected at random for our small shift, yet we’re promised quite the menu and cast of characters for the main course in April. “THE QUICKER AND MORE PRECISE YOU ARE, THE MORE BENEFICIAL IT IS.” PRESSURED COOKER Surprisingly, what might seem easy at a glance does prove a challenge when you’re asked to do it in the kitchen. You’d think that assembling…

From the creator of Ace Attorney comes a new mystery, perhaps the greatest of all: can you, as a spirit, solve your own murder? That’s the situation Sissel finds himself in, his ghostly form taking on the guise of his body when it was found dead, with pointy shades, a sharp red suit, and an even sharper hairdo. Fortunately there’s more to being a Phantom Detective than floating around watching the living. After meeting the enigmatic Ray (a fellow spirit housed in a lamp), Sissel is taught how he can use his newfound ghostly powers to influence the world around him, finding clues to why he was killed by saving those around him from similarly untimely deaths. “CONTEXT-SENSITIVE GHOST TRICK POWERS MEAN YOU ACTIVATE DEVICES LIKE A POLTERGEIST WOULD.” Each…

Few games are as iconic and influential as the original Resident Evil 4. Not only did it shake the dust off the series’ survival horror formula, it was a shocking technical achievement when it launched in 2005, going on to set the standard for third-person action games. Which is to say revisiting the game for a ground-up remake is no small task. There’s nothing rotten or decayed about the original release, so where do developers strike the balance between being faithful to the 2005 classic and reinterpreting what ‘cutting-edge horror’ means? The game’s producer, long-time Resident Evil veteran Yoshiaki Hirabayashi (who also served as producer on the sublime Resident Evil 2 remake) is well aware of the need to get that balance right. “I know that fans have their own…

INFO FORMAT PS5 (required)PRICE £529.99ETA Out nowPUB Sony DEV Sony ACCESSIBILITY Various system-level preferences, many more on a game-by-game level; on average, more physically demanding than TV-based gaming Relaying the good news about PSVR2 – Sony’s super-powered, entirely new iteration of virtual reality gaming – is a tricky one. As an interface, strapping yourself directly into a headset, it’s a personal proposition that can come with individual caveats, but it’s a great bit of kit. For owners of the original PSVR, the essentials are much the same: it’s a headset on a headband that slips over the head, only instead of two PS Move controllers you have the tech-packed, orb-shaped VR2 Sense controllers. But that’s where the similarities end (to such a degree that there’s no backwards compatibility – just…

INFO FORMAT PSVR2PRICE TBCETA Out nowPUB TribandDEV TribandPLAYERS 1LENGTH 2-3 hrsACCESSIBILITY Left-hand mode toggle; customisable player height While the Sense controllers are littered with all sorts of fancy buttons, forget about most of them for this one. The premise couldn’t be simpler: you’ve got huge bats for hands, so how will you solve the many challenges life throws at you using only your wooden appendages? It’s a fab set up. Simply swinging the bats around to interact with the world is fun in and of itself. When they collide with objects it’s signalled by haptic feedback in the controllers, making them feel genuinely weighty. If you’re new to PSVR2 you might find the sensation strange at first, but it makes interacting with everything around you in this room-sized game feel…

INFO FORMAT PS5PRICE £64.99ETA Out nowPUB EADEV Omega Force PLAYERS 1-3 LENGTH 30+ hrsACCESSIBILITY Screen reader; text to audio; subtitle speaker names; text size options; colour vision deficiency support Spare a thought for Wild Hearts, which had been shaping up to be a natural rival and successor to Monster Hunter: World while also building on Omega Force’s relatively successful monster hunting Toukiden games. But after a surprise port from Capcom (evidently wanting to remind us who’s boss), it’s difficult not to compare this latest EA Original with Monster Hunter Rise. To begin with, each has a Japan-inspired setting. Wild Hearts’ Azuma is more explicitly based on the country; its characters use Japanese phrases in the English audio, and its monsters and crafting mechanic go by Japanese names: kemono and karakuri.…

INFO FORMAT PS5 (reviewed), PS4PRICE TBCETA Out nowPUB Numskull Games DEV Dinosaur Bytes Studio PLAYERS 1 Make no mistake, this new platforming duo’s adventure is made by people who love the collectathon genre. References to contemporaries and predecessors abound, 1 and even the leaping moves this rabbit and monkey friend pull off nod at classics: Clive pulling Wrench out of his backpack and spinning him to helicopter across gaps; crouching and then jumping in a Crash-like pose; or even hard-turning for a backwards-step super launch like a certain plumber. The problem is, Clive ‘N’ Wrench struggles to match up to those classics or its modern peers. It’s not that there’s no enjoyment to be had, but it requires powering through the rough bits: sometimes it feels like…

INFO FORMAT PS5 (reviewed), PS4PRICE £49.99 ETA Out nowPUB Square EnixDEV Square Enix, AcquirePLAYERS 1LENGTH 60+ hrsACCESSIBILITY N/A For a while now pixel art has been the domain of low-budget indies, but in the ’90s Square Enix was a master of the form, its artists creating some of the most iconic RPGs in memory. With Octopath Traveler, the first title to utilise its (trademarked) HD-2D style, which combines sprites with modern HD effects, the publisher makes the aesthetic its own once again. Although that first journey has yet to make its way to PlayStation, this sequel is just as good a place to start, sticking close to its predecessor’s structure. You have eight different characters, each from a different background and hailing from a different corner of the world of…

INFO FORMAT PS4 PRICE £36.99 ETA Out now PUB Type-Moon, Aniplex DEV Type-Moon PLAYERS 1 LENGTH 20+ hrs ACCESSIBILITY N/A Although this narrative-heavy adventure stands alone, it’s a spin-off from another (untranslated) Type-Moon game, Tsukihime, serving as a prequel filling out some backstory for a side-character. As such, it features the extensive lore and esoteric prose style you might expect from the Fate/Stay Night developer. It might make it difficult for the game to find an audience – it’s potentially off-putting for newcomers, while the backstory-heavy approach risks being tiresome for fans. It’s also a game that opens with with dead cats. It might throw you off with high school hijinks for a few chapters, but it’s only a matter of time before it flips back to more gruesome affairs…

From updates to favourites – the games we just can’t quit INFO FORMAT PS5, PS4PUB ActivisionDEV Infinity Ward, Raven SoftwareYEAR 2022 Less a conventional sequel and more a standalone reimagining of 2019’s smash-hit battle royale, this free-to-play shooter brings far more than a simple change of scenery to the table. That’s not to say that the new map, the sprawling desert city of Al Mazrah, is an unwelcome addition. The largest environment we’ve seen from Warzone so far, its varied regions are ripe for exploration and offer plenty of unique challenges. While the skyscrapers of the dense city centre are practically bursting with loot, its tight streets (not to mention the number of vantage points offered by the surrounding buildings) greatly increase the risk of being caught unaware by an…

INFO PUB KonamiDEV Climax ActionRELEASED ON PS2, PSPRELEASE 2008IF YOU LIKE THAT, TRY THIS… Besides Bloober Team’s upcoming Silent Hill 2 Remake, Frictional Games’ science-fiction thriller SOMA will also scratch your stealthily-crawling-around-monsters-and-picking-up-whatever-isn’t-nailed-down itch. Few studios clamour to make a prequel even under the best circumstances, but Origins’ developer was set an even tougher task. Previous Silent Hills were developed by Konami’s own Team Silent; when that team was closed Climax Action’s LA branch was given Origins to develop. Then that studio was shuttered amid troubled production, and the project was given to the Portsmouth branch – with the same budget and looming deadline. Origins follows trucker Travis as he takes a particularly cursed shortcut. He goes on not only to carry Alessa from the charred husk of the Gillespie household…