The Magnanimous and Beneficent Doctor has been watching inXile Entertainment’s Clockwork Revolution with the patient intensity of a man who has literally survived the end of the world via alchemical formulae. Set in Avalon, a steam-powered metropolis where Lady Ironwood rules by rewriting the past to protect her grip on the future, this first-person RPG hands you the Chronometer: a device that lets you reach back into history, pull a thread, and watch everything downstream change. The Doctor approves of this mechanic on a deeply personal level.

At the Xbox Games Showcase 2026, inXile finally confirmed a 2027 release window on Xbox Series X/S, PC, Steam, cloud, and Game Pass day one. Is that “2027” vague enough to mean December 31st? Yes. Am I going to wishlist it anyway and haunt the Steam page like a brass-goggled poltergeist? Also yes. Brian Fargo says the game already has 750,000 words of dialogue written and will run at least 20 hours on the main story alone. The man does not do things small. This is the same studio that gave us Wasteland 3, and they are putting that chaos energy into a time-bending, class-warfare-soaked, gear-and-soot Victorian city where your choices don’t just matter, they haunt you retroactively. That is either the greatest RPG design philosophy I’ve ever heard, or the Doctor is about to lose three weeks of his life to a save-file spiral. Possibly both.

Nothing can beat old age and betrayal, Lady Ironwood. But the Doctor is coming for your timeline anyway. Wishlist it on Steam. Via: Xbox Wire

Chaosium, the house that gave us Call of Cthulhu and a respectable body count of player characters, just announced a brand-new tabletop RPG: Time Without Tide. The setting is a fog-choked, post-apocalyptic faux-Victorian world overrun with robots, magic, and (presumably) orphans with serious anger management issues. You play a Delver: someone whose job description is basically “go outside into the horrifying Fog and find out what’s in it.” Spoiler: it’s probably not a tea party.

And here’s the part that has The Doctor’s attention: they’re not using BRP. This is a whole new engine, purpose-built for tactical combat and what the BackerKit page calls “highly customisable character development” (vehicles, gear, companions, mutant powers). So Chaosium built a steampunk game from scratch instead of just bolting Victorian hats onto their existing system. That is either brilliantly committed or magnificently ambitious. Possibly both. The Formula approves of both.

It’s not live yet; the BackerKit campaign is coming. Watch the pre-launch page, get on the list, and tell them The Doctor sent you. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal, but a well-timed crowdfunding notification is a solid third place.

Via: Bell of Lost Souls