Diablo's hack 'n' slash action meets cozy Stardew Valley town-building in this co-op game threatening all my free time

Grinding different characters to maximize one thwack's deadliness is already enough of a time sink in games like Diablo. Add in Stardew Valley's moreish, bitesized tasks and town-building, and you have a recipe that could threaten global productivity levels - which is exactly what Lynked: Banner of the Spark is doing.

Announced on stage during Gamescom Opening Night Live, Linked: Banner of the Spark is the debut game from developer Fuzzybot, and it's basically a mash-up of almost every trending genre right now. Medal of Honor veteran and creative director Max Spielberg described it as a "co-op action hack and slash with a bit of roguelike and town building elements."

The director then explained that the studio "blended these ideas together to create this cozy yet highly kinetic action game for players to brawl, build, and befriend a crew of adorable robots." The below trailer gives us a taste of that dichotomy, split between evil robot bashing and cute robot catering. 

Lynked is set in the far future of 3000 where the world hasn't turned into an inhospitable wasteland, but humans are still endangered anyway - probably something to do with an evil robot army. So, playing as one of the last humans left, you need to work together with the cuddly robots to build a "sustainable" town while bringing down the bad eggs (and using their remains to further build up your settlement.)

Lynked: Banner of the Spark might just keep me permanently grinding for better builds and buildings when it hits Steam early access on October 22. 

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