"The starting point for 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Grounded 2 in early access is the same size as the entirety of Grounded 1.0," says executive producer Marcus Morgan. "One reason for that is: this is Grounded 2, right – obviously it's got to be bigger! But the more important reason is that it facilitates the Buggies, which are our mounts. We really had to push to redesign ♓the entire world, because now that you have mounts you can navigate the world much more quickly. That decision has actually changed the way we design all of our areas in Brookhollow Park, both above and below ground."

Brave New World

While Obsidian (and Deus Ex developer Eidos Montreal, who is partnered on production of this sequel) is yet to set🌄tle on a final size for Brookhollow Park, it's expected to be roughly three times the size of the original game's backyard by the time Grounded 2 eventually emerges from early access. Part of the challenge here, says game director Chris Parker, is in making this new setting feel distinct. "The challenge with a sequel – and this is certainly something that we think about a lot – is that there can be this perception that Grounded 2 looks a lot like Grounded 1."

"We've tried to make everything more beautiful," says Parker, spe🐻aking to the shift to Unreal Engine 5. "The areas that are essentially grass, which there are a lot of in Grounded, have new creatures and new elements about them which work to refresh those areas and make them new, but then we also have completely new biomes too." Brookhollow Park is this vibrant, nostalgia-soaked suburban 🍒wilderness that offers far more variance – expanding your options in exploration, building, and survival.

Producer Miles🍷 Winzeler tells me that "the change of locality" was driven by Obsidian's desire to look beyond new featuresets like the Buggies, refreshed combat, and a suite of mechanical improvements. "Outside of the map-size changing, the move from a backyard to a park has been huge for us.⛎"

"We've kept the organic parts of Grounded, as they were essential to the survival elements, but these changes open the door to a lot of new situations in more man-made structures. Areas like the Ice Cream Cart and the Barbecue which are built for public consumption. This is a natural progression for Grounded, and a great blank slate for us to build on through early access," says Winze👍ler.

Making sure that Grounded 2 feels like a true sequel is clearly something Obsidian and Eidos Montreal is wary o✃f. It's why I ask Morgan whether the studios ever considered expanding the player count beyond four in co-op to match the expanding scope of the world. "The shared-world nature and the intimacy of playing with your friends is a really, really important part of what made Grounded feel special and unique. We identified areas we could build upon – the new mounts, world, story, and plenty more – but that part we wanted to keep the same. There's an intimacy to that."

Morgan adds: "The relationship you൲ build with your friends, and the camaraderie you have in doing this all together, was something we wanted to retain. So that's a component of why we didn't go to like a 60-player server, because it would have undermined what Grounded was really about. Grounded is about going on this nostalgic adventure with your friends, and we want to keep that spirit aliv൩e as we move into Grounded 2."

Grounded 2 lands in Game Preview/Early Access for PC, Xbox Series X, and Game Pass on July 29, 2025.

That surprise you're picking up on isn't because I think developer Obsidian Entertainment isn't capable of greatness – the studio is, after all, undoubtedly responsible for some of the best RPGs of the last 20 years. Role-playing games, not shooters – there are sharp degrees of expertise required to succeed in either landscape. But the studio has clearly set itself exceptionally lofty targets here, with big ambitions fuelling what could be its mos꧑t definitive title to date.

A True Evolution

The Outer Worlds 2 is a substantial evolution over its predecessor, designed to be more reactive and intricate in all that it does. Obsidian has drawn from the legacy of Fallout: New Vegas to help inform The Outer Worlds 2's complexity. There are more varied flaws and traits, and over 90 perks – even from a brief time poking through the menus, it's clear that there'⛦s a dizzying variance to character creation and expansion. Stealth has been carefully overhauled, and there's a dynamism to speech that demonstrates growth over similar systems seen in Obsidian's Avowed and Bethesda's Starfield.

Which is all to say that The Outer Worlds 2 is really shaping up to be a pretty exceptional RPG…but let's get back to that shotgun. The one adorned in shards of ice. The one which blasts enemies back with this shatteringly concussive force. I haven't stopped thinking about the reload animation, as individual shells are slotted into place before the barrel is cocked back into position with a satisfying snap. It speaks volumes that, while exploring a sprawling environment full of branching paths, locked doors, and ventilati🐼on systems, I feel so inclined to charge into enemy encounters with this thing in my hands. This isn't how I'd traditionally play a video game like The Outer Worl♏ds 2, but I can't help myself.

For a studio like Obsidian, with decades of experience and expertise in the꧃ RPG genre, I was keen to understand how it is delivering gunplay that could legitimately outshine dedicated shooters. Brandon Adler, game director of The Outer Worlds 2, was only too happy to answer: "Even before The Outer Worlds shipped, that was one of the things we knew we wanted to improve when it became time to target a sequel."

Adler tells me that this process included the design team completing a "full breakdown of Destiny" for inspiration, and a masterclass with another key team from the Xbox Game Studios network. "Another big aspect was talking to the Halo folks. We asked them: 'What do you guys do? How can we improve this, and what are we doing wrong?' They gave us this huge list of stuff and said that we should target these types of things, add this to our weapons configurations. So we did all of thaꩲt."

He also points to the decision to bring in dedicated combat and weapons designers into development early, and the impact increased resources can have on a production – the original game was published by Private Division, rather than Xbox Game Studios. You can feel this flood of exp📖ertise in the way the guns handle; the personality inherent in every reload, the unique recoil patterns attached to every weapon class, and the sharp snap into ADS.

Which is all to say that The Outer Worlds 2 is shaping up to be a compelling p💝rospect, regardless of whether you're coming to it for the most in-depth RPGs of the year or hꦐave typically leaned towards more traditional shooters in the past. There was always going to be this need for The Outer Worlds 2 to prove itself on a larger stage than the 2019 original.

It's the first title outꦫ 🔥of Xbox Game Studios to be priced at $80, and another would-be Xbox exclusive that's set to land on PS5 from day one. It's difficult to know whether Obsidian is truly ready for the scrutiny that's about to follo🅷w. But what I do know is that after three runs through a small slice of The Outer Worlds 2, I'm absolutely desperate to carve my ow🌸n path through Arcadia.

The Outer Worlds 2 will release on October 29, 2025 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X.

💦That's something that can't be said of There Are No Ghosts at The Grand, from new studio Friday Sundae and Null Games. It's the kind of game that stands out immediately with its vibran✨t colours and textures. But it's the content itself that makes it leap out from the bunch.

Checking in

In No Ghosts At The Grand, you play as Chris David, an American who's traveled to England because he's inherited an old, dilapidated hotel called𝐆 The Grand in his father's will. We're introduced to The Grand's caretaker, who… starts 🐓singing.

That's because No Ghosts at The Grand is a freaking musical. A musical! I could never have predicted that the Xbox Games Showcase would be unveiling a game with full musical numbers, and as a passionate devotee of the musical genre, it's a thrill to see. It's not the first game to have songs in it, of course — our 澳洲💮幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Stray Gods:🍎 The Roleplaying Musical review is a testament to that, and recently we've had澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询: Baldur's Gate 3 and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty play around with incorporating musical numbers. But No Ghosts At The Grand is taking things to the next level with songs sung by characters throug💟hout t♛he game.

That's just the first surprise the trailer for No Ghosts at The Grand has up its sleeve. During the caretaker's song, he hands David a gun; not a gun for violence, mind you, but ܫa gun for fixing things! It has a charming built-in digital assistant, and you're tas꧒ked with fixing up the hotel.

You can put the grand back in The Grand by painting the walls, moving furniture, and more. Yes, that does mean that No Ghosts At The Grand is also a riff on PowerWas𓆉h Simulator. I love a blood-drenched shooter as much as the next guy, but the idea of restoring this funky hotel to its former glory and cleaning up the surrounding villag📖e is my idea of a truly fantastic time.

A powerwash-musical hybrid would be enough to entice the heart and mind of any joy-loving human, but𝐆 No Ghosts at The Grand isn't done there. Halfway through the reveal trailer, there's a twist: David hasn't just come to The Grand because of his father's will. He's trying to uncover a supernatural mystery that's been lying dormant in this quaint little village. By the sounds of it, finding the truth will have serious consequences: "If they find out, they will Wicker Man your ass," a voice warns, one of the many ominous yet hilarious lines delivered in the trailer.

This means that No Ghosts at The Grand isn't just a powerwash sim with a musical bent. It's a *deep breath* musical meets powerwash simulator meets supernatural 🌊mystery, complete with fighting off giant spiders and some sort of tentacle monster that looks like it's taking over the village🌞.

Brave new worlds

It's thrilling to see a game that isn't just excited to take risks, but those risks feel baked intoꦛ its very DNA. If this fantastic trailer is any indication, There Are No Ghosts at The Grand doesn't just exist to defy expectations of what a video game can be. It's also going to be a heck of a lot of fun.

Plus, as an animal lover and parent to two lovely cats, the fact that a feline has a central roꦚle in No Ghosts at The Grand is very exciting indeed. reported that theﷺ cat is named Mr. Bones the Bastard, as if the anticipation couldn't be any higher. And he talks! "In this place, the only one you can really trust is me," Mr. Bones says, and I'm inclined to believe him. There's also a shot of David riding a bike with Mr. Bones in the basket, which is enough for me to anxiously await the game's release.

Bring on 2026, becau🍸se I am ready to clean houses, vanquish killer spiders, and watch people sing and dance iไn There Are No Ghosts at The Grand.

There Are No Ghosts at The Grand is one of many 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming Xbox Series X games on the horizon

In an era where first-party studios are still grappling with how best to support live-service ventures, it's surprising to see Grounded 2 emerge so soon. Its predecessor burrowed out of early access in 2022, and led Microsoft Gaming's multiplatform initiative when it leaped onto PS5, PS4, and Nintendo Switch last sprin💧g. Obsidian tells me that over 25 mil🌜lion players have sought to survive the backyard. With this momentum established, why start over?

Big Ambitions

"One argument for Grounded 2 was that the original worked on Xbox One. It would have been very hard to continue working o🧸n that platform – to continue expanding the world and do eveꦿrything that we wanted to do," says Chris Parker, game director of Grounded 2. "These sorts of technical limitations are solvable, so long as you're willing to deal with whatever the ramifications are."

Obsidian was not willin🐽g to accept creative limitations as it considered Grounded's evolution. The widening playspace is a fantastic example of this. Brookhollow Park is now large enough to accommodate mounts (known in-game as Buggies), which Parker says the original backyard was too small to support – despite being a heavily requested feature from the com🍌munity. "The Grounded team did experiment with mounts back in the day," he says, "but they quickly realized that it just wasn't something that was going to work well with the game that they had designed."

Mounts help you build, battle, and survive in ways you couldn't do in Grounded, and from what I've experienced of them so far I don't think folks are going to be disappointed. Leaping onto a Red Ant Buggy, skittering around the undergrowth at speed, is just really fun. There's a purity to it that ignites the imagination. It's a reminder that even seemingly small additions can have a really transformative effect on the way we interact with virtual worlds. Buggies bring a new dimension to both combat en🌳counters and resource collection, which is vital in a park that's packed with dangerous new critters.

"Creatures are the lifeblood of Grounded," says Marcus Morgan, executive producer of Groun♚ded 2. "It's so important every time we put a new creature into the mix, and we've gotten making them down to a bit of a science. There's a new scorpion, a blue butterfly, a caterpillar, and a snail," he says, chuckling – a reminder of the simplicity behind the core premise. "And we have reworked andও retouched every creature that existed in Grounded that is being reincorporated back into the sequel."

It's clear that every returning aspect has been reassessed for ༒Grounded 2. The Omni-Tool combines your axe, hammer, shovel, and wrench into an all-purpose tool that's more intuitive to wield; it also saves precious backpack space, reflecting an overall effort to refine inventory management and streamline the survival experience. Work has gone into refining the first and third-person camera perspectives. Co-op remains locked to four-players but steps have been taken to further integrate narrative elements, the original crew returning two years wiser than in their last adventure. Combat has been given a bit of a glow up too, with Grounded 2 introducing a new dodging mechanic that helps to battle bugs that are undoubtedly more tenacious.

Grounded 2 is clearly larger than what came before, but it's smarter and sharper too – a suite of quality-of-life iꦫmprovements underpin an effort to establish more robust foundations. "There were things we wanted to do the first time around that we couldn't accomplish, just because of the way we designed the world," says Parker. "Grounded 2 is an opportunity for us to rebuild from the ground-up, give the game some longevity, so that we can continue to add in new elements and support the game – not just through early access, but beyond it."

Grounded 2 lands in Game Preview/Early Access for PC, Xbox Series X, and Game Pass on July 29, 2025.

Basically, this set puts most of its eggs in the basket of co-op or solo play. While there are still two fresh squads to master and a load of narrative-based lore propping them up, the majority of its missions are 'Joint Ops' rather than the usual player-vs-player match-ups. Kill Team: Typhon also has PVP options, of course, but even these scenarios introduce an added complication I didn't expect – non-playable enemies that make life difficult for everyone.

I wasn't sure how to fe🌸el about this at first, but the more I think about it? Well, the more I dig what Kill Team: Typhon is selling.

Breaking new ground

If you're out of the loop, Typhon is the latest expansion for Warhammer 40K's faster-paced sibling, Kill Team. (I love this scrappy little bastard; bite-size combat blends beautifully with competitive, premade squads.) It's also the fourth release for this current 'season,' which is focused on the Imperial world of Volkus.𒊎 That means it ups the complexity with more strategic squads who'll require a deft hand to use correctly, not to mention Tyranid scenery to make your board 100% more gribbly.

Those two sides couldn't be more different; you've got lobotomize𒉰d slave Servitors on one end (known as the 'Battleclade' Kill Team) and tunnelling, snake-like Tyranids on the other (Raveners). Both are a prime example of why this game has such a chokehold on my heart, because they employ imaginative tactics that set them apart from what came before. The Battleclade are ablᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚe to transfer control between themselves like cogs in a machine, making it harder to know where the next blow is coming from. Meanwhile, the Raveners are able to vanish beneath the surface and spring up to attack before disappearing again. They seem like an absolute bastard to fight against, and I love them very much.

However, they're not necessarily the main event. Sure, a sizeable chunk of the book is dedicated to their backgroun🃏d, tactics, and loadout as expected. But the back half revolves around missions that are played against Non-Playable Operatives, or 'NPOs.' These were introduced in the current edition of Kill Team as a way to play the game alone or with a pal instead of beating the snot out of each other, and this adds a ton of value by providing new ways to interact with Kill Team alongside an excuse to use Warhammer 40K models you may have lying around. Typhon leans hard into that conceit with a campaign tree of scenarios that can go a multitude of ways depending on how successful you are.

While I'm still not sure this is what Kill Team players are here for (although I appreciate how reminiscent its camaraderie is of Warhammer Quest or the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best board games, it's not the tense, head-to-head chess🦋 match that I suspect most players are drawn to), I've got no such qualms about the book's handful of Adversary Ops. These are your average PVP affairs, but with a twist; a horde of Tyrani🌺ds are on-hand to scuttle your best-laid plans. It's the boldest change to Kill Team in a long time, and I'm surprised Warhammer isn't making more of this.

An added complication

It may not seem like a groundbreaking change at first blush, but hurling a clutch of NPOs into your PVP sessions shakes things up in a significant way. To start with, it adds a surprisingly deep layer of strategy to proceedings. Managing a hostile third party that hates both players equally gives you one more thing to juggle. (Yes, this does mean you 🎶could have have Battleclade vs. Tyranid vs. NPO Tyranid action in Typhon... maybe as two alternate broods?) However, clever opponents can use it to their advantage as well. Each NPO carries a list of behaviours that dictate what it🧸 does next, from charging the nearest enemy to repositioning for a better ranged shot – and that means you can lure your rival's Kill Team into the line of fire or lead NPOs to them, giving you a chance to secure objectives uncontested. The world's your oyster, and I'm excited to see what cunning so-and-sos do with this.

It forces you to adjust your tactics from the off too, shaking things up in the same way 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Dungeons & Dragons: Onslaught did a couple years ag🦩o. You can't take a 'business as usual' approach to matches if a third party is there to rain on your parade (not unless you fancy being eviscerated, anyway), so it should inject fresh life into the game for those who may be finding Kill Team stale.

Happily, Typhon doesn't require you to have other models lying around either. Unlike the core rules that needed you to buy or already own miniatures you could use as NPOs, this box includes them in the pack. That's a first for Kill Team, and adds a lot of value to the overall deal. OK, so there are stats for models not included here (most of which can be found in the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Warhammer 40K starter sets). Yܫet it's a foundation to build on, which is more than we had before.

My only criticism is that I wish these Adversary Ops had gotten more attention in the Typhon book itself. They're relegated to two pages of rules and six maps without any kind of narrative setup or unique objectives tied to the Tyranid scourge detailed throughout the supplement. Alright, there are three objective markers on each so the maps can be used in conjunction with the extensive Approved Ops deck. That's fair enough. Still, I would have appreciated some plot-driven fluff as seen in the Joint Ops. The latter revolves around the discovery of a secret Tyranid brood beneath Volkus' hive city, and your effort to stamp them out before they overwhelm the planet's already-strained dꦕefences. That gives the missions a real sense of place that I appreciate, particularly in a heavily-themed season such as this. It's reminiscent of those worldwide 40K campaigns Warhammer used to run, where the community submitted their wins or losses to decide theꦡ fate of an in-universe location.

Nevertheless, I suppose I can't complain too much. I love the concept and hope we see more of it from Kill Team going forward. It's a solid foundation upon which to build, and I suspect clever sausages will be able to reverse-engineer Adversary Ops into narrative missions from Hivestorm (which I still think is the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best starter set Warhammer has ever 🥀👍made) and beyond. I hope they do.

Anyway. I'm still digging into Typhon as we speak, and that means my full review isn't quite ready yet. Nevertheless, I can say I'm enjoying this detour into uncharted territory. I don't know about you, 🎃but I'm i🉐ntrigued to see where it leads.

You can pre-orꦫder Typhon dir🐻ect from the now, but it should also be available soon at in the US and in the UK.

For more cool tabletop stuff to get your teeth into, why not check out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best cooperative board games or the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best tabletop RPGs?

Flashbacks to 2005 see him clashing with his teacher, with sign language penalized in the classroom, and on-screen text at the start of the film info꧒rms the audience that policy around using si♛gn language in schools in Hong Kong only changed in 2010.

Cut to almost 20 years later, and Alan has a cochlear implant that helps his hearing. He and Sophie meet as they'r🃏e both ambassadors for the implant, encouraging other d/Deaf people to undergo the surgery. This puts them both at odds with Wolf, who strongly believes that his lack of hearing is something to be proud of and not something he wants to change about himself.

Something different

Other recent movies about d/Deaf people or people experiencing hearing loss, like 2021's Oscar-winning CODA or 2019's Sound of Metal, starring Riz Ahmed, often only revolve around one main protagonist and, in the case of CODA, that protagonist𓆉 isn't actually d/Deaf (the movie's title is an acrony🌺m for 'Child of Deaf Adults').

In Sound of Metal, Ahmed's character, Ruben, only starts to lose his hearing in adulthood, so it feels rare to see ♊multiple d/Deaf protagonists on screen who have been experiencing Deafness or loss of hearing since childhood (if not all their lives, in Wolf's case).

Overcome or embrace?

"Amid the dilemma of 'overcoming deafness' and 'embracing deafness,' how can deaf individuals truly live?" Wong said in a statement about the film. "How can one's individuali𓆏ty resist being d💃rowned out by prevailing societal trends?"

In one of the movie's early scenes, Sophie makes a speech for the cochlear implant organization that offends Wolf with its references to normality and eliminating d/Deafness🍸. His outburst upsets Sophie, and she decides she wants to learn sign language – and for Wolf to teach her. New ways of communicating open up new ways of living for her, too: rather than trying to assimilate in a culture that tokenizes and others her, as her mother has always tried to make her do, she's able to find community and solidarity w𝄹ith other d/Deaf people.

The movie's dialogue is spoken in Cantonese, but most of its speech is communicated using Hong Kong sign language. The film's🧸 sound often distorts to reflect what its protagonists are hearing in the world around them, particularly when Sophie's cochlear implant begins to malfunction.

Although at times the script feels a little didactic in its depiction of d/Deafness, the movie for the most part feels like an honest portrayal of living with a disability: isolating and fr▨ustrating, but also joyful and companionable.

The Way We Talk is out now in UK cinemas. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Big Screen Spotlight series.

The Little Nightmares pedigree is hard at work in End of Abyss's visual style, but this is a much more robust 'video game-y' experience. Playing from a top-down perspective, you've got a laser-sighted gun you can easily aim with the right stick – just pull the right trigger to fire. It all feels very good – all my hours in Geometry Wars back in the day certainly paid off – and it gives yꦛou enough control to keep the game from ever getting too terrifying.

But there's a base of survival horror here. Your stronger weapons, including a shotgun that can absolutely blow away the basic, zombie-l💮ike foes, consume ammo which you've got to replenish by collecting and spending a crafting currency. Enemies respawn every time you hit a save point, Souls style, so you're never truly safe.

Nightmares of all sizes

The creatures are plenty creepy, with zombie-like movements and big, head-exploding transformations straight out of Resident Evil 4. There's a great variety to the creatures, with standard humanoid enemies there to drain your bullets, and smaller annoyances that can latch onto your body and drain your health until you knock them off with a dodge roll. Worst of all are the weird, hand-shaped enemies that move in unpredictable ways and can quickly pin you to tꦆhe ground.

It's easy enough to manage these encounters if you're well-stocked with ammo, understand the shape of the room you're in, and don't just rush forward into ever-increasing hordes of monsters. But if you ignore those tactics, things can get real bad in a hurry. This push and pull gives the game 𒐪a nice tension, where incautious exploration will swiftly get you murdered, but keeping a wary eye on each new corner will reward you with manageable combat encounters.

The feel of End of Abyss really c♓ame together for me thanks to the scanning system. Think Metroid Prime – you can activate a scanner that'll quickly highlight items of interest nearby. That might give you a hint on how to defeat a particular enemy, or highlight a hidden cache with bonus resources. Perhaps most importantly, it'll note doors or objects you need specific items to bypass, marking them permanently on your map.

Search (and scan) action

This is a full-on Metroidvania, with items to find that'll let you break into new sections of the map, and while taking an active hand in marking a map is nothing new for the genre, this particular system is nicely engaging without becoming onerous. Yo💫u have to take an active role in making sure your map is up today, but it's just automated enough to keep that process from being tedious. The game's flow is also kept moving by the fact that unlocked secrets and shortcu🦂ts stay in place even after you die and respawn.

The demo culminated in a boss fight against a hulking♕ creature whose big wind-up attacks with deceiving rhythms reminiscent of a Souls boss, especially once I started dodge-rolling out of the way of those strikes before responding with shotgun blasts of my own. I died on my first attempt, and all my shotgun shells were still spent when I rꦯevived – the other side of the coin when it comes to the world's permanence – but while in the full game you'd have to go gather more crafting materials for ammunition on your own, here the dev helpfully dropped me a bunch of ammo for the next attempt.

It wasn't too much lon♊ger before the boss went down, and the fight fel♛t downright breezy by the time I'd actually learned the attack patterns. For my money, that's the mark of quality enemy design, and the threat of spending all your ammo against major enemies will give the fights a nice sense of stakes even when they might be straightforward.

I only played a tiny slice of End of Abyss, and the game's ultimate quality is going to come down to how well the level design carries over the course of the game's entire length. But the foundations here have me eager to see where it goes. This i꧟s such a mishmash of genres, but as they come together none of it feels derivative. I'm a little cautious about how tedious the post-death ammo grind might become, and whether the environments will have enough variety to stay engaging for the long haul, but I feel like I've gotten a tast🐎e of something that could be very special.

The ranks of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Metroidvania games and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best horror games are well-stocked, but there's always room for more.

Our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Steam Next Fest guide is a great starting place to learn more about downloading the demos. But for now, we've played through heap🍨s of demos to find▨ the ones we really recommend you check out before Steam Next Fest draws to a close. There's lots of good stuff in there, to the point where even narrowing it down to just 20 was hard. And I'm still feeling guilty about the demos I downloaded, but probably won't have time to play on top of this.

Can you have too much of a good thing? I'd argue no – because at the end of the day it's all about the possibilities of what you could have. And I'm here to help you on that journey. Keep following all𒁃 our coverage for the highlights, but here's our top recommendations for what Steam Next Fest demos should really get💟 downloaded for the weekend.

20. Herdling

Developer: Okomotive
Release date: TBC 2025

Herdling is a bit like a cross between The Last Guardian and Journey, having you assemble a group of cute calicorn critters to herd them safely from the city streets to the mountain home they crave to return to. There's some light puzzling at times in , which otherwise constantly moves you forward, occasionally pausing to ask you to navigate structures by pushing blocks and other such things. But where it really shines is where you're let loose on the fields, raising your stick to boost your companions while das🐽hing along behind them, the music swelling. 🥃This demo is the game's opening, and allows you to experience some of those beats for yourself.

19. Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault

Developer: Digital Sun
Release date: TBC 2025

Once again, shopkeeper-adventurer Will finds himself managing a store in , with a landlord hungry for cash. Though the world may have changed a bit following the events of the first game's ending, money still makes the world go around. Which means he has to set off on an adventure in order to nab loot that he can then sell. It's up to you how to push expeditions, and what you fill your limited backpack space with. Adding to that is the idea of combination items, meaning even seemingly useleꦉss junk can be valuable if kept together. You get a great taste of the i𝓀nitial loop in this introduction to the game!

18. OFF

Developer: Mortis Ghost, Fangamer
Release date: August 15, 2025

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Why recommend , a game that came out back in 2008? Well, because this is a loving and faithful remaster/remake that makes it really nice to get stuck into this cult classic. After all, this is the bizarre RPG that 🎀inspired Undertale, and that game's🦄 creator Toby Fox has even contributed to this new version of OFF. Taking control of The Batter, you🗹r mission is simple: purify the world by traveling through its Zones and bashing the heck out of ghouls. Less simple is the world itself, a strange place that gets odder the more you explore it, and, as you'd expect from something that inspired Undertale, spirals out massively from there. The hefty demo includes the whole of Zone 1, so grab your bat and get involved!

17. Baby Steps

Developer: Gabe Cuzzillo, Maxi Boch, Bennett Foddy
Release date: September 8, 2025

This laugh-out-loud and wince-worthy physics adventure comes from the mind of Getting Over It creator Bennet Foddy. While is certainly a bit more than just that infamously tough game about ascending, but now in 3D, the similarities are clear whenever you take a disastrous tumble. Playing as Nate, you end up transported to a world of muddy landscapes in which you need to relearn how to move your legs. Cue plenty of muddy faceplanting. This is ꩲthe kind of✨ game where simply walking up a hill feels almost impossible, and you can lose about 30 minutes of progress in 30 seconds, which is also why we love it.

16. Morsels

Developer: Furcula
Release date: TBC 2025

While this top-down roguelike is full of all sorts of poop, bile,🀅 and nasty tooty noises, there's also an edge of cuteness about it. In , you're thrust into a world where large and visually upsetting creatures rule supreme, but you take control of the smaller critters looking to make a difference – the, well, morsels. Playing a little bit like The Binding of Isaac, if you had recharging shot ammo and could switch characters on the fly (up to three morsels can be recruited and bound to the d-pad at once during a run), this can be a brutal but satisfying chaotic world to master. Just watch out, as some creatures are just too big to defeat – if you see that snake come a-slithering, just run.

15. Hotel Barcelona

Developer: White Owls
Release date: TBC

is the long-awaited collaboration between two gaming legends – Suda 51, known for the likes of Killer7 and No More Heroes, and Swery65, known for Deadly Premonition and The Missing. In this demo, you quickly see the influence of both, taking control of Federal Marshal Justine as she explores a hotel for serial killers while also having another serial killer trapped inside of her who she can fuse with to become a powerful force of justice. Seeking rev🔯enge, she'll have to carve through a host of other killers to track down he꧙r target, which means slashing through 2D roguelike levels with branching paths that are all parodies of horror movies. With access to the first area, this demo is a great introduction.

14. Hell is Us

Developer: Rogue Factor
Release date: September 4, 2025

It's hard to get a real sense of the "multi-map sꦜpanning secrets" promised in Hell is Us from the demo, but it does give you a great taste of just how unique and strange this game is. is set in a fictional civil war in the '90s, where the closed borders hide some bizarre creatures. Thrust into action, combat is🅠 a bit soulslike in style – while not being quite as punishing. But it's exploration that's really different, encouraging you to use a compass to get around and not giving you quest markers. You need to take your time and explore your curiosity yourself rather than switch off that part of your brain, and that's refreshing.

13. Holstin

Developer: Sonka
Release date: TBC

is another game set in the 90s about the horror lurking beneath society. Set in Poland, this inventive pixel art game mixes top-ཧdown exploration with over-the-shoulder shooting seamlessly. Looking from above, the camera can be rotated freely – even though it looks 2D. Aim your gun, and it'll seamlessly zoom in. It looks phenomenal in motion and allows you to get up close and personal with some of Holstin's gnarlier designs. Like a cross between S⛦ilent Hill and Resident Evil, the horrors are strong even in this demo.

12. Possessor(s)

Developer: Heart Machine
Release date: TBC

If you found Hyper Light Breaker a bit too much of a departure from Hyper Light Drifter, you may prefer what developer Heart Machine is offering here with , which evolves some of the combat philosophies that underpinned that original indie classic in a fresh direction while exploring a brand new world. Side-scrolling action here is set within a ruined and flooded city. Precise platforming meets precise combat, all feeling rewarding when you string together the right move﷽s to clinch a challenge by the skin of your teeth while making it look effortless.

11. Unbeatable

Developer: D-Cell Games
Release date: TBC 2025

Rhythm games don't always need to be more complicated to keep introducing new ideas. makes the most of a ꦦsimple two-buttꦿon approach to make each song in this hefty demo feel like a nail-biting brawl. With a top lane and a bottom lane, it's all about juggling incoming enemies as you tap away while also avoiding hazards. There's a lot of depth to be found o♏n the harder difficultie൲s. This demo also gives a taste of the story mode, which sees Beat and her band on the run from a government that's made music illegal, playing their music shows to fight the system. Now that's punk.

10. Dead as Disco

Developer: Brain Jar Games
Release date: TBC

The combat in Batman Arkham was al☂ways rhythmic, but Dead as Disco reimagines the approach to 3D brawls as truly set to music. BPM changes the speed of encounters, and the story mode flashes you between setpieces to match the mood of the track. This demo only briefly allowsܫ us to try a single proper level in what's teased to be a Mega Man-like set-up of goons and boss fights. Infinite Disco mode, meanwhile, gives us room to try plenty more tracks in a more simplistic but still flashy environment, and even import our own songs. Disco will never die.

9. No, I'm Not a Human

Developer: Trioskaz
Release date: Q3 2025

knows when to let its lo-fi grungy textures make you uneasy, and when to revel in the just-as-uncomfortable over-detail of the human body. When something happens to the sun that makes it dangerous to go outside in the day, and Visitors begin emerging from the earth to replicate humans, it's safest to stick together. But that means maki💞ng sure you only let people into your house who you're sure you can trust. By night, you vet those seeking refuge by knocking at your door, and by day, you talk to the survivors and test them to see if they are really the humans they say they are. This demo gives you a few days to soak in the upsetting vibes.

8. Mina the Hollower

Developer: Yacht Club Games
Release date: October 31, 2025

The Shovel Knight developer c꧑an't stop striking the earth, though this time takes place from a top-down Game Boy-like perspective rather than being an NES-like 2D platformer. Mina the Hollower riffs on Zelda games made for the hardware, having the adventurous hero explore a Castlevania-style horror-themed world, battling baddies and solving puzzles. The big twist is her Hollower power to, well, burrow, which is just as vital for getting the upper hand on foes as it is in navigating the world itself.

7. Azaran: Islands of the Jinn

Developer: Benji
Release date: TBC

From 2D Zelda to 3D Zelda! is a real love letter to that adventuring series on Nintendo 64. Anyone familiar with The Legend of💃 Zelda: Ocarina of Time will immediately feel the vibes when playing the Azaran demo, right t🎶he way down to how Zahn locks on to enemies, or how the camera pans around🎀 a dungeon. Almost every design decision here evokes those classic '90s vibes. But, with its Arabian Nights theme, Azaran: Islands of the Jinn also has its own personality that's worth getting to know, and is just fun to play. With most of the opening dungeon to play, this demo is well worth playing for yourself.

6. Ratatan

Developer: TVT, Ratata Arts
Release date: July 24, 2025

This spiritual successor to the Patapon games on PSP made waves on Kickstarter. development team even includes members who wor🧔ked on the original series. This time around, the rhythm action follows a roguelike structure, seeing your hero Ratatan return to Rataport between each run. Setting out each time with the cobuns in tow, you battle much bigger enemies and need to time strategies to make the most of the catchy soundtrack and take them down. The visual direction is gorgeous, and the music is sublime – the best way to see if this is so catchy it can get its hooks in you is to give it a try for yourself.

5. City of Voices

Developer: Kini Games
Release date: TBC

Loved The Rise of the Golden Idol (like we did in our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Rise of the Golden Idol review) and how that series presents its mysteries? But maybe want something a little less supernatural? Then is a demo you really need to check out. Co-developed by one of Golden Idol's writers and designers, w✃ith the rest of that team's blessing, this is essentially the same puzzle bones applied to a young girl's coming-of-age tale as she navigates bullying across school and her Acorn scout-like unit. Teasing a more mysterious journey, this demo centers mostly on finding out who bullies are and how they did their deeds, which can be a bit upsetting without any later emotional release. But these conundrums are all very clever and have you make some tough deductions with just the right number of clues. Pay attention to what you're looking at!

4. Consume Me

Developer: Jenny Jiao Hsia, AP Thomson, Jie En Lee, Violet W-P, Ken "coda" Snyder
Release date: September 25, 2025

has☂ already won several awards before even releasing, and after even a brief look, it's easy to see why. This is a life simulation RPG with fantastic visual design and a very important message about growing up as a teen. Across both traditional life-sim style menus and very satisfyingly clicky minigames, you need to 'balance' the overwhelm of trying to make the most of your teenage years while dealing with a constant checklist of goals and pressure coming from all sides. All the mechanics work together to hammer the message home, but it's bes▨t played to really understand what Consume Me is going for, so give it a go!

3. After Inc: Revival

Developer: Ndemic Creations
Release date: June 17, 2025

This sequel to Plague Inc. dares to ask: what happens next? Players caused the disease-ridden apocalypse umpteenth times the first go around, but tackles rebuilding after the end of the world instead, a potentially more optimistic angle that's nice to see in the age we're living in. Somewhere between 4X strategy and a city builder, it challenges you to secure resources in order to keep your populace alive as you deal with a harsh world. Which also means having to make difficult decisions including, uꦡpsettingly, havi💦ng to feed dogs to the citizens in order to keep them alive. Can you build a better future?

2. Crescent County

Developer: Electric Saint
Release date: TBC

Hop onto your motorbroom in and get ready to do some witchy racing, deliver packages, and hang out with your pals and crushes. What's more to say than that, really? It's all we needed to know to mash that d𓂃ownload button like there was no tomorrow. There's so much charm packed into this magical adventure, from the funny (and sometimes irreverent) writing to the lo-fi but colorful visuals. The island is an open world, and it feels like there's plenty of routes that are fun to learn. This demo is a great way to get a feel for things, and decide if broom riding is for you.

1. Prologue: Go Wayback

Developer: PLAYERUNKNOWN Productions
Release date: TBC

We've written about before, but we can't resist, well, erm, coming back. Thankfully, accessing the demo doesn't require compass-based navigation, because if this harsh orienteering game is anything to go by, it's something we struggle with. This comes from the PUBG creator, and while it's a far cry from a battle royale – this is a single-player challenge – it has a similar simplicity. All you have to do is reach a weather station. But with few resources and not a lot of information to go on, actually finding it and making it🥀 there in one piece is where the challenge lies. Think you can manage it? Well, give it a try t♚hen!

For more exciting future releases, check out our guides on all the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming indie games and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming PC games on the horizon.

CDPR was preparing to launch The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings on Xbox 360. The port was largely finished,🐷 and work on a follow-up, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, had begun in secret. Yet instead of sticking with what worked for – another hub-based and largely linear RPG – its creators wanted to transplant The Witcher 2's tight, character-driven narrative into a sprawling open world.

🙈"Everyone in the industry said it's not possible – that these things don't go together, 🍬because you almost have contradictory objectives for what you're trying to achieve," recalls Sasko. But even then, ambition was the studio's guiding light.

We know how the story goes. 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher 3 launched ꦚto critical and commercial acclaim in 2016, and is considered by many to be the most influential open world R༒PG of its time. CDPR is a household name. Now 10 years old, The Witcher 3 retains its magic: there's a smokiness to its tone, its confrontational approach to morality, that's still hard to grasp after all these years. Where did it come from?

"We always wanted to make the kind of game we'd want to play," says Philipp Weber, who joined as a quest designer in 2013 and now works as 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher 4's narrati🌠ve director. "But at the same time, a lot of it was built on hope… like, 'I hope this w𝄹orks out.'"

Early days

While Sasko has been with The Witcher 3 since its earliest days, Weber arrived slightly further into development. It was Weber's first "professional" job, having come from a background of modding previous Witcher games as a hobby. "I came in with super high motivation, loving the Witcher," he says, adding that the studio frequently hires modders like himself. "I think the secret behind The Witcher 3 ♏was that I wasn't an exception – that was the case for so many people."

The atmosphere of CDPR, then staffed at around 160, was "scrappy". Weber's first job 𒁏was to throw quest ideas into a Google Docs page for three days, and♑ many tasks were "a little bit vibe-based" – it wasn't uncommon to see developers working across disciplines based on what needed doing.

It's another of the studio's "secrets," suggests Weber: "Do it immediately, do it fast, do it d🔯irty. We check it and start iterati𒁏ng [...] we keep that iteration going until the end – we're never happy with the result until it's too late and the game has to be out."

"Let's not kid ourselves – this wasn't a small indie game or something, but it was still good creative chaos," recalls Weber. "You could get things done, you could move, be creative, do stuff, and ask questions. When you get bigger, you have to be consciously aware of that factor and say 'even though we [have] so many people and have to organize more, let's not lose this'. It's very easy to lose this. But sometimes… jus🐟t do it, get it done. Use the engine, come up with something cool, an🉐d do it!"

"That's how it f🌠elt, especially at the end of Witcher 2 and beginning of Witcher 3," agrees Sasko, who remembers CDPR staౠrting to embrace now-common industry standards like quest documentation around that time. "The biggest American studios already did that better, but in Europe, it was a novelty."

When The Witcher 3 started to make rounds at E3 with a working demo, people took notice. Its creators steadily realized they were holding something special. "There was this feeling that it was going to be bigger," says Weber. "Skyrim was the open world game, and we coul🌳d feel that💜 suddenly a lot of people who loved Skyrim started paying attention to The Witcher 3. We could kind of feel this… big wave, touching us. There was an excitement, where we could tell that the general public was taking notice. It was a very interesting thing to see."

The secret formula

While that was happening, the studio also knew it was pushing the boat out with the moral complexity of its quests. Even a decade later, few RPGs – if any – have matched the consistency of The Witcher 3's depth, in which everything from the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:now-infamous Bloody Baron quest to the smallest of contracts can leave a lasting impression. Rig🐠ht or wrong is rarely defined, and goodness glimmers in abhorrence.

Its best quests, whether spanning several hours of a bite-sized 10 minutes, capture the feeling of being staggered after finishing a gꦰood book. (Sasko lights up at the comparison – "That was the goal!"). A large part of that comes from The Witcher 3's morally grey world, which has been discussed at length, and for good reason: it's the secret sauce that makes CDPR continue to stand out. Every potential addition needed to pass an incredibly high quality bar. Some of Weber's first feedback was "we don't do fetch quests" (a rule he maintains for The Witcher 4), and every de𝕴signer wrote "10 times as many ideas as those that landed in the game".

Meeting that bar was difficult in more ways than one. Across both The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, the studio has broached subjects ranging from eating disorders and terminal illness to domestic abuse and the right to die. Not everyone within CDPR has always been on board. Both Weber and Sasko recall 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:internal opposit🐼ion to Cyberpunk෴ 2077's Sinnerman, the beginning of a quest line in which you meet a convicꦍted murderer who wants to record his own crucifixion in a bid to convert more people to Christianity. Evelyn Parker's tragic fate was also controversial, as was the Bloody Baron's unflinching familial tragedy in The Witcher 3.

"There were so many conversations in the studio," says Sasko. "I remember when I was working on the Bloody Baron, I came up with the idea of the botchling – and to have it in ღthe game. One of our developers, who was a young father at the time, said that he was disturbed by the zombie miscarried child, and should we really be making games like this? Is it moral, or ethical, to make a story like this? I managed to convince him in the end because I think he understood that we were trying to tell a story about domestic violence, broken human beings, and in a way show players that you can feel empathy for people that have done horrible things… and pose the question of: when is the moment you can forgive someone, as a human being?"

Weber agrees that having the confidence to go there is key to CDPR's knack for storytelling. "We ask difficult questions, but don't preach easy answers [...] The Bloody Baron does terrible th💫ings, but Geralt can still say that he feels for having lost his family. He can empathize with that aspect – it doesn't mean Geralt says 'I like you, you're a good guy'. This way of wri🌊ting stories is very important to us."

"We don't just do it to be showy," he continues. "We do it because there's an interesting question to delve into – not necessarily a question we want to answer, but a question we want to explore and think is ꦯworth it. I would say that if you never have those discussions, you're probably not making art. 'Maybe we have to be brave? Dive deeper? Maybe this is something that could touch people the wrong way, are we ready to do that?' Those are discussions that we have to this day, but it's important to have them, because otherwise you're never able to do something like this."

Both developers insist the goal isn't to intentionalꦿly court controversy. Instead, Sasko believes it's crucial to not be afr🅰aid of it. "It's about touching on topics because you feel they should be talked about, because they are an important element of your human experience and who we are as people. If that touches on controversial topics, it's OK – we want to talk about human life, and what it really means to be human."

"I'd rather make a game that some people love and some people don't like, than one everyone says is OK," says Weberไ.

Maturity is the "biggest element" of The Witcher 3's legacy, according to Sasko. A lot of the team were entering their 30s and 40s during development, and looking for "something more" fro🐭m their medium. Did the harsh reality of The Witcher 3 come from shared experiences? "I would say we, as Polish people, are much more negative than Western societies," he replies. "We have a tendency to see glass half empty rather than half full. Part of creating mature entertainment is just realizing that not everything in life is going to go great. In all of our lives, horrible shit is going to happen."

Elaborating, Sasko suggests that having to reckon with the inevitable death of our parents is one of the "most important transitions" of the human condition. "I'm a development psychologist, so I think about those things a lot. For me this moment of transition, of understanding that your parents are aging a🅷nd they're going to get sick and die, is a part of our human experience. It's dishonest to always show and paint t♐he world in a positive light."

"You cannot prevent your parents dying," he continues. "You cannot prevent the fact that maybe the pet you spent 15 years of your life with has cancer. You cannot completely prevent this. [But it's about] being thankful for everything you experienced. Even in this fucking dystopian horrible world of Cyberpunk, or this dark noir Witcher world, there are good people. There are good moments. There are friendships. There's love! I t💃hink that's the ambition: to encourage people toward this, and it might be a bit dark when I'm speaking about it, but I want to make sure that ray of sunlight is visible in oꦺur work [...] There's a lot of hope in both The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk. It's just that you need to look for it."

Best endings

Nowadays, it's almost rote to discuss The Witcher 3's impact. Having sold 60 million copies and counting, the RPG brought CD Projekt Red to the genre's forefront seemingly overnight. Juggernauts like 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and have been inspired by its open world.

It's a legacy that Sasko, now associate game director on the next Cyberpunk title, struggles to grasp. "Just last week, The Witcher 3 was on sale, but it was in the top 10 best-selling games on Steam together with ♔Cyberpunk, which was incredible to see," he says, grinning. "I couldn't believe it – the game [is] 10 years old!"

For We𝕴ber, he feels The Witcher 4 is coming together with the same "scrappy energy" that buzzed aroun🥂d CDPR when he first joined. "Sometimes I like to just say 'Get it done. Do it dirty. Do it the way we used to do it!"

As narrative director, Weber doesn't believe his job is to♑ create a "mathematical" improvement to The Witcher 3. Taste is subjective – after all, his favorite Witcher game is the often-forgotten first one ("I love it so much!"). "The way we want to do justice to [The Witcher 3's] legacy is to take the philosophy we had during The Witcher 3 – how to make aꦉ game, how to really care about these things, how to tell stories – and keep that," he explains. "There are [also] new questions we want to answer, because this is supposed to feel like a true sequel, not just redoing what we did before. And I think it's really [about] trying to have that healthy mix of moving forward and also trying out some new things."

In November 2024, The Witcher 4 entered full-scale production. Unlike its predecessor, it will not have the element of surprise working for it. The Witcher 3 came together not through magic, but through human ambition and the courage to tackle reality – and as a result, expectations for its follow-up are sky-high. Few know this as well as Weber, who laughs. "I do see the articles where people talk about The Witcher 3 being one of the best games ever made and 'how are they going to top it?' – I'm like yeah, how are we going to do that?"

By bringing Cyberpunk 2077's density to The Witcher 4, CDPR is finally bridging the tech gap between its biggest RPGs

As the name suggests, each run of 9 Kings starts with the choice of on🃏e of nine kings (at least it will eventually - two are on their way in a later update). Your choice of king will influence your city, and by extension your playstyle. The King of Greed, for instance, is focused around a strong economy, with units that become more effective as your coffers swell. The King of Stone is all about hard-hitting siege weaponry, while the King of Spells marches with an army full of spellcasters augmented by powerful magic.

But at the start of each run you'𝓰ll also be presented with your enemies. A rebellious form of your own kingdom will be among them, but you'll also be fighting invaders from two or three other kings at any one time. Each in-game year will see a new invasion, and with each invasion you'll claim spoils - troops, constructions, or spells from your opponents' tech tree that you can use to build up your own city.

We built this city

That city-building is surprisingly intricate. Starting on a map of just nine tiles, there's not much room to start setting up your strategy, and optimizing what space you do have is key. Different buildings layer their effects on top of each other, stacking buffs on the units you place between them - if you get everything in the right spot. Certain spells can be used to free up tiles by destroying what's already there - but since they increase the power of adjacent tiles, you want to make sure you're getting the m♚ost out of each cast.

When everything does line up, the ranks and stats of your army can quickly be increasing exponentially. But kicking off that stacking improvement can mean being incredibly precise in the early game. And if the right cards don't show up, it's up to you to adapt on the fly - I spent one run desperately hoarding gold because I'd accidentally found myself stealing scaling units from the King of Greed, and I needed as much cash on han🌄d as I could get.

Ashes and Dust

That can make 9 Kings' roguelike elements heartbreaking. Each year for 33 years will bring a new army to your door before a final showdown. In that time, you'll expand the borders of your kingdom, hear prophecies, and declare war or peace against enemy kings. All of th🎐ese different decisions c꧋an weigh heavily on your chances of success; where's the best spot to unlock a new tile?; how do I take full advantage of this upcoming prophecy?; which king can I comfortably defeat, and which is likely to storm my castle?

With each year only offering one or two ways to exert your kingly influence, and only three successful invasions between a kingdom thatꦉ thrives or perishes, every decision is made to count, often far more than you might originally expect. Often, an otherwise successful army can simply run out of steam if the cocktail of buffs you've been stacking up still can't cut it against late-game armies.

I've lost track of the number of times I've been sitting pret🍸ty approaching the final showdown, only for my frontline troops to suddenly fold ꧃in front of an onslaught of spells or siege engines. That is, admittedly, partly my fault, because my favorite strategy is an aggro-heavy approach that relies on putting as much cannon fodder in front of my opponents as possible. The King of Blood thrives on massive armies of expendable units that overwhelm enemy troops.

When any one of those units dies, Blood's cemeteries summon an impish replacement to take their spot on the field, while its Demon Altars gain strength from the life ene🎀rgy of the 𓄧departed. It's an aggressive, entertaining twist on 9 Kings' otherwise slower, more gradual approach to gaining strength - simply overwhelm your enemies, and you'll often find yourself halfway through a successful run before you even notice.

Unfortunately, it's at that halfway st🐠age that things start to get⭕ tricky for my imps, who tend to evaporate in the face of larger armies. That's good news for my Altars, which summon increasingly powerful Demons every turn, but if 90% of your army is killed in the first few seconds of battle, there's very little that the remaining 10% can do, no matter how many essences they've absorbed.

That's brought me to the real joy of 9 Kings. It requires such intricacy, such exact placement and planning in its late-game battles, that a single wasted turn feels like it can ruin a run. As it stands, I'm gradually pushing my way up through its endgame difficulty levels, attempting to master 🅷every different King and their varying playstyles, desperately trying to push each build just a touch beyond the record I set last time. It's an all-consuming, and often thankless task, but it's a testament to the city-builder's roguelike setup that I'm prepared to keep coming back to try again.

9 Kings is out now in Early Access on PC. For more recommendations, head on over to our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Indie Spotlight series.

You better believe it. I tucked into MachineGames' globe-trotting adventure for the first 🌜time this year on PS5, and it's safely one of my favorite games in recent memory𒁏. I don't say that lightly, either, as someone who's a diehard fan of the fedora-wearing archaeologist and the movies from George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.

With the promise of letting me really become the character I grew up loving, I wondered if the studio behind Wolfenstein could actually fulfill that fantasy, but boy did it deliver and then some. From the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:many nods to the films, to 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:nailin💧g the spirit of the iconic character, and putting on the signature hat for myself, I can't remember the last time I felt a🐼s sad to reach a game's conclusion as I did in The Great Circle. Happily, the Order of the Giants looks set to give me exactly what I yearn for, and better yet, it's going to do it in the most exciting way possible by drawing us into another mystery-filled quest in a new location: Rome.

A dark secret in the depths

Nothing spells adventure quite like going to a new destination to face challenges unknown, which is why I loved the variety of locations in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle's core experience. Each and every one offered something different: from the sandy pyramids of Gizeh to ♏the snowy climbs of the Himalayas, and the streets of the Vatican, every place presented its own distinct feel – all with unique disguises, landscapes, hidden secrets, and puzzles. So, the prospect of going somewhere fresh once again in the Order of the Giants DLC is exactly what I want.

"This is where it starts. Beneath the streets of Rome", says Indiana, who sets the scene for the expansion in the , which will plunge us into ancient crypts and sewers nestled deep below the city. Admittedly it does sound pretty spooky, with the official paint♏ing a picture of the dark quest that's in store for us.

Set during the events of the main game, we'll be setting out to uncover "dark secrets" that lie beneath Rome with the help of a cryptic priest called Father Ricci. As we traverse ancient sewer systems and venture to different areas, we'll have to face "members of a frightening cult" who "sneak around in the shadows". At first blush, I get the impression that I may have to face my fears once again, with The Order of the Giants seemingly tapping into the unsettling vi🍌bes that put me to the test at🦂 the tail end of Gizeh's main questline. But hell, even if it sounds pretty creepy, I'm more than on board witꦛh the idea of peeling back the mysteries of Rome.

And not unlike the pyramids of Egypt and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, I'm just as excited to see MachineGames' recreation of famous historic landmarks, because not only will we be going below the city, but we'll also get to explore the ruins of the Colosseum. Sign me up, right now. With "intricate puzzles" to solve as we explore ancient Rome, the DLC looks set to fill a hole the main game left behind, and it's also teased that a "few familiar faces" will be maki👍ng a return – I can't wait to find out which characters will make an appearance.

Honestly, I'd be happy for MachineGames to keep dropping more DLC in the future so I can keep finding excuses t🐼o put Indiana's fedora back on. But in my heart 🧸of hearts, I'd absolutely love to see more games starring the iconic character come our way from the studio.

I mean heck, give me a whole trilogy of Indiana Jones adventures just like the Great Circle and I'll be happier than an archaeologist uncovering an ancient find. For now, though, I'll bide my time finding any remaining collectibles, and you best believe I'll make the most of the Order of the G🍎iants expansion when it comes around on September 4.

Look ahead with our roundup of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming Bethesda games.

When I call Fallen Feathers a Soulsborne "clone," I mean that as the highest compliment; as a card-carrying FromSoftware sicko, I tend to bounce off most titles that are clearly heavily inspired by Dark Souls, but unwilling to steal its best parts for the sake of originality. Fallen Feathers isn't like that – Fallen Feathers is bold, adopting FromSoftware's signature mix of dark fantasy, body horror, and wily motherfuckers trying to kill you and dropping them all into its joyless version of the M🃏ing Dynasty.

ওThe – naturally, poreless, D-cup – pirate ⛦warrior Wuchang doesn't remember how she ended up nearly topless and bleeding in a sick house reminiscent of Bloodborne's Oedon Chapel, but she soon finds out: she's been impacted by the Feathering, a hideous disease that slowly morphs humans into deranged monsters – again, like Bloodborne.

I also sense similarities between Wuchang and Sekiro's ninja protagonist, who requires players to act with more calm and cool than my typical roll-spamming involves. Our beautiful heroine – whose design I find appealing to me as a woman the same way a fashion model is appealing, and not 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:lazily exploitative – performs lengthy and delibe♏rate attack animati⛄ons from far distances, so I learn to control her with the mind of a fox looking for an opportunity to bite.

That is, when I'm not totally ignoring the boss fight I'm supposed to complete during this demo and hyperfixating on this random guard who keeps making me upset. I don't know what it is ab🌳out him that has me completely transfixed for most of my approximately 40 minutes with Wuchang: Fallen Feathers – maybe it's the glint in his too-attentive eye. The second I dare to put one toe into a 10-foot radius around him, overcome by the need to know what's behind the closed gate he's protecting, he snaps.

Time and time again, he decimates my measly heath bar, matching my resolute Wuchang's insistent barrage of attacks with animations that seem even more aggressive, drawn-out, and downright rude. Doesn't he know I have a boss to fight and can't waste my time with this?!

But, o🍨f course, each time I die to this inconsequential enemy that's obviously guarding an area I'm way too weak to even think about, I only get more stubborn🌜. I know I can do it. I know it!

But first, a quick break to enjoy the scenery, which features pretty woodlands and losers to murder without remorse. I slide over to this guy that always respawns with half health – what a nerd! I practice Wuchang's ballet-like special attacks on him to boost m👍y co🔯nfidence before jogging over to where I dropped Fallen Feathers' version of "souls," or Elden Ring's runes. The sight of them reminds me I'm getting dangerously cozy with my Inner Demon.

As a unique iteration on the first Dark Souls' Hollowing effect, Fallen Feathers utilizes the Inn🐟er Demon System, which makes it so each kill you collect and death you suffer boost your strength while lowering your defences until, finally, out comes a literal demoness you have to defeat in order to continue. It's a clever mechanism – it tells me developer Leenzee has internalized the FromSoftware formula enough to even evolve its atmosphere, the most intangible, misty gray quality of a Soulslike. Wuchang: Fallen Feathers could be only a successful clone, but it seems to have its own soul, too.

And mine has just left my body – finally, I've killed the armored guard, that bastard. See, it was easy! I to𓆏ld you I could do it! Now, let me find out what's behind this door he's been concealing… Oh, I can't open it. It looks like I'm missing a key.

Well, if it doesn't make you ponder yo💜ur own idiocy, then is it even Dark Souls?

Wuchang: Fallen F꧂eathers is out on July 23 for PS5, Xbox Seri𒁏es X/S, and PC.

With Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, Chinese studio Leenzee aims to soar to the heights of its field.

You and a co-op partner take on the roles of Kurt and Karla, a pair of kids experiencin🐟g their first awkward tastes of love. In a pretty direct metaphor, they promptly lo♔se their mouths and find themselves unable to speak, thrust into a fantasy world where they're going to have to face their feelings in some very literal ways.

It's all hand-crafted from top to bottom. The cutscenes are pure, traditional stop-motion animation, and all the in-game objects and characters are implemen🧔ted through a custom photogrammetry process. The world is full of whimsy, with fantastical landscapes and little clay men just oozing personality, and there's a fantastic tactile feel to jumping around in puddles and clambering around the woꦿrld.

A "boyhood dream"

"This is my first game," director Johan Oettinger tells me after a hands-on demo at Summer Game Fest. "It's my 🦂boyhood dream to make games, but specifically to combine my other great love: stop motion." With that dream in mind, Oettinger says he taught himself how to do stop-motion, and now heads the Danish animation studio WiredFly.

Oettinger had been building the world of Out of Words "on and off" since 2013, but it was only once he partnered up with development studio Kong Orange that the project pro🀅perly kicked off. The game was in 2021, and eventu♕ally landed a deal with Epic Games Publishing in 2022, which Oettinger says "opened up all the doors," offering "full creative freedom" alongside support building online play and bringing the game to all platforms.

I bring up all this history to note how much you can feel the enthusiasm Oettinger – and the entire dev🧔elopment team – have for this game just pouring off of the whole thing. The concept of a cutesy love story in this format could come off as unbearably saccharine, but everything I've seen manages to be completely endearing with deft and restrained storytelling.

'Deft and restrained' also describes the platforming,✅ which is fully two-dimensional and consists mostly of pretty light challenges. The section where I spent the most time has you tap a button to turn gravity upside down, letti𒉰ng you walk on the ceiling while your co-op partner sticks to the floor, or vice-versa.

You have to coordinate when to make those swaps to get each player to the end of the room, but while the platforming is satisfying, it isn't extremely taxing. Game design lead Jeff Sparks tells me that was an intentional design decision, as the team wants the game to be enjoyable for a large variety of players, from long-time gamers to their kids and partners who might not⛄ be so skilled at platformers. As someone with deep regrets about forcing my own partner, a turn-based RPG and cozy gaming fan, to play through It Takes Two with me, Out of Words seems a lot less dangerous to our relationship.

In limbo

Sparks says narrowing the game down to its most fun and accessible parts takes "a lot of iteration." The team starts by asking "what's fun about the mechaജnic" at its most basic level, and then figuring out how to "onboard players to the mechanic and let them play with it in fun and interest🗹ing ways." It's classic platformer design, and it works incredibly well here.

"I 𒊎love simple games, but I love games where the design is taken very seriously," Oettinger adds. "Where the design is the way that the game is written, you could say, and everything else there is to lift that up as a sum of the parts. Where the animation, in this case stop-motion, lifts the design up, and the handcrafted art direction, the sound design, everything is there to lift the storytelling through level design."

More than anything else, Out of Words reminds me of Playdead's games, with the same careful approach to pacing and level design that made Limbo and Inside so compelling. Those aren't games I invoke lightly, but Out of Words has the juice to stand up to the comparison. And while it might not immediately look like it has the same horror vibes as those titles, that 𝄹changes deeper within.

After a breezy run through an early chapter, the devs jump me forward to a much later section, where the story has just gone darker with Kurt and Karla's emotions running rampant. Suddenly, you're no longer controlling a pair of kids – instead, they've combined into this weird, awful ball monster with giant, grasping hands꧒.

Here, Out of Words changes from a traditional platfor🎉mer into a sort of grappling g🍬ame, where each player controls a hand, grabbing walls to swing forward through a town full of increasingly terrified little clay men. It immediately called to mind the end of Inside, but while it certainly feels like a horrifying change of pace from the normal game, the goofy, exaggerated calls for help from the clay guys cuts the tension in a major way.

Still, that taste of something so different from what Out of Words initially presents itself as has me very excited to see what the rest of the game has in store. The devs envision it as an 8-10 hour experience you can finish over a handful of evenings, and after just 30 minutes with the game I can't wait to see what those hours hold. The fact that my marriage is likely to remain intact at the end of 𒅌it all is also a particularly nice bonus.

Check out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best co-op games of all time.

To Towa developer Brownie, whose game director Shuhei Yamashita – along with Bandai producer Daisuke Nagaok𒊎a – spoke to me through a translator, the point is that Towa is "unlike any roguelike." But the undeniable fact is ဣthat Towa is actually a lot like Hades.

"We are ver🦹y inspired by Hades," the developers explained, "we have a great respect for [it], especially its action scenes. We use it as sort of a reference for [Towa], but Towa is not just [Hades]. We use it as a base, and we have added these values."

Most obvious, to me, is the pleasant, by-the-fire sense of togetherness Towa instills in you by being a game about companionship. You get to choose your lead tsurugi ("sword" in Japanese) and support kagura (which refers to a mystical꧅ staff) from a charmin𝓡g team of eight heroes sworn to serve the priestess Towa.

But, during my 30 minutes with Towa's demo, I wasn't as interested in the politics of the game's main campsite Shinju Village – despite it being heavy with red flowers, and evocatively stained with watercolor – than I was enamored with how good combat felt.

I'd decided to tap the "Virtuous Seeker" Nishiki, a sinewy Koi fish whose profile suggests he is a cannibalistic seafood eater, to be my tsurugi and the mean-looking girl with bangs, Rekka, to be my kagura; Iꩲ'm a woman constantly in search of a Beauty and the Beast dynamic, what can I𝔍 say.

It worked out. The two had synergy. As I swapped between the two blade masters' swords each time one's power was depleted by performing hits, I started feeling safe in the fact that I𒁏 was not alone. When one soldier became exhausted, I took comfort in knowing there was another to the side of her, ready to help.

Entering Towa's overgrown, monster-infested world as a duo instead of as one, vulnerable champion made for a strong sense of flow during battle; instead of constantly checking my health status with typical roguelike paranoia, I simply made sure to swap between my characters' weapons as often as if we were trading dance steps. To the game's credit, while its controls are more elaborate than the straightforward attacks in Hades, the flow Towa forces you into is conducive to ridiculous combos, which I was able to꧙ achieve with only a few min🐻utes of experience. Also, the fish guy kept rolling around like a boulder made of meat, which was awesome.

"One thing [about Towa] is that [we wanted to create] characters that have completely different silhouettes, so each individual character features a different silhouette," says the game's developers. "That was more of a purpose [behind their designs] th꧙an a mythology."

So, I love that there's big guys and mean little lad𒐪ies – as one myself – and I like how Towa feels like soda-popping through combat in a flashy game like Final Fantasy 16, but I can't get past the seriously explicit H꧒ades references.

Greek tragedy

Every time I started enjoying the particulars of Towa's world, I was confronted by Boons (called Grace in Towa), gates advertising the next level's prizes, and stations with 𒉰replenishing waters – all important elements of Hades' combat loop and map layout. In Hades, these things have monumental meaning for the game's take on Greek mythology.

But, in the Towa demo I played, which didn't elaborate much on the game's story, these elements felt like they formed a scrapbook of what roguelikes its developers actually enjoy – they hadn't been diversified enough to distinguish from their source material. Each time I noticed them, I felt a little tug at the back of my head reminding me that I could be playing Hades – a game I already love and know well – instead. Since Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree offers so much to enjoy in its duo combat, I don't understand why the game allows itself to be overshadowed by its inspirat🌳ion like this.

Towa will be out September 19 on PlayStati⛦on 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch and PC.

Flanked by The Duskbloods and The Blood of Dawnwalker, Code Vein 2 swoops into the vampire game renaissance by "improving" the lovably janky Soulslike RPG we got 6 years ago.

As the proud owner of a Steam Deck, I had some doubts about the personal enjoyment I could get out of a 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Nintendo Switch 2 port, but at the same time, I was extremely curious about how well it could possibly run on what's ultimately a beefed-up tablet. 🤡If this was a serious effort to bring a cutting-edge AAA title to Nintendo's new hybrid console at launch, the rest of the generation could look very promising. Now, 10 hours into Cyberpunk 2077 on Switch 2 – I've imported my main PC save – I can confidently say it's easily the best way to play it on the go.

As crisp-looking and smooth as 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Mario Kart World is, Cyberpunk 2077 is the ultimate way to push the Switch 2 to its limits right now. It's the one game that will make your jaw drop once or twice because it almost feels illegal to have something that looks this good running on 'puny' Nintendo hardware. It's not just an excellent rendition of the🔥 game as seen in all its glory on current-gen platforms and PC, but also a perfectly fine way to enjoy it for the first time... as long as you don't mind some rough edges.

Uncompromised vibes

Whereas the (admittedly impressive) Switch port of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher 3 by Saber Inter🐈active had to dial the visual presentation so much that it inevitably ended up looking different, like a PSP-era adaptation of a big PS3 release, CD Projekt Red's Switch 2 debut can be described as the developer coming out swinging.

We can thank the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:console's DLSS capabilities for that, but it's also clear the developer made a ton of platform-specific optimizations in order to ensure it's the real deal. Mind you, the game can chug in certain areas, including the infamous center of Dogtown and some of Night City's busier districts. Just walking o🎃r driving slowly around those parts will send the framerate below the 30 FPS cap (40 if you're on Performance mode). Try cruising fast through them and you might get proper hiccups and stutters; the RAM and CPU just can't keep up in such scenarios. Still, none of these slowdowns last too long, and it's safe to say Cyberpunk 207♋7 on Switch 2 lands closer to the Xbox Series S and low-spec modern PC experience than PS4 & Xbox One's nightmarish versions. 1080p through DLSS gets the job done here thanks to the extra sharpening involved too.

Many gamers who don't care much about settings and whatnot might also be wondering which graphics mode is best. Short answ🧸er: There's no clear winner here. Long answer: Quality looks noticeably sharper, with image that resolves more convincingly when it comes to finer details, but the extra 10 FPS (rarely constant, I must say) that come with Performance can help a great deal with the overall fluidity, especially in heated action sequences.

I'm typically a staunch defender of going with more FPS 99% of the time, yet I found myself leaning towards Quality because Performance rarely hits 40 FPS for more than a few seconds, making the loss in visual fidelity harder to swallow. Playing a first-person game at 30 FPS (with drops below possible) might seem bad, but at the time of writing, it's the more consistent experience, especially on handheld mode (澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:VRR isn't a thing when docked). As for load times, don't worry about them.

When it comes to presentation, the big win is that Cyberpunk 2077 looks very much like Cyberpunk 2077. Even when you take away the sweet sweet high fr🌠amerate which you can get elsewhere and fancy ray tracing, what's left on Switch 2 looks convincing and retains every delicious bit of the stunning art direction, whether it's the streets at night, the sleek vehicles, or a crowded market under the rain. Neither duller nor barren, this 🀅is Night City as I've experienced it for tens of hours on PC and PS5 before.

O𝕴n the portable PC handhelds, similar visuals and performance are achievable (and DLSS still gives Switch 2 the upper hand), but the big difference is that Cyberpunk 2077 on Switch 2 runs and looks fine out of the box. You can even load up cross-saves in mere seconds. There are gameplay, sound, and accessibility options you can tinker with, but hitting the ground running feels great.

Nifty cyberware

On top of HDR support and spatial audio that wows even in portable mode, the Switch 2 version of Cyberpunk 2077 comes with all the bells and whistles that Nintendo spent some time marketing ahead of launch. Gyroscope enjoyers can get better precision with that aiming mode, and the console's mouse capabilities, while not ideal when playing at 30 or 40 FPS, are present too. While I'm not a fan of the latter in this game, it's a great showcase of what the console can do outside of shinier graph♏ics and denser worlds, and made me very excited about the future of first-person and strategy ෴games on Switch 2.

If you like tablets a bit too much, the touch screen works in menus and for actions like hacking so you can go all Tom Cruise in Minority Report instead of using the buttons like a normal gamer. In most cases, it's hard to imagine the average player messing with these options too much, but it's good to see CDPR going this deep and all-out with one of the console's launch titles. It sets a golden standard for big thi✱rd-party ports moving forward, warts and all, and that's ultimately good for consumers.

Cyberpunk 2077 on the Nintendo Switch 2 could've been a curiosity, a fun experiment with somewhat middling results. Instead, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:it's a promise of greater things to come and a bar to match or clear going forward. With new updates and more polishing surely on the way, I find it hard t🗹o get too hung up on the rockier performance moments of a port that really feel꧟s like black magic.

If you can stomach some bumps in the ro♊ad and deal with less snappy aim, there's no better option to take Night City everywhere you want. Now, if you'll excus🐷e me, I need to replay Phantom Liberty again to try and get the best ending this time around.

We've rated the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Switch 2 games you can play now (and yes, Cyberpunk 2077 made the cut)

As much as I enjoyed my time as the Stranger in The Outer Worlds back in 2019, I didn't overly enjoy the combat. It often felt as if it played second fiddle to the game's dialogue choices, worldbuilding, and companions, which I think are the RPG's biggest strengths. It was always a bit of a shame, though, because the concept behind many of the weapons in the sci-fi universe w♎ere just downright fun, and tapped directly into the fantasy of Obsidian's off-beat, corporate dystopian world.

But with a disconnect between the designs of the guns and🔯 how satisfying they actually were to use, shots never really were as punchy as I wanted them to be, and I never got too invested in that side of the game. But with Obsidian setting out to "improve gunplay in every way", and a host of unique weapons that have the sci-fi nerd in me utterly amped, all the stars seem to be aligning for the sequel.

Science fiction

With an extensive look at some of the weapons in The Outer Worlds 2, what gameplay director Matt Singh had to say about the overhaul to gunplay was music to my ears: "We focused on improving the feel of each weapon, the way a weapon snap🥀s into ADS [aiming], the way the recoils feel when firing, and how impaꦫctful our sound effects really sell the weapon's fantasy".

With improvements to every facet of a gun, right down to adding a "unique reload animation" to give weapons more character, it promises to be such a step up fr﷽om the first game. Given that I already loved conceptual designs of the weaponry in the original, the mention of revamping the "feel of each weapon" is what makes me most hopeful that the sequel will not only allow me to enjoy combat this time around, but also really sell me on the fantasy of fighting in the future.

I want the weapons to be as satisfying to fire as they sound, with my shots making a tangible impact or connecting with some gusto – "feel" really is the operative word here. From everything Singh highlighted, I get the impression that the follow-up will make my wishes com𓄧e true, and I'm already looking forward to seeing how each weapon handles for myself.

With The Outer Worlds 2 set to bring us to a new star system in a setting infused with science fiction zani✃ness, the weapons have so much potential for drawing us into the universe. We got to see a handful of unique weapons we'll get to play around with, with Obsidiaꦅn's playful creativity on full display, and I'm hopeful the improvements will really let us make the most of the "increased variety of weapons" and "new weapon types".

From the Boarst Blaster that fires out tumors that explode like grenades, to the Rookie's Reward that will improve the more you use it (and even fire out a confetti fanfare each time it levels up); we can even fire out ad drones to ⛄distract enemies with slogans and jingles using a Pop-Up gun. Heck, 𝓰even some very neat science weapons from the first game are returning with some much needed upgrades, including the Shrink Ray. Instead of shrinking enemies down for a short period of time, they'll stay shrunk, and you can essentially squish them like a bug. I mean, who doesn't want to do that?

Not to mention the very rad looking Spectrum Dancer Saber, which is a new melee sword-like weapon that has you attack to a musical beat and stack up bonuses with each hit you land in time. These are exactly the kinds of wacky inventions I want from the wonderf෴ully weird sci-fi setting, and I cannot wait to get my hands ♏on them. With so many inventive designs, I have every hope they'll be as fun to use as they appear to be.

I absolutely know Obsidian can deliver in the weapon department, with Fallout: New Vegas, and more recently, Avowed, being stellar examples of RPGs with fulfilling and enjoyable combat systems. The Outer Worlds already laid down some solid foundations that just need some refining, and the Direct, coupled with the fact that Obsidian sought out advice from the developer beh🔥ind Halo to get the gunplay r♌ight in the sequel, has my sense of anticipation skyrocketing. Sure, the proof will be in the Shrink Ray-sized pudding as to how satisfying combat will feel this time around, but with all of the improvements and role-playing goodness in store, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:the October 29 release date can't come soon enough.

See what's ahead from the studio in our roundup of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming Obsidian games.

"The development of Field Operations continues to evolve with community feedback obtained through the release of Eureka and Save the Queen, and our work on the Occult Crescent is no exception," explai🥀n the developers, stating that implementing such content was "extremely challenging" at first. The main attraction of Field Operations, as they say, "is that you can feel the presence of other players while playing the content."

That's the draw of content like Eureka, and now Occult Crescent. "These connections develop organically – either as a loose association or something more tight-knit, depending on how you play," say the devs. The "new form of content" that came in the form of Eureka and subsequent Field Operations succeeded. "As it turned out, a good portion of the community understood what we we✤re going for, and we received a lot of positive feedback."

To this day, as the two point out, "There is still a core Eureka player base, showing how much people love the content even now." Its release proved "there💞 is a certain level of demand for this style of content." Not all feedback was positive, however – and Square Enix took it all into account while developing later Field Operations. "On the other hand, we also received a lot of negative feedback about gameplay being unclear and/or the content being boring."

Second draft

The team used both positive and negative feedback to♌ refine Save the Queen's own content, with a goal of making it more accessible, "especially for players who want to play Field Operations in a more casual way." Reception, while overall positive, was still a mixed bag with some fans thinking "there were not enough core elements to keep them invested for longer" after post-Eureka and pre-Save the Queen changes.

"This resulted in a lack of content that people could really sink time into and a lower degree of freedom," recall Yokozawa and Nakagawa. "In Save the Queen, we incorporated improvements on issues we experienced with Eureka, and encountered new issues raised from the community's feedback." That's where Occult Crescent comes in. "We took it upon ourselves to conduct another thorough investigation💟 into the good and the bad of Eureka and Save the Queen, and further evolved the good points, and made corrections to improve the bad points."

How did the devs do so? "First of all, we have added more variety to the gameplay than was in Eureka and Save the Queen. We wanted to create a place where players could do what they feel like when they feel like it – whether that's creating a goal ahead of time for themselves or just diving right in and having fun wandering around."💟 The two also discuss the integration of Phantom Jobs, and how they add to the latest of the Field Operations' 🙈experience.

"In addition, the Phantom Jobs are one of the major elements of the Occult Crescent, and there is truly a wide range of jobs that can be freely swapped around depending on the situation," describe Yokozawa and Nakagawa. "The actions and abilities are very effective, and we believe that even 💎if you cannot skilfully master them, you will feel their effects."

How did fans' reactions following the Occult Crescent reveal impact development, though? Not too much, apparently. "When we announced that we'd be adding the Occult Crescent, our planning and some implementation were already underway, so there was no direct impact on development," the devs admit. "That said, we received a great deal of feedback on previous Field Operations, and the impact of this feedback has been extremely significant on the development of this content.🔴"

The popularity of Field Operat🐷ions also came as a surprise. "We feel that player demand and enthusiasm have increased compared to when we originally released Eureka. Back then, we thought it would be the kind of content that would really resonate with the select people who love the concept – but now, Field Operations serve as a major type of content in FFXIV, and it feels like even more players than we expected are looking forward to t🔯he next piece."

Field Operations, including Occult Crescent, are likely becoming more popular thanks to the feedback taken on board by devs. "The Occult Crescent has been improved based on feedback from the community to make it even easier to enjoy, with a high degree of freedom in how you can play it. We hope those kinds of players will be sure to try it out whenever they're in the mood and see ho💜w they like it for themselves."

Some of these improvements are reward-related, with Yokozawa and Nakagawa suggesting that especially dedicated fan🍷s give obtaining them all a go. "In the Occult Crescent, we have increased the amount of new items compared to previous Field Operations. The more time you play, the more items you will naturally acquire, so we encourage completionists to see if they can obtain them all."

That's not the only fun suggestion the two devs have, either. "For those of you who want to expl🍸ore absolutely everything on offer, we recommend trying your hand at conquering the Forked Tower. There are, of course, exclusive items that can be obtained by clearing the Forked Tower, and the more you master Phantom Jobs and enhance your content-specific equipment, the easier it'll become to clear."

In other words, "the more you grind, the higher your chances of success" – a mantra to live by as a frequenter of Fields Operations, for sure.

Looking for something else to play? Here are the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best MMORPGs available to try now.

I had only about 30 🦩mi⛎nutes to play the game, but it was enough time to know that I was wrong. What else had I been wrong about? My precious Zodiac sign?

It doesn't 🍸matter, because, in Pragmata, the only stars that matter are the ones that surround our weary protagonist – he has a downtrodden space cow🐼boy vibe – Hugh. There's nothing for him to think about other than survival. He's trapped on the Moon, left for dead at a research station invaded by hostile, invincible robots.

Well, they're seemingly invincible – in the Pragmata demo I played, Hugh awakes to see the precocious android Diana having patched h♒is wounds, and eager to show him how to effectively blast his enemies away.

You control both of them, Diana and Hugh. With Diana's hacking ability – which manifests as a simple and smooth maze using the right stick of your controller – players can momentarily disengage robots' impenetrable outer armor by hitting special nodes to reach a green, power-on block. Once you reach it, your opponent's exoskeleton will fling open to reveal their more sensitive, gushy internal wiring. If you succeed in taking them down, the robot will burst into a satisfying little electrical fir💖ework.

Impossibly, it's not totally distracting to complete this puzzle in its small pop-up window while combat is actively happening. For me, I felt that hacking only made it so I had to be extra generous with keeping distance from flesh-hungry robots. Fight sequences were also a bit more exhausting because of how much mental multitasking I was doing, though I felt the e🐈ffect was exciting rather than tedious (within the 30-minute timeframe of my demo, at least).

Even on a physical level𒀰, Diana's hacking used💞 the right stick on my controller, while Hugh's arsenal of standard, shockwave, and freeze guns utilized its triggers – so it all fits perfectly together.

But some things never change. Pragmata, having been 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:originally announced in 2020, sports blessedly shiny, clean graphics in my demo – however, in terms of style, I'd have a hard time distinguishing it from similar sci-fi shooters like 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Dead Space. Still, Pragmata offers a fun twist to the over-the-shoulder shooter genre that I think could help it develop its own visual identity in time: through every danger and laser pointed my way as Hugh, I had to carry Diana on my back like a koไala. I eventually started to see the two as an endearing, singular unit – a not-quite father figure with his not-quite child – and I was reminded of🦩 Mamoru Oshii's cult classic anime movie from 1985, Angel's Egg.

Diana and the unnamed young girl who's the focus of Angel's Egg look similar, with a fury of long, blonde hair telegraphing every move they make in the name of survival. Hugh, being Diana's less optimistic friend, seems to share his hopelessness with the unnamed older boy in Angel's Egg. In both the 40-year-old movie and Pragmata, the main characters preseಌnt an interesting dichotomy – caution and recklessness, alone and lonely, hopeless and hoping. It's all intriguꦦing enough to make me look forward to playing more when Pragmata releases some time in 2026 on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

Onimusha: Way of the Sword looks like an incredible PS2 throwback in all the right ways, but with a modern feel and a swaggering protagonist I already love.

I decide to get in the mood for tragedy by 🦄being as much of a bitch as possible. A supernaturally buff townsperson, Hari, saunters by to welcome me to Ashenridge, a seemingly quaint country town which the previous owner of my little cottage happened to flee without warning. But Grave Seasons' protagonist, like myself as a horror obsessive, seems attracted to fear.

Perfect Garbage co-founder and Grave Seasons narrative director Emmett Nahil tells me 👍Grave Seasons' particular brand of fright is influenced by folk horror, '50s Hollywood Hammer horror, and – I could cry when I hear this – my favorite werewolf movie, Ginger Snaps (2000).

So, I vow ꦏto ignore the splotch of what looks like dried ꧙blood on the edge of the chimney, and when Hari questions why I, obviously not the tomato-planting type, decided to move in, I tell him, "None of your business."

What's my business, for now, is plucking some of the fresh strawberries and bamboo shoots out of my already fertile garden plotꦕ and chucking in some carrot seeds instead. I go through the motions, pulling out my watering can, testing꧙ out the pickaxe, and finding a strange signet ring in a pile of trash, in a moment that reminds me of horror fishing game Dredge. I walk around sand pathways, tree roots, and make myself a vegetarian snack – passing time until the moon is high, and I can meet my new friend Pilar in the woods to pick night-blooming herbs.

Nahil prefers Grave Seasons' occult crafting, too, which yields things like "prevention items, which may help you prevent attacks by the killer," he says. "Any of those [occult] crafting moments are always really fun, because there's a lot of tension behind them." Since Grave Seasons features multiple killers and 𒆙monsters, I predict there aren't any amulets that can guarantee 100% safety.

Plus, "one of the really fun things about the game," adds Perfect Garbage lead programmer Nikky Armstrong, "is, when it launches, everybody's getting a different experience, because every time you start a new game, it's randoml💎y selected who the killer is going to be."

In these words, I sense unrelenting danger. This makes me more eager, and, without me asking explicitly, Nahil informs me that "you may potentially be ab▨le to romance the killer." As I'm stillℱ nursing my celebrity crush on Katharine Isabelle, Ginger Snaps' mean girl werewolf, I'm comforted by this.

So I keep waiting for the sun to set. Eventually, blue daylight gives way to Halloween 🏅orange, and then dusk finally falls and turns Ashenridge black. Then, I notice the world has started sounding different – angrier.

"As you pl💃ay through the full game," Nahil says, "[the sound design] will change as the town itself changes, which is really cool."

"Not only through the seasons," he explains, "but through sp🦩ecific romance arcs, or through specific instances of how many kills have occurred. How dark is the town by the end of the game – those things will change the sound⭕."

I don't let it deter me. Just as I did in the comparable pixel art, horror life sim 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Little Goody Two Shoes, I allow mysel♉f to be led into the witch's woods. When I get there, I see Pilar fending off absolute darkness with her soft-glowing lantern, and then I see her succumbing to a werewolf who's snuck up behind her. It takes her in its mouth and crushes her body like flower petals.

Her blood and parts are strewn all over the grass, and my heart twitches, but I'd be lying if I said this wasn't the kind of moment I live for in games. Sometimes I think art 🔥doesn't feel visceral to me unless I can see actual viscera. These moments of fragility force me to confront my own, and it's meditative. That's why the horror genre is one of the only things I can rely on to make me feel better about the actual threatening, unkind world, every time.

On that note, Nahil says fans who are considering playing Grave Seasons should know that "if you are a cozy gamer, and if you love farming sims, we are really hoping that you'll let us take you someplace a little bit different," says Nahil. "If you are a horror gamer, let us take you someplace maybe a little bit coꦯzier."

"Our goal is to match ge🎉nres and bridge that gap between t🔥hose players," he continues, "because we really believe, as a studio, that they're maybe not so different after all."

Grave Seasons 🌳is now available to wishlist on Steam, and it'll also eventually arrive on all major consoles, including Switch 2.

Stardew Valley creator ConcernedApe says the "world of Haunted Chocolatier" will somehow be even "larger" than his farming sim – the same one I already have over 1,000 hours in.

It's been nearly 20 years since the last proper Onimusha game, but Capcom says "it's been a long time coming for us" as much as it has for fans, as the studio has never given up its hopes o🍌n bringing the series back. A lot of things just got in the way first.

"We actually had wanted to continue♏ the series ever since the last title was released," producer Akihito Kadowaki told me via translator, "but just a confluence of factors meant that it never quite came together until early 2020, which was when this project kicked off development. Part of it was getting the core team that we wanted to work on the game to be available, and ever💖yone had this or that project in the lineup they had to take care of first."

The other big factor was the devel🥃opment of the RE Engine, which "saw the technological possibilities coming together to make this title possible." Those technological advances were apparent in the demo from its fantastic visuals through to its smooth action, but there's still something of the old scho🌳ol in how Way of the Sword plays.

Hack and slash

This demo was quite linear, seeing protagonist Musashi Miyamoto take on a series of Genma demons at a modestly fictionalized version of the real-wor🎶ld Kiyomizu-dera Temple. Each encounter sees Musashi come upon a group of Genma, and you're benefited by quickly building a strategy for how you take down your foes.

Your guard can block attacks from any direction – you just have to be careful not to take too many attacks, as your guard can break – which gives you time to plan your own strikes. You can redirect enemy attaꦚcks so that your foes run into walls or even flaming torches that'll take them down in a hurry. You can even deflect enemy archers Star Wars-style, reflecting the arrows straight back at them to♎ kill them in a hurry.

And, of course, Onimusha's signature Issen move returns, where you parry incoming strikes by making your own attack at the right time to instantly take down foes, sometimes slicing them right in half as you do. The Issen kills can be chained together against multiple enemies, too. As di🎃rector Satoru Nihei puts it, the Issen is "a more active way to get players involved with reading and reacting to the enemy's moves than just constantly being on defense."

This pace of combat evokes the old Onimusha, where you'd 🅷fight enemies screen-by-screen on prerendered backgrounds. Here, the areas are far more dynamic, but that feeling of entering an encounter, carefully making your moves, and moving forward is still preserved.

Particularly impressive throughout the demo were the combat ♎animations, which look deliciously brutal and re𝓡ally bring forward Musashi's more playful, sardonic personality, showing him finishing off foes with a certain swagger that's very compelling. Capcom wanted to move away from the classic image of the serious samurai with Musashi, and he's just as magnetic in the game as he is in the cutscenes we've seen in the early trailers.

"Musashi Miyamoto is a figure who we felt wouldn't be averse to bending or breaking the rules and using what was available to him in any given situation to just survive, win each fight, and get to the n🅰ext one," Nihei explains. "Whether that means grabbing a tatami mat and throwing it at an enemy to destabilize them, or taking opportunities to choose weapons other than a katana if the opportunity arises in order to defeat a foe, those are parts that we felt could build a new image of a samurai."

Capcom wanted to make the combat largely "about reading your opponent🅷's moves and deciding strategically, moment by moment, how you're going to take each enemy on," as Nihei explains, "and I think that nat🌳urally led to a slightly more deliberate pacing of the action." Musashi has some superhuman moves thanks to his Oni gauntlet, so "he has moments where he's doing a slow, sort of samurai-style read of what action to take next, then with certain moves, you can do your super-human speed dodges and things like that. So there is a bit of a push and pull between those two elements of the game's pacing."

The samurai's way

It seems that the gamꩲe will largely consist of linear stages, though there will be points with branching paths or "slightly more open" areas to explore and find side quests.ဣ "As the setting is Kyoto, you'll be able to talk to the denizens of that city," Nihei says, "and they might have requests that they make of Musashi and ask him to help them out in various ways." Other, more major side characters might also make requests of Musashi during the game for more optional objectives.

The 🍒demo concluded with a pair of boss 🏅fights. The first was against a human enemy named Sasaki Ganryu, who's also gotten hold of the same sort of Oni gauntlet as Musashi. But while Musashi is reluctant to use its demonic powers, Ganryu has no such reservations, delivering his antagonistic monologues with a high-camp charm.

The fight itself brings together all of the combat 🦩elements we saw throughout the demo in a much grander fashion, challenging you to counter Ganryu's moves and time your own strikes. But bosses also have a second bar under their health meter, which depletes as you deflect their attacks, and once it's empty you can perform a Break Issen, which stops the action and lets you choose a specific part of the boss to attack.

In Ganryu's c💟ase, you could use the Break Issen to 🎶either attack his head for a big chunk of damage, or stab him mid-torso – in the soul area, apparently – to cut loose a bunch of spirits you can then absorb for a quick health refill. It looks like a smart way to give a quick break in the action and let you choose what kind of boon best suits you as the fight wears on.

Finally, we saw another boss fight against a much larger, monstrous enemy called Byakue which had a completely different vibe from the more humanoid, sword an🍸d bow-wielding enemies we'd seen up to this point. It looks like we can expect a great deal of variety in these big encounters, and both fights looked like exciting challenges.

Based on this brief gameplay demonstration, Onimusha: Way of the Sword already has me hooked. I love the deliberate pace to the action, and Capcom's track record has me confident it'll feel just as good as it looks with controller in hand. Add in a lovable protagonist and a taste of some compelling villains and you've got the makings of a hugely memo🍸rable action game.

Check out all the big 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming PS5 games and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming Xbox Series X games you need to know about.

The identitꦺy of the Resident Evil series has been subject to vast experimentation over its near 30-year lifespan. From its survival horror origins back in 1996, the franchise mutated into third-person shooter design when 2005's Resident Evil 4 dropped, before going full bombastic army action in 2012's much-maligned Resident Evil 6.

After luring fans back with 2017's first-person horror masterclass Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, and further experimenting with broader styles in 2021's Resident Evil Village, it was apparent that Capcom's new mainline titles are all about scares while recent remake titles handled the action. Up🙈on seeing Resident Evil Requiem at Summer Game Fest, I can confidently confirm the next entry is a horror experience above all.

Child's play

Resident Evil 9 – although there's no number in the official title – puts the playe🐷r in the role of Grace Ashcroft. A timid FBI agent, this offspring of Resident Evil Outbreak's Alyssa Ashcroft (who is now deceased), winds up strapped to a hospital bed, suspended upside down and receiving a dubious blood 𒈔transfusion. A promising start, huh?

After breaking free๊, Grace begins to investigate her dark and bloody surroundings. Locked doors requiring keys and circuit breakers in need of fuses lie in wait, with Grace loudly whimpering while exploring.

During the hands-off demo, it was revealed Grace can equip glass bottles to be aimed and thrown, although whether as weapon or distraction was left to the imagination. The main thing that strikes me is the absence of a firearm. It's one thing for Grace to not be packing the wide array of guns Leon S. Kennedy had in 2023's Resi 4, but to not even possess a simple pistol is a big surprise. Resident Evil Requiem is not going to let us shoot our way out – at least not always.

As Grace inches through the hallways, we're given hints of unseen company. There are signs of a s🔴truggle and suffering, leading to a deformed corpse falling through a doorway. Grace handles this as well as you'd expect a greenhorn to, comically surprised that a grey, non-breathing p💫erson is dead.

This moment of humor was clearly no accident, instead highlighting how grace is not of the cynical, hardened position long-time series fans are. This is baby's first Resi in the best way, and it took me right back to who I was when I ill-advisedly loaded 🗹up 19💛96's original Resident Evil on my first PlayStation. I have never been happier to be terrified.

Take me back

The first time I saw Kenneth J. Sullivan eaten by the now iconic Turning Around Zombie, I was frozen to the spot. I was a young kid, but for the first time ever a video game left me unable to respond. I was in awe. Nothing had ever sent my senses into๊ overload, and I needed more. Sadly the gruesome scene set a precedent the series could never again live up to – until now.

In Resident Evil Requiem, Grace comes face-to-face with a huge, misshapen, gray monstrosity resembling the unholy child of Lisa Trevor from 2002's remake of Resident Evil and the Tyrant from Resi 2𒀰. It🌌 announces itself by taking a bite out of a dead body, giving a spine-tingling view of its gargantuan teeth and soulless eyes in the process. The grotesque being then becomes Grace's pursuer, appearing seemingly at random and driving our hero into hiding.

As Grace holds up in a quiet room, 💦I catch my breath and the game's capacity for inflicting terror dawns on me, hammered home when the electricity cuts out and Grace is forced to rely only on a lighter to chase away the imposing shadows. The sense of being smothered by darkness is overwhelming in Requiem, creating a claustrophobia that transcends even the hallowed halls of the RPD from Resident Evil 2.

While it would be easy to attribute this to the first-person perspective of the RE9 demo, this notion was soon quashed when at the climax of the session, a pause🌃 menu opened and the camera was changed to a third-person, over-the-shoulder position. It was a glorious moment, and one that compounded how Requiem is able to create a sense of feeling trapped regardless of perspective.

As the session came to a close I realized I'd bee🧜n holding my breath for extended periods, genuinely frightened Grace wouldn't survive the ordeal. But there was no bait and switch like in the Village demo years ago where our character kicked the bucket: Grace lived, and we'll get to spend more time with this new Capcom hero when Resident Evil Requiem releases on February 27, 2026, for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

Look ahead to more future frights with our roundup of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming horror games.

Our protagonist Grace Ashcroft is an FBI ﷺagent, but while she's had some training, she still doesn't have field experience. That makes her the perfect hero for this kind of story – one who can fully express the terror the setting deserves, but whose ability t꧋o survive these horrors feels genuinely earned.

Entering the world of survival horror

The demo opens with the same scene we saw in the trailer: Grace is strapped, upside-down, to a gurney mounted on the wall. Her blood's being♌ drawn for some surely terrible purpose, but that ends up being her saving grace, as she smashes the blood container and uses the shattered remnants to cut herself free from her bonds.

That all happens in a cutscene, but she becomes playable. We move into a first-person persp⛎ective just like the other modern Resident Evil games – but more on th💙at in a minute. It'll look instantly familiar if you've played Resident Evil 7 or 8, with an intimate look at the dingiest corners of claustrophobic rooms, where you look for something you can use to solve a puzzle or any item that can give you an advantage against the monstrous horrors you'll face.

Capcom demonstrated the game running on PS5 Pro, and♎ while it's immediately recognizable as another title on the venerable RE Engine, it looks absol🌳utely stunning. The dim corridors of the decrepit hospital Grace finds herself exploring are absolutely stunning, with terrifically rendered lighting just barely illuminating the way. The corners of some rooms here are pitch black, but there's a gorgeous and terrifying contrast between light and dark.

As Grace moves through the hal💞ls, tension builds, thanks in large part to the subtle details of the environment. Long hallways have odd light fixtures at the end to give a subtle impression of faces in the dark, and a bizarre horse sculpture that looks like a grasping monster from certain angles makes a partꦡicularly strong impression.

There's a whole 'nother layer to the tension thanks to Grace's ෴reaction to the whole thing. She's breathing heavily, constantly working🧸 to calm herself down as she explores, and it all adds even more to the atmosphere. The items she picks up feel like sick jokes - no flashlight, she gets a lighter to brighten the corridors. No weapons, she gets a bottle to distract enemies.

An evil resident

If you've played any previous survival-horror-focused Resident Evil game, you can probably guess ♒the basic format here. You find a door marked with a cherub, so you need to locate the cherub key. There's a big gate missing power, so you need to find a fuse to get it moving. All the while, you're moving back and forth through tight corridors, expecting some awful monster to jump out at any moment.

The eventual jump scare is a fakeout – a classic dead body falling over gag. The real horror comes when ♛some awful, distended creature reaches into the scene and chomps that body🦋's head off directly in front of Grace, prompting a big chase to drive home the "high-stakes action" part of the equation.

This creature was briefly teased in 🧸the reveal trailer, and it's deliciously awful. Think of an even more monstrous version of Marguerite Baker from RE7 and you'll get the idea: limbs subtly but grotesquely stretching in all the wrong ways, and an upsetting capacity for sneaking away into the walls and rafters for a thing so large.

The whole sequence felt like something of a Resident Evil greatest hi🅺ts collection. The classic puzzle solving of the original games, the stalking encounter design of RE7's Jack, and even the cla🦂ustrophobic hideaways of RE Village's infamous basement.

Grace eventually makes her escape, at least temporarily, by repairing the fuse and narrowly squeezing under the gate. But Capcom had one more surprise for those in attendance for the demo. We reset to the start of it all, then the dev paused the game, opened the options, and toggled into a third-person viewpoint. Yes, it appears you can play Requiem entirely in ꦡfirst or third-person, depen💛ding on which flavor of survival-horror you prefer.

It all looks genuinely terrifying, and I'm in full agreement with my colleague James that this might just be the s🍷cariest Resident Evil has e♏ver been. I'm an absolute horror baby who's become a Resident Evil fan thanks to its historic camp, and ♌part of me genuinely wonders if I'll be able to stick with Requiem through to the end after how nail-biting what I saw in this demo was. But Capcom's citing the idea of addictive horror - a kind of fear you can't help but keep exploring - as core to Requiem, and I think it might already have taken hold of me, because this little demo has me dying to know what happens next.

Capcom looks poised to deliver yet another one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best horror games out there.

Is the Switch 2 a bonafide back-compat success, so much so that Nintendo fans can trade in their original consoles? Or does it lead to errors and issues that would necessitate keeping an old Switch around? So far, the answer iꦕs a little bit of both.

What's going on with NS1 games on NS2?

Unlike past Nintendo console transitions with shared game libraries, the Switch 2 employs an entirely new procཧessor-and-hardware combination compared to its prior generation. Consoles like the Game Boy Advance, Wii, and 3DS included their predecessors' core hardware, which meant running old software was as simple as having old discs and cartridges access their relevant, older bits of the motherboard. No emulation or trickery required.

Switch 2, on the other hand, uses an upgraded-but-different 🥀Nvidia chipset and motherboard, which means backwards compatibility is achieved using a process that Nintendo technology development manager Tetsuya Sasaki "converting game data for Switch to run on Switch 2… on a real-time basis as the data is read in." This is better known as a translation layer, and it means Switch 1 games do not run identically on Switch 2. But it's also not the same as the popular practice of software emulation. In particular, most Switch 1 games' code is passed along and processed identically on Switch 2.

In the case of software emulation, a system's games c🎐an be run with wildly different parameters – in one Nintendo-specific example, GameCube games emulated on Switch 2 via the NSO service have much sharper pixel counts than GameCube's maximum 480p resolution. At this time, Switch 2's translation layer is nowhere near as disruptive – though it can, in certain circumstances, unlock Switch 2's power for Switch 1 games in interesting ways.

When it's not exactly "backwards compatibility"

Nintendo has been bullish about select first- and third-party titles playing better on Switch 2, but many of the games in question have been patched to work as Switch 2-native softwar꧃e. That means they can tap into every hardware maximum available on the newer system, instead of having their code passed through the aforementioned backwards-compatibility process.

Some of these updates are free, while others cost anywhere from $10 to $20 for existing customers. (A few Switch 2-updated games, like Sega's Sonic X Shadow Generations, are only available at a full retail price, blurgh.)

The Zelda duology of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom have their "Switch 2 ꦉEdition" patches available as $10 purchases each, or as part of a NSO Expansion Pack subscription ($50/year in the US). However you pay for them, you absolutely should; they're easily the best examples of transformative Switch 2 patches. In addi🥀tion to higher resolutions (1080p in portable mode, native 2160p when docked), each game includes higher resolution textures, vastly improved shadow fidelity, and loading times sliced in half.

So far, Nintendo hasn't patched every Switch game it's made for Switch 2 just yet, and free third-party patches are even scarcer, with 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:No Man's Sky and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Fortnite being the biggest recipients of such love. The former now includes a sweeping visual update of far more detailed worlds and more stable frame rates, and the latter errs on the side of nearly locked 60 fps performance at the cost of looking as graphically meek as its Xbox Series S port – but, hey, Fortnite finally looks and runs decently on a portable console.

Back-compat at its best

As of the Switch 2's first week of existence, the general rule of thumb is as follows: if a game launched on Switch 1 with unlocked frame rates or other scalable features, and thus ran out of performance headroom on the o🦹lder system, it'll benefit the most from Switch 2's increased power. Switch 2's GPU and CPU are🐬 each much faster, and in general, games that are able to take advantage of these jumps in performance do so without noticeable bugs or issues.

As a pointed example, the 2021 re-release of id Software's seminal Quake on Switch 1 included optional toggles for modern visual effec♍ts like dynamic shadows and ambient occlusion, and these slowed the game down from its 60 fps maximum. Turn these on while playing the same game on Switch 2, and the slowdown goes away. (The same goes for Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, a stylish Jet Set Radio-like game th𒉰at hid a performance-pushing option called "unleash the beast" on its Switch 1 version, which the Switch 2 can now comfortably render.)

Most Switch 1 games don't include such obvious PC-like toggles, however. This means your journey to find the most improved Switch 1 games on Switch 2 will likely feel sporadic. Which ones are better? And how are they docked compared to portable mode? There's really no w𓃲ay to comprehensively answer this with a library as exten🧸sive as Switch 1's, but I've so far uncovered a few highlights.

Bayonetta 3 and Red Faction Guerrilla Re-Mars-Tered are some of the best examples of games that shipped with 60 fps limits but couldn't reach those performance bounds on the weaker Switch 1. The former now moves at a blistering pace while players rack up gun-and-melee combos, while the latter no loꦰnger buckles under the weight of screen-filling explosions, particles, and physics reactions. Both generally stick to a consistent 60 fps refresh꧒, as opposed to suffering from routine frame time spikes.

The Switch-exclusive 🍎brawler Marvel Ultimate Alliance jumps to a stable 30 fps on Switch 2, turning it from a slog to a delightful beat-'em-up. The same goes for the goofy arcade racing fun of Cruis'n Blast, also a Switch exclusive and also much more fun thanks to its consistent 30 fps refresh on Switch 2.

And in a few scant cases, thanks to the Switch 2's VRR mode in portable play, Switch 1 games can even exceed 60 fps while looking smooth - which is currently the case with 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Minecraft, which looks and runs phenomenally on Switch 2.

Not necessarily a magic wand

But in any case where a backwards-compatible game enjoys increased frame rates or loading times, and hasn't received a Switch 2-specific patch, yꦐou'll run into the issue of resolution not being updated. If a game ran at a very low resolution in either portable or docked mode on Switch 1, it will almost certainly do the same on Switch 2. Even when Switch 1 games included "dynamic resolution" options to increase pixel counts in select circumstances, these don't typically trigger on Switch 2 for players' benefit.

Also, in portable play, the Switch 2's backwards-compatibility mode has to upscale any ജimage from a 720p maximum to a 1080p panel. For most games and content, this isn't necessarily a noticeable difference, and you'll have to squint to notice significant issues with pixel scaling. The exception comes from any games that revolve around chunky, integer-scaled pixels, like 2017's Sonic Mania. In that unpatched game in particular, any significant motion will result in a smeary, ghosting effect on🌜 the screen, thanks to whatever bilinear upscaling filter is being applied.

One easy solution for this would be for 🔯Nintendo to institute a 3DS-like option to render Switch 1 games on the Switch 2 panel at their original docked resolution, with black bars on all sides–thus shrinking the image, but still at least giving players a purer, integer-scaled option with less ghosting and other artifacts. As of press time, no such toggle appears to be available for Switch 1 games on Switch 2.

There's additionally the matter of games exhibiting weird behavior thanks to the translation layer employed in getting Switch 1 games working on Switch 2. I've seen multiple games crash in various menus, including the 2017 beat-'em-up W🦂ulver Blade and the 2019 Ubisoft stunt motorcycle game Trials Rising, even though they're not listed in Nintendo's directory of games with known issues. (The latter, I will add, appears to run at a slightly less consistent frame rate on Switch 2 than on Switch 1.) And Switch 1 games like Borderlands 3 exhibit occasional flickering, screen tearing, and strobing effects when played on Switch 2.

Verdict: A solid start with more to hopefully come

For many of Switch 1's games with performance or image fidelity issues, changes and patches may simply never come, owing to old code no longer maintained by studios that have likely disbanded since their years-old games launched. Again, as 🐟this isn't a matter of software emulation, such improvements would need to be instituted on a game-by-game basis, with Nintendo mostly being limited to🌺 tweaking its translation layer to be more accurate, not more efficient or prettier.

But it's 𝕴likely Nintendo will have more patches to come for its own first-party♏ games, as it's already rolled out a surprise Splatoon 3 announcement in the past week. And if the game-transforming likes of Red Faction Guerrilla Re-Mars-Tered (currently on sale for 90% off at the Nintendo eShop) are any indication, perhaps game-specific patches will spur increased sales on Switch 2, thus incentivizing other publishers to sweeten their older games' Switch 2 potential.

Check out these 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming Switch 2 games to keep an eye on when you're done digging through your original Switch library

We know that last year's installment was , so it seems the Xbox and Activision teams were on to something when they decided to release two new Black Ops entries back-to-back. This also signals Black Ops 7 might have been in the works for nearly as long as BO6 at Raven Software and Treyarch. No, this new game won't be handled bꦬy a different set of lead studi𒉰os. What's new in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, though?

Beyond new weapons to level up and an all-new campaign with th🐽e option to play in co-🍃op, what should we expect from this return to BO2's dark future and legacy characters? As its Fall 2025 launch gets closer, we're collecting everything we know here. So read on for all the information that you need to know about the Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 release window, trailer, gameplay, and more!

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 release date speculation

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is set to launch in late 2025. This big news came our way during Summer Game Fest, and all🅠 of us FPS fans couldn't be happier.

Xbox and Activision have yet to confirm a release date, and we're expecting to get the full answer at the reveal event coming . If we examine Call of Duty's traditional release windows, it's logical to expe🐬ct Black Ops 7 to arrive between the late October period and mid-November. Stay tuned for updates.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 platforms

At launch, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 will be on Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, and PC via Xbox PC, Battle.net, and Steam. Of course, with Activision now being in the Xbox family, Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass subscribers will get it day one. But a potential release on the Switch 2 hasn't been discussed.

Despite the cutting-edge tech involved in the most recent Ca✃ll of Duty games (BO6 used the IW 9.0 engine with current-gen-specific optimizations), the powers that be aren't ready to let go of last-gen consoles yet. Don't expect an optimal experience on 12-year-old hardware, though.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 trailer

At this stage, we've only received one look at Black Ops 7. It arrived right at the end of June 2025's 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Xbox Games Showcase and mostly consisted of a CG cutscene establishing the in-universe ༺tech advancem๊ents in line with what we saw in 2012's Black Ops 2. It's an intriguing 3-minute teaser, though.

At the very end, we get quick glimpses of what appears to be in-game action, including multiplayer maps, campaign sections, and this year's Zombies mode. Of course, there's a new menace that needs to be taken down, and David Mason is back in action. Watch 🅷out for a surprise comeback, too.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 story and setting

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is set "more than 40 years" after Black Ops 6, meaning it happens a whole💖 decade after Black Ops 2, which took place in 2025 out꧙side of its late-Cold War sections. If the 'numbers situation' of this sub-franchise doesn't make sense to you, know that you're not alone. It's the result of jumping all over the timeline in a very non-linear way and deciding to bring back numbered entries after Black Ops: Cold War.

Before we dive any deeper into Black Ops 7's story and setting, here's a rundown of the chronological order of the Black Ops sub-franchise: 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:World at War (yes, it's connected to the series), 1, Cold War, 6, 2, 7, 4, and 3. Two important notes: If you want to avoid a bunch of spoilers, it's recommended to play 2 before 6 due to its late 1980s flashbacks, which have an impact on what comes after. Second, Black Ops 4 is sk🌱ippable as it's the franchise's only multiplayer-only installment... and just isn't good overall.

With that whole mess out of the way, let's go back to Black Ops 7. Yes, it's set in 2035, and the world is "on the brink of chaos" yet again. At this point, it's important to bring up that Black Ops 2 offered several endi𒀰ngs depending on a couple of player choices and whether the optional Strike Force missions were completed or not before reaching the end of the campaign.

We've yet to receive confirmation on which ending has been chosen as 'canon' to shape the state of the world and the main characters when Black Ops 7's story begins, but the twisted bad guy Raul Menendez is back somehow. Many will instantly say he's not dead, but the Black Ops series is known for loopy twists and a focus on psychological warfare, so he could be back but not alive (think of The Joker's presence in 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Batman: Arkham Knight). Is he alive, dead but living rent-free in David Mason's head, or just part of an advanced AI system? All theꩲ options make sense in the Black Ops universe, so we're not ruling anything out.

Little else is known about the actua🔴l plot of the campaign, although the teaser trailer provides some clues: peace has been restored (or is in the process of being restored) thanks to an organization called The Guild. During 🐓the events of Black Ops 6, this group is involved in weapon trafficking and smuggling. 40 years later, it's evolved into a seemingly huge global weapons manufacturer led by CEO Emma Kagan. They're offering to protect the world from itself thanks to all sorts of automated weapons, drones, and robots.

Needless to say, David Mason and his team will have a hard time believing The Guild, and Raul Menendez might be key to u♎ജncovering a new conspiracy.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 gameplay

This is Call of Duty we're talking about, so we're not expecting any major shake-ups to the winning first-person shooter formula that's kept the franchise at the topಞ of the food chain for so long. However, we must assume a number of additions introduced in 2024's Black Ops 6 – namely, the omni-movement system – are being kept around alongside refreshed mechanics from Black Ops 2 due to the return to its futuristic setting. All the specifics are expected to be revealed when the Black Ops 7 event happens this summer.

What we do know already is the story campaign, developed by Raven Software, will be playable in co-op for the first time since Black Ops 3 (2015). "Round-based Zombies in the heart of the Dark Aether" are also back, meaning that Activision and Treyarch aren't messing with the core structure for the foreseeable🌱 future. Again, we'll be learning more soon.

Can you pre-order Call of Duty: Black Ops 7?

Pre-orders for Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 aren't available yet and likely won't go live until we have a firm release date.

Expect this to change later this summer. Meanwhile, you can continue to grind through 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Black Ops 6's seasons or go back and replay every Black Ops game, some of which are in our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Call of Duty games list.

For more future outings, read our pages on all the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming Xbox Series X games and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming PS5 games on the way.

Is this the ideal way to play Street Fighter 6? Probably not. If you have a PS5 or PC, you're probably better suited to going with one of those versions if you're looking to buy just one copy of Street Fighter 6. But, as an additive to one of this decade's 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best fighting games, it's a great little gem to have for playing a quick round away from your TV. Granted, the full potential of having a companion version isn't quite as nice as something like Fortnite or 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Cyberpunk 2077, where you can continu⛎e your progress across consoles, but it's nice for bruꦍshing up on things.

On its own, the fighting feels as great as ever; the actual battles run at a solid 60fps and it looks real good for being a handheld game. The issues that Street Fighter 6 has are still present in this version, like an overabundance of SF2 characters and that zoning bastard JP making for the weakest roster in a while (although Terry, Mai, Elena, and the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming Season 3 cast remedy this somewhat).

Shake, Waggle, and Roll

The biggest letdown is actually in the World Tour mode. Street Fighter 6's story mode was effectively a Yakuza game where you travel around the world learning the rope🅠s from the greatest fighters while buffing your character to the next level.

It's a great idea and would perfectlyဣ suit the handheld form, but unfortunately it's locked at 30fps, and is the roughest-looking part of the experience. Locked to 30fps in the overworld would be fine, but when it gets to the battles, the game feels rough, especially if you've just played the silky-smooth regular battles.

Then there are the Switch 2 exclusive modes. The gist of these is that you're going to want to waggle a Joy-Con to control the battle. This is just a party game mode thrown in to give the Switch 2 something extra, but it doesn't even f♚eel that good as a party game compared to throwing on the game's pre-existing Modern or Dynamic control schemes, which are fit for new players.

Plus, it's way less elaborate than tha🃏t weird first-person mode they had in Ultra Street Fighter 2 on the original Switch (yes, that mode was awful, but it was something different!).

Pros and Cons

Take yourself back to a couple of minutes ago when I wrote off the original Switch Pro Controller's d-pad. While the Pro Controller 2 may look like it's doing absolutely nothing new, it c𒐪hanged itself in the right way – that d-pad feels good to use.

In Street Fighter 6, I play Zangief, who – for those who don't know – has specials that require you to do a full 360🌺 motion and hit a button to execute (or a 720 in his super's case). Doing this on the Switch 1's Pro Controller, which ranged from hitting misinputs or just being generally mediocre, felt nigh-impossible. With the new one I'm hitting them like nobody's busi♚ness. Also, I can map my EX Spinning Lariat to one of the back buttons, which hits different in ways I can't explain.

This alone cemented to me that being the jackass who spent THAT much money on a Switch 2 Pro Controller when I already own many (I'm not saying how many) of the original console's ones, w🀅hich wor🅷k on the Switch 2, was actually the right choice.

That being said, controls aren't perfect either. Obviously the handheld mode Switch itself still has that lack of a d-pad, meaning that doing those pesky fighting game inputs can be ♎a pain (I manage, but I'm definitely losing because🦄 of that and not due to my lack of actual fighting game skill).

Plus, Drive Impact – one of Street Fighter 6's most crucial moves – is a bit more awkward to pull off due to how small the R and ZR buttons are, which isn'tꦆ the greatest fee💝ling when you need to use them to quickly react. But granted, if you're taking Street Fighter 6 seriously, you probably won't be playing with the Joy-Cons (although I'm sure someone will win a tourney with them this year).

At the end of the da📖y, having a solid version of the best fighting game of this generation, one you can take around and pop out at any time, is a good enough bonus as is. That's what made the Switch so great in the first place, and it's what will make the Switch 2 great for years to come.

Looking for something to play on Nintendo's new-gen console? Check out our pick of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Switch 2 games.

Among superhero fans, these are more debates than questions with solid answers. And with trailers for director James Gunn's Superman showing a version of the character who is susceptible to🐻 a certain level of pain and injury, the debate is raging again.

Gunn's Superman is shown dealing with serious bo💞dily injur♈ies – not the more metaphysical kind inflicted by the power of Kryptonite – and even undergoing painful m🌺edical treatments by his attendant robots.

For some, that's a bridge too far in terms of Superman's vulnerability. Coupled with very few feats of super strength shown in the trailers, it's got aꦑ cer𒈔tain group of vocal Superman fans up in arms with their perceived understanding of how powerful James Gunn's Man of Steel will actually be in the movie.

But ⛎for me, a lifelong fan of Superman and a reader of comics from across his nearly 90 year lifespan, the show of vulnerability feels more like an attempt to grapple with Superman's shifting power levels on screen, and a way to lull fans into under-preparedness for what I am hoping will be some truly cosmic spectacle.

For one thing, I'm personally not expecting DC Studios to show us the coolest stuff in the trailers. We've barely seen Superman in action, aside from a scant few clips fighting Ultraman and the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Hammer of Boravia.

We don't actually even know how the injuries seen in the trailer were caused. For all we know right now, he actually is weakened by Krypt⛦onite when he's hurt in the film, a condition under which Superman can canonically be gravely injured.

All of that speculation aside, Superman's power levels have varied wildly throughout his history, and even from creator to creator. There is a relatively consistent baseline to Superman's strength in the modern era, but each portrayal of the Man of Steel across media has its own interpretation of 🍬what he can do.

The history of Superman's powers

Following Superman's original debut in 1938's Action C🐟omics #1, his powers were described as being "faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful ꦕthan a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound", and able to withstand any attack short of an exploding shell.

For a few years, thoseꦇ were essentially the limits of Superman's powers. He didn't fly until 1940's Adventures of Superman radio show, which introduced numerous aspects of the character's mythos, including Kryptonite.

From there, Supౠerman's powers ballooned through the rest of the Golden Age of the '40s and early '50s, through the Silver Age of the '60s and early '70s. His classic powers were all established, including X-Ray and microscopic vision, super freeze-breath, heat vision, full on flight, speed beyond the capability of even the fastest craft, and of course, cosmic level super strength powerful enough to move planets, and nigh-invulnerability which can traditionally only be countered by kryptonite, magic, or sometimes, someone even stronger than him, like the villain Doomsday who actually managed to kill Superman in the early '90s.

He also accrued dozens of strange minor powers that were used only a few times befor🌺e fading into obscurity, including things lik𝐆e his amnesiac super-kiss and being able to reverse time by flying backwards around the Earth which were later adapted into 1978's beloved Superman movie and its sequels.

It wasn't unti♎l 1985's Crisis on Infinite Earths, which rebooted most of DC's comic continuity, that Superman's modern power leve꧙ls were essentially established - massive super strength, nigh-invulnerability, super-senses, x-ray and heat vision, freeze breath, super speed, and flight.

Heroes of myth

Though there's a generally agreed upon range of Superman's abilities, the true answer to how powerful he is will prove remarkably frustrating to a certain strain of tire-kicking fans, especially since DC declared that all of Superman's comic book history, across all the reboots, relaunches, and chaꦅnges in his powers, are canonical whether that fully makes sense or not.

Because the truth is, Superman's power levels, like those of all fictional characters, are entirely malleable at all times based on the s🍌ituation he's in, the story being told, and the people telling it.

Superhero comics have often been compared to modern𒊎 myths, and more than just about any other superhero continuity, the DC Universe lives up to that idea, both in the godlike feats undertaken by its undeniably powerful heroes, and in the fluid, ever-shifting nature of their personalities and abilities.

Superman, like the quintessential Greek hero Heracles (or Hercules, if you're into that sort of thing) is less a quantifiable Ivan Drago strongman, whose highest output punches are duly recorded to history, than he is a being of storied myth whose capabilities are determined by what makes for the best spinning of the yarn, and whose feats and adventures have evolved acros✤s countless tellings of their tales.

I don't bring up Heracles in particular for nothing. Superman writer/director James Gunn ꦿhas cited Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's fabled All-Star Superman as a major inspiration on his film - a comic which itself takes not insignificant inspiration from the classic concept of the 12 labors of Heracles, with Superman promising to complete a series of wondrous tasks befꦰore he dies due to toxic over-exposure to Earth's yellow sun, the source of fuel for his Kryptonian powers.

It's another turn of the cycle of myth, as the core idea of a man whose strength beyond strength is directly equitable to the parable on which it rests eܫchoes directly into Gunn's telling of S𓆉uperman's story.

Superman's official power levels

While I'm personally very much in the "wait-and-see, it's all just a story" ca𒈔mp in terms of how Superman's vaunted strength will be portrayed in Gunn's film, I also understand the impulse to dig into the debate around exactly what Supes can do.

I grew up going to comic stores, lurking in the racks of new and old issues, in heated conversation with my fellow fans about whether Superman or the Hulk is stronge🐽r, which heroes might be able to lift Thor's hammer, and so on.

That's part of the magic of superhero fandom, the characters and their stories engender these conversations and creative ideas among fans. We're invited directly into the world of the Marvel anꦯd DC Universes in a way other fiction rarely offers.`

But there's a special aspect to that magic that can be lost in the conversation around how strong Superman actually is, which is that every fan gets to see it for themself and imagine their own delineation of a character's limits. There are guides along𒁏 the way, important and memorable scenes from our favorite stories that stick in our mind as examples of just what our most beloved heroes can do.

It's that individualized perception that has kept superhero comicꦚs fresh across changing creative perspectives, which will hopefully allow James Gunn to craft a compelling poꦫrtrayal of the world's greatest superhero, and which enables the debate in the first place.

And anyway, we haven't even seen the movie yet.

James Gunn's Superman hits theaters on July 11. For more, check out our list of all the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming DC movies and shows.

I tell you this now only because this the memory was prised from its vault by Masakazu Hirayama, producer and director at Team Ninja, and Yuji Nakao, producer and director at PlatinumGames, as the duo inquired about my history with the series, ah☂ead of getting my hands-on with its first new mainline installment in a over a decade. The pair laughed, and told me to enjoy myself. By the end of the hour-long session, I was met with a round of applause from the development team. Also embarrassing.

Raining Blood

I later discovered that after a day of overseeing playtests, I was one of only a few players꧑ that day to best the demo's boss. I'm not surprised there was such a low-rate of completion, because Ninja Gaiden 4 is absolutely, gloriously brutal. A wondrous menagerie of blood, blades, and bastard-hard combat combat encounters. Still, my self-aggrandizing has a point here beyond mere ego-inflation: there's something so ওgratifying about seeing this series back to what appears to be its best.

When Ninja Gaiden launched as an Xbox exclusive two decades ago, it was among the most challenging, enthralling action games of its era. When FromSoftware's Demon's Souls landed five years later, everything changed. The way we und🐓erstand and engage with difficulty in video games, altered forever. Hirayama-san tells me that Ninja Gaiden 4 is as much a pushback against this culture shift as it is an opportunity to bring about the long overdue return of a legendary franchise.

"The conversation around action games has changed quite a lot since the last Ninja Gaiden game. Soulslikes have taken center stage, but this is Ninja Gaiden. It's the first game in the series in over 10 years, and Ninja Gaiden is still all about high speed, pure action gameplay. So we are going against the trend in that way🍬, all while injecting our own distinct game design sensibilities. This is a game from PlatinumGames – it has style, it's dynamic, and responsive. This is an evolution of what has come before, which was something we have been very deliberate about in this game."

Now, I should say that I have gone back to Ninja Gaiden (and the games which followed it) in the years since that disastrous weekend so long ago. And there are exceptionally simple things that Ninja Gaiden 4 accomplishes which reconnect me with Ryu Hayabusa's past adventures, even as a new protagonist takes center stage here. There's satisfaction in chaining wall-jumps. A coolness inherent in the way bloodsplatter is flicked off from blades when young ninja Yakumo is left idle. Fun to be found in the total eviscer🔴ation of enemy soldiers. Body bifurcation on an impossibly, impl𓄧ausibly-enjoyable scale.

Light Attack [X]. Heavy Attack [Y]. Two inputs which, when combined correctly, lead to total annihilation. There's an undoubtedly strong focus on first-party 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming Xbox Series X games for 2025 out there right now – Black Ops 7, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Gears of War: Reloaded, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Grounded 2, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Outer Worlds 2, and Keepeꦿr. But there's a part of me that truly wonders whether Ninja Gaiden 4 🦂is quietly the one to watch out for.

There's a simplicity inherent to its design ethos that I find compelling.🙈 A very real, very basic joy to be found in slicing waves of enemies apart limb-by-limb. And, really, what more 𓆉could you want from a new Ninja Gaiden game in 2025? I just hope the final game comes packed with the sort of boss battles that have the power to ruin entire weekends when it launches on October 21 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X.

Pass the time until Ninja Gaiden 4's launch by jumping into these 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best action games

When Gears made its debut two decades ago, the idea that players across rival console ecosystems would one day be able to play cooperatively and competitively together online was implausible. Cross-platform play may be ubiquitous today, but it has only been eight years since companies like Epic, Psyonix, and Xbox fought to change the status quo. And as for the idea that Gears of War, a flagship Xbox exclusive, would ever appear on PlayStation wasn't just i⛎mplausible, it was laughabl🔯e.

But everything changes with time.

What's old is new again

Having now sampled 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Gears of War: Reloaded on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, and the upcoming ROG Xbox Ally X handheld, I have to say that I'm impressed by the quality of remaster developer The Coalition (in partnership with studios Sumo Digital and Disbelief) has put together here. 4K assets, remastered 𝐆textures, and HDR support underpin a transformed campaign experience which runs at an impossibly smooth 60fps on all platforms. Both the original Gears and the 2015 Ultimate Edition remaster, which unde✨rpins Reload's design, were locked to 30fps. You've never experienced this adventure quite like this.

"Gears has always been a visual and technical showcase. It was important for us to carry on that tradition with Reloaded," says Kate Rayner, techn𝐆ical director at The Coalition. "It's running in 4K. We've doubled the framerate of the campaign, and doubled the framerate of the multiplayer up-to 120 frames per-second. It's now a native HDR game. There are augmentations to the lighting quality, the shadows, and the reflections. We're doing things with Reloaded that just weren't possible on the Xbox 360 or the Xbox One, and so there's this extra level of fidelity beyond higher pixel counts and framerates."

I haven't played the original Gears of War campaign since 2006 – my experience with Ultimate Edition limited to multiplayer sessions. What really surprised me about getting hands-on with Gears of War: Reloaded is just how well that campaign holds up. "It's got good bones," as Rayner wou♕ld put it. For those of you reading who weren't there for it at the time, it's difficult to overstate just how important Gears was when it launched. The best looking video game on Xbox 360, yes, but one which took the movement model pioneered by Resident Evil 4 and revolutionized it – third-person shooters have been defined by their waist-high cover bona fides ever since.

The setup The Coalition has put together for me here sees an online co-op session with the televisions hooked up side-by-side. There's another player sitting beside me – one of us with an Xbox Wireless Controller in hand, the other a DualꦺSense – it isn't long before we're locked into a nostalgia trip. We're sliding between cover and🎐 eviscerating Locust with overtorqued shots, closing E-holes with grenades and picking each other up. 2006 has never looked, or felt this good. This session highlighted just how exceptional of a co-op game Gears can be.

While I certainlyꦺ remember Gears of War b☂eing a 'bro game', in retrospect it really is exceptionally silly. Within minutes we were repeating character barks and laughing at outrageous objective conditions over voice chat. While there are still a lot of questions surrounding Microsoft Gaming's decision to bring its most iconic franchises to PlayStation, I do like the idea that a generation of PS3 and PS4 owners could be about to experience something that they've never been able to access. And that Xbox Series X players can be right there with them to guide the way.

You know, fun is a difficult thing to define. For every individual player, a video game either is or it isn't. But cooperative Gears of War (online or in splitscreen, both of which Reloaded supports) is objectively fun. That was true in 2006. It was still true in 2015. And it remains true in 2025. Very few franchises have stood the te♎st of time in this way, even fewer with a first insta🦹llment so enjoyable to play 20 years later. That's those good bones for you, sure, but also a reflection of the exceptional work The Coalition has put into these remastered efforts. And with multiplayer beta weekends set to kick off on June 13, I'm excited to spoil some fun for others if my wallbouncing muscle memory will kick back into gear.

Gears of War Reloaded is getting several weekend-long betas for pre-order buyers "to really test at scale the cross-platform play experience" and "make sure that the servers are ready for big numbers"

Epic Games has transformed the experience of Fortnite on Nintendo Switch 2 by bringing it up to relative parity to PS5 and Xbox Series consoles. It’s brilliant in handheld mode, with a great balance of visual fidelity, and quality of life fixes like the increased draw d𒁃istances. Opponents are easy to ꧋spot, and water effects are particularly gorgeous thanks to higher quality rendering.

But it’s the mouse mode that’s been the biggest revelation for𓆉 me, finally giving me a way to experience the precision of mouse aiming, while offering me the option to use a Joy-con as a movement controller. As someone who never quite ge🐻lled with the keyboard part of mouse and keyboard setups, this new way to play feels like the perfect configuration, and has given me one heck of an edge over the competition in Battle Royale mode.

Feature complete

To be blunt, the Nintendo Switch version of Fortnite was never a viable version for me to play. Muddy visuals paired with imprecise controls and a framerate locked at 30FPS amounted to a vastly inferior experience when compared with PS5 (my main platform), ultimately meaning that I rarely bothered to load up new seasonal updꦉates. Nintendo Switch 2’s update is completely transformative, and it’s in handheld play where this is mostly felt. Now, the Switch 2 is a go-to portable version of the game, allowing me to chip away at quests, learn the ins and outs of Fortnite OG, and even spend hours mining away in the still-excellent Lego Fortnite Odyssey mode.

Fortnite on Nintendo Switch 2 feels fresh from the outset. There’s a depth and detail to the Battle Royale map that allows for vibrant and colorful map locations like farmland surrounding Kappa Kappa Factory to shine. With Fortnite Super now here, the metallic sheen of Utopia City and the bright oranges of Supernova Academy’s gymnasium building stand out against lush green grasslands and imposing mountains. Mo🐻st im🔜portantly, long-range battles are viable, as players appear clearly as they traverse distant hilltops.

Mouse mode is an unexpected delight

An update for Fortnite on Nintendo Switch 2 arrived alongside the latest season, adding in mouse controls. I’ve dabbled with mouse and keyboard in the past, impressed by the extra level of precision aiming while being simultaneously held back by the stiffness of WASD movement. Enabling mouse controls turns one Joy-Con on its side, and by attaching the wrist strap attachment that comes with the Switch 2, you’re able to use it like a mouse. The real highlight is what happens in your other hand. The other Joy-Con oper𒐪ates much like one half of a controller, handling movement and aiming down sights. It’s a winning combination that really gives the Switch 2 version a unique selling point. There’s a huge advantageꦆ in using the mouse to swing your camera around, and extra control is given during long-range shootouts.

Of course, the Nintendo Switch 2’s mouse function doesn’t quite compare to a proper gaming mouse, and I certainly spent quite some time in menus dialling in the sensitivity of the scope and targeting. After a while though, it all clicks, especially after remapping some of the buttons on your mouse controller for easy sliding and jumping. You can of course plug a mouse into yo🦩ur PS5 or Xbox, or use all manner of configurations on PC, but there’s something about the Switch 2’s Joy-Con and mouse setup that feels right.

There is a problem with using your Switch 2’s controllers this way, however. It comes down to a grip I have with the Switch 2’s position as a console, in that you’ll need to be sat at a desk to make the best use of the mouse mode. Currently, I have an awkward setup involving a laptop hard case balanced on top of a small wooden footstool so I can play on my sofa. I have no doubt there will be some third-party solution to this in the future, perhaps even a sort of Labo cardboard box offering from Nintendo. Still, you can just about make it work, and I have to say I’m impressed by how viable the mouse mode is𓄧 for Fortnite’s Battle Royale and OG modes.

We've rounded up the best 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Switch 2 games for you to jump into after Fortnite

After the dust had settled from the launch of the Valve Index and its Half Life: Alyx pairing, Valve's first headset earned a spot among the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best VR headsets, and in 2025, it looks as though we're finally getting a follow-up. Codenamed Valve Deckard, the new headset is rumoured to launch at some point in 2025 or early 2026, and although the🅠re's been no official confirmation on it, there have been plenty of leaks and a whole lot of signs pointing to its upcoming arrival. I've collected together all the details we know so far and put them on this page to help fuel your research and excitement.

Of course, Valve's hardware is famously hit or miss. While the Steam Deck is industry-leading and arguably kickstarted the whole handheld gaming PC craze we see today, we probably don't need to mention the Steam controller, nor the original Steam box that was said to be the console market killer. Luckily, Gabe Newell's company struck gold when it made its VR headset, and even if its price has always ♌been a barrier t🏅o entry, the Valve Index is still hallowed in the VR hall of fame.

What is Valve "Deckard" and what do we know about it?

Even if we don't have confirmation that a new Valve headseꦿt is coming, speculation that Valve was making one actually started way back in 2021. Gabe Newell, Valve's CEO, said at a panel talk that the company was making big investments in new headsets. While that's hardly a confirmation that it's been working on a new device since then, it showed that Valve has VR plans beyond the original Index.

More recently, speculation and rumours from Gabe Follower on Twitter (who has a notable track record of releasing Valve's plans ahead of time) say that Deckard will be a new standalone VR headset that will run on a refined version of SteamOS. That means it'll be able to be used without the addition of a 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:gaming PC, and that it'll run on the same operating system as Valve's Steam Deck and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Steam Deck OLED.

The purported bonus of running on this OS isn't just that it 𒊎puts Valve's SteamVR library front and center, but that non-VR games that already run on a Steam Deck will be playable on Valve Deckard for even more portable, play-on-the-go versatility.

Even though the device is titled to be a standalone headset, i🦩t's also possible that the Valve Deckard stays true to its roots and has either HDMI or DisplayPortꦜ connectivity for those who want a more powerful, visually lossless VR experience.

According to leaked schematics, Deckard will be paired with controllers that are codenamed "Roy" and look fairly similar to standard VR controllers we've seen already. It looks as though, like 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Meta Quest 3, Valve has ditched the tracking rings on thes🍸e ones, though.

In April of 2025, SadlyItsBradley, one of the most well-known sources of VR leaks on the internet, came out with news that Valve has apparently been importing equipment to manufacture HMDs (head-mounted displays) and facial interfaces in th♋e US. The "insider" posted shipping manifests and images attesting to this report, which can be seen below.

This 🐽led a lot of press to believe that Valve Deckard 🍃might not be so far off its rumored 2025 timeline, and that it would seem the headset is being manufactured, at least in part, in the US.

According to a more recent set of reports in May, which again, should be taken with a pinch of salt, the founder of L๊ynx, a French startup in the XR space, has some knowledge of Valve Deckard. Stan Larroque said on Twitter, "The design of Valve neꦫxt HMD is quite amazing!

"I would be equally pissed if Lynx nextgen ID got leaked so I won't share more. I'm just excited for good new XR HMDs. The HMD-making world is so small, we all share the same suppliers for some c🍌omponents."

L🌸arroque later claimed that Deckard won't launch until 2026, but this is the first bit of speculation that points to a launch date outside of 2025.

When will Valve Deckard's release date be?

According to most insiders on Twitter, as well as unconfirmed speculation, Valve Deckard is scheduled to launch before the end of 2025, but as we still don't have official confirmation that the headset even exists, it might be a while before we hear 🃏more about its official release date.

A launch before the end of 2025 would certainly make sense within the current market. Meta's Quest 3 and Quest 3S devices launched in October of 2023 and 2024, and๊ right now, we have speculation that a headset from Asus that uses Meta'𝕴s OS could launch at some point this year. Also waiting in the wings is Samsung and Google's take on the Apple Vision Pro. We don't have a launch date for that one either, but it's been in the works for a long time now.

How much will Valve Deckard cost?

While we don't have an official price, we do have a few rumours from Gabe Follower that point to the new headset being bundled with its controllers and a few "in-house" games or demos, and that the entire bundle could cost $1,200. This is the most concrete deta💜il we have on pricing thus far, but it's also still unconfirmed and should absolutely be 🐼taken with a dose of scepticism.

What we do k﷽now is that the VR market has shifted dram🍷atically since the Valve Index arrived.

Back then, PC headsets were the name of the game, but they were a luxury item that cost at least $1,000. Thankfully, the hardware has com🌸e a long way since, because you don't need silly room tracking modules, or even wires, if y🧸ou don't want them.

Now, we have headsets like PSVR 2, which beats the Valve Index in a lot of its specs and features, and costs under $500. Taking up a bigger chunk of the market, ♑though, are standalone devices, and since it's rumoured that Valve Deckard will fit into this niche, its prices could point to a more reasonable (and affordable) device than lastꦜ time.

The Meta Quest 3, the Meta Quest 3S, and the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Pico 4 Ultra are what a new Valve headset will need to compete with in the standalone market. The most affordable of those options is the Quest 3S 128GB model, which only costs $299. I'd wage❀r the Deckard headset will cost more than these devices since it's likely targeting a higher-end gaming market, but I hope it won't drift as high as the Apple Vision Pro, which costs a ludicrous $3,500.

Perhaps most appropriate for comparison is the HTC V🥀ive Focus Vision, a PC-tilted but still standalone VR device. It's designed for visually lossless VR gaming on PC, so it's a natural competitor to whatever Valve is cooking up. That headset costs $999 - which aligns it closer to the original Valve Index.

I'd personally like to think that Valve has learned from the affordability of its Steam Deck and Steam Deck OLED, so I'd hope the Valve Index undercuts HTC. My personal hopes for a price for Valve Deckard would be around the $700 mark, but it entirely depends upon the chipset used, because if it can offer substantially more power than a Quest 3 or Pico 4 Ultra, it'll be worth the extra money versus one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best gaming handhelds.

What games will Valve Deckard be able to play?

If Valve Deckard is se﷽t to run on a refined version of SteamOS, it'd stand to reason that every game on Steam that's VR compatible will be playable on the new headset. If it can also link to a PC, it'll likely be able to either💖 stream gameplay through something like Steamlink from your gaming PC, or it'll hook up to your graphics card with a wire for a pure, lossless experience.

𓆉There are hundreds, if not thousands, of VR games already on Steam, so I don't think Deckard will be short of titles to play.

The big question is whether or not we'll get a first-party game release, like we did with Half-Life: Alyx. Could it be a classic Valve secret, could it be a VR port of Deadlock? We'll need to wai🎃t and see, but so far, rumors have been prett𒈔y quiet about anything to do with new software.

Upgrading your PC for Valve Deckard's arrival? Take a look at the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best RAM for gaming, the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best CPU for gaming, and the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best graphics cards.

Officially announced in the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Xbox Games Showcase, this looks like a full remake of the now venerable installment in the Persona series, and I'm excited. Is a remake of Persona 4, a game that launched on Steam in 2020 and on consoles just two years ago, really necessary? Probably not – the original game (aka one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best JRPGs of all time) still holds up, but if the PS2-era jank of it just puts you off, this remake will let you fully enjoy the fantastic story of telegraph pole murders, scooter rides to the beach, and a💫 young man called Yu Narukami. Or should that be Charlie Tunoku?

So read on as we break down one of the most exciting 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new games heading our way. From Persona 4 Revival release date speculation, story recaps, and gameplay details, we've got all the latest news tha🌄t you need to know down below.

Persona 4 Revival release date speculation

There isn't a release date set for Persona 4 Revival yet, and it seems like it'll stay that way for a while yet. However, 2026 seems to be the general guess at the moment. In fact, we aren't the only ones eyein🌊g this as a potential release window.

There has been some speculation online, with many suggesting that it'll release in the latter half of next year, but this is far from concrete. It does seem fairly likely that we'll hear a more concrete release window at the Tokyo Game Show in late September, which is reason🎃ably likely. The series is immensely popular in Japan, so if they were going to announce it anywhere, TGS is a good place to do it.

Persona 4 Revival platforms

At the moment, Persona 4 Revival is slated for release on Xbox Series X/S, PC, and PS5,𒈔 based on the . There's good news for those who are subscribed to Game Pa💖ss Ultimate or PC Game Pass, as it'll be available on the service from day one.

There's a reasonable chance that the game will also come to the Switch 2 at some point, however, this isn't confirmed. Atlus had previously said that Persona 3 Reload, the previous Persona remake, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询🍎:may come to Nintendo꧒ consoles in future,♔ like Pe𝕴rsona 4 Golden did back in 2023, and Persona 5 Royal did in 2022.

What is Persona 4?

If you're new to Persona 4 and don't know what to expect from the remake, let us enlighten you. The game is a dungeon-crawling JRPG with a side of slice-of-life anime, much like the rest of the Persona series and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Metaphor: Refantazio. You can be exploring a dungeon one moment and then going off on a school trip to enjoy some undigestible food cooked by your friends the 🦹next. The core gameplay loop revolves around exploring the Midnight Channel, a dimension accessed by hopping into a TV, in ♏order to stop a series of murders.

The setting may sound a bit grim, but it's all baked into such a delightful world, full of fantastic char༒acters, that it shines with a kind of youthful energy that makes it feel like an endless summer from when you were 16. The game takes placꦦe during a school year, with the warmer months boasting blue skies that will have you reaching for a bottle of Ramune. Even rainy days and dour months don't dampen the game's charm. It's a heady mix, and one that only Atlus can really pull off.

Persona 4 Revival trailer

You can watch the teaser trailer for Persona 4 Revival right now, and you should, because it looks absolutely stunning. The trailer doesn't show too much, but we do get to see some iconic Persona 4 locations, includi🌳ng the Shopping District, its shrine (minus a Mysterious Fox ), th⛦e High School, and the briefest glimpses of the TV World.

Persona 4 Revival gameplay

We haven't had a good💞 look at the Persona 4 Revival's gameplay yet, with the teaser trailer offering only the barest of glimpses. What we can glean from the trailer is that the game adopts a more standard third-person camera, akin to that seen in Metaphor: Refantazio, instead of the fixed-camera view that the original Persona 4 had when exploring outside of dungeons.

It's safe to say that aside from ♕this, the core gameplay will remain roughly similar to the original game. If it's anything like the changes that Persona 3 Reload made to Persona 3's gameplay, the changes will be fairly minor and more focused on quality-of-life changes. Maybe we'll get some additional spells, a return of the Theurgy mechanic, or Link Episodes.

Voice actors from the original Persona 4 and Golden have been discussing the fact that they weren't invited back for the remake. This suggests that either there'll be an entirely new voice cast and new dialogue, as with Reload, or that the original lines will be reused, maybe after being remastered. To learn more about the original gameplay, you can check out our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Persona 4 review.

Persona 4 Revival development and key facts

The existence of a Persona 4 remake feels like it's been the worst-kept secret in games for a while now. Not only have we had the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:voice actors discussing the fact that they've not been asked to return, we also saw the domain getting registered back in March, which mirrors the official Japanese website for Persona 3 Reload, . As it turns out, this is, in fact, the official Japanese website for Person𝓰a 4 Revival.

Atlus conducted a , asking which remakes people wanted most, with Persona 3 topping the list. Lo and behold, we got a remake of Persona 3, and we're now moving onto the fourth most-wanted remak𓄧e in the shape of Persona 4 Revival.

Can I pre-order Persona 4 Revival?

As of the time of writing, you can't preorder Persona 4 Revival just yet. You can, however, wishlist it on the Xbox Store. While it's going t🅰o come out on Steam and on PS𝓰5, you can't wishlist it on either of those stores at the moment.

Keep checking back w𝓡ith us to f🎃ind out more about Persona 4 Revival, we'll keep you up to date with all the latest info!

For more from Atlus, check out our ranking of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Persona games. Or look ahead with our pages on all the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming PS5 games and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming Xbox Series X games.

I always hesitate to put this kind of hyperbole in a preview piece, but Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound is simply awesome. ꦿDrop in the caveat here that the full game might have some fatal flaw that drags the whole thing down, but thr🦩ough four levels from across various sections of the game, I've been absolutely hooked.

Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise to say that the devs at The Game Kitchen, the studio behind the澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询: best Metroidvania games out there in the Blasphemous series, have created an excellent 2D action game. But Ragebound manages the rare achievement of keeping the spirit of the 💃legendarily tough-as-nails Ninja Gaiden series alive while giving us something that still feels fresh and exciting in 2025.

Pixel perfect

The first thing you'll notice about Ragebound is how good it looks. The game mimics the cinematic cutscene style of the original NES games, but with striking modern pixel art. The 2D action stages are similarly impressive, most of all for the tremendous variety of animations you'll see. Did the tutorial mission need custom art to show longtime series protagonist Ryu Hyabusa opening a ওletter or viciously piledriving you into the floor when you fail to defeat him in combat? No, but the sheer spectacle is certainly appreciated.

You play as Kenji Muzo, an apprentice to Ryu who's left behind to deal with a demonic invasion all on his own.✤ The plot likely won't be the main draw here, but snappy dialog offers🐼 some nice context to the stages – and gives The Game Kitchen opportunity to continue building on the uneasy religious themes the studio keeps coming back to as Kenji builds an uneasy alliance with the assassin Kumori, who can commune with the demon realm.

Kenji has the abilities you'd expect from the protagonist of a 2D Ninja Gaiden game, with wall-climbing, ceiling-crawling, and sword-slashing all on the menu. It all feels excellent, from the sticky wall-jump to the exact reach of your blade, but the best part is the double-jump – which you can only activate by simultaneously attacking a midair enemy, projectile, or object. If you've played The Me💃ssenger, an excellent but unlicensed indie take on Ninja Gaiden, you'll feel right at home with this jump mechanic, but it's a bit streamlined and feels eve🌟n better here.

Kumori serves as a sort of sidekick – the Kazooie to Kenji's Banjo. Once she joins up with Kenji partway through the game, you can use her to send out various subweapon attacks, like straightline 𝓡throwing knives or big, arcing axe throws. They're very reminiscent of classic Castlevania subweapons, especially in how they're governed by a limited resource bar, which here you refill by killinꦑg enemies.

Ryu the day

The final big wrinkle here is the hyper charge mech💦anic. Certain enemies will enter the field encased in a colored light, and if you kill them with an appropriate attack – blue for melee, or purple for ranged – you'll be empowered with a supercharge that can instantly kill even the toughest foes. Most of the monsters go down in one ༒or two hits, but some big baddies are either armored or can take a good half-dozen strikes to defeat.

You're encouraged, then, to wait a second or two before engaging the enemy, looking for the enemies you can use to build a hyper charge, and chaining between them to slice through the field in seconds. Like the NES games, it rewards you for memorizing the opt♋imal path through each encounter, but if you make a few kills in the wrong order, it's not the end of the world, as it'll just take a little extra effort to clear the encounter.

Rage𝓰bound is challenging, but it's not brutal the way its predecessors could often be. That's largely thanks to the re🌠gular checkpoints positioned throughout each stage, which makes retrying the hard parts a snap. If you die, that just means an opportunity to do better next time, and the controls are so precise that locking in that kind of mastery feels incredible.

Take the game's first boss for example, a dragon-like demon creature who kept catching me out after his big charge move, when he'd toss a couple of molten fireballs out that happen to land right at the inconvenient edge of the range of my invincible dodge roll. Every time I got hꦡit, it was clear what I was doing wrong. I died twice trying to beat him, but on the third attempt I killed him without even taking a hit.

You can play pretty sloppily and still get through a stage, but Ragebound challenges you to do better with bonus objectives for doing things like killing enemies with certain types of attacks or clearing a stage without dying. There are also collectibles to f🅠ind, and many of these mechanics tie into some sort of upgrade system that wasn't available in the demo. I can already see myself running𒅌 these stages over and over to perfect them before moving on once the final game hits, though.

Ragebound's ability to inspire that chase for perfection is probably the greatest illustration of what it's doing right. It's challenging enough that no encounter is a cakewalk, but it always feels downright obvious how you could've done it better. It's the kind of game where you can immediately picture 🌟how wild the speedruns are going to look – a carefully choreographed and very violent dance. I can't wait to play more.

As the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Summer Game Fest schedule for 2025 rolls on, you can stick with us for complete 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Summer Game Fest live coverage.

Announced during Summer Game Fest 2025, the new Xbox handheld actually comes in two flavors. Not unlike the Series X and S, the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X will serve as a higher-spec flagship with a black getup, whereas the vanilla ROG Xbox Ally offers up ꦍslightly dialled back performance and a white shell to match.

Both of the new Xbox devices will rival the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best gaming handhelds out there, and while they're a different kettle of technical fish, the upcoming portable PCs will no doubt lure some players away from Nintendo's new console. Plus, thanks to software, the emergence of these contenders could actually help the original 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Asus ROG Ally and Windows 11 options across the board take on the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Steam Deck OLED in a big way.

Release date

Microsoft hasn't shared a solid ROG Xbox Ally launch date yet, but both versions of the Asus device are set to launch later in 2025. Since we're halfway through the year, it's not unreasonable to assume the handheld might arrive just in time for the Holidays, as this iꦕs typically when new consoles tend to show up.

It's also worth noting that the Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One both released in November. While Microsoft might not necessarily stick to console launch traditions, itꦦ feels extremely likely th🐬at the ROG Xbox Ally will show up in November 2025.

Price

Pricing for the ROG Xbo꧅x Ally handhelds isn't available yet, so you'll need to wait a little longer to see if it will fi🅠t your budget. That said, it is possible to hazard somewhat of a guess at a price range based on devices on the market right now and Microsoft's own hardware MSRP trends.

The ROG Xbox Ally X is set to be the most expensive version 🦂of the handheld, and partially mirrors the specs of last year's Asus ROG Ally X. That could mean it'll also end up paired with the same $899.99 / £799.99 price tag, but since it also boasts a newer Ryzen Z2 AI Extreme APU, there's every chance it'll cost even more.

On the flipside, the white ROG Xbওox Ally is pretty similar to the 2023 Asus ROG Ally, boasting nearly identical specs in terms of memory and storage. However, unlike the X version, this model wields a Ryzen Z2 A chipset that is, on paper, less powerful than the original's Z1 Extreme.

That could be a decision designed to keep costs down, ultimately allowing Asus to release a handheld for less than the Asus ROG Ally Z1E's $649.99 / £599.99 MSRP. In turn, the pricing would help position the handheld alongside the Steam Deck and similar rivals like the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Lenovo Legion Go S, especially since the latter 🐻is pretty similar under the hood.

Outside of handheld price trends, Microsoft might also influence MSRPs with its own typical console tier system. If that's the case, the ROG Xbox Ally may place a similar gap between models to the Series X and S. Ideally, that'd also mean the Ally will cost $379.99 / £299.99 while the X will sell for $599.99 / £589.99, but that's perhaps a bi𝐆t of a pipe dream.

Specs

💮As you'd expect, the ROG Xbox Ally range take🦋s to the stage with specs worth talking about, for better or for worse.

The Ally X leads the charge with a brand new AMD Ryzen Z2 AI Extreme APU, 24GB LPDDR5X RAM, a full-size 1TB M.2 SSD, and an 80Wh battery. Sounds familiar? That's because it's essentially a souped-up ROG Ally X that adds a new APU into the mix 🦩for a performance punch.

The white Xbox Ally follows suit and matches Asus' first handheld with ꦇ16GB LPDDR5X RAM and a 512GB SSD, but swaps out the Ryzen Z1 Extr🎃eme for a new Ryzen Z2 A chip. According to AMD, this APU serves as an entry-level RDNA 2 option that ranks under the Legion Go S exclusive Ryzen Z2 GO and features fewer cores than the top Z1.

On paper, that means that the white Xbox Ally should hit lower frame rates than the 2023 ROG Ally, potentially matching the Steam Dec𓄧k, whereas the Xbox Ally X will likely outpace the original using RDNA 3. Naturally, I'll be looking to benchmark both handhelജds in-house to see how far they can boost fps, but it'll ultimately be the X model that has a better chance of outperforming rivals.

On the visual side of things, both models feat🧸ure a 120Hz 1080p IPS display that looks virtually identical to the Asus ROG Ally's screen. The Xbox Ally does use the same Gorilla Glass coating as the Ally X, though, meaning it's going to be much tougher than most portable PC panels out there.

Controls

If you caught the original teaser for the ROG Xbox Ally, you'll already know elevated controls are set to be a selling point. Both handhelds are set to feature gamepad elements not too dissimilar to the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:ROG Raikiri Pro, and that includes prominent grips that make for a huge design cha♔nge compared to Asus' other handhelds.

Under the hood, you're getting premium perks like hall-effect thumbsticks, HD haptics, and six-axis motion. Yet, it's arguably the simple addition ofꦆ a dedicated Xbox button that'll make all the difference with these handhelds, as it both adds distinct console-like functionality and helps the portables tie in with Microsoft's des♑ign language.

Sadly, the face 🍰buttons are more Asus-branded than Xbox, so you won't end up with something that lo▨oks like a portable Series X/S. Boo.

Software

Since the ROG Xbox Ally duo are Windows 11 handhelds, both are set to inherit wide compatibility with PC games and storefronts. Normally, that comes with the caveat of wrestling with an 🥂operating system that's not optimized for portable play, but Microsoft is including an immersive Xbox full-screen experience that places GameBar front and centre.

Essentially, when you turn on the handheld, you'll launch straight into Xbox GameBar rather than a Windows 11 desktop. Once there, you'll be able to access a bunch of installed games, services like Game Pass, and apps like Battle.net and Steam in a console-like fashion. You'll also be able to tweak system settings thanks to Ar༺moury Crate integration - something that'll make messing with performance options and controller mapping slicker.

Already got Valve's portable powerhouse? Swing by the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Steam Deck accessories and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Steam Deck dock for handy add-ons. You'll also want to peek at 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:where to buy the Nintendo Switch 2 if you want something console-flavored.

Yes, yes he did. It seems that Resident Evil's ninth mainline game will feature the daughter of Alyssa Ashcroft, the cutthroat journalist who starred in PS2 spin-off, Resident Evil Outbreak, some 22 years ago. Aside from a 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:small nod to her in Resident Evil 7, where one of her articles is found by Ethan Winters, the Ashcrofts have largely faded into the background since then. But now that Capcom is dredging up its past to carve out the series' future, I have a couple of hunches about what might come nex🐠ꦅt for us survival horror fans – including a few theories on what the Resident Evil Requiem storyline might be.

Ancient grudge

I'll cut to the chase: it's looking more likely that instead of a 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:much-rumored Code Veronica remake, we could be getting a brand new Resident Evil🍌 Outbreak first. It makes sense that Capcom would continue its winning streak off the back of mega-successful Resident Evil 2, 3, and 4, but with Resident Evil 5's subject matter having aged like fine milk, I'm not holding out hope for Wesker's final act to get a modern facelift imminently.

Enter: Resident Evil Requiem, here to save the day by reminding us of one of the franchise's lesser-known spin-offs. Despite owning a copy of the PS2 game myself and very much not hating the thing, I'll be t♌he first to admit that an Outbreak remake is not something I'd had on my bingo card.

Useful as the game is when it comes to fleshing out the lives of Raccoon City's everymen on the night it all went to hell and back, it has objectively ▨less impact on the mainline series' events than something like Code Veronica. The latter is widely considered canon,🦂 but Outbreak and its sequel Outbreak File #2 are mere "fluff," so to speak, there to add some color rather than paint a new picture

But Resident Evil Requiem has the chance to change that. We don't know much about what the plot of the new game might be at the moment – only that our supposed protagonist Grace A🙈shcroft is a tech analyst for the FBI, h൩er mother lost her life at the Wrenwood Hotel eight years earlier, and Grace is about to be sent back there to investigate a spate of suspicious viral infections.

We also know that Alyssa's story will be of some importance, given the brief flashback sequences in the RE9 announcement trailer. With glimpses of the Raccoon City Police Department pre and post-destruction thrown in there for good measure, on top of a mix of terrified voices pointing at something horrendous happening right now, it's likely we will be finding out exac♛tly what 𝄹happened to Alyssa (and, perhaps, Grace) at the Wrenwood this February.

My slightly more extreme theory, though, is th🦋at the Outbreak "remake" might happen as part of Resident Evil Requie🌟m itself.

New mutiny

Think about it: Outbreak plays out in the format of various scenarios, each featuring a ha🎀ndful of laymen who experience the T virus epidemic first-hand. Each of the scenarios takes only a few hows to complete apiece, meaning it's fairly easy to separate the stories from one another.

What if instead of mere flashback cinematics, we get to play through Alyssa's past in a split timeline in RE9 – both her more recent Wrenwood experience, and those late-90s escapades as seen in Resident Evil Outbreak? Moreover, what if Capcom decides to retcon bits here and there, adding more connective tissue throughout Alyssa's scenario – say, linking her story to that of Claire, Jill, or Lꦬeon, who were also active in the city that very same night?

Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but in this context, I can see how a remake-within-a-sequel would actually pan out pretty well. It would also put some stock into all the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Resident Evil 9 rumors that had been going around some time ago – and have popped up again over the weekend – regarding Leon featuring in the next Resi game in a meaningful capacity. If Requiem straddles more than one spot on the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Resident Evil timeline, it would give the once-rookie cop more stake in the matter, both as a participant of the game's modern ꧅timeline and by giving us m꧂ore backstory into how he and Alyssa might have once crossed paths.

So there you have it. My most out-there prediction, written up for all to roll their eyes at. But maybe, just maybe, if I happen to be right… well, it'll be like the Summer Game Fest reveal all over agཧain, only I'll be twice as smug about it.

Resident Evil Requiem is just one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming horror games looming on the horizon...

My🍸 time with CrossWorl✨ds, though, gave me a grand vision of a world where I'm back to square one, just enjoying the rampant chaos of a party game.

Gotta go fast

I got to tour the single-player grand prix mode of CrossWorlds, which offers what initially sounds like a familiar format to Mario Kart-heads like me: a set of four races across various tracks consisting of three laps each. But the💃re are some big twists here. The middle section of each track takes you to an alternate d🌱imension for a single-lap excursion, and the final race is made up of a single lap from each of the three previous courses.

The finale being a remix of the the previous tracks gives a nice endcap to the grand prix, building on what you've learned from your previous laps to put it toge💛ther when it matters most - and it does matter more at the end, since first place awards more points to the winner than it does in the other races.

Really adding to the drama is the rivals system, where a CPU character will be marked as your personal antagonist and regularly taunt you before, during, and after the races. It's a terrific way of both bringing more of the characters' personality into the action and making you very, very angry. I'm a pretty calm gamer as a general rule, but seeing Knuckles blow past me for the lead of the race and the grand prix, while he makes some snarky quip had me feeling the kin💃d🌱 of rage you normally reserve for FromSoftware bosses. It makes the races feel very high-stakes.

Crash course

The action is also very chaotic, even by kart racer standards, with items constantly flying around and level-specific environmental effects ki🌌cking off all the time. You'll often be blindsided by items without much warning and no apparent way to defend against them. It's tough to tell if I'd have started to figure out how to manage these threats with more than an hour of gameplay under my belt, but it certainly seems like you can expect to be pretty thoroughly buried in a shower of item-based destruction everywhere you go.

That chaos compounds with the grand prix format, since you only spen💧d two laps on each track, as lap two is replaced by a journey into an alternate chosen by whichever player gets to the portal first. There's a ♔little less opportunity to reach a rhythm with each track, since you'll spend so much of your time in the middle of a race just… driving on a completely different track.

Whether or not that cranked up chaos is a good thing remains to be seen, but I'm intrigued. The problem with single-player Mario Kart is that it tends toജ feel 'solved' at a certain point - you take an early lead, drive out to a ridiculous distance ahead of the compe🃏tition, and then never see any of the ridiculous items and shenanigans that make a kart racer, well, a kart racer.

I have hope that Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds could cure that specific issue. Will I fully jump kart racing ships with a shiny new next-gen 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Mario Kart World waiting in the wings? That ꧋I don't know, but CrossWorlds does seem pꦓoised to provide a very different type of experience, and one I'm excited to jump in pretty much fresh to.

I didn't know how badly I needed a PvPvE Dark Souls in my life until Mistfall Hunter threw one in my lap.

In the time since Nioh 2, Team Ninja also released Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, and Rise of the Ronin (and also have Ninja Gaiden 4 in the near future). It's no exaggeration to say I can feel the work put into all those titles in my first few hours with Nioh 3. It's not just another game in the series, but represents the continued evolution of Team Ninja. I'm literally able to point at each new addition that changes up everything I thought about the series 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:while playing the Nioh 3 Alpha and see how the dev's ✃ideas have grown from its previous games.

Ninja again

The most obvious change in Nioh 3 comes from the developer's namesake – ninja. Where Nioh and Nioh 2 had you walk the way of the samurai while peppering in a few ninjutsu skills here and there, Nioh 3 introduces the ability to be a ninja. It's not just a choice, though. You are both samurai and ninja at once. With just a tap of R2, my custom character quickly spins into a different costume and changes their moveset and equipment in an instant – even mid-combo. Interestingly, it's not too far from Stranger of Paradise's✃ Final Fantasy job-switching system.

The transformation from samurai to ninja is sort of an evolution of your hero's ability to use yokai powers in the second game,🐻 yet instead of one-off skills and temporary shifts, here I can switch basically whenever I want. Samurai plays much as you'd expect from previous Nioh games, able to time a ki pulse after attacks to regain spent stamina (vital to avoid running out of breath in tricky battles), and able to switch stances to change attacks – though so far it seems Nioh 3 just has a low and high stance and no mid-stance (but there are lots of skills to unlock). Land enough strikes, and you'll overclock into a charged up state too, boosting damage output.

Meanwhile, playing a ninja funnels off the ninjutsu powers to give a more complete feeling palette of potential abilities. Attacks here are much faster across katana, talons, and the like, and if you can maneuver behind enemies you'll get a damage boost. Aiding in the ab🎃ility to do just that is Misting, which replaces the Ki Pulse in this form – a short range dash-like teleport that feels delightfully ninja-like. Dodge rolls are also faster in this style, and can be extended with a bonus flip.

While the stamina management and heavy swing timing of the samurai comes easily, the ninja role is taking some getting used to – though I do love the slickness of🎃 the action. A f🔴ew tense scuffles with demonic yokai show the system to be, as I expected, at its best when optimally switching between the two at just the right moment.

It does feel a bit like rubbing my tummy and patting my head this early into the game – but that's Nioh for you. While my🦹 hands-on does seem like it has fewer weapons than Nioh 2 – three per class – they still all have deep customization options that are sure to reward those will꧃ing to dive into the details. The only downside is the detail also found in the loot I end up amassing, which now, given there's two classes, feels like twice the busywork compared to earlier entries.

It's not just combat that feels at once familiar but different. It's the way you move around the world of Nioh as well. There are still plenty of hidden collectibles, loot, and shortcuts – but n🐽ow you 🍷can double jump. Perhaps the greatest skill a master samurai or ninja can learn is defying gravity.

Not only does that mean you can scoop up goodies, but choose how and where to begin engagements with the enemy – even getting in a sneaky shinobi strike from the air if you choose. Here it feels like it takes a page from Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, where the levels had plenty of wide design to allow you to mix up pathways (though that game was much heavier on the parries, like Sekiro).

World at war

Yet, Nioh 3 embraces an open world approach – replacing the previous games' stage-by-stage structure. At first, I'm left a little cold by this revelation. The tight level design of Nioh and Nioh 2 remains my favorite aspects when revisiting them. My early hours in the open world, however, work well – I still ru𒀰n between healing shrines (which, naturally, reset most enemies when used), picking my way through tricky fig💟hts. And, sometimes, avoiding them – tough encounters may be better to revisit when levelled up. It's a similar approach to Rise of the Ronin, if much less broad.

The more you explore, the more powerful you become. Finding chests containing loot isn't the only way, as clearing objectives – from 'myths' to enemy camps – improves your exploration level, which in turnꦜ boosts your stats. Scrolls can also be found to teach new abilities and give you class-specific skill points. Even little Scampuss – fat, rolling cat yokai – return, this time rolling you to out-of-the-way🔜 item caches.

Along the way you'll be able to duel the fallen revenants of other players to power up, as well as beckon blue revenants to fight by your side for ghostly co-op based on player builds (and there's proper co-op too, of course). The world is large, but full of pockets of more traditional design too – one ruined village feeling suitably weavy as I comb through, doubling back to open shortcuts, and guiding friendly kodama back to their shrines for bonuses. Nioh 3 isn't trying♋🅠 to be Elden Ring (according to its producer).

Vitally, though, Nioh 3 does still have sections that feel more like theౠ proper levels of Nioh old. Called Crucibles, these see your character enter a manifested slice of the demon realm plonked down into the human world to fight through what is essentially a stage as it would appear in previous titles – albeit with greater verticality to make use of jumping.

Here, enemies are 💃tougher, and taking hits reduces your maximum health – dealing damage and racking up demonic kills restoring it. It adds to the sense that this place is brutal, but I don't love the health reduction element. Still, landing solid hits cleanses the corruption quickly enough. I'm less keen on all the lava and explosions – the crucible in my hands-on i♈s a town that's become completely overrun, weird bone structures sticking at odd angles – with a poorly-timed jump seeing me instantly die in the red liquid.

The boss too, an old baba yokai with two giant twisting fire and ice snakes coming out of her back, is certainly no pushover. Overrun time and time again, I realize I'm a couple of levels below the recommended. I could just turn ar🏅ound at the boss gate and grind out some demons𒀰 and summoning items to level the playing field. But, ah – this is Nioh 3 after all! There's the open world!

Able to fast travel the heck out of there, I can jump to any shrine I've unlocked in the map and continue exploring, returninꦚg when I feel like I've grown powerful enough to take it on. It's here that Nioh 3 shows real promise, letting you set the pace with which you clash swords and kunai with its biggest beasties, and leaving you to explore in the meantime.

It's a hefty demo I spend my tജime playing, but it's still only a taste of what Nioh 3 has to of♔fer. It's certainly an ambitious undertaking, and that's before I even get started on the story I've glimpsed here and there. Starring your custom here as Tokugawa Takechiyo – a famous historical warlord – it seems there may be some timey wimey-ness going on. A greatest hits of Japanese history as a weird demonic force tries to sap ancient record itself? I'm ready to jump in, samurai or ninja, and get slicing.

and PS5 in 2026.

After 17 years, Ninja Gaiden 2 Black means I can finally recommend another version of the pinnacle limb-slasher

With more details from developer Frontier, and a first look at the game in action, Jurassic World Evolution 3 promises to take us on a new globetrotting adventure that will bring us to various locations around the world for some more dino-filled fun. With exciting new features including more intuitive building tools, the addition of dinosaur breeding, and much more, you can expect to put your management skills to the test, get creative, and look after gentle giants and scaly predators in the follow-up to one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best dinosaur games - which promises to build on all that's come bef𒐪ore.

With some Jurassic film tie-ins to top it all off, a release date confirmed alongside its announcement, and a closer look at some of the tools we'll have at our disposal, it's quickly shaping up to be one of the most exciting 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new games for 2025. S🔯o, if you can hardly wait for some more prehistoric goodness, join us as we guide you through everythinဣg we know so far about Jurassic World Evolution 3.

Jurassic World Evolution 3 release date

Frontier has confirmed The Jurassic World Evolution 3 release date is set for October 21, 2025.

Four ꦅyears after the release of the last game in the series, which came our way back in 2021, it's exciting to see a new experience land, with the release date dropping right at the end of its first official announcement.

Jurassic World Evolution 3 platforms

Jurassic World Evolution 3 platforms have been confirmed for PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PS5.

As one of the confirmed 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming PC games to look forward to, Frontier confirmed it will be available via Steam and the Epic Games store, with it also roaming onto consoles among the upcoming 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Xbox Series X games and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming PS5 games we have to look forward to in the future.

Jurassic World Evolution 3 trailer

In the Jurassic World Evolution 3 trailer, life finds a way. Yes, we get to see plenty of dinosaurs roam as Jeff Goldblum once again reprises his role as Ian Malcolm to narrate our very first look at the new managꩲement sim. With the adventure set to introduce new dinosaur family dynamics, we even get to se🧸e some baby dinos with their parents. How exciting! You can watch the full announcement trailer just above.

Jurassic World Evolution 3 gameplay

Jurassic World Evolution 3 gameplay is set to add s♒ome exciting new features and tools, along with a wealth of customization options that will make building parks and incubating dinosaurs more in-depth and intuiti𝓀ve than ever before.

With a look at some of the ways the third entry is stepping things up from the games that came before it in our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Jurassic World Evolution 3 preview, male dinosaurs and dinosaur breeding is set to bring a whole new layer of gameplay to the experience. Not only will the breeding feature give you greater𒅌 control over the pre-historic friends you'll𓄧 introduce to your parks, but also bring a new family dynamic and young dinosaur behaviors to the management sim.

🍎With an all new 3D viewer in the hatchery - where you can incubate new dinosaurs - you'll have options to change up the patterns and colorꩵing to create and customize the look of your dino-friends. Then, you're able to set down nests in your park.

Not unlike previous games, every dinosaur will have different needs,꧙ and catering to them will increase their comfort level. Provided they are comfortable enough in their environment and you have males and females roaming, they'll make use of the nests to create eggs that will then introduce "juvenile" dinosaurs that get up to their own unique antics in your park.

The juveniles also inherit the traits of their parents, so you can even strategize to try and retain and change certain🐎 traits for the dinos you breed.

The third installment will also include a suite of new creative tools, including the ability to easily manipulate and sculpt the terrain to add the likes of cliffsides, waterfalls, and landscape the environment to create tiers for your park. With the tools created for newcomers and more experienced players alike, new featurꦦes have been added to the creation of buildings and structures.

So, if you're looking to get more creative, you can now customize and change each individual piece of a building - such as walls, ceilings, windows, and more - and change up its angle, scale, and coloring. But if you're looking to just get stuck into the management side of th🤡ings in your park, or you don't particularly enjoy the creative aspect, you can also quickly set down pre-made buildings to get stuck in with ease.

Not unlike games past, you can also expect to put your management skills to the test as you t𒁃ry to build up your own park, ensure you dinosaurs are comfortable, fed, and well looked after, and most importantly, that the fences have a good power source so no aggressive dino🔯s make a break for it and wreak havoc.

And with a more naturalistic approach, you can still place down fences, but this time around, you'll also be able𝔉 to make your enclosures using the terrain manipulation tools to cre𓆉ate surfaces that cut off areas for different dinosaur breeds.

Jurassic World Evolution 2 had a variety of different modes, including a sandbox mode, and a Chaos Theory mode that had various "what if" scenarios tied to the movies. For Jurassic World Evolution 3, the campaign mode is all we know about so far, but we'll keep our eyes peeled for future updates on what else we can expect. For a refresher on the last entry in the series, check out our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Jurassic World Evolution 2 review.

Jurassic World Evolution 3 story and setting

Jurassic World Evolution 3 will feature a core campaign set across the globe, meaning you'll be able to make parks in various locations in Asia, North America, and Europe. With the preview showing off two locations including one in Japan and one in Malta, game director Andy Fletcheꦆr also revealed that the campaign will be non-linear, meaning that you can choose to go to a location and return to any parks you create around the world as you wish.

There will also be a narrative that's set after the event of the Jurassic World Dominion movie, which saw people and dinosaurs striving to live in harmony - check out our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Jurassic World Dominion review for more on that. You'll be working as a member of an organization known as the Dinosaur Integration Network, with Jeff Goldblum narrܫating ꦜas your adviser and guide.

With juveniles and breeding now in the narrative and c♓ore experience, you'll be setting out to ethically conserve habitats and run sustainable breeding programs to maintain the dinosaur presence across 🧸the globe.

Can I pre-order Jurassic World Evolution 3?

Jurassic World Evolution 3 pre-orders are now live across all platforms.

Following the game's announcement, Frontier revea🐼led the upcoming management sim will be released with a Deluxe ($74.99 / £64.99) and Standard Edition ($59.99 / £49.99).

The Deluxe version will include four additional family dinosaur units, including the herbivore Protoceratops, the Guanlong which is a relative of the tyrannosaurs, the Thantatosdrakon that has feathery plumes, and the Concavenator breed that are known for being "aerodynamic hunters". The Deluxe edition will also include bonus scenery and☂ skin items for your parks and dinosaurs.

If you pre-order either edition, you'll also get a pre-order bonus in the shape of a Badlands set, 💟which g🐲ives you a collection of scenery inspired by the digsite in the original Jurassic Park film.

See which Jurassic movies made it in our ranking of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best sci-fi movies of all-time.

Much like the first title, expect to be living a Bug's Life kind of adventure in this new game as you play as a teen who has been shrunk and thrown into a dangerous and now oversized world. With a brand new environment, new creepy crawly species to fight, and a bunch of new exciting systems to keep track of if you hope to stay alive, Grounded 2 already looks as if it has the makings to be one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best survival games of all time.

We've gathered all the latest news about the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming Xbox Series X game, so꧃ you can keep track of all the latest tiny developments. From the Grounded 2 Early Access release date, gameplay, trailer, and m♑ore, we've left no bug-infested stone unturned.

Grounded 2 release date

The good news is that Grounded 2 will be launching into Xbox Game Preview and Steam Early Access on July 29, 2025. This big news was revealed during the recent 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Xbox Games Showcase 2025 as part of🌼 Summer Game Fest, and shocked everyone.

The first Grounded was announced back in 2019, and then went into Earl💯y Access in 2020 before getting a full release in 2022. So far, it's unclear when the sequel will have its full release, but if it follows the pattern of the first game, we are looking at two years. During the Grounded 2 Direct, it was also revealed that a public roadmap will be launching that will based on player feedback.

Grounded 2 platforms

Grounded 2 will be available to play on Xbox Series X and PC once it launches into Early Access. Currently, there is no word on a PS5 or Nintendo release. However, before you start lamenting about owning the wrong console, it's worth keeping in mind that in 2024, the fꦗirst Grounded was released on the Switch, 💖PS4, and PS5.

So, the sequel could follow in its footsteps and make its way to other consoles in the future. Who knows, maybe we'll see it added to our list of澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询: upcoming Switch 2 games as well! For now, though, it's looking to be an 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Xbox exclusive.

Grounded 2 trailer

Grounded 2 story and setting

Grounded 2 is set a few years aft🎃er the events of the first game in the year 1992, and will follow the story of the four original teens who are still✅ missing.

If you're unfamiliar with the story of the first Grounded, basically, you are one of four teens who find themselves mysteriously shrunken down to the size of an insect and trapped in♐ a backyard. As they explore and try to survive the brutal environment of the yard, they discover notes from Dr. Wendell Tully, who invented the machine known as SPAC.R, which can shrink objects and people.

It turns out that you are, in fact, in Dr. Wendell Tully's yard, and so is the SPAC.R. However, thanks to an explosion, the pieces are scattered, and you must find them all to get back to normal. Although on the way, it's discovered that the company Ominent is behind your kidnap🌜ping and has been experimenting on children

So yeah, Grounded 2 has Ominet back in ful🍌l force and up to shady antics once again, it seems. During the Xbox Showcase at Summer Game Fest 2025, we learned that this time around, it seems like the company is back to its old tricks, and it's up to you to survive once aga♊in.

In the Grounded 2 Direct following the Xbox Game Showcase, the development team at Eidos Montreal anꦍd Obsidian Entertaiment also revealed the world of 2 is larger than the first in Brookhollow Park, which has new biomes, from the likes of an icy environment that takes the form of an overturned ice-cream cart that's contents has spilled out, as we𒅌ll as a "spooky" anthill,

Grounded 2 gameplay

Much like its predecessor, Grounded 2 is p♌rimarily a survival game that will have you scavenging a gigantic world for materials, as you loot bug corpses, dive into dungeons, craft shelters,ꦇ and unlock upgrades that turn you into a tiny insect terminator.

Much like the first game, we expect that as you progress the story and battle massive boss bugs, you'll get to unlock technology and eq♊uipment that helps you survive as well as thrive in your shrunken state. Not only will you need to stay alive with all the creepy crawlers after you, but you'll have to manage your hunger and thirst leve📖ls as well.

Stamina also depletes during combat, and a nighttime cycle will make enemies more aggressive, so keep that in mind when you're out and about looking 𒆙for resources. Like the first game, co-op is also a big gameplay feature, giving you the opportunity to play with your mates (or use them as a shield when fighting those giant bugs). The game can be played solo, though, so don't worry, no matter what kind of player you are, you are sorted here.

However, what truly makes Grounded stand out among other titles in the survival genre is its RPG-like quirks. Action is expected to be split up with witty dialogu🐟e from NPCs, and you'll cover tidbits of lore as you make your way through the game and work to survive as a mini-person just trying their best.

During the Grounded 2 Direct, we also learned more about new gameplay features, including the fact that we'll be able to dash this time around, but so can all of the enemies we face - with the reveal that we'll also be facing cockroaches. Excitingly, the upcoming sequel will also feature mounts ꦛknown as buggies that give us a new way to traverse and explore the world, and they'll fight alongside you when you jump off of them.

Can I pre-order Grounded 2?

Sorry, folks, but you can't pre-order Grounded 2 just yet. However, considering how the game is set to release sometime in July into Early Access, that may change soon.

However, you can now wishlist the game on both Steam and the Microsoft Store, so at least that's something! We'll keep you posted as we wait for more updates. In the meantime, you can read our original 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Grounded review to prepare yourself before the sequel hits.

It's exceptionally rare for platform-holders to collaborate with external partners like this. Hardware is treated as serious business. When you're asking players to make a larg𝕴e financial investment, you better get it right the first time; oꦺne wrong move in the console market and it's near impossible to recover.

The Dreamcast decimated SEGA. An ill♈-defined vision crippled the Wii U. It took Sony seven years to regain ground after the PS3 launch debacle. The Xbox One was so poorly received that it inflicted psychic damage on an entire generation of players. Even Valve got a rare reality check with its Steam Machines, forcing the company to eventually refocus i💙ts hardware ambitions towards the Steam Deck.

So, why risk taking a new hardware initiative out of house? Collaboration is, after all, code for relinquishing some amount of control – be it over form-factor, internal components, or user experience. All of this preamble is vital context to say that I think Xbox may have made the right move here. The ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X – the two systems headlining this new initiative, set for release in 2025 – appear to take the best of what Asus already has on the market, matching it with some really interesting refinements and optimizations, to make the system more palatable for a wi🐷der mass market.

Hands-on the Xbox handheld

Let's start 🐲with how the ROG Xbox Ally X felt in my hands. At 715 grams, it's technically heavi🌸er than the Steam Deck (669 grams) and its OLED variant (640 grams), but you wouldn't know it from the way weight has been distributed across the console. I can't say how well the ROG Xbox Ally X will hold up during longer play-sessions, but the hour I spent with the machine didn't raise any immediate red flags.

I'm also a big fan of the ROG Xbox Ally X form-factor, with Xbox having worked closely with Asus on a redesign of the existing ROG Ally X. The console features new contoured handgrips, built to the same design principles that inspired the Xbox Wireless Controller. It's largely comfortable, the ABXY button and asymmetrical thumbstick placement make immediate sense to a brain wired to Xbox's controller r🥃hythms.

Xbox's CVP of gaming devices and ecosystem, Roanne Sones, says this has been done to make the console more accommodating to a wider range of handsizes, although I must admit I did still struggle to comfortably stretch my index fingers across the left and right bumpers. The inclusion of Impulse Triggers into the ROG Xbox Ally X design (these aren't included in the cheaper ROG Xbox Ally) felt fantastic as I was chewing through Locust in the opening stages of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Gears of War: Reloaded.

Speaking of the play experience, it felt exceptionally smooth. The ROG Xbox Ally X is powered by an AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme processor, packs 24GB of RAM, and 1TB๊ of storage. I've always been more a console player then a PC gamer, so I'll admit that the significance of the silicon and components inside of the system is a little lost on me. But I know a good feeling and looking video game when I play one.

Play Anywhere

So while I can't speak 🎀to how more demanding titles will ultimately handle on the system – nor to the experience of Xbox Cloud Gaming or Xbox Remote Play – there was little obvious daylight between playing a first-party Xbox game natively on ROG Xbox Ally X versus playing it on Xbox Series X. The framerate of Gears Reloaded was rocksolid 60fps, with the system supporting 120Hz refresh rate and FreeSync Premium, and the remastered visuals popped🧜 on the 7-inch Full HD (1920 x 1080) screen. I'm genuinely impressed, and can easily see the ROG Xbox Ally X becoming a vital part of my commute.

What's really sold me on the concept of the ROG Xbox Ally systems is the work Microsoft has done to optimize the core user-experience. This isn't merely a standard ROG Ally with an Xbox button punched in above the left thumbstick, the Xbox and Windows divisions have collaborated to create a more refined mobile ecosystem. One of the rea💦sons I've always been a little scared off by PC gaming handhelds ♒like the ROG Ally are that they are exactly that – the standard PC experience scaled down to handheld size. I've always gravitated towards console gaming because I want as few barriers to getting into the games I want to play as possible, optimized for the best possible experience out of the box.

Booting up the ROG Xbox Ally X, rather than hit standard Windows 11 OS screens I'm pushed directly into the Xbox full screen experience. An aggregated gaming library is right there waiting, designed to reflect the look and style of the traditional Xbox ecosystem as it exists across console, mobile, and cloud devices. I say aggregated gaming library because as well as supporting native, cloud, and remote play experiences, the ROG Xbox Ally systems will also give quick access to all of your video games across Xbox, Game Pass, Battle Net,💙 and any other Windows PC-based storefront. It's really clean, it's fast, and features none of the nonsense that I sometimes (fairly or not) associate with playing on PC.

This Xbox full screen experience has been fully optimized for handheld too. Background activity and non-essential tasks in the Windows 11 OS are minimized, routing system resources like the 24GB of memory towards higher framerates and consistent performance. The Xbox button brings up a Game Bar overlay allowing for easy access to apps, chat, and settings, and lets me quickly shift between recently played games. It didn't feel like I was interacting with an existing handheld PC that had been🌞 retrofitted to allow for integrated Xbox functionality, but rather a device that was built to deliver it.

Is it worth it?

I've been wanting an Xbox handheld for years now. In a world where I can access the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Xbox games through everything from the Series X to web browsers, or punch into Game Pass from Smart TVs and Fire Sticks, it didn't make much sense to me that Microsoft didn't have a comprehensive solution for gaming on the go. ෴The inelegant solution up until now had always been to strap my smartphone into something like the꧂ Razer Kishi V2 and pray that the battery life or Wi-Fi connection held. That is about to change.

I always said I'd purchase a Steam Deck once (and only once) an optimized Game Pass experience was available. I was starting to crack on that purchasing decision, the console becoming more attractive the more I've been exposed to them in the world. But the ROG Xbox Ally X has come aroun⭕d just in time. While I'm certainly curious to know what a first-party developed Xbox handheld would look like – to be clear, Xbox staff I've spoken to have made no commitment to such a device in the future – the ROG Xbox Ally X is shaping up to be an exceptionally solid solution. A way to natively pick up my progress of whatever Xbox game I'm playing in any given week, and take it out into the world without having to worry that the experience will be hindered by some invisible force.

The question that will ultimately determine whether the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X are a success, however, is the cost of the thing. Xbox and Asus will not🍃 speak to pricing just yet, and I am worried that the two systems are going to be prohibitively expen🧜sive for the vast majority of players. The existing ROG Ally and ROG Ally X consoles retail at $649.99 and $799.99, respectively. If this pricing structure holds for the ROG Xbox Ally consoles, that would put the two incoming devices as the most expensive pillars of the Xbox hardware family. The Xbox Series X recently increased in price from $499 to $599.

The question then, perhaps, Microsoft will be asking players around Holiday 2025 is just how much they value the idea of having a full Xbox experience with൲ them everywhere📖 they go. With a 512GB Steam Deck OLED priced competitively at $549, and the Nintendo Switch 2 at $449.99, it might be an uncomfortable conversation.

Here's all of the key 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming Xbox games that you'll be able to play on the ROG Xbox Ally X.

While hatcheries are a returning feature, there's a more detailed suite of options to play with this time, with Samarco revealing a variety of different colors and patterns that can be spliced into a dino's DNA to customize their appearance. Plus, thanks to a new integrated 3D dinosaur viewer, you can visualize what they'll look like before you start the incubation process. Not only do I appreciate the level of control this will give us to bring our own ancient scaly friends to life, but I also love the way these customization options can then be pas💛sed down to the next generation when the breeding begins. After settin💖g down nests in the park and ensuring its inhabitants have a high enough comfort level, the first eggs are laid, and it's not long before I'm looking at baby triceratops who've inherited their parents traits and markings.

Breeding answers a longheld wish among the community to at last introduce baby dinosaurs to parks, but it also promises to bring an added layer of depth to the management sim. When I sit down to speak with Fletcher following the preview, it's clear that adding juvenile dinos to the experience is somethin꧋g the team "always wanted" to do: "It's always felt like the next frontier for our dinosaurs really," Fletcher says, "to have them fleshed out as families, as real animals who can breed and create generat🍬ions of themselves, passing down traits, passing down aesthetics, and things like that. Just from a creative management simulation perspective, we thought there was great depth there."

Pre-historic globetrotter

The dinosaur breeding feature also marries perfectly with the key conservationist themes and "global narrative" of Jurassic World Evolution 3. As Fletcher explains, the core campaign – which will be the biggest campaign in the series to date – takes place after the events of the Jurassic World Dominion movie, which saw dinosaurs really start to become a part of our world. As it's set in an era of the "timeline where dinosaurs are 🧸spreading across the globe", as Fletcher put it, we'll be venturing to different locations across East Asia, Europe, and America, as we work for an organization known as the Dinosaur Integration Network.

With the advent of breeding and juveniles, we'll be striving to ethically conserve the habitats we create and foster by running sustainable breeding programs. During the preview, I get to see two locations that make up part of the world map, including a picturesque spot in Japan, and another park in Malta. Both have distinctly different terrains and building styles, and I can already see how this will offer up lots of visual variety when it comes♓ to the parks we can create. For the team at Frontier, designing a campaign that's set across the globe presented them with the opportunity to bring us to new l🔯ocations, but as Fletcher explains, it was also important to ensure every place feels distinctly Jurassic, too.

"Some are very evocative of particular locations or scenes in the movies," Fletcher says. "And we saw a level based around Malta; Malta was obviously a key location in [Jurassic World] Dominion. So [it's about] trying to pick on locations that are evocative for our fans and authentic to Jurassic, but also just have that mixture of new and exciting ones that bring not just new locations, but new architectural styles: East🌜 Asia is a clear example of that."

"We don't want to go too far from the franchise, because authenticity is absolutely king for us. We want it to feel Jurassic, feel true to that universe," Fletcher continues. "You know, you've got Dr Ian Malcolm talking to you throughout the campaign, it's ⛦that kind of thing you need. You need that kind of touchstone to authenticity. But you want it to feel fresh, too. So we wanted to go to places we've not been before, and that global narrative just allowed us to step a bit outside of where the franchise has been."

You read that right: yes, Jeff Goldblum is once again returning to reprise his role as I🍎an Malcolm, who, as Fletcher touched on, will be acting as our guide and adviser throughout the campaign. While Frontier doesn't reveal any other modes we can expect to experience, everything I've seen and heard so far of the main campaign already sounds pretty ambitious in terms of scope, and promises to keep us busy with lots of dino-filled park antics. But what's perhaps most appealing about the campaign for me is the fact that it's taking more of a non-linear approach.

As you progress through the campaign and unlock new locations, attractions, and dinosaurs, you'll be able to return to any areas you've already created parks in and continually keep improving and adding to them. It immediately brings to mind the satisfying progression system baked into Two Po💎int Museum, where I could keep on returning to museums to iterate on them when I unlocked another useful feature or kind of display. Fletcher says the decision to give players this freedom was inspired by the kind of "light metroidvania style" progression of the first Jurassic World Evolution game.

"The first game, we sort of dipped our toe into that. It had five main levels at lau𝐆nch, and that was part of it: you'd go to level three, you'd unlock the monorail technology, and then you could go back to level 🐽two and improve your transport rating. It had that light, sort of metroidvania kind of structure to it. And we just see a lot of potential in that and we wanted to go a bit bigger on this."

"So, the cꦦampaign is bigger than any of our previous campaigns in terms of the number of levels and the scope of i෴t," Fletcher continues, "and I think with that, it just lends itself to that structure, because you've got even more opportunity. You've got more options as a player to jump around, and going back and improving previous parks is one thing, but you just might want a change of scenery. You know, you don't always want to play things in order."

Customization and community

Ultimately, Jurassic World Evolution 3 sounds as if it's setting out to draw from "the best bits from the first two games" while also breathing new life into the experience with a host of fresh features. As someone who's fairly new to the series myself, though, I did wonder how the team was trying to balance bringing in newcomers comfortably, while also catering ౠto longtime fans who are looking for a more in-depth experience. Fletcher says a lot of consideration has gone into both kinds of potential player bases, and I see that first-hand in ꦡthe new creative tools that are going to be introduced.

With an impressive level of customization on display that will be at our fingertips, Frontier's building tools are going to let us be as hands-on as we want when it comes to creating our parks. So, if you're a more advanced player looking to get creative, you can make up each building from scratch if you so wish, with the option to customize each individual piece of its structure – from walls, windows, ceilings, and decals – and adjust their angle, scale, and color to your liking. But for those who aren't particularly fussed about the building aspect, there are prဣe-made structures that you can quickly set down so you can get stuck into the management and dino goodness with ease.

There will also be new terrain manipulation tools that will let you create tiers in the landscape that give you more freedom to create enclosures that are fenced off in natural ways, such as cliff faces or hౠigher ground. Not only that, but you can also now set down waterfalls and add deep water pools that semi-aquatic dinosaurs will actually transition in and out of as they hunt fish. Everything looks incredibly simple to use, with initial paint tools that let you easily set down foliage, mold the land, and change the look of your park.

A lot of player feedback informed the features intro𒐪duced in Jurassic World Evolution 3, with Fletcher saying that "our players always crave more creativ👍e options in the game" and the team wanted to "go really big on that this time, particularly because we want to add sharing options within the game". In order to engage with the community and really celebrate what they can create, the third game will allow you to save blueprints of your buildings and parks that can then be shared on a Frontier Workshop where other players can access your designs and experience your park creations.

"When I worked on Planet Coaster, that was the thing that really startled us when that game came out [player creations]. We knew we h🐎ad a l🌠ot of flexible tools, but I had no idea what people would go on to do with those," Fletcher says. "It was just staggering. So, building those foundations for Jurassic World Evolution 3 [with Frontier Workshop], it's like a whole new platform, really, for the series. It's like the start of that type of community engagement."

"We already have a lot of great streamers and YouTubers who deliver great content for the game, but it's all been a bit kind of offline, as it were," Fletcher adds. "Sharing parks between themselves and the modding community, which is fantastic, but bringing some of that flavor into the core game, so that everyone can enjoy it, everyone can see it, everyone ca🍨n collaborate. Who knows what they're going to make, but I'm super excited to find 🥃out."

With a release date set for October 21, 2025 on PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PS5, we won't have to wait much longer to see what we can do with the tools ourselves. And even though I'm something of a newcomer myself, there's so much that speaks to me, from the chance to bring🐲 baby dinosaurs to life, to the impressive amount of customization, and the many locations we'll get to play around in. I'm already looking forward to seeing what else it will let us do in the Jurassic universe this year.

Look ahead to more exciting future releases in our roundup of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new games for 2025 (and beyond).

Playing the Mistfall Hunter demo at 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Summer Game Fest 2025 is difficult because (sorry everyone!) I play games on controller, and Bellring's only provided my regretta🍎bly inflexible hands with a keyboard. It'll be a while more until Mistfall Hunter receives controller support, and the dark fantasy PvPvE game doesn't even have a release date yet. But, even though I'm struggling to press shift to dodge in a timely manner, I'm having the most fun I've had all day.

Sitting on the couch, with Mistfall Hunter's ♏shades of isolation-gray and exhausted-white reflecting in my face like a sickness, I am shocked by two things: how I am no more proficient with a keyboard than a baby monkey, and by how much I'm🐈 enjoying this unique action-extraction game.

Developer Bellring tells me this in a later interview, but I'm already thinking it as I cut deeper into the dungeons that make up Mistfall Hunter's post-Ragnarök world – this game is Hunt: Showdown and Dark Souls' creepy baby. According to a press release, Mistfall Hunter "takes place after a devastating war between Gods and Outer Gods, leaving divine beings fallen and their blood transforming into the Gyldenmist – spreading ma꧑dness and corruption."

The dungeon that makes up Mistfall Hunter's t🌠utorial is desolate aside from the zombified, dry-as-chicken "Corroded" enemies that stagger around and frighten me with sudden hits from their swords. Soon, I sort of learn what Gyldenmist does like I'm a baby bird getting knocked out of its nest for the first time – with much confusion. After finishing a round of combat (clap for me!) with my brooding seer's interesting ability to summon little, magic-blasting turrets, I notice my character suddenly⭕ looks like he's in psychic pain – thinking about overconsumption, or something.

My reflexes kick in, and I successfully dodge through the encroaching Gyldenmist to reach a safer area past its golden fog. Since I'm pla💛ying alone, in an empty server, I get to keep knocking out Corrod💖ed to pilfer their clothing, crafting items, and consumables.

So it seems like Gyldenmist forces you to keep moving to your final objective – the extraction point. Mistfall Hunter supports up to three-person co-op, and its press release explains that you can either play the way I am, by defeating monsters for loot, or by taking🐓 on enemy players and risking death – which clears out your inventory.

But I live. Eventually, I come upon a funnyꦦ, hairy little silver bell, a monster somewhat didactically named the Returner Woodling. When I kill the poor guy and stuff his head into the dirt, ༺I get to leave Mistfall Hunter.

"Civilization crumbled, but a faint ember of hope remains 𝕴as a shard of the Fate Goddess' soul endures," says the press release. "Wandering the mortal realm, she seeks out fallen heroes and grants them immortal flesh. These resurrected warriors venture into the Gyldenmist-laden ruins [...] striving to ignite a glimmer of hope in this Corrosion Age."

While playing without a controller makes me feel too bumbling to really be The Chosen One, I can at least say I left Mistfall H🧸unter energized. The game's demo is damp and fantastical; it makes me feel like centipedes are crawling over my feet in the forest. It's atmospheric and kind of weird. It seamlessly combines Tarkov-like game loops with Soulslike combat in a way I had never considered before, but that now makes perfect sense to me. So now, all that's left on my to-do list is figuring out a mouse and keyboard.

"Games are meant to be engaging, not exhausting": Lead dev on promising Soulslike RPG pushes balanced difficulty because "if stress keeps piling up without relief, players will eventually want to quit."

With nine games in total officially out now as of the end of Wholesome Direct, we've brouꦇght together a helpful roundup high𝐆lighting all of the different adventures you can tuck into right now that appeared during the show. From venturing through heartwarming journeys to customizing your own cozy spaces and tucking into a cooking-themed roguelike, there's undoubtedly something for everyone. So read on below to rediscover all of the Wholesome Direct 2025 shadow-dropped releases you can play right now.

Fireside Feelings

Platform(s): PC

Developer: Team Empreintes

is all about sharing stories and emotions around the campfire under the stars. With a heartwarming concept, the new lifeꦍ sim lets you create your own cute character, and you'll answer a variety of questions to share your own stories and personal experiences. While there's no direct contact with other players, you can leave your stories for others to discover and listen to their experiences, too.

Designed to give you your own little safe space that you can customize, you'll unlock new environm🐠ents and characters along the way as you take part in shaping collective stories. It sounds like a delightful way to play on the idea of passing on stories around a campfire setting.

Instants

Platform(s): PC, Switch
Developer: Endflame

caಞptures the cherished snapshot moments that chronicle the life of a family, and it's up to you to arrange them and uncover their story. The heartfelt experience strives to be both relaxing and creative, with a combination of puzzle elements and also crafting.

The puzzle comes into play as you try to put the family photos in the correct order within each album, while the creative side lets you decorate and customize the album with different backgrounds, stickers, and typography. You'll also get to unlock more options as you progress, and if you ever find yourself getting stuck, a fluffy little cat can help with some optional assis𒊎tance if you need it.

Camper Van Make it Home

Platform(s): PC
Developer: Malapata Studio

If you enjoy building in 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:games like The Sims or the satisfying organization of Unpacking, is officially here to give you a cozy, creative outlet with similar ingredients. As the name ofꦺ the game gives away, you'll have a camper van that's yours to decorate and customize to your liking, from finding the perfect spot to place down your belongings to changing up the look and design of your van inside and out.

As you sink back into some chill interior design and complete organi𝓀zational puzzles, you'll get to travel to different locations, such as a beach, or a forest, as you set out on what promises to be a "journey of self-discovery". Oh, and there's also a dog companion, just in case you needed any more convincing.

Omelet You Cook

Developer: SchuBox Games
Platform(s): PC (Early Access)

is a tasty looking roguelike that's all about cooking. With a pinch of coziness and a dash of chaos, you'll set out to try and create the perfect omelet by combining a host of ingredients from a conveyor belt an🧸d try to cater to the ever-growing demands of the students and faculty at Midd𝕴lesville Cafeteria – all of whom have their own unique personalities, traits, and tastes.

Eℱach round will bring with it new restrictions, hazards, and score thresholds, and you'll unlock more ingredients as you go. Set to put your culinary cre🧔ativity to the test, Omelet You Cook looks like a riot and draws inspiration from the likes of Balatro and Ballionaire.

Seasonala Cemetery

Developer: Gabby DaReinzo, Kait Tremblay, Jen Costa, Nina Wong, halina heron, Mobeen Fikree, Jacquelin de Leon
Platform(s): PC

is a new free-to-play game out now that lets you step into a "living, breathing cemetery" that's yours to explore. A me🍷ditative experience where you can learn about the history of the city through gravestones, you can also meet𝔍 animals and various NPCs during your visit and collect flowers, pinecones, and more to set by graves.

Featuring ambient sounds recorded in a real-world cemetery, Seasonala is also tuned to the date and time of your PC or Mac – which means that the💫 landscape will change dynamically as the seasons change, so it'll look different depending on when you decide to explore.

Out and About

Developer: Yaldi Games
Platform(s): PC (Playtest)

promises to take us on a nature-filled adventure as you forage for real-life plants. In the town of Portobello which you call home, a storm has just recently hit, and it's up to you to try to rebuild and help out the community by learning 🐷about the plant life in the open-world setting around you.

With over 100 real-life plants and fungi to identify, you'll search for food, cook recipes and herbal remedies, and get to know the town's residents as you all come together as a community. Complete with a customi🍰zable char🃏acter and an inviting setting to explore, Out and About is now available to playtest on PC ahead of its launch, and is also set to release on consoles in 2026.

Squeakross: Home Squeak Home

Developer: Alblune
Platform(s): PC, Switch

Looking for a cheesy puzzle game with lots of decorating goodness? Well, look no further, because quite literally has you complete various cheese-themed puzzles. Each puzzle you cꦿomplete then transforms into a piece of furnitur⭕e that you place down to decorate your rodent abode.

Plus, it boasts a "rodent editor" which allows you to create your very own rodent, customizing their snout, ears, tail, and more so you can bring to life your very own little squeaky fri🗹end. With no time-limit on the puzzles and a hint system if you need help, it strives to be a laid back experience that has oodles of unlockable decorations and accessories to deck out your rodent and their home.

The Guardian of Nature

Developer: Inlusio Interactive
Platform(s): PC, Switch 2, Xbox Series X/S, iOS, Android

is a new puzzle adventure game that's all about our connection to nature. In a rather delightful twist, we'll take on the role of Henry, a guardian of nature who's able to change their size 🅰to interact with the environment in different ways as you set out to save The Tree of Life.

With a book of nature that chronicles your discoveries along the way, you'💯ll also solve puzzles and uncover more about the guardians and their inventions as you explore the land. Described as a "modern-twist on point-and-c🀅lick adventures", the first episode of the game is out now for you to try out.

Vending Dokan! Kozy Kiosk

Developer: Aftabi Games
Platform(s): PC (Early Access)

If you're on the lookout for a new idle game that can run in the background while you🌞 do other things, this one could be for you. is a new idle simulation game that's all about you building up your very own vending machine empire. You'll be able to set down machines in a variety of locations across a city, and customize and design each area to your liking🎀.

You can then hire ꦑto keep things running smoothly by assigning them to repairs, restocking, or cleaning, and make sure their needs are met to keep morale within your work force. De💃signed to be taken at your own pace, you can let your empire grow passively in the background, or be more hands-on when you want to, complete with some soothing music to add to its laid-back vibes.

The new game was first revealed in December 2024 at The Game Awards. We've also already seen an initial trailer, showcasing a combat-focused detective tale set in 1915 that looked set to rival some of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best action games of all time. But this fresh teaser shown during 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Summer Games Fest 2025 Live took us to a much livelier 1943, indicating we’ll get to hop around the early 1900s wജhen we eventually get our hands on it.

Bloody combat, rough territory, and oppressive environments seem to be the bread and butter here. So if fisticuffs, mystery, and Molotov cocktail🃏s call to you, don’t go anywhere. From its alt-history, story tone, and development milestones, here’s what we know about the elusive Stranger Than Heaven so far.

Stranger Than Heaven release date speculation

There is no Stranger Than Heaven release date or window yet.

While there was some hope that a vague indicator might have come after the Summer Games Fest trailers, Yakuza creator RGG didn't provide any hints. This means there's still likely much more work to be done on the neon-soaked, action-heavy title. So, don't expect to see the neo-noir fighting game, which will be published by SEGA, before 2♛026.

Stranger Than Heaven platforms

SEGA and RGG h๊ave not confirmed which platforms thiꦐs noir-soaked game will be available on.

If the Yakuza games are any indication of t💖he plans for this new action-adventure, PlayStation, Xbox, and PC are expected. There are no expectations for a Nintendo Switch 2 release at this point, especially given the graphical heft seen in the teaser trailer. We'll keep you posted as more details head our way!

Stranger Than Heaven trailers

The first look at Project Century, as it was dubbed at the time, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:was part of The Game Awards 2024. The announcement trailer was comprised of pre-alpha footage, meaning the game was in very early sta🔯ges of🥀 development.

Nonetheless, the rain-soaked visage of 1915 Japan in the premiere trailer had a great hook. And with this being the only trailer♊ that takes place in the 1910s, it's fair to say 'Project Century' was a nod at the amount of time the game may cover.

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Summer Games Fest 2025 trailer was much more in-depth, though still holding ca🌱rds to its chest. This title announcement footage showed more melee combat on bustling streets, a different decade for the setting, and hinted at the game's protagonist. The PEGI-18 warning at the beginning also lets us know that the graphic combat and grit of Yakuza are not missing from Stranger Than Heaven.

Stranger Than Heaven story and setting

There are two confirmed settings: 1915 Japan and a glittering metropolis in 1943. The latter is much more colourful and busy, while the former is bleak-loo🌠king and more streamlined. The initial trailer featured a detective wandering around a glib city, and the later footage has drawn comparisons to L.A. Noire — for good reason.

While story details remain unclea꧅r, the Summer Games Fest trailer introduces us (well, sort of) to Mako Daito, a moody detective solving a mystery. Meanwhile, the neon city's inhabitants' hedonism and rowdiness create hurdles. The Yakuza-style drama is ever present, with Mako meeting up with a mysterious American.

During the rendezvous, Mako speaks Japanese. This prompts his cohort to ask him, "What are you, then?" Mako respo🍸nds, "I've been asking myself the same thing." This leads us to believe that this will be an introspective adventure from a character perspective, perhaps with the player figuring out and impacting what kind of man Mako is. While there are loads of questions still to be answered, it at least seems Mako is the protagonist.

RGG has chosen to withhold the ins and outs of the stor🐻y for now, showing off the incredibly fun-looking combat instead. As of right now, we don't know what clues Mako is chasing or what his end-game motivation 🃏is. That's a good thing, according to studio director Masayoshi Yokoyama. During a December 26, 2024, , he confirmed Project Century is within the action-adventure genre but added, "We didn't include any information that would enable people to guess" from the trailer.

The split decades in the trailers and the in-work title Project Century could mean a couple of things. The game may take place across multiple decades across a period 🐷of a century, o✤r it could be flashback-heavy.

Stranger Than Heaven gameplay

Stranger Than Heaven is a third-person action game where the player explores sketchy allies and crowded city streets, running into fists around every corner. The gameplay seen in the title reveal footage showed weighty, grounded comb🌠at with interactive environments.

It's not just fist fighting, either. Molotov cocktails, guns, 🥃and in-world advantages are all at the characters' disposal. Want to throw a guy off a ledge? You're in luck! However, there's a real emphasis on good old boxing here, so if you enjoy minimal weapons in combat, this will be a lot of fun.

Additionally, at the 1:21 timestamp, there's a moment where the player-character holds a threatening fist in the air as he stands above a masked opponent. Two options appear on the screen in this brief reprieve: "Sho🐽w him mercy," or "Show him no mercy." Now, that's something Yakuza games never had. So, it looks like some morality-testing choices will be sprinkled in with the heavy volume of fighting. There are also some survival game and simulation elements, such as hunger and thirst meters.

Can I pre-order Stranger Than Heaven?

You can't pre-order Stranger Than Heaven. Given the game is still in development and no platforms have been released, thereꦗ are no pre-order options available, and there likely won't be until more publishing details have been announced.

On the upside, that means there is plenty of time to catch up on your backlog. Why not check out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best open-world games or the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Yakuza games to fill the ti🌌me? Otherwise, patience is key while we wait ♈to find out exactly what mystery we're going to be chasing in Stranger Than Heaven.

For more exciting releases, be sure to check in with our pages on all the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming PS5 games and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming Switch 2 games still on the way.

IO Interactive has also revealed that they will be hosting a more in-depth showcase during the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Summer Game Fest 2025 schedule, where we'll learn even more about 007 First Light. The story is set outside of established canon, dialling back the clock to show the MI6 agent in, well, a different light compared to the movies and books. Here, it centers on a young, fresh-faced James Bond out of the Navy as he attempts to prove himself to the agency as a 00 candidate. All while dealing with an agent gone rogue, and getting to grips with an arsenal of spy gadgets and very luxurious vintage cars. The gameplay we've seen so far looks incredible, and we're excited that the studio behind some of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best stealth games of a𝔉ll time is having a go at our favorite supe🐈r spy.

James Bond is an institution for a reason, too (check out any one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Bond movies for a reminder of why). It's an exciting combinatio🗹n. Even with 007 First Light potentially a year or more away, we're here to let you know everything there is to know about the exciting new James Bond adventure. Prepare to sip a martini (shaken, obviously), and take in all the 💟latest Project 007 news and updates.

What is 007 First Light?

Project 007 (now called 007 First Light) will be a brand new stealth-action game from the genre masters at IO Interactive – the studio behind the beloved Hitman franchise.

We should keep in mind that "Project 007" was always the working title for this new Bond game. But while the title has now changed, we know that the game's DNA likely won't. has described the upcoming games as "Featuring a wholly original Bond story, players will step into the shoes of the world's favorite Secret Agent to earn their 00 status in the very first James 💮Bond origin story." It includes the developer's talents for stealth shown in Hitman, of course, but dials up the action as well to deliver a classic rip-roaring Bond adventure.

007 First Light release date speculation

007 First Light's release date was recently revealed to be sometime in 2026, meaning we won't be waiting as long as we fir﷽st feared. Or, like Bond earning his '00' status, it won't be long until the start of 007 First Light, but that first release date is just the start of the adventure.

"This is just the beginning of our journey with 007," Hakan Abrak, CEO & co-owner of IO Interactive confirmed during the announcement. It fits with what we've seen from the studio before, as the live tail on Hitman 3 and Hitman: World of Assassination was incredibly important for that game. It seems we may see more like this from 🦩007 First Light. The good news is, it won't be long at all until we can earn the numerals for ourselves.

007 First Light platforms

007 First Light looks set to arrive on all major platforms, with confirmation it'll be arriving on PS5, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC across both Steam and Epic.

Those with an IOI account will ওalso be able to unlock a bonus outfit and weapon skin too, so consider signing up if you haven't al♋ready for Hitman.

007 First Light trailer

The proper reveal at the PlayStation State of Play gives us a nice introduction to 007 First Light's story and its gameplay, but leaves us hungry for more. Beginning with an introduction to James Bond's background as an orphan and how he came to be recruited to the 00 programme where he must earn his codename, it then shows him on a globetrotting adventure across numerous locations. Mixing together quiet and loud moments, there's snea♍ky stealth through guarded locations, and thrilling set pieces.

007 First Light story and setting

IO Interactive's take on James Bond distances itself from the movies in one key way – it's an origin story for the super spy centering on a young Bond.

The story itself sees him earning his stripes, or, well, numbers. Orphaned when his parents save his life in a mountain climbing accident when he was 11, he managed to persevere to survive the climb down. Throughout multiple boarding schools and the👍 Navy he always butted heads with authority, yet his superiors "praised his instincts". Sound familiar?

When something happens in Iceland during his Navy career, it puts him on the radar for MI6, though his superiors there don't know whether they sꦑhould take a risk on him or not. He's given the chance, however, meaning he'll be on a mission to prove himself as part of the 00 programme. He's a young Bond here, but make no mistake, he's not a child like in those spin-off novels that are actually called 'Young Bond'. He's just a fresh-faced spy ready for some action.

009 is described as a "master manipulator" in the trailer, so the plot may revolve around a rogue agent, perhaps nodding towards the role of 006 in GoldenEye. Other than that, we've seen that Bond will travel to many colorful locations, similar to IO Interactive's Hitman series, and will encounter many similar beats to most Bond movies, incl♔uding a super villain trap above a bunch of crocodiles.

007 First Light gameplay

We've only received a glimpse of 007 First Light gameplay from IO Interactive, via a truly thrilling introductory trailer at the recent 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:PlayStation State of Play. The easy answer to what 𝕴you'll be doing in 007 First Light from a gameplay perspective is j💧ust about anything you can imagine Bond doing in a movie.

This version of James Bond may be young, as the story sees him earning his iconic numerals, but he still ha🌠s all the spy tricks you've come to know from the movies. There's gunplay, hand-to-hand combat, and gadgets aplenty. Expect oodles of stealth too considering the developers made Hitman after all, with Bond able to sneak through dangerous areas and use some kind of spy scanner, pickpocket guards, and take them out quietly.

Another sequence has him on a cat-and-mouse hunt thr🌱ough a 👍nightclub that visually feels very Hitman 3. And yes, there will be car chases, and at least one cutscenes shows the young Bond dangling above some deadly crocs. Ah, villains. Emphasis is being placed on the options for players to go in loud or quiet as they please.

The studio's CEO, Hakan Abran, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:says that IO is building "the ultimate spycraft fantasy." It's expected that Project 007 will build on the incredible work the studio has done around its Hitman: World of Assassination trilogy, with chief development officer Veronique Lallier telling GamesRadar+ that working🍒 on James Bond is "so close to our DNA that it just feels seamless."

We know that IO is drawing in a lot of industry talent to get this new James Bond game off the ground, including a The Division and Avatar: ✤Frontiers of Pandora lead to help "design the most amazing Bond missions." 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Lallier adds: "If you look at what we've done in the past with Hitman, 007 feels organic. For us because we've done, you know, stories about agents doing things. So that 𝓀makes complete sense. That just feels like, this is normal and natural, you know, it's part of our DNA to create an amazing story about action."

Which Bond are we playing as in 007 First Light?

No, this young version of James Bond isn't based on an actual actor who has portrayed 007 on screen.

CEO and co-owner of developer IO Interactive, Hakan Abrak, spoke with about their unique take on the Bond we'll be playing as in 007 First Light. 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Instead of being based on any of the act▨ors who have played the role through the years, Abrak revealed the team has instead made their own "digital Bond": "we have been allowed to make our own digital Bond, whic🌸h will not lean on a Bond actor."

In an interview with back in April, Abrak also revealed that Project 007 will 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:draw ins🍎piration fr💛om the entire Bond franchise toꦆ deliver an original story: "Every Bond kind of defines a generation and it's amazing how they keep reinventing themselves over so many years. So, we're not only inspired by one movie, or games and whatnot. We're inspired by the whole thing, and just sucking things into us to make an original Bond, an original story, but that is absolutely true and recognizable in the values there is in Bond."

Here are some of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best action games to loot and shoot your way through while we wait for 007's next outing.

From an exciting new life sim with a horror-esque twist on the classic 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Stardew Valley formula, to an incredibly zen looking new atmospheric adventure from the art director of Journey and many more, Day of the Devs brought lots of indie game goodness to the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Summer Game Fest Schedule for 2025, and once again proved to be one of the highlights of the big announcement season. Let's just say that after this showcase, I've added a lot of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new games to my wish👍list, and you should absolutely do🌃 the same.

Toem 2

Developer: Something We Made
Platform(s): PC

Toem was easily one of my favorite games of 2021, so I'm naturally over the moon that we're getting a sequel – which made a delightful appearance during the Day of the Devs showcase. Set a few years after the first game, is once again going to take us on a photography-filled adventure where we can snap pictures of all sorts of critters and curios🌊itiᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚes.

This time around, though, we'll be able to play around with new camera tools that we get from friends we meet and complete questlines for. These tools let us interact with the world in new ways, from using a hammer to smash things, or a scissor to c🌜ut o🎐ur way through obstacles or solve puzzles. Complete with a new movement system that will let us climb and traverse in fresh ways, it looks every bit as charming as the first game. Put me behind the viewfinder right now.

Snap and Grab

Developer: No Goblin

Platform(s): PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S

As a huge fan of the pop culture of the era, anything set in the 'ꦇ80s is going to be right up my street, which is why I instantly clicked with the concept behind Snap and Grab. "High fashion glamor and high ticket crime" paints a picture of what's🌊 in store in this heist-filled romp, which sees you take on the role of the "world's greatest photographer" who takes snapshots in a variety of settings to try and hone in on valuable items to steal.

Then, you use your trusty camera to capture potent๊ial obstacles, before using the photos to map a step-by-step plan to carry out the perfect crime. As well as looking downright stylish, I love the unique camera-fueled hijinks Snap and Grab promises. I'm ready to rewind the clock and step back into the decade of shoulder pads, neon-colors, and synthesizers to see what I can pinch in early 2026.

Mixtape

Developer: Beethoven and Dinosaur
Platform(s): PC, Xbox Series X/S (Xbox Game Pass), PS5

I absolutely adored the toe-tapping goodness and quirky sci-fi weirdness of Artful Escape (check out our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Artful Escape review for more on th𒆙at), which is why I'm already jazzed for developer Beethoven and Dinosaurs next game, . With another look at the new coming-of-age adventure that follows three friends who in the words of developer Johnny Galvatron, "spend their last night together listening to a perfectly curated soundtrack", I can see myself falling into its rhythm when it releases sometime this year.

Described as a musical retrospective, we'll explore memories that mash up mechanics, eras, and art styles, the soundtrack is stocked up with a host of rad bands and artists – from the likes of Devo and Joy Di꧟vision to Smashing Pumpkins, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and Iggy Po൩p. I'm totally getting my cassette player ready for this one (even if you won't actually need one to play it).

Sword of the Sea

Developer: Giant Squid
Platform(s): PC, PS5

From the art director of Journey and Flower, Matt Nava, and developer Giant Squid – the studio behind Abzu and The Pathless – comes a new atmospheric adventure that'꧙s absolutely calling to me. With movement that's inspired by old snowboarding games and the Tony Hawk series, aims to tap into the meditative flow of surfing as we restore life to a lost ocean on the back of a Hoversword.

Whether it be gliding ov𒅌er water surfaces, careening off ledges, or sliding across walls, sweeping across the surreal landscapes promises to send me right into a flow-state. Topped off with an art style and vibe that smacks of the studio's signature DNA, and music from Austin Wintory, you better believe I'm going to be on board when its release rolls around on August 19, 202🐠5.

Neverway

Developer: Coldblood Inc
Platform(s): PC

I'm not one for horror, wh💖ich is why my desire to play comes as a personal surprise, but I love the way it riffs on the classic farming sim trope of leaving a dead-end job and escaping to a farm, only to become… indebted as the immortal herald of a dead god? Talk about a꧒ dark turn. With time progressing in three blocks - morning, afternoon, and evening - you can choose when you advance to set your own pace.

From fishing to farming and cooking it looks set to feature all of the ingredients I love to play around with in a life sim that's finished up with helpings of combat, mystery, and spookiness. Plus, you can also form friendships with those you meet and even develop romantic relationships if you wish, and that couldn't speak to me more. As a big fan of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:games like Stardew Valley, I can't remember the last time I added a new life sim to my wishlist so quickly (with the exception of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Witchbrook).

Snap and Grab

Developer: No Goblin

Platform(s): PC, Xbox Series X/S, PS5

Set in the '80s, Snap and Grab sees you take on the role of the "world's greatest photographer" as you go about trying to find high ticket items to steal in various l💮ocations. As you take snap shots of an area, you'll also capture any poten🥂tial obstacles in your path, or people that might cause problems for you, and then you'll use the photos you take to plan out the perfect heist to swipe the goods.

Infused with a neon-tinted style that's indicative of that era, Snap and Grab looks like a stylish crime caper that will test your ability to plot out your way to desirable loot. The photography element promises to bring a unique twist that will no doubt make each theft a little mo𝓡re personal to you. With big hair and equally big ideas, No Goblin also revealed the new adventure is currently slated to land sometime in 2026.

Blighted

Developer: Drinkbox Studios
Platform(s): PC, Xbox Series X/S, PS5

Blighted is a new "hardcore" metroidvania action RPG from the creators behind the ♊beat-em-up platformer, Guacamelee. With a debut trailer showcased during Day of the Devs, we got our very f👍irst look at the mysterious world Blighted will be throwing us into, which is described as a "psychedelic western nightmare" with its own unique lore. In the world, it's said that those who die were buried with seeds planted in their brains that then blossom into trees.

The fruit these trees bare contain memories of the dead and pass down traditions froꦫm generation to generation. But everything changes when a figure known as Sorcisto eats the raw brains of the deceased ♉and defiles the village you call home. As the lone survivor, it's up to you to fight back and try to reclaim the memories of your people. Playable solo or in online co-op with a pal, it also features a "dynamic difficulty system" that changes both you, your enemies, and the world around you.

Escape Academy 2: Back to School

Developer: Coin Crew Games
Platform(s): PC

Coin Crew Games is back with a sequel to its escape room-shaped adventure in Escape Academy 2. Showing off a reveal trailer during Day of the Devs, the development team also explained that it drew inspiration from the likes of Animal Well and𒁏 The Legend of Zelda to shape the follow-up. While the first game focused on the escape room puzzles for the most part, Escape Academy 2 drew from player feedback to bring to life a new experience that plays out like a highschool RPG.

You'll once again be venturing to the academy, but this time, you'll attend classes and get stuck into character-driven questlines. You'll of course still get stuck in rooms and have to puzzle your way out, but you'll be able to explore a lot more. With plenty of environmental storytelling to discover it promises to really let you role-play as a student. There's currently no release just yet, but the devs also reveal🃏ed you can currently sign up to take part in playtests on Coin Crew Games Discord channel.

Please, Watch This Artwork

Developer: Studio Waterzooi

Platform(s): PC

From the developer behind the laid-back puzzle game Please, Touch This Artwork – which saw you recreate abstract paintings – Please, Watch this Artwork is a new experience that has you playing with paintings in a new way. As the name of the game gives away, you'll be watching o🦂ver real paintings as you take on the night shift at the Museum of Animated Modern Art. Inspired by the paintings of Edward Hopper and the feelings of urban isolation and loneliness they evoke, the artworks you watch come alive and it's up to you to report any anomalies y🅰ou see.

While it was stressed during the Day of the Devs showcase that 🌳you won't have to worry about any jump-scares, there is a melancholic vibe and it's said that it can make you paranoid as you try to root out any strangeness you see in the paintings. Featuring six themed galleries with 40 paintings and three difficulty settings, the "psychological spot the difference" looks set to offer up a unique liminal experience.

Pocket Boss

Developer: Langfilm
Platform(s): PC

Pocket Boss is a new short game from developer Langfilm that's all about the "small joys of manipulating data". Taking on the role of someone who handles data for a living, you'll speak with your boss through a chat interface and receive various differ🃏ent requests as you progress. Using a finger swipe, you'll navigate around the stock market and try to oust competitors.

But things do take a curious turn when, as we saw in the showc🐻ase, the charts start to come to life. Said to explore the "secret life of charts", it looks like a creative experience with some puzzle-like elements that will play around with different types of charts and data. I also love the idea of having a boss in your pocket through the phone-like chat interface. It sounds like a very unique concept, and I'm certainly curious to see🔥 where the data tampering will lead us.

Relooted

Developer: Nyamakop

Platform(s): PC, Xbox Series X/S

Relooted is a new action puzzle game with an important real-world message at its core. Following a group from South Africa who have a hideout based in Johannesburg, you'll help to carry out heist🥀s to take back artifacts that were taken out of South Africa. As the developers explained during the Day of the Devs showcase, these artifacts are very much real and are bei🐻ng held in storage, or in museums in other countries.

Within the game, you'll learn about these artifacts and where they are currently in the real-world as you go about trying to "reclaim Africa's heritage". With different missions and lots of characters toไ meet, the new game from developer Nyamakop looks set to take us on a meaningful journey as we set out trying to bring the African artifacts home.

Tire Boy

Developer: GameTeam6
Platform(s): PC

Tire Boy is a new open-world action-adventure platformer from developer GameTeam6 that sees you take on the ജrole of a "tire person" or Tire Boy - think a tire with arms and legs. Promising to take us on a journey filled with exploration and discovery, the story of the game is all about connection and curiosity as you try to꧅ uncover Tire Boy's past and learn about his origins as the last of his kind in an unfamiliar world.

As you try to root out his history, you'll go about helping the locals, solving environmental puzzles, and defending yourself against various foes with their own unique fighting styles. Striving to capture the feel of being a kid again in a vast world full of wonder and weirdness, every location plays around with proportions to make you feel s🅰mall. With a colorful cast of characters and an absurd concept, it looks like🌌 one very whimsical new adventure.

Previously announced games

Outside of the new reveals, Day of the Devs also gave us a closer look at some previously announced indie games set to come our way in the future. You can find a full list of the rest of the games that made appearance ju🐠st below:

• - the new co-operative multiplayer adventure from Untitled Goose Game developer, House House
• - a life sim RPG about the trails of being a teenager from developers Jenny Jiao Hsia, AP Thomson, Jie En Lee, Violet W-P, and Ken "coda" Snyder
• - a narrative turn-based RPG from Thirsty Suitors developer Outerloop games
• - a new action beat-em-up game that sees you fight against a deadly threat as various Marvel heroes from Tribute Games
• - a new narrative adventure that plays out like a musical retrospective from The Artful Escape developer, Beethoven and Dinosaur
• - Digital Sun's shopkeeping roguelike RPG sequel that sees you play a double life as a merchant and adventurer
• - a new life sim with a horror twist from developer Coldblood
• - a classic indie RPG that inspired the likes of Undertale's Toby Fox from developer Mortis Ghost
• - Hyper Light Drifter developer Heart Machine's new action-adventure platformer
• - a new rhythm roguelike from the original developers behind Patapon
• - a new atmospheric adventure that sees you surf on a sword from developer Giant Squid Studios
• - a photography adventure from developer Something We Made that's a direct sequel to 2021's Toem
• - A new PvPvE multiplayer stealth game set in the 1910s from Warren Spector and developer OtherSide Entertainment

This game has been a long time coming. 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Resident Evil Village released four years ago in 2021, and after a fairly flat announcement that Resident Evil 9 would be coming "soon" last year, fans of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best survival horror game franchise ever had all but lost hope – until 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:we finally got a glimpse of Capcom's chilling next chapter. There are still so many questions to be answered about the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming horror game. How does Grace fit into the story so far? Where on the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Resident Evil timeline does Requiem take place, given all the snapshots of a decimated Raccoon City shown in the trailer? Most importantly, is this really the end of the Winters family saga - and is Leon really not going to show up?

We'll have to wait and see, but if you're as hyped for Resident Evil 9 as I am, here's everything we kno🐭w about Requiem so far - including its 2026 release date.

Resident Evil Requiem release date

The Resident Evil Requiem release date has been set for February 27, 2026.

The news came as part of the official game reveal 🥂at Summer Game Fest 2025, where Capcom finally gave us a first look at Grace Ashcroft's journey. There's no sign of pre-orders yet ei♈ther, but check back soon as we keep learning more about the mysterious new Resi game.

Resident Evil Requiem platforms

According to the official Capcom website, Resident Evil Requiem will launch on PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC platforms in February 2026.

It's a bummer for anyone still ro🏅cking a past-gen console, but I can't lie - it's looking pretty special in the RE Engine, and all that juicy raytracing will likely make all the difference in a🍨 horror franchise like this.

Resident Evil Requiem trailer

The first Resident Evil Requiem trailer shown at Summer Game Fest introduces us to Grace Ashcroft, the confirmed daughter of Resident Evil Outbreak File 1 and 2 protagonist Alyssa Ashcroft. She appears to be💖 working as an FBI agent in the wake of a virus outbreak that is sweeping the continent - which should have every Resi fan's skin tingling - as she's urged to face her past.

A series of flashback stills play out as Grace struggles to compose herself, interspersed🔯 with shots of a decimated Raccoon City following the events of Resident Evil 2 and 3, before she suddenly finds herself strapped to a gurney and screaming for help. Then, a man sits with his back to Grace, telling her that she's the one he's been looking for - "the special one." Talk about chilling.

The story is still nebulous at best, judging from this trailer, but it's the perfect way to whet our appetites for "a heart-stopping experience that will chill you to your cor🐼🍸e" according to the .

Resident Evil Requiem story and setting

It looks like Resident Evil Requiem is bringing us back to the series roots: the Raccoon 🌃City disaster. Grace Ashcroft is our protagonist, the daughter (or other relation, presumedly) of Alyssa Ashcroft from the Re𒀰sident Evil Outbreak games on PS2. It seems Grace will have to delve back into her own dark past to confront personal demons, specifically regarding her mother's death at the Wrenwood Hotel eight years earlier, though what the gameplay itself might look like is yet to be seen.

We don't know much about the story just yet, save that Grace certainly has a lot of trauma to unpack. There are also suggestions that we might have some kind of split timeline in Resident Evil Requiem, given all the shots of Raccoon City interspersed with indoor locations that certainly don't look nuked, as well as various voices referring to an ongoing catastrophℱe. In short, these conversations sound what the initial survivors of the Raccoon City Disaster might have discussed as they grappled with the unravelling events.

At this early stage, though, that's about all the RE9 speculation we can go on. Paired with Capcom's dedication to technological advancements, we're told to expect "a story with rich characters and gameplay that's more immersive than ever before." Some eagle-eyed fans have managed to spot 澳洲🧸幸运🥃5开奖号码历史查询:Requiem references in Resident Evil 7, so whatever's coming our way on February 27, RE9 has clearly been thought out for a longꦓ time now.

With the help of a special new weapon type added in the DLC, slicing and shooting my way through Kr⭕at City Zoo has been a cathartic blast. Sure, there's the threat of a certain "Puppeteer of Death" looming overhead, but it seems I have some time (and plenty of mutant elephants) to kill before I jump that hurdle. Overture presents an opportunity to take a break from the puppet plague, and it comes at precisely the right time.

A real boy's journey

The tension has peaked by the time I꧑ gain access to the DLC. Upon returning to Hotel Krat in Chapter 9 of the base game and finding Gepetto kidnapped, our puppet protagonist receives a new mission: to take down big boss Simon Manus, rescue his father, and put an end to the Alchemists once and for all.

Here, I can choose to either head to the boss battle to finish the main story, or dive straight into the DLC by repairing and using the Hotel Krat stargazer. A prompt appears when I open the fas🔯t travel menu, urging me to head to the Path of the Pilgrim stargazer in the Malum district, and away I go.

Some might find it strange to heaᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚd into a prequel before even finishing the main story. But the way I see it, Overture gives players a chance to grind out some more ergo in preparation for the final showdown without having to re-clear zones. Plus, thanks to the introduction of difficulty levels, I can bump myself way down to Butterfly's Guidance – the sꦯo-called "very easy" difficulty – to help re-familiarize myself after nearly two years away from Lies of P. I'll be straight up with you, though: very easy mode is still plenty challenging.

After a short cutscene, P wakes up in a snowy field. Gemini the cric𒁏ket is notably startled, commenting that he hasn't seen snow "since…."

He trails off. As ꦆI explore my new surroundings, it becomes clear that this place really is familiar to my cricket pal. Between despatching large, wolflike beasts emanating clouds of Freeze damage – a new status effect in Lies of P: Overture – and hostile, near zomboid human foes throwing themselves at me in a frenzy, Gemini marvels at Krat City Zoo in the distance. He knows for a fact that the zoo was destroyeಌd before the events of the story so far – which is my first true hint that, somehow, we've managed to go back in time.

Pulling the strings

Before I can even process what that means, I'm presented with a mini boss. This mutated brute was probably once some kind of wolf – or maybe a large primate? – but it looks more like an Umbrella Corporation experiment from the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Resident Evil timeline now.

My Lies of P combat skil♒ls are immediately put to the test as t✅he thing launches itself at me. I've already equipped all of my fire-based throwables and forged a fiery new weapon especially for the DLC, but having to learn a brand new moveset is a different beast entirely (pun intended).

For once, my rustiness at puppet-slaying is a godsend. I can see tওhe need for approach code-switching being pretty jarring to anyone coming into the DLC straight off the back of the base game𓃲, given how differently these animals move compared to humanoid puppets. But thanks to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, my parry game is strong these days. Two tries and a LOT of thermite later, I claim victory

The zoo's main building is deserted once I finally reach it, my💝 only welcome being a large, partially-destroyed double staircase bisecting the wood-paneled walls. Paintings adorn them in various states of vandalism, each depicting a strange creature from a far off place. Somewhere in the distance, a human moans in pain. Pinocchio to the rescue!

After listening as "Marchiona, Puppeteer of Death" ominously introduces herself over the crackling intercom system – a ܫproblem for another time, no doubt – I quickly scale the intact staircase. More those ganado-like human foes await, loping about the landing before hurtling toward me with an earsplitting shriek. But in my rush to clear the building, I almost miss the source of the pained moaning from earlier.

Just beyond the stairs, a man sits slumped against a balcony bannister, unmoving. An interact button appears when I approach him, and I'm surprised to find he's still alive. The man pleads with me to find a woman at the Savanna Expedition Center – "a stalker with red hair" – before he chokes on his last breath. I mentally file away the clue before heading back into the main building – and that's when things really get interesting.

Don't nock it 'til you try it

Getting a bow in Lies of P is something I didn't know I needed so badly. The limited array of ranged weaponry was a bit of a sticking point for me in 2023, with only throwables and certain mechanical arms being up to the task when I wrote up my 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Lies of P review. But now, I can't ꦯimagine pr♎essing ahead without it.

Of course, my first bow-kill is a bit of an exploit🗹. I bait a huge, pustule-ridden mutant elephant up a set of stairs by accident, panicking as I realize he hasn't lost interest. Dashing through a narrow stone a🅘wning that leads out onto a patio turned out to be more than a knee-jerk fight-or-flight response when, seeing that the elephant is still charging at me despite being stuck on the other side, I decide to get some target practice in.

The damage stats on the thing are pretty low, I note, but the bow comes with the same baᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚsic functionality as any other weaꦑpon: a light attack, heavy attack, and two Fable Arts specials. It can even block and parry damage, though if I'm using a bow, I'll hopefully be far enough away from an enemy to avoid being hit anyway.

Once comfortable with the controls, I finally put the giant beast to rest. It still takes a lot of chipping away, even on easy mode – most humanoid enemies are felled in maximum two strikes with my saber-dancer sword combo, but I lose count of how many this utter damage sponge soaks up before finally going down.

After a bit of an ergo boost back at the Hotel, I tell myself – because yes, you can jump between timelines through any stargazer while playing Overture – I know the bow will be my new go-to.

I don't know how Neowiz did it, but Lies of P: Overture managed to calm me down from the main game's chaos. Sending arrows flying into mutated elephants, bears, and a particularly nasty kangaroo feels immensely satisfying after spending so long clearing Krat of steampunk nightmare machines. Not only that, it offers players a moment to take a break from the main story's drama to gain a little context as to how it all came to pass in the first place.

This is a DLC that does everything a DLC should: make meaningful changes, tell a thrilling new story, and get its playerbase hyped for a grand return. Just promise me you'll stock up on fire weapons beforehand. Lots of fire weapons.

Lies of P: Overture is out now to play on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, and last-gen consoles. Check out all the other 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new games set to follow in in 2025 and beyond!

Though developer Team Clout has kept its debut body horror close to its chest, the studio has resurfaced at Summer Game Fest 2025 with a new trailer and news that it's now working with Mundfish Powerhouse – a newly-launched♐ creative label from Atomic Heart's Mundfish – to bring Ill to life. "Before this, we had more questions than answers," Max Verehin, creative director at Team Clout, tells GamesRadar+. "With Mundfish we still have a lot of questions, but now we have people with answers."

Looking grim

There's a weightiness to everything we've seen from Ill so far. The protagonist's revolver looks powerful enough to take your arm off when it fires, while the game's monsters move with a shuddering awfulness. While Ill's research base setting and body horror leanings scream The Thing, I'm also rem🐻inded of Half-Life 2's infamous level We Don't Go To Ravenholm 💮– which, despite being very combat-heavy, leans on its physics and environmental interactivity to create desperate reactivity.

"We love Half-Life 2, and we love games of that era," says Verehin, when I point out the similarities. "You remember when games around Half-Life 2, they all had thi💜s Havoc engine? You shoot a bunch of barrels and they all fly by? We're trying to make that in Ill as well, because we like it. You enter a room and start fighting with the monster. The monster drops dead on the barrels, the barrels drop, and it's a mess. After the fight, the area you fought in is completely different. You feel the world is alive."

Verehin admits the team is being "really careful" with balancing the randomness associated with more malleable physics. Too much is a recipe for jank and bugs – as anyone who's been killed by a wayward chair in Half-Life will attest to – but with restraint, with shelves rattling and objects falling over because something is over there, ♛the sweet spot is found. "You feel the weight of the revolver, of the animations. It's one of the concepts that we are trying to bring from the earliest ideas of Ill toward the final product. You will feel how brutal and impactful the game [is], and we are pushing that."

Outside of Half-Life 2 – which s✅hares Ill's "Eastern Bloc [...] Mixed with sci-fi elements" setting – Verehin's own inspiration comes from his own tastes and digging into what other people find scary. "When browsing TikTok, there's a lot of inspiration in that," he explains. "You can see fucked up stuff that gives you ideas for the monster [...] You see something that doesn't have to be scary, and you don't expect it to be scary. I'm leaning into that and trying to translate it into monster design."

While many of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best horror games struggle to keep thoไse sc♕ares when you can fight back against their baddies, Team Clout plans to lean right into it. Combat is front-and-center in Ill, although getting the pacing has still proven a "huge" challenge for the studio. Besides it being action-heavy, players will have an "arsenal" of guns to fight back with – although for the sake of fear factor, they won't be able to kill everything in sight.

"We want to [include] the survival horror element, the classic PT-like horror genre where you don't have a weapon, you're just a victim," says Verehin. Certain sections of Ill will prevent players from fighting back, and even when you can go trigger-happy, Verehin circles back around to maximizing fear through sound. "Eve♐n if you have guns, [what if] there is nobody around? You can't kill them, but you can hear them. You can see fucked up stuff that you cannot kill, but it can kill you."

"It's [a balancing act], but this is definitely a challenge," explains Ve𒈔rehin. "You cannot ma🥀ke a pure horror experience when players have guns."

Ill doesn't fit as neatly into one box as, say, something inspired by Resident Evil's survival horror or𒁃 Silent Hill's psychological tension. If anything, Verehin suggests it's an "action horror" more🅠 in line with "'90s horror movies" than anything else. But ultimately, Verehin believes horror players know what they like – however their tastes are categorized. "People are really eager to have another good fucking horror game," he suggests. "We are trying to deliver that."

Ill is planned to launch on PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PS5 at an unspecified time. Meanwhile, our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new games 2025 list has everything you need to plan out your year

In its earliest days, prospective fans were enamored with its Soviet BioShock-esque premise, with one combat trailer alone racking up nearly eight million views. Anticipation was sky-high by launch, yet its reception in 2023 was ultimately more polarizing – we scored it 2.5 in our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Atomic Heart review. That didn't stop the game ൩from becoming a commercial success for first-time developer Mundfish, though, and just last week Atomic Heart passed the 10 million player mark.

Just over two years after launching its debut game, Mundfish has returned to announce Atomic Heart 2 at Summer Game Fest 2025. The developer also has a multiplayer spin-off in the works, so to catch up on everything the studio has been working toward, we caught up w𓃲ith Mundfish founder and CEO Robཧert Bagratuni to chat via translator.

Back in the USSR

With the first Atomic Heart sitting at a Metacritic score of 70, Bagratuni says Atomic Heart 2 will carry lessons forward from the development of its predecessor. Rather than pointing to 💛any one issue, though, Bagr🤪atuni says the heft of these improvements

"We started playtesting about one year before the launch, but we froze about six months before the launch," says Bagratuni. "Six months before launch, we couldn't really change the game. I saw certain challenges and things we could have done differently – for examplꦕe the first dungeon [we could] make it more simple for the player to pass and get into the open world a bit faster. [But] it was impossible t🙈o change."

Bagratuni suggests that "global circumstances also affected scores" at launch (the company faced backlash for its alleged ties to Russia), but when asked if that will affect the studio's run-🍬up to Atomic Heart 2, insists Mundfish's focus will be on telling the story it star🅘ted in the first game. "We were always building a story about technology, and how it affects and changes the modern world" he explains. "This has always been the vision [...] The story itself resonates very well with the audience, no matter what is happening around it, so I think right now we're just concentrating on the story."

Atomic Heart 2's story will be a continuation of the game and its post-launch DLC, and build upon the sa༒me dystopian technological themes.. "It's not just like a 40 minute Black Mirror segment," says Bagratuni. "It's going to be a huge world with lots of digitalization, and even though it's sci-fi, it's an imaginary world but it's very believable."

BioShocked

Besides the story, protagonist P-3's Polymer Glove – which grants powers ranging from telekinesis to electricity attacks – will also return, with players now able to use both hands at the same time. The change brings Ato✱mic Heart 2 closer in line to the Plasmid abilities of BioShock, which the first game was compared to heavily before its launch. Yet despite similarities between the Polymer Glove and Plasmids, and even the retrofuturistic societ🔥al collapses portrayed in both games, it was a "big surprise" when players compared Atomic Heart to Irrational's seminal shooter.

"When we were creating Atomic Heart, we were not thinking of BioShock, believe it or not," explains Bagratuni, who says the team only learned about the similarities through comments oꦓn the game's first trailer. The CEO adds that the Polymer Glove was created in response to expectations from starved BioShock🌟 players. "We actually added that when we realized that if we weren't going to be added, people would be really disappointed. This was something they were now expecting from us."

With those expectations proving difficult for Mundfish to match in 2023, Atomic Heart 2 pre💙sumably benefits from being more of a known quantity. Though we'll have to wait a little longer to see how it shapes up, there's one last bit of good news for fans – Atomic Heart 2 isn't the only game in development at Mundfish.

The Cube

You know what they said about buses: wait for one long enough, and two will come at once. The same principle app✅lies to Atomic Heart fans, who are not only getting a sequel, but a multiplayer spin-off called The Cube. An MMO RPG shooter set after the events of Atomic Heart's fourth DLC, The Cube will stick players down on – you guessed it – a giant floating cube m♐ade up of rotating rows. The setting is so big it has its own biomes, while deep inside is an "equation" that humanity's survival hinges upon.

It is, admittedly, a deeply weird premise. The idea came 🐎to Bagratuni while he was sketching during a "very boring, very long call" between Mundfish's co-founders, and within two hours of hanging ൩up, the team had brainstormed the game's core concept.

Yet multiplayer shooters are a difficult nut to crack right now. Sony's attempt to wade into the genre, 2024's Concord, resulted in the game being 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:shuttered within two weeks of launch. Earlier this year, EA cancelled yet another shooter in the works at Respawn. It's not a recent problem, either, with Sega pulling the plug on extraction shooter Hyenas in 2023. 𝐆When asked how The Cube will fare differently, Bagratuni emphasizes the game's "exploration, character development, and storytelling" – factors that are usually prioritized more in single-player games.

"The Cube is spinning, and while it's spinning, the biomes ꦐare changing," says Bagratuni, pointing to the game's unique setting. "They start to connect, and you start getting into very different situations. You meet different creatures – some of them you can communicate with, some of them you can't. You start exploring where they live, how they live, their habitat, and so on."

The ever-changing setting sounds as complicated as it seems, and as we get more into the tech side of things, Bagratuni becomes increasingly animated. "It's an incredibly📖 complex, complicated challenge. We had to write our own physics [with] the ballistics system. We had to rewrite the gravitation system and engine."

"We had to optimize the renders in order for it to actually work," he laughs. "This is art!"

Bagratuni describes the behind-the-scenes workings as a "technological breakthrough,"▨ and claims that "for the first time in the historཧy of computer games, so many objects can rotate in real-time, online [and] simultaneously". He points to the launch of Crysis in 2007, which he describes as an "epitome of technological revolution" in gaming: "I definitely draw inspiration from what it meant back then."

That, Bagဣratuni stresses, is why he thinks The Cube will succeed. While I can't speak to the game in action, having only seen some (admittedly very pretty) screenshots, the confidence is certainly there. The premise, as strange as it sounds, is incredibly intriguing. With both The Cube and Atomic Heart 2 on the horizon,🍸 the future is looking busy for Mundfish – and although only time will tell how either game shapes up, it already feels like Mundfish is trusting more in its own vision than anyone else's.

If you're looking for something to play now, our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best games 2025 list pulls together everything we've been loving so far this year