Although Adam Scott's most recent contribution to pop culture is his excellent turn as grieving widower Mark Scout and his cheery workplace counterpart Mark S. in sci-fi thriller Severance, he's best known for his comedy work.

His resume includes playing former child mayor Ben in sitcom Parks and Recreations and movies like Step Brothers or Hot Tub Time Machine 2, but now he turns his sights to horror in creepy new flick Hokum. He plays an author who travels to Ireland to spread his parents' ashes, but realizes the place he's staying in might be haunted. This isn't Scott's first foray into the supernatural, either, and it got us wondering – what is it that makes comic actors and filmmakers cross the line into horror? Scott isn't the only one, and plenty of A-listers who cut their teeth on laughs have turned to screams as their careers progressed.

Both genres are built on tension, pay-off, and audience reactions, so they're not as dissimilar as they might appear on the surface. So, in light of Hokum's release, we've picked out five other horror flicks with comedy stars involved, whether that's in front of or behind the camera.

Obsession

Hokum isn't the only new horror release with a comedy star at the helm. Director Curry Barker made a name for himself doing sketch comedy on YouTube, but his sophomore feature follows a man who bites off more than he can chew when he wishes for his childhood crush to fall in love with him.

That's not the only comedy link, either – Andy Richter, best known for his work with Conan O'Brien, also has a supporting role in the film. You'll have to wait a little longer to find out how things go down in this one, though, as Obsession doesn't hit theaters until May 15.

Together

Dave Franco and Alison Brie are best known for their work in comedies like 21 Jump Street and Community, but their comic chops translate perfectly to outlandish body horror Together. The IRL married couple play Tim and Millie, two 30-somethings in a stagnant relationship who find themselves drawn closer together (literally) by mysterious forces lurking outside their new rural home.

"My first foray into being more physical did start with physical comedy, and then I realized how much I love involving my body in my work and I've basically just amped it up ever since," Brie told GamesRadar+. "In comedy and horror, there's no place for vanity."

The Blackcoat's Daughter

Sure, you've seen Longlegs, but have you seen Osgood Perkins' directorial debut? Despite being descended from Psycho star Anthony Perkins, 2015's The Blackcoat's Daughter was his first foray into the genre after starting his career in comedy with roles in Legally Blonde and Not Another Teen Movie.

Starring scream queens Emma Roberts and Kiernan Shipka, The Blackcoat's Daughter follows a troubled woman as she travels to an isolated school where two students are stranded and facing a sinister and mysterious force.

Barbarian

This is a similar deal to The Blackcoat's Daughter – you've almost definitely seen Weapons already, but did you catch Zach Cregger's directorial debut when it hit theaters back in 2022? Like Perkins, this was Cregger's first foray into horror after co-writing and co-directing the 2009 sex comedy Miss March with Trevor Moore, a fellow member of the comedy troupe The Whitest Kids U' Know.

In Barbarian, Tess checks into an Airbnb the night before a job interview in a new city only to find that the property has been double booked. Her fellow guest turns out to be the least of her troubles, however, when she uncovers some horrifying secrets in the basement of the house.

I Saw the TV Glow

This one is another supporting turn. Jane Schoenbrun's heart-rending psychological horror I Saw the TV Glow also has a sense of humor, which comes in the form of a final act Conner O'Malley jumpscare. The film follows Justice Smith's Owen, an isolated and scared kid as he journeys through life and tries to come to terms with his queerness and gender through his favorite TV show, The Pink Opaque, and his best friend Maddy. When Maddy disappears and just as suddenly reappears, several years later, Owen is left to question everything he knows to be true.

As the movie progresses into Owen's adulthood, he finds work at a family arcade, where his boss Dave is played by O'Malley. He's known for his satirical, surreal comedy, in which he often plays aggressive, outlandish characters. It's a shock to the senses in I Saw the TV Glow's final act, but one that works incredibly well.

Hokum is out now in theaters. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

Rust. Subnautica. Project Zomboid. For years, the best survival games have been defined by their difficulty. Scarce materials, unforgiving combat, and a commitment to realism have drawn players to these immersive experiences, intent on testing their skills in the most challenging environments.

Windrose, however, eschews this trend. It offers numerous shortcuts to players who don't want to spend hours mining ore and chopping wood. It removes staple survival mechanics to create a more relaxed gameplay loop. Even the PvE combat against Blackbeard's AI-controlled frigates is simplistic compared to most pirate games, let alone Windrose's survival contemporaries. But players have flocked to the game, proving that smooth sailing is an enticing way into the survival genre for players too intimidated to try more hardcore offerings, or too burned out from unforgiving PvP servers elsewhere.

A pirate's life

You can see Windrose's forgiving mechanics from the moment you wash up on a desert island. You craft your first tools and notice that they don't degrade with use. Your inventory isn't limited by weight. When you come to build your first shelter, you can select a pre-fabricated building instead of architecting your own. You quickly realize that this survival romp is more Jack Sparrow than Edward Low.

Instead of complaining that the survival features are half-baked, however, fans are revelling in the relaxed pace. Weapon degradation in survival games has always been as divisive as it is immersive, but the other quality-of-life upgrades are not so universally derided. Windrose makes immersion walk the plank for the sake of comfort, and players are happily taking the plunge.

This comfort is baked into Windrose, and a lot of it is defined by its approach to combat. You're not hoarding resources and building a great battleship to take on other players, your only foe is Blackbeard and his AI fleet. If there was any sense of competition between players, they would attempt to min-max, they would optimise every item and mechanic to the nth degree. In this situation, shortcuts and time-savers would feel out of place, cheating almost.

But when you're priming yourself to face an NPC boss with your friends, you think about this differently. There's less tension in each combat encounter as the stakes are far lower, so you don't mind skipping the hard grind to reach your full piratical potential as quickly as possible.

Captain Hook(ed)

Speaking of combat, this is an area that's far cozier than I expected. You can control every element of your ship from the comfort of the steering wheel. There’s no raising of sails or bailing out water. Fire the cannons? Just tap your triggers or mouse buttons. It’s arcade-style naval combat without the exhilarating chaos of Sea of Thieves; mechanically simplistic but loads of fun. It surprises me that a survival game doesn’t go all-in on realism, but clearly players are ready for a refreshing bout of brain-off action.

Combat is a little more difficult on dry ground – you don’t have rows of cannons at your disposal to broadside a boar – but there are no consequences to losing. It's practically impossible to lose your loot, as it stays in Dark Souls-style treasure chests where your captain dropped dead under the beak of a particularly vicious dodo. However, in a very un-Dark Souls manner, this never de-spawns. No matter how many times you die, you can go and collect up all your little treasure chests, provided you can escape the victorious enemy that slew you last time around.

Most survival games have an inverse difficulty curve because the endgame involves player-on-player warfare. It’s really difficult to scavenge for resources at the beginning, but by the time you’re assaulting enemy bases, you’ve got enough water to fill a swimming pool and more ammo stockpiled than most armed forces. Windrose has a different endgame in mind, one that will remain shrouded in secrecy throughout early access, but I'm already loving the direction it's headed.

Making a good pirate game should be as easy as plundering a mile-wide chest with ‘free loot’ written on it; pirates are cool and, on the whole, underserved by the medium. Windrose succeeds in creating the fun, and the survival-lite experience suggests that the difficulty will kick in farther down the line – I suspect that Blackbeard will be the least of our worries by the endgame. From krakens to island-sized undead crabs, I dread to think what this game has in store. Whatever monstrosity it might be, I’m ready to raise the skull and crossbones and make it walk the plank.

Is it a pirate's life for you? Check out everything you need to know about Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced.

Breaking into a trading card game like Disney Lorcana can be one of the hardest things about it. Forget deck color combinations, advanced mechanics, or the competitive scene; just knowing where to start is probably the biggest hurdle.

I've been playing and reporting on the best card games for a long time now, and Disney Lorcana is near the top of my favorites list (it's beaten only by Magic: The Gathering in my eyes). That means I've been where you are now – struggling to work out how to start a collection, or begin playing. Here's what really helped me navigate the Disney-based trading card game.

All of the above aside, I'd also highly recommend grabbing the Disney Lorcana app for your phone. This lets you track the cards you have and allows you to make test decks in-app, so it's a great way of getting stuck in without the hassle of wrangling all your real-life cards.

Anyway, hopefully that helps. Lorcana is a great game that keeps going from strength to strength, so it's well worth sinking your teeth into. See you out there, Illumineers!

• See all Disney Lorcana at Amazon

Looking for something else to play? Don't miss the best board games or the best tabletop RPGs.

"We're dealing with a young Bond here. Bond, who, together with the player, will take his first steps into the world of espionage and spycraft," Rasmus Poulsen, the 007 First Light franchise art director tells me. We're talking about the game's name, but also the opening titles sequence itself, recently revealed to go alongside a title track by Lana Del Ray. It's a killer sequence, and one that helps it to stand proudly among a strong tradition of the series' iconic movie opening credits.

"This guy [young Bond] has certainly had darkness in his life – his parents perishing, among other things. But, he hasn't yet seen the full shadow side of what being an agent means. As such, he's just venturing forth and taking his first steps into the larger world. Therefore, the title: First Light. And what do you have when you have light? You have shadow," he says.

"[That's] the core foundation of the concept of the intro sequence. It's really a play on the title, the interplay between exciting action and drama, as well as the darkness that is also contained within the franchise." It's a strong theme in more ways than one – emblematic of a James Bond who, like the player, is learning, playful, and able to creatively find solutions to problems, whether that's smooth-talking, bluffing, or the old-fashioned one-two punch to knock thugs flying.

Timeless quality

Even though James Bond is one of the biggest media licenses in the world, it wasn't simple for developer IO Interactive, known for the Hitman series, to arrive at the confident clear tone shown off by the 007 First Light title sequence. James Bond's adventures are so all-encompassing, so varied and gigantic, that adaptation, especially one that's a fresh take for the gaming world, requires a lot of choices.

"Working with a big, established IP, the major differentiator compared to doing something new is that, since everything is established already, you are riffing on known themes. If you're not riffing on them, you are certainly playing with them," says Poulsen. Making your own thing, like Hitman, allows you to be more completely in control, he tells me. "Here, it's more of a communication of a known subject from a style point of view. Of course, we have looked at 60+ years of Bond media, and analyzed and deducted what we felt was core to that."

Bond has been gritty. Bond has been silly. Set across the '60s, to the modern day. "If I only had one word to choose, it'd be 'timeless'. That's really central," says Poulsen when I ask about the approach to fitting 007 First Light within the series' broad approach to tone. "Beyond that, we have credibility, of course. Because, it is the real world. [Those things] buy you this sense suspension of disbelief for the audience, which allows us to go on the adventure we're really there for. If it's founded in credibility and it has this timeless cool about it, then when things kick off and it gets wild – it can get a little more extravagant than what would otherwise be in the real world. Those two forces, hold hands."

007 First Light, after all, is an adventure where we've seen massive explosions, and fights in cargo planes spiral into having Bond skydiving through falling debris and taking refuge on falling trucks.

But, it's also one where in my own 007 First Light hands-on I spend a few moments of quiet contemplation pouring a stiff drink at Bond's Kensington flat-share, before fighting off an assassin in a lengthy, Quantum of Solace-style fist-fight one-on-one – unusual only in how action video games, compared to movies, often have you dropping tens of enemies without thinking about it.

Nathan Drake's kill sprees are notable for how little you do notice them. It's interesting to see this Bond take down opponents in stealth non-lethally, keep his weapon holstered until enemies have clear intent to kill, and have the stamina to survive some lengthy brawls.

"That's a great point. Physicality is something we talk a lot about during production, because otherwise games can be a little distant. It can feel a little bit like you're manipulating the world through far away events. Then, at the same time, everything gets so grand that it's entire cities and planets crumbling and whatnot, right?" says Poulsen.

"For us, it's important that every encounter feels crunchy and dangerous, and that there's a sense of physicality and body in these moments. As well as having simpler set pieces, like cement counterweights on a crane [that] feel dangerous and heavy. It's not entire buildings, but it does weigh a ton, you know? It's about lifting the otherwise mundane into the action realm by putting effort and attention into the little things."

007 First Light launches on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S on 27 May – with Nintendo Switch 2 to follow.

Dive into our best game stories list for more adventures!

Even as a massive Tove Jansson fan and seasoned cozy gamer, I'm not exactly the typical audience for Moomintroll: Winter's Warmth, thanks to one small quirk of mine: I hate winter. For over a decade I've been mocked by the snippy virtual breezes and crunchy cartoony snow in cozy games, and the idea of playing a title purely set in a chilly landscape sends a shiver down my spine in more ways than one. However, Moomintroll: Winter's Warmth has done the impossible. It made me enjoy and look differently at the cursed season.

Winter is a staple in most modern cozy titles, especially those with year-long cycles as part of their gameplay loop. However, playing the best farming games like Stardew Valley for 10 plus years, I've found every title's take on winter is annoyingly limited and disruptive. In Stardew Valley, farming is essentially pointless, and in the likes of Animal Crossing New Horizons, the snow makes decorating annoying as your island looks vastly different when green. While Moomintroll: Winter's Warmth is a cozy narrative game and not a life sim, it's one I'd still generally avoid thanks to my hatred of its titular season. But I love Moomin, and as I began playing it, I was soon hooked with a story that I could oddly relate to. One featuring a fellow winter hater on an internal journey of emotional growth.

A dark start

If you aren't familiar with Tove Jansson's work, the Moomins are the main stars in a series of novels and comics. They are a family of fantastical trolls that share a striking resemblance with cute hippopotamuses that live in the idyllic Moomin Valley. And, a key point to remember here is that they hibernate every winter (oh, how I envy them). Moomintroll: Winter's Warmth, adapts Jansson's 1957 novel Moominland Midwinter into a calming puzzle adventure game, where Moomintroll (the son of the Moomin family) has woken up from his hibernation early and has to deal with the unforgiving cold and being alone for the first time in his life.

From the moment Moomintroll wakes up, the tone of the game is much darker than the first title developed by Hyper Games a few years ago, Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley. Unlike the start of Snufkin's journey, which began with a leisurely stroll before he started to notice the environmental changes caused by the construction of new parks, Moomintroll's adventure begins with him wandering around his home alone to discover the source of a strange noise. And, when we venture outside for the first time, the weather is shown to be dangerous, and there is even a critical health concern straight off the bat.

Moomintroll's first introduction to the season, who he personifies as The Lady of Cold, is a vicious one, which makes him determined to bring back Spring and put a stop to winter as quickly as he possibly can. See? Relatable. After the slightly traumatic opening and the wise words of his friend Too-Ticky, players have to help Moomintroll prepare for the Great Winter Bonfire, which we are told will aid his winter eradication goal. Much like Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley, you'll have to solve environmental puzzles to progress the story, and will also encounter other notable characters from the Moomin franchise along the way.

By solving your friends' issues, you'll also unlock a series of tools that let you explore new sections of the map, such as mittens to create snowballs in order to knock down icicles, or a shovel to clear paths buried in snow. Each of the tools is simple but very satisfying to use, and honestly, I probably should have known that this game would challenge my seasonal prejudices with how much fun I found snowball fights with Little My, or clearing away paths just for the satisfaction of it all.

A kindred spirit

However, what really makes Moomintroll: Winter's Warmth is its wholesome, intimate story. Each of Moomintroll's friends has a personal issue, which the game's writing expertly interweaves with exploration or fetch-quest tasks that Moomintroll must embark on to help them overcome it. While each character has a unique issue, by the end of the story, they all have grown, overcoming their own fears, anxiety and misconceptions in some kind of way.

Fillyjonk is made to realize that playing outside sometimes is good for her children, Misable accepts that people do want her around despite a devastating letter that her sister wrote suggesting otherwise; and the delusional dog Sorry-oo finally finds a pack that will accept him. In typical Moomin fashion, I was left smiling with most of these interactions and was subsequently caught up in Moomintroll's own internal growth as well. The more I ventured outside and played in the snow, the more I started to see its charm.

The game's art style is downright breathtaking, and the depictions of winter feel straight out of a storybook. The wind is harsh, blocking certain paths at times, and you can slip down ledges when you aren't paying attention, but everything still sparkles through it all. As Moomintroll works tirelessly to stop The Lady of the Cold, you can't help but notice the season's beauty, and thanks to satisfying exploration mechanics that employ clear progression signposting as well as limited backtracking, the tools you unlock and use to do so also show that it can be surprisingly fun.

Moomintroll slowly realizes that he can't stop nature, and that the season he once hated has its own charms. And, after the six hours it took me to complete Moomintroll: Winter's Warmth, I had to admit that it caused me to have a similar experience.

Seasonal thoughts

Now, I will say that despite the fact that Moomintroll: Winter's Warmth never made me feel tired of seeing snow like other cozy games historically have, I do still prefer Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley out of the two games. But this, surprisingly, isn't due to Snuffkin's spring setting. Moomintroll: Winter's Warmth is a much more introspective kind of story that also uses its winter setting to show how alone Moomintroll first feels waking up by himself. Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley has more tangible adversaries requiring more direct action, such as sneaking through parks in stealth sections. Moomintroll, on the other hand, is working against the elements. I simply find the former a more engaging gameplay experience. However, Moomintroll: Winter's Warmth did still affect me deeply.

Winter doesn't feel like a chore in this game, nor a boring backdrop. The gameplay mechanics don't ask you to stressfully manage any systems in order to survive; they simply ask you to work with the cold environment around you to move forward, both physically and emotionally. I can happily say that out of the hundreds of cozy games that I've played in my life, this is the first one that didn't leave me missing the sun. Instead, I foresee a few more playthroughs as I work to 100% it, working with The Lady of the Cold as opposed to plotting her demise.

If you are after more cozy games, head on over to our list of the best relaxing games to play today. Or for more releases, you can read our round-up of all the new games on the way.

Konrad Tomaszkiewicz wants The Blood of Dawnwalker to be the "Holy Grail" of role-playing games. A layered experience that "moves a video game closer to the pen and paper RPGs" that he grew up playing – that inspired him to move into game design, where he has helped to bring shape to iconic adventures such as The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Cyberpunk 2077 during his time at CD Projekt RED.

Tomaszkiewicz is now heading up Rebel Wolves as its CEO and game director. The independent studio was founded in 2022 by former CDPR veterans looking to break free of the AAA model, and is now home to over 150 creators who hail from Capcom, Epic, Guerrilla, Lionhead, Techland, and beyond. Together, this group is applying the final layers of polish to The Blood of Dawnwalker ahead of its PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X release on September 3, 2026.

GamesRadar+ flew out to Rebel Wolves' headquarters in Warsaw, Poland, to get a behind-the-scenes look at this upcoming RPG. What we found was something quite unexpected, an open-world adventure that is putting player agency – your ability to truly roleplay within a virtual world – above everything else. "We strive to have emotional and engaging stories, with characters that you'll love and hate, within our narrative sandbox – all while we maximize player choice within the environment," says creative director Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz.

The result is this labyrinthian experience, where every choice you make has a consequence that ripples outwards – often in ways that are difficult to anticipate. The Blood of Dawnwalker runs on an internal clock, with meaningful decisions pushing the worldstate forward one action at a time. And as day transitions to night, so too will you – Coen exists as a human by day and vampire by night, one state driven by curiosity the other by power. How you reckon with this dichotomy is at the heart of Dawnwalker's action.

Join us daily for this GamesRadar+ Special Edition that explores what The Blood of Dawnwalker says about the Future of RPGs. You'll hear more from the Tomaszkiewicz brothers on their approach to RPG design; lead quest designer Rafal Jankowski reflects on the openness of Dawnwalker's systems; environment artist Adam Payet touches on the challenges of sculpting such a reactive world; and plenty more voices from the studio will join us to help you dive deeper into the game.

Join us daily between April 28 - May 3 to explore the Future of RPGs with GamesRadar+

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The Blood of Dawnwalker welcomes you to a world of distractions. The second that Coen steps beyond the threshold of an old wooden cabin and out into the wilds of Vale Sangora, the advice offered by his father just moments before is soon forgotten: "Go, and don't dawdle." In the small village of Laslea, nestled beneath towering Carpathian Mountains, everybody wants a piece of your time.

Your siblings ask you to waste the day away fishing by a lake. Gathering soldiers push past you, ignoring the pleas of villages to hunt for a thief. A butcher asks you to locate a wayward pig, an acquaintance wants help locating a friend who may have gone missing in a mineshaft. Oh, and don't forget: your father wants you to obtain medicinal herbs for your ailing mother ahead of the coming blood mass. Another character beckons you over from a distant treeline.

Each demand of your time (and plenty more besides) hold equal importance in the questlog. You can pursue all of them to some extent, and in any order. However, there aren't enough hours in the day to complete them all. Time is your most precious commodity – a finite resource that must be spent, that can never be reclaimed. In The Blood of Dawnwalker, stories can resolve because of you, without you, and around you. Characters live because of your actions; die because of inaction. How you spend your time has consequences that always ripple outward, and in ways that are difficult to anticipate.

Fear the Dawn

The Blood of Dawnwalker is the debut video game from Rebel Wolves, a studio founded by former CDPR veterans who helped shape RPG classics like Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3. On its surface, The Blood of Dawnwalker draws easy comparisons to Wild Hunt. Each stars a lone hero who ventures out into a medieval open world, battling supernatural threats with drawn swords and inhuman abilities. Look a little closer though, and you'll find that Dawnwalker is a deeply experimental project that is threatening to redefine what it means to role-play.

How you choose to spend the day in Laslea is your business, but just know that every choice made will have some sort of consequence in The Blood of Dawnwalker's narrative sandbox. While you are free to wander the world to your heart's content, almost every meaningful action you undertake costs time. That could be something as simple as leveling Coen up, as incidental as pushing a questline forward, or as consequential as bringing a storyline to a close. The day and night is divided into eight segments which are constantly tracked in the top corner of the screen, with decisions made consuming portions of the allotted time and pushing the worldstate forward.

Rebel Wolves has been fairly forthcoming throughout the development of The Blood of Dawnwalker, showing hours of early gameplay footage to the public over the last 15 months – cycling through the same location from different perspectives in an effort to convey the scale of its sandbox, and the malleability of its stories. The transparency should be lauded, even if the approach hasn't always been successful. It's been difficult to grasp whether a promising concept had any real potential to deliver.

Seeing an abridged version of the opening prologue, which will consume around four hours of your real-world time depending on your approach, has put The Blood of Dawnwalker into a new light. The opening section of this RPG is self-contained; you have a full in-game day to explore the village, finding different things to do until sundown. Once day transitions to night, the valley's citizens are summoned to submit a measure of blood as taxation to an ancient race of vampires. The vrakhiri exchange longer-lasting life for this act of subservience, although (naturally) not everybody is onboard.

What I find so interesting about The Blood of Dawnwalker running on an internal clock is that it's difficult to truly anticipate how the status of quests may shift around you. Critically, there are no failstates in the game – stories simply resolve, and the world continues on. That NPC who tumbled into a mineshaft? It'll cost two segments of time to venture in after him, but if you leave it too long they may already be beyond saving. Perhaps you delve straight into the depths, but what then of the pig that is being tracked by roving packs of wild wolves? Get so distracted that you forget to pick up those herbs for your mother? Well, I wouldn't want to spoil the consequence of that action.

Narrative Sandbox

Within the confines of the prologue area, it's easier to grasp how Rebel Wolves is building its narrative sandbox. The Blood of Dawnwalker appears to have an exceptionally compelling game loop running beneath its lush Unreal Engine 5-powered exterior.

What's a little staggering is how this loop of choice and consequence will present itself once you're freed of the constraints of Laslea. With the prologue complete, The Blood of Dawnwalker will thrust you out into the wider open-world, a sprawling region known as Vale Sangora. Rebel Wolves tried to express the lengths it has gone to breathe authenticity into its 14th century medieval setting and, honestly, it all sounds a little dizzying. What is clear to me is that the prospect of planning hours carefully, and deciding where to invest your time, being mindful of the way the world may react to whatever priorities you set, could have the power to set a new benchmark for the RPG genre.

A smart decision by Rebel Wolves sees almost every single quest presented as an optional engagement. Even the main overarching story – having just 30 days and 30 nights to save your family, kidnapped by vrakhiri lord Brencis – can be ignored. Fail to save your kin, the world continues on in the aftermath of that decision. Or you could choose to immediately storm the castle gates where they are being held once you're let loose in Vale Sangora, a nice nod to one of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild's neatest narrative frames.

Not that you'll have much luck facing Brencis or the other vampire lords who rule over different regions of the map in the earliest hours of this adventure. If there's any one area that has come on leaps and bounds since The Blood of Dawnwalker was last shown to the public, it's combat. In previous demos I always thought Coen's movement looked a little stiff when engaged in swordplay by day, his attacks a little flaccid when facing off against foes with claws and strikes by night. Rebel Wolves is in the process of applying final polish to the game ahead of its release on September 3, 2026, and there's been a massive improvement to visual fidelity, animation, artificial intelligence of enemies, and general fluidity.

When analyzing The Blood of Dawnwalker and the massive ambitions of its 150 strong development team at Rebel Wolves, the focus is invariably put on the ambition of its narrative sandbox. There is another element worth exploring, that of its unique character framing: Coen exists between two worlds, that of a human and a vrakhiri – the titular dawnwalker. After Brencis plunges a fang into Coen's heart (this is how folks are turned into vampires in the lore, rather than through traditional bites), he gains some of the power of the vrakhiri but is saved from full transformation due to silver poisoning after a childhood spent excavating local mines.

This means that Coen is able to wield unnatural strength at night, and use abilities such as Shadow Step to navigate the world itself in interesting ways, while being a little exposed during the day, utilizing powers of deduction and swordplay to survive in the waking hours. That day/night cycle brings another layer of complexity to this RPG, so too does combat systems built around careful movement – a tidy blend of the cinematic edge afforded through the Batman: Arkham series and the more precise strike placements found in titles like For Honor and Kingdom Come: Deliverance. A skill tree with three main branches (each complete with its own passive and active abilities) will allow you to further specialize between day and night proficiencies, giving even more scope to the sort of character you want to build.

All told, The Blood of Dawnwalker is on track to be one of the most ambitious RPGs of the generation. The creative concept that sits at its heart is compelling, powered by a desire at Rebel Wolves to build a video game which brings the improvisational carnage of pen-and-paper RPGs to a more virtual setting. We'll know soon enough whether Dawnwalker can land as expected, and whether the decision to build a quest system around detours and delays, fragile connections and missed opportunities, is compelling enough to power an entire adventure.

Saros is putting so much pressure on my controller's right-trigger that it will likely turn into diamond before the credits roll. Surviving in this sci-fi shooter demands dividing your attention between dodging bullets, flinging them back, and hoping you don't back-pedal off a ledge. Yet – fitting to developer Housemarque's cosmic horror leanings – I can't resist sneaking glances at the forbidden knowledge that the planet of Carcosa teases in my peripheral.

Pillars of stone-carved hands reach for eclipsed heavens, while silver gates gleam incongruously in ancient alien ruins. Below, mineshafts carved by would-be colonizers sprawl into futuristic vaults. What does it all mean? Your guess is as good as mine – I'm only a few bosses into Saros at time of writing – but Carcosa feels skeletal yet still autophagic; devouring itself to excess.

With the back-to-back release of Returnal and now Saros, Housemarque has become one of the greatest modern storytellers in cosmic horror and weird fiction. Combined with its knack for compulsive arcade action and using looping roguelike conventions as narrative tools, few AAA studios seem as comfortable in their own skin as this PlayStation-owned developer.

Hoping to get a clearer sense of Housemarque's eclectic identity, I caught up with Saros' creative director Gregory Louden and art director Simone Silvestri. Certain shared influences go some way toward explaining the studio's arcade-arcademia formula – the works of H.P. Lovecraft and esoteric short story collection The King in Yellow were particular inspirations for Saros – but in truth, Housemarque's biggest inspiration is… Housemarque.

The Silver Key

Saros carries everything from Returnal but the name. Both games task the player with exploring a hostile alien planet, sidestepping bulbous neon bullets and steadily finding better gear before dying and starting another run anew. Both are roguelike-Metroidvanias, and while these conventions are remarkably fun as standalone elements, they're also used smartly to drip-feed gripping existential stories.

For most developers, making such a fluid continuation in Saros would warrant simpler signposting – IE 'Returnal 2' – but I get the sense that Housemarque prefers the freedom to play around with past ideas without boxing itself in. In doing so, the studio has honed its identity with each iteration – something Louden touches upon while explaining where Housemarque's signature weirdness comes from.

"The number one reference for Housemarque games are other Housemarque games. That was true of Returnal – when I joined, our biggest reference was Nex Machina. And it's true of people I've introduced to Saros, our biggest reference is Returnal. So there is almost this self-perpetuating reverence of our past, to really want to stay true to our DNA.

"The other thing is, we like to be bold," Louden continues. "In a lot of ways, we try to do something the Housemarque way. When I was the narrative director and the cinematic director on Returnal, as much as we love other games, we wanted to do it our way. We wanted to do a game where characters are discovered, not told. We wanted to have rules like 'play, don't show'. We love big cinematics and have them in Returnal and Saros, but they're always about reward. We want you to play a lot of it. This ethos that we follow is to try to create something really bold and exciting for players to get lost in, [with] this sort of reverence for what we've done. That way we stay true to our past, but we're also innovating and bold and trying to stand out in the future as well."

For Silvestri, who joined Housemarque after Returnal, the studio's interest in cosmic horror is the reason he joined Housemarque. "It's the last real frontier of human curiosity, right?"

In that regard, Saros doesn't disappoint. The game's story follows search efforts for a lost colony on Carcosa, a planet covered in the ruins of an ancient civilization and wracked by supernatural eclipses which corrupt life on the surface.

"When I started and Greg told me about the eclipse, I was like 'Yeah, we're going to cook with this one,'" recalls Silvestri. Heading into Returnal's follow-up, Housemarque wanted to recapture the same atmosphere, but couldn't "repeat the same tricks" – which meant no repeating color palette and taking a "much bolder" approach, for starters. Yet across all disciplines, both Silvestri and Louden say, there was a drive to not just meet that challenge but exceed it at an individual level.

"One thing I always say about art in Housemarque is that we live on the fringe," says Silvestri. "We have this spectrum of minimalistic to extreme, and we always tend to go towards the extreme side. One of our pillars was called radical escalation, which means whenever you're in doubt, go for maximum impact. Then, when you put the eclipse on, go [for] even more. We always try to find the maximum expression of the concept that we have. If it doesn't work, can we make it more extreme? And if you can't, then it means it's probably not the right thing in the game. But usually there's many more levels to go.

"I think our artists are so comfortable in this space, which is very unique to us, and it's very inspired by the narrative that we have," he adds. "The kind of stories that we tell are very old and different and rare – I would say fringe as well – and to me, that's really precious. It means I can give my best. And I have partners in gameplay and narrative who want to be as weird as I want to be. That's a legit term that we use!"

At a mechanical layer, Louden carried forward lessons learned from Returnal to ensure Saros could be enjoyed by more players without making compromises. A good example is in the game's opening run, which plunges you into the deep end against a boss you're unlikely to survive. Saros gets into the action far quicker – a delight for returning fans with itchy trigger-fingers – but compensates with the option to earn permanent upgrades at your hub. These upgrades take some time to feel powerful, with more dramatic boons locked to higher tiers of an unlock tree, but create a net for struggling players to still take something from dying.

"We wanted to allow more people to experience this game," says Louden. "And for people that haven't played a Housemarque game, this is a great one to start with."

Not-so tattered mantle

Indeed, 'come back stronger' is more than just Saros' tagline. It's been a "vision statement" for the team throughout development, Louden stresses, and I see it in action every time I'm stuck – each death offering a chance to grow, or less generously, callusing my head as I bang it repeatedly against the same boss fight.

It's a smart evolution of Returnal's own spin on the roguelike loop, which slowly eked out its mysterious story with each run. Saros is similarly well-paced, both as a story and roguelike. Upgrades and new areas unfurl often enough to keep the game fresh, while its story makes each run feel like coming back for another bite of a baited hook. It's the product of "iteration and a lot of playtesting," says Louden, who feels the result makes Saros hard to categorize as a roguelike. "As much as we love the genre, we almost feel like we're creating our own voice," he adds. "The only game that's quite similar is Returnal."

Louden and Silvestri have a tendency to make Saros sound more like a collaborator than creation. There's an undeniably intimate relationship between the studio and its games, and there lies Housemarque's true identity: a studio confident in its own artistry and ideas.

"It's a constant dance between what you think will work, and then what works," says Louden on the development process. "The game will tell you if it works. We just listen to the game."

Saros aims for bite-sized 30-minute runs, and the cool-off makes you "ready for another", its game designer tells me

The best Bond moments, across the movies and the books, are when you don't quite know what the super spy is going to do to get through a tight situation. 007 First Light embraces this as only IO Interactive, the developer of Hitman, can: by letting you make those decisions yourself, steering a young, peppy James Bond who feels like he's up for anything.

Early in my hands-on, I'm in the lobby for a gala with no invitation. I could slyly poison a guest, swiping their glittering invite while they're nauseous, or find another way to slip in. Instead, I use a different Bond gadget to temporarily blind the guards and waltz right in, feeling like I'm skipping an objective thanks to my bold wiles. That's just the start of my infiltration. Within minutes, I'm presented with multiple paths to breach deeper through security, and options to do so that range from silently choking out guards to boisterously trying to befriend them. 007 First Light has me stirred.

Invitation only

007 First Light's gala mission – presented to me as being the sixth chapter – forms the bulk of my hands-on after playing a thrilling opening sequence followed by a brief slice of one of Bond's own training missions. As I slide between rich guests, the comparisons between 007 First Light and Hitman: World of Assassination are immediate – this London setting is a stone's throw away from Hitman's opening Paris mission with its glamor, glitz, and layers of security.

The gala is in preparation for a keynote from an industry leader, hosted in an art gallery. I can briefly chat with the bartender, browse exhibits celebrating the company hosting the event, and keep an ear open for opportunities as guests rub shoulders and I probe for security weak spots. My target is deeper within the complex, not at the party itself. Keycard protected doors and guards blocking stairs hide restricted rooms, and beyond them, Bond is sure to encounter more trigger-happy henchmen involved in the conspiracy he is, naturally, trying to rumble incognito.

Comparison to the divisive Hitman Absolution also rings true, but only in the sense that 007 First Light echoes that game's most interesting design choice – focusing on using quick-witted espionage tricks to always push forward. While 007 First Light has moments of sandbox play where you can choose different ways to progress, you're always moving James Bond further into the mission, building momentum. No looping back. Save that for the replays. And, with the option to reload at mission sub-chapters, I've already played through missions in several different ways. What's more, the newly announced TacSim mode promises greater replayability that nods to the challenges available in Hitman: World of Assassination.

It's a "forward, focused approach," senior combat designer Tom Marcham tells me. "We want you to move through the level, we don't want you to be massively concerned with the challenges you've already overcome behind you. [...] Then, we'll just give you more challenges instead, and that allows us to make [those] challenges more difficult, because you don't have to worry about the stuff behind you. It's very forward facing – the challenge you need to solve is in front of you."

007 First Light's marketing has described playing as Bond in these different ways as a '360 Bond experience', mixing car chases, shootouts, stealthy moments of espionage, quieter moments, and more together. What that really means is that each chunk of a level hands-off Bond seamlessly between different modes of play, in which his moves and abilities are recontextualized in order to meet the shifting goal posts of his mission at hand.

One sequence leads into the next one, into the next one, but that doesn't mean that Bond is always escalating. Action will slow for a story moment, Bond may need to use his silver tongue to progress, there may be a chase, then, guns drawn for a glass-bursting, cover vaulting, heart-pumping few minutes until 'situation contained' flashes on screen, and Bond saunters on. Like scenes in a movie, excitement is up and down, pull and release. 007 First Light is mechanically dense – it's not trying to be a movie in how you interact with it – but it's still echoing a cinematic sensibility in how Bond's adventure progresses. You won't get sick of endless hallways of shooting dudes.

I get a taste of this in 007 First Light's tense, bombastic opening sequence that has James Bond, a navy crewman in-training, barely surviving as the rest of his crew perishes when terrorists blow up his helicopter in Iceland. As the sole survivor, he's trapped behind enemy lines as a villainous group attempts to seize control of a secret MI6 asset at a research station.

Staying low, he must approach the station by avoiding enemy line-of-sight, and hopping Uncharted-like across ledges. Then, swiping an enemy parka and balaclava (though, crucially, the game proper does not have a disguise system, I'm told), he moves silently through the enemy camp, before losing the outfit and moving through a tight series of pre-fabs to free scientist hostages, with multiple points of egress and patrolling enemies. Then, it's weapons free as an exciting escape ensues.

It's a great opening. The stormy weather, and heavy rain really shows what IO Interactive can do with its updated Glacier 2 engine. Sure, I'm playing on a doubtless beefy gaming PC, but it's absolutely gorgeous, even though I'm told the build I'm playing is missing some lighting effects that they're still tweaking. Hitman 3 was already stunning. 007 First Light is a step above. Yet, there's the sense, as there can be in a lot of gaming set pieces, that maybe this opening is a bit of a one-off.

I'm surprised, then, when the sixth chapter – the one with the gala – is able to smoothly move James Bond between differing plot beats and moments of action as well, tightening up the possibility space when needed and then loosening it for moments of creative snooping that feels very natural, especially when I can't help but mentally compare 007 First Light to the likes of the Bond movies (though, IO Interactive are keen to point out it's drawn a lot from the books – such as Bond's distinctive facial scar).

For your hands only

Let me roll back that mission for you. Bond doesn't actually start at the gala. Instead, the mission begins with him returning home to his Kensington flat-share feeling sorry for himself (for story reasons I'm yet to be privy to), able to briefly wander around, check his messages, pour himself a little drink, flip over one of his precious ornithology tomes and, of course, read his own suicide note. Wait, what? As he looks at the forged paper, he's jumped by an assassin, ripping him out of the scene and into a fight.

All the set-dressing I was poring over can now tumble and break as James Bond gets to work discombobulating this fella in a deliberately extensive one-on-one fight that's meant to directly mimic the zoomed-in action of such moments in other Bond media. "The assassin fight is a really good example of us nailing in on a Quantum of Solace style – the knife sequence from [the movie], and just going like: this is our close combat system," says Marcham. "This is a gritty encounter with someone who's really tough to bring down."

With the threat dispatched, there's no time to breathe, sniper rifle fire shattering Bond's windows, action transitioning into a staggered chase across the rooftops as Bond must move forward while taking cover. The bad guy gets away, but Bond is able to trace him with assistance from (of course) Moneypenny. Hence, the gala. Here, as mentioned, Bond's infiltration is more about wits than combat, the lobby opening up the play space, then the gala itself opening it up wider again.

Once through the layer of security, though, Bond isn't able to trust anyone on staff – having to make his way through to check the CCTV for his bad guy himself. This is also an open sequence, giving several wings of restricted space to move through in order to nab a keycard that'll get him into the room. With civilian guards, there's simply no way Bond will open fire on these guys. He could run in and try to batter them, but with lots of them patrolling, getting pummelled isn't really a prime super spy plan.

Bond's gadgets use an almost Watch Dogs-like interface, able to use his Q-Watch and other gadgets to spend a collectable energy or chemical resource to mess with guards or the environment. Crouching low, printers can be activated as a distraction, or radios switched on to draw guards nearer for a silent takedown. But, Bond can also expend energy to interact with these non-alerted guards. Able to bluff, Bond can use information gathered (some of them optional) to pretend he's exactly where he's meant to be – cheekily making out that he's been asked to fix a broken coffee machine, or that he's a specific journalist he's learned is a no-show through crafty eavesdropping, and that he's been asked to wait in the area for his contact.

Bluffing won't work on every guard (leaders are marked in the Q-Watch UI), but when it does they'll have a pop-up timer for how long they'll tolerate your presence to simply walk through a zone unbothered. It's a real thrill to pull off, and fits Bond's personality perfectly. He won't be judo chopping guards to steal their uniforms, but he's still up for a bit of bold, social manipulation to act like he's not out of place. It's a fresh take on the genre that'll be making 'best stealth mechanic' lists for some time to come I'm certain. Mixing smooth-talking, crouch-walking behind desks, and using gadgets to disable security cameras and distract guards, this is a dynamic, snappy sequence.

From there, Bond's mission keeps evolving. I play a quick boss fight that channels a bit of Batman: Arkham City's iconic Mr. Freeze boss fight, having to mix-up environmental traps to get the drop on a sharp, dangerous assassin who's hunting him down. Briefly moving into a narrative-focused experience, Bond then ends up making his escape through waves of what Marcham calls "dynamic escalation spaces", where stealth and action collide.

Each encounter here has guards steadily getting more dangerous, more on edge. But, as Bond's escape begins, they won't pull guns immediately – you can even still bluff some guard groups to get a head start, using gleaned information about fellow commander names to act like you're on their side, before weaving through vents and scaffolding to pick them off one by one so you have fewer enemies to deal with if you break cover.

Only when enemies have clear intent to kill, whether that's drawing a gun in a fistfight or storming his position fully-armed, is Bond able to respond in-kind, the screen flashing up 'License to Kill' to let you know that his privilege from the state has been activated. In that sense, 007 First Light is almost the complete opposite of Hitman – only using proportional force where necessary, and otherwise non-lethally knocking out enemies.

That mission alone took me a good couple of hours to get through on first play, and it really does feel like with 007 First Light, IO Interactive has been able to refine its approach to have narratively-driven missions that are constantly evolving stakes and playstyles as you move through them. I can't think of a better way to approach adapting what James Bond is into a game.

There have been some great 007 games before, but none of them have managed to capture the experience of a full Bond adventure and the way it ebbs and flows between explosive set-pieces, grounded action, and quieter moments like IO Interactive manages here. 007 First Light just gets James Bond. I can't wait to be aiming down sights for the full experience, and hopefully beyond (be-Bond?), when 007 First Light launches on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S on 27 May – with Nintendo Switch 2 to follow.

Want to catch up with 007? Check out our best Bond movies ranking for what to watch next!

Resident Evil is returning to our screens later this year with a new reboot from the mind of Weapons director (and Resi superfan) Zach Cregger. However, while this will be the eighth movie in the franchise, it acts as a new start for the game on the big screen. This means it won't be linked to Paul W.S. Anderson's movies nor the panned 2021 film Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City. Instead, Cregger's version tells an original, fresh story set in the game universe.

Don't expect to see Resident Evil legend Leon S. Kennedy then, as this version introduces new characters to the franchise. Weapons star Austin Abrams leads the cast as a previously unseen hospital courier, and is joined by Paul Walter Hauser and Zach Cherry in the mysterious new story. So for everything we know about who they're playing – as well as what the new trailer reveals – we've compiled a comprehensive guide to the Resident Evil movie below.

This features details on the cast and plot news, as well as when exactly the movie will hit our screens. We've also got a whole load of exclusive insight from Cregger himself from our set visit last year to help you get up to speed. Read on for all the zombie-filled fun – and while you're at it, check out our guide to the best Resident Evil games.

Resident Evil movie release date

Resident Evil will be released in theaters on September 18, 2026.

Zach Cregger first got involved in the movie in 2024, signing on as a co-writer and director with casting happening that summer. Filming on the movie took place in Prague in October 2025 with post-production in full flow by early 2026, making it a pretty quick turnaround to its release later this year.

Resident Evil movie cast

The Resident Evil movie cast has been confirmed, but don't expect any familiar characters to appear. The film tells an original story in the franchise meaning we won't be getting Resi legends like Leon or Jill Valentine on screen, despite being key figures in the games.

"Leon exists in the games. I don't want anyone to ruin that for me," Cregger explained to GamesRadar+. "I figure if I am honoring the games, I'm just going to tell another story that feels like playing in the world of the game, but I'm not stepping on the toes of any of Leon's storyline. I'm not recasting Leon, god forbid. You know, I'm letting Leon stay Leon."

Instead, the movie features a cast list of relatively well-known actors, including Weapons breakout Austin Abrams in the lead role. Check out the full list below.

• Austin Abrams – Bryan, a medical courier
• Zach Cherry – Dave, a scientist
• Kali Reis – Pauline, an ex-military character
• Paul Walter Hauser – Carl
• Johnno Wilson – Max

Resident Evil movie plot

The Resident Evil movie follows Bryan (played by Austin Abrams) who is a hapless medical courier tasked with delivering a package to a remote hospital in Racoon City. However, he soon encounters more than he bargained for when he gets trapped in the snowy mountains en route to the medical center amid a terrifying outbreak. The story follows him as he attempts to survive the night as zombies close in from all around.

Although it is an original story, Cregger has confirmed when it takes place in the game's timeline. Speaking to GamesRadar+ on our set visit in 2025, he explained that the story sits "on the periphery" of the second game. "You know, where Raccoon City is having its big night, but tell just another story that could be happening in parallel to that," he said.

It seems like the movie will also feature a whole load of references for fans of the Resident Evil games too as Cregger is a massive fan of the franchise. "A lot of the references to the games, if you don't know them, they're just gonna go right over your head, and they're not gonna waste your time," he promised when we quizzed him on what would be included.

Is there a Resident Evil movie trailer?

Yes, the first trailer for the Resident Evil movie has been released, and you can watch it above. The snow-filled teaser introduces Austin Abrams' Bryan as a courier tasked with delivering a package to a remote hospital. It begins with the character arriving at a house in search of a phone after landing himself in a "seriously messed up situation".

However, things soon start going wrong as we see him encounter a moving corpse, bloated bodies in a sewer, and a whole load of disembodied limbs moving of their own accord. It certainly seems like Cregger's horror won't be skimping on zombie scares…

We expect a few more trailers will be released in the coming months ahead of the film's release in September. We'll keep you posted when these drop as we break down what exactly they reveal, too.

For more, check out our guide to the most exciting upcoming horror movies heading our way and our round-up of all the upcoming video game movies in the works.

GamesRadar+'s visit to the set of the Resident Evil movie does not quite go to plan. Just after we arrive at the cavernous Jordan Studios on the outskirts of Prague on a cloudy December afternoon, everyone else starts to leave. Director Zach Cregger is unwell, and filming has been shut down for the day. Instead of housing its usual hive of activity, the sound stages are abandoned, and I'm tempted to call out, "Hello? Is anyone there?", final girl-style, as I embark on an eerily quiet walk through the deserted warehouse from the press tent to the bathrooms. Here be zombies, after all.

In Cregger's new take on the survival horror franchise, rather than video game mainstays Leon S. Kennedy or Chris Redfield, it's Bryan who takes on the undead. He's a hospital courier on a job from hell, as he encounters horrors even worse than the gig economy over the course of one fateful night. Played by Weapons breakout Austin Abrams, Bryan is an original character with no link to the Resident Evil games. "I never wanted to tell the story of any of the characters from the games," Cregger tells us over Zoom a few months later.

"Leon exists in the games. I don't want anyone to ruin that for me," he continues. "I don't think that me telling a story that's not about Leon is a violation of the Resident Evil world, because the games do that all the time. Leon's not in 7 or 8. So I figure if I am honoring the games, I'm just going to tell another story that feels like playing in the world of the game, but I'm not stepping on the toes of any of Leon's storyline. I'm not recasting Leon, god forbid. You know, I'm letting Leon stay Leon. And I feel like that's the most respectful thing I could do."

Return to Raccoon City

Back in Prague, everyone, including leading man Abrams, is incredibly apologetic about the disruption on set, but there's still plenty to see, and people are still busy behind the scenes – including our guide for the day, production designer Tom Hammock. "I play video games, but I'm not… I mean, Zach is obsessed," Hammock, who worked with Cregger on Weapons, tells us with a laugh as he shows us around. "I remember being in college in '96 and my roommate got Resident Evil 2, and I'd come home and he'd be playing in the dark and completely petrified himself. That's what Zach wants to capture. The first time you played the game, you didn't know what was going to happen, so he's trying to recreate all the scares, the flashlight work, the amount of darkness, the tension as you move through these spaces."

Don't be fooled by the film's first trailer, which sees Bryan arrive at a creepy remote farmhouse in need of a phone: Raccoon City is still on the map. "It takes detours," says Cregger. "The whole point of the movie is he's got to get from hospital A, through the mountains and into Raccoon City to deliver something to hospital B. And as he's going over this mountain pass, things turn bad." There's no hint of rural America in Jordan Studios, though: we've touched down in Raccoon City.

Hammock gives us a tour of a handful of sets: a dark, damp sewer, a hospital ward (sticky with the residue of 500 gallons of fake blood), and a few floors of a skyscraper, complete with working elevator, all built from scratch. We also venture into the production design office, which is a veritable treasure trove of storyboards, models, and a "creature wall", which does what it says on the tin, showcasing mock-ups of zombified rats, dogs, and more. "You'll see a lot of Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil 6," Hammock says, gesturing to the creature wall. "So Zach and I went through and pulled specific creature elements that we like from the games, whether it's tentacles, the teeth integration, and then tried to take that language and move it over to these creatures.

"I spent a lot of time in medical research libraries, so everything comes from nature," he adds. "But we also went as far as diseases. I used to work as a virologist long ago, so just having access to medical libraries gave us a really grounded starting point for all the creatures. And then you try to mix that with, you know, the insanity."

Although this movie may be a standalone piece, Cregger explains that the story occurs "on the periphery" of the second game. "You know, where Raccoon City is having its big night, but tell just another story that could be happening in parallel to that."

That extends to the production design, too. "We really designed the city based on Resident Evil 2, trying to get that look," says Hammock. "Lots of brick, lots of texture, lots of rain, and then the only change we really made was going heavier with the snow. We even found somewhere that looks exactly like the police station, by chance here, by the Opera House, which is pretty exciting."

But the hardest part of recreating Raccoon City in Prague? "It sounds so foolish, but one of the hardest things on the movie is Zach had me make Raccoon City manhole covers for the top of the sewers," Hammock says. "So hard to do. Everybody made their manhole covers, like, 50 years ago. It's not such a thing anymore."

Cregger reiterates that the movie is a "very simple and self-contained" story that doesn't depend on the viewer being as big a fan of the games as he is – but, if you are, there'll be some fun extra nuggets. "A lot of the references to the games, if you don't know them, they're just gonna go right over your head, and they're not gonna waste your time. I don't spend a whole lot of time talking about stuff that's only in the games," he explains. "The pacing of the games is very much in the movie. But if you don't know the games, that's not going to penetrate; you won't realize it. And the graduation of guns. You start with a pistol, you graduate to a shotgun, and then by the end, he's holding a machine gun. All the gamers are going to understand exactly what's happening, but if you've never played it just won't register."

Along with the pacing, Cregger says he also pays homage to the visual "vocabulary" of the Resident Evil games. "Sometimes I jump into first person, sometimes I use standard coverage if he's having a conversation with someone. But I really, really wanted to embrace that immersive feel that I get when I play the games, and so I feel like, to use their visual language… why wouldn't I do that? It's so cinematic anyway," he says, after flicking through a hardbound book of the movie's storyboards for us. "People who love the games are going to feel seen in a lot of ways, I hope, when they watch this movie, but I hope that the visual vocabulary is something that's really going to punch."

Away from the PlayStation, Cregger notes that he took inspiration from movies as far-reaching as Son of Saul and Evil Dead 2, but he wasn't thinking about any of the previous Resident Evil adaptations (six movies were released between 2002 and 2017, with a reboot following in 2021) – because he hasn't seen them. "Frankly, the reason I didn't see them is because I was such a fan of the games, and they just didn't look like the games to me, you know? And it was so obvious that they were not the games that I was like, it's not for me," he says. "Maybe they're great. I have no idea. But I just wasn't interested in that, because I feel like what's great about the games is they're shrunk down into this single perspective, and it's about this pacing and this horror, and those movies just didn't look like horror things to me."

Labor of love

If the work of Legacy Effects is anything to go by, however, Resident Evil certainly will look like a "horror thing." The Legacy team, who have worked on everything from Avatar to The Mandalorian, has set up camp in what appears to be a dressing room, lined with lightbulb-studded mirrors and furnished with makeup storage, but instead of lipsticks and powders, they're covered with displays of "messed up" models. Legacy is showcasing their favorite creations from the shoot for us: a mottled stretch of life-like skin, freakishly long limbs, something with three eyes. "I suppose it's a compliment when people think it's all done with computers," creature FX designer Shane Mahan (an industry veteran whose career began four decades ago with The Terminator) tells us amidst this gleefully gory tableau.

"Within the first two minutes, the audience should not be aware what they're looking at and just believe what it is," he adds. "Otherwise, there's no fun in that. If you don't believe that it's really there, there's no fear. Part of the fun is being frightened."

Some of these creatures will appear in a scene in a hospital ward. But, this is Resident Evil, after all, so this hospital has huge, fiberglass egg-like membranes and an assortment of tentacles clinging to its walls, and Hammock points out some cleverly concealed holes when we walk through the plasticky smell of fake blood to take a closer look at the set.

"There's a whole steel structure above with grids and pulley rigs. And what's going to happen is stuntmen, upside down, have been training to hold their breath so they're there against that membrane," he explains. "They pour, like, 50 gallons of slime in with the stunt guys, and it oozes down. And then the membrane breaks, and they fall into the sets, in-camera, which is pretty cool… It took, like, 15 people two weeks to glue the tentacles. Every one is hand-cut and then glued, and then held up. So it's this labor of love."

Lastly, we're taken to see a real, working elevator built on a sound stage, a short drive from the rest of the set. Construction is still underway, and Hammock has to raise his voice to be heard above the drilling and hammering. After climbing a flight of metal stairs, we find ourselves in a fresh paint-scented corridor with six doors on it. Cregger noticed that there are "too many doors" in Resident Evil, Hammock notes, and is working with "misdirection" in this set piece. "Just like in the game, you go to the side [just] to have something burst out of the other door, out of your peripheral vision."

Now we're inside the skyscraper itself, which is based partly on Guy's Hospital in London (the tallest hospital in the world), partly on a brutalist Swiss ski resort, and partly on '20s Czech cubism as "an homage to where we're shooting." Climbing a flight of concrete stairs, we get a better look at the elevator itself. The team has modified a sports stadium-style cable camera to operate vertically. "It goes all the way up and down, so it could track next to Austin as the elevator moves with him." It really is a fully functioning elevator, built from scratch, which will be involved in an action-packed set piece that we're not allowed to allude to further.

While it seems there's going to be some pretty gruesome stuff in this movie, Cregger says he never had any pushback from the studio. "They gave me the keys of the car, and I got to drive it where I wanted to drive it," he says. "And honestly, the person I feel the most responsible to is the [person] who loves the games, so that really was who I'm trying to please with this."

Resident Evil arrives in theaters on September 18. In the meantime, check out our guide to the other upcoming video game movies to add to your watchlist.

As I creep through a derelict Star Destroyer, simultaneously looting and avoiding Darth Vader, I jump when I turn a corner and see the red of his lightsaber reflecting off the dead steel all around. Minutes before, I'd been battling against Imperials to hold bases on a frozen planet that was never explicitly called Hoth but wasn't not Hoth either. After escaping Vader, I go on to build a small-but-respectable droid business on a sandy planet.

All through Fortnite.

The current evolution of popular games of a certain size goes something like this: release, get popular, make brand deals, release creative tools, make more brand deals, launch a platform, make even more brand deals. Relatedly, Epic Games' Fortnite is now adding the ability to use Star Wars assets in Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) and Fortnite Creative to create all kinds of Star Wars-inspired islands, like the ones mentioned above.

Use the Force (in UEFN)

"Since 2019, Fortnite has been a gateway into the Star Wars galaxy," says Andre Balta, senior director at Epic Games. "What started off as limited-time events grew to seasons and in some cases, a complete takeover of Fortnite with Star Wars lore. Our team decided to take all those amazing weapons, assets, vehicles, and characters, and expose them to our Fortnite development community – and the response has been incredible."

"It was pretty clear from the start when we announced that every Fortnite creator has their own Star Wars story they want to tell," continues Balta. "It's been awesome to see the passion come through, and this will lead to Fortnite having the largest collection of official Star Wars experiences for players to enjoy."

None of this is exactly news – Epic Games announced the curated Star Wars assets and tools back at the beginning of April – but now it's officially here. But alongside hundreds of these Star Wars-tinged Fortnite islands that people have been crafting in anticipation of launch, Epic Games and Lucafilm have partnered with three different creators in order to "set a really high bar with three exemplar islands," according to Balta.

Those three are:

• Galactic Siege from JOGO Studios (island code: 5003-9856-3648)
  • "Fight in large-scale PvP class-based battles with 10v10 combat across iconic Star Wars planets."
• Escape Vader from Beyond Creative (island code: 7285-4185-5428)
  • "Hide, run, and try to survive in this 4-player co-op game where you attempt to escape the terrifying Sith Lord, Darth Vader."
• Droid Tycoon from FOAD (island code: 7865-8305-9184)
  • "Build and customize droids using authentic Star Wars blueprints, manage your workshop and factory systems, and unlock rare components and special missions."

Ahead of their release, I'm able to play around in each island during an event hosted by Epic Games. This is me doing more than getting my feet wet; I've not messed with any of the UEFN Fortnite islands previously, so it's more like diving straight into the deep end – three times.

"Interactive entertainment is rapidly becoming one of the defining forces in how audiences experience stories, and Disney is fully embracing that evolution," says Sean Shoptaw, executive VP of Disney Games and Digital Entertainment. "Games offer a uniquely powerful way to deepen engagement, expand our worlds, and connect with fans in real time. As this space continues to grow, we see extraordinary potential to elevate Disney storytelling in ways that are innovative, social, and built for the way people play today."

Shoptaw's not exactly wrong, despite the vested interest, about gaming's evolution. It's not hard to look at the rise of Roblox and user-generated content (UGC) more broadly and see that there's a sea change in progress, if not already complete. Less and less emphasis and money seems to be getting put behind a more traditional development path while more of that is refocused on simply giving players the tools to amuse themselves.

After playing a good bit of Droid Tycoon – basically a business sim of building droids, selling droids, and having them complete tasks in order to earn money over time – following both Galactic Siege and Escape Vader, the overwhelming impression I'm left with is that a lot of effort has gone into simulating all sorts of genres and experiences using the same box of building blocks. It's impressive, but something is lost when everything's painted using the same brush.

These are all probably great examples of the sort of work you can do within UEFN, but it's hard to escape the feeling that it's largely simulacra; ghostly imitations of larger-scale experiences and games. If you squint, Galactic Siege is basically "what if we made Battlefront in Fortnite" and Escape Vader borrows mechanically from its peers while throwing a coat of Star Wars paint on top. If your only game is Fortnite, however, and you have no further point of reference, I bet they'll really hit a sweet spot.

Droids you're looking for

"We've been in UEFN since the day it was announced at GDC 2023 and been shipping games," says Kevin Marciano, co-founder and CEO of the game studio Future Trash – which creates under the name FOAD in Fortnite. "We are a team on the platform known for crafting our own original IP, and that's kind of like our reputation and the types of games that we ship. Over time, we started to build relationships with the developer community and with Epic, and so we were very fortunate enough to be considered for this opportunity, and as lifelong Star Wars fans, saw this as one of the coolest things we could work on, and so we dove right in."

FOAD is an interesting case, because the name is actually also associated with Future Trash's eponymous "flagship IP," which it had been working on prior to getting involved with UEFN. The playtest is still available on Steam, if you're looking to try out a new "online competitive platformer battle royale party game," but the vertical slice apparently struggled to break through. While the team ultimately took a step back to work on all this Fortnite stuff, the goal appears to be to eventually return to the "core game" as well.

If the new Star Wars Fortnite island is any indication, it would appear that FOAD is in a good place overall, so it's not shocking that the OG FOAD has taken something of a backseat. If you're one of three exemplary pillars for something this big, you're clearly doing something right.

But… why droids? I had to know. Given everything that Star Wars encompasses, lasers and Jedi and starfighters and so on, why tie your reputation to droids? The answer is fairly nuanced, but there's also a short version.

"We like droids," says Scott Ulliman, creative director and co-founder of Future Trash aka FOAD. "A lot."

"Also, part of what we are good at is creating assets," he continues, "and we wanted to do something that we thought was going to be a little less likely to be made a bunch of times, and something we felt passionate about. When it comes to the kind of games we're interested in making and playing – you know, creature, companion, sidekick type stuff – the droids felt like a really good fit for that."

If you're wondering why creating assets would be such a strong skill to have, given that Epic Games is explicitly providing a whole bunch of them in the Star Wars toolkit, so did I. According to Ulliman, there are no droid assets; FOAD made all of them itself for Droid Tycoon. All 42 unique droids, along with 10 more that are planned for further updates.

It's a whole lot of droids to make, especially for launch, but when I ask why FOAD bothered to make so many droids, Ulliman says that it just sort of… happened.

"It was a snowball," he admits. "We wanted to make 20. We thought with the game we were building, 20 was a really good number. As we started building them, and we started playtesting, and you see them, you know, once, twice, three times in the game – the most consistent feedback we got internally and from Epic, and we agreed, is, 'We want more droids.' So we kept making more droids."

"It's made the game significantly more interesting," he says. "There's a lot more to unlock and see. You get to learn a lot more about Star Wars. We got to do some really niche droids too, really weird ones that are all canon and haven't been seen a lot, and Disney was very welcoming for us to build some of those out. So honestly, it was one of those things where we knew it was about the droids, but actually seeing them animated in the game just became this thing where we all wanted to see our favorites in there and other people's favorites. And there's a lot of favorites for droids."

Fortnite is currently available on… pretty much every platform. The Star Wars UEFN islands mentioned above are available on May 1. While you wait, maybe take a peek at our ranking of the best Star Wars games.

Like any gamer, I feel like my backlog is constantly growing, and for me, there's a very specific genre of game that's starting to pile up. I love me some city builders and management sim games. Ones like Planet Coaster, Planet Zoo, Civilization, and Timberborn, but for what are very chilled out games that I like to play in my downtime, they often do not feel designed to be kicked back on the couch with, while using one of the best PC controllers.

So many of these games have been built with a mouse and keyboard in mind, and if they have controller support at all, they never feel like they're easily played with some thumbsticks and a limited number of buttons. Planet Coaster and Planet Zoo are prime examples - their console editions play pretty well, but buying on Steam means you can be stuck without gamepad play. The same goes for some CRPGs like Baldur's Gate 3 for instance, which feels totally different to play on a console than it does on PC.

But to me, that flies in the face of the chilled-out atmosphere these sorts of games strike. I want to kick back on the couch with a gamepad while building my dream zoo, starting my empire in Civilization, or trying to fix the economy of a theme park in financial ruin. I don't mind adopting pure focus position at my desk for FPS games while using a mouse and keyboard, but that's hardly the relaxing, cozy game vibe I want for this genre of game.

All of this is why I'm personally very excited to get my hands on Valve's new Steam Controller. With two trackpads that function as mouse controls, it offers what no other PC or Xbox Series X controller really can - a hybrid between mouse and controller play for games that make support between the two a total headache. With trackpads, you can use mouse controls to move around a game's camera if it doesn't have controller support. Combine that with Steam input, and you can have the gamepad register all of the buttons to the keyboard functions you need to play. Goodbye ultra-focused sitting position at a desk, hello sweet couch comfort.

From the first batch of reviews, this seems to be one of the best things about the Steam Controller. Not only for games like these, but also for couch setups in general. I've been trying to create the perfect couch PC gaming setup for years now, and although I'm really happy with the loadout I have now, I do always feel like a simple console-esque power button on a controller to wake everything, or the ability to use a keyboard without fuss on a gamepad itself are some of the few things missing. Yes, you can make some modifications or opt for a Linux system to bypass these issues, but that's a little more in-depth than I'd care to go.

The Steam Controller can't wake your desktop PC with a button press, and it is only limited to Steam-launched games, but its ability to browse an internet browser, for example, thanks to its trackpads, is a step in the right direction.

It's not just city builders and management sims I'm looking forward to playing with the Steam Controller though. While Steam input does essentially work with any controller you connect to your PC to play a game that doesn't support gamepads, it seems like Valve has made things a lot more intuitive for its own homegrown controller. Capacitive thumbsticks mean you can activate gyro that doesn't appear to be unruly, and this has been a popular feature brought over from the Steam Deck. Again, with trackpads allowing for mouse movements, it just feels like you're already part of the way to controlling games that are designed for a mouse and keyboard.

For example, I'm a massive fan of an indie developer called DeconstructTeam, and after playing The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood a few years ago, I've been really keen to go back to play the developer's previous breakout hit, The Red Strings Club. Only one problem, for a very chilled, narrative-led indie game, it doesn't have controller support. It felt like a perfect fit to enjoy on the go using one of the best gaming handhelds, but trying to get it working on the Asus ROG Ally X felt janky and didn't hit the spot at all.

I have a few games like that that are sitting in my backlog, and I've been using the excuse of there being no intuitive and easy way to play them to stall for time. Yes, this is likely a me problem, but the Steam Controller might just be an excuse for me and you to finally strike these quirky outlier games from our backlogs. At least until we get our hands on the Steam Frame and Steam Machine it's been designed for, that might just be the best use for Valve's new accessory.

That said, the Steam Controller hasn't been reviewing so well from the point of competitive play, so I've taken the liberty of rounding up some alternatives for you.

You can also take a look at the best PS5 controllers, the best Switch 2 controllers, and the best TMR controllers.

The Corsair Galleon 100 SD has become a daily driver for me outside of testing the latest gaming keyboards. It's the keyboard I reach for as soon as I find a few days in between reviews, packing all my launchers, in-game keybindings, Spotify controls, and productivity shortcuts in one place on the desk. I received mine direct from the brand, though, and that $349.99 MSRP is a weight hanging heavy every time I find myself close to recommending it.

Things aren't helped by the fact that I haven't seen a single discount on this deck since it launched in January (trust me, I've been waiting for it - this thing has been rock solid at both Amazon and Corsair). That means you're paying one of the highest prices of any gaming keyboard I've tested so far.

It's why I generally only recommend it to players who already need a chunkier Stream Deck anyway. The $199.99 MSRP of the Stream Deck Plus (the closest you'll find to the number of buttons and controls available on the Galleon) means it takes up a good chunk of that MSRP and makes far more sense from a purchase standpoint.

There's a cheaper way, though. I've had the Elgato Stream Deck Neo on the desk for a few weeks now, testing it alongside some of the best gaming keyboards to see how the experience differs from the full $350 all-in-one. Considering the Neo comes in at just $99.99, I was curious to see how much of a luxury tax we're paying for Corsair's deck.

I tested the Neo with three keyboards in mind; the Corsair Vanguard Pro 96, to see whether adding magnetic switches into the mix will bring enough of a benefit to leave the mechanical Galleon behind, the Keychron V6 Max for those who can't drop their number pad, and the Asus ROG Azoth - still my go-to for overall typing feel.

The contenders

The good

There are a couple of benefits to sacking off the Galleon entirely.

Returning to one of the best Hall effect keyboards meant I was able to pair my Stream Deck Neo with a set of customizable switches for a streamlined in-game experience across certain commands. I primarily keep my custom actuation points to WASD when using a magnetic deck, while dampening surrounding buttons to avoid accidental presses and setting main action keys to rapid trigger.

It's a playstyle I've come to appreciate in faster titles like CS2 and Apex Legends, but one I can easily go without for more strategic experience or relaxing simulation endeavours. Being able to keep that flexibility was a massive benefit to dropping the Galleon from my setup.

The only other benefit I noticed over the Galleon (as opposed to the like-for-like features I'll detail below), was in positioning. The full keyboard puts the Stream Deck portion on the right hand side, which makes sense if you're viewing it as a number pad replacement. However, moving my 'keyboard' hand over to the other side of the deck doesn't always feel natural - and it's even more ungodly to take my hand off the mouse. The Stream Deck Neo, however, can be placed wherever you want it, keeping that right paw on the rodent and moving your left hand slightly less to hit each button.

Then we have everything that's just about equal between the two experiences.

Even pivoting to cheaper mechanical options, the Stream Deck Neo provides enough buttons for fairly comprehensive stream controls and daily productivity tools. It keeps the Galleon's ease of use as a daily launcher, and the decks I tested with kept media controls within reach as well.

Using the Stream Deck Neo with the Asus ROG Azoth meant I was able to keep some screen functions, though these were pretty limited compared to the full Stream Deck experience.

The Keychron V6 Max will likely offer up the keenest comparison for many, by virtue of keeping a dedicated number pad alongside the additional controls of the Neo.

The bad

To try and replicate my in-game macro use as closely as possible, I positioned the Stream Deck Neo to the left of my keyboard, closer to my main control hand than it would be on the Galleon. Try as I might, though, I could never get used to the taller angle of the mini device. In-game controls feel far less natural to hit, and I can never quite prove myself reliable enough to slap that pad without looking. It slowed things down by a noticeable amount even after about a week of practice.

It's annoying that the Galleon's Stream Deck is fixed to the right side, but it feels easier to hit at a flat angle inline with the rest of the keyboard. It's not going to become a competitive staple, it's still too awkward for that, but inventory management, simulation and strategy controls, and menu streamlining are all far more enjoyable on the Galleon.

Keyboard displays are a big source of contention right now, with many brands (most notably Corsair itself, outside of this Stream Deck integration) content to simply use these panels as expensive, low res digital photo frames. While the Asus ROG Azoth has a little more meat on its display bones, it still can't compare with the full-color, personalizable panel on the Galleon. Plugins are still slow coming, but there's plenty to show off here and it makes for an easier control system than the Neo's simple strip of display overall.

There's also the number of buttons available to you. The Stream Deck Neo offers up eight clackers to the Galleon's 12. I'll admit, I sometimes struggle to fill all 12 when I'm creating dedicated folders for specific apps, games, and use-cases. But at the same time I was often limited by the Neo's 8. I'd rather have too much space on my deck to ensure each page can function as a full set of distinct options, rather than having to add extra button presses and defeat the purpose of a handy helper.

There's just one minor snag that came up pretty quickly as well. We're really picking here, but adding a Stream Deck and a keyboard means you're using up an extra port. I run a gaming laptop setup, and the Neo's USB-C connection is pretty valuable in an accessory-laden desk.

The ugly

Of course, everything the Corsair Galleon 100 SD has going for it has to work pretty hard when we come to the ugly truth of the matter. The all-in-one solution is incredibly expensive, and alternatives can save you nearly $200 if you play your cards right.

Is the Corsair Galleon 100 SD going to be worth the extra spend? Maybe not.

I'm Corsair's best-case-scenario user. I don't typically stream, but I love having a command center at my fingertips, spend far too much time in menu-heavy simulation and strategy games, don't rely on a number pad, am constantly in and out of different apps and windows, and have a bunch of productivity shortcuts and keybindings to remember. I need more than eight buttons, I use those buttons frequently enough to find reaching over to a separate device awkward, and I'm happy to invest time setting up more complex folder systems to keep everything I need close to hand.

If that's you as well, the Corsair Galleon 100 SD is going to be worth the extra spend compared to a keyboard + Stream Deck Neo combo. Streamers, competitive players, and num-pad enthusiasts aren't going to find the same kind of value here.

The Corsair Vanguard Pro 96 is the strongest alternative. The magnetic keyboard is geared more towards competitive players while still packing its num-pad and slick typing experience. At full MSRP, a Vanguard Pro and Stream Deck Neo will run you $329.99. I usually see both of these devices on sale for $160-$190 / $75-$90 respectively, though. That means, on the right day, you could pick up both for anything between $235 and $280, saving you $70-$115 overall. In this case, the Galleon isn't worth the extra cash.

If you're not fussed about magnetic switches, the Asus ROG Azoth is going to be your next port of call. This is still the best typing experience I've had from a gaming keyboard, so you're investing more in the feel of your everyday keystrokes while saving some cash dropping some of those Stream Deck features. The Azoth holds a $249.99 MSRP, but it's old - it hasn't been up that high reliably in quite some time. These days you're more likely to find it between $190 and $220, putting the package - at its cheapest - at $265.

Without those magnetic switches in play, would I say the extra $85 for the Galleon is money well spent? If you want a full productivity suite, need more from your display, and play macro-heavy games regularly, yes. If you just want a streaming companion or app launcher, no.

In scenarios where I prefer to use a num-pad, the Corsair Galleon 100 SD supplies its own profiles. However, using the dedicated keys of the Keychron V6 Max and Corsair Vanguard feels so much better than these plastic clackers. Having to hit another button just to bring up my number options is an annoyance of the all-in-one. Those using a number pad every day will soon get too tired for it to be worthwhile. With the Keychron V6 Max coming in at $119.99 on a bad day, $96 on a good day, you're saving a maximum of $179 by opting for the split setup. If you need that number pad, the Galleon's other benefits aren't worth the additional spend.

Featured keyboards

I'm also rounding up all the best hot-swappable keyboards and the best wireless gaming keyboards I've tested so far for more options.

Are you in the mood to punch some Nazis? How about blowing the Third Reich to smithereens? Modiphius sure hopes so. The veteran publisher is hard at work on a Wolfenstein tabletop RPG as we speak, and thanks to the source material, this isn't going to be a grounded fight against fascism; it's a rip-roaring, over-the-top spectacle with absolutely no budget restraints due to the adventure taking place entirely in your imagination.

Based on The New Order and New Colossus video games, it should be quite a departure from the best tabletop RPGs. We're swapping swords 'n' sorcery for resistance fighters and explosions an '80s action movie would be proud of. How's it going to work in practice, though?

This is something I've wondered since the Wolfenstein tabletop RPG was announced with a promise that fans should "get psyched," so I took my questions straight to Modiphius Lead Game Designer Evie Moriarty in the hope we could shed light on the matter. What they had to say took me from "polite interest" into "oh damn, I've gotta try this," so I'd say this revolution has a good chance of taking off. I'd expected tweaks to the company's 2d20 system, for example, but the "I AM PREPARED TO DIE" mechanic that serves as a final, all-or-nothing Hail Mary? Man, that's the good stuff.

Rollicking resistance

The year is 1962, and the events of New Colossus are in the rear-view mirror. Another American revolution is now in full swing, but this time, the resistance is trying to throw off the shackles of Nazi rule in this alternate timeline where they won WW2.

"It's a brand new era we've not seen before, and we're excited about all of the setting material we've created and for people to discover how things go after the events of New Colossus," Moriarty says.

The tricky bit? Translating the franchise's high-octane action from screen to tabletop. Although there are promises of super-charging the company's in-house 2d20 system, recreating the video games' carnage is easier said than done.

"That's been one of the biggest challenges for us," Moriarty tells me. "We've worked hard to make it work. First of all, we've simplified a lot of the core beats of the 2d20 system to make the whole game run faster and in a more streamlined fashion. Second, we've introduced a 'stances' system to let you slip between Mayhem, Tactical and Stealth, and reward you for doing so. It means that the combat doesn't end up with each person doing a specific thing and not interacting with anyone else, but fluidly changing up their approach as needs must, and everyone getting to join in."

The team also made sure that there are "non-combat" characters in the game, so everyone has a role (described as how they help the resistance) alongside their approach (e.g. how they kill Nazis). Moriarty promises that "no one will be sat twiddling their thumbs in combat" as a result, with the rules being fast-paced enough that you don't have to wait long for your turn.

Streamlining things in this way is key to the Wolfenstein tabletop RPG, it seems; the 2d20 system's Momentum/Threat mechanics have been overhauled based on community feedback, and now you're dealing with smaller pools of resources whose meaning is clearer.

"We also came up with a new system to let you style your successes," Moriarty says. "It used to be in 2d20 that you had to choose between making your action cooler or banking momentum for later, but now you get both, and you can spend your extra successes to do something "quickly" or "cleverly". It's a simple framework that helps people work out how to use the resources we give them."

Alongside a brand-new activation system that's supposed to help balance encounters, the Wolfenstein RPG is adding an escalation mechanic that heightens the situation at narratively appropriate moments. When combined with a "crisis" system that reduces Threat from the Game Master's pool but twists the story to make things tangibly harder, it's all about giving more tools to players for a more immersive, enjoyable experience.

Chills around the table

Of course, this is far from Modiphius' first foray into adaptations or video game tie-ins; it's worked on everything from Fallout wargames to a Star Trek RPG. This provided some unexpected inspiration for Wolfenstein the Roleplaying Game.

"Oddly enough, one of the key learning experiences for us was Adventures in Ankh-Morpork, our Discworld RPG," says Moriarty. "That was a huge break from tradition from us, embracing a very rules light approach. We weren't interested in just adopting that for 2d20 or Wolfenstein, it wouldn't be appropriate, but it showed to us that there was room to really shake things up. I think that helped us take that step back and really make some core changes to get the game where we wanted it to be. In terms of 2d20 games there's a little bit of everything in there, a greatest hits: the target number system is very similar to the one in Star Trek Adventures; we used the combat system in Dreams and Machines as a starting point, though it changed radically through development; and we looked at the way that the Dishonored RPG played with styles as stats as inspiration for the new styling success system."

Still, that doesn't mean there wasn't room for something totally original here. The mechanic that grabbed my attention the most was a peculiar one about taking one last shot at heroism… but with one hell of a cost.

"On your sheet sits a little tick box and next to it the words 'I AM PREPARED TO DIE,'" explains Moriarty. "Once, ever, you can tell the table you're ticking that box. Your character recovers all their health, fills the Momentum pool to maximum, and immediately gets a free upgrade, but from that moment on if they go down, they are dead forever. The chills around the table the first time someone said the words made us all know it was a winner."

Honestly, I love this concept. It lives up to the rambunctious, larger-than-life nature of Wolfenstein but in a tangible way, blending theme and mechanics well. From my conversation with Moriarty, that seems to be one of the most important things to this RPG; making sure its systems are married with the player experience of being the biggest badass around. We'll have to wait and see if the final result matches that pitch, but so far, signs are good.

That same kind of anticipation is true for the Modiphius team, and according to Moriarty, excitement to finally show off their work is high.

"We all know that this is a big change up of the 2d20 system for us, and we're really excited to see how people feel about it when it lands. We're also delighted to have been given such amazing support and input from [New Colossus dev] Machine Games. I really hope everyone else is as excited as we are about this!"

Wolfenstein the Roleplaying Game will come to crowdfunding in Fall 2026.

For more tabletop recommendations of what you should play next, why not try the best board games or the best card games?

Much has been made of Marathon's cruelty. The way Bungie's extraction shooter kills you faster than your brain can register the loss. The way it tempts you into snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, dragging your last loot hoard into the next match only to watch it vanish in minutes. And yet, this is a game that at least tries to look out for you.

That's most apparent after a terrible wipe, when the natural inclination is to dive straight back into another round, relieving the pain with another shot of adrenaline. It's here that Bungie steps in with a warning message to point out that, look, you're beaming down to Tau Ceti without a gun. Minus patch kits or shield charges. And might that, given the state of the colony, be a little foolhardy? It's your prompt to sheepishly return to the menus and equip a free kit (sponsored by a corporation that, unlike Bungie, doesn't have your best interests at heart).

If you begin a run without a backup weapon equipped, however, Bungie doesn't bother to mention it. That's because, as I've discovered, a second gun is surplus to requirements in Marathon, and fielding one is usually nothing but a further way to hurt yourself in a game built from sharp edges.

Dead weight

Of course, it's natural enough to fill that second gun slot when fiddling with your gear. It's there, for one thing, a gaping hole in the centre of your loadout, waiting to be occupied by something chunky and reassuring. Like the donkey in Buckaroo, every extra item you freight your avatar with allows you to feel slightly safer and better prepared.

What you're imagining as you equip that V11 Punch is an idealized situation where, facing down a fellow runner, you get in a final, decisive shot by swapping to the pistol or shotgun. It's a satisfying mental image – one that may or may not be rendered in slow-mo, depending on personal taste.

But let's be honest with each other here; emotionally naked, like a shell stripped of all its loot in the aftermath of a scrap. How often is your shotgun-flipping fantasy playing out in reality? Is it never?

There are a few key facts working against the realization of that beautiful dream. One is Marathon's infamous time-to-kill, so brutal that second weapons rarely get a look-in. Extended engagements are certainly possible, and become more likely as players get to grips with the hero-shooter-style abilities that allow teammates to bounce back even after they're spitting blue blood, but fast and nasty ambushes are the norm. In many cases, the outcome of a battle is decided almost before it begins.

Not because of high-level equipment, which typically offers only a second or two of extra breathing room to the well-armored, but because Marathon is a stealth game. Those who can read the environment for signs of passing teams – who can keep their ear to the wall for footsteps, or the telltale buzz of a disgruntled bot – are the ones who get to decide how a skirmish starts, and consequently, how it ends. Swapping to your Magnum MC as your shield bursts is not going to change that.

Know your place

Then there's the fact that mid-range weapons like the LMG can cover engagements at any realistic distance. That sniper rifle on your back? It's primarily a tool to pointlessly break a distant target's shield and alert them to your exact position.

At close range, meanwhile, the knife is the fight-winner - the desperate, last-ditch defence that might fell a tougher enemy. Wasting precious seconds reaching for a shotgun is most often a mistake, an invitation for your opponent to snatch the weapon from your crumpled corpse moments later.

Unless, of course, you're a specialist – somebody who is deeply committed to the shotgun or the sniper rifle, and has built their shell around that playstyle. In which case, fair enough: you might value a backup weapon that offsets the shortcomings of your favoured firearm. But such setups are the exception. By 20 hours in, you know who you're going to be in Marathon, and most of us are generalists. Mid-range and, in my case, mid all over. Happy to be there, used to defeat, and ecstatic in occasional victory. Grateful for an exfil under any circumstances.

If that's you as well, do yourself a favor. The next time you scroll over a small gun in your Vault, sell it. Don't fill that second slot. Leave yourself a space in your inventory to loot an extra gun on the ground, then sell that too. Stop kidding yourself that you're ever going to switch to another weapon. And please, stop gifting extra gear to the enemies rifling through your pockets. Let their disappointment at a minimal haul be your revenge.

Love Marathon? Grab your gear and head out into the other best FPS games to play in 2026

The latest episode of The Boys sees the hunt for V-One continue as Homelander tries to solidate his power. However, the cracks in his inner circle are beginning to show as even the most loyal seem to be doubting his divine right to rule.

The Boys season 5, episode 5, 'One-Shots' tells its story through shifting narratives that reveal more about Firecracker, Sister Sage, Black Noir, and, uh, Terror the dog… However, don't be distracted by some highly disturbing pooch dreams, when the episode enters its third act, it builds up to being one of the bloodiest sequences we've seen yet.

If that wasn't enough too, we also get something of a Supernatural reunion with Jared Padalecki and Misha Collins joining Jensen Ackles in the new ep. For more on those cameos and all of the Easter eggs from that, read on for our spoiler-filled recap below, full of all the gory details you need to know.

For more, check out what's new on Prime Video this month, and all the latest on timings with The Boys season 5 release schedule.

The Boys season 5, episode 5 'One-Shots' recap

The episode starts out with the launch of the Democratic Church of America, with Firecracker sharing the good news that it's already starting to gel with congregants. Homelander even gets his own bible (written by AI of course), but it soon starts feeling a bit close to home for Firecracker. She gets a call from her hometown reverend who tells her that they're haemorrhaging constituents to the new church.

It all leads Firecracker to have something of a crisis of faith, which is a dangerous place to be in a sea of Vought traitors. She then learns that her hometown church has been raided by Praying Mantis, leading her to blame the church for Starlightering activity on her Truthbomb show. It's a particularly painful watch to see her destroying her hometown connection to stay loyal to Homelander. We hope it pays off…

The narrative then switches to Black Noir, or method actor Justin, who's got a side gig acting in a Bee Gees play. He's using acting to work through his feelings about The Deep's betrayal claiming that he gave Stan Edgar to Homelander. He has Oh Father on his podcast with The Deep, suggesting that he goes on stage and gets healed by Homelander for Easter. It all seems to be looking up for the actor before The Deep murders his play director, (Rise of the Seven's Adam Bourke), and blackmails him to stay quiet.

Perhaps the weirdest perspective of the episode comes from Billy Butcher's dog Terror. After having an interesting dream about Homelander, he watches the goings on at The Boys HQ as Butcher and Mother's Milk try to locate Bombsight. Terror eats Frenchie's discarded chocolate souffle, leading to a surprisingly domestic moment where Hughie helps him throw up and get the poison out. Butcher says he'll give V-One to Annie and Kimiko to keep them safe in thanks as Terror goes back to pining for Homelander.

After a few weeks of stewing on the sidelines, Sister Sage's plans also start to emerge in the new episode. She brings Ashley (and Bashley) in for a drink to get information about what Homelander is planning to do with the V-One. She's also keen to know whether Soldier Boy is warming up to his son at all as this will interfere with her plans.

Sage and Ashley have a heart-to-heart about their tough childhoods before she opens up about what Phase Two of her mission is. Apparently, it's about setting "the end of the world" in motion as she wants the Supe virus out, leading to World War Supe. Her plan during all of it? Sitting it out in her bunker while everyone (including Homelander) is destroyed. Then, she says, she'll be free to read her books in peace. Bit extreme, if you ask us.

Soldier Boy and Homelander decide to join forces to interrogate Stan Edgar and try to find the V-One. When they threaten his daughter, he sends them to Los Angeles to meet with Mister Marathon, who used to be part of the Seven before he was replaced with A-Train. Now a washed-up actor, he has a group of stars hiding out in his home, including Seth Rogan and Kumail Nanjiani who are discussing who in the industry has been rounded up so far.

Meanwhile, when Mister Marathon is asked about V-One, he confirms that Bombsight has it and tells them to wait it out at his mansion. They end up in his collecting room which features lots of teases for Vought Rising (more Clara Vought hints too). However, it's quickly revealed that Marathon has another plan to take down Homelander as Malchemical gases him. The pair try to get Soldier Boy on board but he's warmed to his son, affectionately calling him his "fucking asexual weirdo". Bloodshed ensues as Soldier Boy kills Malchemical and several of the Hollywood cameos, tricking Marathon into offing the rest.

He then corners Mister Marathon to see if he's telling the truth about Bombisight as Homelander comes to. They kill him and then Soldier Boy says he's ending things with Firecracker, but not before mentioning her pillow talk questioning her faith in the leader of the Seven. Uh oh.

The episode ends with Homelander confronting Firecracker about her conflict. "You don't believe in me," he tells her, forcing her to leave the tower. She tries to convince him to let her stay, but he ends up killing her instead by shoving her head into an eagle statue. At least it's a patriotic end for the Supe.

The Boys season 5, episode 5 Easter eggs and cameos

Praying Mantis – This Supe is mentioned as being behind several church attacks, including Firecracker's hometown parish. We've yet to meet this Supe but it feels like the mention could be setting up a future cameo.

Adam Bourke – The Dawn of the Seven director is back once again. This time he's directing Black Noir's play about the Bee Gees before he meets an untimely end at the tentacles of The Deep. He gets a few shots off before he bites the dust though, saying Paul Rudd is "not who you think he is" and airing his jealousy for Andor creator Tony Gilroy.

The Legend – The Vought insider gets a quick reference during Mother Milk and Billy Butcher's search for Bombsight. The previous informant for The Boys is thought to make a comeback at some point this season so it seems like this is setting up his return.

Supernatural reunion – After Jensen Ackles joined The Boys back in season 3, we've been waiting for a full Supernatural reunion. We finally got it in episode five with Jared Padalecki's Mister Marathon and Misha Collins' Malchemical all meeting on screen again. As Stan Edgar says, it really is "a delightful reunion".

Movie posters – There are a whole bunch of movie poster nods too, which recognise the actors' Supernatural pasts. These include one of Mr Marathon Vampyre Hunter and Ghost Runner 2, which has the apt tagline, "Supernatural speedster".

Sony Pictures TV – There's another inside joke during this section as Sony Pictures TV is labeled as "where washed up Supes go to die". Alongside Amazon Studios, Sony Pictures TV is one of the producers of the show.

Hollywood cameos – There are a whole bunch of cameos at Mister Marathon's house with Kumail Nanjiani, Seth Rogan, Will Forte, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and later Craig Robinson all playing themselves. Rogan has been a producer on The Boys since the start and has made several cameos over the seasons too.

More Stormfront – Mr Marathon's basement is a room full of set-up for the upcoming spin-off Vought Rising. Included in his collection is a picture of Clara Vought, which Soldier Boy looks at. There's definitely some history there…

Who dies in The Boys season 5, episode 5?

There are a fair few casualties in episode 5.

• Adam Bourke – killed by an eel controlled by The Deep
• Malchemical – strangled by Soldier Boy
• Kumail Nanjiani, Seth Rogan, Will Forte, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and Craig Robinson – obliterated by Mister Marathon
• Mister Marathon – squashed by Homelander
• Firecracker – impaled by Homelander

Which Supes appear in The Boys season 5, episode 5?

• Homelander
• Firecracker
• Oh Father
• Sister Sage
• Praying Mantis (mentioned)
• Billy Butcher
• The Deep
• Black Noir
• Kimiko
• Starlight
• Ashley (Bashley)
• Mister Marathon
• Malchemical
• Bombsight (mentioned)

Other Key Moments From 'One Shots'

• The Boys season 5 just made a perfect dig at Spider-Man and the MCU in its latest episode
• The Boys season 5 episode 5 is a Supernatural reunion, but who are the new Supes played by Jared Padalecki and Misha Collins?
• Five episodes in, The Boys season 5 finally delivers another major death, but fans are questioning if the Supe could survive

Looking to get up to speed on The Boys season 5? Check out our recaps so far:

• The Boys season 5, episode 1 recap
• The Boys season 5, episode 2 recap
• The Boys season 5, episode 3 recap
• The Boys season 5, episode 4 recap

For more, check out our picks for the best shows on Prime Video and the best movies on Prime Video.

Daredevil: Born Again season 2 is almost over, but another character from the original Netflix show has returned.

After Jessica Jones made her triumphant return in Daredevil: Born Again season 2 episode 6, none other than Brett Mahoney is back in episode 7. We haven't seen the detective in about seven years, since he appeared in The Punisher season 2 following the death of Billy Russo aka Jigsaw. However, you might remember him as working closely with none other than Foggy Nelson.

We've got everything you need to know about the return of Brett Mahoney and how it plays into the main storyline of Daredevil: Born Again season 2. It goes without saying, of course, that there are massive spoilers ahead for Daredevil: Born Again season 2 episode 7 ahead, so turn back now if you haven't seen the latest episode.

Who is Brett Mahoney?

In Daredevil: Born Again season 2 episode 7, Karen is taken to a local jail, rather than Fisk's creepy ATVF prison. This is thanks to the intervention of Brett Mahoney, a former NYPD sergeant who previously aided the law office of Nelson and Murdock in their legal cases, and whom Karen is happy and relieved to see. Mahoney allows Karen to see Matt, and the two briefly prep for what's sure to be the biggest blow-out anti-vigilante case on Fisk's docket thus far.

Mahoney aided the law office of Nelson and Murdock in their legal cases for some 18 episodes of Netflix's Daredevil. Though initially anti-vigilante himself, the detective forged a connection with Daredevil with the intent to protect New York City from Fisk's criminal empire. He's also the same detective who arrested the Punisher, the latter of which got him promoted to Detective Sergeant. After Fisk was freed from Riker's Island, Mahoney and Foggy worked together to expose Fisk and find enough material to send him back to prison. After Fisk's arrest at the end of the Daredevil season 3 finale, which also saw Vanessa join her husband behind bars, Mahoney set his sights on Jigsaw aka Billy Russo (appearing in nine episodes of The Punisher), but not before he found himself under Kilgrave's mind control in Jessica Jones season 1.

Though Mahoney is no longer a sergeant, it seems he still has enough connections and influence to prevent Karen from being whisked away to that awful, lawless dungeon. We're not sure what role he'll play in the Daredevil: Born Again season 2 finale, but we do think, thanks to the confirmation of the full-out Defenders reunion in Daredevil: Born Again season 3, that we will see him again.

Daredevil: Born Again season 2 is out now on Disney Plus. Stay up to date with our Daredevil: Born Again season 2 release schedule, or check out our Daredevil: Born Again season 2 review.

Daredevil: Born Again season 2 may have made more space for its female characters, but a disappointing confrontation in this week's episode proves that their lives still revolve around the Man Without Fear.

At the end of last week's episode, the AVTF arrested Karen Page after a riot broke out at Vanessa Fisk's vigil. Now, in episode 7, as Karen awaits the continuation of her trial (she's been fast-tracked to vigilante court), Dr. Heather Glenn pays her a visit to carry out a psychological evaluation for the DA.

What could have been an interesting deep-dive into the psyches of two of this season's most intriguing characters (Karen, with her rage and desire for revenge against the Fisk regime, and Heather, with her mirrored feelings against vigilantism, mutating instead into anxiety and fear that she believes only the mayor can quell) devolves into a schoolyard fight over a boy.

Boy problems

Let's rewind for a minute. In Born Again season 1, Heather and Matt dated after being set up by Matt's legal partner, Kirsten, but their relationship fell apart because of Heather's anti-vigilante views and her proximity to Fisk. Tensions rose – understandably – between the two when Matt mistook her for Karen when she visited him in the hospital after he took a bullet for Fisk. And, somewhere in the time jump between seasons 1 and 2, Matt and Karen's cautious flirtation turned into a fully fledged relationship. As Karen was absent for most of season 1, escaping New York after Foggy's death, the two have yet to really cross paths – until now.

In the interrogation room, Karen taunts Heather about her failed relationship with Matt, which climaxes in Heather slapping her. "Matt really hurt you, didn't he," Karen says, condescendingly. It all feels weirdly childish for an otherwise mature, thoughtful season of television that's elsewhere interrogating weighty themes like authoritarianism and fascism.

It feels like a major wasted opportunity. Other than Kirsten and Karen coming to Angela's aid after her aunt is arrested and some brief conversations between Vanessa and Heather, there's very little interaction between the women in Daredevil: Born Again season 2. Their storylines are planets revolving around Matt's (or, by extension, Fisk's sun), which makes sense for a show named after his character. But with plenty – or, one could argue, too many – subplots bubbling away in the background this season, from an underground network of ex-cops to backstabbing in City Hall, it's a shame that no space could be made for a more considered interaction between two women on opposing sides of the show's political divide.

Two sides of the same coin

Karen is unerring in her loyalty to Matt and Foggy's memory, while Heather is so traumatized by her encounter with Muse in season 1 that it colors everything in her life. While Karen has a steadfast partner in Matt (despite their disagreements about violent versus nonviolent methods), Heather only has uneasy allies in City Hall. Vanessa was the closest she had to a real friend, and she's now dead. She keeps Muse's mask in a drawer, even though the sight of it sends her into a state of panic. What's more, Fisk's right-hand man, Buck Cashman's, attempts to ingratiate himself with Heather have thus far felt nebulously uncomfortable for reasons that are hard to pinpoint (although it's not hard to guess that he might have less-than-honorable intentions), but came to a head in episode 6 when he encouraged her to strangle him in a thoroughly weird psychosexual interaction.

It's disappointing, then, that instead of further exploring what it could mean for Heather and Karen to represent two sides of the same coin, the show doubles down on petty romantic rivalries and tired love triangle tropes. It all comes a little out of nowhere, too – Karen has so far shown no sign of jealousy or romantic insecurity with Matt, and Heather seems far too preoccupied with her Muse-related trauma to be worrying about her ex-boyfriend.

When you consider that Jessica Jones' long-awaited return to the small screen was somewhat dampened by a lack of screentime and some unfortunate fridging of her powers at the expense of motherhood, it seems that Daredevil: Born Again might be struggling to work out what to do with its female characters.

Of course, Daredevil is the beating heart (and tortured soul) of the series, but it's the supporting cast that really brings the show to life. Karen and Heather should be fierce political opponents, not fighting over the same boyfriend. They have plenty of reasons to hate one another – and Matt Murdock should rank pretty low on the list.

Daredevil: Born Again season 2 is dropping weekly on Disney Plus. Stay up to date with our Daredevil: Born Again season 2 release schedule, or check out our Daredevil: Born Again season 2 review.

2026 is shaping up to be a pretty excellent year for role-playing games. The upcoming RPGs I've got my eye on include big hitters like Clockwork Revolution and Fable, not to mention indie delights like the long-awaited Witchbrook. But if there is any one RPG that is starting to consume all of my attention it is The Blood of Dawnwalker, a new IP from Rebel Wolves – a studio helmed by former CDPR developers, including the game director of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and lead quest designer of Cyberpunk 2077.

I recently flew out to Rebel Wolves' headquarters in Warsaw, Poland, to meet the development team and get a brand new look at the opening hours of The Blood of Dawnwalker. What I saw is a video game that has come on leaps and bounds since its last showing in August of 2025; a confident and capable RPG is emerging, one which is trying to channel the true essence of role-play into a densely populated open-world that wields time as a valuable resource for managing progression and player-expression.

This week we'll be sharing a deep analysis of the latest Blood of Dawnwalker gameplay, bringing you insights from key creative leads, and exploring how this game may shape the future of RPGs when it lands this September. For now though, I wanted to share five reasons The Blood of Dawnwalker has quickly become one of my most anticipated RPGs of the year.

1. A great concept

The Blood of Dawnwalker is a medieval RPG set across a remote valley nestled in the Carpathian Mountains. It's a picturesque setting, if you can ignore the presence of a near-immortal sect of vampires known as the vrakhiri. Battling against their rising influence is Coen, a human by day who (through a fairly brutal set of circumstances) is able to wield the power of the vrakhiri by night.

You technically have just 30 days and 30 nights to try and save your family from Brencis, an ancient vampire leader, but whether you choose to follow that path is up to you – The Blood of Dawnwalker is entirely open-ended, a world of distractions where every action (and inaction) can change the shape and scope of your story. It's an exceptionally compelling prospect; a weird creative concept that's being brought to life by veterans of the genre.

2. Unique quest structure

One of the more experimental ideas in The Blood of Dawnwalker is how Rebel Wolves is playing with time itself. Each day and night is divided into eight segments, with almost every meaningful action consuming a portion of your allotted time. It means that time is presented as both an emotional pressure and a non-renewable resource, pushing you to constantly make decisions around the quests you want to actively pursue and the sort of character you want Coen to be.

There are no fail states in The Blood of Dawnwalker, just decisions made. Essential NPCs can die, regions of the world can change, and quests can conclude without you. It sounds like it shouldn't work, but from what I've seen so far the system is well enough implemented that The Blood of Dawnwalker is guaranteed to be worthy of our time and attention.

3. Pure role-play

A world where every choice has consequences that ripple outwards, often in ways that can surprise or alarm you, is at risk of causing a degree of paralysis – particularly if you're the sort of player who likes to complete every task that comes across your journal. But from the demo I'm presented, this setup seems liberating. It means that progression is entirely driven by the sort of character you want to role-play, giving a very real sense of authorship over the way your story unfolds.

I love that you can simply walk away from quests if something else catches your eye, all the while knowing that these actions can have substantial effects on those around you. Rebel Wolves is putting player agency above all else here, something Larian did to great effect in Baldur's Gate 3 – only time will tell whether The Blood of Dawnwalker can reach similar heights, but early signs are positive.

4. Improved combat

Rebel Wolves has been pretty transparent all throughout the development of The Blood of Dawnwalker, showing the game in various states to allow viewer feedback to help shape some of its design. If there's any one area I've had concerns over it was combat, which in previous showings has appeared a little stilted and static. Thankfully, this new demo is far more fluid – Coen flows between enemy encounters, with the directional-approach to combat appearing to be both challenging and aggressive in nature. Sword-play is far tighter, with well placed strikes and clashes helping to dictate the flow of encounters, while a suite of vampyric abilities you're able to summon are more flourished and engaging. The Blood of Dawnwalker seems to be finding a nice balance between the cinematic style of the Batman: Arkham games and the precision found in the For Honor and Kingdom Come combat systems.

5. Vibrant visuals

The Blood of Dawnwalker is ambitious, but it's also made by a relatively small team – one with shockingly high AAA ambitions. The RPG is set to land later this year for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X, and the latest build of the game is demonstrating exceptional visual fidelity. The studio is putting forward a rich experience, powered by Unreal Engine 5 to deliver sprawling vistas, stunning lighting, and a world which feels exceptionally lived-in.

The Blood of Dawnwalker is a beautiful looking video game, with a style that beckons you off-the-beaten path and towards new distractions at every turn. If there's any one aspect I'd like to see given a little more love in these final months ahead of release it's with the quality of some of the NPC character models, but I'm confident that Rebel Wolves will use this last stretch of development to refine its style.

The Blood of Dawnwalker release date is set for September 3, 2026, where the game is due to launch on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X.