Ever since God of War Laufey was revealed this past summer, fans have been squabbling over Sony Santa Monica's decision to move aside Kratos as the game's main protagonist in favor of his second wife and mother to Atreus, Laufey. Well, that debate has now been ended quite decisively, as none other than Kratos actor Christopher Judge has stepped in with an unequivocal stamp of approval for the upcoming sequel.

"It's a banger," Judge said during a Fan Expo Canada panel (via Collider) "People are going to be blown away." Speaking directly to Woll's casting, Judge added, "She's so beloved in so many fandoms, and man, she brings it. She absolutely brings it."

Indeed, Woll is a beloved and prolific actor with major roles across TV, film, and video games. She's known as Jessica Hamby in True Blood, Karen Page in the MCU, and Faye, or Laufey, in the Norse era of Sony's God of War games. Though she was briefly seen, dead, in the first God of War from 2018, she appeared more prominently in cutscenes in God of War Ragnarok, and Laufey will be her first appearance as a playable character in the series. And if Judge is correct, you won't want to go back.

We saw plenty of Faye's moveset in the 20 minutes of footage shown in God of War Laufey's announcement, and the nimble, acrobatic hero couldn't be more different to the hulking, lumbering Kratos. Woll herself previously called Kratos's gameplay "fantastic because he's such a heavy hitter," but added that Faye is "just as strong and just as good a warrior." Of course, if you've spent any time on the internet ever, you won't be surprised to hear there were some negative reactions to Laufey being the main protagonist, which Woll has wisely shrugged off.

God of War Laufey hits PS5 on February 16, 2027.

God of War Laufey proves women are still gaining ground in gaming, and I'm thrilled Kratos is sitting this one out

Two new amiibo are on the way for Ocarina of Time remake, and they look fantastic - but what they unlock is seriously weirding me out.

Revealed during the latest Nintendo Direct livestream, these figures depict Young Link sitting on a stump with Navi the fairy and Young Zelda as she plays what I think might be the Ocarina of Time itself. As with all amiibo (and particularly the Legend of Zelda range like the new Mineru's Construct that just went up for pre-order at Amazon), they're impressively detailed so could be sold as mini statuettes in their own right... but that's just the tip of the iceberg, because they also unlock in-game items. In this case, deeply cursed masks of their former selves.

Yes, you'll be able to wear a mask of original Link or Zelda in all their polygonal glory after using these amiibo in the Ocarina of Time remake. Judging by the stream, there won't be any other benefit - just the ability to parade around in a chilling facsimile of their faces with one hell of a dead-eyed stare.

While I understand the idea in principle, there's something unsettling about the execution; besides it feeling odd for Link to run around Hyrule wearing his old face like a pint-sized version of Michael Myers, it's jarring to see the crisp, highly detailed character model under a pixelated mug with edges so sharp they could cut someone.

Still, at least the amiibo themselves are fantastic. The attention to detail is every bit as meticulous as you'd expect from modern amiibo, and Link is a fun nod to the past. Taking a break on a log while Navi the fairy perches on his hand, this image is pulled directly from artwork for the original game. That makes it a neat ode to N64 Ocarina of Time that anyone who grew up with the game will appreciate.

This wasn't the only merch unveiled during the stream; besides the reveal of a new Lego Link and Epona kit, Nintendo just showed off an electronic Master Sword to accompany new Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time Remake, as well as a playable ocarina. These are shaping up to be some of the best Legend of Zelda merch already...

• See all Legend of Zelda amiibo at Amazon

Nintendo has finally given us a substantial look at the incoming The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake, revealing a number of big changes. There are a few that truly stand-out, like having a jump button and a quest log, and added voice-acting for various characters.

As you no doubt recall from the original, the only lines you hear through the game are Navi's incessant requests for your attention, and Link's shouts and grunts while delving through the various dungeons across Hyrule. Not any more, because the rest of the characters now have fully-voiced dialogue.

That includes Zelda, Saria, Princess Ruto of the Zora, Darunia of the Gorons, and yes, even Ganondorf himself, who is just as menacing in that encounter when he's on horseback. We get lines from each in the latest trailer, and it definitely gives an anachronistic shock at first.

The voices themselves are more than adequate, but after 30 years, it's weird seeing anything related to Ocarina of Time with full dialog. Ganondorf is particularly tricky for my brain to register, possibly because I always thought he was scarier due to his silence. On the flipside, Zelda and Saria's voices are particularly spot on to how they always seemed in my head, and of course, Link remains completely silent.

The voice cast has yet to be revealed, which is classic Nintendo behavior. We'll probably have to wait until November to find out exactly who's behind these performances, but whomever they are, this must've been one of their more nerve-racking assignments.

Imagine being the first person to voice a character in a game that's been totally loved for three decades? Incredible pressure. But I can say they done decent job, at least from what we've seen thus far.

Nintendo says Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake isn't aiming "for realistic graphics," and that's great for everyone but Young Link

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake appears to largely be faithful to the design of the original, but Nintendo has introduced a couple of core gameplay tweaks that some players have been waiting decades for. There's now a dedicated jump button, and you no longer have to spam the roll button to move faster.

In the original Ocarina of Time on N64, you'd automatically jump by running towards a ledge, but there was no way to jump whenever you wanted to. While the game was certainly designed around this limitation, it seemed weird even at the time, especially given the prominence of the jump-driven Super Mario 64 on the same platform.

Players have complained about Ocarina of Time's lack of jump button since the game launched 28 years ago, but now you can simply tap a button to hop. Plus, you can swing the camera around with the right stick, something else that wasn't possible on N64. Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma admits in today's gameplay demonstration that both these features "might seem obvious for those of you who have played recent games in the series," but they do both mark major changes for the 28-year-old original.

Another key change: in the original game, repeatedly rolling forward is slightly faster than running. To this day, even speedrunners make use of that rolling technique to get around faster. But in the remake, you can hold down the roll button to have Link burst into a speedy sprint. There doesn't appear to be any stamina meter holding you back from dashing forever, so it looks like there's a new fastest way to get around.

I've played through Ocarina of Time more times than I can count, but I'm not fully convinced by the remake. Hyrule appears to be largely unchanged from how it debuted in 1998 aside from the new visuals, and I'm not sure I love that new graphical treatment. So I'm not convinced this remake is a meaningful upgrade over the original. But I'm glad to see Nintendo's at least willing to make a few core gameplay tweaks to get this remake feeling a little fresher.

Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake release date set for November as Nintendo joins GTA 6 in a weird month.

Nintendo has unveiled the first footage of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Remake, and Nintendo hired that man.

As part of The Legend of Zelda 40th anniversary Nintendo Direct, series producer Eiji Aonuma revealed some live gameplay of the upcoming remake, showing the early moments of Link's adventure in Kokiri Forest and the Great Deku Tree. And to say it's quite a stark difference is certainly an understatement. Aonuma notes, "We had many discussions about what visual style we should use for this game, We decided that if Link's adventure took place in a world that has both been remade yet somewhat nostalgic, he would look like this."

Despite the change, Aonuma adds, "we didn't just aim for realistic graphics; we were particularly focused on reimagining them in a way that invoked nostalgia for the original game." This can be seen in some of the redesigns, like Link's tunic, which has a new textured appearance and pattern, while the Great Deku Tree has a ton of frayed branches to represent its facial hair, as opposed to the flatter design seen in the original.

Naturally, with any remake, visual differences are going to be hit-or-miss for everyone, but the realistic design is certainly a choice, even if it's not quite as uncanny as the Star Fox remake earlier this year. The environments have been updated in a way that generally looks lovely and is a natural update to what you'd imagine the game to look like in a semi-realistic style.

Weirdly, the worst looking part of the game is Link himself, at least in his younger form, some of the designs like Darunia and Ruto are spot on while Sheik has a fantastic looking redesign, but Link just ain't it, with exaggerated eyes and chubby cheeks he just looks a bit strange. The first look at the game in the stream was definitely weird to get to grips with, but it won me over as it went along, and thankfully adult Link isn't quite as strange-looking, so there's that.

Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake's mystery developer may be a veteran studio that a Nintendo lead wanted to see "play a central role" in the series moving forward

Nintendo officially announced The Legend of Zelda – 40th Anniversary Edition Switch 2 during its Zelda Direct on September 8 after plenty of spurting leaks in August. The handheld will be available from October 29 – with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake sold separately.

So, it seems the special Switch 2 won't be included in any bundle deals – though Nintendo's existing price-hiked Switch 2 bundles are underwhelming. Instead, Zelda fans can expect to see a 40th Anniversary Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller, which matches the special Switch 2 console with its emerald and gold decals, as well as a 40th Anniversary screen protector and carrying case, which also shows off the mighty Triforce. You'll also have the option to buy the Zelda Switch 2 with a display stand.

Though, Nintendo disclaims that the Zelda Switch 2 with a display stand will be exclusive to the Nintendo store, including its brick-and-mortar locations in New York and San Francisco. Pre-orders for the 40th Anniversary Edition Switch 2 stuff will otherwise likely go live at Nintendo first, but then they'll make their way to other retailers like Amazon and Best Buy.

We don't know how much any of it will cost internationally yet, but a press release from Nintendo's Japanese wing lists the Zelda Switch 2 console as 62,980 yen, which is about $400, while the Pro Controller plus display stand is priced at 12,980 yen, or $80. The carrying case and screen protector will cost 3,980 yen in Japan, or approximately $25 – though you should remember all Nintendo hardware is generally priced lower in Japan. The Japan-language Switch 2 is 59,980 yen, for example, which equates to around $385, while the multi-language Switch 2 is currently available in the US at $499. And yet the Triforce beckons...

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake release date is set for November 5, with seemingly no concern for GTA 6.

Where to buy the Legend of Zelda Nintendo Switch 2, how to find your best shot at a pre-order.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake release date is set for November 5, Nintendo announced at today's big Zelda Nintendo Direct showcase.

The Ocarina of Time remake release date joins a strange November which notably includes GTA 6, due November 19. GTA 6 is, of course, only coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X, not Nintendo Switch 2.

Thanks to GTA 6, many games have already shifted their release dates out of November, creating an absurdly stuffed October. Nintendo and Rockstar are currently the marquee publishers for November itself.

That leaked Zelda Switch 2 console is coming just before November on October 29, albeit with the game sold separately. Similarly, a new Lego Legend of Zelda Link and Epona set was briefly revealed in the Direct.

Per our big list of upcoming Switch 2 games, the Ocarina of Time remake is the tentpole release for November, and the biggest Nintendo game of the holiday season.

This month, the console is getting Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave (September 17) alongside third-party releases like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered (September 29) and Trails in the Sky 2nd Chapter (also September 17).

In October, Switch 2 owners can look forward to Rayman Legends Retold (October 1), the Octopath Traveler duo pack (also October 1), and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 (October 23). The big Nintendo release for the month is Nintendo Switch Sports Resort (October 22).

December is currently looking a little light, with a Switch 2 edition of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 leading the pack. The Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Switch 2 update was one of the console's best, so that might actually be enough for some JRPG fans.

Nintendo says Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake isn't aiming "for realistic graphics," and that's great for everyone but Young Link.

A new Lego Legend of Zelda set has been announced in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it reveal during the latest Nintendo Direct livestream.

As is only right considering the imminent release for Ninty's Ocarina of Time remake, the latest kit depicts Link and Epona striking a heroic pose on a small slice of Hyrule Field. This one isn't like the other Lego Legend of Zelda sets so far, though; rather than being a diorama with the usual minifigures (as seen in the Final Battle set that hit the Lego store earlier this year or the now-retired Lego Great Deku Tree), it's one of the company's larger 'big' figures.

There's no word yet on when this kit will be launching, though. In fact, we don't even know this model's price. However, we can make an educated guess. Lego doesn't typically show off kits too far ahead of launch, so if I had to guess, I think we'll see this one hitting shelves in early October, November, or December.

From what I can tell, this model may not have to be displayed with Epona rearing up. The bottom of her hind legs and the knees of her front legs seem to be hinged, so if I had to guess, you can probably pose her however you like. (The base certainly looks big enough to accommodate all four hooves being on the ground, if barely.)

I think it's a similar story for Link. His arms, hands, and head look as though they can be twisted, though based on the angle I can't be sure about the legs. It's possible he'll take a leaf out of Lego Luigi & Mach 8's book in that his top half is flexible, but his bottom half isn't.

Either way, this kit looks pretty manageable no matter whether you're coming back to Lego for the first time in years, have never built a set, or are a veteran of many models. While it's hard to gauge size from a screengrab, you can hazard a good guess based on the pieces used. Judging by the jagged two-stud pieces around Epona's hooves which usually weigh in at around 16mm long, I think this model will be between six and ten inches tall when reared up.

No matter what, we should find out precise details soon. Keep a close eye on Lego for more in the coming weeks.

This wasn't the only cool collectible to appear during the Nintendo Direct stream; Nintendo announces electronic Master Sword to accompany new Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time Remake, as well as a playable ocarina.

• See all the latest sets over at Lego

New details for the upcoming The Legend of Zelda movie have been revealed, and they're pretty intriguing. While we didn't get a trailer for the new film during The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Direct, Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto did reveal some interesting teases.

"The title is The Legend of Zelda," he explained. "Once you see the film, you'll understand why there isn't a subtitle. This is an original film based on the many stories, ideas, and concepts of the series, built up through the games over 40 years." He also teased that the Triforce will play a part in the new movie.

Directed by Wes Ball, the adaptation stars House of the Dragon's Benjamin Evan Ainsworth as Link and Renegade Nell's Bo Bragason as Zelda. It also stars Uli Latukefu as Ganondorf, Dichen Lachman as Impa, and Yvonne Strahovski as "a Queen character".

Speaking earlier this year to GamesRadar+, Ainsworth revealed he was a bit too young to play Breath of the Wild, possibly the best Zelda game of all time, when it was released in 2011, but he did watch a lot of playthroughs.

"Then, upon being fortunate enough to play this role, such an iconic character, going back and realizing the 40 years of legacy and history, and the varied tones, the varied stories, the varied renditions and vocal performances of this character as well," he explained of his preparation. "Yeah, I'm a big fan, and just really excited, because it was an awesome thing to shoot."

The Legend of Zelda movie is set to hit theaters worldwide on April 30, 2027. For more game-to-film adaptations, here's our guide to all the video game movies you need to know about.

After backlash over the controversial Stellar Blade: Blood Rain AI music video, Shift Up's chief technology officer says the studio has been taking concerns "seriously," and now wants to "make a clear separation" between what it considers "experimental content" and its main "game-related content."

Following the Stellar Blade sequel's reveal during Summer Game Fest, an official AI-generated music video starring new protagonist Evie was released and met with immediate vitriol. Shift Up wasn't attempting to hide anything – fine print at the end of the video stated: "This video was created using the Game resource from Stellar Blade: Blood Rain and regenerated with AI support."

But honesty wasn't the concern here. People have many reasons to dislike AI, from its general laziness to the environmental concerns that persist regardless of whether someone is feeding their own work into the machine (it's a whole other issue if it's reproducing the work of others). In a new interview with The Gamer, Stellar Blade technical director and Shift Up CTO DongKi Lee has explained why the video was made in the first place and the studio's thoughts on using the technology moving forward.

"The reason we revealed that music video was to show more of the beauty of Stellar Blade: Blood Rain," the dev says. "We wanted to show the world view and the character Evie. We just wanted to show a little more of each, and we did that as part of the content.

"But then we do take seriously and importantly what the fans have been saying, and the concerns they have been expressing about the music video, and from now on we definitely want to make a clear separation between the two, like game-related content and what we would call experimental content, like what we are experimenting with," he continues.

Shift Up CEO Kim Hyung Tae previously responded to the backlash over the music video himself, although perhaps not in the way Stellar Blade fans were hoping for. At the time, he stated that "Evie, the character at the heart of this video, was created from head to toe by our talented artists and modelers through more than a year of dedicated work," and that "the AI is not creating her from scratch," but rather "rendering and presenting the character based on the data, designs, and craftsmanship our team created."

The thing is, as folks pointed out at the time, this was never really the worry. In fact, one of the main sentiments of the initial kickback from the video was the idea that using AI to regurgitate Evie's design was an insult to the studio's human artists, and that the company had the talent available to create something like this without turning to the slop machine.

The CTO's latest comments do, at least, seem a little more open to the negative feedback, but anyone hoping for the studio to drop the technology like it's a burning turd might still be disappointed.

"AI has a lot of influence and impact on game development," he continues, adding: "But when we are using certain technologies or tools, what's important is the direction and purpose they serve. It needs to be used in a way that supports the developers' creativity, know-how, and skills.

"It should be used as a tool. That's the direction, and its purpose would be to make a great, high-quality game."

This sentiment shouldn't be too surprising, however. The Shift Up CEO previously expressed his belief that AI is a necessary tool for South Korean studios to compete with larger studios in the US and China, so the Stellar Blade creators are clearly in favor of using the tech when it can.

Fueled by the sequel, Stellar Blade diehard begins multi-year quest to kill the final boss every day until Blood Rain and Evie finally arrive.

Now that the GTA 6 release date is set in stone, we can start worrying about the exact time the juggernaut crime sandbox will become available. Some detectives have dug through data on the game to find out when each territory can jump in, and as you might expect, fans down under should be getting a head start.

The outlet GTA Vice put together a full breakdown of the times by country and region, using timestamps from the PS Store to extrapolate the global launch. If you want to be among the first people to gallivant through Leonida, you'll need to head toward New Zealand or Australia.

The former is first up, getting it a good 13 hours before Britain, and 18 hours before the east coast of the US of A. That's a solid head start on one of the most anticipated games ever made, and I wouldn't put it past some particularly eager fans to migrate just for the sake of an extra half a day's gameplay.

The last region to get access to Grand Theft Auto 6 will be Mexico, lagging just behind the United States. Mexican and American players will need to cover their ears for the last day ahead of launch to protect from spoilers, since you can do a lot in 18 hours, and I suspect many won't be sleeping much during this time.

This is all assuming Rockstar sticks to a staggered schedule. The company employed one for Red Dead Redemption 2, but eschewed it for GTA: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition.

I would say it's likely this turns out to be close to the truth. It gives Rockstar time to ensure the infrastructure can handle the millions of players who'll be downloading the game and getting into it, and lets anticipation build across social media. And it's nice to give Australia and New Zealand a bit more excitement, as well.

GTA 6 boss says "there will always be things to satirize," but Rockstar has to "be careful about what we pick" because after 11 years of development "it could be gone, it could change, it could be dated"

Nintendo has confirmed that two Nintendo Direct presentations will air this week, with the first focusing on The Legend of Zelda's 40th anniversary.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake is Nintendo's biggest game for the remainder of 2026, and one we know next to nothing about. Will it be a full-blown remake in the vein of Resident Evil or Final Fantasy 7's recent outings? Or will it be a glorified remaster, just a prettier version of the exact same game with some quality-of-life improvements? Thankfully, all will hopefully be revealed today as we're getting 30 minutes of Zelda news in The Legend of Zelda 40th anniversary Nintendo Direct.

The rumor mill has placed Xenoblade Chronicles studio Monolith Soft as the studio behind this remake. Meanwhile, a leak from the Australian Nintendo store seems to suggest it'll be priced at $60 alongside Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, meaning it's more expensive than the likes of Star Fox 64's remake, but not quite as much as premium Switch 2 games like Donkey Kong Bananza.

As for what else to expect from this show, given we got our first look at The Super Mario Galaxy movie during last year's Super Mario Bros 40th Anniversary segment, I'd wager we'll see footage from The Legend of Zelda movie. Perhaps a duo of remasters like The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess HD could be thrown to Switch 1 owners, and in a stunning display of copium, I'm going to put it out into the world that we get a teaser for the next mainline Zelda game.

How to watch the The Legend of Zelda 40th anniversary Nintendo Direct

The Legend of Zelda 40th anniversary Nintendo Direct will air live on Tuesday, September 8 at 7am PT / 10am ET / 3pm BST and air for 30 minutes.

And don't forget, we'll be getting another Nintendo Direct this week, with a regular Nintendo Direct set to air tomorrow, September 9, 2026, at 7am PT / 10am ET / 3pm BST, which will last 40 minutes. And on top of that, after tomorrow's show wraps up, we're getting a Nintendo Treehouse Live stream with 110 minutes of gameplay, with Zelda being a likely candidate to show up.

Watch the Nintendo Direct stream here

The show will air live on Nintendo's YouTube channels simultaneously, so just pick whatever region suits you best!

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake's price has seemingly leaked ahead of the Nintendo Direct, with the Switch 2 exclusive being right in the middle of Nintendo's Switch 2 game price range.

Nintendo is the one publisher that is weirdest with pricing. Mario Kart World made countless headlines last year when it was revealed that it would cost $80, but aside from that, no Switch 2 game has been $80. Premium releases like Donkey Kong Bananza, Pokemon Pokopia, and Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave have been at $70, while the likes of Star Fox and Splatoon Raiders have been $50, and Yoshi and the Mysterious Book stands alone at $60. Many assume further $80 releases are likely being saved for the Next 3D Mario, Zelda, or Animal Crossing games.

However, ahead of today's The Legend of Zelda 40th anniversary Nintendo Direct, fans have noticed that the Nintendo Store's Australian website has listed The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake at AU$94.95, placing it at the same price point as Yoshi and the Mysterious Book. So unless there's a strange regional difference, the Ocarina of Time remake should be $60 (that's £50 in the UK).

So what does this tell us? Given that Star Fox was also a remake of a Nintendo 64 game released this year and it was $10 cheaper, it says that Nintendo views this as a bigger remake than its contemporary. That being said, not being a full-priced or Mario Kart-priced release may suggest it is closer to a traditional remake than a Resident Evil- or Final Fantasy 7-style remake (that is to say, an actual remake, not a fancy remaster).

However, maybe it is, and Nintendo is just being generous with its pricing based on it being a remake; we'll find out in a few hours!

Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake's mystery developer may be a veteran studio that a Nintendo lead wanted to see "play a central role" in the series moving forward

Rockstar once worried that fans would find Red Dead Redemption 2 boring after spending time with GTA 5 and its trio of protagonists.

After years of primarily offering a singular protagonist for you to experience its in-game worlds through, Rockstar broke tradition by going with three for GTA 5 – giving you the option to swap between the trio as their narrative journeys intertwined with each other. Considering GTA 5 still sells millions of copies a year, I'd say it worked pretty well.

In fact, it almost worked too well, as Rockstar became nervous about moving on to Red Dead Redemption 2 and the singular cowboy it offered to you to play as.

Speaking to TroisCouleurs about GTA 6, Rockstar North co-lead Rob Nelson delves into the journey from GTA 5 to Red Dead Redemption 2, and how that's influenced where the developer is today.

"We always look back at the last games and think about how to evolve on them and move them forward," he says. "And so, with GTA 5 with three protagonists that were connected but individual in their own way, and then going to Red Dead Redemption 2, which was obviously Arthur’s story, we were slightly nervous people were going to be bored with just one protagonist.

"And we did have people ask, 'Are you going to be able to switch between members of the gang?' There were questions about that. I forgot about that until now. And you think about it, and you know, people speculate."

Looking back, Nelson says that it "feels funny now," because Arthur "worked as a character." Partly because Rockstar gave itself the space to "really drill into his journey." In fact, the way his story shifts depending on your choices left such an impact on the team that you can see some form of it in GTA 6.

"We wanted to take the depth that we were able to add into the world of Red Dead Redemption 2 and the ability to interact with the world in a much more significant way, but then also this sort of emotional connection that people end up having with Arthur," Nelson shares. "Is there a way that we bring that into GTA, and how could we do it? So, we had played around with different ideas; we knew we wanted to come back and continue playing with the idea of multiple protagonists.

"We thought about different options but ultimately wanted to try a duo, a partnership of some kind. If they're in relationship, or have the potential to be in [a] relationship, what does that feel like? So it's a couple, it's Bonnie and Clyde. And then as soon as we thought about it, it was obvious. It became the very clear choice for us and felt like something we had to try."

Considering that Rockstar was once worried about Red Dead Redemption 2 boring GTA 5 fans, you have got to say the outcome the team got wasn't bad at all, hm?

GTA 6 boss says "there will always be things to satirize," but Rockstar has to "be careful about what we pick" because after 11 years of development "it could be gone, it could change, it could be dated."

In the wake of The Duskbloods, FromSoftware's Hidetaka Miyazaki says following the exact same rules with every game doesn't result in fun games.

Dark Souls has inspired a mountain of games, it's hard to think of any title in the last 15 years that has had more of an impact on our industry. Well, Fortnite did inspire how we approach live service, battle passes, and publishers chasing the next Fortnite, but I'm talking about positive impacts. This extends to FromSoftware itself, as Bloodborne, Sekiro, and especially Elden Ring all take elements from Dark Souls, yet feel like wholly unique games, and despite all being directed by Miyazaki, the similarities are not the goal for FromSoftware.

Speaking to The Guardian, Miyazaki explains, "There's no intentional FromSoftware [mantra] – 'this is the way we make our games,'" with The Duskbloods set to imbue the combat of a game like Bloodborne with a multiplayer, almost extraction shooter-like loop. He says, "If you start to do that it becomes stale and conservative, and you start having to adhere to a set of rules and philosophies, and it just doesn't become interesting, you can't make anything that's as fun."

Miyazaki notes: "I feel like at least what's worked for us philosophically is trying to adhere to what we find interesting first. I think that has created a good throughline through our games, and that's what we concentrate on to [conceive] a new title."

Yes, FromSoftware definitely has a house style in the same way Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed and Far Cry games share a ton of the same game mechanics in a different genre, or Sony's first-party studios being primarily on cinematic-focused third-person action games for a long time. However, it's undeniable that you are not playing the same game if you play Sekiro and Elden Ring back to back, and that being a mantra from the studio is undoubtedly a factor in its games being the beloved successes they are today.

FromSoftware knows what it's doing with The Duskbloods character Zork, the internet's new obsession: "I have developed a powerful, almost maternal affection."

Rockstar North co-lead Rob Nelson says GTA 6 has been in development since 2015, so the developers have had to be "very careful" to ensure the ideas they ran with still feel relevant in 2026.

Grand Theft Auto has always managed to capture a moment in time. While the likes of GTA Vice City looked back to the era of 1980s Miami, the long-awaited GTA 6 is more like GTA 5 in reflecting contemporary times. Due to swelling development timelines, it can be challenging when something you're working on today might not release for another 10 years.

Speaking to French outlet TroisCouleurs, Nelson offers some insight into how Rockstar is trying to make GTA 6 feel immediately recognizable despite being in development since 2015.

As part of the interview, Nelson is asked if Rockstar devs keep an eye on the current news with an eye to implementing what they see into a future game – the COVID pandemic, for example.

In response, Nelson says "there will always be things to satirize," but there is a method to picking the right things to make fun of.

"We develop on very long cycles," he explains. "The game's been in development since 2015, so the idea is gestating for a long time. The majority of the team really started rolling on to it after Red Dead Redemption 2 released in 2018.

"We have to be very careful about what ideas we choose to put in there, because it can take a long time to figure out what our angle is on this. Because by the time we write it and cast it and shoot it, and implement it, whatever it is – it could be gone, it could change, it could be dated.

"And so we're always trying to think about whether something will stand the test of time. And so, you look at those things, and we only try to pick things if they work with the story we're trying to tell, in the world we're trying to tell it in. I think there will always be things to satirize, there are always ridiculous situations and behaviors that we can find, but we just have to be careful about what we pick."

From what we can see of GTA 6 so far, there's plenty of that on show already. In the GTA 6 Extended Look, we see that Vice City is no stranger to a streamer trying to capture the next viral moment on the streets, for example – something that's been around for years now, and will likely be around for years longer. We've also seen a fair few in-game TV ads, which is one of Rockstar's favorite ways to skewer capitalism.

We'll have to wait until GTA 6 releases on November 19 to see what else Rockstar makes fun of, though it's clear that the silliness of human nature has given developers ample wells of inspiration to draw from.

Rockstar boss says GTA 6 doesn't just let you easily walk around with guns because GTA 5's approach doesn't work "at this resolution."

Onimusha: Way of the Sword's director has explained some of the major inspirations behind the samurai action game, and let's just say, peak respects peak.

Speaking to FZ (via machine translation), Capcom's Satoru Nihei, director of Onimusha: Way of the Sword and Onimusha series producer Akihito Kadowaki were asked to choose one game which inspired their work on the game, and while I'm sure most would expect the director to say something like Sekiro or Ghost of Tsushima, Nihei explained that it was actually Super Mario Odyssey.

He explains that Mario is an action game that is very easy on the surface, but once you go deeper, it becomes more dynamic and challenging, which Nihei praises as something Nintendo, as a developer, excels at. He notes that every action in Mario Odyssey corresponds to a reaction to counter it, and that the way this affects Mario's controls was something Nihei focused on bringing to Onimusha's control scheme to enhance its tactical feel.

Kadowaki, on the other hand, after mentioning Silent Hill f – which you can somewhat feel in the world design – cites the Gundam series. He explains that, with the universe packed to the gills with charismatic characters, this is something Kadowaki aimed to bring to his work with Onimusha. And given how memorable and diverse the personalities of Musashi, Okuni, and Takamura are, I'd say you can definitely feel that shine through.

From a non-game-development perspective, I believe every game should look to something like Super Mario Odyssey for inspiration. Yes, the central game, challenges, and adventure are all brilliant, but Mario himself is what I actually mean. No game has aced how good it feels to have a character and simply move around in the world quite like it; the only exception is Donkey Kong Bananza, from the same development team.

Capcom left a surprise in new Monster Hunter Wilds Ascendance footage: fans spot the return of the series' most cursed creature.

The chances of us getting an official Lego GTA 6 set are slim to nil (something tells me it doesn't fit the toy-maker's family-friendly vibe), so seeing a fan-made version is such a tease for what could be.

Creator hachiroku24 has taken matters into their own hands by making a model inspired by GTA 6, and I'd go so far as to say it's a homerun. I've got no notes; whether it's the high-speed chase or a spot-on version of the logo towering over everything else, this thing is perfect. If there was going to be an official Lego GTA 6 set for Lego's 18+ range, I'd want it to look like this.

On the reddit thread showing off this model, Cherego sums up my thoughts perfectly with "If this would be an official set, I'd buy it [in] an instant." RobberySuspect agrees, adding "Oh my god I love the design you nailed this!" (As you can see for yourself below, hachiroku24 really did.)

The kit shows protagonists Lucia and Jason escaping the law on a speedboat while the cops are left high and dry against a backdrop of palm trees. It's understated, but nails a key part of the Grand Theft Auto experience without taking the easy way out; rather than resorting to a chaotic five-star shootout, it sells the franchise's blend of action, taboo luxury, and danger in a much more subtle but effective way. It's the kind of scene I could see playing out at the beginning of the game, before the logo appears against the city skyline.

Speaking of which, this set then goes one better and adds a GTA 6 logo hovering overhead. Besides the font being pitch-perfect, the gradient colors help sell those sun-kissed Miami vibes. (It's up there with the best Lego sets so far as looks go.) A lot of fans on the reddit thread seem to agree, with numerous comments praising just how accurate the font is. "Looking at this on mobile I thought the background was printed and the model was in the foreground," nocolon writes. "Absolutely mindblown after expanding the image. That’s incredible."

This level of skill won't come as a surprise to long-term Lego fans, though. User hachiroku24 is well known for making incredible homebrew builds, and they recently dreamt up an incredible Lego Final Fantasy set, not to mention a Lego Pokemon kit that's good enough to look official. I'd argue this is their finest work yet.

Unfortunately, these kits and the Lego GTA 6 set aren't official models you can buy – and in the case of Grand Theft Auto, they likely never will be. Hopefully hachiroku24 releases some instructions, so we can have a go at making it ourselves…

Lego Astro Bot leaks as a free gift for the PlayStation kit, and I kinda wish it was being sold separately.

• See all the for-adults display sets over at Lego

Capcom has announced that Onimusha: Way of the Sword has sold one million copies in its first day, continuing the publisher's 2026 hot streak.

Even with the sheer amount of major games that have been released this year, and even with the monolith that is GTA 6 standing over every release as it will inevitably be the best-selling and likely most-awarded game of the year, it's hard to argue that anyone has had a better 2026 than Capcom. Obviously, Resident Evil Requiem is the publisher's marquee title this year, but new IP Pragmata proved to be a huge success, with Capcom poised to turn it into a franchise following 2.5 million copies sold, and the more niche Monster Hunter Stories 3 landed well with players and critics, too.

Onimusha: Way of the Sword landed positively as far as critic reviews went, while its Steam concurrent player count peaked at 85,081 over the weekend to go along with its "very positive" rating (thanks, SteamDB), but the real test was whether the long-dormant Capcom franchise would sell as well in 2026. Thankfully, Capcom seems happy, as the publisher has announced that Way of the Sword surpassed one million units on the first day of its release, which in turn has pushed the Onimusha series overall to 10 million copies sold.

On top of the success of Onimusha, Capcom includes an interesting note at the bottom of its press release: "In addition to regularly releasing major new titles each year, Capcom is focusing on re-activating IPs that haven’t had a new title launch recently."

Capcom considers Monster Hunter, Resident Evil and Street Fighter to be its major titles, with the likes of Mega Man, Devil May Cry, Dead Rising, Onimusha, Okami, and Ace Attorney singled out as series the company wants to be on the level of the big three.

However, following Onimusha's success, we could perhaps be seeing some more Capcom deep cuts like Dino Crisis, Breath of Fire, Darkstalkers, or Viewtiful Joe get another chance at life. I'm holding out hope we'll see a new God Hand, Bionic Commando, Rival Schools, or Final Fight revival, personally.

Capcom left a surprise in new Monster Hunter Wilds Ascendance footage: fans spot the return of the series' most cursed creature.

In a new move for a series that has traditionally let players treat its world like a playground, GTA 6's NPCs will organically react to Lucia and Jason if they have their guns out. Rockstar North's joint boss and development lead Rob Nelson has explained the change was made because GTA 5's approach no longer works with 2026's tech.

As we saw briefly in the GTA 6: An Extended Look showcase, some of the world's inhabitants will walk away cautiously if they spot you with a handgun gripped tight. Police might even antagonize you for swinging a rifle around, too. It's a big change from past Rockstar open-worlds, GTA 5 included, which let you run about with a rocket launcher, no problem.

Speaking to TGG about why the change was made, Nelson gave quite a frank answer, explaining that the GTA 5 way might look jarring considering how believable the rest of GTA 6's world is. "We don't feel that works any longer at this resolution with the behavioral sophistication we need from our population now," he says. "In GTA 5, you can pull out a shotgun from nowhere in front of people and they don't react. That doesn't work here."

It's not just NPC reactions that are different. Gone are the days of Grand Theft Auto protagonists hiding military-grade weapons out of sight and in their pockets. "You can always have two concealed handguns on you whenever you want," Nelson explains. "You can carry two long guns and they will be visible on your back and in your hand. You can't put both on your back. One goes in your off hand [and] one on your back if you want to carry two. People will react to you if you are rolling around like that."

Nelson adds that "NPCs are more nuanced than before, so if you just have a long gun on your back, you should be fine. If you've got one in your hand, people don't like it and they react and start moving away from you."

GTA 6 is a bit too real for me - Rockstar will punish you if Jason and Lucia don't get a good night's sleep: "We track lots of things"

Looks like GTA 6 might get a little too real for anyone who makes a habit of saying 'one more game' three games ago until, whoops, it's 3am on a workday.

Rockstar Games has played around with simulating mundane, routine tasks in the past. Plenty of times, in fact. GTA San Andreas famously let main man CJ's weight fluctuate depending on how much he exercised or how regularly he stuffed his face with fast food. Red Dead Redemption 2 borrowed that weight management with Arthur Morgan, but also let the loveable outlaw grow out a beard and get real stinky if you neglected to groom him.

GTA 6 is seemingly going several steps further. Rockstar North co-studio head and development lead Rob Nelson confirmed to TGG that an in-game health app will monitor Lucia and Jason's sleep, among other things.

"It will say whether you're well rested or not," Nelson says. "That will have some effect on regen of certain attributes. We track lots of things - all this good stuff." Being punished for losing sleep in GTA 6, before being punished for losing sleep in IRL GTA? Now that's art imitating life.

What else does that "good stuff" include? Well, for starters, there's the aforementioned weight changes. Lucia and Jason will apparently get a little chubby if you eat too much, which you can see in certain screenshots from the game, "but you have to actually eat quite a bit." On the flip side, if your duo are really hench, you can lose all that muscle once "you stop maintaining it."

In what could be a controversial move by the time GTA 6 launches in two months, Rockstar will also make you refuel and recharge your cars. Going on overnight crime benders may also change our protagonists' faces, and there's even the option to doomscroll through the game's satirized social media feeds. Having to restock the couple's fridge was a step too far for Rockstar, though.

GTA 6 driving is "the best parts" of GTA 4 but with "the accessibility of GTA 5," says Rockstar boss

If we end up seeing Deadpool in Marvel's Spider-Man 3, it would seem we have Peter Parker actor Yuri Lowenthal to thank, at least partly.

Talking to The Movie Dweeb on Instagram, Lowenthal was asked to comment on a potential Wolverine and Spider-Man collab in Insomniac's next open-world Spider-Man game. Insomniac is currently hard at work prepping for the release of Marvel's Wolverine, out September 15, but considering the success of Spider-Man, the standalone Miles Morales game, and Spider-Man 2, another Peter Parker game seems likely to happen at some point even though nothing's been confirmed yet. And of course, a Wolverine x Spider-Man match-up seems all the more likely with Insomniac now having worked on both IPs.

Lowenthal thinks a Wolverine collab would be "terribly exciting," but he says "there is one character that I would opt for even more strongly than Wolverine, and it would be Deadpool."

In response to this, The Movie Dweeb points out a tweet apparently published at some point from Insomniac creative director Brian Horton. I tried to track down the tweet, but Horton's Twitter account has been deactivated and there's no Bluesky equivalent, so take this with a grain of salt. According to The Movie Dweeb, the tweet read "worlds collide" and included hashtags for Wolverine and Spider-Man. Lowenthal says the tweet is news to him, but confirmed he's pushed Horton repeatedly on Deadpool being in the next Spider-Man game.

"I've pushed [Horton] every time I see him with the Deadpool thing, so if I've just spoiled it for Spider-Man 3, then I would just like to believe that they got the idea from me anyway," Lowenthal says.

As much as I'm sure Wade Wilson would be flattered to have a part in Insomniac's Spider-Man series, I'm not sure it would be a tonal fit, what with Deadpool's whole thing being expletive-laden meta humor and Marvel's Spider-Man being a generally straightforward, family friendly affair. At the very least, you'd probably have to bump up that ESRB rating from Teen to Mature.

After playing 2 hours of Marvel's Wolverine, Insomniac has crushed my fears of a post-Spider-Man slump: "This is uniquely Logan"

It's nearly impossible to nail down any one feature or mechanic that defines a Grand Theft Auto game, but the two specific suggestions from the title are thievery and driving. My memories of the early GTA games from my childhood, Vice City and San Andreas, are largely comprised of stealing stuff, cruising around listening to 2Pac, and mowing down innocent citizens, a horde of cop cars blaring sirens in the rearview. Driving is essential to a GTA game, so it makes sense that it's a huge focus in the community leading up to GTA 6.

What does it actually feel like in the hands? Does it have the bulk and heft of vehicular traversal in GTA 4? I remember that one being a little clunky to handle, something that was dramatically improved in GTA 5, which I've been playing a lot in anticipation of GTA 6. According to Rockstar co-studio head Rob Nelson, driving in GTA 6 is something of a hybrid of the two, combining the best of each.

Asked by TGG if GTA 6's cars are as "weighty" as GTA 4's, Nelson says:

"Only in the best way possible. The team has worked hard to maintain some of the best parts of the weightiness and feel of GTA 4, but have the accessibility of GTA 5. It has all been built up from scratch on this hardware, and they have much more control tuning drivetrain, tires, suspension, steering, all of that is getting applied to the physics model."

As no one outside of Rockstar and publisher Take-Two have had the chance to go hands-on with GTA 6, we don't have objective, unbiased impressions of any of the game's mechanics. Of course the guy in charge of Rockstar is going to say it's the best of both worlds; we'll just have to wait until November to find out if he's right.

GTA 6 launches November 19 for PS5 and Xbox Series X.

GTA 6 isn't flashy for the sake of it – I'm impressed at how additive every new detail feels to gameplay

Do you ever get the sinking feeling that a game you've been really excited for might actually be kind of mid? Thanks to post-reveal trailers and footage that left me feeling lukewarm, I entered my 45-minute hands-on session with Tides of Annihilation at Gamescom with trepidation, but left feeling enlightened – this stylish action game has the sauce.

In my hands-on session, I spend some time exploring one of Tides of Annihilation's story missions, getting to grips with protagonist Gwendolyn's effortlessly stylish moveset while briefly traversing the decayed London setting, before moving on to a multi-phase boss battle against antagonist Mordred.

Knight fall

Immediately, attacks feel weighty and satisfying – Gwendolyn can pull off all sorts of elegant moves, but her main form of dishing out damage is by summoning her Phantom Knights. You have multiple equipped at once – between the 'main' and 'sub' Knight slots – and swapping between them is as slick as hitting a button, allowing you to make the most of their different skills.

Fighting against Mordred, I swap between a nimble and agile Knight with a time-slowing skill and a big, burly bloke who's much more cumbersome, but packs a real punch when he manages to land one. There are a number of different combos to learn for each Knight – too many for me to completely absorb in a short hands-on session – but it's thanks to being thrown in at the deep end like this that I realize Tides of Annihilation's glamorous female protagonist isn't the only thing the game has in common with Bayonetta.

It's definitely possible to button mash your way through a lot of these combat encounters, at the very least when it comes to dishing out damage. Don't get me wrong, dodging and counterattacking incoming moves is a requirement rather than a suggestion, but attacking is easy to learn and hard to master. The depth is certainly there for anyone who wants to take the time to learn every string of inputs for each Knight, and I'm already looking forward to being able to spend more time getting acquainted with Gwendolyn's skills come launch.

But, even if you can smash an enemy to bits without too much thought, you have to stay on your toes if you want to survive the more threatening encounters. Tides of Annihilation may not be a Soulslike, but perhaps that knowledge lulled me into a false sense of security when I dove into its combat, because it's hard.

My fight against Mordred is lengthy and hard-won – it spans multiple phases, shifting from the inside of a huge library to an outside arena where my enemy begins riding around and attacking me from a massive dragon-like creature, and it seems each of her attacks hits harder than the last. Even when I'm being pelted with damage, though, the spectacle of the fight is incredible – it's a shame you can't sit back and watch it without being in terrible danger.

After all, by the time I get to the point where I have a dragon swooping down at me from above, accompanied by Mordred's constant taunting, I'm running dangerously low on health, with no way to heal myself. Mercifully, when I fall, the battle restarts from this phase, though I'm not sure if there were any other checkpoints to rely on before this.

Eventually, Mordred goes down, and I breathe a sigh of relief to have finally overcome a fight more challenging than I've faced in some Soulslikes. I then look down at the demo fact booklet handed to me at the start of the session, and see the fight labeled as "medium" difficulty. Ah. I don't know what would have awaited me in the "high" difficulty boss fight, and at this point I'm afraid to ask.

My time with Tides of Annihilation flew by, and I can't overstate how pleasantly surprised I am by how good it feels to play. We'll just have to wait and see if Eclipse Glow Games can stick the landing come launch, but for now, I'm optimistic that this action game has the potential to be a heavy hitter.

Feeling a tidal pull to play more like this while you wait? Check out our best ARPGs ranking for more action-packed recommendations!

GTA 6 isn't even out yet, but it's already causing a ruckus in real-life Miami-Dade as the county's sheriff and a commissioner oppose a reported pitch for a marketing deal that'd temporarily transform parts of the area into Vice City.

Late last month, it was reported (via The Miamian) that Miami-Dade County officials had approached GTA 6 maker Rockstar Games with a pitch deck proposing to turn locations such as the Miami International Airport, Metrorail stations, and other buildings into Vice City-themed attractions. At the time, Carlos Suarez, a spokesperson for the county's mayor Daniella Levine Cava, stated that "some conversations with Rockstar about potential opportunities around the launch of GTA 6" had happened, but "nothing has been formally agreed to or approved."

Well, regardless of whether Rockstar Games is actually interested in pursuing this idea, some Miami-Dade folks are directly opposed to it happening at all. A Republican Miami-Dade County commissioner, Juan Carlos Bermudez, and Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz have spoken out against the concept, with Bermudez stating that "we should be promoting the Miami-Dade we have worked so hard to build, not a fictional version of our community defined by crime and violence."

Via WSVN, Bermudez claims he's "not against video games, but to go out and get a video game where – which glorifies not only our first responders getting shot, but also pedestrians and residents – it's nonsensical."

Republican sheriff Cordero-Stutz similarly points to GTA's crime-centric themes, adding: "At a time when law enforcement is working every day to reduce violent crime, prevent robberies and car thefts, combat drug trafficking, and build stronger relationships between our deputies and the communities we serve, I believe we need to seriously consider the message we send when our own government promotes a fictional identity centered around many of those same crimes."

Miami Herald reporter Doug Clark has also shared a letter sent to Mayor Levine Cava by Miami-Dade's clerk of the court Juan Fernandez-Barquin and the Eleventh Judicial Circuit of Florida's chief judge Ariana Fajardo Orshan, in which they "respectfully request that all Miami-Dade County courthouses and court-related facilities be expressly excluded" from any potential marketing, branding, or promotion related to GTA 6.

"Each day, these facilities are places where victims seek justice, defendants answer to the law, witnesses participate in proceedings, families confront difficult circumstances, and judges, attorneys, court personnel, and law enforcement professionals carry out their constitutional and statutory responsibilities," the letter continues.

"The individuals who enter our courthouses are not characters in a fictional world. They are real people dealing with real consequences, sometimes involving violence, loss, family separation, criminal allegations, and other deeply personal and consequential matters. The solemnity and integrity of these proceedings must remain paramount."

Miami Herald also points out that the timing of sheriff Cordero-Stutz's opposition to this proposed marketing deal coincides with her and current mayor Levine Cava getting votes on the County Commission, specifically for competing funding proposals for the Sheriff's Office in the county's 2027 budget. Cordero-Stutz wants a 12% tax-funding increase, while Levine Cava is suggesting half of that at 6%. The same report notes that commissioner Bermudez is thought to be a potential candidate to replace the Democrat Levine Cava as mayor in 2028.

Again, it remains to be seen whether Rockstar Games takes up the marketing deal in the first place. As previously promised, it's fair to say that GTA 6's launch marketing is definitely now in full swing following the recent extended look, and we can likely expect that to continue as we get closer to its November release date.

Rockstar boss says "we'll see what people say" about GTA 6's controversial refueling system, but thinks it's so fast that "you can't complain."

The Last of Us co-creator Neil Druckmann says that working on the series' HBO TV adaptation of the Naughty Dog game hasn't changed his approach to writing, but he's learned some lessons that have been brought into developing Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet.

Speaking to The Washington Post, Druckmann explained that for Season 3 of the HBO TV series, he "wasn't involved in shaping this season's creative direction, and Naughty Dog did not have a creative role." Druckmann was a writer and showrunner for the first and second seasons of the HBO series.

However, he stepped away from the series ahead of its third season to focus on the production of Naughty Dog's next game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet.

Now, Druckmann says that working on the TV series hasn't changed his approach to writing in games, but explains that it has changed his approach to other aspects of creating Intergalactic. For example, a TV series needs to account for elements like lighting and makeup, which Druckmann says are lessons that have been brought into the studio's next game.

And despite the lack of an announced sequel, Druckmann says that Naughty Dog isn't "done with The Last of Us." Whether that means a full-fledged The Last of Us Part 3 or simply more multimedia projects around the franchise remains unclear. But given that it's been over six years since Naughty Dog released a game, and with the possibility that the developer skips the PS5 generation entirely, I don't think we'll see a new Last of Us game for a while.

Looking to pass the time until The Last of Us 3 releases in a decade's time? Browse through our roundup of the best new games coming this year and beyond.

The Last of Us co-lead Neil Druckmann says that Naughty Dog isn't quite finished with its beloved IP – and it sounds like he's not just referencing the HBO series, either.

Although The Last of Us TV show is ongoing, with the third season underway to "wrap up" the story from the existing two games, as Druckmann tells The Washington Post in a new interview, there might be more in the works outside of the television adaptation.

He begins by saying that he "wasn't involved in shaping this season's creative direction, and Naughty Dog did not have a creative role" in the show's progression either.

So, he "can't personally speak to how production is progressing" – but that doesn't necessarily spell the end of The Last of Us in its entirety.

"It's important for us to note that as the creator of the games, Naughty Dog is still the steward of this IP and even though this might be the end of this adaptation, we're not done with The Last of Us," he reveals.

In fact, it sounds like there's more than one Last of Us-shaped project coming from the studio.

"There's a couple projects in the works that, when the time is right, I'm very excited to talk about," as Druckmann concludes.

So, what could those projects be? Well, I'm immediately reminded of The Last of Us Online – the canceled multiplayer project that its former game director dubbed "the best multiplayer game" many Naughty Dog devs had "ever played." It never came to fruition, of course, but I can't help but think of it.

That's not to say it's happening – it was canceled, after all… but there are apparently two (or more, maybe?) things going on over at Naughty Dog that are within The Last of Us realm, so it's all exciting news nonetheless.

I've personally got my own fingers crossed for some sort of spin-off, as I'm not sure they could effectively do an official Part 3, considering everything that happens in The Last of Us 2. Who knows, though?

Anything could happen, but we'll just have to wait and see what Naughty Dog has in store. It sounds like Druckmann is gearing up to reveal it soon-ish, so, yeah.

Searching for something more solid to look forward to? Browse through our roundup of the best new games coming this year and beyond, in that case.

The Last of Us creator and previous co-showrunner of the HBO show Neil Druckmann has doubled down on having no involvement in the upcoming third season.

When it was renewed for season 3, it was also announced that Craig Mazin would be remaining as sole showrunner as Druckmann exited. However, now Druckmann has gone one step further and suggested Naughty Dog – the company behind the game – has basically no involvement in the new episodes.

"I wasn't involved in shaping this season's creative direction, and Naughty Dog did not have a creative role in the direction of this season," he told the Washington Post. "So I can't personally speak to how production is progressing. It's important for us to note that as the creator of the games, Naughty Dog is still the steward of this IP and even though this might be the end of this adaptation, we're not done with The Last of Us. There's a couple projects in the works that, when the time is right, I’m very excited to talk about."

Druckmann also confirmed that season 3 will "wrap up" the series, after it was initially unclear how many more seasons it would take to finish telling the events of The Last of Us: Part 2.

Filming on The Last of Us season 3 began back in March and is set to run until November. Based on the events of the game and how the second season ended, we know Kaitlyn Dever's Abby Anderson will be our main focus in the new episodes. It's expected that the show will retell some of the events we've already seen from her perspective before returning to the present day.

Bella Ramsey returns as Ellie, alongside Gabriel Luna as Tommy Miller, Isabela Merced as Dina, and Young Mazino as Jesse. Newcomers Michelle Mao and Kyriana Kratter also join as Yara and Lev, key characters in this next part of the story.

For what to watch while we wait, here's our guide to the best HBO shows currently available to stream.

In a move that could be considered extra immersive or just a tad annoying, GTA 6 will make you refuel and recharge your cars – something Rockstar North co-studio head Rob Nelson appears to be aware may prove divisive.

GTA 6's fuel system appeared online ahead of Rockstar's schedule following the recent wave of gameplay video leaks and was immediately met with controversy. There were some hopes that the system seen in the leaks may have been outdated and removed from the final version of the game, but per a new video from content creator TGG (below) – who recently attended an early preview of the game at Rockstar North – it's still intact.

According to TGG, when you pull into a gas station in GTA 6, you can choose to repair your vehicle or refuel it. The latter triggers a short quick-time event, which he estimates lasts around 10 seconds, with an animation showing the refueling itself.

TGG reckons that, from what he saw, "fuel isn't really going to be an issue unless you're not thinking about what you're doing," but it could, admittedly, catch you out if you're trying to escape after a robbery and the car you decide to steal is low on fuel.

Interestingly, though, Rockstar lead Nelson seemingly acknowledges how controversial this may prove.

After TGG expressed his surprise that the devs incorporated the system at all, Nelson replies: "We'll see what people say. Do you think people are going to like it?"

Nelson also points out how speedy refueling actually is, potentially getting ahead of complaints about its intrusiveness: "Hey, that's pretty fast for a fill-up," he apparently said after filling up his car during the preview session. "You can't complain about that."

We'll just have to see how folks gel with the system when GTA 6 actually launches – I fear that, despite Nelson's confidence, some players may well still "complain about that" no matter how fast the refueling is.

GTA 6 will lock you out of story missions if you're too broke, so it's good to know the robbery mechanics have been massively expanded.

Ahead of a rumored Nintendo Direct this month, a Norwegian retailer has identified Xenoblade developer Monolith Soft as the developer of the upcoming The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake.

Even as someone who has never gelled with the Xenoblade series over the years, it's hard to argue that Monolith Soft is one of, if not the best, studio acquisitions Nintendo ever made. While the Xenoblade games have been some of the most beloved RPGs of recent times, Monolith also assisted in the development of some of Nintendo's biggest hits in recent years, including the Splatoon series, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Mario Kart World, and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Breath of the Wild, and Tears of the Kingdom. This has led to chatter about the studio potentially leading a Zelda game of its own from Zelda series lead Daiki Iwamoto, and it looks like it could be coming to pass in the near future.

As spotted by a user on the Gamingleaksandrumors subreddit, Norwegian retailer Elkjop has posted a store page for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on Nintendo Switch 2, listing Monolith Soft as the developer. This comes alongside rumors that there will be a Nintendo Direct next week (or at the very least, speculation given that Nintendo typically always holds a Direct in mid-September), so perhaps this is information set to be revealed in a week's time.

However, given how often we've seen Nintendo keep its cards close to its chest about exactly who is developing its games in recent years, I'm not sure a retailer would have that info right now. However, if members of the Zelda team are keen for Monolith Soft to lead a Zelda game of its own, working on a remake first could be a good way to get there.

Grezzo led development of remakes of Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, and Link's Awakening, and then worked on Echoes of Wisdom, a new original 2D Zelda title. And given the traditional 3D Zelda games – like Ocarina of Time – are seemingly no more, perhaps Monolith could lead development on a new 3D title while Nintendo works on the next open-world Zelda game.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Switch 2 remake rating suggests some changes, with its "suggestive themes" missing, and we can probably guess what that means

Dave Bautista has addressed his casting as Kratos in the upcoming God of War series. He's replacing Ryan Hurst in the lead role after the actor sustained a serious on-set injury.

Posting on Instagram, the Guardians of the Galaxy star shared his training for the role, set to the audio of "Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in." He captioned the video, "3rd week into weight training again. 2 more months to get to where I need to be. Like ridin' a bike! LFG!"

Bautista recently lost a lot of weight after bulking up for his role in Knock at the Cabin. However, it seems like he's pivoting once again to play Kratos in the upcoming Amazon adaptation of the beloved game.

The new update also confirms when filming is due to pick up again. There were initial reports that production would resume in mid-October, but it seems like this is actually closer to November based on Bautista's caption.

Based on the hugely popular PlayStation video game franchise, the Amazon God of War series is being adapted by Ronald D. Moore. The story follows Kratos and his son Atreus as they travel to the highest peak in the nine realms to spread the ashes of their wife and mother Faye.

As well as Bautista, the show stars Callum Vinson, Teresa Palmer, Max Parker, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Mandy Patinkin, and Ed Skrein. Kratos' video game actor Christopher Judge recently revealed that he also read to play the live-action version of the character, but says he had "no desire" to be the lead actor of a TV show again.

Currently, there's no release date for the God of War series. In the meantime, check out our picks of the best Amazon shows as well as our guide to all the upcoming video game adaptations you need to know about.

There are a lot of things we don't know about GTA 6, but arguably the biggest is what the heck the next generation of GTA Online is going to look like. Given how much money the online mode attached to GTA 5 makes, a follow-up seems inevitable. But how is Rockstar going to convince players who've spent over a decade investing time and money in the current GTA Online to move on to an all-new game?

You can count Chet Faliszek, a 12-year Valve veteran who wrote for the likes of Portal, Left 4 Dead, and the Half-Life 2 episodes, as among those trying to wrap their heads around the possibilities. "Are they just going to kill Grand Theft Auto 5?" he asks in a new YouTube short. "Is it just going to be one continuous thing that they move over and you get upgrades? Can you play it with either game? That would be crazy."

Technically, we don't even know for sure that GTA 6 Online will exist at all. Online features similar to those built alongside GTA 5 were outed as part of Rockstar's ongoing union dispute, but even if they were in development, there's no guarantee that they'll make it into the final game. Still, with the GTA 6 budget speculated to be in the billions, it's hard to imagine Rockstar or Take-Two turning their nose up at next-gen GTA Online bucks.

"What are they going to do?" Faliszek continues. "That's a mess. We can all look through recent history, without pointing fingers, and see some people who did it by just total replacements. We can see people who tried to win people over and when that didn't happen, shut down the other thing. It's really hard to move people off, because I think people don't understand. At this point, someone's bought Grand Theft Auto 5 for, like, 50 cents, and they're playing it online for free. And that's their world. What is Grand Theft Auto 6 going to bring us online that Grand Theft Auto 5 doesn't have?"

With a knowing look, Faliszek acknowledges the big thing GTA 6 Online might have. "We all know: better monetization, right?" he says. "That's going to be their big innovation. They're going to have to figure out how to get you over to better monetization. You're in charge of Rockstar. How do you move people over to Grand Theft Auto 6 Online? Cuz you're making billions in Grand Theft Auto 5 Online, so you want to make even more billions on 6. How do you do it?"

One thing that's at least close to certain about GTA 6 Online: it won't be there at launch. Rockstar hasn't offered a single official word about an online mode even now, with single-digit days remaining until GTA 6's launch. And the studio already set a precedent with GTA 5, where its online features were turned on weeks after the release date. We might have an even longer wait for GTA 6 Online, but either way, Faliszek thinks a delayed rollout is a smart move for Rockstar.

"I think this is why they're waiting to do it until after launch," he says. "They're just saying 'oh, no, we're doing single-player at first at launch.' Cuz they don't want that negativity around whatever they're going to do at launch. They just want you to buy the game and get in the ecosystem and then they'll figure it out. I think that's a smart move by them. They're just saying 'we know we're going to anger people no matter what we do. And we're thinking about really angering people. So, let's not do that yet.'"

GTA 6 isn't flashy for the sake of it – I'm impressed at how additive every new detail feels to gameplay.

Nodusfall does not look like your typical Hoyoverse game. Distinctly lacking in bright colors and bubbly anime-style characters, it's hard to believe that this gloomy, intense PvE action game comes from the same studio behind Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. But after a brief hands-on session with the game, I'm already eager to dive back in for more.

It might not look like a Hoyoverse game, but there's one thing Nodusfall certainly does look like. Namely Elden Ring, and by extension, its co-op sibling Nightreign. This doesn't end with its reveal trailer vibes – we have a summonable Torrent-like steed who can be called with a very familiar-sounding whistle, a character who can transform into a phase two Malenia lookalike with massive, crusty wings, Estus flask-like healing potions, and bonfires to rest at.

Rest and rally

Needless to say, it's hard not to draw comparisons – 'we've got Elden Ring Nightreign at home,' my brain screams. However, while teaming up with other players to take down big bosses might evoke feelings of FromSoftware's co-op title, there's a big difference with Nodusfall: it's not nearly as hard.

This can be considered a blessing or a curse depending on where you stand on Soulslike difficulty. As a fan of the genre, I still found myself having plenty of fun taking down the three bosses in my hands-on session, including an enormous dragon and Qiongqi (a horned and winged tiger-like beast from Chinese mythology), but my victories definitely didn't come with the same level of satisfaction as they might have had they been slightly harder won. I can't recall falling in battle even once, largely thanks to what felt like an unlimited supply of heals.

To be fair, this factor may also have been helped by one of the playable characters being a dedicated healer, who I choose to play in my session. I have strong magic attacks up my sleeve, from small projectiles to ice-powered strikes and an enormous laser beam move, but my main contribution to my team comes in the form of my healing abilities. I can choose to lock onto a specific ally to unleash a steady flow of health restoration, not unlike Mercy's Caduceus staff in Overwatch, or heal multiple teammates around me at once in a smaller burst.

The specific ally lock-on heal can feel a little clunky at times – there were more than a few times where I assisted someone who definitely didn't need it because they were awkwardly stood in front of someone else who desperately needed my help.

Comparing directly to Elden Ring Nightreign, though, it's really cool to have a healer option in the first place. Again, it seems that Nodusfall doesn't come close to being as challenging as FromSoftware's Soulslikes to begin with, but having a medic role like this is no doubt going to provide a welcome option to players who aren't as comfortable with getting up close and personal on the frontlines of a brutal battle. I always tend to gravitate towards support classes in games – there's just something so satisfying about keeping your friends and allies going – so I'm pleased to be allowed that here.

I'd have been curious to try out the other playable characters to get a greater feel for Nodusfall's combat. What I experienced was fun, but my attacks felt like they were lacking weight, leaving me craving just a tad more oomph. You really can't fault the boss battles when it comes to how cinematic they are, though – my team and I tore through multiple phases in each fight, with our final battle against the Maldrake dragon evolving after the knight riding on its back dismounted their steed and began attacking us from the ground, forcing us to split our forces to take on two enemies at once.

Onward

Though my Nodusfall experience was limited to co-op PvE, Hoyoverse has clarified that PvP and PvPvE modes are also planned for the long term, and that you'll also be able to enjoy most of the core content solo. From what I played, though, it'd be a shame to do so since you'd miss out on the flashy Joint Execution moves – who doesn't want to team up to drive a massive greatsword through a beast's head?

I was also pleased to learn that, despite plans to make Nodusfall a free-to-play game, playable characters won't be locked behind a gacha system. With that said, the devs are considering monetizing cosmetics, and I can't say I'm surprised. While kitting out my healer girl with a new outfit, various accessories including a fancy, glowing cape were screaming microtransaction potential. I can't say I love that aspect, but I'd certainly much rather the monetization be incorporated here than the core gameplay.

As someone who loved Elden Ring Nightreign, I suppose it's only natural that I'd enjoy Nodusfall. Its vibe is very similar, but I'm very curious to see where Hoyoverse takes it from here. The concept of an easier, more accessible co-op action game like Nightreign is bound to be appealing to many, and could be a bridge for those who find FromSoftware's games a bit too difficult. Regardless, there's something in here that's got me craving more – but for now, I guess I've literally got Nightreign at home.

Nodusfall isn't a gacha game, Mihoyo confirms, because unlike Genshin Impact you'll unlock characters "through continued play" instead

Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis has an unenviable task before it. Reimagining a 30-year-old game for a modern audience is no mean feat, but in a genre that has moved on so far and with a heroine who has become such an icon, the line that must be threaded between the new and the old is a veritable tightrope. Too far one way and you'll recreate a now-outdated experience in too much veracity to warrant its existence. Too far the other way and you risk excising what made Tomb Raider interesting, lumping it in with modern genre tropes that don't suit a remake like this.

For now, Crystal Dynamics seems to be treading that line. My hands-off demo shows off the Damocles Trial from the game's second level, so named for the giant swords hanging from the ceiling that threaten to skewer Lara should she linger too long on the wrong floor tile. For game director Raul Siquera, the goal is to show "how much we've preserved from the original, and the little things we did to make it special" in a modern overhaul.

Familiar tombs

"It was really important for us, from a level design perspective, to preserve what was in the original game, but find ways to enhance it for a modern audience," Siquera explains. "You should recognize the places that you know," he says, or if you're like me and are too young to remember the original games, you should still be "delighted by the grandeur" of the levels.

Those modern enhancements present themselves almost immediately. Stepping into the trial, Lara is set upon by a horde of bats, reimagined to move around in a more unpredictable, swarm-like manner than in the original game. She takes a few scratches before shooting down enough that the rest of the swarm disbands, but thankfully she's collected enough resources from around the level to create a healing balm. The presence of a crafting system might seem like an overly-modern touch, but Siquera explains it's part of an attempt to dispel the anachronism inherent in the older Tomb Raider games – finding a medbag in a temple supposedly untouched by modern civilization isn't always great for immersion.

Past the bats, Lara's day continues to get worse, a snarling leopard dropping down into the next room. This iconic Tomb Raider threat is far smarter than before; in the ensuing fight, it uses geometry to block Lara's line of sight; crawls away through cracks in the rock when it's taken too much punishment, and then attacks from behind when you let your guard slip. "You're not supposed to stay still," Siquera says. Combat is fast and fluid, but a time-slowing Focus gauge allows for a moment of relative calm in the midst of some frantic fights, even as Lara's acrobatic 'dodge-cartwheels' make her a particularly flamboyant target.

It's beyond the leopard, as Lara enters the arena at the heart of the Damocles Trial, that Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis is forced to diverge further from the 1996 original. The core theme remains intact, but the intervening decades have transformed players' expectations. The puzzles maintain the ideas that shaped classic Croft, but they're grander in scope, Damocles' enormous stone swords crashing to earth with a deafening clash from the distant heights of the temple's ceiling if Lara puts a foot wrong.

But this version of Tomb Raider doesn't only have to capture the scale and artistry of a modern game – it also has to offer something to players who didn't cut their teeth in the days of 1996's game design. Lara's explanative dialogue is one example of Legacy of Atlantis' desire to guide players through its puzzles, as are the markings on the wall that gently outline the intended parkour route.

Neither of these are too invasive, but the addition of a new Scanner tool, which Lara can use to outline the moving parts of the puzzle she's contemplating, is a much more powerful tool. It's a bit much for a modern game, fully anachronistic in one that's supposed to be keeping half its gaze so firmly in the past. But, Siquera explains his team saw this coming – the Scanner is totally optional, and its tutorial will make clear that it can also be used to offer new lore insights. It's a smart compromise, but a strong example of just how difficult Legacy of Atlantis' task of balancing the old and the new is going to be.

As someone who doesn't have the nostalgia for the original game – I came to the series with Tomb Raider Legend on PSP, a full decade later – I think Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis is treading its difficult tightrope relatively well. It's clear the team understands the delicacy of its task, and there's an obvious desire to offer a version of this game that can speak in the same breath to those returning after three decades and those who've adopted the rhythms of a new era of action games.

From the small amount we've seen so far, it seems to be working – purists will likely find themselves disappointed by the modern touches, but those are largely optional, and subtle enough not to derail the original experience. As the start of a new era for Tomb Raider, Legacy of Atlantis' task was never going to be easy, but it seems to be stepping up to the mark.

Want to explore more of Lara Croft's legacy? Our best Tomb Raider games ranking will guide you towards your next adventure!

Upcoming action game Tides of Annihilation hit an unfortunate road bump in July, when it was revealed Baldur's Gate 3 and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 actor Jennifer English had to abdicate the lead role due to her health. Resident Evil Requiem star Angela Sant'Albano is now voicing Gwendolyn, but studio Eclipse Glow Games wasn't looking for the same kind of performance from the newer performer.

"We believe both of them have their own unique style, and we respect and we appreciate their different styles," Ary Chen, the game's director and co-CEO of the studio, told GamesRadar+ at Gamescom 2026 via an interpreter. "And we think their communication is more about understanding or their interpretation of [the] protagonist."

Indeed, English has remained involved in Tides of Annihilation as an advisor. She was announced for the project back in early 2025, meaning she spent quite a bit of time molding Gwendolyn before having to step back.

This makes her perfect for guiding and assisting Sant'Albano into the game and what the hero requires. "We think their communication will also help Angela better understand or have her understanding of the protagonist," Chen adds.

Of course, English is a prolific voice actor, rising to prominence via Shadowheart in Baldur's Gate 3 but whose credits include Elden Ring and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. There's no replacing the experience and approach she'd bring. The best thing to do is let Sant'Albano, who most recently leant her voice to Grace in Resident Evil Requiem, do her thing.

We're still without a launch window, and given the casting changeover, it might be a while before we get one. Hopefully this is the last big hiccup, and the team can get on with making the best game possible.

Tides of Annihilation devs are "continuously monitoring new developments" in AI technology, but will be using the techniques they "are the best at" in development instead.

We finally have some official viewership numbers coming out of Netflix's GTA 6 extended look, and wouldn't you know it, it was absolutely massive.

Rockstar took an unconventional approach in revealing its most in-depth GTA 6 trailer so far by making it exclusive to Netflix for a few hours before unleashing it elsewhere online. Temporarily locking the showcase behind a paid subscription was a potentially risky move, but it seems to have paid off in a big way, with Netflix reporting 31.1 million views in the four days between its debut and the end of the streamer's viewing window for its top 10 rankings. That made GTA 6 the most-watched title (it's categorized as a movie on the platform) across the entire Netflix library for the week in which its new trailer debuted.

For comparison, the next most-watched movie was the star-studded thriller The Whisper Man, which premiered on Netflix the day after GTA 6's deep-dive on August 28, at 23.2 million views for the week. Meanwhile, the most-watched TV show for the same week was the mega-viral true crime documentary, Death of the Pastor's Wife, which clocked in at 19 million views.

GTA 6's Netflix extended look was big big, but it's nowhere near the streaming service's biggest debut for an English-language title if we're going by first-week numbers. That honor goes to Stranger Things season 5, which netted a mind-boggling 59.6 million views in its debut week.

Of course, comparing these numbers to the amount of views GTA 6 pulls on a platform like YouTube is really like comparing apples to oranges. For example, it only took GTA 6 trailer 2 a few hours to hit 19 million views on YouTube, but YouTube is free and easily accessible for most people with phones, while viewers had to pay for and sign in to Netflix to watch the latest trailer.

Just as crucially, the way Netflix and YouTube track views is very different. YouTube simply counts a view as any click that starts a video, and for views-tracking purposes it doesn't matter if the person watches a second, minute, or hour of the video. One click equals one view. On Netflix, the streamer tallies up the total amount of hours watched and then divides that by the movie or TV show's runtime. With the GTA 6 extended look being about 27 minutes long, that means it accumulated around 14 million hours of viewing time in its debut week, which is staggering regardless of context.

GTA 6 lets players "forget it's a game" with all its choices, and that's what Rockstar lead Rob Nelson is most proud of: "It's up to you and what matters to you"

If you've done a healthy amount of sailing around in Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced, you may have noticed a dog stuck on one of the disparate islands you encounter across the Caribbean. Until now you could only pet the pooch, without helping them get off their water-locked home, but a new update has remedied this disastrous situation.

Now, if you go to this little piece of land, sitting at 624,50, and you pet the canine wanderer - which you should always be doing regardless - they'll transport right over to Edward's hideout in Grand Inagua. How nice and convenient, right?

They're accompanied by a little letter, explaining how they managed to suddenly become experts of the seven seas. Another captain discovered the furry friend, and decided to take them aboard.

You can now save the stranded dog in Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced!🔵 Head on to 624,50🔵 Pet the dog🔵 The dog will appear at the Great Inagua Hideout, in Edward's room at the villa🔵 You can also find a letter on how he got there!

— @accesstheanimus.com (@accesstheanimus.com.bsky.social) 2026-09-01T16:46:07.734Z

At first, the plan was for the dog to live on that boat, but this particular caninus maximus wants to be by your side. Once they reached port at Grand Inagua, they leapt off to wherever their nose was taking them.

Directly to your belongings, it seems, where it stays forevermore. Beautiful - I am always looking for more dogs to pet, and it's a distinct upgrade to now have one in my quarters. Assassination can sometimes be a lonely occupation, and it's made less so when I can have snuggles with this wee friend whenever I like.

Access the Animus posted a complete clip of finding the dog, and then the letter, as you can see above. It's smile-inducing. I would've liked the option to take the little compadre in myself on my ship, but you can't always have everything. For now, at least – Ubisoft, I have one demand for the next Assassin's Creed game.

OG Assassin's Creed Black Flag devs "had a lot of teething difficulties" trying to nail down the "seamless naval experience"

GTA 6 won't let you progress through the story if you're too broke, which will force Jason and Lucia to make some cash from side jobs or other definitely legal endeavors.

If there's one thing the trailers and gameplay footage of GTA 6 have told us, it's that there's going to be a lot of robbing in it. Nearly every single piece of footage has featured Jason and Lucia holding someone up at gunpoint, getting cash and living large. Safe to say, it'll be a major part of the upcoming open-world game.

YouTuber TGG (via Twitter user Synthpotato) saw gameplay at Rockstar Games and went into detail about how the robbery system works. This includes word that every store in the game is able to be robbed, and that unlike the convenience store holdups found in GTA 5, there will be unique robberies depending on what type of store you are robbing, with factors like CCTV and hostages to be worried about. They also note that much of the robbery footage shown in the extended look was open-world footage rather than bespoke missions.

Perhaps more interestingly, they report that at some points in the game's story, you will be stopped from progressing until your bank account is full enough to access it, while there's no word for what reason you'll need the cash to even participate in the mission, you will not be able to keep the story going if you're broke.

But even with the lockout, it's pretty obvious there's going to be a ton of ways to make more money in GTA 6, with the robbery focus being an obvious way. However, we saw in the Netflix gameplay premiere that racing will be a major part of the game too, so if you feel a bit bad about robbing virtual stores all the time, you might be able to be a nicer person and just do illegal street races instead.

Take-Two's GTA 6 leak investigation is heating up as the publisher requests sealed subpoena to avoid tipping off leakers.

For all of Rockstar Games' technical prowess, the genius of Grand Theft Auto lies in the beautiful simplicity implied by its title: brazenly commit crimes, and have a good time doing it. Grand Theft Auto 6 is set to be an industry milestone for open world density and attention to detail, and what we've seen of GTA 6 so far is still pinned on that promise. It remains as strong a hook in 2026 as it was in 1997 watching pixels skid across a screen from a top-down perspective.

Rockstar's commitment to its criminal fantasy means it remains utterly unreplicable. As close as the likes of Volition Games' Saints Row or Sleeping Dogs from United Front Games have come, I always find myself describing them as 'like GTA but…' There's a purity to Grand Theft Auto's crime sandboxes – simply existing in the world (and causing havoc within it) is just as valid as following their crime caper storylines. Even when cutting about off-leash, building up Wanted meter and going wild with vehicles and weaponry, it feels like you're doing so in a convincing if exaggerated world.

It's here that GTA 6 is really taking Rockstar Games' promise to the next level, as Bonnie and Clyde-like couple Lucia Caminos and Jason Duval take us on a spree across the sweeping Leonida state – Rockstar's riff on Florida.

Grand by name…

Which isn't to say that GTA 6 isn't innovating. Far from it. Only a developer with such a storied history as Rockstar Games would have the knowledge and confidence to identify Grand Theft Auto's integral foundations and build on top of those. Rather than reinventing any element of GTA's mechanics from scratch for the sake of it, it feels like GTA 6 is interrogating the purpose of every design decision the studio has made until this point, with a commitment to taking them further without diluting the joy of chaos.

In fact, the recent deeper dive into GTA 6 puts the likes of Red Dead Redemption 2 into a new perspective. Cowboy outlaw Arthur Morgan's adventure is already one of the best open world games ever made, with an emotional story and a staggering amount of detail and little touches that bring the digital world to startling life – walk into the Saint Denis theater to take in an actual stage show that changes depending on day of the week; Arthur's hygiene can get seriously bad if you don't give him time to relax with a spongebath; and of course, horse testicles are affected by the weather. These are seriously impressive details, making RDR 2 easy to get lost in, but also many of these elements were easy to ignore as you followed Arthur's journey through to its end.

Now, after taking in the full GTA 6 extended look and getting to see the game in action across several missions and side-activities, RDR 2 feels like a training ground or precursor for the type of detail we're seeing across Leonida. The difference here is that most of those finer details aren't just for show, but have an impact on core gameplay while being so natural they avoid being intrusive or cumbersome.

There's a reason GTA 6's gameplay reveal kicked off with following Jason and Lucia into a violent police raid as a drug pickup goes south. The fidelity of the world is immediately striking as the pair stroll up to the shady establishment. The camera moves in and out of cinematic scenes fluidly as they make their way up many floors to complete the hand-off. Then, guns are drawn and the action explodes into motion – cops shooting lead before anyone has a chance to speak, bodies entangling and slamming through thin drywall.

Jason and Lucia are caught in the middle of this eruption, the camera swooping behind the player to allow for some third-person blasting with a smooth cover system. These mechanics are expected in a game like this. But for GTA, which has had floatier shooting in the past, the motion feels wonderfully refined and fluid. It's like watching Rockstar's attention to action detail, as seen in Red Dead Redemption 2's frontier west, get pulled right into the modern age, where maze-like apartment blocks hide danger around every corner.

Bag it up

Crucially, though, the duo aren't about to leave this drug lab without the bag they came to collect – they're not about to risk letting underworld kingpin Bobbie Ike down. They need to make the most of this chance to impress. Jason grabs it, shrugs it over his shoulder, and continues moving to take cover out in the hallway without breaking motion.

Here I have to admit: I have become obsessed with GTA 6's bags.

Money, usually illicitly obtained, has been one of GTA's arcadiest mechanics over the years. Each game's blip as your money counter rings up has become a universally understood shorthand, just like Pac-Man munching on a cherry. But, bags crammed with valuable loot – full of drugs, or money robbed at gunpoint from a cash register – promise to have a physical presence in GTA 6 rather than instantly being displayed within the UI.

I love how this realizes and deepens the relationship between players and money. In a game about being a criminal, having to pick up and stow a bag isn't just a visual differentiator, but a promise of a mission genuinely in progress with parameters that feel real. What's more natural and easy to understand than actually, physically completing a bag drop-off?

This physical nature to committing crimes has an affect on gameplay, as well. During one sequence, we see Lucia laden with bags as she has to shoot her way out of an abandoned building through gang members, blasting and reloading a shotgun one-handed because one arm is so full of goodies. In another, Lucia walks into a store to commit a quick robbery, using a mechanic to hold her pistol behind her back to delay causing alarm while walking in. NPCs throughout Leonida will seemingly react realistically to seeing such danger, and even take the law into their own hands in some cases. Moments later, Lucia sprints out of the store loot in hand, linking up with Jason on a motorbike as the two make their escape to literally secure their bag.

If GTA 6 is making loot more of a physical presence in its world, then where better for its next major evolution than by overhauling the crime caper's second major pillar as you scramble to secure those goods: the getaway?

Another GTA 6 mission we've seen revolves around showcasing how the series' classic Wanted loop has been iterated upon, having Jason and Lucia work as wheelmen on behalf of criminal fixer Brian Heder to help notorious bank robber Raul Bautista make a quick escape.

Wanted has always been a crucial system for giving the sandbox chaos stakes. The more crimes you commit, and the more brazen they are, the higher your Wanted level will soar. It's always been an incredibly intuitive system when it comes to pushing at the boundaries of what you can get away with in an open world. If you're more Wanted, the more police presence will be out to cuff you. This mechanic alone has formed the bulk of my late-night GTA playtime with friends. How long can you survive? Can you get that level all the way up, and then through canny criminal skill successfully make your escape?

GTA 6 has the biggest overhaul of the Wanted system I've seen from the series to date, adding new elements of nuance to evasion while tighter driving and shooting mechanics ground the fast-paced action. Every crime you commit as Jason and Lucia contributes to a criminal profile whether you're directly seen by the police or not, but once a crime has been committed, reported, and attracted attention these modern cops will be able to track your face, clothes, and car to pick up your trail.

While the mission has Lucia drive the crew down an alley to briefly lose their pursuers – which might be enough to lose them in earlier games – here it's only the quiet in the storm. It's not until they manage to ditch their car and torch it, moving to a discreet van, that escape is possible. But, crucially, the Wanted system remains active, merely switching from white stars to red stars. Sirens signal the police hunt is still on, and you'll need to be careful to remain incognito to throw off the police.

While similarly bombastic escapes were part of GTA 5's heists, and, admittedly, this takes place in a story mission, the impression is that these different layers will present throughout the Wanted system more broadly. Choosing to rob a store clerk and escape with a bag of loot isn't a success until you manage to actually get away safely. It's such an elegant loop that I'm surprised it's taken GTA this long to truly codify it within its standard mechanics.

GTA 6 will make keeping a low profile tougher, as well. Social media isn't just for show (though one character can doomscroll while the other drives) – it hints at a more lively network of observation that means NPCs will be taking more notice of what's going on around them, and aren't scared to get involved. One dicey gas station robbery has Jason and Lucia dodging gunfire from an understandably irate clerk. And, while the driving model seems much improved in GTA 6, that simply means a more realistic and grounded scale with tighter streets that can offer more challenge when it comes to deftly escaping behind the wheel.

While it seems you can dive into petty crime whenever you want, this scheming duo have their eyes on bigger prizes. The circumstances of Jason and Lucia's need to rise through the criminal ranks are still something of a mystery, but it's linked to a job gone south that saddled Lucia with jail time. Now, released from behind bars, the duo are feeling the pressure to grow beyond their small-time life of gas station robberies and store hold-ups. Like the alligators that crawl through the Leondia's Grassrivers swamps, we're in dangerous waters here.

Double trouble

There are still some secrets around quite how deep GTA 6's many systems will go. The extent of criminal profiling, for instance, is being kept under lock and key – but sounds like an evolution of RDR 2's honor system. Jason and Lucia's physiques can be affected by how much they snack or pump iron in the gym, but without a longer look at how the game's many side-activities feed into this, it's hard to say how big an impact it'll have on their criminal skills – but I'm betting it's not zero.

Likewise, while Jason and Lucia will always be a pair, how their relationship will grow, evolve, or even devolve, remains to be seen. One mysterious moment during character switching has the two connected with a love heart but with angry emoji, suggesting that for some reason they've had a falling out. Every main story mission so far handles the two being together so well that they almost seem incomplete when apart – they move through shootouts in tandem, covering one another to keep each other safe.

Similarly, in the narrative cutscenes we've seen the two are constantly chattering about their thoughts on dealing with these criminals safely. No one character is simply along for the ride like the Michael, Trevor, and Franklin trio often felt like in GTA 5, which it often revelled in. In GTA 6, 'partners in crime' is the name of the game, and something felt in every major mission that has been revealed so far.

It's in that final sequence we get more of a sense of how both Jason and Lucia can hand-off play in a single mission and feel distinct from one another. It sees the pair playing security for a rich man at an expensive party in a large office building at night, with the event being thrown into chaos when – Die Hard style – it's invaded by a gang looking for a major score.

Jason takes point in the emptier upper floors, where the game's gorgeous lighting really jumps out – the dark, sparse office dimly lit by desk lamps gets thrown into stark relief as bright white light floods from the elevators as enemies arrive. With guns, Jason is able to crouch around corners to ambush enemies, gunfire slowing when he uses his focus skill to slow time and line up devastating shots. This is a similar ability to Michael's in GTA 5, but here it also highlights red and yellow weak spots on enemies.

As Jason and Lucia text one another to share info – the message popping up on-screen – the action switches to Lucia, who has had her own guns confiscated. Here, she's involved in brutal melee with these attacking mercenaries, stabbing a man with a high-heel. We've also seen Lucia training at the gym and going Street Fighter mode with enemies in the open world. At least in this mission, Jason has a gunfire specialty while Lucia is thrust into close-quarters – though it remains to be seen how strict these roles will be in the wider game. Given the detail with which side-activities seem to reflect the pair's growth and condition in an RPG-like simulation style, I wouldn't be surprised if some of this comes down to how you play.

The deeper dive into GTA 6 has allayed my fears that Rockstar Games' sharp new details might come at the cost of simply having fun. But this is still a game in love with the fantasy of committing daring crimes and getting through by the skin of your teeth. What's blown me away is how many evolutions GTA 6 is packing that simply feel like natural additions. Of course Jason and Lucia feel best working together, like two characters becoming one. Of course I actually have to think about keeping my loot safe before I can bank it. Of course a new Wanted system breathes new, unpredictable life into tense chases through its detailed world. GTA 6 has so obviously become a milestone for the gaming industry for good reason – but, shocker, this tight design might also make for some of the smartest sequel decisions in a game ever from a design stand point. Of course.

Our GTA 6 guide details everything you need to know about the story, gameplay, and world so far! Or, check out our best GTA games list for what to play while you wait!

The Last of Us TV show wasn't the first announced adaptation of the beloved Naughty Dog game. Spider-Man and Evil Dead director Sam Raimi was originally in talks to produce a movie back in 2014, and there was even a poster made for a San Diego Comic-Con panel.

You can check out the first poster image below, which was shared by Sony at the time. It featured what seems to be a slightly older version of Ellie holding a knife and wearing her signature backpack.

Now the poster has resurfaced, fans have been reacting to it on social media. "I remember being so excited for this all those years ago. Imagine if this got made," one wrote, while another added: "Is this an alternate reality? Since when did this exist?"

Appearing at San Diego Comic-Con in 2014, Raimi told crowds (per Empire): "I think it’s going to be a great character journey and a great love story and a really great horror picture." He also revealed that they had met with Game of Thrones actor Maisie Williams to play Ellie.

The movie was due to be written by Neil Druckmann, the video game creator and co-showrunner of the HBO show. Table reads even happened, which featured eventual Abby actor Kaitlyn Dever reading for the part of Ellie. Ultimately, it entered development hell and the rights lapsed in 2019.

Druckmann has spoken about why the movie ultimately didn't happen candidly. "When I worked on the movie version, a lot of the thinking and notes were like, 'How do we make it bigger? How do we make the set pieces bigger?'" he told the Script Apart podcast (H/T IGN). "It didn’t work for The Last of Us, and I think that’s ultimately why the movie wasn’t made."

The Last of Us has since been adapted into an extremely successful TV show with a third season on the way. For more on that, check out our guide to The Last of Us season 3 as well as all the upcoming game adaptations on the way.

GTA 6, much like its predecessors, emphasizes player choice – and that's what has Rockstar Games most excited about its new Grand Theft Auto game, apparently.

Or, at least, Rob Nelson, current head of development and co-studio head at Rockstar North, is. When asked what he's most proud of regarding GTA 6 by YouTuber TGG, he makes as much evident and explains just how choice-heavy the game truly is.

TGG has Nelson's full response transcribed over on Twitter, and boy does it make Rockstar's upcoming Grand Theft Auto sound massive… as if the GTA 6 extended look didn't do so enough already.

"The way the whole thing works together, we've got a lot of very complicated systems working in an interconnected way," Nelson says. "You can forget it's a game that has been designed to try and work this way. I think it allows you to sort of roleplay as heavily or as lightly as you want to."

So, in other words, it's wildly immersive on top of emphasizing player choice – the perfect recipe for a good GTA, if you ask me.

There's that "idea that you have a fair amount of choice now in terms of the way you can approach situations," as the Rockstar lead goes on to describe.

"You can still cause as much carnage as you can imagine. How does that make you feel if it has an impact on certain things? Do you still want to do it? Do you want to do it more? Do you want to do it less? Do you care at all? It's up to you and what matters to you."

GTA 6 is truly shaping up to be one of the most ambitious new games underway, it seems – if not the most ambitious, judging by Nelson's words here and everything else we've seen of the Rockstar project thus far.

As for its prospective online mode, though, TGG clarifies that the developers "didn't make any comment" on it… but something tells me that, when it presumably comes, it'll be as impressive as it is in GTA 5, and then some.

Take-Two's GTA 6 leak investigation is heating up as the publisher requests sealed subpoena to avoid tipping off leakers.

Take-Two Interactive's hunt for the person or people responsible for recent GTA 6 leaks is "rapidly evolving," the publisher says in newly revealed court documents.

Take-Two was quick to file DMCA subpoena requests for Discord and Microsoft in the wake of the initial leaks, but a new filing (via TorrentFreak) is very different in nature. Not only is it much more specific, seeking "targeted information" related to the previous subpoena and individual Discord users, but Take-Two is also requesting that it remain sealed to avoid benefitting the leakers. The previous request, which cast an extremely wide net in terms of the information it sought, remains available to the public.

"Take-Two has identified one additional Discord user and obtained additional identifying information for a previously identified Discord user, as well as additional information concerning the community servers identified in its prior subpoena for which it now seeks more targeted information," reads the new request.

Take-Two says the subpoena attachment "reveals highly sensitive, confidential information about an ongoing investigation into copyright infringement and the misappropriation of Take-Two's confidential information."

"Public disclosure of this information could compromise Take-Two's ongoing investigation and even tip off the alleged infringers as to the nature and progress of Take-Two's investigation and information Take-Two has gathered about the infringement," Take-Two writes. In a footnote, it adds that its investigation "is rapidly evolving and ongoing," and that the new subpoena request "seeks different information" than the first one.

It's worth noting that Discord's marketing director, Ryan Rigney, said as recently as August 25 that the company had yet to be served a subpoena from Take-Two, which may or may not have contributed to the language in the latest request. Either way, the court has yet to make a decision on Take-Two's request for a sealed subpoena and nothing new has been issued so far.

This does seem to suggest Take-Two's investigation is heating up very quickly as the GTA 6 leaks have only been going on for a couple of weeks. It also seems the company is narrowing the scope of its investigation down to specific people potentially involved, which would definitely make me very nervous if I had anything to do with the leaks.

GTA 6 became too realistic for even Rockstar so the devs had to cut a system for restocking Jason and Lucia's fridge to "find the right balance between realism and ease of play"

Our Onimusha: Way of the Sword review is here, and so is everyone else's. So far, Onimusha's revival is on track to beat Pragmata, match Monster Hunter Stories 3, and barely trail Resident Evil Requiem in a particularly strong year for Capcom.

PS5 reviews frequently provide the biggest critical base on Metacritic, and that's true across Capcom's latest games.

Shortly after the review embargo, Onimusha: Way of the Sword is sitting at a score of 86 on Metacritic for PS5 with 66 reviews. (This is up from 59 reviews earlier this morning, and the game's critical score has not changed.)

PC is slightly lower at 82 (with 16 reviews), and Xbox and Nintendo Switch 2 currently have too few reviews to meaningfully measure. PC feedback feels particularly important, as Capcom's PC ports are hit-and-miss.

This puts Onimusha near the front of the pack of Capcom's 2026 lineup. The publisher said earlier this year that it's "not done with 2026 yet" after Resident Evil Requiem landed at 89 on Metacritic, Monster Hunter Stories 3 at 86, and new IP Pragmata at 85.

Pragmata feels especially relevant. New Monster Hunter and Resident Evil entries are reliable, and Onimusha is technically just the latest entry in a long-running, long-dormant series. Heading up Capcom's first new IP in some time, Pragmata director Yonghee Cho told GamesRadar+ that he was extraordinarily anxious about being the first one to fumble it this year. He compared Capcom's lineup to a relay race, and he didn't want Pragmata to hurt the team.

"Because those were all positively received as well," Oyama said of Capcom's 2026 hits, "[it's] not necessarily higher expectations, but we feel like we can add to that success when there's this instance where these games came out in a relatively short timeframe."

Our Onimusha: Way of the Sword review praises the game's combat and humor, but, like many other reviews I've read, is more critical of its pacing and tone. The game's out on all platforms September 4.

Capcom still has more in store for 2026, with Dragon's Dogma 2's big Dark Arisen expansion out October 8. Going into 2027, the company has already revealed Resident Evil Veronica, the series' latest remake, and Mega Man: Dual Override, the first mainline Mega Man in seven years.

Capcom made twice as much money on Steam compared to PlayStation in the last year, boosted by Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, and Devil May Cry as PC gaming continues to grow.

Rockstar North's co-studio head and head of development, Rob Nelson, has explained how and when players can switch between dual protagonists Jason and Lucia in GTA 6. He says there are some missions where you are forced to use a certain character, some where you are made to switch, and some where you can choose who to play as and change at will.

In an interview with Famitsu that's been translated by GamesRadar+, Nelson describes the team's design philosophy as it pertains to character switching and restriction. "Sometimes [switching characters] is limited by story progression," he explains.

"During the story, there are times where you can't switch from one character for some reason. There are some missions where you are free to switch as much as you want, but there are some sections where we want you to experience it from a certain character's perspective, like GTA 5, so we limit switching."

He goes on to explain how and why the devs limited players to Jason in a certain scene. "There is a mission that takes place in a high-rise apartment complex where you used to be able to switch freely between characters," Nelson says. "However, as ex-special forces, we thought it would be a more natural fit for Jason to be in control, so we decided to set the character. The mission is early in the game, so we thought it would be unnatural for Lucia to lead and give instructions as the two navigate the area."

Alternatively, he compares this to a mission where the player has to switch between Jason and Lucia. "There are some operations where you're forced to switch characters," he says. "In the trailer, we showed a mission where they left a bank robbery and drove away in a car. At first you control Jason firing at the police vehicles from inside the car, while Lucia is driving. Then, during the mission you switch characters, and this time the player is driving the car as Lucia, while Jason and Raul continue to fire at the cops from the back seat."

Finally, he explains parts where you can swap between the two characters whenever you want. "There are missions that are designed in this way, then, like the mission at the end of the trailer where they are under attack, there are times when you can freely alternate switching between Jason and Lucia," Nelson explains.

After 13 years, GTA 6's gameplay deep dive has been so worth the wait even my 76-year-old mother has been texting me about it

Rockstar has just released a massive pile of new GTA 6 screenshots, and even after seeing nearly 30 minutes of 4K gameplay last week, there are a few new details to pick apart in these stills. Sure, there are displays of cars, weapons, locations, and sick outfits for Jason and Lucia, but I keep coming back to this one picture of an iguana.

Seriously, if the image above does not fully communicate why I'm looking at this iguana so intensely, go check out the 4K original on Rockstar's official website. Zoom in, and start counting scales. Every single scale on this little (big) guy is fully visible, in sharp detail, from head to tail.

Of course, Rockstar is already known for ridiculously detailed animals, as Red Dead Redemption 2's horses are famously some of the most lovingly rendered creatures in gaming, right down to testicles that grow and shrink depending on the temperature. But that's a cowboy game – one where horses are central to the experience, as are all kinds of other little varmints you've gotta track, hunt, or avoid.

It wouldn't be out of pocket for us to see an iguana model this detailed if, say, this were a AAA game about keeping iguanas as pets. But this is a game about stealing cars and robbing banks. You'll probably look at one of these iguanas for a couple of seconds, tops. Rockstar might be the only studio in the world willing – and more importantly, able – to invest its resources into such minute details.

Maybe the iguana we're seeing here is a hero model that'll be front-and-center for a brief establishing shot in a cutscene or something. But there's still no reason for it to look this good. Other than, of course, Rockstar's desire to absolutely dazzle us with an uber-detailed sandbox.

GTA 6 became too realistic for even Rockstar so the devs had to cut a system for restocking Jason and Lucia's fridge to "find the right balance between realism and ease of play."

You probably don't need to be told that GTA 6 is big. Rockstar sandboxes are known for their size and depth, and this one seems like it'll be the biggest of the bunch by a wide margin. So much so, the studio doesn't think a single member of the team has seen every corner of Leonida.

Chatting about the blockbuster release with IGN, Rob Nelson, the head of development and co-studio head at Rockstar, spoke about the philosophy underpinning the map and all the various things you can do. "I think the challenge for us on this game is the same as it is on any new game for us," he explains.

"How do we evolve and build upon the good things we have done before in all the ways these things need to evolve," he adds, "but at the same time ensure that the game still has everything that made the previous games in this series resonate with people?"

That's a tricky thing to do. No doubt Rockstar wants GTA 6 to feel fresh and contemporary, without completely eschewing the ideas that have carried the series this far. Chaos, comedy, and constant pull to explore are hallmarks of the franchise, and have been since the very first entry.

That last part is key, and the team appears to have spent the 13 years since GTA 5 well in terms of providing us with things to do. "The game is so big, I don’t know that there’s anybody on the team that knows all of it," Nelson says.

Normally I'd balk at such a statement, but he's likely correct in this instance. Leonida seems big, and between just getting around and all the side-quests, I've little doubt there's an ungodly amount to see and do, to the point that it'll take hundreds to uncover all of it. And it all kicks off in November - at long last.

GTA 6 became too realistic for even Rockstar so the devs had to cut a system for restocking Jason and Lucia's fridge to "find the right balance between realism and ease of play"

Despite the fact that you collect souls from fallen enemies, Onimusha: Way of the Sword is not a Soulslike. In fact, if you've ever dabbled in the genre but found yourself thinking "I'd probably be enjoying this if I felt that I was making any progress", this may be the game for you. The only punishment for death is being sent back to the last autosave, difficulty increases over time rather than the game resenting your very existence from the first moments, and – oh my goodness – you can pause. There are even accessibility options!

In fact, the game asks you to go through a selection of these options before starting to play (larger subtitles are always great to see). This is great, but it did result in me accidentally selecting English audio rather than Japanese – something that can only be changed via the main menu for some reason. I ended up keeping the English audio though, as it soon became apparent that this is a game that's not afraid to be goofy in any language. Some of the line deliveries in English wouldn't sound out of place in a corporate training video, which fits in nicely.

Hell to pay

Miyamoto Musashi (sporting the likeness of Toshiro Mifune, as seen in the likes of Seven Samurai and Shogun) is a samurai aiming to prove his might in Kyoto. Ambushed by Genma – creatures escaped from the depths of Hell – he is killed, and sent on his way to the hottest joint in the afterlife himself. However, he is resurrected (against his will) by having the Oni Gauntlet thrust upon him, which gives him the power to fight the Genma and absorb their souls.

I enjoyed playing through Onimusha: Way of the Sword, but one word that kept popping into my head as I played was "inconsistent". This certainly applies to the storytelling. Appropriately enough for a game including Mifune's likeness, it feels somewhat like a movie, but very much a wonky B-movie rather than a samurai classic.

One moment, the goofiness shines through with athleticism in a cutscene, or one of Musashi's dismissive comments at the end of a fight ("They were shit," the mighty samurai declared of a band of unearthly horrors after one encounter, to my great amusement and delight). The next moment though, it might be aiming for an entirely unearned moment of intense emotion, or lean on unremarkable melodrama. In a few rare moments, there is a surprisingly effective horror angle, and I do wonder what the game might have looked like if this had been the direction throughout.

Onimusha: Way of the Sword does have a difficulty curve, but this is where inconsistency comes in again, as that curve wobbles about quite a bit. Things start off a little too easy, then the challenge jumps up in some areas while remaining trivial in others. By the halfway mark, it more or less hits its stride, although some bosses prove more of a hurdle than others with no clear rhyme or reason.

Nonetheless, credit must be given for allowing the player good time to get to grips with the intricacies of combat before mastering all corners of it is necessary. Generally speaking, you know the drill; dodges, parries, counters, enemies become vulnerable to a pre-rendered attack when you knock their stamina bar to zero. What's particularly interesting, though, is that there are two countering moves that are more demanding than the others, not essential to use but highly rewarding.

The parry window is marginally more generous than it tends to be in similar games. Opt for a deflection instead, and your timing must be more precise, but the enemy's stamina loss will be greater (this is worth learning, and it's not too hard to do so). The real challenge is Issen attacks. By hitting an attack button just before an enemy attack connects, you'll leap forward and counter with a mighty blow of your own. The timing on this is incredibly demanding, and messing it up will see you punished in no uncertain terms. You can get through the game using them little or not at all, but it's a great layer to explore for those who like to challenge themselves.

As the game becomes more challenging, combat becomes more satisfying. Weapon attacks are best parried or deflected, while unarmed attacks are most effectively dodged and then countered. Working out which is which (not always immediately clear with demonic enemies) and reacting accordingly in a split-second, again and again until you emerge victorious, is a thrill. There's nothing like successfully deflecting a series of boss attacks, getting some hits in, then dodging or parrying everything again until they lie vulnerable for a big ol' chop with your sword.

As you land hits, different souls will emerge (red for upgrade currency, yellow for health, blue to charge the Oni armament gauge for a brief use of a special Oni weapon). There's an upgrade you can unlock to absorb souls while attacking, but still, choosing your moment for absorption so you don't leave yourself vulnerable remains important. Leaving them floating around is always a risk, though. If an enemy lands a particularly heavy hit on you, you'll be knocked to the floor, and they'll absorb souls from you (as well as any unclaimed in the arena) in order to power up. This can turn the tide against you fairly quickly in a boss fight, and you'll need to be vigilant until they power down again. Think of it like killstreaks in Call of Duty; if a boss is doing particularly well against you, they'll be handed extra abilities for even more of an advantage.

Fireman samurai

This isn't an open-world game. There are missions, fast travel, plenty of cutscenes, and quest areas that exist in isolation from the Kyoto map where the shrine you base yourself at is. Unfortunately, Capcom didn't have the confidence to stick with the linear approach. There are activities and side missions in the area around the temple, primarily to help bolster your collection of upgrade materials. OK, fine; but Onimusha commits the cardinal sin of introducing such activities by forcing you to complete one more than once. This shatters the flow of the game up until these points, and crucially, running around town really isn't as fun as following the carefully curated path of one of the main story missions.

While I can't give any detail regarding the game's final area, I should tell you that it really feels as though the developer had run out of ideas (and/or time and money) by the time they got to the end. It's not bad, just distinctly unimaginative. Also, a warning: the final boss is, in my most humble of opinions at least, significantly overtuned. Considering the fact that this area is a point of no return (which you are explicitly warned about) that cuts you off from almost all opportunities to gather upgrade materials, I strongly recommend that you ensure you buff yourself up as much as possible beforehand.

Still, I applaud Capcom's approach to accessibility here. In addition to options that allow for color blindness and various UI tweaks, you can adjust the difficulty whenever you like (although there are only two options), and both allow you to enable on-screen button prompts if you wish. I played around with this for a little while, and I was surprised at how effective it is. I'm not a huge fan of enemies wearing button prompts like brooches, but boy oh boy does it work well. Maybe it was because I'd already played through the game, but I found that these prompts enabled me to react to attacks correctly instantly every time. They enhanced my reactions without feeling intrusive; it was like I'd developed my own spidey-sense.

I've not held back in shining a light on what doesn't work here, but that's because so much of it does work well. A lot of the success comes from what isn't here. Not every action game needs an open world, a hundred weapons to collect, item crafting, and running through empty fields. Onimusha: Way of the Sword may not have Nioh 3's mastery of risk and reward, or Beast of Reincarnation's intelligence and rich atmosphere; but it has heart, and it has respect for you and your time.

Onimusha: Way of the Sword is fun, not afraid to be goofy (including with a few post-credit unlocks that encouraged me to keep playing), and the flow of combat feels great. It's certainly not perfect, but whenever you hit a point of frustration, you can be sure that there's another moment of greatness close by.

Onimusha: Way of the Sword was reviewed on PS5, with a code provided by the publisher.

Our best action RPGs has more recommendations if your own way of the sword directs you on even more adventures.

GTA 6 had even more daily-life role-playing features, like buying groceries to restock your fridge, reveals Rockstar North co-studio head and head of development Rob Nelson, but the team decided to scrap the idea so as not to overcomplicate the game's mechanics.

In an interview with Famitsu that's been translated by GamesRadar+, Nelson discusses a feature the team planned but eventually cut: dual protagonists Jason and Lucia could buy groceries at the supermarket and then restock their fridge.

"At one point during development, we were experimenting with a system that would allow you to buy groceries to restock the fridge," he says. "We had specifications for stores with groceries that you could buy and take home, and the fridge could be replenished. However, because this would have complicated the mechanics, we had to simplify it."

This would have likely been part of the GTA 6 system that allows you to gain weight, with your body, health, and stamina changing depending on how you eat and exercise. However, it appears the team thought shopping for groceries was a step too far, and opted instead for cleaner gameplay.

"We are always trying to find the right balance between realism and ease of play," Nelson explains. "Rather than just going to the fridge to grab a snack or visiting a restaurant just to roleplay, we want to give meaning to each action."

Seems living our TikTok ASMR restock fantasy is one of the only things we won't be able to do in GTA 6.

GTA 6 wanted system goes up to 6 stars and lets police track your face, your clothes, and your car

Seeing a Mass Effect: Andromeda recruit jamming on a bass guitar shaped like the Normandy, with a gas-masked Fallout 4 vault dweller on drums, is a time capsule from a very specific moment in video game history. As, indeed, is their stage of choice. Rock Band 4 is the last survivor from a bygone era of plastic-instrument games, their peripherals now mostly consigned to landfills and charity shops, and a gentle introduction to what would become standard live-service practices across the rest of the industry. But it's a time capsule you can still dig up and experience firsthand, Harmonix's coup de grâce still active and receiving support as it approaches the end of its first decade. Given how quickly the genre had moved – and moved on – in the years prior, that's nothing short of a miracle.

By now, it's surely safe to assume you know the drill, if not of this particular game then certainly one of its many predecessors. You pick an instrument, choose a song (one that, in the latter titles, you most likely bought as an add-on), and start playing along by hitting the plastic buttons in time with the onscreen prompt. It's a simple but marvellous concept that was expanded on enormously over a relatively short span. In the Guitar Hero series, the range of instruments quickly grew from just lead guitar to include bass and rhythm. Rock Band added drums and vocals when it launched in 2007, and then keyboard for its third iteration. Both series also spawned spinoffs, with Rock Band famously tying into The Beatles and even Lego, allowing for reinventions of its visual style along the way.

Controller (r)evolution

To fully understand how we got here, though, we must rewind further still, to the end of the 20th century. In 1999, Konami's GuitarFreaks and DrumMania went beyond 1997's Beatmania by asking players to perform songs on controllers shaped like musical instruments, tapping their buttons to match onscreen patterns. The games failed to earn mainstream notice outside of Japanese arcades, but it was in these places that Harmonix's founders first encountered the concept that would make their name.

Formed in Boston in 1995, the studio made its debut that same year with The Axe, a piece of software in which music could be played with a PC joystick. According to co-founder Alex Rigopulos, it sold all of 300 copies. After a few more lean years, the company's founders decided to try to break into the Japanese karaoke market. While that effort was a failure, visiting Japan introduced them to the local enthusiasm for rhythm games, yet to make a big dent in the US market. The discovery was funnelled into 2001's Frequency and its successor Amplitude, the studio's first actual games, which also established its licensed-music credentials, incorporating tracks by the likes of No Doubt, Orbital and Run-DMC. Neither game was a commercial hit, but – along with a deal with Konami to develop Karaoke Revolution – they were enough to catch the eye of RedOctane, a peripheral manufacturer that had recently decided it would make sense to make music games as well as the accessories for playing them.

From there, everything took off. Just ten years separate the release of the first Guitar Hero and Rock Band 4 – time enough for a dozen instalments of the former series and nine of the latter (not including portable and mobile spinoffs). At the same time, Harmonix and RedOctane went from collaborators to competitors, after buyouts from MTV and Activision respectively split up the partnership. (Given that, at their peak, individual titles in this lineage broke $1bn in sales, it's not difficult to see why they would have been acquisition targets.)

By 2015, though, the spark was dwindling. RedOctane had released its final game, Guitar Hero World Tour, in 2008, with development duties passing to internal Activision studios; two years later, the company was closed. Fellow series stewards Neversoft and FreeStyle Games were folded into the Call Of Duty machine, the former shutting down in 2014, the latter sold to Ubisoft to become one of its many support studios. Yet, as the 2010s welcomed a new console generation, there was one final attempt at continuing each series' legacy. Rock Band 4 hit the shelves in October 2015, and a few weeks later Activision followed suit with Guitar Hero Live.

On a similar note

While Live bet on an FMV-driven experience that would change depending on your performance, played via a new, more complex guitar peripheral, Rock Band 4 was firmly focused on fine-tuning and unifying what already existed. Even within the context of its own family tree, Rock Band 4's role might be that of the sensible older sibling. Its direct predecessor – the apex of the entire genre – was unafraid to reinvent without compromising its roots, adding to the selection of instruments a keyboard and Pro guitar controller that essentially mimicked its real-life counterpart. Neither is supported in the follow-up.

As a successor, then, Rock Band 4 might initially seem like a step back, with a more standardized visual presentation offering fewer options for character customisation, and a far more rigid career mode. But in 2015 it rekindled a flame that could easily have died out. And there proved to be great value in that sensibility, as the game allowed players to migrate all their previously purchased DLC tracks, and introduced compatibility for other peripherals, including E-Drum kits. It laid a solid foundation that could last the test of time, and one on which Harmonix has continued to build.

Not that it's especially easy to get into nowadays. Mad Catz, which manufactured official guitar and drum controllers for Rock Band 3 and 4, closed in 2017. PDP, which worked with Harmonix for Rock Band Rivals' instruments, ceased production years ago. Second-hand instruments often cost way more than their long-forgotten retail prices. And that's before taking into account how much you're likely to spend on songs. There's also the always-tricky matter of music licensing to consider, with plenty of examples illustrating what can go wrong. When Guitar Hero Live's servers shut in 2018, for instance, 92 per cent of the track catalogue vanished alongside them. In December 2022, a year after Harmonix was acquired by Epic, it delisted the app for tabletop-digital hybrid DropMix and shut down its PC and console successor, Fuser. A year later, Harmonix launched Fortnite Festival, finally making sense of Epic's buyout, but leaving the long-term prospects of Rock Band itself in question.

Today, though, Rock Band 4 stands firm. Since its release, it has added support for asynchronous online multiplayer and competitive band clans, and received over 30 seasons of challenges and cosmetic rewards, not to mention new tracks that continue to roll out on a weekly basis. You can play Rock Band 4 on modern consoles – and, for all the barriers to entry it puts up, people do. Take a glance at the game's subreddit or the official Discord server and you'll still find hundreds of music enthusiasts sharing tips, high scores and celebrating photos from jam sessions with friends in local bars and living rooms. Fire up multiplayer, meanwhile, and you're guaranteed to find somebody failing to get a full combo in Free Bird or singing Mr Brightside at odd times of a weeknight.

Despite its minimal conversational cues – "Let's rock!" or "Sorry, I choked" – playing online feels like a true shared experience, and one that is often enchanting. Sometimes a drummer will show up mid-session then leave after one song, without missing a single beat; at others, you and a stranger might tear through an entire playlist of old standards together before parting ways. Whoever you're playing alongside, it's still impossible to suppress a smile when the band simultaneously activates Overdrive, playing louder and more confidently as a unit. Inter-band banter might be a rockshow standard but these moments are more like those over-the-shoulder smiles you occasionally catch performers sharing, as the crowd picks up their beat. Who needs words when you have music?

No wonder Epic chose to incorporate Harmonix's work into Fortnite, where dance moves have long rivalled voice comms as the primary mode of communication. Or, viewed more cynically, perhaps it simply saw in Rock Band's spin on the live-service model a way of turning over yet more stacks of V-Bucks. (Here, Festival's shuffling selection of free songs actually borrows a little from Guitar Hero Live, which similarly offered an MTV-style channel schedule for players not willing to splash out with cash.)

Yet Fortnite Festival isn't a true continuation of this legacy. Rock Band players can't import their library of songs, and while Epic is promising instrument support (and PDP teasing a new guitar controller), it's unclear whether this will be compatible with existing peripherals. And those concerns about long-term preservation are only exacerbated by a digital-only game that rarely stays static for long.

In the meantime, Rock Band 4 players continue to strap on their space helmets and tighten their jumpsuits, paying tribute with callused thumbs and broken nails. And at least a small remnant of Harmonix is willing to answer their calls for an encore. Both sides know they're on borrowed time.

There'll come a day – possibly hastened by Epic's recent moves – when developer support finally halts altogether, when older instruments cease to work and the online component becomes inaccessible. But maybe that's appropriate for the artform to which these games were a love letter. Every song is a time capsule, ultimately, as the selective libraries of music-streaming services increasingly decide what is available for listening. Nevertheless, the beat goes on.

This Rock Band 4 retrospective was first published in issue 394 of Edge Magazine. To get more like this delivered straight to your doorstep (or digital device) consider subscribing to Edge.

After more than a decade steering the blood-soaked franchise, Gears of War: E-Day developer The Coalition wants to be recognized creatively for all of the things that made Gears become the cover shooter poster child two generations ago: really tight action, hefty weapons, and being best-in-class at "tearing monsters apart."

It's been almost 20 years since Gears of War first chainsaw-gunned its way to the surface and over 10 years since The Coalition took over the franchise from Epic Games. But the series' stewards are still committed to delivering on what the series does best.

Speaking to GamesRadar+ at Gamescom 2026, creative director Matt Searcy says "we really wanted to be known for what Gears already is." To him, Gears has always been "one of the probably best-in-class at cover shooting" thanks in large part to its "unabashed sort of tearing monsters apart."

"Ultimately, we base it around the [...] the pillars that made the original games great. What if we just built a modern game, a new engine from scratch around those pillars? And so, the short answer to your question, what do we want to creatively be known for? It's all the things that made Gears resonate in the first place," Searcy adds.

While trying to recapture the series' signature knack for monster-crushing action, the developers still wanted "the game to feel new," but Searcy says the team approached the challenge "by looking at ourselves and not looking outside at other franchises." The Xbox studio recently rejected the aggressive monetization of modern shooters, for example, and promised to return to the "good ol' days."

"Gears is one of those franchises that's always pushed the boundaries of visual [and] hardware, and I think [The Coalition] team shares a lot of that pedigree with Epic from from the past," brand director Nicole Fawcette adds, explaining that the studio is full of developers who have "truly hit their stride in this game and in their career, and it shows up on screen."

"Like, it's just a team that like strives to do their best with a franchise they love," she says. "Everybody [is] giving their absolute f*****g balls, every effort that they can to to bring it to life, and I think it shows."

Gears of War: E-Day comes out on October 6 for PC and Xbox Series X|S.

We played Gears of War: E-Day's campaign, and it's even bleaker than we expected.