The Resident Evil movie is here, and fans are sharing their thoughts on the film.

The movie, which stars Austin Abrams as medical courier Bryan, takes place "on the periphery" of Resident Evil 2 and doesn't include a lot of lore or any of the characters from the games.

Over on Reddit, Resident Evil fans are discussing the movie – and it's a pretty even mix of appreciation and criticism, with the ending, the comedy, and the lack of game lore particularly hot topics. The following contains spoilers for the film, so turn back now if you're not up to date!

"Feels like someone slapped a random dude in an RE game, absolutely loved it," says one fan, while another says: "I think it's perfectly good as a standalone horror movie, but it left me wanting a bit more in terms of Resident Evil stuff. Also felt that the humour was a bit excessive in a Marvel-esque way that weakens a few scenes for me but that might just be [Zach] Cregger's style"

"It was highly enjoyable with plenty of Easter eggs and references to mechanics in the game. The monster designs were both grotesque and cool. The way the movie was structured felt very faithful to the game's, it could easily be adapted into a video game with minimal changes and it would make a good side story game for RE," is this fan's thoughts. "I'm glad he stayed away from direct adaptations or shoehorning established RE characters."

"Glad they toned down the comedy, it's already a lot in the final release," says another person. "Zach Cregger's definition of less jokes is very different than mine," says someone else – director Cregger previously revealed that he cut jokes from the final movie.

"I was so bought into this movie as a 8/10 until the final 10 minutes where every scientist does the dumbest thing possible and Brian transforms into a monster and it just cuts to credits. Also, I can't get the 'VIDEO GAMES, YEAH!' line out of mind," says another person.

"The YAY VIDEOGAMES!! line made me physically cringe, but movie wasn't bad per say but way too much on the nose comedy was in the movie they could of toned it back a lot more than what they put out," thinks another fan.

"Really really not a fan of the ending, the rest of the movie is a solid 8-9 out of 10 but that ending brings it down to a 6-7/10 for me, harsh maybe but I just really don't like the ending," thinks another fan.

"Loved the movie. Hated the ending. Brought it down from a 9/10 to 6/10. Really was rooting for him to cure himself which follows all the Resident Evil games with Leon," agrees someone else.

"I'm pissed off by the ending bro it should have been him surviving," echoes another fan. "The ending sucked. I also think there should've been more creatures that were true to the games. I'm fine with the director making his own story, however don't smack the Resident Evil title on it if you're not even going to include any of the iconic creatures," says another person.

"I thought it was really great, felt bad about the ending though. I guess considering it's a horror movie.. It makes sense for it to end that way... But I guess watching the dude bumble and survive through everything, just to bite it so close to the end, felt sad," thinks someone else.

Resident Evil is in theaters now. For more, check out our guide to the Resident Evil movie ending explained, or our Resident Evil movie review.

While the Resident Evil movie focuses on telling a new story set in the world of the franchise, that doesn't mean it isn't stuffed with some neat Resident Evil Easter eggs. It's been well-documented that the film has typewriters, herbs, and first aid spray cans, but there are also a few nods to one of the most well-loved Resi characters, Leon S. Kennedy.

Warning though: we'll be getting into spoilers from the Resident Evil movie below, so make sure you've seen it first.

These come later on in the movie when Bryan, our hapless medical courier, has made it to Raccoon City. Here, he faces the arduous final journey to the hospital to attempt to deliver the sample needed to make the cure.

His first hurdle comes from running down a street as zombies hurl themselves off rooftops towards him. In the background of this shot, as Bryan looks ahead to the hospital, is a shopfront reading 'Leon S. Kennedy Guns and Ammo'. Leon is a rookie cop at this point in the timeline, but he sure does know a few things about guns and ammo, so it's a fun nod from director Zach Cregger. Check out the moment below, as shared by Twitter user RENews from the trailer.

Although, apparently a Deadline journalist asked Cregger about this and he wasn't sure how it ended up in there.

That's not the only reference though, according to some eagle-eyed fans. When Bryan makes it to the hospital, he has to enter through the underground carpark as there are a fair few zombies in the main building. Now some theater-goers spotted that Leon's car is parked among those in the car park where Bryan takes a beat to work out how to complete his journey.

As one fan on Reddit wrote, "I liked that Leon's car was parked in the hospital. It was a cool Easter egg." See if you can spot it on your next rewatch.

For more on the film, check out our breakdown of the Resident Evil movie ending and a breakdown of all the Resident Evil game differences. We've also got a Resident Evil movie review as well if you need any more insight about why it's worth your time.

Ahead of Monster Hunter Wilds: Ascendance, Capcom has announced the removal of the game's widely hated character edit vouchers, which force players to spend real money in order to re-edit their character's appearance.

"With the launch of Monster Hunter Wilds: Ascendance in 2027, all players will be able to re-edit the appearance of their hunter and Palico as many times as they like, free of charge and without the need for a Character Edit Voucher, which will be removed from the game," a post from the official Monster Hunter account reads.

Character edit vouchers will be removed from sale on December 3. It goes without saying that, now more than ever, you should not buy them. In their place, 10 character and Palico edit vouchers will be given to players to tide them over on customization until Ascendance arrives in 2027 (probably, but speculatively, in March).

The ability to repeatedly customize your character has been a premium feature in Monster Hunter for some time. Monster Hunter Wilds, in particular, is absolutely lousy with DLC, so it's almost impressive that these vouchers stayed among the most-hated forms of microtransactions. It just plain sucks that, if you find that your character doesn't look as you'd hoped or you suddenly have an idea for a new look, you have to break out the credit card. (On PC at least, you could thankfully bypass this with mods.)

Capcom framing the option to have unmonetized fun with a core game system as some fabulous reward is a bit strange. Stranger still is the planned release of "a token of our appreciation to everyone who has previously paid for Character Edit Vouchers."

If you've purchased the three-voucher character, Palico, or combo pack, you'll receive a "Special Thank-You Pendant Set." Look, it's hard not to read this as: thanks for tolerating our invasive monetization, here is a shiny thing, and hey, if you do want the shiny thing, you've got a few more weeks to buy soon-to-be-deprecated vouchers.

But good news is good news. Character edit vouchers are dead, may they rest in pieces. Monster Hunter players, to whom Capcom's growing microtransaction library has not gone unnoticed, are practically dancing in the streets after the news.

"If a game gives you the option to change how your character looks they should not take money from you for changing it," reads the top reply to a Monster Hunter Wilds subreddit post sharing the news. "Still great to see that we do that now."

"They don't deserve a goodbye," says another user. "Into the trashcan and that's it."

"This is nice but these never should've been a thing to begin with," adds a third.

The question now is whether Capcom will stick to this approach with the release of the next Monster Hunter game. If character edit vouchers return, expect to see Monster Hunter fans put some feet to some fire.

After playing Monster Hunter Wilds: Ascendance, this huge expansion is the second wind the game needs.

Capcom's long-running Monster Hunter series has seen many changes in recent years that have evolved the franchise in intriguing ways. While 2025's Monster Hunter Wilds was an ambitious swing, bringing a more seamless, systemic open world to explore, it also led to missteps that didn't make for a smooth launch of the franchise's next phase.

Nearly 2 years after release, developer Capcom has been steadily refining its flagship entry with new events and improvements that realign the core challenge of a Monster Hunter game. With the upcoming Monster Hunter Wilds: Ascendance expansion on the way, the studio aims to upgrade and raise the stakes of its beast-slaying adventure even further with a new super-charged campaign and even spicier battles to dive into. I got some early hands-on time with Ascendance during the week of Tokyo Game Show 2026, exploring the new Skybound Eyrie zone and facing off against new and returning monsters that will shake up tactics and push hunters to adapt.

Back to the Hunt

Monster Hunter Wilds: Ascendance jumps ahead several years after the defeat of elder dragon Gogmazios in Wilds' main story. The Hunter's Guild faces a new threat with the return of the elder dragon Lao-Shan Lung, who destroys the guild's stronghold. Years later, the guild is more experienced and better prepared to take down the massive monster, they venture to a new region in the forbidden lands known as the Skybound Eyrie. Faced with new monsters to slay and the return of the tar-based affliction spreading through the Windward Plains and its ecosystem, the Hunter's Guild aims to defeat Lao-Shan Lung and stop the corruption's spread.

This first major expansion for Monster Hunter Wilds is very much in the vein of other big updates from previous games – like Monster Hunter World: Iceborne – focusing on adding more locations, gear, and monsters to fight. However, Ascendance and its added scope aim to refresh Wilds by pushing a realignment toward more intense, high-stakes action. For starters, the new Skybound Eyrie location is by far the most vertical zone in the game, even by Wilds' standards. It also boasts the most visually impressive and varied level design that the series has seen yet. I'm immediately taken in by the aerial islands, which remind me of the Avatar films. It's a really exciting change of scenery from the Windward Plains.

But, Ascendance really focuses on updating the core combat. As a post-main story campaign, it's geared toward experienced players, spicing up battles and noticeably increasing battle intensity. I get to play two hunts during my hands-on, with the first focused on defeating the Alpha Araketa, which leads a smaller group of minions that it can coordinate with. This is a great sampling of the upgrades coming to Ascendance. Not only is the new location an interesting battlefield to learn, with Skybound Eyrie's more vertical locations lead to serious pitfalls during fast-paced action – I fell off the map in a couple of instances – but it also showcases how much of an upgrade monster behavior and tactics have gotten.

The Alpha Araketa hunt is incredibly dynamic, requiring a lot of coordination with my team. As both a ground and aerial monster, the Araketa and its minions can attack in unison, group-rushing hunters on the ground and launching into the air to deliver synchronized dive-bombs against the squad. It's impressive to see in action, but it's also quite intense to be on their receiving end. Like other Monster Hunter games, it's all about the chase in these battles, and navigating the dangerous terrain of the Skybound Eyrie adds so much tension. My squad takes two attempts to fell the Alpha Araketa, and during that time we learn its varied attack styles and rhythm – such as one particular combo attack that uses its wings, which have natural gases in them that can create a jet-powered-like impact. It's already one of my favorite new monsters to fight in Monster Hunter Wilds.

Fortunately, Ascendance adds a new edge for hunters to employ in a fight. One of the biggest new additions for the expansion – which will likely inspire some debate among fans – is the Boost Bracer system. Unlocked once you enter the new story, it lets you activate a powered-up state that unleashes a new super attack for each weapon and grants temporary access to powered-up combos during your boosted phase. As you attack foes, you build up a meter with three maximum charges. When you have a charge ready, you can dish out a super attack that's either a combo or a heavy one-hit strike.

I personally find the Boost Bracer to be a really fun and satisfying combat skill to unleash on enemies. My favorite moments come when my squad is unleashing anime-style super moves on a staggered foe, and seeing the chaos of the fight jump up several degrees gives us the shot in the arm we need to keep pushing forward. That said, I imagine this skill might spark debate among long-time fans of the series, especially regarding the perception that Monster Hunter Wilds was already overly generous in its balancing. However, the Boost Bracer takes time to build up, and you can easily waste it if you aren't careful. It's painful enough to miss a standard charged strike, but I actually face-palmed when I whiffed a super attack. Very much like the items in your inventory and the time you have, the Boost Bracer skills are a resource as well, and one that has to be used at the right time.

The other hunt available in my demo is against the elder dragon Teostra – a returning super boss from earlier games that's now powered up in Ascendance. Unfortunately, this hunt doesn't go well at all with my squad. Along with dealing with Teostra's powerful flame attacks and heavy strikes, the battle zone also has quicksand, which makes traversal a serious challenge. I sense a rematch in my future.

So far, Monster Hunter Wilds: Ascendance makes a strong case for revisiting Wilds. That's not to say Wilds wasn't a worthwhile Monster Hunter game on its own, but this expansion brings a much-needed refresh with a more interesting, better-developed top-level endgame that adds a new skill ceiling for combat. It's been really exciting to get reacquainted with the game, explore its new locations, and get to grips with souped-up weapons that feel fierce and satisfying to use against some of the series' meanest beasts to date.

Hopefully, the full suite of upgrades coming in Monster Hunter Wilds: Ascendance will make for a well-earned comeback story that can cap off the series' most ambitious entry yet.

Hunting for something else to play while you wait? Our best Monster Hunter games and best open world games rankings have more for you to enjoy!

Fans might have been vocal about franchise characters not making an appearance in Zach Cregger's new film, but the Rotten Tomatoes score for his new Resident Evil movie proves he really didn’t need them. Not only is his new horror film based on the video game franchise taking the top spot above all the Resident Evil films that have come before it, but it's also now the highest-rated live-action video game adaptation ever on the site.

At 97%, it just beats The Last of Us season 1 and Fallout season 2, which are both ranked at 96%. On the movie side, it's miles ahead of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 at 86%. Arcane season 2 is still on top though with a perfect score on the movie aggregation site.

The praise has come pouring in for Cregger's movie, with GamesRadar+'s own Jordan Farley giving it four stars. Our Resident Evil movie review calls it: "The best Resi movie by a distance, and the best video game movie full stop."

Meanwhile, IndieWire called it "a massive and rapidly mutating middle finger to the Comic-Con-brained idea that video game adaptations should just give 'the fans' what they think they want." The Hollywood Reporter gave Cregger some well-deserved props, saying, "The talented filmmaker has completely rejuvenated the series, leaving the six original films and the misbegotten reboot attempt Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City in the dust."

There's no doubt that some might take issue with the direction that Cregger takes, with Austin Abrams' worn-down organ delivery guy having the night from hell, and never once running into Leon Kennedy, Claire Redfield, or any of your franchise horror favorites. Nevertheless, that is the movie's cheat code. Daily Dead wrote, "The essence of Capcom’s survival horror franchise is alive, yet Cregger’s horror-comedy snapshot centered around the Raccoon City outbreak creates its own glorious nightmares."

Of course, as with any time spent in Resident Evil, some shots miss their mark in the frantic horror, and critics' common complaint is that Cregger's time with the franchise suffers in its final act. The Guardian highlighted that "After doing a great job making us care about [Bryan] for more than 90 minutes, Cregger seems to abandon him a few steps shy of completing any real journey."

Resident Evil arrives in theaters on September 18. Check out all the other upcoming horror movies coming in 2026 and beyond.

The first reactions to Zach Cregger's Resident Evil movie are in, and they're pretty glowing.

The new take on the iconic game franchise tells the story of Bryan (Austin Abrams), a hospital courier charged with making a delivery to Racoon City General Hospital. However, on his way he gets caught up in a horrifying outbreak, leaving him fighting for his life.

Rather than focussing on game characters, the new take on the IP is set instead on the periphery of Resident Evil 2. According to Cregger, it's more focused on translating the feeling of playing video games than being a direct adaptation. It seems like the risk has paid off based on the movie's first reactions.

Collider's Perri Nemiroff calls it "one of the best video game adaptations I’ve ever seen" She adds that it's "also one of the best horror comedies I've ever seen. Cannot believe how many hilarious beats this movie has without ever diminishing the stakes or sheer terror of the situation."

According to Fandango's Erik Davis, the movie is "less an adaptation of a game and more a movie that makes you feel like you're playing one." He adds: "Don’t get stuck on what is or isn’t in the Resident Evil games. This is a film that takes the spirit of playing those games and runs wild with it."

"Zach Cregger is cookin' with napalm," writes Variety's Courtney Howard. "It's a wild, hilarious, unpredictably bonkers thrill ride from start to finish. Kinetic action leans heavily on demented body horror. Mutant mayhem galore! Austin Abrams is perfect as our doofy, hapless hero."

Film critic Mark Cassidy wrote on Twitter: "#ResidentEvil may not feature recognizable characters/storylines, but by tapping into the relentless tension of the games, Zach Cregger has actually delivered the most faithful take yet."

Check out some more below.

Resident Evil arrives in theaters on September 18. For more, check out our guides to upcoming horror movies and all the upcoming video game adaptations you need to know about.

Just when Zach Cregger couldn’t stir the pot any more before the release of his new film, Resident Evil, he chimed in on the long-standing debate over diverting to digital or sticking to physical media since PlayStation's big announcement that sent the gaming industry into an uproar. Surprisingly, the director of Weapons and the upcoming video game adaptation isn’t too fussed about keeping hold of discs in all their various forms, and it isn’t down to a matter of ease, but more so not trusting himself to keep track of them all.

"I'm not a physical media guy," Cregger told IndieWire. "I mean, I have been in my life, but I tend to lose and damage things very easily. So, I am not bent out of shape if I'm downloading a game, because at least it means it's always going to be there when I need it."

Although, Cregger predicted that might not be the answer some would like to hear. "Now, I know there’s a lot of people saying, 'Not always, dude, because they can just delete it and then you've paid for it,'" Cregger continued. "And, yeah, that's too bad. I don't like that."

Ultimately, though, keeping a bajillion movies in his home just isn't on Cregger's agenda, and he’s come to terms with that. “I just don’t have room in my physical space for all of the games that I want to own," he explained. "And I lose them. I always do. I always lose and break stuff. So no, I"m fine with downloading."

It’s, of course, an answer that many would be against, but honestly, at this point, each to their own. Anyway, our biggest concern isn’t whether he's physical or not, but how well he's handled his version of Resident Evil, which hits theaters this week on September 18, 2026.

You can also check out our guides to upcoming horror movies and upcoming video game adaptations.

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.

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.

While Capcom didn't see fit to announce the returning monster, eagle-eyed fans have spotted Monster Hunter's most cursed creature in footage for the upcoming DLC expansion Ascendance.

Capcom has been releasing new Monster Hunter Wilds Ascendance footage on Twitter showing off the expansion's new Boost mechanic, with weapon-specific boosts being shown off in separate clips. And ahead of today's PlayStation State of Play, Capcom released the Bow's Boosted action breakdown, which includes a look at the new mechanics coming to a weapon, including the introduction of an offset attack. However, the most eagle-eyed fans caught a glimpse of a specific monster in the background of its final moments.

The monster in question? Khezu, which made its debut in the OG Monster Hunter, is most famous for its appearance: a pale, rubbery-looking dragon with a somewhat phallic-looking head. It's definitely one of the most cursed designs in the series, and add that with the fact they have a tail that allows them to cling to the ceiling and get the drop on you, it's even more freaky.

The electric penis monster wasn't confirmed for the Monster Hunter Wilds expansion before now, but even more strange is the fact that it never showed up in the new Monster Hunter Wilds: Ascendance trailer. We got a look at some returning monsters like Kushala Doara, as well as the reveal of three new monsters: the rocket-powered wyvern Araketa, and a new lightning-based Elder Dragon known as Gundoraja. Finally, there was a black goop monster that looked almost like Spider-Man's symbiote, which emerged from the body of a dead Doshaguma.

The lack of Khezu in the main trailer leads me to believe this was completely accidental on Capcom's part; or that they're going to tease the creepy monster in the background until launch.

Capcom is selling Monster Hunter Wilds with the energy of a man paddling up a waterfall: new 26GB demo lets you play the prologue for free after price drop to $40.

Hideki Kamiya, legendary Capcom veteran behind gems including Resident Evil 2, thinks newer games from the studio like Resident Evil Requiem are… too scary?

Yes, indeed, Kamiya finds games like Capcom's more recent Resident Evil entries a tad too spooky for his tastes, as per a recent interview with VGC.

First declaring that "this is not a joke," the Devil May Cry mastermind says he's "being one hundred percent serious when I say that I wish they would make it so that their games can also be enjoyed by people like me, who can't handle scary games at all." And… honestly, I get it.

Look, even Resident Evil 7 director Koshi Nakanishi admitted his game was "possibly too scary" and "some people couldn't handle it" last year (and as somebody who loves the seventh entry, I'd most certainly agree).

Requiem, according to Kamiya, isn't any better. "Just recently this year we had Resident Evil Requiem and the big return of Leon Kennedy, and he went back to Raccoon City… reliving all of those memories and all of those experiences."

He then states that, "As somebody who directed that original game, Resident Evil 2, I was curious to know how that panned out for him." Unfortunately though, the horror-adjacent side of Requiem made that impossible for Kamiya.

"I wanted to experience that myself as a player," as he says, "but the game was way too scary, and I couldn't." So, what's the solution, then, so that all flavors of player can enjoy Capcom's stories? Apparently, a less scary game mode.

"It's not a joke," Kamiya explains. "I legitimately wished it would include some kind of non-horror mode for people like me." He outlines how he's spoken to "folks who are on the Resident Evil teams at Capcom" and admitted as much to the devs.

"I tell them that their games are way too scary, and they're like, 'What, come on, they're not that scary,'" the Resident Evil 2 legend recalls.

Kamiya concludes that the devs "seriously seem to have no awareness of how scary the things they make actually are, so I really hope they address that at some point" – even if that means just making it "so that the zombies' faces aren't so scary."

You know, "Why not have a mode that just puts, like, brown paper bags on all of their heads, or instead of having these dark, dingy rooms everywhere, they could have really pleasant mood lighting" – which I'm not too sure I agree with...

These are horror games, after all, and this isn't the first time he's brought the topic up. Earlier this year, Kamiya said Capcom "should make a 'non-scary' mode" because "look, I just want to enjoy the puzzles."

So, there you have it – Resident Evil has become too frightening for the very folks who helped mark its name amid other survival horror giants.

If you're yet to play it, be sure to check out our Resident Evil Requiem review to find out if it's worth your time, or our Resident Evil Requiem safe codes guide to help you through it.

Capcom has released some more footage of Monster Hunter Wilds Ascendance's new Boost Bracer mechanic, and Devil May Cry fans are all thinking the same thing.

The Capcom Showcase later this month surely has to show more of Monster Hunter Wilds Ascendance, given that – outside of Mega Man: Dual Override and the Dragon's Dogma 2 DLC – Capcom's major releases for this year are all out. Ahead of it (and Tokyo Game Show) the devs are releasing some short videos showcasing the new mechanics featured in the upcoming expansion, notably the Boost Bracer, which will add new moves and skills to each of the game's 14 weapons.

The Boost Bracer gives you access to Boost Drivers, new attacks which in turn build up a meter which activates a Boosted mode. This mode gives you enhanced attacks, defense, and access to new combos to beat up monsters. This shows itself with an explosive flame effect on your weapon, which makes it look like a jet-propelled item of destruction, but this effect is also reminiscent of a specific weapon in another Capcom franchise.

Devil May Cry's Nero uses a sword known as Red Queen, which has the Exceed system, which allows Nero to rev his sword up like a motorcycle because the Devil May Cry games are the sickest thing on the planet.

Naturally, fans made this connection right away, with one user saying, "Close enough, welcome back Nero!" Another notes that Capcom "literally just put Nero's Exceed in Monster Hunter. The mad lads." Meanwhile, others have seen the crossover potential right away, saying, "If you dont but[sic] a Red Queen weapon in the game as a collab quest you fallen, Capcom."

From the looks of things, Capcom will be releasing videos based on each weapon, with a Great Sword edition releasing today showing some ways the series' most iconic weapon will be boosted, and safe to say, some fans are excited by some of the new moves. One Monster Hunter content creator, Maple Syrup, shouts out the ability to use its offset slash twice in a row, saying, "THAT DOUBLE OFFSET OH MY GODDDD CAPCOM I’M PREGNANT."

Capcom is selling Monster Hunter Wilds with the energy of a man paddling up a waterfall: new 26GB demo lets you play the prologue for free after price drop to $40.

Dragon's Dogma 2 has finally got its long-awaited performance patch, and players are over the moon about how the game runs.

Dragon's Dogma 2 is a great game, one of the best open-world games in my eyes, and was my game of the year back in 2024. Despite that, it garnered a lot of criticism over many of its aspects, namely some of the punishing mechanics and friction it imposed on the player with the limited fast travel and Dragonsplague – a disease that could wipe out an entire village of NPCs, locking you out of quests in the process. I loved a lot of its esoteric features (Dragonsplague is so cool) but one thing we could all agree on was the performance was not it. As the RE Engine's first open-world game, the engine struggled to keep up, which we later saw with Monster Hunter Wilds' woes.

However, with the announcement of Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen, Capcom decided it was going to tackle the game's biggest issues. This began with an update earlier this summer which added unlimited fast travel and some quality of life adjustments, and another update launching today which added new save slots, adjustments to Dragonsplague, and crucially, performance improvements.

With the release of the update today, fans flooded the Dragon's Dogma subreddit to talk about the improvements, with performance being a big talking point. One user says, "The performance boost is insane," with another noting, "I went from 30 ON LOW to 60 on high, Capcom im sorry I doubted you."

And, as another post points out, this update actually lowered the system requirements on the game's Steam page, too.

Of course, Capcom needed to improve the performance either way, but I think the Nintendo Switch 2 is partly to thank too. Given the developers would need to get it running on the handheld, it likely played a big role in this update, too.

Capcom returns to its divisive RPG with Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen, and the dev leading the expansion says its friction will be preserved – "That is something that we offer so that players can make a decision on how to play."

Zach Cregger's Resident Evil movie has been (unfairly) divisive for its creative deviations from Resident Evil canon, and for telling a Resident Evil story without fan-favorite characters like Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield. Nevertheless, it's set to open huge later this month, and could potentially double the opening weekend box office takings of the biggest Resident Evil movie to date.

Early tracking (h/t IGN) has put Resident Evil's opening weekend figure at some $40-50 million in the US. Even at the lower end of predictions, that's far higher than any movie in the Milla Jovovich-starring series, the biggest of which, Resident Evil: Afterlife, opened to $26.6 million in 2010. The most recent Resident Evil movie, Welcome to Raccoon City, opened to just over $5 million in November 2021. Even factoring in that more faithful adaptation's pandemic-era handicap, this is a big improvement.

Cregger's Resident Evil movie seems to be resonating for a few reasons. The fact that it's telling an original story that anyone can jump into is certainly one. Cregger himself is becoming something of an event filmmaker after his original horror-thriller Weapons opened to a massive $43 million last summer. And the self-proclaimed Resident Evil superfan seems to have learnt all the right lessons about video game adaptations, in that he's staying true to the "spirit and tone" of the games (and even the power progression) rather than simply re-telling one of the games' stories on screen.

Even a bumper box office is unlikely to result in more Resident Evil movies from Cregger, however, as the writer-director is set to helm original sci-fi The Flood next. He's also penning Weapons prequel, Gladys, centred on that movie's twiggy witch, and he's reportedly scripting a Siren Head movie for director Brian Duffield. So Cregger is booked for years to come. But given how lucrative adaptations of the Resident Evil series have proven to be over the years (some seven live-action movies and an ill-fated Netflix TV show have been made to date), it's unlikely to be the last.

Resident Evil stars Austin Abrams as a medical courier tasked with transporting biological materials across a zombie-infected Raccoon City. Late last year, we visited the Resident Evil set in Prague, where Cregger, Abrams and the team took us through their full-throttle vision for the movie.

Resident Evil opens on September 18. For more scares, check out our guide to upcoming horror movies and our list of all the new video game adaptations on the way in 2026 and beyond.

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.

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.

Ashley Graham is unfairly seen as one of the more controversial characters in Resident Evil lore due to some clumsily tuned AI during her escort missions in the original Resident Evil 4. That was all fixed in Resident Evil 4 Remake when she became a much more fleshed out, supportive character.

Admittedly, the 2023 remake also makes Ashley a lot less prone to being captured and restarting your mission, which is nice, but stronger writing and a convincing performance from voice actor Genevieve Buechner help endear her even further. Point is, Ashley Graham doesn't deserve the hate, and she definitely didn't deserve to have her prologue scene from Resident Evil 4 Remake cut during development, but that's reportedly what happened. And now, you can play that prologue mission thanks to a newly released mod.

As spotted by RENews on Twitter, the Chapter 0 Restoration mod (via NexusMods) does precisely what it says on the box: "Restores the cut Chapter 0, a playable prologue as Ashley, seamlessly integrated into the New Game flow as a real chapter that runs before Chapter 1."

According to modder Keff0, Ashley was originally going to be the first playable character in Resident Evil 4 Remake before transitioning to Leon in the infamous village scene, which as an aside is also a lot less punishing than it was in the original game.

"A Chapter 0 existed at some point during development, but it was cut before the game's release: a short prologue played as Ashley, at night, ending in her capture," reads the mod's description.

The modder says the scene takes place on a path that's not in the final release but was dug out of the game files with "most of its details and collision removed." In it, Ashley stumbles upon some murderous cultists whose victim is the woman from the very first cutscene in the official game. Apparently, that cutscene goes back even further, showing a shocked Ashley turning and running, leading into the playable chapter, which ends with her capture.

Going full circle, the only downside to more Resident Evil 4 Remake is having to see Ashley tortured even more than what she's already endured both in the game and in Resident Evil communities everywhere. I'm not even an Ashley stan and never thought I'd say this, but at this point I think we need an Ashley Graham spinoff, or at least her own DLC at some point in the future, but I think it's safe to say that's unlikely to happen in the current timeline. Justice for Ashley.

The 1998 horror game that haunted my dreams even more than Resident Evil 2 is back, "modernized," and available on consoles for the first time.

Zach Cregger has opened up about his approach to adapting Resident Evil in his new movie. Instead of a direct adaptation, the Weapons director is telling a new story set in the world of the franchise.

"I happen to worship these Resident Evil games and pull a lot of inspiration from the experience of playing them," he said in a new featurette, before listing some of the references he included. "I tried to keep the environment changing every seven or eight minutes, like the games. You're always moving into another level as it were."

Cregger went on to explain that he includes weapon progression in the movie, from pistol to machine gun, as well as including healing spray cans, typewriters, and herbs. He's even included a particularly niche frustration, which fans of the franchise will know all too well. "There's a lot of items from the games, he's constantly coming up against these padlocks that are stopping him from progressing," he added.

As Cregger puts it, while the new movie won't include Leon or adapt any particular story, "This is an opportunity for me to be loyal to the games in spirit and in tone and build a story that puts you in that scenario again and again, with increasing stakes."

Resident Evil stars Austin Abrams as a hospital delivery driver tasked with taking an important package to Raccoon City hospital. However, what follows is no ordinary night as a viral outbreak of infected monsters swarm him as he makes the perilous journey.

The horror movie opens on September 18, 2026. For more scares, check out our guide to upcoming horror movies as well as a breakdown of all the new video game adaptations on the way in 2026 and beyond.

Now that Resident Evil Requiem has been out in the wild for nearly half a year, we can look at how Capcom's latest survival horror has performed in the market – and whether folks have opted to go physical or digital with it.

The topic of physical game copies and companies' choice to lean more into digital versions has been in the limelight recently following Sony's decision to end disc production for new titles on PlayStation consoles in 2028.

It's safe to say it's quite the hot topic, with game preservation experts predicting it'll just lead to more piracy and folks in the industry speaking out against the move toward digital-only gaming.

How are physical copies performing in the market, though? Well, when it comes to new games like Resident Evil Requiem, it seems they're doing good enough… except for in the United States, apparently.

According to The Game Business co-founder Christopher Dring (as per statistics from Ampere Analysis), the split between physical and digital copies is far more significant in the US than it is elsewhere – and, I mean by a lot.

As per Dring's roundup post on the stats, the US market saw 22% of Resident Evil Requiem sales being physical, while a whopping 78% have been digital.

Overseas, it's quite a bit more even. In the United Kingdom, 60% of sales were digital and 40% physical. Over in Australia, 43% of copies sold have been physical, whereas 57% were digital. It's certainly balanced when compared to the US, anyway – but there's more.

France's Resident Evil Requiem sales have been 55% physical and 45% digital. The most balanced figures, however, come from Japan, where 51% were physical and 49% digital – that's nearly even, almost a 50/50 split.

It's an intriguing set of stats for sure, especially as it comes amid the huge physical versus digital debate. Will numbers like this affect companies' decisions moving forward? Maybe not, but it's all still informative.

I'm personally choosing to remain hopeful that we'll still see discs and other physical media prevail – even if it's on the way out. All we need to do is convince American consumers to opt for more physical copies, right? Right…?

Capcom hopes Resident Evil Veronica follows Requiem's lead in sparking interest in the wider horror series

It's been seven years since the last Devil May Cry game was released, and 25 years since legendary developer Hideki Kamiya was at the helm of the series. Kamiya moved onto other projects after directing the original DMC, but he's now teasing fans on social media with the possibility of a return to the series – an idea that's all the more tantalizing given his recent reunion with Capcom.

Over the weekend, a fan asked Kamiya on social media about some deep cut lore in the original Devil May Cry. What's up with the dragon Dante transforms into during the game's final boss fight? "Is it the same as Vergil creating swords with his aura or is it a familiar?" YokkelTV asks. "Something else? Can you elaborate on this, please?"

"That will become clear when I make another game in the DMC series," Kamiya responds (translated via DeepL).

So is that a Kamiya-led Devil May Cry 6 confirmed? Well, not quite. Kamiya is infamous among fans for being a bit of a troll on social media, acting as the game industry's most lovable asshole on Twitter. Maybe he does have some desire to return to the Devil May Cry series and answer these kinds of questions, but it's equally possible that this is just an obtuse way of saying "the question will never be answered."

But it's impossible to ignore the fact that, suddenly, Kamiya's return to the Devil May Cry series actually feels like a possibility. He departed the company after the launch of Okami in 2006 and soon co-founded PlatinumGames, where he led titles like Bayonetta and The Wonderful 101. And, in turn, he left PlatinumGames in 2023 to found a studio called Clovers, which would soon partner with Capcom on an as-yet-untitled Okami sequel.

It's worth noting that Kamiya previously joined forces with Ikumi Nakamura in 2019 to tease a possible Okami sequel on social media, years before Clovers and the Capcom collaboration became real. Maybe he's once again testing the waters for an actual new game by getting fans fired up on Twitter. And hey, Capcom's gotta follow up on the recent hype around Devil May Cry somehow, right?

Devil May Cry still ranks high among the best action games you can play today.

Capcom credits the release of Resident Evil Requiem for a surge in sales of previous games in the series.

In its latest financial results, Capcom confirms that Resident Evil Requiem has now sold 8.06 million copies since it was released back in February. However, the top 10 has revealed that the entire series has had a great year so far, with Resident Evil 2, 3, and 4 remakes coming out ahead of Requiem in sales over the last quarter, while Biohazard and Village also make an appearance in the top 10. Resident Evil is now the best-selling Japanese game series not published by Nintendo, and Resident Evil 2 remake is the best-selling game in the series.

In an investor Q&A alongside the results, Capcom is asked what the reason was behind the strong Resident Evil series sales, and whether it believes the next game will replicate this. Capcom responds, "sales of Resident Evil series titles grew amid rising interest in Resident Evil Requiem."

It explains, "We have also seen new users who encountered the series by purchasing past titles, creating a virtuous cycle in which sales of both new and past titles grow together." Capcom adds, "With Resident Evil Veronica, we will likewise work to further expand sales of the series."

Notably, Capcom has had major sales on the series' titles this year, with the biggest being a $3 sale of Resident Evil 3 remake back in April. So that undoubtedly helped the series sales along. And, given that people are clearly very excited for Resident Evil Veronica as it hits two million Steam wishlists, it could definitely inspire a similar sales boost for the series at large.

Yet to play it? You can check out our Resident Evil Requiem review to see if it's worth your time, and our guide to Resident Evil Requiem's safe codes to help you through it.

Monster Hunter Wilds has a new and sizable free demo out to help onboard players ahead of the release of the game's Ascendance DLC.

The roughly 26GB Monster Hunter Wilds prologue demo, which includes the character creator and single-player content up to chapter 1-3 according to a Steam notice from Capcom, comes on the heels of a permanent price drop. Monster Hunter Wilds is now $40 at base, and Capcom's also cobbled together some cheaper ways to buy the mountain of DLC released for the game.

Progress in the demo will carry over to the full version if you do choose to buy it. The only catch is that online play and photo mode aren't available in the demo, though you likely won't be needing help from friends for early-game monsters – and if you do want some assistance, you can presumably rely on NPC hunters to fill out your squad.

Between the price drop, discounted DLC, and now this demo, Capcom is working overtime to paper over Monster Hunter Wilds' rough launch year and bolster the player base ahead of the release of Ascendance, an expansion comparable to Monster Hunter World's Iceborne or Monster Hunter Rise's Sunbreak.

With Ascendance, Capcom is basically releasing the second half of the game, with new monsters, story quests, and, most importantly, Master Rank gear to grind. Its release will, Capcom surely hopes, get Wilds out of the sales slump where it's spent much of the past year, losing to many other games in the company's catalog despite being the latest installment in a marquee series, to say nothing of its record-setting but short-lived debut. (Hundreds of pieces of minor DLC were also aggressively cranked out to help pad declining sales.)

Wilds is in a much better place today than it was at launch, and as I said in our Monster Hunter Wilds review (of the PS5 version), the base game is and was good – but in the updates that followed, Capcom failed to address critical issues on PC for far too long, and disappointed many longtime fans with mishandled features and some strange balance decisions.

The hope, which I share, is that Ascendance will deliver what Monster Hunter Wilds could've been had it not been evidently crushed by design missteps and the demands made of a publicly traded company. In the meantime, you can't beat a free sample.

Final Fantasy 14, Monster Hunter, and Animal Crossing top new survey of games Japanese players have spent the most time on and I can't say I'm surprised.

Capcom has announced that Resident Evil Veronica has hit 2 million wishlists on Steam, less than two months after its reveal at Summer Game Fest.

The news was announced on Twitter on the official Resident Evil account, with a post reading "2 million biscuits for the 2 million of you who've wishlisted Resident Evil Veronica. Thank you!" This was accompanied by the elderly French lady with a very young-sounding voice featured in the debut trailer for the horror remake looking very happy. I sure hope following her doesn't lead to anything terrible happening.

While wishlist numbers aren't publicly available, SteamDB does keep track of the most wishlisted games on the platform. At the moment, Resident Evil Veronica sits in eighth place on the board behind the likes of Deadlock, Light No Fire, Fable, and Total War: Warhammer 40,000. However, Resident Evil Veronica is releasing on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Switch 2 as well, so those numbers will likely have added a fair amount to the total.

Granted, it's no wonder Resident Evil Veronica is as anticipated as it is. The original game is the second-highest-rated game in the series on Metacritic (behind the original Resident Evil 4), and even if its stock has fallen somewhat within the fanbase since then, it's still a pretty beloved entry. More crucially, the new game is reportedly being worked on by the team behind the remakes of Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 4, which – alongside their original incarnations – are the most beloved games in the series.

Resident Evil remakes allow Capcom to release yearly games in the series and invest money back into new games like Pragmata, producer says

While Link's Awakening is the Game Boy title most fans would rank highest among the best Zelda games ever made, the Oracle games aren't far behind. Made by Capcom's Flagship team under Nintendo's supervision, Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages had a famously troubled development, but it's a wonder it got made at all given the contentious way the project had begun.

The partnership between Capcom and Nintendo was the brainchild of Yoshiki Okamoto, who had produced classics like Final Fight and Street Fighter 2 at Capcom. In the late '90s, he wanted his team to remake the original Legend of Zelda for Game Boy Color, then use those learnings to make a trilogy of original games for the platform.

Of those four games, only two were ultimately released: the Oracle games. All of this information is widely documented on various fan wikis, but a newly translated quote from Okamoto suggests that he was pretty audacious about his plans, and wasn't going to take no for an answer. Even if it meant threatening Shigeru Miyamoto himself.

"I especially like Zelda [1]. But Nintendo wouldn't port it to Game Boy Color," Okamoto said in a 1999 interview with the German magazine Total, which was recently translated by Did You Know Gaming. "So I told Mr. Miyamoto I'd produce it myself... but we couldn't come to an agreement. So in the end, I threatened him. I said if Nintendo's not up for it, we'll release an identical game with different characters and just call it something else."

I guess Miyamoto has a better sense of humor than Nintendo's lawyers, because this threat ultimately got the proper bargaining underway. Given how Nintendo typically treats products it thinks are similar to its own, well… I can only imagine the sassy, Palworld-style court drama headlines we'd have been getting back in the day.

Of course, Capcom couldn't truly make good on its end of the deal. The remake was canned when it hit development issues, so Okamoto's dream never really came true, and the planned trilogy was cut down to just two games. But Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages turned out to be great games, and Nintendo again collaborated with Capcom on The Minish Cap a short time later, so I suppose it all worked out in the end.

Check out our guide to the best Game Boy Color games of all time.

The developers of Dragon's Dogma 2 have confirmed the game will be getting a hard mode focused on giving those who have hit the level cap a challenge.

In a Q&A posted on the Dragon's Dogma 2 Steam Page, producer Naoto Oyama and returning Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen director Kento Kinoshita speak about the upcoming major update and the Dark Arisen expansion set to release in the coming months. The original Dark Arisen could be a bit of a nightmare depending on what point of the game you arrived at its content, and from the sounds of things, difficulty is part of the plan this time.

"Both the Forsaken Dominion and Lost Rites are expansion contents," Kinoshita explains, "so we've designed them to offer battles with an even greater sense of tension and challenge than the main game."

Confusingly, Kinoshita makes it sound like there will be some level of level scaling involved in the expansion, saying, "we're adjusting the balance so that everyone can enjoy the experience – whether they're just starting their adventure, still progressing through the game, or have already completed multiple playthroughs."

However, Oyama also adds that "the recommended starting level for Forsaken Dominion is 40, while that of Lost Rites is 20," and that while you can start the DLC content whenever, "ultimately, we'd like players to use those recommendations as a reference and choose their own path based on how they want to experience the game." To me, that sounds like it won't be level scaling at all.

Oyama says those levels aren't full-caps, either, as "these recommendations apply only to the beginning of each content. As players progress, the challenge gradually ramps up, and both experiences become increasingly demanding."

Speaking of more demanding, Kinoshita also confirms that a long-awaited feature is finally being added to the game, which should ease fears that the expansion content will be too easy: "We're working on a Hard Mode that will provide a satisfying challenge for seasoned players whose stats have reached, or are approaching, the level cap."

Unfortunately, neither can say when this will be made available, with Oyama saying: "Please stay tuned for further updates regarding the details of Hard Mode and its release window."

Capcom returns to its divisive RPG with Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen, and the dev leading the expansion says its friction will be preserved – "That is something that we offer so that players can make a decision on how to play."

Pragmata's supporting hero Diana has hair that's almost as tall as her body and apparently took a huge amount of effort to animate properly. In fact, Diana's head of hair was so demanding that developers working on this year's breakout action game actually considered giving her the cost-cutting, hair-cutting treatment.

As reported on by Famitsu and translated by Automaton, character artist Kenji Irie and animator Serina Ohara spoke about the game's various bad hair days during the Computer Entertainment Developers Conference 2026.

The duo reportedly explained how most games use something called hair cards, which are flatter hair textures where the individual strands aren't animated separately. For Diana, flat hair wouldn't suffice. The devs apparently animated each strand individually and had to work on 430,000 animation points to make her mane move properly.

To save on the exorbitant money and time it would take to produce, process, and animate Diana's hair, the developers toyed around with the idea of a makeover. A makeover in the form of a bob cut, I should add, right smack in the middle of production. The Pragmata team apparently even made a model to test her new bob.

In the end, Pragmata didn't launch with a blond Edna Mode following players around. Capcom's team felt that a longer and wilder hairstyle suited Diana's personality more, and a girl who's spent her whole life on the moon likely wouldn't be getting regular haircuts anyway.

Short hair or no, Pragmata's become a big success in just a few short months. Capcom recently hinted that chances of a potential Pragmata 2 are high, and it's all thanks to the game selling over 2.5 million copies without any brand recognition.

Bayonetta creator says Capcom might be thriving thanks to a constant push to create new IP like Pragmata.

Capcom's latest financial result is acting as a glass filled to the precise half-way mark in the physical media debate. On the half-empty side? Overall game sales are now more than 93% digital, and Capcom expects that share to grow even higher next year. For those who take a half-full outlook, though, the digital share of console game sales isn't nearly as extreme.

Capcom sold 1.6 million physical games in the three months running from April through June 2026, which included the launch of Pragmata, according to the publisher's latest financial report. That ain't nothing, but compared to the 22.2 million digital sales reported in the same period? Well, you might start to see why a financial analyst would suggest that digital is not just the future, but the present.

That means that 93.3% of sales for the quarter were made up of digital games, and the company expects the digital share to be even higher for the overall fiscal year, which concludes in March 2027. By then, Capcom expects a whopping 95.4% of sales to be digital.

But there's one big caveat: Capcom says that 60.4% of sales for this quarter were on PC, where digital is effectively the only option. The company reports that 6.7% of its sales are physical, and we can safely assume that all of those are on console. That would mean around 16.9% of sales on console are made up of physical games.

It's worth noting that Capcom has historically counted sales of game-key cards on Switch 2 as digital sales rather than physical units. So whether or not you consider game-key cards to be 'real' physical games, just know that Capcom is putting them in the digital column.

It's also worth noting that the vast majority of sales for the quarter – 89.3% – were back catalog titles, which benefit heavily from big digital sales on platforms like Steam.

So how do we interpret this data? Well, Sony's certainly looking at these kinds of figures and deciding that physical PlayStation games no longer need to exist. By the same token, I doubt any publisher would happily give up 6.7% of its sales – but I'm sure the theory is that former physical game buyers will simply migrate to digital stores.

The proportion of new game sales happening on physical media is likely a bit higher than a cursory glance at the numbers would lead you to believe, but there's no denying that the majority of gamers have already gone digital, no matter which way you slice it.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation director wants "some kind of physical edition" for the RPG, but he can't promise it as Sony becomes the latest to "shift away" toward digital.

In what's becoming another strong year for Capcom, Pragmata stands out as a notable success. So much so, the third-person shooter is likely set for another installment, according to a higher-up at the long-running developer and publisher.

The company's first-quarter profits actually came in above estimates, according to a report from Bloomberg, and Pragmata was a strong contributor in that regard. The sci-fi adventure has sold over two-and-a-half million copies so far, an impressive turnaround for a game that only came out in April and isn't based on any existing properties.

Capcom corporate office Yoshikazu Shimauchi – the company's head of finance, accounting, IT, and the PR and IR division – mentions that Pragmata actually exceeded expectations, which isn't something you hear very often in this industry. As such, Bloomberg reports that Shimauchi stated that the possibility of a sequel is high, lining up with Capcom's previous comments about turning the game into a series.

Shimauchi puts Pragmata's sales reception down to a strong marketing campaign and having a distinctive protagonist in Diana, the female android you have to protect as part of the main narrative. It always helps to have a good face for your release, especially if it's slightly odd or creepy.

As a horror fan, it doesn't hurt that Diana immediately made me think of M3GAN, the killer android who became a slasher icon in 2013. I actually thought screenshots of Pragmata were a M3GAN-themed mod for something at first glance, before learning it was its own game. Such curiosity was enough to push me to add the project to my wishlist.

The ending leaves room for another installment, and the baseline concept – futuristic super-soldier protecting a small robot – is something that could be replicated in various scenarios ad infinitum. Wherever Pragmata 2 goes, there's clearly an audience ready to play it.

Bayonetta creator says Capcom might be thriving thanks to a constant push to create new IP like Pragmata.

Resident Evil 2 is now the series' best-selling game, while a new sales milestone sees the Capcom horror series pass Final Fantasy.

In Capcom's latest earnings report, the company announced that Resident Evil 2 – that being the 2019 remake, not the 1998 original with the same name – has sold an extra 1.42 million copies since the last report, sending the game to lifetime sales of 19.75 million copies. And despite Capcom's decision to split every different version of a game into different parts of its platinum titles page making it seem like this happened long ago, Resident Evil 5 has finally been dethroned (via DuskGolem).

Between the original Xbox 360 and PS3 game, its Gold Edition, the PS4 and Xbox One re-release, and Switch editions of Capcom's divisive horror title, Resident Evil 5 had sold 19.01 million copies the last time Capcom detailed its sales in an earnings report earlier this year.

However, Resident Evil 2's spot at the top is definitely under threat as Resident Evil 4 remake is already at 16.04 Million copies sold despite 2's four-year headstart. Not to mention Resident Evil 4 sold 2.43 million copies in the last three months, which is over 1 million more than 2 sold. Resident Evil Requiem is also killing it as it sold a further 1.14 million in the last three months, and with momentum like that and big sales down the line, it also has a chance to make it to the top.

Capcom also confirmed that the Resident Evil series as a whole has sold 213 million copies since it debuted 30 years ago. That means it has surpassed Final Fantasy, which Square Enix claimed had sold 212 million as of last month. This means that Resident Evil is the ninth best-selling game franchise of all-time, and the biggest-selling Japanese game series not published by Nintendo, and with sales like Mario and Pokemon have, I'm afraid that's probably the closest it will get.

"Resident not-Evil" is Resident Evil 2 director's joke cozy life sim pitch starring a retired Leon Kennedy fishing, baking, and "inviting his old friends over for barbecues"

Capcom is shouting out Pragmata's sales success as a big reason why the company's year-on-year profits have increased.

In the company's latest earnings report, Capcom notes an 83% increase in net sales year-on-year, and noting: "Unit sales of all-new IP Pragmata and catalog titles performed well, driving revenue and profit up."

Capcom confirms that – as of June 30, 2026 – Pragmata has sold over 2.5 million copies since it was released back in April 2026, while Resident Evil Requiem sold a further 1.14 million since sales were last reported, bringing the latest game in the series up to eight million copies sold. This mixed with strong sales for older Resident Evil titles, bringing the series to 213 million copies sold, and making it the best-selling Japanese game series not published by Nintendo or Sony.

In a press release, Capcom once again singles out Pragmata as a key factor in this increase in sales, saying: "Digital Contents business drove earnings with 23.81 million units in total sales volume, which exceeded sales of 14.16 million units for the same period of the previous fiscal year. This included sales of all-new IP PRAGMATA, which surpassed 2.5 million units worldwide following a positive launch reception due to increased brand awareness achieved through robust promotional activities."

Since launch, Capcom hasn't exactly kept its cards close to its chest regarding how it feels about Pragmata. It confirmed that it will consider "developing it into a series," after Pragmata hit two million copies within its first month and says it will continue making new IP. The push for new IP is something Devil May Cry and Bayonetta creator Hideki Kamiya credits Capcom's success with, while Pragmata director Yonghee Cho told us in May that he would "of course" love to make a sequel to the game.

In a games industry dominated by safe bets, Capcom keeps getting weird with it.

Oblivion Remastered and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth have been found dead in a puddle of T-virus – the Resident Evil 4 remake from 2023 has sold 16.8 million copies across all platforms, and games industry researcher Alinea Analytics infers that makes it the best-selling remake of this console generation.

"It’s also among the most successful single-player horror games in history," says market analysis lead Rhys Elliott in a Substack breakdown of the best-selling game remakes and remasters since 2020, "generating $560M in gross revenue for Capcom so far across the three platforms, split 53.1% PlayStation, 34.1% Steam, and 12.8% Xbox." Resident Evil 4 remake's competition comes nowhere close.

In terms of total copies sold, Resident Evil 4 is followed by 2023 remaster Ark: Survival Ascended, which moved a total of 7 million copies. The Last of Us Part 1 remake sits behind it with 6.3 million sold, while Oblivion Remastered, the Dead Space remake, and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth lag in the race with a total of 4.5, 4.3, and 4.2 million copies sold, respectively.

Bloober's Silent Hill 2 remake from 2024 is the worst best-seller according to Alinea, with a total of 3.2 million copies sold – though, as a huge fan, I'm at least placated by the suggestion that millions of people have now been exposed to buff Pyramid Head.

Elliot suggests, out of all these still very popular titles, Resident Evil 4 might have been especially suited to the new, industry-wide hobby of swanky remakes because "it's revered enough to guarantee demand and old enough that the remake feels new."

But the obvious flaw with this conclusion is that it applies to multiple titles in Alinea's collection of best-selling remakes. Silent Hill 2, for example, is even older than Resident Evil 4 and similarly revered, while Oblivion released around the same time as Resident Evil 4 and seemed to sell at a similar pace; contemporaneous reports estimate Resident Evil 4 sold 3 million copies within a year from launch, while Circana analyst Mat Piscatella said in 2025 that Oblivion Remastered outsold the original game's first 15 months on the market, which likely also existed in the realm of 3 million (2006 reports say Oblivion had already sold 1.7 copies by the end of its first week).

So what's really so special about the Resident Evil 4 remake? Well, Capcom's sales – you can currently purchase the game on Steam for $9.99 instead of $39.99, whereas Silent Hill 2 is currently $27.99 on sale, and Oblivion is an unrepentant $49.99. Elliott says, "Steam's share of total Resident Evil 4 revenue has grown from 28.0% in launch week to 34.1% today. There’s that Capcom catalogue flywheel again – a game earning a bigger slice of its lifetime revenue years after release, at the low end of the price curve (in markets consoles barely reach)."

Then, there's the irresistible charms of a formative game like Resident Evil 4. It has something for every player – revolutionary third-person shooting, a girl named Ashley, and parasites that look like someone sneezed on the floor. I, personally, couldn't imagine wanting anything more.

Only 7 PlayStation games have sold over 100,000 physical copies in the US this year, says analyst, as commenters demand discs without buying them.

The GOG store had its biggest bump in visibility thanks to Capcom's PS1 survival horror classics, the CD Projekt Red-owned store's staff say.

Marcin Paczyński, senior business development and partnerships manager at GOG, revealed last year that Capcom was initially hesitant to re-release the classic Resident Evil trilogy as Resident Evil (2002), Resident Evil 2 (2019) and Resident Evil 3 (2020) already existed and were – in its eyes – superior games. However, speaking to RPG Site, Paczyński says that the success of that trilogy's return – which led to it being released on Steam – has probably made it easier to convince Capcom to play ball with returning classics.

"The launch answered a lot of questions by itself," Paczyński says. "The classic Resident Evil games and Dino Crisis sit at over 90% positive user ratings on GOG, and it's worth remembering how seriously Capcom approached them: they were treated as full new releases, with complete QA and certification, per language."

Paczyński responds to the question of whether things have gotten easier since Resident Evil, saying: "We understand what it means for a company to hand over brands this iconic, brands that are truly its own. That takes real trust, and we're grateful Capcom gave us that chance." He adds, "We delivered. Perhaps that makes conversations with other partners a little simpler now, because there is a track record to point to.

"As for whether more of Capcom's legacy is coming: the top of the GOG Dreamlist is the most honest answer I can give." At the moment, Resident Evil Code: Veronica X is Capcom's highest ranking game on the Dreamlist, with 83,884 votes making it one of the top requests on the site.

Paczyński also credits Capcom's releases with giving the store a boost in visibility, saying: "Bringing back Resident Evil and Dino Crisis did more for GOG's visibility than almost anything else in recent years." He adds, "It showed players that the biggest classics can come back done right, and it showed rights holders, especially in Japan, what a classic release can look like on PC."

As for Capcom itself, he says the company has been a "fantastic" partner "through all of it, demanding in the best sense, and we would love to do more together. That is no secret." So hopefully we'll see God Hand and the Mega Man Legends games get a PC release soon… please.

"Resident not-Evil" is Resident Evil 2 director's joke cozy life sim pitch starring a retired Leon Kennedy fishing, baking, and "inviting his old friends over for barbecues."

Monster Hunter Wilds has had quite the turbulent journey since its 2025 release, grappling with a climb from negative to middling reviews and ongoing performance issues on PC – but there's good news regarding the action RPG now.

It's getting a permanent price reduction from Capcom, to be precise – and new DLC bundles.

The studio reveals as much in an exciting new post, writing, "Hunters, we are streamlining the available options for new and returning hunters joining Monster Hunter Wilds. We plan to discontinue sales of some of our existing bundle products and release new value bundle products." Folks can expect these to start rolling in on August 3.

Attached is a little infographic that explains the Deluxe Edition, Premium Deluxe Edition, and Cosmetic DLC Pass are goin' in the woodchipper later this summer to make way for the new bundles.

First up, there's the Monster Hunter Wilds Gold Edition, which includes the full game and DLC collection. Then there's the Cosmetic DLC Collection, which includes 10 DLC packs, including the Extras cosmetic DLC Pack.

Finally, there's the Extras Cosmetic DLC Pack (I think I've written "cosmetic" so many times I no longer remember what it means). This one boasts "select paid cosmetic DLC only previously available as standalone products."

Capcom clarifies, "The premium bonuses will be included in the new bundles above" – but that's not all. That price reduction I mentioned earlier on? Look forward to it on August 4.

"In addition," as Capcom reveals, "the Monster Hunter Wilds base game will receive a permanent price reduction starting August 4, 2026." That's pretty good news – although the team doesn't specify what this reduction will look like.

As it stands now, the base game costs a whopping $69.99. I suppose this figure might align more nicely with Monster Hunter World, which is a whole $40 less. Perhaps in the $50 or $60 ballpark?

There's no telling just yet, but for now, fans seem pretty thrilled. As one comment reads, "Oh wow, the permanent price reduction is nice." Others request more changes from Capcom – but I say, one step at a time.

At the least, the studio is heading in the right direction.

Monster Hunter World has sold over 30 million copies, further cementing its lead as Capcom's best-selling game and leaving Wilds in the dust after a year of performance woes

For six months after the March 2024 launch of Dragon's Dogma 2, Capcom had all hands on deck, mostly responding to issues and complaints via patches. Ever since, the RPG's dev team has been working on Dark Arisen, a major expansion meant to answer the fans who wanted to keep playing.

Dragon's Dogma Online head and original Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen director Kento Kinoshita joined the sequel's team around the middle of the project, and toward the later stages, he began to wonder what an expansion might look like for Dragon's Dogma 2, which proved to be a divisive RPG. About half a year after launch, work on Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen began in earnest, and now we're headed toward an October 8, 2026 launch for the long-awaited expansion.

"Sorry to keep everyone waiting," Capcom producer Naoto Oyama tells GamesRadar+ in an interview (via interpreter). "We started the project during the period where, after the release of the base game, we received incredibly passionate feedback from our players who expressed a desire to play more and continue exploring. They wanted to enjoy more combat in this game, so we really worked hard on answering these requests. We launched the project with the concept of providing a highly accessible brand-new adventure, more combat, and we're happy we were able to announce this and come back to the game again."

Kinoshita's return was a godsend to Dragon's Dogma 2 players who'd given up hope that the game would ever receive the same treatment as the original. Dark Arisen made Dragon's Dogma a noticeably better game, and there were hopes that the sequel would get at least the same style of expansion – in addition to the major title updates due this year, with one already released and another coming in August.

Kinoshita says, "I'm really happy to be back here as director for the new Dark Arisen. The motivation behind kicking off this project was the passionate feedback we received from players, so we really appreciate people's support and feedback received so far."

For the new Dark Arisen, Kinoshita explains, "I was thinking, if we can make an expansion for this game, how can we make it? What will be enjoyable? What will be fun? So I'm really positive that, finally, this is taking shape and we'll be able to deliver this soon to players."

This expansion is also called Dark Arisen for a few reasons, Kinoshita says. "We decided on the title after finalizing the content we were creating. It wasn't title first. We named it after consolidating the ideas of what we want to include in the expansion.

"There are three main reasons for the naming. One is a strong affinity with the story that will unfold in the new area. The second is the presence of a loot-based gameplay cycle similar to the original Dark Arisen. And for the third one, we chose a familiar name which we think is the easiest way to convey to everyone what kind of elements will be added. Some people have already experienced the Dark Arisen expansion in the first title and we're building something similar and more expanded in Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen."

Compared to the original game's expansion, this new Dark Arisen is less of a dungeon-crawler experience, instead bringing players to a new area of the open world in the Norgan region (with some dungeon challenges along the way, for good measure). "Also, an appeal compared to the original is that the story that unfolds in the Norgan area is really deep, and there is kind of a mystery you will chase and you have to solve, and there will be supporting characters around you," Kinoshita adds. "Compared to that title's dungeon-crawler experience, that will be pretty different."

To my delight, there will be a similar rhythm of uncovering relic-type equipment and essentially decrypting it back at your base, uncorking a whole crate of random end-game gear at once to see what will make it into your build. In the best way, this feels similar to Capcom's Monster Hunter games adding G-Rank or Master Rank gear in their expansions.

"For both existing players and new players, I hope people will enjoy Dragon's Dogma 2 more, that it will lead to the perfect shape of Dragon's Dogma 2," Kinoshita concludes.

Capcom returns to its divisive RPG with Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen, and the dev leading the expansion says its friction will be preserved – "That is something that we offer so that players can make a decision on how to play."

Even after several updates adjusting features like fast travel, Dragon's Dogma 2 remains a pretty exacting game. Capcom's modern RPG series is known for an eclectic mix of ideas that results in a texture that some players find irresistible, while others outright hate it. Director Hideaki Itsuno previously called the sequel a game that wasn't designed for everyone, and Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen director Kento Kinoshita seems to be of a similar mind as the long-awaited expansion approaches an October 8 launch.

Speaking with GamesRadar+ via interpreter, Kinoshita reflects on the friction in Dragon's Dogma 2's design. "That is something that we offer so that players can make a decision on how to play," he says. "If they have multiple options and decide what's the best way, that's giving players [choices]. This is the core essence of how we design the friction in the game."

I ask how the Dark Arisen expansion – which will add a new area, storyline, dungeon challenges, and many enemies and items – adjusts or preserves that friction. "We believe we're developing the game so that people can enjoy that kind of friction, having multiple options and making decisions," Kinoshita affirms. "We believe that's preserved in the expansion content as well."

To give players true choices in games, devs have to accept that some content will be ignored or unnoticed. They also have to make more content to flesh out whatever path is chosen, at least compared to a linear game in principle. How do you balance giving players more without making the whole thing too big? And for an expansion like this, explicitly made to answer requests for additional stuff to do, is it a good thing or a stressful thing to hear that players want more?

"That's a really good question," responds Kinoshita. "As [producer Naoto Oyama] answered earlier, my first impression was, sorry to keep everyone waiting. In terms of the balance, we have to consider how long we can take to develop the game and how much volume we can include in the expansion. If we have to put more content into the expansion, it means it will take more time to develop. But also, we were aware of the passionate feedback from players, especially that they want to enjoy the combat more. But we have to set a certain limit to the amount of content."

Capcom had a few goals with Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen: more content, a more accessible game, and "great value," per Kinoshita. The question was how to align these goals with what players had demanded – more combat, more areas to explore, and more reasons to play in general after a pretty abrupt ending. The result is a more ambitious expansion designed "more like an adventure full of freedom" and, compared to the original Dark Arisen, less like a big dungeon full of loot (though I'm told there will also be smaller dungeons full of loot).

"The main focus in terms of the amount of content we decided to put in the expansion was answering that feedback, more combat, focusing on the amount of new enemies, how wide the new area is, how the story unfolds," Kinoshita adds. "That's how we balance volume and try to answer those requests from players ... So when balancing what we want to include in the expansion and how to answer the requests, that was also something we considered. So we hope that more and more people will enjoy the game."

After Monster Hunter Wilds, Capcom wants to redeem Dragon's Dogma 2: "performance improvements," Dragonsplague changes, and more in free updates 2 years after launch.

Resident Evil Requiem has all sorts of brilliant lines, especially from iconic protagonist Leon Kennedy – but there could've been even more, had Capcom not cut them.

Leon Kennedy actor Nick Apostolides reveals a few in a new discussion from Play, Watch, Listen+ on YouTube (below), including one that would've come up during the Titan Spinner fight – an arguably hair-raising battle against a huge arachnid.

"The one that they didn't use would have been my favorite," Apostolides explains, admitting that the cut line would've been his most beloved… had Capcom not removed it from the game.

"When you fight the spider, I wanted to say – and we recorded it, 'You know, you've been a real itsy-bitsy pain in my ass,'" the actor recalls, using his legendary Leon Kennedy voice while recalling the line. "It would have been a banger." Indeed, it would've been.

I'm not alone in agreeing with the star, either, as folks over on Twitter lament the cut dialogue. "OMG," exclaims one fan. "This would have been freaking incredible."

Quoted responses (if you click to view post activity) are just as amusing, with somebody shouting, "WE WAS ROBBED!" Another jokes, "Requiem Leon is definitely a father."

The actual video on YouTube has garnered some pretty great attention, too – considering that Apostolides used his Leon Kennedy voice while describing the cut line, folks comment on how it could be modded into the game itself now.

"Well, he just gave us the line right there to mod it into the game," as one person says – and, I mean, they're not wrong.

There are all sorts of Resident Evil Requiem mods out there, from those affecting gameplay to others targeting visuals. What's to say a boss fight line couldn't be the next to go live? I certainly wouldn't be opposed to it, and it seems like the community is already considering the possibility.

Here's hoping we get to hear the "itsy-bitsy" line in-game someday, then – Leon Kennedy can never have enough one-liners, if you ask me.

Yet to play Capcom's latest horror game? Be sure to read our Resident Evil Requiem review. You can also check out our guide to Resident Evil Requiem's safe codes to help you through the game.

The developers of Monster Fantasy have addressed comments that its upcoming title is perhaps a bit too similar to Capcom's Monster Hunter series.

Last month, the reveal trailer for Monster Fantasy was revealed from Jotoyo. The game is described as an action RPG with life sim elements, however, the trailer caught the eyes of many for another reason, that being some striking resemblances to another game with Monster in the title.

Now, the gaming community does have a bit of a tendency to be quick to label things a "ripoff" at the slightest similarity. Most new indie farming sims will be dubbed a Stardew ripoff (even if Story of Seasons heavily inspired Stardew), and we can even look as far back as the likes of Uncharted being dubbed a Tomb Raider ripoff and Digimon being called a Pokemon ripoff. However, I absolutely see the similarities when it comes to Monster Fantasy.

The game's trailer opens up with some landscape shots of biomes that look strikingly similar to the biomes from Monster Hunter Rise, and the music feels a few notes away from being the Capcom series theme song Proof of a Hero – with a similar build up to its main melody – as a Rathalos lookalike emerges. Fans have even noticed similarities with some of the weapon animations, specifically the bow and sword. The comments on the trailer aren't exactly shy about it either, with the refrain of "we got monster hunter at home" being a common comment.

In a Steam FAQ (via Automaton) posted by the developers, the team is facing the comparison head on, with a question titled: "The game looks very similar to Monster Hunter. Does it have its own unique features?" The developers respond: "Monster Hunter is indeed one of our sources of inspiration, and our core creators are big fans of the series. However, Monster Fantasy places greater emphasis on the new experiences created by the interaction between different gameplay systems."

It continues, "We understand that some of the combat demonstrations in the trailer may remind players of Monster Hunter. However, once players actually try the game, we believe they will find that the overall experience is quite different."

The post claims that the hunting "is only one part of our gameplay" and the developers really want to present "a fantasy world where, beyond hunting and combat, players can truly immerse themselves: building villages, enjoying a relaxed life, and forming friendly relationships with villagers."

The devs add, "Of course, the content we have shown so far is still from an early stage, and we understand that some footage may have given players the impression of a high degree of similarity. We have taken this feedback seriously and are already adjusting and improving the design."

Obviously, there's nothing wrong with games taking inspiration from others, we wouldn't have most of the games we love if not for that, but sometimes the similarities are a touch too blatant to ignore. Especially when we've seen instances like the Pokemon Palworld alleged patent infringement lawsuit, even when the survival game is a different experience than Pokemon, it maybe wore some of its inspirations a little too much on its sleeve for The Pokemon Company to ignore – and the massive success probably didn't help.

Monster Hunter Wilds fans collectively sigh as Ascendance expansion brings back hated elder dragon Kushala Daora: "I'm just really tired of seeing him."

In the wake of Pragmata's success, Bayonetta and Devil May Cry creator Hideki Kamiya credits Capcom's success to its willingness to create new franchises.

After the last decade, I don't think it's a stretch to say Capcom has become one of the best AAA publishers on the planet. Since the release of Resident Evil 7 in 2017, the publisher has effectively been releasing a game of the year contender every single year – or multiple games, in the case of 2019, 2021, 2023, and, so far, 2026.

This has translated to sales success: every single game in the company's all-time top 10 best-selling games list was released since 2017. 2012's Resident Evil 6 is the first pre-2017 entry and comes in at 12th place.

Kamiya – who is now working with Capcom on Okami 2 after leaving the company back in 2007 – was asked by a fan on Twitter how Capcom is able to release hit after hit. Kamiya says (via machine translation) Capcom has a lot of talented staff under its banner. However, he also notes that Capcom management has a proactive approach to creating new series, like Pragmata is leading to good results.

While other new IP attempts like Exoprimal or Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess haven't exactly set the world on fire, Pragmata was a hit for Capcom receiving critical acclaim and positive fan reception, as well as selling over two million copies within 16 days of launch.

Capcom has also said it will "consider the possibility" of developing the sci-fi shooter into a series going forward, as well as saying it will continue making new IP.

Pragmata director Yonghee Cho told us in May that he would "of course" love to make a sequel to the game.

In a games industry dominated by safe bets, Capcom keeps getting weird with it.

If anyone deserves a nice, safe retirement away from the horrors inflicted by a variety of viruses, it's Leon Kennedy. To say the poor guy has really been through it in the Resident Evil series over the years is an understatement. When he's not being attacked by infected dogs, stalked by a hulking, hat-wearing tyrant, or dealing with men wielding chainsaws, he's rescuing the president's daughter, uncovering a conspiracy, and returning to a place of great trauma.

Isn't it high time that after all that, he gets to kick back and take it easy? This isn't me saying I want the iconic action man to step away from the limelight after Resident Evil Requiem. On the contrary, I want to experience the retirement Kennedy deserves, and to do that, I need Resident Evil 2 director Hideki Kamiya's joke conceptual pitch to be anything but a joke. The pitch in question? A cozy life sim starring a retired Leon fishing, baking, and having barbecues with old pals. Now that idea is in my head, I can't let it go. And as a scaredy cat who loves Resident Evil from a safe distance, I'd give just about anything for Capcom to actually make it into a reality.

Home over horror

Just like Kamiya, I'm definitely not a horror fan. Even so, I've always had a great fondness for Resident Evil. I love the over-the-top silliness, corny one-liners, and lore of the infected world, but I'll be the first to admit I still find it too scary to play myself. So how do I enjoy it if I'm not playing? Well, the way in which my relationship began with the series kickstarted how I would go on to experience it from then on: by watching others play.

Witnessing my dad play through Resident Evil 4 on the GameCube way back when is one of my favorite gaming memories. I loved Resident Evil 4 (and its bingo line) so much I even attempted to try it for myself, but I quickly came to the conclusion I just couldn't handle the creepy zombie villagers and scary atmosphere upfront. By watching someone else play, I could enjoy the story and action and put some distance between myself and the horror.

But what Kamiya jokingly pitched would deservedly put some distance between the horror for Leon, too, and better yet, it would bring to life a game set in the Resident Evil universe I could actually play. In the words of Kamiya, "it'd be a game where a retired Leon spends his days in the countryside fishing, gathering wild vegetables, baking bread, walking his dog, tending to his garden, driving 50 kilometers to the nearest general store, inviting his old friends over for barbecues, fixing his elderly neighbour's oven, and selling homemade lemonade at the local festival."

The sweet concept sounds like a laidback life sim with ingredients plucked right out of games like Stardew Valley, and as an avid player in the cozy game scene, that's really speaking my language. Not only could it bring a whole new audience into the world of Resident Evil, but Capcom could tap into the genre in such a novel way for longtime fans by bringing to life a cozy life sim experience led by an established character with such a rich history.

Handy man

Just think of all of the references they could pack in, with framed pictures and belongings dotted around Leon's retired abode in the countryside that nod to past encounters and meaningful moments. Not to mention cameos from other familiar faces who pop over for barbecues. I also love how the pitch so perfectly captures Leon Kennedy. He'd never be content to rest on his laurels completely, and I could see him getting very involved with the little neighboring communities. It's easy to picture quests, for example, that make him go out of his way to help others in more day-to-day ways.

After all, you don't have to fight zombies and put a stop to the schemes of a dastardly corporation to be a hero. I'm sure Leon is just as much of a hero to the elderly neighbor whose oven gets fixed as he is to Ashley Graham in Resident Evil 4.

Kennedy is easily my favorite character in the Resident Evil universe, and imagining him stepping into one of my favorite game genres sets my heart on fire. I mean, who wouldn't want to kick back in the countryside with the retired action man and sink into a relaxed routine of dog walking and bread baking?

I know I'm letting my imagination run away from me, and this is just a joke from Kamiya. Even so… what I wouldn't give for it to be made into a reality. Sure, Resident Evil has brought us many of the best survival horror games over the years (and will no doubt continue to do so with the likes of Resident Evil Veronica on the way), but I would love to see a spin-off that goes in a wildly different direction. And when it comes to a cozy life sim, there's undoubtedly a market for it. So, this is my open letter to Capcom: please bring to life an idyllic retirement for Leon Kennedy so we can both get a break from the scares.

Look back over the series' highlights with our ranking of the best Resident Evil games.

Capcom's pulled an old switcharoo on us. After announcing a release date for Onimusha: Way of the Sword and then pinkie promising that release date would definitely hold, Capcom's actually moved the samurai action game forward by a few weeks. Sike!

Onimusha: Way of the Sword is now coming out on September 4, 2026 on PC, Xbox Series X|S, PS5, and Nintendo Switch 2. "Experience the beginning of Musashi's journey with the demo and pre-order for bonus items when the full game arrives." the publisher writes. That's three weeks earlier than its original September 25 launch, mind you.

What makes this reverse-delay somewhat curious is that a retailer listing recently suggested the new Onimusha game would, in fact, come out earlier than intended on September 4. Even more curiously, Capcom was very quick to shut down the speculation and double down on the original date, despite seemingly changing its mind a week later.

Capcom's road to this new release date has been slightly strange, but the decision makes total sense if you take even a cursory glance at the upcoming games calendar. Spoilers: Seemingly every publisher and their parents are rushing to launch games ahead of the inevitable behemoth that is GTA 6.

Late September and early October is absolutely jam-packed with heavy-hitting games, from Marvel's Wolverine and Gears of War: E-Day to Control Resonant and Silent Hill: Townfall – no one wants to be sucked up by Rockstar Games' black hole, which is set to start its rampage this November. Not only will GTA 6 dominate sales charts, but online discussion will also be dominated by the game, potentially making it tricky for other developers to break through the noise.

Mind you, Onimusha's new release date is also pretty tightly-packed, but there should be a tad more breathing room for the action series that's been dormant for years.

Onimusha: Way of the Sword brings God of War's blockbuster action to horror-tinged feudal Japan.

Pragmata developers have shared stories of the game's tumultuous development, with some particularly brutal internal criticism coming to light.

Pragmata was one of the first games unveiled for the PS5 back in 2020, and considering it only released a couple of months ago, it's safe to say that development was a bit troubled. Thankfully, it was all for the best as Pragmata is one of the most beloved games of 2026 so far and has gone down a hit with players, enough that Capcom is already considering moving forward with it as a series.

In a Pragmata livestream earlier this month (translated by Automaton), the developers revealed that the project started in 2019 when Capcom head Jun Takeuchi tasked a team of young developers with making "a game on the moon." However, shortly after the trailer debuted in 2020, the team ran into trouble as test stages were being rejected, with the team being told they were "unable to make compelling puzzles," "unable to make compelling action," and "incompetent at level design" in internal feedback.

This led to the creation of the hacking system that the game we know now features. Unfortunately, the hacking wasn't taken well at first, either, as the team shared more of the criticism it faced, like, "The game logic we worked so hard on building is completely broken," "This has fundamentally worsened the game, I am deeply disappointed," and "Give me back the two months I lost working alongside the team. Is this what you're trying to entertain your players with?"

However in the next presentation – the one where it would be decided whether the game would be canceled or not – it was a hit. And in the end it all worked out, as Pragmata hit two million copies sold within the first month.

Akihiro Togawa, a developer on the equally troubled The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy, responds to this presentation on Twitter, saying: "Even though it's someone else's problem, I couldn't view it as such, seeing this made my stomach hurt."

He follows this up, saying: "When you're making games, unfair things and problems happen on a daily basis, and I think on most days it makes you feel completely beat down and exhausted." He adds: "If you keep facing those challenges honestly, you'll eventually be able to finish the game and release it to the world so that players can enjoy it. Let's keep that in mind and keep doing our best. We are all the next Pragmata."

Capcom had "no idea" how Pragmata would be received, Hugh actor says, but now the star of the 'Space dad' banger is getting touching messages from people considering their own relationship with family.

Modernity or authenticity: wich is more important in Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced? It's a loaded question, and one I fully expected complicated answers to as Ubisoft's Jussi Markkanen and Nicolas Lopez ponder it in silence. Of course there's space for both in a game like this, one of such massive size and scope – a remake of a classic Assassin's Creed game, and one of the most non-Creed-like games of them all to boot. But the correct answer turns out to be something else.

Faithfulness is the word of the day. "From the gameplay perspective, it's still faithful to the original," technology director Jussi Markkanen tells me "But from the technical point of view, Black Flag Resynced is actually almost like a new product. It's built using the latest Anvil engine, the same we used for Assassin's Creed Shadows, and we even improved it further."

Like Capcom's own string of Resident Evil remakes, Black Flag Resynced is "fully remade from scratch" thanks to the power of the Anvil engine. "We have all the latest rendering technologies in place, so for example, we use ray tracing and micropolygon and things like that. It was super important that, even when we use these technologies, we retain the visual identity of the game. We wanted players to know exactly that right from the start, they are in the Black Flag that they remember."

Stone the crows

Balancing source material with the latest tech sounds ambitious enough, but the pressure is compounded by the popularity of remakes in 2026. Not to mention, Black Flag Resynced is Ubisoft's very first remake.

As Anvil Engine Architect, Lopez knows that there is a divide in expectation between the more action-adventure Creeds and the RPG ones "in terms of technology, not only in gameplay." Translated into a huge, uninterrupted open world experience, Resynced just might bridge that.

It speaks to the evolution of the series' formula over time – the original Black Flag was revolutionary for 2011, being both an immersive pirate fantasy and a stealth-action sandbox. It went on to influence newer RPG entries such as Assassin's Creed Valhalla and Odyssey, which each put their own spin on ship mechanics and naval combat to suit their own historical contexts.

Say goodbye to docking your ship and sitting through a lengthy loading screen each time you make port. "In Resynced, you can just throw your ropes down at the pier," Markkanen says. "The open world is fully seamless, so we merge all its locations together."

"Starting from Origins, we made it possible to build much bigger worlds – 60 x 16 kilometers – [but] at the time of Black Flag, it wasn't really possible with the old engine," Lopez explains. "Before it was like puzzle pieces split in different maps, but we had to put everything together, so you have to wonder all of a sudden, 'did you cheat on the scale in the original game? How do you turn the island so it fits right in the map?' There were a lot of little questions that can add up to make sure everything stays faithful, and at the same time is integrated in the open world."

Avast!

Part and parcel of that is delivering on that same pirate fantasy laid out in the 2013 original, and that includes Resynced's combat. Instead of blurring the lines too heavily by letting Edward whip his hidden blade out for each and every encounter, you'll only be able to use them for stealthy takedowns – or as a finisher move in combat.

"We modernized the combat to be more hitbox based, as modern combat games tend to be, and a little bit more reactive," explains Markkanen, making the combat "more fluid" with its hidden blade limitations. "It's very much at heart like the original game, meaning that it's based on your positioning and your timing. So, we have a parry system now – you time your parries, but it's free movement and hitbox-based, so it's still physically based and built on top of the fight system we had on Assassin's Creed Shadows."

"It's more like pure action," adds Markkanen. "Almost right from the start you have all the moves that you can use in the game, it's just about learning how you can really use those efficiently in the game."

Markkanen describes it as using your surroundings "in a pirate way". Some of these moves sound pretty technical – you can "pull enemies from rooftops" with rope darts, or use other environmental features to give you the upper hand in combat. But cutlasses aside, a huge part of a pirate's life is adventure, which is where the vast open world comes back into play.

"Right from the start we wanted to keep the original narrative," says Markkanen. "We knew that this is one of the things that players absolutely love, and we didn't want to change it. So, we still have the exact same narrative arc that Edward has, but of course, there is a lot of new stuff that we sprinkled around the map as side quests, and little small secrets and details that the players can find. So, whenever you feel like it, you can just diverge from your main path quest and do whatever you want, and then come back and continue Edward's story."

As well as new island encounters and side content, Ubisoft Montreal has been hard at work building Resynced's verticality – adding the ability to free dive into underwater environments. All of this is yours to interact with if you want it. "You can complete it maybe in 25 hours doing the main story," Markkanen suggests. "Or you can spend hundreds of hours in the world just exploring and having fun."

Check out some of the other upcoming Ubisoft games ahead of Resynced's July release date!

Resident Evil 2 director and Devil May Cry creator Hideki Kamiya has jokingly detailed a concept for a cozy life sim game starring a retired Leon Kennedy.

Outside of series creator Shinji Mikami, you could make an argument for Kamiya being the most impactful person to be involved with the Resident Evil series. After the original game was the first game he was credited on, Kamiya then directed Resident Evil 2 which is still considered by many to be one of, if not the best game in the series. That second game is also the one that introduced us to Leon Kennedy, who has gone on to be the series' most beloved character.

But despite his massive impact on the series and the survival horror genre in general, Kamiya has openly said he hates horror, and earlier this year he pitched Capcom creating a "'non-scary' mode" for Resident Evil Requiem so he could enjoy the game's puzzles in peace. Now, over on Twitter (translated by Automaton) Kamiya has responded to fan requests for him to return to the Resident Evil series – which he hasn't been involved with since his Resident Evil 4 turned into Devil May Cry – by detailing what he would do with a new game.

Kamiya says if he made a new Resident Evil title, "it'd be a game where a retired Leon spends his days in the countryside fishing, gathering wild vegetables, baking bread, walking his dog, tending to his garden, driving 50 kilometers to the nearest general store, inviting his old friends over for barbecues, fixing his elderly neighbour's oven, and selling homemade lemonade at the local festival. Would you still be OK with that?"

Given how huge the cozy game market is, people naturally are still OK with that, with one comment saying they'd be interested in "Resident Evil Pokopia." Kamiya acknowledges the fan response, saying: "Capcom, there seem to be a lot of people asking for a Resident not-Evil game like this. If you ever have the time, please consider making it… I'd like to play it too."

Are you playing the latest game in the series? If so, be sure to browse through our roundup of Resident Evil Requiem safe codes for an easier time progressing.

Capcom has confirmed that Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen director Kento Kinoshita will be returning to the director's chair for Dragon's Dogma 2's expansion.

Dragon's Dogma was pretty liked when it launched back in 2012, but what really led to the game becoming the legendary title it is today was its expansion, Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen, which released a year later. Dragon's Dogma 2 then released a decade later and was seen as an all-timer by anyone who wasn't a coward, but 2025 came and went with no word of an expansion.

This, mixed with Dragon's Dogma series creator Hideaki Itsuno leaving Capcom in 2024, led some to believe a Dark Arisen-like expansion wouldn't be happening, but with Kinoshita still being at Capcom, there was a little bit of hope left. And during the Nintendo Direct earlier this month, we finally found out Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen is happening later this year.

During last night's Capcom Spotlight stream, it was revealed that Kinoshita is once again taking on the director's role for Dark Arisen as he hosted the segment about the game. The expansion is set to feature a new region for the game in the form of Norgan, which is a snowy area at the north of the map with a new relic system, which allows you to create fresh weapons with unique class skills. The base game's map is also set to be expanded with 12 dungeons.

The segment also introduced the Fallen Dragon, which is set to be a major enemy found in the expansion, alongside the NPC we saw in the trailer called Eir, who is seeking out the dragon. Details about this part remained fairly light, but it seems like the main quest of this expansion will focus on these two.

Former Devil May Cry and Dragon's Dogma 2 director says he can't make "the kind of games I'd most like to" as "they'd be too out there" and "probably wouldn't sell."

When Rockstar announced that GTA 6 would launch in November 2026, seemingly every big game within a two-month orbit of that date began scrambling for a plan: release during the same general timeframe and risk being swallowed by the biggest game of the century, or get the heck out of the way. As you might expect, many developers and publishers chose the latter option, and coincidentally, September turned out to be a very popular alternative release month, apparently far enough away from GTA 6's tidal wake for them to feel comfortable launching their games.

Capcom was one of many companies who chose a September launch, earlier this month confirming at long last that Onimusha: Way of the Sword is coming out September 25. However, that date was thrown into question just last week when a retailer listing seemed to suggest Capcom was planning to shift the release date forward by a few weeks. The reasonable assumption was that so many games moved to late September due to a fear of GTA 6 that they inadvertently created a similarly challenging environment for themselves due to there now being such a crowded market for that specific window.

After three chunky paragraphs, I'm now realizing that was a very long setup just so say, Onimusha: Way of the Sword isn't getting a new release date, Capcom has confirmed. In the latest Capcom Spotlight, an unnamed English-speaking narrator seemingly responds to rumors of a release date shift, confirming, "Once more, Onimusha: Way of the Sword releases on September 25, 2026."

In case you're wondering about all of the games Capcom is going up against this September, I don't possibly have time to list them all, but some of the bigger ones include Marvel's Wolverine, Silent Hill: Townfall, Control Resonant, The Blood of Dawnwalker, and Shinobi Art of Vengeance. Needless to say, Onimusha has enough of a following to easily compete with those games, but we'll see which games emerge victorious when the dust settles, and more importantly, which will stand the test of time in a post-GTA 6 world.

Looking to lock in your copy early? You won't want to miss our guide to GTA 6 pre-orders.

Pragmata star David Menkin says the team had no idea how the game would be received, but is now receiving a ton of positive messages about the game.

Pragmata has been in development for a long time. In fact it was one of the first games announced when the PS5 was revealed back in 2020. But from the looks of things, the wait was worth it, as it has stood alongside Resident Evil Requiem and Monster Hunter Stories 3 to contribute to Capcom's absolutely massive 2026 lineup in a big way. Not only that, but Pragmata hit two million copies sold within the first month, and Capcom has confirmed that it will consider "developing it into a series."

Menkin, who plays Hugh Williams in the game, recently spoke to GamesRadar+ about his experiences during the making of Pragmata, and despite it being in development for half a decade, he only joined the project in 2024. Menkin says, "They gave us time, yeah, which is so unusual when it comes to games, because by the time you get to the voice, you're almost starting post production, and it just didn't feel like that. They wanted to get it done right."

Menkin adds, "When I finished, they sort of did say to me, you know, 'We don't know how this is going to be received, we have made what we wanted to make, and now we just need to figure out if the gamers like it.'"

But as we now know, it was received pretty well, and since it released back in April, Menkin has experienced that first hand. "Not just the reviews, the DMs that I get, and people here [at Summer Game Fest] when they find out who I played, like they just go, you know, 'Man, you made me cry, you made me think about my relationship with my father, with my daughter, with my niece, with my nephew.' That is amazing."

Menkin also says he's "just glad everybody wanted to be space dad."

"I really couldn't sleep": In an absurd year for Capcom, Pragmata creators did not want to be the first ones to drop the ball.

I get it. Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad's adventure has a special place in our memory, but have you actually gone back and replayed the first Assassin's Creed? The repetitive mission structure was already a major point of criticism back in 2007 even in GamesRadar+'s glowing Assassin's Creed review. The parkour system – as novel as it was back then – was rather limited, and the original assassin's arsenal of weapons and tools couldn't even match the variety of the older Hitman games.

Assassin's Creed is a crucial part of modern video game history, but as a video game, it was quickly surpassed by its much superior sequel and often ranks low among the best Assassin's Creed games according to fans. Almost 19 years later, only unfiltered nostalgia can make anyone say it holds up beyond its immaculate vibes. With the buzz that surrounds Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced suggesting there's a big interest in more remakes, I think Ubisoft needs to revisit the series' beginning before an inevitable return to Renaissance-era Italy.

Structural problems with easy fixes

Like it or not, big-budget remakes from established publishers with vast IP libraries will continue to be churned out for the foreseeable. Personally, I don't have a problem with them as long as the original titles are readily available to purchase and they don't get in the way of new entries.

In the case of Assassin's Creed, with a new instalment on the way in Assassin's Creed Hexe, the opportunity to fully realize the original first game's ambitious vision shouldn't be skipped in favor of going after more popular old-school entries that have endured the test of time better.

Remakes are interesting to analyze. They often serve one of two purposes: to "rethink" already watertight games for a modern audience, adding a few improvements beyond graphics along the way, or to complete and polish up things that weren't quite right (or there at all) originally. No matter how iconic you think Assassin's Creed was and still is, getting to the game's best parts feels generally miserable.

Even as a 15-year-old, eager to simply play the latest technological marvel without viewing it as a critic, I wasn't impressed by Assassin's Creed's approach to investigations and side missions before the big assassination set pieces.

After the second city I visited, I began to worry. Most of the time and resources had clearly gone into cracking the tech required to bring bustling streets to life and make the player character seamlessly climb almost every surface in the game. This is the one thing a serious Assassin's Creed remake should completely demolish and rebuild. Learn from the best – ahem, the Hitman series – and put those gorgeous environments to good use.

We don't need anything too fancy, as I think AC1 should remain old-fashioned regardless of adjustments and additions, but I don't want to track down and stab an informant half a dozen times before the credits roll. I don't enjoy the meandering tasks that pad out the game's length in exchange for exhilarating 30-minute hunts. Instead, I can see it transformed into one of the best open-world games to justify its scope in between story beats.

Graceful aggression

My other main gripe with the original Assassin's Creed is that its combat encounters were never very good. Even if you'd rather stick with the traditional freeflow combat that the best Batman: Arkham games immediately improved upon, Ubisoft's first go at more elegant button-mashing didn't have much grace. Ezio's trilogy and the pre-RPG entries that followed delivered something better, but even Black Flag's refresh explored big changes to the system.

It remains to be seen how both longtime fans of the series and newcomers will respond to Black Flag Resynced's combat when they actually play it, but I think we all can agree: finnicky action RPG-style battles shouldn't touch past entries. I'd prefer smoother animations and more reactive combos, parries, and evasive moves instead.

We were supposed to believe Altaïr was one of the best assassins the Order ever had, yet he struggled to efficiently deal with four drunken guards due to clumsy controls and janky animations. Ubisoft veterans now have all the experience and tech required to make him a lethal warrior (with, hopefully, access to more weapons and items) too.

The Resident Evil effect

By now, it's abundantly clear Ubisoft is looking at past wins and mistakes to define the future of the Assassin's Creed franchise, which isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

The mix of old and new – both in design philosophies and as a profitable creative roadmap – falls in line with Capcom's approach to Resident Evil, which is paying off big time. The gaps between major new releases facilitate the existence of remasters and remakes, providing both the perfect testing grounds for new features and building up a substantial financial cushion between mainline entries. It's a win-win scenario, as long as the quality is there.

Still, triple-A development shouldn't be overly tied to the whims of the market. Nostalgia for the sake of nostalgia isn't a viable path forward for any IP, but there are cases where creatives and fans will agree a classic never quite reached its full potential. After all, classics needn't be masterpieces (or at least that's what I believe).

Assassin's Creed 2 is undoubtedly an industry-shaking touchpoint that should be studied to understand the evolution of an entire genre, but for actual entertainment purposes, there's a much better game waiting to be unearthed and cleaned up. Rumours suggest I might be right and an Assassin's Creed 1 remake is happening next. Will 2027 – the series' 20th anniversary – mark the return to the Holy Land? I'd bet a few coins on it.

With so few upcoming Assassin's Creed games that we know of right now, the future of the franchise has never been more mysterious...

2026 has been a busy year for Capcom. Launching hot on the heels of Resident Evil Requiem came Pragmata, a third-person "dad-and-daughter" shooter set in a lunar facility overrun by a rogue AI. Themes of duality run through the whole game, a series of pushes and pulls that somehow balance one another out – humanity versus machine, shooting versus hacking, and two little android girls created with a very specific purpose in mind.

The response from the community has been resoundingly positive. To learn more about Capcom's reaction to all the buzz, I managed to get some questions across to producer Naoto Oyama to fill in the gaps following our last interview with the Pragmata team.

Q: Capcom's known for a lot of really strong legacy franchises, but Pragmata is a fantastic brand new addition. What do you think is important to get right with a new IP like this?

Naoto Oyama, producer: Since the start, our focus was to create something genuinely distinct, which is crucial when making a new IP. With that in mind, for Pragmata, we challenged ourselves to make a game which meshes unique combat and puzzle-solving encounters within a striking lunar setting. Our aim was to create something new and fresh, but also intuitive to actually play once held in the player's hand.

Releasing a demo to showcase elements of the game was also beneficial, as it allowed us to communicate the game's core 'hack n shoot' mechanics for new players to understand.

I would also add that making the game tightly paced allowed for each individual system and narrative beat to have its time in the sun. For a new IP, this helped us deliver something neatly packaged, memorable and satisfying.

Q: The game features sectors of the space station that were constructed to resemble what an AI might build itself, as a digital mind that doesn't quite understand humanity. How did you approach this almost uncanny design challenge?

Naoto: Regarding environmental design, we aimed to create spaces that felt they could be designed by a near-future AI on the moon. These digital spaces, on first glance, contain items and structures which resemble what they look like in the real world, but on closer inspection actually contain oddities. This is where that uncanny aesthetic fits; these are places and things which look familiar, but are distorted in some strange and peculiar way.

In the New York inspired sector, taxis, for instance, are literally phasing through the floor, and buses protrude from the walls. We created structures and things which appear functional, but in some bizarre way, collapse when closely viewed. This is essentially how we've designed the game's sectors – from the perspective of a system trying to imitate human environments.

No generative AI was used in the design process - even the most uncanny elements you see in the game are all hand-designed by human artists!

Q: GenAI is a hot button topic at the moment. How has that influenced your approach to tackling AI as a core theme in Pragmata?

Naoto: We started development on Pragmata before generative AI became quite as huge as it is today, so we were surprised by this development. Perhaps the near-future world we envisioned is closer than anyone thought!

Q: Half the controller feels like it's for shooting, and half for hacking. It works really well on a controller. How challenging was it to make doing two things at once feel right?

Naoto: There are only so many buttons on a controller, so we've worked to ensure the controls are simple and intuitive. In the early stages we've limited the maximum number of enemies that appear at once and slowed down their approach speed, so that players can get used to the basics of hacking and shooting at the same time. As the game progresses and players become more accustomed to the controls, new weapons and actions are unlocked, while the number and strength of enemies change, so players gradually get used to performing multiple actions simultaneously.

Balancing all this was very difficult, and took a lot of playtesting and refinement, including regularly getting feedback from first-time players. I think this approach worked and we got great results.

A lot of reviews have compared Pragmata to an Xbox 360-era title as a compliment [a sentiment echoed by director Yonghee Cho]. Why do you think that is? What's your response to that?

Naoto: We take this as a compliment! We know many players from the Xbox 360 and PS3 console era resonate with compact action games which contain engaging gameplay mechanics. Each sector in Pragmata is designed to introduce new additions (weapons, hacking nodes) which layer themselves on previous mechanics, and this sort of design is something players from that era associate with the game.

As with other titles from that era, rather than opting for a dense open-world, each sector is a bespoke and tightly designed zone where combat encounters steadily introduce new mechanics that test the player and diversify their tactical loadouts.

Q: Do you see Pragmata as the potential start to a new series?

Naoto: We're very grateful for the positive reception from Pragmata and the responses we've seen from players. While we can't talk about future plans, the game has only just been released and we're going to work to get even more players to join Hugh and Diana on their journey.

Capcom has announced that it will be hosting a Capcom Spotlight later this week with updates on Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen and Onimusha: Way of the Sword.

Capcom is always a big presence at any of the many game showcases throughout the year, which this year's Summer Game Fest undoubtedly showed with the likes of Resident Evil Veronica, Monster Hunter Wilds: Ascendance, Tifa Lockhart in Street Fighter 6, Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen being announced, and Onimusha: Way of the Sword's date finally announced for September 25th. However, despite a big showing, Capcom isn't done yet.

On its website, Capcom has announced a new episode of its Capcom Spotlight stream – which is its own version of a Nintendo Direct – to follow up on some of the announcements from Summer Game Fest. The stream will take place on June 25 at 2pm PT / 5pm ET / 10pm BST on the Capcom YouTube channel and will last roughly 30 minutes.

Unfortunately, if you were hoping to find out more than the pretty much nothing we saw from Resident Evil Veronica or Tifa in Street Fighter, you're out of luck. Capcom has confirmed the stream will be "focused on Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection, Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen, and Onimusha: Way of the Sword."

As for what will be shown, considering retailers have listed Onimusha: Way of the Sword as releasing three weeks earlier than its current date, I'd expect that change could be officially announced this week if it is in fact happening. Monster Hunter Stories 3 is a curious one however, considering it came out in March of this year. None of the games in the spin-off series so far have had meaningful DLC expansions, but perhaps Capcom is going to expand the latest entry.

Capcom made twice as much money on Steam compared to PlayStation in the last year as PC gaming continues to grow.

Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami believes that if a fan is satisfied with just watching a playthrough of a game, then it can't have been that good of a game in the first place.

With the advent of YouTube gaming content creators, popularization of let's plays in the late 2000s, and subsequent popularity of Twitch, people simply watching someone else playing a game has become a commonplace thing. While these streams and playthroughs have proven to work as great advertising in places – especially for the likes of Among Us, Five Nights At Freddy's, and Phasmophobia – for single–player games, some found that simply watching someone else play the game was enough for them.

As reported by Nikkan (translated by Automaton), comedian and YouTube creator Eiko Kano recently spoke on TV about an exchange he had with Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami after the popularity of his own streams of the series. When Kano asked Mikami about his stance on players streaming titles of his and potentially letting users get their fill of the game through someone else, he reportedly responded, "If viewers watch a playthrough of a game all the way to the end and are satisfied with just that, then it was only that good of a game."

Obviously, games are an inherently interactive medium, and as such you would miss out on a key facet of what it is by just watching it – the same way you would lose out on elements by reading a film's screenplay. Kano says Mikami explained: "Our job is to make games that leave people wanting to clear them with their own hands, even if they've watched someone else do it, so keep streaming."

Kano also recalls that Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii gave a very similar response to him when asked, while Final Fantasy 7 Remake series director Naoki Hamaguchi said recently that RPGs "need to be careful" about a lack of player agency otherwise they "might simply watch a stream and feel satisfied without ever playing the game themselves."

Resident Evil Veronica's first-person trailer was a deliberate misdirect, Capcom producer confirms the horror game is fully third-person.