Cult of the Lamb may have launched back in 2022, but the official X (Twitter) profile page announced on July 10, 2026 that a Cult of Lamb Collector's Edition is headed to the PS5 and Nintendo Switch 2.

The $149.99 (Amazon) / £129.99 (Amazon) physical edition is set to launch on March 12, 2027 and includes a boxed version of the Definitive Edition of the game on either platform alongside a smorgasbord of physical goodies, including a 200+ page artbook, double-sided metal poster, a comic book, and my favorite addition of the lot - a 7-inch vinyl record that includes the tracks Praise the Lamb and Start a Cult, composed by the masterful and late game composer, River Boy. If you want a copy for yourself, this "once-in-a-lifetime release" is now available for both UK and US fans.

If Sony's July 1, 2026 announcement had you worrying that publishers like Devolver Digital (alongside developers Massive Monster) would stop releasing physical editions, this upcoming collector's edition should help quell your fears for the interim. However, this specific "once-in-a-lifetime release" wording, as found under the Amazon UK listing for the game, has me worried this could be one of the last few chances fans have to own the game physically. Or at least a version this bursting at the seams with physical merchandise.

If you pre-order the Cult of Lamb Collector's Edition ahead of its March 12, 2027 release, you get all the goodies I mentioned above, including a 44-card Oracle Deck + guide on how to read 'em (which I assume is the developer's version of a Tarot Card deck judging from the name alone), and a steelbook case featuring disturbing yet immensely cool art of The Lamb. Yet as much as I adore the steelbook case, I grabbed my copy for the vinyl record, which includes a green and black splatter effect and The Lamb on the front doing their best 'Midsommar' impression.

I collect and play video game OSTs on vinyl but missed out on owning the limited 2LP Splatter Colored Vinyl release of the soundtrack in the past. I was also moved by the Cult of the Lamb's X (Twitter) thread, which mentioned its inclusion was "dedicated to our beloved friend River Boy" and couldn't not own his work and a little part of indie game history.

If you want a copy of the Cult of the Lamb: Collector's Edition for yourself, the PS5 and Switch pre-orders were originally available in the UK first. However, both versions are now live on Amazon US for $149.99, respectively.

Trying to grab what physical game releases you can? Check out the Halloween: The Game Limited Collectors Edition pre-order, which includes a Michael Myers action figure by Trick or Treat Studios.

Even with GTA 6 being delayed a further six months, Devolver Digital hasn't given up on its promise to go head-to-head with the biggest game possible.

Rockstar Games may make industry-defining games that bring a ton of money and interest into the industry, but the studio is also a dark cloud for any other developer, knowing that any game that releases in the vicinity of a GTA or Red Dead Redemption probably won't do so hot. Even Hideo Kojima said he wanted a September release date for Death Stranding 2, but its June release date was decided on (and while this wasn't confirmed to be because of GTA, with it originally slated for late 2025, it's probably likely).

However, Devolver Digital (publisher of Hotline Miami, Enter the Gungeon, Cult of the Lamb, and Inscryption) are dedicated to being opps. Earlier this year, Devolver confirmed that it was going to release a game on the same day as GTA 6 when it launched, and doubled down when the game was delayed until May 2026, telling Rockstar: "You can’t escape us. May 26, 2026 it is then." And now with another GTA 6 delay pushing the game back to November 19, 2026, Devolver hasn't given up, echoing its earlier tweet: "You can't escape us. November 19, 2026 it is then."

But that isn't the only comment Devolver Digital has for Rockstar. Replying to the tweet about GTA 6's delay, the publisher asks, "DO YOU NEED A PUBLISHER TO GET THIS THING BACK ON TRACK? DMs are open. Our work on BALL x PIT speaks for itself." So in the extremely unlikely event Take-Two and Rockstar decide they don't have it in them to publish GTA 6, maybe we'll see Devolver publish GTA 6 on GTA 6's release date.

After another GTA 6 delay he called unlikely, Take-Two CEO says "bad things happen" when games are rushed and breaks out his favorite phrase: "I'm highly confident on the new date"

Using manuals to chain kickflips and pop shuvits to move the stoic heart of a gigantic statue of a philosopher. Landing tricks so intense you can shatter and eat one of the underworld's many moons. Ollieing over demonic eyes to open gates forward. Skate Story is a skating game like you've never played before, combining the close-up camera of Skate with Tony Hawk's Pro Skater's wildest scenarios – and a dash of Sayonara Hearts to groove through traversal gauntlets.

Skate Story is, as it says in-game, "a classic deal with the Devil situation". As a demon resident of the underworld looking for something more to your existence, you come across a skateboard and are offered a contract with some terms for using it to make your escape. You must eat all of the moons. And now you will be made of glass. Reasonable stuff. It adds an extra element of danger to fumbling a jump or trick – the chances of shattering into pieces, trapped in damnation as nothing more than shards.

Clearing the Underworld gap

Despite the conditions of your bargain, your glassy state doesn't make you feel too fragile or cumbersome in play. It'd be easy to imagine this premise giving over to a kind of brutal challenge of difficulty closer to Baby Steps. But, though you may shatter, movement on the board is slick and breezy; checkpointing generous. The board does not bring danger, but a chance at escape.

The sense of found freedom really comes across as I whizz through Skate Story's levels, the low camera angle really emphasizing the sense of speed. The bulk of my time playing has seen me shredding through traversal stages, making my way from gate to gate as some seriously chill beats pound away, accompanied by excellent sound design that really sells the physicality of the wood on which I ride.

This gives each stage multiple legs between each entrance and exit which also serve as checkpoints. Naturally, obstacles must be avoided to make it un-smashed to each gate, movement having that distinctive banking-feel that skateboarding should have. You can do a little drift to take tight corners, and, of course, hold and release to pop an ollie to clear gaps and do tricks in the air. The timing and trick type can modulate your airtime, but generally speaking you're not going to wipe out. Skate Story is, ultimately, about the empowerment of skateboarding in the face of authority – expression through movement.

A little like real life, except rarely does illicit skateboarding take place under the many demonic eyes of the underworld. Certain bits of stages even require you to clear those eyes with jumps and tricks to open the gate ahead. Between these sequences of levels, you can run around little hub areas to chat with demons and learn new tricks.

The writing is laugh out loud funny – irreverent, with odd turns of phrase, the idea of a skateboarding demon is both never taken seriously and played completely straight all at once. "How can skateboarding shake the cosmos, if it can't even shake me?" challenges a Philosopher before you go ham with a combo to prove myself worthy of leaving the eternal lyceum.

Boss battles play out like skate park trick challenges, having me chain together a sequence of tricks – connected with manuals, naturally – before pressing a button to essentially bank my score and deal damage with a finisher trick. It's a neat way to add a new twist to the risk-reward of how high you'll take a combo. So far, these trick sections have been quite rudimentary, though I'm approaching them with decades of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater experience, and even so they've been a lot of fun to pull off.

I can't wait to grab my board and skate even deeper through the circles of Hell. Each dreamy, vaporwave-like area has been stunning to behold so far, and the immaculate vibes make the underworld a surprisingly chill place to hang – as long I say one step ahead of the demons that want to squash my fun. Skate Story is coming to PC, PS5, and Nintendo Switch 2 on December 8, 2025

Take a look at our new games calendar for what to play next!

At a given moment, there can be so much going on in Ball x Pit that it seems impossible to wrap your head around it. As arcs of deadly gamma radiation slice through foes set alight by the flaming projectiles ricocheting off every surface and silent sentinels advance to meet them, the screen fills so quickly with clashing light and color in an assault on the senses. Were it not for the simplicity of your goal, it might prove an unendurable assault on the senses, but Ball x Pit somehow gets you to successfully walk the narrow path between chaos and perfect strategy.

When the city of Ballbylon is wiped from the face of the earth by a meteor, it's not long before treasure hunters flock to the crater, fending off the monsters that dwell within in pursuit of riches. A roguelike twist on the classic arcade formula of Breakout, Ball x Pit's combat revolves around throwing balls at your enemies as they advance towards your character, bouncing your projectiles off walls and foes to maximize your damage. If your enemies reach you, they'll attack, and a defeated treasure hunter must begin their descent from scratch.

As greater and greater numbers of gargoyle-esque enemies advance, many spewing their own projectiles back, it's easy to become pinned down, desperately fighting for even the slightest bit of breathing room. At the start of each run, you'll have only a starting weapon and a few low-damage 'baby balls' with which to fight back, but as you grow in strength by hoovering up XP from defeated foes, you'll be able to gather more special weapons.

Different balls have different effects; damage over time in the form of Bleed or Burn; Freeze effects that can lock enemies in place; lasers that arc through entire rows or columns whenever they strike. Quickly, a fight for survival in the single inch of room at the bottom of your screen can become an eclectic fight back as your arsenal grows.

Goodness, gracious

Were it just for that enlarged arsenal, Ball x Pit would quickly prove repetitive. But every so often it'll grant the opportunity to fuse weapons together. In simple cases that might let you stitch Bleed and Burn together, increasing the damage over time dealt by a single hit. In more interesting examples, however, Balls 'evolve', gaining new effects if specific weapons are fused.

Air and lightning-themed weapons might combine to form a Blizzard with vastly improved freeze effects. Combined with a poison effect, laser-themed balls become emitters of gamma radiation, blasting their damage through entire ranks of enemies. The bleed effect can be attached to the baby ball-producing Brood Mother ball to create a Leech, which sucks the life out of even the most spongy foes.

Eventually, even those evolutions can be fused together, but that adds an interesting layer of strategy to what would otherwise remain a somewhat one-note experience. Combine too many balls, and while their effects might be potent, you might simply not have enough firepower to hold back an ever-advancing tide of enemies. Some effects also cancel each other out, and while others can be augmented by a separate collection of upgrades, it's important to concentrate on what you're upgrading in case you get overwhelmed when you least expect it.

But for all the extra complexity that comes with these evolutions, they can only obscure the fact that Ball x Pit is an inherently repetitive experience for so long. Genuine effort has been put in to make each new stage feel different from the last, with different enemies requiring different strategies, but the core conceit remains the same no matter how many new evolutions you've unlocked.

An overworld structure creates a progression system that does its best to add an extra layer to the Vampire Survivors-style structure of the main game. But the sheer amount of upgrades you can unlock both in the pit and on the surface, combined with a gathering system that quickly feels gimmicky and ineffective, only serves to show off the game's enormous size.

It's a shame, as there's a tighter experience within Ball x Pit that would have worked very well. As it stands, however, it's too big and too repetitive to last as long as it does, especially as you can feel the training weights being applied to prevent you racing your way through the entire thing. There's an artificiality to the progression curve, and you can feel the way it blocks you from moving forwards at your own pace, encouraging you instead to complete the same runs over and over to satisfy multiple different upgrade paths.

The basic experience is good enough to support the opening hours, balancing the satisfying, almost meditative percussion of ball against enemy with the tension of keeping ever more-powerful foes at bay. But after dozens of runs I was still chasing upgrades that were blatantly only in place to speed up the grind and remove training wheels that could have come off many nights before.

Ball x Pit is a smart twist on a pair of very popular formats, but even as it executes around its two inspirations very successfully, it feels like it doubts its ability to stand on its own. The result is a stylish, engaging experience trying to fill a space that's far too big for it, diluting what might have been a cult roguelike hit in the process.

Ball x Pit was reviewed on PC, with a code provided by the publisher.

Check out our new games calendar for what to play next!

This Baby Steps game, man. Sometimes I love it, sometimes I hate it, and sometimes I bounce between the two emotions several times within the same 10 minutes. It's unique, it's clever, it's memorable… and if you drew a graph of my enjoyment over time, it would look like an ECG display.

The fundamental mechanic – you move by lifting and directing each leg individually, and shifting your character's weight in the direction you want to go – has been wonderfully implemented. Although Bennett Foddy is a member of the team, the controls bear little resemblance to QWOP, which is purposefully designed for you to fail. Instead, movement is challenging but perfectly fair. I fell into a fairly effective walking rhythm within seconds of first picking up the controller, and eventually, I was able to stomp around for minutes at a time without falling over.

Climb fighter

Also unlike QWOP, there's a meaningful narrative. You play as Nate, a 35 year old man wasting his life away on the couch (in a onesie) eating junk food, watching One Piece, and getting high. When he hears his parents call him for a family meeting that's likely about what he's doing with his life, he pops out of existence, because men would rather enter a surreal world molded by their damaged psyche than go to therapy.

As Foddy told us in January, Death Stranding was a "huge inspiration" for Baby Steps. Not in terms of supernatural threats and phenomenally subtext-free character names, but in terms of lengthy hiking sections in open environments. In fact, this is in effect one giant hike. You'll waddle, stomp, stumble, and fall through deserts, picturesque mountains, colorful fields, and more. I'm not going to make the same few 'walking simulator' jokes I imagine you'll see elsewhere. Instead, I'll point out that in order to truly understand Baby Steps, you should think of it as a mountaineering game.

Death Stranding comparisons are apt to a point, but this has much more in common with Jusant and, especially, the upcoming Cairn. There's an awful lot of climbing, and everything from rocks a few feet tall to an imposing mountain trek requires keeping your wayward legs under control. Trickier sections, especially, are puzzles to be solved. Is that section of rock wide enough to safely hold your foot? Where would you place your foot next? And after that? And then after that?

The further you go, the more complex things get, putting your feetsies to the test. Moving at what passes for speed in Baby Steps is the only way to climb certain slopes, and often, you'll need to make sure that you're approaching at just the right angle. Some routes are entirely optional – if you keep failing on one path to the next section, there's probably a (slightly) simpler route nearby – but there's no such thing as an easy option.

You will fall, and very often. Slip out of your walking rhythm for just a moment? Fall. Lift your leg a little too low when trying to step over something? Fall. Hit your upper body on a wall mid-stride? Fall. Misjudge the gradient of a slope? Fall. And so on and so forth.

There's so much to love here. The difficulty inherent in even the simplest of traversal provides regular shots of satisfaction when you overcome it, and the world is full of weird and wonderful surprises that reward exploration. The environments and the nature of gameplay come together, too, to subtly tell a story about emotional growth, independence, self-awareness, and empathy. Okay, it's also a game about a man with a booty juicy enough to earn him a slot in Overwatch, but there's depth if you're willing to see it.

Every criticism, though, leads back to the fact that the fun to frustration ratio is completely out of whack. Failure is a thread sewn into the experience to keep it held together, which is fine. What isn't fine, is the fact that gaps between attempts at certain challenges are far, far too long. Some falls will see you lose a lot of progress, and on top of that, if you slide down a slope you'll spend two to 20 seconds watching Nate on his back before you can even begin to get back to where you were. Watching him flop about and moan like this for extended periods is kind of funny the first 1,256 times, but the gag loses its appeal somewhat eventually. If you find Silksong boss runbacks unfair and frustrating, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Call the QWOPs

Check the Steam pages for Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy, and Baby Steps. The former repeatedly and gleefully advertises itself as a game intended to frustrate and infuriate you. The latter uses the phrases "serene mountains" and "at your own pace". Baby Steps invites a much wider audience into its world, as demonstrated by the strange but extremely accessible control scheme. Hardcore Foddy fans have plenty of options to test themselves, but even the most welcoming path through the game is littered with irregular explosions of extreme frustration. Not difficulty spikes, but absolutely infuriating sections that bear no resemblance to the experience immediately before and after them. There were many times where I was being subjected to Baby Steps rather than playing it.

The camera has a tendency to exacerbate the situation at the worst moments, struggling to give you a good view of your surroundings at certain angles and in certain situations. Unforgivably, this includes some sections where it's important to see where you're placing your feet for precision. Baby Steps could do with a foot cam. Sorry to all the disappointed visitors that SEO summoned here with the phrase 'foot cam'.

I was angered more often than I should have been. I also risked my life for an overripe banana, very slowly and very awkwardly kicked a ball into a net, and awoke to an Australian donkey/human hybrid waving its didgeridoo in my face. It's impossible to hate a game that offers experiences like these.

Baby Steps was reviewed on PS5, with a code provided by the publisher.

"Some open-world games can make it feel like you're not really exploring, you're just traveling": A Short Hike creator says finding "unique" ways of rewarding players is key, which Dark Souls and Breath of the Wild nailed

Mycopunk comes from the Greek – 'myco' meaning 'mushroom' and 'punk' meaning 'punk'. With that rigorous training out of the way, it's time to appease your cockroach commander Roachy and immediately drop from space to the Gravity Farms of New Atlas. Just for a cleanup detail. Don't mind the things with all the limbs. That's why you've got large weapons strapped to you.

Developed by Pigeons at Play and published by Devolver Digital, Mycopunk is comfortable with the irreverent tone of the publisher's portfolio. While there's a striking beauty to the lo-fi visuals of New Atlas when you land, covered with textures the team describe to me as "dirty Moebius" (the celebrated French comic artist and writer), it's just as at home letting you combine rude hand gestures with various dance emotes.

Fun guy

Very much a co-op game at heart, going hands-on with Mycopunk also means doing rude gestures to other players. Playing Mycopunk, I'm only currently able to access a Cleanup Detail mission and a Planetary Defense mission. The former begins with challenging us to clear up big wads of gunk on a pipe; the latter begins with challenging us to clear up big wads of gunk on power relays (both using our guns). There's a lot of gunk in Mycopunk.

Naturally each mission evolves a bit from there. In the first one, there are periodically larger wads of gunk that can defend themselves from our aggressive gun-first cleaning. The second gets a bit more involved, having a giant railgun drop from the sky we need to protect then power on so it can blast a rival corporation's ship out of the air. As you'd expect, in both you need to call in an escape pod to extract at the very end. My so-called "colleagues" were happy to leave me behind. This is why you can call your co-op partners "tossers" in-game, I suppose.

Considering enemies are essentially just shapes – mostly orbs – I actually quite like their designs in theory. With many limbs spiralling out of their (delicious?) orb centers, they're all dangerous whether they're simply slapping you around with tentacles or have great big lasers attached. In addition to shooting their spherical weak spots, you can shred through their limbs to knock their attacks out of commission. Except, removed limbs can be picked up by other enemies, meaning you need to be careful to disarm and get killshots quickly. This carries over to how you revive allies too – you'll be split in two on death, waiting for an ally to physically bring your halves back together.

What I'm less keen on during my limited time with Mycopunk is how relentless enemies are, constantly spawning and firing a barrage of attacks at you once you're a little way through a mission. Obviously, trying to stay on top of enemy waves is part of the point in a co-op shooter like this, but there's often little time to breathe.

It means that of the four class types – Glider, Scrapper, Bruiser, and Wrangler – the ones with the most mobility seem to have the biggest advantage just to create space. In the couple of games I play, Glider's ability to super-dash long distances seems to outclass Bruiser's shields in utility. Enemies can get quite big and complex, and there's a satisfaction to delimbing the biggest boys out there that's undercut a little by the sheer amount of smaller fry.

Out on a limb

There's a selection of quirky weapons too, though limited to just four in my hands-on (plus grenades). There's a rifle that charges up a powerful laser as you shoot. One that hurls mini-rockets into the air that then descend. Cleverly, ammo is handled by feeding energy between your two main guns, meaning you need to balance using both. However, like with above, the simple damage-over-time weapons seemed to be the most effective at cleaving through enemies, with the stranger ones that looked more fun not doing as great a job cleaning up the big waves. There's likely to be a lot of balancing adjustments from this early build – I'd love more reason to get creative.

The structure of Mycopunk – dropping in to clear variation co-op mission types – will be familiar to a lot of players. It's the same rhythm of play as something like Helldivers 2 or Deep Rock Galactic, with the tongue-in-cheek anti-corp tone along the lines of Lethal Company. Mycopunk brings a colorful aesthetic to the table alongside pleasingly responsive action, but from just these mission types I'm still not completely sold on how well it stands out from the competition (though plenty of modes weren't available for me to play at this point). Mycopunk can be a good time, but so are the other games I mentioned.

I appreciate how quick some of the missions can be to complete. While Helldivers 2 can be the same, it's also easy to end up spending perhaps too much time hunting down optional objectives with randoms. With that said, the pace of enemy waves and perhaps the too-open nature of New Atlas in the maps I get to play can make the action a bit overwhelming. Rarely in Mycopunk do you get the chance to regroup with co-op partners and plan for the next objective, something that Deep Rock Galactic excels by the nature of its cavern-by-cavern approach. Mission objectives, on the over hand – in the limited types I've played – are a bit underwhelming. Go from A to B, interact with stuff, and deal with all the enemies chasing after you while you do so.

I'm looking forward to seeing more from Mycopunk. Shooting out enemy limbs is a novel approach that can be fun when you've the space to approach its bigger foes tactically. I'm hoping it can lean into its strengths to become the really unique co-op shooter that it has the ambitions to be. Until then, my many-limbed arms will be crossed, waiting.

A Mycopunk demo is now available to play on Steam.

Looking to get into more scrapes with pals? Check out our best co-op games!

As we announced last week, a new range of comics is on the way based on the breakout roguelike game, Cult of the Lamb. The first release is an original graphic novel which expands and explores the title's mythology. Published by Oni Press in association with Devolver Digital and Massive Monster, Cult of the Lamb: The First Verse is written by Alex Paknadel, and drawn by Troy Little. It's in the middle of a Kickstarter campaign right now, with a range of different editions available to pre-order.

Cult of the Lamb is simultaneously one of the cutest and darkest games we've seen in a minute, and its background and lush aesthetic make it ripe for deeper exploration. The First Verse follows the titular Lamb plus new character Nana as they fight back against the theocratic Old Faith and build their own cult. 

Newsarama sat down with Alex and Troy to find out more about the new book and the future of Cult of the Lamb comics...

Newsarama: What can you tease about the plot for Cult of the Lamb: The First Verse?

Alex Paknadel: I can tell you that it hews pretty closely to the game, so it's about a resurrected, sacrificed Lamb charged by a supernatural entity with starting a cult in its name and overthrowing a theocratic dictatorship in the process. Nice, light, fluffy stuff.

Troy Little: The cutest little nightmare you can imagine.

Tell us about the characters... Who do we follow in the series?

Alex: The central protagonist is the Lamb themselves, who was sacrificed by the followers of the tyrannical Old Faith to prevent a prophecy from being fulfilled. Brought back to life by the mysterious One Who Waits, the Lamb now has to battle the deadly acolytes of the Old Faith - including its frighteningly powerful Bishops - in order to establish a cult in their new master's name.

The secondary protagonist is a character designed for the comic. Their name is Nana, and they're a follower of the Lamb - one of the first, in fact. In many ways we follow the events of the story through Nana's eyes. They know the Lamb before the cult begins to turn into its own orthodoxy - its own sort of Old Faith - so they're uniquely positioned to see tragedy unfold.

Troy: My contribution to this was when I was asked what animal the first Follower should be. I voted for bunny. 

How did you both get involved with this series?

Alex: I was approached by Oni's Publisher Hunter Gorinson at New York Comic Con last year. I was completely unfamiliar with the game, but Devolver sent me a copy and I was instantly hooked. I just so happened to be conducting a deep dive into sacrifice and scapegoating for another project, so it aligned with my interests perfectly. It helps that the game is super fun, but it's so beautifully constructed and thought through, as well. I love stepping into a complete world like that.

Troy: I was portal deep into the multiverse of Rick & Morty when my editor Bess Pallares brought up the possibility of jumping on as artist for the Cult of the Lamb series. Having only a passing familiarity with the project, I took a deep dive in and played through the game. The look and vibe of the game really resonates with me, I just love the contrast and how dark it goes. Absolutely in my wheelhouse, so yes - I was very much onboard after that.

How has it been developing/expanding the series' mythology for the comic? Was it a case of filling in the gaps in established lore, or did you have lots of freedom?

Alex: There were guardrails, of course, but the Devolver Digital and Massive Monster guys have given us an extraordinary amount of creative latitude as far as the book's concerned. We're following the plot of the game fairly closely, but all the crunchy character work - the actual motivations and desires of the creatures you see in the game - is down to us. The Lamb gets to speak for themselves in our book. The heretics have their reasons for following the Old Faith.

Troy: It's a real blast for me to be the first to take this expanded narrative of the Lamb and bring them to life on the page. It's not just a walk through of the game, it's so much more. Alex has done an outstanding job - I'm totally invested in the plight of this forsaken creature. Fans of the game are going to revel in this dark tragedy dressed in lambskin.

Cult of the Lamb exists somewhere on the axis of "cute" and "deranged" which is a fun but tricky tone to balance! How do you make sure that you get it right?

Alex: I felt like I had permission to let the cute elements speak for themselves and really cook on my own terms.

Troy: I have a history of drawing iconic and cute characters with The Powerpuff Girls and my time on Rick & Morty have both my feet fully planted in the deranged department. Frankly, I'm pretty well placed to walk the knife's edge and illustrate this book. Well done, casting department! 

How has it been working together on this book?

Alex: Troy is elevating absolutely every panel to stratospheric heights. I had no idea how the imagery was going to translate to the page, and in less capable hands I'm sure it would have felt like a pale imitation of the game. Troy is a master craftsperson, however, so the book is very much its own (beautiful) animal. I'm being utterly sincere when I tell you every panel is a painting, and you can quote me on that. 

Troy: I'm going to quote you on that.

How closely have you been working with Devolver Digital and Massive Monster on the series?

Alex: We've been working very closely with them, but they're not looking over our shoulders. They have final approval over everything, which is as it should be, but they're in no way looking to micromanage us or dictate how the story we want to tell should unfold. It's all been astonishingly friendly and collegiate, and I hope Devolver Digital and Massive Monster are as proud of the book as we are.

Troy: The great thing about the feedback I've got on the art is this: they know what they are looking for and can communicate it clearly. For me, it's made it easy to slip into their headspace and deliver what I hope is on target. It's a bit of a dance in the beginning, but when you finally click and the trust falls in place, it's a wonderful thing.

What are your hopes for this first run of Cult of the Lamb comics?

Alex: First and foremost, I hope the fans of the game see a Lamb and a world they recognize. I hope my Lamb is their Lamb. Secondly, I hope the book enhances fans' enjoyment of the game. With that added context, I think the gameplay will become an even more emotionally rewarding experience. Finally, I hope it does well enough that we get to make more, because I am having the time of my life with these characters and this setting.

Troy: Everything Alex just said. We want to take the game you love and add layers to it, like a companion piece. I'd like to think it's also a strong stand alone story for those who haven't (yet!) played the game. The charm of the style instantly grabs you and the story puts its hooks in deep. Before you know it, you're part of the Cult.

The Cult of the Lamb: The First Verse is published by Oni Press. The pre-order Kickstarter campaign is live now. The campaign runs through April 11. All items included in the campaign will be fulfilled to backers in December 2024.

Check out our list of the best roguelike games to get a peek at the some of the most fun you can have, whether you're on your own or with a friend.

If you've ever wanted to mow down enemies as a pointy-hatted sorcerer, Wizard with a Gun has launched a demo for its wild west-style survival epic.

"The demo is a small but wonderful slice of Galvanic’s survival sandbox for you to explore, craft and battle against the forces of chaos," reads a press release. "It’s up to you to adventure through this world to collect resources, build out your tower and the helpful machinations within, and push back the encroaching chaos."

Announced at this year's Devolver Digital Direct showcase and sporting the most hilariously apt title, Galvanic Games revealed its demo for Wizard with a Gun through a trailer that oozes wild west-tinged charm.

Like all the best survival games, it sees us stranded in dangerous territory and forced to fend for ourselves against all manner of enemies lurking nearby. Whether you're gathering useful materials for crafting or blasting through monsters with a trusty shotgun, Wizard with a Gun puts a refreshing spin on tower defence games by giving us more than one way to stay alive on the harsh plains of The Shatter. With the help of robot buddies, you'll be constructing a base which must be protected from the ravages of various monsters who would threaten your safety. 

According to the press release, Wizard with a Gun's demo takes us to the end of a boss fight after completing The Imperium, the first of many biomes. "The full game will see players opening up more and more of the world with new biomes and even more complex crafting recipes and more imposing enemies," says publisher Devolver Digital. "Additionally, the game will support online cooperative play at launch."

You can play the Wizard with a Gun demo now on PC via Steam, or on PS5 and Xbox Series X consoles, with the full release slated to launch sometime in 2023.

Check out our picks of the best Steam games to play next, from Dota to Death Stranding.

Update - March 30: A new report claims that E3 2023 has indeed been canceled after failing to "garner the sustained interest necessary," no doubt partly as a result of multiple major publishers withdrawing from the show.

Original story follows...

E3 2023 could be canceled altogether amid reports that even more publishers have dropped out, leaving the future of the once hallmark video game showcase in limbo.

A new report from IGN claims both Sega and Tencent have pulled their E3 2023 appearances as rumors swirl about whether the event will happen at all. This comes a day after Ubisoft said it will skip this year's E3 and hold its own show instead.

IGN's report cites PR and publishing sources who say they aren't certain of anyone who is definitely attending E3 2023. These sources note that a lack of communication from both the ESA and organizer ReedPop only compounded their uncertainty about what to expect from the event. One source told IGN before Ubisoft had canceled that "there's no possible way this show can happen."

The report goes on to say there are other publishers which have decided not to attend this year's conference but have yet to make official announcements. Part of the problem, apparently, is that massive disruptions caused by the Covid pandemic have changed the way publishers produce, announce, and release games, and this has made hands-on demos for summer showcases less of a priority. Bandai Namco has only committed to the summer Play Days event, for example, and Devolver Digital is still planning its own Devolver Direct. 

Many publishers have also yet to fully rebuild their events teams and budgets after they were dramatically cut in the wake of the pandemic. Companies are seemingly more comfortable allocating resources for events that aren't in flux, as E3 has been for the last few years.

Of course, we learned back in January that Nintendo, PlayStation, and Xbox would all be no-shows at 2023's E3 showcase. At the time, we were somewhat confident that the event would soldier on without the Big Three, but that's looking less certain by the day.

We've reached out to the ESA and ReedPop for comment and will update this story if we hear back.

E3 or not, here are all of the new games of 2023 we can't wait to play.

The devilishly delightful card game Inscryption is out now on Nintendo Switch.

Inscryption - described by publisher Devolver Digital as "an inky black card-based odyssey that blends the deckbuilding roguelike, escape-room style puzzles, and psychological horror into a blood-laced smoothie" - has been available on PC since last year, and PlayStation since August, but this marks its debut on Nintendo's handheld system.

Not come across it before? Inscryption is officially the first game to win Game of the Year at both the GDC awards and the IGF awards, the accolades coming just weeks after Inscryption passed one million copies sold. 

Securing the Independent Game Festival's Game of the Year puts Inscryption alongside heavy-hitters like Outer Wilds, Night in the Woods, and Minecraft, and it was also a recurring nominee across other categories such as excellence in narrative, excellence in design, and excellence in audio, too.

Likewise, in taking the top prize at GDC, Inscryption sits among juggernauts that include The Last of Us, God of War, and Breath of the Wild.

As Austin summarized for us at the time, "it's easy to see why Inscryption has been so widely praised and recognized". 

"It starts off as a grim and clever card game and quickly evolves into a compelling meta-narrative which uses the fourth wall like a punching bag that it pummels with your reeling brain," Austin said. 

"Without wishing to spoil, it's actually several excellent card games in one, but it's the characters that keep you coming back to its seemingly bottomless well of unraveling stories. And to think it all starts with an army of dead squirrels."

If you're jumping into Mullins' new game and struggling, you can check out our Inscryption clock puzzle solution guide to solve one of the more perplexing puzzles in the game.

Here are our picks of the best card games, best board games, and the best tabletop RPGs right now.

Spooky indie Cult of the Lamb features scientifically accurate detail in which some of the animal protagonists in the game want to eat their own poop - and players are struggling to process it. 

As pointed out by Twitter user and scientist @DrACConway, who retweeted a screenshot of the game, it’s actually scientifically accurate that donkey-looking character Maar wants to "eat a meal of poop."

If you didn’t know, as Dr. Conway explains, "monogastric hindgut fermenting species" such as donkeys, horses, rabbits, and more, regularly engage in the activity of 'coprophagy' aka "eating their own poo nuggets." What this means is that if the animal gets a bit peckish, it’s not actually that weird for them to snack on their own droppings so they can absorb any nutrients they may have missed the first time around.

We’ll end the poop talk here and talk here and instead tell you more about Cult of the Lamb which was finally released into the world last week. Developed by Massive Monster and published by Devolver Digital, Cult of the Lamb is a rogue-like which sees players take on the role of a possessed lamb as they are tasked with starting their own cult. Daily responsibilities include performing dark rituals, giving sermons to your flock, and destroying any non-believers. 

Cult of the Lamb has understandably established its own cult following already with the developer putting out a wholesome tweet thanking fans just yesterday. "The support you've given us has been unbelievable!", the tweet read. Fans of the game, and the scientific fact featured above, have also expressed their love via some fan-art shared to the Cult of the Lamb subreddit. Peek at your own risk.

Want to know what other hidden gems you should keep an eye out for? Take a look at our new indie games list. 

Trek to Yomi just got a brand new trailer with a Spring 2022 release window.

Earlier today on March 9, Devolver Digital debuted a new trailer for the samurai action epic Trek to Yomi at a PlayStation State of Play showcase. The trailer, which you can see for yourself just below, sets out the story of the new game developed by Flying Wild Hog, and crucially reveals the new release window of Spring 2020, meaning there shouldn't be long to wait until we can play this for ourselves.

Chiefly, we get a good look at the set up of the story for Trek to Yomi. It appears our protagonist is sidelined and drawn away from their home village, during which a ruthless leader attacks and slaughters citizens while they're gone. This leads our hero on a journey of revenge, which means cutting through swarms of bandits and other enemies in the process.

Trek to Yomi was first announced nearly a year ago. Back in June 2021, publisher Devolver Digital revealed the side-scrolling action game for launch on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox consoles alike. So don't worry, although the new Trek to Yomi trailer showed up at a PlayStation-hosted event, it's actually coming to PC and Xbox consoles as well.

Elsewhere in the new showcase, we saw two brand new action-RPGs from Square Enix (neither of which were Final Fantasy 16, unfortunately), and a new dinosaur-shooting IP from Capcom. We know that sounds a suspicious amount like Dino Crisis, but Capcom is letting the old series lie dormant, bringing us a brand new action-packed shooter instead.

Check out our upcoming PS5 games guide for a full look at all the other titles coming to Sony's new-gen console.

It looks like a new Serious Sam game is coming this month, and its first teaser is very cool. Freezing, even.

Publisher Devolver Digital put out a teaser trailer for the new Serious Sam game on its Twitter account, innocently asking "what if" it revealed the game next week and put it out some time in January. The trailer itself shows series protagonist Sam "Serious" Stone arriving on an icy shoreline in a small boat, complaining about the weather - but also noting that nothing warms him up like kicking ass.

We can't glean too much from the teaser, aside from the fact that Sam's headed somewhere cold and plans to kick ass when he gets there, and the latter point should be a given by now. Serious Sam 3: BFE was a prequel to the original game, and Serious Sam 4 was a prequel to that, so there's a good chance we'll be headed even further back into Sam's origins as the musclebound, gun-toting savior of humanity.

Ultimately, the next Serious Sam game's place in the overarching storyline will probably not be the most important thing - shooting countless aliens as they nigh-endlessly swarm toward you will likely be the primary matter at hand. In any case, it sounds like we won't have to wait very long to find out more.

Find even more games that are on the way soon in our lineup of new games 2022, as well as the GR+ team's personal picks for the games we're looking forward to playing in 2022.

Flying Wild Hog's Shadow Warrior 3 has been delayed out of 2021 and into an unspecified point in 2022.

The news broke yesterday on October 26 from publisher Devolver Digital, who announced the delay to Shadow Warrior 3 through the small trailer seen just below. While Flying Wild Hog's sequel was always penciled in to launch at some point in 2021, it never actually locked down a specific release date, so perhaps the announcement of a delay into next year shouldn't come as too much of a surprise.

If you're unfamiliar with Shadow Warrior 3, it's basically taking the hyper-violent and rapid gunplay of the 2016 Doom reboot and turning it up to 11. We've seen a slew of increasingly chaotic trailers for Flying Wild Hog's sequel at this point, all of which show protagonist Lo Wang zipping around a battlefield with various over-the-top weaponry, slicing and dicing demonic foes as he goes.

It's just not guns that Lo Wang's bringing to the fight in Shadow Warrior 3, because precision strikes with a katana are vital to survival. There's also gloriously gory finishing moves to pull off in the sequel on a stunned enemy, a teaser of which you can see in the release date delay trailer just above, when Wang rips off a demon's arm and prepares to beat them to death with it.

Shadow Warrior 3 might've just been delayed to 2022, but it's still nonetheless something to be excited about on the horizon for next year. When it does eventually launch, Flying Wild Hog's sequel will be available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One, as well as PS5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S through backwards compatibility.

For a full look at all the other games arriving throughout the rest of this year and beyond, head over to our new games 2021 guide for more.

Death's Door developer Acid Nerve has revealed new information to GamesRadar+ about their original pitch for the action game.

Just below, you can see the original Death's Door pitch video, which developer Acid Nerve showed to publisher Devolver Digital three years ago. Devolver repromoted the pitch video earlier today on August 19, showing off how far the game had come ever since the publisher first saw it in the very early stages of development at the Manchester-based studio in the UK.

"I think the pitch was mainly to say 'Look, we can make 3D action feel good in the same way that our pixel art games have,'" Death's Door sound designer and composer David Fenn explained in an email to GamesRadar+. "We also had a full gameplay demo that was around 10 minutes long, and established a lot of the core mood and feeling of journeying through the world that persists in the final game," the developer continued.

The extended video was the culmination of everything Acid Nerve had produced for Death's Door over three months, Fenn explained. This video takes the player through the introductory Graveyard area "with a touch of atmosphere-building and exploration, a few battles with a couple of different enemy types in a Crypt interior," Fenn revealed.

Acid Nerve knew they wanted to show this pitch to Devolver straight away. Fenn explains that the studio wanted to work with the publisher again after collaborating on Titan Souls in 2015, and were deliberately seeking to developer a "bigger and more ambitious 3D game." The developer would get their wish, and Death's Door would be published by Devolver earlier this year in 2021.

If you haven't tried out Acid Nerve's game, we'd highly recommend it. Death's Door is available right now on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S, and brilliantly blends hectic and energetic combat with a sombre, moving storyline of life and death.

Alternatively, if you're looking ahead to the remainder of the year, head over to our full new games 2021 guide for more.

Wizard with a Gun was just announced during Devolver Digitial's E3 presentation.

Coming from Galvanic Games, Wizard with a Gun is a simple-yet-aptly-named title. It's described as a multiplayer survival sandbox adventure, which translates to looking something like Don't Starve, but with some alchemy and Western movie DNA mixed in.  

The game is set to land at an unspecified date in 2022 for PC and Nintendo Switch. 

The trailer for the game sets a really unique tone, with a cutesy yet threatening aura. It's full of standoffs and the dry desperate climate of the west, just with a lot more magic and area of effect bullets. It's a really striking style and really helps differentiate the game. 

Galvanic Games is known best for its previous work, Gurgamoth, Some Distant Memory and the Cyanide & Happiness game, Rapture Rejects. Each game plays wildly different but each has a very distinct visual style that the developer seems to be bringing to their new game. 

Wizard with a Gun's Steam page describes the game as: "An online cooperative sandbox survival game set in a magical wilderness wrought with dangerous creatures and arcane mysteries. Embark on a journey alone or with friends to collect, craft, and outfit your wizard however you see fit as you explore the unknown."

It's said to have a pretty extensive set of features that all seemed to be designed to let you express your magical creativity. By collecting resources from the wild west, you'll be able to craft certain kinds of magical ammunition that will all interact with the world in a variety of ways.

This world will also offer something new every time you play as it will feature a ton of randomly-generated spaces for you to explore. Deserts, swamps, tundra, and prairie are all listed as possible biomes, so there will be a lot to get lost in. 

There will also be an element of experimentation, which will allow you try spell combinations that will give you powerful abilities and affect enemies in different ways. It seems it might be time to dabble in some alchemy. This looks like it could be a really neat little indie title, especially if you're playing with friends.

If E3 has you giddy with excitment about the future of games, check out our list of new games 2021.

Death's Door, a quirky indie from Devolver Digital, will be getting a release date this weekend. 

Devolver Digital announced that it is publishing Death's Door and is slated to release this year. A more precise release date is being revealed this weekend during the Devolver Digital showcase at E3 2021. The game from developer Acid Nerve lets players control a crow that reaps souls for a living. That is until a soul the crow is assigned to get stolen and the hunt for the thief begins.

The trailer shows off stylistic and gloomy-looking cutscenes before moving to the isometric and action-packed gameplay. From the looks of it, there will be a lot of giant beasts and demi-gods to defeat and colorful characters to meet as you can see in the character montage on the main website. As players go deeper into the story, they'll uncover a dark narrative and secrets.

Death's Door will allow players to make use of melee weapons, arrows, and magic. The gameplay shown highlights some of these attacks with some of them looking devastating. It's also odd to see a crow wielding a sword as well. It's detailed that "mistakes are punished and victory is rewarded" and that there are character stats and abilities to upgrade as your progress. Death's Door is to launch on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S. It'll also be optimized for Xbox Series X with 4K Ultra HD and 60fps being supported.

Devolver Digital's showcase this weekend doesn't have any further confirmations as to what to expect to be revealed. However, in its E3 announcement, viewers think they've spotted "Hotline Miami 3" on an out-of-focus whiteboard which if true, could mean a new iteration in the bloody and violent series. Fall Guys is also on the way to Xbox and Nintendo Switch so we'll probably see something about that as well as a new season. 

We'll also probably see something more from the reverse city-building title Terra Nil. The showcase will be taking place on the same day as the Guerrilla Collective, Ubisoft Forward, and Gearbox Entertainment showcases.

Be sure to have a look at what other upcoming Xbox Series X games are on the way this year.

Devolver Digital E3 press conference is set to return later this month and is teasing the return of a fan-favorite franchise in the form of Hotline Miami 3. 

It seems that the indie publisher has now set its flag, joining the likes of Microsoft and Nintendo who have already outlined their conference plans. In a tweet, Devolver Digital said: “The future begins again on June 12.” The image appears to feature Mahria Zook, who has presented the show in previous years.

For eagle-eyed readers or just those who can read blurry text, you might see a tease at one of the brand’s biggest franchises hidden in the picture that accompanied the tweet. 

In the top left corner, it looks like the red writing might say 'Hotline Miami' 3 followed by another harder-to-read line. 

Now, it’s hard to say exactly what this might mean. It could of course be a straight tease of an imminent announcement at the conference. That being said Devolver Digital could also just be trolling expectant gamers who are desperate for a new entry in the franchise. That certainly would be within their humor. Or maybe it’s a double bluff. It’s impossible to say what the significance of this tease is until we finally see the press conference. 

While it’s not known what games the publisher plans to bring, they do have an impressive string of franchises to pull from including Shadow Warrior, Absolver, Reigns, Exit the Gungeon, and a whole load more. 

Devolver always brings chaotic energy to the E3 press conference proceedings and are a welcome shift of tone compared to other straight-laced media briefings. Last year, the publisher even brought a playable version of E3 with its ‘marketing simulator’ Devolverland which allowed players to explore an abandoned convention centre and check out upcoming games.

Whether Hotline Miami 3 does make an appearance or not, the publisher has an incredible knack of finding distinct titles with a lot of attitude and flair that always makes checking out what they are bringing to the table worth it.

Are you a fan of indie games? Why not check out our list for the most exciting upcoming indie projects?

Harpoons don’t get nearly enough love in video games. While everything from Fortnite to Sea Of Thieves deploy them as functional fishing tools, what’s the point of wielding an eight foot harpoon if you can’t even use it to skewer your AI enemies? Thankfully, it seems Kyoto based one man dev Thomas Ollson shares our grievances. 

In Devolver Digital’s Olija, our pointy prayers have at last been answered – because in this retro-inspired sidescroller, the almighty harpoon finally takes centre stage. 

Home’s where the harpoon is

It’s hard to overstate the harpoon’s importance to Olija, really. Thrust into the hands of our shipwrecked protagonist, Lord Faraday, this once ancient fishing implement becomes not only a suitably badass killing tool but more importantly - a crucial method of transportation. Using a tap of ‘A’ Faraday launches his harpoon across Olija’s eerie environments, with a second press of ‘A’ sending him instantly hurtling through the air after it. It’s a brilliantly satisfying mechanic, allowing the player to speedily skewer themselves into enemies, discover new horizons, and if you’re anything like us – send poor old Faraday flying to his death. Sorry mate.

Much like the alluring off-screen environments in the NES Zelda outings, hurtling fearlessly upwards into the unknown can often land a frowning Faraday in a previously unseen part of the map –rewarding him with a trove of tantalizing treasures. It’s a swift almost Nightcrawler-esque mechanic and one that transforms the genre’s usual sluggish traversal into lightning-fast leaps across levels.

The pursuit of harpooniness

Still, you need a reason to be zipping around holding a harpoon ( or so we’re told), and thankfully, the world Faraday inhabits is as thrilling as his hedonistic harpoon haulage. Upon our protagonist’s aforementioned prologue plummet into the depths of the ocean, the battered settler Lord Faraday suddenly finds his countrymen dead – and himself alone in a strange, unforgiving land. As he attempts to find his way back home, our hero must discover the mysteries that await him in this sinister new land–  one pixelized plane at a time.

It’s a setup that sees players discovering this grimdark new world, as they make their way across everything from abandoned temples to fiend-infested forests. Faraday’s new home is a brutal one, with hair-raising sound design and detailed animations bringing the horrors of this gloomy land to life with some intriguing elements of lore littered throughout Olija. Stop us if you’ve heard this all before.

Float like a butterfly, sting like a harpoon

Thankfully, this isn’t the same oldVania. What separates Devolver Digital’s latest from the countless other brooding 2D sidescrollers flooding digital storefronts is Olija’s hugely satisfying combat. Where Metroidvania and spooky settings are, of course, familiar bedfellows, unlike its peers, there is a real weight to combat here. Where many in the genre ape the sluggish and sadistic Dark Souls, Olija delights in giving the player a more snappy and powerful-feeling protagonist. Even in the early game where you’re severely lacking in character upgrades, refreshingly, Faraday is no pushover. Where a single hit in many sidescrollers sees players limply crumpling to their deaths, Olija instead relishes in making you feel like a badass. In fact, for much of its playtime, Olija shares more in common with a Platinum Games-esque power fantasy than say, Hollow Knight.

Thanks to the game’s altogether more reasonable difficulty, Olija becomes more about getting into a swashbuckling sense of flow than an endless cycle of frustration – resulting in a much shorter adventure than most of its peers. Yet thanks to its genuinely eerie atmosphere, satisfying harpoon mechanics and intriguing world, Olija’s sea-faring voyage is one that’s more than worth taking.

Olija is out now on Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4 and Xbox One.

The Xbox Game Pass Instagram account recently said that Fall Guys is coming to the service, but the game's publisher, Devolver Digital, quickly shut down this claim on Twitter.

Responding to one follower's reply, the Game Pass account simply said "it's coming" with regards to Fall Guys on Game Pass. The Verge reporter Tom Warren shared this exchange on Twitter and Devolver quickly responded to it, simply saying that "that's incorrect." In another reply, the publisher clarified that Fall Guys is not planned for the PC or Xbox version of Game Pass. 

The official Fall Guys Twitter also joined the conversation, so there's clearly no confusion between developer Mediatonic and Devolver. In a separate tweet, the Fall Guys account explained that "there has been a bit of a mixup – Fall Guys is not coming to Xbox Game Pass." Xbox has seemingly deleted its original Instagram reply, but the Xbox Game Pass Twitter has not issued any sort of update. 

Communication breakdowns aside, while Fall Guys isn't coming to Xbox Game Pass, it's technically still possible that the game show battle royale is coming to Xbox itself based on the targeted wording of Devolver and Mediatonic's tweets. We don't have any official word on this, but after a runaway launch on PlayStation and Steam, it wouldn't be strange for Fall Guys to expand to a new platform. That said, it would be strange for the Game Pass Instagram to mention a general Xbox release. We've reached out to Devolver and Mediatonic representatives for more information and will update our reporting if we hear back. 

Fall Guys players can get five free crowns by filling out this survey. 

There's a brand new horror game on PS4 and Xbox One: the once PC-exclusive Stories Untold. First launched on PC in 2017, Stories Untold went mobile with a Switch release in January. Now you can get it for about $10 on PS4 or Xbox One, and it comes with a remastered version of the first episode.

Just in time for Halloween, the '80s-themed "narrative-driven experimental adventure game" is a mash-up of different genres separated into four distinct episodes. The House Abandon is a text-based experience where you select from a list of prompts to investigate strange occurrences at the protagonist's family's holiday home. You can see some of The House Abandon playing out in the trailer up top.

The Lab Conduct tasks you with performing various experiments on a mysterious artifact, The Station Process is a puzzler where you use a radio and microfilm reader to decipher codes for radio frequencies, and The Last Session ties together the events of each episode into one cohesive, and rather unexpected, story. When the game hit Switch earlier in the year, GamesRadar's Connor Sheridan noted how "it goes to some odd and memorable places (both literally and metaphorically)."

As expected, the PS4 and Xbox One ports of Stories Untold features the same updated interface as the Switch version, which (thank god) means you don't have to deal with some clunky on-screen keyboard.

Believe it or not, 2020 is on its way out the door already, but these are the best upcoming games still to come later in the year.

Devolver Digital has released Game of Thrones: Tale of Crows, a new idle game for iOS and Apple Arcade that sees you take control of various Lords Commander of the Night's Watch

Being part of the shield that guards the realms of men, your job is to fortify the Wall with supplies and coordinate excursions into the wild and dangerous North. The in-game clock moves in real-time and doesn't stop when you close the app, meaning expeditions you order will continue while you're offline. You can turn on notifications that alert you when something happens, or wait to find out when you open the game again.

"In the shadow of the Wall, your watch begins. Eight thousand years before Jon Snow took the Black, the Night’s Watch was formed to secure the Wall and defend the border of Westeros against the perils of the North, and all that lies beyond. Into these untamed wilds, sworn brothers and their allies set out on rangings to face the dangers that would threaten the realm. But the Wall is a blade that cuts both ways," reads the description from the press release.

It actually looks surprisingly chill for a Game of Thrones mobile game. The trailer opens with an intimate conversation inside what's probably a super cozy tavern. Ale in-hand, your tablemate begins to tell the story of the Night's Watch. And even though season 8 divided fans, George RR Martin's world is so incredibly rich with history that I'm more than obliged to sit down for an interactive lesson.

Developed by That Silly Studio, Game of Thrones: Tale of Crows is out now on Apple Arcade and iOS mobile devices. A release on Android has yet to be announced.

Be the Lord Commander to make Jon Snow proud with the best phones for gaming in 2020.

Indie specialist Devolver Digital is holding a Steam publisher weekend sale from now until Monday, April 20, and it's chock-full of great games and low prices. We've picked out some of the best games and deals below, and you can view the full selection here.

•  My Friend Pedro - $11.99 (was $19.99). Basically a slow-mo acrobatic murder sim.  
•  Katana Zero - $10.04 (was $14.99). Time-bending 2D cyber samurai action.  
•  Enter & Exit the Gungeon - $15.73 (was $24.98). Enter the Gungeon via isometric roguelike, then Exit the Gungeon via 2D roguelike.  
•  Ape Out - $6.74 (was $14.99). Go ham on some guards to the tune of a dynamic jazz soundtrack. 
•  The Messenger - $9.99 (was $19.99). Jump between dimensions as a bona fide ninja in this stellar 2D platformer.  
•  The Talos Principle - $5.99 (was $39.99). Solve puzzles and maybe find yourself in the process. 
•  Hotline Miami - $2.49 (was $9.99). Kill everything in sight using anything in sight in this top-down fever dream of a game.  
•  Downwell - $1.49 (was $2.99). It's like a shoot-'em-up roguelike, but with rocket boots, and in reverse.  
•  Titan Souls - $3.74 (14.99). Kill increasingly difficult bosses using a bow and just one arrow.   

Speaking of The Messenger: its developer, Sabotage Studios, is now working on Sea of Stars, a turn-based RPG which serves as a prequel story. Its Kickstarter campaign just ended, and it raised, oh, $1 million and change. So yeah, it looks great. 

Here are the best Switch indie games you can play right now. 

You don't realize just how important music is to Seattle until you spend some time up there. Just like Motown in Detroit, or Bluegrass in Appalachia, the Pacific Northwest has defined its own sound: raw and abrasive music full of energy and soul. Maybe it has to do with the weather - something about the gray skies and constant downpour that inspires musicians like Jimi Hendrix to burn their guitars on-stage for warmth. Whatever it is, there's an energy that runs through the streets, and much of that is, of course, indebted to legendary independent record label Sub Pop.

Founded in 1986, Sub Pop sought to cultivate and define the "Seattle Sound" and bring it to the rest of the world. You may know it as grunge music, as the label was responsible for popularizing bands like Mudhoney, Soundgarden, and the inimitable Nirvana. Since the '90s, the label has moved on to embracing a larger, more eclectic set of acts, publishing groups like the New Zealand-based comedy folk duo Flight of the Conchords, or even Ben Gibbard's electropop side-project, The Postal Service. But even as Sub Pop expanded, its style still had a unique flair. You know you're getting something unlike anything else when you pick up a Sub Pop record.

Games don't really have that sense of regionality, at least not in the way music does - there's no great burgeoning puzzle-platformer scene in the American Southwest, for instance. Development studios are found all over the world, and thanks to the internet, creators can collaborate across vast distances and share their work in ways that were unheard of just a few years ago. This can be a huge boon for independent devs, but it also means that it's harder than ever to stand out and be noticed if you don't have any backing.

Conversely, things have gotten progressively safer in the big-budget space. Publishers hedge their bets on sure-things, opting for guaranteed-to-sell sequels, rebooted critical darlings optimized for maximum nostalgic impact, or new properties that get focus tested to mitigate all risk. As fascinating as gaming can be, the industry can be surprisingly predictable, and it's hard to be really excited for new stuff when it all starts to look the same. Games like Mortal Kombat and Grand Theft Auto were originally made to piss off our parents - now, they're storied franchises with carefully calculated 'brand management'.

So how do you find the really exciting stuff, the stuff built on passion and blood and tears without having to sift through a wasteland of options? You need someone who can look at all these games, pick the real choice ones, and shove them in as many faces as possible. You need someone to say: "You wanna play the cool shit? You wanna see where the future of gaming is headed? Take this home and crank it up to 11."

This is where Devolver Devolver comes in - the closest thing to an indie record label our industry has.

Devolver's only been around for six years, but it's already made a name for itself as the place to find games that have passion and heart, that aren't afraid to take a gamble on an interesting concept. Games that maybe aren't guaranteed market successes. Games that are edgy without having that word lose all meaning after marketing demographic meetings. Games that no one else is making. And what Sub Pop did for music, Devolver is doing the same for gaming: becoming a one-stop-shop for some of the most exciting, gut-wrenching, and downright interesting titles you can play right now.

Despite its humble beginnings as the publisher for Croteam's run-backwards-and-shoot-stuff-simulator Serious Sam 3: BFE, it was Hotline Miami that became the small publisher's breakout hit - the "Nirvana" moment that put it on the map. Its neon-tinged, chunky pixel art made it look like a forgotten relic from the past; an NES cart long-since banned by government censors, stumbled upon by some lucky archivist and unleashed on an unsuspecting public decades later. Even though it seems graphically and aurally rooted in nostalgia, Hotline Miami is unlike anything we'd ever seen before - a hyper-violent feast for the senses.

A Devolver game can be many things. It can be a blood-soaked rampage of carnage like Shadow Warrior. It can be love-letter to arcade games of yesteryear like the World War 2-themed Luftrausers. It can be a kooky/heart-breaking pigeon dating sim like Hatoful Boyfriend. It can even be a contemplative philosophical puzzler like The Talos Principle (which comes from the same developer that created the aforementioned ludicrous-gib-laden Serious Sam). Despite coming from completely different countries, genres, and art styles, each game has some unique, indefinable quality that makes them distinctly Devolver.

"It's certainly not a science but Devolver Digital is looking for games that are doing something new and are taking a risk in some form or fashion to set itself apart," says Devolver co-founder Nigel Lowrie. "This doesn't mean it has to be revolutionary but the game needs to have an element or mechanic or some edge that strikes us in some indescribable way." And that doesn't necessarily mean a game has to be perfect to be worth publishing.

Games like Always Sometimes Monsters or Gods Will Be Watching are flawed, but they wear their flaws on their sleeves as a badge of honor; a little piece of humanity to shine through some rigidly defined lines of code. Always Sometimes Monsters forces you to experience homelessness first-hand - to have to decide whether your own sense of morality is in line with actually surviving a night alone on the streets. Gods Will Be Watching puts you through a series of increasingly more harrowing trials, where one false step - or a poor roll of the dice - can send you right back to the start of the level. They're not perfect games by any means, but they're deliberately designed this way, and they're confident in the way that they aim to express their themes. They prove that games don't have to be "fun" to be enjoyable, that games can express a wide range of emotions and elements of the human condition that aren't just about amassing a high score.

Some would decry this rawness of expression, this "punk rock" approach to game design as an excuse to make bad games, but Devolver would disagree. Much like how Sub Pop recorded its musicians in a deliberate way to cultivate a similar sound, so too does Devolver seek out games that make deliberate design choices and have the confidence to stick to them. "With our games," Nigel explains, "it's not a lo-fi art style or simple mechanic that defines the game or what it's capable of doing as a complete work. Often those elements are by choice and not necessity as some might assume. [Developer] Acid Nerve could have layered Titan Souls with a progression system, character upgrades, and NPCs but we've all played that game before and that's not the point of Titan Souls. We're looking for games striving to be unique and a developer with a commitment to see that through."

Whether these games start out as traditional pitches - complete with demos and design documents - or as the result of an experimental game jam, there's a certain humanity found in all of the games Devolver publishes, and it's the thread that connects each of these seemingly disparate titles under one banner. With the recent release of Hotline Miami 2 and Titan Souls, and upcoming games like the manic Not a Hero or comedic point-and-click Dropsy, Devolver continues to prove that there's a place for an indie game publisher in an industry where creation and self-publication is becoming easier than ever - but where standing out is just as hard as it ever was.

With so many different games all fighting for our attention, publishers need to define and cultivate a unique voice more than ever. It's not only to attract attention over the wealth of choices; that voice draws fans in who are looking for something different, but may not know exactly what they're looking for. Sub Pop was able to do this with music by harnessing that "Seattle Sound." If there's one publisher in gaming that can capture the spontaneity and primal human spirit of Sub Pop and transfer it to the rigidly defined world of a computer screen, it's Devolver Digital.

Well, Hotline Miami didn't quite make its spring release window (happy summer, northern hemisphere-ers!) for PlayStation 3 and PS Vita, but we can't stay mad at it. Publisher Devolver Digital announced on the PlayStation Blog today that the hyper-violent top-down twitchy shooter will hit Sony's platforms on June 25.

Hotline Miami will cost $10, the same as its price on PC, and is a cross-buy title--meaning if you buy it on PS3, you also get it for Vita, and vice versa. Both versions come with trophies and leaderboards, and Vita players can even enable touch-based lock-on targeting if they so desire.

Finally, PS3 and Vita players can unlock an exclusive new mask: Russell, the raging bull. Russell doesn't add alter the gameplay, but he does give Hotline Miami's distorted visual filter a stark monochromatic motif (aside from the blood, of course).

Check out the upcoming Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number for more glitzy, gorey goodness.

The latest update for Serious Sam: BFE includes a Christmas bonus for players: a free Santa skin to turn multiplayer matches into a re-enactment of Silent Night, Deadly Night. The skin will appear in your menu as soon as you update the game – and once lobbies start filling up with sackfuls of Santas (Santae? Santi?), it'll be a very confusing and violent Christmas indeed. Which is likely exactly what developer Croteam had in mind...

Above: We're hoping for a Futurama Santa skin, too

It's fitting that Serious Sam should show up with one of the year's first notable Christmas bonuses: after all, this is a game that thrives on its 'old-skool' credibility, and wacky seasonal add-ons were par for the course in the days Sam seeks to recreate. Bonus points for waiting until well after Thanksgiving, not to mention Sam's conspicuous reluctance to step into the role of Kris Kringle. If your local Mall Santa was packing a sidearm larger than most young children, you probably wouldn't suggest he remove his sunglasses either.