Given that 2025 has been such a ludicrously wonderful year for RPGs, I'm going to give you a pass if Warhammer 40K: Dark Heresy's reveal back in May slipped under the radar. But that's the only pass you're getting, because I'm telling you about it now – and if you're still not paying attention, well buddy, that's on you. Put it this way: I've got 242 hours in Baldur's Gate 3 and another 114 in Rogue Trader, and if Dark Heresy is half as good as it already seems, it's on track to blow right past those playtimes.

Having seen an hour of Owlcat Games' return to the Imperium at Gamescom, I feel obligated to shout about it from the rooftops. A follow-up to the criminally underrated Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader, Dark Heresy tasks players with investigating – wait for it – heresy across the universe, all in the name of protecting humanity. It's a staggeringly ambitious undertaking, with additions including in-combat morale and open-ended investigations that never tell you if you're right.

The Hive City

My hands-off demo takes place roughly 15 hours into Dark Heresy, within the squalid depths of a lower Hive City – picture slums built on top of more slums, each layer worse than the last. Anatoly Shestov, executive producer at Owlcat, is controlling our Inquisitor to investigate a string of missing persons. Shestov warns me that Dark Heresy isn't about saving people – your job, if anything, is bureaucratic – and there's "no such thing as a 'good' path".

It's a key difference from Rogue Trader. Rather than playing as someone chartered to essentially do what they want, Dark Heresy's Inquisitor has a job to do. How you do that is up to you – Shestov says you can go full "Schwarzenegger" if you prefer to shoot first and ask questions later – but for this demo, we mostly get to grips with good old-fashioned detective work.

Meeting a higher-ranking Inquisitor from the Ordo Xenos, we're given access to an abandoned archeological dig where a number of workers have gone missing. These types of investigation are fairly common – Owlcat is keen to make players feel like genuine investigators, which means you'll need to pull the scene apart to build your case. Certain points of interest in the crime scene allow you to select a hypothesis on what happened – were these supplies dragged away by wildlife, for example, or bandits? – and reconstruct your chosen event via hologram.

Other evidence can be missed entirely, as Shestov points out that you could loot a crucial note without even realizing, if you don't pay attention. Even beyond this specific investigation, other side quests can provide crucial evidence for separate cases.

For these abductions, though, we have enough to form a hypothesis: something Chaos-shaped is involved. Setting up holograms, we reconstruct a rough timeline of events – picking a theory for each hologram – and present our findings to the Ordo Xenos Inquisitor. Interestingly, Dark Heresy will never say if you're right or not – though there will still be consequences for your choices. I point out the similarities to Pentiment, in which Obsidian similarly kept tight-lipped about whether you caught the correct killers, and Shestov lights up, nodding.

Unlike Andreas Maler, who was perhaps an Inquisitor in spirit but limited by 16th century technology, we'll have significant resources to solve cases. For example, find traces of psionic activity, and you can send it off for a psyker specialist to study. And because we're a cog in one of the Imperium's most feared agencies, whatever we say goes: very few people are going to stand up to an Inquisitor, let alone cast doubt on them, which means the line between fact and fiction is near non-existent if you don't pay attention.

Measuring morale

Combat is a little more straightforward. After wrapping things up with Ordo Xenos, we walk further into the hive city and stumble upon a gang safehouse where hostages are being kept. There are multiple ways to handle it, but Shestov leaves our approach up to me. I decide to negotiate sending one of our party – a shotgun-toting medic – inside under the guise of ensuring the hostages' are still alive, only to go guns-blazing once they've slipped past the room.

With our medic inside and the rest of the party fighting the criminals head-on, it's a ropey fight. The addition of destructible cover means combat is far more dynamic than in Rogue Trader, while improved targeting means you can aim for specific parts of your foe: we shoot one thug in the hand to make them drop their gun, and later gun for their leader's legs to keep them trapped in the middle of the shootout.

While Rogue Trader would chart combat with a momentum bar, allowing for powerful abilities depending on how confident or desperate the party is, Dark Heresy introduces morale. Each character has their own morale bar, rather than the shared momentum, but the real kicker? If one side's morale falters, the fight is over. I get to see that first-hand during the tail-end of our brutal shootout, in which, after bombarding the hive city gang with larger-than-god miniguns and psychic fire, the criminals begin to rout – acting strangely and making increasingly risky plays as their morale falters, and finally giving up when it breaks entirely, bringing the encounter to a halt.

Morale is brilliant for two reasons. At a mechanical layer, it's a smart way to avoid making players go through the motions to wrap up a fight that was decided five turns ago (no more hunting down lone baddies halfway across the map). But with the game's heavy focus on making you feel – hell, even work – like an Inquisitor, it feels deliciously immersive to see enemies wholesale give up instead of fight you.

Zooming out, Shestov says that the context of combat will be a little different to Rogue Trader, which had a tendency to pad itself out with less-meaningful fights – particularly later on in the game. There's less fighting in Dark Heresy (though still lots), and Shestov explains that it's to chase quality over quantity. Each of these battles will supposedly have a unique narrative premise, he adds, doubling down when I ask if he means every battle. "Every. Fucking. Fight. In. The. Game."

It's just one facet of Owlcat's ambition, which shines throughout the demo. A scattershot of improvements upon Rogue Trader include fully voice-acted lines and improved visuals to allow for more detailed environments. If that last point doesn't sound too thrilling, perhaps I'm underselling it: Dark Heresy is such a technical upgrade that Owlcat couldn't reuse Rogue Trader's assets if it wanted to. The jump not only represents a major leap between the two games, but significant investment from Owlcat – Shestov explains that Dark Heresy was being discussed before Rogue Trader was even revealed.

Coming into Dark Heresy, I assumed it would be a natural continuation from Rogue Trader. It was announced less than two years since its predecessor launched, a turnaround that's practically unheard of in today's development landscape. In truth, the preview reveals a level of ambition that even existing Owlcat fans will be staggered by – and after years of wondering when the studio will find its Baldur's Gate 3-esque mainstream success, Dark Heresy already feels seismic.

2 years after seeing an Owlbear crush a cultist in Baldur's Gate 3, I'm ditching my usual spellcasting builds to embrace the Wild Shape lifestyle in my first multiplayer campaign.

Even six years out from its launch, there are few AAA RPGs as tightly-crafted and – as our The Outer Worlds review put it – "contained" as 2019's The Outer Worlds. Across its 25-30 hour runtime, Obsidian Entertainment landed with a story to tell, delivered it with the dry wit we've long come to expect from the studio, and hopped back in its rocket before overstaying its welcome. The Outer Worlds 2, then, is Obsidian coming back for a far longer round two.

Set to be a significantly expanded sequel with far more emphasis on optional exploration and quests, game director Brandon Adler tells me the "core" story of The Outer Worlds 2 represents "maybe 10-15%" of the game's whole. It's in direct response to fans who wished the first game was longer – yet it also marks a return to the deeper RPG systems that Obsidian is known for.

It's not like Obsidian didn't want to do this from the get-go. As work on the sequel began, Adler recalls the first game's directors, Fallout co-creators Leonard Boyarsky and Tim Cain, telling him of the "deeper RPG" systems and areas for improvement they would have chased if time and money had permitted.

"Now that we've had more time and more money from Microsoft to be able to expand that stuff out, we're able to put that together for everybody," explains Adler. "It's really what we wanted in the first place, right? So it's just realizing that dream from the beginning – and I feel The Outer Worlds 2 has actually done that. It's gotten to where we want it to be, in terms of that crunchy RPG."

Re-roll

Now, though, the landscape for RPGs has changed. The success of Baldur's Gate 3, and to a lesser extent games like Dragon's Dogma 2 and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, show that there is still plenty of demand for intricate, often narrative-heavy RPGs. It's a return to the genre's more old-school sensibilities that Leonard Boyarsky, creative director for The Outer Worlds 2 and a veteran developer who has worked on the likes of Fallout and Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, has noticed.

"In the first game, one of our tag lines was 'an RPG with RPG elements' because, for a very long time and even when we were pitching the original Outer Worlds to different publishers, you'd think that was a no-brainer, right? Obsidian making a new RPG – it's like, come on! You know people would be interested in that," says Boyarsky. "And as they're making all these games with [air quotes] 'RPG Elements' and way more role-playing, there was still a kind of trepidation. Now, with things like Baldur's Gate 3 and Outer Worlds having come out, I think people are a lot more open to it again. It feels like we had to prove ourselves all over again, to a certain degree."

"I love seeing it," adds Adler. "But again, Baldur's Gate 3? Seeing its success gives us heart that people really, actually want these kinds of games and we're on the right track. It's good to bring that stuff to the forefront again."

During my own time with The Outer Worlds 2 hands-on, a few of those priorities are immediately obvious. Numerous dialog trees are influenced by the traits and background I chose for my character (which was Rouseabout, slacker-turned-interstellar-agent). During one conversation with a guard, I used my Sickly trait to call out one guard for being so nervous that he looked on the precipice of throwing up, followed by Rouseabout to connect with him on a human level – no, I don't know what I'm doing either, but it'll be fine!

Even the dialogue by itself is sharp, witty, and incredibly funny. I self-consciously giggled frequently during the hands-on, from the lunar-faced mascot who can't help but air his woes – "I used to be somebody" – during the introduction to having no clue what an important-looking equation meant because I didn't take the Professor background. The original game's anti-corporate messaging and satirical bite is still here, too – and arguably takes an even stronger stance, which is interesting, given Obsidian Entertainment is now a part of Microsoft. Do the pair ever become keenly aware that they're making fun of their bosses?

"The Outer Worlds was originally conceived before we were purchased by Microsoft, but it would be ridiculous to say that we don't notice that – like, we obviously do," says Adler. "We think it's funny, and we play into it. Sometimes you even see it in our trailers and things like that, we poke fun at that. We get a little wink and nod. So we realize that whole situation, but you know, we still have a message that we're trying to tell - regardless of who's funding it, we're still trying to tell that."

"The people we work with really love the game, so yeah, no dictates or anything like that," adds Boyarsky.

Going deeper

The Outer Worlds 2 isn't the only RPG Obsidian has launched this year. Back in February, the studio released Avowed – a slick, combat-heavy action-RPG which brought the genre's more modern leanings and streamlining to the fore. Yet the two games appear to be going in entirely different directions, as Boyarsky points out that The Outer Worlds 2's team "wanted to go a little bit in the other direction" – that direction being backwards.

"I would say that The Outer Worlds 2's goals harken back to more of the traditional Obsidian style of RPG, whereas Avowed, to your point, is taking a more streamlined approach to make it a little bit easier for folks to jump in[to something more] action-focused," he says, clarifying that The Outer Worlds 2 still has a lot of "great action" – which we can certainly vouch for.

"But really, at the core [...] I knew that if I could make a game that I would want to go and buy and play, we were on the right track," says Boyarsky. "I love RPGs, and we wanted that to come through. That's why we made a game that you can go very deep with how you build your character and equipment, you want lots of synergy between things, and we wanted to display it in the game. So there's lots of interactions in the game that build on, like, whatever your character build is – things like that. And yeah, we knew that there was a group of people – hopefully a large group of people - that really want that."

In The Outer Worlds 2, Obsidian has more freedom to push back on players. Some of those speed bumps are immediate, like being offered a second powerful trait at the start of the game – if you're willing to pick a mandatory negative trait. Others are bigger picture, such as your decisions having firmer consequences. Ultimately, Boyarsky says that added texture comes back to building upon the original game.

"When you have a game that's 20-30 hours long, you can't have a decision you can make that's going to cut off 10% of that content," he explains. "But in this game we have the square footage where we can be like, 'You made this choice - you don't get to do that'. You might be able to go over there and kill everybody, but you can't engage with any of that quest content, which again is something we always really wanted to do, but had to make the choice to limit some of that. It was just a natural progression where now that we have the time to do it, we really wanted to do it."

That, Boyarsky adds, is where the studio's classic role-playing heritage truly lives. "That feeling, like you're a person in this world, like it's your story and the world's reacting to what you're doing? I think [for] Obsidian as a whole, that's what we strive for."

"The shorthand is New Vegas in space": The Outer Worlds 2 directors double down on Fallout comparisons, and Obsidian isn't worried about setting expectations too high: "It's our pedigree"

When it comes to Marvel there's one character who always springs to mind first when the word 'meta' is thrown into the mix. He goes by many names: the Merc with the Mouth, the Regenerating Degenerate, Wade Wilson. Most know him as Deadpool, the fast-talking, gun-slinging, incredibly-annoying-but-lovable antihero who now has his own VR game on, fittingly enough, Meta Quest 3.

Playing at Gamescom 2025, standing in a spacious booth with a window so passersby can look at my no doubt perfect moves (I am terrified of what they saw), I'm dropped into the world of Deadpool VR. Without a moment to spare, Neil Patrick Harris as the voice of Wade starts monologuing at a pace even Ryan Reynolds would struggle to match. No complaints so far.

Quips and zips

When it comes to movement, we're a far cry from the old days of pointing and clicking. Deadpool VR has you control the character with the left joystick, with the right stick allowing you to rotate in small increments left and right. The intended movement though is for you to twist and turn your body. Now, as a player with a penchant for efficiency when platforming and fighting, I struggled initially to get on board with what the Meta Quest 3 title was asking of me.

While using my grappling hook to ascend a small cliff, I found myself standing diagonally from it, meaning I had to aim more precisely, which was a challenge as the game's controls weren't as precise as I'd hoped, although this was likely a calibration issue more than a design one. However, I eventually got with the program when faced with a platforming section that required multiple rotations.

Armed with a double jump and a slide mechanic, I spend much of my hands-on trying to reconcile the in-game height with remaining stationary in reality, as if two halves of my brain were butting against each other. This came to a head when I nearly lost my balance, prompting me to streamline my traversal methods. Luckily this moment came just before my first meaningful combat sequence.

Daddy needs to express some rage

Deadpool VR offers an array of firearms but predominantly you'll use Wade's pair of Desert Eagles to shoot down enemies. The foes in question being red-clad ninja-esque minions who dodge and leap about the arena, throwing shuriken before approaching with blades drawn. Lucky for me, Wade has blades too, and I'm able to draw out swords from behind both of my shoulders, cleaving my attackers in two without a care in the world.

During the session, developer Twisted Pixel's lead game manager Phil Therien starts watching my playthrough, telling me that the true nature of combat is creativity. Taking this on board I throw a handgun into the face of one assailant before drawing a sword to slash at another bad guy loitering to my left, all the while emptying my remaining Desert Eagle into any and all unfriendly faces I see. The more creative your kills, including special animation you unlock by finishing stunned foes, the higher the score you get at the end of combat sections.

Grabbing other firearms around the map like shotguns and blasting through enemies before slinging the weapon at them and then catching it to find it magically reloaded is about as satisfying as a first-person shooter can get. Casually flicking a grenade to my right and blowing a miniboss into the afterlife while flinging a sword to my left and into the head of some unlucky goon feels equally perfect.

The only real negative is Deadpool himself who just won't shut up. I know this is on brand, and Neil Patrick Harris delivers with every line, but there's moments where I could've torn clean into Wade Wilson like Wolverine and not felt a shred of remorse. The upside of this though was I channeled my rage into the game, unleashing bullets and blades in a manner Wade Wilson himself would've been proud of.

Deadpool VR is easily the most entertaining VR game I've played to date thanks to its creative combat and self-aware humor, highlighted whenever Wade addresses the player directly. However, I'm not sure I could handle an entire game of the Merc with a Mouth unless I can nail it shut.

Check out our best Marvel games ranking for more comic adventures!

As Omni-Man throws fist after fist into the face of his son Mark I feel the corner of my mouth curl upward. This isn't the end of season one of the Amazon Prime series and I'm not a simple viewer – this is the fighting game Invincible VS, and I'm the one commanding the Viltrumite's deluge of bones and sinew into his offspring. After all, he can always make another kid.

Invincible VS is a one-on-one fighter where you control a team of three combatants set in Robert Kirkman, Cory Walker and Ryan Ottley's superhero world. Choosing from characters like the aforementioned Invincible and Omni-Man, as well as Atom Eve, Battle Beast and more, you switch between your warriors tag-team style, with different situations dictating how you do that.

Rexsplosive combat

In addition to swapping out characters during brief moments of respite, Invincible VS encourages you to be more tactical, something combat designer Reepal 'Rip' Parbhoo is particularly keen to teach me during our preview session at Gamescom 2025.

For instance, you can call in an ally during an attack to cause more damage to your opponent, or you can swap in a teammate while on the receiving end of a heavy blow to break your foe's rhythm and go on the counteroffensive. There are plenty of reasons to think about where and when to switch things up.

Rip is a good sport and teaches me the game's commands, although we're playing a simplified control scheme. I get my head around the light and heavy strikes, as well as how to break combos and deal out special attacks, all the while being treated as a welcome guest by the combat designer. I'm painfully aware I'm a rookie going up against a grandmaster, but it takes little away from the joy of the game.

However, I soon find myself tripping over the inputs and my memory abandons me to my errors, leading to Rex Splode getting a savage beating as I powerlessly watch. Rip sees I'm struggling and asks if I need a reminder. I say yes but also add I'm not too disheartened to see Rexxy boy getting done in. I sense an error on my part.

We start a new round, and I decide on a team of Thula, Bulletproof and Battle Beast. I've remembered when to switch out my fighters for maximum impact and decided to give this fight all I've got. Rip seems to recognise this and chooses Rex as his first character. There's an air of lethality around the developer here, and I begin to see I said the wrong thing a moment ago.

Mere seconds in, I am on the ropes. Thula is dead, Bulletproof is not long for this world, and Rex Splode is the architect of my agony. The dynamic combat on screen is a sight to behold, with the young hero jamming explosives into my team member's eyes, and dropping f-bombs like they're going out of fashion. It's awe-inspiring, and I see now that Rip clearly likes Rex Splode as much as anyone else in the game.

Think, player, think!

Humbled as I am, I dive into the next match and get to grips with the game's verticality. As Atom Eve, I'm able to take to the air and unleash ranged attacks from above, buying myself vital distance from close-ranged grab attacks and counters.

All characters are able to use in-air combat to at least a basic level, usually hurling foes upwards before launching after them and pummeling their sorry butts, but some of the roster can linger longer in the sky.

The main thing I find here is knowing who is better in the air than who. Battle Beast is better on the ground and up in his opponent's face than up in the clouds, while Omni-Man feels comfortable basically anywhere. Knowing these traits helps as I get into an intense back and forth of breaking each other's guard. He's Invincible and I'm Omni-Man. He goes on the attack and I guard, breaking his combo at the ideal moment to inflict my own rampage. Rip is sitting comfortably. He has my number – or so he thinks.

As he goes to break my stride he doesn't realize I'm holding one of my attacks down ever so slightly longer, granting hyperarmor for the merest of moments, but just long enough to see his effort fail.

"What!" Rip enthusiastically calls out as I crush his resistance. Omni-Man is now in full swing and I'm no longer keeping track of anything I'm doing. I am the Viltrumite and he is me. We are one as we stun the helpless Mark Grayson and deliver a finishing move, hurtling through skyscrapers with the brutalized Invincible as our shield before dropping his sorry corpse.

The session is over, and Rip looks at me with a wholesome smile. I know he's the combat designer and I know he was taking it easy on me. But in that moment I was having too much fun living out my Omni-Man fantasy to care, and for that reason alone I can't recommend Invincible VS enough.

There's plenty of new games to play while we wait for Invincible VS to launch next year

In a grim and fictional Edo-era Kyoto, I stride through the ravaged land of Onimusha: Way of the Sword. The corpses of civilians litter the ground, decorated by blood that I naturally take as a warning of deadly foes ahead. I'm too late to save one innocent as they're hacked down from behind, so I draw my blade and set about administering a fitting revenge against the hideous humanoid before me.

They go down in an instant, which isn't too surprising given this is early in my hands-on preview session at Gamescom 2025, but after a few more enemies fall without fuss to my steel, I realize the Sekiro comparisons I've heard may be relevant to setting and aesthetic, but the combat is worlds apart. This isn't a soulslike, and that's ok.

This is Capcom heritage

The Onimusha series has always been for fans of action-adventure games. The earlier titles could be mistaken for survival horrors like the best Resident Evil games at first, thanks to their fixed camera angles and monstrous foes, but the overall experience differs as you play on, feeling more direct and less about finer details like inventory management.

However, Onimusha: Way of the Sword is releasing in 2026 – 25 years after 2001's Onimusha: Warlords, the game that kicked things off – and the world of gaming has changed a fair bit since those halcyon days of PS2 dominance.

The camera stays in a third-person, over-the-shoulder position throughout, in the same style as the Resident Evil 4 remake, making it simple to find your way through the ravaged environment. The game has a moreish parry system, allowing you to deflect enemy attacks both ranged and close-quarters, and it's incredibly generous – no razor-sharp reflexes required like in Lies of P.

In fact none of this is difficult, nor is it meant to be. Onimusha: Way of the Sword is a game for people who want to sit back and unwind with an adventure, taking in the surroundings at relative leisure instead of fearing what's around every corner, and defeating bosses in one try, whether playing on the easier 'Story' mode or the normal 'Adventure' setting as I did.

Omae wa shindeiru

The result is that Onimusha: Way of the Sword feels more like a power fantasy. Protagonist Musashi may look like an underdog to the untrained eye, with his understated attire and pensive expressions, but the moment you take control you can see he is a warlord through and through.

Even the foes that hit him seem sorry about it, inviting vengeance with generous gaps before the next blow that beg for a parry, or even an all-out assault if you're so inclined. While so many games offer challenging combat that we fall in love with time and again, I'm grateful to Onimusha for reminding me there's another way to play. Think more God of War Ragnarok or Horizon Forbidden West where, although they can get pretty challenging at times, you've almost always the favorite in each fight, with enemies lining up to meet you knowing they're not walking away afterwards.

The downside of this is players who were hoping for something to scratch the itch caused by 2019's Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice not having a sequel (or even DLC!) are still without a salve. To be clear, it's not on Capcom to provide such a game, but it's understandable that many who looked at Onimusha: Way of the Sword's unveiling saw something that simply isn't there upon closer inspection.

Amid the throng of best FromSoftware games and the many Souls-inspired games like Elden Ring, Onimusha: Way of the Sword is a welcome breath of fresh-yet-paradoxically-familiar air. It's a third-person action-adventure set in a dark world full of danger but it's not really challenging from a combat perspective, although I anticipate the odd optional fight requiring more effort when the game releases next year.

While FromSoft fans will now have to look elsewhere, I'm as excited as ever for Onimusha: Way of the Sword precisely because of its differences, and I can't wait to play more.

For more third-person action, check out our list of the best adventure games to play right now.

It's hard to find things to praise about Destiny 2 right now with the MMO mired in bewildering, seismic economy changes, but if Bungie can do anything right it's make guns feel good. So it's both unsurprising and encouraging to hear that Destiny was a "guiding light" for The Outer Worlds 2 developer Obsidian as it worked to beef up its gunplay.

Speaking with GamesRadar+ at Gamescom, The Outer Worlds 2 game director Brandon Adler discussed Obsidian's conscious push to polish and refine the solid but not amazing combat from the first game.

"Early on, we kind of knew what players had said that they wanted us to improve," says Adler. "Combat in general was one of those things that came back, and that can mean a lot of different things. It could be like, hey, our encounter compositions could be more varied, things like that. And we did do that. We actually rebuilt our encounter systems. We made, overall, that portion of the combat feel really good. But another part of that is just the gunplay itself. It needs to feel good to just take actions in the world. We, luckily, were able to work with 343, or Halo Studios now. They sent us some feedback on our gunplay and what we could improve and different types of settings we could be using. And so we tweaked all of that stuff."

"Our design director, Matthew Singh, it was his task to work with the system designers and to put together this system," continues Adler. "He really likes Destiny, so he took that as a guiding light, and we spent a lot of time early on really refining and trying to get that feel. It was also important, not even just the actual shooting mechanics, but movement. We tried to make movement feel really good. Lots of sliding, parkouring. We just wanted moving around the world to have less friction. I think all of those things combined made a really great experience, which, when you add it to the thing that's already a good RPG, it's just the cherry on top, in my opinion."

Fittingly, Bungie was the original creator and shepherd for Halo, which came to define the setup and feel for countless first-person shooters. Destiny and later Destiny 2 just raised the bar for silky-smooth head-popping action, and when we finally got Destiny 2 on PC with the power of the mighty mouse in hand, it was downright heavenly. It still feels great to play, even if I cannot find it in me to care about playing it in this new Power-burdened era. If The Outer Worlds 2 can get anywhere close to that flow state, I'm in.

In our Outer Worlds 2 hands-on preview, a difference in gunplay was immediately noticeable and palpable throughout. "Killer writing and shockingly slick combat suggest Obsidian will deliver on the Fallout: New Vegas comparisons," our own Andrew wrote at the time.

Outer Worlds 2 bosses "think it's funny" they've made an RPG about evil mega-corporations with Microsoft as their new owner: "It'd be ridiculous to say we don't notice that"

The producer of the Dragon Quest HD-2D remake trilogy, consisting of last year's 3 remake and the upcoming 1-2 remake, says the trilogy's reception could influence further remakes in the HD-2D style.

Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake went through a weird development, announced in 2021 and virtually silent for a few years. But in 2024 Square Enix announced that remakes of Dragon Quest 1 and 2 were being developed alongside it, which explained why it took so long.

We're now a few months away from the double pack releasing, and it's looking quite promising if our Gamescom preview is to be believed (and it is). But that leaves the question, what's next?

Speaking to GamesRadar+'s Catherine Lewis at Gamescom 2025, the producer of the Dragon Quest HD-2D remake trilogy, Masaaki Hayasaka was asked about the possibility of upcoming remakes in this style.

"The ultimate decision whether to do that or not isn't with me, it rests with all the upper management of the company, so that's their call to make" Hayasaka said.

However, that doesn't mean there's no hope for them: "I think definitely, if the three remakes that we've done this time sell well, if they're really well regarded and do well, then that would definitely create a movement within the company to want to do more remakes. So I definitely think it is possible."

Square Enix has been quite keen on remakes recently with the likes of Final Fantasy 7 Remake, the DS and 3DS remakes of earlier Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest games, and even the fantastic HD-2D Live A Live remake (which may be my favorite Square Enix RPG ever, you should really play that already). Plus we've got Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles coming out soon, so it's safe to say I can't see Square abandoning them just yet.

Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles director open to revisiting the series' Game Boy Advance sequels if the remaster does well, but thinks the strategy RPG player base is currently a "bit small."

Artdink and Square Enix's Team Asano are revitalizing two more beloved JRPGs in Dragon Quest 1 & 2 HD-2D Remake, and producer Masaaki Hayasaka thinks it's crucial to get "the balance" of changes right when it comes to modernizing older games.

Speaking with him at at Gamescom 2025, I ask Hayasaka what he believes is the most important thing when it comes to maintaining the original feeling of classic games while also bringing them up to date. "I really think the most important thing there is getting the balance right, obviously, between what you change and what you don't change, and getting that decision right," he responds, via interpreter. "Because you can look at it in different ways."

Hayasaka notes that "if you go, 'OK, we need to change everything, make everything new or different,' then there's people who are going to say, 'But that's not the same game anymore, we don't want that.' And on the other hand, if you're too protective about it, too conservative, you keep basically everything the same, people go, 'Well, we've got the original one, we don't need the new game.'"

As such, he reiterates, "getting that balance right is something you really have to think about very hard, work out exactly what to change and whatnot. Everyone's got a different answer."

Dragon Quest 1 & 2 HD-2D Remake isn't without its changes. In fact, Hayasaka has also teased a "new twist" that'll come as a "really big surprise" for veteran fans, so even those who played the original games all those years ago have more to look forward to.

Dragon Quest 1 & 2 HD-2D Remake reminded me why I love turn-based battles, but after 40 minutes with the game, I'm desperate to know what "really big surprise" the devs are hiding.

Square Enix is set to complete its modernization of Dragon Quest's beginnings with Dragon Quest 1 & 2 HD-2D Remake, but if you've already played the original JRPGs, producer Masaaki Hayasaka wants you to know that "there's a lot more content around this time," including a "really big surprise" twist.

In a group interview attended by GamesRadar+ at Gamescom 2025, Hayasaka says (via interpreter): "You can rest assured there's a lot more content around this time. We really added a lot more to the story. The scenario has been fleshed out. I mean, if you look at it in terms of the word count, the amount of text in the game, the first two games – the original versions – were tens of thousands of words on their own. We're up into the millions now for the remake."

The release of Dragon Quest 1 & 2 HD-2D Remake follows the launch of last year's Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake, which may seem slightly unusual, but it's because the third game in the series is chronologically the first. Altogether, the trio of games forms the Erdrick Trilogy, and series creator Yuji Horii previously teased (thanks, Automaton) that playing all three remakes in chronological order will provide a "new discovery" even for veteran fans.

At Gamescom, Hayasaka also teases a "really big surprise" that has been created for the remakes. "We want to surprise and delight all Dragon Quest fans out there. Of course, together myself and original creator Mr. [Yuji] Horii really discussed this in depth, because we want to create that surprise, that new twist," he continues, reiterating that playing through all three games in order is key when it comes to discovering whatever this new content is.

Exactly what that surprise is is another matter – Hayasaka isn't giving any hints. Based on context alone, I can only assume it's a plot beat that'll emerge by the end of Dragon Quest 2, given that that marks the finale of the trilogy, but we'll just have to wait and see when the duo of remakes launches on October 30.

In the meantime, be sure to check out our roundup of the best JRPGs, as well as new games on the horizon.

There's been a real resurgence of love for turn-based RPGs this year, largely thanks to the success of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 – something that I've been incredibly happy to see as a certified lover of the genre. I'm even happier that it's a trend that seems set to continue for the rest of 2025, with Dragon Quest 1 & 2 HD-2D Remake maintaining that classic JRPG feeling perfectly while still blending in modern improvements.

During a preview session at Gamescom 2025, I was able to spend around 40 minutes in the new remake double pack – hunting down the recurring foe Robbin' 'Ood in the original Dragon Quest (who makes his return from Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake – which, chronologically, comes first), and exploring the world and the start of a dungeon in Dragon Quest 2.

The good ol' days

Coming from Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake, Dragon Quest 1 immediately feels rather different, despite its identical pixel art style. That's because, replicating the original 1986 JRPG, you only control a single hero rather than a party of allies. It doesn't take long during my boss fight with Robbin' 'Ood to start feeling overwhelmed – as well as hitting like a truck himself, he's also supported by some smaller enemies, leaving my poor solo protagonist outnumbered.

A massive part of getting through this is knowing when to heal. I end up using all of my magic points (MP) by the end of the fight casting healing spells, not to mention chomping all my medicinal herbs, and even then, it gets dicey. It's certainly not unfair, though, and I love the challenge – even if, admittedly, I underestimated quite how much I was going to need to lock in when I embarked on the demo.

All of this highlights the pure satisfaction of successfully putting together a battle strategy, which you can only really get with turn-based RPGs like this. Speaking in a group interview following the demo, producer Masaaki Hayasaka tells me (via interpreter) that "there was never any thought" to move away from this classic format in favor of a real-time action rendition of the game.

"We really didn't think about doing any kind of action conversion of the game at all," he says. "From the start, we very much wanted people to experience the history of Dragon Quest, because Dragon Quest is the series that started JRPGs, it's where they all came from. So we really didn't want to change that at all. We had to keep it as that… the orthodox, the origins of command-based, menu-based games."

Even though the tension of almost losing the boss battle is thrilling, going into the second half of my hands-on session and switching over to Dragon Quest 2, I'm a little more on guard. As it happens, I don't have to be – this 20 minutes consists of more exploration, wandering around with my party (rather relieved to have allies by my side once more). Given that I'm running into a lot more random encounters doing this, I'm particularly pleased that the option to speed battles up – added into Dragon Quest 3's remake – returns here. When you're dealing with relatively unthreatening enemies, it's nice to just quickly zip past in order to continue the adventure.

Hayasaka is fully aware of the importance of the balancing act when it comes to maintaining what fans loved about the original JRPGs while still including modern changes, too. "You can look at it in different ways," he says, giving the example of players potentially responding to a remake with too many changes like "'that's not the same game anymore, we don't want that,'" while acknowledging that "if you're too protective about it, too conservative, you keep basically everything the same, people go, 'Well, we've got the original one, we don't need the new game.'"

He reiterates: "Getting that balance right is something you really have to think about very hard, work out exactly what to change and whatnot. Everyone's got a different answer."

Expanding on the past

In such a short preview session, one thing I wasn't able to get a massive flavor for was the stories of the two classic RPGs, which developers Artdink and Square Enix's Team Asano have made some additions to in the remake package. Hayasaka says that we "can be rest assured there's a lot more content around this time" in Dragon Quest 1 & 2 HD-2D Remake.

"We really added a lot more to the story. The scenario has been fleshed out," he continues. "I mean, if you look at it in terms of the word count, the amount of text in the game, the first two games – the original versions – were tens of thousands of words on their own. We're up into the millions now for the remake."

Expanding more on these new story elements, Hayasaka teases a "really big surprise" that's been created for the remakes, something which was previously mentioned by series creator Yuji Horii (thanks, Automaton). "We want to surprise and delight all Dragon Quest fans out there. Of course, together myself and original creator Mr. Horii really discussed this in depth, because we want to create that surprise, that new twist," Hayasaka continues. He's not giving any hints as to what this surprise is, other than the fact that fans will find it if they play through the remake trilogy in chronological order (that's DQ 3, then DQ 1, and finally DQ 2). Intriguing.

The release of Dragon Quest 1 and 2's remake duo pack will round out the series' classic Erdrick Trilogy, completing the modernized versions of the franchise's origins – something I'm grateful for as someone who never got around to the original versions. But what comes next? Asked if there are any plans to revisit any other Dragon Quest games going forward, Hayasaka explains that "the ultimate decision whether to do that or not isn't with me, it rests with all the upper management of the company, so that's their call to make." He's not ruling it out, though.

"I think definitely, if the three remakes that we've done this time sell well, if they're really well regarded and do well, then that would definitely create a movement within the company to want to do more remakes," he continues. "So I definitely think it is possible."

If you want to see more of GamesRadar+'s Autumn Preview, be sure to take a look at our dedicated Gamescom 2025 coverage hub.

IO Interactive's senior licensing producer has spoken about consulting the scrolls to make sure the Hitman devs' version of James Bond nails it in 007 First Light.

While the announcement that IO Interactive was making a James Bond game had me convinced from the get-go that it would be a perfect fit, James Bond has a whole lot of baggage attached. Thankfully the baggage of being a character who has been around since 1953 also means there's a lot to look at to nail down what works, and that's precisely what IO Interactive has done for their upcoming portrayal of the character in 007 First Light.

Speaking to GamesRadar+'s Ali Jones at Gamescom 2025, IO Interactive's senior licensing producer, Theuns Smit, is asked why Bond is a character so suited to the multiple reinventions he's gone through over the years. "What makes him unique is who he is inherently, his Bondliness, his charm, guile." Smit says, adding, "Leaning into that meant that [when] working on this, we didn't want to do a retelling – we really wanted to inject a bit of our own into this."

But while putting your own spin on things, it is important to keep the essence of Bond, to which Smit assures: "We have a fantastic writer's team, who really spent a lot of time going through all the source material." Smit adds, "If you saw the previous trailer we brought out, there were a lot of people remarking on the scar on his face, which never really made it into the films, but it's from the Ian Fleming books. There's definitely no lack of source material."

007 First Light contains some of "the largest" missions Hitman developer IO Interactive has "ever done" before, which could make it one of the studio's biggest games yet

IO Interactive, the studio behind gems like Hitman, might just be releasing its biggest game yet with 007 First Light – a title that starts nice and slow, but quickly picks up pace.

Speaking to GamesRadar+ during a recent interview at Gamescom 2025, franchise art director Rasmus Poulsen first describes how 007 First Light – arguably one of the most exciting new games on the horizon – opens. "The drive in… It's about giving you that calm, story-driven introduction to the world, where we're inviting you to roleplay James Bond, experience and simply take in the world, and form your own expectations of the mission at hand."

Things shake up a bit once players make it to the "chateau," as Poulsen explains. "When you arrive, we dive into much more familiar territory from an IO perspective and from an audience perspective, where we have this chateau laid out before you, which then has in it everything from social gameplay up to the larger areas where you are free to roam around and utilize the width of the gameplay that we have to offer."

In these "larger areas" and beyond, players may discover that 007 First Light's missions are… well, massive. As Poulsen states himself, "I would say some of the missions in the game are the largest we've done in our history in terms of measurements." When he uses words like "in our history," I can't help but think of other IO Interactive games, including Hitman, as well as Kane and Lynch. Will 007 First Light harbor even grander gameplay and missions?

It certainly sounds like it. Senior licensing producer Theuns Smit told us that 007 First Light is "not a reskin" of Hitman, after all. He assured players that IO Interactive brought "amazing fresh talent" in, including developers with "specific driving expertise" to help build the new game's car missions – including the introductory one, I'd assume. Thankfully, there's not long left until fans can find out for themselves as 007 First Light releases March 27, 2026.

007 First Light's James Bond is "certainly handsome" but "he isn't a Ken doll," says IO Interactive: "The human aspect of him is something we were really trying hard to give you"

The next time we clap eyes on Raccoon City, it'll be in Resident Evil Requiem. Set 30 years after the town's destruction in 1998, however, it makes sense that our surroundings will be markedly different this time around.

A thermobaric bomb was dropped on it, after all, in an attempt to stop the spread of the aggressive virus sweeping its streets and "turning people into monsters," to quote Resident Evil 2 co-star Ada Wong. But if you thought Leon S. Kennedy's old stomping ground would be a pile of rubble by now, think again.

"I won't say we went into a physics simulation of exactly how it was affected by the bomb," game director Koshi Nakanishi told us during an interview at Gamescom 2025. "But we were like, 'Okay, well, this is where the bomb landed in the city. Then this would be the blast zone, you know, the shock wave would maybe travel into these areas, and that's how they'd be affected.'" That means we can expect to see a few familiar spots in Requiem – including, of course, Raccoon City Police Department.

Aftermath

Whether the RPD will be a playable zone or merely a derelict, towering monument to what used to be is not yet clear.

"I don't want to go into too much detail into exactly which locations you'll be visiting," Nakanishi went on. "But we did essentially start with the existing design and layout of Raccoon City, as has been seen most recently in Resident Evil 2 and 3 remakes."

The aforementioned remakes took us back to the police department and hospital, as well as the mean, zombie infested streets of the city itself. Naturally, most of said streets will likely be pretty badly damaged by the bomb – "I wanted to have a certain level of believability to that, while still having creative freedom to design this new, updated version [of Raccoon City]," said Nakanishi.

"At the same time, you want to keep some of those iconic places, even if it's not necessarily realistic that they wouldn't be reduced to rubble – things like the RPD gate that we've been showing." The purpose of that creative license is simple: to keep locations "recognizable", and offer "something for fans to point to."

That said, anyone who played Resident Evil 2 and 3 will know that the repercussions of the Raccoon City Incident were nothing if not permanent. Lives were lost in this town, as much as it represents the site where one of the best survival horror games of all time took root.

"I think it also gives it a sense of tragedy and loss to look at the ruins of something that you thought you knew so well from the past games when they're intact," Nakanishi said of the complex emotions we might experience in Resident Evil Requiem once Raccoon City comes into view. "To see them crumbling and barely there… It's got a poignancy to it."

Poignant, it will be. Requiem not only marks thirty in-game years since the Raccoon City Incident, its 2026 launch also coincides with the series' 30th anniversary. I've no doubt that wandering the derelict bombsite will bring up a lot of feelings in all of us – pride, sadness, overwhelm at the thought of this simple survival horror game having made it so far. But with so much left to find out about the upcoming horror game – including how a mysterious "new system" is meant to put "distance" between the tense peaks and troughs of Resi's classic structure – we can hold tight to this simple fact: we are going home to Racoon City, one way or another.

Check out all the other upcoming PS5 games coming soon, from Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival to Directive 8020

Although the 007 First Light hero might not be the "classy Bond with the martini" longtime fans might be expecting, he's "certainly handsome" – a feature of James' that IO Interactive surprisingly put quite a bit of thought into.

Speaking to GamesRadar+ during a recent interview at Gamescom 2025, franchise art director Rasmus Poulsen begins by saying, "Bond has been many things through the ages, which is part of what makes him interesting and part of what makes playing in the sandbox so fun" – and it isn't just the protagonist's character that makes up who he is, but his appearance, too. One part of this is, of course, his distinguishable scar.

"For us, the scar was important because it's described in the books," explains Poulsen, going on to state that Bond's humor and "dry British wit" were also features IO Interactive hoped to nail while conceptualizing the 007 First Light character. As for his looks, "in terms of how handsome he should be," the art lead admits that the developers agreed Bond should be "certainly handsome, but probably not beautiful." He's James Bond after all, not a Ken doll.

"There's something about the fact that his charm and his prowess really carry the character and that he will convince you and charm you," as Poulsen describes, "even though he isn't a Ken doll. And so the human aspect of him is something we were really trying hard to give you."

Bond's behavior and "sensibility" come into play here, too, as "if you rely too much on the superficial looks, you might easily miss what makes the character the character."

Poulsen continues: "I think we're in a space now where we are looking at characters more widely than simply a face. It's mannerisms, it's specific charms, it's how they make you feel, it's the cadence of how they deliver their voice." Building Bond as a convincing character is about creating someone who is "certainly not just a face." Instead, he's a bit of "everything" – made up of "mannerisms, rhythm of talking, cadence," and more.

As for how IO Interactive grapples with the fact that there are so many James Bonds at this point – "I think we do what we think is right and what feels right from that amalgamation." What's important is that their James Bond stands out as such. "You have to trust that your version of Bond is your version of Bond," as Poulsen says. "Some people will see different Bonds in him," but that's okay – that's to be expected with a 63-year-old character.

Looking forward to one of the most exciting new games yet? Check out our other 007 First Light interview with IO Interactive to learn more about the upcoming James Bond title.

We've gotten our first look at 007: First Light gameplay, and Hitman fans will see plenty of familiar mechanics from developer IO Interactive's World of Assassination. But don't let the goofy guard distraction mechanics distract you – the devs are keen to (once again) make sure you know this isn't just a Hitman game in an Agent 47-style disguise.

"We have a very talented team back home, and our team has expanded ever since we first announced the game," senior licensing producer Theuns Smit tells GamesRadar+. "Obviously, that meant there was even more interest. We were able to bring in amazing fresh talent to bolster what we already have at the studio, and that has been a really big growth moment for us as a studio."

These additional devs have given IO "fresh eyes, fresh expertise, all of that," Smit continues, "while still leaning [into] our strengths, [with] the pedigree of 25 years behind us. It comes about the game first. The experience first. If you're looking at Hitman, it's the way it is for a particular reason, because that's the gameplay experience we want to give. For Bond, it's not exactly that. It's not a reskin of that."

One big difference between Hitman and First Light is the presence of drivable cars, which we see multiple times in today's new gameplay footage. That's an area where IO has very little experience, and it seems the influx of new devs was particularly important here.

"It was absolutely a huge challenge, and also a challenge we didn't take on lightly," franchise art director Rasmus Poulsen tells us. "We had to bring onto the team specific driving expertise, i.e. people that had experience coding, setting up, tweaking, balancing.

"Because of course it's a balancing act of making a vehicle feel both exciting, credible, and dangerous at the same time as being approachable and fun for a wide audience. So absolutely, that balance is very difficult and indeed a new adventure for us, so something we took very seriously. And I'm pleased to say, I feel [we] have landed in an amazing space."

007 First Light is more than just Hitman: James Bond edition, and I'm over any fears I might have had that IO couldn't deliver.

007 First Light could have been a reskinned Hitman. Developer IO Interactive certainly could have pulled it off – there are few stand-ins for Agent 47 as tailor-fit as James Bond – but as our 007 First Light preview found, there's a lot more than meets the eye here. Sure, the studio's open stealth-sandbox formula carries forward, with a disguised Bond infiltrating a swanky hotel during the level shown to us, but there are also careening car chases and explosive airfield shootouts to contend with.

For IO, bringing the Bond experience to life meant pairing the studio's existing strengths with a willingness to venture into less proven grounds. Speaking to IO Interactive CEO Hakan Abrak at Gamescom, where a swanky red carpet-style booth has been set up for previews, Abrak acknowledges that Hitman alone couldn't lay all the foundations for First Light.

"One thing Hitman hasn't been wildly known for are smooth animations or combat," suggests Abrak. "Without saying it's the 'wrong way' to play, if you just go in shooting, it's probably not the way to play Hitman for a lot of fans. It's not necessarily top-class shooting mechanics."

Yet for Abrak, a large part of Bond is about globetrotting – "coming to exotic places where mere mortals like you and me maybe don't get access to every day" – and there, the parallels to Hitman are clearer. "We've been doing that for 20-plus years, so check," he says. But other elements of that fantasy have demanded far more from IO.

You know my name

At multiple points during our chat, Abrak refers to wanting to create a "360" James Bond experience. He promises it's not intended as a "buzzword" – rather, it's shorthand for wanting to deliver the full scope of a Bond film rather than one slice of it, such as infiltration or shooting alone. In trying to identify that fantasy in its entirety, IO found that there were areas that lay beyond its comfort zone.

"The combat [in Bond] is seamless, it free flows from fisticuffs to shooting," says Abrak. "It's dynamic – the seamlessness of that is definitely something we knew we needed to up our game and do new technology, new features. Driving, as well [as] action set pieces, explosions, things that you would expect from a full Bond experience. There were other pillars where we knew we needed to up our game, and it's been hard. But at the same time, getting there and feeling like we have a fantastic dynamic combat system, actually making these setpieces, it fills you with confidence."

But Abrak believes those challenges are all of a technical nature. A separate beast is identifying the "nucleus" of Bond and bringing it to life, which has involved working with the studio's partners to "understand the finer details about this franchise" – all while telling an original story. Rather than adapting a film or Ian Fleming novel, First Light will explore an "alternative origin story" that follows Bond's journey to becoming a 00 agent.

"That was daunting," admits Abrak. "You want to treat [Bond] with respect, but you also want to push and surprise the audience at the same time. Getting that balance right has been daunting, but also extremely exciting to work on."

The suit makes the man

As for nailing that all-important feeling of playing James Bond, Abrak describes 007 First Light as "breathing" – in the sense that sometimes the game constricts to become more linear, while other moments 'exhale' to give players that Hitman-esque freedom in what they're doing.

"At times when you breathe in, it gets more curated by us, because this is an experience where we're telling a story," explains Abrak. "So there's certain emotions and things that our young Bond is going through, and we really want to be intimate with that, and to be able to take you through those action pieces or more emotional moments. But then again, because we are also IO Interactive, being able to breathe, open up, and say 'Well, there's an obstacle here and there's different ways of doing that' - all the time, there's pretty much a creative approach."

In those areas, Hitman's foundations shine brightest. Though it's ultimately a "very different" game to Agent 47's series, First Light bears a similar emphasis on letting players make their own way through a sandbox. Abrak points to being able to lean on stealth, creative gadget usage, or outright violence to get around guards, as an example, along with that feeling of solving problems as Bond.

"It's [all about] creating a game space for you to use your charm, your wits, not only in cutscenes but in gameplay," says Abrak. "Traversing a social space and figuring it out, listening in, getting cues on what to do [...] Like, outwitting people. Bond is a capable person – he can use his physicality, his gadgetry, his charm… That holistic experience – if [fans] say we did that, then I'll be a happy man."

That, Abrak says, will be his personal measure of First Light's success. "I also hope there's a little bit of IO's fingerprints in there," he adds, pointing to his broader ambitions as a studio leader. "There have been really, really good Bond games before. Everyone knows GoldenEye, it's a legendary game. What we want to do is carve out a bit of space there for us to have contributed to that legacy as well."

We've rounded up the new games still to come in 2026 and beyond, including 007 First Light

My demo of 007 First Light opens unlike any other James Bond game, book, or film I've ever seen. Rather than some explosive action scene, it's positively sedate, Bond decked out in a chauffeur's uniform as he drives gently up to the exterior of a hotel buried deep in the Slovakian mountains. But from these humble beginnings that bring Bond in-line with First Light's origins in the Hitman series, developer IO Interactive quickly shows that it's not afraid to blend its stealthy pedigree with the explosively high stakes you'd expect from 007.

The first half of the demo is slow, methodical - and personally frustrating to Bond. 007: First Light acts as an origin story, and this is our young secret agent's first mission. He's been chosen specifically to work alongside other MI6 operatives who are also brand new to the world of international espionage, but he's drawn the short straw. While his teammates are posing as high-flyers attending an exclusive chess tournament, Bond is their driver, and as such is left to man the exit as a last line of defense in case the target - rogue agent 009 - tries to beat a hasty retreat.

True to 007, however, it's not long before Bond abandons his post to investigate some mysterious behavior. But as a humble chauffeur, getting access to the hotel is no easy feat. It's here that you can feel IO's history with the Hitman series most clearly - this sequence is a case of distracting guards and sneaking around. But this isn't a Hitman game. Bond is a secret agent who can't arouse suspicion, not an assassin who can do whatever he likes as long as he gets his target. Feats of acrobatics or being seen committing distracting shenanigans will blow your cover so quickly that First Light doesn't even let you try to do them while there's a chance you can be seen.

Eventually, Bond's able to distract one guard with a rogue garden hose, steal a lighter to ignite a wheelbarrow of dried leaves, and use the ensuing chaos to shimmy up an unseen drainpipe to an open window. The employees inside are temporarily shocked, but Bond explains away his incursion in a moment of 007-esque improvisation, telling them he's a security expert assessing the hotel's perimeter. I was initially concerned that this was too linear a sequence, something more akin to a puzzle game than an action title, but IO representatives explained that it was just one of many ways to get to your target.

"Secret" agent

From here, we quickly get to see Bond at his most suave, mingling with the hotel's wealthy clientele (while dodging the friendly MI6 agents inside who may recognize him away from his post). His Q watch can be used to assess the environment, and in our demo James opts to search for his target - in this case a suspicious bellboy - by asking a nearby bartender. It's a confident, well-written interpretation of Bond, with a self-assuredness that doesn't tip over into arrogance, and which understands his position as a junior agent still finding his feet, but who's still prepared to disregard orders.

Unfortunately, we don't get to see the direct consequences of that particular decision, as the demo skips ahead to a point where things have definitely gone south. 009 is making a run for it, and a dramatically more disheveled Bond is tasked with keeping chase - in a classic Aston Martin, of course, and with a beautiful woman handing him the keys.

It's at this point that we're in unknown territory. While the Hitman series made IO the clear favorites to cover the sneakier aspects of Bond, those games often take place in dense but incredibly well-contained stealth sandboxes. The huge hotel you're tasked with infiltrating fits that pedigree perfectly. But now we're careening down country roads at high speeds. Driving and large-scale open areas are both whole new ball games for this studio, but they're also an integral part of any James Bond game.

While it's impossible to get a real feel for the wheel during a hands-off session, what I see is pretty good. There's as true a sensation of rubber over tarmac as you can hope for. It's fast, frantic, and filled with set pieces as Bond and his mysterious new ally fly after the escaping 009. Narrow streets give way to sprawling fields, the tracks carved by both Bond and his quarry being left in the fields as they drive. One particularly gnarly collision deforms the rear windscreen and bumper, smashing through a fence briefly attaches a trail of barbed wire to the car. Tires squeal and smoke kicks up as the Aston is flung around a tight mountain road.

Takeoff

And then suddenly it's over, and 009 is making his way to an airfield. Bond gives chase on foot, his femme fatale friend hoping to cut their joint target off in the car. It's here that IO takes another pivot from its traditional fare, switching into the conventional third-person action fare that's another obvious part of any 007 game. A dark figure spots James' attempted infiltration, and learns too late that while this Bond doesn't yet have his license to kill, any obvious danger is one that can swiftly be put down.

That first pistol shot ignites an enormous shootout, one so explosive that it would be more at home at a Bond film's climax than its opening. As James shoots his way across the airfield in an attempt to prevent 009's plane from taking off, all hell quickly breaks loose. Again, it's hard to get a sense of the gunplay without having a controller in-hand, but it feels slightly less clean than the driving did. Where Bond films go for massive shootouts, they're often finely choreographed and edited to make each shot or explosion hit as hard as it can. In third-person, much of the action gets lost in the midground. Overall, the sequence is more like the blunt trauma of Just Cause or The Expendables than the tighter scenes that define more modern action movies.

There are certainly exceptions though. One highlight comes when James' clip runs out, and rather than diving for cover or reloading on the fly, he simply flings the empty rifle at a nearby enemy, staggering them long enough to take them out in close combat. Later, he kicks a fresh gun up to his hands with a practised flick, barely breaking stride as he continues his rampage. From there, the sense of cinema builds, and in an attempt to chase down the rapidly accelerating cargo plane, James jumps behind the wheel of some mobile stairs, using his unlikely new vehicle to climb aboard.

On the face of things, it's clearly ridiculous, and at one point I did wince at the strength of James' apparent plot armor. But even if the direction doesn't always keep up, the tone of the whole thing is unapologetically Bond. On occasion the demo begins to stray into the almost arcade-y territory of Uncharted's biggest set pieces, but IO never really loses sight of how to make this feel authentic to its source material. My biggest internal test is whether I can see Daniel Craig pulling off a given stunt, and it's very rare that it feels my answer would be 'no'.

Going into Gamescom, 007: First Light was my most-anticipated title, but that feeling came with a lot of trepidation. I'm a long-term Hitman fan, and had no worries about IO's ability to pull off that aspect of Bond. But I know that charisma, gadgetry, and social stealth are only one part of the 007 mythos, and that many of the other features that make a good Bond game can be difficult to pull off. From what I've seen so far, IO doesn't completely nail that down every single time, but where it does stumble it's an issue with the format rather than an issue with the delivery itself. If that minor quibble is the only one the studio faces, then my faith in 007: First Light seems well-placed - this could prove to be the perfect Bond game.

007: First Light devs chose a James Bond origin story to help be "more relatable" to a "younger audience maybe than the Bond franchise is used to"

When Hitman developer IO Interactive announced it was making a James Bond game, it seemed like a perfect fit – after all, both Hitman and Bond share a focus on exotic locations, high-stakes stealth missions, and a dry sense of camp tying it all together. As it turns out, the studio felt pretty much the same way about moving onto 007 First Light.

"I'm excited to finally be at this point, being able to deliver all these amazing pieces of news with you," franchise art director Rasmus Poulsen tells GamesRadar+ in advance of today's 007 First Light State of Play.

"For me, Bond has been an inspiration throughout my career at IO, doing the previous projects," Poulsen continues. "So it feels like coming home in so many, many respects. Beyond that, I'm really proud of the fact that I feel like we're delivering a wonderful stealth action-adventure game that really encompasses everything you would expect from the Bond experience. That's saying a lot, and I think we're delivering on that."

Poulsen was previously credited as franchise art director on Hitman 2 – as in the middle chapter of the World of Assassination trilogy – but his history with IO goes all the way back to the Blood Money days. In that time, Hitman has often felt very much in line with the tone of Bond's adventures, though admittedly 007's sense of humor has evolved over the years.

"The humor was important as well," Poulsen says while describing the challenges of creating a new Bond that synthesizes aspects of different versions of the character over the years. "We wanted you to join Bond on this adventure. You are, on the one hand, playing him, and on the other hand, you're experiencing his reaction to the world. So you have this fun dualism between you and him. Then secondly, there's this thing about the dry, dry British wit."

Does dressing up in a flamingo suit and throwing a homing briefcase at a guard's head count as dry British wit? I guess we'll find out when 007 First Light launches next year.

Check out our guide to all the biggest new games for 2025 and beyond.

Octopath Traveler 0 is shaping up to be a very promising RPG for any existing fans, as well as newcomers eager for more turn-based battles after the glorious highs of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 earlier this year. After playing for around 45 minutes, it's clear that this sure is more Octopath, but with refreshing combat mechanics and a new town-building mode that I let myself get a bit too immersed in during my brief hands-on demo.

Octopath Traveler and its sequel are two of my favorite turn-based RPGs of all time. With their gorgeous HD-2D art style, satisfying combat systems, and battles that can be, at times, genuinely brutal, I have a lot of love in my heart for the series. However, I was never tempted to try out the prequel, Champions of the Continent, largely because I found the free-to-play mobile format offputting. So after hearing that both story and gameplay elements from the title would make an appearance here, I was thrilled that I'd finally experience what I'd been missing in a full console RPG format.

Breakaway

During my hands-on session at Gamescom 2025, I admittedly didn't get to see a massive amount of the narrative play out, as most of my time was spent in battles. If you've played any of the previous games, you'll feel right at home here with familiar systems for breaking (essentially, stunning) enemies by hitting their weaknesses enough times, and charging up boost points (BP) to either strike with a standard attack multiple times or unleash a powered-up skill instead.

The battles are where we see the first similarity to Champions of the Continent, with eight characters in your party at a time rather than the limit of four in Octopath 1 and 2, letting the RPG live up to its name more effectively than usual. While you don't attack with all eight at once – instead going into fights with an active front row of four characters, and another four in reserve on the back row – you can freely swap between the two every time you have a turn.

This adds a new level of strategy and speed compared to what I've been used to in the main series games. No time to heal an ally with low health? Now's the perfect time to throw them onto the back row out of harm's way. Does someone on the back row have a weapon that can break an enemy that's about to attack? Swap them in – complete with charged BP – to protect the rest of the party. While the basic systems in play are familiar, these new elements are opening the RPG up for even more tactical gameplay, and I have no doubt that once mastered, they'll make fights go by even faster, too. A mercy, since I've found some of the boss fights in the previous two main entries exhaustingly lengthy at times.

Even with more allies by your side to fight, however, battles are no joke. During my demo, as well as some standard fights, I took on a boss – a big 'ol lizard and their buddies – and while I can't say I was ever concerned about losing, I still had to be careful with resource management of healing items since the enemy onslaught left my team very low on health on a few occasions. Like previous entries, foes don't have health bars – their remaining HP is roughly reflected when their names change from white, to yellow, and finally red – but the lack of visibility here adds a delectable amount of tension to these moments, because you're never quite sure how long you've got to keep fighting for.

Getting cozy

If that all sounds a bit overwhelming, then fear not, as Octopath Traveler 0 also has a town-building mode that might actually be the thing I'm most excited to dive back into.

This was the first thing I was given the chance to try out during my hands-on, with free rein to place structures like buildings and decorations, as well as foliage and paths. Eyeing up a particularly nice tree, I immediately set to work making a plaza – a cobblestone path leading to a paved area with the tree right in the centre, surrounded by benches and flowers.

Even from a short stint with these tools, I can confidently say that the mode spoke to my cozy game-loving heart – if you enjoy the decorating aspects of the likes of Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing, you'll love this. I got so absorbed, in fact, that I had to be reminded that there was still a whole RPG for me to dive into for the rest of the preview session. Whoops.

After its announcement at the end of July, Octopath Traveler 0 immediately became one of my most anticipated games of the year, and after less than an hour of playing it, I'm even more excited. I'm curious how the influence of the mobile game will affect the overall experience compared to the two stellar main series entries I'm used to, but so far, it's looking like plenty more of what I love with a nice sprinkling of fresh elements to keep things interesting.

If you want to check out more of GamesRadar+'s Autumn Preview, be sure to take a look at our Gamescom 2025 coverage hub.

Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles' director is already keen to tackle the sequels or new tactics games provided the remaster does well.

When the Final Fantasy Tactics remaster was finally announced earlier in the summer, naturally the next question was, what about Tactics Advance and Tactics A2? While not quite as popular as the original, the follow-up Final Fantasy Tactics entries were also strong in their own right. Turns out, that question has been on the mind of the remaster's director Kazutoyo Maehiro.

Speaking during a group interview attended by GamesRadar+ at Gamescom 2025, Maehiro says: "I think when we think about the strategy RPG genre, there's a lot of very, very interesting and fun games, but I think when you think about the player base, it's a little bit small." He adds: "I think it can depend on how this game does, you know, if we do see that really strong player base get interested in the game, and we do help increase that strategy RPG player base overall, it could potentially lead to future games."

Meanwhile, speaking to Inverse, Maehiro specifically notes: "If The Ivalice Chronicles can do well, that's good for the fans, they can enjoy it. But, at the same time, it shows the business viability of the strategy RPG genre. So that could potentially open the door for doing something with Final Fantasy Tactics Advance or A2, or maybe even sequels and new titles as well."

While we did technically get a new title a few years ago with Triangle Strategy which was as close as you can get to a Final Fantasy Tactics without popping the name on there, I assume Maehiro means a new Final Fantasy Tactics specifically, but I'd love a Dragon Quest Tactics game.

Losing Final Fantasy Tactics' source code meant The Ivalice Chronicles devs had to use any available resources to rebuild the remaster, "whether that be the retail copy of the game or the smartphone version"

Square Enix is aiming to make Cloud a better team member in Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles, and as part of that initiative, he'll come equipped with a crucial sword right from the start.

If you played the original Final Fantasy Tactics, you might not have the fondest memory of Final Fantasy 7 OG Cloud, who isn't available until about halfway through Chapter 4. The process of adding Cloud to your team is long and convoluted, and once you do have him by your side, he needs the Materia Blade, which also isn't easy to find, to perform his Limit abilities, essentially chaining him to a specific weapon that otherwise might not be the most viable choice.

There are other complaints about Cloud in Final Fantasy Tactics, but Square Enix is specifically addressing the Materia Blade situation in the upcoming remake. Talking to Inverse, The Ivalice Chronicles director Kazutoyo Maehiro admitted Cloud isn't the easiest team member in Final Fantasy Tactics and touched on some vague and specific plans to remedy that.

"Truth be told, with the original version, he came to your party very late," he says. "He started at level one. You didn't have the Materia Blade to use, so he was pretty difficult to utilize as a character at that point.

"So with The Ivalice Chronicles, we've made it so that his stats are adjusted a little bit. On top of that, he will come equipped with the Materia Blade when he joins your party initially. So, in terms of usability of him as a character, it will be much more approachable than it was in the original."

Maehiro also shares that the timing of Cloud joining your party is more akin to The Final Fantasy Tactics' PSP port, War of the Lions.

Perhaps more interestingly, though, is what's now waiting for us at the spot Cloud's Materia Blade used to be. "I would like everyone to go and explore the place where that sword used to be and find out what was there," Maehiro tells GameReactor, without elaborating. Challenge accepted.

Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles is set to release on PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch on September 30.

25 years later, Final Fantasy 9's stylized visuals have ensured it's aged brilliantly without a remake.

Longtime fans of the original strategy RPG don't need to worry about Square Enix making changes to beloved characters in Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles, as the old "system works so well" already.

Director Kazutoyo Maehiro and co-director Ayako Yokoyama confirm as much in a recent interview with GamesRadar+ at Gamescom 2025. "We haven't made any changes to characters that were powerful," explains Maehiro. "And similarly, not just for the unique characters, but for jobs such as the arithmetician, we haven't made any major changes." The developers didn't feel the need to, as they didn't want to "break" things.

"This game has a lot of different jobs and a lot of different abilities, but I think one of the reasons why this system works so well is because players have the option to be able to play around with the different jobs and abilities and come up with their own combinations, and we didn't really want to break that overall plate," concludes the director. That doesn't mean that no changes were made at all, however, as Yokoyama points out.

"There are certain instances where we did make some adjustments," says the co-director. "I think in the original game, there were certain abilities that might have been difficult to actually make good use of, and so we've made some adjustments in that respect."

Ultimately, though, Square Enix "didn't really want to disappoint anybody who played the original" with any of the changes made in Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles.

Just imagine "your favorite job got nerfed" in the strategy RPG, states Yokoyama, and "it's not the way you remember it" – that's the sort of scenario devs wanted to steer clear of. "I think we wanted to avoid that."

Their thoughts on the matter certainly make sense… After all, fans of older titles aren't exactly forgiving when it comes to massive changes in remakes, and the Final Fantasy community is most definitely not an exception.

Thankfully, there's not long left to wait until players get to explore the little tweaks devs did include. Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles releases on September 30, leaving less than a month before the remaster is finally available to explore.

Looking forward to one of the most exciting new games yet? Read through our thoughts on the JRPG in our short Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles preview for more.

Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles has been a long time coming. Launching 28 years after the original PS1 tactical RPG, fans have been begging for its return for years – and I'm pleased to say that after 45 minutes with the remaster, it's looking like it'll be worth the wait.

Sitting down with Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles at Gamescom 2025, I'm introduced to the start of the RPG before jumping ahead to the fight to protect the kidnapped Princess Ovelia at Zeirchele Falls – a slightly more complex battle with more allies to command and also more enemies to think about. There's also an extra element of pressure as the PR supervising the session eagerly watches on to see who can clear the stage, and who can do it first – and I'm not one to back down from a challenge.

I embark on the demo with the newly "Enhanced" version of the game – one of two ways to play the remaster, and specifically, the more modernized one, which I'll admit appeals to me much more as a complete rookie who's never played the original. While the "Classic" option maintains the feeling of the 1997 game when it comes to its gameplay, the Enhanced version boasts improved visuals (which still maintain a retro feel), fully voiced dialogue, and some gameplay adjustments that the devs have added to make things more accessible for new fans.

Rebuilding a classic

Speaking in a group interview following the preview session, co-director Ayako Yokoyama explains that The Ivalice Chronicles "is for modern audiences, so we did want to make it accessible for them." She explains: "For example, I know that people have a lot more time constraints now than they might have had for games 28 years ago. So we've added some different features that might be accommodating for that, such as a fast-forward feature, so they can speed up battles a little bit, [and] make it a more frustration-free experience."

On top of that, she acknowledges that "the original game was quite difficult, and there were even people 28 years ago who played the original and weren't able to clear it," which inspired the decision to create three difficulty levels for the remaster. "The base is overall the same, but we're really just trying to improve upon that and then make it accessible."

One of the main improvements here is The Ivalice Chronicles' clear combat timeline. In the remaster, players are able to keep a close eye on exactly when their units will unleash their moves, offering a bit of a forecast of what's to come somewhat akin to Octopath Traveler's turn order sequence, which itself lets you strategically plan around enemy attacks and know the best time to fight back yourself.

In my hands-on session, this is something I find particularly useful while lining up magic attacks, as I don't want to leave anyone vulnerable while they charge stronger spells. Looking at the timeline, everything is clearly mapped out, and there's no doubt over how long someone is going to be stuck somewhere while casting.

Speaking to director Kazutoyo Maehiro, he believes that this is the single most important change the remaster has brought with it. He's quick to bring up Final Fantasy Tactics' "unique" Charge Time battle system, noting that "the order of how the units do their actions is extremely important.

"In the original game on PS1, due to the resolution that it was output at, due to different specs, I need to say it was a little bit difficult to check on what the overall order of turns was," Maehiro admits. "That's very basic information that's very important to the core gameplay of Final Fantasy Tactics, so with The Ivalice Chronicles, we wanted to make sure that that information was more out in the forefront. So I made sure, when I was in discussions with the development team, that we made that information readily available, and that kind of manifested itself as the combat timeline."

Glory days

Some things, however, haven't changed much at all. I ask if there's been any rebalancing of particularly strong classes such as the Arithmetician, and Maehiro assures me that "we haven't made any changes to characters that were powerful. And similarly, not just for the unique characters, but for jobs such as the Arithmetician, we haven't made any major changes."

Admittedly, this isn't something that I'm able to delve into too much during the demo. Embarking on the battle at Zeirchele Falls, I have a small team including a Black Mage, White Mage, and Archer, who all serve me well, with my bow-wielding ally picking off foes from a distance, and healer making sure that everyone stays healthy (including Princess Ovelia).

While there's not really room to experiment with character builds in a short hands-on slot, as the director puts it, the full tactical RPG "has a lot of different jobs and a lot of different abilities." As he sees it, "I think one of the reasons why this system works so well is because players have the option to be able to play around with the different jobs and abilities and come up with their own combinations, and we didn't really want to break that overall plate."

Yokoyama agrees, although she also notes that "there are certain instances where we did make some adjustments," specifically where "there were certain abilities that might have been difficult to actually make good use of." However, she reiterates: "We didn't really want to disappoint anybody who played the original. You know, your favorite job got nerfed, and then, you know, it's not the way you remember it. So we wanted to avoid that."

Source code struggles

As Maehiro has previously discussed, the remaster of Final Fantasy Tactics came with a unique problem for the developers after "we came to the realization that we didn't have the original source code." Elaborating on this a bit further in our chat, the director explains that Square Enix ended up "rebuilding The Ivalice Chronicles" by "using what resources we did have available to us, whether that be the retail copy of the game or the smartphone version, and analyzing that code."

This wasn't without its issues. "We were of course using the original as a base, and we needed to use the data from that," Yokoyama adds. "There was some data that we could make use of, but there were also certain things that we couldn't find through the analysis, or there were certain things that we were adding into that original data, and then we would come up with unexpected errors or things like that."

Overall, keeping original fans happy while still opening Final Fantasy Tactics up to a new audience is a recurring theme during the interview with the two devs. Yokoyama notes that even the dev team working on the remaster – being a blend of both people who worked on the original and those who were new to it – lends itself well to Square Enix's vision. "I think it created a lot of good synergy, because we could focus on trying to bring new things to the game, to bring it to a newer audience, but at the same time also making sure that we stay true to that original vision," she explains.

Personally speaking, I can definitely say that the efforts made to make The Ivalice Chronicles appeal to new fans are working. Admittedly, I never played the original, but even after being thrown straight into the action of the remaster, everything felt easy to grasp, and just like in any good tactical RPG, it's oh-so-satisfying to watch a plan come together.

So, what of my efforts to protect Princess Ovelia at Zeirchele Falls? I'm pleased to report that, despite being a rookie Final Fantasy Tactics player, I was successful, with no units falling in battle. I suspect I may have overcomplicated things at the start – making an effort to cast protective spells on Ovelia in order to keep her safe when she ended up being pretty self-sufficient in that regard – which may have cost me the race to the end of the battle. Hey, second place isn't bad, though, and I'm keen to hone my skills further when Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles launches on September 30.

You can read more of GamesRadar+'s Autumn Preview by visiting our Gamescom 2025 coverage hub.

Sunlight dances on rippling water. Luscious green is draped from here to the horizon under the protection of rocky cliff faces. My stroll turns to a jog before I suddenly take flight, tearing through the sky with grandiose martial artistry, whipping and soaring like an angel with a point to prove. There's no doubt about it: Where Winds Meet is stunning.

Where Winds Meet is an open-world, Wuxia RPG set in 10th Century China. You play a young sword master who can scale and run along walls, as well as burst into flight at a moment's notice, meaning exploration is fluid and exciting. Early into my hands-on sessions I was eager to test the limits of traversal, and I'm delighted to say at no point did I encounter any frustrating limitations.

Blowin' in the wind

I know it's as big a sin as comparing a challenging game to Dark Souls but the freedom of movement instantly brought to mind The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I know, I'm sorry, but it really can't be helped. Similarly to the Nintendo title, Where Winds Meet shows you a sprawling landscape and seems to goad you into running as far from the main path as possible.

There are many excellent sword-swinging fantasy games to get lost in, from Assassin's Creed Shadows to Rise of the Ronin, but Where Winds Meet is the first time I've felt truly unable to follow a mission in favor of climbing walls and sailing over towns. Wallrunning in games, when done right, is as fun as performing any trick in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, and there were moments in my hands-on session where I became obsessed with pressing ahead over longer and longer gaps.

The traversal is important to the game's quests too. One specific side objective required taking flight over a small house to reach a breakable object, which I focused long enough to achieve before once again Supermanning off into the distance, much to the amusement of the game devs watching behind me.

I was assured the various attacks I was throwing out to increase my speed would be relevant to certain fights, although I didn't come up against any mid-air enemies during my time with the game, but I'm curious whether these encounters will feel free or more on-rails given the sheer size of the available space.

Grounded

But what goes up must come down, and I soon found myself on the ground before an ornate boss known as the Shadow Puppeteer.

Now I had the combat explained to me but didn't need to do a whole lot of it during the open world segment, meaning my first attempt (yes, there were multiple) was mainly figuring out attacks, parries, dodges, blocks, and various skills/specials. Naturally I didn't make much progress against the Puppeteer's health bar, but I learned enough to feel competent on the PS5 DualSense controller.

Take two saw the boss show off what they could do. Phase one was a case of parrying some attacks and dodging rare unblockable strikes, dealing out damage when gaps formed before hitting a critical blow with an on-screen input prompt. Once I had the measure of this sequence, I was thrown into another section where I had to parry attacks from a shadowy foe, as well as dodge smaller enemies who couldn't be blocked.

The fight felt theatrical overall, with the rhythm of parries more akin to Sekiro than Lies of P, although I'd argue not as challenging as either title. The only downside was the intentionally drawn-out pace of the fight felt quite tedious, so I hope Where Winds Meet's other bosses are less meandering and more dynamic.

Sadly my sessions ended there, and as I said my thank yous and goodbyes, I found myself thinking again about flying through the sky, the sense of freedom and adventure so strong I could feel a yearning forming in my bones. I'm still yearning for it now. I imagine I'll continue to do so until the game comes to PC and PS5 on November 14, 2025.

Check out all the other upcoming PS5 games we can't wait to see this year!

Back in my Ghostrunner 2 review, I said I wished I was better at its parkour, cyberpunk, samurai fantasy, capable of really nailing down its free-running flow-state gameplay. In Valor Mortis, the new game from Ghostrunner developer One More Level, I also wished I was better at it than I was - albeit for very different reasons.

Valor Mortis is a first-person soulslike set in a twisted version of the Napoleonic wars. Waking up in a mass grave, the bodies of your comrades stacked around you and the voice of the little corporal echoing in your ears, you're quickly introduced to Valor Mortis' take on several Dark Souls staples: backstabs that one-shot unaware enemies; glass flasks that can be shattered to restore health; mystical lanterns that serve as checkpoints but restore fallen enemies to life.

Short and sweet

The language of the soulslike is no longer a novelty, but Valor Mortis is hinging on the idea that a first-person perspective will be. While it's a bit strange to see a regency rapier utilized in a manner just a little reminiscent of a cyberpunk-era katana, it's a broadly effective pitch. The zombified enemies that shamble towards your terrified player are a lot scarier in first-person than anything I fought in Undead Burg, especially when you're presented with several of them in close-quarters.

That first-person view, however, does lead to less intricate combat than I would hope for from a soulslike. You can feel Ghostrunner's main character aching to be let out, but his is a game where a single swipe of a bullet-time katana is enough to fell almost any foe. There are some extra levels of complexity attached to combat - an explosive flintlock pistol that can be used to target weak points and even a magic system that I only saw a small amount of - but in borrowing the perspective of its previous games, One More Level has lost some of the nuance that's such a key part of this genre.

I never felt that more keenly than in the first major boss encounter. An entertaining design offering a musket-powered twist on Elden Ring's Godrick offered multiple ways to take on this towering enemy - until it didn't. Taking aim at its weakpoints, especially those hidden behind the more bizarre parts of its silhouette, helped build up a balance bar that allowed for a critical strike, but otherwise it was a case of dodging and parrying until a window opened up in which I could hack randomly at its flanks in the hope of some extra chip damage.

I realize I'm describing any number of third-person soulslikes here too, but where Dark Souls helped birth this formula and many games since have helped layer complexity on top of those origins, Valor Mortis loses something by putting you so close to the action. The weight of my sword was precise, honed by work across two previous games, the boom of my flintlock appropriately hefty, but when I got close to the boss, my hits felt weightless, the collision between my character and my enemy bulky and clumsy.

In the time I had, I couldn't beat it. And I also couldn't shake the feeling that I'd felt like this before. Ghostrunner's precision platforming and extreme fragility across both protagonist and combatant made its minute-to-minute gameplay feel incredible. But as soon as it tried to move too far past its core loop, it often felt slow, weighty, and imprecise. Unfortunately, so much of what made Ghostrunner special is missing from what I've seen of Valor Mortis so far, and what is still present feels anachronistic, attached to a game far too different from this studio's core. I can't help but feel there's a reason the soulslike genre is so often limited to third-person action games, and while I'm loathe to criticize a studio for taking a leap into the unknown, I'm not sure this one has stuck the landing.

Test your skills ahead of release with our list of the best games like Dark Souls.

To say that Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford is passionate about Borderlands 4 – and the looter shooter series as a whole – would be an enormous understatement. Pitchford is constantly singing the upcoming game's praises on social media with near-overwhelming enthusiasm, and sitting down with him at Gamescom 2025, it's immediately apparent that this isn't just an online persona.

Chatting beneath an enormous Borderlands 4 poster – though Pitchford's loud, patterned shirt is somehow still the brightest thing in the room – it's apparent he's bursting with pride. As we begin discussing the looter shooter genre and how it's evolved in the years since the first Borderlands popularized it ("Some say it created it," he chimes in), it's easy to see why. In his words, the series "went from an industry that predicted that we would die" to pioneering "a whole new genre."

Pioneering a genre

Borderlands started life as the love child of a first-person shooter and an RPG, combining "moment-to-moment fun" with the satisfaction of "leveling up, getting more powerful, and collecting loot." The fact that it offers a combination of these factors is "why it's called Borderlands," Pitchford explains. "Borderlands are places between things that don't belong. A borderland is between two things that have no business being together. So Borderlands is the borderland between a role-playing game and a shooter. It's the borderland between comedy and drama. It's the borderland between surrealism and realism."

Though the benefit of hindsight validates Borderlands, at its inception, Pitchford had no idea that it would birth an entire genre. "We didn't realize at the time that, because of the success of Borderlands, there would be a lot of other folks that wanted to jump in and do things," says Pitchford. "And it's kind of exciting, because in a few cases, some of the game makers that I admire most started making shooter looters too, and it's really cool because it proved that it wasn't just a one-off. Borderlands ushered in a whole new genre."

Pitchford doesn't always think other devs' attempts to put their own spin on Borderlands' formula work brilliantly. "When people twist it too far and they go off the deep end, it doesn't work," he suggests. Still, he's positive about the arrival of other looter shooters in the space. "I don't see any entertainment as competition, I think especially video games," adds Pitchford. "And if someone makes a brilliant looter shooter, that's really good for all of us.

"When people make bad video games, it's bad for all of us. But good video games? Oh, it's so great," he gushes. "When someone has an awesome experience playing a looter shooter, they definitely want more. And we're gonna find a lot of people are going to be curious where it all started, and will want to explore Borderlands at some point. As Borderlands has been more successful, it's paved the way for other shooter looters, and as other great shooter looters have appeared, I think some of those customers find Borderlands. That's awesome, and I love it. And also, I'm a gamer. I want to play all these games! So, more please. Let's make more games."

Speaking about Borderlands' own approach to the looter shooter space, Pitchford says that "there are core things that we understand to why the shooter looter feels so good, and we tend to commit to the bit. If you look at the Borderlands games over time, you see that we are pushing – and always exploring – the boundaries, but we're doing it within a framework that is very natural to what Borderlands is."

This, he thinks, is the key to Borderlands' success. "We went from an industry that predicted that we would die, that Borderlands would find no audience, to being one of the leading video game franchises in the world. It's kind of humbling, frankly, to be a part of it, but I don't really worry about that too much."

Social media, discourse, and the great pricing debate

As Pitchford raves about the upcoming installment, I'm reminded of the constant enthusiasm he and other Gearbox devs show on Twitter, singing the praises of their games and interacting with fans – for better or for worse. Pitchford often courts controversy on social media, with backlash over Borderlands 4 pricing concerns a recent example (but more on that later).

"There's risks to it, but whatever, you know, we're just doing our thing," he acknowledges. "The truth is that we're kind of just nerds that are obsessed with our own work, and it's just kind of a miracle that other people seem to be interested in what we're doing."

Asked about those risks, and if he's ever worried about the extra scrutiny being active on social media might bring, Pitchford is relatively unconcerned. "I don't live in a lot of fear like that, because at the end of the day, that honestly doesn't really matter," he says. Even when he sees people sharing "very strong opinions" on his posts, he argues that can be interpreted as "a different kind of love, because the truth is, we don't post on forums for things we don't care about, right?"

More than that, he also likes to keep in mind how relatively small the number of people who interact with his posts is. "Honestly, it's infinitesimal relative to the actual big picture," he argues. "Because, OK, two million people saw a post, [but] like, you know how many people play Borderlands?"

Even if the proportion of Borderlands players flooding Pitchford's Twitter replies is relatively small compared to the number of players the series has, that's not to say that backlash doesn't happen. Before Borderlands 4 was confirmed to be $70, there was major uproar after one fan raised concerns about the upcoming looter potentially being $80, to which Pitchford responded that while the price wasn't his decision, "if you’re a real fan, you’ll find a way to make it happen" regardless.

"[Take] the sum of every conversation that ever happened on social media about the price of a video game, and every article that was ever written, you add that all up, and it won't change anything with the result," says Pitchford. "At the end of the day, when I want something and I feel like what they're asking is fair, I'll get it. And if I don't want something, I won't."

Speaking about Borderlands specifically, he acknowledges that "I don't know how I could say this and sound as if I have any amount of humility," but believes that Borderlands 4's value is justified. "Like, you look at all the past Borderlands games, we have people that spend 1,000s of hours in the Borderlands. If you think about that in terms of the most amount that could have ever been spent, versus the time of entertainment that was [had], you can't find a better value in the world for any kind of entertainment. [...] As an artist. I want everybody to play it. And as someone who's gonna make themselves accessible on the internet, yeah, I'll have the conversation."

Pitchford saw Borderlands 4's now infamous price discussion as a fan being "really concerned that if Borderlands 4 is $80, it's going to fail," noting that "I was trying to say it's gonna be fine, man, this conversation doesn't matter. The value will be decided by every customer making their decision."

"Shit, I think [Gearbox] could charge $200," he says. "I wish they'd give it away, because then everybody would play it. But that's not how the business works." Even so, he reiterates, "the value's there."

"I knew it was going to be fine," he continues. "I tried to calm the guy down and then, you know, of course, 'ah, I'm taking people for granted.' It's like, I can't believe anybody likes our stuff, let alone the fact that Borderlands has achieved the success that it has, like we're just goofing around, making stuff we're passionate about."

He goes back to that initial prediction of Borderlands' failure, recalling that when he presented the first game at Gamescom, "nobody cared," and "the entire industry predicted it was going to fail." Pitchford continues: "I still remember, like, 'OK, the world is saying this doesn't even deserve to exist, and it's probably going to die, but I love it, and we're committed, and we're going to give this thing everything we've got, and even if we the only people [who] end up playing with it, you know what? We did it. It turned out it works."

After six years of development, Pitchford is looking forward to Borderlands 4's launch. The CEO is "so excited" to join fans and "play with strangers cooperatively, which I always love doing.

"I do it on launch day, and I'll do it for weeks – I just jump into people's games and just see what they're doing, and look at their characters, and look at their loot, and see where they are in the game, and kind of watch their play styles and sometimes help them out. I have God abilities, so sometimes I'll give free loot away, but I love that. I can't wait to play with people."

Want to see more of GamesRadar+'s Autumn Preview? Head over to our Gamescom 2025 coverage hub.

I was first shown Menace back in 2023, and much like the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, it's since never been more than four crackling neurons away from whatever thought my brain is currently holding. The tactical RPG, which is set in a Warhammer-esque universe and puts you in command of a strike cruiser sent to a lawless space system, packs the sort of depth my imagination usually fills in the blanks for in turn-based strategy games.

Yet the many layers of Menace, which range from customizing the minute details of your squads' loadouts to interstellar faction management and branching mission chains, aren't designed to be inscrutable. I routinely get my ass handed to me in Xenonauts, but when I finally get to play Menace for myself at Gamescom 2025, I'm more than a little surprised to find that it's still just as palatable as XCOM, with its wealth of mechanics feeling complementary rather than overwhelming.

I'm even more surprised to find that Menace is – without hyperbole – my idea of the perfect strategy game, with the freedom on offer feeding back into that all-important feeling of creating your own narrative.

Doing my part

The demo I play opens up at a deployment screen, where my squad leaders can be kitted out and customized. I can spend manpower – a resource from the ship – to attach more squaddies (essentially hitpoints) to each character, but developer Overhype Studios warns me that going overboard could leave me with dangerous shortages in the future if I take heavy casualties. Likewise, I can choose to equip squads with higher-tier armor and specialist weapons like missile launchers and light machine guns, but there's a limit to how much can be spent on one mission – meaning you need to carefully pick and choose how your resources are allocated.

As part of that outfitting, I pair my squads with a light tank which in turn can be customized with different weapons. I'm glad I do – the next step is taking a look at the map we'll be fighting on, which is a large and fairly open desert. The goal is to capture two buildings, and my current intelligence level (which can be improved via the ship) gives me a rough outline of the expected opposition and their positions. Upon deploying, I can choose where to position my troops, and divide them to take each target simultaneously.

But, as anyone who's played the likes of XCOM or Xenonauts will know, the best-laid plans only have a 99% chance of working. Within minutes, one squad on the left side of the map are caught out in the open and decimated by Outcasts – scrappy, low-level criminals. A suppression system means the survivors are pinned, lying prone on the ground while a second squad returns fire from the questionable cover of a wall.

Meanwhile, my right flank has gotten off to a much stronger start and has not only captured their target building but has attacked and killed the pirates – who are better equipped than the Outcasts – while they're still moving into position, freeing them up to help with the first objective. Here's where the tank comes in handy – besides the giant laser-spewing cannon decimating everything in sight, it can also be used to ferry troops, meaning help is fast on the way for the squads who barely made it out of deployment.

The whole time, I'm grinning from ear to ear. This all feels like a living, breathing battlefield, every action an anecdote in the making. To capture that feeling of live combat, units continue to trade gunfire in the background even after their action ends, meaning the crackle and thumps of gunfire continue even as I deliberate over strategy.

Ultimately, the battle is won by calling in aerial support. First, one squaddie sends out a drone to peek on the other side of the building, revealing a bunch of pirates clustered behind cover. Next, I call in laser cannons – an aerial bombardment from our ship in space. This takes an entire turn to arrive, so you have to map out the targeted tiles using equal parts intelligence and foresight, but using a combination of a missile strike and laser strafe I manage to decimate a bunch of pirate squads who were previously at full-strength. It's a power trip and then some – one by one the few surviving pirates rout, as a morale system dictates how well and how long a unit will fight for. In this case, being served hot space death proves unpalatable, and they decide to scarper.

While my demo focused on the moments before and during a mission – less so the broader RPG and management elements that bringing law to the Wayback system requires – it's difficult to overstate just how right Menace gets everything I see. Overhype Studios provides so many tools for the player that Menace plays like an immersive sim in sheep's clothing, giving players so many tools and options to realize their own miniature narratives in missions. Take it from me, a guy who used to write diary-style entries for his XCOM 2 Ironman campaign – Menace is shaping up to be the real deal, and if I could, I'd shake every strategy fan in sight until they were paying attention.

Until Menace gets an early access release date, why not check out the best PC games we've rounded up?

There's no shortage of exciting Final Fantasy 14 news in the air following Gamescom 2025, with director Naoki "Yoshi-P" Yoshida saying the devs are "planning to upgrade" future content releases and hinting that fans won't have to wait long for the MMO's next expansion.

And now, there's even more. In a recent interview with TechRadar Gaming, Yoshi-P reveals that jobs may receive a bit of an overhaul in the future – words that might provide some much-needed hope to burnt-out players after Dawntrail's own "mixed" beginnings, following everything from difficulty concerns to complaints regarding a lack of fun and engaging content. "We do have quite a big plan for jobs moving forward," admits Yoshi-P.

"But it is quite difficult for me to convey the nuances at this time," continues the lead. "When it comes to the current content that we have in terms of battles and design, we don't want to destroy that experience as it is right now."

That doesn't mean adjustments aren't underway, however. "So, keeping that in mind, we don't want to incorporate major changes to that, but what we do want to do is make jobs more interesting for players to use."

There's no telling what Square Enix has in store for Final Fantasy 14 jobs just yet, but I'm personally keeping my fingers crossed as a fan that whatever is planned proves to impress the community more than past updates' changes did. After all, this won't be the first time jobs receive tweaks in the devs' hopes of bettering them. A little over a year ago, Yoshi-P shared a similar reveal, assuring that Dawntrail would finally return "more individuality" to jobs.

It was certainly an exciting announcement, but it's safe to say the expansion fell short of convincing most fans of its potential once it launched. Even now, Dawntrail feedback on Steam sits at "Mostly Negative," with one recent review seeing a player state that "this excuse of an expansion made me quit." Another calls it "by far the worst expansion" Square Enix has "ever released, and it doesn't even come close." It's been a year for the community. Not a good year, but most definitely a year.

Here's hoping Yoshi-P's new statement on job improvements rings true later down the line (especially for us healers, sigh) – I know that I'll be keeping my own fingers crossed for the time being, particularly with Fan Fest 2026 quickly approaching.

Final Fantasy 14's Yoshi-P is "a maniac about One Piece," but his dream collab is still the RPG he's spent 1000s of hours in: "I love Diablo so much that I would want to make a Diablo game myself"

Borderlands 4 is on its way to Switch 2 next month, but it sounds like it probably won't be the only Gearbox game to grace the platform in the future.

Speaking to GamesRadar+ at Gamescom 2025, Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford is full of praise for Nintendo's new console, saying "the Nintendo Switch 2 is an awesome, awesome machine – I'm so grateful for it."

Acknowledging that the expectation with Nintendo is always that the company is going to "do something really interesting" with its hardware, like with the Wii which was "an incredible innovation" (even if, he admits "the Wii U didn't work as well), he thinks the Switch 2 is "less about innovating and more about perfecting, and giving us what we want and what works."

He continues: "I love my Switch, and I kind of wanted a more powerful one with newer games. When I got the briefing and realized, 'oh, it's more than that, Nintendo has invested a lot, not just in the hardware, but in the software, and making it easier than ever to connect with other people [...] This is getting exciting.'"

As we now know, it was decided that "we have to put Borderlands 4 on it," but what about future Gearbox games? Pitchford seems optimistic about further releases eventually making their way to the hybrid handheld, as he explains: "I love Switch, and I love my Switch 2.

"And I think that without getting in trouble and trying to talk about things that are from the future, we love making games, and we love entertaining people, and we want to be on the platforms where the people that want us to be are. And Nintendo just had the most successful new console launch in the history of video game consoles, and I don't think that's slowing down."

He reiterates that "I love that platform, and I want to bring more games to it," but adds that "it's really not the right time for me to talk about games that are down the road." So, no more hints from him right now, but it's still sounding promising for anyone who prefers to take their games on the go.

Borderlands 4 endgame and post-launch roadmap revealed: You can start new characters at level 30 after beating the campaign, there are weekly challenges, and the first story pack is "cosmic horror" with "a bloodier, darker tone."

Resident Evil Requiem's director has explained that returning to Raccoon City was basically to satisfy the developer's own curiosity more than anything.

Resident Evil Requiem is in a unique place as far as the series lore goes. Rather than continue from the aftermath of Resident Evil 7 and 8's Ethan storyline, or return to one of our long-term heroes for one last ride (although Leon is definitely happening), Capcom has opted to bring in a new protagonist while returning to where it all began.

After Raccoon City was bombed off the map following the events of Resident Evil 2 and 3, the series never went back there (outside of prequels and spinoffs). But in an interview with 4Gamer (translated by Automaton), Resident Evil Requiem director Koshi Nakanishi admitted that he always wanted to return to the city, saying the idea of returning and seeing the aftermath is like "rice left forgotten in a rice cooker for a week – something you probably don’t want to open, but eventually curiosity makes you lift the lid."

Nakanishi says that Resident Evil Requiem is both about Raccoon City as much as it is Grace Ashcroft; both have been shaped by traumatic events, with players experiencing the aftermath of her mother's death as well as how the city-destroying incident impacted the survivors of the outbreak all those years later - adding that the "Requiem" namesake refers to how the living remembers the deaths of Grace's mother and the Raccoon City victims.

However, Nakanishi reckons it's still a good starting point for players, as Grace herself doesn't really know much about the Umbrella Corporation or what happened in Raccoon City herself, so she'll be discovering all that alongside the player. But at the same time, I would have to imagine the return to Raccoon City will feature a ton of things you would miss if you weren't familiar.

Resident Evil 7 was "possibly too scary" and "some people couldn't handle it," says director Koshi Nakanishi, and that's why Resident Evil 9 has a third-person mode to "make it slightly easier to deal with."

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle's director has said nailing the more open gameplay was the hardest part of making the game.

Machine Games may be proficient in Nazi bashing from its tenure as the Wolfenstein series developer, so Indiana Jones was naturally right up the developer's alley. But despite the timeframe and enemy in common, Indiana Jones is no BJ Blazkowicz and is more into the adventure and artifact collection aspects than the mowing down thousands without holding back of BJ (or his descendant Doomguy). And because of this change in character, naturally both games are different takes, while it has shooting, Indiana Jones is an open-ended adventure game, with combat taking a backseat as opposed to the more linear Wolfenstein games.

Speaking to GamesRadar+'s Josh West at Gamescom 2025, Axel Torvenius, creative director of The Great Circle, talked about developing the game with a different focus in mind. "From an internal studio point of view, it's been one of the most interesting and at the same time challenging aspects of making this."

Torvenius explained, "we have a long history of making, like, very linear, still story driven, but very linear type of gameplay with the Wolfenstein franchise. And when we set out to do this, we kind of knew from the get-go that we wanted to make it more open and more dynamic." However, from the sounds of things the upcoming DLC – The Order of Giants – could be the best of both worlds, as Torvenius explains, "the DLC kind of still reflects that. It's more linear to some extent, than parts of the main game, but there are sections, as you enter the streets of Rome, and specifically underneath the streets of Rome, where it opens up."

Personally, I hope that means Machine Games get the itch again and make a proper Wolfenstein 3 soon, but given the success of The Great Circle, it doesn't feel likely.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle devs love feedback, but will stick to their guns when it comes to game direction: "Yeah, but no thanks, because we already have a very good idea that we believe in."

Over four years since the launch of hardcore World War 2 shooter Hell Let Loose, a whole new installment, Hell Let Loose: Vietnam, is on the way. But its devs want to make one thing very clear – this isn't a replacement for the first game in the series.

Sitting down with franchise director Steve Woodward and producer Craig Clark at Gamescom, I'm shown what the upcoming shooter looks like in action. New mechanics like swimming and even the ability to fly around in helicopters immediately ensure that Vietnam feels fresh, but the pair emphasize during our conversation that just because a new game is happening, that doesn't mean that fans of the original are being "abandoned." It's not a sequel, they tell me, but more of a separate experience, and one that's being worked on by a different internal team than those who are continuing to develop Hell Let Loose.

"There's so many fans of the current game that, you know, we want to make sure that they're still fans, we don't want them to feel like we've abandoned them in any way," Woodward explains. "But we also want to bring the game to new audiences as well, which potentially, if you don't like World War 2, you might like Vietnam. But, you know, we actually hope that players will like both."

Giving fans what they want

By Woodward's own admission, the onboarding experience for the original Hell Let Loose is "not as good as it can be, and so it's difficult for new players to get into the game," but this is something that the team hopes to address with Vietnam. "Really, we want to grow the overall player base and keep the existing player base happy," he adds.

Clark agrees, explaining how Vietnam's success can be a net positive for the original game. "If someone likes something in Vietnam, we can take that and move it into the first [game]. If someone wants something brought from 1 into Vietnam, because we're still developing both titles, we can do that as well."

The producer knows that "you're never going to appease everyone," but adds that "the biggest thing from my perspective is the fact that we're not taking away anything that people loved about Hell Let Loose. The game modes are still going to be there. We're going to add new game modes. We're not going to replace ones that people love. Warfare mode, Offensive mode – they're going to stay there, and they're going to function as they should. We're going to improve the things that players have been asking to be improved."

Clark admits that "one thing that sometimes frustrates me" when it comes to games is when "something changes that everyone fundamentally loves." However, he thinks Hell Let Loose: Vietnam is "what a brand extension should be," by "adding things and removing the frustrations."

There are, of course, differences in the weapons you can get your hands on in Hell Let Loose: Vietnam compared to the original, but things still shouldn't feel too dissimilar if you've poured hours upon hours into the 2021 game. "We just needed to think of what is the historically accurate version of [a given weapon], essentially, and what changed in terms of the actual combat [in the Vietnam War] wasn't too large," Clark begins. "In the Vietnam War, there were mortars. The equivalent of that we have in World War 2 is artillery."

This also means that skills should be largely transferrable between the two games. "We don't want to limit the players' ability to… transition between either game, because, as we said earlier, the core principles of the game are the same. We're not changing those," Woodward adds.

As for why the series is going to Vietnam in the first place, Clark says "it's basically what the community have been asking for." He recalls: "Every time I open Reddit, I feel like I will see a post [saying] like, 'this would be a great game in the Vietnam War.'"

Furthermore, "we knew that there was space there to achieve it, and we knew that the players wanted it," he continues, "so it all, from my perspective, felt very much [like], 'let's do it.'"

Going forward, the devs are keen to keep listening to what the community wants, and using their wishes to help direct the series. "Who knows what the future holds?" Woodward says. "We might go further into the future. We might go more to the past. We could go any direction we want, as long as we're staying true to what Hell Let Loose is, that's the main thing. Historically accurate – or sympathetic – and staying true to the core values of the game."

Hell Let Loose: Vietnam is set to release at an unspecified date in 2026 across PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.

Be sure to check out our Gamescom 2025 coverage hub to see more articles from the GamesRadar+ Autumn Preview.

Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is bringing almost every era of the Caped Crusader together for one brick-busting-then-building game, which is something the Lego game developers have "never done before."

Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight was announced earlier this month at Gamescom 2025, and it looks to be borrowing from the excellent Skywalker Saga - by that I mean it's chucking out references to the entire sweeping series non-stop and wildly experimenting with the Lego formula.

In an interview with GamesRadar+, strategic director Johnathan Smith explained that TT Games has "drawn upon decades of reference material and fantastic stories about Batman in movies, TV shows, comics and game, and brought them all together into one definitive, essential, epic story of Batman."

"So it's a fusion of all those iconic moments that you remember, laced and woven with deep cut references and our own humorous jokes, to bring the experience of becoming the Dark Knight to life for players. We draw upon them all, and we bring them together, and then we create one story that unifies and is essential."

Legacy of the Dark Knight's developers aren't creating this "fusion" with cutscenes and comedy alone, though. Lego Batman's combat is apparently entirely influenced by Rocksteady's Arkham games this time around, and Gotham City is now much more immersive than ever before thanks to tech created for the Skywalker Saga.

"We feel it's a huge privilege," Smith continued. "We feel we've got the richest amount of material to draw from, and we are so excited that no one's ever put all those pieces together in one experience with a video game. We can do that in a way that no one's ever seen or experienced before, with new technology and a really immersive Gotham city, with mechanics that progress the player experience to match the emotional journey of the character."

For more, check out the new games of 2025 and beyond.

The companions in The Outer Worlds 2 recently took center stage in a new trailer that dropped during Gamescom Opening Night Live 2025. After showcasing each intrepid adventurer that's going to join us in the Arcadia star system, a narrator cheekily confirmed as a closing aside that, "no, you can't sleep with them". While sleeping with a character is by no means the be all and end all of romance in games, on a surface level, you could take this to mean that we won't be able to woo our party members – especially in light of the fact that you couldn't in the first Outer Worlds.

But after asking Obsidian game director Brandon Adler about the studio's approach to romance, and whether or not it will at all factor into the sequel at Gamescom 2025, I'm starting to really like the picture the studio is painting for companion relationships. It even sounds as if it could be taking a leaf out of Avowed's book, and in my heart of hearts, I really hope it does.

Getting to know you

As touched upon in the Xbox Games Showcase deep-dive back in June, every companion will be tied to a specific faction and each person will have their own outlooks on everything you do or say. Just like the followers in Avowed, they'll react to your actions, but they can also be influenced by you to take a certain path, or give in to a particular personality trait (like a propensity for violence in the case of cultist companion, Aza). So, with all this reactivity in place, Alder explains that it became a question of whether or not romance could naturally factor into the companion equation.

"Everything in game dev is give and take. And it's not that romances are inherently bad or anything like that. It has nothing to do with that," Adler says, "But if you write romances, that's going to take away from other reactive elements of the companions, right? Like there's other things – I won't get too deep into this because I want people to find this when they're playing – that requires a lot of additional work on the companion side, even things like companions leaving the party, or how they react to things."

Pointing to Aza as an example of the "time and effort" it takes to help her "deal with stuff", Adler adds that "we can only do so much kind of work in the companion space" in an RPG like The Outer Worlds 2, which is already setting out to make everything bigger and better than the 2019 adventure. But it's what Adler said next that makes me think the alternative to sleeping with the companions, as the trailer jests, is going to be far better and much more meaningful anyway.

"Honestly, it [romance] didn't match my overall vision for what I wanted for the companions," Adler continues. "I wanted a group of people who you were close with but it wasn't necessarily that we had to have romance. Now, if it naturally kind of came up as a thing, sure, maybe we could talk about that, but it wasn't like a goal from the very beginning – like 'Yes, we're absolutely going to have romance for every character. This is how the system is going to work. Say three nice things to them, and then they'll want to romance.' It has to be deeper than that, and has to, in some ways, be organic when you're writing these things."

"I won't get into what the relationships are overall," Adler adds, "but it truly does need to be something that's organic. And in my mind, it can't be something that's pre planned like a checkbox. It's got to be something that works for the characters we're writing."

Blossoming bonds

I've always been a bit of a hopeless romantic, and as much as I love to see romance in games, I appreciate that's not the easiest thing to do in a way that feels natural. Over the years, it's often gamified in the same two ways: either by saying the right things in dialogue to earn enough approval, or by giving the right gifts to increase affection ratings (the former of which Adler highlights).

I think that's why I really appreciated Avowed's approach. Over the course of the game as you venture through the Living Lands, you have the chance to get to know your companions better at camp. The time you put in learning more about them and engaging in conversation is entirely up to you – you don't have to speak to them much at all if you're not inclined to. But after speaking with Kai as often as I could and even helping him with a personal request, I already felt close to him as a friend towards the end of the RPG. Then, when the chance came up in conversation to confess that my character had romantic feelings for him, it felt so natural because of the connection I'd actively formed.

I completely get what Adler's saying about not including romance for the sake of it or as a "checkbox" feature, and only working it in if it feels right for a respective companion. But now it begs the question: could it have felt right for one of the companions? Could romance still be possible? Sure, it may not be for every companion that will join us, but if it made sense for one or a few of them? Well, then maybe we could see something develop in that direction not unlike the way it worked with Kai.

Even if we can't engage in anything romantic ourselves, it's also not entirely outside of the realms of possibility that someone could find love outside of our character, too. I adored the way the first Outer Worlds allowed us to help our companion Parvarti find love. As you discover, she developed feelings for an engineer called Junlei Tennyson, whose character you meet during a questline. By acting as cupid for the pair, and encouraging Parvati as she grappled with her fears, I felt like a true friend and confidant, and it was incredibly rewarding to know I'd played a part in helping them establish a relationship.

When we brought this up with Adler and asked whether or not we could see similar scenarios play out, he was tight lipped, saying "you'll have to play the game and see". But hey, that's not a no, so maybe it could happen. Regardless of whether or not we see any kind of romance in The Outer Worlds 2, I'm still very optimistic that Obsidian will make me come to care about the companions. With Adler's platonic "group of people who you [are]close with" at my side, I can't wait to see how my journey unfolds.

For more, be sure to check out our The Outer Worlds 2 hands-on big preview.

Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era is proof that you can usually tell if a strategy game has the goods within an hour. In this specific instance, my biggest criticism of developer Unfrozen's prequel is that I had to stop playing it after an hour. Gazing at distant building upgrades, powerful spells I was unlikely to unlock within my demo, a snowballing army of mythological monsters, Olden Era was laid bare.

Now, a caveat. I've spent so many hours in the likes of Civilization, XCOM, and Total War that I could have used the same amount of time raising a small homunculus to play my strategy games for me. But when it comes to Heroes of Might and Magic, I've only dabbled – blasphemy, I know – and so during my hands-on for Olden Era, I approached it as a devotee of the broader genre rather than a dedicated fan of the series itself.

Yet even from that less-familiar perspective, I came away from this preview appreciating not only the core formula that has made Heroes of Might and Magic such a staple over the years, but with a sneaking suspicion that Olden Era is about to bring a whole lot of folks like myself into the fold.

Spellbound

For the first part of my hands-on, I'm dropped into a match as Dungeon. An umbrella faction for all of the universe's underground creepy-crawlies, my armies consist of medusa, dark elves, and minotaurs – and given I have a limited amount of time to play, my goal is to get my hands on as many cool units and shiny trinkets as possible.

In the overworld, Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era has more than a fair share of RPG elements. Quick pacing at the beginning means that you can usually snag at least one interactable piece of loot per turn, be they equippable items for your hero or resources to funnel back into upgrading your city. Speaking of which, it's hard to decide which buildings to prioritize when each feels genuinely powerful – I opted to prioritize a stronger variant of minotaur, for example, but even that took a minute to weigh against setting up a Mage's Guild for flashier spells.

That bigger-picture metagame is a lot faster-paced than the games I mentioned earlier, and in turn feels much easier to drop into casually. A gently-encouraging narrative nudges me to head west to meet a friendly agent, giving the game's sandbox-y nature a little more structure. Combat is similarly straightforward, taking place on a 2D tile-based with your army's forces on one side and your opponent's on the other.

I take a very ham-fisted approach to battles, haphazardly throwing my minotaurs and dark elves into the fray, but I love how much the game forces you to consider positioning – keep your ranged units back and they'll whittle away anything on the screen from afar, but who's going to keep them safe when your minotaurs are away pulping their ranged units?

But Heroes of Might and Magic's best bit remains getting to press your thumb on the scales with magic. You can tip the odds by smiting down your opponent's damage-dealers, or tangle their frontline up in slowing effects to have free reign over the map. This feels even better when I get to play Arena, a quick battle mode where you get to build a team of cobbled-together units and spells – including end-game stuff – and jump straight into combat. Arena is snappy and chaotic in the best way possible, meaning I got to throw a vampire lord against a phoenix without having to spend hours building up to that level of encounter.

Perhaps, if you're reading this as a long-time Heroes of Might and Magic fan, you'd have preferred I tackle the more nitty-gritty changes and improvements that developer Unfrozen has opted for (one thing I will say – everything looks gorgeous, and I could have gazed at the overworld forever). But as someone who missed the boat on Heroes of Might and Magic at the height of its popularity, the most exciting thing about Olden Era is that it cracks the door back open for strategy fans who have come to the genre since. As I leave my demo, I'm told Unfrozen sees this as a game that players will stick with for hundreds of hours – and, gods help me, I believe it.

The greatest strategy RPG ever is making a comeback with the publisher behind Manor Lords, and I'm ready to relive my Behemoth-collecting 2000s

Some people – like the crabby criminals in Grand Theft Auto – are so unprincipled, even the vampires that yearn for the sour blood running through their necks really want nothing to do with them. Or, it seemed that way in an interview GamesRadar+ had with Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 developers during Gamescom 2025, where they told us their RPG may have enough violence to fill a millennium, but it's definitely not a Rockstar game.

"The story will always progress forward," narrative designer Ian Thomas says about how most players will spend their time in Bloodlines 2. It's ultimately "up to them" if they'd rather explore or focus on the primary questline, and "you could go and keep beating up people on top of buildings, couldn't you? Forever, actually," but current developer The Chinese Room is "not making GTA."

"We are trying to tell a particular story," Thomas continues, in which there are what he describes as "a series of nights" with their own "particular story beats." Players will need to rest in the Haven, which was usually a nondescript apartment in the original Bloodlines game, in order to avoid the killer sun and make it to the next night. They'll get to dream while they rest – though vampires typically don't, says Thomas – while sharing consciousness with Malkavian detective Fabien and his sensitive, psychic mind.

So although you can punch people with the slow luxury being an immortal demon affords you, you better get the hell to bed. Otherwise, Thomas says "you will run out of content in a particular night if you spend too much time" in it. If you want a place that never sleeps, try Vice City.

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is not the faithful sequel I'd hoped to see, but maybe that's a bigger marker of progress than it seems.

Planet of Lana 2 is, simply put, an immediate delight. Picking up where its predecessor left off, playing around 45 minutes of the puzzle-platformer at Gamescom 2025 gave me a delectable taster of what's to come, with protagonist Lana and her cat-like friend Mui investigating a new mystery on the planet Novo.

In my demo, I'm given a taster of several different sections, taking me across a snowy biome, a tropical beach, a man-made mechanical space, and a lush forest. Much like the first game, everything looks gorgeous, with vibrant colors and detailed scenery that makes the world of this 2D adventure feel deep and expansive, and oozing with atmosphere. If I wasn't on a time-limit, I'd have loved slowly meandering through these areas, soaking it all up.

Mui phone home

The sections I get my hands on involve a blend of puzzles and stealth sections – directing both Lana and Mui in order to overcome obstacles and sneak past foes. Guiding Mui to different areas to solve problems as a 'team' feels a little bit like being in a one-man-band – almost like playing a co-op game with two controllers – but it's very satisfying to piece things together, and nothing beats the warm, fuzzy feeling of calling your little feline companion back to you after a job well done.

Mui's skills aren't limited to simply moving around and completing simple tasks like cutting ropes (although they can do that, too). In one section at the aforementioned beach, I use Mui's powers to control a fish, which has its own ability to leave clouds of ink in the water. This is particularly handy since my actual path forward is blocked by an aggressive shark-like creature that charges forward and attacks as soon as I enter its line of sight. Using the fish's ink-spraying skill, I obstruct its view before jumping back to control Lana and finally proceed.

Puzzles like this are fairly simple, albeit still satisfying. However, that's not to say that there aren't any head-scratchers. One particularly tricky problem involves trying to reunite Lana and Mui after breaking the cute companion out of some kind of lab. Clearing the way involves sliding around huge blocks (would it be a puzzle-platformer without one of these?) which have to be inserted into specific places in order to unlock the doors ahead. At this point, one of the developers stepped in to help not just me, but apparently everyone else in the room.

Admittedly, this was partially to ensure we could actually get to the end of the session in the limited amount of time we had, it's not that we'd been given an impossible task, but still – don't expect to breeze through without straining a few brain cells here and there. It's hard to overlook how overdone the whole block-pushing thing is, mind you, but the variety in the rest of the demo has me reassured that Planet of Lana 2 has plenty of tricks up its sleeve to keep us engaged.

There was only one tiny point in the demo where things didn't seem to be working quite right. In one specific area, Mui suddenly became rather disobedient, and didn't want to jump onto a ledge no matter how many times I asked. The solution to this was moving slightly further away from the platform in question, which felt slightly clunky, but far from game-breaking. I'm just hoping Mui doesn't go full Trico mode from The Last Guardian and can be a bit more cooperative in the full release, though it is nice when Lana's furry friend displays their own personality.

Personally though, I'm not worried. Everything else was perfectly smooth, and it shouldn't be ignored that the puzzle-platformer is still eyeing up a vague 2026 release, so there's still plenty of time for polish, and I'm very excited to see what else developer Wishfully is cooking up with its sequel.

Want to read more from GamesRadar+'s Autumn Preview? Be sure to head over to our Gamescom 2025 coverage hub.

MachineGames apparently loves fan feedback helping to improve its games, but the Wolfenstein and Indiana Jones dev isn't as flexible when it comes to game direction.

Speaking to GamesRadar+, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle's creative director Axel Torvenius said the team "are always keen to hear feedback" and are "always listening," particularly to address parts of the game "that feel bulky or unpolished." Torvenius also said the upcoming Indiana Jones DLC allowed the devs to "obviously polish some things further due to some of the community feedback."

MachineGames is all ears for critiques that'll help make a "fluid or nice" experience - things like whether UI navigation is "a bit wonky" or so. "Yeah, if there are things that we can address to make the experience better, of course, we'll do it."

However, this is still the same ballsy studio that made the rebooted Wolfenstein games, and it sticks to its guns when it comes to the important stuff. "We always have this fairly strong vision in MachineGames," Torvenius told us.

"I'm not just talking about vision in terms of the visual style, but vision of the direction of the game. What is it we want to do? What's the story we want to tell? And we always stay pretty firm on that goal when we have it set, so it's not too easy to persuade MachineGames to turn around sometimes. Like, 'hey, maybe you should do this.' Yeah, but no thanks, because we already have a very good idea that we believe in," he added.

"When it comes to the overarching mission and that direction, you often have a very good idea, like, 'this is the game we want to do, and this is the game.'"

Indy's gaming adventures are far from over, though. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle's Order of the Giants expansion is set to come out on S(ilksong)eptember 4.

Todd Howard apparently "rolled his eyes" at the thought of Troy Baker playing Indiana Jones and the Great Circle's protagonist, but the game's lead says it "wouldn't have been what it is" without the Last of Us star.

When Obsidian Entertainment revealed The Outer Worlds 2 earlier this year, it did so with a trump card. With no small amount of confidence, it repeatedly compared its upcoming sci-fi RPG to the studio's own Fallout: New Vegas – a pedigree so high that, frankly, I wondered if it was inviting trouble.

But having played The Outer Worlds 2 at Gamescom 2025, I see exactly where Obsidian is coming from. Building upon the sequel's predecessor, the razor-sharp writing and worldbuilding remains but it's housed within a far more expansive RPG; with a significantly greater focus on exploration and side content as opposed to the first Outer Worlds' tighter scope.

Still, having only played the prologue, I was keen to learn about the studio's thought process behind drawing those Fallout: New Vegas comparisons. Catching up with game director Brandon Adler and creative director Leonard Boyarsky, the thought process soon becomes apparent: The Outer Worlds 2 is like Fallout: New Vegas.

Here and Now

The more we anticipate from a game, the harder it becomes for its developer to deliver. So while The Outer Worlds 2's similarities to Fallout: New Vegas should be music to the ears of any RPG fans, it begs the question: does it set expectations too high?

"I don't ever worry about that stuff," says Adler. As game director, Adler says a lot of those comparisons came from "looking backwards" at Obsidian's history during The Outer Worlds 2's development. "Not even just Obsidian," he adds. "Interplay, the Black Isle part of Interplay, and Troika Games, because Troika also made a bunch of the formative RPGs that we really base ourselves on."

"And so New Vegas, to me, was a natural comparison. It had a lot of the elements that we knew we wanted to push forward: the deeper RPG, the more omnipresent factions and how they fit into the world, the type of open story that we wanted to tell, and even just the exploration of the world itself. We even have a bunch of people at the studio that have already worked on [New Vegas]. It just really matched the values that we were trying to hit on this next game."

Interestingly, Boyarsky helped to create some of the history that Adler points to. The creative director co-created the original Fallout at Interplay, and was project lead for Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines at Troika Games. Having laid much of the path that Fallout: New Vegas would eventually follow, he agrees that The Outer Worlds 2 can finally lay claim to the comparisons that Obsidian actively avoided in the first game.

"When we were trying to publicize the first game, no one knew what The Outer Worlds was," says Boyarsky. "We were like 'Okay, me and Tim made Fallout, and Obsidian made Fallout: New Vegas!' So then for almost every interview we did, we were like 'Okay, this isn't New Vegas in space. This is much smaller.' We were trying to set expectations. And a lot of people really loved the first game, but if we had the time and money, we would have done what people sounded like they wanted – which the shorthand is New Vegas in space."

The pair point out that it's less a case of The Outer Worlds 2 being an all-out successor to New Vegas, and more like Obsidian connecting with its roots as an RPG developer. "It's more like a touchstone," offers Boyarsky. "We're taking some of their lessons because they did some stuff really [well], but as Brandon said, it's just our pedigree. It's what we've always done."

Growing up

As Boyarsky alludes to, the first Outer Worlds was much tighter in scope to other RPGs at the time. Our own The Outer Worlds review pointed to the game taking up roughly 25-30 hours to complete, and while no exact playtime estimates have been given for The Outer Worlds 2, both Boyarsky and Adler say that it offers far more for players to do beyond the main story.

It's interesting because while The Outer Worlds launched when sprawling open worlds were still the RPG genre's be-all-and-end-all, its sequel is now launching where shorter stories are becoming increasingly appealing. For Adler, who "talked to a lot of folks" during its development, the logic was simply a case of giving people what they had asked for.

"We saw that in general, what our fans really wanted was a much more expanded experience – more game to play," he explains. But Adler also points out that some people still want that snappier experience, which forced Obsidian to consider both sides of their fans' tastes.

"Obviously we wanted to make more, but I think what Tim and Leonard hit early on was really good, because there's some people that do like that tighter experience," says Adler. "So we made a game where the core path is maybe 10% or 15% of the total content that's actually there. So if people want, they can have that really quick core experience, and it'll feel really good. But there's a lot of extra game there for people who want more, and they can really explore and get the most out of that. So we just want players to choose how much of the game they really want to play, right?"

For Boyarsky, creating those dual pathways means considering them at a mechanical level. There are no "arbitrary gates" – meaning that to keep that core playthrough streamlined, content will only be locked behind prerequisite quests or actions when it's absolutely necessary for "story and logic-based" purposes. "We didn't put in anything where it's like, 'no you have to do this quest that has barely anything to do with what you want to do in the game before we're gonna let you do this other thing," he explains.

But for expanding on the game for RPG sickos, the answer was simple: the "sheer size" of The Outer Worlds 2 needed to be bigger. "That was one of the things that, to me, was disappointing in the first [Outer Worlds]," says Boyarsky. "If you have this universe, this new world, you want to explore! You want to feel like you're exploring, and you need square footage for that. Some people want to be able to find the little details about how a world works, or mini stories about people you don't even encounter – you just find a journal or their audio log – and we needed the space to do that."

"Our hope is that as you're progressing in the main quest, even if you're trying to be pretty focused on it, we'll draw you away from it with intrigue as opposed to forcing you down," he adds.

As anyone who's ever tried to focus on Fallout: New Vegas' main story will know, Obsidian has a knack for doing just that – baiting players away from the beaten path. From what I've played of The Outer Worlds 2, I certainly wouldn't trust myself to stay focused when there are so many deeper RPG systems in play. No, bigger isn't always better – but with the first Outer Worlds already proving the foundations are solid, few RPG fans will complain if there's more built upon it.

After playing The Outer Worlds 2, I'm convinced that it has the potential to be Obsidian's greatest game – and the best FPS of 2025

Bethesda veteran and executive producer Todd Howard may have been initially hesitant about the idea of The Last of Us star Troy Baker playing Indiana Jones and the Great Circle's titular protagonist, but the game's creative director now tells us that the adventure "wouldn't have been what it is" without the actor.

Baker is a prolific actor, perhaps best known for playing Joel in The Last of Us series, but according to him, Howard initially "rolled his eyes" at the suggestion of him playing Indy in MachineGames' latest romp. It apparently didn't take long to convince the developer that he was right for the role, however, as Howard previously recalled telling the actor that "we did a blind taste test, and people chose you every time."

Even live-action Indiana Jones actor Harrison Ford called Baker's portrayal of the character "brilliant," and so it's little wonder that Indiana Jones and the Great Circle creative director Axel Torvenius also thinks his performance was "extraordinary."

Speaking to GamesRadar+ at Gamescom 2025 ahead of the release of the upcoming Order of the Giants DLC, Torvenius tells us: "He's always fantastic to work with. So it was a pleasure to be able to have more work together with him for the DLC."

He continues, noting that while "a lot of people have called it out, his extraordinary performance," he feels that "something that sometimes is not mentioned, and what people do not really understand, is the amount of extra – just extra, extra Troy put in with his portrayal of Indiana Jones… The game wouldn't have been what it is without Troy."

If you also loved Baker's performance as Indy, the good news is that there's really not long to wait for that DLC. The Order of the Giants is set to release on September 4, so there's just a week to go.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is gracing Nintendo Switch 2 with its presence next year.

Beyond These Stars exists in an interesting new city-builder sub-genre. Over the past couple of years, a suite of games have tasked you not with building your settlement on solid ground, but on partnering up with some local megafauna, constructing your city on their back as they move around their world. Beyond These Stars takes that idea to the final frontier, positioning your civilization on the back of a sentient space whale as it navigates the galaxy.

That whale is Kewa, an entity so enormous that its head is encrusted with ice-covered peaks. That gives you plenty of space to build - from humble beginnings it's not long before you've got a sprawling city that still takes up only a small portion of Kewa's total surface area. But it's also not long until that causes its own problems.

Adrift

Kewa's inhabitants, the Peeps, are seeking to re-occupy the abandoned homes of their distant forebears – a spacefaring civilization that was spread out among the stars.

While Kewa can (slowly) travel those interstellar distances with relative ease, for the Peeps, staying themselves alive on their long journey requires a lot of resources. Many of those can be gathered or synthesized from Kewa themselves, but many others can only be found dotted around the galaxy.

During my hands-off demo, the Peeps were hoping to explore a colder region of space, but nothing they could gather from Kewa gave them the resources to do so. Thankfully, they can travel around individual solar systems relatively quickly, thanks to an interplanetary travel system that forms the core of every new settlement. Over time, the idea is that you'll build up a system of colonies focused around specific resources - in this case a planet capable of sustaining life for a population of sheep-like creatures that could provide wool for warm clothing.

That wool could be ferried back to Kewa, where it could be processed to allow the Peeps to survive in that colder region. But once Kewa moved away from that specific planet, the Peeps would have to return to its interstellar neighborhood before they'd be able to gather its specific resources again. That's easier said than done, as Kewa is fully sentient, and while they're often prepared to be an agreeable host, they're also very much their own creature. That means while you can ask them to work with you, they may not always agree to do so.

If Kewa gets too hungry, they'll fly off to a specific region of space to eat, regardless of whether that's somewhere you want to be or not.

The heavy industry you're likely to need to build on Kewa's back is also quite upsetting to your host, and while Beyond These Stars allows you to use by-product from almost any process in the creation of something new, its environmental message extends to making sure you'll need to clean up after yourself to keep Kewa happy.

Communing with the whale is an entertainingly clunky system, a retro screen displaying a text-based conversation that only progresses slowly, Kewa's vast mind taking its time with each response. It's hard to convey the sentience in what clearly remains a gameplay-driven system, but Beyond These Stars has done a good job of combining conventional city-building mechanics with something far more unknowable and complex.

As this genre continues to evolve and iterate on itself, it's fascinating to see how a whole new entity can make its mark via a game that's as much a galaxy-wide supply chain simulator as it is a traditional city management game. That's the magic of Beyond These Stars: it's all of these things all at once, and the sheer oddity of it all is enough to compel me already

There are so many new games to keep track of, and with this handy list, it's easier than ever.

Obsidian has a strong pedigree when it comes to RPGs. From making the fan-favorite Fallout: New Vegas as well as having developers who worked on the original back in 1997, there's a lot of talent and love for the genre at the studio. But despite being in the games industry for so long, there's something The Outer Worlds 2 creative director Leonard Boyarsky had never done until this latest game.

"You know, when we left Interplay, we left the design for Fallout 2," Boyarsky tells GamesRadar+ in an interview during this year's Gamescom event. "I'd written, like, a conversation or two for that game, which I think Chris Avellone heavily, heavily edited. But we didn't develop that game. So this is literally the first time I'm doing a sequel to a game that I created the IP for, which is really cool."

It's wild to think that after more than 30 years in the industry, The Outer Wilds 2 is Boyarsky's first sequel that he has proper creative control over.

"As we said [with] the first one," Boyarsky continues, "even if we had had more time and money, I still don't think we would have gone as big, because we had to be somewhat focused. Like, here's what the world is, so people can kind of step into the world and really see what it is. And this time, we will just completely blow it out and really expand on my pitch we started in the first one. That is something that I have not had the chance to do before."

Hopefully, this is just the first of many, and Boyarsky can continue to work on whatever he wants – the Outer Worlds 2 already "feels like a bigger and better RPG" than the first.

Be sure to check the Gamescom 2025 schedule for a quick rundown of the most exciting new games announced, or browse through our recap of Gamescom Opening Night Live 2025 and the Future Games Show at Gamescom 2025 as well.

Of all the things I've come to expect from the many Lego games I've played over the years, nuanced stealth is not one of them. So when I realized that I was running out of time in my Gamescom demo of Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight because I was spending too long slowly picking off bad guys from the shadows, I was pleasantly surprised to find I'd stumbled upon a very different game to the one I was expecting.

The first and most obvious comparison that Legacy of the Dark Knight drew was towards the Arkham games. Still the best Batman games you can get your hands on, the series' DNA is all over this Lego homage's combat. Stealth takedowns let you dispatch a goon before zipping back up to the relative safety of its surprisingly vertical levels. Hit counters let you chain together huge combos, dodging projectiles or countering incoming hits as you juggle aggro between a crowd of bad guys. It's a more complex approach to fighting that's still relatively new to these Lego games, and while it's obviously lacking the weight that Rocksteady is known for, there's depth far beyond what I was expecting.

While ties to Arkham are clear, developer TT Games has been quick to remind players that this is a Batman game that draws from decades of Batman history. Some of those references are clearly newer than others: while exploring the streets of Gotham I took to the road behind the wheel of the iconic Tumbler, while a shot from the trailer is clearly a mashup of 2022's The Batman and Danny Devito's take on The Penguin from 30 years earlier. But my demo dredged up Batman history from even earlier than that with its focus on the Red Hood Gang from Watchmen creator Alan Moore's iconic The Killing Joke graphic novel. Jonathan Smith, strategic director at TT Games, explains to me that Legacy of the Dark Knight is an attempt to pull an original story out of all these decades of Batman history - an attempt that should eventually make for a wholly unique experience.

Bricked up

While inspiration is being drawn from all over Batman's legacy, the same is less true of Lego. Legacy of the Dark Knight is still a Lego game at its core - if you've played any one of TT Games' two dozen Lego releases over the past 20 years, you'll be familiar with many of its main mechanics. You'll still be smashing things apart to create brand new things, collecting studs to spend on cosmetics, swapping between different characters with new skills and blasting bad guys into the constituent minifig pieces. This is a family-friendly, largely sanitized take on Batman, with plenty of TT's quippy, slapstick humor woven in.

But elsewhere Legacy of the Dark Knight is more complex than you might think of a Lego game. Its version of Gotham is sprawling, dark, and extremely tall, perfect for a Bat trying to hide among the shadows before picking off some random gang member on the streets below. It's a lot of fun to explore, Batman throwing out his cape to ride air currents between buildings, dive-bombing onto bad guys to start fights - or end them by chasing down in-progress crimes on the police scanner. It's a much denser take on Gotham than I expected, but it's also filled with puzzles and collectibles that should keep the Lego games' platinum-chasing fans satisfied for hours. The Riddler puzzles do return, but you'll be glad to know they don't seem quite as terrifyingly enigmatic as they did in the original Lego Batman games.

It's an interesting combination - on the one hand, this feels like a Lego game, with everything that's come to mean over 20 years. On the other, it's a more complex, mature version of that experience that loses none of what makes those special and adds plenty. Smith tells me that TT Games aims to make sure that players' expectations are met in its version of Gotham, whether that be in taking to the streets in the batmobile, beating down bad guys in its Arkham-inspired combat, or aura-farming atop a skyscraper in the search for another puzzle. Legacy of the Dark Knight is a Lego game, but it's also a Batman game, and it straddles both aspects of its source material more effectively than any other Lego game from the past 20 years.

Check out our list of the best Lego games.

While the world waits for the release of Borderlands 4 next month, it sounds like there's also good news for any fans of the 2022 spin-off Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, as Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford feels like "we're just getting started there."

Speaking in an interview with All Out Gaming (below), Pitchford is asked if he sees Tiny Tina's Wonderlands continuing as a series alongside Borderlands, and he's not shy about expressing how much the team loved the concept, teasing that this could be just the beginning.

"Oh, I feel like we're just getting started there," he begins. "I love fantasy and we have a whole team of people that love fantasy. It first started as Assault on Dragon Keep as an expansion to Borderlands 2, where Tiny Tina's the dungeon master – we called her the bunker master of this in-universe role-playing game we call Bunkers and Badasses. And obviously we love it."

Pitchford goes on to mention the physical Bunkers and Badasses game before saying: "We got to use that foothold as a way to spin off the amazing, fun gameplay that we pioneered with the looter shooter of Borderlands and put that in a fantasy game for the first time, bringing guns to a sword fight. Like, what a joy. Like holy shit. We just went batshit crazy and had so much fun. And it worked."

He acknowledges that "Tiny Tina's Wonderlands was a challenge and a risk," but believes that "now it's a beachhead." Pitchford concludes: "I would bet that we are going to spend more time on that."

So, that's promising. This isn't the first time that he's strongly hinted that there could be a follow-up – Pitchford previously told us that Tiny Tina's Wonderlands "was wildly successful and exceeded our expectations," and that "I think it's reasonable for our fans to expect more there."

Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford says the game industry once expected a genre experiment like Borderlands to "die," but it actually became "one of the leading video game franchises in the world": "It's kind of humbling."

Resident Evil Requiem director Koshi Nakanishi says Resident Evil 7, which he also directed, might've been a little too scary, which is part of the reason Requiem will have a potentially less-scary third-person view as an alternative to the first-person camera.

Right away I'd like to say: yes, Nakanishi-san, Resident Evil 7 is too scary. I love it, but my blood pressure doesn't. I'll freely admit there were times in the first half of the game that I contemplated giving up. I'm super glad I didn't, but hot damn that is one terrifying game.

It's for that reason that I'm genuinely relieved to hear Nakanishi acknowledge this as a potential issue in Resident Evil Requiem. It seems counterintuitive to suggest there should be some limit on how scary a game should be, but it's absolutely true! Imagine, for example, the stress of the House Beneviento sequence from Resident Evil Village, but sustained over the course of a 20-hour campaign. Stop acting tough. No one wants that.

Thankfully, it sounds like Nakanishi is keen to deliver a Resident Evil that stands up there with 7 in terms of scares, but with the option to tone it down a little by switching to third-person and thus removing yourself from the action somewhat.

"Looking back at Resident Evil 7's first person perspective, I implemented that as a way to make it more immersive and more scary than ever before, which I think most you know media and players agreed it was an incredibly scary game, but it was possibly too scary," Nakanishi told GamesRadar+ during Gamescom 2025.

"I think some people couldn't handle it, and either couldn't finish or didn't even start it. And that's something that I look back on thinking that, you know, I want to make sure that people can enjoy this game. So if you started the game off in first person perspective, and you're finding it's too much, then third person is almost a way to step slightly back from that level of horror and make it slightly easier to deal with by having the character on screen as a kind of Avatar of yourself."

I have to say, Nakanishi saying stuff like this actually makes me more nervously excited about Resident Evil Requiem, because it comes across like he's just now realized how scary the game is, and is sending out these little PSAs for wimps like me.

Speaking of which: Oh good, Resident Evil Requiem director says "there are similarities" to the scariest scene in Resident Evil history, but on "another level" of "claustrophobic, unarmed" tension

Scary Resident Evil is back, baby. Capcom says Resident Evil Requiem shares some similarities with by far the scariest scene in Resident Evil Village, and for my money quite possibly the scariest scene in series history, but dialed up even more.

Director Koshi Nakanishi, who also helmed the absolute nightmare that is Resident Evil 7, has said from Requiem's announcement that it "should scare the hell out of you," which I said at the time is precisely what I wanted to hear from Capcom on the future of the series.

Now I'm starting to think I should be more careful what I wish for. There's definitely a threshold somewhere in me that determines how scary a game can be before it's too scary. The first half of Resident Evil 7 definitely approaches that limit, and the House Beneviento sequence from Resident Evil Village pushes even closer to 'OK, that's enough' territory.

Speaking with GamesRadar+ over Gamescom 2025, Nakanishi says you can expect something similar in the beginning of Resident Evil Requiem - except even scarier.

"There are similarities to that section for sure," he says. "I think each Resident Evil title has these sort of standalone parts where maybe you don't have the weapons you're used to. We can increase the horror feeling with that."

Yeah, one very reliable way to crank up the scare factor is to simply reduce the amount or effectiveness of the player's defense mechanisms, and Village's House Beneviento and that cursed giant baby is prime that.

"We kind of structurally brought that horror aspect to the forefront right at the start of the game, in order to gel with the characterization of Grace of someone who you know is completely unfamiliar with and not expecting to be thrown into such a horrible situation.

"But we want to add something fresh as well, so rather than just copying and pasting over House Beneviento, [there are] things like the mechanism for how you protect yourself from the creature in the demo, and the creature itself and its design, and how it feels to be pursued by it in this section, are something that I think bring another level to that concept of the claustrophobic, unarmed character section of the game."

Like in House Beneviento, you're left with virtually nothing to defend yourself in the beginning of Resident Evil Requiem, except instead of being chased by a giant messed-up baby, it's a giant humanoid that eats people's heads. And while you can't defend yourself in House Beneviento, you're still Ethan Winters, whereas in Resident Evil Requiem, you're the anxiety-riddled and clumsy Grace Ashcroft, who will trip and fall in her panicked escape, making the whole situation even tenser.

Thankfully, as is Resident Evil tradition, Grace will eventually become familiar with a variety of weapons, and Nakanishi tells us "you can't keep the horror tension to the max through the whole game, because it's quite exhausting," which I genuinely, wholeheartedly agree with. Even the most battle-hardened horror sickos don't have the endurance for an entire game's worth of House Beneviento-level scares.

Capcom says that Resident Evil 9 will be "so-called 'old school Resident Evil'" in style, but its director teases a "new system" that creates a "complete roller coaster ride between the different aspects of the series"

Final Fantasy 14 director Naoki 'Yoshi-P' Yoshida reveals that Square Enix is taking players' perspectives regarding a lack of content that suits their personal tastes into account and will be addressing them in future updates.

The lead explains as much (via a translator) during a new interview with GamesRadar+ at the Gamescom 2025 event. "When it comes to our content [and] design of content, looking back at this past half a year or this year, one thing that I have felt in particular is that from the perspective of players, there is no content that addresses what they want," he says, recalling fans' post-Dawntrail feedback – feedback that proved a mixed bag with difficulty concerns and more. Casual players felt that there was a lot to do in the hardcore realm, but not in their own, and vice versa.

Yoshi-P admits, "So that has been my direction, wherein I wanted to create a clear direction of the type of content for each type of player in our player base." When developers look at things from the outside, they may see "that there is a large variety of content in the game" – but when they step into fans' shoes, where it looks as though there are 10 types of content, "there might only be three types of content for that player."

On the other hand, another player might see those 10 and only register "four types of content for me." Put simply, it's more of a subjective experience than the objective one devs would like it to be – but Square Enix is taking this into account: "Looking back at this feedback that we've received, I want to make a major change in our policy of content release, and we have been spending a lot of resources on developing the various types of content in the game."

The director and MMO's overall team "want to make sure that players do take the time to play the content and enjoy it" – hence the ongoing focus on variety. "We want to have content which can be enjoyed by a wide variety of different players," as Yoshi-P outlines. "With that in mind, I would say that we are planning to upgrade our content release as it were." Devs want to take all of the mixed Dawntrail reviews into account for said upgraded releases.

"This feedback that we've received in the past one or so years has been a big learning [point] for us, so we do want to take this in to provide more interesting experiences for the players." As a longtime player, both casual and hardcore, I'm intrigued to learn more about what this so-called "upgrade" to future content will look like.

Yoshi-P also recently revealed that there could be fewer content drops in favor of "many more players" being able to enjoy what Square Enix does cook up – so there's no telling how it'll all play out. One thing we can expect, now that Final Fantasy 14's Dawntrail story has concluded, is that "the fate of the world" will be on your shoulders once more, narratively speaking.

Be sure to check the Gamescom 2025 schedule for a quick rundown of the most exciting new games announced, or browse through our recap of Gamescom Opening Night Live 2025 and the Future Games Show at Gamescom 2025 as well.

Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight's director has spoken about the game's goal to honor the legacy of the Arkham series.

My favorite announcement of Gamescom Opening Night Live had to have been Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight. While I've not played a Lego Batman game since the original one back in 2008, this one looks like a sick Batman game which we've not had since Arkham City, so I was immediately in.

Although the game isn't adapting any specific Batman story (although there are scenes pulled from the Nolan films and The Batman seen in the trailer) there is one massive inspiration on show, Rocksteady's Batman Arkham series, with the open world and combat looking ripped straight from it.

GamesRadar+'s Ali Jones spoke to strategic director at TT Games, Jonathan Smith, about the influence of Rocksteady's games on Legacy of the Dark Knight at Gamescom 2025. Smith says: "When we think about embodying Batman as a video game character today, of course we're inspired by the generational defining work that our friends and colleagues at Rocksteady Studios executed so brilliantly in the Arkham series."

He adds, "As a starting point they pulled off the experience of being surrounded by enemies, of fluid combos, and hit counters, and takedowns. We wanted that to be in the game."

However, this isn't a gritty Arkham game, this is a silly Lego game, and that was taken into account by TT Games, as Smith says: "We've also got our own take on it. We're also, in some ways, making it more accessible as well for younger players."

Smith explains: "We also wanted to bring our own Lego approach to that foundation, to deepen what we can do with the gadgets." The trailer shows the likes of the explosive gel from the Arkham series, and of course Batarangs (no Bat Credit Card though), with each of the seven main playable characters having their own gadgets. And, of course, it's a Lego game, so co-op is always a priority which Smith says "no-one has done before." This is true in terms of local co-op, but I assume we all want to forget Gotham Knights anyway.

"As part of generally honoring the legacy of Batman, we honor and appreciate and love as fans what was achieved there [at Rocksteady]."

While you're here, be sure to take a look at our full roundups of everything announced at Gamescom Opening Night Live 2025 and the Future Games Show at Gamescom 2025 to make sure you don't miss out on any new game details.

Grace Ashcroft is scared of her own shadow. I've been playing Resident Evil games for 25 years, and it's clear that Resident Evil Requiem has the most vulnerable protagonist in the series' history. In my hands-on playtest of this upcoming horror game, it wasn't the monstrous creature stalking me through a series of claustrophobic corridors, each bathed in a sort of desperate eternal darkness, that provided the biggest jump scare. No, it was the way Grace violently shuddered after opening up a cupboard. It used to be zombie dogs crashing through windows in the east wing of the Spencer Mansion that got my heart racing, now it's a bedpan tumbling to the floor.

What's so fascinating about Resident Evil 9 is that this jump scare is entirely avoidable – not because of an action you may or may not choose to perform, but due to the perspective of the camera. Requiem lets you freely switch between first and third-person playstyles, a decision which lets Capcom capture both the sheer terror of Resident Evil Biohazard and Resident Evil Village as well as the slick tension presented through its remakes of Resident Evil 2, 3, and 4. To achieve this, the studio has had to make some key changes in what you see and experience.

"Including both perspectives wasn't exactly twice as difficult for us," says Koshi Nakanishi, game director of Resident Evil 9, "but there were some aspects where we had to make adjustments for each perspective. What we found was that if you just take the camera out of the character's head and show them in third-person, if we didn't add in more animation and characterization, then they look quite unnatural and robotic. That's because the first-person version has them just running along, and they wouldn't be reacting physically to anything – because you can't see those reactions."

Nakanishi presents a direct example of this, noting how Grace trips over herself whilst she is trying to run away from a monster in quick pursuit. The stumbling movement is evocative in third-person, and entirely absent in first. "She's so scared when she's running away from the creature, but that doesn't happen in first-person – making the camera move like that in first-person would be very unnatural, and possibly even uncomfortable! So that's a specific third-person tweak that we added to make up for the fact that it's not quite as immersive," he says. "But you can almost emphasise with Grace more when you see them on screen. It almost makes you panic, because you see her panicking."

"So we have two different ways to get across to the player what kind of emotion we want them to be feeling, and how we want them to be scared for the character. Whether that's by seeing through their eyes or on their behalf, by looking at their expressions, reaction, and their different motions. We ended up adding lots of tiny tweaks like that all throughout the game to make both perspectives have their own different sort of take on the horror you're going to feel."

Back to the beginning

You're going to feel plenty of horror in Resident Evil Requiem, I have no doubts about that. Nakanishi teases that this is a "return to the more general mainline story of the series" after recent diversions into both the past and the Winters family's struggle to combat the Mold. But does a return to a decimated Raccoon City, the playground of Resident Evil 2, 3, and Outbreak (where Grace Ashcrof's mother, Alyssa, served as one of the protagonists) mean we'll see the Umbrella Corporation, more traditional infected enemy types, and a reunion for the surviving S.T.A.R.S. crew?

Capcom won't be drawn into spoiler territory, although it has essentially ruled out a return of Chris Redfield, the former S.T.A.R.S. Alpha Team point man who was last seen at the end of Resident Evil Village with the United Nations' Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA). "Rest assured, I'm sure Chris is out in action somewhere in the world, but for now we're not really looking at him."

What the studio will properly comment on, however, is the sort of power struggle at the heart of Resident Evil Requiem – and how it has been shaped by Biohazard, Village, and the Remakes. "The starting point for Grace is that she is incredibly vulnerable and helpless," says producer Masato Kumazawa, speaking to the section that I played, which is from an early portion of the game.

"She hasn't got any weapons on her and she's completely unaccustomed to being thrown into this kind of intense situation. But she goes on a journey, and you'll go with her on it too. She will grow throughout the game and gradually become more competent and capable, and overcome her fear somewhat. Eventually, she'll be able to grab guns and shoot back at the horrors that await her. So she doesn't stay in this completely terrified, helpless state throughout the whole game."

I have to imagine that there's a segment of the Resident Evil audience who would gladly take a descent into true terror as we stalk the radioactive ruins of Raccoon City. But Nakanishi is quick to note that moderating tension is a key objective for Capcom, particularly as it considers the impact of Resident Evil 7. "On reflection, I implemented the first-person perspective as a way to make Resident Evil 7 more immersive and scary than ever before. I think most players would agree that it was an incredibly scary game, but it was possibly too scary. I think some people couldn't handle it, and either couldn't finish it or didn't even start it. That's something that I look back on and think about – I want to make sure that people can enjoy this game."

Nakanishi says this was a driving factor behind the decision to include both first and third-person camera perspectives – more so than it being any kind of response to the overwhelming popularity of the recent remakes. "If you start Requiem off in a first-person perspective and you're finding that it's too much, then third-person is almost a way to step back slightly from that level of horror. It makes it slightly easier to deal with by having the character on screen as a kind of avatar of yourself." Kumazawa adds: "By combining both camera perspectives in this game and giving you the option to switch, what we're basically saying is that – regardless of which sub-series of Resident Evil you like – you can play Requiem in that style that suits you."

Don't call it a throwback

Regardless of how you ultimately choose to play, hearing Nakanishi describe Resident Evil Requiem as being a "so-called 'old-school Resident Evil'" game in its structure and style is welcomed news. The director notes how Resident Evil 4 and Village are "more on the action side of the series", going on to say that "if I had to compare Requiem to past titles, it's more along the lines of Resident Evil 7 or the Resident Evil 2 remake." Capcom is being careful not to say more beyond this, although Nakanishi says to expect plenty of "exploration, backtracking, and that kind of thing."

With Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 7 serving as principal inspiration here, Nakanishi goes on to tease that Resident Evil 9 "does of course feature "all the classic core pillars of Resident Evil." This includes "features that everyone knows and loves, such as combat, exploration, puzzle solving, and resource management of a limited number of items. We've just given it our own spin this time for Resident Evil Requiem's game atmosphere."

That isn't to say that you should think of Resident Evil Requiem as some sort of throwback, mind. Nakanishi is being careful here, but he does tease that a brand new system is being introduced into RE9, one which sounds as if it will more tightly govern spikes in your heart rate. "I think that Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 7 reflect the typical game design for this series, where you can't keep the horror tension to the max through the whole game because it can be quite exhausting. So we need to have this kind of dynamic pacing curve, where you'll have a very tense and horrific sequence, and then we give you a bit of a release or catharsis from that – maybe some slightly more peaceful exploration or exciting combat before we gradually bring you back up to the horror part of the curve. That's sort of standard practice for Resident Evil."

"The difference this time is there's a new system that I can't quite get into yet," Nakanishi continues. "But if you think about the difference between the tension and the release being a certain sort of curve or wavelength, as it were, I want to make the distance between those aspects bigger than ever before in the series – it just becomes a complete rollercoaster ride between the different aspects of the series, and I'm very excited for people to eventually understand what I mean by that," he grins. "We're definitely going to fuck around with your emotions a lot with this one."

Resident Evil Requiem is due to release on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X on February 27, 2026. While you wait, why not return to one of the best Resident Evil games.

Scott Pilgrim is set to make a grand return to video games next year with Scott Pilgrim EX, and after just 30 minutes with the side-scrolling beat-em-up adventure at Gamescom, I'm feeling confident that it'll be worth the 15+ year wait.

As I sit down with Scott Pilgrim EX at Gamescom – playing in couch co-op alongside a team including the game's narrative designer and marketing director – it's an immediate delight. Its brightly colored 2D pixel-art style is full of charm, each character is delightfully expressive, and landing hits on incoming foes simply feels so damn good.

Familiar faces

I was thrown straight into the action – no learning the ropes here – and as you'd hope, it's very easy to just pick up and play. I'll admit, I relied on button mashing, but each playable character has an expansive arsenal of unique attacks and skills to unleash, encouraging you to experiment with each of them.

During my preview session, I played as both Ramona Flowers and Scott himself, but the roster includes seven playable characters, including evil exes Roxie Richter and Lucas Lee. They both seem like strong allies – while Roxie wields a sword, Lucas can lend the team a hand with a plethora of heavy punches and kicks. I'm already keen to dive back in and see what tricks everyone has up their sleeves, especially as I'm told about the game's "very complex combos."

"The idea is to try to make something that [is] similar to what we made with [Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge], which is sort of a party game, something you can easily pick up and that everyone can enjoy," Tribute Games narrative designer Yannick Belzil tells me, before adding that any player who "wants to get more in the weeds and more in the complex stuff, they can find something there as well."

Marketing director Eric Lafontaine agrees. "There's so many combos, and the physics, the game will reward improvisation, but also, if you're a good gamer and you're very elite with those fighting games, you'll find ways to become very creative and create very, very complex combos," he says, before adding: "It's a great canvas to have fun with friends. And if you just want to button mash also, you'll have a lot of fun."

Making a comeback

It's been a long time since Scott Pilgrim's last all-new video game romp. In fact, it's been over 15 years since the original release of Ubisoft's Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game. While it isn't Ubisoft working on Scott Pilgrim EX, Lafontaine describes the upcoming release as a "full circle project" for Tribute Games.

"The original crew that worked at Ubisoft on the original game founded Tribute many, many years ago. [...] So it's kind of a full circle project with Tribute," Lafontaine explains. "Tribute didn't work on the original game, but still fans think that we did, and we kind of did as our founder, our technical director, the original game director, the background artist… they were all Ubisoft, now at Tribute."

Furthermore, the devs "reconnected with Bryan" Lee O'Malley, the creator of Scott Pilgrim. When the time came for the series to return to video game form once more, "Tribute was ready."

At the time of writing, Scott Pilgrim EX still has a vague 2026 release window, but I'm feeling very optimistic about that full launch given how smooth things felt in my demo. We'll just have to watch this space to see how the new story from O'Malley fits into the series' overall lore.

To read more from GamesRadar+'s Autumn Preview, be sure to take a look at our Gamescom 2025 coverage hub.