Contrary to what your self-preservation instincts might tell you, GTA 6 leaker Cyberleek is not hiding under a rock that's under another rock that's in the middle of a rainforest with no cell phone service. They're not even taking extra precautions following Take-Two's recent subpoenas demanding Microsoft and Discord share information that might reveal the anonymous hacker's identity. Instead, Cyberleek has decided to publicly share its contact information.

The leaker is looking for advertisers. According to a new "contact" tab on Cyberleek's website, the merry group is "raising funds through community support and strategic partnerships" by selling ad space on its forthcoming GTA 6 leaks – well, if Take-Two doesn't turn it into canned peaches by then. Some of the "strategic partnerships" Cyberleek offers involve "custom-made gameplay footage tailored to specific brands (including sexual content)."

Sounds like a business venture with integrity to me; the stolen GTA 6 clips simply fell off a truck, anyway. Cyberleek emphasizes it's not demanding "a ransom where publishers pay to stop the leeks." It's just a shy boy looking for advertisers to send it a ton of Monero cryptocurrency to plaster ads across its copyright-infringing videos, so that Take-Two can more easily figure out who they are and where to put their graveyard plot.

"All pricing, terms, and deliverables are discussed privately over Session," a private messenger, says Cyberleek. "The Monero transfer serves as a contact fee that guarantees CYBERLEEK will respond to initiate the conversation."

Clicking a button to "generate contact details" displays a prompt to save your generated recovery password for Session, and then you pay the donation fee: 400 XMR (Monero), which currently converts to about $165,450.

This fee only guarantees Cyberleek will reach out to you over Session within 24 hours. The group stresses that, otherwise, advertisement "deal terms are worked out in chat," and it reminds interested parties, "You can advertise almost anything. Gambling and adult content are fine. No scams." No, I'd never think there were scams involved here. It's all squeaky clean fun with my friends – that's what handing a stranger $165,000 usually means, right?

Cyberleek's GTA 6 leaks won't change Rockstar's Netflix reveal plans, report says.

Mortal Shell 2 is playing the Soulslike hits in its first major balance patch: buffs for players, nerfs for enemies, and a shipment of quality-of-life changes.

Days after a solid launch, developer Cold Symmetry released patch notes for an update coming to PC ahead of consoles. One member of the studio posted the details to the Mortal Shell subreddit, and the patch notes are also available in the game's official Discord server.

"While we have a bigger patch in the works, which has to be thoroughly tested, we'd like to make a rapid balance & crash fix patch to bring the experience more in line with the game's open beta and our own vision for MS2," the post reads.

"Planned future updates will see extensions to popular game features such as Night Mode, Tarstones, PP Items, and more."

Mortal Shell 2's resource economy is getting some major adjustments. Glimpses, a hugely in-demand currency, are being replaced by more available Gloom as the cost to acquire the map locations of Shells. Anyone who's already spent Glimpses on Shell maps will have them refunded. I guess they have a mail carrier out there in the wastes.

"Finding your favorite Shell shouldn’t cost you the ability to bond with them," the devs say.

Gold, another staple currency, has also been tuned. "Gold drops from enemies have been significantly increased," with enemies in Mammon now dropping twice as much, Cold Symmetry says.

Additionally, smelting a weapon at the Tarforge will cost 75% less Gloom, with the devs agreeing "the Gloom costs were set exorbitantly high."

Many of the enemies and bosses that you'll use these Shells and weapons against have been nerfed, including The Lost Child and Monolith. "Some Monolith Attacks were retimed to be more fair, as well," the devs add.

Nerfed enemies include mace cultists, Caerinid spiders, halberd-wielding rusted knaves, and infested stalkers (with a whopping 52% max health reduction).

Finally, a suite of weapons and Tarstones have been buffed, with the likes of Troubador's Lute receiving 100% attack damage and Bulwark Stone's damage reduction being "increased significantly."

Players are coming out of this significantly stronger. If you found Mortal Shell 2 too hard or too limiting, this patch ought to be nothing but good news.

Mortal Shell 2 review: "The best Soulslike I've played since Elden Ring."

Despite a new wave of GTA 6 leaks, developer Rockstar Games reportedly has no plans to shift its August 27 Netflix gameplay reveal or alter other parts of the game's road to launch.

Bloomberg reports that, as Rockstar's lawyers subpoena Microsoft and Discord for potential account details on leaker Cyberleek, staff are also frustrated that GTA 6 has suffered another major leak so close to launch despite new security measures enacted after the last breach.

A source says Rockstar is still moving forward with the Netflix gameplay reveal as planned. Bloomberg cites an internal message reassuring staff that the actions of Cyberleek, a person or group which has used GTA 6 to pump a transparent crypto scheme and theatrically champion digital consumer rights, haven't devalued their work.

The extended trailer has no direct precedent in games marketing: Netflix subscribers will get early access to GTA 6 gameplay footage before the showcase is uploaded to Rockstar's YouTube channel about six hours later.

With GTA 6 due out November 19 after years of delays, Rockstar is likely looking to recenter the conversation in these final months. That said, by all observable pre-release metrics, GTA 6 is still on course to become the biggest video game release of all time.

Earlier this year, Rockstar suffered a third-party breach that, the company said, had "no impact on our organization or our players" and only impacted "a limited amount of non-material company information."

In 2022, a much larger GTA 6 leak saw lengthy videos of an in-production build of the game spill online. Arion Kurtaj, one member of the hacking group behind the leak, Lapsus$, was sentenced to indefinite hospital stay in 2023. Rockstar later said that the leak cost it $5 million and "thousands of hours" of work.

GTA 6 leakers called out by Stop Killing Games after demanding game preservation solutions and physical discs from Rockstar: "Using illegal means to make a point is unacceptable."

Arc Raiders Expeditions will be on pause until early 2027 after the upcoming fifth wipe while developer Embark Studios plans "major improvements" to the divisive system.

In a new blog post, Embark outlines changes made with the fifth Expedition. The footnote is the most important part: "The fifth Expedition will be the last one until early 2027, when Expeditions will return with major improvements, tackling some of the biggest player pain points."

Oddly enough, this means the big October 8 update, Frozen Trail, will come and go without an Expedition.

Historically, Arc Raiders has made a bad habit of putting out new content right before an Expedition window, meaning players planning to wipe and prestige their raiders can't really engage with the new rewards until after the Expedition concludes.

Skipping Expeditions altogether solves that problem quite tidily for Frozen Trail, but it does also remove a cog from the endgame loop. Of course, if you never bother with Expeditions, this doesn't annoy you one bit. Here's hoping the promised long-term pursuits of Frozen Trail provide more appealing goals to work toward in this downtime and beyond.

Embark says "we have been carefully reviewing your feedback on Expeditions, and while we've made ongoing improvements along the way, we've come to realize that some of the issues you've raised, like the tight departure windows, the reward structure, and accessibility for new players, need more than incremental fixes. They call for bigger changes."

One big change was just made in the fifth Expedition. Players no longer automatically reset their quests when they embark on an Expedition and wipe their character. Instead, you can opt into a quest reset if you, for some unknowable reason, wish to repeat some of the most unrewarding quests to ever blight a game.

And if you're wondering, Embark says "since the Hullcracker Blueprint can only be obtained through the quest line, we will give you other ways to get it."

Any expedition bonuses players have obtained will persist through this quiet period. "Also, since Caravans will be reset," Embark explains, "any partially completed Caravans will be replaced with Ermal Vouchers of equal value which can be used to purchase Ermal offers together with ARC Parts and firearms trade, or sold for Coin."

Between Frozen Trail and this Expedition hiatus, it feels like Embark has decided that the usual live service appetizers aren't making a difference anymore. The game's declined considerably since launch, and increasingly it feels like the coming winter season may be its last real shot at rekindling that day-one fire.

Arc Raiders' Frozen Trail update is out October 8, Embark admits "it's time to expand" as recent Steam reviews hit 50% negative.

Baldur's Gate 3 is finally seeing Divinity: Original Sin 2-style custom campaigns coming to fruition, as one new mod adds just that: a solid six-hour custom campaign.

Yes, you read that right. A Dream of Silence: ReVamped, as it is oh-so aptly dubbed over on Nexus Mods, adds an alternate campaign to Larian Studios' beloved Dungeons & Dragons RPG.
The mod is an adaptation of a browser-based text adventure by Abigail Corfman (which you can still access over on her official website), starring none other than my favorite of all the Baldur's Gate 3 companions: the ever-beautiful vampire elf Astarion, of course.

The mod's campaign is around six hours long in total, featuring four different endings, six new companions complete with unique dialogue lines and rewards, "more dynamic combat and boss fights," and, perhaps most excitingly, "a kitty that potentially accepts scritches."

Plus, you get to rescue Astarion from a nightmarish take on Cazador's already vile mansion (or choose not to and opt for a different path, I suppose). Sign me up, stat.

Sadly, it's only available for PC players right now, but that doesn't take away how impressive the custom campaign's emergence is.

Early last year, modders said custom Baldur's Gate 3 campaigns with "levels and lands comparable to the Skyrim modding community" could come in 2025 thanks to Patch 7 and its capacity for "level editing, save editing, and more" – but not too much has actually happened in that regard.

Sure, we've got projects like Return to Candlekeep underway, but it's been a long road, and limitations like multiplayer restrictions haven't exactly helped.

A Dream of Silence: ReVamped sparks hope for other custom campaigns later down the line, and I know I'm personally keeping my fingers crossed for even bigger projects in the same vein. Could you just imagine all of the possibilities…?

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's Clea actor finds it "fascinating" that RPG fans give her character "more grace" than Baldur's Gate 3's Lae'zel.

There's no stopping everyone's favorite adamantium-clawed mutant now. Five years since its initial announcement, and just one month ahead of launch, Marvel's Wolverine has gone gold, marking the last big milestone before release.

Developer Insomniac decided to mark the occasion appropriately, with a little gif of our man Logan, all suited up, taking his claws out. It's such an eternally cool image. "Today, we're popping claws in celebration," reads the caption. "Marvel's Wolverine has gone gold!"

A glorious day for any team or studio, never mind when you're putting out one of the biggest games of the year. Wolverine is Sony's big PlayStation 5 exclusive for autumn and winter, and timing was particularly crucial in that respect, thanks to a certain crime sandbox from Rockstar.

With GTA 6 due to arrive in November, everyone else wants to get their games out in September and October to have the most chance of grabbing people's attention. Wolverine comes out on September 15, a healthy two months ahead of when the new Grand Theft Auto will be consuming all the airtime possible.

It may seem close to the wire for the game to go gold only a month out, but that's fairly typical. Much of the work over the last several months will have bug fixing and other minor changes based on preview feedback and whatnot.

This marks the end of what's been a long development cycle for Insomniac. Wolverine was announced five years ago, and a huge leak in 2023 made the process even more laborious. That's without mentioning the release of Spider-Man 2 in 2023, pulling the company's resources in multiple directions.

It's a good day for the people of Insomniac, and it allows the rest of us to get fully excited for Logan's next big video game. Time's up, bub.

Insomniac Games "announced Wolverine very early because we knew it would be very difficult to keep a lid on it," lead says.

Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls is an absolute highlight in the tag-team fighting game genre, but good reviews haven't translated into strong sales in Japan. In fact, it's reportedly one of developer Arc System Works' worst performing games on its home turf.

Famitsu recently published its estimated sales data for the first two weeks of the month, charting the best-selling physical games in Japan during that time, but Marvel Tokon only managed to claw onto the chart with 2,814 PS5 discs sold for its first week on sale. In the following week, Marvel Tokon was nowhere to be found in Famitsu's top 30, meaning it failed to match the 1,444 copies that Super Mario Wonder's Switch 2 Edition managed. Ouch. (Thanks, Gematsu.)

According to Game Data Library – a website that tracks how many copies physical games have sold in Japan – Marvel Tokon's first week was "the worst launch for an Arc System fighter" in the country, "excluding super niche stuff like DNF Duel" and well under the majority of games in the Guilty Gear and BlazBlue series. Even the oft-forgotten Under Night In-Birth outsold Marvel Tokon in its launch period.

"I was thinking 10k was pessimistic, but now even with 70% digital sales it's a very lackluster result," the outlet tweets. "Needless to say it's also well under all the Marvel vs. Capcom games, hell, it did less than half of the Marvel Fighting Collection, and the retail version was late!"

Another report from Alinea Analytics estimated that Marvel Tokon actually sold 485,000 copies globally across Steam and PS5 over the course of its first week, so there's seemingly a gaping chasm between how warmly the game was received in Japan and the rest of the world.

Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls itself is a great time. GamesRadar's review called it the "prettiest fighting game in years and a rousing comeback for the Marvel tag fighter," so what went wrong? Perhaps Marvel's waning superpowers in Japan have something to do with it. Or perhaps it's PlayStation's allure that's fading – during the week of August 10, only three PS5 games crawled onto the chart dominated by Nintendo releases.

"This win was purely out of spite" – Fighting game icon SonicFox says winning Marvel Tokon's first major tournament was fuelled by catching flak for criticizing it.

Earlier this year, PS4 and PS5 got native ports of Call of Duty: Black Ops 1 and 2. Now, Microsoft and Activision are turning these beloved FPS titles into billboards for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, with a big ol' pre-order button for the upcoming game stuck right there in the main multiplayer menu.

These new "pre-order MW4" options appeared after recent updates to the PlayStation versions of both Black Ops 1 and 2. Call of Duty news account CharlieIntel tweets images of both the updated menus, which gives the Modern Warfare 4 pre-orders equal billing with such features as "play online" and "options."

Of course, it's not unusual for modern online games to include regularly updated "news" feeds that often include what are basically ads for new DLC or upcoming sequels. But ports of the OG Black Ops games were well-received, in part, because a big chunk of the COD fandom is frustrated with the state of the modern games. Those same players are, at their most polite, giving a big "yeah, no thanks" to these ads.

Clearly, Microsoft wants every eye it can get on Modern Warfare 4. While Black Ops 7 sales are monstrous compared to almost every other game in the industry, it failed to beat Battlefield 6 on the US sales charts last year. That's the first time in the long rivalry between the two series that EA's FPS has come out on top. Certainly, not the outcome that Xbox was looking for after its $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

The price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is falling, and all it cost was day one access to new Call of Duty games.

GTA 6 Online is still very much a mystery. The multiplayer sandbox is an incredibly popular part of Rockstar's ecosystem – which is impressive, considering GTAO is now over a decade old – so its presence in GTA 6 feels inevitable to me. But the fun doesn't end with GTA Online itself. That's where GTA RP comes in.

GTA RP is the game's highly-modded roleplaying experience. Made by and for players, it takes what fans love most about the official (or vanilla) GTA Online and turns it into a brand new game mode. Being able to act out real-life scenarios in a more fluid way allows a lot more freedom than the core experience – and I think it's a sizzling hotbed for GTA 6 inspiration.

Jobs for all

I'll admit I haven't played GTA Online in a while. It used to be my weekend ritual with friends, but 12 years down the line, we've gotten busy. Also, we got fed up with griefers. But despite GTA 6 Online being unlikely to arrive at launch, and to try and gain some insight into what the future of GTA 6 could be, I thought it would be a good idea to jump into GTA RP. Little did I know that it was going to open my eyes to something pretty special.

Joining a GTA RP server isn't the easiest. Some servers require getting whitelisted, filling out forms and carrying out interviews to gain access. I quickly realize that GTA RP takes itself very seriously, but that's not a bad thing. In fact, it means the players treat it with a lot more respect.

Fortunately, I found a server on the mega-mod FiveM that was happy to welcome me in with a quick Discord check and a stipulation that I must talk over my mic. I should caveat here that Rockstar acquired FiveM ahead of GTA 6, and that's something I'll get into shortly.

Upon entry to the GTA RP server, I immediately feel like I'm on a GTA 6 recon mission. The server wants me to join a profession. I optimistically choose to become a paramedic and spawn outside the hospital, where players dressed in medical scrubs are keen to recruit me. They take me through training, quiz me on whether I'm listening, and then tell me the strict rules for gameplay.

This ability to embark on actual careers in GTA RP is genius and my first hint at GTA 6's potential. And while I opted to become a paramedic, I also learned that in this server, you can join a gang, become a lawyer, or even become a member of the LSPD.

When gang fights go down, real players rock up as the LSPD rather than NPCs spawning en masse like they do in GTA 5. It all feels much more organic, which could (and seems likely to) become a big part of GTA 6. After all, there's been talk of overhauled police AI and a new dispatch system in GTA 6 – but all that is already going down in GTA RP. Yes, there's real people becoming police, but there's also an ingrained hierarchy that people take pretty seriously.

As a paramedic, I'm told I can't carry a firearm, enter active gang zones, and must tend to the victor of a fight before the loser. I'm also instructed to wear a bodycam that I can use to record players if they try to do anything bad to me.

While out on patrol, I come across players that show hints of disrespect – though still within reason. They know they need me, even if they think I've picked a nerdy profession, so stop short of griefing me off the game like they might have in GTAO. This is just one example of how GTA RP's cities feel more alive than the vanilla version's. There's more freedom here, but importantly, more respect.

Inspiration nation

The acquisition of FiveM and RedM is a big deal, and is very telling. Rockstar clearly wants to adapt aspects of GTA RP for GTA 6. The question is, in what capacity?

As reported by Rockstar Intel, there's been a callout for console-experienced staff to make content creation tools for GTA 6. Considering GTA 6 isn't coming to PC at launch and how these modded servers only work on PC, I wonder if the inspiration might be applied to the core game itself and not just GTA 6 Online.

These servers run on their own custom roles. They're policed by mods. They even have their own economies, controversial as that can be. On some servers, you can even fish. It's heavily speculated that fishing is coming to GTA 6 (there's hints of it in the trailers), similar to the mechanic seen in 2018's Red Dead Redemption 2. There's also leaks that GTA 6 may adopt a weapon wheel, limiting and refining player inventories to make it so you can't carry everything with you.

While both fishing and inventory management could be much more in-depth and realistic in GTA 6, it's something we already have in GTA RP. A step ahead, once again.

There's talk of a lot more enterable buildings being available in GTA 6, but you can already enter many random buildings in GTA RP that are otherwise reserved for specific missions in GTA 5. There's hints of deeper interior customization in GTA 6, but that's already happening in GTA RP – players can buy entire buildings and make them their own, if they want to.

GTA RP has opened up a new world to me, one I did not expect, but ultimately love. It's certainly not without its own difficulties. There are a lot more players in GTA RP than you can get Online, and that requires a lot of moderation. It's not built by a team of Rockstar developers, so technical issues are impossible to avoid. And there will always be people that won't follow the rules.

But ultimately, RP servers have had a lot more fun with taking the best of GTAO and turning it into something I've absolutely fallen for. I just hope GTA 6 has taken notes.

GTA 6's leaks prove AI disinformation is worse than you think

Some classic jokes from Metal Gear Solid 4 are not only present in the latest re-release, but have been updated for modern systems. The game's part of Master Collection Vol. 2, which also includes Peace Walker and the Game Boy Color title Ghost Babel, and Konami has included a few nice flourishes.

The amount of meta-humor always made porting Metal Gear Solid 4 a difficult prospect. You've got references to the iPod and fourth wall breaks that really place the release at a certain time. Well, for the purposes of this version, Konami actually went back and amended a couple of spoken lines to make sure one joke lands accordingly.

In Sons of the Patriots, when you get to Shadow Moses Island, the original version made reference to changing the discs of the first Metal Gear Solid when you reach this same location. "Hold it, Snake. Time to change the disc," Otacon starts. "I know, I know, it's a pain. But you need to swap Disc 1 for Disc 2. You see the disc labelled '2'?"

Snake would then point out there isn't a second disc, and Otacon would realize we're in the future. "Oh, wait! We're on PlayStation 3," he exclaims, much to the chagrin of our man Solid.

Now, as has been highlighted by reviewers (thanks, TechRadar Gaming), whether you're playing on Switch 2, PS5, Xbox Series X, or any other platform, the Master Collection Vol. 2 now references that system. Voice actor Christopher Randolph even came back to do the line for each instance.

Sure, you can apparently hear the contrast in his voice, since he's aged almost two decades and the recording environment would've been completely different. But, the joke still works, and now has an added layer to it. Even Solid Snake would see the fun in that.

Metal Gear Solid is getting co-op after 28 years thanks to "world first" mod, turning "the original PlayStation classic into a true online multiplayer experience."

A three-year-old clip of Valve boss Gabe Newell dissecting the place of realism in games has resurfaced online amidst discussions of GTA 6 gameplay leaks suggesting cars in Rockstar's universe now use a realistic gasoline system which requires players to refuel them.

The response to this fuel system, even as part of a game build that may be outdated and which we've only seen a brief slice of, has been mixed. Some players embrace this added friction and detail, but others seem to worry that this gasoline system, assuming it's born out by the shipped game, will quickly become annoying upkeep.

In multiple debates on this feature, gamers and GTA fans have pointed to Newell's examination of realism in 2023's Half-Life 25th anniversary documentary. Around 15:40, at the start of one of the clips mentioned in GTA 6 leak debates, Newell dismisses the idea that games should pursue realism as a default.

"You'd have these conversations where you'd be sitting in a design review and somebody'd say, 'That's not realistic,'" Newell begins. "And you're like, 'OK. What does that have to – explain to me why that's interesting.' Because in the real world, I have to write up lists of stuff I have to go to the grocery store to buy. And I have never thought to myself that realism is fun. I go play games to have fun."

This has to be one of the most-cited Newell quotes around, and it holds up today. We frequently talk about how much more realistic some video games have become, often in discussions of lighting or NPC behavior, but games are still deliberately removed from reality for many reasons. Reality can be tedious and limiting, for one, and it turns out it's also very difficult to recreate.

The more realistic a game becomes, the more questions it has to answer. And the more questions a game has to answer, the more exceptions it has to make, sometimes to the detriment of gameplay or, ironically, immersion. We're getting to the core of why games generally aim to construct, and get players to believe, a reality that services their gameplay goals instead of trying to make absolutely everything true-to-life.

But for my money, the most interesting part is what Newell says next: how realism can be fun in games, and what it actually means.

"So we had to come up with some notion of what fun was," Newell continues. "We knew it was an ad hoc definition, and it was: the degrees to which the game recognizes and responded to the player's choices and actions. In behavioral science, you would say we're explicitly talking about what were reinforcers and what the reinforcement schedules were. At that point in time, that was a useful way of making design decisions."

Positive reinforcers encourage or reward behavior in a way that makes that behavior more likely to be repeated. The Skinner box, an experiment that saw animals trained to receive a reward like food by pressing a button, is one example that often comes up in game design discussions.

Here, a reinforcer would mean that a game acknowledging something you did and giving it observable consequences, big or small, makes it feel meaningful and makes you more likely to do something again. If you shoot a demon in Doom: The Dark Ages, it gets ripped apart in chunks. If you shoot a barrel in Borderlands 4, it explodes. If you shoot a random character in Fallout 4, the whole story may change. But you wouldn't shoot a random character to change the story of Doom, nor do Borderlands 4's barrels realistically buckle and leak fuel before exploding. Because now we've got realism working for games, rather than games working for realism.

This reward space is where you'll find immersive sims with seemingly impossible interaction chains that enable alternative solutions. This is where The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom lets you drop 50 metal weapons on the ground to connect an electric circuit instead of engaging with intended puzzle pieces. It's where crunchy, reactive RPGs like Baldur's Gate 3 blow players away by accounting for the fringe corner cases they got themselves into. And it's partly why Half-Life's convincing and systemic physics were so popular and, even outside the walls of FPS, formative.

The intent behind these and other design decisions isn't limited to reinforcement, but behavioral psychology is part of a lot of things in games – spaces that provide the agency we crave with the safety of play.

But where does pumping gas in GTA 6 fall – in Newell's grocery store rant, or in the magic of games carefully deploying realism? Personally, I don't think some shoddy leak videos are going to tell us.

"The point I would make is: if I go up to a wall and shoot it, to me it feels like the wall is ignoring me," Newell concludes. "I'm getting a narcissistic injury when the world is ignoring me. So to me, I was trying to convey to the user a sense of, yes, you were making choices, yes, you were progressing. Which meant the game had to acknowledge that back to you. If you shoot at a wall, there have to be [damage] decals. If you kill a bunch of marines, the marines have to run away from you. You have to have this sense of the game acknowledging and responding to the choices and actions and progressions that you've made. Otherwise, it loses any sort of impact."

To "obtain the identity" of GTA 6 leaker, Rockstar parent Take-Two subpoenas Microsoft and Discord as yet more gameplay footage is posted.

Just as I get out of my car in Cyberpunk 2077, I receive a text message from Panam. Given that I've clocked a little over 1,000 hours in CD Projekt Red's RPG at this point, it's one I'm no stranger to, but it still hits me like it's the first time. "You were right, V. It's good being back with your people," the message begins. "In NC I felt like the loneliest person in the world."

A photo of Panam and the Nomadic Aldecaldos accompanies the text, and while they're all sitting around a fire, the warmth of the snapshot comes from the found family portrait it captures. As I take in the image again, I'm reminded of why I'm so consistently drawn to the Nomads as a group above all.

In a dystopian setting like Night City – where ruthless gangs such as the scavs kidnap and harvest people, and cold corporations care only for raking in more eddies – the Nomads exist on the fringes of the neon-tinted metropolis. There, they can give you something more valuable than any souped-up cyberware: a sense of belonging. No matter how many times I play, the Aldecaldos and their found family dynamic are the highlight of my experience as V, and the group are partly why I've come to the conclusion that the best Cyberpunk 2077 lifepath is Nomad.

Outsider No More

Every lifepath in Cyberpunk 2077 offers something I enjoy from a role-playing standpoint. I love the way playing as a Street Kid often gives me the upper hand when I'm dealing with the many rival gangs that populate Night City. Being a Corpo, on the other hand, can give V an entirely different vibe and viewpoint, and it's fun to try and channel the ruthless edge so many corporations have .

But the Nomad lifepath is the most satisfying from a role-playing and story perspective overall – particularly when it comes to the Aldecaldo questlines. After leaving the Bakkers who were once your Nomad clan before they decided to join Snake Nation, V is now adrift with no backing or support system to speak of. As the codex shards you can find in the world will tell you, to be a Nomad is to adopt a lifestyle built upon family and freedom, and you protect your family and clan first and foremost. So, being a Nomad like V who's without one is a very lonely and vulnerable position to be in.

This background makes it all the more meaningful when you meet the Aldecaldos. Fiercely supportive and loyal to one another, they represent something V's lost: family. To want to belong is universal, and it's easy to get attached to the Aldecaldos because of the way they can give you that. Once you help them out, they have your back no matter what, and isn't that what family should be all about? Night City is a lonely place, after all, regardless of which V you're playing, and the Nomadic group really do feel like they bring some light and love to an otherwise harsh world.

Since I'm something of a virtual gearhead who loves driving in games, I also have a natural affinity for the Nomads as a group and lifepath. Aside from being your ride or dies in a familial sense, they also deeply care about the actual rides they drive. As Mitch, one of my favorite clan members, puts it, "those wheels are our life". Not only do they rely on their vehicles out in the Badlands, but they also customize them as though they're an extension of themselves. I immediately connected to this idea, and I love that in the lifepath, you get a set of wheels that feels personal to you, too, which you can even reclaim later on – it's such a welcome role-playing touch.

The Star

The characters who make up the Aldecaldo family are really what hooks me in time and again. The way Cyberpunk 2077 introduces you to the Nomads through Panam brilliantly establishes the hardships of going it alone, what the group are all about, and how much the Aldecaldo's care when it comes to a member of their clan. Having stepped away from the family, Panam is on a similar road to you when you first meet her. But as you help her out and get to know her, you can play a part in re-establishing her connection with the Aldecaldos.

Sometimes hotheaded, obviously lonely, but with so much strength and heart, Panam is a beautifully flawed, relatable character I quickly got very attached to, but I can honestly say I felt a kinship and fondness for all of the Aldecaldos in their own right. Throughout their questlines, they banter with one another, have disagreements, and share intimate, fond moments like any real family, and I always just want to spend more time with them.

While the Nomads' found family bond and the lifepath resonate, the role they play in Night City is also quite fascinating. I was reminded of this fact last year, when I had the chance to sit down and talk with lead writer, Tomasz Marchewka, for Cyberpunk 2077's five-year anniversary. Diving into the antagonistic setting, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to talk about the Nomads and express my love for the group. While I said that in some respects, they feel like they rebel against the city by going their own way, Marchewka explained that they're such a vital part of it – even if they're on the outside of things.

"When you think about it for a second, Nomads are crucial to make this ecosystem [in Night City] work," Marcheweka said. "Yeah, they seem to be outside of the city, but the city wouldn't be itself without Nomads running around bringing stuff from the other places with them, being the link between different cities. They need to be there. They are part of the ecosystem. They are kind of the blood flow, like they make the system run from under the hood. Using that metaphor, they are the engine of things. So the city wouldn't be itself without them, even though they seem detached, it's not that easy, they are connected to it."

I really love this idea that they're the "blood flow", or "engine" of the city who keep things running, even if it's from "under the hood" or out of sight. As an in-game shard details, it's said that it's actually "thanks to the Nomads that the cities were rebuilt after the wars and catastrophes that marked the first half of the 21st century", meaning that many cities wouldn't remain without them, even if they often seemingly exist outside of them. The opening of the Nomad lifepath even sees you smuggle something into Night City, which speaks to Marchewka's note about "being the link between different cities".

As you can probably tell I've thought about all of this too much, and dissected my attachment to the group a lot, but if nothing else, that speaks to how deeply invested I've become in the Nomads across my many playthroughs. Ultimately, the main reason for that will always come back to that photo from Panam. The Aldecaldos are a family – V's family – and I'll forever want to sit beside the fire with them.

Phantom Liberty didn't change my mind about the best Cyberpunk 2077 ending.

Welcome back to the GamesRadar+ RPG Club! This third meeting takes place in the earliest reaches of Act 3, with my Baldur's Gate 3 no weapons run getting deadly serious now that I'm in the biggest section of the game. As a result, I've been forced to confront more than just Ketheric Thorm and the Avatar of Myrkul – who was easily dispatched after I freed Aylin on my first turn by Misty Stepping over to her cage. My biggest question now is how my current party will survive one of Act 3's most punishing coded events.

Looking between Lae'zel, Halsin, and Gale, I feel a stone in my gut. My party has grown strong, even with my no weapons run barring us from using anything handheld. I was loath to part ways with any of them, but I know that the Murder God's favorite is about to infiltrate my camp and kidnap someone.

As soon as I claim victory over Myrkul's Chosen – here's how Act 2 went for me – I start planning. That means guessing s who might be on Orin's chopping block and preparing my party accordingly. It's time for a strategic break, so consider this my once-per-act respec being used in one go.

Quest Log

Sneak attacked

The start of Act 3 was a nasty shock during my first playthrough, where I'd finished up at Moonrise Towers at a paltry level six. I'm feeling much better about my chances as a level eight sorcerer now. Which is why I'm almost relishing taking my first Long Rest in Rivington and being interrupted by a Githyanki ambush.

I prepare by going around the camp and reshuffling my active party members. I opt for an even split between spellcasters and unarmed melee specialists: Lae'zel, my open-hand monk, pairs nicely with Karlach the barbarian, and I'll need Shadowheart on hand to dole out the heals. It's a particularly mean fight, albeit one that puts my challenge to the test by reflecting it back at me. All of the Gith are monks, just like Lae'zel, and it's nowhere near as much fun being on the receiving end of a resonating Ki blast.

My first attempt is a write off; my party accidentally jumps into the battle ground one by one instead of all together, leaving Karlach and Lae'zel out of the initiative roll entirely while Shadowheart and I get absolutely bodied. The Emperor is little help, and before long, I'm reloading my save to coordinate entry to the battle properly.

I put a focus on Karlach and Lae'zel reaching higher ground as soon as possible, throwing the Gith across the astral prism while Shadowheart casts Sanctuary on herself and buffs the party from a safe distance. Meanwhile, I'm all about the massive AOE spells. Say hello to my little Fireball, everyone!

But the ambush is only the start of my troubles. As soon as we arrive in Rivington, I do my usual rounds of the lively crossing town – and run into Bhaal's Chosen, Orin, twice. First, masquerading as a snooping journalist, and secondly, as the shopkeeper of an armory. She laughs in my face, waves off my victory against Ketheric by saying something mean and cryptic, before vanishing into a puddle of viscera.

Orin is one of my favorite villains in video game history. She's also the most annoying. As Enver Gortash – the Chosen of Bane, God of Tyranny – later informs me after I bear witness to his grand coronation, Orin has already kidnapped one of my companions and is masquerading as them back at my camp.

Truthfully, I am miffed. I'd forgotten that this happens so early on in Act 3's proceedings, and it sends my nerves into overdrive. Immediately, I pray Orin hasn't taken Lae'zel.

My Gith monk just started getting good after our party leveled up following the astral prism attack. Perhaps Orin, in her infinite magnanimity, might've gone for Halsin instead? Or maybe even Yenna, the orphan child who invited herself to our camp during our second Long Rest in Rivington and now cannot stop going on about having brought her own paring knife (who gave the child a knife? Why are we okay with this?).

Tanked it

I managed to avoid dealing with my little Orin problem until two or three long rests later. Pursuing a maligned quest involving a necromancer mummy, whose goodies I had designs on for Gale, I headed into Baldur's Gate's sewers without thinking twice. Big mistake. "Lae'zel" came hobbling out of a fetid underground tunnel and soon shapeshifted back into Orin the Red.

Well, damn. I don't think I've ever triggered the imposter reveal this early on in any of my Baldur's Gate 3 playthroughs, and now I'm down the most powerful tank in my party. It's especially miserable, since I don't tend to rescue Orin's captive until I'm starting to wrap up my time in the game. If I'm to make it through all that Act 3 has to offer without Lae'zel at my side, it's time to respec my party accordingly.

Instead of fashioning myself another monk – that just feels like cheating, okay? – I leverage some newfound assets. Jaheira is a druid, much like Halsin, and I want to keep her as such for narrative reasons. That said, I respec her subclass into Circle of Spores to complement Gale's own necromantic flair.

Between them, they now can spawn near endless zombies and ghouls anytime I choose. It's also time to make Shadowheart a Light Domain cleric now that she's turned her back on Shar's trickery, while Astarion gets a few warlock levels to beef the bard up a bit with some eldritch blasts for good measure.

With Karlach now my one and only melee tank, it's time to bid farewell to the ways of the Berserker and respec her back to the Giant subclass. I need to prioritize high DPS to compensate for the loss of Lae'zel's fists of fury, so I make sure to stack her strength score up to 20 at a base level and make use of her collection of Cloud Giant Strength potions, which take her up to 27. Then, I turn to my own character – sweet little Zeraphina, the draconic sorcerer who could. And still can. For her, no changes – only vengeance for the loss of Lae'zel.

I really did squander Lae'zel when I had her, and I can't lie and say that she was a staple in my party throughout the journey so far – that honor goes to Karlach, Gale, and Shadowheart for the most part.

But much as her absence is felt, leaning into magical combat has been eye-opening. It's certainly helpful when my whole party can misty step anywhere they like whenever I please, not to mention how keeping my party far from foes means I have no real need for a melee tank anyway. Paired with some fancy new Spore Druid armor for Jaheira and the Robes of the Weave for Gale, I'm cleaning up Act 3 like the most dedicated barmaid at the Elfsong Tavern. A dedicated barmaid with a penchant for summoning zombies, of course.

And yet, there's more to come. Slowly but surely, I'm rebuilding my party for the final battle brick by brick. Hopefully next time I check in with you, I'll have bested that brain for good – with or without Lae'zel.

GTA 6 leaker Cyberleek taunted Rockstar today with yet another gameplay clip suggesting viewers continue throwing money at the anonymous group's crypto scheme, since "HIGHER MARKETCAP = MORE LEEKS." But while Cyberleek was perfecting its business scheme with its sixth untimely gameplay reveal, Rockstar parent company Take-Two was sharpening its knives; the owner has filed multiple subpoenas requesting Microsoft and Discord assist it in learning Cyberleek's true identity by providing user information.

Kotaku reports that Take-Two says in one subpoena filed with the Southern District Court of New York on August 20 that it's issued its Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) subpoena with the express purpose "to obtain the identity of an alleged infringer or infringers, and that such information will only be used for the purpose of protecting Take-Two's rights."

Both Microsoft and Discord have until September 4 to come up with internal records related to Cyberleek, says Take-Two, including Discord "account ID, registration email, registration and last-login IP addresses, phone number, linked connections (Google/Xbox/etc.), any associated device identifiers (MachineGuid/MSA), and content related to Grand Theft Auto (‘GTA’), Rockstar or Cyberleek from their OneDrive account."

The company is checking every bed and closet for Cyberleek, making several Discord servers part of its investigation, including CYBERLEEK itself and the server for DarkViperAU, a popular GTA 5 YouTuber. In the meantime, GTA 6 hopefuls on Reddit are complimenting the fidelity on the roadside Cyberleek recently revealed.

New GTA 6 activities, customization, and gameplay details revealed alongside 63 gorgeous screenshots.

Naughty Dog's been very quiet about its next single-player offering, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, since its reveal almost two years ago, but the game's just shown its first sign of life in ages with a new cast member who you might recognize from the studio's prior work: Uncharted and The Last of Us.

The famed developer hasn't shown anything from its upcoming sci-fi romp since its reveal trailer in 2024, and it hasn't been especially talkative about the mysterious project either. Lead actor Tati Gabrielle said the game shows "a different side of Naughty Dog," while co-director Neil Druckmann suggested it might borrow a thing or two from Elden Ring, of all games. Outside of that, more concrete details are practically non-existent.

While news about the game had been sparser than the voids of space, actor Robin Atkin Downes today revealed that he's back to working with Naughty Dog and is joining the cast of Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet.

"I've been keeping this one quiet for a while," he tweets alongside of a video of himself in a motion capture suit. "The journey continues! Awesome to be working again with the Dawgs!"

Downes' history with the studio actually stretches back to the very first Uncharted game, where he played crime boss and main bad guy Atoq Navarro. He then provided the motion capture for Uncharted 2's Tenzin, the best friend Nate's ever had, before flip-flopping right back into consecutive villain roles with Uncharted 3's Talbot, The Last of Us' Robert, and Uncharted 4's Hector Alcazar almost a decade ago.

While Downes has historically depicted Naughty Dog's more unsavory characters, his video game resume is really extensive and includes everything from No More Heroes' Travis Touchdown to, err, Assassin's Creed 3's George Washington. What kind of role he might have in Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is still up in the air, then.

Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet "might need to be edited" to avoid "another Last of Us 2 situation," former Naughty Dog dev warns

With Gamescom 2026 looming over us, it comes as no surprise that Alien: Isolation 2 fans are hopeful they'll see a release date at the big event – but they shouldn't hold their breath.

Developer Creative Assembly and publisher Sega are apparently not planning to unveil the long-awaited sequel's release date next week during the annual gaming event, as per their response to a fan's excitement over on Twitter.

The original post shows somebody exclaim that they "hope we get a release date next week," to which the official Alien: Isolation 2 account replies, "Hello, you won't get a release date next week."

It's short (not sweet, sadly), but it does provide all folks need to know, I suppose: there'll be no launch date reveal during Gamescom. Thankfully, the fan who initially posted in the first place is taking the news well, though.

They simply write, "Thank you for letting us know!" The Alien: Isolation 2 team says "you're welcome" in turn – so, all in all, it's not a bad interaction or anything… it's just disappointing.

As one fan jokes in the comments, it was "worth a try" regardless. That checks out, seeing as Alien: Isolation 2 has been in the works for at least a little while now, with its first footage having aired as part of the Summer Game Fest 2026 schedule earlier this summer.

It wouldn't be too surprising, then, to see people expecting a release date (or, at the least, a release window) to drop soon… but, alas, it won't be in August, anyway.

Here's hoping Creative Assembly and Sega give us another teaser of sorts, however – it's still possible, seeing as they only confirm they won't be showcasing a release date during this year's Gamescom.

Anything more than a quick sneak-peek at a xenomorph's mouth would be great at this point, as the original Alien: Isolation landed way back in 2014. I know I'll be keeping my own fingers crossed over the next few days.

Alien Isolation 2 uses Unreal Engine 5 instead of Creative Assembly's custom engine, and fans are starting to worry: "This completely ruins any enthusiasm I have for the game."

• The Sinking City 2 is perfect if you want a freshly themed modern survival horror like Resident Evil 2 or Silent Hill 2 remake

Here's the 60-second pitch for why you should play The Sinking City 2 this weekend: With the love of his life trapped in a Lovecraftian dream space, Calvin Rafferty must brave the flooded streets of Arkham as he tries to track down the occult tools to wake her, all as creatures from the deep surface and the city is plunged into chaos. Shambling enemies puppeted by the Slither are unpredictable, with shifting weak points, and maze-like, nightmarish maps are packed with arcane puzzles and tempting upgrades that'll have you constantly considering your dwindling resources.

Why play it today?

• The Sinking City 2 is a fresh twist on modern survival horror that feels just as good to play as recent Silent Hill and Resident Evil games, rather than a retro revival

A lot of recent survival horror games outside of the big names position themselves as throwbacks to retro sensibilities. While I still love that angle, it's interesting to see The Sinking City 2 take most of its cues from the likes of Resident Evil 2 remake rather than just the original Resident Evil 2.

Even so, The Sinking City 2 has a lot of its own ideas. Developer Frogwares is well-known for its detective games, including the first The Sinking City, and a whole catalog of Sherlock Holmes adventures. This means the bevy of survival horror puzzles required to progress or unlock upgrades are all smartly designed, and a detective mindmap allows you to sort and organize uncovered clues to arrive on solutions. It'll only tell you if evidence is related, never reveal a final solution. It's a light touch compared to their detective games, but adds a neat flavor to Calvin's adventure.

Lovecraftian eldritch horror is well utilized to make The Sinking City 2's stand out. Flooded streets and buildings allow for effective jump scares as monsters emerge. Twitchy movements, and shifting Slither on bodies mean you're never quite sure where to best aim. Down a foe, and escaping Slither can animate other corpses. It creates an uneasy atmosphere where you're never quite sure what the rules are, and are always weighing up when to stand and fight, and when to make a break for it.

Time commitment:

The Sinking City is about the same length as Resident Evil 2 remake, taking me about 10 hours to beat on my first playthrough. Post-game unlocks, as is often the case in the genre, makes for rewarding replays. With each area taking just a few hours, this is an adventure you can chip away at.

Play The Sinking City 2 if you love:

Skip The Sinking City 2 if you want:

One thing to know:

The Sinking City 2 has some great, forgiving difficulty options, but this is still a survival horror game. There are a lot of situations that can be quite stressful to get through with relentless swarm of enemies that'll turn you into fish food if you don't know when to cut and run. Even when backtracking, Frogwares takes the opportunity to add more pressure and challenge to catch you out. That's part of the fun. But, for those used to their more sedate detective games, this can be intense if you're not ready for it.

A moment you'll remember:

First feeling overwhelmed as you struggle to understand how the Slither work. Survival horror games are often at their best when they're unpredictable and you're learning a game for the first time, and The Sinking City 2 has enough strange foes that you'll find yourself unsure of the threat before you, and how to best deal with them. It doesn't get more horrifying or Lovecraftian than that. Even now, I don't fully understand how some systems work.

The final verdict:

In my The Sinking City 2 review, I said it's a "Lovecraftian fusion of Resident Evil and Silent Hill that boasts its own delightfully gruesome pleasures", and I meant it. Given the shift into the survival horror genre was such a departure for Frogwares, I was skeptical when this was announced, but the end result has blown me away. I like a lot of games in the genre, so it's great to see this in conversation with the modern big-hitters, and with plenty of fresh angles of its own.

So, where can you play it?

The Sinking City 2 is currently available on most major platforms: PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. It is not currently available on Xbox Game Pass or PS Plus. Launching at $49.99 for the base edition, the price is appealing, too.

How to get started with The Sinking City 2:

The Sinking City 2's horror works best when you don't know too much going in. But, if you get stuck, or just need some pointers, we've got plenty of guides already for where to start with The Sinking City 2 this weekend.

Have your say:

Check out our best survival horror games list for more!

Tetsuya Nomura's been sliding Final Fantasy Versus 13 references through the backdoor of Kingdom Hearts for years. And in the most on-brand move for the puzzling developer, even his clothes are now potentially dropping hints about how the canceled Final Fantasy game could connect to Kingdom Hearts 4.

Last week put an end to the Kingdom Hearts 4 news drought with Square Enix announcing that Pixar's Coco will feature in the game, alongside playable King Mickey sections that are more focused on papercraft puzzles than the series' signature floaty combat.

But perhaps the most notable and brain-scratching tidbit actually came from a shirt that series co-creator Tetsuya Nomura wore to a D23 panel discussing the game. Stick with me now. His plain black shirt had one simple logo printed on top: 'Black Honey Chili Cookie.'

Real sickos might recognize Black Honey Chili Cookie as a fashion brand that appears in NEO: The World Ends With You, a beloved but overlooked JRPG that Nomura was heavily involved in as well. Of course, characters from the original The World Ends With You game have appeared in the Kingdom Hearts series before. Since The World Ends With You is set in Tokyo and Kingdom Hearts 4 sends us to an alternate version of the city, there's a very real chance those characters could return in next year's sequel.

How does any of this relate to Final Fantasy Versus 13, the game Nomura was supposed to direct before it was repurposed into Final Fantasy 15? Well, here's where we enter a potentially fruitless rabbit hole.

The in-game shopkeeper of the Black Honey Chilli Cookie store is called Hiromu Takahara. Not so coincidentally, Hiromu Takahara also happens to be the name of the in-real-life fashion designer behind Final Fantasy Versus 13's (and Final Fantasy 15's) cast of characters. Hiromu Takahara's inclusion in The World Ends With You was a heart warming tribute to Tetsuya Nomura's once creative collaborator at the time – the Black Honey t-shirt is potentially something more.

Wouldn't you have guessed it? Things get even more loopy from here. In the days since Kingdom Hearts 4's Coco trailer, series fans have been combing over every frame for clues and found striking similarities between the city guards in Kingdom Hearts 4 and Final Fantasy 15. The design of the military airships in both games are almost an exact mirror of each other, too.

YouTuber The Night Sky Prince theorizes there's a method behind the madness and there might even be some parallels between Kingdom Hearts 4's narrative and the story Final Fantasy Versus 13 was supposed to tell. A foreign invasion of Kingdom Hearts' Tokyo could be what spurs the series' shadowy Heartless to begin wreaking havoc in the city, in the same way that the Empire of Niflheim spreads their own daemons across Final Fantasy 15 world, on top of whatever meta clues Nomura may sneak into the game.

While the theory is convoluted and requires a lot of background knowledge to understand, I'm convinced because it's also perfectly in line with Kingdom Hearts' already twisty-turvy, sometimes non-sensical lore. It wouldn't be the first time Nomura's referenced FF Versus 13 with all the subtlety of a bulldozer, either – the man seemingly can't let go of his baby. But I also wouldn't rule out the possibility this is all just a red herring that Kingdom Hearts fans, me included, are reading way too much into, as usual.

Whether the references are just references or something more remains to be seen. We'll find out when Kingdom Hearts 4 "100%" comes out next year.

Kingdom Hearts 4 references a bit of OG lore so obscure I wouldn't have blamed Tetsuya Nomura for forgetting it.

Late last week, indie developer Ternox Games revealed that they wouldn't be releasing titles on PlayStation any longer as Sony had seemingly spontaneously terminated their publishing deal – but, now, all appears to be back in working order.

In case you missed the news when it dropped last Sunday, Ternox Games announced that their colorful '80s Japanese stock market simulator, STONKS-9800, wouldn't be releasing on the PlayStation 5 as "Sony unilaterally terminated my PlayStation developer and publisher agreement without giving me any reason."

The dev also explained that their existing games on the platform would "be removed from the PlayStation Store after August 23."

Well, we've got much better news today: Ternox Games' lineup is apparently good to stay on the PS5, and they'll also continue to launch games on the console's store in the future.

The dev reveals as much in a new online post – one written in response to the original thread on the publishing deal debacle. "Playstation has restored my access to the developer account and allowed me to continue working," it reads.

"My games will remain available for purchase, and I'll keep releasing games for PlayStation as well!" Ternox Games concludes by thanking fans for their support – and it's safe to say they're happy, too.

"Great news," reads one comment. "Congratulations!" Others question why Sony did what it had apparently done in the first place, although the studio doesn't seem to reveal any details on why the publishing deal fell through.

As for Ternox Games' portfolio, I can confidently report that STONKS-9800 is a banger, with "Overwhelmingly Positive" reviews over on Steam and a retro-feeling aesthetic to die for. I'm sure it'll do just as well on PS5, now that it seems to finally be making its way there.

Looking to support some smaller developers yourself? Here's a roundup of the best upcoming indie games arriving this year and beyond to wishlist now.

Sony and Microsoft had better think long and hard before pricing the next generation of consoles at $1000, as one prominent industry analyst predicts that could result in a huge drop in sales compared to the current generation.

According to a new report from Ampere Analysis (via VGC), there is a specific set of circumstances which seem entirely plausible that could see combined PS6 and Xbox Project Helix sales plummet 38% over five years compared to PS5 and Xbox Series X sales over the same time period. Those circumstances are A) The next-gen consoles launch with a base price of $1000, and B) they're "conventionally designed, incrementally improved" over the current generation, which is typically the deal these days.

In that scenario, the analyst predicts Sony and Microsoft would see a massive drop in adoption rates as well as a decrease in consumer spending that could negatively impact the overall console games and services market by 12%.

With PS5 Pros going for $900, trade wars ongoing, and RAM shortages showing no signs of improving, a $1000 PS6 isn't such an outlandish prediction. And yet, another industry analyst has gone on the record to say consoles that expensive could price out buyers "quite significantly."

The folks at Ampere reckon Sony and Microsoft could avoid that problem in several ways, either by delaying the start of the next generation until component costs go down, keeping prices low through "heavier hardware subsidies, new monetisation models, more aggressive digital content strategies and optimised sales channels," or by going in another direction entirely and "substantially" innovating in a way that doesn't rely on "graphical improvement." VGC cites the Nintendo Wii as an example of this, trading raw hardware power for form factor innovation.

Considering the Xbox Series S launched for $299 less than six years ago, it's staggering to consider a successor that costs more than triple that as the cost of basic living necessities like groceries, gas, and housing remains elevated. I'm no analyst, but it's easy to see how people living in today's economy would stay out of a $1000 console generation until things settle down.

Threats of a $1,000 PS6 have ex-Sony president just as scared as you are: "How much more ray tracing can you put in there?"

Gearbox is sticking to its word and continuing to support Borderlands 4 with big new content drops despite what it's admitted was a "softer" launch than expected. The developer has released the full details for the $20 Borderlands 4 Story Pack 2, titled FL4K and the Last Resort, and, as you might've gleaned from that title, the Borderlands 3 playable Beastmaster class FL4K is making a triumphant comeback.

At the heart of FL4K and the Last Resort's story is a rescue mission for the vault hunter's dog, who is kidnapped by Tediore soldiers while accompanying FL4K on a hunting mission on the new tropical jungle map, Providence, which makes up much of the new DLC's visual identity. Art director Chris Neely tells Polygon the update has "a little bit of a Mad Max edge" and "a little John Wick action."

"Tediore has captured one of my best friends. He's a skag, and he's helpless without me. If he is alive, I require assistance rescuing him. If he is dead, go Vault Hunter, put things in their place," says FL4K in the below trailer. Frankly, if there's one guaranteed trick to get me to buy a DLC, it's telling me there's an animal that needs rescuing. Diabolical work, Gearbox.

Story Pack 2 also adds a bunch of new goons called Deadframes to blast through and a new Vault Hunter to embody while doing so, the previously unveiled Cyberpunk hacker, Loveless. Gearbox says Loveless makes use of "advanced cybernetics and a sentient digital virus pet for a unique combat approach," and again, just take my money already.

Ultimately, we're here for the loot, and Story Pack 2 delivers on that front. Gearbox says you'll be able to find two new Pearlescent weapons; the Astonisher Ripper shotgun and the Quadratus, a Vladof Heavy Weapon Ordnance; as well as 18 new pieces of Legendary gear.

Borderlands 4's second big expansion releases alongside a smaller new Bounty Pack, titled Amara and the Vile Shadows, which is a separate $6 purchase and comes with a new replayable mission and new loot including a new Pearlescent weapon and six new pieces of Legendaries.

All of that is releasing alongside a new system update that'll bring the game up to version 1.10 and increase the max level cap by 10 for everyone.

Here are the best FPS games to play in 2026.

Development of 2XKO is shutting down this year.

Riot Games has announced that its League of Legends fighting game did not attract enough players to sustain future support, and the final content update will land in October. The game itself will remain playable both online and offline for the foreseeable future.

"Over the last few months, we’ve been monitoring 2XKO’s trajectory closely, and what we’ve seen is painting a clear, consistent picture: while a lot of you jumped in to try the game and there's an incredible community that plays every day, we haven’t seen enough players stick with the game to get to a path toward sustainability," Riot says in its announcement.

2XKO's struggles have been clear since launch, when 80 employees were laid off immediately following the game's release. Riot says that its goal with 2XKO was to satisfy frustrated members of the fighting game community, while simultaneously making a notoriously daunting genre more accessible for new players. While the studio says it saw "small scale" evidence of success with this approach, it wasn't enough.

"In recent months, the team has continued to take bold swings while fully aware of 2XKO's challenges – but to attempt another year hoping for a way forward would have been an irresponsible choice for players and the dev team," Riot says. "To be super clear: we would have continued active development if we saw any viable future, but 2XKO costs us substantially more to operate than it brings in, and engagement has stayed relatively flat despite our larger updates."

2XKO launched in January 2026 as a free-to-play game supported by microtransactions. All purchases made up until today, August 20, will be refunded to players in the weeks to come. On September 8, an update will be released which unlocks all champions for all players. At the same time, a final $40 bundle will be released that contains all previously released cosmetic content.

Lux, a new character who was announced at Evo 2026, will also be released as part of the September update. The final champion, Samira, will be released in an October update that will serve as 2XKO's "final major content patch."

"Looking to the future, you can count on Riot to keep exploring new genres and ways to bring players together," the studio concludes. "For now, we’re focused on leaving 2X in a great spot. Then, we’ll head back into the R&D lab, where we’ll take time to learn and work on how we come back stronger for the next swing at the next genre."

League Classic might sound fun, but as a 15-year League of Legends veteran, I'm here to tell you: You want this less than you think.

Halo universe co-creator and former Bungie creative director Marcus Lehto is having all kinds of strange ideas about the future of the franchise. But before you get too excited and start shooting your Needler pistol into the air, you should know the former Bungie creative director is certain you'll hate what he's thinking, and IP owner Xbox won't care.

"While talk of Halo's future is certainly very exciting, I'm aware that it's fanciful and that I doubt Asha [Sharma, Xbox CEO] really gives a shit," Lehto writes in an August 19 Twitter post. "Also, Halo MUST be built by a local team together," he adds, jabbing at Microsoft's reputation for internal layoffs followed by external contracting, "not outsourced around the globe to a group that has ZERO investment in making something great."

That could be that. But whatever Lehto's been mulling over sounds compelling, and Xbox has lately been experiencing more drastic changes than a little Halo revival, so...

Lehto teases in another Twitter post, "If I were to make another Halo these days, I bet many of you would not like it. It would be a lot darker with a more grounded military feel."

Then, while Halo games have always offered multiplayer PvP – Lehto despises the fact that the new Halo remake left this feature out – they aren't as reliable when it comes to PvE. But it sounds like Lehto wants to rectify this with a truly PvPvE Halo à la Arc Raiders, saying, "PvP would be the brains, PvE the heart and soul."

Ultimately, "It would not be 'everyone's' Halo," Lehto says confidently. In case he hasn't yet sharpened that point enough to tear through your gauzy memories of 2001, he adds that, "I would probably bench much of the current lore – respect it, but build a new future narrative for both the old and new audiences which makes much more sense."

Halo fans finally bared their teeth at this. A spooky, more militaristic Halo? Sure. PvPvE? Interesting. Xbox is currently an unsightly lump of job cuts and drooping revenue – fine, maybe it doesn't even deserve a new Halo game, that's not Lehto's fault. But threats to the lore are simply offensive, fans say, even if they come from the man who helped establish 26th century alien colonization.

"The lore is the only good thing about halo," one person argues on Twitter.

"I know this is just your aspirations, but Halo really can't afford another soft reboot," frets another.

Lehto gets it. If lightning strikes at the right time and his unconventional Halo sequel eventually gets approved, he says, first, "We'd need to sit together, break bread, and enjoy some deep conversation – along with some fine beverages of course." Can we get that in a Halo game?

Give Master Chief a break – I want more Halo games like ODST and Reach.

Fallout co-creator Timothy Cain, whose most recent portfolio entries include the likes of The Outer Worlds 2 and its predecessor over at Obsidian Entertainment, thinks developers have a lot to learn from bad games – not just successful titles.

It's a tale as old as time, as Cain describes in his latest YouTube video (below). A game becomes a smash hit – think anything from indie to AAA, Meccha Chameleon to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 – and the industry goes wild with copies or clones, attempting to recapture that same success.

This might even lead to other folks copying the bad aspects of "good" games. As Cain puts it, they may "blindly copy" them. These bad aspects could be obvious, and so they're not often overlooked – but "bad" games are, on the other hand, and that takes valuable lessons away from aspiring devs, according to Cain.

"In general," as he says, "bad games are ignored, especially if they weren't part of a popular franchise and or never sold very well." This checks out. When they're sequels of "good" titles, they're not as oft forgotten.

But, "there are so many games out there that one game came out, it wasn't very good, and it was forgotten," Cain explains, concluding, "and I'm saying you could learn a lot from games like that."

Honestly, I get what he means. I'm immediately reminded of that quote about those who don't learn from history being doomed to repeat it, and of the concept of survivorship bias – the overarching theme of the Fallout mastermind's video, actually.

In his own words, "the whole point of this video was [to] please remember about survivorship bias. The qualities of successful games… may not be those qualities which made them successful. And conversely, look at failed ones because some of the things that they share in common may be the reason that they failed."

It's a much-needed message for the industry (and any outside of it as well, for that matter).

Comments see viewers agreeing with Cain, too. "It's the slow path to eventually making the same video game over and over again," reads one. Another adds, "such a simple concept, but you're totally right, they don't ever analyze what makes a game bad."

Fallout co-creator says turn-based and real-time RPGs both have "loud vocal advocates" who won't play anything else, so devs can't please everyone.

Console sales aren't looking too hot right now, at least going by numbers from the good ol' US of A. According to analyst figures, the amount shifted in July 2026 reached a low for the month not seen since 2020 – ooft.

These numbers come from Mat Piscatella, senior director and video game business advisor at Circana, who did his usual monthly round-up of industry figures. Circana's data indicates the overall spending on hardware took another hit, bringing numbers comparable to those of six years ago, as he writes: "Hardware spending fell to a July low not seen since 2020."

The boom of the Nintendo Switch 2 around this time last year contributed to the downturn – it's hard to beat a big system launch – but Piscatella points out, "the challenges extend far beyond simple cyclicality." Parts are hard to get a hold of, driving up prices, particularly when it comes to RAM, since data centers are just absorbing so much of the supply.

The hardware market comparables continue to be impacted by the record-setting June 2025 launch of Nintendo Switch 2. However, the challenges extend far beyond simple cyclicality.

— @matpiscatella.bsky.social (@matpiscatella.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-08-20T16:20:01.402Z

"Higher hardware prices driven by the RAM and component crisis have significantly impacted the selling rates of both PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series, with a price hike for Nintendo Switch 2 hardware coming on September 1, 2026," Piscatella writes on Bluesky.

This is all in line with what manufacturers themselves have been saying. Xbox lost around $1.6 billion over the last financial year, and Sony says the PS5 is lagging way behind the PS4 at the same point in its lifespan.

There's a 39% drop in hardware sales overall compared to last July, and the average price of a system is up 16%. Right now, the highest-end PS5 model will run you $899.99. That's a lot of money, and the cheapest version is $599.99, which isn't all that much better. It's difficult to justify the investment for many people amid other economic concerns.

That said, GTA 6 is now right around the corner, and there'll definitely be movement on consoles for the Christmas period and into next year as a result. But how much, and what it'll do to help their makers get back on solid ground, are other questions.

PlayStation reportedly reworking live service Horizon Hunters Gathering into a smaller, more traditional co-op game following ill-received playtests.

Fortnite Cheat Codes have been introduced to replace the Sprite Chests this season, and this fresh mechanic fits in with the general gaming theme for Override. Once you discover a cheat code emblazoned on a surface, you need to match the arrow directions accurately to collect your rewards – it's not quite the Konami Code, but you know the general idea! To get up to speed, this is how Cheat Codes in Fortnite work.

Note that these cheat codes are separate to the Fortnite Lobby Hack codes you enter on the Battle Royale lobby screen, though both provide ways to add more Fortnite Sprites to your collection.

Fortnite Cheat Codes locations

Fortnite Cheat Codes appear on surfaces in many locations around the island, and make a distinctive chime sound when you are close to them in the same way that Chests do. If you've turned on the Visualize Sound Effects option under Audio settings (which I highly recommend you do if you haven't already) then you'll see a blue glow and four arrow icon appear that will lead you to the Cheat Code. The color of it represents the rarity of the Sprite you'll receive if entered correctly, as follows:

• Blue Cheat Code – Rare Sprite
• Purple Cheat Code – Epic Sprite
• Gold Cheat Code – Legendary Sprite

Note that although Fortnite Cheat Codes can appear in the same location for multiple matches, the rarity is randomized each time – so if you find a Gold Cheat Code then unfortunately you can't keep returning to that location and guarantee a Legendary Sprite every visit.

How to use Fortnite Cheat Codes

Once you've found a Fortnite Cheat Code, approach it and follow the ENTER CHEAT prompt to start typing it in using the d-pad or direction controls. Sometimes the camera angle and visual glitches can make it difficult to read the code, so have a quick look at it before interacting so you know what you need to enter. Make a mistake and you'll have to restart, but there's no actual timer so you can take as long as you need to enter the Cheat Code.

Note: If you have one of the Cheat Master Sprites equipped, you can just mash buttons and the correct code will be entered automatically!

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

For years, a group of GTA 6 fans has been painstakingly analyzing every screenshot, every teaser, and every frame of every trailer in an effort to piece together the map for Rockstar's open-world game. What do they think of the map that appeared alongside this week's GTA 6 leaks? Apparently, its contents check out with what they've spent years building.

"After comparing their work with the newly leaked #GTAVI map, they believe it checks out," according to a tweet from iGrandTheftAuto.com, a fansite whose members include folks involved with the GTA 6 mapping community. "While some smaller details appear to be missing, the overall map leak seems to be genuine."

The leaked map appears to be made up of a series of screenshots taken from the in-game map screen, stitched together in order to show the whole open world.

The broad strokes are very similar to the fan-made GTA 6 map, which you can browse in detail on the community website. The community map lacks detail through much of the wilderness, while the leaked map doesn't show smaller roads and other more intricate details.

"The map leak is 100% real," according to martipk, a member of the GTA 6 mapping community whose comments on Discord have been shared more widely on Twitter. "It's just a low render version that doesn't show buildings, small roads, bridges or runners. Everything is correct on the map. There are details everywhere so precise that aren't even on the community map but can still be confirmed from what we know. There is literally no way someone fabricated this."

A bit of skepticism remains among some fans over whether these GTA 6 leaks are even real, but personally, I think the doubt ship has long since sailed away. The video clips are far too specific and detailed to be AI-generated, and even the people behind the mapping project are convinced of the leaked map's veracity.

Plus, the DMCA notices against accounts sharing the leaked materials probably wouldn't be so aggressive if these were fakes. I suspect Rockstar's going to find the next couple of months leading into GTA 6's launch downright excruciating.

GTA 6 leaks go from bad to worse for Rockstar as new footage suggests leaker has access to a playable build.

EA, the publisher behind games like Battlefield 6 and The Sims 4 and parent of Mass Effect developer BioWare, is on many a player's mind right now following the $55 billion deal that saw its buyout – one that might spell disaster for Mass Effect 5, apparently.

Although we don't know too much about the next Mass Effect game as BioWare has been too "busy" to share its progress, it's been underway – or at least in some sort of pre-production state – since its reveal way back in 2020.

It's safe to say that all of this doesn't exactly inspire the greatest confidence in folks… and neither does the fact that a trio of private investors led by Saudi Arabia has just acquired EA, to put it lightly.

Former senior manager at EA Emmanuel Rosier, who now works as the director of market intelligence at industry analyst Newzoo, explains how he feels about BioWare following the recent buyout in a new interview with PC Gamer.

"They've been struggling as a studio, as a brand have been struggling in recent years, and I don't know if they [EA] will keep funding that one," he states. "I think that's the biggest question mark for me."

So, what about Mass Effect 5, then? "I will believe it when I see it, the next Mass Effect game, let's put it that way," Rosier says. "I've worked many years with BioWare, sometimes it can stretch for years and years until something comes." That checks out.

After all, Dragon Age: The Veilguard took nearly a decade to develop – and also suffered a rework of sorts as well. It's hard to tell what'll happen with the new Mass Effect, put simply.

"I think everything can happen at this moment," as Rosier concludes. "They [EA] can pull the plug very, very easily. And if the new investors, they don't have that many feelings about the history of the portfolio, they will take the most financially sound decision most probably."

I hate to say it, but I do fear the former EA lead is right here – anything could happen, and it's likely that profits are being taken into account above… well, everything else.

Only time will tell what the fate of Mass Effect 5 will truly be, but I'll be keeping my own fingers crossed that the new RPG from BioWare ends up coming to fruition someday – with a teaser (anything at all, please) sometime soon, to boot.

EA devs feel "the threat of layoffs at all times," especially after Saudi Arabia acquisition: "It's hard to see how teams or games that underperform wouldn't be dissolved"

The Sinking City 2 trident is part of a puzzle in the Church area that involves the nearby obelisk. It's not very clear though, and even if you find and read the various notes relating to it, it can be unclear what you're meant to do with any of it.

I've solved it all already and have explained the process fully in my in-depth Sinking City 2 walkthrough covering the flooded city section. However, if you just want the short version, here it is.

Unlike the Sinking City 2 printing press puzzle, which involves several locations, this can actually be solved the first time you find it, as long as you know how.

What to do with the Trident?

You'll find the Trident in the Church behind the Star locked door, once you have the Star key. But it's not clear what you need to do with it.

You'll actually want to take the Trident and place it on the Obelisk to start things off. Once you've done that, you'll want to rotate the Obelisk symbols using the information found on the "Call Upon Believers" note which lists four gods (found on the altar when you first enter the Church), and the First Vision note which lists their symbols (found in the Star locked crypt in the graveyard).

Matching up the gods and symbols gives you the the order you need to arrange Obelisk sections, while the mention of 'from the depth to the heights' in one note means this order is from top to bottom and looks like this:

1. Yig: Serpent Form
2. Tsog-Nar: Crooked Cross
3. Gyrh: Spearhead
4. Cthylla: Splayed Womb

Once you have the symbols in the right place, lightning will start hitting the Trident at regular intervals so get clear. Some enemies will also appear, so have fun kiting them into the electricity. A tip will light up each time the Trident is hit, and when all three are lit, nip in and grab it.

Now take the Trident and place it back where you found it. When you leave this small room, you'll be in another dimension and the Church will be full of statues. Go to the altar and take the dagger from the statue right in front of it. Place the dagger into the slot in the altar and you'll be lowered into a basement area for a small boss fight. When that's done, you'll find some Dream Essence upgrade points on the altar as you leave.

You'll be at best about halfway through the flooded city area if you're dealing with this as you find it. However, you might be closer to the end if you're backtracking. Either way, my Sinking City 2 Hospital walkthrough is likely to be useful real soon.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

PATCH NOTES v20.08.2026 – Fake GTA 6 clips have flooded the internet as Rockstar endures its third day of leaks, fooling many fans and reminding us how hard it is to trust anything you see online these days.

What's going on with GTA 6 and Rockstar?

• A hacker group named Cyberleek started releasing alleged clips of GTA 6 on August 18, with most taken down for copyright violations.

Why is this happening now?

• Rockstar Games announced that GTA 6 would be digital-only in June 2026, prompting widespread backlash from collectors of physical games.
• Cyberleek says it will stop leaking footage if the developer agrees to a series of demands, including a commitment to making physical editions of GTA 6.
• GTA 6 is getting a lengthy preview streamed on Netflix in the coming days, making it a crucial period for the developer.

Meta Shift

• Generative AI has made tracking game leaks even harder

An influx of fake GTA 6 leaks on X and YouTube show how sophisticated gen AI technology has become. While many can see through the charade by picking out "tells" in these fake leaks, such as odd camera movements and dodgy spelling, they are managing to fool others. Even the clips that appear incredibly high-fidelity are major AI red flags, given the photorealistic quality and inconsistent HUD detail – and there are some accounts you can find on X that appear to be teaching the public how to make fake GTA 6 clips using particular pieces of AI software.

Oddly, the only way to make sure you are seeing a "legitimate" GTA 6 leak is to look for the watermarks placed over the footage by the hacker, Cyberleek, who is using the opportunity to promote their own cryptocurrency. There is still no indication as to how or when the hacker acquired the footage. It could be from a year-old development build, according to an alleged Rockstar insider on Resetera, while other fans theorize that the hacker has stolen the footage from the upcoming Netflix special.

But the most recent leaks suggest that Cyberleek might have a playable build of GTA 6 rather than Netflix clips due to how the character appears to spell out the hacker organization's name with bullet holes.

But then again, how can we be sure of any of this? Put simply, we can't. The proliferation of gen AI has made everyone question everything. The result is that many of us are more suspicious than ever of supposed video game leaks, while less vigilant viewers might be easily duped into thinking they are experiencing something true to the actual product.

Patch Notes summary

As the GTA 6 leaks continue, gen-AI fakes are ramping up. It's never been a better time to ignore leaks, as excited as we all are for Rockstar's latest, because there's no telling how genuine any of them are. And for those who are actively trying to avoid spoilers ahead of the Netflix preview, don't worry. Cyberleek's clips are continuing to be taken down by Rockstar parent company Take Two Interactive, so if you're watching something on YouTube that's been up for 16 hours now, you are probably safe to assume that gen AI has struck again.

Related stories

Kingdom Hearts lead Tetsuya Nomura says that Pixar's Coco was chosen as a Disney world in Kingdom Hearts 4 as it was the best fit for Sora's story.

Speaking at the Kingdom Hearts D23 panel (via Genki_JPN on Twitter), after the reveal that The Land of the Dead from Pixar's Coco is the first Disney world featured in the upcoming Square Enix RPG Nomura spoke about world selections.

"Whenever I do have a chance to decide that we absolutely need to include a certain world. I generally think about how well it synergizes with overall the main story progression with Sora" he explains. And that with Kingdom Hearts 4, Nomura adds, "when I thought about the themes, we felt that Coco would be the best world that would help achieve that goal."

Spoilers for Kingdom Hearts 3 (and potentially 4, I guess) to follow.

Okay, so from my understanding as someone who has not played Kingdom Hearts 3 yet (I'm trying to make my way through all of the non-numbered entries between 2 and 3 as intended) Sora sort of dies at the end of the game by being banished from his reality, before awakening in the realistic world seen in trailers for Kingdom Hearts 4, this is known as the Quadratum, which acts as an afterlife.

Not only that, but fans speculate Sora has lost his memories in Kingdom Hearts 4, due to him fainting when seeing visions of Goofy and Donald. This then ties into the Coco world. The latest trailer opens with Hector explaining that people disappear from the afterlife when forgotten (like in the film), which seems like a pretty intentional thing to open with, especially if this theory is true.

Part of the reason the first Kingdom Hearts is my favourite in the series is mostly down to how much the Disney side was integrated into the main plot – which is something I've seen as a major complaint with Kingdom Hearts 3 – so if that's the case again with 4, it's certainly an exciting prospect. But at the same time, I really want the most esoteric crossovers possible to happen with Disney's massive library. Give me an Arlen, Texas world where Sora teams up with Hank and Bobby Hill to stop the heartless from taking over Strickland Propane, I beg of you.

Kingdom Hearts 4's Goofy and Donald are playable for the first time ever, and Mickey's Paper Mario-style sections are "very different from Sora's adventure"

The Sinking City 2 printing press is an optional objective that will get you one of two upgrades, if you can find the three printing plates it needs scattered around the flooded opening area. Because it requires a lot of exploring and backtracking to find all the parts, and the lore is buried in notes you night not have read, it might just appear as a strange object you don't know what to do with.

The entire process is covered in depth in my first Sinking City 2 walkthrough, that covers the flooded city section of the game. That outlines everything though, so if you just need need help finding it, the bits you need, or solving the final puzzle, here's the fast track version.

Where to find the Printing Press

The Printing Press is found in the Printing House near the Church. You can only access this once you reach the Saloon during the Move the Whale objective, where you'll find the Graveyard Key. This opens the locked gate in the Church area, and lets you reach the Printing House.

You'll have to work your way through most of the Printing House, as you'll only find the Printing Press itself once you find the secret room in the Director's Office by taking the APH Key. Unlike the Sinking City 2 Trident puzzle that can be solved there and then when you find it, this needs three other items - Printing Plate A, B and C - found in different places around the flooded city.

Where to find all Printing Plates

There are three printing plates to find in the flooded city area, which can be found in the following places, in the order you're most likely to find them:

1. Printing Plate C - found at the Church in the Star Locked tomb.
2. Printing Plate A - found in the Printing House as you pass through an apartment.
3. Printing Plate B - found in the Academic's Apartment next to the Fire Dept. Accessible only once you've taken the claw to move the Whale.

Getting all three plates will involve clearing most of the flooded city area and, by the time you have plate B from moving the whale, you'll only have one area left.

How to solve the printing press puzzle

To solve the Printing Press puzzle you need to place all three plates in it and then rotate the faces to make them all one color, depending on what reward you want:

• All Silver - Two Dream essence upgrade points
• All Gold - Cutter's Study Stock for the shotgun, which increases damage to enemies shot in the back

It's up to you what you pick, but personally I think the extra shotgun damage is the most valuable. You can only have one as the press will break after use.

Whichever one you want, the solution to solving the printing press puzzle is the same. Whenever you rotate a piece the pieces around it on the top, bottom, left and right also turn. The easiest way I've found to solve it is to get the corners the color you want first:

Dealing with just the corners reduces the bits that interfere with each other so should make it easier to get them where you want. When you've done that you just have to flip the middle pieces to get it all the same color.

Once you have the color you want, use the printing press to get your reward. And, as you're likely nearing the end of the flooded city by the time you complete this, you might be wanting the Sinking City 2 Hospital walkthrough next.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

To get the Mortal Shell 2 Genessa Shell, you cannot simply find her around the map as you would the other eight habitable Shells. Instead, you must head to a very specific dungeon where you will obtain an item by defeating Sester Secundus, and then return that item to Sester Genessa in her arena in the Marrow Keep.

It's likely that you'll find this item simply by progressing the story, so if you want to back out now and unlock Genessa at your own pace, then this is your chance to do so. Otherwise, I'll walk you through exactly how to unlock Genessa, so you can equip and start upgrading her as soon as possible.

How to get Genessa in Mortal Shell 2

To get the Genessa Shell in Mortal Shell 2, you must locate the Sester's Censer in the Revenant Graves area, interact with it to enter the dungeon, and defeat the boss within. Then, you must take the Censer, your reward for winning the battle, the Genessa in the Marrow Keep.

You can see the exact location of the Sester's Censer in the image above, and it's easiest to access from the Outskirts of Mammon Beacon. From there, head southeast to the middle of the three bone gates, use it traverse across the gap, then climb the stairs to the large arena area, where you'll see the ghostly red apparitions of other Sesters.

Upon interacting with the Sester's Censer, you'll be warped inside the Censer itself where you must defeat Sester Secundus, a fairly easy boss. For winning, you'll receive the Censer itself, which you can then return to Genessa, thus unlocking one of the best Mortal Shell 2 Shells for use.

From here on in, if you want to equip the Genessa Shell then return to her arena, as you won't be able to switch to her in Zhirelle's chamber, like the other Shells, whose locations you unlock using Mortal Shell 2 Gloom.

Don't forget to head to the elevator room of the Marrow Keep to unlock one of Genessa's Mortal Shell 2 Shades - as long as you have a Blackmarrow key to hand. Plus, while you're at Genessa's arena, check out the secret room and Commune with Chaos.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Oh, what could've been. It's been a rough year for Bungie, what with updates stopping on Destiny 2. the muted response to Marathon, and now the whole outfit essentially reduced to a skeleton crew. Turns out, we could've been seeing a lot more of the developer, since the teams therein had around a half-dozen games in the works before, during, and after the Sony acquisition, according to a new report.

No, really - that many releases were purportedly in various stages on the slate for the original home of Halo prior to Sony buying the outfit for $3.6 billion. This comes from Jason Schreier of Bloomberg, who spoke about the studio in a new YouTube video.

"As part of that acquisition, Bungie also had a whole bunch of other live service games in the works that Sony wanted to see come out in the subsequent years in addition to, of course, Destiny 2, which is Bungie’s big ongoing project," he says. There were "five or six" in total, and this portfolio was integral to Sony's interest in the company.

But "for a variety of reasons," he explains, "most of those projects fell apart." He doesn't provide any further clues on what these games were, but we can piece together the likely candidates.

There's the aforementioned Marathon, for a start, then the mobile game Destiny: Rising, that came out in 2025. Another game, known as Project Gummy Bears, was taken in-house at Sony and is still in development, though to what degree is unknown.

From there, we know of Project Sunspot, another Destiny spin-off, that was canceled in 2023, and Project Payback, a game inspired by Warframe, which was shuttered in 2024. We could speculate all day on the circumstances behind these decisions - Sony paid a lot of money for Bungie and clearly wanted a return on investment.

Whatever state these games were in, they probably just didn't seem promising enough to do that kind of business. But if at least one was moved to another team, the potential must be there to some degree.

It's all a pity, because now Bungie's a shell of what it once was. Whatever the future holds, we can only imagine how these games would've looked had they come out.

Epic CEO Tim Sweeney suggests AI could've saved Destiny 2 and will "enable games like Destiny to thrive!"

Earlier this year, Terraria saw the release of its long-awaited 1.4.5 update (known also as by its official name, Bigger and Boulder) – but developer Re-Logic has still been working since to patch things up.

The proof is in the pudding, as they say, and the latest serving of pudding is 1.4.5.7 – a handy, seemingly little new "hotfix" that is actually anything but little.

As outlined in the patch notes on Steam, this version of Terraria sees a plethora of additions, adjustments, and reworks land, with some including changes I (and many other fans, judging by circulating discussions online) have spent the last 10 or so years waiting to see come to fruition.

First and foremost, we've got a bunch of new items to look forward to in 1.4.5.7, from staves to accessories, and even materials like the Kinship Peach. There are also "two new secret seeds," as per Re-Logic's patch notes… which I can't wait to explore.

The real excitement (for me, anyway), though, comes from the tweaks the so-called hotfix – which truly does feel like an update – brings. Let's start with the respawn timer.

You know how when you die, you annoyingly have to wait to respawn? Well, not anymore – as long as there's "no great danger around," anyway.

And yoyos, the weapons that have arguably been universally hated and seen as, well, useless since 2015? As one fan so eloquently puts it in a post over on Twitter, they're "not ass" anymore, with buffs and specific yoyo changes like one to the Eye of Cthulhu that spawns an, erm, Eye of Cthulhu upon hitting an enemy.

There are changes across the board to classes and weapons, however, so I'd advise taking a look at the full patch notes – especially if you like playing with magic, like me.

Bosses are different now, too, with nerfs to some (thankfully, the Empress of Light is one of these), and adjustments to many. The Moon Lord, for example, has better-telegraphed attacks in 1.4.5.7, making the fight a bit less painful. The Deerclops' attacks better line up visibly as well.

All in all, it's a downright loaded hotfix, and apparently the "last" to come for the Bigger and Boulder update.

There's genuinely too much to cover here, so again, I'd recommend reading through Re-Logic's roundup – but I personally can't wait to see what's next.

Terraria's biggest mod, Calamity, is shutting down after 10 years over what the makers call a "troubled past" and "irrecoverably tainted reputation."

Fortnite Lobby Hack codes are a new system introduced with the Override season, which ties in to the general gaming theme that's now up and running. By opening the admin panel from the lobby screen, you can type in a selection of secret codes to receive instant rewards, including some powerful Sprites to kickstart your collection and handy gizmos to deploy for an advantage in matches. To find out more, here are all 16 Lobby Hack codes in Fortnite and how to redeem them.

Note that these codes are separate from the Fortnite Cheat Codes you can find and enter during matches, though both of them will unlock new Fortnite Sprites to add to your collection.

All Fortnite Lobby Hack codes

The following Fortnite Lobby Hack codes can be redeemed now:

• Sprites
  • 8BITBLAST – Cheat Master 8-Bit Sprite
  • BORN2PLAY – Cheat Master Adventure Sprite, Cuddle Team Leader Outfit Style for Wrixel
  • GOTTAGOFAST – Cheat Master Sonic Sprite
  • IWANNAFLYHIGH – Cheat Master Tails Sprite
  • PLAY4ALL – Cheat Master Jonesy Sprite new!
• Sprite Dust
  • ABGESTAUBT – 2,000 Sprite Dust
  • CHISPAMBO – 2,000 Sprite Dust
  • MAGILUME – 2,000 Sprite Dust
  • PERLIMPINPIN - 2,000 Sprite Dust
• Gizmos
  • FINDITCHAT – 2 Cheat Code Locators new!
  • O2OVERRIDE – Llama Supply, 5 Portable Extractors
  • PERFECTORDER – 4 Spicy Tacos
  • SURVIVETHENIGHT – 2 Cheat Code Locators
  • TAKEYOURHEART - 2 Extraction Accelerators
• Cosmetics
  • BEMOREALIEN – Override Ready Loading Screen
  • DONTBLOCKME – Briefly turn into a Tetris Piece (can be used more than once)
  • LETSBLOCKANDROLL – Briefly turn into a Tetris Piece (can be used more than once)
  • OVERRIDEXP – 40,000 XP new!
  • REACHYOURIMPOSSIBLE – Block Party Loading Screen

Note that if you redeem a Lobby Hack code for a Sprite that you already have in your collection, you'll receive 10,000 Sprite Dust as a reward instead.

How to redeem Fortnite Lobby Hack codes

To redeem Lobby Hack codes in Fortnite, go to the Battle Royale Lobby in the main menu and select the .../ admin panel in the top-right corner of the screen by following the button prompt or clicking on it. This will open the fortnite admin panel, where you can type in any of the promos before hitting the SUBMIT button to claim your rewards. Fortnite Lobby Hack codes are not case-sensitive, so you don't have to enter them in all caps as long as the correct spelling is used.

These are all of the Fortnite Lobby Hack codes that have been revealed so far, but as more are discovered I will add them to this guide.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

The latest GTA 6 leak situation just went from bad to worse for Rockstar Games, as new apparent footage of the game suggests that those responsible may have access to a playable build, at least in some capacity.

Earlier this week, alleged clips of GTA 6 started circulating online along with an apparent map for the game, watermarked with the name 'Cyberleek,' and shared on a website using the same name. These clips were quickly struck down via DMCA takedowns, suggesting they were the real deal and that someone – AKA Rockstar Games and Take-Two Interactive – really didn't want us to see them.

More footage has since surfaced online, and while there's been some discussion about how old the builds shown in the clips are, the leaker's latest release certainly suggests they didn't just gain access to videos but to something actually playable. The new video shows an extended clip of the player flying a plane over the city before cutting to a different gameplay scene in which the protagonist, Jason, shoots a wall.

Jason isn't just shooting aimlessly, though. Using bullet holes, the person in the clip spells out the word 'LEEK' – an obvious reference to the Cyberleek name, which doesn't just serve as a watermark but also an apparent hint of what the leakers might have got their hands on.

Even if this is true, some elements remain up for debate – namely, it's still not clear exactly how old this build is or how extensive it is, as it may not be the entire game. There's also the question of whether this build is in the leaker's hands or they're receiving footage of it from someone else with access to it, but obviously neither outcome is good for Rockstar.

Regardless, this is also raising alarm bells for fans hoping to avoid spoilers, and if Rockstar wasn't already aware of the severity of the situation, there's no doubt that it will be now. The timing of this latest leak is especially unfortunate for the devs, as there's only a week to go until the release of the official GTA 6 Extended Look.

Rockstar Games is yet to release a statement acknowledging the situation. Back in 2022, following a different wave of leaked footage, it said it was "extremely disappointed to have any details of our next game shared with you all in this way." It was later said that the 2022 leak cost Rockstar $5 million to recover from, as well as "thousands of hours' worth of staff time." The individual behind it is reportedly awaiting retrial this November after previously being set to spend life in a secure hospital until deemed no longer a danger by doctors.

GTA 6 leakers called out by Stop Killing Games after demanding game preservation solutions and physical discs from Rockstar: "Using illegal means to make a point is unacceptable."

The Geeknet Marvel's Wolverine Wired Headset is exactly what it says on the tin: a wired pair of cups that's officially licensed to tie in with the upcoming Insomniac Games release.

The $39.99 accessory is set to launch on September 1, just 14 days before the game and the hoard of official Marvel's Wolverine PS5 accessories that are now available to pre-order. While Sony made sure to slap Logan's ferocious face on a PS5 console, console covers, and pair the design with two DualSense controllers, the best gaming headsets were forgotten. That left Geeknet to fill in the blanks, but at least you know that if you want your entire Sony setup to show off your Wolverine fandom, audio included, you can. As a GameStop exclusive, however, you'll just need to make sure that you're based in the US to make it yours.

I was a bit disappointed to see no headset included amongst the rest of the official Marvel's Wolverine PlayStation goodies whose pre-orders landed yesterday, but not surprised. When the Ghost of Yotei PS5 accessories dropped in September last year, there was no headset either. It was just wishful thinking on my part, as I play my Sony console for games like Marvel Rivals too, and so a themed headset with one of the most iconic X-Men characters pasted on the cups would have been put to good use.

Thanks to this GameStop exclusive, I don't have to imagine, as the Geeknet pair is exactly that: an officially licensed Marvel's Wolverine headset. The wired pair utilizes a 3.5 AUX connection and can plug directly into your DualSense controller to unleash the sounds of its 50mm audio drivers. According to the marketing imagery, the bright yellow cups are "lightweight" by design too, although the specs list at GameStop doesn't actually state how light this headset will be once it launches next month.

Specs aside, as an officially licensed accessory, it's all about that design. The exterior of this headset feels pretty on par with Sony's accessory offerings, as it shares the same vivid shade of yellow with an image of Wolverine's face plastered on the earcups. Fortunately, the entirety of the headphones isn't yellow, as that could have easily looked a bit cheap and tacky. Both the headband and the microphone are black to add a bit of contrast, and there's even some stylish yellow stitching on the edges of the band.

Those of you based in the US with access to GameStop can pre-order this headset right now for $39.99, but as a "GameStop exclusive" it's unlikely to make it across the pond. While that's a bit of a bummer, the Turtle Beach Atlas 200 for PS5 is a similarly priced option that sounds utterly fantastic and one I'd recommend for those on the hunt for a wired alternative. It doesn't come in a model that's drenched in Wolverine imagery, but if you're more interested in audio quality than aesthetics, I highly recommend picking up the $43.28 (Amazon) on the lead-up to the game's incoming September 15 release.

• View all Marvel's Wolverine PS5 accessories at PS Direct

New to the PS5? Our guides to the best PS5 controllers, the best SSDs for PS5, and the best PS5 headsets can help you prepare for Marvel's Wolverine.

Marvel's Wolverine game director Mike Daly says Insomniac is used to online backlash following waves of online criticism after recent gameplay reveals.

Speaking to The Gamer, Daly explained that Insomniac is "pretty used to" criticism, and that it's a "good problem to have" when the fanbase is as passionate as theirs. He cites the three Marvel's Spider-Man games as proof that the studio can make a "great game that a lot of people love," but even then, some people will still "find stuff to complain about."

Insomniac's Spider-Man titles have been generally beloved, but they have also garnered some of the harshest criticism the studio has received to date. Even before the first entry was released, there was Puddlegate, and the typical online discourse surrounding how characters look in-game. As well as gameplay complaints like Mary Jane's stealth missions and Hailey's side mission in the second game.

Daly adds, "I rest easy about this, knowing that our goal for the game wasn't necessarily to accomplish these things that people complain about. Our goal really was to focus completely on making the best game for the character." That somewhat explains decisions that have been criticized, like Wolverine being a linear action game and not an open-world title like the studio's other Marvel titles.

Of course, criticism is healthy; it's just how you go about it that makes the difference. And even as someone who generally enjoyed all three games and didn't dislike those aspects nearly as much as everyone else seemed to, things like Peter's face redesign for the remaster and how Spider-Man 2 falls off a cliff in its third act definitely felt like valid criticism. Not to mention the game has been caught in the crossfire of Sony's decision to end production of discs for new PlayStation games starting in 2028.

"It's a relentless onslaught": As Marvel's Wolverine faces backlash, Insomniac community lead calls out social media algorithms for pushing "negativity"

There is sadly no Mortal Shell 2 Glimpse farm available in the Soulslike game, as the currency is finite, and primarily available through cleansing Beacons. This isn't great news since Glimpses are required for bonding with and upgrading Shells, and there aren't quite enough of them to fully upgrade every Shell.

That means you need to take care when spending Glimpses, considering your options carefully. While Glimpses are no longer required to find Shells, you do need plenty of them to bond with Shells, thus improving their stats and allowing you to upgrade their abilities, and you can't refund them, so do so with your favorite Shells first. If you need more Mortal Shell 2 Glimpses and aren't sure where to get them, here's what you need to know.

How to get Mortal Shell 2 Glimpses

There are three main ways you can obtain Glimpses:

• Cleansing Beacons.
• Exploring behind Cleansed Gates.
• You can purchase one from Merrick in the Marrow Keep.

You can also occasionally find Glimpses by exploring the rest of the world, but they're fairly rare.

The good news is that you can get more in New Game Plus, and you carry your Shell progress through with you, so, as you'll read below, it'll take a few playthroughs to fully upgrade all your Shells. Perhaps one playthrough will give you a chance to try out another difficulty, like the Mortal Shell 2 Slayer Seal.

Check out my guide on the Mortal Shell 2 length to see how long this all might take you.

How to spend Mortal Shell 2 Glimpses

Considering how to spend your Glimpses is incredibly tough knowing that you can't unlock and upgrade all eight Shells. Each Shell requires upwards of 20 Glimpses to fully upgrade them, meaning you'd need well over 100 to fully bond with each Shell, and there are believed to be just over 90 from one playthrough, meaning you can only upgrade three or four Shells. Since there is currently no Glimpse refund system, it's essential that you choose carefully, perhaps using my best Mortal Shell 2 Shells guide for advice.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

If you're wondering whether you should feed Gorf in Mortal Shell 2, then read on, as this seemingly unimportant character has far more to offer than your first meeting might suggest. It's not all about Gorf, either, as another interesting NPC is crucial to this quest.

When you first meet Gorf near the Widow's Overlook Beacon, he'll ask you for a Weltcap in hope of healing his mystery malady. He's really not feeling well, and you'll find plenty of these red mushrooms as you explore, so you should hand one over. This isn't the last of it, though, and you'll need to get an interesting lady named Hilga involved if you're going to heal him once and for all.

How to complete the Mortal Shell 2 Gorf questline

Yes, you should feed Gorf, and you'll get a valuable Marsh Pearl in return. In fact, to complete the full Mortal Shell 2 Gorf questline, you need to feed him multiple times and speak to Hilda in the Mushroom Village. There are more Marsh Pearls in it for you.

If you don't want me to spoil it for you, that's all you need to know. Each time you interact with either one of the NPCS, you must leave the area to trigger their next action, so it makes sense to simply alternate visits between them until the questline is concluded. You can either do this naturally while you progress through the game, or use Mortal Shell 2 fast travel to complete heal Gorf quickly.

If you want a walkthrough of the whole mission instead, here's exactly how to complete the questline and heal Gorf:

1. First, feed Gorf a Weltcap Mushroom. Speak with him again to collect a Marsh Pearl, which you can sell to Merrick at the Marrow Keep for 2,000 Coins.
2. Then you'll need to return to Gorf twice more, each time gifting him Common Moonshine.
3. The next time you visit Gorf, he'll give you a Poisoned Dagger that has been used to injure him.
4. Take this to Hilga in the Mushroom Village, at the location below.

5. While you're doing all this, check in with Hilda multiple times as well.
6. As soon as you've reached the right place in both storylines, you'll be able to give Hilga the Poisoned Dagger.
7. Now, if you return to Hilga's home, she'll have left you a note vaguely informing you that you'll know where to find her. Of course, she'll be with Gorf.
8. Head back to Gorf to find the two characters together and give Gorf another bottle of Moonshine.
9. Next time you return, Hilga will be gone, but Gorf will have been healed. He'll gift you another Marsh Pearl.
10. Return to Gorf's lair twice more and see the fruits of your labor. I won't spoil the ending for you.

If you have any problems completing this questline, you must cleanse the corruption near Hilga's home, which you can only do once you have claimed enough Ova to unlock the Mether's Breath.

Essentially, all that's in the Mortal Shell 2 Gorf questline for you is a few Marsh Pearls, but they are worth a good few thousand Coins all in all, and a handful of Mortal Shell 2 Gloom. For me, it's more about the beautiful, if a little weird, love story - a nice interval to all the fighting and monsters.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

You can reset the timer, because once again, there's tension between Call of Duty devs and players over online multiplayer. In this instance, Modern Warfare 4 utilizing the matchmaking system from Black Ops 7 Season 5, at least during the upcoming beta, is causing a stir.

To put it succinctly, players simply don't want it, and the official Call of Duty Twitter account's responses aren't helping. "Players are sticking around longer and playing more matches," a tweet reads.

"Since Season 05, quit rates are down across every skill group. For more than half of players, they dropped 41%," the post continues. "Search times are also down vs. Season 04. Average ping has improved too."

The Call of Duty account then revealed more stats on what the devs saw in open matchmaking. There were over 32% higher quit rates, over 14% fewer kills, and over 50% left "Not Fun" ratings. Those are substantial numbers, and paired with the 141% hike in players quitting Nuketown, suggested another structure for doing things was favorable.

Members of the fanbase are contesting these figures. Community notes state search times are actually up, pointing to a video testing such from YouTuber XclusiveAce. Infinity Ward's later claim that 50% of players exit a game when there are disbanding lobbies, a figure that's been dubbed "misleading," citing a guide from the franchise's official site.

Replies by now have gotten a little petty and barbed, and it's worth keeping in mind the beta hasn't actually kicked off yet. ModernWarzone, a dedicated outlet for this FPS series and Battlefield, has been involved in back-and-forths with various representations of Call of Duty on Twitter.

A final statement was made by the central, namesake account. "We asked for feedback and you definitely gave it to us. And that's what a Beta is for," the tweet reads. "We’ll be here online, and in your lobbies, improving as we go. Matchmaking isn't just data, it's a feeling. So jump in, feel it for yourself in Beta."

The Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 early beta runs from August 21 through to August 25.

"CoD got it. Halo didn't" – Black Ops 1 and 2 ports battered Halo Campaign Evolved on PlayStation last month, analyst says, because $60 for a "graphical touch-up" is a rough sell

Game Science has released 15 minutes of Black Myth: Zhong Kui gameplay with an extremely impressive showcase of the game's graphics.

While it may have been overshadowed somewhat by the likes of Metaphor: ReFantazio and Astro Bot when it came to awards season and critical acclaim, I can't think of a bigger game release in 2024 than Black Myth: Wukong. But the real shocker was when, almost exactly a year after its release, Game Science announced a follow-up, with Black Myth: Zhong Kui being confirmed at Gamescom last year.

And now, perhaps even more shockingly – given that it was described as "little more than an empty folder at this stage" upon its reveal – almost exactly a year later, a surprise drop from the developers has revealed 15 minutes of gameplay from the upcoming sequel.

Immediately, the footage is striking: it looks incredibly detailed, with the description stating "all footage was captured in-game from a work-in-progress build." And without a single word spoken, the footage shows a section of the game in which our yet-unnamed protagonist traverses a derelict mountainous region. The graphics are a big hit with YouTube commenters, too, with one user saying, "If they never released Wukong before this, people would think this is fake."

The gameplay also shows a few in-game battles, and right away it looks like there is now a dedicated parry button included in the moveset (you could parry in Wukong, but it was with a specific ability, and not baked into the protagonist's moveset). The rest will look somewhat familiar to anyone who played the first game. There's also a boss fight included in the footage, with the monster's flailing animations looking mighty impressive.

Unfortunately, there's no indication as to when the game will actually release, with the description claiming the game to be in "early development," so we could be waiting a few years yet. But It's undoubtedly an impressive first showing, and as someone who didn't particularly get on with Wukong, I'm keen to give this one a chance.

Black Myth: Wukong sequel isn't using AI because the devs were inspired by The Odyssey and Christopher Nolan's filmmaking techniques: "No rush"

After 11 years, The Witcher 3 might finally let us experience Belleteyn firsthand in new DLC, Songs of the Past – if a Gamescom booth from CD Projekt Red offers anything to go by.

Belleteyn has sadly only been mentioned by the developer in The Witcher 3 thus far, as a massive celebratory fertility festival with food, drink, love, and you name it (think Beltane, its real-world Gaelic counterpart).

Interestingly enough, however, it is the birthday of Yennefer, and in The Witcher books, Geralt believes it's also around the same time that Ciri herself was born… so, yeah, it's a pretty big deal.

Why do we think we might get to witness Belleteyn in all of its glory come Songs of the Past, though? Well, it just so happens that Gamescom 2026 is upon us and CD Projekt Red's booth artwork at the annual event appears to show a scene from Belleteyn – fire, festivities, and the like by the water.

It's already caught the eye of excited fans, too, with one post on X reading, "That looks like Belleteyn." Indeed, it does.

Over on Reddit, theories are running wild as well, as a picture of the Gamescom booth has folks convinced it is, in fact, referencing Belleteyn.

The top response literally just says "Belleteyn," so there you have it. Another chimes in, "Looks like there might be Belleteyn festivities artwork on the left side," further solidifying that the festival is what's on all of our minds – but this isn't the first time it's presence in Songs of the Past has been proposed.

A solid five months ago now, a separate thread on the website saw somebody note, "I noticed an X post, it talks about Geralt's sword (surprisingly his THIRD sword here since he already has two on his back) being the exact same one he had next to him during Belleteyn, which is a major spring and fertility festival that corresponds to the real-world Celtic Holiday of Beltane."

This older theorizing stems from older Songs of the Past artwork showing the sword.

So, could this all truly tease some sort of Belleteyn festivities in Songs of the Past? I certainly hope so, but I suppose only time will tell – and the DLC is set to launch in 2027.

The Witcher 3 devs tried to give NPCs "fear reactions" but it got cut after a few horrifying weeks when "women were just dropping their babies, left and right"

Genshin Impact 7.0 gave players a gun and made sure to carefully tell them that they should only use it in specially designated gun zones, so obviously players have done their very best to take the gun everywhere.

The Snezhnaya region at the heart of update 7.0 introduces Shadow Realm areas and challenge zones that turn Genshin into a third-person shooter. In the Shadow Realm, the Traveler is given a spiffy new outfit and a suite of firearms, including full-auto rifles, a grenade launcher, and throwable grenades.

Chinese players quickly found a way to bring these guns out of the Shadow Realm and into the world of Teyvar, including previous regions and combat challenges. Like the cast of Persona 5, they've brought their guns to a fight with god.

YouTube user Ikoan covers one method to smuggle the Traveler's guns out of the Shadow Realm, and I've seen different exploits work for users like Ayayaya. The rub is: find a way out of bounds near a specific waypoint in Snezhnaya, clip and glide your way over to a Shadow Realm-enabled area, and then load up on ammo so you can actually use the gun out in the world.

Joined by their two best friends, Smith and Wesson, Genshin Impact players have been using their new weapons to hunt local wildlife, harass demigods, and generally menace all of Teyvat. The only problem is that, in the open world, these stolen guns deal the same damage that they do normally. The Shadow Realm is balanced around the Traveler's new weapons. All of Genshin Impact, however, is not.

Dealing 60 damage a shot is fine when enemies have, say, 500 health, and the Traveler's health pool of 3,000 is plenty when taking 1,000 damage would be considered a big hit. But when normal Genshin bosses can have several million health and hit you for upwards of 10,000 damage, suddenly guns don't look all that strong. Maybe those wizards in the old woods were right and magic really is better than technology.

Genshin Impact 7.0 livestream reveals nine more free 5-star characters for the Constellation selector, and I've already got my next four picked out.

Steam analysts have found after measuring 98,555 priced games that sandbox titles are some of Steam's highest earners, with something like genre benchmark Palworld earning around $500 million on the platform since its early access launch in 2024. But sandbox games shouldn't get too comfortable – or maybe the genre should consider its stance on gun violence and action-RPG magic, as it's closely followed by first-person shooters and role-playing games.

These details come from a new report by We Love It, a Steam browsing platform that "leverages generative AI" to build "a feed of compelling, original content" that guides you to discovering new games. I think generative AI is the closest thing we have to proof that demonic entities exist, but We Love It is also a project of Totally Human Media's CEO Ichiro Lambe, who co-created Steam Labs, and, therefore, its study is the work of a Steam expert. Lambe, along with Totally Human's marketing lead Matt Martindale, and VaporLens engineer Dr. Tim Ermilov, compiled the report that shows 27.6% of all sandbox games will make at least $100,000.

In comparison, 21.8% of paid FPS make at least $100,000 in revenue, while 19.5% of RPGs hit that number, and just 19% of ARPGs reach the same milestone. These are impressive figures – but only for an exceedingly tiny scoop of games. Across the nearly 100,000 total games with at least one review that the We Love It team analyzed, the median lifetime earnings for a game was a meager $3,631 – "half of all paid games earned less," write the report's authors.

But the most popular sandbox games earned much, much more. Palworld, with its approximate $500 million revenue, sits at the "top 0.00% of all paid games on Steam," according to the report. Terraria and survival sandbox game Ark rank similarly, with lifetime earnings estimated at $540 million and $400 million, respectively.

Intriguingly, while the less flashy, more flesh-oriented visual novel genre failed to break the top five kinds of games that earn a minimum of $100,000, its median earnings came the closest to the average sandbox game; visual novels earn a median of $7,012 compared to sandbox games' $7,973 on Steam. So, if there's a lesson here, let it be that more sandbox games should include anime girls with knives.

Behold, "the whole story of Steam's economy in one picture": the top 1% of games earn 84.5% of estimated revenue, and most games barely make anything.

Most video game movie tie-ins suck, and most Wolverine games suck. 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine, defied both of those conventions. It launched to generally favorable reviews and is remembered to this day as one of the better video game adaptations of Logan, especially next to absolute stinkers like LJN's 1991 NES Wolverine game.

Now, when I say video game movie tie-ins, I mean games developed specifically as promotional accessories to big movie releases. The Atari 2600 adaptation of E.T. is probably the most infamous example, and it seems Hollywood has largely phased out licensing out these kinds of games, but most of us around a certain age have that one game from their childhood that they bought because of its association with whatever movie, and that disappointed them deeply. Ironically, the only ones I have strong memories of are EA's hack-and-slash Lord of the Rings games from the early '00s, which are undeniable bangers.

Anyway, X-Men Origins: Wolverine did a good enough job adapting Wolverine's unique moveset that, many years later, Insomniac took notes from it while making Marvel's Wolverine, according to game director Mike Daly.

"We were definitely aware of that game, and we took inspiration from it," Daly tells TheGamer. "The reference gathering part of the project had us really looking everywhere, and I think that game did a really fantastic job of asking and answering a lot of the same questions that we asked and answered. Like, how do you represent Wolverine as authentically as possible? I would say rather than we took ideas from the game, it's more like we had the same challenges as those devs and sort of arrived at similar conclusions."

Going off these comments as well as the abundance of bad Wolverine games, it's safe to say there's something about Logan's iconic suit and powers that's difficult to bring to players' hands in a way that's lore-accurate and satisfying to interact with. The good news is, according to GamesRadar+'s hands-on Wolverine preview, Insomniac seems to have done exactly that.

"Before playing Marvel's Wolverine, I was afraid I would miss so much from Insomniac's previous Spider-Man games," writes staff writer Dustin Bailey. "Sure, the combat and missions in those games were fun enough, but the truly excellent part was swinging through the streets of New York City at breakneck speeds and digging for little odd jobs and side missions along the way.

"Going hands-on with the game completely erased those fears. Insomniac has repurposed the fundamentals of its previous games here, yes, but it's done so in a way that feels appropriate for Logan. The turn from friendly neighborhood wall-crawler to this brooding new hero makes all the difference."

Marvel's Wolverine claws its way to PS5 September 15.

Insomniac Games "announced Wolverine very early because we knew it would be very difficult to keep a lid on it," lead says

Kingdom Hearts lore is extensive, convoluted, and confusing. I don't mean that as a dig – I am a Metal Gear fan, after all – but even after playing every game in the series, I've still got to read a half-dozen wiki pages and watch a few lore videos before I start remembering the specifics of any given plot beat. That's why I'm so impressed that Tetsuya Nomura and the rest of the devs have managed to remember a small, but key detail about Heartless behavior in Kingdom Hearts 4.

The first Disney world announced for Kingdom Hearts 4 is Pixar's Coco, In the recent D23 trailer, we see a pair of Heartless emerge and start creeping toward the film's protagonist, Miguel, who is the only living person in the vicinity – they completely ignore the other denizens of the Land of the Dead.

A couple of days after that trailer debuted, a Kingdom Hearts fan called Noir LilBomber tweeted a theory: "One thing me and my friends noticed in the kingdom hearts 4 trailer is that the heartless only appear to react to Miguel and not the other characters. This is in line with the Ansem report from KH1 that stated the heartless only react to LIVING test subjects."

This theory started getting shared pretty widely among the fandom, and yes, that detail goes back to Ansem's Report 4, which appeared in the first Kingdom Hearts game. "The Heartless appear in groups, and are multiplying rapidly. I've provided them both living and nonliving samples," the report goes. "They've responded only to the living."

This detail actually manifests in a more meaningful way in the OG game, too. When Sora and the crew first arrive in Halloween Town, the Heartless are basically inert, and don't attack the largely undead Nightmare Before Christmas characters there. It's only after Skellington and Dr. Finkelstein build an artificial heart for the Heartless to pine after that they turn violent.

So it's entirely consistent with established lore that the Heatless appearing in the Land of the Dead are only interested in the one living being they see: Miguel. Honestly, bravo to Nomura and the rest of the crew. I doubt many would've noticed if that detail was swept under the rug, but the devs are clearly committed to making sure even the most obscure bits of Kingdom Hearts lore live on in the long-awaited sequel.

These are the best RPGs you can play today.

At a time when making and supporting a live service game is rightly seen as an arduous, dangerous challenge, Hello Games boss Sean Murray feels "lucky that we've been allowed to" make No Man's Sky content for 10 years.

Speaking with GamesRadar+ and reflecting on 10 years of No Man's Sky, Murray examines how the small team at Hello Games has reached an equilibrium that allows for this kind of long-term support. No Man's Sky isn't a conventional live service game – everything is free, for one, and it's a single-player experience for many fans – but very few games get 10 years of updates.

"Honestly, if people weren't playing No Man's Sky, I don't think we would want to do updates," Murray says. "I don't think the motivation would be there. Obviously, if no one's playing your game, it's sort of pointless, right?"

Murray points to the "early days" of No Man's Sky, back when Hello Games was more concerned with addressing feedback than adding content. His advice to the team was to picture the person who would love the game and make it "better for them."

"So I think the team does have that attitude, but you need some people to be playing the game, and we've been very lucky in that lots of people play the game," Murray adds.

10 years after launch, No Man's Sky still hangs out in the top 100 to 150 games on Steam (the only platform with such readily available player stats), which is an enviable position for almost any game. Another 10 years from now, there's no guarantee that Hello Games will still be pumping out No Man's Sky updates on the same schedule, or of the same scope, but Murray reckons it would be hard to put the game down for good.

"I could imagine us stopping doing updates for No Man's Sky at some point, and then 10 years later, I'm like, 'Let's do an update for No Man's Sky,'" he says. "I think stuff like that is great. We are in a mindset right now, in the industry, of games just being very consumable. Onto the next one. But I personally really love going back to some of my favorite games and just replaying them when they come to a new platform or something. There's a real beauty in keeping those things alive."

Palworld and No Man's Sky leads pour more fuel on the potential collab fire and fans are convinced it's finally happening: "My 2 favorite games together? Yes please."

EA developers were already having a bad time before the publisher was acquired by a trio of investors led by Saudi Arabia in a $55 billion buyout. Now the deal is done, EA has gone private, and its developers are feeling more pressure than before.

Anonymous EA workers describe their tense work environment in a report from Game Developer. While EA has been attempting to cure staff concerns about the Saudi Arabia buyout for a year now, sharing a half-hearted guarantee in 2025 that "there will be no immediate changes to your job," one worker says the reality is, "Everybody just assumes they are under the threat of layoffs at all times."

"Given how things have been across the industry at large," they continue, "but also internally at EA. There is also some amount of cynicism in that we expect they won't be enacted as mass layoffs anymore but rather as waves of small layoffs in order to bypass [Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification] notices" – layoff warnings required by the US government in the event of a large workforce reduction. GamesRadar+ has reached out to EA for comment about these staff concerns and the likelihood of layoffs.

Of course, EA never needed something as weighty as a fat buyout to use as an excuse for layoffs. This spring, the publisher laid off workers across four different studios that helped create Battlefield 6, which EA called "the biggest launch in franchise history." After the Battlefield 6 job cuts, EA's newest financial report showed that CEO Andrew Wilson made 305x more than the average EA employee last year, and he could qualify for $125 million in severance depending on how things go with EA's new owners.

The average game developer doesn't get a money parachute like Wilson. As part of its buyout agreement, EA is meant to pay back $18 billion of the total debt it took on now that its deal has closed with Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, Silver Lake investors, and Jared Kushner's Affinity firm.

EA has reportedly committed to slicing off $700 million in yearly costs to help finance this debt, with $170 million of that downsizing meant to come from changes in "organizational efficiencies." Workers don't seem to think the publisher is referring to Andrew Wilson's $38,649,984 salary when it says "organizational efficiencies."

"It's hard to see how teams or games that underperform wouldn't be dissolved or sold off," another employee tells Game Developer. "The history of leveraged buyouts shows that this is the playbook, no matter what our executives insist will be different."

They continue, "I have no internal secret information – we don't need any to see how this thing plays out – but the only unknown (and fear) is how soon and how deep things need to get cut back to pay off this debt. Any year that EA's cash flow goes down, rather than up, will be bad for employees." It all feels bad, really.

EA staff fear new Saudi Arabia owners will police their games: "Projects just won't get signed because they don't align explicitly with what the Saudi government wants."