A shift in gaming culture has undermined Steam's early access program and stunted the perception of the games in it, worries Pocketpair and Palworld communications and publishing lead John Buckley.

Amidst Palworld's 1.0 early access graduation, Buckley discusses the work-in-progress approach with GamesRadar+. He maintains that Pocketpair is "quite confident in early access in general" and, when it comes time to make a new big thing, the studio will surely choose early access again. But that's despite what he sees as a big shift on Steam.

"Go back to the Steam Greenlight days, when Steam changed Greenlight to early access, there were a few years where it really was running and operating exactly the way I think Steam dreamed it," he says. "I think everyone knew what they were in for. The kind of people who were buying early access games knew what they were in for. They were the kind of gamers who want to be involved, they want to give feedback, they want to talk to devs. It was this really beautiful golden era."

Today, that outlook is less common, he suggests. "This continuing migration, I'll call it, of hyper-casual mobile culture, and hyper-casual gaming culture, and live service gaming culture is washing through Steam right now," Buckley notes. "Now the culture has changed and early access, essentially, has lost its meaning. People just buy an early access game like they buy a normal game and treat it like that's the game."

In Palworld's case, Buckley says players may buy the game in early access and play heavily for a week or two before arguing, "'These developers are not making new content. This game is dead.' And you're like, 'Well guys, see you in six months. We've got to make the game.'"

Buckley clarifies that he doesn't think "it's a bad thing that some gamers aren't interested" in how the sausage is made, even if quietly raising "the general knowledge level around game development" might help both sides. "You just want to enjoy a nice thing, and that's fair enough. No shade there." (In 2025, we spoke to dozens of game devs about things players get wrong about how games are made.)

Nonetheless, he says, "It's getting harder on Steam, sadly, because this culture has come through. I think consoles are where it struggles the most because console gamers aren't used to the concept of early access gameplay. Again, that's fine. You get less feedback from those players in general versus PC gamers, who love to drown you in bug reports. Look, all we can do is try to softly educate people. I think we do an okay job. I think we try to be quite transparent. 'Hey guys, the next update's a while away. It's not going to be content-heavy, it's going to be QOL-heavy.' We try to balance it."

Recently, Buckley has been shaping expectations for update 1.1, reiterating that Palworld will continue but is not due for another massive overhaul. Earlier in the year, he said he "wouldn't rule out a Palworld 2.0," but fans also shouldn't expect a No Man's Sky-style arrangement with 10 years of heavy support. (As it happens, we spoke to No Man's Sky boss Sean Murray about 10 years of support.)

Though Pocketpair has chosen early access multiple times and remain "big advocates" for it – Craftopia, its previous survival game, is approaching its own 1.0 update – Buckley agrees it's not right for every project.

"There are many real cases of early access just being a disaster for some games," he says. "I think it just depends on how receptive you want to be. Early access has now been abused for a lot of reasons. The biggest way it's abused now is just like, 'We'll release it now because we need money.' It's a way now to sidestep traditional funding means. It's almost become the new Kickstarter in some ways. Put out the build to get the money. But we're big fans of it."

Splashing some of its Palworld cash, Pocketpair's publishing arm has, like many other newly formed devs-turned-publishers, sought to find and fund promising games at a time of dire investment opportunities in the games industry.

Palworld studio calls Valheim "an inspiration to everyone in the genre" as devs of the survival game drop their own 1.0 update.

A true stalwart of survival games, Valheim, just went into 1.0. Yes, I know, I was a little surprised too, but despite being out for five years and having been a staple in all that time, the Viking-themed sandbox didn't cross that particular threshold until today, and even Palworld is spreading the good word.

On Twitter, Pocketpair, the studio behind Palworld, took to the game's official account to congratulate the devs at Iron Gate Studio on the momentous occasion. "Congratulations to Iron Gate Studio on their 1.0 release of Valheim," says the tweet.

"You are an inspiration to everyone in the genre!" the post continues. "Spinning up the Pocketpair server today!"

Included is some artwork of a pal wearing a helmet and sword common to jaunting around the wilderness of Valheim. It's always nice when companies and teams recognize each other like this, especially when Palworld could easily be considered a rival.

Valheim is at the forefront of the survival space. It managed to capitalize on ideas from Rust and The Forest, and merge them with Norse mythology to make something that feels grand, epic and fun, without losing touch with all the things people enjoy about these sorts of games.

You have satisfying base-building and resource management, worthwhile exploration, and a well-realized map to feel out. Indeed, the game's only gone from strength to strength since launching in early 2021, and now it should ascend to even greater heights.

Palworld update adds 2 new missions, makes fishing easier, improves combat, and brings plenty more to Pocketpair's survival game

I've got a theory about why people enjoy playing survival games. From Minecraft (or Unreal World if you're cool) all the way through to Valheim's 1.0 launch today after five years in Early Access, they all have something in common. Starting with nothing and building up to a mighty fortress is great, but what these games really offer is a sense of discovery – a journey into an unfamiliar world.

It's something Welsh poet Dylan Thomas explores in his poem Fern Hill. Here, he writes about being "green and carefree, famous among the barns" in "the sun that was young once only". That pretty much sums up my first few hours of Valheim: it's a game that nurtures and encourages a childlike sense of wonder.

Waxing poetical

Valheim's epic wonder is there from the jump. You arrive into the Tenth World in the clutches of a Valkyrie, with only a raven named Hugin for amenable company. Hugin provides you with some helpful tips as a new arrival in the peaceful Meadows – a world away from the moody, stormy lands you saw during your flight.

With almost nothing to your name, like a child angry about a lost kite, you start punching trees only to realize with sore hands that you're actually meant to gather branches from the ground.

From there, Valheim flows into the usual routine you'd expect from a survival game. I spend most of the time foraging rocks, flint, and becoming a kind of Genghis Khan figure to local wildlife. If the survival game loop was all that there was to Valheim, it'd be a fun, if somewhat disposable slice of Viking life. But one aspect that really makes the game stand apart is the sensory experience.

Valheim's late-PS1/early-PS2 aesthetic has some modern flourish hidden beneath its horned helmet. The lighting is one standout aspect, with night skies seeing countless stars spill across a firmament of pure black. Meanwhile the Meadows biome is underscored by a bucolic clarinet melody, caught somewhere between folk and soft jazz, that never fails to soothe. And it all links back to that poetic sense of expanse and wonder as penned by Thomas.

There's some entertainingly bouncy physics, too. My first death on day 1 isn't attributed to one of the goblin-like Greylings or an aggressive boar, but to gravity, a tree, and my own hubris. Chopping down a tree makes it fall. It's a very tricky concept to grasp, I know, and it turns out that chopping up a huge trunk also splits it in two. I'm standing downhill from one of the large logs as it falls to the ground, and thus begins my first corpse run.

Valheim is also a full-on RPG, which is a point I have used to sell it to my survival-skeptic friends. There are skills ranging from magic to cooking to wood-chopping, as well as a shockingly competent combat system, complete with a parry mechanic. All of these hang together to make exploration extremely fun, my character taking shape alongside the world around them as I learn more about myself and this strange new land.

Man of the land

Tracing the shoreline, venturing out on your first raft, building a simple homestead – it's easy to forget that there is more to this game than simply existing within it, green and carefree. And there is so much more, with each major biome culminating in a boss fight against a suitably fantastical enemy. After each boss, you move on to the next biome, building forward bases and exploring – ever exploring, like a true Erik the Red.

Despite my generally wonderful time with Valheim 1.0, my one sticking point is the building mechanics. Level ground prime for building is hard to come by in the Tenth World, even after setting-to it with a newly-crafted hoe.

This means that making your homestead look like a building rather than a load of panels that have been chucked together is a matter of some genuine skill. I was left with huge gaps that, if nothing else, let smoke trail out beautifully from my campfire. It holds some of the game's creative potential hostage, and I can't truly feel like the author of my own pastoral poem as a consequence.

Still, I have to hand it to developer Iron Gate Studios. The sun may be young once only, but if you ever want to wander, Valheim's near-endless scope for epic journeys is hard to beat. What a fantastic synchronicity there is to the fact that 1992's Unreal World, one of the first survival games ever, doubled as an RPG about surviving the Far North. Valheim 1.0's addition of the Deep North biome echoes it beautifully, calling forth the bravest souls who wish to venture further and marrying the RPG and survival genres in a genuinely fantastic way.

These games like Valheim offer stunning worlds to explore and survive, if you dare...

No Man's Sky Cosmos is Hello Games' latest update, and it's making enormous changes to space itself after 10 years.

Cosmos is out for free today, September 9, hot on the heels of the big 10th anniversary blowout.

"No Man’s Sky is often referred to as 'a Space Game', it’s a huge part of our game, but we’ve never really updated space since release," Hello Games says of the update.

Space has certainly changed now. Cosmos is headlined by space station ownership, which Hello Games says "must be our most requested feature since launch."

"Finally players can buy the space station for themselves! Build and decorate it both inside and externally, and some wild creativity is possible. You can create your own themed Station as your own clubhouse and have friends come and visit."

To help build your space station, you might want to pay a visit to "space hulks," which are basically big clusters of resources floating in space. With help from a gravity gun and "a new tractor beam fitted to your ship," you can strip these hulks for materials. The kicker is that too much structural damage to a hulk will cause it to melt down and explode, so you'll need to prioritize and work quickly.

These space hulks also show off "our new volumetric lighting tech," says Hello Games boss Sean Murray.

Luckily, you can enlist the help of new player alliances for the job. "As an alliance, you can work together to build a networked empire of different stations and rise the new leaderboards to compete for the largest, richest or most prominent alliance," Hello Games says.

That network will be easier to navigate thanks to a new star map that reveals points of interest, including "whole new strands of missions and exploration," whenever you warp to a system.

New points of interest introduced in Cosmos include outposts where you can trade with aliens, bio-wrecks to be "cleared out and reclaimed," asteroid belts with rare crystals, and orbital bases that "can be built ANYWHERE in space." You can even put a star base on a "rare" large asteroid if you want.

And you know what, screw it, while we're at it, go to the sun. "Finally players can try to undertake a perilous journey to reach the center of their own star system!" says Hello Games.

This is all bookended by a new Expedition that packs 10 years of No Man's Sky updates – a whopping 40 of 'em – into a playable museum. "It’s been a real joy to revisit some of those moments for us," the studio adds.

"This has been a wild undertaking for our team," Murray says in a Cosmos deep dive video. "So many things that we never thought we'd do. Having alliances of tens of thousands of players, real communities working together, claiming space stations. It's pretty cool, but it's been a lot of work."

A typically enthusiastic Murray says Cosmos "creates foundations for the future," making good on his threat to release free No Man's Sky content forever.

10 years of No Man's Sky: How Hello Games and Sean Murray keep getting away with it.

Light No Fire, the next massive survival game from Hello Games, makes a rare appearance in the overview for No Man's Sky's Cosmos update, which is out today, September 9.

Cosmos introduces sweeping changes and additions to space itself, from custom space stations to resource-rich "space hulks." It also adds player alliances that can fit thousands of allied players and stations across the stars. The bones of some of these features will carry over to Light No Fire, it seems.

Toward the end of the trailer, studio boss Sean Murray says "all of this is tech we get to test now, refine, and hopefully players will also experience on our other game, Light No Fire."

Some old Light No Fire footage played in the background shows a gathering of humanoid rabbit warriors, a brief shot of a dragon mount, and a very bemused ogre.

There's still a lot we don't know about Light No Fire, and that now includes just how much of this Cosmos update, along with the rest of No Man's Sky's systems, will carry over. Will player alliances work in the same way, and on the same scale? With just one Earth-sized planet to explore instead of a functionally infinite universe, how do points of interest have to evolve?

I get the impression that Murray wants to leverage what the team's created here. "So many things that we never thought we'd do," he says of Cosmos. "Having alliances of tens of thousands of players, real communities working together, claiming space stations. It's pretty cool, but it's been a lot of work."

Elsewhere in the Cosmos update video, Murray mentions "our new volumetric lighting tech," which does feel like a safe bet for Light No Fire. For years, Hello Games has described No Man's Sky as a handy test bed for its next game, which, Murray recently told us, has "between 12 and 20" people working on it at any given moment.

No Man's Sky lead planned to show more Light No Fire, but "why do any marketing" when it's already topping Steam wishlists.

There's another Palworld update out, and it's a big one. Besides a couple of fresh missions, fishing is now considerably easier, Pals make our life easier in combat, and Pocketpair's provided a wealth of quality-of-life improvements.

Right up top of Pocketpair's characteristically long patch notes for update 1.0.4, you can see the two added quests, both sub-missions. One comes from an NPC at Fisherman's Point, and the other is a follow-up to that first mission.

After those, we get into tweaks to help our Pals be more efficient when it comes to battles and completing missions. Pals and base Pals have been changed slightly to now prioritize moves that'll deal the most damage, a handy distinction when you're in a skirmish and don't want to micro-manage quite as much.

Pals and NPCs that are mission-critical, then, won't fall asleep on your either. Not a frequent occurrence, I don't think, but definitely something that sounds like a worthwhile change because I know if my playing was delayed because of someone having a nap, I'd be annoyed. (No disrespect to nappers, I'm of your kin, there's just a time and a place.)

In terms of casting out your line for a big catch, the baseline difficulty for fishing has changed for bodies of water around the World Tree and in Sunreach. Your rewards have been altered for every kind of bait, and there's now a sliding scale for fish behavior during minigames. That last one sounds, to me, like some people were having an unnecessarily hard time, and I'm glad Pocketpair's providing more options for players.

To round off the highlights, the fact that returned materials now go straight back into your inventory if you cancel something at a production facility is a real plus. You'll get everything back unless you have a weight limit set, at which point anything over your limit will sit at your feet instead.

Handy. As ever, it's worth scanning the full notes yourself to see if any niggling problems you were seeing have been addressed.

"Palworld's not finished": With update 1.1 coming, Pocketpair lead says "we're doing something players have been screaming at us to do" after the "soft prologue" of 1.0.

Dune: Awakening's new single-player mode could be a great way to experience the MMO-survival mashup's story by yourself, but don't jump in expecting a The Last of Us replacement.

Developer Funcom has been hard at work translating its beloved online game into a single-player context, with a new mode coming out alongside Dune: Awakening's console release later this month.

We asked chief creative officer Joel Bylos about what fans should expect from the new mode in an interview from Gamescom - and if would-be lone wolves will get what they're looking for in Arrakis.

"I think if people play the game [this month] and what they're looking for is a really great survival game experience that they can play single-player, that'll be no issue," Bylos tells us. "If they expect it to be like The Last of Us, they're probably barking at the wrong tree, right? So, I think, if their expectations are correct for what kind of genre it is and what type of game it is, they'll be perfectly satisfied."

The ability to journey through Funcom's adaptation of Frank Herbert's beloved novels has apparently been a long-requested feature from fans, but it's also a feature that's been quite hard to make. "Transforming a persistent, server-authoritative, open-world survival game with multiple maps into a smooth local experience is no small feat, and today, we want to talk about the technical work our team has done to enable solo survival on Arrakis," the studio wrote earlier this summer.

A blog post from the studio explained a little more about everything that has to change to accommodate for solo journeys. Translating multiplayer-centric features, balancing combat or resource harvest rates, and making your machines handle the "heavy lifting" are just a few of the changes Funcom had to make for solo sand lovers.

Dune: Awakening's new single-player mode fits perfectly in the MMO because of its strong story, lead says: "I think we have the best story in a survival game that exists"

Palworld update 1.1 is on the way, and while it won't be another 1.0-sized overhaul, Pocketpair comms and publishing lead John Buckley says the next big patch is doing "something that players have been screaming at us to do."

Speaking with GamesRadar+ at Gamescom 2026, Buckley examines the shift in development at Pocketpair following the release of Palworld 1.0. He says the studio's overall process and outlook are "very, very different" today.

"It was a big sigh of relief that we got it out and it worked out," he begins. "We still have pools of feedback, we still have feed of bug reports and stuff. It is a weird vibe. We know we're gonna do something. Of course we are. Palworld's not finished. Of course we're gonna do something more with it.

"We announced 1.1 kind of indirectly," Bucky continues. In August, he clarified that update 1.1 won't be some grand, yearlong project after players, in response to a social media call for suggestions, proposed enormous additions like an entire new continent.

Mild Palworld 1.0 spoilers ahead.

"We teased, like, we're cooking something," he says. "Now what we're thinking of is, there's kind of two prongs to it. Narratively, Palworld 1.0 kind of wrapped up that thing. Players got to the tree, they figured out what was in the tree, they sorted that out. So it's hard to think about what we're going to do next.

"Internally, and I said it yesterday so I'm fine saying it, we're calling 1.0 kind of a soft prologue. You figured out what the tree was, and it crashed, and you landed on the beach. You wake up on the beach. Now let's show you what happens next."

And what does happen next? With Palworld 1.1, Buckley stresses that "it's not a huge thing, but we're doing something players have been screaming at us to do for a while. And we didn't want to do it for 1.0 because we didn't want it to get in the way of 1.0. We had so many things we wanted to do. And even though it's a big thing, a big specific feature we're doing for 1.1, we just didn't want it to take up space for 1.0. So now we feel more comfortable in that regard. Now we can do these other things that might not necessarily have been connected to what our vision of Palworld is."

People don't understand Steam player numbers, Palworld lead says: "Poor Marathon and stuff are getting dragged through the mud ... I'm sure our day's coming."

No Man's Sky and Hello Games lead Sean Murray is back on social media with more vague emoji-posting – this time in the form of a cocktail emote that sure looks a whole lot like it might be referencing the upcoming Cosmos update for the survival game.

You know, because of the drink, the cosmopolitan? Also known as a "cosmo" – and that's what folks think Murray is teasing here.

It all started with a post on X that included a single cocktail emoji. Then, the official Hello Games account responded with a few more cocktail emojis.

Understandably, fans immediately went wild with theories, ranging from martinis (which, just, why?) to, of course, cosmos.

Over on Reddit, the theorizing is running wild as well… much to nobody's surprise, ever. As one response to a screenshot of Murray's emojis reads, "There's a cocktail called a Cosmo. So multiple are 'Cosmos'… right?" Right, indeed, anon. Right, indeed.

Another jokes, "Cosmos update is actually just adding alcoholic drinks to the game." Honestly, at this point, it could be, seeing as we know next to nothing about the huge patch.

It exists, and it's coming – that's about all that Hello Games has confirmed thus far, aside from its name, and the developers have said absolutely zilch about it since they first unveiled it in August.

This isn't the first time Murray and the team have posted mysterious emojis, either. It's how they teased the Remnant update in February, which launched with a Garry's Mod-style gravity gun and more just days later.

It's also the way that The Swarm update, which brought a bit of Helldivers 2 flair to the survival game's mix, was hinted at in May… also shortly before it launched.

Then there were the stadium emojis, which were teasing the big Xeno Arena update that dropped earlier this year, introducing a fun Pokemon and Palworld-esque creature battling system that fans had been requesting for nearly two years – so, yeah.

Does this mean that the Cosmos update is coming sometime soon, perhaps within the next few days or weeks? Maybe – I know that I'd certainly recommend keeping an eye on the Hello Games social media accounts, personally.

No Man's Sky fan adds Nvidia's DLSS 5 to the game, Hello Games programmer worries the AI filter could ruin its "unique look and feel"

As Palworld continues its own post-1.0 journey following its long-awaited full release earlier this summer, Pocketpair prepares another full launch – one for its six-year-old survival game, Craftopia… yes, that Craftopia.

In case you don't know about Craftopia yourself, it's an open-world anime-style survival game that's been in limbo for… well, ever since its Early Access release over on Steam on September 4 back in 2020.

It's gotten some minor updates – and, honestly, I mean pretty dang minor, considering the timeline – here and there, but those of us with the game in our library have waited for a 1.0 launch for what feels like forever now.

And, thankfully, it's finally coming – and with it, hopefully some more positive reviews, too, seeing as it's got a "Mostly Negative" rating as it stands (yes, much of the feedback cites the game being "unfinished" and dubs Craftopia an "abandoned" title from Pocketpair).

As a new update from the developers reads, "Craftopia will leave Early Access and release into Version 1.0 in 2027."

What's another few months of waiting, eh?

With 1.0, Pocketpair says to expect "cleaning up and refining the existing experience, addressing outstanding issues, and making Craftopia as enjoyable and polished as possible for its full release" rather than "sheer content volume as some players might expect" – but, "there will still be new content arriving."

It's exciting, even if it's more minor than some would hope in terms of content, and the devs seem to think so as well.

Head of Pocketpair publishing and communications John "Bucky" Buckley responds to the news himself on X, writing, "Happy birthday to Craftopia, the game that Pocketpair would not exist without!" He also teases the Xbox release of the old survival gem, which is similarly set for 2027.

I'm intrigued to see the devs acknowledge their origins in Craftopia myself, personally, and as a player, too, I'm thrilled it's finally releasing.

Here's hoping that Craftopia 1.0 delivers on its promises to clean up the admittedly janky (at times, anyway) open-world game and also add a little bit of new content to it. I know I'll be looking forward to the release next year.

People don't understand Steam player numbers, Palworld lead says: "Poor Marathon and stuff are getting dragged through the mud ... I'm sure our day's coming"

People have been inflicting the cruel colors and harsh lines of Nvidia's DLSS 5 on games that were normal before they were forced to look like AI-enhanced Love Island, and Hello Games' stylized space explorer No Man's Sky is the latest victim. A popular fanmade clip showing No Man's Sky looking more unnaturally crisp than a hangnail reveals plenty of people actually want DLSS 5 – but that developer Hello Games probably won't give it to them.

The original post from Twitch streamer Oskar1up has over 6,000 likes and 1.8 million views on Twitter as comments commend the dramatic peach sunset and glassy ocean waves DLSS 5 gives the otherwise subtly beautiful game from 2016. The post ultimately caught Hello Games engine programmer Martin Griffiths' attention, but not for entirely innocent reasons.

Another Twitter user says of Oskar1up's DLSS 5 experiment, "No Man's Sky is like the perfect game for DLSS 5, no human faces so no weird uncanny valley, and tons of natural and space scenes can use the realism boost." But Griffiths doesn't seem convinced by this claim that DLSS 5 has no downsides when applied to environments.

"It would probably fall to me to implement DLSS 5 in No Man's Sky, since I coded our DLSS support," Griffiths writes on Twitter. "But adopting it isn’t really a technology decision – it's much more an art-direction choice."

On this note, GamesRadar+ learned during our early hands-on time with DLSS 5 at Gamescom 2026 that the tech that applies a 2D generative AI filter to images is "only" made for photorealistic games, as Nvidia insisted. So, it shouldn't apply to No Man's Sky, which was carefully crafted to be its own soft rainbow galaxy.

That said, Nvidia's intentions are irrelevant when it comes to the unruly desires of curious gamers, who've crafted their own DLSS 5 button with files from NBA 2K27. It's this bootleg that is making No Man's Sky look like it's been deflated and then stuffed with clear jelly.

Personally, I think it looks awful – generic and unmotivated. To add DLSS 5, Griffiths says, "The question isn't whether we can do it. It's whether it enhances the image, or starts to subtract from No Man's Sky's own unique look and feel."

So, could Hello Games litter their beloved game's universe with AI? Sure. Should the developer do so? I hope no one actually believes that.

Nvidia says it's only targeting "photorealistic" games with DLSS 5, but am I the only one who thinks "realistic" visuals are worse?

RuneScape developer Jagex is showing Dragonwilds players its appreciation by bucking one of the conventions of releasing a game out of early access. Instead of launching into 1.0 with a hefty price increase, as is the standard with early access games going into 1.0, RuneScape Dragonwilds will stay exactly the same price, £24.99 or $29.99, when it leaves early access on September 15.

According to Jagex, this is for no other reason than to express gratitude for a community of fans that has kept RuneScape in the gaming zeitgeist for 25 years.

"Since we launched into Early Access, we've been extremely proud of the amazing work that has gone into RuneScape: Dragonwilds," reads an update shared to the game's official website. "So many of you have taken the plunge into Ashenfall, and with every update we are humbled by the number of you trying out Dragonwilds, recommending it to friends and leaving reviews on Steam. The feedback has been incredible, and the game continues to improve with every update, guided and informed by our vision, and your feedback, working together in harmony.

"Dragonwilds' success is because of the invaluable participation of our Early Access players, but also thanks to the support and excitement shared by the countless number of fans waiting for Kuldra's Saga to be complete before you took the plunge with us. We hope this small gesture goes some way to showing our endless appreciation for your support and belief."

Jagex also confirms that Dragonwilds will continue getting monthly updates "as the game grows" in its post-early access life. And speaking of which, the next major update is coming sometime in the vague window of "Winter," and it'll be called Luminance. That, like the smaller updates, will be a free grab for players, although Jagex has yet to say a whole lot else about it.

"We'll share more about our 2027 plans once we've delivered our 1.0 release, and you can tune into our Summit at RuneFest to hear more about 2027 and the next Saga in Ashenfall's story," says the dev.

RuneScape: Dragonwilds 1.0 is just one of many upcoming launches on our big Fall Preview 2026 guide of our most wanted games.

The spice must flow, including in updates for Dune: Awakening. The Arrakis-set MMO is getting a single-player mode soon, and it'll provide more options for how much you want to get out of the experience compared to the more live-service way of playing.

At Camescom 2026, Joel Bylos, the chief creative office of developer Funcom, explained the logic to GamesRadar+. "The good thing about single-player is with the way that you can play the story and get into the story, you don't have to spend that 100 hours, right?" he says.

"You can get through the game in 50, maybe 80 hours if you change some of the settings and make it easier for yourself," he adds.

This is the thing - playing the single-player mode lets you curate the difficulty and other aspects to far greater depth than if you were partaking in the MMO side of things. Funcom handles a lot of that, because it needs to work as intended for a huge community, and there are expectations for events and the like.

"The multiplayer aspects of the game, where we built out this end game, I think people are complaining that it's a little too grindy, so we're going to work on some of that," Byblos comments. "In single-player, you can just change all of those settings yourself. So you have full control over the experience in single-player. Multiplayer, on the other hand, we control the experience a little more."

He mentions the devs are looking into updates to make it a little better for people," but to him, at least, "100 hours isn't bad" for how much people can get out of the project. That's definitely a good chunk of time, and a strong base for a game that's only been out just over a year.

Dune: Awakening has struggled a bit to retain players since launching in early access, but having more options for how people can join in should help remedy that. I know I'm more likely to get involved if I can turn off the live-service mechanics. Whether or not I get 100 hours out of it remains to be seen, all depends on how fond of the spice I become.

Dune: Awakening's players might be 80% PvE, but devs are considering ways to spice PvP up in the future with "faction versus faction" and more

Growing infatuation with Steam player numbers as a means to gauge a game's success or popularity has ultimately misled a lot of people, worries Palworld liaison and Pocketpair publishing lead John Buckley.

Because Steam is both the dominant platform for PC gaming and the only major platform that shares live, granular player data, Steam player counts, particularly concurrent users, are regularly used as a measuring stick, or just as often, a bludgeon. It could be Arc Raiders, Palworld, Peak, How to Fish, or Baldur's Gate 3; gamers will put you under the SteamDB or Steam Charts microscope.

Buckley's regularly pushed back on the "dead game" doomsaying chucked at Palworld and countless other games over the years, arguing that player falloff is normal and expected, and that numbers often described as dire are in fact quite healthy. In an interview at Gamescom 2026, he describes the Steam number chatter as part of a larger misunderstanding.

"The numbers are so distorted with Palworld," he says. "I so vividly remember the 2.1 million concurrent to half a million concurrent [period]. Some of the most viral posts at that time were, 'This is the biggest game dropoff of all time.' And I was like, half a million people playing a game at any one moment, it makes me want to be sick, how staggering that is."

Though Palworld was biggest on PC, it wasn't only on PC, and this is one problem with Steam math. We can estimate trends based on a game's Steam community, and Steam player numbers do have genuine value and applications, but we can't get a reliable picture of a multiplatform release. The factors driving spikes and dips in those numbers are also much more varied than whether a game is good or bad. Sales, update cadence, server downtime, time zones, and replayability can have a big impact.

In a similar vein, Buckley looks at what concurrent Steam users can and can't tell us.

"And not to dog on SteamDB, because I love those guys, but I think of how public these numbers have become in recent years," he says. "People really love pulling these numbers up recently. Now we know why consoles don't like to share them."

As it happens, Sony recently began testing a tiny PS5 widget which, in some way, offers a snapshot of game activity not too far removed from Steam Charts. And even that small glimpse into the console black box seems to come with huge obfuscation.

"People look at these, and I think that's all really misunderstood now," Buckley continues. "I think people think 500,000 CCU one hour and 400,000 CCU one hour means 100,000 people stopped playing. That's not what it means, because any second two could log on and two could log off.

"I think we need to start sharing DAU [daily active users]. I wouldn't be against making DAUs public – the amount of actual people who played a game in one day. Because I think a lot of people would be shocked how different these numbers are. You know, a game that has 1,000 CCU could have 20,000 DAU. The numbers are quite different."

Buckley, like Warframe boss Rebecca Ford, worries the blood sport that Steam math has become can poison discussion and critique.

"It's hard to deal with those numbers," Buckley adds. "Everyone's getting it. No one's immune to this anymore. Poor Marathon and stuff are getting dragged through the mud with this right now, and I'm sure our day's coming a few weeks from now. I'm sure people will say Palworld's dropped under 100,000. And oh no, under 100,000. It's coming."

Pocketpair lead thought if Palworld 1.0 hit 200k concurrent players, "that'd be party time" – then it passed 900k on Steam alone.

Dune: Awakening is finally coming to consoles next month, but that's not all – Funcom is also preparing to integrate the long-requested single-player mode.

So, how does that work in what's essentially an MMO and survival game mashup? Well, as chief creative officer Joel Bylos tells GamesRadar+ at Gamescom 2026, it just does – and that's all thanks to the strong story acting as Dune: Awakening's foundation… the very same that acts as an alternate timeline to its source material's own in Frank Herbert's beloved sci-fi book series.

In fact, integrating single-player hasn't been too difficult. The only challenge that has come is balancing Dune: Awakening's obvious multiplayer aspects (think combat, difficulty, etc.).

"We did a major balance pass across the game for the solo experience to make sure that people didn't get bogged down in the parts where later on in the group experience you would need a group of people. So, it's a lot smoother to play through from a progression perspective." And, again, the story helps… a lot.

"I think the story of the game works really well for a single-player game," as Bylos says. "It's just perfectly fine. People will really enjoy it."

That checks out – many of my own favorite moments in Dune: Awakening were spent enjoying the various missions and the storyline, especially as it differs from the Dune I was already familiar with. A solid story isn't easy to find in most survival games, either, which sets Funcom's apart.

As the lead puts it, "I think we have the best story in a survival game that exists." That's quite a bold statement, but I suppose it makes sense. The genre doesn't exactly boast much, erm, story-focused content, thinking of giants like Minecraft and Terraria.
Dune: Awakening is quite unique, and with its single-player mode's release on September 22, it seems this will shine through all the more.

And, as long as people are "looking for a really great survival game experience that they can play as a single player," Dune: Awakening's big launch next month should go well. As a big fan of solo experiences and Funcom's game myself, I've got my fingers crossed.

Dune: Awakening dev knows everyone wants crossplay for the upcoming console release, but it's "technically and operationally complex to implement"

After recovering from the "supernatural" success of Palworld's early access launch, Pocketpair comms and publishing lead John Buckley had more modest expectations for the 1.0 update.

If the game had hit 200,000 concurrent players with 1.0, less than 10% of Palworld's launch peak, "that'd be party time," he says. Instead, Palworld 1.0 rocketed straight to 960,000 concurrents on Steam alone, and about five times Buckley's expectations globally. Before 1.0, the game was hovering around the 45,000 CCU mark on Steam.

Speaking with GamesRadar+ at Gamescom, Buckley examines the "huge success" of Palworld 1.0. "Thank you, gamers," he says. "As cliche as it might sound, we didn't expect it to go that well. Genuinely. 900,000 CCU, insane amount of sales yet again. We're really, really happy. Again, very life changing for the studio."

When we spoke to Buckley earlier in the year at GDC, he described Palworld's launch as an anomaly that he couldn't explain. So, the folks at Pocketpair didn't want to bank on lightning striking twice.

He still seems perplexed by it. "The early access release was supernatural," he reiterates. "It's the only word you can use. It shouldn't exist, that kind of level."

Buckley says Pocketpair was confident that update 1.0 would see a healthy wave of returning players who "haven't played in two years" coming back to check out the new stuff. What he and the team didn't expect was for the wave of players buying and playing the game for the first time to be so large.

"I really don't want to use the word market cap because it sounds awful, but you do at some point think Palworld's kind of reached the audience now," he reasons. "We expected it to go quite well. Personally, I was like, if we can hit about 200k, it's a crazy CCU. 200k, that'd be party time. And again, it's five times that."

Buckley examines the Palworld audience in a little more detail, with Pocketpair actively expanding into spinoffs and other genres like cuter farm sim Palfarm and a third-party Palworld MMO. "I think the end goal is not that there's a Palworld for everyone, but a Palworld for lots of people," he says. "If there's peoples' ideal version of Palworld.

"The reason we're making the farming game [Palfarm] is because one of the very, very earliest things people were asking for was Palworld but just a bit cozier. Palworld with a bit less of the guns or making bases and stuff. 'I don't want to grind resources, I just want to hang out with my Pals.' That's Palfarm. That's the intention of Palfarm. I think if we can start doing things like this, Palworld can become its own thing."

Palworld devs "not planning to spend a year" making a "massive" 1.1 update, publishing lead clarifies.

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."

I love a good cozy game, and I love a good zombie game, but I'm not sure I've ever played a hybrid of the two. There's something inherently stressful about being surrounded by hordes of undead intent on eating your brains, but new "cozy post-apocalyptic survival game" aims to make that experience much more relaxing.

From two-person indie studio Cosmic Tofu, In the Van is marketed toward people who "play Project Zomboid like it's Stardew Valley," or in other words, people who cast zombies aside as an irksome afterthought while they hang out in their cabins, cook food, and harvest crops. So, why not just play Project Zomboid? Well, the answer's right there in the title. In the Van gives you a mobile cabin to turn into your personal chill space and protect yourself from the perils of the outside, post-apocalyptic world.

"Scavenge by day, drive back before dark, and spend the night cooking, farming, and cracking open phones recovered from the dead to find out what happened to the world," reads the official description. Essentially, it sounds like a more forgiving, cozy focused Project Zomboid but instead of a cabin, your home is a customizable van, which sounds like a delightful spin.

Cosmic Tofu says you'll find your zen in the game when you "master the survival routine" by balancing exploration, item crafting, and survival elements "at your own pace," and if that sounds challenging amidst a zombie apocalypse, In the Van's reveal trailer (above) makes it pretty clear that this specific variety of zombie isn't particularly hard to kill. You'll even be able to plow through zombie clusters with the van itself, which I suppose can be cozy depending on your tolerance for blood.

Speaking of which, Cosmic Tofu has done its best to appease cozy gamers who might be turned off by the whole zombie apocalypse thing, calling the game's undead walkers "cute little Stardew-ish pixel zombie friends" and begging moderators not to mark the post NSFW after an earlier post was marked as sensitive for "setting a zombie on fire."

There's no release date for In the Van yet, but Cosmic Tofu says a closed playtest is coming soon.

Here are the best relaxing games to unwind with right now.

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."

Subnautica 2 continues to truck along in early access, and one of the biggest updates promised in the Subnautica 2 roadmap is upon us. The newly released patch adds a host of features aimed at making the co-op experience better, but if you're a solo player, there's no need to worry – the devs at Unknown Worlds promise the bigger update with a new region and story content is still on the way.

Officially titled the Buddy System update, the headline addition here is proximity chat. "You'll be able to talk locally with each other and then as you get further away, you'll hear it switch to sort of a radio sounding voice, that'll progressively break up as you get further away," creative director Anthony Gallegos explains in an update vlog. "I think it definitely adds to the tension of it."

There's also a tracking tag that functions as a "short-range beacon," according to the official patch notes, and you can even place it inside containers to track their locations, too. There are a bunch of fresh emotes now selectable from a new emote menu, and several new options for customizing your character.

"We also have player revives," Gallegos says. "So if your friend gets downed, whether it's by a smaller shark or maybe they run out of food and they die from that or they run out of oxygen, there's going to be a timer that will elapse, where you can swim out to them, share some oxygen with them, bring them back to life and sort of save the day."

The original Subnautica was strictly a single-player affair, and if you check the comment sections around this update you'll find a small but vocal handful of solo players who feel a bit burned by this multiplayer-first update. But Gallegos is quick to address those concerns in the vlog: "Of course, alongside all of this, we're continuing to work on the EA2 update that's going to add the new region with the new story and new progression, new vehicles, all those things."

Check out our guides on how to get the Bioscanner in Subnautica 2 or how to craft Subnautica 2 ingots if you need some help.

After months of teasing, both Hello Games' boss and John 'Bucky' Buckley, the head of publishing and communications at Palworld developer Pocketpair, are throwing more fuel on the fire of a potential collaboration between it and No Man's Sky.

Back in April, Hello Games lead Sean Murray was teasing the Pokemon-style update for No Man's Sky which caught the attention of Bucky, saying he had a "fun collab idea" for the two games. This was furthered in July when Bucky said he wants to crossover with No Man's Sky specifically, should the collab make sense logistically. And following the Terraria update and collab with indie FPS Ultrakill, fans are speculating what's next to come.

Earlier this week, Bucky revealed that people "do not realize the sheer number of collabs we've rejected or scrapped," which caused Murray to quote tweet a news post about it, tagging Bucky and saying "bro." This was swiftly responded to by Bucky, who quotes Eminem's Stan back to Murray, with lines like "I wrote you, but you still ain't callin'," and "I hope you get this, man, hit me back, just to chat."

While this could easily just be a bit of banter between the two, given the history between them, some fans are seeing this as confirmation that the long-teased collab could be in the works. One response reads "YES MY TWO FAVORITE WORLDS KISS AND MAKE ME A BEAUTIFUL COLAB," while another says, "My two favorite games together? Yes please." Others simply put out there, "Ohh it's happening."

At this point it definitely does feel like a "when" more than "if," but it all comes down to how the teams can make it work and make sense, which will likely be the real challenge.

Palworld devs "not planning to spend a year" making a "massive" 1.1 update, publishing lead clarifies after quickly regretting asking fans for ideas.

Palworld gets tons of collaboration pitches that are destined to fail, but Pocketpair's publishing lead John "Bucky" Buckley says the creature catcher isn't the only game surrounded by suitors. Apparently, this is simply the way life goes for games as mega-popular as Palworld, whose recent 1.0 launch helped it earn $700 million in total revenue since 2024.

Buckley explained his view on collaborations in a set of messages in the official Pocketpair Discord server on August 14, reacting to his unexpected admission last week that fans "do not realize the sheer number of collabs we've rejected or scrapped" for not completely meshing with Palworld's survival game ethos. Buckley elaborates on Discord, "I don't think that's unique to Palworld at all btw. I reckon almost every popular game is getting collab offers all the time."

When a fan asks Buckley what type of collaboration proposals got rejected, imagining "something like 'PALWORLD X MR. CLEAN!!!'" – which I'd actually like to hear more about – the publishing head says, "Loads but is that really so surprising?"

He doesn't go into detail, and fans note that Palworld has already had some unexpected collaborations, like its 2025 Ultrakill crossover that was actually instigated by Palworld; apparently, Pocketpair asked for a collaboration since its weapon designer loves the face-melting FPS Ultrakill, and Buckley said at the time on Twitter, "It's really as shrimple as that."

But as far as unsolicited pitches go, Buckley says on Discord, "Many people offered us their games but obviously we don't want to just shove random things in." So Pocketpair would like to hear back from Fortnite, and it would be glad to work with fellow survival games like No Man's Sky and Ark, but don't start getting any ideas about a Five Nights at Palworld situation, or The Elder Scrolls 7: Palworld. Pocketpair needs to be at least a little discerning, and so does every other popular game on the planet.

Palworld devs "not planning to spend a year" making a "massive" 1.1 update, publishing lead clarifies after quickly regretting asking fans for ideas.

After a decade of solid updates and player numbers that would make most games blush, No Man's Sky lead Sean Murray says the best part of the journey has actually been watching the team work together.

We caught up with Hello Games' Sean Murray to talk about 10 years of No Man's Sky, a journey that's included some low lows and spacey highs. Asked about the best moments of that decade, Murray says the easy answer would be "when we hit the highest plater numbers since launch with [the Voyagers update]" or when the team won awards at BAFTA and The Game Awards.

But, really, player numbers and gold trophies pale next to the "more boring, slightly difficult answer." Murray recalls moments where the team would play the Voyagers update together for the first time before its release, or the pretty transformative third-person camera option, or the player hub of The Space Anomaly, or... you get the gist. Coming together as a team to play something really exciting that "no one's seen" before is "the real sort of development high." (Just don't ruin it by telling him how much No Man's Sky DLC would've made.)

"Those have been a buzz," Murray explains. "That's when I'm going home and I'm just buzzing about it. And you're like, 'People are gonna love this.'"

Another example came when Hello Games put put the Beyond update, which was plagued with all sorts of bugs and problems. "We just worked really, really hard and I think we put out something ridiculous like 27 hot fixes in a week or something crazy." Being able to work together so quickly was only possible thanks to "systems that we'd been building for years", but the highlight was simply "the team just meshing together" and "solving problems just really quickly."

"You know, so those moments are a real buzz," he adds.

Sean Murray says a "weight had lifted" when No Man's Sky players were finally talking more about its new content than its controversial launch

No Man's Sky had one of the most controversial game launches and high-profile comebacks of the decade - you likely don't need me to remind you - but lead developer Sean Murray says the weight of its botched launch didn't lift until about three years later.

"We used to have a little running joke in the studio," Murray says in an interview with GamesRadar+ to mark the space exploration sim's 10th anniversary. Hello Games' inside joke was that the team would put out one of their famously transformative updates, and each time, online coverage "would always [mention] the disastrous launch of No Man's Sky" first. "Like that would be their opener, and then talk about the update."

Rain or shine, Hello Games kept pumping out huge, free updates that added everything from new features (base-building, a proper narrative, multiplayer, etc) to general improvements to the game's graphics or procedural generation, say. (Although, Murray still has fun playing No Man's Sky's original version.)

"I think it was about three years in and we had one article, and it never mentioned the launch. It just talked about the update, and honestly, I felt like a weight had lifted," Murray continues. "Until that point, it felt like we were really trying to like, you know, update the game and maybe no one really wanted it or something like that."

Before then, Hello Games felt like it was "fighting this real uphill battle" and releasing updates to an audience that sometimes received them with hostility. Things only became much clearer when the studio realized "that there's a community who really loves the game."

"But there was two or three years where it was a battle, where every time you posted about the game, every reply was laced with some slightly mean things and stuff like that," he adds. "You felt like you were doing it almost against some people's wishes or something… But over time, that changes, and… you learn who your community is and who your player base is."

"There is probably some end" to No Man's Sky, says Hello Games boss, but he'll probably come back 10 years later for a surprise update anyway

Palworld publishing lead John "Bucky" Buckley should've known better when he asked his Twitter followers for suggestions on new content following the game's 1.0 release last month. Specifically, he should've known they would all lay out their wildest hopes and dreams on virtual paper instead of submitting reasonable requests, and now he's paying the price.

On Thursday, Buckley took to Twitter to thank players for a successful Palworld 1.0 launch, which is a lovely gesture. But where he went wrong was teasing future content and asking players for "suggestions" as the devs get back to work on whatever's next for the game.

"Shot myself in the foot here, 1.7k comments later," reads a follow-up tweet from Buckley sent out the next day. "Things like 'add a new continent', 'add 20 more levels' and similarly massive undertakings are not really what we want to do with v1.1.

"Open to ideas but, we're not planning to spend a year making a massive update for 1.1."

For those wondering about the scope of feedback Buckley and Pocketpair are requesting, I'll point you to a recent Palworld patch that made building bases over water a lot easier and let you earn World Tree Holy Water through expeditions rather than just farming. That's probably a much more realistic idea of the types of additions Pocketpair is planning for 1.1. If and when something like a Palworld 2.0 comes out, that's when you'll see much bigger adds like new continents and levels.

In the meantime, it's not unreasonable to hold out hope for a new Palworld collab, although Buckley himself recently made it very clear just how selective Pocketpair is about who is collaborates with.

Palworld TCG devs "sincerely apologize" as unprecedented demand and scalpers make enjoying the Pokemon rival next to impossible

Somehow, it's been ten years since No Man's Sky launched. 2016 was certainly a simpler time, and looking back on the space exploration sim, Hello Games managing director Sean Murray has some sage words for his younger self.

"I would tell that guy, don't do all the press and stuff like that that you're doing," he tells GamesRadar+. "Guess what? You never wanted to do press and be a sort of frontman. You don't enjoy it, you won't enjoy it, and you also won't be very good at it."

He points out this is going back further than 12 years, to 2014, when the press for No Man's Sky started to ramp up. The game was a regular at showcases and trade shows, usually with Murray in tow, who did plenty of interviews across print, online, and television.

Hello Games enjoyed the double-edged sword of producing a game that captured people's imaginations, and then having to go out and publicly represent it. Promotion can be exhausting, and Murray believes he was always better served at his desk.

"Just avoid that whole thing and stick to just making games and coding," he says. Coming back to the present, he points out that Hello Games has become a much more mysterious entity. Very little is actually known about upcoming release Light No Fire, and that's a result of lessons learned from No Man's Sky

"We've lived that over the ten years since, right? That has been a big change in my life, right? Where I haven't chatted to any press in like four, four or five years or something," he says. "The most communication we do now is the occasional emoji or whatever, and that suits me just fine. I'm much better at just sticking to development.

Don't expect those vague teases to end any time soon. To be fair, when your game is the second most-wishlisted on Steam, you can take a chill pill.

"There is probably some end" to No Man's Sky, says Hello Games boss, but he'll probably come back 10 years later for a surprise update anyway

The devs behind Palworld have never been shy about collaborations in their monster collector. Valheim, Ultrakill, and Terraria are just three notable partnerships Pocketpair's orchestrated. But the latter drew some ire lately, prompting an explanation on Palworld's collabs from the company's ever-present head of publishing and communications, John "Bucky" Buckley.

"I think the Terraria collab in Palworld was pretty great!" Buckley said on Twitter. "Completely understand some people would prefer a more lore-first approach but we've been very open about our fun-first approach since day one!"

That much is hard to argue against. Palworld's been a joyful, upbeat, anarchic game since the moment it was announced. The "Pokemon, but with guns" first impression gave way to a boisterous blend of survival mechanics and good old fashioned rounding up of cute critters.

Each collaboration has been predicated on increasing the laughter therein – I mean, why else does a game with cute animals work with a game called Ultrakill? On the back of this statement, Buckley then points out that Pocketpair's actually extremely picky about who gets near the massive fantasy adventure.

"If it really doesn’t make sense then obviously we would never go ahead with it," he adds. "You guys simply do not realize the sheer number of collabs we've rejected or scrapped for that reason."

He doesn't provide any further details – why would he? – but given Palworld's huge numbers, especially since launching 1.0, I can easily believe him.

Palworld has a reputation to uphold, and it's admirable Pocketpair's not done anything purely for what'd be an obvious payday, or a higher profile. It just makes the community seem all the more special. I mean, when you're able to do your own weirdo dating sim, what can anyone else offer you, really?

New Palworld patch makes building bases over water much easier, and finally lets you earn World Tree Holy Water through expeditions rather than just farming.

Obsidian Entertainment has just put out an early access roadmap for Grounded 2's Year 2, promising everything from an expanded map to new weapons and bosses, but there are still a few secret things the developer's keeping a tight lid on.

Just a few days ago, Grounded 2 enjoyed its meaty new Into the Abyss update, which included a brand new area, overhauls to swimming and underwater exploration, plenty of new backyard critters to fend off, the surprise addition of fast travel, and much more.

But Obsidian wasted no time in letting folks know what else to expect from their shrunk-down survival game, via an updated roadmap. New SCA.B Flavor Schemes (colors for your HUD), a rotting wood pile area, and a new potato beetle mount are headlining an unnamed update due this fall.

More new buildings, building materials, buggies, bosses and creatures, and Tier 4 Omni-tools are due in the winter update. And then the ability to move your entire base is promised in the roadmap's more vague "future plans" section, alongside more of the things you'd expect.

The famed studio isn't revealing its full hand as the Year 2 roadmap has plenty of upcoming features spray-painted over. From what we can tell, the devs really don't want to ruin the surprise of one particular enemy type, two incoming areas, and a community-requested building feature. Alright then, Obsidian, keep your secrets.

Obsidian's silence hasn't stopped the community from crafting their own theories, however. "I'm guessing the next major area in the Winter update will be the Sandbox area," one fan writes over on Reddit. "The last update in the roadmap includes an expansion to the Abyss, so I'm assuming it'll be the Explosion area south of the Pond."

The other elephant (or wolf spider, in this instance) in the roadmap is Grounded 2's 1.0 release window, which isn't mentioned here at all. "We aren’t locking ourselves into a hard date just yet; it'll really depend on how things go and how much we add based on your feedback," the game's Steam page notes. "We'll keep you posted along the way!"

Fallout: New Vegas studio Obsidian reportedly working on a new Fallout RPG after forced pivot from Xbox kills Avowed 2 and other games

A big part of our chat with Hello Games co-founder Sean Murray for No Man's Sky's 10th anniversary is focused on the next 10 years. Although the studio's next game, the highly ambitious Light No Fire, is in active development, Murray makes it clear in our interview that No Man's Sky isn't going anywhere, saying he could continue working on the game "forever" if people keep playing it. Still, all things must one day come to an end, and Murray isn't delusional on that front.

"There probably is some end date," he says. "But if you had asked me five years ago, I would have thought we would have passed it by now." Murray isn't sure when active development will come to a halt on No Man's Sky, but even when that day comes, he's not closing the door to spontaneous future updates even decades down the road. You know, like Quake.

"I saw MachineGames put out an update for Quake – some new levels," Murray says. "And I was a big fan of Quake when it came out. It was one of my real inspirations for getting into making games. And I see that it's a 30-year-old game, and they release some new levels, and I think there are people who would look at that and say, 'What's the point? Why have they done that?'

"For me personally, I think that's so cool and joyous. I'm excited to go back and have that nostalgia and play. And I was talking to someone on the team who is like, 'Who's even making that? Who cares? Who's still there?' Almost the implication of: wouldn't it be sad if it was somebody who had worked on Quake for 30 years? And I just think it's cool. I can see a real joy in making some new levels for Quake."

Hearing Murray talk about No Man's Sky reminds me of Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone and Stardew Valley. With Haunted Chocolatier in the works, you might think Stardew Valley is taking the backseat, but it seems some creatives are stubborn to let go of their golden children.

"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'. I think stuff like that is great," Murray says.

"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."

No Man's Sky lead planned to show more Light No Fire, but "why do any marketing" when it's already topping Steam wishlists

No Man's Sky is director Sean Murray's "garden." It's the kind of intricate, blossoming arbor you can only get from years of planting and pruning, little but consistent efforts suddenly appearing massive when you step back and take it all in. Getting it shipped and steady was extremely difficult and stressful, Murray tells me, but now he and Hello Games can tend it as they like. Every few months, players will wonder what else the devs could possibly add to No Man's Sky, and then Murray will say, in so many cryptic emojis on Twitter, hold my beer.

"There's now this sort of zen feeling, actually, to working on No Man's Sky – for me anyway" Murray explains. "It is very comfortable and very rewarding to work on. It is that feeling of going out into the garden and working on something that you get a lot of enjoyment from. I think I've learned to really love that."

"That wasn't how I would have thought about it 10 years ago," he adds. That's partly because, 10 years ago, Hello Games was too busy responding to feedback after a launch that underwhelmed many players, while also creating more stuff for No Man's Sky's huge, still mostly unexplored universe. With time, experience, and an irresponsible number of updates, Murray and the team are much more relaxed.

To launch and back

Cyberpunk 2077 was practically unplayable on day one but has since become a generational RPG, yet it's not the greatest comeback in gaming history. To this day, No Man's Sky is what all turnarounds are measured and compared against. Murray still plays and likes the launch version of the game, but many remember it as a gorgeous but empty survival experience hungry for purpose and intent – a garden with incredible crimson grass, but little else.

Nobody could say that about the No Man's Sky of today. Hello Games has added so much – space bases, underwater terrors, planetary biomes, share and social functions, ship fleets, full-throated multiplayer, tech trees, terraforming, story missions, mech suits, crossplay, animal companions, and probably three times more than all of that – that you won't find a barren patch anywhere no matter how hard you look.

"If, 10 years ago, you had said to me, 'Sean, that's what you'll be working on 10 years from now,' I would have been like, 'Oh, I presume I won't enjoy that," Murray says of the game's many patches. "The picture I had in my head of continually updating a game would have been putting out skin packs every month or something like that, or adding a new spaceship every six weeks. But that did not appeal to me and didn't seem exciting. But this, where we're putting out quite big, exciting updates – at least to us – and lots of people play, I find that really rewarding. How could you not like that?"

Murray says Hello Games "used to have a little running joke" about No Man's Sky escaping the gravity of its launch. In anything written about the game, he says, "the first line would always say, 'The disastrous launch of No Man's Sky.' That would be their opener, and then [they'd] talk about the update."

About three years in, this changed. "We had one article and it never mentioned the launch," Murray recalls. "It just talked about the update. Honestly, I felt like a weight had lifted. Until that point, it felt like we were really trying to update the game and maybe no one really wanted it. It was like we were fighting this real uphill battle, but over time, it's become much clearer to everyone that there's this community who really loves the game."

I ask Murray what advice he'd send to the decidedly less zen man he was 10 years ago. To start, he says he'd like to go back even further, a full 12 years. "I would tell that guy, don't do all the press and stuff that you're doing," he says. "I would tell that guy, guess what? You never wanted to do press and be a frontman. You don't enjoy it, you won't enjoy it, and you also won't be very good at it. Just avoid that whole thing and stick to just making games and coding."

The Sean Murray of 10 years ago would get a more heartwarming message. "My god, launch was a really hard time," Murray adds. "That was really hard mentally. Just picture all the worst things that can happen if you're not popular on the internet. I would love to go back to that person and just give them a little glimpse of what No Man's Sky is now. I would not have believed that was possible. I would have found it so incredibly motivational. I would love to have had that vision, to know that this is where it ends up. But I definitely wouldn't have believed it."

To infinity

Murray says Hello Games has been "really lucky with No Man's Sky," but the game has become what it is today because of the studio: a small, smart team of passionate and capable people. Just 12 to 20 devs are working on No Man's Sky at any given moment, and about as many are working on Light No Fire, another deeply ambitious survival game. Across 10 years, Murray says his favorite moments aren't watching record player counts, but rather seeing the Hello Games team solving problems really quickly" and "meshing together."

Vanishingly few games get 10 years of completely free updates. Murray doesn't want to know how much money he could've made by charging for new content, and he doesn't care. No Man's Sky updates remain free, he says, because he and the team want everyone to experience everything the game has to offer. And even after 10 years, Murray believes he could do this "forever."

"Honestly, if people weren't playing No Man's Sky, I don't think we would want to do updates," he reasons. "I don't think the motivation would be there. Obviously, if no one's playing your game, it's sort of pointless, right? But right in the early days, I remember trying to motivate the team to work on the game after launch. We talked about, just pick one person in your mind who you know is enjoying this game, this would be their perfect game if some things were improved or fixed, and then keep that person in your mind and work on it for them. It's going to be 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."

Still, No Man's Sky may not be updated forever. "There probably is some end date," Murray says. "But if you had asked me five years ago, I would have thought we would have passed it by now." And when active development on No Man's Sky does eventually conclude, Murray probably won't be able to stop himself from occasionally putting something out into the stars.

"I saw MachineGames put out an update for Quake – some new levels," he begins. "And I was a big fan of Quake when it came out. It was one of my real inspirations for getting into making games. And I see that it's a 30-year-old game, and they release some new levels, and I think there are people who would look at that and say, 'What's the point? Why have they done that?'

"For me personally, I think that's so cool and joyous. I'm excited to go back and have that nostalgia and play. And I was talking to someone on the team who is like, 'Who's even making that? Who cares? Who's still there?' Almost the implication of: wouldn't it be sad if it was somebody who had worked on Quake for 30 years? And I just think it's cool. I can see a real joy in making some new levels for Quake."

Now, Murray has his own icon to watch as caretaker. He's a third of the way to 30 years already. His crystal ball can't see 20 years into the future, but Murray wants No Man's Sky, and all games, to last, and I get the impression he'd do just about anything to ensure it does.

"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'. 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."

The best survival games to play today.

Keep the Door Locked codes can help you to stay alive during your visit to this cursed hotel, as strangers continually knock at your door. Some of them need help, while others are monsters in disguise, so make your observations and follow the rules as a wrong decision could spell disaster.

The promos released so far will give you plenty of Cash, which you can spend in the Upgrade shop to improve your character or access helpful items such as a Pocket Camera or Remote Breaker. They may also award you with some Tokens to boost future runs in this creepy Roblox experience. If you're ready to check in to your room, then these are the codes for Keep the Door Locked and how to redeem them.

If you'd like some more general promos instead that can be used for all of your experiences, take a look at the latest Roblox promo codes.

All Keep the Door Locked codes

The following Keep the Door Locked codes are active right now:

• Cash – 5,000 Cash new!
• HideCloset – 7,500 Cash new!
• TheMaze – 7,500 Cash
• NewVA! – 5,000 Cash
• Wawa – 10,000 Cash
• Moth – Free Spin for a random Skin
• FREESKIN – Free Spin for a random Skin
• ROOMCUSTOM – 15,000 Cash
• ENDING5 – 5,000 Cash
• NEWUISOON – 5,000 Cash

Codes for Keep the Door Locked mainly provide you with Cash, which you can spend on a variety of upgrades by accessing the list from the main menu. Some of them may also include items such as a Revive Token ora Jumpscare Token, which will help you out on future runs.

How to redeem Keep the Door Locked codes

To redeem Keep the Door Locked codes, you just need to tap the Coupon icon towards the bottom right of the main lobby screen, then use the ENTER CODE text box that appears to type in a promo before hitting the REDEEM CODE button underneath to get your reward. Note that codes for Keep the Door Locked are now case-sensitive, so you need to make sure you enter them exactly as shown.

Expired Keep the Door Locked codes

• MEDAL_QUEST – 1,000 Cash
• BLOODMOON! – 10,000 Cash, +1 Jumpscare Token
• ROOM! – 3,500 Cash
• FREECASH – 5,000 Cash
• VISITS8MIL – +1 Revive Token, 5,000 Cash
• FIRST_CODE – 3,000 Cash, +1 Jumpscare Token

There are now some expired Keep the Door Locked codes, as they have started being shut off as fresh promos are added. As always, you should grab the active promos as quickly as possible before they move down here too.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

There's a new Palworld update out, and it's a doozy for rebalancing and quality-of-life tweaks. There are quite a lot of changes, but two topline alterations in particular have players elated.

First, you have a substantial drop in the level required to build over water. The Aquatic Construction Kit now only requires you to be at level 23, rather than level 66. That's a hefty drop that opens up possibilities much earlier in the game than previously.

It just needs one Ancient Technology Point instead of four, and the materials are different as well. In general, this will encourage more experimentation with base-building, since some found the prior requirements discouraging.

"By the time I unlocked the ability to build on water I had no desire to start a new fresh base," one player says on Reddit. "That late in the unlock most people have already set up their base they are going to use through end game so it was likely going largely unused," another points out.

On top of this, World Tree Holy Water's been buffed in several ways. It now lasts longer, which is good for a start; then it weighs 10% of what it used to, going from one to 0.1. But potentially the most useful change is that it now comes as a reward for World Tree expeditions and fishing, and in the Large Fishing Pond.

Finally, more passive accumulation, rather than having to use a farming trick to try and gather it. The community has had to make use of various tedious ways to grow the amount of holy water they need, since it's essential for certain late-game items. "The various boosts to World Tree Holy Water are awesome," A Redditor comments. "Adding it as a World Tree expedition reward is massive."

It seems like Pocketpair is looking to really nail down the overall Palworld experience, now that the game is in 1.0. The patch notes contain plenty more changes, including numerous fixes and such. It's a good time to be collecting Pals.

2 years later, famous Palworld bug returns in 1.0 to bless players with a giant Sekhmet "at least 200x her normal size"

Hello Games boss Sean Murray has a soft spot for the day-one version of No Man's Sky, for all its faults and all the hard work associated with it. As the dramatically expanded space survival game turns 10 years old, he still occasionally plays that launch version himself.

I spoke to Murray about the past 10 years of No Man's Sky, and I asked him how the game we have today compares to the original idea for what No Man's Sky would be.

"It's interesting. You know, I sometimes see that in the community," he responds. "They'll often talk about the 'vision' of the game. Some people will be like, 'Pathfinder. That was the vision of the game. That was when we reached the vision.' And some people will be like, 'It was there at launch.' And some people are like, 'We still haven't hit the vision,' or, 'We [hit it] now.'

"A game is obviously owned by the players, the people who play it. So they all have a different, nebulous idea of what that game is and what their perfect version of No Man's Sky is. And I sort of see us trying to navigate through that and deliver those things for some of those people."

As he navigates those differing expectations, Murray finds the original version of No Man's Sky to be grounding. "I've gone back to the release version. Not often, but every now and then," he says. "And personally, when I go back, I feel real pride in it. I really love what that game was."

You might assume that the original version of the game is a pain point for Murray. No Man's Sky's blossoming hasn't changed the fact that its launch "was really hard mentally," he says, but that also hasn't soured the memory of the game that he and his team built.

"I personally really enjoy it when I'm playing it," he continues. "It has a really weird, esoteric feel, and I think it feels quite different to lots of other games. It does feel quite barebones in places, but I kind of enjoy that. There's a charm to it. It feels weird, and it feels almost like more of an indie game, more niche, which is kind of my taste to some extent. I'm kind of into that."

For all the many, many updates and features that have come to No Man's Sky, Murray believes that weird, charming, alienating experience still beats in the game's heart.

"If I play [No Man's Sky] today, it has really evolved," he reflects. "You can do so many things now. You can play multiplayer and build your own ships, have crazy fleets of freighters and all sorts of things. But every couple of weeks, I need to start a new save on No Man's Sky and do a playthrough, and when that happens, I still have that feeling. Especially if I've been away from the game for a little bit, I've maybe been on holiday or something, I come back and do get that little kick. Just putting on my headphones, being alone on a planet, fixing up my ship, playing through one of our Expeditions or something.

"I do think that core is still there. I don't know if vision is too pretentious a word, but that was always the core of what we were trying to do. I see it in that release version, and I still think it's there today. But I love that there are all these other things it can be, and I love that I can have some massive space battle or build a huge base to call home. I love all of that being there as well. But it doesn't interfere, for me, with that core thing of just being chilled out, headphones on, listening to the music, exploring the planet a little bit."

Somehow, No Man's Sky is 10 years old. I remember its launch like it was yesterday, walking across the street to Game Store™ from my then-place of work, the heels of my shoes threatening to melt into the gravel on another sweltering August in Phoenix afternoon, nonetheless determined to pick up the new space survival game everyone was talking about. It was a little barebones, but I loved the sense of vast loneliness and freedom of exploration. Today, it's like a whole different game, and if Hello Games co-founder Sean Murray has his way, it still has a long, interplanetary road ahead.

"If people keep playing it, I could work on this forever. I love it," Murray tells GamesRadar+. "You've got to understand, this was a game that when I was a kid, you could have asked me, and I would have been like, 'Yeah, that's a dream game. I would love that to exist'. So I feel very lucky from that point of view, and I would be happy working on this."

These days, Hello Games has an extremely passionate following thanks in large part to Murray's vision. There's a ton of anticipation for his studio's next game, the ambitious new open-world adventure Light No Fire, but even 10 years later, playing No Man's Sky feels like being part of a community, and that communal environment drives Murray to keep doing what he loves.

"It's very easy to get motivated to work on something when there's a whole bunch of people who are enjoying it. That's just a lovely feeling," he says. But even so, Hello Games is a team of dozens of developers contributing to the player-facing product, and Murray says the studio is at its best when everyone is passionate about what they're working on.

"We don't really have much of a management structure at Hello Games," he says, laughing. "So we don't really have the ability, even if we wanted to, to make people work on things they don't want to work on, so the studio, the way it's set up, it very much has to come from the people working on it. So as long as they're motivated, we're happy to keep making cool things, but it has to come from the team having ideas that they're excited about and things that they're excited about putting out there in the world. As long as that happens, we'll keep updating it."

It definitely sounds like Murray's heart is still very much in No Man's Sky even as development ramps up on Light No Fire, and he tells us the seemingly countless major updates released since the game's 2016 release haven't worn out the broader team at Hello Games, but he's a realistic person at the end of the day. "There probably is some end date [to No Man's Sky]," he admits.

"But if you had asked me five years ago, I would have thought we would have passed it by now, and it is a surprise to me. I remember finishing Voyagers last year, which did incredibly well for us in terms of highest player number since launch, and then turning around to the team, and I sort of expected them to say, 'Yeah, we're kind of done,' but instead they were just buzzing, because they've just shipped this thing. So many people are playing it, and excited, and they're like, 'okay, now we could add this and this and this and this.'"

There's no telling how long No Man's Sky will keep reaching out past the stars, and we'll probably get a clearer indication when Light No Fire launches (no release date yet), but unless you've been playing it full-time, every day, for 10 years, I'm sure there are still a few corners of its universe you've yet to explore.

Two years ago, right around the time of Palworld's early access launch, we reported on a highly amusing bug that caused a Lucky Vixy to balloon in size and take up an entire base. Well, Palworld's 1.0 update is truly a full-circle moment for the game and GamesRadar+, as here we are more than two years later covering the return of the gigantic Pal bug, which we love.

"I picked up Sekhmet and she became bald (until thrown down) and at least 200x her normal size," reads a post from Reddit user RanidSpace accompanying some pretty unbelievable screenshots of what's purportedly a completely vanilla version of Palworld. "No mods and was visible by all players in multiplayer."

It's unclear how common this bug is, but apparently it doesn't pop up enough for Pocketpair to do anything about it. In fact, a quick Google search yields more than a few instances of mysteriously huge Pals, and a commenter on RanidSpace's post includes a picture of a supersized Suzaku.

Maybe, just maybe, Pocketpair knows how to distinguish a good bug from a bad bug, because this is most definitely just a good and fun thing that should be in more games. Not saying there's any link between the two games, but I would absolutely love a giant Charmander in Pokopia.

After all, Pocketpair head of publishing John "Bucky" Buckley recently proclaimed Palworld 1.0 is "for the fans," and I can't think of anything more player-friendly than behemoth Pals.

Yes, the Palworld devs see your cursed NSFW mods: "I don't think this is official"

In a complete 180 from its notoriously hype-driven marketing strategy for No Man's Sky, Hello Games has been quiet about its next release, Light No Fire. The studio's chosen not to do any major showcases – partly because it doesn't need to.

Sean Murray, Hello Games' founder, explained to Kotaku in a new interview that Light No Fire has hardly appeared since 2023 because, "We've like shot up the Steam wishlist charts; we're like number two on there," he says. "And I was just like, 'OK, that's enough. You know, we don't need to say any more. Why? Why do any marketing?'"

Light No Fire continues to ride high on Steam, still standing as the second most wishlisted game on the platform, behind Valve's own Deadlock. (You can find this information both on the Steam store itself and platform SteamDB). It's also currently ahead of Fable 4, Blight: Survival and Dear Passengers.

Again, Murray's hesitance to give more details on fantasy planet adventure Light No Fire serves as sharp contrast to how Hello Games handled No Man's Sky. For that 2016 game, Hello Games' conference appearances were regular, Murray himself gave all sorts of television and media interviews, and preview spots had some pretty spectacular attendees; Steven Spielberg got to check it out behind closed doors at E3, for instance.

"I look back and it’s madness. I sort of cringe at it," Murray says, indicating he'd rather not turn Light No Fire into a similar circus. I think that's wise, all told. Let the buzz generate organically, and when it's time to show more, do so. Being the second-most wanted game on Steam is already a pretty strong position to be in, after all.

Light No Fire only has "between 12 and 20" devs, says lead – but that's ok because a similar number worked on No Man's Sky at launch.

It's officially the end of an era, folks – beloved Terraria mod Calamity is officially coming to a close, with developers confirming they'll no longer be continuing development on the fan project from here on out.

Terraria first launched on PC in 2011, with Calamity following in 2016. It quickly grew to become the survival-sandbox game's most iconic mod, with millions of downloads worldwide.

Heck, it's even spurred spin-off mods (don't ask me how many I've browsed myself) and a downright massive fan community. It's caught the attention of Terraria developer Re-Logic itself, too.

So much so, in fact, that the studio previously invited the mod's team to work for it, asking, "Which of you wants to work for Re-Logic and get paid for your work?" It comes as quite a blow then, to learn that Calamity is coming to an end.

The news comes after the modders behind the years-old project's announcement on Discord that "we've come to announce a very difficult decision: we will unfortunately be ceasing all development of Calamity."

They elaborate, citing "the troubled past of Calamity's development" as one reason. "At this point, many of us have felt personally betrayed time and time again after being promised something better that never ended up coming. We're just tired at this point, and almost all passion we had for the mod has been soured, with many of us having chosen to leave as a consequence."

They don't delve further into the details here, but the post goes on.

"Most of us want to simply move on and would be far happier working on our own projects that aren't and won't be tied to something with what we feel is an irrecoverably tainted reputation," it reads, likely referencing accusations that have been making rounds online about some of the mod's leads and whatnot – a situation I'd argue is worth a quick Google as it gets quite dark and might be a tad too heavy here.

There's also the topic of asset removals, which said accusations have spurred. Put simply, a plethora of folks associated with Calamity have pulled out or rebranded, leaving the team looking for… well, a lot more than just new leads.

"Ceasing development is frankly the closest thing we can do to fulfilling everybody's requests" when it comes to the asset debacle, as the devs state – which is obviously not an easy decision to make.

As for the future… it's uncertain. "In terms of where things will go past this, due to legal concerns, no reuploads or forks of Calamity can be made and uploaded (for the sake of clarity, this means that things such as Fables, addons, and such are fine)," writes the team. "Past that, though, we don't really know."

Right now, it's impossible to tell as Ozzatron – the most recent mod lead – would need to work with the devs.

Apparently, however, "he's not responded to anything in the development server recently, and we're hoping to get back in contact soon to resolve all of this." Things aren't looking great, though.

The devs do end on a bittersweet note, thanking fans for their support: "This journey has been long, bumpy, rough and chaotic, yet it's still been wonderful despite that." It's tough to read, even as a casual Calamity enjoyer myself.

This certainly isn't the end that any of us expected, but considering how heavy the allegations seem – and, again, I would advise caution if digging into the situation further – the devs don't have much else that they can do here, likely.

Need something to look forward? Browse through our roundup of the best new games coming this year and beyond for fresh titles to wishlist.

Light No Fire, the anticipated open-world survival game from the No Man's Sky devs, only has a small team working on it - but that's ok because it's the same size as the No Man's Sky team was at launch.

Speaking to GamesRadar+, Hello Games founder Sean Murray revealed that "around the same amount of people" are working on Light No Fire as the number that are still churning out updates for No Man's Sky (which announced its tenth anniversary update, Cosmos, earlier today). "Day to day," Murray says, that means "anywhere between 12 and 20 people."

That means that "an average team size" is around the number of people that were working on No Man's Sky at launch - "about 15 people." That's something in the region of 30 developers across two very large games - when you consider Light No Fire's entire planet and No Man's Sky's entire universe, the amount of square footage each developer accounts for is pretty astonishing.

But that 30 devs means that Hello Games is much, much larger than it was before the release of its first game. Murray estimates that the average team size before launch was about six, so growing to 15 devs in time for launch "felt really big to us." Now, he recognizes that the team is still "very small," but says that "we have a lot of tools and tech that allow us to be quite productive."

It's not the first time that Murray has admitted that the "crazy ambitious" Light No Fire is "a lot for a small team." Perhaps that's why updates on the survival game, which intends to create an entire planet-sized open-world for players to explore, have been few and far between. For some fans, that's a positive - No Man's Sky's release suffered as a result of what many would describe as Murray's tendency to overpromise in the run-up to launch. But 2.5 years after Light No Fire's announcement, we've heard almost nothing about Hello Games' next release - perhaps it's time for that team to get a little bigger…

No Man's Sky updates like Xeno Arena take "2-3x" longer on Switch 2 and Steam Deck because Hello Games has to beat "impossible memory constraints," engineer says.

A good 10 years ago now, Hello Games launched its hotly anticipated space game No Man's Sky – a launch that was shaky, to say the least… but every update since has helped bolster the 2016 title as a genre game rather than a forgettable disappointing experience.

Hello Games isn't done yet, either. A brand-new No Man's Sky update is underway again – a statement I feel I've now written some million times or so. Dubbed "Cosmos," it sounds as though it'll perhaps focus less on the terrestrial side of things and more on what's going on beyond each planet… but it's too early to tell for certain.

I'd love to see more focus on space travel, maybe, or some sort of emphasis on the game's current "ending."

Cosmos comes after various other No Man's Sky additions, like the big Xeno Arena update that dropped earlier this year, introducing a fun Pokemon and Palworld-esque creature battling system that fans had been requesting for nearly two years.

There was also Remnant, which came in February with a Garry's Mod-style gravity gun, and The Swarm update, which brought a bit of Helldivers 2 flair to the survival game's mix.

It serves as proof that Hello Games still has quite a bit under its belt for No Man's Sky, even a whole decade after its release… which, I suppose, isn't all that surprising anymore.

Here's hoping we get another 10 out of the survival game – I know I could enjoy another good decade of No Man's Sky shenanigans myself… and new update Cosmos might just be the prod back into the starry, unforgiving sky that I oh-so needed.

No Man's Sky updates "2-3x" longer on Switch 2 and Steam Deck because Hello Games has to beat "impossible memory constraints," engineer says

Don't tell Hello Games head Sean Murray that No Man's Sky could've gotten more money out of players if all the game's new content wasn't free, and definitely don't tell him how much more.

"I don't think it would be good for my mental health," Murray tells me. But more importantly, he adds, No Man's Sky updates are free, and will stay free, because the devs want everyone to play them.

Without fail, new No Man's Sky updates packing enormous features invite mobs of players pleading with Murray in his social media replies: "No, really Sean, please take our money."

Behold, the absolute whopper that is No Man's Sky's Steam description: "Play with all major updates since launch: Foundation, Pathfinder, Atlas Rises, NEXT, The Abyss, Visions, the 2.0 BEYOND update, Synthesis, Living Ship, Exo Mech, Desolation and the 3.0 update, ORIGINS, Next Generation, Companions, Expeditions, Prisms, Frontiers, Sentinel, Outlaws, Endurance, Waypoint (4.0), Fractal, Interceptor, Echoes, Omega, Orbital, Worlds Part I (5.0), Worlds Part II, Relics, Beacon, VOYAGERS (6.0), Remnant, Xeno Arena and The Swarm."

Speaking with GamesRadar+, Murray explains how Hello Games has gotten away with free updates for 10 years, and why it's not stopping.

"I'm sure somebody could take me aside, take me into a room and show me some PowerPoint and show me that we could have made more money if we had done in-app purchase or, you know, if we had done DLC or something like that," Murray continues. 'And maybe that would be true. I never want to see that PowerPoint.

"What I know is that I really, really enjoy – and I think the team really gets a kick out of – working on an update and knowing that what I'm working on, everyone is going to experience this. Every player that we have is going to experience this. And I think we really enjoy the journey, and the journey is only possible because every update compounds."

When Hello Games adds something like the Xeno Arena, a Pokemon-esque critter clash, Murray says they're always thinking about how that feature may look "two or three updates from now, and what other things you could add to that, what you could build on top of it."

"That doesn't work if you're fragmenting your audience," he reiterates. If "only some people have this update and only other people have this update," Hello Games couldn't commit to the bit nearly as hard.

"It's a big part of our motivation, what gets us out of bed in the morning," Murray says of that journey. "So it doesn't matter if it's not the most commercially efficient thing that we can do. I think what matters is that it makes us still excited about working on it 10 years out."

The updates, you see, must be free. And they can be free not just because No Man's Sky has become an enormous success for Hello Games, but also because the studio is extraordinarily sustainable, and resistant to the financial pressures of publicly traded giants.

During early development, No Man's Sky's team averaged about six people. Going up to 15 people by launch "felt really big to us," Murray says, and nowadays there are 12 to 20 people on the game at any given moment, between "a whole bunch of things going on in the studio," including world-scale survival game Light No Fire. The entire universe rests in the palms of under two dozen people, yet No Man's Sky continues to churn out hefty updates.

"We're a super small team, so we're lucky from that point of view," Murray explains. "It shields us from some of the craziness that we see outside our window in the wider gaming industry. Personally, I feel quite privileged that I'm allowed to continue working on No Man's Sky. That's sort of how I see it. I feel very lucky that I've been afforded this opportunity. This was a game I always wanted to play. It's a game I feel really passionate about, and I think the team really feels that way. It feels real passion and care for the game. I see that everyday, so I feel lucky."

No Man's Sky Cosmos is the next big update as Hello Games refuses to slow down after 10 years.

Pocketpair head of publishing and communications John "Bucky" Buckley has explained why there aren't many reviews for Palworld after the game had its full release last month.

In response to a post about the low number of Palworld reviews on Metacritic in comparison to recent releases like Halo: Campaign Evolved and Beast of Reincarnation, Bucky notes that "we didn't send out press keys in advance," which was the case for the other titles.

As for why this is, he explains: "We weren't really thinking about critic reception at all, and we wanted the content of 1.0 to remain a secret and unspoiled right up to release so...we kept it all pretty close to our chest!"

Bucky says that "if we had gone the more traditional route and prioritised critic reception," then "we probably would have sent out press keys a month or so in advance." However, Bucky says that "Palworld 1.0 was very much for the fans, not for the industry."

Obviously, people are still free to review the game after it officially releases, but Bucky acknowledges that Palworld is "a game that requires a fairly significant time investment" adding, "I can't fault media for not wanting to put the time in post-release. No harm!"

As for future games however, Bucky does say that "maybe we'll try play the press/media game a bit more in future with Palfarm or something," while calling it "a side of the industry we aren't too experienced in."

Ultimately, Palworld has also been out for multiple years in early access, and is very much a known quantity which could also add to the lack of reviews for the full version when it released earlier this year. And in the end, it didn't really matter much in the long run as the game experienced a massive boost in concurrent players on Steam upon the release of 1.0.

"A lot of these things are actually not made by us," Palworld lead explains following card game launch and MMO reveal.

After some confusion about the latest Palworld mobile game announcement, Pocketpair's head of publishing and communications John "Bucky" Buckley has tried to clear things up.

It's been a pretty huge few weeks for Palworld, between the launch of the game's 1.0 version which drew in a massive amount of concurrent players, the launch of the Palworld card game after being announced earlier this year, and now the announcement of Palworld Online, which is a mobile-only MMORPG spin-off of the game.

Those, on top of already existing projects like Pocketpair Publishing, Palfarm, and More Than Just Pals, mean that the developers behind the franchise have been pretty busy, but Bucky wants to clear up its not just Pocketpair.

Over on Twitter, Bucky says: "I appreciate all the messages, emails, DMs, etc about things like Palworld OCG, and I'm so happy that you guys like the stuff we're doing with Palworld. That said, a lot of these things are actually not made by us, so I can't really help with your questions much!"

He then provides a MS Paint explainer of what Pocketpair does and doesn't do with the franchise. For example, the studio develops Palworld, Craftopia, Palfarm, and More Than Just Pals, and is involved in running Pocketpair Publishing. Meanwhile the company licensed out the IP to create Palworld OCG, Krafton for Palworld Mobile, and Garena for Palworld Online.

Even with this many cooks in the kitchen, Bucky reminds that "we are STILL 100% self-owned and self-funded." So basically, if you have a problem with Palworld Mobile, the ball is in Krafton's court, not Bucky's Twitter.

A Palworld MMO is coming this year: Palworld Online brings "original story elements," but not from Pocketpair.

It can be hard to maintain a healthy perspective in the games industry. You're always vying for more players and a better position to keep the lights on. More devs could take a page out of the book of Palworld publisher Pocketpair, which seemingly views anyone else in its periphery as another pal rather than a competitor to be quashed.

A Twitter account dedicated to news and updates around survival games recently shared some information on the new spin-off for monster-collecting series TemTem, called TemTem: Pioneers, which brings in more crafting and resource management. Another Pokémon-esque adventure for PC, there are some surface level similarities between TemTem and Palworld, regardless of how they work mechanically.

The account calls the game a "Palworld rival," a term John 'Bucky' Buckley, the head of publishing and communications at Pocketpair, disagrees with. "TemTem are not our rivals," he says. "We respect all developers and their games! We’re all just making games for fun!!"

This is characteristically upbeat and well-meaning of Buckley. Generally speaking, when he isn't promoting or commenting on Palworld, he's talking about the games he's loving and trying to encourage people to do the same, whatever those releases may be.

Tribalism around Palworld is as pointless and toxic as it is in every discussion. Despite the Pioneers spin-off introducing more survival elements, TemTem was around for a number of years before Palworld, entering early access in 2020 before going 1.0 in 2022, and it's got its own community as a result.

TemTem's official account agrees with Buckley. "We don't wanna be Palworld's rival!" a response reads. "We deeply respect their game and work, and we just aim to be another option for fans of the genre."

There may be overlap in ideas, but these are distinct games with distinct fanbases, and it's much healthier to treat them as such. Besides, neither of them are getting anywhere near the reach of those ever-popular pocket monsters, that's for sure.

A Palworld MMO is coming this year: Palworld Online brings "original story elements," but not from Pocketpair.

Palworld is officially getting an MMORPG spin-off in the form of Palworld Online, but it might not be the instant hit for existing players that you might expect, as it's only coming to mobile.

Palworld Online isn't being developed and published by Pocketpair, but by Garena. Per a press release, it "reimagines the depth, freedom, and scale of the original PC survival creature-collecting title for mobile." It adds: "As an officially licensed title, it introduces a new narrative setting with original story elements, while expanding into a Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) ecosystem."

The existence of a Palworld MMO isn't a huge shock, as the name of the game surfaced online (pun not intended) back in May thanks to the filing of a trademark. While there was no official announcement, fans immediately speculated that the title might point to an MMO of some sort, and they were right – though I can't help but wonder if its mobile-only trajectory might limit its player base somewhat.

Garena promises that the experience has been optimized for mobile, though, featuring "streamlined, touch-friendly interface with optional one-tap controls" to make things easier. Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe also notes in a statement that "Garena has extensive experience in global publishing, localization, and live operations for mobile games," adding: "We are pleased to work with Garena on the licensed development of Palworld Online and look forward to seeing a new Palworld experience brought to players worldwide."

Crucially, this is a completely different game to Krafton's Palworld Mobile, so there'll soon be two alternative ways to experience the series on your phone.

Anyway, there won't be too long to wait to find out how Palworld Online lands, as it's set to arrive on iOS and Android devices at some point this year, adding to an already busy year for the franchise between the main game's 1.0 release and its new physical trading card game.

Palworld lead shrugs off "dead game" suggestions as Pocketpair's survival hit continues to bring in half a million concurrent Steam players mid-week, weeks after 1.0 launch.

Pocketpair's head of publishing and communications John 'Bucky' Buckley has been teasing people that call Palworld a "dead game" on social media by pointing out that it still has a massive half a million concurrent players mid-week.

Shortly after its 2024 early access launch on PC and Xbox, the creature-collecting, survival-crafting game hit a massive peak on Steam with over 2 million concurrent players. In the two years since, Palworld has also been ported to PS5, giving people even more ways to play.

Palworld might not have seen the same number of concurrent players on Steam since that time, but the playerbase has been steadily growing. In fact, Pocketpair announced that Palworld surpassed 40 million players not long before its full release. It has truly gone from strength to strength.

However, its concurrent Steam players have declined since its peak, which is natural given that it's now available on other platforms, and the new-game-hype has died down. That hasn't stopped people from pointing out that, at 'just' half a million concurrents, Palworld has fallen to 25% of the concurrent players it had at its peak.

Bucky, however, has clapped back at the haters on social media, pointing out that despite the natural dip in concurrent players, Palworld is still wildly successful. Noting that three weeks have passed since the game's 1.0 launch but it's "still hitting half a mil [concurrent users] midweek," on Steam he describes its popularity as "bonkers."

He ends the message by joking that haters will have to wait a few more weeks before claiming Palworld is dead again. "There’s people out there absolutely dying to post 'Palworld lost X% of their players! Dead game!!'" he says, "and at this rate they'll have to wait at least another week or two…"

Following up on the post further down in the thread, he adds: "Goofs aside, thanks again for making 1.0 such a success, gamers."

Palworld dev Pocketpair demonstrates that it's pro mods, even those cursed NSFW ones, by releasing a patch to improve their stability.

Palworld developer Pocketpair has launched a patch to improve mod stability less than 24 hours since its last patch. While the last patch focused on general bug fixes, this new update is specifically for the PC version of the game, and comes days after a studio lead acknowledged two NSFW mods on social media, so make of that what you will.

The creature-collecting, survival-crafting game has supported mods since its early access release in 2024. However, the number of mods created for Palworld has dramatically increased this month thanks to the game's full 1.0 release. This has inspired mod developers to create even more additions for this stable version of the game.

The recent Palworld v1.0.2 patch launched for all platforms and was focused on bug fixes, particularly ones that occurred during certain boss fights. This new patch, v1.0.2.100993, has been released for PC players only, and focuses solely on increasing the stability for mods, so you should run into less issues while using them. The patch notes also claim that the update shouldn't affect crossplay with other versions, so you can catch Pals with your pals in peace.

While the mod stability patch was likely in development before Palworld lead John 'Bucky' Buckley cheekily responded to those NSFW mods on social media, players found the timing suspiciously hilarious. Coincidence or not, feel free to take advantage of the patch by creating and downloading Palworld mods to your heart's content.

Yes, the Palworld devs see your cursed NSFW mods: "I don't think this is official."

You never have to mourn your friendly Pals for too long in Palworld, though developer Pocketpair certainly makes you miss them with its requisite 10 minutes of waiting for dead Pals to revive. Though, the lily-headed Lyleen, who's so full of love, doesn't think you should kick rocks until your friends come back. Players have discovered the healing creature can make fallen Pals instantly gasp back to life instead.

"NEVER wait 10 minutes for your pals after they die in Palworld," gaming content creator Mislead writes on Twitter about advice they shared across their social media. "Get one Lyleen in your party use her partner ability to revive your WHOLE TEAM and put her in pal box and take her back out right away for a 300-second rez cooldown reset."

The creator demonstrates in a video showing how a Lyleen in your party can use her Harvest Goddess skill to not only heal you massively, but bring your dead Pals completely back to life… with the caveat that Harvest Goddess has a 300-second cooldown if you need to use it more than once. Hey, retrieving Pals from the Underworld is a big responsibility. Lyleen needs to process it, OK?

But if you've already made peace with your used-up Gorirat's death and are ready to breeze past it, you can simply follow Mislead in swapping out another dead Pal for Lyleen in the Palbox, then immediately taking her out again. You'll notice that her 300-second Harvest Goddess cooldown has been overridden, and you can once again completely revive your team.

As other players note, people have been vaguely aware of Lyleen's ability to heal every Pal in their party since before Palworld 1.0 launched this month. But many have still been at a loss with what to do when faced with Palworld's 10-minute revive timer – so now it's more clear. Bring forth the Lyleen.

Palworld patch fixes broken missions, achievements, and more as Pocketpair stops Panthalus from sending you and your friends into the shadow realm.

A few years after its last price increase, the price of Project Zomboid is going up, but it's still fair for what you're getting as far as the developers are concerned.

This news is part of the latest patch notes for the hugely popular zombie survival game. "As with the launch of Build 41, there will be a rise in price for Project Zomboid alongside the release of Build 42," developer The Indie Stone writes. "Although not one that many would consider a huge one."

Before Build 42, owning the game would cost you $19.99/£16.75, and now it'll run you $24.99/£22.49. Not huge, but still enough to be noticeable. As mentioned, the last time the price tag changed was after Build 41 went live in 2022.

The jump was around the same, going from $14.99 to $19.99. In both instances, updates brought substantial upgrades to the experience.

This time around, the map is effectively being doubled through new locations and areas, and there are new features like collapsible fencing. $5 increments every four years or so seems like a reasonable cadence for keeping a game like this ticking over while the team focuses on making it bigger and better after a staggering 13 years in Steam early access.

It's not like the industry is getting any easier for indie studios. "The game will continue to be what we consider to be reasonably priced and good value for the gameplay available," The Indie Stone adds. "This change will apply across storefronts and regions once 42.20 launches to Stable."

The new price is now standard on Steam. If this feels a bit much for you, Project Zomboid is regularly on sale through events on Valve's store.

"I haven't slept in 48 hours": Devs spent 9 years, starting in "my parents' basement," making a Nier Automata-esque action game with the most anime plot imaginable.

Pocketpair has just released the v1.0.2 patch for its creature collecting survival crafting game Palworld. The patch mostly focuses on bug fixes and performance issues, including some major disconnection issues that affected players taking on the Panthalus boss fight together.

Palworld escaped early access at the beginning of July, but as with all modern games, there are still a few bugs that need ironing out. Luckily for fans of the collecting and crafting game, it's not anything too serious, but Pocketpair is still updating the game to give everyone the best experience.

The v1.0.2 patch fixes a number of bugs including a softlock that occurred when dialogue was skipped as The First Islander and Captured Adventurer missions were fading out. The Predator Hunter achievement and achievements related to collecting Pal Effigies have been fixed on all platforms, and some Lifmunk Effigy achievement bugs have been ironed out on Xbox.

There are also some updates to control options that make it easier to select key bindings and carry over previous settings. A number of graphical issues based on The World Tree area have also been fixed so things shouldn't get as visually funky in this region.

Possibly the biggest changes for players involve two of the game's boss fights. The tower boss Victor & Shadowbeak would sometimes disappear completely after they teleported, and now they should remain part of the battle no matter which spell they use. Some people playing in co-op also got booted out when fighting Panthalus, while some folks' games crashed completely, but you can now take it on in your friend's world without fear of ejection.

Palworld's v1.0.2 patch is live now so you can already dive in and reap the benefits.

Yes, the Palworld devs see your cursed NSFW mods: "I don't think this is official."

The facelessness of the internet can sometimes give the false impression of anonymity, but time and time again, social media has proven that the thing you think is only going to be viewed by your mom and that one co-worker who still engages with your posts even though you haven't spoken in seven years, might be picked up by a news organization or reposted by a celebrity. In that moment, you're either incredibly proud or ashamed depending on what you posted.

I can only imagine it's a mixture of those feelings being felt by a pair of Palworld modders right now, who shared some downright filthy modded content to social media only to be retweeted by Mr. Palworld himself, Pocketpair publishing chief John Buckley.

I'll start by sharing the much tamer of the two mods Buckley retweeted this week, because the next one is considerably less safe for work. The first piece of modded footage, from Palworld creator Reldrik, features a heavily tweaked Sekhmet pal dancing seductively behind, uh, Master Chief from Halo and one of the machines from Ultrakill, which Palworld collaborated with last year. I have no idea what to make of any of it, and apparently neither does Buckley. But who cares? Games are about having fun, and you don't need to know what's going on to have fun.

Now, again, this next image, shared by tuna_fan68, is much weirder. The Palworld screenshot shows an even more gratuitously modded version of Lovander than the well-endowed Sekhmet just above, and with even more revealing attire. This version of Lovander is one you'd usually view behind the curtain of an incognito browser tab, but here it's been shown to the masses thanks in large part to Buckley himself, which is just a wild fact to have to type out. As for the nearly naked avatar sitting in a questionable position and staring at Lovander from an uncomfortably close distance, well, I did tell you this was NSFW.

"I could be wrong…but I don’t think this is official…" Buckley says in response to this... this thing.

As fun as all of this is, let this also be a cautionary tale of the potential virality of your stupidest shitposts. As a respectable public figure myself, I know I have a cache of banger tweets that will remain permanently saved as drafts for that very reason, even if none of them would get you in trouble at work.

The Japanese Patent Office has officially had enough of Nintendo, rejecting a patent attached to the Palworld lawsuit with "rarely seen" sass