I loved my dozens of hours hands-on with World of Warcraft Forever so much that I'm itching to dive into the full game. As a long term World of Warcraft veteran (a polite way of calling myself old), I've seen the game go through a lot of changes and iterations, and I'm confident WoW: Forever is shaping up to be the best new version yet. It feels good to return to something so familiar yet somehow so fresh.

Right now, World of Warcraft's community is split between the 'main' experience (also known as Retail by its players) and World of Warcraft Classic – the version for those who preferred the less cluttered earlier days of the game, and my personal favorite option. WoW: Forever is taking the nostalgia of WoW Classic with many of the quality of life additions that Retail brings, and it looks to be an incredibly compelling combination. There's a lot to love here, but I've picked out the eight things that are the true highlights of WoW: Forever and exactly why the legendary MMO is going nowhere any time soon. If you haven't played for a while and you're on the fence ahead of the game's launch on November 4, these eight factors could be exactly what swing you back in favor.

8. Crafters feel like they're playing a new game

Love to make your own equipment and items? WoW: Forever has made that so much more fun. There are a huge number of new crafted items, but they're also far more relevant again. One standout feature is being able to place campfires down and share buffs with anyone who joins you. It creates a sense of community which is something Forever is really pushing. It's actually worth taking a moment to sit down with others, shoot the breeze, and just take a moment to relax in-game. Those buffs can boost your stats making leveling afterwards simpler so it's a win-win situation.

7. It's combining nostalgia with a hefty dash of innovation

You know what the first thing I did in WoW: Forever beta was? I rolled a Night Elf Hunter and checked out Teldrassil, the opening zone for Night Elves. Something I've done over dozens of times since the original's beta in 2004. That's the beauty of Forever. You can just enjoy the nostalgia of the original while also taking in the quality of life improvements that have been much needed in recent years. Or you can roll a Skyborne character and feel like you're playing a whole new game. Variety is the spice of life, but so is comfort and feeling like you're in your happy place. Forever merges those two feelings well so you won't want to leave.

6. There are over 1,000 new quests to explore

World of Warcraft has always needed more quests. Right from the start, this was quickly realized by the development team. Fortunately, we have another 1,000 or more to try out. Some are small, some are big, all are an utter delight to see. During my time with the beta, I found a lot of the new quests bridge knowledge gaps. Some encourage you to learn trade skills or entice you into moving onto a new zone, others might kit you out with new gear which make a significant difference to your progress and leveling experience. You can feel the dots being connected properly with certain areas feeling more well rounded than before.

5. WoW: Forever servers are incredibly simple to understand

MMO veterans of all kinds know the frustration of discovering their friends are all on different servers and they have to commit to one, potentially missing out on some extra social time and definitely requiring them to pick which friends to play with. Servers have been significantly simplified with WoW: Forever. There are no more realms to pick from. Instead, you pick a rule set. Want the standard experience? Pick Normal. If you want PvP, there's a PvP server, while roleplayers can stick to the RP server. Hardcore with its permadeath mode will be added later in the game's lifespan. It's a small sounding step, but one that's just made everyone's life easier. Make sure to choose Alliance or Horde, though. That isn't changing.

4. There are new race/class combos to entice you

WoW: Forever adds a new race with the Skyborne elves packing in a huge new starting zone, but I think the more interesting addition is the new race/class combos. You can now play as an Undead Paladin or an Orc Mage. You can also roll a Human Hunter, Gnome Priest, or Dwarf Shaman. These are all much-requested combinations which expand the variety for both Horde and Alliance, and prove to be a lot of fun too. Undead Paladin is my personal highlight because it's such a quirky mix. It's another example of something about Forever which is going to mean you stick around it for a long time to come.

3. The game looks beautiful all over again

Bounced off World of Warcraft because it never looked pretty enough? That changes with WoW: Forever. It isn't the perfect visual upgrade, but there are some great improvements here. Notably, lighting, fog, and water are all far better looking than ever before. I remember when the game looked beautiful, but it's been a while. It's lovely to see Forever bring back those visual delights. Seeing shadows reflect the day and night cycle, and the water glistening is yet to get old. Zephras Isle, the Skyborne starting zone, looks particularly luscious.

2. There's a huge amount of variety for WoW fans now

There's a WoW for everyone at this point. At heart, these may all have overlapping qualities but it's fantastic value for money given one subscription pays for all modes. There's Retail, and Forever, but also Classic with its wide number of types. You can play pure Classic with its level cap of 60 (something I suspect will be now in direct competition with Forever), Classic Anniversary which unlocks expansion packs sequentially, and then there's Classic Hardcore for those who want to suffer permadeath. (I'm that person, it's me.) With Forever, there's now something for every mood which conveys the sense that WoW will never truly die.

1. It'll make you talk to people

Remember when MMOs required you to talk with strangers? And actually team up with them to achieve things? Over the years, World of Warcraft has become more antisocial. In Retail, it's very easy to hit the level cap without ever speaking to someone if you don't want to. That has benefits, but isn't really in-keeping with the MMO spirit. WoW: Forever gives you a reason to talk. It can still be soloed, so you're not dependent on others, but there's a noticeable shift towards encouraging you to converse with others, team up for more than just dungeons or raids, and actually get to know people. It's a delight to see, and something I hope will last.

Check out our best open world games, best RPGs rankings, and our games like World of Warcraft recommendations for more to play now, and keep an eye on our upcoming RPGs calendar for what's on the horizon!

The latest brace of VisionQuest episodes have dropped on Disney Plus, and they take us back to a controversial MCU location. Episodes 5 and 6 also see the return of the very first MCU villain, as the danger escalates for Vision's makeshift family.

If you've been following along, you'll know that VisionQuest is a show packed with fun MCU references and callbacks. If you think about it, Vision is like a living hard drive, so it makes sense that his mind space would be loaded with nods to the MCU's past. Below, you'll find all the Easter eggs we spotted in episodes 5 and 6 – let us know in the comments if you find any others!

Be warned: there are spoilers for VisionQuest episodes 5 and 6 from here on out, so make sure you've seen the latest episodes before reading on, or risk having some delightful surprises ruined. Once you're done, head over to our VisionQuest release schedule so you know when to tune in next week, and give our spoiler-free, full-season VisionQuest review a read for our verdict on the Disney Plus show.

VisionQuest episode 5 Easter eggs

Technical difficulties – With Ultron in control of Vision's body, error messages on the screens around Vision's mind space read "Sorry, we are experiencing technical difficulties." This echoes the "Please stand by" message that ushered in the WandaVision credits each week.

Ultron's biography – Ultron is reading his own biography at one stage, simply titled 'I, Ultron'. The cover notes it's a 'Sokovia Times bestseller' – not surprising given Sokovia must feature heavily…

Robotic beer – In the pub where Ultron secretly meets Jocasta, there are some fun nods to the nature of their quantum date, including a beer mat that reads "Robotic beer".

VisionQuest episode 6 Easter eggs

Madripoor – Vision and co. head to Madripoor in episode 6, lured there by Paladin. The fictional island nation in Southeast Asia is a hive of scum and villainy, and a haven for organized crime. Sam and Bucky last went there in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, where – notoriously – Sharon Carter is revealed to be the underworld ruler, Power Broker.

E.D.I.T.H.'s high schooler – E.D.I.T.H. mentions she once had a boss who was in high school. This, of course, is Peter Parker, who came into possession of the E.D.I.T.H. glasses in Spider-Man: Far From Home – a posthumous gift from Tony Stark.

Weapons manufacturer – Jocasta refers to Tony Stark – the man who bought up her employer, Markridge Biotech, and put her out of the job – as a 'goddamn weapons manufacturer'. It's a timely callback to Tony's former life, as a ghost of Stark's past also pops up this week…

Raza Hamidmi al-Wazar: 18 years after his appearance in Iron Man, Ten Rings terrorist Raza Al-Wazar returns to the MCU in VisionQuest episode 6. In Iron Man, al-Wazar captures Tony Stark after being tipped off by Obadiah Stane. Almost two decades later, al-Wazar is now picking up the Client's bounty and attempting to bring in Vision.

VisionQuest is airing now on Disney Plus. For more on the MCU, here are all the upcoming Marvel movies and shows on the way.

The PlayStation 2 has just turned 26, and it has me feeling sentimental. As the custodian of my older brother's console since 2018, it's been sitting on my TV stand for years now. But I rarely actually play it, despite having an AVI to HDMI adapter – one of the cheapest and best ways to play PS2 games in 2026. Sure, I'll fire it up a few times a year to relive a childhood favorite, but the retro console still requires a lot of effort to set it up on modern hardware. Even then, the results are varied at best, but there are some stand-outs that I don't see talked about as often as others.

While our list of the best PS2 games ranks the most legendary titles of the console's generation, I want to dig into why some feel better to play than others. A lot of this is down to the DualShock controller's obvious lack of dexterity – especially where ports to modern tech are available. I wish I could still play through Quantic Dream's incredible thriller Fahrenheit on PS2, for example, but its clunky handling makes the PC port much easier to recommend today. But there are other options that I absolutely would not play elsewhere – trust me, I've tested out a lifetime's worth of PS2 games to find out. Having gone through all my CD-ROM albums on a mission of will, patience, and rediscovery, these are 10 PS2 games that still live in my head rent free . Happy birthday, PlayStation 2!

10. Silent Hill 2

Best For: Old-school horror hounds
Release date: September 25, 2001

Few games feel as emblematic of the PS2 as Silent Hill 2. The second installation of the survival horror franchise was when Konami really sold us on its brand of tense, layered, creeping psychological terror. It's at the bottom of my list because fixed camera angles are really, really finicky to recommend in 2026 – they're not everyone's cup of tea, mine included. But even with the excellent Silent Hill 2 Remake having launched in 2024, there's something special about playing it on the original hardware.

The scuzzy early '00s tone of both the graphics and the incredible soundtrack make for an even grittier, darker experience, and with the game being not quite as punishing as others in terms of enemy density, avoiding unnecessary combat is very much doable. It might not be one I played in its entirety, but Silent Hill 2 is still a fantastic game to play on PS2 even 25 years later. In fact, the PS2 version even managed to top our list of the best Silent Hill games of all time…it's just that good.

9. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

Best for: Open world action
Release date: October 29, 2002

San Andreas might be newer and less clunky, but I was surprised by how deceptively smooth my journey back to GTA Vice City was in 2026. If any game was a reminder of how good a PS2 game could look, even in its relative infancy, this one is it. Not to mention the radio stations are still some of the best ones in any video game out there.

I'm especially impressed by the shooting mechanics. Even without the fluidity of modern console controllers, the DualShock makes driving and heisting far more effortless here than it felt testing out 50 Cent Bulletproof (please don't put yourself through that mess), and shooting feels far smoother than memory serves. My main sticking point with Vice City is that you really do need a decent adapter to amp up the visuals; I needed to tinker with my TV settings a lot to get the contrast and white balance just right, but once that was sorted, I barely noticed the PS2's odd quirks while replaying Tommy Vercetti's 2001 adventure.

8. Resident Evil: Dead Aim

Best for: Fans of unserious deep cuts
Release date: February 13, 2003

When it comes to the best Resident Evil games to play on the PS2 in 2026, I choose violence over conformity. By that, I mean you should play kitschy spin-off Resident Evil: Dead Aim over the iconic Resident Evil 4 any day. The latter is in much better condition elsewhere, with both the 2005 original and Resident Evil 4 Remake available on Steam, while Dead Aim is a PS2 exclusive that series die-hards simply have to hunt down.

Look, I'll be honest: it's short. It's messy. It's got a budget Leon and Ada (sorry, I mean Bruce and Fong Ling) on a zombie-infested cruise ship, pursued all the while by a stiletto-clad lady Tyrant who once was a beauty-obsessed Umbrella executive named Morpheus. But it's also got fun, snappy gameplay for an easy to pick-up-and-play survival horror snack you can polish off in a weekend afternoon. It's by far my favorite among the Resident Evil spin-offs for sheer fact that it's so bizarre, you really have to play it to believe it. And since you can only play it on PS2…. Well, I've proven my point.

7. Persona 4

Best for: Longer JRPG sessions
Release date: July 10, 2008

It's finally getting a remake, but Persona 4 still feels good to play on PS2. The JRPG series is beloved for its inventive merging of social sim-meets-turn-based combat, with a flashy anime art style that holds up to this day even on older hardware. The catch is that, of course, it's not quite as sharp and clean as its newer-gen brethren – which is a bit of a downer, if you're all about modern flourish.

Don't get me wrong: I am too, but there's a time and a place for it. I was torn between suggesting Persona 3 or 4, and ultimately, my decision came down to how much I adored Persona 3 Reloaded. Given how brilliant it was, I'm fully prepared to eat my words come Persona 4 Revival's launch next year. But until that fateful day, I stand by the fact that if you're going to play the original game at all in 2026, I'd skip Persona 4 Golden and go right back to the trippy game's roots on PS2.

6. Spider-Man 2

Best for: Classic superhero antics
Release date: June 28, 2004

Don't shoot the messenger – I know Spider-Man 2 is one of the most beloved PS2 games of the early '00s, but I don't rate it quite as highly as some others might. True, its acrobatic web traversal laid the groundwork for all the Marvel's Spider-Man games from Insomniac that would come decades later – but being good for its time doesn't mean it feels objectively good right now.

Maybe I am just uncoordinated. Maybe I am simply impatient. But I'd much rather pay Marvel's Spider-Man than set up my PS2 for the pleasure of landing splat on my spidey face in lower resolution. That said, legacy does count for something, and I simply could not bring myself to place this still extremely playable game any lower on this list for the sheer fact that no collection of iconic PS2 games could ever be complete without it.

5. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds

Best for: TV show superfans
Release date: August 26, 2003

It is heartbreaking that I only got my hands on a copy of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds for PS2 a couple of years ago, because it's one hell(mouth) of a good time. I love the TV show more than I love most other things in this world, so even if it was awful, I'd probably still be a fan of Chaos Bleeds for the sheer fact that so much of the original cast reprise their roles in it. But I am relieved to announce that it's also a brilliant PS2 game to collect and play right now in 2026 for other, less subjective reasons.

Playing through the revolving cast of characters means varied combat throughout, ranging from melee to magic and vampiric (when controlling Spike) as you tackle a range of dynamic levels. There's a little bit of something for everyone, from beat-'em-up action to platforming and beyond, and I only want to throw my controller at the TV once or twice because of dodgy enemy hitboxes. My own skill issues aside, Chaos Bleeds has so many playful quirks and such a genuinely engaging structure that I'd challenge anyone, Buffy fan or not, to have an objectively bad time playing it on PS2 today.

4. Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

Best for: Play with friends
Release date: November 9, 2004

Can I be honest with you? Movie co-release game adaptation Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events might be my favorite PS2 game of all time. Maybe it's because I grew up playing it with my siblings, each of us taking turns to control one of the three Baudelaire orphans. Maybe it's because I miss the days of movie-PS2 tie-ins and long for their return. Or maybe it's a bit of both on top of the fact that this is a genuinely excellent video game that still runs beautifully on its original hardware.

Replaying Unfortunate Events only last year, I was struck by how accurate my memories of the gameplay itself had been. Each orphan has a special ability – either a utility tool, a weapon-adjacent tool, or something to aid traversal – as you solve puzzles in three distinct locations across the first three books, as seen in the 2004 film. It's not kid's stuff, either; from a timed platforming challenge in a library to fighting off hordes of bitey rats, the game is as dark as the source material and much more mature than you might think. I had to pull up guides for this one, that's how much of a head scratcher A Series of Unfortunate Events can be, so consider this a plea for any other '90s kid to seek out a copy and see if you can do much better.

3. Hitman: Blood Money

Best for: Inventive action sandbox
Release date: May 26, 2006

As the definitive installment of the stealth-action franchise on PS2, Hitman: Blood Money is (in my opinion) one of the slickest games you can play on the retro console to this day. I remember watching my brother play it when I was a kid – both of us far younger than the PEGI 18 guideline – and how it looked like a movie to me back then. Blood Money is no longer the peak of visual fidelity in 2026, but it's still incredibly impressive.

Tightening up all aspects of past series iterations, Blood Money takes the inventive sandbox-style assassination gameplay of Hitman: Contracts and refines it. Pushing people off ledges, masking environmental traps and kills as accidents, and a new notoriety system all came into play for the first time in Blood Money. It's still one of the defining moments in the Hitman canon, a formative point in time that paved the way for all to come later down the line, and I don't think any PS2 game collection is complete without it.

2. The Simpsons Hit & Run

Best for: Quick-play chaos
Release date: September 16, 2003

The Simpsons Hit & Run is more than just reskinned GTA – it was many people's first taste of racing action games. Everyone who still owns a PS2 refuses to part with their copy of it for very good reason; Even if Hit & Run is ripe for a remake, it's unlikely to capture the heart and soul of what makes it sing on PS2.

The cartoon IP is a huge boon, having launched during The Simpsons' hey-day, but it's also straight-up fun. Simple controls and customization tools mean that Hit & Run sits comfortably between a pared-back racing game and the carjacking mayhem of Rockstar's finest. I was never the biggest Simpsons fan, but it's bright and silly enough to make even the most stoic gamers out there crack a smile and relax a bit. There's nothing quite like this gem, even with the likes of Star Wars Galactic Racer out there today, and I'm sure every other PS2 owner can testify to its enduring nostalgic brilliance.

1. James Bond 007: Nightfire

Best for: Competitive FPS coach co-op
Release date: November 18, 2002

There was only ever going to be one front-runner for my favorite PS2 game that still runs like a dream in 2026, and that crown goes to 007 Nightfire. Specifically, the co-op mode – though anyone else who adores the Pierce Brosnan era of the films will find loads to love in the main campaign, too.

Nightfire is an FPS with a very simple mission: shoot all your enemies. Loading into quick-play local multiplayer matches is as simple as it is surprisingly dense in terms of customizability; Your player two can either be on your team or your enemy's, with a long list of characters to choose from. The maps are distinct and each have their own unique quirks – I will always favor the cable car antics of Skyrail over the dark recesses of Fort Knox any day – and while you can choose which guns might spawn on the map, you'll have to restart if you realize that everyone, including the bot enemies, is respawning with the one-hit-kill Golden Gun each time they get ganked. As a 24-year old game, Nightfire definitely shows its age though slightly stickier tank controls. But when you're rocking the heat-seeking missile launcher, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Vorp! With a simple sci-fi sound effect, BioWare tore apart the gleaming hull of the Normandy SR-1, scattered a great deal of what came before to the void, and split its burgeoning action-RPG series clean in two. Save files from 2007's Mass Effect might have brought with them an XP bonus or credit dump as well as the player's established continuity, but rarely before or since has the reset button been pressed so swiftly, or so heart-wrenchingly.

It was exactly what the series needed. One-time Xbox 360 exclusive Mass Effect had been a bright spot of promise for the console, buffed to a lens-flare-spilling sheen by being billed as a franchise that would move beyond binary morality and deliver a meaningful, ongoing space opera – one that wasn't Star Wars for a change. (Many studios now promise episodic gaming, but BioWare was crafting series-spanning narrative arcs long before that buzz-phrase was coined.) The opening part of the trilogy was certainly grandiose and epic in scope, yet somehow austere, a feeling compounded by a glut of anodyne shootouts and awkward driving filling the time away from its much-admired conversation wheel. It wasn't Star Wars, but nor had it found an identity among all its copious lore. As a concept piece, a pilot, it was tantalising enough, but more of the same would not do, especially when the world was then drowning in third-person cover shooters thanks to 2006's punchy, hyperviolent Gears of War.

Oh the horrors

And so millions watched the SR-1's malady in horror, took brief control of malleable returning protagonist Commander Shepard for a spot of eye-searingly beautiful Dead Space homage heroism, and then shaped a 4-billion-credit rebirth. This wasn't just a sequel, it was a reinvention, and BioWare made sure everyone knew it.

Even if the point hadn't been hammered home, returning players would have noticed from Shepard's first woozy steps across a Cerberus lab. The Commander, once stately and tank-like under the sticks, now moved with a fluidity uncommon in the recently deceased, sliding into cover across Teflon floors on Vaseline-smothered boots. Even your starting pistol could dominate early combat spaces with a snap, crackle, and mechhead pop that flash-vaporised expectations of another 20-plus hours of drab, feedbacklight gunplay.

But the real revelation would come when you fired up the power wheel for the first time and unleashed one of the new biotic or tech abilities. Mass Effect's array of buffs, debuffs, and crowd-control powers had hewed close to BioWare's RPG roots, though yoinking enemies out of cover and into the path of a sniper rifle was quite the trick in 2007. The sight of Shepard dashing across no man's land in a haze of roiling blue fire to explode into the enemy and shove a shotgun up their nostrils, however, promised a very different kind of combat interstitial between conversations. If Mass Effect games were Luc Besson movies, the original had been Lucy, all big ideas but little convincing peril, and 2 was The Fifth Element: an intergalactic excuse for daft, glorious carnage.

Daft, not stupid. Players didn't even have to wait for the introduction of creepy new Reaper lackeys, the Collectors, before they started having to manage enemy damage, with a separate bar each for tracking shields, barriers, armour and health. Of all the combat system's renovations, this was perhaps the most crucial, a gentle subversion of the RPG's long-in-the-tooth type-based attacks that meant the series could jettison the notion of a tough fight as one where health bars are hidden behind multiple blocks of blue shield and bullet-sponge powers. Mass Effect 2 wouldn't ask you to face ice monsters that were weak to fire, but shields did melt away under the sustained pressure of an SMG, while biotic power Reave stopped health regenerating so you could put down tough organics such as the Krogan or nightmare-imp newcomers, the Vorcha. And you'd have to control space as well as damage output, since enemies were as aggressive as you, flanking, setting up kill boxes, invading your personal space or flushing you out with flamethrowers.

BioWare could afford to bury the needle north of hectic, because any Shepard, regardless of gender or class, had a secret superpower: the ability to freeze time. While others have made entire games out of frozen moments, here they elegantly and invisibly support tactical play, as you let the stale air in your lungs seep from your lips, read the situation, and adapt. Yes, Shepard may have been able to make enemies hilariously pinwheel in slow motion through the air, then biotically dash them to oblivion – kudos to whoever worked out how to really get some use out of Unreal Engine 3's physics simulations – but on the higher difficulties, Mass Effect 2 became as much the thinking man's cover shooter as a heady power fantasy.

Whizz bang pop

The shooting brought the game in line with the best of its peers, but the series' newfound sense of personal drama is what makes it unforgettable today. BioWare's genius was to add a generous extra glug of soap opera to its po-faced space opera mix, producing something all its own as a result. Where else in games can you assemble a team that consists of a dying part-monk, part-hitman seeking absolution in your noble suicide mission, a none-too-stable tatted-up psychopath who looks like Natalie Portman circa V for Vendetta, and an unflappable sentient machine construct housing 1,183 digital minds, much less bicker with or seduce half that crew? You may have to put the old band back together, but damn if you haven't pulled in an orchestra's worth of exotic new instruments along the way.

Indeed, the reason Mass Effect 2 still stands as the high point of the series is that it is fundamentally a game about people, not concepts. Every Shepard is different, and so will their interactions be, but those are simply the filling between layers of rich character drama. Every principal cast member has something to say. Miranda has to deal with the pressures of being engineered for perfection, putting up an all-too-human wall of ice after years of dealing with a pushy father. Garrus and damp squib Jacob are takes on feeling ineffective in their work, though the former gets a chewy revenge subplot, too. The list is too long to recount here, and loyalty missions double down on the character development – success in the final act, where the entire galaxy is threatened, is dependent on solving personal crises, changing inner universes.

Forget fetch quests, strip mining and moon caches – helping Jack get some closure after her time as Subject Zero at the hands of Cerberus felt like it mattered. It is these stories, these little moments of pathos and reconciliation, where BioWare finally grounds its big questions about life. Gradually, you begin to feel as if it might be a tragedy to lose this universe, this diversity of damaged characters trying to find their way in the uncaring vacuum, to the Reapers. In providing robust inner lives for its alien-packed cast, BioWare finally found the window on humanity it had been seeking.

Shepard's uneasy alliance with Cerberus is the smouldering fuse that regularly threatens to detonate all of these volatile personalities, but it is also an excuse to let the player deviate from the virtuous Paragon path if they so wish. Anecdotal evidence suggests that when given the choice, many will opt for video game good over video game evil. But so often in games, the evil path is simply the stupid one where you act like a dick to others for no good reason. Human civilisation is founded on social imperatives, so it's little surprise many struggle to shrug off their conditioning without incentive. By casting Shepard not as the white knight of humanity trying to earn our place in the stars but as an agent of a pro-human terrorist group that cares more about results than ramifications, the Renegade options finally made a little more narrative sense.

Which isn't to say Mass Effect 2 delivered nuanced morality – that takes more tallying up good and bad actions on separate scales – but it did at least make roleplaying meatier. Would you taser an engineer to sabotage the gunship of a telegraphed later boss to make the fight easier? Or are you the sort of person who leaps in to defend a Quarian from racial harassment at the hands of a pompous Volus and a bent cop? You might feasibly be both, assuming you're not gaming the system to max out one type of conversation-wheel option. Getting the player involved in everyday strife as well as world-ending crises lent the series an intimacy it had lacked. Anyone can be a hero when the only criterion is that all the bad men are dead at the end, but how you played Mass Effect 2 had the power to say something about you as a person.

It's easy to forget, in the wake of Mass Effect 3's reductionistic endings, how much Mass Effect 2 felt like a realisation of the series' promise to respect your choices. Entire missions winked into existence or out of it based on your Mass Effect playthrough, old faces appeared in unexpected places, and you could alter the texture of the galaxy, even if the artifice involved meant the core structure had to be much the same. To replay Mass Effect 2 now is not just a chance to pursue new combat options and morality; it is a reminder of what the most ambitious ongoing saga in video games set out to achieve, and how choice-centred the universe it provided was, even when it fell short.

Perhaps most importantly, it is proof that just because something's a sequel, that doesn't mean it can't be a total reinvention, at least given a studio at the height of its powers and a silly sound effect.

This Mass Effect 2 article was first published in issue 273 of Edge Magazine. To get more like this delivered straight to your doorstep (or digital device) consider subscribing to Edge.

My fiancee is in mourning for the canceled Mass Effect 5. She's been besotted with BioWare's sci-fi darling for only 6 years, but during that time, it's become a part of her. I even agreed to play the trilogy for the first time in 2022 so that she could live vicariously through me, experiencing the RPG with fresh eyes, intervening only to ensure I didn't kill Wrex at the end of the first game ("I will literally never forgive you for it!").

But as much as I loved every moment of my time as Commander Shepard, there's naturally a little more emotional distance between myself and Mass Effect. Professional curiosity also meant that my genuine sadness at the follow-up's cancelation – and the disbanding of one of the most prolific, talented developer teams in the history of video games – was chased by a desire to theorize. What would Mass Effect 5 have looked like, and how would it have gotten around the player's choice element that cemented Mass Effect 3 as one of the most satisfying conclusions to an RPG series I've ever seen?

A prequel seemed logical to me. Mass Effect: D-Day, perhaps, going right back to the First Contact War or the discovery of the Charon Relay. We could witness the moment humanity decided to leave Earth and colonize the planet, introducing alien races to the global population for the very first time and seeing the running theme of interspecies politics take root. But the leaked Mass Effect Universe trailer suggests BioWare was heading in the exact opposite direction on the spacetime continuum, and I find the prospect equally as tantalizing.

Name's Bond: Space Bond

Mass Effect Universe would have been one hell of a sexy space RPG. Gone are the militaristic uniforms of the Normandy's crew, the clunky cover shooter dynamics so emblematic of the original Mass Effect's contemporary. One look at the flashy action hero melee breaking out in the sleek alien night club, and Universe makes it clear: we're not in 2007 any more, Toto.

The trailer is only two minutes long, comprising pre-production assets as per a notice at the very start, but it's enough to have my full attention. In it, we get a brief rundown of who would have been our player character: an ex-soldier mercenary who turned his back on the spoils of war to do things on his own terms.

There's a James Bond quality about him as he flirts with an asari in the dimly-lit bar; he talks himself up, but just enough to titillate, stopping short of arrogance or braggery. Everything is looking rather steamy until the asari in question pulls an Uno reverse. His job is to put out fires, he says, but hers is to start them. A turian squares up behind the hero, indicating the brawl about to break out, when a familiar voice comes from behind the asari. It's Liara – Commander Shepard's asari companion-turned-criminal mastermind, who becomes the Shadow Broker in the Mass Effect trilogy – and she's on our side.

This, to me, is the biggest wow moment of the whole trailer. Not just because it's good to see Liara return after a brief cameo in Mass Effect Andromeda, but because of how much information her presence gives us about the game that never was.

Welcome back, Broker

As an asari, Liara's typical life span would be about 1,000 years. She's just over a hundred years old when Shepherd meets her in Mass Effect, incredibly young in the grand scheme of things.

But the leaked Mass Effect Universe trailer depicts her with visible signs of aging. She has actual wrinkles, for a start, and her voice is a touch deeper. Asari don't show their age physically until they reach 700 years old or so, indicating that Universe would have taken place many hundreds of years after Mass Effect 3 – closer to Andromeda on the timeline, itself set over 600 years later, though potentially sometime before, after, or even during.

By pitching us even further into the future with an ageing, 800 year-old-plus asari Shadow Broker as our companion (or at the very least, as an ally) BioWare seemed to have solved two problems at once. If it was intended to be set between Mass Effect 3 and Andromeda, Universe could have given us more exposition as to the immediate aftermath of the trilogy while making a stronger connection between it and the standalone title (especially since Liara is given that cursory nod in the latter). Set it one to two hundreds years after the fact, it could have brought up the question of Liara's successor; as the Matriarch draws closer to the end of her life, who will become the next Shadow Broker?

My guess is that Mass Effect Universe would have seen us, the player, as part of Liara's crew, possibly being groomed to take over her role as information warlord of the galaxy. An existing professional relationship is clearly established at the bar – "We know. That's why we're here," she says when the other asari's minions surround the protagonist – before the fight breaks out. And what better way to bring players back into the world of Mass Effect than seeing one of Shepard's beloved friends being a badass in her honor?

I would have loved to see Universe take us full circle, the companion becoming the big boss as we take on merc contracts across the galaxy in the name of the Shadow Broker. But with the game canceled, all of this is pure speculation. Unless the stars align, pigs fly up to dance among them, and EA sees fit to sell the IP on to a studio who actually wants to give it a shot, it's potentially useless speculation at that. Mass Effect Universe is no longer in development at the time of writing, but I am still thankful for this intriguing glimpse of what could have been.

As a more mature, high-octane, modern vision of the best sci-fi RPG of all time, Mass Effect Universe had the power to make the series make sense again in the 2020s. The fact that this trailer exists at all is a testament to the fact that BioWare did have a clear vision. It did have something to show for all these years of hard work. And I'm glad, at the very least, we had an opportunity to witness it for ourselves.

Mass Effect Legendary Edition is just one of the best RPGs of all time, and there's plenty more to choose from.

• With a reworked skill tree and stunning new visuals, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered is the definitive way to play the RPG in 2026.

To answer the question I've seen all over the Internet: yes, The Witcher 3 Remastered really is that good. When I first learned of the remaster's existence at Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026, I admit I was a little dubious. We'd gotten a snazzy update back in 2022 when the complete edition launched on current gen hardware, and after more My Chemical Romance album re-releases than I can count, I had to ask myself if The Witcher 3 really needed another facelift.

Well, here's your confirmation that the remaster is absolutely worth it. Not only is it absolutely free for all owners of the base game, this gorgeous update improves visual fidelity (lighting, colors, the works) as well as combat, Signs, and the notoriously complicated skill tree that has confounded many of us for years. There's a reason the GamesRadar+ RPG Club chose it for this month's topic; The Witcher 3 is still the best RPG of all time, and a total must-play in 2026.

Why play it today?

• The Witcher 3 Remastered's combat reworks make Sign and bomb-based builds noticeably more powerful and dynamic.

The combat enhancements are what I'm loving most about the new Witcher 3 remaster. I've always been an Igni diehard, but this is the first time I have built my entire character around both it and Yrden.

The remaster doesn't add all-new skills or alternate Sign forms, necessarily, but has reworked how strong each Sign is in tandem with both your current level and any other active abilities. The Firestream form of Igni, which releases a torrent of fire instead of a single short blast, feels even stronger now with the Melt Armor ability activated alongside it, while it has never been more satisfying to watch Supercharged Glyphs whittle enemy health down when they stand on a Yrden Sign.

The reworked skill tree makes it easier to understand how damage scaling works by removing the tedium and guesswork of the original version's "spend X to get Y" machinations. I never used to pay attention to how the different armor sets adapted to my playstyle, but I can feel the difference now depending on my gear; Sign damage output is noticeably bolstered when wearing the School of the Griffin armor, while activating some of the Manticore School genes alongside it means each of my bombs packs a devastating wallop. I love pairing Igni and Yrden with my beloved Grapeshot, a bomb that literally explodes some enemies in a single hit!

The combined effect makes for a meatier, more thoughtful combat system that has me being more inventive with my Signs and bombs rather than desperately hunting down swords all the time... Though I'm still partial to a pretty blade, especially now that we can transmog weapons in The Witcher 3.

Time commitment:

As is custom for the best open world RPGs, a typical playthrough of The Witcher 3 Remastered will take anywhere from 80 to 140+ hours to complete depending upon your playstyle and whether you have both DLCs. My first playthrough took around 135 hours, encompassing the base game, Hearts of Stone, and Blood and Wine, and I definitely left some stones unturned.

A true completionist run might take you a good 10-20 hours or more on top of that, especially if you love a bit of Gwent and the racing challenges. But since I am all about the missions, monster contracts, and treasure hunts, I don't tend to bother with the competing elements too much.

Play The Witcher 3 Remastered if you love...

Skip The Witcher 3 Remastered if you want:

One thing to know:

The Witcher 3 Remastered is a little bit buggy for some, with performance issues on PC causing some bizarre asset dropout (check out them bug eyes). Developer CDPR is on the case, however, with one hotfix already rolled out and another exclusively patching settings toggles for Series S players. I've not experienced anything game-breaking myself in over 50 hours of play so far (aside from the decade-old one where Geralt stubbornly refuses to dive underwater sometimes and I need to save and reload) so it's still worth checking the update out for yourself if you already have it on a current get console.

A moment you'll remember:

Finding Henry Cavill's Geralt armor set from The Witcher Netflix TV show in a Level 15 mission called In The Eternal Fire's Shadow. Added to the game in 2022, the (relatively) new secondary quest sees Geralt exploring an abandoned mine where plague victims were locked up and left to die some three hundred years prior. It's now haunted by the miserable spirits of those left to rot, making for some truly spine-chilling moments that feel even more frightening in the remaster edition's reworked fidelity, and features one of the toughest bosses in the whole game: The ghost of a fellow School of the Wolf witcher.

The final verdict:

11 years since The Witcher 3 took the world by storm, the Remastered Edition makes it feel brand new. In our The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered review, we even call it "an exceptional update that refines the rough edges to make a great RPG even better." It's easy to see why so many of us are still enamored with it to its day, with a heady blend of weighty narrative choices and malleable, exciting combat dynamics that make each player's Geralt feel entirely their own. I don't think I'll be able to pull myself away from The Path anytime soon, and at this rate, I'd be happy to call The Witcher 3 my game of the year all over again in 2026.

So, where can you play it?

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered is out now on Switch 2, PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X. You can buy it new here, though current owners of the Complete Edition can simply download the update for free on current gen consoles.

Check out how I ranked the 7 best Witcher games, and yes, I included Gwent in there.

If there's one thing the GamesRadar+ RPG Club has taught me, it's that you've never seen it all. Just when you think you know an RPG inside out, it goes ahead and surprises you 10 years later. See, I thought I'd experienced every original side quest and monster contract in The Witcher 3 – given my many, many playthroughs – but the remastered re-release turned out to prove me wrong. On the shores of Skellige, after completing a particular contract at a particular time, a series of rather unfortunate events landed me in a pokey prison. Having no recollection of getting caught up in this mess before, I had no idea how I was going to get the White Wolf out of this one.

But the very fact that I couldn't wait to find out, and felt fresh excitement in an adventure I've spent hundreds upon hundreds of hours with, speaks to the magic of CD Projekt Red's sweeping fantasy adventure. It's not only teeming with things to see, do, and discover, but it directly reacts to the order in which you do things, and a decision to complete a contract at a certain time made me stumble my way into a missable quest that now refuses to leave my mind.

Quest Log

Wraiths and fog

It all begins with the haunting of a lighthouse out on one of the far islets of Skellige. The contract, The Phantom of Eldberg, is pretty standard for an experienced Witcher like me: investigate the area and find out why wraiths are attached to the location. It's all going well, having found the person responsible for tying the ghostly apparitions to the lighthouse. With a trophy in hand, I return back to a quaint little tavern to get my payment from a local called Jorund.

Only, the tavern is housing some hostile patrons who are none too happy at my being there, and with civil tensions at their peak with the passing of the king, things take a drastic turn. Before I know it, I'm in a bout of fistcuffs that quickly evolves into a clashing of blades. Poor Jorund pays the ultimate price, and as a stranger in a strange land, I'm quickly hoisted into a prison in the compound of Madman Lugos. What a day for poor Geralt.

I'd done this contract before, but it'd never ended like this. On previous runs, I handed in my wraith trophy and Jorund sat happily in the tavern, living to see another day. But, as I discovered, it's all about when you do this contract. Completing it before you do the King's Gambit kicks off a missable quest chain that I had apparently always managed to skip… probably due to my affinity for the Possession quest, or because I'd simply never picked up the contract early enough.

Regardless of the reason, I love the fact that The Witcher 3 constantly takes stock of what I choose you to do, and when I choose to do it. It puts real tangible weight behind my decisions in this world – something I live for in RPGs. And on this occasion, the game rewards me with a wild quest called The Cave of Dreams. If you've experienced this before, you know what I'm in for, but by all of the howling winds does it feel extra magical to witness it through the lens of the remastered edition's enhanced graphics.

Naturally there will be spoilers ahead for the Cave of Dreams.

Face your fears

Indebted to Lugos for letting me out of my pokey prison, I'm tasked with helping out his son, Blueboy Lugos, who's ventured to a cave with some companions to overcome a challenge of legend. Tales tell that anyone who enters the cave will face their fears, which are brought on by taking a mixture of hallucinogenic herbs before you delve into its depths. I'm already drawn to the concept, eager to see what the often implacable monster slayer Geralt's innermost fears will conjure.

At once, things start to get surreal. The cave comes alive with a giant, glittering razorback whale swimming through the air above the heads of the White Wolf, Blueboy, and his crew. It's a sight to behold, as are the school of fish that decorate the cave roof further in. Damn. It sure does look incredibly pretty. Pure camera mode fodder.

The events that actually unfold during the quest are what make it so memorable, though. Through every section of the cave, a character's fear comes to life. For warrior Uve Jabberjaw, it's the deceased king. Having previously insulted the monarch, Uve drastically cut out his own tongue as penance, and the past event clearly still haunts him. Then, in a more chilling turn, Blueboy faces his own father, whose anger and disappointment sets him literally aflame.

When I finally reach the scene of Geralt's fear, I stop to take it in: I'm looking at Kaer Morhen covered in a blanket of white snow. The nightmares that have plagued the witcher throughout the story make manifest here, with the imposing figure of Eredin, King of the Wild Hunt, materializing. It hits hard, not because Geralt is afraid of Eredin, but because he fears for the person the king continues to threaten: Ciri. The short confrontation gets to the heart of what makes The Witcher 3's story so memorable. It's about found family, protecting those you love, and never giving up the fight to keep them safe, and it once again reiterates how deeply Geralt cares for his ward.

If I ever needed further proof as to why The Witcher 3 continues to endure as one of the best RPGs going, well, this quest and the way I finally stumbled upon it is further proof. Now, excuse me while I go and see what else awaits me in the Remaster.

Marvel had a tough choice to make after Avengers: Endgame. It could continue playing the hits, relying on nostalgia and familiar faces to coast until the next event movie, or it could introduce a new generation of heroes to freshen up the MCU.

To its credit, Marvel Studios opted for the second option – but it didn't work out exactly as anyone hoped.

As great as it was seeing diverse faces run around the cinematic universe, Ms. Marvel, Echo, and the Eternals all failed to live up to what came before. It says a lot that Kevin Feige has course-corrected for Avengers: Doomsday, bringing back the likes of Thor, Steve Rogers, and several legacy X-Men characters to be front and center instead of placing considerable trust in the new guard.

With a few exceptions, that is. Florence Pugh's Yelena has, of course, shone since her Black Widow debut. But no one quite held their own like Simu Liu's Shang-Chi.

Released in 2021, when Tony Stark's Endgame sacrifice was still fresh in the memory, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings may have been a wordy title, but was refreshingly simple in how it cemented its hero as a major player in the MCU thanks to a potent mix of killer fight scenes and sparkling wit.

Shang-Chi doesn't waste time getting moving. In the opening minutes, the ancient Ten Rings – weapons of immense power – are established and, in the present day, the group that shares the same name attacks Shang-Chi on a bus, standing out as one of Marvel's best individual action sequences.

From there, Shang-Chi leads us on a lightning-quick journey, bouncing from kinetic set-piece to kinetic set-piece as he becomes wrapped up in a family drama that adds a more personal touch that has largely been absent in Marvel's recent films. It also adds a splash of mysticism and mystery to the MCU, something that has been sorely missing, making the universe feel a lot deeper and richer before it became distracted by the multiverse.

Yes, the final act is way too CGI-heavy, and Trevor Slattery's long-overdue return is tonally jarring, but Shang-Chi soars when it should stumble. Coming out of COVID, everyone expected this to fail. In the end, it won audiences over with charm and style to the tune of over $430 million.

A hard-hitting newcomer

Now, on to Doomsday. Shang-Chi going AWOL in the MCU in the past half-decade has undoubtedly been one of Marvel's biggest misfires, failing to capitalize on the momentum of the character while director Destin Daniel Cretton went on to break box office records helming Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

That won't be the case in Doomsday. Carrying on from Bruce Banner and Captain Marvel contacting him in the Shang-Chi post-credits, the new holder of the Ten Rings is seemingly going to be treated as a big deal.

The Doomsday trailer even teases just how much Shang-Chi will be getting involved, pitting him in a mouthwatering clash against Channing Tatum's card-dealing Gambit.

It's a great case, too, for a simple superhero maxim: who would win in a fight? Already, we can't wait to see the martial artist and the mutant butt heads as the multiverse collapses around them.

Even better, it immediately elevates Shang-Chi into an Avengers-level hero without feeling like he's been shoehorned in. He belongs alongside the X-Men, the Avengers, and anyone else who might accompany them in the fight against Robert Downey Jr.'s Doctor Doom. That's high praise indeed.

So, before you head into Doomsday this December, make sure you're familiar with Shang-Chi. If you missed it the first time round, you're in for a spectacle filled with the sort of action scenes that clearly marked Destin Daniel Cretton out as a perfect fit for Spidey, as well as platforming Shang-Chi as someone who could hang with the best of them. If you are back for more, it's time to get reacquainted with the holder of the Ten Rings. He just might be more important than you think in a few months' time.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is available to stream now on Disney Plus, ahead of the release of Avengers: Doomsday on December 18.

Look ahead with our list of upcoming Marvel movies and check out how to watch the Marvel movies in order ahead of your next rewatch. See you next week as we revisit Spider-Man: No Way Home.

The latest DCU movie, Clayface, might be very standalone – but it still features some interesting connections to the wider DC universe.

Below, we've rounded up the 17 biggest Clayface Easter eggs and DC references in the film, including some references to Batman. There's quite a lot tucked away in the background of the film, so it's well worth watching with your eyes peeled.

Of course, that means there are Clayface spoilers ahead, so turn back now if you're not up to date. If you've seen the film, then head below for everything we spotted. And, for even more, read our spoiler-free Clayface review.

Clayface Easter eggs and DC references

The Narrows

Both Matt Hagen and Dr. Caitlyn are from the Narrows, an area of Gotham City you might recognize from the comics, or Batman Begins. It's one of the most dangerous areas of Gotham.

Imperial Pictures

At the start of the film, Matt is making a movie for a studio that looks to be very much based on Warner Bros. (it even has that iconic water tower). The studio name is Imperial Pictures, which hails from 'Feat of Clay,' the two-part Batman: The Animated Series episode that introduces Matt Hagen as a struggling actor and is a huge inspiration for the movie. In the Animated Series, Imperial Pictures also shares a lot in common with Warner Bros.

Wayne Community Center

The place where Matt mentors student actors is named the Wayne Community Center. We didn't spot this one ourselves, but it's revealed in the film's production notes. This, of course, is a reference to Batman – AKA Bruce Wayne.

Tim Burton's Batman

It's (almost) impossible to spot in the film, but the production notes reveal that two props from Tim Burton's 1989 Batman are reused in Clayface. One is a coffee table used by Jack Nicholson's Joker, seen in Matt's penthouse apartment, and the other is a chair used when Matt undergoes a consultation for plastic surgery, which comes from the set where Nicholson's Joker also had surgery.

DA's office

When Matt takes Markos Szabo to court after his horrific disfigurement, we hear a reference to the DA's office. Gotham's most famous District Attorney is one Harvey Dent, AKA Two-Face.

Ace Chemicals

It's not explicitly labeled as Ace Chemicals, but a building with burning chimneys can be seen through Matt's penthouse window after his disfigurement as he watches the Oscars. This bears a strong resemblance to the chemical plant, which is where the Joker fell into a vat of acid and was permanently disfigured in The Killing Joke graphic novel (adopted as his de facto origin), in a thematic parallel to Matt's own fate.

One Bad Day

The actor who wins the Oscar Matt was nominated for triumphs for a role in a film titled One Bad Day. This is a concept the Joker refers to in The Killing Joke to explain his philosophy that a single bad day could drive anyone to madness – which is what happened to him after he was disfigured by the Ace Chemicals acid. Matt has his own bad day when he is attacked by Szabo and his friends betray him.

The GCPD

The Gotham City Police Department figures in the storyline via Caitlyn's fiancé, John Borrelli, who is an honest cop in the notoriously corrupt police force, much like Jim Gordon.

Missing posters

The GCPD and the streets of Gotham are plastered with missing posters. While none seem to feature significant names, they are a reminder that Gotham is a hotbed of criminal activity, and they could be setting up a future storyline.

Coast City

DC's answer to LA, Coast City, is where Matt Hagen works as a rising star actor. In the comics, it's home to Green Lantern Hal Jordan and is the site of the Edwards Air Force Base, where Hal was stationed.

Amusement Mile

Caitlyn walks past a large, neon sign advertising Amusement Mile, which is emblazoned with the grinning visage of a clown. Amusement Mile is a fairground strip in the comics, and, as the clown suggests, a haunt of the Joker's and Harley Quinn's.

Building names

The film's production notes identify two Easter eggs related to building names: the Moldoff Building is named after Sheldon Moldoff, a Golden Age era Batman artist, and Kane's Candy Store, named after Batman's co-creator Bob Kane.

Jitters Coffee

Jitters Coffee, a brand seen in Superman, can be seen again in Clayface. "I went to see James Gunn's Superman in the cinema. I really loved it, and I knew nothing that I was going to be involved in this movie," Max Minghella, who plays John Borrelli, told us. "And then, quite quickly after I saw that film in the cinema, I was on set holding a Jitters Coffee cup, which is featured in Superman. And I do think it was one of the most surreal moments of my life, because I was like, 'I just went to see this film, and there was this prop in the movie, and now I'm holding that prop,' but it felt like it was yesterday. And I thought, 'Wow, the magic of movies.' I never get over it. It's just a kid in a candy shop, it's so fun."

Club Vesuvius

The nightclub Matt attacks at the end of the film borrows its name from Club Vesuvius in the comics, which is owned by Johnny Sabatino.

Gotham Gazette

A Gotham Gazette newspaper can be spotted in the film. In the comics, it counts Vicki Vale – frequent love interest of Bruce Wayne's – among its employees.

Gotham Knights and Gotham Goliaths

Background actors wearing Gotham Knights and Gotham Goliaths merchandise are seen in the film. These are the names of sports teams found in the pages of DC comics.

Special thanks

Batman creators Bob Kane and Bill Finger are credited with special thanks, along with Batman: The Animated Series masterminds Bruce Timm and Paul Dini, and Marv Wolfman, who wrote part 1 of the 'Feat of Clay' episodes which introduced Matt Hagen as a disfigured actor in the show.

Clayface is in theaters now. For more, check out our guide to all the upcoming DC movies and TV shows.

Grand Theft Auto is not a roleplaying game. Even with its sprawling open world and all the painstaking technical details that have gone into protagonists Lucia and Jason's story, GTA 6 will never be among those we call the best RPGs. Some systems in the latest entry might hew close, but the way Jason and Lucia evolve are closer to being a sim than an RPG proper. More than that, there's a fundamental difference between how Rockstar and developers like CD Projekt Red view their respective games.

After adding full mod support to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered, the Polish developer surprised Cyberpunk 2077 fans by announcing a similar built-in client to the Night City adventure. Patch 2.5 comes with all the bells and whistles that speak to a truly flexible, personalized RPG experience – and it's the furthest thing away from what Rockstar has said about GTA 6 so far.

Yours, mine, ours

Patch 2.5, in its broadest strokes, is an RPG replayer's ultimate fantasy. Delivered in co-development with Virtuos Studios, the update brings new clothing items as well as long-awaited cyberware customization (courtesy of new NPC vendors called Glamdocs), and the opportunity to finally dual-wield any pistol or revolver combination.

There's also some "cozy" new missions to engage with as V learns more about the founding of Night City, and of course, plenty of connective tissue between the video game and Netflix's new season of spin-off anime Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. Top it off with full mod support, and I can fully understand why CDPR skipped straight past a patch 2.4 update; This really is a two-in-one deal.

Speaking on the latest Redstreams, associate game director Pawel Sasko sounded incredibly enthusiastic about what this patch means for replayability. The team is fully supportive of fans getting creative to make their next playthrough more unique than ever. CDPR even welcomes story mods among the plethora of ways you can reshape the experience to suit your needs, something Rockstar has reiterated its vocal opposition to in its recent fair use reminder.

It's an outlier in that regard. A healthy modding community and a robust customization system are the hallmarks of almost every successful game or franchise of the last two decades. Cyberpunk 2077 (and The Witcher 3, by extension) is following the example set out by Skyrim, Baldur's Gate 3, Mass Effect, The Sims 4 (until recently), and countless others. It's a surefire way to keep players engaged and interested in a title long past its release year, offering countless ways to experience the same story through brand new eyes. But it seems that Rockstar thinks the Grand Theft Auto name is more than enough to justify bucking this particular trend.

Forgive the ice-cold take, but fostering a strong sense of community should be paramount to every game developer. When I see RPG developers like CDPR and Larian Studios going out of their way to not only engage with their communities but deliver long-awaited quality-of-life additions, it makes me look more critically at those who refuse to. Respect should go both ways. If Rockstar wants to keep its legions of loyal followers, why not adapt to their needs instead of give them a hiding before the game is even out?

Lone wolves

Then again, Rockstar is no stranger to doing things differently. Where some devs embrace the changing tides that dictate our ever-shortening attention spans, Rockstar can just buy the ocean from under Poseidon. After all, it ended up acquiring GTA Online mod developer FiveM, a team it once threatened with legal action, in order to at least profit off of its roleplaying servers.

This is a team that plays by very different rules, so if you're hoping that Rockstar might slacken its leash on modding once GTA 6 has been out for some time, I wouldn't hold my breath.

GTA 6 isn't an RPG, as any genre purist will rush to tell you. Neither in its format nor in the attitude with which it was created. Rockstar is selling a product, not a community – and that's fine by me. But, I wonder how many will agree when it's time for the next iteration of GTA Online to get the GTA 6 treatment.

While GTA 5's mode has always been an outlier, online communities in 2026 than they were in 2013. In the meantime, I'll take hot pink mantis blades, dual-wielding Jackie's golden pistols, and having cats in all of V's Night City apartments before Rockstar's precious new baby. Call me when Jason gets a gorilla arms mod (and don't tell Mommy on me).

Check out these games like GTA if you just can't wait for GTA 6!

Dreamcast is rarely thought of as the start of anything. It was the full stop on Sega's reign as a hardware company, the console that died as PlayStation 2 thrived. But it was also, Rockstar says, the birthplace of the era's defining PlayStation game. You know, the one your mum heard was about killing prostitutes: Grand Theft Auto 3.

The story goes like this: GTA's developer, DMA Design, had just opened a new office in Edinburgh after a decade in Dundee. Change crackled in the air. The '90s were ending, and all around DMA the game industry was transitioning to three dimensions. The young team behind an early 3D game named Body Harvest believed they were ready to do the same with GTA.

Yet the studio's old guard was unconvinced. The team had already experimented with tilting the camera a little in GTA 2, but weren't sure it was possible to go further. A simulated city, navigated at breakneck speeds in whatever direction the player chose? Surely not in 3D.

"We had a bit of pushback from them," recalls Rockstar North co-studio head and art director Aaron Garbut. "So we did a tech demo of a city environment on the Dreamcast with cars driving around and characters walking the streets. We got it working over a period of weeks to the point where you could steal a car and drive it about, then we got it in front of Sam."

Sam Houser was the executive producer of Take-Two's new publishing label in New York, which had rather audaciously named itself Rockstar Games. He'd been a backer of GTA since its earliest days, egging its team on as they embraced player criminality and transgression. Now he was more than keen for the series to take its next revolutionary step.

"Sam has always been the voice of the player," Garbut says. "He has always encouraged us to go further, to take risks, to make every game our best yet and never to settle. He has also given us the support, the room, and the flexibility we've needed over the years to get things where they need to be. He's still that person for the team now."

The GTA 3 team were galvanised by the Dreamcast demo, basic though it was. It became a source of inspiration and a focal point for their ambitions. "We knew what we were doing in 3D and were young, arrogant, and naïve enough to feel like it was easy and exciting," Garbut says. "We just knew how far we could take things. We could see the impact of an urban environment in 3D and were filled with ideas first and foremost about how we could bring it alive. That was our initial focus – building the toys and playset, making a world that functioned as well as we could make it, a living, breathing city."

From the previous games came the premise: the arresting idea of being an antihero, a criminal who worked for even worse criminals. GTA had always had multiple mission-givers, albeit at the other end of a phone. And its developers had already invented Wanted levels, not to mention their antidote, the Pay And Spray shop. The formula was there.

Electric dreams

But the GTA 3 team consciously rejected the arcade-like elements that had come before – in particular, the running point total for destruction that Garbut describes as "pinball scoring". In an immersive 3D world, those abstract touches no longer seemed to fit. Conversely, DMA leaned into the natural sense of cinema and emotional connection that came with a 3D camera. "We didn't really approach it like a sequel," Garbut says. "We weren't slavishly looking at how the earlier GTAs had done things. We worked in broad strokes and without referring too much to them."

Some of GTA 3's greatest development challenges were the fundamentals we take for granted in open worlds today. As Garbut points out, DMA didn't have any contemporaries working with densely populated urban environments.

"The density was the difference," he says. "There were simpler games – driving games set in urban worlds but without too much interaction – that were designed to traverse at speed." Though Garbut doesn't name any, 1999's Driver springs to mind.

"Then there were denser games like Zelda that did amazing things but spread it out or split it across empty spaces and denser dungeons," he continues. "We didn't split things into nice manageable, loadable chunks, we didn't spread it out with empty areas, we didn't design it to only work at speed or to explore in detail on foot in small areas. We were trying to offer it all in one experience, and to make it feel as alive as possible."

Chop shop

Players of the time were gobsmacked by the way GTA 3's world was constantly streamed into being, just outside their vision. Well, except for the rare occasions when a wall only appeared in time to tear the bonnet from their Banshee. It's a system that Garbut clearly remains deeply proud of, all these years later.

"The art team broke the world apart by hand in the best way to squeeze all we could into memory while getting it off the drive fast enough," he says. "The code team built an elegant streaming system and we got as granular as writing the files to the DVD in specific orders to keep areas of the world together physically on the disk. It's a testament to the talent and ingenuity of the team that we made this work."

The decision represented a huge risk, but in the end the results spoke for themselves – Liberty City rendered at great distances, across moody bays and packed urban thoroughfares, and did so seamlessly, without long loading screens. "Getting it right effectively removed a lot of limitations for scale and detail," Garbut says. "We could build what we wanted as long as the area around the player would fit in memory and we could get it off the DVD drive fast enough."

If GTA 3 was a living world, then DMA Design was the hospital crash team tasked with keeping it breathing, against the odds. "You have to ensure the system can cope with a random pileup round the corner exploding at the same time you are also trying to run an intense mission," Garbut says. "It's all about managing the chaos and the competing systems rather than just focussing on what you see. Keeping the world alive and allowing real interaction with it is one of the big challenges with open world games."

New car smell

The making of GTA 3 established the methodology that Rockstar North, as the developer is known now, still uses today. The studio always begins with the place and then, once it's fit to live in, moves up one layer to the toys. In GTA 3's case, the toys were the cars – the aspect of the game players would spend more time with than anything else.

"Seeing the world come alive through these vehicles, that's when I remember starting to feel things come together," Garbut says. "Every so often a build comes along with a feature you've been discussing or planning forever – it's normally rough and only there when you squint a bit. But it's there. Everything shifts, the world you had been working in changes and now this new thing has made it better or worse. On some projects at some points, it feels like that happens every day. GTA 3 could be like that."

With the addition of cars, GTA 3 changed overwhelmingly for the better. The team imbued their vehicles with physics that were both buoyant and dramatic, making even downtime in Liberty City gripping.

"This was a long time ago so seeing cars behave physically was not the norm," Garbut says. "I remember spending a good few hours skidding the car around and watching its suspension bounce on kerbs. Seeing that in our world, then seeing the variation in tuning with trucks, sports cars, and the like, it was inspiring. We had the toys we needed."

Garbut evidently adores the process of making games, and in particular these moments of punctuation that spark ever more extraordinary feats – the single flaming car which triggers a cascade of explosions that eventually ends in the downing of a police helicopter.

"The work of one team changes, motivates, and pushes the next team to take it and run with it," he says. "It's a lovely whirlwind of creativity."

For Garbut's art team, the sprawling 3D city was a canvas on which to paint their vision of New York. This city wasn't the real-life home of Rockstar's producers in the US, but a semi-fictional place pieced together from afar.

"At this point I'd only been there a couple of times," Garbut says. "There was no internet in the studio at first, there was no Google Maps. I just had a little box of 35mm photos a couple of us had taken on a trip there."

Old York

Instead, DMA's reference material came from old films and television. Liberty City mimicked not the glamour but the gloomy mundanity of urban life – soggy streets, grey concrete, dark water, and litter. It was an approach that played to the strengths of PS2's limited fidelity, capturing mood rather than detail.

"We wanted to lean into the grime, the rain, the weather," Garbut says. "We had also made a call to add a dynamic weather system and time of day, and this helped leverage that. It felt right for the kind of story we had, the kind of characters we had, and the way we felt New York had to be from growing up watching it on screen."

It seems very likely that the whole GTA series owes its cartoonish satire – the warped prism through which it has long viewed America – to this literal and critical distance. While success has brought LA and New York within easy reach of Rockstar North's developers, the studio has carefully cultivated its unique perspective in Edinburgh.

"Right from GTA 3 our focus was always on creating the impression of the place we were building over the reality," Garbut says. "Back then there was far less connection in the world digitally – the sheer volume of content and accessibility these days has blurred the line so much that I don't really feel like a cultural outsider in the same way any more, but what it did I think was force us to rely on the US we knew from television and film. It was more about an exaggerated impression, the feeling of the place. It gave us more choices and more control in some ways, and I think it served us well."

Rockstar's storytelling has come a long way since the release of GTA 3, to the point where writer Dan Houser's departure last year felt like a serious blow to the company. But even Liberty City's Scorsese-style drama, while broad and daft, served an important purpose.

"It's quite simple compared to how we work these days," Garbut says. "It's lacking any real refinement, but there's a charm to it and a consistency. I'm proud of what it did. It let us figure out a lot of things, it taught us what we could do better and with Vice City we were already on the path to do that. There were certain choices – a silent main character, for example – that we moved away from quickly, but we have always been good I think at re-evaluating and moving forward."

Concrete tower

The story of Claude and Catalina was a blueprint. So, Garbut says, was GTA 3 as a whole. There's little in GTA Online today that can't somehow be traced back to this strange, grey game. Its foundations were so firm, in fact, that its sequel was released to critical acclaim just one year later. You might argue that Vice City is the most successful reskin of all time, though that description does a disservice to the power with which Garbut's art team evoked the '80s, using pitch-perfect costumes and coloured lighting.

"We are building on the path we started on GTA 3," he says. "We are building on that game and evolving it every day, to this day. We carry all that experience and expertise, the stuff that is impossible to replicate that is down to working together forever, to knowing the people you work with and what they know, what each person brings and how to get the best from them."

Long before Rockstar North was a household name, Garbut went to art college. There he studied fine art, and learned that drawing, painting and sculpting was all about 'roughing it in' – getting the basic structure right so that the artist can refine over the top. He sees GTA 3 in those terms.

"The 'squint a bit and it looks kind of finished' sort of idea," he says. "It's how I've always approached both building our game worlds and the games themselves. GTA 3 was as resolved as we could make it at the time, but for today's standards it's simple and rough. Things have come so incredibly far, the detail and depth and sophistication, the interplay of the complex systems we build these days. Squint a bit, though, and it's still the foundation we have built on and I love it for that."

Our GTA 6 guide details everything you need to know about the story, gameplay, and world so far! Or, check out our best GTA games list for what to play while you wait!

Pack your bags and get ready to hop in the Normandy; the Mass Effect TV show is on the way. That's right, despite the recent (and devastating news) that EA has shut down BioWare and canceled Mass Effect 5, the upcoming Amazon adaptation of the famed video game franchise is reportedly still going ahead, and already there are plenty of details to start digging our sci-fi teeth into.

The original Mass Effect trilogy follows Commander Shepard on a brutal mission to save the galaxy and is counted among the best RPGs of all time. The story and fully realized worldbuilding are downright iconic, so when Amazon announced in 2021 that it had snagged the rights to bring it to our small screens, I've been paying close attention to every bit of news surrounding the upcoming TV show. So, if you are a massive Mass Effect fan like me who is dying to learn more, or a Fallout TV series enjoyer who is curious about Amazon's next game adaptation, then you've come to the right place.

Below is everything you need to know about Mass Effect's streaming debut. From release date predictions, updates on its production status, plot details, and more, I've made sure to scan every bit of information out there into a handy guide right here.

Mass Effect TV show release date speculation

Mass Effect is still very much underway; however, since filming hasn't kicked off yet, we are going to have to wait a while for a release date.

The show is still in the pre-production phase, and despite a previous Production Weekly list hinting at a Q4 2026 production start, there has been no new update on the Amazon adaptation actually moving out of the writers' room at this point in time.

Considering how much time will also be needed in post-production with special effects needed to bring the sci-fi story to life, I personally don't see Mass Effect releasing before 2028 at the earliest. This time frame also makes sense when we remember that the team working on Fallout will also be on Mass Effect.

Fallout season 3 is looking at a 2027 release window, so I doubt we will get Mass Effect before then. However, these are just my own speculative thoughts for now; I'll keep you posted as soon as I hear more.

Mass Effect TV show plot details: Will it adapt the games?

The Mass Effect TV show won't be a straight adaptation of the iconic video games; instead, we are getting a fresh story that takes place after the original trilogy. And personally, I have mixed feelings about that fact.

If you haven't played Mass Effect before, the game trilogy follows the human Spectre Commander Shepard, who has to stop a deadly synthetic race called the Reapers, who are hell-bent on erasing all organic life from the galaxy in a mass extinction event. In typical RPG fashion, your choices dictate how certain chains of events unfold, as well as what ending you ultimately see as well.

In a 2025 blog post by Mass Effect boss Mike Gamble, this plot direction was discussed: "The writers' room is going strong, and we’ve got a lot figured out about how it fits within the Mass Effect canon, and where it sits in respect to the new game," he writes. "The show will explore a brand-new story within the universe’s timeline, and will be set after the original trilogy. It won’t be a retread of Commander Shepard’s story – because after all … that’s YOUR story, isn’t it?"

We all know that since this post, the new game (aka Mass Effect 5) has now sadly been canceled due to EA's closure of BioWare; however, it does seem like the fact that the show is not telling Commander Shepard's story is still very much the plan. On one hand, this is a safe bet for RPG adaptations, considering players' choices created different canon endings and story paths. Amazon's Fallout series, for example, is brilliant and didn't follow a set story from the games; instead, it built a new plot set in the universe, and it worked masterfully.

However, the original Mass Effect trilogy has one of the best overarching storylines in gaming history: the high stakes of "the end of the galaxy and all organic life" if Shepard fails is the gut-punching action you want to see rather than the aftermath. Hopefully the new series manages to create a plot as action-packed and serious as the original trilogy, and I'm very much keeping an eye out for every new story-related update to see what direction it looks like the show is heading in. Watch this space!

Who is working on the Mass Effect TV show?

There are a lot of big names working on Amazon's Mass Effect TV series behind the scenes. Firstly, in terms of writers, we have Fast & Furious 9 scribe Daniel Casey on board. Star Trek: Beyond and Mindhunter writer Doug Jung is also set to join the production as a showrunner.

Looking at producers, Mass Effect boss Mike Gamble is executive producing the adaptation, along with the likes of former Marvel Studios producer Ari Arad and Karim Zreik. Basically, we have some big heavyweights who are seasoned professionals in creating popular franchises.

There is some more good news on the crew front, as Casey revealed via social media that the team who worked on Amazon's Fallout TV series will be on board to help bring the Mass Effect series to life.

Considering Fallout season 3 is looking to premiere in 2027, this also backs up my thoughts that Mass Effect won't be with us until 2028 at the earliest. However, I'm willing to wait if it means that the team who brought New Vegas to life will be in charge of giving us the likes of a Reaper-attacked Eden Prime as well.

Mass Effect TV show cast speculation

So far, no cast list has been shared, which makes sense considering we aren't in the production phase yet. However, a few stars have already expressed interest in the series in the past, so maybe they are in Amazon's sights.

Back in 2021, we did ask Henry Cavill if he would be interested in the Mass Effect series back when it was first announced. Cavill expressed his love for the games as well as his willingness to be part of the project. He is now on board working on Amazon's Warhammer series, but who knows, maybe he will swing by the Citadel in the future as well.

I'll keep an eye out for any more casting rumors and announcements. If production does pick up after the release of Fallout season 3 in 2027, as I suspect, we should be getting news on actors joining the Mass Effect fold very soon.

If you want more RPG goodness while you wait for Mass Effect, check out our list of the best BioWare games of all time. Or look ahead with our roundup of all the upcoming video game movies on the way next.

Clayface is nearly upon us... and it's a straight-up body horror that tells the origin story of the beloved Batman supervillain. A standalone movie about one of the most infamous baddies in Batman's rogues' gallery is especially exciting... as this means we're just that much closer to meeting Batman in the DCU proper.

The movie, directed by James Watkins from a screenplay by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini, follows Hollywood actor Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries), who goes from the absolute height of his acting career to getting his face cut up by a Gotham mob boss. After failed reconstructive surgeries, he approaches Dr. Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie) in order to undergo an experimental procedure that restores his face... but ultimately turns him into something else entirely.

But who is Matt Hagen? Did we originally meet him in DC Comics? Well, yes, but the movie took most of its inspiration from an episode of Batman: The Animated Series... Don't worry, we explain below (and without any spoilers to boot).

Who is Matt Hagen?

There have been several iterations of Clayface (eight to be exact), with the character Basil Karlo, a B-list movie actor, making his first appearance as the shapeshifting villain all the way back in Detective Comics #40 circa 1940. Matt Hagen was introduced in Detective Comics #268 circa 1962 as not an actor, but a treasure hunter who becomes Clayface after stumbling into a radioactive pool of protoplasm.

Matt Hagen is reimagined in Batman: The Animated Series season 1 episodes 4 and 5, titled 'Feats of Clay.' It's important to note that it's this iteration of Clayface that the new live-action movie is based on... not the treasure-hunting Matthew Hagen we meet in the comics (which has indeed been confirmed by Mike Flanagan). In BTAS, Matt is a successful actor whose face becomes permanently disfigured in a car accident.

Desperate, he buys a 'miracle' chemical cream called Renuyu from corrupt businessman and Gotham mobster Rolan Daggett (who is an enemy of the Wayne family in the comics). The cream restores his face, but also gives him the ability to change it to that of anyone he comes into contact with. A fight with Daggett and his henchmen results in them holding Matt down and pouring an entire vat of Renuyu down his throat, which mutates his body and turns him into Clayface.

In the movie, it's an experimental cell regeneration procedure gone wrong that turns Matt into Clayface... though it does give him the same abilities: shape-shifting, regeneration, and superhuman strength. The film also takes place before Creature Commandos season 1, which sees an animated Clayface (in his full nasty, goopy, and toothy form) link up with Princess Ilana Rostovic and impersonate Professor Aisla MacPherson. At the end of the season, Clayface is taken to Arkham Asylum. Both projects are canon to the DCU, which means our friend Matt Hagen begins his true supervillain arc sometime after the events of Clayface.

It's worth noting that we do see Batman for just a second in Creature Commandos, which tells us that the Caped Crusader is likely very aware of Clayface, if he hasn't battled him already. DCU co-CEO James Gunn has already commented that we'll see Matt Hagen again in other DCU projects.

Clayface hits theaters on October 23. For more, check out our list of all the upcoming DC movies and shows you need to know about.

Playing Stranger Than Heaven, I see obscured police officer reflections through the well lit high-fashion storefront windows. They shout "Where the hell did he go? You're not gettin' away with murder! Just give up!" as an unknown man covered in dirt and grime emerges into a back alley, clearly on the run. A loud foghorn blares in the distance, signaling a ship departure and the man stumbles through the alleyway in the direction of the horn. This mystery man donning a ratty blonde wig and big pink bow in his hair slowly makes his way through the alley as jazz music swells to fill every crack in the brick lined walls.

He approaches the quiet and foggy docks only to catch more police officers lying in wait. The only way onto the boat is through them, and so they duke it out. Back up against the ocean with nowhere else to run, a seemingly impossible opening presents itself and the man makes a break for it, leaping into the ocean to chase after the boat, to leave America behind, and start again. Those are my opening moments with Stranger Than Heaven's protagonist Makoto Daito, Yakuza developer Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio's latest project, a game that finds ways to blend familiar ideas of found family with new and ambitious storytelling structures.

Finding home

Stranger Than Heaven posits the question of what it means to belong in this world, to have a sense of home. Daito is of blended American and Japanese heritage, ceaselessly wrestling with not being enough of either nationality to find acceptance amongst his peers. This thread carries through the early hours of my hands-on, eventually coalescing into a powerful moment shared between Daito and a companion, where he is welcomed home for the first time in his life. He sits there, pondering the words over a drink, quietly muttering "welcome home" to himself, realizing it's the first time he's ever felt like he belongs.

This somber moment of reflection helps paint the larger picture of Stranger Than Heaven's bigger ideas of self identity, taking the concepts often found in Yakuza that deal in identity as it relates to group roles and dynamics and pairing it down to focus on an individual. Putting the emphasis on the life of Makoto Daito through multiple different eras of his life and the ever-changing landscape of Japan, we get to see a whole life lived.

1915 Kokura, Kyushu island's castle town, is the first of many stops in my preview. While this section sees high-stakes action in the form of a warehouse raid to free a kidnapped love interest, it's also juxtaposed with comedic relief. International smuggler and Makoto's mentor Orpheus (Snoop Dogg) takes time to teach Makoto how to roll a cigarette, which acts as a moment of levity while also showing how to create an item that boosts both attack and defense.

Kokura in this era is a large town with small village vibes. Numerous storefronts line the dirt roads I walk. I visit an apothecary to stock up on healing medicine, I drink straight from a water faucet in the ground to sober up after having one too many drinks, and of course, I pick a fight or two.

Combat is drastically different from anything RGG Studio has done before. Attacks are mapped to the shoulder buttons and triggers, meaning the left and right bumpers swing each matching fist while the triggers control my kicks. It's a system that takes some getting used to, especially as I attempt to weave in more complicated inputs like grabs and parries.

Stranger Than Heaven's combat feels more akin to the flow of a fighting game rather than a traditional beat 'em up. I find myself getting better with each fight, becoming more confident in each swing. I can feel Makoto getting more knowledgeable through the eras as well.

"Once you start using the same weapon, for example, Daito will start to learn a lot of skills based on that weapon," says director Mikinobu Abe. "So, it's more like you can customize Daito's life to your preference of what weapon you want him to master. If you want to use a knife throughout the 50 years of his life, of course Makoto himself will get good at the weapon, and that triggers making him do more move sets and more combos."

Later, Abe makes an announcement that there is a dangerous samurai near the river, advising against fighting him too early. So, naturally, I head straight for the katana wielding madman by the river.

Under the moonlight we clash steel. I learn to parry his seemingly never-ending combo strings. Constantly switching between my left and right arm to block his multi-directional strikes, trading heavy blows back and forth, I finally stagger him. This provides my opening to get a few good hits in. Using both triggers I grab and toss him to the ground and begin slamming him with everything I have until he rises to his feet again.

We swap hits back and forth again until he knocks me onto my back. Slashing down at me I roll out of the way so it misses me by a hair. It's like a choreographed action movie sequence, but one that feels natural and intuitive to unfurl during play. Plenty of other side activities I encounter have this same sense of flair, space between missions always have a sense of absurdity and danger.

Jumping ahead 14 years to 1929 Kure, Hiroshima, Daito is older, a little more established, and growing in confidence. As I approach alongside a trolleycar while walking Kure, Daito hops up and grabs the side, hanging off of it as it carries me down the street. Despite it being my first time in Kure, it's clear Daito has been around the block a few times. The way he enters shops, takes part in the underground fight clubs, and enters his home presents a more mature version of the man I knew nearly fifteen years prior.

There's a liveliness to Kure in the daytime. People dining in the streets, old men playing Menko along the river, and hooligans looking for a street brawl. I spend most of my time in an underground fight club, defeating a rotating cast of difficult enemies for pocket change and bragging rights as I master challenges under special conditions ("no weapons", for instance).

Make some noise

Fast-forward to 1943 Minami, Osaka and things have changed quite a bit again. The low hum and bright glow of neon signs seep color onto the streets below. I hop into the first building I see, a small theater venue looking to put on a performance. At this moment I learn about Makoto's involvement in show business, and how deep those systems go.

Everything in Stranger Than Heaven feeds into a system that allows Makoto to gather music inspiration. Colorful bubbles populate the screen during combat, when Daito hears a small tune from a nearby radio, or the sound of dice rattling in a cup before being thrown. The world is filled with little bits and bobs for Makoto to grab. Focusing one of those bubbles and clicking a button lets you hone in and obtain the inspiration for later use.

After collecting a few different inspirations from local storefront radios I make my way to where this all comes together, my base of operations – marked with a house icon on the map – going upstairs to where the upright piano is. Here I talk to pianist Takashi to begin composing music. Each song has different moods that can be tweaked and changed to alter the way it sounds. Taking a piano backing that's tagged as relaxing and swapping it for a more intense sound changes how people respond to it when played live.

After changing out the instrumentation of the song I head over to a nearby desk where I begin selecting ticket prices, hiring musicians and singers, and customizing the stage lighting and attire in order to ensure the show is profitable. It's reminiscent of the Yakuza 0 cabaret minigame, but blown up to be much more detailed.

Music plays a massive role in Stranger Than Heaven, not just as a tool for Makoto to make money, but as a way of connecting to people. "He finds the joy that music is something that needs no explanation with a race or a language barrier," says Abe. "And that was something that was really important for Makoto to progress, having motivation within his life, as well as something that he could connect with people."

There's still so much more to uncover in Stranger Than Heaven, but after this relatively small slice of the game, I'm excited to see what's waiting for Makoto Daito through the rest of his life.

Wondering what heavenly gaming experiences will tide you over while you wait for Stranger Than Heaven? Look no further than our best Yakuza games or best ARPGs rankings for what to play next!

VisionQuest is packed with mysteries, but we've just learned more about the enigmatic bounty hunter Paladin.

In episode 3, we find out that the shadowy figure has clashed with three significant Marvel characters – though you have to do a bit of decoding to figure out exactly who the bounty hunter is talking about.

Below, we've broken down exactly who Paladin and the Handler are referencing, which, naturally, means there are spoilers ahead for VisionQuest episode 3! For more on the show, check out our spoiler-free VisionQuest review.

Paladin's history with Daredevil and more in VisionQuest

In the episode, Paladin – the fearsome bounty hunter on Vision's trail – is revealed to have tangled with some significant Marvel characters.

In a conversation with his Handler, she references the time Paladin "pulled a fistful of shrapnel from that IED out of your gut" in Brooklyn. Paladin responds: "Just a punishing disagreement with an old friend." He is, of course, referring to Frank Castle, AKA the Punisher, whose modus operandi certainly includes IEDs.

Next, the Handler asks about "the bite marks from that thing halfway between a man and a wolf," to which Paladin responds: "A perfectly reasonable fella by day." This is Jack Russell, AKA Werewolf by Night.

And finally, the Handler asks: "Remember the concussion you got from that steel fiber billy club to the noggin?" Paladin says: "If you can't take the heat, get out of Hell's Kitchen." That's in reference to Daredevil, whose regular haunt is Hell's Kitchen, New York City.

So, it sounds like Paladin certainly has a colorful past, which has led to him clashing with some formidable Marvel foes. But, with the way Paladin has been able to shake off his injuries and is still alive to tell his tales, it looks like Vision has his work cut out for him if he wants to survive being the bounty hunter's target.

VisionQuest continues weekly on Disney Plus. You can keep up to date with our VisionQuest release schedule. For more, check out our guide to all the upcoming Marvel movies and TV shows.

After four episodes, VisionQuest has already addressed several of the show's many mysteries, but the biggest question of all remains unanswered: who is The Client?

Paladin's mysterious patron remains in the shadows, for now. All we know is that he/she/it wants Vision for some unknown purpose and reason, and they're happy for Paladin to do whatever it takes to deliver on the contract.

So who is The Client? We have our theories, of course, which we'll dive into below. But first, a word of warning: if you're not up to date with VisionQuest episodes 3 and 4, turn back now as there are spoilers ahead. Still with us? Then take a trip down theory lane…

Who is The Client in VisionQuest? The top suspects

Ultron

Ultron may have softened up somewhat during his time in Vision's noggin, but as the end of episode 4 proves, he can still be uncompromisingly ruthless when it comes to it. Would it be a surprise if Ultron is The Client? Not especially. Though given that freedom is his ultimate goal, which he's now achieved by hijacking Vision's body, what need is there for his contract with Paladin? One key piece of evidence pointing to Ultron being The Client is that he's already been contacting Paladin via email/carrier pigeon, but this information was revealed so early in the run of the season that it might just be proof of the opposite.

Dr. Jospehine Carrington

As revealed in VisionQuest episode 4, the Butcherbird serial killer is, in fact. Dr. Josephine Carrington (aka Jocasta). Carrington was one of the key people responsible for the creation of a stable synthetic consciousness, or artificial general intelligence, at Markridge Biotech. Is it possible she hired Paladin? There's a slim chance, perhaps as a safety net should she fail. Though given Jocasta and Paladin come to blows in episode 3, this seems very unlikely at this stage.

Billy Maximoff

We know that Wanda and Vision's magical son, Billy Maximoff (aka Wiccan), is searching for his twin brother, Tommy, so it stands to reason that he'd also be on the hunt for his father as well. Whether he'd need to hire someone like Paladin to track him down, particularly when he's a powerful magic user himself, is another question. Though Paladin's already proven a far more successful tracker than Billy, as his Handler found Tommy in no time at all, so maybe Billy does need outside help after all. That said, we don't yet know if Billy is actually in VisionQuest, but some Marvel fans think they've already spotted him.

Wanda Maximoff

This feels even more unlikely than Billy, as showrunner Terry Matalas has said that while Wanda's shadow will loom large over VisionQuest, the Scarlet Witch won't be in the show. That said, the last time we saw Wanda, she was crushed under a mountain. If she's alive, it's possible that a weakened Wanda might need outside help to track down Vision, particularly one who tried to kill her the last time they came face to face. Unlikely, then, but not impossible.

Jim Hammond

We already know that the first synthezoid, Jim Hammond, will figure into VisionQuest's story somehow, as a picture of the original Human Torch can be seen hanging in the lounge of Vision's mind space. We don't yet know how his artificial life came to an end in the MCU but… what if it didn't? Perhaps he's still out there, and perhaps he has business with Vision. Perhaps he no longer has a physical form, which may explain why he needs Paladin's help. Or perhaps we're barking up the wrong artificial tree.

VisionQuest episodes 1-4 are streaming now on Disney Plus. Never miss an episode with our VisionQuest release schedule or dive into our VisionQuest episodes 3-4 Easter eggs guide.

Two new episodes of VisionQuest have just landed on Disney Plus as we find out what's next for our favorite dysfunctional family of AIs. Episodes 3 and 4 up the ante in every way as new characters are introduced while Vision, Tommy, and Ultron try and work out their father/son woes.

Alongside the VisionQuest plot moving along nicely, there are loads of little references to the wider world of the MCU as well. These include nods to other major Marvel characters as well as some intriguing comic book details. For all of the big moments that we spotted, read on below for our complete guide (and let us know in the comments if you find any others).

Of course, we will be getting into spoilers from here on out, so make sure you're up to date by checking our VisionQuest release schedule. While you're at it, have a read of our VisionQuest review too for our verdict on the Disney Plus show.

VisionQuest episode 3 Easter eggs

Ten Rings Syndicate: When the Paladin is speaking to his Handler, she asks if she should send a "gift basket to the Ten Rings Syndicate" for providing Adamantium chest armor. The Ten Rings led a cell in the original Iron Man movie as well as featuring heavily in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

The Brooklyn job: The rest of the conversation features some other fun Easter eggs. They refer to the "Brooklyn job" which left him pulling "a fistful of shrapnel from that IED out of your gut". This is a reference to a past encounter with The Punisher as he describes it as "just a punishing disagreement with an old friend."

Werewolf By Night: At another point in the conversation, the Handler mentions "the bite marks from that thing half-way between a man and a wolf", to which the Paladin quips he was a "perfectly reasonable fella by day." This is clearly a little nod to Jack Russell, the protagonist of Werewolf by Night, played by Gael Garcia Bernal.

Daredevil: Finally, Hell's Kitchen gets a direct call-out. The Handler reminds him of the concussion he got from a "steel fibre billy club to the noggin," referring to Daredevil's signature weapon. The Paladin replies to this, "If you can’t take the heat, get out of Hell's Kitchen". In the Marvel comics, the Paladin first debuted in the Daredevil comics, and his suit shares many common elements with Charlie Cox's antihero. This all makes these nods especially fun.

Tony's death: F.R.I.D.A.Y. gives us another insight into one of the most heartbreaking moments in the MCU. She references Tony Stark's death in Avengers: Endgame, lamenting that she couldn't save him. "Half the world came back that day, and I lost half of mine," she tells the other AIs. Heartbreaking.

Sitcom callbacks: WandaVision lingers in the background of the entire show. In this episode, we see Tommy and Vision watching sitcoms when they're holed up in their motel room.

Book about the Snap: When Tommy is talking to Vision about Wanda, he says he remembers reading about her in that book about the Snap. He might be referring to Ant-Man's book, 'Look Out for the Little Guy!' which details the blip and the battle against Thanos.

Love persevering: Vision's infamous grief line is starting to feel a bit like Spider-Man's great responsibility dialogue. It's mentioned against in this episode when J.A.R.V.I.S. gets a funeral. "With grief comes something new, an inner fire," the AIs say. Sounds familiar.

Speed: When Tommy saves Vision at the end, he tells him that he has "the very essence of speed," nodding to his powers and his superhero name.

VisionQuest episode 4 Easter eggs

Exorcism: Ultron tries to expel the Butcherbird from the Mind Place with a fun Exorcism nod. "The power of code compels you," he tells her.

Battle of Sokovia: This episode takes place on the anniversary of the Battle of Sokovia. The key conflict from Avengers: Age of Ultron is being discussed on the news in the background of this episode, and is on the front page of Ultron's newspaper. This was Ultron's big fight with the Avengers.

Stark Industries: We find out how Stark had such advanced AI technology in this episode, as it's revealed that the AI company that is being targeted by the Butcherbird sold their technology to Stark.

Edwin Jarvis: We also find out that all of the AIs and their human likenesses are actually based on real people. Jarvis was a character in Agent Carter, where he was the Stark family's butler.

Alison Hogan: We also find out that F.R.I.D.A.Y. is based on Howard Stark's "Girl Friday", who was also known as Alison Hogan. She was the person who "kept his office" and seems like she was a loyal assistant. She's certainly got an interesting surname... We'd bet she's a relation of Tony Stark's beloved head of security, Happy Hogan.

Dr Phineas Horton: We've already had a nod to the Human Torch (Jim Hammond) in the show so far, but now we've had a Phineas Horton name-drop. This character was the creator of Jim Hammond in the Marvel comics.

Markridge Biotech: The name of Dr. Josephine Carrington's former company is a nod to the 12 Monkeys TV show, which prominently featured the 'Markridge Group' – a biotech and defense outfit. VisionQuest showrunner Terry Matalas previously developed the 12 Monkeys series.

No Strings: When Ultron breaks free and takes over Vision's body at the end, he quips that, "There's no strings on me." This is a reference to Ultron's famous quote taken from Pinocchio in Avengers: Age of Ultron.

VisionQuest is airing now on Disney Plus. For more on the MCU, here are all the upcoming Marvel movies and shows on the way.

I'm probably going to get a lot of hate for this one, but tiny gaming controllers just don't cut it for me. If your algorithm is tuned well to you, you'll probably have heard about the new Xbox Nano controller that Microsoft is launching. I'll be the first to tell you this little thing is absolutely adorable; it's definitely more portable than your bog-standard Xbox Series X controller, and at only $49.99 / £44.99, it's pretty easy on your wallet too.

It's for those reasons that I hate to say it, but it's almost certainly going to suck.

Hi, I'm Duncan. I review controllers for a living, and I'm here to tell you that while cute, tiny gaming hardware is adorable, it's almost never usable for players like me. I love to look at the CRKD Atom+; I love the idea of carrying around the most portable mobile controller in my back pocket, and I love the cozy vibes of playing on a nostalgic handheld in bed at night, but they're all so uncomfortable for me I just struggle to see the point anymore.

The Nano controller Xbox is launching is in that category for me: adorable to look at, amazing and convenient on paper, but something I'd use once, remember the hand cramp it gave me, and then avoid using for the rest of time as it decayed in a drawer while laughing at my wallet.

To be clear, I'm not telling you Xbox will have made a bad gaming peripheral here, or that the new Nano controller won't be worth your time, but I am issuing a word of caution because if you're reading this and you're over the age of 12, you're probably not going to enjoy using it. This thing isn't being made for me or you; probably, it's most likely designed for kids to carry around, or for gaming households that want to be able to have Switch-like gaming sessions that involve the whole family without forking out hundreds on new controllers for each player.

For that reason, I love to see Microsoft coming out with this. Xbox is in a sorry state and has been for a while, and adding more charm, more brand loyalty, and just a bit more whimsy for fans to hold onto is exactly why new CEO Asha Sharma is doing a pretty decent job of turning the ship around - or at least steadying it. It's just a shame new releases like this come a week or two after mass workforce layoffs - those aren't quite so tiny, or cute as the new controller.

I've been testing portable controllers, full-sized gamepads, and everything in between for years, and I can tell you that while every new, tiny controller gets me slightly giddy and filled with childlike wonder, using them is always a different story. I have pretty big hands - nothing freaky or out of the ordinary, but I'm comfortably in the large-hand gang. Wrapping my hands around a Joy-Con controller, for example, is not a pleasant experience. Even holding a Switch or Asus ROG Ally X is a pretty uncomfortable and hand-cramp-inducing affair, so tiny controllers like the Nano Controller, the new VoidJoy GC-P01, the CRKD Atom, or anything that hasn't had a bit more ergonomic oomph thrown at it, actively take me out of whatever game I'm trying to play.

Hell, even Razer's new genius foldable mobile controller, the Prio, which is a feat of engineering, had me so excited. Then I tried using it, and even though it wasn't designed to be the ELO Vagabond, it was still pretty hard to enjoy playing with. These things are not made to be amazing ways to play, and I try to grant them that leeway; they're built to be convenient. But I think there's a line that's crossed with each of them that can be seen even back with the original Backbone One.

In trying to be portable, convenient, and a "quick fix" for gaming on the go, ergonomics, comfort, and usability fly out the window. One of the reasons controllers are either good or bad is that they can be so comfortable they make you forget you're holding one, or so bad they prevent you from enjoying whatever virtual game you're running and jumping around in.

Where this changes, and the new Xbox Nano controller will likely find a market of its own, is with younger players, and that's great! Younger kids will be catered for with the opposite perspective. Expecting a 7-year-old to hold a heavy-duty pro pad like the Nacon Revolution X Unlimited is asking for it to get broken, and it's way too big for them to wrap their wee hands around, so something like the Nano controller is ideal. This is the year 2026; it's okay for us to have Mama bear, Papa bear, and Baby bear controller sizes.

Similarly, I have plenty of guy friends who are trying to get their female partners interested in gaming for the first time, and bigger controllers with tonnes of buttons can be downright intimidating for them. Coordination around a gamepad is already difficult enough to develop at first if you've not been used to it from an early age, so a smaller controller with fewer buttons is probably a much better jumping-off point, or will at least be a more accessible option should people want it. I'll let the hosts of our G+RLS podcast (which you should definitely listen to; be the judge, though).

So if I'm aware of all this, why am I bothering to tell you that the Xbox Nano controller will suck?

Because something happens when we adult gamers get a hit of nostalgia from seeing cutesy gaming memorabilia, and it's our wallets that pay the price. Essentially, I'm giving you tough love here. The Xbox Nano controller isn't for you or me, and that's alright. Just don't go buying it expecting it to be a revolutionary or enjoyable way for any adult to play games because it probably won't be. On the other hand, if you have younger gamers in your life, it's definitely one to keep around.

Want more controller buying tips? Check out the best PC controller, the best PS5 controller, and the best TMR controllers.

The concept of overwhelming pleasure has always fascinated me. Craving sensation is primal and civilization has built much to better that, from fine dining to VR gaming. This deeply human pursuit is a core part of both Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival, and my favorite Warhammer 40,000 faction.

Thrill seekers

Saber Interactive's new horror game explores sensation from the off, beginning with a BDSM-tinged sex scene before introducing the franchise's iconic Hell Priest Pinhead and his cohort of fellow Cenobites, who tear the protagonist's partner Sunny to shreds. The violence is gruesome, but the recipient doesn't seem to object, even if our protagonist Aidan does.

Aidan soon finds himself breaking free from a torture den before arriving at a sex club, both of which belong to a Cenobite-worshipping cult called the Scarlet Church. As our hero is about to leave this world behind, the disembodied voice of Sunny calls out, luring Aidan back in the name of liberating her. Here, I start to see connections to Warhammer 40K.

The Emperor's Children legion are a group of Space Marines – enhanced human beings who are now full-time thrill seekers in the name of the Chaos deity Slaanesh, pursuing pleasure and sensation above all else, and their origins may sound familiar.

The superhuman soldiers found themselves in a temple of hedonism, surrounded by creatures known as the Laer in the throes of ecstasy, when a siren song called to their hearts. Much like Aidan, they responded with violence as a natural instinct, while the whisperer in their ears pulled them further along the pathway to something beyond their comprehension.

Stepping into Hellraiser: Revival's Labyrinth, Aidan could just as easily be one of the Emperor's Children. The otherworldly sights before me are fear-inducing but also alluring. The leather-wrapped enemies that lash out when I interrupt their enjoyment respond just as the Laer might, using violence as both a defense mechanism and conduit to sensation.

Even back in the human realm, the home of Scarlet Church feels ripped from the pages of Warhammer 40,000's grimdark universe. Mutilated corpses hang from ceilings and painted canvases stand proudly upon easels, matching the imagery from the Horus Heresy novel Fulgrim and its Emperor's Children spaceship featuring similar levels of violence and artistry. We even see an apparently high-ranking member of Revival's cult carrying out a sort of surgery on a living person, much like the Emperor's Children character Fabius Bile is infamous for.

It's impossible for me to delve into Hellraiser without thinking of Warhammer. Both the Cenobites and worshippers of Slaanesh represent an obsession that has seen them go beyond the accepted limits of society, and the result is as harrowing as it is intoxicating. I turn the corners of Revival's in-game world with the same cautious curiosity as I do the pages of Fulgrim, enraptured by the sights both stories have to show me.

Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival review: "Pinhead's return is glorious – this is a true love letter to the original movies"

"The Marleys were dead, to begin with." Once Gonzo has recited those words, you know that it's the holidays. Re-watching The Muppets Christmas Carol every year and watching a young Michael Caine grumpily frolic around with felt-covered puppets has become a family tradition, and there are only 66 days until I get to do it all over again.

Another tradition amongst my loved ones is being disappointed by the lack of Christmas Carol merchandise that we're able to gift each other, but the Disney Store has heard our pleas. The US storefront has rolled out a ton of new Muppets Christmas Carol goodies, including a new Loungefly backpack starring Gonzo and Rizzo the Rat, a series of plushies, and a light-up decoration for the tree with Kermit and Miss Piggy dressed in their best Mr and Mrs Cratchit garb. There's even a blind box that gives you the chance to grab one of six themed Muppets tree ornaments, because of course there is.

This new powder of collectibles is available to order now as part of 'Disney Store Private Access', a membership that allows fans access to merch ahead of the general public. There's no fee to sign up, and I highly recommend you do, as these are bound to sell out fast once they're available to all Muppets fans on October 26. Honestly, had they been available at Disney UK, I'd order every single item, as I know for a fact that a tiny plush Robert and Jacob Marley would go down well this holiday season, no matter who I gifted them to.

• View all The Muppets merchandise at the Disney Store

Looking for gifts for the 2026 holiday season? Check out our best retro gifts, best PS5 gifts, and the best Xbox gifts.

PATCH NOTES v19.10.2026 – As the latest Resident Evil film gets turned back into a video game and early Edgerunners 2 reviews suggest great things ahead, video game worlds have become the stars of the best adaptations – and it's a blueprint for the future.

What's going on this week in gaming?

• Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 reviews are in and largely positive.
• Zack Cregger's acclaimed Resident Evil movie has come full circle after a fan turned it into a classic PS1 survival horror game.

Why is this happening now?

• Game adaptations are more successful when they build on the source game's universes instead of delivering exact retellings.

Meta Shift

• Edgerunners 2 and Resident Evil prove that game worlds, not characters, offer the best opportunities for adaptation.

Turning a beloved video game into a film or TV show has always been challenging, but Zach Cregger's Resident Evil and Edgerunners season 2 proves it can be done if the respect is mutual. By taking the respective circumstances or settings of the source material – Cyberpunk 2077's Night City and Resident Evil's Raccoon City – and shaping them around new characters, both adaptations retain the spirit of the games while telling a new story.

It's a departure from what we usually see when we think of a game being adapted into a show or film. 2026's Return to Silent Hill beat-for-beat rehashes legendary survival horror game Silent Hill 2, but its 18% score on Rotten Tomatoes proves something was lost in translation. Paul W.S Anderson's slew of Resident Evil spin-off flicks acquired cult status for how famously silly they are, though lined up with more recent adaptations like Return to Raccoon City, are looked back on more kindly these days. The Witcher TV series saw moderate success due to actor Henry Cavill's genuine love of the games and book series, but audiences have been divided since his departure from his role as Geralt of Rivia.

A large part of this is down to audience expectation versus reality. Video games bring us some of the most powerful characters in entertainment, and we get to know them through a specific lens and perspective. Recasting those characters and giving them new faces, voices, or storylines as they cross over to new mediums is tricky because there is already something to compare it to.

The makers of Edgerunners 2 and Resident Evil 2026 understand this. Both feature locations, iconography, and situations that will be familiar to fans of the video games – Edgerunners even features the same HUD players see in Cyberpunk 2077 when calling someone on the holophone – but never to the detriment of new viewers.

Writing new characters into well-defined, preordained worlds also sets firm parameters for the action that can take place there without risking a retcon of canon events as seen in source games. It creates a believable place to tell relevant stories, which has proven a magical combination for Edgerunners and Resident Evil. I hope the directors of the Zelda movie and God of War movie adaptations are taking notes!

Feedback Loop

• The success of Edgerunners and Zack Cregger's Resident Evil reinforces the power of intertextuality.

By writing new stories in familiar worlds, Edgerunners and Resident Evil are adding to a canon universe and have been accepted as a part of it – both by gamers and game developers alike.

To incorporate Edgerunners into the game's own canon, Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red added new items, music, and mission chains that reference characters and events from the anime. Resident Evil was already self-referential, but as a movie about the experience of playing survival horror video games, it now has an extra layer of metatextual irony after being turned back into a PS1-era fixed camera-angled video game. These are just two examples of the different ways games and their adaptations can find confluence with one another when they aren't fighting to breathe the same air. It proves that adapting games into film and TV shows doesn't have to be hard when directors adapt the right things, adding value and layers instead of reshaping what was already there.

Patch Notes summary

Continued hype around the Resident Evil movie and Edgerunners 2's promising reviews are setting a new benchmark for game adaptations in 2026. By understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each medium and avoiding debates around story reinterpretation, these adaptations are proof that game worlds are far more flexible than the characters that inhabit them.

Related stories:

Cleverly, Invisible Inc is a balance of contrasts, a yin-yang structure of opposing forces that combine in harmony. As a turn-based strategy game, it wants you to take as long as you need to make your decisions, yet also demands precision timing. It wants to retain an element of risk in every act, but removes the genre's characteristic percentages and dice rolls. It wants you to have all the info you need to make your next move, while ensuring every mission is an unknowable challenge. It wants Roguelike replayability, without the brevity or abruptness of most Roguelike campaigns.

The foundation for all this is a focus on stealth. Invisible, a hi-tech private espionage outfit in the late 21st century, finds itself hunted by a group of powerful companies. You control its remaining agents as they infiltrate a series of corporate facilities to acquire info, money, and equipment. Keep surviving and gathering resources long enough, and you get a chance to enter the enemy's HQ and take their systems offline. Until then, you spend your time sneaking around offices, labs, and bank vaults, avoiding guard patrols and hacking security systems to meet various objectives.

The first contrast is between the familiar and the new. You start with two characters (you can rescue further operatives along the way) whose movements around grid-based locations are governed by AP, or action points. Following basic stealth protocols, you stay in cover, look ahead before you advance, and only engage guards as a last resort. But there's already another crucial resource to consider: power. You won't get far unless you remotely disable security cameras, drones, and laser grids, or access locked workstations and safes. And you can't do that if you don't maintain your power supply by activating replenishment programs or leeching from on-site terminals.

When it comes to the rules and flow of play, Invisible Inc revolves around simultaneous extremes of transparency and opacity, or information that is either remarkably abundant or completely absent. First there's what you don't know. When you start one of the procedurally generated missions, the facility's layout is a mystery. You teleport into an empty square room with one or more doors; beyond that, somewhere there's your main objective, and somewhere there's the exit. Guards could be anywhere, either about to walk in on you or patrolling deeper into the complex. You'll have to figure it all out as you move.

As for what you do know, the rule is that once you can see something, intel on it is instant and comprehensive. This is a carryover from Klei Entertainment's previous game, Mark of the Ninja, where line of sight immediately clarifies the status of objects and enemies. Here, in a turn-based world, the concept goes a step further. If a guard is visible, you can read about any armor or special abilities he has, and perceive his exact cone of vision. Use an action point, and you can even check the path of his next move. With this knowledge, your fragile but resourceful characters can assume control. Walk through a guard's peripheral vision on your way to cover, for example, and his attention will turn to that spot, giving you a window to sneak up and rifle through his pockets or escape unseen.

The simple and predictable nature of the AI is part of the game's drive to eliminate ambiguity. Even combat, when it does occur, is strictly binary. Either you have a weapon that can knock out or kill a particular guard, or you don't, and if you attack, the result is guaranteed. You never have to second-guess what the enemy will do and you never have to think about probabilities. You merely have to choose from the many possibilities laid out in front of you. Surprises only occur when you blunder forward blindly, or fail to consider what you've been told.

The bells are ringing

This absolute transparency, coupled with the contemplative nature of turn-based play, suggests cool, methodical advancement. But again that's only the half of it. The other half is urgency, pressure and panic, and it mostly comes from a single cause: the alarm level. The big twist in Invisible Inc is that while you arrive in each facility undetected, the enemy security network becomes more alert to your presence after every turn, and introduces new threats at certain thresholds – extra cameras, increased firewalls, more guards. Also, any time you get spotted, hack a booby-trapped system or use lethal force, the level jumps up even more. The longer you hang around and the more mistakes you make, the harder it is to get anything done.

The most precious commodity thus isn't AP or power, but turns themselves. While you don't have to worry whether or not an action will succeed, you must consider its efficiency. Any decision can have a vital fallout in terms of time that will alter how the mission unfolds. Do you split your team up to cover more ground, or keep them together to gang up on threats? Do you spend valuable turns sneaking around a guard, or knock him out? If you knock him out, do you drag him with you and keep him pinned down, or rush on knowing he'll soon recover and start searching for you? Do you use a large chunk of power to neutralise a camera instantly, or conserve some and do it more gradually? Do you hack a safe or facility map protected by a daemon program that could disrupt your own systems? In each case, your worst enemy might be indecisiveness, but you can't afford to be inflexible either, as conditions are in constant flux.

Choosing when to do something often becomes as important as choosing what to do, especially towards the end of a mission. The only essential requirement to keep the game alive is to reach the exit with at least one character, but if you're going to survive long-term and prepare sufficiently for the challenging endgame, it's best to get everyone out, complete your objective, and steal plenty of loot. The temptation, then, is always to look in every room and empty every safe, risking staying longer than necessary to extract maximum gains from each mission. But as firewalls increase and the guards close in, there's a point where it's smarter to cut and run.

Perhaps you have an agent crouched in a dead end, far from the exit, waiting to loot a well-protected safe. You need your power to recharge a little more to hack the lock, yet every turn you stay put the facility bolsters its defences, and your escape route becomes increasingly deadly. Maybe the rest of your squad is already at the exit, caught between hanging around to help the straggler or getting out now. Having come this far, is it worth another couple of turns to open that safe, or will it ruin everything? Few games make doing nothing feel so daring.

Crucially, the balance in Invisible Inc between stasis and timing, knowledge and ignorance, predictability and risk, is so fine that almost every mission escalates with the suspense of a good heist movie. They all play out differently, due to the random layouts. A large room with a concentration of intersecting patrols is a different proposition to a series of small rooms with stationary guards, for example. Or simple factors such as the position of the exit in relation to the main objective can dramatically change the route you have to navigate. But since you'll try to extract maximum resources regardless, you consistently push to the limit, and invariably end up running for the exit with half-a-dozen enemies homing in on your position.

These hair's-breadth victories reflect the game's final congruent dualism: the combination of Roguelike structure with the feel of a conventional one-and-done adventure. By default it teaches you how to play through its Beginner difficulty, and you could easily finish the six-hour campaign on your first attempt. Klei's gamble is that you'll want to repeat the process again and again, each time ratcheting up the challenge and going deeper into the tactical intricacies. As you do, you'll unlock different starting characters and hacking programs, each of which brings its own unique opportunities and challenges. You won't see anything drastically different in the missions themselves (although a substantial DLC package does change things up), but experimenting with different parameters keeps the experience endlessly fresh.

The game's use of permadeath is also carefully tempered, even when you get to the highly taxing Expert and Expert Plus difficulty levels. Being spotted is a problem, but there's usually a way out. And because you have multiple agents at your disposal, losing one isn't the end of the world. If a character is taken down, you may be able to resuscitate them or drag them to the exit, once the coast clears. Or, if all else fails, there's a limited-use rewind feature that enables you to take whole turns again. Sometimes you lose everyone nonetheless, and it can be hard to take when you're close to the end of a run, but at least permadeath isn't sudden death. You always have time to weigh up your options, experiment with the game's systems, and fashion last-ditch plans.

When you do succeed, perhaps inevitably it's a matter of walking a tightrope between opposites – action and inaction, attack and defence, spending and saving, safety and risk. Every decision is potentially important, and victory is rarely so emphatic that it couldn't have turned to defeat. Somehow this feels like a reflection of the game's design. Invisible Inc never asks anything of you that it hasn't already done itself.

This Invisible Inc article was first published in issue 354 of Edge Magazine. To get more like this delivered straight to your doorstep (or digital device) consider subscribing to Edge.

Broken Mirror Games is barely a year old, but the Bloober Team publishing division has already managed the once unthinkable. Onyx: The Dark Grip is set to be one of the first Nintendo-exclusive horror games in over a decade, proving that the Nintendo Switch 2 really is a console for all - even us horror hounds.

Sitting down with Bloober Team CEO Piotr Babieno and Broken Mirror's new executive director Tymon Smektała, I have just one question. How on Earth did they pull off getting a game like this past Nintendo?

Through the fog

Smektała might be new to Broken Mirror, but after 13 years at Techland and having gotten to know him well over his last three as Dying Light franchise director, take it from me: the guy really knows, loves, lives, and breathes his horror. Which means he's keenly aware that Onyx: The Dark Grip being a Switch 2-exclusive, handheld-only experience is a very, very big deal.

"Nintendo doesn't work with just anyone," Smektała says. "Generally, Japanese companies are companies that you have to build trust with, and you have to prove that you are worthy of that trust. The fact that we have managed to convince Nintendo to to support a game like this – to feature it in a Nintendo Direct and allow us to make that game for Nintendo Switch as an exclusive – speaks of the fact that Bloober Team is being noticed and realized and validated as the people to go to when it comes to horror."

He's right on the money. Few studios have pulled off a reputational 180 as well as Bloober Team. The studio had been around for years, but Silent Hill 2 Remake was the catalyst for that success. The gorgeously faithful yet beautifully modernized survival horror was met with staggering praise, impressing even those who balked when Konami first revealed the Polish studio's involvement, to become one of the most important remakes in the genre to-date. For all the studio's slip ups in the past, the proof was there on-screen: Konami was right to trust Bloober Team, and now, so do we all.

But Konami's seal of approval seemed to extend beyond the publisher, bleeding into the Japanese market itself. Onyx: The Dark Grip is to be one of the first third-party Nintendo-exclusive horror games since 2014, hot on the heels of this month's asymmetrical co-op Beyond the Dark: Nightwatch.

Developed by Broken Mirror, published in-house under Bloober Team, and built entirely for the Switch 2's handheld mode, stunning 2.5D psych-horror Onyx casts the player as both a God and the person possessed by it. "The reason we are doing this for Nintendo is because I'm a Nintendo fan," Babieno grins, "so I'm making my dreams come true in some way."

But Sincere as Babieno is about his love for Nintendo systems, I suspect there's more to the deal than that. Smektała reaffirms my hunch when I ask about which horror niches the pair would like to see make a resurgence. Another Broken Mirror game, Saw: Genesis, fulfils one of them – social horror in the vein of Repo and Lethal Company, harnessing "the power of technology, the power of online, the power of connecting people" to deliver "a game experience that will try to play with social interactions." The other element is the interactive experience of a game itself.

"I think it would be very very interesting to find ways to trick the player, make him doubt what he's seeing on screen, make him doubt how he interacts with the device as we do with Onyx: The Dark Grip," says Smektała. "Kind of by accident, the games that we have already announced [at Broken Mirror Games] are doing that already."

Feel the fear

Onyx: The Dark Grip is Broken Mirror's chance to "put horror literally back into players' hands", according to Babieno, reinforcing how integral the hardware itself is to the experience. "I think that breaking the fourth wall is very important because new hardware, new opportunities, are giving us something we didn't have before."

With stricter ratings boards in Japan compared to those in the West and an image built around fun for all ages, Nintendo's relationship with horror games is infamously complicated. There has not been a true third-party Nintendo-exclusive horror game since 2014's Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water on the Wii U (until it got remastered onto other platforms). Getting an upcoming horror game like Onyx, even one built so intrinsically around Nintendo hardware, is monumental to say the least.

"It wasn't easy for Nintendo to deal with horror," admits Babieno. But the family friendliness ascribed to Nintendo consoles has, historically, had some wiggle room. "Eternal Darkness and Resident Evil 4 were very important to me," Babieno reflects on how instrumental Nintendo consoles have been to horror in the past.

"I would like to bring those amazing times of GameCube back, but in a new way – and I believe that Nintendo fans always like to play something exclusive to them."

Western developer, Eastern sensibilities

But did Bloober Team's success with Konami have a role to play here, too? "Definitely," agrees Babieno, and it's all to do with how Bloober conducts itself as a business.

"For us, it was never a one-shot. It was never that we would like to create a game, and that's it. It's [about] the long run, and so we would like to build not just the next successful title, but a successful and very stable company."

Putting stability and reliability above one-and-done projects speaks to a business mindset that Babieno describes as more of "a Japanese approach than a Western approach," an alignment of values in terms of how Bloober Team grows and sustains its business not around the bottom line, but around a healthy, robust image. Beliefs that Bloober, and Broken Mirror, in turn, share with Japanese companies like Nintendo and Konami.

"We are a publicly traded company, so business is very important," he says. "But I think that even more important is to keep knowledge inside of the company. If we would like to build the company for decades, not just for the next few years, we need to build the DNA of the company and the team.

"So we always are making decisions by thinking, 'okay, are we able to do this without cutting staff in the future?' Because if we need to cut anyone, maybe it doesn't make sense. Maybe we are able to do this in a different way. Maybe we don't need to make this particular title. It's always the question of how it will impact the whole team."

As Smektała and Babieno join forces to chart the future of Bloober and Broken Mirror, the pair exude a comforting confidence. It extends to protecting not only their image and those of the companies they work with, but the people involved in creating the games themselves. "We are not just responsible for those 200, almost 270 people inside of the company, but also their families," says Babieno.

"And I really like what Satoru Iwata said years ago: that if we let go 5% of our team, 95% will live with the fear that it could happen to them in the future. So we are never thinking about how to make our financial parameters a little bit better, but how to create a better future. I think that this is much more important."

Check out all the other upcoming Switch 2 games you need to keep an eye on in 2026 and beyond

Whoever came up with pre-painted Warhammer terrain, take a bow; you're a goddamn hero.

After going hands on with the set, I think it's going to make a lot of gamers very happy. Yes, it looks amazing… but the time it'll save you is so much more valuable, and this is one hell of a time-consuming hobby. No matter whether you're putting together a 10-man Kill Team or forging an entire Warhammer 40K army from scratch, it's a marathon. While I think most of us would love to create a battlefield with the same level of care, there are only so many hours in a day – and scenery often seems to hit the bottom of our collective to-do list as a result. Warhammer 40,000 Battlefields: Armageddon is designed to bypass all that by providing fully painted terrain out of the box, and the result is impressive.

The idea here is simple; speedrun a full Warhammer 40K board with as little effort as possible. To that end, Warhammer 40,000 Battlefields: Armageddon pieces arrive painted on the sprue, so all you need to do is clip them out and slot them together (they don't even require glue). Don't get me wrong, I think Warhammer's claim that you can create a battlefield in minutes is generous. There's a lot crammed in this box, so constructing it all will take an hour or two at best. However, that's a fraction of what it'd take to make and paint everything by hand.

Plus, it'll look good straight from the box. While I can see some being put off by the grainy style (an unavoidable side-effect of UV printing, where paint is sprayed on and dried instantly using ultra-violet light), I think that actually works with 40K's grungy aesthetic. There's a literal grittiness to this scenery.

It's fairly low-key too. It fits the grim darkness of the far future without drawing too much attention to itself. Your models are likely to pop against this backdrop, which is only right; they're the real stars of the show.

Crucially, it's more accurate than I'd expected. While some less-noticeable details get lost, the things your eyes are drawn to look fantastic. There's a precision and neatness here that I don't think many of us would manage without dedicating hours to the cause.

Is it perfect? No. My biggest issue stems from the sprue connectors. You have to clip them off, and that obviously leaves a nubbin of gray plastic behind. But even then, many of those connections are hidden on the finished product (with the exception of rounded pieces), and the grungy nature of this terrain obscures them unless you look up close.

Listen, I enjoy cobbling together battlefields. Hand-crafting boards out of foam or 3D-printed materials and painting it all up is my jam, but even I get worn down painting the fiddly details of yet another ruined building. Warhammer 40,000 Battlefields: Armageddon lets you bypass all that effort and get a good-looking table ready with the minimum of effort.

I'll be very interested to see where the idea goes next; it's got so much potential. A pre-painted Kill Team or Age of Sigmar board? Yes please.

Speaking of Age of Sigmar, the Khazalite Holds army makes the old feel new again... but is that a good thing?

• See today's best Warhammer 40K deals at Amazon

Once again, the GamesRadar+ RPG Club demands blood as we set out to explore standout missions in The Witcher 3 Remastered. Which perhaps makes it all the more appropriate that, when asked to write about my favorite mission in The Witcher 3, my mind immediately went to classically-eccentric side quest "The Oxenfurt Drunk".

Well, actually my first thought went to The Bloody Baron storyline, but everybody writes about the Bloody Baron, and how much is there really left to say about it at this point? But there's a small side quest I love almost as much, partly because it does so much to make me realize the thing I want to see most in Witcher 4.

Quest Log

Shots, shots, crossbow shots!

An optional Witcher Contract found and set in the titular town, The Oxenfurt Drunk has Geralt find the killer behind multiple victims drained of all their blood - gee, I wonder what esoteric horror could be behind this! The twist is he discovers in the wake of a bit of corpse-prodding autopsy that every victim was well over the limit to drive and horse and cart, leading to the realization that this particular vampire has a penchant for blood with a high alcohol content. I won't make the Bloody Mary joke if you don't.

Twenty minutes later, Geralt is drunkenly staggering around crime scenes with a dozen vodkas inside him, trying to lure out the Ripper-Tippler with a series of bawdy tavern songs and a coquettishly exposed neckline. It feels like the kind of atrociously bad idea that a D&D party would come up with, and I mean that as an honest compliment.

So yeah, it's a fun little quest – the Contracts are reliably the best part of Witcher 3, to my mind – but it also shows the one place where I think the game had so much more room to flex. Namely, in all the investigation and intelligence that makes Geralt far more than some burly hired goon.

Research and Bedevilment

If Witcher 4 is going to shake up any part of the formula – or even introduce an optional difficulty mode – as we wave in Ciri as the new hero, my greatest wish would be for something that really gamifies the intellectual side of monster hunting.

As it goes now, the usual pattern is that Geralt finds some yellow glowing tracks and follows them until there's a tuft of fur, a mangled corpse, or a Resident Evil-style lab note. Then he stares at the clues before telling the audience he's deduced that the monster is a Lesser Striped Whifflepog or whatever, at which point the Pokedex entry for the Whifflepog appears in the Bestiary as if summoned by voice command, telling you exactly what tinctures, oils and spells are needed to kick its head in most effectively.

And that's all genuinely fine, but a bit uninvolving, especially for a sequence of events that happens so frequently across the game. Speaking as somebody who loves investigative detective games and piecing clues together, I'd much rather have deduced all these things myself, allowing for the thrill of getting it right, and the potential fear of getting it wrong. Rather than tell me what I'm about to fight, give me the full bestiary from the start, some giant old tome I can flick through between fights or even fill out myself with additional player-written notes, an ever-evolving monster hunter's journal.

Then, when I find the crime scene, I can examine the clues around me and make some educated decisions, without Geralt just blurting the answer like a God of War NPC. Hmm, a nighttime attacker, a city dweller, medium-sized claws, a blood drinker… To the indexed glossary, batman! Now the Bestiary can tell me what's needed to kill a Katakan Vampire, assuming that's actually what it is and I haven't pulled the wrong conclusion from the data.

And at the same time, the unique alcoholism of this particular vamp is something I can consider accordingly as an additional element that wouldn't be in the book, but can be folded into my strategies nonetheless. Maybe I could work out the strategy to wander drunkenly around the town instead of Geralt, or perhaps lace a wine bottle with blood and leave it out in plain view, ideally under a big anvil hanging by a tenuous string.

Perhaps I'm expecting too much, but Baldur's Gate 3 really opened the door for this kind of immersive gameplay, and I don't get the sense that the creators of Cyberpunk 2077 seem very workshy.

The Monster Manual

To me, this deductive skillset is the very thing that makes Geralt a witcher, far more than any silver sword or toxin immunity. It's the space where an off-the-peg burly warrior brute becomes something more, an educated hunter who knows how to exploit weaknesses and analyze nuanced information. And with Ciri being new to The Path in The Witcher 4, her having less experience would facilitate a more involved, methodical research process. Geralt materializes in the series with most of this knowledge memorized, but Ciri is still using reference material.

Witcher 3 was always great at showing off Geralt's intellect, but clearly wasn't comfortable about the idea of gamifying it too hard, perhaps for fear of alienating or confusing the audience. And yes, it is arguably a lot to ask from them. But in a post-Elden Ring world, I don't think people are fearful of having to read between lines or make deductions, and even if not, there'll be a billion online guides to hand if it's all proving too perplexing. So if another Oxenfurt Drunk shows up in Witcher 4, I'll be excited to make that revelation myself – even if I show up prepared to fight half a dozen goblins instead.

Pre-MCU, if you polled most fans on the best superhero movies, there's a reasonable chance that X2 would be in the top 3. The 2003 sequel is a seismic step up from its predecessor, fully delivering on the promise of Marvel's mutants on screen with a true ensemble comic book movie that blurs the lines between its heroes and villains. And it could prove the perfect model for integrating Doctor Doom alongside the Avengers in Avengers: Doomsday.

X2, for the uninitiated or those in need of a refresher, is the follow-up to 2000's messy, but undeniably important, X-Men. Following an attack on the White House by acrobatic teleporter Nightcrawler – a sequence that still thrills to this day – tensions between mutantkind and the rest of the world are at an all-time high. Enter Colonel William Stryker (Brian Cox), a military scientist who has a history with Wolverine, and leads an attack on Xavier's mansion, kidnapping Professor X and Cyclops.

Stryker, it turns out, has a plan to kill every living mutant using his telepathic son, Jason, and his own version of Cerebro. With a shared enemy to take care of, the X-Men forge an alliance of necessity with Magneto and the Brotherhood of Mutants, teaming up to infiltrate Stryker's arctic Akali Lake base. Expertly juggling its large ensemble, it also manages to lay some tantalizing groundwork for the Dark Phoenix Saga – a story the X-Men movies would go on to squander on two separate occasions.

New mutants

23 years later, X2 still impresses. Without access to anything-goes VFX tools and the gargantuan budget levels of modern-day superhero tentpoles, it's a far more intimate and personal comic book blockbuster than anything you'll see nowadays, where world/universe-ending stakes are the norm. But this works in its favor; there's a lot of rich character work and knotty drama here among the memorable spectacle.

Nightcrawler alone remains one of the coolest comic book characters ever brought to the screen, his powerset perfectly suited to dazzling in live action. The attack on Xavier's mansion allows Wolverine to let rip in supremely satisfying fashion, followed by a brutal showdown with Lady Deathstrike that betters any of the awkward adamantium-clawed action in Deadpool & Wolverine. And Magneto's ingenious escape from his plastic prison is a spectacularly well-staged sequence that's better for its simplicity.

Before Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame proved that the MCU could deftly juggle two dozen main characters in a single movie – albeit with 18 films worth of setup – X2 set the standard for ensemble superhero storytelling. Surprisingly few characters feel shortchanged here (Rogue among them, in part a consequence of her central role in the first movie), with around half a dozen interconnected story threads dovetailing at Alkali Lake. Even the film's Dark Phoenix sequel tease doesn't feel egregious, because you've had such a full meal up to that point already.

Universes collide

So why is X2 on Marvel's essential (re)watchlist ahead of Avengers: Doomsday? The simple answer is that the OG X-Men are set to play a crucial part in proceedings. Notably, Alan Cumming's Nightcrawler – who didn't appear in the first X-Men – is also set to return in Doomsday, alongside OG mutants Professor X, Magneto, Mystique, Cyclops, and Beast.

But I'd argue there's much Doomsday could draw from X2. Without as much of a build-up this time, Doomsday needs to establish its stakes and new threat, Doctor Doom, far quicker than the last Avengers-level mega-event, something X2 excels at. Likewise, X2 is a masterclass in establishing a villain with human motivations and deep connections to existing heroes – something Marvel will need to replicate with Doom if he's to work.

The use of Magneto in X2 could also prove something of template for Doom. In X2, Magneto eventually teams up with the X-Men to take down Stryker, as he's a threat to all mutantkind. The enemy of my enemy proverb literalized. Doom, in all likelihood, will need to spend a significant chunk of Doomsday working alongside the Avengers in an effort to stop the incursions threatening the multiverse, before being revealed as the one orchestrating the chaos.

Either way, as a still-superlative example of ensemble superhero storytelling, there's much Avengers: Doomsday could learn from X2, and plenty to recommend about the movie, even after 18 years of the MCU. And perhaps one day, following a pair of infamous misfires, Marvel's own fresh-faced X-Men lineup will finally make good on the promise of Jean Grey's Dark Phoenix.

X-Men 2 is available to stream now on Disney Plus, ahead of the release of Avengers: Doomsday on December 18.

Look ahead with our list of upcoming Marvel movies and check out how to watch the Marvel movies in order ahead of your next rewatch. See you next week as we revisit Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

Resident Evil Veronica is the official title for the long-rumored remake of Resident Evil: Code Veronica.

Announced as part of a very memorable surprise reveal during the Summer Game Fest 2026 showcase, Resident Evil Veronica will bring back the cult classic 2000 release with a modern makeover. With Capcom confirming the upcoming horror game will be arriving in 2027, the developer is setting out to "preserve the essence of the original game", but just like the many excellent Resi remakes we've seen over the years, you can expect shiny new and improved graphics, plenty of gameplay enhancements, and more.

There's a lot of excitement surrounding the new game, with the remake quickly racking up two million Steam wishlists within a month of its reveal. That's not so surprising given Capcom's winning streak in 2026, with its new sci-fi IP Pragmata and Resident Evil Requiem, which has already earned its place (along with many other Resi games) as one of the best survival horror games around right now. So whether you can hardly wait to join Claire and Chris Redfield or you're curious to learn more about their sibling team-up, read on as I break down everything you need to know about Resident Evil Veronica.

Resident Evil Veronica release date speculation

The Resident Evil Veronica release date is currently set for sometime in 2027.

The surprise announcement of Code Veronica's return came with the news of the 2027 launch window, but we're still awaiting an exact release date to be confirmed. The line-up of upcoming games dropping in early 2027 is already quite stacked, with the likes of Stranger Than Heaven, Fable, and Exodus, and more all releasing within the first four months of the year.

I'm curious to see if Resident Evil Veronica will add another release to a very busy period, but it would be fitting if it was released later in 2027 for the spooky season. I'll be keeping an eye out for updates from Capcom.

Resident Evil Veronica platforms confirmed

Capcom confirmed the Resident Evil Veronica platforms in the initial reveal trailer, with the remake set to land on PC, PS5, Switch 2, and Xbox Series X.

With lots of Resi goodness landing on the Switch 2 in 2026, it's great to see Veronica complete the set and join the likes of Resident Evil 2 Remake, Resident Evil 3 Remake, and Resident Evil 4 Remake along with Resident Evil 7, Resident Evil Village, and Requiem. Better still, it appears Veronica will be launching on all platforms simultaneously in 2027.

Resident Evil Veronica trailer

Resident Evil Veronica story

Resident Evil Veronica's story is set to be something of a reimagining of the original game's storyline that promises to deliver a "chilling new entry in survival horror".

Claire Redfield, who appeared in Resident Evil 2 Remake alongside Leon Kennedy, is one of two leading protagonists, with Veronica taking place three months after the biological disaster she survived her way through in Raccoon City. As we see a nod to in the initial reveal trailer when the older woman says, "I hate to say, but your brother is, well, quite odd", Claire has traveled to France in search of her sibling, Chris Redfield. But things take a turn when Umbrella steps in (those dastardly fiends!).

Umbrella captures Claire and brings her to the mysterious, remote Rockfort Island. And because she can't get a moment's peace, this island has also been hit by another biological disaster. With no cozy family reunion on the cards, Claire now finds herself in another fight for survival in classic Resi fashion.

The original game became something of a cult classic for some of its goofier aspects and memorable moments, of which fans have been fondly remembering since the remake was officially confirmed. It also features Resident Evil 1 and 5 baddie Albert Wesker back in his evil villain throne for one of the most iconic instalments in the franchise.

With a Wesker clone named Zeno having appeared in Resident Evil Requiem, I have a feeling Capcom is building out the connective tissue between Code Veronica, as the most popular among the Resident Evil spin-offs, and Resident Evil 5 – which could well be the next mainline Resi game to get the remake treatment.

Either way, it's clear that Capcom is aiming to keep the essence of the Code Veronica alive, and I can't wait to see how they bring this story into the modern era and put a fresh spin on it.

Resident Evil Veronica gameplay

Resident Evil Veronica's gameplay will be modernized to bring it in line with some of the latest Resident Evil games in the series. While we've yet to see any gameplay in action, or see what changes it will include, we expect it to be like other remakes in the Resident Evil timeline, with all of the survival horror goodness that comes with.

And while the reveal trailer was in first-person to keep us guessing, a producer has confirmed Veronica will be a third-person experience.

In the original, which was broken up into chapters, there were more playable characters during certain sections. While Claire still took center stage for the most part, there was also Steve Burnside, a prisoner on Rockfort Island, and Chris Redfield, who we haven't seen since Resident Evil Village. We're guessing this will once again be the case in Resident Evil Veronica.

For more Resi goodness, check out our ranking of the best Resident Evil games, or explore the Resident Evil movie.

The Street Fighter movie has hurricane-kicked its way onto screens, and brought with it a World Warrior tournament full of Easter eggs, famous fighters, and special moves.

It might not be quite as extensive a list as our breakdown of the Super Mario Galaxy Movie Easter eggs, but the Street Fighter movie is nothing if not a love letter to the games, and features an expansive roster of familiar fighters, tonnes of special moves pulled directly from Street Fighter II (and beyond), and even several stages recreated from the games.

So head below to see what we spotted, and let us know in the comments if you clocked anything we missed! Once you're done here, be sure to check out our Street Fighter movie review, and our deep dive into the Street Fighter movie ending.

Every fighter from the games in the Street Fighter movie

The Street Fighter movie features a massive line-up of characters from the games. Not all of them can be found on the character select screen, but most have featured in numerous Street Fighter games since the series debuted in 1987.

Most, if not all, are also rocking their iconic outfits, making this – aesthetically, at least – one of the more authentic video game adaptations ever. The full list of combatants in the Street Fighter movie in alphabetical order is as follows:

• Akuma
• Balrog
• Blanka
• Cammy
• Chun-Li
• Dan Hibiki
• Dhalsim
• Don Sauvage
• E. Honda
• Gouken
• Guile
• Joe
• Juli
• Ken
• M. Bison
• Ryu
• Sagat
• Vega
• Zangief

Special moves from the games featured in the Street Fighter movie

There are plenty of iconic special moves from the Street Fighter games that appear in the Street Fighter movie, many of which have been recreated frame for frame. You can check many of them out in Paramount's own Street Fighter game moves video, but there are many others we spotted as well:

• Ryu - Hadouken, Hurricane Kick, Dragon Punch
• Ken - Axe Kick, Hell Wheel, Dragonlash Kick, Chinbuster
• Chun-Li - Lightning Kick, Spinning Bird Kick, Falling Crane, Hazanshu
• E. Honda - Hundred Hand Slap, Sumo Headbutt, Oicho Throw, Power Stomp
• Zangief - Russian Suplex, Cyclone Lariat
• Dhalsim - Yoga Mummy, Karma Kick, Yoga Mountain
• Balrog - Crazy Rush, Buffalo Headbutt
• Guile - Flash Kick
• Blanka – Electric Thunder
• M. Bison - Psycho Crusher
• Akuma - Empyrean's End

Stages from the games that appear in the Street Fighter movie

Stage recreations are fewer and further between in the Street Fighter movie, as much of the fighting takes place in the World Warrior tournament arena in Metrolao City, instead of fights taking place across the globe. However, there are still some fun callbacks to several familiar stages, including:

• Ayutthaya Ruins, Thailand – the setting of Ryu and Sagat's 1987 fight for the inaugural World Warrior tournament championship
• Car bonus stage – Ken is seen dismantling a car with his feet and fists during an early montage
• Bathhouse/Kapukon Yu – Ryu and E. Honda fight in a sauna room for a place in the second World Warrior tournament, a callback to E. Honda's iconic bathhouse stage

Street Fighter movie Easter Eggs

Ryu vs Sagat – In the games, Ryu defeats Sagat to become the winner of the inaugural World Warrior tournament. This exact same pairing and outcome unfolds in animated flashback form in the Street Fighter movie.

"Round 1: fight!" – The iconic Street Fighter II starting announcement is heard over the Street Fighter movie's title card.

M. Bison laugh – M. Bison actor David Dastmalchian recreates the 'M. Bison says yes' gif that has almost certainly popped up in your group chat at some point.

Chaos Games poster – Outside Ryu's warehouse apartment, there are several posters for the 'Chaos Games'. Could this be a deep cut reference to crossover fighting game SVC Chaos: SNK vs. Capcom?

Street Fighter II intro – The iconic Street Fighter II title screen, featuring two men fighting in the shadow of a skyscraper, is recreated in the Street Fighter movie. Bonus Easter egg: the two men fighting are none other than Talk To Me and Bring Her Back directors Danny and Michael Philippou!

Street Fighter II anime callbacks – There are several references to 1994's Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie. Most notably: Chun-Li stepping into the shower in the live-action Street Fighter movie echoes an infamous scene in the anime, while Chun-Li later disfiguring masked fighter Vega also echoes the result of their face-off in the anime.

"For me, it's Tuesday" – This M. Bison moment is a callback/straight lift of a legendary line from the otherwise terrible 1994 live-action movie. There, Raul Julia's M. Bison says: "For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me, it was Tuesday."

Street Fighter themes – The themes for both Street Fighter and Street Fighter II are part of the movie's score, among countless needle drops.

Creator cameos – Several creators, influencers, and esports players can be spotted in Bison's prison during the Blanka vs Ryu fight, including Justin Wong and Maximilian Dood.

"You lose" – M. Bison's (anticlimactic) final line is, of course, a nod to the Street Fighter II announcer's blunt statement when the player loses a fight. We can still sense the disappointment in his voice.

Street Fighter is out in theaters now. For more, check out our list of upcoming video game movies, and our ranking of the best fighting games.

At the risk of repeating myself, Ghost of Yotei is perhaps my favorite video game of 2025. I absolutely inhaled the entire game before it was even released, got the Platinum trophy (my very first) soon after, and generally spent dozens upon dozens of hours wandering the beautiful vistas of Yotei as Atsu. Despite all of this, the recent Ghost of Yotei DLC has done absolutely nothing for me – except remind me why I loved Ghost of Yotei in the first place.

When Ghost of Yotei Complete Edition was first announced back in August, the idea of an entirely new narrative expansion – Ghost of Yotei: Echoes of Sekigahara – on top of a combat survival mode was incredibly enticing. Again, GOTY 2025, right? More of that can only be a good thing… right?

Or so I thought, anyway. Actually playing through Echoes of Sekigahara, however, has been straightforward to the point of being meaningless. This is likely partly due to the simple fact that I left absolutely nothing on the original bone, so all I have now is what's been added, and Echoes of Sekigahara is more of an appendix to the existing game than anything else.

Memory hole

While it's a new narrative, it's not much of a continuation. By design, the entire DLC is effectively intended to look back rather than look forward. The location of Ashoro Foothills is a messy wasteland overrun with the remains of the Viper's followers – the first of the Yotei Six that Atsu immediately takes out in the main game, and therefore not a real boss here – as they scramble to find a new leader.

Echoes of Sekigahara is also tied to the return of Nagato, someone from Atsu's past, as she relives some of the pivotal Battle of Sekigahara and her and Nagato's influence on it. For a new expansion, it's decidedly obsessed with the past in a way that makes the whole endeavor feel a bit moot. The big battle happened years ago, the Vipers are a shell of their former selves without a real figurehead, and mechanically there are new enemies, armor sets, dyes, and so on, but it all just comes down to being more of the same.

Not that the same is bad, even. Playing through the newly opened wilds, I'm having to come to terms with the fact that my muscle memory isn't what it once was. While I'd matched blades with the best that the base Ghost of Yotei game had to offer, that was months and months ago, and my reflexes are now sluggish and my aim is not quite as pinpoint. Age is a terrible thing.

Playing through the DLC may not exactly be the exciting adventure full of twists and turns that I'd hoped for, but relearning all of these skills and the ways in which they combine into beautiful, complex actions and animations has been as, if not more, thrilling. Atsu squaring up to a standoff, wolf at her side, to nearly entirely rout a group of bandits before even having to get into standard combat is as sick as it ever was, and I'm continuously getting better at it. Maybe that's good enough.

Maybe simply being reminded of how cool it is to be Atsu – and how good it feels to cut fools down when they deserve it – in a new place with some new toys makes it all worthwhile. I'm certainly enjoying myself, but not in a way that the Ghost of Yotei DLC is actually adding to that experience, which is a shame given how often each incremental upgrade and reveal in the main story felt like a bolt of lightning – or, perhaps more fittingly, like the sudden strike of a katana during one of the game's many duels.

Even if Ghost of Yotei isn't your thing, be sure to check out our ranking of the best open world games to find something you might enjoy.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time's remake, releasing November 5, overwhelmed me when I went hands-on during an official preview event. Link's enormous blue eyes are striking examples of how a remake can speak to our memory while conveying the level of modernization at play. But this was only the beginning.

Kokiri Forest has been rebuilt to feel more lived in and fleshed out. The walls of the area, while just as restrictive as in 1998, present a more natural boundary, making me appreciate the protective nature of Link's childhood home as I watch him jump across floating platforms on command (local boy learns to jump after 28 years and I'm so happy about it).

Hyrule Field takes the remake to another level, with Lon Lon Ranch sitting more naturally among rolling hills. Approaching the high walls around Hyrule Castle Town, I notice a desolate structure by the moat, hinting at a once-lively past.

Castle Town itself is a riot of color, with familiar NPCs sporting their glow-ups proudly. Link is able to enter more buildings here, pouring yet more depth into the remake's mixture of old and new. As an Ocarina of Time veteran, I savor the foreshadowing present when I see an NPC slumped on the ground in the back alley. And all the while I'm watched over by the stoic grace of the Temple of Time – perhaps the most iconic structure in Nintendo's repertoire.

More is more

As the session skips ahead to the Forest Temple, Adult Link enters the creepy mansion concealed within the Sacred Forest Meadow, letting us explore the first of the more mature dungeons within Ocarina of Time's remake. The four poes who split up to hide the flames needed to progress are all unique in their appearance, with different faces and shapes in addition to their individual color schemes.

The stonework of the underground areas add a sense of history to the area, while the pool tiles remind me of the splendor of Tomb Raider 3's Croft Manor, inviting my mind to wonder what came before. The area has given me a Resident Evil vibe since playing back in the day – here, it's stronger than ever.

Other more modern elements are straight out of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. In addition to the way Hyrule Field is introduced with the same sweeping camera, the in-game menus all feel right out of the 2017 title.

Holding down the R button on the Switch 2 Pro Controller brings up the same style of equipment screen as Breath of the Wild, showing a line of items available to rotate through at your leisure. Similarly, the loading screens and on-screen text when starting a new quest all abide by the principles of the Switch game.

To newcomers, this will likely serve only as a collection of useful design choices, but to a long-time Zelda fan like myself, it's a visual indicator to treat Ocarina of Time's remake differently to its source material. It tells me to embrace the constant, over-the-shoulder camera that has replaced the original's occasional fixed angles, making some secrets easier to find. Enjoy swapping items on the go, switching from the Hookshot to Din's Fire in the heat of battle against two cartoonish-yet-intimidating Stalfos.

This is not to say the remake demands we reject tradition and embrace modernity entirely, as that would defeat the purpose of its existence. Instead take this as a friendly heads-up to go into Nintendo's reimagining with the desire for smoother, more user-friendly edges than the N64 adventure served up. This may seem obvious, but fans of the classic title aren't getting the exact same experience again here, and that's a good thing.

1998's Ocarina of Time is still available to play in multiple ways, and I'm thankful to Hylia it is. But the Switch 2 remake brings a welcome update that adapts the classic to keep up with the demands of the contemporary gaming space, and I've never been happier to see something I love get such a treatment.

There's still plenty of time to play more, so take a look at our best Zelda games ranking or best RPGs list for some suggestions!

New York Comic Con 2026 has come and gone. As ever, the four-day event was packed to the gills with news and announcements from all of the major publishers. Marvel had a particularly well-stocked selection of announcements, teasing an epic slew of new titles that will be headed our way over the coming months.

Across several panels, the publisher teased several big releases for Spider-Man, a brand new ongoing series for Captain Marvel, an intriguing X-Men spin-off, and much more besides. It also ended with an ominous tease for a mysterious upcoming event that appears to be called 1 Day. It's an intriguing selection of projects with some starry creators attached, so read on to find out more.

And if you want to see what Marvel's Distinguished Competition is up to, check out our guide to DC's NYCC 2026 announcements.

Spider-books galore!

It wouldn't be a Marvel panel without a slew of new Spider-Man-related comic announcements – and NYCC did not disappoint in this regard.

Crisis of Faith: This new crossover event by Joe Kelly and Bryan Edward Hill unites both Peter Parker and Miles Morales – only to seemingly shatter their bonds of trust, potentially forever.

Marvel is keeping most of the plot details locked down for now, but Spider-Man editor Nick Lowe teased that, "Peter has been getting more and more risky with his choices since Hellgate punched him into space. Some of those will get uncovered, and Miles is not pleased. But Miles has been keeping some strange and questionable company of late that Peter does not approve of." Crisis of Faith begins in April 2027.

Spider-Man Noir: Alex Segura and Farid Karami spin a web of intrigue in this new Spider-Man Noir mystery, which will bring Peter face-to-face with Venom Noir!

"It's been a treat to blend two of my favorite things – noir stories and the Spider-Man mythos – in the pages of Spider-Man Noir," said Segura. "Working with an amazing artist like Farid on a story that not only introduces mysterious (and perhaps familiar) elements to the Noir universe but also pushes Spidey to the brink has been a blast, and we're aiming to keep readers on their toes from page one. Plus, we get to answer the ultimate question – can Peter Parker EVER be truly happy?"

We're guessing the answer to that one is: absolutely not.

Spider-Punk: When Hobie Brown's bandmates go missing, Spider-Punk steps back into action. His investigations bring him up against a brand new adversary, Mz. Negative, as well as Scorpion in this series from Cody Ziglar and Justin Mason.

"[I'm] very honored and excited to take another spin around the block with Hobie and further explore the world of Spider-Punk and Universe-138," said Ziglar in a statement. "Justin Mason has been one of my favorite artists to work with, and we have a lot of really cool (and emotional!) stuff planned. [I'm] excited to tell a longer-form, solo, Hobie story and even more excited that fans showed up in such strong numbers that it made a 3rd book possible!"

Marvel SFX – Thwip: A bizarre title for the first issue of a very fun-sounding anthology series based around, yes, the iconic Spider-Man "THWIP!" sound effect. The new issue features stories from Jed MacKay, Stephen Graham Jones, and Rainbow Rowell with art from Alessandro Cappuccio, Lucas Werneck, and more still to be revealed.

Also fighting crime in New York is Daredevil, who is getting a special oversized issue #700 in March 2027, courtesy of writer Stephanie Phillips and artist Lee Garbett.

Captain Marvel

Ms. Marvel co-creator G. Willow Wilson and Rachael Stott are the creative team behind this new Captain Marvel series.

Following the events of the recent Avengers: Armageddon, Carol Danvers is in a bad place. The synopsis for the new book reveals that "Carol will have to challenge everything she thought she knew about being Captain Marvel – and break every rule along the way. And as she pushes herself further, a threat that has been quietly assembling in the shadows of the Marvel Universe for decades is finally ready to make its move."

"I'm so excited to be returning to these characters who I love so much, these readers who I love so much, and to be taking Carol on her next big adventure," said Wilson. "I can't wait to get started and for fans to see what we have in store for Carol and all her friends. So chin up, put your boots on. We're going back up!" Captain Marvel #1 blasts into comic stores in May 2027.

Magneto: End of Days

The mercurial Master of Magnetism comes into focus in this eight-issue limited series from Brian Michael Bendis and Andrea Sorrentino. Magneto: End of Days looks back over the life of a mutant who has been a hero, a villain, and everything in between over 60 years of publishing. The series will recap key events from Magneto's personal history, with each issue told from a different point of view.

"Magneto is one of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's best creations," said Bendis. "This time, we're going to delve into his world in very curated, unique chapters from every era of the Marvel Universe. And I'm reuniting with some of my favorite comic creators – Andrea and Dave together is a special event in itself, and Tom Brevoort is responsible for some of my best moments at Marvel. We've been working on this book for many months and it's just beautiful." Magneto: End of Days starts in February 2027.

X-Men: Regulators

This five-issue limited series spins out from Uncanny X-Men. It follows a team of mutants, the Regulators, in the late 1800s/early 1900s as they grapple with both mutant hatred and real-world racism.

Some of the characters here include four-armed gunslinger John Slaughter Freedman, the psychic Mother Witchfire, Lady Henrietta, who can transform herself into rock, and marksman Michael St. Juniors. The series is written by Mikki Kendall with art by Georges Jeanty, with #1 dropping in February 2027.

In other X-Men news, Marvel also teased the next few issues of Gail Simone and Juan Frigeri's Uncanny X-Men, which is about to start a new arc, 'Soul Deep', with this month's #37. Expect the return of villainous Sarah Gaunt, who sets out to destroy Xavier's legacy once and for all.

Immortal Soldiers

Also spinning off from the cataclysmic events of Avengers: Armageddon is Immortal Soldiers, a new one-shot from Chip Zdarsky and Christian Rosado.

"With the world no longer trusting superheroes to save them, Earth still needs saving," reads the official teaser. "Who will step up to the plate and keep watch over the planet when we need it the most?"

The striking cover art above seems to hint at the surprise return of Nick Fury... but could he have joined Hydra?! Immortal Soldiers is published in January 2027.

Hulk War: Infernal Rage

This five-issue event series is the final act in Phillip Kennedy Johnson and Nic Klein's three-and-a-bit-year run on Hulk. In it, the Jade Giant has been possessed by an ancient evil known as the Endless. Now known as the Infernal Hulk, he is rampaging across the Marvel Universe, leaving disaster and corruption in his wake. Is the real Hulk gone for good?

Hulk War: Infernal Rage follows a series of one-shots, which began with last months Infernal Hulk vs. Wolverine and continues into Infernal Hulk vs. Spider-Man and Infernal Hulk vs. Avengers. Infernal Rage begins in February 2027.

Marvel x Kadokawa

Marvel's ongoing collaboration with Japanese publisher Kadokawa will continue into 2027, with new manga-inspired riffs on several classic characters, including Iron Man, Spider-Gwen, Deadpool, and Venom.

The stories announced were I Am Iron Man by TERU; Spider-Gwen: Her Big Debut by Yamada Ryusei; Deadpool: Millionaire with a Mouth by Momoi Baisuke; and a Venom tale that is riffing on the character's 'Lethal Protector' arc by Peperon. There's also a new Spider-Man tale, Shibuya Cross Line, by Tokitokoro.

All five of these manga are available to read right now in Japanese, with English translations to come, though no release date has been announced for those just yet.

1 Day

Finally... we have absolutely no idea what this is. Marvel has released a cryptic teaser and tagline for something that may or may not be called 1 Day. "THIS JUNE… TOMORROW IS ONE DAY AWAY. Save the date… because no one is promised the future. June 2027"

Ominous – and perhaps a callback to Spider-Man's infamous One More Day storyline? Only time will tell. We'll be keeping a close eye out for more on this one.

For more, check out our guides to upcoming DC movies and shows on the way.

New York Comic Con is all wrapped up for another year! The event brought the usual slew of comic announcements and reveals from the major publishers.

DC in particular had a really strong showing this year, unveiling the next phases of both its DC Next Level and Absolute Universe lines, and teasing the return of classic characters like Swamp Thing, Static, Jonah Hex and Vixen.

If you couldn't make the event, fear not! We've rounded up the biggest highlights from DC's various panels below so you can get up to speed on all the amazing comics headed your way over the next few years.

New Bat Books

The Dark Knight remains DC's brightest star, so it's no surprise that the mainline DC continuity is getting a couple of intriguing new Bat-books.

Batman: The core Batman comic begins a new arc with #15, released on November 4. The series, written by Matt Fraction and illustrated by Jorge Jiménez, sees the Caped Crusader investigating a shocking crime: the assassination of Bruce Wayne! December's #16 is said to be a must-read issue in particular.

Batman – Shadow of the Bat: Now this one looks really interesting. Shadow of the Bat, from the creative team behind the brilliant and occasionally baffling Absolute Martian Manhunter. On stage at NYCC, Camp revealed that the series kicks off with an explosion at the Ace Chemicals factory from The Killing Joke, which floods a Gotham neighborhood in neuropharmacological agents. The area is quarantined, but Batman enters to try and prevent the birth of more Jokers. Expect this in early 2027.

Batman – Justice Year: DC mainstay Joshua Williamson and artist Bruno Redondo are the creative team for this new series, which takes us back to the early days of the Caped Crusader as he has his first difficult dealings with the other members of the Justice League. There's no public release date for this just yet, but early 2027 is likely.

Bruce's big blue pal Superman also had a few reveals at the con. Xermánico will be the regular series artist on Superman from #43 onwards, and Tom King and Mitch Gerads are working on an as-yet-unnamed Man of Steel project. There's also an upcoming Superboy Prime special from Joshua Williamson and Dan Mora.

The Absolute Universe

The other half of DC's publishing line, the Absolute Universe, is expanding in 2027. As well as announcing big developments for the range's current titles, a long-awaited new series was also revealed. Let's start there...

Absolute Justice: This is the big one: the first major crossover between the Absolute Universe Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. The series, by writer Jason Aaron and artist Juan Ferreyra, sees Martian Manhunter J'onn J'onzz gather the heroes together to fight back against the Absolute Universe's corrupt version of the Justice League, which is made up of Joker, Dr. Elenore Thawne, Hector Hammond, and Veronica Cale. You can see a trailer above.

Absolute Batman: The biggest comic in the world right now continues into its 25th issue. Bruce Wayne is recovering from his encounter with Scarecrow, but he's about to face the Joker once more. Artist Nick Dragotta is sitting #26 out, with Cliff Chiang filling in for an issue that will focus on Barbara Gordon. The series will then take a month off before returning in January 2027.

Absolute Superman: The next issue of Jason Aaron and Juan Ferreyra's Absolute Superman is set to wrap up the long-running Brainiac arc, with future issues set to take the Man of Steel deep into space.

Absolute Wonder Woman: Artist Hayden Sherman teased the future of the Kelly Thompson-penned series, including the introduction of the Absolute Universe version of Cheetah in #25 and the arrival of Silver Swan a few issues later.

Writer Pornsak Pichetshote also revealed that Absolute Green Lantern is being expanded into a 12-issue maxi-series and that an Absolute Black Canary one-shot, drawn by Belén Ortega, is also in the works.

A trio of new solo comics

It's not just about the big name heroes, of course. A trio of new solo books starring some of the publisher's lesser-known characters were also revealed at the DC Next Level panel.

Starfire: Coming in April 2027 is a new series focused on the veteran Titan. Writer Alyssa Wong and Belén Ortega are the creative team on a book that DC is describing as "Red Sonja meets One Piece." Yes. Yep. Count us in for that.

Vixen: Stephanie Williams and Khary Randolph were both on stage to share some teases and character designs for the upcoming Vixen comic – a project that has reportedly been in the works for several years now. The title is set in Detroit and the creators stated an intention to make Mari McCabe a more distinctive character with slightly redefined powers as well as teasing a love interest who is connected to the Bat-Family.

Static: Writer Cody Ziglar wants to bring the classic Milestone character Virgil Hawkins back to prominence with his new Static series with artist Diego Olortegui. Away from the panel, Ziglar also revealed to Chris Covers Comics that the series will also heavily feature fellow hero Rocket.

Monsters and Magic

The Demon: James Harren is both writing and drawing this new take on Etrigan the Demon, reimagining the look of occultist Jason Blood as someone who has lived for a century, all the while struggling with his curse. The series launches on October 27, with the issue's solicit reading: "Following the mute face — a lost wizard — tortured by a voice from Hell, can Jason Blood protect our world and save his soul?"

The Swamp Thing: Hallowed Ground: Details were slim for this standalone release from writer Steve Foxe and artist Riccardo Federici, but the art in the trailer below looks suitably gnarly and gothic. It follows hot on the heels of Swamp Thing 1989, published earlier this year, which finally completed writer Rick Veitch’s acclaimed late-1980s run on the storied horror hero.

Jonah Hex and the Shadow of Death: The veteran gunslinger returns in this six-issue limited series from writer and artist Michael Walsh – the first solo Jonah Hex book in a decade. Described as a horror western with shades of Hellboy and Unforgiven, it finds Hex coming out of retirement when a sinister preacher rides into town.

DC Black Label Presents Zatanna: DC's main magic-wielder is getting a new Black Label (so, aimed at mature readers and not in the mainline continuity) one-shot from Terry and Rachel Dodson.

Also coming soon from the Black Label imprint is Green Lantern: The Dying of the Light by Jason Aaron and Tirso, which sees an older Hal Jordan imprisoned with a ring that's running out of power. Sounds like a great read for fans of the recent Lanterns TV show.

For more, check out our guides to upcoming DC movies and shows on the way.

Another New York Comic Con is in the books – specifically, the 20th anniversary of the annual pop culture convention – and it was a packed weekend of fan culture, jaw-dropping cosplay, and of course, big announcements from the worlds of movies, TV, comics, video games, and more.

In fact, there are so many things going on at the same time that even if you were at the convention, you likely missed out on a good chunk of it… While official attendance numbers haven't been revealed for this year's convention as of this writing, past years stretched to 250,000 attendees, dwarfing even the legendary San Diego Comic-Con. And thanks to a new reservation system introduced this year, if you didn't put in your request for some of the bigger panels ASAP, well, you're more out of luck than Dungeon Crawler Carl when Princess Donut goes rogue.

Most of you, though, likely weren't in New York, or perhaps (spitballing here) had "other things to do with your lives." So in the interest of getting you caught up quickly, here are the biggest announcements from New York Comic Con 2026, including two intriguing announcements from Marvel TV, an extension of the world of Avatar, and more.

Marvel's Zodiac

No, we won't finally be learning what Captain America's horoscope is ("Signs all point to you being able to do this all day"), but instead the 2028-debuting Zodiac is a live-action international spy thriller set inside the Marvel Cinematic Universe… And notably, debuting some time after the currently scheduled release date of Avengers: Secret Wars, meaning it takes place in whatever the post-Battleworld MCU looks like.

As for who is in the show, who is writing the show, or any other details? Well, we don't know for sure, but an eye-opening logo provided included at least two clues. The first? The "A" in the logo is styled like the logo for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and given Marvel TV chief Brad Winderbaum recently binged the series, and Phil Coulson himself, Clark Gregg, reposted the announcement, it seems plausible that some AoS characters may return. And the "O" in the logo is a reference to "The Great Wheel," a conglomeration of spy organizations from Marvel's Secret Warriors comic. Speculate away, Marvel spies.

Marvel Zombies specials

While the Zodiac announcement had been in the Hollywood trades well before the panel, the big surprise was not one, not two, but three different Marvel Zombies specials, each arriving on subsequent Halloweens (or thereabouts). The first in 2027 is Marvel Zombies: The Winter Soldier. The second in 2028 is Marvel Zombies: The Fist of Khonshu. And the third in the impossible-to-imagine future of 2029 is Marvel Zombies: The Last Guardian.

While no further details were shared other than it'll be a return to the gory, envelope-pushing world of the previous animated series (will it take place after the events of the original, or before that Twilight Zone-esque rug-pull Marvel Zombies ending?), we can certainly intuit a few things from the titles. The first special almost definitely focuses on Bucky Barnes, the second on Moon Knight (or more likely the Blade Knight introduced in the 2023 series), and the third on the last member of the Guardians of the Galaxy standing. Who that is, Winderbaum wouldn't say on stage. But our money is on Groot, only because that's the funniest/saddest option.

Avatar Kuruk: Wave of Chaos

Fans of Nickelodeon's Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra are absolutely eating now, thanks to the recently released Avatar Aang movie and now the Seven Havens sequel series currently streaming on Paramount Plus. And that doesn't seem like it'll be stopping any time soon, thanks to the announcement that Seven Havens, already planned for two seasons (or "Books") has been extended to four seasons.

But the bigger surprise? Another Avatar spinoff is in the works, focusing on Avatar Kuruk, who was briefly introduced in the original animated series. Here, Kuruk is a 14-year-old wild child who decides to learn bending on his own, journeying around the world in what's described as a more comedic take on the franchise. It's voice-directed by Janet Varney (aka the voice of Korra), and created by Bryan Konietzko (aka, the co-creator of Avatar), and other than that we don't know much… Other than yip yip, let's go, the more Avatar the better!

The Exorcist: Martyrs trailer

After a wobbly few years, Blumhouse went hard at its annual New York Comic Con panel, laying out nine movies coming up in 2027, announcing the director for the live-action adaptation of the hit comic book Something is Killing the Children (that would be Craig Zobel), and even a partnership with YouTube legend MatPat, which is not just a theory.

But all of that was overshadowed by Mike Flanagan's upcoming The Exorcist: Martyrs trailer. The horror legend has had a busy few months with the recent release of Carrie on Prime Video, and the upcoming release of DC's Clayface (which he wrote). But the first look at the Exorcist sequel/reinvention is the thing that left jaws on the floor. Starring Scarlett Johansson, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and more, the spine-tingling trailer builds the horror, ends with a killer last line, and is making the wait until the movie releases on March 12 so unbearable we might just vomit up pea soup.

Absolute Justice

Hey, remember how New York Comic Con is ostensibly supposed to be about comics? There were, indeed, plenty of announcements and reveals from publishers, including a line of Blumhouse comics from IDW's Dark imprint, Marvel teasing more about their Star Wars crossover that is somehow in continuity, and more. But by far the biggest bomb was dropped by DC Comics, which is basically doing a victory lap at this point thanks to surging sales and critical acclaim: Absolute Justice.

The highly anticipated five-issue series will debut in April of 2027, and will be written by Jason Aaron with art by Juan Ferrayra, the current team on the best-selling Absolute Superman. For the first time, the title will bring together DC's reimagined characters, including the game-changing Absolute Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, Flash, and Green Lantern to fight back against an array of villains, including a body horror Brainiac. How will these thus far disparate titles weave together? We'll just have to wait until April to find out.

In addition, at the annual Jim Lee and Friends panel, the DC chief brought on Warner Bros. Animation execs and the Absolute Batman team of Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta to present a very early look at the upcoming animated version of the comic book series. While strictly telling everyone in the room not to film or take pictures, they did show off the development art Dragotta has been working on for the adaptation… And an animation test, taking a sequence from an early issue of the comic with Batman fighting the Black Mask's gang and translating it to a mix of 2D and 3D animation. In two words, even at this early stage, having been in the room where it happened? Absolutely stunning.

For the full list of news and announcements from Marvel's New York Comic Con panel, head to our Marvel TV and Animation panel liveblog.

"Our goal is to make TV shows that have an annual cadence, that feel like longer-form character studies, like truly great television shows," Brad Winderbaum, the head of Marvel Television, told me on the eve of Daredevil: Born Again season 2's release. I thought he was referring to The Man Without Fear's show – the third season was filming at the time – but I was very, very wrong.

At Marvel's New York Comic Con panel, Daredevil himself, Charlie Cox, backed by Krysten Ritter (Jessica Jones) and a returning Finn Jones (Iron Fist), confirmed that the next season will be the show's last. The audience was not happy. Asked what we can expect from the final episodes, Cox emphatically said: "All I can say is, the #SaveDaredevil campaign will be gearing up for Round Two." A round of cheers followed, but probably too little, too late.

Cox later told GamesRadar+ that the cancellation was not a huge surprise and the cast had a "good sense" the news was coming. However, reports previously revealed that showrunner Dario Scardapane exited the series during post-production, and internet rumours have also claimed the series' ending has been reshot to be more definitive. Surely, the show was meant to go on? I mean, why reintroduce all The Defenders not to use them?

VisionQuest also made up a significant part of the NYCC panel, with the cast stressing that this is the final part of the WandaVision trilogy. Yet, rather than just being a closing chapter to one of Marvel's most successful small-screen ventures, VisionQuest feels like the end of an entire era. Marvel has spent five years pumping out live-action limited series that tied into the big-screen productions, and now, there are no more coming. Marvel's Disney Plus experiment, it seems, has run its course.

"With the Captain America series, with Hawkeye, it really felt like the movies were in your home, and it was a great way to launch Marvel on [Disney Plus]," Winderbaum told me. "We learned, as time went on, the shared universe started to feel like an obligation to people, and that cost us a sense of discovery, especially on the television side.

"It doesn't matter if you can jump in and watch Moon Knight without knowing anything else. There was a sense, because of the preceding decade of the shared universe and the films, that you had to watch everything. It was, frankly, a bit of a misconception, but an understandable one based on the way we were releasing material."

That Daredevil, VisionQuest, and, lest we forget, the cancelled Wonder Man, were conceived before Marvel Television's rebranding in 2024 is telling. The studio's production philosophy has seemingly changed, and with little else on the horizon, Winderbaum appears to be taking the opportunity to clear the decks and start over.

Brave new world

So, what does the future of Marvel Television look like? At the NYCC panel, Winderbaum revealed the answer: Zodiac. Previously alluded to in Wonder Man's cancellation announcement, the new series was confirmed at NYCC, turning many fans' heads.

In the comics, Zodiac is a villainous crime syndicate whose members use Zodiac signs as names. "It's a globetrotting, international espionage show about secrets and lies and betrayals and secret acts of loyalty and an insane cast of characters," Winderbaum told Collider when teasing the series, refusing to elaborate as he wants everyone to watch unspoiled. It's wild that Marvel's only confirmed live-action Disney Plus show after Daredevil is one that centers on characters who wouldn't make the B-list. Only four years ago, the studio released Moon Knight, Ms Marvel, and She-Hulk in a single year.

Considering everything Winderbaum has said about his approach to TV, the pivot toward essentially unknown characters makes sense. He wants ongoing, yearly character studies that don't feel like homework for the wider MCU. What better way to do that than tell an entirely separate story about characters who won't be going anywhere near Spider-Man? The series can go deep without any baggage, and the movies can once again be completely separate beasts from the TV shows, with no need to watch anything prior.

Intriguingly, Zodiac's logo seems to reference S.H.I.E.L.D., the counterterrorism organisation that helped kickstart The Avengers Initiative and had its own show, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which ran for seven seasons. The series was not a colossal ratings hit, but had an enduring fanbase, and frankly, sounds exactly like the sort of TV show Winderbaum wants to make. In other words, Marvel Television's future may look surprisingly like its past. (Though, unlike some speculators, I suspect Zodiac will have zero real ties to the Agents series, to avoid the former series being "homework" for this one.)

Of course, this says nothing of Marvel's animation output. Your Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man season 2, X-Men '97 season 3, and the next three years of Marvel Zombies were all teased during the NYCC panel. Animation is much lower stakes than the live-action series – they have no bearing on the wider MCU – and all three shows have been warmly received by fans. There's no need for a cull. And the budgets are much, much smaller than live-action, which probably helps (though this is House of Mouse money we're talking).

It certainly seems, then, that the NYCC panel was a surprising eulogy for the way Marvel used to work and a brief, telling tease for the future. Zodiac marks a new dawn for live-action Marvel Television. And excitingly, we have very little idea what to expect.

VisionQuest is currently streaming on Disney Plus. Daredevil: Born Again season 3 is expected to release March 2027. For more, check out our guide to all the upcoming Marvel movies and shows, and our list of all the most exciting new TV shows heading your way.

Remaking a game means breaking it apart. The salvage is polished, sharp edges sifted out, and all is reassembled in a new engine. In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time's upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 remake, this process has been followed with watchmaker precision. Walking through Kokiri Forest, Link's familiar stomping grounds, I'm reminded of optical illusions that show two different pictures at once. Everything – yet remarkably little – has changed.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake breaks with the Nintendo 64's sharp, jagged art style but keeps its broad-stroke palette. The result is a softer Hyrule, with warmth that extends to its denizens. Link's redesign is far better in action than in its controversial reveal – with chubby cheeks and wide eyes, he looks the part for a kid being thrown into his first adventure. Kokiri Forest is brighter and feels bigger, but everything is in its right place – muscle memory guides me to Link's sword, and the blue rupee I put towards buying a shield is where it's always been.

But even the familiar (and it is – I spent my childhood in Hyrule) is remarkably fresh. The locked camera has been done away with, and you can now move the camera freely. That's par for the course in modern Zelda, but for anyone returning to Ocarina of Time, it's like taking a deeper breath. Later, in Castle Town, I run down newly-added backstreets and ogle at them from all angles. The town is far livelier – less dioramic than on N64, and more in line with the likes of Wind Waker's bustling Windfall Island. The remake is an exercise in small nudges – beneath the glossy makeover, it's exceptionally faithful to the source material that paved the way for 3D Zelda.

Return to Hyrule

My hands-on preview is broken into three chunks. The first chunk starts from the beginning, when Link is roused from bed for an audience with the ancient Deku Tree, and runs up to halfway through the Deku Tree dungeon. Some of Kokiri Forest's haziness is gone, but it still feels like a place out of time. In the Deku Tree, Ocarina of Time's movement changes shine. Being able to freely line up Link for platforming is a godsend, and he can jump – the boy can jump! – on command, meaning you no longer have to run full-pelt at a ledge to see if your intended angle is lined up correctly.

Combat is straightforward – be it a carnivorous Deku Baba plant or sword-toting Stalfos, simply lock onto a target, wait for it to overextend, and hack it to pieces. UI changes make it easier to switch between items, meaning I actually use Deku Nuts to stun baddies. When I find the Slingshot in a chest, I'm surprised by how smooth its gyro controls are – for the first time in a game I use them willingly, gliding the Switch 2 controller around to pelt Skulltulas with seeds.

The second chunk of my preview skips ahead to Hyrule Field, which is titled over a sweeping shot (as Breath of the Wild introduces locations – right down to the font). Like Kokiri Village, everything in Hyrule Field is where I remember it. But ruined buildings now dot the field, and although I don't have time to investigate, Hyrule's countryside certainly feels bigger.

So does Castle Town, which hides one egregious cut (you can no longer run up the drawbridge chains to grab a hidden rupee) but makes up for it with unmatched liveliness. Where the settlement originally felt like a single bustling screen, it's now fleshed out properly in 3D. New and old characters go about their business, including a man who claims his beard lets him sense where other men with facial hair are at any moment – Triforce of Power, eat your heart out.

As a Castle Town regular, I notice more has been done to nudge players in the right direction. Besides the bearded man who helps me locate mustachioed rancher Talon, other folk point me towards Hyrule Castle, where Link is due an appointment with Princess Zelda. That's off-limits for this preview, so instead I bum around Castle Town – detouring to smash a room full of pots before playing a few rounds of the shooting gallery minigame, which now ramps up in difficulty rather than throwing you in at the deep end.

Of what I've seen, Castle Town has changed the most. But those changes are additive and cushioned around the familiar, bringing Ocarina of Time's liveliness to the parity of later 3D Zelda games (Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, Skyward Sword). Having played Ocarina of Time to death for the last 20 years, I'm thrilled at how fresh everything feels – this remake's differences are its strengths.

Finally, I'm fast-forwarded to the Forest Temple to play through it in full. Gone are Link's chubby cheeks, as this dungeon is the first one you tackle after a seven-year timeskip into adulthood. Adult Link has a few new tools, including a hookshot that wobbles delightfully when fired and (after some dungeon-crawling) a Hero's Bow that continues to endear me to gyro controls.

Here, any mechanical changes are subtle but the remake's lighting is outstanding. Dark wooden corridors seem to drink light, but pale sunlight still gathers in courtyards and stained glass windows; so detailed that it makes the original look stark in comparison.

As in Kokiri Forest, I'm carried through the Forest Temple on muscle memory, tackling light puzzles and minibosses that introduce the step-up in difficulty that adulthood poses (in game, of course).

Familiar puzzles are still satisfying to solve – I'm envious of anyone coming into this remake after only playing Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom, as without spoiling anything there are some fiendish puzzles waiting in the Forest Temple and beyond.

In the final room, Phantom Ganon attacks. The Forest Temple's boss is still deliciously dramatic, fighting first as a spectral horseman in larger-than-life paintings, then launching crackling balls at Link. It was (and still is) a very cool fight and Nintendo clearly agreed, as Phantom Ganon was made a recurring character. I take him down and leave the forest temple in 45 minutes – devastatingly, just 43 minutes short of breaking the world record.

I leave my Ocarina of Time preview excited to see the rest of Hyrule in this light. Changes have been made sparingly but with confidence, creating an identity that can co-exist with the spiky original. In putting Ocarina of Time back together, Nintendo focuses not on the dated, but the timeless.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Remake is out for Nintendo Switch 2 from November 5, 2026. You can pre-order the Ocarina of Time Remake now.

While you're here, here's some other recent previews that you may be interested in:

To say the One Ring RPG's crowdfunding campaign has done well is an understatement. This project – which revamps the current rules while adding a bestiary and new adventure book – is well on its way to $3 million dollars in pledges on Backerit. Actually, it smashed its target by 32 times in less than a day.

"For us, it’s one of those rare occasions when we get to see firsthand just how much love and support there is for the game," The One Ring lead designer Francesco Nepitello tells me. "We’re incredibly grateful to everyone who helped make it happen."

Besides setting a new record for developer Free League, the project has sailed so far beyond expectations that it may as well have taken a ship from the Grey Havens. It also blew past stretch goals so fast that new ones needed to be made as a result. Although the team had some bonus ideas ready, Nepitello says they "had to think on our feet about what to offer next. There was certainly a bit of a scramble behind the scenes, but nothing a good gamemaster can’t handle!"

"The (One) Ring perceived its time had come"

Fan excitement is understandable. The One Ring (and its D&D equivalent, The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying) has more than proven itself since the system launched in 2022 with a beginner-friendly system that doesn't skimp on meaningful depth. It's also one of the most faithful adaptations of Tolkien I've ever seen, from visual design to mechanics that focus on fellowship and roleplay. However, even the best tabletop RPGs need an update every now and then.

"The core system remains very much The One Ring, but we’ve done considerable work on how the rules are organised, explained, and used at the table," says Nepitello. "Combat has received particular attention, alongside refinements throughout the book. After several years of play and feedback, we felt it was the right time to bring those lessons together in a clearer, smoother presentation."

From the sounds of it, combat is enjoying the biggest upgrade; the revised sequence gives you a chance to coordinate in a fight and make more meaningful choices. We'll be able to try this for ourselves when we cross swords with monsters from the new bestiary, 'Creatures Strange and Foul.' This tome covers everything from building your own orc warband to Black Númenóreans, and Nepitello was careful to ensure each foe had something new to offer.

"Over the years, we’ve explored many corners of Middle-earth, and it felt time to give its adversaries the same attention. We wanted to bring them together in one volume, while exploring what makes each a distinctive encounter — their behaviour, their powers, and the stories they can inspire."

Following the Fellowship

The latest campaign setting (The White Tower and the Hall of Gold) also turns its gaze, Sauron-like, to new challenges. Revolving around the kingdoms of Gondor and Rohan, this is the furthest south we've been in The One Ring's history.

"It was always the plan to roughly follow the path of the Fellowship – long ago in the elder days, the plan was to do three editions of the game: one set in Wilderland, one in Eriador, and one in Gondor," The White Tower and the Hall of Gold lead writer Gareth Hanrahan explains. "While the game’s changed publisher over the years, and we’ve ended up doing a revised second edition and a Gondor supplement instead of a full-on third edition, we’re still following the game line as foreseen."

The fact that we're only on edition two (which, by the sounds of it, is more like version 1.5 or the Alien RPG Evolved Edition) rather than three shows how strong the foundations are here; The One Ring came out of the gate sprinting.

Our journey through the world of men won't be business as usual, though. Every other location has been sparsely populated with swaths of wilderness between them; Hanrahan says that there isn't much by way of civilization in Eriador once you leave the Shire or Bree behind, while other northern regions are a patchwork of disparate kingdoms with stretches of desolation separating them. This book, though? It tips us headfirst into a bustling realm.

"Gondor and Rohan are well-established, long-settled regions. Gondor, in particular, has been there for thousands of years. You’re not going to be making long arduous journeys in most of Gondor, as it’s full of towns and villages and inns and well-guarded roads. The wild is far away. It’s a different style of play, emphasizing interaction and intrigue more than lonely journeys and natural perils."

The road goes ever on

Of course, players won't be hiding in the safety of civilization for long, and there are wonders – not to mention dangers – aplenty here. One such spot is the country of Umbar, famous for its corsairs and allegiance to the Dark Lord Sauron.

"I became absolutely fascinated by Umbar in the writing of it," says Hanrahan. "It’s got such history – it’s much, much older than Gondor – and it’s this fascinating melting pot of cultures and factions. You could run lots of adventures there, especially a sort of fantasy-intrigue that I really adore. I also really like Cair Andros – it’s sort of a mini version of Minas Tirth, another bastion in the defences of Gondor, but it’s only barely touched on in the books, so you’ve a lot of scope as Loremaster to set all sorts of adventurers there."

In other words, it feels as though we've got a lot to discover when these books launch. While there isn't a hard release date yet, hardcover versions are estimated to ship in October 2027. Judging by how well the crowdfunding campaign has done, a lot of people will be eagerly awaiting launch day – and the creative team is a little overwhelmed by such success. When I asked what they'd like to tell the fans who've backed this project, Nepitello says "Just a heartfelt thank you. Your enthusiasm and support mean a great deal to all of us, and it’s wonderful to share this journey through Middle-earth with you. The response to this campaign tells us we still have a long road to tread together, and many adventures ahead!"

"Thank you doesn’t begin to cover it, but it’s the essential point," Hanrahan agrees. "It’s a joy and a privilege to get to write about Middle-earth like this, and we hope we live up to both the audience’s expectations and Tolkien’s legendarium."

If you want to show your support for the project and access the unlocked stretch goals, you have until 3pm EDT / 12pm PDT / 8pm BST on October 15, 2026 when the campaign ends.

This feels like a very good time to be playing tabletop games; there's a lot on the horizon. As an example, I wasn't excited about D&D Star Wars, but it looking so much like Rogue One gives me hope. Plus, a terrifying campaign version of our favorite horror board game got fully funded in just 54 seconds.

• See the current One Ring lineup at Amazon

Razer's Pokemon collaborations have come a long way. The first set of official PC accessories (that was available to its US and UK customer base) left much to be desired, especially when it came to the Pokemon Edition BlackWidow V4 X, which combined black keys with a predominantly yellow board that felt less reminiscent of the electric-type icon Pikachu and more of a shockingly ugly eyesore. Yet the Ornata V3 Tenkeyless part of this new Razer Pikachu and Eevee Collection is leagues above what came before.

This time the entire spread of keys is the same dusty pink as the board, and the brand has incorporated unique and exceptionally cute art of Pikachu and Eevee across its 84 keys and the rest of the collection. Instead of the theming feeling like an afterthought, this £319.93 (via Razer) set feels like a Pokemon tech collection tailored for fans with cozy, pink setups - of which I am one. I just wish having this cute arrangement on your desk didn't come with the usual costly drawback of having to pay more than the plain versions of each item, as it means Pokemon fans with limited budgets won't be able to catch them all.

Pikachu & Eevee Razer Ornata V3 Tenkeyless keyboard

The £119.99 Ornata V3 Tenkeyless Pikachu and Eevee keyboard has wound up being my favorite piece of the set, which I wasn't expecting. It's a low-profile board, meaning it has shorter keys and switches, which aren't my preference, as I always feel like I have to put a lot of extra and awkward force behind each keypress. However, the clicky mecha-membrane switches are far more satisfying to type with than any low-profile alternative I've tested with so far.

It's also one of the cutest parts of this set, as there's more accessory real estate to play around with. The board comes with a magnetically attached palm rest that features the identifying artwork of the entire collection. On it, you can find a painterly image of Eevee and Pikachu, curling up together while having a little nap amongst a scene of falling leaves and yellow flowers. It always feels bad to type away as it means having to have my hands in the way of this lovely imagery, but thankfully there are other nods to it to be found. A little Eevee and Pikachu are sitting around the directional keys, and they're sitting across the spacebar too.

Of all the versions of this board available today (and that includes the Pokemon Espeon and Umbreon Ornata V3), it's this one that I adore the design of the board. But, should you pick this up, you do have to pay £50 more than the £69.99 (Amazon) MSRP of the plain, default version. Which is a hard, Poke Ball-sized pill to swallow.

Pikachu & Eevee Razer Cobra + Gigantus V2 Mouse mat

Razer's Pikachu & Eevee Cobra mouse carries this cute but costly trend. Right now I can find the exact same gaming rodent with its third-generation Razer-branded switches and 8500 DPI optical sensor for as little as £26.48 at Amazon today. There is a sale running, but even at full price it's only £40.

Picking up the Pikachu and Eevee version requires you to part with £60 if you grab it directly from Razer's online store, or £70 through retailers like Amazon - a £30 difference. Now, a £20 / £30 difference isn't unheard of when it comes to licensed tech, but at this rate, I'd have hoped the gap would shorten, particularly as the Cobra mouse, which originally launched in 2023, is starting to show its age. The brand's Basilisk V3, featured on our best gaming mouse guide, can be found for far less and includes the addition of far more RGB lighting zones and programmable buttons.

At least this one looks far more endearing with its pink colorway (wheel included) and Pokemon artwork on the left and right buttons. With it, Pikachu and Eevee can be found on the left and right buttons, awake and alert this time around. The art is also pretty resilient, managing to stay as pristine as possible with no wear and tear, despite the many hours I've spent playing Repo this Halloween season.

The matching mouse mat has also managed to withstand my gaming nights and clumsy coffee-drinking ways at my desk, and looks just as vibrant as the day I unrolled it. Its 360 x 275 x 3 mm sizing is also ideal for smaller desks but is still plenty to show off the cute artwork. I do prefer long pads, but it's the perfect size to stick under the edge of the keyboard while providing plenty of room for the matching mouse to roam across. Just be wary that at £34.99 you can get far larget mats, including ones from Razer.

Pikachu & Eevee Razer Kraken V4 X headset

I live and breathe the best gaming headsets as I'm testing a new pair pretty much every week, and I don't hate the Pikachu and Eevee Kraken V4 X, but there are higher-quality alternatives out there. Again, it's just the same Kraken V4 X as always, with its 40mm Razer Triforce audio drivers and retractable HyperClear cardioid microphone, but with an inflated price.

The Pikachu and Eevee version will cost you £109.99, while the all-black equivalent with the exact same features retails for £79.99, but can be found as low as £63.85 at Amazon as it is as I'm typing these very words. That's a £30 difference for the print colorway, sleeping Pikachu and Eevee art on the headband, and the art of the two Poke pals on the interior of the earcups.

I'm not disappointed by the way the art and theme are included where the headset is concerned, but I do wish Razer went the extra mile a bit here. It'd have been nice to find glowing silhouettes of the two Pokemon on the earcups rather than the traditional snake logos, and I feel like the white microphone stands out a bit too much. However, it does match perfectly with the rest of the set, in both its cute, pink aesthetics and its pricing.

Should you buy the Razer Pikachu and Eevee Collection?

If you're fortunate enough to be in a position where you don't feel guilty about every purchase you make, by all means, this is a quality collection worth adding to any cute-themed PC setup. You just have to be comfortable with the knowledge that buying each individual accessory will cost far more than if you opted for the versions not draped in Pikachu and Eevee imagery.

You also have to acknowledge that Razer has given its lower-end budget accessories the Pokemon treatment, and so they aren't going to be as feature-full as other products bearing the three-headed snake logo. In some ways, that's a good thing, as draping the Pokemon branding across tech like the £249.99 MSRP BlackShark V3 Pro headset would likely result in a £270 pair, and not all Pokemon fans can afford such a luxury.

I had just hoped that by the time this set had rolled around, the pricing would be a bit lower and therefore friendlier to Pokemon fans of all budgets. The individual items as part of this range are getting on in years, and their proximity to discounts made me hope the prices of their dolled-up Pokemon versions would be cheaper as a result. But alas, that has not been the case. Do I think it's still an absolutely cute collection that feels quality to use for day-to-day work and gaming? Absolutely.

But as always is the case, picking it up comes with the baggage and acknowledgement that cute comes at a cost.

• View all Pokemon Razer gaming accessories at Amazon

Want more options for your PC setup? Check out the best gaming chairs, best gaming keyboards, and the best gaming desks we've tested.

Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival is exactly what the witch doctor ordered this spooky season. It's gory to an extreme, the scent of blood and latex almost palpable as I guide protagonist Aiden Lynch through a kinky pansexual death cult's hideout, into a pulse-pounding BDSM club, before evading The Chatterer in The Labyrinth's chambers of torment. Peppered with nods to survival horror titans and off-kilter Xbox 360 games like Condemned alike, I think our Hellraiser Revival review score is fair: This might not the freshest kill on the chopping block, but it's definitely a delight for genre sickos (and sickos in general, ya sadists). That said, I cannot get on board with its first-person perspective. Like, at all.

I can tell what developer Saber Interactive was gunning for. Much like Silent Hill Townfall, the new game takes notes from the first-person terrors of Resident Evil 7 to create an oppressive, immersive environment that implicates you, The Player, as its main character. However, it doesn't succeed. I think Hellraiser Revival would have been a better third-person action game than a first person one, and it all starts with one simple question.

Who are you?

A smart survival horror game understands the importance of perspective. It's what makes Resident Evil's Ethan Winters such a powerful everyman figure, his face always obscured in gameplay, cutscenes, and promotional materials (until the third-person Resident Evil Village update) to reinforce the notion that who he is doesn't matter as much as what he thinks, feels, and does.

It allowed Capcom to distance us, for a moment, from its emblematic heroes – Leon, Chris, Claire, Jill – whose image had long become synonymous with the survival horror franchise. Even with first-person available in Resident Evil Requiem, playing a first-person game as Leon S. Kennedy feels illegal. I want to see and play as him, not myself, because I am already invested in the character. Ethan's story is no less important than Leon's, but it serves a different purpose.

While the vagaries of Ethan's backstory allow us to imprint ourselves upon his character, Hellraiser Revival's Aiden Lynch has plenty going for him already. We see him in third-person cutscenes right from the jump, catching glimpses of his personal tastes and indulgences (to be SFW about it) before we're dropped into the action from a first-person view. Already, it's discombobulating. Am I supposed to feel like the everyman here, or is Aiden a fully-formed character whose journey, backstory, and personal stakes I'll be exploring?

Four hours in, I can't figure out whether Aiden is a Leon or an Ethan. And, look, I really like the dude. Aiden clawed himself back from addiction and jail stints by finding a new obsession in his girlfriend, Sunny; who am I to judge his new drug-of-choice?

I respect the guy for heading into BDSM hell to save her soul. I am always pro-Wife Guys in video games, and Aiden is no exception. But he's definitely not got the combat chops of either Leon or Ethan going for him – even if one of them is a bioterror vet and the other is literally made of mould.

Fighting chance

To be as blunt as the weapons Aiden wields, melee combat in first-person categorically sucks. It always sucks, in my opinion, with the exception of one-man tank Kyle Crane bashing zombie skulls in with electrified crowbars in Dying Light.

There needs to be a weightiness to it to keep me locked in, and with no way to block attacks or do anything but duck out of the way, getting into brawls as Aiden is perhaps fittingly awkward. Plus, he's stark naked for a good chunk of the opening hour. In his position, I guess I'd be a bit too preoccupied by a cold breeze in the nether regions to worry about my technique.

But I don't want to let Hellraiser Revival off that easy. How much of this airy, weightless fumbling would feel more grounded if it was made with typical third-person combat manoeuvres in mind? How much more like an actual Hellraiser movie would it look if we could see the hero's face for the majority of the journey instead of his blood-slicked palms swinging a machete through thin air? Is trading good combat for a front-row seat to see gore really necessary when this is, first and foremost, a survival horror action game?

I can tell that Saber understands this to an extent. We see quite a lot of Aiden in third-person cutscenes when the cenobites are in play, while others (like the ones in cult HQ) are in first – which makes the inconsistency all the more frustrating. I'd have liked to see Hellraiser commit to one or the other.

Alternatively, it could have gone full Dying Light: The Beast, with a strong visual hero persona built through third-person cinematics while first-person gameplay dials up the immersion. But chopping and changing between the two perspectives feels ultimately confused in Hellraiser, with the purpose of those third-person cutscenes reading as opportunities to show off the cenobites rather than build on Aiden's character.

Maybe such is the way of licensed games. We're here to see Pinhead et al, not necessarily Aiden and Sunny. But in its attempt to align itself with the latest trend in survival horror, Hellraiser Revival misses Resident Evil's most important lesson: some heroes need to be seen to be believed.

Explore some of the best horror games to keep you company this Halloween...

To be honest with you, I was wary when D&D Star Wars got announced. The two franchises don't seem like a natural fit; characters in Dungeons & Dragons are a cape away from being superheroes, and magic is baked into most classes. This feels at odds with an Original Trilogy setting where 99% of the Jedi are gone.

Then we got our first glimpse of the project. It's giving big Andor energy, and that's enough to make me a believer. Not to the degree Han was in Force Awakens ("it's true, all of it"), but now I see the vision behind D&D Star Wars. Yes, class and spell mechanics still need gutting to work with a galaxy far, far away. However, the announcement of a dedicated core rulebook alongside the Tyro Squadron campaign suggests that this isn't a one-off - the crossover is being taken very seriously.

It all boils down to that grounded approach hinted by teaser artwork. Developer Wizards of the Coast seems to be approaching this with admirable restraint; rather than the lightsabers and Force-powered badassery I expected (AKA D&D's bread and butter), it focuses on scoundrels and gunfights. Don't get me wrong, this still looks like a swashbuckling adventure. It isn't – and shouldn't be – a gritty slog a la Mork Borg where every step through the mud is a victory. But there's something down-to-earth about D&D Star Wars which reminds me of Rogue One. And that makes me incredibly excited.

For starters, everything we've seen so far feels suitably 'ground-level' with its focus on a rag-tag group of freedom fighters. (We'll apparently "take the fight to the Empire as part of a secret Rebel crew.") Yes, space magic is a central pillar of the franchise. But I think Star Wars is at its best when it slows down to focus on the people in those conflicts. Andor worked so well because it tapped into grassroots stories, while Clone Wars excelled due to humanizing average clone troopers as well as god-like Jedi. Personally speaking, I find the idea of not playing a chosen one so much more interesting in the best tabletop RPGs.

Moving away from Jedi also opens up a world of possibility. While it's fun to swing a laser sword around or hurl Stormtroopers across the room with a flick of our wrist, it can be limiting in an Original Trilogy setting; you'd struggle not to box yourself into a corner, narratively speaking. If a Force-sensitive individual openly uses their power, they'll get the full might of the Empire raining down on them – including Darth Vader's Jedi-hunting Inquisitors. That's all good and well if your adventure is built around the idea, but otherwise? It could totally derail a campaign. Want to stop an Imperial tyrant oppressing your world with an iron first, or save a beloved NPC from the Hutt Cartel? Sorry, Dave Force-pushed a Stormtrooper off a building and now we're on the run. It's a narrative cul de sac. No, better to limit the Force's use or sidestep the issue entirely.

I still have concerns, of course. As I mentioned earlier, D&D and Star Wars aren't obvious companions. Even if you cut the Jedi or severely limit their use, you'd still need bespoke classes or seriously edited ones to handle everything else. In addition, most spells are out because that kind of magic doesn't exist in a galaxy far, far away. (And when you get to that stage, spinning off as a separate system might be better than Frankensteining Dungeons & Dragons into something it wasn't intended to be.)

It's not impossible, though. Certain spells can stay and be replaced with technology, for instance. Sending Stones? Communicators. Eldritch Blast? Wrist-mounted darts like the Mandalorian uses. Fireball? A rocket launcher. I could go on.

Naturally, the above is speculation; we've got no idea how Wizards of the Coast will handle this. I could be wrong about that more grounded approach, too. But everything D&D Star Wars has shown off so far is promising, which gives me hope. A New Hope, I suppose you could say…

Speaking of cool tabletop games, a terrifying campaign version of our favorite horror board game got fully funded in just 54 seconds. Elsewhere, MTG Marvel Darkhold Destiny has a wild pitch featuring the supernatural and teamups with a "pantheon of gods."

• See the latest D&D releases at Amazon

From the moment developer Fuse Games was founded in January 2023, the intent for the studio was to make a Star Wars racing game. CEO Matt Webster tells me that roughly three weeks into the studio's life, the team were on a plane to visit Lucasfilm Games and pitch the idea – "Galactic Racer".

As a studio founded by former Criterion Games developers (Criterion Games previously helmed the Burnout series and later worked on EA's 2015 Star Wars Battlefront and its sequel), fusing the team's arcade racing pedigree and previous experience working on Star Wars titles, as Fuse's creative director Kieran Crimmins says, was "a no-brainer"). While 'Burnout but Star Wars' is certainly an intriguing pitch on its own (I was absolutely hooked on the concept from its first reveal in December 2025), the team at Fuse wasn't content with just going back to familiar territory when you need to stand out amongst a galaxy of games.

Burnt out

With series like Forza Horizon and Gran Turismo dominating the triple-A racing space, the focus has shifted from arcade action to realism and scale that makes the most of modern hardware. More cars, more tracks, vast open worlds, and endless rewards, for anyone and everyone. Even Mario Kart, one of the last mainstream bastions for arcade racing, followed suit with Mario Kart World's core feature being an open world.

With their heritage and expertise from the arcade racing of the 2000s, the developers at Fuse Games were never going to follow the crowd when making Star Wars: Galactic Racer. "I think these guys at Fuse could've absolutely made just a killer arcade racing game," says Craig Derrick, executive producer at Lucasfilm Games. "But there was always the intention, I think from the very beginning, of "how do we push the genre forward?"

It's not the first time the founders of Fuse have pioneered the genre either, with their previous work at Criterion Games partly shaping modern racing games too. 2008's Burnout Paradise – while not the first open-world racing game – undoubtedly went on to influence the first entries in the Forza Horizon and The Crew series, thanks to a map that lacked defined tracks and acted more as a driving playground.

Crimmins describes this post-Burnout Paradise shift as a "sea change" but feels that there hasn't quite been another one in the racing genre since, despite there being plenty of polished racers across the triple-A and indie space. Specifically, he believes that consequences are "sorely missing" in big racing games, with Webster adding that some feel a bit toothless: "I think there's been a bit of a burnishing off of, I suppose, the edge in [racing games]. You put a car in the wall and what's going to happen? And if it's nothing, then it just falls a little bit flat from an emotional perspective."

Rogue One

So, looking to make waves by bringing back consequence with Galactic Racer and after a lot of prototyping, the team at Fuse Games determined that the runs-based, roguelike-inspired format was the way to go. As I noted in my Star Wars: Galactic Racer review, I couldn't believe that this racing-roguelike hybrid had never been attempted before by a mainstream studio because it's a natural fit.

Applying a runs-based structure to an arcade racer fights against "a bunch of racing game conventions", explains Webster. As well as facing little to no consequences, players are also conditioned to win all the time in a lot of modern racing games, which is something that the roguelike mechanics in Star Wars: Galactic Racer vehemently oppose. "This game should challenge you, and we wanted to front that up, so you feel like 'a hard-fought fifth place? Yeah, I'll take it'," Webster says.

Hurtling around Galactic Racer's circuits and inevitably obliterating your speeder means winning your first few events is unlikely, and it's an oddly refreshing humbling experience. Those crashes are also where Burnout's DNA shines through most in Galactic Racer. It also feels like classic Star Wars, which makes sense as Webster says that, in a full-circle moment, they were inspired by The Phantom Menace back in the day.

"When we were making Burnout, the podracing sequence in Episode One was a massive influence in terms of the drama and the excitement and the sheer speed and power, and the visceral nature of those crashes was a big inspiration," he says. Bringing those back in a true Star Wars setting with a roguelike structure means each crash serves as a "learning moment" too, and, indeed, I quickly learned that survival is the priority, not victory.

Bring balance

However, Galactic Racer was once a lot more punishing. Going over previous iterations of the wrecking out loop, Webster and Crimmins share that there was a version where you could crash only once instead of three times, and another where you had to finish in the top three every time – the latter lives on as the Eliminator event. Webster also says that Galactic Racer asks a lot from its players in terms of cognitive load.

But it also went the other way, as Crimmins explains there was a version that was much more straightforward. "It felt like it lost all its teeth, and now it feels trivial, and my decisions don't matter," he says. "Getting that balance right is incredibly important to give you that emotional high when you do win but also give you that impetus to move forward when you don't."

That's a doubly difficult balance to strike when a chunk of your audience might also just be in it for Star Wars with little to no experience with racing games. As Derrick explains, that meant making the game accessible without pulling back from what Fuse wanted to do, with the game's narrative and Shade's journey being crucial.

"We onboard you through a fun racing story," Derrick says. "Then we put you in the paddock, and now you have a place where you've decreased the pace for just a minute, so that you can kind of get a sense of the world and feel where your place is. And then we start to amp it up and then push the challenge. Then it's rewarding because it's not punitive."

Despite Galactic Racer being challenging at times, making an accessible and true arcade racer was core to Webster's philosophy. "'Arcade' is not the absence of depth. It's how the game presents itself to you, making it super approachable," he says. "I can get in, have an amazing experience really quickly, but it wants me to carry on. And I think that's really what we've done [with Galactic Racer] is embrace that and modernize it in a way that keeps its heart but also begins to add some contemporary game aspects."

Those peaks and troughs of intensity, difficulty, and strategy from the runs-based format are what make Star Wars: Galactic Racer so engaging to me. Rather than being a dopamine stream of first-place finishes and prizes that eventually ring hollow, or getting bogged down in realistic simulation, it forces you to get used to fighting for every position and taking great risks in a way that most modern racing games don't. For that reason, Galactic Racer could represent another sea change for the genre.

Galactic Racer is easily one of the best Star Wars games if you're feeling the Force. And its runs-based twist means it's also one of the best racing games you can play right now!

Any job worth doing in Watch Dogs 2 is worth doing to music. And so, the best mechanic in Ubisoft's hacker-action sequel is Marcus Holloway's earbuds. Equippable at any time, they pump an eclectic stream of on-demand tunes, from Dizzee Rascal to Anti-Flag, KC & The Sunshine Band to Run The Jewels and more, into your ears. You can freely soundtrack any mission (attempting grand larceny while blaring Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik is one moment we won't forget in a hurry) or simply wander the streets of San Francisco to your favourite songs.

One particular track so perfectly captures the philosophy of Watch Dogs 2, it almost feels as if the game was formed around it. We blast Get Stupid as we have Holloway ride on top of a car like it's a skateboard, driving it remotely via his phone. "Get stupid, it's what we do good," Mac Dre raps. "Ghost ride the whip while we dancin' on the hood." Virtual Californians look on in bewilderment, and we laugh uproariously. Even Dre seems to admire our efforts, crooning his approval: "Boy, we go dumb, dude". Credit to Ubisoft, then, for a tonal U-turn of such epic proportions that it singlehandedly saved a series. Watch Dogs got stupid. And it worked.

Bright lights of play

After the 2014 release of Watch Dogs, something had to be done. It suffered as a result of a now-infamous E3 2012 reveal that, on the cusp of a new generation of consoles, made promises beyond the actual graphical capabilities. The ‘downgrade', as it was dubbed, was apparent to anyone playing the final game. But on top of that, Watch Dogs didn't endear itself to players. Its Chicago setting was designed to be cramped and dark, a representation of a city riddled with surveillance cameras and made paranoid under the all-seeing eye of Big Tech. And its lead, Aiden Pearce, had all the charisma of wet cardboard.

Sunny San Francisco is a breath of fresh air in comparison. It's a riot of colour and sound, where all-glass offices sit around the corner from pastel Victorian houses, and perverse wealth brushes past crippling poverty. Artists and entrepreneurs roam the streets, each convinced they're a little more like the other. It's a place that, in art as in life, more accurately encapsulates the tech industry, a sphere infinitely more ridiculous than it is terrifying.

Holloway, too, is a fresh take on a well-worn theme: he's a young, Black, brilliant hacker who has the sense of self to recognise his own oppression as one part of a much bigger problem. He's also likeable enough that he can make some friends who'll help him do something about it. Your mileage may vary regarding the core crew, who often express themselves via corny LED emoji masks and outdated turns of phrase (2010 called, Ubisoft, and it wants its ‘Y U NO' meme back). But their exuberance was a welcome shot in the arm coming off the back of Watch Dogs: these people are not only not about to take this shit lying down, but they have a sense of humour about it, too.

In turn, it makes it easier to accept many of the game's flaws as part of its precocious personality. There are, of course, precisely zero realities in which San Franciscans are bombing around on mopeds bumping a playlist clearly composed by someone Googling ‘songs about the Bay Area'. It's an improvement on the first instalment's soundtrack, however, which Edge once described as "songs by artists from Chicago, that once lived in Chicago, that have Chicago in the title or are by the band Chicago". And as part of a fantasy in which you can drain bank accounts at the press of a button, and five kids can afford to rent a hackerspace in the middle of San Francisco? It somehow feels in keeping with the bombastic tone to strut around your home turf, insisting to the seals at Pier 39 that "in the Bay Area we dance a little different".

Happily, sightseeing is something of which much is made in Watch Dogs 2. This is a developer known for pouring a huge amount of resources (although very few of them human, if the recent stories of abuse coming out of the studio are anything to go by) into its recreations of famous locales, and yet it took until Watch Dogs 2 for it to openly acknowledge the proportion of players who enjoy these games mainly as an excuse to partake in virtual tourism. The ScoutX app on Holloway's phone flags up several of Frisco's best-known – and even some lesser-known – landmarks for you to hunt down and photograph, which widens DedSec's online reach.

Even SongSneak, Watch Dogs 2's Shazam equivalent, encourages you to get among it all in pursuit of new songs. If you're within 25 metres of a song playing over a bar's sound system, being blared from a boombox or a car radio, you can press a button to add it to your phone playlists. Ubisoft hit on something essential with this particular implementation, taking a realisation that GTA maker Rockstar had long ago and pushing it that little bit further: the fact that our love of music is so often about the context in which we first hear it, how it's threaded through the very fabric of cities and cultures, and bound so strongly with memory. It's not a reward doled out randomly upon you completing a load of laundry or getting a new job; you hear it somewhere, pick it up and take it with you.

Still, the whole thing is largely enjoyable caricature; while it's not perfect, its flaws do tend to work in its favour. Ubisoft's NPC AI in Watch Dogs 2 leaves much to be desired, with its ambitious interlocking systems often bumping awkwardly against each other. But when they come off in ludicrous ways, it feels only appropriate for this exaggerated vision of San Francisco, in which AirPod-wearing trust-fund babies call the cops on each other over an argument about latte foam, and taking a selfie in front of a marriage proposal sets off a chain of events that ends with a fistfight between the two lovers. Few games since have sported a world that feels so systemic, most likely because it is so loud about it. As a result, whatever you're doing has a visible impact, a feeling surely top of any young revolutionary's wishlist.

Indeed, DedSec's ability to draw in others (represented by the idea of ‘followers' as an in-game currency earned through completing missions and posting photos to your fictional social media accounts) plays a key mechanical and narrative role in positioning it as an organisation by the people, for the people.

And it's that – not the one-button ‘quick hacks', or the suggestion that bonking someone on the head with a billiard ball on a bungee cord is a non-lethal pursuit – that's the real fantasy in play here: that you can stick it to the man, if only you've got a laptop and enough energy. And that it can be fun.

Plugged in

One of the earliest, pettiest and most memorable missions has you steal what is essentially KITT from Knight Rider because Holloway reckons the ‘Cyberdriver' film makes hacker culture look childish. To which his response is to remote-drive the car across a pyrotechnic-laden assault course through the city while Judas Priest's Turbo Lover plays on the speakers, before crashing it through a promotional billboard. Quod erat demonstrandum, mate.

But we have the pleasure of watching Holloway and the gang gradually mature. And we do mean gradually – the skewering of a Martin Shkreli-esque pharma bro being another laugh-out-loud moment placed front and centre of the campaign. As the story unfolds, we see DedSec mobilise more effectively, sniffing out corruption among law enforcement, politicians, and a tech corporation monopolising and weaponising the world's data. A final mission in which you switch between playing as every one of the core group underscores the idea that collective effort is the key to standing up to the most untouchable of establishments.

It's a concept that follow-up series entry Watch Dogs: Legion tries to run with, but fails to communicate. In attempting to showcase that rebellion is a collaborative affair, its ‘play as anyone' tech ends up robbing London's inhabitants of any sense of individuality beyond randomly-generated character descriptions. And this is what, for all its occasional clumsiness, Watch Dogs 2 got so right back in 2016, just as a megalomaniac celebrity was stepping into his role as US president: power struggles are a personality contest, and with the advent of the Internet, they are even more so.

We look to leaders who outwardly represent our values, people we can relate to, and believe in. In Legion, every possible wrinkle in every playable character has to be ironed out to fit the exact same vague template. It's difficult to get invested in the fates of people who don't feel real – furthermore, any attempts at retaining some of Watch Dogs 2's good-natured clownery ring hollow without anyone believable to attach it to. And when your firearms are lethal, it feels a lot less like mischief and more like murder.

By contrast, Holloway – along with most other things in Watch Dogs 2 – does feel genuine. Ubisoft surely felt it had little to lose by abandoning the stifling self-seriousness of the first Watch Dogs, and instead headed in the opposite direction to embrace the actual hacker fantasy. It feels like a creative team hanging out the sunroof, doing what it wants to, as Mac Dre puts it; in doing so, it uncovers fundamental truths about why so many people really dream of having some control over the world they live in. It may be a work of fiction, but there's a lot of truth in the way it portrays one possible view of a revolution – with an emphasis on earnestness, connection, and even a little fun. Sometimes you have to get stupid to be taken seriously

This Watch Dogs 2 article was first published in issue 354 of Edge Magazine. To get more like this delivered straight to your doorstep (or digital device) consider subscribing to Edge.

Co-op games can go one of two ways: they are either a bonding activity that brings you closer together, or a catalyst for a screaming match.

Ghost Town Games is very familiar with both, thanks to their award-winning title Overcooked becoming a go-to 2016 co-op game where duos work against the clock to prepare meals together. Some pairs crack like an egg under pressure as they frantically toss ingredients at each other, leading to…Well, it is dubbed "Divorce Kitchen" in China for a reason. Regardless of the different outcomes, though, 10 years later, there's no denying Overcooked's impact and success in the co-op space, which is why I've kept my eyes firmly on the studio's next game, Stage Fright.

I'll admit that I did expect the upcoming game to have elements similar to Overcooked when it was first announced back in 2024. But after witnessing the title's latest trailer at Nintendo's 2026 Direct, I caught up with Ghost Town Games co-founders Phil Duncan and Oli De-Vine to learn what makes Stage Fright a completely different kind of experience.

A night together

Ghost Town Games isn't afraid to try something new. While Overcooked focuses on time-based levels, stressful environments, and food-prep challenges, Stage Fright is a narrative-driven title where you'll follow three protagonists through a coming-of-age story, communicating with each other to solve escape-room-like puzzles while exploring a very cute but spooky world.

"What we didn't want is to create a purely chaotic game this time around. We wanted this to be something that brings people together. It sounds a bit obvious, but let's talk about Overcooked breaking people apart," Duncan explained when I asked what prompted the decision to move away from Overcooked's wildly popular time-based gameplay.

"This is the one that we want you to get together on a Friday night with your partner, draw the curtains, order a pizza, and sit and play this game together, and hopefully get closer," he continued.

Overcooked may have a vague overarching plot, but let's be honest: you don't stay for the story. You stay for the culinary carnage. On the other hand, each trailer for Stage Fright so far feels akin to watching an animated movie, which makes sense, as De-Vine explains that the new game was built "around this mystery seaside coming-of-age story." This shift to an overarching narrative is something Ghost Town Games has only touched on before, but Stage Fright promises a linear, more structured experience than the fast-paced, characterless avatars of Overcooked days.

"A lot of what you experience with Overcooked or with any cooperative game is how you communicate with the person who's next to you, and we thought, well, let's try and tie that into the story as well," says Duncan. "So a lot of what the characters are having to deal with and the characters that they're meeting is to do with how they interact and what their relationship is like and how it changes over time."

No player left behind

Even as someone who is a massive fan of narrative-first co-op games such as Hazelight Studio's titles like It Takes Two and Split Fiction, the move toward a narrative experience is a complete swing away from the arcade-like levels of Overcooked's kitchens. Stage Fright also seems to have a pretty unique setup for the co-op genre in general, with the team choosing to have us follow three characters instead of two, despite Stage Fright being a strictly two-player game.

De-Vine and Duncan reveal that players won't choose the character they play for the entire experience. Instead, you will be "hopped" into different roles throughout the story. This not only adds variety for all players but also ensures no one feels like they are being "dragged around".

To explain this point, Duncan describes a section that involves a spotlight "that one player is controlling and the other player has to stay inside of while there's dangers all around them." The job of who controls the spotlight doesn't stay the same the whole level, though.

"Variety is important to us, not just in terms of keeping the game exciting, but also playing to different types of players' strengths as well," Duncan explains. Stage Fright has undergone some playtesting already, and the team is mindful that each player should have something to do in a section. "You find one player who's really good at word puzzles; say someone else is much more spatial; someone's more into the skill side of things. It's another way to make sure one player isn't solving everything, trying to keep it fresh."

Split reality

One of my biggest pet peeves in co-op games, having grown up with a brother and now having a longtime partner, is that some titles feel like they could have easily been single-player games instead. But Stage Fright's decision to use split-screen gives each player a different experience while also promoting teamwork, as they will need to communicate with each other to solve puzzles.

The constant split-screen, whether you play online or in couch co-op, is all about perspective. "It's trying to put the players in different locations a lot of the time, or if they're in the same location, maybe they see different things from each other," says De-Vine. "You're going to miss stuff that the other player sees, and then they're going to have to bring you in on their thought process. Otherwise, the game is impossible for you if you don't communicate, and it's also not possible for one player to basically play the game for the other."

The challenge is still here.

The split-screen choice, story focus, and art style of Stage Fright are all vastly different from Overcooked. Instead of another game defined by "communication in chaos", Stage Fright ticks nearly all my co-op boxes while giving us a chance to breathe.

Duncan tells me that you can pause during the aforementioned spotlight section: "One player can just stop moving the controller, and the other person can just stand in the middle of the spotlight," he explained. There is chaos in the game, but you can disengage without worrying about the clock.

Of course, that may set off alarm bells for some about Stage Fright being too accessible and Ghost Town Games losing too much of its bite. Luckily, De-Vine and Duncan have assured me that Stage Fright isn't without challenge. Without going into specifics, both tease that players can get each other killed "in a playful way".

"It's about sort of balancing those moments of adrenaline and then cooling you down a little bit," Duncan says. "We're not making a game that's going to punish players a lot, but we're making a game that should be difficult if you aren't communicating well, and if you are communicating well, it should be satisfying," De-Vine continues.

Stage Fright's more cerebral approach might sound worlds away from Overcooked's fast, frantic loop, but it's very much an evolution of its core idea.

"It's connected in the sense that we're still trying to make games for gamers and non- gamers, and it's still very geared around communication and accessibility and the like," De-Vine tells me. "But we want to do something original and different."

After 10 years of couples gloriously devolving into Gordon Ramsay screaming matches with Overcooked, Stage Fright's more narrative-first approach looks to be filling the co-op game void for pairs who just didn't click with the chaos-filled kitchens. It's clear that Stage Fright won't be another "Divorce Kitchen," from everything that I have seen so far. Instead, its more methodical approach and emphasis on overcoming a charming mystery together might mend those fractured friendships at long last.

Stage Fright is set to release sometime in 2027. While we wait, check out our list of the best co-op games to play today. Or look ahead to more 2027 releases with our round-up of all the new games on the way.

I feel like we're missing something big with Warhammer Tone Pro.

There's a lot of talk about how great this new paint line is for experts (it's been so good fans are literally watching paint dry), and in all fairness, it's right there in the name. But having been hands-on with the range for a couple of weeks now, I think that does Warhammer Tone Pro a disservice – it's also great for beginners.

If you're new to the idea, Tone Pro was revealed at the Big Autumn Warhammer Preview 2026 as a revolutionary new paint line with a battalion's worth of improvements behind it. For starters, it's easier to use thanks to superior flow and coverage that mean you only have to put one layer on a model for the perfect consistency (two thin coats are a thing of the past here). What's more, it's far more pigmented for a much greater vibrancy.

Basically, it tackles a lot of requests from experienced Warhammer painters. And yes, those same experts can make some truly phenomenal things with it. But I think those same features make it ideal for newcomers, and I'd actually recommend trying it over anything else because of one key factor: it's forgiving.

The thing that took me aback is how little Warhammer Tone Pro punishes you for cutting corners. Splodging paint onto a model straight from the pot is always a no-no because it dries in massive lumps that obscure detail, but not here. Even if you gloop Tone Pro on with the cheerful abandon of a toddler, its self-levelling properties make sure it dries evenly and in a way that doesn't hide detail. That's outright sorcery so far as I'm concerned.

It also sidesteps an issue many beginners encounter. Most of us who've been in the hobby a while have early models that are a blurry, indistinct lump because we didn't thin our paints using something like a wet palette (which is honestly an essential purchase for every skill level, I use an Army Painter one that you can find cheap enough at Amazon). That seems far harder to do with Warhammer Tone Pro, even if you're using exactly the same techniques.

I'd say the new number system – where colors progress from dark (1) to light (5) – is so much more intuitive when newcomers start approaching layers and highlights. I adore the lore-rich names of older Warhammer paints, but trying to work out progressions can be a headache unless you have the range lined up in front of you. As for Tone Pro, you literally just move up the number scale. I painted Ultramarine Kais Konorius (one of the new Warhammer 40K Space Marines) using Tone Pro wherever possible, and it was such an intuitive experience. Highlighting that iconic blue armor was particularly easy using these paints; rather than trying to work out what makes a smooth transition, I simply started with Blue Gorkshroom 1 and progressed up to 4. The result is probably the best Ultramarine I've ever painted.

Of course, the decider for all this will be price – and I have a suspicion Warhammer Tone Pro will be more expensive than other paints thanks to its impressive qualities. However, even if you just buy one line of paints that you know you'll use a lot (like Blue Gorkshroom 1-5 if you're an Ultramarines fan), I'd say it's worthwhile.

Personally, I'm hoping they make a starter set box like the press sample I was lucky enough to be sent. If they do, I'd suggest Warhammer beginners make a beeline straight for it.

Warhammer Tone Pro will go up for pre-order via the Warhammer Store on Saturday October 10, and it'll presumably appear at indie retailers like Miniature Market or Wayland Games in the UK around the same time.

Elsewhere in the Warhammer world, we're very happy that, after 8 years, Warhammer finally got the Custodes right. Hopefully a few of these show up in the upcoming Black Friday Warhammer deals.

• See the latest discounts on Warhammer paint at Amazon

I recall many things from my 140-hour initial playthrough of The Witcher 3, but taking in the scenery is not one of them. Between monster contracts, heartbreaking questlines like The Bloody Baron, and far too many games of Gwent, the position of the sun in the sky was never of concern to me.

But The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered has put all that on its head. I wanted to hone in on a specific quest for this first instalment of October's RPG Club, exploring how White Orchard's griffin-slaying contract feels with the new combat and reworked skill tree now in play thanks to the new update. So tell me why I've just spent almost five hours treating The Witcher 3 like an open world photo op, seeking out the best sunsets in town?

Quest Log

Heavens above

Aside from all the half-naked bodies (which have always been there in this dream sequence), the first thing I notice upon starting a new save is how jaw-droppingly vivid, colorful, and vibrant it is.

Shadows are richer, the contrast between Geralt's bare chest and the marbled oak furniture behind him starker than Yennefer's state of undress. I walk out onto the balcony and can almost feel the sun's golden warmth pouring over Kaer Morhen, setting aflame the emerald and sage and every other fancy word you can think of to say "green" in its lush surrounding wilderness.

It boggles the mind. I'm playing The Witcher 3 on my six year-old gaming laptop. Yes, I updated my graphics card drivers especially for this occasion, but I was prepared to miss out on the best of the remaster's visual upgrades given the age of my rig. Turns out that even without ray-tracing and occlusive lighting, The Witcher 3 has never looked more magical.

When I'm let loose in White Orchard, I try to stay on track. Well, as on track as you're supposed to be in a game like this; White Orchard is the starter town for a reason, offering a snapshot of the game's many systems and mission types in one handy place as Geralt sets out to find Yennefer with witcher mentor, Vesesmir. Wraith in the Well is a great introduction to the planning that goes into each monster hunt. For a taste of The Continent's political landscape, Twisted Firestarter sees me tracking down an arsonist who burned down the local forge after the blacksmith supplied arms to invading Nilfgaardian forces. Elsewhere, I help a sweet old dear get her prized frying pan back from the home of a dead man. You know, just normal things.

I have to admit that since it has been some time since I last played The Witcher 3, some of the combat enhancements might be lost on me. If anything, I find myself running into more bugs than before – Geralt refused to dive to fetch some herbs once, forcing me to reload, while he petulantly decided that dodging is for losers and massively showed me up in a brawl outside a tavern. But at least I can stop and snap some pretty pictures in Photo Mode when I'm not reloading to fix said bugs.

To griffin-ity

By the time I get around to the griffin-slaying contract, I've reached Level 3 and completed all nearby side quests. It took a bit of time; White Orchard is not for level grinding, since there's a whole game and two DLC (soon to be three when Songs of the Past launches next year) to do that in. But it does mean that I can start exploring the reworked skill tree nice and early – thank god.

I have no shame in admitting that my first Witcher 3 build was utter chaos. I had no idea what I was doing, assigning random mutagens here, mismatching them with other-colored abilities there, never properly upgrading skills after they were first unlocked. But CDPR has made it far more visually intuitive, doing away with the need to blow all your points in a specific category before you can unlock higher-tier skills.

They branch out more naturally now – I'm going for an Igni build at this early stage, since few things can shrug off a bunch of sparks in their faces, which smoothly branches out into the Aard ability tree to let me skip the lower levels outright. It's a far smarter, more user-friendly rework compared to the original – though given how much I struggled with Cyberpunk 2077 at first, maybe I've just gotten used to the developer's flair after all.

Going up against the griffin is easy, if a little daunting. You never feel truly ready in The Witcher 3; some high-level enemies go down surprisingly fast with the right oils rubbed on your silver sword, while others (cough Detlaff cough) give me far more stress than I'd care to rehash here.

It also doesn't help that after fetching herbs and finding the abandoned griffin's lair – RIP griffin wife – all I want to do is take photographs of everything. I'm so consumed with documenting my new Witcher 3 journey like a photojournalist, taking time framing each shot just so, that when Vesemir hands me a crossbow, I panic. Uh, how do I use this again?!

After downing three accidental potions and casting Igni at my horse (sorry Roach), I finally work out how to equip the blasted thing. It's pretty useless, if I'm honest; I'll stick to using the Igni special attack, a stream of continuous fire that reaches a surprising distance, to stun the beast and bring it crashing down to earth for some melee attacks.

It's on toward Vizima now that the brute has been slain, and time to meet Yennefer. But not before I snap another juicy shot of Geralt and his winged prize. I'm sure that there's more I'll appreciate about the remaster update later down the line – I haven't even experienced the new missions that came with the next gen update, after all – but for now, I'm quite happy playing The Witcher 3 in a state of awe and wonder. Each new sunset brings another exciting rush to snap a picture before it's too late, even if Geralt's hair looks startlingly blue or blonde in certain lighting. CD Projekt Red's bold enhancements of The Witcher 3's color palette has turned it into a true fantasy for me, and at this rate, it'll take me a very long time to leave Velen.

So it's just as well that next week, another member of the GamesRadar+ team will take you on an adventure into one of their favorite sections of this big, beautiful game! Until then, I'll see you on The Path.

26 years ago, the first all-out superhero ensemble movie hit screens. Introducing legendary characters to live action such as Hugh Jackman's Wolverine and Patrick Stewart's Charles Xavier, the first X-Men movie did what had never really been done before, bringing a team of heroes with equal agency together to face a common enemy. That formula would be repeated over and over, and was the first step on the road to the ultimate team-up movie, Avengers: Doomsday, releasing later this year.

Aside from the questionable outfits, the 2000 movie was a smash hit amongst Marvel comics fans at the time, and still holds up today. Not only does the movie act as a perfect origin story for Xavier's superhero team, but it also introduces characters and relationships that survive on screen for decades to come. But in a rather ironic twist, the whole story will come full circle later this year in Avengers: Doomsday, as the same characters to introduce the modern superhero ensemble format are returning in the ultimate team-up adventure.

Over two decades after X-Men hit screens, Doomsday welcomes back most of the original mutants, including Xavier, Ian Mckellen's Magneto, James Marsden's Cyclops, and Rebecca Romijn's Mystique, as they make their MCU debut. But with the MCU shifting into a new era, it feels like the fifth Avengers movie is bringing the OG heroes back just to kill them off, which makes looking back to the start of their journey that more heartbreaking.

The first to do it

Directed by disgraced filmmaker Bryan Singer, X-Men introduces Wolverine as he plods across the nation with no memory of how he gained his powers, struggling to accept his new identity. That is until he meets the equally confused teen mutant Rogue (Anna Paquin). But just as the two become targets for the villain Magneto and his henchmen Sabretooth and Toad, they are scooped up by Professor X's squad. And so the X-Men team was born. The movie gives us just enough of a taste of each mutant's respective powers and a glimpse at their backstories, and sets up the heated rivalry between Xavier and Magneto that launches the whole franchise.

But you may be thinking, what do you mean X-Men was the first superhero ensemble movie? What about the early Batman movies that saw the Caped Crusader and Robin team up? Or 1987's Masters of the Universe? It is true that heroes did band together on screen before, but there was always one frontrunner followed by a gaggle of sidekicks. X-Men was the first major Hollywood movie to successfully bring a superhero team to the big screen where all the lead characters played an important part in the story. The joining of heroes who have similar capabilities would be replicated later down the line in 2012's The Avengers, spawning a whole franchise in and of itself.

The end of an era

However, according to the Avengers: Doomsday synopsis, the Marvel Phase 6 film is setting itself up as a pivotal moment in MCU history, which could mark the end for the original X-Men. "Universes collide, and the Multiverse Saga begins its final chapter," reads the synopsis. "This epic film will lay the foundation for the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe." Now, to me, that sounds as though the movie will say goodbye to a bunch of old heroes in order to make way for a new era. Furthermore, the Doomsday cast list is so incredibly stacked that there is no way all of the characters will be able to share screen time, meaning many may be binned early on.

In the added Avengers: Endgame Encore footage, the TVA learns that 3,000 universes have impending incursions, the first being between the Fox X-Men universe Earth-10005 and a new universe Earth-1127. The incursions are no doubt caused by Robert Downey Jr.'s Doctor Doom, who is on a path to avenge his own misfortune. But it may be too late for the X-Men. In the Avengers: Doomsday trailer, we see that parts of the X-Mansion have been destroyed, and another shot shows Xavier looking up at the fiery sky. Universes colliding is worlds away from the early 00s movie, so it may be a little too much for X and Magneto, who are huddled together and honestly look terrified.

In with the new

I believe Doomsday will give our favourite Mutants time to shine, though, before closing their coffins shut. In the trailer, we see Gambit fighting Shang-Chi, and in another scene, Mystique shape-shifts into Florence Pugh's Yelena. The mutants are probably trying to protect themselves from the strange heroes who have landed in their universe, who are really there to save them. But the X-Men will probably be no match for Doctor Doom, who has been described as "very difficult to beat" by director Joe Russo. Especially as Famke Janssen's ultra-powerful Jean Grey is absent.

It's going to be incredibly sad to see the OG X-Men go, particularly Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen's Professor X and Magneto, whose turbulent relationship kept us on our toes for decades. However, the Fox-era X-Men deserve a proper send-off. Let's face it, the old mutants could never have stayed around in the MCU for long, as Thunderbolts director Jake Schreier's upcoming X-Men movie is already in the works. The new movie is set to welcome back Spider-Man: Brand New Day's Sadie Sink as Jean Grey, adding Kit Connor's Cyclops, Christopher Abbott's Professor X, Inde Navarrette's Rogue, and more.

The first X-Men movie is required viewing ahead of Avengers: Doomsday, mainly to remind you how important the X-Men are to Marvel Studios and how one 26-year-old superhero film, that is on a pretty small scale compared to ensemble flicks today, changed the modern superhero genre forever. Knowing that this may be the last time we see our favourite mutants is devastating, but rewatching the first X-Men movie also makes me super excited to see the early days of a new group of mutants again.

Avengers: Endgame is available to stream now on Disney Plus, ahead of the release of Avengers: Doomsday on December 18. Avengers: Endgame Encore is in theaters now.

Look ahead with our list of upcoming Marvel movies and check out how to watch the Marvel movies in order ahead of your next rewatch. See you next week as we revisit the second X-Men movie, X2.