I'm always looking out for cozy Halloween games that channel the spooky vibes or autumnal aesthetic of the season. Crucially, though, I'm after those that don't fill me with any fear or sense of dread.

Yes, even though I'm a self-professed scaredy cat who can't handle the best horror games out there on account of the fright factor, I still love Halloween for its witchy, vampy feel, and its pumpkin-laden, bat-winged decorations (the candy helps, too). So, if you're anything like me and you're after some recommendations, I've decided to bring together these cozy Halloween games to help you get in the spirit of the spooky season without being at risk of raising your heart rate — or having to shy away from your PC or console because some gnarly monster is attacking you.

From some of my favorite indies that nail the creepy-but-cute style, to some games like Stardew Valley that are perfect for the season, and sims that capture the atmosphere and look without the scares, I've also included some story-driven adventures that are great for this time of year. So, read on as I help you get into the spooky mood with my pick of the best cozy Halloween games.

6. Night in the Woods

Every time Halloween comes a-knocking, I always want to return to Night in the Woods. Not only does the adventure game have the perfect autumnal aesthetic for this time of year, but it also has a slightly darker, spooky edge to it as you progress through the story (but don't worry, it never veers into scary territory). Playing as protagonist Mae, who returns to her hometown of Possum Springs after dropping out of College, you follow her coming-of-age journey as she tries to reconnect with family and friends, fit back into a home that's changed, and ultimately figure out her place in the world.

Driven by exploration in the rundown mining town, there's some mysteries for you to unravel, but at its heart is an experience centered around relatable characters who are all dealing with troubles of their own. I always appreciate how Night In the Woods explores Mae's struggles as a young adult, as well as mental health problems. It normalizes what is often stigmatized, and brings to life a memorable, atmospheric experience that will forever mean so much to me. If you've yet to try out Night in the Woods, Halloween is the perfect time to do just that.

5. Wylde Flowers

If there was ever a great way to get into the spirit of the spooky season, then assuming the role of witch running a farm is a sure fire way to do it. Wylde Flowers takes the delights of the best farming games and infuses them with magic, supernatural residents, intrigue, and cozy cottagecore vibes. As Tara, who moves to the delightful Fairhaven Island to be with her ailing grandmother, Hazel, you eventually take over the family farm.

But as you'll soon come to learn, there's more to Tara's family lineage and the Island than first meets the eye. You'll find your way to discovering a local coven who teach you the witchy ways of Grandma Hazel. From brewing potions in a cauldron that can help crops grow faster, to drawing up spells to do things like change the weather, or help out the locals who get caught up in a spot of bother, there's even a magical location to explore that's host to the likes of a book-loving werewolf and a tinkering goblin. With lots of charming characters and a great story, updates have brought more unlockable features to this cozy gem.

4. Cult of the Lamb

If you're looking for something for Halloween that channels the creepy-but-cute look and feel, I'll always recommend Cult of the Lamb. Playing as an adorable young sheep, you decide to break away from the stereotypical norms so often associated with the fluffy animals and become a leader with followers of your own. Yes, as the lead lamb, you grow and front your very own cult of cutesy critters.

As you set out to earn more powers by venturing through dungeons, you'll develop your cult with some base-building goodness, and maybe sacrifice a follower or two in the name of the lamb. Its darker edge is undercut by its humor, and it still manages to somehow be adorable and charming. Plus, if you're after a recommendation you can play with a pal or loved one, then you'll be happy to know it also supports local co-op, with one player taking on the role of the lamb, while the other controls a goat. Quite the dynamic duo.

3. Beacon Pines

Another adventure that taps into the creepy-cute vibe, Beacon Pines is a cozy game with a horror-leaning story that's very fitting for the Halloween season. With an autumnal feel overall, the adventure takes place within the pages of a mysterious storybook, and follows the journey of a little deer called Luka and his friends. Playing as both the reader of the story and Luka, you set out into the night to investigate some strange goings on in Beacon Pines, namely at an old abandoned warehouse in the woods.

Stumbling upon a weird cover-up at the warehouse that Luka and his friends get caught up in, you help to shape the narrative by filling the gaps of the pages as the reader. With charms that have engraved words, you can find new story paths to unlock more charms and events. With a creepy atmosphere and an emotional story, it spins a mystery you'll want to unravel.

2. Strange Antiquities

If you love detective games and have yet to give Strange Antiquities a go, then Halloween is a great time for this one. With a dark, cozy feel to it, you find yourself working in a shop full of oddities in the setting of Undermere – the candle-lit interior of the store really makes for the perfect the kind of atmosphere for this time of year. As you settle in to examine and identify strange artifacts, you'll try to meet the curious needs of your customers.

After receiving requests for a specific effect or particular occult object, it's then left up to you to puzzle out what would be right for the townsfolk who stop by. It really does feel like you're a detective, not only because you have to figure out what artifacts are and who they're best suited for, but because you'll also piece together clues to uncover more objects in the store – which holds plenty of secrets of its own. Building on the developer's previous game, Strange Horticulture (which you may also enjoy if you like this one), Strange Antiquities' has plenty of mystery and intrigue for the spooky season.

1. Wytchwood

Wytchwood is always at the top of mind when it comes to cozy games that have the perfect look, atmosphere, and setting for the Halloween season – complete with a great sense of humor. The crafting adventure takes place in a fairytale world filled with gothic fables. Brought to life in a wonderful storybook art style, you take on the role of the old witch of the woods who has her own cottage in a swamp... and wears a pot on her head like a helmet.

Tasked with venturing out into the strange land to claim souls on behalf of a goat (as you do), you collect and grow witchy ingredients like eye of the newt, meaty morsels, and even things like bottled despair. You'll work to craft spells in your grimoire and brew up enchantments to cast judgement on those you encounter. With a setting that's filled with fantastical characters, you can expect to solve puzzles, meet some monsters, and soak up its witchy, gothic vibes.

If you're after more spooky recommendations and do want some scares, consider checking out our pick of the best Halloween games.

A constant barrage of great game releases often means some great games fly under my radar. There's a world where Romancing Saga 3: Destinies United – a 3D remake of the 1995 JRPG – completely flies past me and I'm worse for it. After a brief hands-on with a game I had little interest in playing, I walked away eagerly anticipating meeting back up with my weird little party of freaks.

I'm not someone familiar with the Saga franchise, I've always happily observed it from the outside, forever content to enjoy this one from the sidelines. That was until a recent preview event at New York Comic Con where I played a very combat focused section of the game. I was swiftly thrown into the deep end with my ragtag party of our fearless leader Khalid, a fairy with a giant spear named Peony, a masked super-hero like figure, and my favorite, a bushy browed snowman named Flurry.

Glimmer of an idea

This turn-based RPG mostly plays out how you expect modern games to feel. You walk up to an enemy in the overworld, whack them before they can whack you to get the advantage, and shift into a turn-based system. While it seems like a straightforward system I've seen time and time again, it turns out Romancing Saga 3 hides one neat little trick up its sleeve.

The Glimmer system provides a way for me to improvise my way through combat encounters. A lightbulb symbol next to an attack denotes the chance to turn it into something greater. For instance, glimmering Peony's Spear Attack sees my fairy ally improvising on the jab, turning it into a Giant Swing, a brand new attack that now sits alongside all of her other abilities.

Certain spells and attacks can only be glimmered based on the weapon the character is holding, and while I don't have time to swap weapons out in my demo, it's clear there's plenty of room for experimentation with its battle system.

The Glimmer System promotes pulling the lever on the slot machine. Do I go for the tried and true way to success by exploiting enemies weaknesses, or do I let it all ride on black? Of course, you have a limited number of ability slots, so it won't last forever. But, the chase of finding something new and exciting with every roll of the dice fires every dopamine receptor in my brain. What if I kept pushing my luck?

Suddenly, my combat encounters become just as much about fleshing out everyone's ability slots with new and interesting moves as they do felling foes. Multi-hit attacks, area of effect explosions, and thunder kicks galore as my party becomes more powerful. Lightbulb after lightbulb pops up as I keep exploring every option at my disposal without being forced to hold back.

It instills a sense of discovery in mundane combat encounters. I don't know how long that sensation will last over the course of the full game, but in the moment it turns ordinary battles into something thrilling. Of course, a catchy battle theme with a horn section giving it their all certainly helps.

Sifting through the menus allows me to change out my party's formation. This changes various attributes. For instance, Speculation puts the group in a v-shaped formation giving the front three units increased melee capabilities. Whirlwind formation, on the other hand, increases the speed of all units, giving them the ability to act faster in the turn order. These predetermined formations feel easy to understand at a glance and make experimentation feel more approachable.

After progressing through the dungeon I eventually find the boss, Gwayne, a larger than life dragon who's not going to simply give up once the party arrives. I start raining down attacks left and right, searching for Gwayne's weaknesses as I put all of my newfound abilities, collected and honed throughout the dungeon, to the test.

As the slugfest carries on, the overdrive meter at the bottom of the screen tantalizingly fills up. Once full to the brim, I use it to unleash a United Attack, a unique ability that chains multiple party member's attacks together for massive damage. Everytime I think I have Romancing Saga 3 figured out, it tosses a tiny new wrinkle into the mix.

Using all of the tools at my disposal, I have Gwayne on the ropes. Just as I gear up for the final few blows… My demo ends. While I don't get to vanquish the dragon this time around, I'm excited to regroup with my newfound party of weirdos and hopefully find a few more along the way when Romancing Saga: Destinies United launches February 16, 2027.

Romance isn't dead, and neither are role-playing games. Check out our best RPGs, best JRPGs, and best ARPGs rankings for what to play next, and keep an eye on our upcoming RPGs calendar for more!

The clipped-wing Dodo aeroplane, sporadically stealable from the rear runway of Francis International Airport, neatly embodies the Rockstar Games of 2001. Although Grand Theft Auto 3 will always be able to stand on its own merits as an uncommonly bleak videogame nasty that also shaped the whole sandbox crime genre, even in its day it felt somehow incomplete, as if its creator was reaching for something just beyond its grasp. Similarly, the Dodo can soar dozens of feet off the ground, but it quickly and inevitably reaches the limit of its engine power and slumps back down to earth. There is a sense of a living, reactive city in GTA 3, but at the same time it feels limited, locked off, as though you're never given full access to the dynamic urban reality it implies. On the scant few occasions that you can enter one of Liberty City's buildings, for example, there isn't anyone or anything in there, and you reach the end of the game with a sense that there is much more in Rockstar's crime series that remains to be explored.

In GTA: Vice City, released a mere 13 months after GTA 3, you are not constrained to the Dodo. From the seat of a helicopter, a seaplane or a fully outfitted Apache attack chopper, you can fly high and free. In just over a year, Rockstar's ability to build sprawling and explorable 3D cities appears to have come on leaps and bounds.

There are other telling mechanical additions. Expanding on the comparatively austere GTA 3, in Vice City you can ride motorbikes, buy property, change your clothes, and discover unmarked ambient side missions such as robbing a pharmacy or beating up gang members to earn the 'good citizen' cash bonus.

Rockstar's sunkissed, heat-vapour-saturated pastel caricature of Miami is a sight to behold, but, more importantly, you can explore its interiors too. Between the Malibu Club, the Pole Position, the shopping malls and the Pizza Stack restaurants – not to mention the various hotels, apartments and places of business that you acquire as you progress through the main story – this aptly named metropolis of iniquity is packed with places to go, NPCs to meet, and small but immersion-enhancing interactions. Today, we take all of this for granted. Customisable characters, optional sidequests and small, tertiary mechanics that help to boost verisimilitude have come to be regarded as the mere rudiments of the open-world genre. But way back in 2002 – especially on a console, and outside of the fantasy-RPG realm – a game where this amount of effort was put into pure worldbuilding, and where you could have a perfectly rewarding time simply basking in the atmosphere, still felt exceptional.

Nevertheless, two and a half decades on, some of the changes and enhancements made between GTA 3 and Vice City might sound superficial, or even faintly ridiculous. In the same way that you might chuckle at the size of the earliest mobile phones or recall with a certain irony the 'magic' of wireless Internet, it's funny to imagine a world where the ability to crouch in a Grand Theft Auto game, or to jump out of a moving car if it was on fire, felt like a novelty. Vice City emerged in an era when the conventions of the 3D open-world game – especially the 3D open-world crime game – were still far from codified, when the mechanical language of the subgenre was unfinished. Seen from that perspective, Rockstar's vision for the game starts to feel cavalier, like it's trying to tap X repeatedly to sprint before it can walk. There's no swimming, climbing walls or moving while crouching in Vice City, but there are celebrity voiceovers, a fully licensed soundtrack, and a recognisable representation of the mansion (and climactic shootout) from Scarface.

You might get the sense that presentation was more important to 2002 Rockstar than pragmatism, as though the studio was channelling its creative energy towards superficial goals (aping big-budget movies; showing off a pseudo-cinematic production quality) in lieu of honing or pushing the playing experience. Certainly, the driving, the shooting and the level designs that are supposed to form the game's centre remain largely unchanged from GTA 3. Or you could even go back to Grand Theft Auto, from 1997; the tasks that you receive in the top-down original version of Liberty City almost always involve driving somewhere, killing a bunch of people, picking something up and driving back, and that's also what you do for most of your time in Vice City. It looks gorgeous, and there's plenty to see and explore, but the game can be seen more as an incremental advance than a full-bodied sequel – understandable when you consider that it started life as a GTA 3 add-on.

However, the magic of Vice City – and of videogames in general – lies in more than mechanics, mission design or any other tangibles of the form. Even though Vice City may have fundamentally the same structure and systems as GTA 3, True Crime, Mafia and many comparable crime capers that emerged during the '00s, it nevertheless feels like the standout because of its aesthetic approach. The stinking, smoky, weather-beaten concrete brutalism of Liberty City – and the moral squalor that it symbolises – is replaced wholesale with sunshine, vibrancy and an airier, freer, much more feel-good tone.

Prior to Vice City, the sensory thrills of GTA had been rooted largely in depravity, the transgressive excitement that comes from simulating actions and behaviours that are too dark, immoral and illegal for you ever to consider in reality. They're by no means fully grown up, but in Vice City, Rockstar's virtual fantasies appear more mature. In addition to killing cops with rocket launchers, flinging cars off of ramps and driving a tank through traffic, you're encouraged, surreptitiously or otherwise, towards more plausible and contemplative pleasures. When you reminisce about Vice City today, alongside all the ultraviolence and automotive pyrotechnics, you're also likely to fondly recall the first time you went inside the Malibu Club, or the party mission aboard Colonel Cortez's yacht, or cruising down Ocean Beach in a convertible Stinger while listening to Broken Wings. With GTA 3, Rockstar succeeded in creating a 3D open playground; with Vice City, it started to develop and more finely shape what would eventually become its trademark – a rounded, reactive, and much more enveloping open world.

Vice City's landscape is more than a racing track, and you're invited to regard its citizenry as more than digital toys for you to smash up in variously creative ways. But while it is a broader and deeper game than GTA 3 – and also represents a crucial development in the history of open-world maps, and how they've become progressively larger – it is still very carefully contained. There are exceptions, but in the latter half of the game in particular, when you're set loose to purchase assets and front companies, the majority of the side missions feel as if they are still connected to the central spine of the narrative. It's up to you which businesses you want to buy and which of their accompanying mission chains you want to follow, but all of them are ultimately connected to Tommy Vercetti's core goal of constructing his criminal empire. Even today, this kind of design feels like a rarity. If there is a consistent problem with sandbox and open-world games, it's that they offer too much in the way of meaningless 'content', expecting you to be enthralled by completing banal sidequests in the name of sheer running time. But in Vice City – for the most part, at least – you have a reasonable understanding of why your character is doing the things he's doing. The effect is incomplete, and naturally primitive compared to much later games such as Cyberpunk 2077, but in Vice City you can see that Rockstar is trying to unify the free-flowing, player-driven open world with cogent, coherent storytelling.

This effort – to make the game feel simultaneously large and comprehensible, reactive to you as a player but nonetheless directed and choreographed by the designers, so that there is dramatic thrust behind everything you do – is ultimately reflected in the map itself, every part of which has its own identifying characteristic: the Ammu-Nation and helipad in Downtown, the multi-storey car park and hotels in Ocean Beach, the airport and the rocket-launcher pickup near Little Havana.

Rather than simply being big, Rockstar's interpretation of Miami is dense. Whether interactive or purely visual, each street contains a point of interest, and the missions are designed so that you're bound to visit every district. Again, it makes the game feel remarkably modern. If the open worlds of today struggle with one particular problem – that there's a lot more map than there are engaging or worthwhile things to do on it – Rockstar, as early as 2002, seems to have appreciated the value of details and meaningful minutiae over size.

Twenty-four years ago, Vice City's appeal might have laid in its new vehicles, its encompassing '80s soundtrack and its enormous cast of celebrity voices. One of the reasons we fell in love with it was because it felt 'bigger' than GTA 3, and perhaps any other game of the era. In hindsight, though, and in the context of more than two decades of sandbox and open-world giants, it's a pleasure to play because of how focused and contained it feels, and how for each inch of the experience there is the detectable authorial hand of its creator steering us along.

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!

Here we are, a decade removed from the controversial launch of No Man's Sky, and developer Hello Games is still finding ways to improve its increasingly beloved space sandbox. No Man's Sky update 7.10, Forsaken, has just landed, marking the game's fifth major update in 2026 alone, and it makes good on a teaser that's haunted fans since well before launch.

Yes, you can now "fly directly to neighboring stars for the first time," as the trailer for Forsaken explains. Nearby stars will appear as brighter spots in the sky, and you can simply point your ship toward one to see the system's name and get a button prompt to warp to it. Previously, you had to open the galaxy map in order to chart your course to a new star system.

The ability to just warp directly to new star systems was seemingly teased at the end of the infamous E3 2014 trailer for No Man's Sky – the one that appeared at PlayStation's press conference and set impossibly high expectations for the game. That trailer also teased co-op, a feature that would be added to the game years after launch, and it seems the studio's commitment to making good on the game's pre-release promise is still going strong.

Of course, seamless warping is just one small part of the Forsaken update. You can check out the full patch notes for all the details, but other major additions include new Forsaken traders offering corvette modules in exchange for rare goods, an immersive HUD mode, and some Halloween-appropriate new spooky biological samples to seek out.

Arguably the biggest news, however, is that No Man's Sky is now available on mobile, which the devs once considered a "seemingly impossible technical challenge." The mobile version is well under 5GB, which is all the more impressive given just how big the game has gotten in the decade since its launch.

These are the best space games you can play today.

When does the Fortnite Treasure Hunters mini-season start is a question we now know the answer to, as it will get underway on November 1, 2026. The tagline for the fresh season is "The greatest adventure of all time" and you can expect things to get switched up, with a new map to explore, fresh faces to meet, and no doubt some updated mechanics to get to grips with.

Epic aren't known for resting on their laurels and are always planning the next stage of development in Fortnite, so there will certainly be more changes brought in during the course of the upcoming season and beyond. If you're looking ahead to the Fortnite Treasure Hunters mini-season and are wondering what changes it may bring us, then here's everything we know about it so far.

What will be the biggest changes made for the Fortnite Treasure Hunters mini-season?

Although Epic haven't officially confirmed much more than the name and tagline for the Fortnite Treasure Hunters mini-season, they have also released a number of teasers which give us a good idea of what's to come. The season is going to be themed around anime pirates, with One Piece being confirmed as a significant part of that.

As rounded up by HYPEX, we've so far seen that One Piece characters Luffy, Zoro, Nami, Usopp, Sanji, Ace, and Buggy will all feature, alongside A$AP Rocky, Charlotte, Cuddle Team Leader, Hatsune Miku, Hope, Jonesy, Kasane Teto, Lil Uzi Vert, and Oscar as part of a stacked line up!

There are also going to be six distinct pirate crews in Treasure Hunters, featuring Jones & Hope, Straw Hat Crew (One Piece), A$AP Rocky, Lil Uzi Vert, Kasane Teto & Hatsune Miku, plus a 6th unknown crew – perhaps that one will be ours? It's likely you'll be battling against these crews to secure the loot, as was revealed during the teaser – "You won't be the only one drawn to these shores. Hope you're ready for reality's greatest treasure hunt."

We've also got an early look at the Fortnite Treasure Hunters mini-season map in the post above, showing a more compact island with plenty of POIs within close proximity to each other. There are also lots of bays for ships to dock in, which ties to the overall piracy and treasure hunting theme.

How much will the Fortnite Treasure Hunters Battle Pass cost?

Fortnite is free to play, but buying the Battle Pass will get you lots of additional rewards. The Fortnite Treasure Hunters Battle Pass will be available for 800 V-Bucks, which means it will still be enough to purchase the smallest V-Bucks bundle in the Fortnite store, priced at $8.99 / £6.99 to get 800 V-Bucks. By completing the Battle Pass you can earn 800 V-Bucks back through unlocks, but you can no longer collect additional V-Bucks above that.

Usually it's possible to get a head start by buying the Battle Bundle upgrade, which would get you to Tier 25 on the Battle Pass instantly – however with this being a short mini-season, the pass may be smaller so this could work differently. Doing so previously would cost you 2,600 V-Bucks, which you can get for $22.99 / £17.49. You can also sign up to the Fortnite Crew subscription service, which costs $11.99 / £9.99 per month but gives you access to all of the Fortnite Passes including the Battle Pass, as well as awarding a bonus 800 V-Bucks every month and other exclusive rewards.

If you don't want to spend any money, you can always try to get free Fortnite V-Bucks for the Fortnite Treasure Hunters Battle Pass, but don't fall for online scams! If you choose to save up some V-Bucks, remember that you only need 800 of them to unlock the next Fortnite Battle Pass starting in November 2026.

And that's everything we know about the Fortnite Treasure Hunters mini-season for now, but keep checking back and we'll have more details as soon as they're revealed!

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There's some good news and some bad news for Witchbrook fans today. Chucklefish's long-awaited magical school RPG finally has a release date set for next January… but that's also a delay from what was previously announced.

Witchbrook – a cozy life sim with Stardew Valley-esque visuals set in a seaside town with a magical college – was first teased over 10 years ago, if you can believe it, but it's felt tantalizingly close for the last couple of years thanks to some unfortunate delays. It was originally planned to arrive sometime during winter 2025, but got pushed back to 2026, and, well… it's now missed out on that window, too.

As announced during today's Nintendo Indie World Showcase, Witchbrook is now set to arrive on January 28, 2027. In addition to launching on PC, Xbox, Switch, and Switch 2 as previously revealed in a blog post shared on Steam, Chucklefish now confirms that Witchbrook will also arrive on PS5 at the same time as the other platforms, so no one is missing out at launch.

This blog post also confirms the US pricing for Witchbrook. It'll be $24.99 at launch, and Chucklefish also notes that physical copies – both standard and collector's editions – will be coming, too, but not until after the digital release. This is "to avoid impacting the release schedule, and to ensure they’re truly special for physical media collectors," the devs say.

"We have poured detail and care into every pixel, to create a truly handcrafted experience," the blog post says. "We can't wait to open Witchbrook College's grand doors to new students in January, and introduce you to the town and people of Mossport.

"Thank you for all of your support and patience, especially within the last year, while we took the additional time to make a game we're truly proud of. We hope you'll enjoy immersing yourself in our magical pixel art world as much as we've enjoyed making it."

That pair of aforementioned delays may have some feeling wary about getting too excited about the new date, but with an actual date listed this time rather than a more vague release window, it feels a lot more likely that this will be Witchbrook's final delay. Hopefully, anyway.

Witchbrook's taken 10 years because "Harry Potter meets Stardew Valley" got old and the devs wanted time to make "something more unique."

As Final Fantasy Resonance has a strong start, and, like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, proves what an appetite JRPG fans have for turn-based games, one analyst suggests that Square Enix "knows what it's missed out on" after its "move towards more action-oriented Final Fantasy titles."

Square Enix's new turn-based, HD-2D release launched last week and quickly dethroned Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth as the series' single-player games' highest concurrent player peak on Steam. And, as you might expect, that's translated to a lot of money for Square Enix, too.

According to Alinea Analytics analyst Rhys Elliott, Resonance has now sold 400k copies across PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S, bringing in $20 million in revenue. That's obviously rather a lot, and Elliott suggests it reflects what JRPG fans actually want and that Square Enix is catering to it. It's also worth keeping in mind that this doesn't include what the game made on the Nintendo Switch 2.

"Given the strong positive reaction to – and early sales of – Resonance and last year's Expedition 33 (which is tracking way better than recent Final Fantasy games), it's clear that Square Enix has left a significant chunk of JRPG players behind during their move towards more action-oriented Final Fantasy titles," he suggests.

"While Square chased more Western trends, a Western company swept in and released Expedition 33, a game JRPG fans wanted for decades and even won game of the year at The Game Awards," he continues. "Square knows this, knows what it's missed out on, and it's seen Capcom succeed on Steam with its legacy franchises where Square Enix has arguably floundered."

Obviously, that isn't to say that Final Fantasy Resonance was made in response to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, as it was in the works well before Sandfall's reveal, let alone its wildly successful launch last year. However, the timing of another turn-based RPG gaining so much traction can't be ignored, and Elliott suggests that Square Enix may consider altering its strategy going forward.

"I can see Square Enix going down a new route, with many diverging paths, for Final Fantasy," he explains. "They've already outlined their plans to go fully multiplatform, smartly moving away from timed PlayStation exclusivity.

"I can also see the company balancing its MMO, high-fidelity remakes, and big-budget mainline Final Fantasy titles with more of these smaller 2D-HD original pixel games alongside the 2D-HD remakes," he continues. "There's still a gap for a turn-based JRPG big-budget Final Fantasy, though, and all the signals are pointing Square Enix in that direction. Just a matter of time, I reckon."

It's not just Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 developer Sandfall that the analyst suggests Square Enix takes notes from, though. After a particularly stellar year with the likes of Resident Evil Requiem, Pragmata, and Onimusha: Way of the Sword – showcasing success with new IP and old favorites alike – Elliott adds: "I'd take even more cues from Capcom, if I were them."

Final Fantasy 14 devs say Evercold's new Evolved mode isn't massive power creep: "If you don't want to change, you don't have to."

The end is nigh for Pokemon's free-to-play MOBA title Pokemon Unite, which is set to shut down for good almost six years after its launch in March 2027.

In a blog post shared today, the Pokemon Unite devs confirm that service for both the Switch and mobile versions of the game come to an end on March 23, 2027, at midnight UTC. "We offer our sincerest gratitude to the many Trainers who have played since service started for the Nintendo Switch version on July 21, 2021," a statement reads.

From now on, new purchases of Aeos gems (premium microtransactions) have been stopped, though anyone with a remaining stash will still be able to use what they'd already got until the game is shut down. Similarly, the paid monthly membership service, Unite Club, can no longer be purchased by new subscribers – existing members will continue to receive their paid benefits until their current membership period ends, with automatic renewals also now switched off.

As a last hurrah for the game, on November 12, Pokemon Unite will be getting an update that adds a couple of key things – a special event that'll run to the end of service, which will let you earn Unite coins from logging in and completing missions. These can be exchanged for things like Unite licenses for different playable Pokemon, Holowear to dress them up in, and trainer fashion items.

The other new feature to be added is a big one for longtime players who want something to remember the game by even after its shutdown – if you complete a required download before the end of service, you'll be able to access a library feature "to view certain records and in-game content."

The devs explain: "This will allow Trainers to visit the Practice Area as well as view items and achievements they obtained in-game – such as Holowear, Unite licenses, Trainer fashion items, emblems, tournament results, and more – even after service ends. We are also working on a way to look back at special memories you created with your Pokemon."

It's sad news – Unite may not have been the most popular Pokemon spin-off, but it's great fun and has also been a major part of tournaments like the Pokemon Europe International Championships and Worlds, where it's drawn extremely enthusiastic crowds. Being sat in the crowd for the EUIC finals a few years ago was genuinely one of my highlights of the event, even though I didn't play Unite at the time, just because the excitement was so contagious.

"Again, we would like to express our deepest gratitude to everyone involved with Pokemon UNITE up to this point," the devs conclude. "We hope you continue to enjoy Pokemon UNITE until service ends."

Pokemon Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald Switch ports feel all but confirmed, fans believe as new Pokemon Home update suggests more GBA games could be on the way.

Stop us if you've heard this before, but No Man's Sky and Hello Games lead Sean Murrary is yet again posting cryptic emojis online with zero context or explanation – cryptic emojis that have notably always led to updates in the past.

Remember the cocktail emojis that had folks buzzing about the Cosmos update a few months back? Or, how about how Murray teased the Remnant patch, which launched with a Garry's Mod-style gravity gun in February, with hi-vis vest emojis?

And you can't forget the stadium emojis, which were teasing the big Xeno Arena additions, or the The Swarm update, which was hinted at via bee emojis and nothing else. It's a pattern, to say the least. Now, Murray is back with more, having just left a post with naught more than a decaying rose emoji – you know the one – over on Twitter.

The Hello Games boss has put the same emoji up on Facebook and other social media platforms, meaning that this probably isn't a drill and is, much like past vague emoji-posting, some sort of mysterious teaser about… well, something. There's no telling just what it could be pointing toward, however.

Comments see folks speculating about seasons on planets, spooky expeditions, and, perhaps most amusingly, the death of No Man's Sky to finally make way for Light No Fire (probably not happening, y'all, sorry).

As one fan jests, "Hey Sean… So when can I get some Light No Fire news?" Others are simply mindblown at the prospect of yet another No Man's Sky update, considering how many we've witnessed this year alone.

There's also the fact that we just got the mobile launch of the space game, which was a bit mind-blowing in itself, seeing as Hello Games had to somehow manage to compress No Man's Sky into less than 5GB.

It's clear to me that these developers are always hard at work on one thing or another (even if the one thing we want most, ahem, Light No Fire, is being kept tightly under wraps for the time being, sadly).

I'd wager we'll see a few – or more – decaying rose emojis from Murray and Hello Games later today before we finally learn what they're supposed to be teasing, so I'd advise keeping a close eye on their official social media channels.

"If people weren't playing No Man's Sky, I don't think we would want to do updates," says Sean Murray, but he'd probably try to sneak in more content years later anyway.

Final Fantasy Resonance has gotten off to an excellent start on Steam, with Square Enix's first HD-2D game in the series now also the franchise's most popular single-player game based on its concurrent player peak on the platform.

Shortly after its launch, Final Fantasy Resonance reached a Steam peak just short of 28,000 concurrent players – a number that made it Square Enix's second-largest launch for a turn-based RPG on the platform behind Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake. However, that peak has now grown even more – yesterday, according to SteamDB, Final Fantasy Resonance hit 42,885 concurrent Steam players, which is a huge deal for a Final Fantasy game.

That's because it just barely beat Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth for the largest concurrent Steam player peak among the series' single-player games. The second installment in the FF7 remake trilogy hit a peak of 40,564 back when it launched.

Of course, the big difference there is that Rebirth arrived on PC almost a year after its PS5 launch, so many of the most hyped players would likely have already played it by the time it broke free of its console exclusivity. Resonance, on the other hand, launched simultaneously across PC and consoles, so it could take full advantage of that initial wave of hype on Steam.

You probably won't be surprised to hear that it's not the single most-played Final Fantasy game on Steam either, thanks to a certain critically acclaimed MMORPG. Final Fantasy 14 more than doubled Resonance's Steam peak almost five years ago when it hit 95,150 concurrent players around the Endwalker expansion's release, but obviously, it'd never be fair to compare an MMO and single-player game's player counts in the first place, so this is still a notable achievement for Resonance.

Despite its success, though, I suspect this won't be a record Resonance is going to hang onto forever. Next April will see the release of the third and final part of the FF7 remake trilogy in Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, which will also be releasing simultaneously across PC and consoles. Considering the hype that's built up for that, I'd be surprised if it wasn't able to snatch Resonance's crown.

"Too good to become unplayable": Final Fantasy Resonance exists because a JRPG veteran was "frustrated" players ignored their game the first time.

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.

Cult classic indie game Katana Zero has pulled a Hollow Knight Silksong, sort of - the long, long awaited Katana Zero DLC is now sequel-sized, according to the game's lead developer Justin Stander.

Katana Zero first became a huge success more than seven years ago, thanks to its gorgeous pixel art and lightning speed action that felt like a mix between Hotline Miami's heart-thumping brutality and Sekiro's sword slashing parries. A cryptic story and banger soundtrack didn't hurt, either.

After several years, the promised Katana Zero DLC is still nowhere to be seen, but fret not. Justin Stander recently took to social media to tell folks he's "still working hard" on the project. It's just taking longer than expected because the DLC keeps ballooning in size… I wonder where I've heard that one before?

"We made it bigger. It's the size of a full sequel, plus a soundtrack of over 30+ new songs," Stander tweets. "More updates to come. Thanks for your continued support!"

One small but notable difference between this and Hollow Knight Silksong (which also started out as a modest expansion before expanding wildly) is that, for now, the Katana Zero DLC is still DLC, not a standalone sequel. This is far from the first time the project's multiplied in scope, however.

In 2020, the indie dev said the Katana Zero DLC had grown to three times its original size. As of last year, it was "nearly" as big as the base game. Now? It sounds like it could be even bigger.

Still no release date yet for Katana Zero's continuation, but we did receive a short and gorgeous trailer last year.

Be sure to check out the upcoming indie games for 2026 and beyond

Factorio effectively created a genre with its lovable blend of base building, management, and survival, and it's been a Steam icon ever since it first hit early access way back in 2016. Even after a 1.0 release, a 2.0 update, and a major DLC expansion the devs have made good on their promise to never put the game on sale, and now we're here at yet another milestone with Factorio 2.1.

After months in testing, the 2.1 update has now been officially released, offering "a big collection of quality of life, small features, polish, and the things we wanted to do for 2.0 but didn't have time for," according to the announcement on Steam.

The full patch notes are stuffed with catnip for hardcore fans – "rockets can now carry multiple different items in one launch," "elevated rails can now be built over cargo bays," and "land mines can be used as tripwires and enemy detectors," for example – but arguably the most notable part is that this is likely to be the game's final milestone. The devs at Wube Software previously described it as the "last major update" they plan to create.

It's possible a few more minor patches for Factorio may land to clean up bugs and the like, but this update marks the end of an era. Factorio has been a staple on Steam, one that's earned over 234,000 positive Steam reviews, resulting in a 98% overwhelmingly positive rating. According to Steam250, that makes it the 35th best game on Valve's platform, just one step behind Elden Ring.

The game's sterling reputation and masses of players come despite the fact that, unlike pretty much every other game on Valve's platform, the devs resolutely refuse to put Factorio on sale. In fact, they actually raised the game's price in 2023 "to account for inflation."

"It isn't about visibility or sales," the devs said of their zero sale stance back in 2016, "it's about respecting the players who have already purchased the game. We don't want to reward the people who hold off on buying the game, the game is a price we find reasonable, and this is the deal. If you think it is priced too high, then it is your choice to not purchase, and we hope that with enough time, and extra development, we will be able to convince you of its value."

Clearly, a whole lot of people have been convinced of that value over the years, including a new console audience thanks to the game's releases on Switch and Switch 2. Back in 2025, the devs said they were already "laying some groundwork for what our next project could look like," and if it's anything like Factorio, it could be the stuff of indie gaming legends.

These are the best PC games you can play today.

Shigeru Miyamoto, mastermind of Nintendo and the creator of Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and Donkey Kong, will receive one of Japan's most highly regarded cultural honors – and he's the first video game developer to do so, too.

The Order of Culture, established in 1937, is an award presented to men and women who have made substantial contributions to Japan's art, literature, science, and technology.

Notable recipients include everything from fashion designers to manga artists and biologists… and, yes, it's now going to Miyamoto. A new report from GameWatch (as translated by Automaton) confirms as much.

Miyamoto, who reportedly appeared "modest" during the announcement regarding the award, is "honored" to be receiving it, paying tribute to other devs he's worked alongside throughout his career at Nintendo – his 49-year career: "I am truly honored to receive such a prestigious award. As I have often said, these achievements were not the work of one person, but the result of collaboration with many others. I accept this honor on their behalf."

The Nintendo representative director and executive fellow will officially receive the award on Japan's Culture Day, November 3. He is one of eight recipients chosen by the Japanese government and, again, the first-ever game dev to be nominated for the Order of Culture.

It serves as a testament to the mark he and his franchises have made, from arcade machines in the 1980s to portable home consoles like the Switch 2 today.

Heck, it's ongoing. We've got The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake set to release on November 5 – a remake of the beloved 1998 gem that Miyamoto acted as both producer and supervisor on. There are countless projects he's influenced in one way or another that are still managing to pull millions of players worldwide.

This is one award I'd argue is very much deserved, and it's exciting to see it finally reach the games industry.

Shigeru Miyamoto dreams of Nintendo consoles becoming a rite of passage for everyone coming of age: "Which Nintendo would make you the happiest?"

"Shrek 2 Remastered." The words keep echoing in my head like a half-forgotten memory of a sick dream, but somehow they're real. The 2004 movie tie-in game is getting a full remaster courtesy of Aspyr later this year, and folks, now that the rumors have proven true, I think it's time for us all to admit that gaming nostalgia has finally gone too far.

Shrek 2 Remastered will launch for $30 on November 10 across PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, Switch, and PC. This new version promises improved graphics, a photo mode, cheats, and 4-player co-op both online and locally, all of which sound like reasonable upgrades over the original.

But come on, man. It's Shrek 2. We all have our nostalgia for various middling licensed games – I still like the Super NES Jurassic Park game, personally – but Aspyr's use of the word "classic" in the remaster's Steam page makes me feel like I'm losing touch with reality in a way that I haven't since Destroy All Humans got remade a few years ago.

Look, I love digging into the lower tiers of the PS2 library, but this is the kind of thing bargain hunting at your local retro shop or deep dives into emulators were made for. Do we really need remaster studios putting their resources into run-of-the-mill licensed games with Metacritic scores in the low 70s?

I say all this, but moments ago our senior entertainment writer Lauren saw me use the words "Shrek PS2 game" and simply started repeating "OMG" over and over again, so maybe I'm just not the target audience here. Maybe I'll head over to eBay and grab the original game on Xbox in a bit…

At the very least, Aspyr has generally done good work in its previous remasters, which have included the likes of Tomb Raider and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic – both genuine pillars of video game history. The studio was, at one point, set to lead the KOTOR remake, though those plans have long since changed. I guess the studio is at least getting work, even if that work's occasionally unglamorous.

These are the best PS2 games of all time.

Final Fantasy Resonance is at once a nostalgia-laced antidote for the longtime fans who have felt alienated by the recent 3D iterations turning their backs on the series' turn-based traditions as well as Square Enix giving its trademarked HD-2D style a much needed shot in the arm. While I've been enamored by this retro-modern style since its introduction in 2018's Octopath Traveler, over time it's been losing its charm, as the same presentation had been wheeled out in successive nostalgic outings, though at least Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined had the good grace to try something different.

Nonetheless, its legacy of pixel-based classics like Final Fantasy 6 meant it was only a matter of time before a Final Fantasy title would receive the HD-2D treatment while also finding ways for the aesthetic to feel fresh again. Ironically, it's done that not through a brand new game but with an adaptation of mobile spin-off Final Fantasy Brave Exvius.

Crystal clear

Square Enix reworking its mobile catalog to console may not be new, as it has done successfully with Octopath Traveler 0, and less so with Various Daylife, but Final Fantasy Resonance is more significant as it excavates a since discontinued mobile game. The work from Square Enix Creative Studio 5 and Lancarse is even more extensive than just an act of preservation or removing the gacha elements that had been why Brave Exvius passed me by when it was available. While its story and characters remain intact, the whole presentation and experience has been overhauled to feel like a very classic yet fresh Final Fantasy adventure that stands on its own two feet.

Just about everything in Final Fantasy Resonance harks back to the series' classic hallmarks, from turn-based battles with a party size of four characters to the explorable overworld of Lapis peppered with towns, dungeons, random encounters, and – of course – a story that revolves around crystals. As a knight of the kingdom of Grandshelt, your protagonist Rain finds himself setting out on a journey to find the legendary crystals before each can be destroyed by a mysterious group of elite armored warriors calling themselves the Sworn Six.

There's plenty that follows a largely conventional structure – visit a new region, discover a problem the locals are having where one of the characters end up joining your party, and a dungeon that culminates in a fight with one of the Sworn Six – but it's not really a criticism when the execution of this formula is done so well. Sure, there are some familiar characterizations, from a leading man obliviously caught in a love triangle, to a feisty mechanic who's often butting heads with the sleazeball of the group, but these are fun characters to spend time with. Even the game's villains are written with pathos, while the series' recurring Espers have their own personality as you fight for the right to summon them in battle.

It's all bolstered by the presentation that's a substantial level-up from past HD-2D games. While Final Fantasy Resonance does make use of voice-acting as well as having dialogue text accompanied by expressive character illustrations – the latter introduced in this year's The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales – its biggest improvement comes from the spritework, which are bigger and feature more animations than what would have been feasible for a 16-bit Final Fantasy.

Another subtle yet meaningful shift seen early on is how it's not presented with the same top-down medium-wide camera but actually leverages the fact that the game is made up of 3D environments. It's not that Final Fantasy Resonance strives to be cinematic, but a simple change of the camera to a close-up, more dynamic angles during a boss encounter, or one of your party member's show-stopping Limit Bursts, does a lot to make HD-2D feel fresh again.

It's only undermined by the occasional use of CG sequences when you're summoning Espers or Visions, the latter including manifestations of characters from the numbered Final Fantasy titles. Given how their CG sequences are taken straight from Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, I imagine they looked far more spectacular blowing up on your smartphone back in the day. I personally found these transitions at odds with the HD-2D style, and it's perhaps weirder if playing the game with English audio since the CG Visions are only voiced in Japanese.

Vision quest

Visions are nonetheless a core component in Final Fantasy Resonance and are significantly overhauled from Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, where they were unlocked through a gacha system. This remake has just 26 from the hundreds of the mobile title but nixes any monetization or rarity randomization. Each is unlocked either by visiting their respective shrine or completing a side quest, while awakening more of their abilities is done by using magicite found as you go through the campaign.

Obviously, it's wish fulfillment having the likes of Final Fantasy 7's Cloud fighting alongside Final Fantasy 13's Lightning or Final Fantasy 14's Y'shtola, though they are more comparable to the skill-wielding summons from the likes of Persona 5 than true party members. They also have the added function of being like jobs, giving more abilities and attack options for the party member who's equipped them, while keeping them paired up for longer also levels up mastery, unlocking more benefits. There's also incentive to master multiple visions, since some of these perks become equippable, and you can mix and match different abilities, like a more flexible form of Octopath Traveler's secondary jobs.

Indeed, while there are many familiar Final Fantasy elements – such as Phoenix Downs for reviving fallen party members, or using tents as save points for fully recovering – I can't help but think how much of Octopath Traveler's design sensibilities permeate throughout. Mostly, it makes for a smoother experience, like the ability to run making dungeon traversal snappier, and the mini-map acting as a red-flashing radar helping you anticipate random battles.

It's also evident in the presentation of the battles themselves, with a timeline on the top displaying the order of turns while icons next to enemies also indicate which elemental properties they are weak, resistant, or immune to after a respective attack or spell is used on them. That said, the battles flow differently to the break and boost systems of Octopath Traveler.

While staggering has become a core mechanic since Final Fantasy 13, in Final Fantasy Resonance, your abilities also show their effectiveness in dealing damage to an enemy's HP and stagger gauge, handily color-coded in the same respective red and yellow. Instead of raw damage, it's often more important to focus on attacks that bring down the stagger gauge faster, especially when those abilities tend to cost less MP, before saving the strongest attacks for when their guard is down.

The more satisfying strategy comes from coordinating an attack where you stagger all the enemies during the same turn. Not only do you have the next turn free for everyone to pile on, but it's also how you get to finish the turn with a powerful Resonance attack from one of your equipped visions, in other words, the CG special ability mentioned previously.

Admittedly, the power of these bonus attacks in earlier field battles almost feels too much, prompting that The Simpsons 'Stop, he's already dead' meme to spring to mind after my party has wiped all but one enemy out whose HP is also already at zero, before unleashing a Resonance attack. But then it's also encouraged since you can gain an Overkill bonus at the end of a battle. Bosses are spongier and don't go down as easily, but there's a great sense of relief when you manage to stagger them just before the timeline indicates they're about to dish out a devastating attack on the whole party.

Finite Fantasy

The cozy familiarity of Final Fantasy Resonance does mean that at times it has almost too predictable a rhythm. It's not that the boss battles, or optional monster dungeon challenges, won't occasionally put you in a tight spot, but there is less friction in mind. For example, if the boss' weakness isn't already obvious from appearance, once you spend the first couple turns figuring this out, it's easy to hit pause, load your last save, quickly reassemble your party and visions, and skip any cutscenes to get back to that same fight at an advantage with minimal fuss.

With access to an airship by the game's midpoint, you might say it opens the world up a bit too soon, such as being able to reach one region several chapters before its relevance to the story even kicks in, or access monster dungeons that indicate you're far below its recommended level but you might as well go in so that you can fast-travel to it once you are ready. In that sense, there's almost little in the way of surprise.

Yet, while it might feel a little too breezy at times, it also feels a comforting counterpoint to the unfathomable bloat of the modern JRPG – looking at you, Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy.

There's a generous amount of side quests on offer that unlock at a manageable cadence where the rewards are usually upfront, while dungeons never outstay their welcome, although side quests do have a knack for backtracking to earlier locations that's at least mitigated by fast travel. Even the endgame convention of ascending a huge towering dungeon is smartly broken up so that you can always go and explore the rest of Lapis and mop up other side quests without worrying about how far the next save point is.

Final Fantasy Resonance may only cover the first story arc of Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, which might make it seem less complete than the multi-arc epic of Octopath Traveler 0, yet that may also be the point. If this beautifully enhanced remake does as well as it deserves to, then I'm hopeful its subsequent arcs will also get the same restoration treatment, with even bolder design choices.

Final Fantasy Resonance was reviewed on Nintendo Switch 2, with a code provided by the publisher.

Don't make this adventure final. Check out our best Final Fantasy games, best RPGs, and best JRPGs rankings for loads more to keep you busy. Our new releases calendar has plenty on the horizon too!

The CEO of Silent Hill 2 Remake developer Bloober Team has spoken out on his commitment to physical games media as PlayStation pledges to cease disc production by 2028.

"If we are able to produce a [physical] retail version of our games, we would like to make them for as long as possible," Piotr Babieno tells GamesRadar+ in an interview. Joined by Tymon Smektala, Broken Mirror Games' new executive director and former Dying Light franchise director, the duo take a moment to appreciate the roots of their passion for games as the Bloober publishing subsidiary embarks on a journey to discover "the next Kojima" of horror.

"Both me and Piotr, we are from the era where being a gamer meant you are a collector of stuff," Smektala says, gesturing to the room behind him during the video call. "Like, if I could unblur my screen, you would see lots of stuff behind me and I have lots of stuff that's not even in the camera, so this is what gaming is to us. This is the gaming I know, and this is the gaming I expect. And as long as it will be possible, and as long as the big decision makers will allow us to have that, then of course I'll be into that."

The topic came up when asked about Onyx: The Dark Grip, an upcoming horror game developed by Bloober Team and published by its in-house horror subsidiary Broken Mirror Games. It'll be one of the first Switch 2-exclusive third-party horror games ever, and the very first to be built entirely for the console's handheld mode. In the age of DLSS-5 and the worrying encroachment of generative AI in game development, Babieno considers where consoles have left to go.

"We have reached a moment where you can't really do much more in that direction [of visual and auditory fidelity]. Like, okay, the game can have a slightly higher resolution and maybe better lighting and whatever, but will it make it a more engaging game? I don't think so."

Whether players even know or care about these minute changes to the lifelikeness of a game is a question unto itself. "If you even look at the stats, a majority of players are playing on hardware which is five, seven years old, if not older, so they don't even get to experience those high-level settings at all," Babieno muses. "But are they less interested in games because of that? I don't think so.

"I think, especially in the age of AI, it's actually quite interesting to start thinking about other senses." This is one of Onyx's core motivations in being a Switch 2 handheld-only game – it's "putting horror back in your hands" in a physical sense, says Babieno, using the device as a conduit for the game itself as part of the experience. "As humans, we have four other senses, and AI can deliver something for what you see, for what you hear, but why not touch? I think the physical element of gaming will always, always be there."

And what of physical games themselves – discs, cartridges, not just consoles? From a business standpoint, Babieno understands why publishers like Sony are going digital – "we do know how P&L works and that digital distribution is much easier, much cheaper, and will be more profitable for everyone," he says. But, echoing Smektala, there's another side to that coin.

"Collecting games also [made] an emotional connection between the game and me, between the studio which produced the game and me," Babieno says. "This little emotional touch is so important that, I think in some way, we would lose the opportunity of being closer with our fans [without it]. So, if we are able to produce a [physical] retail version of our games, we would like to make them for as long as possible."

Check out the other upcoming Switch 2 game while you wait for Broken Mirror's Onyx: The Dark Grip.

Red Dead Redemption and Bully are some of Rockstar Games' most defining hits - outside of the juggernaut Grand Theft Auto series, of course - but those classics almost didn't happen, according to studio co-founder and former lead writer Dan Houser.

Speaking to IGN, the former Rockstar lead explains that all-new and original games have a much tougher time reaching the finish line than sequels.

"I think there were lots of moments where Red Dead nearly didn't happen. I think there were lots of moments when Bully nearly didn't happen, and lots of other moments when games that didn't happen could have," Houser says. "There are lots of happenstance moments, or one good build, or the game suddenly comes together, that save projects that are struggling."

Building any AAA game is a challenge in itself, but new franchises in particular "tend to struggle a lot, so it's almost more impressive when they get made than it is heartbreaking when they don't," Houser adds. 2010's Red Dead Redemption even faced a "lot of difficult periods" - though the cowboy classic made it through thanks to the "core people on the team [who] were really strong, held focus on what they were trying to do, and solved the problems."

Houser recalls that development on Red Dead Redemption was interesting because the team were discovering "what the problems were and figuring out solutions to slowly unpick what was interesting about an open-world cowboy game." In hindsight, what makes Red Dead interesting is "obvious," he says, "but in real-time you were left with nothing but holes you're slowly filling."

Rockstar's Bully never spawned a sequel, sadly. Though the same can't be said of the studio's western epic - Red Dead Redemption 2 is one of the best-selling games of all time. For now, the developer seems to be entirely focused on GTA 6.

Rockstar's figured out the perfect GTA 6 advertisement – a bunch of supercars from Vice City speeding along the streets of Miami

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.

After 13 years on Dying Light, Tymon Smektala is keen to spot the freshest talent in horror as Broken Mirror Games' new executive director – perhaps even "the next Kojima", he says.

"I will feel satisfied and I will feel fulfilled when we will actually find a creator like that," Smektala tells GamesRadar+ in an interview joined by Piotr Babieno, CEO of Silent Hill 2 Remake developer Bloober Team. "I can easily imagine that we will find a creator that – a game creator working on a smaller project, but we would see the strength of the vision there, and with our help, this developer would get bigger, would get better, would get access to our DNA as well, because we have lots of expertise in making horror games. This creator could become the next Kojima, even. Like, why not?"

Those might sound like big words, but Smektala's done it before. He served as franchise director for three of his 13 years working on Dying Light at developer Techland, where the series rose to the ranks of the best zombie games of all time due to its pioneering of day/night time cycles that posed new challenges to open-world survival horror. Plus, the Bloober Team publishing subsidiary is already hard at work on a number of upcoming horror games.

From Saw: Genesis' more involved approach to the asymmetrical multiplayer to Switch 2-exclusive Onyx's focus on "putting fear back into your hands" (in a literal sense), Smektala is excited to continue the search for novel approaches to the big, bad world of horror.

"What we are trying to do is get the next Obsession, the next Backrooms, the next Weapons," he says, citing some of the biggest horror movies of the year – including one dreamed up by a content creator – that offer "A new take on horror, something that adds to the genre and is unique. That's kind of the top-level ambition: to find the next creators of horror gaming that can complete and add to what we are bringing to the table as Broken Mirror."

"It's not just pure entertainment, and it's not just about uniqueness. It's about something behind it all," says Babieno. "The best horrors are, in some way, answering the questions which are arising in society because we are afraid about something. That's why I believe that there are a lot of content creators who are able to touch [upon] horror from different perspectives, and we would like to be there."

Broken Mirror's Onyx: The Dark Grip is an upcoming Switch 2 game that was made for the handheld experience, and there's many more Nintendo-exclusives besides...

The developers behind Castlevania: Belmont's Curse know their characters are hot, they've seen your thirsty fan art, and they agree - there should be some kind of award honoring the sexiest dad in games.

When asked if he's seen the "horny" fan art that's already been inspired by their newest game - in an interview with Fall Damage - lead designer Sandro Bordier acknowledges that "it has started, it has started already - like, man, have we seen some things."

Developer Evil Empire isn't totally surprised by the lewd drawings people have already made because, well, the developers aren't blind to how their characters look.

"Yes, like we know some characters are hot. It's a choice, actually. Like it's a vibe. We're pretty proud of it. Honestly, like, we were super happy with all the fan reactions regarding the characters that were revealed. Like we really put a lot of love from the team to design them in a way that would please fans," Bordier adds.

The devs are supposedly "super happy" with the waves of horny fan art of and the general non-horny response to many of the game's characters. Reactions to returning face Trevor Belmont have been particularly heated, however.

"Like Trevor especially, we didn't realise that it would be so well received," marketing director Bérenger Dupre adds. "There should be a Game Awards for hot dads." It might be too late for Hades (from Hades) or Kranky Kong (from Donkey Kong) or Marcus Fenix (from Gears of War), but it's never too late to right a wrong.

"It's always fun to see the fan art because we know how important and dear these characters are to the fans. And we are trying to make some new, fresh stories with them, so it's always quite stressful, and for now the reception is very, very emotional," Dupre adds.

GamesRadar's Castlevania: Belmont's Curse review was almost as excited as some of those fan artists: "With enigmatic puzzles, gothic atmosphere, a dramatic anime-esque storyline, and well-paced action, this is a hugely compelling Metroidvania and a triumphant return for the iconic franchise."

Castlevania: Belmont's Curse Metacritic score is only behind the beloved GBA trilogy, Dawn of Sorrow, and Symphony of the Night as the series' best

The CRKD Nitro Deck 2 has been a long time coming.

Quite literally, in fact. CRKD originally announced the accessory in December 2025, almost a year ago. Since then, the follow-up to the original Nitro Deck has experienced delay after delay, but the wait has been worth it. Just like the OG, the Switch 2 controller transforms the handheld into a more comfortable and adaptable device, equipping it with ergonomic grips, adjustable capacitor thumbsticks, and more, and the upgrades are so palpable that it makes me wish they were there by default.

That would mean putting up with the loud and intrusive rumble and having to source a new case, though, as the Deck 2's bulky size makes it incompatible with everything I've thrown its way. Yet it's a small price to pay to make Nintendo's current-gen console feel truly premium.

Design

It's difficult to look at the Nitro Deck 2 and not think "Steam Deck" but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I'm pretty privy to the look and feel of Valve's pixel-pusher, and anything that emulates its appeal is a win in my book.

They aren't twins, and I believe the familiarities are accidental as the extra length of the Nitro Deck 2 is likely to accommodate the new handheld's larger 7.9-inch screen more than anything else. Yet, I'm definitely more of a fan of the Deck 2's elongated shape, and the fact that its "Black Edition" has a retro-inspired translucent chassis by default.

There's no plain Jane where this new and improved model is concerned. The controller's transparent 'Smoke Black Edition' exists instead of a simple black alternative, and there's also a PAL Grey and White model available too. That retro-fueled GameCube-inspired look of the original doesn't exist, but I suspect that'll change in the future. The Switch 2 actually allows you to play GameCube games via the Nintendo Switch Online library, unlike the original handheld, so it would be a missed opportunity to not see a purple-blue Nitro Deck this time around.

Features

Speaking of which, the Nitro Deck 2 possesses a lot of similarities to its previous generation. It's a controller that's designed to transform your handheld into something more adept and ergonomic, but there's a bit more freedom this time around. Instead of having to deal with the finicky process of carefully sliding your Switch into the device, you simply need to pull each grip to the side. This allows the Deck 2 to extend, allowing you to place the Switch 2 inside. A locking mechanism on the back can then be turned and tightened to keep it in place and prevent it from slipping out.

The new mechanism sits on top of a kickstand, which remains a single column as it did on the original version. The two sets of mappable back peddles also remain unchanged, as does the CRKD logo that's equipped with RFID technology for easy connectivity to the accompanying app - a neat feature which I appreciated as someone who hates dealing with long-winded serial numbers.

The Nitro Deck 2 is naturally also flush with new buttons to match the Switch 2. On the left side of the pad, you have the thumbstick and the circular D-pad underneath. Rather than keeping the capture button as is, CRKD has combined it with the minus button at the top right-hand side. Pressing the upper half will activate the minus options, while the bottom will allow you to take screenshots and game clips as normal.

A Syncing button now takes the place of where you'd traditionally find the capture button on a left Switch 2 Joy-Con. Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the device, the layout is vastly similar. The plus button has also been split into two - with the upper half triggering the plus functionality as normal and the bottom being a program button. The latter is assigned to GameChat by default, but that's likely to make up for the lack of a dedicated 'C' GameChat button. Something I'm entirely okay with, as I never use it.

Below this you'll find the right thumbstick and a CRKD light-up Home button. The CRKD CaptiStick-branded Capacitor Sticks are powered by capacitor sensors, which the brand insists can provide "drift-free precision," but that's not all they bring to the Deck 2. Both are surrounded by dials, which can be turned at any moment to adjust resistance. Being able to tighten or loosen stick tension at a whim is extremely handy if you're wanting pinpoint accuracy for platformers or kart racers, and it's a nice inclusion for the upgraded gamepad.

Additionally, you've also got a set of three trigger buttons on either side of the controller. The D-pad is interchangeable with additional pads sold separately by CRKD, but most interestingly enough, the accessory can be used as a Pro-style controller. CRKD ships a plastic rectangular slab, which can be placed in the center instead of a Switch 2 display. While that means having to adjust your comfort to using a handheld-sized pad for docked gaming, it does give the new Deck 2 more appeal, though I'm still not 100% confirmed that it provides enough to warrant its $99.99 / £89.99 price point. But more on that later.

Performance

When I first attached the Nitro Deck 2 to my handheld and sent my Joy-Cons to the side table storage of my living room, where gaming accessories go to collect dust and rot, I immediately knew I had to lower the rumble. By default, it is set to max, and is so loud that it made for some very awkward gaming-in-bed moments. Having to constantly explain that you are, in fact, playing Fire Emblem and not doing anything notorious to your partner does not make for a good time. It's so loud, in fact, that it even managed to continually wake up my cat on a night-to-night basis.

You see, with Fortune's Weave, the game sets off the handheld's HD rumble whenever you are within the radius of enemies during battles. This happens a lot as you are constantly dealing with swarms of soldiers or evil possessed skeletons on any given map, but the motors of the controller don't quite have the nuance of the console's rumbling ways. They get loud and a bit grating on the ears, but you can at least adjust them through a combination of buttons (holding L + the plus button for three seconds), and toggle both the left and right rumbles separately. Thanks for that, CRKD.

Toggling the motors down to their lowest setting made my time with the Deck 2 far less awkward, and fortunately, it is one of the very few grievances I have with the accessory overall. My entire journey with the device is only really inhibited by some minor nitpicks, like the fact that it's too big to fit into my favorite Switch 2 cases, which means I'll likely have to pick up the brand's $39.99 / £34.99 (via CRKD) hardshell carrying case, or the tightening mechanism sometimes sounds like it's breaking each time you turn it. Otherwise, this made using the Switch 2 feel truly next-gen.

Using the Nitro Deck 2 feels very similar to using my OLED Steam Deck, but that's a positive for me. I absolutely despise the awkward flat backs of the Joy-Con controllers, so having two ergonomic grips to wrap my hands around feels more comfortable and natural. However, one of my personal favorite features was not the comfort but the inclusion of a U-shaped adapter.

I'm not a fan of Bluetooth, especially when it comes to controllers. While using the GameSir G8+ I feel like I'm constantly having to spend more hours dealing with connection issues than actual gaming. The wired link between the Nitro Deck 2 and the Switch 2 meant that tedium was a non-issue.

It's also handy for knowing how to align the 7.9-inch display into the device. As the Deck 2 wraps around the console, it was confusing at first to know whether or not I had it hooked up properly. There's no satisfying click or feeling involved whatsoever. The adapter requires the Type-C ports of both the handheld and the device to be stacked on top of one another, and connecting the two made the entire device feel more secure.

What I didn't like the feeling of all that much was using it in docked mode. Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that CRKD chose to give the option of using the Nitro Deck 2 as a typical controller, especially as it makes the price feel more justifiable. Yet, it feels like you're basically using a Steam Deck-sized device as a gamepad, and that is not comfortable on your wrists for Mario Kart World, Fire Emblem Fortune's Weave, or any game out there. In a pinch, I can absolutely see it coming in handy, but it should not make someone's decision to purchase the Nitro Deck 2.

Should you buy the CRKD Nitro Deck 2 controller?

The CRKD Nitro Deck 2 is cool, but I'm not so sure it's $99.99 / £89.99 cool.

That feels like a lot to pay for a controller of its type when you factor in the $49.99 / £39.99 MSRP of the original, and the fact that many of you looking for new Switch 2 accessories may have just had to cope with the console's newly increased price.

If you have the funds where $100 doesn't feel like a lot, and you play your Switch 2 day in and day out, then it'll absolutely improve your handheld mode experience. Going back to the default Joy-Con controller layout after using the Nitro Deck 2 for weeks feels like a huge step down, and the comfy curvature of the pad's form factor makes diving into just about any game feel magnificent. When I dreamed up the Switch 2 in my head way before its first unveiling, this is more what I had in mind.

But no matter how next-gen it feels, its price and some minor grievances (that rumble really had an effect on me) prevent me from giving it a full five-star rating. Should it ever trickle down to an MSRP more in line with the original, then it should absolutely be part of your setup, and I hope that happens once the holiday sales kick off later this year. Though in the meantime, I'd only fully recommend this to those with the budget to spare. Or at least to those who truly hate the cramp-inducing flat backs of the Switch 2 Joy-Cons.

How I tested the CRKD Nitro Deck 2 controller

To put the new Nitro Deck 2 through it paces I swapped out my dusty old Joy-Cons and attached to my console for a little over two weeks. Whether I was connected over Bluetooth or via the accompanying adapter, I played everything on the new CRKD accessory, from Fire Emblem Fortune's Weave, Mario Kart World, Pokemon Pokopia, and even Nintendo Switch Online titles like Star Fox Adventures and Super Mario Sunshine via the GameCube library. I also used the Nitro Deck 2 as a Pro Controller in docked mode to see how it matched up to my wireless controllers of choice.

For more on how we test controllers, check out the GamesRadar+ hardware policy.

Creating the ultimate Switch 2 setup? Check out our guides to the best Nintendo Switch headsets, the best Nintendo Switch 2 cases, and the best Nintendo Switch 2 microSD Express Cards while you're here.

Castlevania: Belmont's Curse has released to critical acclaim, but there was a point in development where it was shaping up to be a very different game, and one I'd wager wouldn't have scored nearly as well with critics or fans of Konami's beloved series.

Talking to PCGamesN, Evil Empire head of business Ben Laulan reveals Castlevania: Belmont's Curse went through a lot of iteration before landing on the faster-paced evolution of the whippy action gameplay we all know and love.

"We had many different versions of the game," Laulan reveals. "We had much slower versions, more like a Dark Souls kind of vibe with even more heavy combat and slow rhythm. Then we realized it wasn't really Castlevania because it was too slow, too intense, and just too hard."

I could've told you that. I have a well-documented allergy to Dark Souls and Soulslikes, having tried repeatedly to get into the most beloved of them like Bloodborne and Elden Ring, but even removed from that obvious bias, FromSoftware's signature dodge-roll into big-swing mechanics have no place in a 2.5D action game like Belmont's Curse. I'm so, so glad Evil Empire reconsidered that direction. However, it seems they went so hard in the other direction that we almost got Dead Cells: Belmont's Curse.

"So we cranked up the speed, and then it was too much Dead Cells because it was too fast-paced, and the exploration wasn't there as much as it needs to be in Castlevania."

I can understand the Dead Cells influence given Evil Empire's experience supporting Motion Twin's roguelike darling post-launch, but I'm still encouraged to hear the developer was keen to avoid taking on any identity that isn't distinctly Castlevania. I have yet to play Belmont's Curse myself, but it sounds like it's a worthy return to the long-dormant series. Our own Castlevania: Belmont's Curse review awards it 4/5 stars.

"Beautiful and challenging, Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse offers a rich, gothic world of puzzles to solve and enemies to whip," writes social media editor Serena Cherry. "With a stunning blend of fast-paced traversal action and compelling storytelling, this game proudly honours the Belmont legacy in exciting new ways."

Castlevania: Belmont's Curse was born out of "a sense of urgency," producer says, and if we have to wait 10 years for the next game, "the whole thing is meaningless."

Razer just launched the Barracuda V2 Pro, a follow-up to headsets like the Barracuda X, which remained a fixture of some of our best gaming headset guides for months on end. The brand boasts that the new £199.99 / $199.99 pair is equipped with everything from 40mm Triforce Bio-Cellulose audio drivers, ANC, and THX Spatial Audio+, but personally, the fact that the 2.4Ghz wireless dongle can be stored in the earcup is all I care about.

If you pop off the left earcup cover you'll find the pair's HyperSpeed wireless dongle, and I'm a bit obsessed with this revelation. Often brands package these tiny accessories in a Russian-doll cardbox scenario, and they're easy to go missing, especially when you have multiple laying around. But as Razer has carved out a dedicated place, I've not managed to lose this dongle yet - and anyone with the privity to lose their tech should be just as elated as I am.

Razer isn't the first brand to explore unique storage options. Fractal Design's first-ever headset release, the Scape, included a section on the underside of its charging base specifically designed to store its dongle. Meanwhile, controller brands like 8BitDo also rely on special compartments on the charging stands of their peripherals, like the Ultimate 2 controller, to allow players to keep their 2.4GHz gadgets safe and secure. However, it's just nice to see this design decision utilized on a headset, especially when I lose dongles just about every day.

The Barracuda V2 Pro's storage works by having the earcup cover attach magnetically; that way it can easily slip on and off when you want to switch up between Bluetooth and its 2.4GHz HyperSpeed connectivity. Unfortunately, the space is only designed to store the dongle and not the USB-C to USB-A adapter that's also included with the headset, so I foresee myself losing that in the future. However, at least an adapter is much more straightforward to replace.

Strangely enough, both earcup covers can be removed this way, despite the right one not storing anything but some relevant copyright information. While Razer hasn't announced it, there's a chance that they could be planning to release alternative earcup covers much like SteelSeries Booster Packs to allow you to switch up the color and style of the pair, but we'll have to wait to find out for sure. I have my fingers crossed that means some Pokemon Edition covers in the future, especially as Razer has been releasing Pokemon Collections left, right, and center in 2026.

While Razer hasn't mentioned anything regarding new earcup covers, they have provided a more in-depth look at what you can expect from the Barracuda V2 Pro. The pair is just 285g and has a foldable form factor, which makes it easier to store away in your bag for trips and travel. Razer doesn't provide a case with the $200 headset, but I can confirm from personal experience that its foldable nature makes it ideal for popping in your bag for day-to-day use. Much like the Barracuda X Chroma, it's already wound up as a pair I rely on for gaming and listening to music on the go.

Additionally, you can get up to 70 hours of battery life from the cups, and there's no garish RGB lighting to be found that can drain its juice. That's also why the cans have wound up in my backpack for weekend train trips, but you'll have to wait for my full review next week to see how they truly fare amongst the rest of the best Razer headsets I've tested for all my gaming and music travel needs.

• View all Razer gaming headsets at Amazon

Want more headset options? Check out our guides to the best PS5 headsets, best Nintendo Switch headsets, and the best PC headsets for gaming while you're here.

A new Xbox survey is asking players how they would feel about future titles being console-exclusive to Xbox, with Fallout, Hideo Kojima's Physint, and Minecraft name-dropped.

Since its massive spending spree on the likes of Activision Blizzard and Bethesda, Xbox has been a bit all over the place when it comes to exclusives. Aside from honoring exclusive deals with the likes of Deathloop and Ghostwire: Tokyo, Microsoft went all-in on being a third-party publisher for a bit there, bringing almost every one of its games to PS5. Then, with the appointment of new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, the strategy changed again: Gears of War: E-Day was confirmed to be on Xbox and PC only, despite reports that its PS5 port was apparently close to completion.

And now – barring Fable, which was previously confirmed for a PS5 launch – it looks like Microsoft may be priming players for more exclusivity. As highlighted by Windows Central, some Xbox Insider members have received surveys asking about game exclusivity and where they would play the title – or if they would play it at all if it's not on PS5 or Switch 2.

These reportedly included questions about Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, and the upcoming Hideo Kojima game, Physint, which Xbox Game Studios recently became the publisher of, following Sony's decision to cancel the project. Kojima himself has said he doesn't know if Physint will release on PlayStation.

However, it's the final question that is likely to raise the most eyebrows. The question asks players to imagine every Xbox game – barring Call of Duty, which Microsoft is legally required to release on other platforms until at least 2033 – was an exclusive. However, it adds "For Minecraft only, existing titles would no longer be available for purchase on PlayStation or Nintendo consoles, and would not receive any new content updates."

I don't think people would be happy if Fallout 5 or Elder Scrolls 6 were exclusive to Xbox for sure, but the idea of removing Minecraft from PlayStation and Nintendo consoles, as well as no longer giving updates to those versions, is so brazenly a bad decision that even being floated is concerning.

Minecraft on Nintendo Switch has sold over 4 million physical copies in Japan alone, and the worldwide number is likely to be much higher, while the PS4 version of the game had over 17 million players as of 2019 – and given that a native PS5 version didn't release until 2024, again, that number is likely to have far surpassed it. Obviously, it's just a hypothetical for now, but I can only imagine that taking Minecraft away from millions would have a backlash that makes complaints about Sony's killing physical games look like nothing much.

As Minecraft sells over 425 million copies and attracts 300,000 new players a day, the evergreen sandbox game is getting its first dimension in 14 years

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Nintendo's upgraded take for Switch on its beloved 2014 Wii U game, just got another new update – sorry, Mario Kart World stans.

The update boosts Mario Kart 8 Deluxe up to version 4.0.1, bringing with it a good few fixes that fans of the 2017 banger have been eagerly awaiting.

As per Nintendo's official patch notes, these start with developers addressing the "issue where the number of obstacles or Item Boxes would increase during Online Play and Wireless Play" on the Switch 2 compared to the original Switch console. No more bombarding Switch 2 players, eh?

Next up are a couple of fixes for online play and visuals, like the Star Bits not displaying properly on the Wii Rainbow Road course on Switch 2.

Most importantly, perhaps, is how Nintendo targets crashes in version 4.0.1 of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, though, ridding it of "an issue where the game would close unexpectedly when certain conditions were fulfilled."

In other words, yep, crashes – a no-no, especially during competitive races.

Although small, the patch is pretty solid, all things considered. Folks over on Reddit seem to agree, too, with one dubbing the notes "W fixes" from Nintendo.

Others, however, question what this means for Mario Kart World, seeing as Mario Kart 8 just saw another update last month while the newer game seemingly sits in the dust. As one player jests, "Mario Kart World is dead again" – a sentiment I've seen make rounds online more than once now.

I wouldn't dub it "dead" myself, though… as nice as it'd be to see Nintendo give Mario Kart World some love. This new update is still a great sign for the series overall.

And, if you're as excited for the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe patch as I am, it's a simple download: select the game on your home menu, press + or - on your JoyCon, and go into "Software Update" – et voilà, version 4.0.1 is upon you, as are all of its shiny fixes.

Shigeru Miyamoto apparently has a love-hate relationship with Toad, who he would constantly pick in Mario Kart despite being his least favorite

The CRKD Atom+ has gone through some upgrades to merit its new 'plus' namesake, and its new size is exactly what I had hoped for when I first learned of the improved version of the retro-inspired gamepad.

Don't get me wrong, it's still teeny tiny and should never be used as a day-to-day Switch 2 Pro controller substitute, unless you want some Mario Kart World with a side order of wrist cramp. However, the £29.99 (via Amazon) growth spurt has made it big enough to stand out amongst my messy game room, while remaining the ideal compact shape to take up little to no space in my Switch 2 bag. Nights ruining my friendships with hours of Dokapon Kingdom have never been better.

Whenever I pop over to my friend's house to witness the full depravity of their evilness through hours of Dokapon Kingdom, I have a fear. Not the fear of them constantly starting battles with me in the game (though that does happen often), but the fear of damaging any controller I bring with me for the Switch gaming times ahead.

The Atom+ has circumnavigated that. Despite being larger than the OG Atom, it still demands far less case space than any other of my Switch 2 controllers, which makes it less prone to damage. My go-to Pro-style controllers, like that of the Turtle Beach Rematch, are fantastic, but piling one in alongside my dock, steering wheels, and anything else can be a bit of a struggle. Even if I do manage to use my Tetris know-how and maneuver it within my all-in-one case, I'm still constantly worried that its thumbsticks will end up breaking into pieces.

The Atom+ is about the length of the palm of my hand, and takes up little to no space at all, so any worries of its newly added sticks rubbing up against other accessories are slim to none. In fact, it's so perfectly compact that I'm already considering picking up a full set of the four colors available. I could easily pack each into my PlayTrek 2-in-1 case and still have some room left over, something that wouldn't have been possible had I stuck with one Pro controller alternative.

It's not a perfect alternative to my Turtle Beach Rematch, as it's still small enough that comfort can be an issue, and nothing will ever outmatch the joy of having backpedals. However, any controller that manages to quell my anxiety of broken and damaged tech gets a big thumbs-up in my book.

• View all CRKD gaming accessories at Amazon

On the hunt for a new controller? Check out our guides to the best PC controllers for gaming, the best PS5 controllers, and the best Xbox Series X controllers.

A recompilation PC port of the Nintendo Switch remake of The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening has emerged online, made "with almost exclusive use of AI."

PC ports of classic games through the act of decompilation and recompilation have been one of the best things to happen to PC gaming in the 2020s while everything else falls apart around it. Thanks to AI slop causing ballooning prices, a sheer amount of shovelware flooding steam, and just generally being all over the place, some have taken to classic games to avoid it. But unfortunately, the tech has infested the recompilation scene, with a ton of vibe-coded projects appearing online, like Banjo Tooie, Mario Kart Wii, and Donkey Kong 64 (which has a good version in the works too, as the devs reject vibe coding).

Even the non-vibe-coded projects are using it, with Crash Team Racing: Turbocharged – something that should be the most exciting release of the year – unfortunately using LLMs to write code, pushing it into a gray area for those who are not supporting any AI use.

In a Reddit post announcing the port, the developer Peiikai explains they've made a static recompilation port of the Nintendo Switch version of Link’s Awakening "admittedly with almost exclusive use of AI." They acknowledge that "AI usage is controversial," but add "something like this is way beyond my skill set and wouldn’t have been possible without AI," and that they are "guiding it as responsibly" as they can.

They continue, "If you disagree with the use of AI, I understand your position and likely agree with many of the points you could bring up," but this project was made for them to have "the ultimate way of enjoying the game myself," and say they are sharing it as "a courtesy."

As we get closer to modern releases – with Link's Awakening being available to purchase on modern consoles – it also feels inevitable that some publisher is going to take notice sooner than later. Nintendo has been quite steadfast in targeting Nintendo Switch emulators, and while this port requires your own dump of the game, all it takes is a person (or AI) to make a mistake for the Nintendo lawyers to come calling.

Thankfully, for those of you who want to experience Link's Awakening on PC without the AI, Link's Awakening DX HD, released almost three years ago, is an excellent version of the game's expanded Game Boy Color port – Link's Awakening DX – and is still getting updates to make it better years later.

Nintendo wins legal battle against Mig Switch cards in the Netherlands, says the decision will benefit "many video game developers globally"

Not even Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone's partner Amber gets to play his new game Haunted Chocolatier yet. That's because the Stardew Valley creator doesn't feel like his sophomore effort is finished yet, and if you've ever eaten a Thanksgiving day turkey that needed more time in the oven, you'll vividly remember how terrible it is serving half-baked anything.

Talking to GQ, Barone says he's intent on making Haunted Chocolatier all by himself, with the exception of external marketing teams, just like he did with Stardew Valley. Barone has occasionally hired outside help to work on non-creative tasks over the years, but working largely in isolation means he's the only one actually playing these games while they're in development, and that's exactly how he wants it.

"No one's playing the game until I'm ready to show it," he says, adding a metaphor that makes me want to come to every Thanksgiving gathering with a digital meat thermometer. "If you have a turkey in the oven, you're not going to pull it out halfway and have the guests taste it, right? It needs to be done."

It does need to be done, yes. Butterball, the foremost authority on turkey as a food product, recommends cooking your turkeys to 170°F in the thigh and breast areas, and 165°F in turkey-based stuffings. I can't tell you what that looks like in Haunted Chocolatier, but I do know melted chocolate is the best chocolate.

In the same interview, Barone once again describes Haunted Chocolatier as "more of an action RPG" than Stardew Valley, this time adding that it's for players who like to "go into the mines" to grind and grow more powerful.

Stardew Valley creator is "struggling" with Haunted Chocolatier thanks to the precedent he accidentally set himself: "It might disappoint millions of people"

Following Fortnite developer and publisher Epic Games' public announcement that it would be undergoing a "huge pivot" for "maximum AI acceleration," one former producer shares his take on the controversial technology and its role in the development process.

Aakash Gupta, who worked at Epic as a producer on Fortnite, explains that Tim Sweeney's push for a new "AI first" approach to game dev and how quickly it's moved – just see the now-delayed Disney extraction shooter – isn't surprising.

"Fortnite Battle Royale was built in two months," he writes on X. "I was a producer at Epic, and that's the speed Tim Sweeney moves at when he decides the whole company is turning. He just decided again."

Indeed, he did, hence the whole "huge pivot" – a pivot that isn't new to Epic, and has likely long been in the making by the time it's publicly announced.

"Inside Epic, a pivot means the whole company turns that week," as Gupta states. "People get new teams, new bosses, new roadmaps, and nobody blinks because that's how the place has always run. By the time Tim posts a memo about it, the moves usually already happened."

And, when it comes to AI, Gupta doesn't think any amount of backlash will stop Epic – or other studios, for that matter– from utilizing the tech.

"Here's where it gets bigger than Epic though Epic makes Unreal Engine, the software a massive share of big-budget games are built on. Studio heads can ban AI art. Voice actors can strike over AI voices. Steam can put warning labels on AI games," he says.

But, "None of that touches the layer Epic controls, because Epic makes the tool everyone builds with." He recalls how Epic "wired" AI models like Anthropic's Claude and Google's Gemini into its Unreal Engine, with more underway.

"So for millions of game developers, AI shows up as a built-in feature of software they already pay for" – public pushback be damned. According to the ex-Fortnite producer, it's all "for show," anyway.

"Honestly, the industry's AI fight is mostly for show," he describes. "Google Cloud found nine in 10 game developers already use AI agents at work. The debate happens on stage while the usage happens at the desk."

I've located the survey he cites here, too, which alleges that some 87% of devs are employing the use of AI during production, for everything from optimization to "dynamic balancing" and much more.

So, Gupta concludes that the AI controversy begins and ends publicly, while use continues behind devs' doors – whether opened or closed: "While everyone argues about whether games should use AI, Epic quietly turned it into a checkbox inside the editor. Most developers will click it without ever having the debate."

While I'm not sure I agree with Gupta here, I can't say Epic Games' own move is surprising at all.

Studio CEO Tim Sweeney has made his stance on generative AI quite clear in the past, dubbing Steam's required AI disclosures "really irresponsible of Valve" as they supposedly make it "much, much, much harder for a game developer to have a chance of success."

He's always come across as openly pro-AI use in game dev, to say the least… even if it's not a great look considering his company's widespread layoffs earlier this year.

Gupta and Sweeney aren't alone in their thoughts on the questionable tech, either. Former Square Enix executive Jacob Novak has responded to Epic's AI news himself, writing, "Epic, by far one of the best technical leaders in games, is saying no hand written code. If you're not doing the same you will be left behind. It is over for non-AI workflows."

It's a heavy-handed message, but it does beg the question: how far will this whole AI thing truly go?

I suppose only time can tell, but the future feels a bit bleak right now. Between Epic and these other supposed devs using gen AI, I worry for folks in creative roles and those coding, too. It can't be easy for anyone in those positions, that's for certain.

Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii continues his love affair with AI slop as he releases a new game he generated in 30 minutes

The radiant quest system that made Skyrim's open-world so responsive to its protagonist only came about because of Bethesda's "brute force" approach to the idea in Fallout 3.

In an interview with OPM first published in 2011, Todd Howard explained the origins of Bethesda's novel approach to an open-world RPG. "In Fallout 3 there are these random encounters," he explains. "A guy being hunted by a Deathclaw, [or] this group of people fighting over a refrigerator. And we wrote this giant script for Fallout 3 with about 40 or 50 random events."

Those events would be triggered in certain areas under certain conditions, but it was a relatively simple system, one which Howard describes as "a really big, brute force script." It might not have been elegant, but it was popular – "it turned out to be a really cool system in the game that made the game dynamic, and we just kept building this script."

After the launch of its seminal RPG, Bethesda wanted to keep using that system, but was looking for a more streamlined solution. "We came out of Fallout 3 going 'well, what if we have a system that did that instead of writing?'" The team "really liked" the way it worked for random encounters, so it expanded the new system into quests. "So that's what it became," Howard says. "Every quest uses this. And now it's become this all-watching thing over the game."

The system would go on to affect almost every part of Skyrim's many, many quests. Devs could shape the parameters behind an event – deciding what kind of NPC activated it, or in what area of the game they should be found – but 'radiant stories' formed the core of how Skyrim's world was built, and have gone on to have a massive impact on RPG design in the 15 years since.

Bethesda's last Skyrim concept artist has been laid off after "almost 18 years of dedication to The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and Starfield" amid Xbox cuts: "It has been my honor."

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Dragon Pearl of Destruction is a Bitmap Bureau-developed (in collaboration with Mattel) game that brings the iconic 80s cartoon to life as a Streets of Rage-style brawler. With its collector's edition being handled by Limited Run Games, there was no denying that the game would be bundled with a feast of physical merch, but I wasn't expecting a throwback quite like a lunchbox.

The $99.99 (via Limited Run Games) Collector's Edition, no matter if it's the Switch, PS5, or Xbox version, includes the plastic lunchbox, which feels just as equivalently '80s as the original series. Growing up, I often received my cousin's lunchboxes as hand-me-downs, and a metal He-Man lunchbox was a staple of their childhood, and later mine. All it's missing is a matching Thermos flask and the faint smell of old fruit and salt and shake crisps to be one of the most truly nostalgic collector edition releases.

Saturday Mornings in my '90s childhood were often spent having to use my cousin's hand-me-downs, and He-Man (and She-Ra) were a big part of that. Often it was the toys and old videotapes that made their way into my possession, but lunchboxes were also commonplace, which is why I'm pretty privy to this Limited Run Games release.

Often the brand's fancy collector's editions include statues of varying quality, and this one is not exempt. There is a 4.9-inch Mini Power Sword and an acrylic standee showing He-Man riding Battle Cat included, but the lunchbox feels the most authentic. In fact, despite it not being included as a numbered release, this lunchbox puts this version up there as one of the better editions I've seen from the retailer. I'd much sooner have it in my collection than the falling-apart statuette included with my Limited Run Games ClockTower Rewind release.

It's nice to see that despite all the physical tat that's bundled within its $99.99 MSRP, which also includes a pin set and a mini comic book, there's a physical copy of the game too. If you pre-order this collector's edition, you also get a physical copy of the game on the platform of your choice, and an alternative steel case to keep it in. Rockstar should maybe be taking notes if they choose to give the GTA 6 Collector's Edition another shot.

If you are thinking of grabbing this collector's edition, I recommend pre-ordering sooner rather than later. While the pre-order window remains open until November 22, these Limited Run Games releases can be perfect fodder for eBay resellers.

• View all Collector's Editions at Amazon

Love securing games as soon as possible? Check out our GTA 6 pre-order and Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time pre-order pages.

Castlevania: Belmont's Curse reviews are in, and its Metacritic score is one of the highest in the Konami series' 40-year history, even if it doesn't quite hit the praise garnered by the most beloved games in the franchise.

After a hiatus that has lasted just over a decade, Castlevania is getting its first brand new game in years this week, with Castlevania: Belmont's Curse having a lot riding on it for a lot of fans. Thankfully, it looks like things have gone down well, as the Castlevania: Belmont's Curse Metacritic score is sitting at 86 after 45 critic reviews, which as far as the series at large goes, is one of the strongest scores to date.

In fact, the only Castlevania games with a higher score are some of the most beloved games in the series. Namely the GBA trilogy of Circle of the Moon (91), Harmony of Dissonance (87), and Aria of Sorrow (91), as well as Aria's sequel, Dawn of Sorrow (89), and, of course, Symphony of the Night – namely its Xbox 360 port at 89 and the PS1 original at 93. It also ranks lower than Vampire Survivors' Ode to Castlevania DLC (95) and Dead Cells' Return to Castlevania expansion (88) – which was developed by Belmont's Curse developer Evil Empire.

In the GamesRadar+ Castlevania: Belmont's Curse review, social media editor Serena Cherry awards the game four out of five stars, saying, "Beautiful and challenging, Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse offers a rich, gothic world of puzzles to solve and enemies to whip. With a stunning blend of fast-paced traversal action and compelling storytelling, this game proudly honours the Belmont legacy in exciting new ways."

Currently the majority of the game's reviews are dubbed "Positive" by Metacritic, with multiple outlets giving the game full marks. Elsewhere only eight reviews gave a "Mixed" score, with the game picking up a number of three out of five or seven out of 10 ratings.

Castlevania: Belmont's Curse was born out of "a sense of urgency," producer says, and if we have to wait 10 years for the next game, "the whole thing is meaningless."

Fortnite developer and publisher Epic Games has reportedly delayed the release of a Disney extraction shooter that it had been working on so as to incorporate more artificial intelligence technology into its development.

The news comes from Bloomberg, which reports that the game's developers were instructed to engage with an "AI first" production process, using generative AI models like Anthropic's Claude – a tool that's recently been in the limelight for its role in fan-created PlayStation emulations like the controversial fan-made Bloodborne PC port that made rounds online last week.

An internal message from one of the game's directors has apparently confirmed as much. "No more hand-written code," it allegedly reads, going on to declare that all art for the game would now be "generated with full AI workflows."

Epic Games' communications director Jake Jones has responded to Bloomberg, too, admitting, "We're embracing AI-accelerated development, led by Epic developers who are the visionaries and creative drivers for everything we do."

Disney representatives declined to comment, apparently.

This all lines up with what Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney is writing over on Twitter as well. "We have a huge pivot underway here at Epic," the studio lead describes, "moving developers around to retool for maximum AI acceleration. The aim isn't to do the same stuff with fewer people, but to enable everyone here to build MORE and BETTER stuff, and to bring the benefits to all teams using Unreal."

As you can imagine, commenters aren't exactly thrilled.

I can't say this comes as much of a surprise, though, really. Sweeney has made his stance on generative AI very clear in the past, having dubbed Steam's own AI disclosures "really irresponsible of Valve" as they supposedly make it "much, much, much harder for a game developer to have a chance of success."

In other words, he's never been opposed to the highly controversial tech – he's only ever expressed the opposite.

So, what's next for Epic Games and its collaborative project with Disney? Well, I suppose that only time can tell for certain – but I'm not sure that this move is tasteful… especially after the company's widespread layoffs earlier this year.

Fortnite's Hollow Knight crossover items cost more than Hollow Knight itself – and Silksong, too.

Castlevania: Belmont's Curse forced me to do something I have not done since playing my very first video game ever on the Sega Master System 2 in the early '90s. And that is: grabbing a pen and paper and writing down notes. Usually a method I reserved exclusively for Jankin matches in Alex Kidd in Miracle World, Belmont's Curse gave me so many cryptic clues, so many patterns to remember, so many intriguing characters or key items hidden away in places, that placing markers upon the map was simply not enough.

No, a game this complex warrants detailed manual transcription. Its recall challenges are a workout for the brain as much as its tricky traversals are a workout for the fingers and thumbs.

The Seine of the Crime

Like all great Metroidvanias, I spend half my time soaring through the air and the other half staring at the map – a sprawling puzzle of tunnels and halls that spans iconic Parisian locations such as Notre Dame and the Catacombs. And, of course, Dracula's Castle. An imposing, intricate structure full of brutal traps, ambush rooms, and the occasional roast chicken tucked away behind a wall.

Dracula's Castle reveals itself unexpectedly, following a series of clues and exploration that misleadingly appears to be guiding you to the next big boss fight. Under any other circumstances, the pursuit and anticipation of a boss being met with simply a cutscene could severely hamper motivation to continue playing.

However, the cutscene in which Dracula's Castle emerges is gripping and rewarding to watch, with striking animation that matches the dark, exquisite cinematography of the Netflix series. My disappointment at the lack of a boss quickly shifts into a deeper appreciation for Castlevania's ability to subvert expectations midgame.

Visually, Castlevania: Belmont's Curse is a feast for the eyes. Lightning flashes through Gothic window arches, illuminating painterly backgrounds of a city in flames. Detailed depictions of buildings such as Notre Dame are so beautiful that it's easy to forget they're filled with hostile enemies.

None of which are too much trouble though. Belmont's Curse is generous in its weapon offering – with 7 weapon families, each with 4 weapons, plus a flexible Arcana System that lets you seamlessly swap between a variety of abilities and spells depending on enemy type. My personal favorite is a sword and shield combo that lets you charge dash through enemies, obliterating everything in your path. Needless to say, this weapon is excellent for runbacks.

This Metroidvania's rooms are packed full of a variety of monsters, but there are always plenty of effective ways to deal with the crowds via magic, weapons, and relics. Unlike previous Castlevania games, these items are obtained through exploration – you don't get them from enemy drops. Weapons are hidden in chests that await as a reward at the end of tricky traversal sections.

Whipped into shape

Of course, airborne traversal requires teeth-gritting precision and patience as you close-in on secrets; but the challenge is always followed by the relief of unlocking a shortcut and exclaiming, "I'll never have to do that again!" It's challenging but never torturous, made fluid and fun as you use the legendary Holy Whip to swing between hooks, grapple enemies, and yank yourself away from spikes.

Controlling Rose Belmont feels a tad heavy but intentional. Clearing out ambush rooms by grappling aerial enemies with the whip then falling to smash those below in, literally, one fell swoop is immensely satisfying. The pace of movement, slide dodges, and traversal tools borrow the best parts of Dead Cells, but the unique Castlevania essence shines through in the form of the whip.

Progression relies on deciphering cryptic clues to hunt down Tarot card bosses. The guidance buried within these clues is often not particularly obvious. After pacing back and forth library halls for hours, hitting every wall in sight, sometimes it's admittedly far more difficult to find the bosses than it is to actually fight them.

Talos is a particular highlight boss, featuring mid-stage traversal sections timed against a countdown clock. Avoiding his powerful attacks then racing through the traps of the next room to relocate him provides that quintessential enjoyable stress only a Metroidvania can give.

Heart pounding? Yes. Palms sweating? Yes. Shouts of joy when Talos is defeated? Absolutely.

Although the wayfinding can be baffling and the fast-travel is surprisingly limited for a map so large, Belmont's Curse is a super accessible entry point for the Castlevania series. Accessibility options include toggles to increase health potion capacity, retry bosses without runbacks, and boost attack damage. The game also offers plenty of Mirror of Life save points, reducing the pressure of getting trap rooms and traversal sequences right the first time. Plus, enemies only respawn after you die, so you can thankfully re-enter a cleared room and it will still be cleared.

It was always going to be a tall order to follow up on the iconic Castlevania series music crafted by Michiru Yamane, and this is sadly where Belmont's Curse falls a bit short. The main motif is gothic and brooding, but the majority of the in-game music doesn't quite match the atmosphere of the visuals and the story.

Fortunately, the narrative more than makes up for the weaker soundtrack. The game delivers an intense dose of Belmont family drama that continues on from Castlevania 3: Dracula's Curse. The stakes are higher than ever as Leon Belmont reappears, and the mystery of Rose's curse brings an impending sense of doom.

Longtime Castlevania fans will delight in the array of nods and references throughout the game. Haunting paintings of Alucard literally lead the way via directional sword points through the labyrinthine corridors of Dracula's Castle; and we also get to face off against legendary Castlevania foes Death, Medusa, and Carmilla once more.

Often colourful and flashy, Belmont's Curse doesn't necessarily look like a Castlevania game. But it sure does feel like one. With enigmatic puzzles, gothic atmosphere, a dramatic anime-esque storyline, and well-paced action, this is a hugely compelling Metroidvania and a triumphant return for the iconic franchise.

Castlevania: Belmont's Curse was reviewed on PS5, with code provided by the publisher.

It's not a terrible night for every curse, as if you've been saddled with an overwhelming desire to play more like this we have a handy best Metroidvania games ranking just for you!

Stop us if you've heard this before, but the No Man's Sky team has yet again been cookin' up a new release for its 2016 survival game – and this time, it's a mobile launch.

That's right, No Man's Sky is indeed coming to iOS over a decade after its initial release, with Hello Games planning an October 28 launch – but it hasn't come easy.

Sean Murrary says as much in a new letter regarding the exciting mobile launch, explaining that the developers first considered porting it over after bringing No Man's Sky to Mac in 2023. "Someone on the team said, 'I reckon I could get this running on an iPhone,'" as he recalls.

"I honestly didn't believe it until I played it myself for the first time," Murray continues. "A little like when we brought the game to VR or Nintendo Switch players, it started with a seemingly impossible technical challenge we wanted to disprove." And boy, did they do just that.

Witnessing No Man's Sky's universe generation working on a mobile phone remains a core memory for the studio lead – and how could it not?

"There was something magical about seeing that universe being generated on a tiny device," as he puts it.

Considering technical limitations, though, how will it work? Well, Murray assures "this is not No Man's Sky Lite."

It boasts the "full universe to explore," including the Cosmos update and every other major patch Hello Games has dropped over the years: "It even includes our most ambitious updates like Voyagers from last year."

The game won't have multiplayer or settlements day one, though, much like it didn't on the Switch at first – but it's all coming.

It'll be available on every iOS device from the iPhone 11 and third-generation iPad Air up. Hello Games hasn't cut corners here, either. Murray details how the studio has "rebuilt touch controls from the ground up to make No Man's Sky feel totally at home on mobile" and "put tons of work into battery life and thermodynamics."

And, if you can believe it, the file size of the mobile No Man's Sky is under 5GB – you hardly need any space on your phone, it seems. Pre-orders are live today, too, but you don't need to commit if you're not sure just yet. "In an effort to welcome as many new Travellers to the universe as possible, it'll be free to try at launch."

I personally can't wait to see how it runs on mobile devices myself, honestly… but knowing Hello Games, it'll be good.

Searching for more to look forward to this year and beyond? Browse through our roundup of the best new games coming to wishlist.

Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii is touting his new game which he claims took him about 30 minutes to make using generative AI.

Despite being one of the most prolific game creators of all time, the Dragon Quest creator has fallen head over heels for the slop machine like your elderly uncle on Facebook. Developers like Hideo Kojima have spoken critically about using it as a replacement for creative aspects of game development, but Square Enix is working with Google on a chatbot for Dragon Quest 10, and Horii has generally been very positive about the tech, claiming it can make JRPG characters "feel even more human" and claiming that the tech known for hallucinating info "hardly ever makes things up."

And now, Horii has released a new 'game' titled Interrogation Room Komiya (via VGC). The developer went to Twitter recalling the development of his 1983 adventure game The Portopia Serial Murder Case – a game which he wrote, programmed and created art for all by himself – while now, he can just write some words into the machine, allowing him to make something in about 30 minutes.

Of course, the question is whether Horii's enthusiasm for the tech will carry over into Dragon Quest 12, which has been in what could be described as development hell, given that the entire concept was reworked and development was restarted. The game is confirmed to have artwork and characters from Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama and series composer Koichi Sugiyama, both of whom have passed away since the 12th entry was announced.

I'm a creature-collecting sicko, and going hands-on with Dragon Quest Monsters: The Withered World made me realize how much I've been missing out on this spin-off.

Nintendo's vice president and general manager for Latin America, Bill van Zyll, says that the company has no plans to ditch physical media.

Physical media has become a big talking point in the last couple of years. Last year, Nintendo caused preservation concerns thanks to the introduction of Game Key Cards – physical cartridges that allow you to download a game, while not holding any of its data. However, Game Key Cards are very much in the rear view window this year with Rockstar Games' decision to ship GTA 6 exclusively as a code in box release, swiftly followed by Sony announcing it's killing off discs for new PlayStation games in 2028.

Speaking to YouTube creator Coelho no Japão (via Nintendo Everything), Van Zyll is asked about Nintendo's stance on physical media in the wake of PlayStation's decision, with him responding, "Historically, we've been very agnostic, right? We go off what the consumer prefers, and take that into account very heavily."

He then cites that "we also have a platform that was just launched," noting the Switch 2's ability to play both physical and digital games.

"There's no plans to ditch physical," Van Zyll explains. "We know how much the fans like it as well, so our position has been to be agnostic."

However, unfortunately, that's of course only the stance right now, and there's no telling what the future holds, but hopefully Nintendo will stick with it for a while longer. Given that every first-party release except for Pokemon Pokopia and the upcoming Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity – Definitive Edition have been actual physical releases instead of Game Key Cards, it may be a good sign for now.

Sony is still selling tons of the discs it plans to kill off: Marvel's Wolverine launch sales were reportedly 35% physical, showing a huge appetite for a non-digital future

Risk of Rain 2's Hallowed Concepts DLC is another hit for one of the best roguelikes around. Years after a shaky start, Gearbox seems to be doing a much better job with the genre icon.

The Borderlands maker bought Risk of Rain 2 back in 2022, as the original developers soon went to work at Valve. The beloved roguelike then found itself in troubled waters. Gearbox's first major update to the game post-buyout, Seekers of the Storm, was hugely divisive with series fans, but the publisher has since turned things around with last year's Alloyed Collective and this week's Hallowed Concepts.

Risk of Rain 2's newest expansion is already a hit on Steam, with 84% of user reviews giving it the thumbs up on the platform.

"Hallowed Concepts blows every other DLC out of the water," one positive review reads. "The DLC is so fresh and does so much to reinvigorate the lategame that it feels like the devs read my mind… There's so much intentional and clever design in how these new systems are implemented and overlay themselves on top of the core game. So much of the new content is geared towards making the lategame matter again… It's lovely. Truly."

"Easily the best DLC from the new team. Seekers was fine after it got patched from launch, Alloyed Collective was also fine, but this blows the others out of the water. I'd say it's on-par with Void. Not to mention the free update it came with was huge, adding 4 new skills and challenges for them (even if Acrid's is cruel). Good job," another says.

Hallowed Concept isn't totally flawless, however. The negative reviews that do exist draw attention to the expansion's bugs, and not the creepy crawly kind. "Great expansion, fun items and bosses, but in one day, two runs died to bosses spawning outside of the map and becoming impossible to attack, until that's fixed I cannot recommend this expansion, but otherwise amazing," a negative review says.

Regardless, it's a good step forward for the roguelike icon.

Risk of Rain 2, now under Borderlands house Gearbox, vows to take "full responsibility" for AI art it calls a "mistake" – "We are sending the designer to the Void Fields as punishment"

Sonic Racing: Crossworlds already has a pretty hectic lineup of characters, but Sega's Year Two DLC roadmap takes things one step further. The Final Fantasy 7 Remake series, Persona, Godzilla, Hello Kitty, Bayonetta, Evangelion, the Dreamcast itself, and much more are all coming to the well-liked kart racer before the end of 2027.

Sonic's most recent and surprisingly great take on kart racing is no stranger to bonkers crossovers. The game's first year of post-launch content welcomed everybody from Spongebob Squarepants and Minecraft Steve to Yakuza's Ichiban Kasuga, but Sega's one-upped itself with Year Two.

Year Two includes free content drops throughout 2027, alongside a paid Season Two Pass with exclusive goodies. The free content starts with monster-spanking icon Bayonetta joining the roster, alongside a kart inspired by McLaren and Persona 3's Aigis coming between November and March of next year.

The paid Season Two kicks off with a Godzilla collaboration on day one (November 3), bringing karts based on popular kaiju and a track that features our beloved, radioactive 'zilla causing chaos throughout a city. Evangelion is up next with playable characters Asuka Shikinami Langley and Rei Ayanami, plus new karts and a track.

Sometime after, we can look forward to playing as Hello Kitty and Kuromi in a course that's inspired by the wider Sanrio universe (if you have a favorite friend, there's a good chance they've been hidden somewhere in the background of the track.)

Taking a break from crossovers, the Segaland pack goes back in time with a course that pays tribute to Sega's entire history, arcade classics and home consoles included. Sega's also introducing three karts based on classic arcade cabinets (Outrun, After Burner, and Super Megalo) and three karts based on its consoles (Genesis, Saturn, and Dreamcast), alongside a bonus Super Shadow racer for owners of both Season Passes.

And, finally, the Year Two Season Pass ends with two big hitters. A Final Fantasy 7 Remake collaboration is on the way, but all Sega had to show was Cloud's Buster Sword sitting alongside a generic ring from the Sonic series. No word on what this collab includes, exactly. The other pack comes from the Reload Revival Royal pack, which presumably features characters and/or stages from all three modern Persona games.

Despite Sega's Mario Kart World shade, rival racer Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds has "fallen short" of expectations, and compared to Nintendo's sales I can see why

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.

The newest Young Link and Zelda amiibo have come and gone at US retailers, but pre-orders still have yet to appear for us UK-based fans. And trust me, I've checked.

I've been refreshing the Nintendo UK online storefront every day since the figures were unveiled during the 40th Anniversary Nintendo Direct, and yet they're still yet to show their little, plastic uncanny valley faces. Today's check came up empty just as they always do, yet I did at least spot that some of my favorite Legend of Zelda Collection amiibo are back in stock starting from £12.99. I've picked out the best restocks below so you can at least add something new to your Zelda shelves.

The first Ocarina of Time Link amiibo is also part of this set, but it's currently unavailable. It was in stock this morning, but there must be more hungry Zelda amiibo fans out there than I had suspected, as the product listing changed to "sold out" as soon as I started typing these very words.

At least the above figures are still stocked up, and they're some of my favorite in the entire Legend of Zelda lineup, particularly as they're not based on Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom. Don't get me wrong, I love Switch-era Link, but it's refreshing to see amiibo based on different Legend of Zelda games once in a while, especially when they're some of the most vibrant of the lot. My favorite is undoubtedly the Majora's Mask Link, as merch from it can be a bit of a rarity, and Nintendo went the extra mile to sculpt the little guy in lovely detail. Here's even holding a little Goron mask in his hand.

If you do happen to prefer the Switch-era Zelda games, plenty of the newest Tears of the Kingdom amiibo are also in stock, including the Mineru's Construct figure with its articulated arms. The best part is that all of them, including the above amiibo, can be tapped and used with Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom too, should you need extra weapons, food, and materials along your journey, on both the Switch and the Nintendo Switch 2.

• View all Legend of Zelda amiibo at Nintendo

On the hunt for more Ninty collectibles? Check out the best Lego sets and the best Nintendo gift guides.

With The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake on the way, Nintendo of America's former PR leads say the company should put more remakes in development to help fill out the Switch 2 library.

Nintendo has a bit of a weird relationship with remakes when compared to other major publishers.

Capcom is out here remaking every Resident Evil, Sony is probably already developing a third remake of The Last of Us, and Xbox recently released its second remakes of Halo: Combat Evolved and Gears of War.

However, outside of the Pokemon games, Nintendo remakes are seemingly at random, with only a few dropping in each console generation; and, as over the last decade, they've felt like ways to re-introduce somewhat dormant series' such as Metroid, Star Fox, and Advance Wars, as opposed to being remakes of "bigger" games.

The Ocarina of Time remake is naturally a bit of a break away from this as it's a remake of what is perhaps Nintendo's biggest game ever – but a duo of former Nintendo leads hope it's the beginning of a wider initiative.

In an new episode of their podcast, former PR leads Krysta Yang and Kit Ellis discuss as much, with the latter saying "Nintendo should be even more focused on remakes." He cites Star Fox and Ocarina of Time's 2026 returns as "really proving that there is a significant audience" and "significant interest when these games are handled in a premium way."

Ellis also notes "if you're Nintendo, nobody has a library that's as deep as you" while stating that the original Switch lineup was bolstered by a plethora of Wii U ports throughout its life.

He adds, "it's really an important thing for them to be able to keep the lineup strong throughout the year; not everything needs to be from the ground up original game. We can supplement that with these remakes."

Granted, Ellis does say "you need to be careful" when it comes to what the percent of remakes vs original titles is in a given year, as to not be seen as relying on remakes and remasters.

However, he reckons Nintendo could make the remake percentage a bit higher and "not face any significant pushback."

Yang agrees, noting that these projects that need less resources will be a good way to supplement a lineup of "the big games," saying "no company can survive if they only do like the crazy big like AAA innovative experience for every single game."

"You'll be Sony," she adds. "You'll have a problem." She's referencing the PS5's long-term exclusive droughts that have been the subject of player complaints here, although Sony is also very keen to release a ton of remakes and remasters.

However, Yang points out the "dangerous thing" is "they're getting such positive reinforcement from these remakes." And, when Ocarina sells well, there could be the thought of "that was a way easier way" to sell 10 million copies of a game, as opposed to taking a risk with a new out-there Zelda game.

She explains, "that is the danger of this path that they're going down, I think, is you could overindex on that pretty easily because you're getting so rewarded for it, making tons of money for very little work."

Saying that, Nintendo has been supplementing its series in other ways too, with the likes of Splatoon Raiders and the Mario Sports titles, which are smaller entries to help bridge the gap between major releases.

Having unique spins on existing franchises is a far more interesting prospect to me than endless remakes of games I can already play, but hey, people love a remake.

Castlevania Belmont's Curse skipping Switch 2 also baffles former Nintendo marketing lead: "The way Konami has handled this game has been a little weird"

The Witcher 3 Remastered has been out in the wild for a good few days now, but it's evident that CD Projekt Red isn't finished tidying up its revamped RPG just yet – and the new patch 5.01 serves as proof.

That's right, yet another update for the free upgrade to The Witcher 3 is upon us, squashing a good few bugs and addressing various complaints from fans across all platforms (except for the Nintendo Switch 2 – for now, anyway).

The full patch notes from CDPR outline all of those, starting with gameplay fixes for everything from boats moving "uncontrollably" to specific skills that haven't properly been working.

There are also UI tweaks galore and fixes specific to both PC and console players, starting with the former. For example, I'm seeing a plethora of GPU-related changes targeting the game's settings, like Dynamic Resolution Scaling and GTAO Quality.

Over on the Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 end, there are entirely new settings: Bloom, Light Shafts, and Depth of Field options, with optimizations and more to boot.

As for the Switch 2 edition, well, CD Projekt Red is on it.

"In addition to this," the studio adds at the end of Patch 5.01's lengthy notes, "we are also working on an update for the Nintendo Switch 2 version of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered, introducing closer parity between all versions of the game, including the same global changes as on other platforms."

That, plus some other improvements.

It sounds like the developers aren't done with any of The Witcher 3 Remastered, though, if I'm honest. I think they'll keep tinkering with it as long as folks share complaints, and they seem to be implying as much, too.

Paweł Sasko, who is currently on the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel as associate game director, instructs fans to "please keep us updated about any thoughts you have" over on Twitter, for instance.

So, there you have it: The Witcher 3 Remastered can only get bigger and better than here, and it's already the top-scoring game of 2026 on Metacritic, having beaten out CDPR's base RPG from 2015.

Looking for more new games to wishlist? Browse through our roundup of all of the upcoming CD Projekt Red games for some other great titles to anticipate.

After all this time, Fortnite is collaborating with an actually good game, in Hollow Knight. I kid, of course – the all-consuming battle royale recently incorporated Kingdom Hearts as well. So, two games. The irony of this latest partnership is that the pack containing your cosmetics and what not is actually more expensive than the base game.

I wish I were joking. Upon announcement of the esteemed nail-wielding warrior's arrival, Epic revealed the corresponding Fortnite DLC will cost you 2,000 V-Bucks if you opt for the full bundle.

2,000 V-Bucks costs you £17.19, or $22.49. Right now, if you go to buy Hollow Knight on Steam, you'll be putting down £12.79, or $14.99.

So, yes, buying the Fortnite Hollow Knight goodies costs more than Team Cherry's excellent Metroidvania, and by a noticeable margin, too. Included in the bundle are three items: Hollow Knight as a sidekick, a Hallownest Grub as a backbling, and the Nail as a pickaxe.

The bench and Shade make appearances as well, all part of the Fortnitemares horror theme for Halloween, where Slender Man, Freddy Kruger, and the Yautja from Predator are involved, with Beetlejuice on the way soon, too. The price discrepancy here gets even worse when you note that Hollow Knight is frequently on sale, since it's nine years old now.

Funnily enough, Fortnite's bundle is more expensive than the sequel, Silksong, too, since that retails for $19.99. On some level, I respect how brazen these prices are. Imagine trying to explain this to someone back in 2017. Hell, imagine showing them in-game footage of our trusty knight being caught up in the middle of a tense gunfight between Goku and Peter Griffin.

The future is a strange and inscrutable place. Sadly, it's expensive too. Hollow Knight's available in Fortnite until October 15, at which point the bundle will leave the shop, and it's not clear when it'll return.

€100 million Fortnite lawsuit claims Epic put "pressure" on minors to spend real money: "Young consumers are supposed to be protected from exactly that."

The Blood of Dawnwalker managed to stir up quite a controversy with its time restrictions, but that's not scaring indie developers away from instilling some good ol' FOMO in players – in fact, some are leaning well into it.

If you're old enough to remember Majora's Mask, one of the best Zelda games of all time, then you're also (un)lucky enough to have grappled with its three-day cycle. It's stressful, sure, but it's what makes the game as fun and unique as it is – if you ask me, anyway.

I'm not the only one who thinks so, apparently, as Studio Zubio is cooking up a stealth RPG with a similar feature… Bunderkin: The Ocular Eclipse. You can back it on Kickstarter right now, where it's already racked up nearly four times its initial $44,444 goal with nearly $175,000 raised so far.

So, what is Bunderkin? Well, like I said, it finds players "trapped in a three-day time loop" as the ever-unpopular Beedee the Bunderdragon (yes, you read that right). Beedee is desperate to get into the Ocular Eclipse festival, which just so happens to be a "once-in-a-lifetime" event.

There's a catch, though: a villain is plotting to freeze said eclipse, but Beedee discovers a mysterious device that transports him back in time so that he can do it all again and stop the chaotic foe.

It sounds fun as heck, honestly, with Studio Zubio noting it's "inspired by stealth classics like Metal Gear Solid and Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell" – and, of course, Majora's Mask – with puzzles, stealth mechanics, and secrets galore.

There's no release date set for Bunderkin: The Ocular Eclipse just yet, but its Steam page is live, so you can wishlist it if you're just as intrigued as I am.

It's entering the limelight at an interesting time for sure, considering how The Blood of Dawnwalker's time restriction was so controversial that its biggest mod reworks it altogether and Baldur's Gate 3 publishing director Michael "Cromwelp" Douse had to step in to defend it.

Regardless, I'm not afraid of a little fear of missing out myself, and Studio Zubio appears to be conjurin' up quite the fun little gem. Fingers crossed its launch window drops soon so I can relive my Majora's Mask days once again.

Searching for some new games to play? Browse through our roundup of the most exciting upcoming indie games set to arrive this year and beyond.

As notorious Overwatch hero Sombra makes her support class debut in Season 5: A Grim Doctrine, Blizzard is well aware that the former DPS losing her Hack ability is going to leave some players "upset," but insists the change is "better for the game."

Sombra's big support rework was announced last month, and basically comes in an attempt to make her less annoying for both her foes and allies. As you'd imagine, the rework means big changes to her abilities and perks. She's now got a new ability called Cyberspace, for example, replacing her damage-over-time Virus ability with a new projectile that weakens foes and heals allies.

Perhaps most notably, though, Sombra's Hack ability has been replaced by Hotfix. Rather than being able to mess with opponents by temporarily removing their abilities from them, it instead can be used to heal allies over time.

It's certainly a choice considering that Sombra's whole shtick is that she's a hacker – especially after game director Aaron Keller previously said that the rework wouldn't change "her identity" – and the devs are obviously aware that not everyone is a fan.

"We've seen a lot of reception about the Sombra rework, and one of the things people have talked about is the hacker losing hack," senior hero designer Leo Robles Gonzalez admits in a new dev livestream.

Robles Gonzalez reveals that Blizzard "tried a lot of different versions of Sombra where she still could hack enemies," but regardless, even with her lower damage output "there was always that feeling of Sombra appearing out of nowhere, turning off my abilities, and then outputting damage that I can't really do anything about."

Now though, the devs are hoping that they've successfully produced "the last rework" of the notorious hero, adds hero designer Scott Kennedy, and while "obviously players are going to be upset that they lost this hacking enemies version," the team reckons that "this overall is going to be better for the game and players will really learn to love and enjoy her."

It's not that her hacking abilities are totally missing, either. Hotfix is still able to hack health packs and deployable objects like Torbjörn's turrets and Ashe's B.O.B., and human enemies can be hacked when she uses her ult, EMP.

Even so, these changes are definitely going to take some getting used to for the veteran Sombra players. As a support main, though, I'm excited to give the new version of the not-quite-as-hacky hacker a go.

Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred and Overwatch's resurgence reportedly drove Blizzard to its "first back-to-back years of growth" in almost 10 years.

Pokemon Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald Switch port truthers believe they have gotten an extra bit of ammo thanks to a Pokemon Home update released today.

Last month, fans noticed that some Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire footage posted by an official Japanese Pokemon Twitter account was somewhat suspicious. Namely the footage was surprisingly crisp for a 2002 Game Boy Advance game and it lasted exactly 30 seconds – which is how long video clips saved onto a Switch console last. Given that these looked somewhat in line with the Switch versions of FireRed and LeafGreen, speculation naturally kicked off that the other Gen 3 games would join the remakes.

Today, The Pokemon Company rolled out an update for Pokemon Home which allows players to transfer their FireRed and LeafGreen monsters into the app, and then bring them forward to other games in the series – although once they leave their GBA home they won't be able to return.

However, as pointed out by a user on ResetEra, the new button added to the app's menu says "GBA games" as opposed to specifying that it's FireRed and LeafGreen, which they believe could be a hint at future ports of other GBA titles – namely, Pokemon Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald.

Of course, at risk of sounding like a downer, this could mean nothing. A button labeled GBA games is far more space efficient that a button specifically namedropping FireRed and LeafGreen. That being said, given that Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen are now way higher on the list of the best-selling Pokemon games of all time thanks to the new Switch re-releases, I would be shocked if The Pokemon Company leaves the potential money of Gen 3 ports off the table.

Pokemon devs reveal magical girl "laundry game" that uses real-life weather data, and Game Freak is bringing out the big guns with its director.

The release of Castlevania: Belmont's Curse is something of a monkey's paw affair for Nintendo Switch 2 owners. Yes, the classic franchise is back, and in fine form, but it's only been released on the original Switch - there's no dedicated version for the newer platform. Even a former marketing manager for the home of Super Mario is a little bit baffled.

In a video posted on social media, Kit Ellis, ex-senior PR manager at Nintendo of America, expressed his confusion at Konami's approach to bringing back the Belmont family's war against Dracula. "If you're a Castlevania fan who mostly plays on Nintendo Switch 2, I wouldn't blame you for having some mixed feelings on Castlevania: Belmont's Curse," he says.

"The way Konami has handled this game has been a little weird," he continues. "The game isn't even coming out on Switch 2. I mean, you can play it on a Switch 2, but this is a Switch 1 game that Konami is releasing. There is no dedicated Switch 2 version."

It truly seems like an odd decision to put this out only on the older hardware. The Switch 2's been out for over a year at this point, giving Konami plenty of time to optimize the game for that console. Maybe the company figured that the relatively simple 2.5D visuals ran well enough on the base Switch that no current-gen upgrades were required.

It looks, sounds and plays like Symphony of the Night; a side-scrolling action-adventure through layers of ghouls and ghosts to defeat Dracula once again. An appropriate choice for one half of the Metroidvania moniker making its grand return to the stylistic choices it popularized.

I can't imagine why a Switch 2 release wouldn't have been feasible. Ellis points out that going by the demo, Castlevania: Belmont's Curse runs at 60 frames-per-second on Switch 2, which is nice, though the resolution leaves something to be desired.

"It does look a little blocky, a little bit chunky when you're playing it on a Switch 2," he states. "But I guess it's better than nothing."

Since Castlevania's early releases were on the NES and SNES, creating a synergy between the two brands, Ellis is befuddled by the choice here. "It kind of feels like Konami's not completely following through with the game here," he adds. I'd have to agree, even though I'm still excited to jump in on October 15.

Castlevania: Belmont's Curse was born out of "a sense of urgency," producer says, and if we have to wait 10 years for the next game, "the whole thing is meaningless"