Pearl Abyss PR and marketing director Will Powers has detailed some of the new features coming to Crimson Desert's Charting the Unknown DLC in more detail.

In an appearance on Dropped Frames, Powers confirms that to access the story content added in Crimson Desert Charting the Unknown, you'll need to have completed the main story of the base game too. Powers explains, "the story content specifically, it takes place after the main game."

However, he assures that you don't need to have done that to explore the new open-world areas throughout the DLC (although you will have to have established the Greymane camp in Chapter 3 to access that part).

Powers explains that the new DLC features storylines for Damiane, Oongka, and Kliff, and while "you didn't really get to explore a lot of their backstory [and] a lot of their motivations during the main game," Charting the Unknown is "effectively an epilogue for all three characters." He notes that the trio is not traveling together, with the DLC exploring what each of them is doing in the world following the story's conclusion.

Another major aspect of the DLC content is the new romance options, something which Powers says "we wanted to bring it in a meaningful way." He explains, "That was something that we were really thoughtful about how we wanted to implement it because there's been a pretty dramatic shift from how we portrayed the main characters – Damiane, Oongka, and Kliff – from launch until now. And how you could use them within side missions."

On top of that, Powers dropped a number of details, such as the Charting the Unknown DLC's storyline was written by the team behind the Crimson Desert: Enhanced Edition update, which overhauled the game's storyline, as well as teasing some of the things and areas you can come across through the underwater exploration. Basically, much like the original game, it sounds like Crimson Desert: Charting the Unknown is going to be huge.

Crimson Desert reviewed worse with critics than players because critics didn't have enough time to play the game, suggests CEO at the company that gave critics less time

26 people at Ghost of Tsushima and Ghost of Yotei developer Sucker Punch have been laid off, according to a new report. Sony had previously spoken in glowing terms of Yotei's financial success, and the developers had just launched a major new expansion in Echoes of Sekigahara a few weeks ago.

"After carefully observing the challenges in the market and reviewing the team needs for our next project, we've decided to make some staffing reductions," Sucker Punch leadership says in an email to staff published by Aftermath, which first reported the news. "Several positions across Sucker Punch will be eliminated as a result."

The email insists that studio leaders "did not make this decision lightly" and "have given this a lot of attention and worked to support our affected colleagues during this transition as well as we can." Employees will apparently be given "more details about the future" next week.

Ghost of Yotei sold 3.3 million copies within its first month, performing better than Ghost of Tsushima did in the same period. Sony was keen to brag about how the game "significantly contributed" to its financial results in the period. Sucker Punch even managed to make the game for a much cheaper price than many of PlayStation's other massive PS5 games.

But we've seen again and again how little a game's success has to do with the fortunes of the developers who made it, despite how billionaire publisher bosses might suggest otherwise. Xbox offered a stunning example with Hi-Fi Rush in 2023, which the company described as a success "in all key measurements" and shut down the studio that made it a year later.

The Hi-Fi Rush devs would eventually get a second chance, and it doesn't sound like Sucker Punch as a whole is going anywhere. But if critical acclaim and financial success aren't enough to keep the Sonys and Microsofts of the world from laying off their developers, it's tough to imagine what criteria devs can now look toward for success.

PlayStation creator says games have stagnated, urges developers not to lose their "curiosity" as the industry reaches a major turning point ahead of the "next stage."

In 2009, GTA 6 developer Rockstar Games revealed a totally new series to the public: Agent, an open-world stealth romp set during the 1970s' Cold War that was due to be exclusive to the PS3. Agent never came to be, but Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser says it wasn't for a lack of trying.

After a series of years-long rumors and teases, Agent was formally announced to the world at E3 2009. The famed developer never properly announced the project's cancelation, but it eventually abandoned the trademark and quietly moved on.

"We tried with two or three different teams to make an open-world spy game and could not get it right, so it never came out," Houser recalls in an interview with IGN (below). "We concluded it was not a game we were ever going to figure out how to be able to make. Other people can try, but I personally think it's hard."

According to Houser, a frequent problem with Agent was how the spy genre was at odds with Rockstar's iconic open-world formula. Spy romps are built on a sense of urgency and globe-hopping locales, which are harder to pull off in a Rockstar sandbox.

"I think the momentum of a spy story pushes you forward in time, whereas you want games to be a bit more spread-out. And part of the fun of a spy movie is that you move from location A to very distant location B, and that's not an experience in an open-world game that really works. So we tried lots of things, and we didn't get it quite right, and there were great things that we tried, but it never quite worked," Houser explains.

As far as we're aware, Rockstar hasn't tried to pursue the idea since. But in fairness, the studio's gargantuan games - like Red Dead Redemption 2 and GTA 6 - don't leave much room for all-new experiments.

GTA 6 could beat Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's record-breaking Game Awards haul - but I wouldn't bet on it

Pearl Abyss has released a new overview trailer for Crimson Desert's upcoming Charting the Unknown DLC expansion, and it sure is a lot.

Crimson Desert has had a bit of a wild year. It launched and was immediately quite beloved by fans, but it garnered criticism for lacking a good story – something the studio's CEO even admitted – and for a few other bits and pieces along the way.

However, Pearl Abyss has been updating the game as if it were a live service, with near-constant updates throughout the year to tackle some of the biggest criticisms and add new features to the open-world game, culminating in a massive Enhanced edition update. However on top of that, the studio announced Crimson Desert: Charting the Unknown a massive DLC expansion is on the way.

After a short two-week delay, the DLC is set to release next week on October 29, and to get people hyped, the developer has released a new overview trailer to let people know what to expect from the DLC; and in true Crimson Desert tradition… It's a whole lot.

Charting the Unknown is based around, well, charting the unknown, and thus you'll be taken to the seas in search of new islands. These islands will feature new missions, enemy factions, and can eventually be turned into strongholds that Kliff can establish. Naturally, sailing is a big part of the DLC too, with the ability to create your own custom ship and take part in naval combat. And underwater, you'll be able to ride around on stingrays, turtles, and orcas while searching for treasure.

On top of that, Kliff's home is now more customizable, continuing Crimson Desert's being 100 games at once, with new house customization that looks ripped out of The Sims. On top of that, you'll be able to romance companions and get married. In the vein of the main game, there's a lot to do here, so if you were holding off on starting it, maybe now is the time.

Crimson Desert reviewed worse with critics than players because critics didn't have enough time to play the game, suggests CEO at the company that gave critics less time

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

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

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

Memory hole

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

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

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

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

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

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

The trailer for Over the Hill makes it look like you’ll be taking an off-road vehicle out into the wilderness and having a wonderful, relaxing time in warm sunshine, listening to acoustic guitar music as you trundle around paradise looking at the wildlife. Balderdash. It’s the single most stressful game I’ve played in years and I think it hates me.

It’s a bold move for a game to focus on the actual worst bits of open world driving games like Forza Horizon or even GTA. You know, the ones where you try to drive up a hill and it’s just a little too steep for your car to manage. Sliding around, skidding back down, and getting stuck against trees is the core experience at first, as there's just not enough grip to enjoy yourself. You can soon upgrade your tires, at which point things improve. But even with this added grip, Over the Hill is best described as a constant, laborious battle against hostile terrain – and that's far from enjoyable.

Said terrain at least looks reasonably nice. The art style is noticeably similar to developer Funselektor’s sublime Art of Rally. Not entirely flat-shaded, but certainly channeling that look. This can make more sparse areas like the Algerian desert look basic at times. The game uses lighting, fogging, and weather effects alongside a diegetic soundtrack to create its moods, but any sense of wonder quickly wears thin. There's so little to discover, it's frankly boring, a feeling compounded by the fact you're limited to moving at an absolute crawl. Even at full speed, you could probably run faster, if only you could exit the car.

Trails and tribulations

The game's best feature is the winch, which can latch onto trees with a quick press of the Y button on an Xbox pad. You then reel it back in, pulling yourself out of mud/water/rocks/trouble/the-clutches-of-despair in the process. It works really well and one item even lets you make an anchor point almost anywhere you like. That can feel like cheating, but sometimes there's no alternative. You soon acquire other limited use items too, like planks of wood to bridge small gaps and, later, a jack to reset you if you roll over. It doesn’t physically leverage your car’s chassis, instead respawning you, which really does feel like cheating when everything else is so hands-off.

While you can technically go anywhere, most steep hills are impassable, causing you to seek out the flattest routes, at which point you discover the world is actually quite linear. That at least means routes have been curated to offer a decent challenge, with jutting stones and slippery, bare rock faces clearly placed to test you.

Some such routes are turned into 'trails', which are the most videogamey and enjoyable part of the proceedings as you try to make it to GTA-esque checkpoint circles that appear at shortish intervals along a challenging track. Some of them are brilliantly designed – the Bridal Veil in the second Canadian area is a standout, passing a beautiful waterfall, which I was lucky enough to discover while the virtual sun was out. Gorgeous.

Sunshine is pretty rare, though. Storms are frequent and sway every tree on the screen in spectacular fashion. Inching forward through the surprisingly hostile elements in turn disperses the map's fog of war, revealing question mark 'points of interest'. These might be crates with personalization mods for your car, vehicles to tow back to your camp, or gates which denote the start point of those standout trails. Clearing every point in one area removes that map's fog of war completely, though you won't need the map by then. There's no rush or even instruction to complete anything; you can take your time.

The physics are OK, but not quite as convincing as other, more realistic-looking off-roaders. Your truck's movement is questionable at extreme angles and deformable terrain like mud or snow always deforms to the same level. It doesn’t build up again under reversing, nor squish outwards like it does in Snowrunner, either. It’s just there until it's flattened. Nonetheless, it does look pretty nice when you’re slewing around in a swamp or window-deep in snow and your wheels are leaving great troughs in your wake.

Off Road Pokedex

There’s an instant camera so you can snap the local fauna, which is a lovely feature but rarely used. You won’t see as much wildlife as you might expect, but that just makes the occasional sighting of an eagle that much more special.

There are a few mechanics (actual mechanics, the kind that use spanners) here and there with a few dialogue boxes to their names who will sell you upgrade items, but for the most part it’s a decidedly isolated solo experience. You can change songs on the tape player in your car, either track by track or different albums, but the best match is the laid-back acoustic guitar fare, which sounds a lot like pixel art fishing game Cast ’n’ Chill.

If aching isolation sounds like your idea of hell, you can play with other people, winching each other out of trouble and pulling up larger meteorites together. However, Funselektor has made it clear that the game was first designed as a solo experience and online performance is still being worked on. The game runs well even on Steam Deck despite some pretty vast draw distances, and visible LOD redraw is kept impressively scarce.

There is something to be said for setting off into the night as rain hammers down on the metal roof of your vehicle, your headlights swaying and dipping as you carefully navigate the undulating terrain. The same goes for those old-school 'Top Gear' moments of clinging to a mountainside with a 200ft drop to your right. But when you realise you're in your umpteenth hour of watching a small, low-detail car crawl slowly over barren sand dunes or trundle through another desolate valley, you'll likely long for something to happen.

Over The Hill was reviewed on PC, with a code provided by the publisher.

Your journey isn't over yet. Check out our best open world games ranking for more worlds to get lost in!

Crimson Desert's critic reviews may have been harsher than its user reviews because normal players not working on a deadline had more time to venture off the golden path and enjoy the game's rich world and systems, according to Lybee Park, CEO of developer Pearl Abyss' Europe branch.

Park spoke to The Game Business about Crimson Desert's reception, focusing on the launch period back when it was a different, meaningfully worse game that has since received approximately eight bazillion updates.

Interviewer Christopher Dring says "the critical reception was a little bit more mixed, right? It wasn't terrible, but it was a little bit lower." Crimson Desert's critical reception was, indeed, not terrible: it sits at 77 on Metacritic against an 8.7 user score. On Steam, Crimson Desert Enhanced, an improved version of the game that's replaced the old one less than a year after launch, has 83% positive lifetime user reviews and, as it happens, 77% positive recent reviews. (Our Crimson Desert Review awarded the game 4 out of 5 stars.)

It's not unusual for critical and user reviews to differ, and this is far from the biggest gap I've seen for a game. If you look at some of the best-rated releases of 2026, a lot of them have slightly lower user scores than critic scores, with exceptions like Resident Evil Requiem, which just has even more glowing user scores. Fewer still show score gaps larger than one point – one being Mixtape, a game which was trendy to hate online but still found a very receptive audience of confirmed buyers on stores like Steam, where reviews put it at 87% positive to Metacritic's 5.9 user score, or on the PlayStation Store, where it has 4.6 out of 5 stars.

When a critic may play dozens of times more games per year than the average gamer (who, surveys have found, only buys two or three new games annually), it's easy for tastes and expectations to shift and vary. Park speculates on where Crimson Desert's review gap may have come from.

"I can have my personal opinion, right?" she begins. "I do believe both parties have fair points, especially for critics. They had to play the build that is not the exact same version of the launched game. And, also, they had limited time, and usually the classical approach when they review the game is following the main quest line."

The main quest is not where Crimson Desert is at its strongest, Park implies. The other folks at Pearl Abyss clearly agree: the central story was deemed so erratic that it was actually directly patched with the release of the Enhanced version. We regularly see post-launch updates targeting game balance, resource economies, quality-of-life issues, UI navigation, performance, bugs, and many other elements, but games rarely rewrite their stories in this way.

"But Crimson Desert, our unique charm is spread all over our in-game world," Park adds. "All those tiny details that are hidden, all [the] freedom you can actually explore even further, beyond the common expectations. All of those unique bits and interesting, new, fresh bits, I don't think critics had a fair chance to explore and experience while it was the reviewing period."

I don't do nearly as many reviews as some game journalists, but I've been at this for 13 years so I have done a few dozen, and I can tell you that I don't play review games the same way I play my for-fun games. That's usually because I don't have time to. Thank the stars I didn't play Unicorn Overlord for review. Could I have spent 240 hours slow-rolling and savoring a 45-hour strategy RPG if I was on a deadline? Of course not, and my experience with the game would've been changed as a result.

But reviewers will generally work to see as much of a game as they can beyond just rolling credits. Especially with a sprawling open-world experience like Crimson Desert, there will be a need and a drive to poke around, though that drive can vary as much as opinions. I don't know anybody who reviewed The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild by sprinting straight to Ganon as soon as they possibly could, unless that was for an experiment after they beat the game the conventional way.

And it is important to note, as Park does, that day-one patches can instantly render reviews somewhat outdated. I've had serious frustrations with games resolved by a patch within days or hours of my review going live. Yet reviewers can only criticize the game in their hands, not an imagined, better version of it. Even if players never encounter the same issues, reviewers are still right to criticize those if they run into them.

Really, the words hanging over this are "the reviewing period" – the time between the delivery of review keys and the opening of review embargoes. This is one place where you will find dramatic differences. How much time you get for a review can vary hugely between games, and the less time you have to play a game, even assuming days or weeks of inordinately long play sessions, the less realistic your experience can be. A lot of media outlets have gotten better about giving reviewers more time to play at a healthy pace which also allows for a more authentic experience, but there's still undeniably incentive to be ready for embargo.

We can fully dissect the levers of online criticism some other time. My point is, Pearl Abyss set the reviewing period for Crimson Desert. I don't wholly agree with Park's assessment that Crimson Desert's critical scores may have been lower because critics only saw the rainbow and not the pot of gold at the end. (I think Crimson Desert's reception was fair, and I think a game's ability to encourage and reward exploration is an important factor.) But I definitely agree that longer review periods are better for everyone.

Crimson Desert DLC Charting the Unknown delayed 2 weeks as Pearl Abyss seeks "a more polished and stable gameplay experience."

At this point, it'd almost be easier to name the blockbuster game franchise Troy Baker hasn't been a part of. The Last of Us, BioShock: Infinite, Final Fantasy 13, Mass Effect 3; he gets around. He's so prolific that creators have specifically sought him out for certain roles, like Hideo Kojima, who created a part in Death Stranding for the performer.

In a PartyChat interview going through his career, Baker touches on his performance as Higgs in the Death Stranding games, a villain who wants to kill what remains of mankind in the dystopian sci-fi epics. "One of the kindest things that Hideo Kojima has ever done is say, 'Hey, I wrote this part for you,' and he held up to his end of the deal," Baker says.

Higgs is a pretty massive character. He leads a cult dedicated to finishing the genocide of the human race, and he's relentless in his pursuit of the protagonist Sam Porter, portrayed by Norman Reedus.

The guy tends to float around when he appears and his lines are extremely theatrical. It's the kind of role I imagine was a lot of fun to rehearse and record, because you can just go for it in terms of energy and energy.

"I didn't realize until after we wrapped, we are The Game Awards, and Hideo told me, 'Do you know why Higgs plays guitar and sings?'" Baker remembers. "'During the pandemic, I would watch you on your Instagram Lives, when I was feeling down, and I'd watch you play acoustic.'"

Aww, what a lovely thing to hear! It struck a chord with Baker, who mentions he'd "never been nervous" about who was watching, and wishes Kojima told him. "I'd no idea that meant that to him," Baker finishes. He returned to Higgs for Death Stranding 2, and he's currently back over at Naughty Dog for an undisclosed role in Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. Keep your ears open for any musicianship in the character.

Hideo Kojima addresses AI after DLSS 5 hit Death Stranding 2, says "I don't much like the idea" of it taking work or control from artists

The collective industry has been reckoning with expanded usage of AI for the last several years. We've seen generative AI used in various capacities across multiple blockbuster releases, and more recently, the tech in Nvidia DLSS 5 has created a whole frontier of discussion. Hideo Kojima's own Death Stranding 2 got caught up in the latter, and it put a bad taste in his mouth regarding the usefulness of these tools.

"As a creator, I have mixed feelings about this technology," he explains on the Koji10 podcast. "AI is good at bringing old photographs to life or adding color to them, right? I think we might stop doing remakes one day. People still restore old films in 4K by hand, for instance. AI could do that easily."

But where AI can certainly make those processes easier, it can't understand artistic intention, making the use cases limited, at least for anything the Metal Gear Solid mastermind is involved in. "As the person who made the original, I wouldn't want someone changing it too much," he states. "There was a reason I chose a particular lighting setup. It would be different if AI understood those intentions."

Going by the results of Nvidia DLSS 5, and any other examples I've seen of AI upscaling, we're a long way from that happening. Death Stranding 2 was caught in the whirlwind of DLSS 5, and that seems to have given Kojima pause on what this tech can actually offer Kojima Productions.

"I wouldn't like that," he says, when it's suggested AI can "make changes" of its own accord. "Unless I was controlling the AI in my own work, that may be different. I don't know, though."

He concedes, "this will probably become standard," at least to some extent. Remastering music and restoring old movies still requires engineers and production teams, who incorporate AI to help streamline the projects.

"Maybe AI will eventually do all that automatically," he says. "In a hundred years, the resolution may be even higher. But I don't much like the idea."

Me neither. But so long as we have creatives like Kojima who're maintaining perspectives like this, I believe there's hope. There's little chance of seeing any of these elements in OD and Physint, and they'll be better games for it.

OD is "progressing smoothly," Hideo Kojima says, teasing it as a "completely new kind of game that tests the thresholds of fear"

The new open-world Dungeons & Dragons video game from Wizards of the Coast isn't going to be as big as beloved RPGs like Skyrim, it seems – but there's a good reason why.

Warlock was first unveiled last year by the D&D publisher as a brand-new open-world game featuring Tasha, an archmage and demonologist well known to fans of the tabletop series.

We haven't heard too much about it since, but we did get to see a whole 10 minutes of its Dragon's Dogma-esque gameplay in August – and, now, Invoke Studios head Dominic Guay is sharing more about the exciting project.

Speaking in a new edition of Edge, Guay describes how the developers don't want to guide players around Darkon. You know, the whole dreaded yellow paint thing? They're not a fan, and that's why they're opting for an open world that's a bit smaller than most folks familiar with the genre might expect.

"Because we wanted this to be exploration-driven, we didn't want the player just to follow a waypoint around," as he says.

So, while the world is "small," it's not lacking in substance. As Guay puts it, "By having a bit more density, we can afford to pull back a little bit on the handholding." That's good to read, honestly – and there's plenty to discover as well.

"There's a lot of really cool spells. Maybe you won't find them, and that's ok, because you'll find others." You know what that sounds like to me? More reason to play through the game again.

The controls sound exciting, too, as Guay describes Warlock's system as one that simulates a "real-time expression of magic instead of something that feels a bit slower."

That should also make the world feel far more alive, if you ask me, and a bit more action-packed to boot – once more reassuring me that size might not matter after all.

It certainly didn't in Baldur's Gate 3, perhaps the best D&D experience to date… and it wasn't even open world.

Baldur's Gate 3 is "a great game," but Warlock devs say their own virtual D&D experience is "very different" from Larian's RPG

It's 2026, and somehow, Breath of the Wild is playable on the (jailbroken) PlayStation 5 via emulation – but, as stunning as it is in 4K, it's got fans split.

Yes, that's right – The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is available to play on the PS5, if you've jailbroken your console and such, much like it has been on Valve's own Steam Deck for some time now (again, unofficially, of course).

Furthermore, the emulated Breath of the Wild, as created by "premohq" on GitHub, can run with a stunning 4K resolution. One fan showcases the game on PS5 over on X, confirming as much.

"Zelda: Breath of the Wild running at 4K on PS5 is so damn beautiful," they write, with a clip of Link running (wearing a red Nintendo Switch shirt, amusingly enough) attached.

It's a tad mind-boggling to see, I suppose, and while some folks are evidently impressed, not everyone is sold on the emulated take on Nintendo's open-world gem. The top comment echoes this, reading, "Looks better on the Switch 2 running at 60fps."

Others share this sentiment, with people instructing eager Breath of the Wild players to "just buy a Switch 2 and buy the game." For context, the game runs on the Switch 2 at 1440P (4K via upscaling) and a solid 60 frames – but emulation remains big in 2026, to say the least.

Gamers initially cracked it on the PlayStation 5 in 2022 with jailbreaking, but discussions about emulating have been all over the place this year.

Especially in regards to the PS5, which is seeing various emulation projects pop up left, right, and center. Heck, soon we might even see Demon's Souls and other massive Sony exclusives make their way to PC (unofficially, as always when it comes to emulating).

It's heading that direction it seems, anyway, but it's a risky game… to say the least. I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo looked to strike this Breath of the Wild project down either, honestly.

Looking for more to anticipate? Browse our roundup of the most exciting new games around coming this year and beyond to wishlist.

Warlock has quickly become one of the most exciting new games on the horizon, and it's not just because we're all thirsty for more Dungeons & Dragons games after exhausting Baldur's Gate 3. The open-world action-adventure promises an extensive spell system that'll let you interact with the objects and enemies in some wild ways. Even the devs were initially worried that the game's spells were too OP, but as it turns out, that was the perfect starting point.

"There's this tendency on the dev team to go, 'That's too powerful,'" Invoke Studios head Dominic Guay says in Edge Magazine issue #429. "At some point we had to say, 'No. Make it OP first, make it fun, and then we'll balance it.'"

You can, for example, use Black Tentacles to tie an ogre's weapon to the ground, leaving it helpless as you start wailing on the monster. It's a powerful option in the toolbox, yes, but there are considerations for balance. Use Black Tentacles on the ogre itself, and the creature will break free much more quickly.

You don't purely cast your spells from a list. Instead, different button combinations will bring out the spells you want. "Once you get the hang of it, you're able to chain melee attacks, spell, spell, spell, and think on the fly," Guay explains. "We always wanted that realtime expression of magic instead of something that feels a bit slower."

Described like this, the spell system reminds me a bit of Magicka, an early title from eventual Helldivers developer Arrowhead Game Studios. There, you combine all sorts of different elemental abilities into spells with various effects. We don't yet have a great sense of how Warlock's system will work, but described in these terms it seems to have a similar spirit.

"The player will learn to be a warlock at the same time as the character,” Guay says, explaining that new spells will be unlocked over the course of the game. "You'll gain more spells pretty fast on your journey, but you need that onboarding because we’re doing things differently on the controller than some other games."

Warlock escapes Baldur's Gate 3's long shadow with a very different take on D&D that I'm happy to roll my dice on.

Despite having little association with each other beyond sharing the D&D universe, Invoke's Warlock: Dungeons and Dragons is drawing plenty of comparisons to Larian's 2023 opus, Baldur's Gate 3. It's hard to blame anyone for anchoring the shiny new open-world D&D game to the 2023 GOTY considering just how much the latter dominated and continues to influence the conversation around RPG design, but mechanically and narratively, the fundamentals of the two games are very different.

Talking to Eurogamer, Invoke general manager Dominique Guay is keen to make that narrative distinction very clear, contrasting the fluid, branching plot of Baldur's Gate 3 with the comparatively linear Warlock.

"We're being very clear on that," says Guay. "Kaatri is a written character, so it's not like you can play evil or good Kaatri. Nothing like that. The main narrative moments you're going to go through are written down, and you're going to go through the same moment as someone else."

Another big difference is Warlock's more narrow focus on main character Kaatri. Whereas Baldur's Gate 3 features an ensemble cast of playable characters led by the player's custom avatar, Warlock is very much about one hero's journey, although there are "definitely allies you'll make along the way, kind of her found family." One of those characters is your imp companion, Skev, and Guay says "there's an ongoing story there of how their relationship grows."

In our hands-off Warlock preview from this year's Gamescom, staff writer Jasmine Gould-Wilson fell deeply "under its spell" and expressed confidence that the game might successfully escape Baldur's Gate 3's long shadow with an entirely different take on the D&D universe.

Open-world D&D game Warlock doesn't have AAA-standard waypoints because the devs want players to feel that "when they found things, it was based on their actions"

Crimson Desert developer Pearl Abyss has announced that the Charting the Unknown DLC expansion has been delayed, but thankfully not by too long.

Crimson Desert DLC was confirmed a few months after the game dropped, with the developer confirming an expansion was in the works in June, which felt like an obvious move after the massive success of the open-world game at launch, but I don't know that many were expecting it to be dropping this year.

But despite that, Pearl Abyss confirmed it would be a 2026 release in August – with the massive Enhanced edition update being announced that same month – and less than a month later, Crimson Desert: Charting the Unknown was announced at the PlayStation State of Play, with a release date of October 15, 2026.

Unfortunately, that date was maybe a bit ambitious, as Pearl Abyss announces on Twitter that it has been delayed. But thankfully, there are only two more weeks to wait.

"We are hard at work on Crimson Desert Enhanced: Charting the Unknown to bring you new adventures to Pywel," the post reads, explaining, "we have determined that we need additional development time to deliver a more polished and stable gameplay experience."

Pearl Abyss adds, "We know many of you have been looking forward to returning to the game and we sincerely apologize for the longer wait," and promises to "use the additional time to further refine the content and do our utmost to deliver the best experience we can."

This delay moves it out of an especially busy week where titles like Castlevania: Belmont's Curse, Valor Mortis, the Switch 2 versions of the Resident Evil Remake trilogy, and, of course, Bluey's Happy Snaps. Unfortunately, however, the two-week delay does drop it right next to Phantom Blade Zero and Hello Kitty Party Land on the same day, so the choice may be a tough one for some, but at least the DLC will be better for it.

Steam earned Valve $15 billion in revenue so far this year, with Crimson Desert alone topping $203 million according to analyst

Now that GTA 6 is mere weeks away, one emerging question is what Rockstar will go for next. The studio has multiple series it could return to; Red Dead Redemption 3 seems an obvious choice for the future, but according to a reliable leaker, LA Noire 2 is first on the studio's docket.

This particular bit of information is actually a few years old, stemming from a round of leaks from a user on 4chan back in 2023. They posted a number of titbits surrounding GTA 6 and Rockstar's plans that were then reposted on unofficial messageboard GTAForums.

For what Rockstar's looking at beyond the sixth mainline Grand Theft Auto, apparently the company's looking at going back to some detective work. A sequel to LA Noire is slated, heading to San Francisco to look for the Zodiac Killer.

At the time, the leaker predicted a release window of at least 2030, and aspirations of this being a standard-setter visually. I can safely imagine the latter, but even 2030 seems optimistic now. Supporting GTA 6 will take the lion's share of Rockstar's manpower through 2027 and probably 2028 as well, not leaving much room for another full-on release.

Many of the mechanics they mentioned for the new Grand Theft Auto turned out to be accurate, such as the dynamics between Jason and Lucia, where you decide how romantically involved they are through your choices. The accuracy of their predictions definitely lends some credence to their mention of LA Noire 2.

Rockstar's owner, Take-Two, even suggested LA Noire would be on the table for what's coming up. "There’s nothing to announce on LA Noire specifically, and if there were, it would be Rockstar announcing it, not me," CEO Strauss Zelnick said at the iicon event in April. "But in any case, with regard to our legacy IP, the teams are always looking at what we have and we’re always thinking about it."

It's now been 15 years since the first game, a noir-y detective sim where you have to rumble a drug ring that's infested the local police department in 1940s Los Angeles. It was an ambitious, charming project, and there's plenty of ground for a potential revisit. We'll see what emerges.

Rockstar reportedly reminded GTA 6's voice cast they're still under NDA after actor Stephen Root let slip he's in the game

Despite everything suggesting otherwise, Beyond Good and Evil 2 is apparently still happening and in development, with an Assassin's Creed Shadows: Claws of Awaji developer announcing his involvement.

As spotted by IGN, over on Bluesky, Rik Godwin, lead writer and associate narrative director at Ubisoft Bordeaux, confirms that "for the past few months I've been working on Beyond Good & Evil 2 in a support/consultant role." The game has been missing in action for some time, but this is the latest confirmation that it's apparently still happening.

Beyond Good and Evil 2 was announced back in 2008 in the form of a teaser trailer showing Pey'j and Jade, which was to be Ubisoft Montpellier's next release. Then nine years of pretty much nothing passed and we got a proper trailer for the game at E3 2017 alongside the controversial collaboration with HitRecord. The following year, the game received a gameplay presentation, but since then there really hasn't been much. In 2022, the game broke Duke Nukem Forever's record for being the game with the longest development time.

Original Beyond Good and Evil director Michel Ancel departed Ubisoft in 2020, and then in 2023, the sequel's creative director Emile Morel sadly passed away at the age of 40, with Fawzi Mesmar taking on the role. This, mixed with extended periods of silence about the game, and Ubisoft's recent shakeup that saw the cancellation of six projects has led to speculation that the game has been quietly canceled over the years. However, Ubisoft previously confirmed that the game was not one of its six recently canceled titles, and that it was still in development.

Ubisoft was reportedly working on a new Legend of Zelda game starring Ganondorf, only for Nintendo to shoot it down.

After six years of Genshin Impact, I've settled into a comfy rhythm and rarely have strong enough feelings to commit them to print, but new 5-star Vesna is the kind of character I've wanted for ages. I am hootin' and hollerin', by which I mean I am telling my boss, and now you, about her.

Vesna is one of two newly released 5-star characters in Genshin Impact update 7.1, opposite Vodyanitsa, who is one of Vesna's best teammates. She's a fae warrior, and an on-field damage-dealing character who specializes in the new Stellar Swirl reaction introduced with Snezhnaya.

Vodyanitsa is a solid support character, but Vesna is something else. Granted, her play style is very similar to Zibai, a Lunar Crystallize DPS character released in the Nod-Krai arc. You activate her skill to enter a special stance, use normal attacks to build up a resource, and then use that resource to launch powerful elemental skills, weaving in an elemental burst whenever you can (ideally before your final three skills).

I like Zibai, so obviously I like Vesna. I'm also attracted to power in games like this, so it helps that Vesna has been rated by many reputable Genshin theorycrafters as one of the strongest DPS characters in the game, if not the singular best for some team and build assumptions.

But what really pushes Vesna over the top is her movement utility. This is the first Genshin Impact character to fly so fast and so freely out in the open world. Chasca, another Anemo flyer, has nothing on Vesna, even with Natlan's regional bonuses supporting her.

If you hold a dash or jump on Vesna, she'll unfurl her wings and take off, able to cover surprising distances and quickly ascend before running out of stamina. In Snezhnaya, you can also swap to Vesna, and only Vesna, mid-air to instantly begin flying and regenerate a chunk of stamina.

Genshin Impact is just a different game now. For context, Xianyun is one of the weakest limited 5-star characters in the game today, but she's also one of my most-used simply because her triple-jump skill is incredibly fun and useful for exploration. Chaining Xianyun's jump into Vesna's glide in Snezhnaya is utterly transformative, and even in other regions where Vesna can't be swapped into like this, her flight time is astounding.

Exploration is a pillar of the Genshin experience, and Vesna is literally never leaving my exploration party from now on. At least not until Genshin releases, I don't know, Anemo Spider-Man. But frankly, it's hard to imagine exploration getting much breezier than this. I've played a lot of Mavuika, Sandrone, Varesa, Xilonen, Yelan, Kazuha, and all the other exploration standouts barring Wanderer. Nobody comes close. I've never had this much fun just roaming around Genshin, and I don't think I could recommend a character more strongly.

Nodusfall isn't a gacha game, Mihoyo confirms, because unlike Genshin Impact you'll unlock characters "through continued play" instead.

Aniimo, the stunning open-world creature collector unveiled at Summer Game Fest 2025 as part of the Xbox Games Showcase, is finally available to play on PC and consoles – but it's not proving too popular just yet.

Many of us Pokemon and Palworld fans were downright blown away by Pawprint Studio's adorable little creatures and vibrant visuals when Aniimo first came to light – heck, it's been on my wishlist since. The reviews so far, however, aren't exactly stellar.

As of right now, the free-to-play game sits with a "Mixed" rating overall on Steam… and, yes, much of the more negative feedback has to do with microtransactions, purchases, and the like.

"Behind all the flashy visual flair is a mind-numbingly easy, boring gameplay loop built solely to push you toward aggressive monetization," reads one such review. "The sickening amount of predatory gacha mechanics and aggressive pay-to-win walls completely ruin any sense of genuine progression. Don't waste your time or money on this hollow cash-grab."

Oof – and there are countless others like it, disappointingly enough.

One person writes, "It's very much a gacha game. When I see that you're able to spend money to obtain rare items and end-game Aniimo, it turned me away from the game. I don't mind paying for cosmetics or features that don't affect gameplay but it's disgusting how you're pushed to spend money here, so disappointed."

Others slate Aniimo for its awkward writing and "hand-holding" – a complaint many modern games are no stranger to.

Not everyone finds Aniimo a disappointment, however. There are plenty of positive reviews, with fans celebrating the creature collector as an especially "cute" gem.

I see quite a few comparisons to Infinity Nikki as well, with one review noting how Pawprint Studio's debut game is "giving Palworld x Infinity Nikki vibes." I'm personally sold on that, honestly… even if the whole microtransaction and gacha thing has me a bit wary.

Thankfully, Animo is free to download and try out. Furthermore, it's topping the charts even if its reception offers a mixed bag of negative and positive reviews – in fact, it's currently the sixth-most-played game on Steam, as per Valve's charts… so, yeah.

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

Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons ditches the quest and objective waypoints seen in many large games, and even lets you disable its small compass, to prioritize organic exploration. It's music to my ears.

General manager Dominic Guay of Warlock developer Invoke Studios spoke to IGN about the game's approach.

"We wanted them to engage with the world, to figure things out and feel that when they found things, it was based on their actions and not just blindly trusting a waypoint,” he says.

Guay, like the other former Watch Dogs developers at Invoke, speaks from experience. With a "heavy-handed guiding approach," he says, "a lot of players will just blindly follow the waypoint, and then you lose that agency, you lose that feeling of curiosity."

Before the launch of Red Dead Redemption 2, players gathered around a rumor that Rockstar had added pro-exploration settings that would disable waypoint-like hints and add additional, grounded clues into the game's world, like NPC comments or map details. Warlock uses a system that sounds a little bit like that.

As Guay explains, "Mysteries" can be uncovered through exploration and various interactions. "Not only are there multiple entry points, but depending on how you stumble upon them, it might change how you interact with them," he says. My read is that it's sort of an inverted tree structure: lots of branches to find, all leading back to the core.

This discussion on player agency and direction comes as Marvel's Wolverine, the latest from Insomniac Games, fields criticism of overdone guidance. Amidst the discussion, Insomniac says "we have been 100% listening" and "cooking hard today in response to some of the feedback." (Our own Marvel's Wolverine review mostly docks the game for messiness in its story and features, with combat never becoming good enough to carry the experience.)

Last month, we got a fresh, extended look at Warlock gameplay. Very different from D&D standard-bearer Baldur's Gate 3 and with hints of Dragon's Dogma 2, the game is shaping up to be, if nothing else, interesting.

Warlock escapes Baldur's Gate 3's long shadow with a very different take on D&D that I'm happy to roll my dice on.

Well, folks, there's a new StarCraft on the way. We've had an inkling about there being a new entry in the series thanks to rumors that have been circulating for weeks now, but during BlizzCon 2026's Opening Ceremony, the project was confirmed. It's an open-world shooter, former Far Cry boss Dan Hay is in charge alongside associate director AnaLee Haertling, and it's coming out in 2030. Yes, 2030.

I had the chance to sit down with Hay and Haertling after the announcement, and one of the first things I asked them was whether now was the right time to announce the new StarCraft considering it's still so early in development. "Absolutely," Hay said, defiantly.

"We've been working on this thing for a little bit. We're super proud of it. We feel good about it, and so it's important that we share," Hay says. "We think about the community. The community has been waiting for a long time, and we think about them. We think about what they want to say. So we said to ourselves, 'Is now the right time to start to show just an inkling of this story?' And the answer is absolutely."

A lot of StarCraft players, even diehard fans, are bristling at an announcement for a game that's still four long years away. With so much time between now and then, what are the odds that release window sticks as game development obstacles inevitably pop up? But in Hay's view, announcing the date so early is simply proof of the team's commitment to getting the job done on time.

"That shows that we're serious. That shows everyone that that's a date that we feel really confident about," Hay says. "And what I like about the team, I think we take that number and we put it on the wall. And somebody goes, 'so when is this thing going to ship?'" he adds, gesturing dramatically to a nearby wall for emphasis.

I do have to admire the new StarCraft team's gusto here. Surely, no one can be 100% confident that a project will ship on time so far in advance, but it's hard to deny the confidence. After all, the media-trained Hay could've easily deflected the question in a non-committal way that leaves open the possibility of a delay without outright admitting anything, but instead he chose to strongly double down, which should be somewhat encouraging for fans despite the disappointing wait.

Diablo is getting an animated Netflix series as Blizzard teases Overwatch and Warcraft adaptations

Every day, another generative AI provider discovers that pretending something you stole was always yours to begin with is an idea that is fundamentally incompatible with many copyright laws. That's too bad for those generative AI providers, but, in this case, great news for Genshin Impact developer HoYoverse, which has just been awarded approximately $112,000 in a Shanghai court.

Automaton reports an unnamed "AI service provider" likewise located in Shanghai must now cough up 750,000 Chinese Yuan after wrongfully reproducing 63 Genshin Impact characters' voices. The provider was ruled to have sold AI voice packs with "nearly identical characteristics" to those gacha game characters, and it used modified images of those anime babes and boyfriends to promote its already copyright-flouting packs.

Therefore, the Pudong New Area People's Court of Shanghai decided the AI company was not only infringing on HoYoverse's in-game content, but also on its character designs. It's unjust competition, the court ordered, even though its voice packs seemed to have a much more intimate purpose than the average Genshin session – they appear to have presented slightly changed versions of Genshin characters as chatty virtual avatars.

In any case, HoYoverse has triumphed over delinquent generative AI this time around. However, its $112,000 reward is a much smaller payday than it was hoping for. The company behind Honkai: Star Rail and other anime wonders originally sued the AI company for 5 million Chinese Yuan, which totals to about $745,000, and it wanted an immediate injunction.

HoYoverse ended up with a smaller version of that punishment, but the People's Court of Shanghai also demanded the AI company immediately stop its infringing behaviors.

Recently, the AI company withdrew its appeal on this judgement, making its $112,000 payment inevitable. Hopefully Grok can explain to it what went wrong.

Why so many game developers don't want to use generative AI.

Even after an hour spent exploring its bustling streets, I'm still not sure what Ananta is. Billed as an "open-world RPG", that descriptor does little to explain the vast hodge-podge of ideas and systems that have been crammed into this game, which in turn do little to explain how it can possibly be free-to-play given its bizarrely massive scope. A combination of anime excess and mechanics borrowed from games far more innovative than itself, Ananta stepped triumphantly out of Gamescom as the third most-wishlisted game of the show behind Warlock and The Witcher 3. But that still doesn't help explain just how many ideas it stapled together in barely 60 minutes of playtime.

My demo begins with a fight between my impossibly-handsome anime protagonist, who's concealing what looks suspiciously like the Venom symbiote from Marvel's Spider-Man 2 beneath his sharp suit. A fight with a collection of goons lets me fling manhole covers at advancing enemies, stepping up to beat them silly before flipping over them with a well-timed finishing move. I'd never played Ananta before last week, but I had no problems with the controls, because they feel very similar to those from a game I first played in the last few years. Of course, Insomniac isn't the only studio with the rights to make their combat feel that way. But later I'm given the opportunity to explore the city… by swinging through it by shooting out my arms to slingshot off buildings. Once again, it's pretty easy to get to grips with.

Ananta's web connects us all

The good news is that this isn't a reskin of a Peter Parker adventure. That's because between the fight and the exploration, I get into a massive car chase. For some of that time, I'm leaning out of a window, pumping lead into the windows and tires of an unending stream of bad-guy jeeps until each one in turn careens off the motorway or into traffic. For the rest of it, I'm behind the wheel, following an increasingly small and an increasingly unlikely route of side alleys and construction sites. Both the driving and the gunplay are solid, which is a pleasant surprise given how often something has to slip in 'jack-of-all-trades' games like this.

The car chase is only possible with the arrival of a second playable character, who pulls off a devilish maneuver to save my original hero that's only hindered by its even-more devilish use of jiggle physics as she wrestles with the gear stick. Once the chase is over, I'm able to swap to this second character at any point while I explore the city, zooming out before zeroing in on their location in a manner this time lifted from both Spider-Man and GTA 5.

My new character is a cop, and while my first can swing through the city using the tentacles extending from his arms, my second has her own power: the ability to question and detain random passers-by. The unfortunate salaryman I stumble across flees in fear when I try to arrest him after his breathalyzer test comes back clean, and the dev watching my play-session isn't much less alarmed.

The city I'm exploring in this section of Ananta is inspired by China's massive conurbations, and it gives me a sense of what the feeling of exploring the full game might be. As well as more random goon encounters, there are gyms, cinemas, and shops to explore, hinting at a vastly immersive version of just this one map. It's the most intriguing aspect of Ananta, but I get no time to explore it in detail, because the demo then sweeps me onto an entirely different part of the game.

This new section introduces new characters in a new map, with an entirely new gameplay approach. Instead of battles or exploration, it's a stealth section focused on two young sisters, and instead of taking place in a major city, I'm sneaking out of a rural temple. Not even the goons are the same – in the city I was fighting off rust-punk bad guys in leathers and Mad Max-style vehicles.

Here, I'm trying to evade organized kidnappers in sharp suits and animal masks. And once I'm free, I'm dropped into an entirely new part of Ananta's open-world, this one inspired by a quiet town in the Japanese countryside, where the gyms and cinemas are replaced by fairground games and market stalls. It's very pretty, but a complete non-sequitur to the rest of the game, with no connective tissue between the two halves of the demo.

But, I feel like that's indicative of what Ananta is. An 'everything game', where so many different ideas are thrown together so quickly and eclectically that the average player simply doesn't have time to get bored of one before they move onto another. So what if the exploration and traversal systems are lifted wholesale from games you've already seen? So what if the only thing disguising that is anime art that does nothing to reinvent those systems, and simply obscures their origins instead?

There's so much going on, so much of it taken all-but wholesale from other places, that Ananta barely holds together anything resembling its own identity. It's a series of ideas delivered better elsewhere, just good enough that it doesn't fall apart at the seams, but not good enough that those seams are holding together anything of any real worth.

As a free-to-play spin on a world that speaks to some of the ideas contained within GTA 6, I'm sure Ananta will do very well, and its anime stylings will do enough to attract and distract an impressive audience. But, after an initial bust of interest, I'm not sure that audience will find all that much to keep them around.

An-after more like this? Our games like GTA recommendations might help, and our best open world games ranking offers more huge adventures!

Crimson Desert's first DLC expansion has been revealed – it's called Charting the Unknown, and it's out next month.

Shown off during today's PlayStation State of Play, Charting the Unknown's trailer shows that Crimson Desert is still apparently aiming to include as many different game mechanics and features as possible, because base building has now been shown off.

We also see Cliff steering a boat before exploring underwater, even holding onto the back of a massive shark to travel around under the sea. Oh, and we later see a giant enemy robot firing an enormous red laser of mass destruction. There's just a lot going on.

Of course, we can expect more story, too – the trailer's video description notes that "Kliff, Oongka, and Damiane set out to discover their purpose and shape their futures. However, as turmoil unfolds around them, each must fight to forge a path through the trials ahead. Join them on a new adventure and discover what new possibilities await across Pywel."

We already knew that developer Pearl Abyss was shifting its focus to DLC, finally slowing down on its speedy pace of free updates that have been arriving in the massive open world game since its release. In addition, it was previously stated that Pearl Abyss was "targeting a release within this year," so it's comfortably managed that.

Crimson Desert: Charting the Unknown releases on October 15, 2026, so there's not long to wait for it. Pre-orders are already open, with pre-order bonuses for the Charter's and Charter's Light Diving Sets available to those who buy early.

New Crimson Desert Enhanced update meant to "improve the narrative flow" actually makes it feel "like a different game," fans say.

CD Projekt Red hasn't forgotten about its enigmatic new IP Hadar amid all the clamoring over The Witcher 4. The developer confirms during its 2026 earnings conference on September 2 that the covert project originally revealed in 2022 is comfortably in pre-production.

"Hadar is still in the concept phase," CD Projekt Red vice president of investor relations Karolina Gnaś tells investors. This is basically a repeat of what we heard during another CD Projekt Red earnings conference earlier this year in March, when joint CEO Michał Nowakowski said devs had "established the foundations of this entirely new IP," and they were ready to start prototyping.

Gnaś now shares that the Hadar team includes "over 30 people," and CD Projekt Red hopes "to hire more, up to 50 developers by the end of this year." In comparison, The Witcher 4 has almost 500 people carefully tending its fire ahead of its targeted 2028 release date.

So it sounds like Hadar development is gliding cleanly along, since CD Projekt Red is still planning on expanding its team after posting job ads this summer looking for help with "an emotional, open-world experience."

But Hadar is certainly not CD Projekt Red's priority right now – not with the big shadow of The Witcher 4 gulping up everything.

"Right now," Gnaś continues to say about Hadar, "the team is mostly focused on testing different approaches, ideas, and, you know, prototyping some gameplay element, and this is it."

I imagine Hadar will release much later than The Witcher 4, surpassing six years since its reveal, especially as CD Projekt Red tends to favor extended release cycles. I mean, it's launching The Witcher 3 DLC over 10 years after the base game came out. Patience is necessary here.

The Witcher 4 devs aren't announcing every milestone because they're "very technical," but they're focused on "the actual making of the game till its release date."

Warlock, the next big D&D game after 2023's Baldur's Gate 3, made a big splash at this week's Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026, straight-up spoiling RPG nerds with a nearly ten-minute showcase including breathtaking cinematics as well as combat and exploration-focused gameplay. And while there's zero doubt Warlock is a D&D game through and through, featuring an original story pulled from established lore, developer Invoked Studios is very much designing the game as a standalone RPG bearing the developer's unique trademark.

"We're working really closely with the TTRPG folks as well as Wizards of the Coast to try and see how we can bring our own secret sauce to the game," Warlock creative director Jeffrey Hattem tells GamesRadar+ during Gamescom 2026.

"We're not just there, right? We respect the brand of D&D. We're building on the shoulders of giants, obviously. It's a 50-plus year game that has a collaboration of many storytellers, writers, artists, and we're looking to put our own contribution to the world of D&D as well. We're adding new spells as well. It's not just what you're typically expecting."

In the same interview, Hattem made a point to distance Warlock from Baldur's Gate 3 despite calling Larian's award-winning RPG "a great game" and expressing anticipation for Divinity. He also confirmed you'll be able to enjoy Warlock completely without any previous knowledge of D&D, which is great to hear as someone whose only experience with the franchise is Baldur's Gate.

"We're building a game that is intended for players that could have never played Dungeons and Dragons," he says. "It's not required to come in. [Protagonist] Kaatri is a stranger in a strange land ... players can go along that journey with her as well at the same time and learn what they need to know, but if you're a fan of D&D, I hope that you're going to find a lot of Easter eggs and secrets and realizations of things that you would expect and find familiar as well."

Warlock escapes Baldur's Gate 3's long shadow with a very different take on D&D that I'm happy to roll my dice on

One of the odder surprises from Gamescom Opening Night Live was the reveal of Crimson Desert Enhanced. It partly encompasses a brand-new 2.0 update adding substantially more depth to the game's story, but it's a soft rebrand that marks the culmination of all the work developer Pearl Abyss has done to improve Crimson Desert since launch. Those free updates are now slowing down so that the studio can shift its focus to the upcoming DLC.

"I think this is a great transition point," PR and marketing director Will Powers explains in an interview with IGN. "We've had this great pace of updates continually expanding the world of Pywell. With 2.0, this is all very purposeful in how we name stuff. This is very much a fully realized experience within the world."

Powers explains that "while there still will be updates, I don't think the scope, scale, and pace of them will be as consistent past this point. What we're taking this opportunity to do is shift our development resources from these regular updates to focus on the upcoming DLC."

That big Crimson Desert DLC is still set to launch later this year, and after the main game's wild success Pearl Abyss has plenty more plans for further expansion of the budding franchise. We don't have any concrete details on what that DLC will look like or what those follow-ups will actually be, but after five months of expansive updates and massive unit sales, I think Crimson Desert has already more than proven itself.

Crimson Desert did so well that developer Pearl Abyss reported 94% increased labor expenses due to "performance bonus payments" made to 1,035 employees.

Just yesterday, Pearl Abyss rolled out the Crimson Desert Enhanced update. A substantial patch, among the changes are new scenes and added depth to the central narrative, and players are astounded by just how different everything feels now, including Kliff himself.

According to the official patch notes, this "enhanced" version of the fantasy playground makes changes across both questlines and the overarching storyline. "Improved the narrative flow of the main story," reads the description. "Added knowledge, items, memory fragments, dialog lines and conversations to strengthen the narrative of bosses."

On paper, this sounds like there might simply be more flavor text, and the cutscenes will get polished to look and flow better. You mightn't even notice a difference, except in places the devs felt weren't quite up to scratch at the time of release.

In execution, it feels like a whole other game, particularly in early parts. Kliff now has more inner monologue that helps flesh out why he's getting involved in things the way he is, particularly with the Greymanes. On top of this, sidequests have more context for how they contribute to the overall backdrop of Pywel.

It appears Pearl Abyss has found the rare instance where the protagonist's internal thoughts are actually more helpful, rather than falling prey to the Blade Runner effect where they over-explain everything. Players, many of whom have clocked hundreds of hours, are rediscovering the game with joy.

"Started with a new save and the introduction is already infinitely better than what it was previously," says one fan on Reddit. "Kliff actually questions what is happening to him and there is more context on how he gets his powers."

There are numerous threads of a similar vibe. "Decided to start a separate new game to see the difference and WOW THEY REDID the entire beginning part so far. It feels like a different game," says another player who says they have 400 hours clocked in Crimson Desert.

The Crimson Desert Enhanced update is available now. Don't forget there's actual DLC coming as well.

Crimson Desert did so well that developer Pearl Abyss reported 94% increased labor expenses due to "performance bonus payments" made to 1,035 employees

Yesterday, the Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026 showcase graced us with a neat, nearly ten-minute-long look at Warlock, the next big Dungeons & Dragons-inspired video game to come after Larian Studios' own Baldur's Gate 3 back in 2023.

Warlock was first unveiled last year when D&D publisher Wizards of the Coast revealed that it was working on a new open-world game featuring Tasha, an archmage and demonologist you might recognize from various other adventures within the Forgotten Realms.

Last night, Gamescom 2026 offered us a deeper peek at the mysterious project – one that shows how so very different it actually is from Baldur's Gate 3… and developers agree.

Speaking to GamesRadar+ in a new interview, vice president of creative at Invoke Studios Jeffrey Hattem explains as much when asked about Baldur's Gate 3 and the influence it might have had on Warlock – seeing as, you know, it's arguably one of the most influential RPGs to date.

"What we're doing is very different as [what] you saw from From Baldur's Gate," the lead admits, going on to praise Larian's record-breaking Game of the Year winner.

"It's a great game," Hattem says. "I enjoyed it as well when I played it." It's no Warlock, however. "We're set in a different part of Dungeons and Dragons," as the VP describes, "so we're in the Domain of Dread, going into the realm of Darkon."

That checks out. Darkon is in fact the largest domain in Ravenloft, one of my favorite (and many other players') D&D settings – it's no Faerûn, as it's in an entirely separate plane.

Regardless, I'm incredibly excited to dive into Wizards of the Coast's big game – and ready to enjoy D&D in a non-turn-based setting, too. What little we've seen so far makes me believe that Warlock's new take on the tabletop classic will, in fact, work… and it'll work well.

Searching for other new games to hop into? Here are the best tabletop RPGs you and your pals can enjoy this year – there's more than D&D out there, after all.

Tonight's Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026 showcase brought many an intriguing reveal and sneak peek – including a nearly ten-minute long look at Warlock, the next big Dungeons & Dragons-inspired video game to come after Baldur's Gate 3.

Late last year, D&D publisher Wizards of the Coast unveiled that it was working on a new open-world game dubbed Warlock – a game that features Tasha, an archmage and demonologist you might recognize from various other adventures in the Forgotten Realms. We've not seen too much of Warlock since, but the brand-new trailer highlighted today at Gamescom 2026 provides us with a solid eight minutes of the game – and I can't get enough.

At the beginning of the trailer, we get a good look at experienced warrior Kaatri and, of course, Tasha, who is also voiced by Maggie Robertson – the Maggie Robertson, who plays Orin the Red in Baldur's Gate 3 and Lady Dimitrescu in Resident Evil Village.

The new trailer is also letting us get to know the story of Warlock a bit better. As per Wizards of the Coast's description, Warlock follows Kaatri after she "makes a dangerous pact with Tasha to find someone she has lost."

As Kaatri, we'll "combine forbidden magic, spells, rituals, and otherworldly weapons to open paths, create advantages, uncover secrets, and defeat monsters creatively" – you know, D&D-style. The setting itself places us in Darkon, the largest domain in Ravenloft.

I'm impressed by the gameplay as well, with all of its gritty RPG vibes. It's giving Dragon's Dogma 2 in the best way possible, with D&D flair to boot. Hopefully, when Warlock arrives sometime in 2027, it delivers – and something tells me it will.

Searching for other new games to hop into? Here are the best tabletop RPGs you and your pals can enjoy this year – there's more than D&D out there, after all.

It's Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026, which means we're getting a first look at a plethora of new titles and various sneak peeks at those we've already been looking forward to – including Ananta.

In case you've not seen Ananta out in the wild before, it's a free-to-play open-world anime-style game (say that three times fast, eh?) with some heavy GTA vibes that mark it as an action-packed adventure fans of Rockstar's own beloved series won't want to miss – and it turns out it's arriving sooner than expected.

As per its new trailer showcased at Gamescom 2026, in fact, the Ananta release date is January 2027... just two months after GTA 6 drops on November 19 this year. Although developer Naked Rain and publisher NetEase Games don't provide us with a specific launch day or time just yet, that's still a pretty solid little window.

Plus, it's not all that far off now – only five months, give or take, in fact, depending on what particular date Ananta releases come January of next year.

As for the gameplay itself, it looks just as Grand Thefto Auto-y as ever, with high-speed vehicle chases, high-speed combat, and high-speed vehicular... flying?! There's a lot going on, honestly, but I'm locked in.

The anime aesthetic is eye-catching, too, if I do say so myself. The characters are all gorgeous, the outfits are peak, and the world design is impressive (from what we can see so far, anyway – and I'm not the only one loving it all, judging by the comments.

"Holy," reads one, "that’s so peak!" Another person exclaims, "I HAVEN'T FELT THIS HAPPY IN SO LONG. LET'S GOOO!"

Here's hoping it arrives sooner rather than later in January, as it's evident we all can't wait to get our hands on it – and, thankfully, it'll be on PC, PlayStation 5, and mobile platforms.

Searching for even more to look forward to? Here's our handy roundup of the most exciting new games coming this year and beyond to wishlist.

Pearl Abyss has announced Crimson Desert Enhanced: a new update for the massive open-world game bringing new story moments to the game.

During Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026 Pearl Abyss unleashed a new trailer for Crimson Desert. However, it wasn't a trailer for the DLC expansion, or even some new animals to tame like most updates before it. The trailer touted "new story moments," being added to the game, which should hopefully flesh out the narrative – which many consider to be the weakest part of the game.

Alongside the story changes, Pearl Abyss announced an "expanded voice over" with German, French, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and Japanese options being made available, as well as Arabic subtitles and UI. This is considered Crimson Desert's 2.0 update, with it being a free update for every owner of the open-world game.

While the game itself is fairly beloved, the story is pretty universally regarded as nothing special. So much so that even Pearl Abyss' shareholders were questioning Crimson Desert's lackluster drama, which in turn had Pearl Abyss CEO Heo Jin-young previously admitting that the game's narrative wasn't the best.

But given that the devs have been pretty frequently patching out players issues with Crimson Desert since its release, it's not entirely surprising that a story update was on the way. And of course, we already know that Crimson Desert DLC is on the way, so perhaps making a better story will be high up on the agenda for the eventual expansion.

Crimson Desert did so well that developer Pearl Abyss reported 94% increased labor expenses due to "performance bonus payments" made to 1,035 employees

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cult classic open-world game The Simpsons: Hit and Run could finally be getting a revival, if series creator Matt Groening is to be believed.

Via Empire, Groening took the stage during D23 2026 and seemingly let some news slip that he wasn't supposed to. Groening was asked whether there will ever be another Simpsons: Hit & Run game, and he appeared to tease a remake. "I think the original game is coming back in some form," he said, before current Simpsons showrunner Matt Selman cut in with, "or not."

The Simpsons: Hit & Run has seemingly been stuck in some sort of rights purgatory having originally been published by Vivendi, which was acquired by Activision and then brought under the Microsoft umbrella in 2023 with Microsoft's acquisition of Activision. Disney owns the overall series, but it's unclear if there's another entity that would need to give the green light for a continuation or revival of the Hit & Run intellectual property specifically.

After more than two decades, it's reasonable that some fans have given up entirely on getting a remake or sequel, and in some cases have embraced that as a good thing, but Selman said as recently as this March to "never say never" when it comes to more Hit & Run. Now, with Groening seemingly let some sort of remake or remaster project slip, Hit & Run fans have more reason than ever to be optimistic.

The Simpsons: Hit & Run is a GTA-like open-world adaptation of Groening's iconic cartoon sitcom. Developer Radical Entertainment reportedly began working on a sequel immediately upon Hit & Run's release but was forced to cancel the project when Vivendi declined to renew the license. The game was never ported outside of its original platforms GameCube, PS2, Xbox, and Windows PC.

Here are the best open world games you can play right now.

PlayStation and Sucker Punch have announced that Ghost of Yotei is getting a major DLC expansion called Echoes of Sekigahara. It launches on October 1 alongside other new content and Ghost of Yotei: Complete Edition, which includes all previously released updates and will be available on a physical disc.

"Ghost of Yōtei: Echoes of Sekigahara is our new narrative expansion. Split between the present day and flashbacks to Atsu’s time on the mainland, you’ll meet Nagato, a figure from Atsu’s past who has arrived in Ezo," Sony explains on the PlayStation Blog.

"In the present, you’ll explore a previously unseen valley once inhabited by The Snake and his gang of loyal followers, the Vipers. In the past, you’ll experience Atsu’s time in the Battle of Sekigahara and a key moment in her life before she returned home for her quest for vengeance. You’ll meet new enemies and find new heavy weapons, new armor sets, new dyes, and more."

October 1 will also see the launch of Most Wanted, a "single-player combat survival mode" which the devs describe as "our spin on a roguelike." Each run will see you taking down enemies to earn perks and unlock new playable characters. The devs plan to announce more details on both expansions ahead of launch.

Both of these DLC add-ons are part of the $70 Ghost of Yotei: Complete Edition. If you already own the base game, you can upgrade to Complete Edition for $14.99 USD.

The Complete Edition also includes the content that was previously included in the Digital Deluxe Edition, as well as "new tracks for Watanabe Mode," alongside "new photo mode stamps, additional cosmetics for New Game+, and new Trophies for both Echoes of Sekigahara and Most Wanted."

Additionally, a free update will launch on October 1 with a transmog feature, allowing you to equip gear for its aesthetics without being stuck with its stats. This patch will also include the "Beauty of Yotei" mode, which offers what amounts to an in-game screensaver showcasing digital Japan.

The YouTube description for the trailer also confirms that the Complete Edition will have a "physical version available October 1." While Sony is seemingly fully committed to its decision to end physical discs in 2028, it appears the company is treating physical games as normal until then. I'm just hoping that the physical Complete Edition will, indeed, be complete, with all that DLC and add-on content actually included on the disc rather than a download code.

These are the upcoming PS5 games you need to know about.

Open-world behemoth Crimson Desert has been one of the year's big successes, earning developer Pearl Abyss an estimated $200 million in just two weeks and itself a Very Positive Steam rating based on more than 100,000 reviews at the time of writing. Considerable criticism has been levied against its apparently barebones story and since-removed AI-generated assets, but all in all, it's hard to look at Crimson Desert as anything other than a huge win for Pearl Abyss, and that success has seemingly trickled down considerably to the studio's employees.

According to Pearl Abyss's new Q2 2026 financial report, the company's labor expenses shot up 94% quarter on quarter following the release of Crimson Desert due to "performance bonus payments" paid out to 1,035 employees, which was the "total headcount" at the end of the company's second quarter. "While short-term personnel brought in during the first quarter for the launch of Crimson Desert declined, total headcount increased by 1.1% QoQ due to an influx of interns as well as additional hiring in service and marketing functions," the report clarifies.

Another way you can tell Pearl Abyss is super happy about Crimson Desert is that it's already talking about more Crimson Desert. "Crimson Desert is not a one-off title," the company said in the same financial report cited above, opening the door to "sequel titles," multiplayer expansions, and even more DLC beyond the add-on already planned for release this year.

Crimson Desert finally fixes one of its most annoying bugs after weeks of complaints

Crimson Desert developer Pearl Abyss seems to be preparing itself for an extended crimson universe after the open-world everything game's irrefutable success – it made $200 million in only two weeks, so why shouldn't the developer want to replicate that achievement with a Crimson Desert sequel, or four?

I'm sure this idea is especially tantalizing to Pearl Abyss now that Crimson Desert, which only launched in March, is already seeing its sales slow down according to a new Q2 2026 financial report. Pearl Abyss describes a weak Q2 "as the initial launch impact of Crimson Desert softened," but it seems interested in getting sales churning again by birthing a whole Crimson Desert galaxy. It says it's "open to various possibilities – including add-on content, platform expansion, and sequel titles."

Pearl Abyss is even pondering a multiplayer mode for the currently MMO-lite single-player game, given its "dynamic action combat and expansive open-world structure."

"There is significant potential for expansion into multiplayer modes," declares the developer, though it admits "integrating multiplayer functionality is far more complex than simply adding a new game mode; it represents a major technical initiative that requires comprehensive evaluation of server architecture, game balance, cross-platform stability, and live service operation models."

All of that is for future Pearl Abyss to worry about "Our immediate development priority is centered on Crimson Desert DLCs and our next pipelines," Pearl Abyss explains. It doesn't elaborate further on the possibility of a Crimson Desert sequel, or explain what other "add-on content" it's considering, but Pearl Abyss does, at least, share a couple of hazy details about the upcoming DLC it had confirmed earlier this summer.

While the developer reiterates that this DLC is under construction, it is nonetheless "scheduled for release this year while we refine its content direction and overall quality." We'll learn more about the DLC – including its price, exact launch date, and what the hell it actually includes – in Q3.

Though, Pearl Abyss is already thinking way beyond that. The developer emphasizes "Crimson Desert is not a one-off title." Instead, the developer sees main character Kliff's adventure through sand dunes and imposing monsters as only the humble start to "a core flagship IP of our company designed for longterm growth and expansion."

"Regarding the broader Crimson Desert franchise," Pearl Abyss adds, "we will evaluate future development opportunities in due course as we service the main game and its DLCs."

The developer wants to keep refining Crimson Desert, having already gladly issued a mountain of free updates and improvements to core gameplay in the few months since the fantasy game launched. And after reading Pearl Abyss' most recent financial report, I can understand why. When you think you have a cash cow, you want to treat it well.

Crimson Desert finally fixes one of its most annoying bugs after weeks of complaints.

It's taken a while - a long while - but DokeV, a Pokemon-like monster-collector from Crimson Desert studio Pearl Abyss, is eyed for release in the next couple of years. The company revealed the potential launch window in its latest earnings report, along with an upbeat report on how development is going.

"DokeV is progressing smoothly by leveraging the development assets and production experience accumulated from our previous projects," the studio says. "Having moved beyond the foundational system setup, the project is currently in the phase of expanding content creation and validating the core gameplay loop."

Basically, it sounds like the devs are filling out the map, making sure all the mechanics work, and putting systems in place for growing the base game. All positive stuff, and the really good part is what's next.

"We are targeting a launch in the second half of 2028," the report reads, "and both information releases and marketing initiatives will be executed in phases according to our development milestones."

That may be two years away, but a launch window is a launch window. If you're struggling to remember this project, you need to cast your mind back to 2019 - yes, really - where Pearl Abyss revealed DokeV after a period of ambiguity. The first proper trailer arrived at GamesCom in 2021, and we've only really had scraps since.

The publisher says the publicity machine for DokeV will kick off properly in the back half of 2027, "including hands-on playable demos and sequential information reveals." There probably won't be many trailers or teasers before then, because Pearl Abyss is wary of doing anything too early.

"Learning from past experience that releasing content too early can lead to hype fatigue, we plan to showcase the game at a timing that fully demonstrates its quality and vision," the studio adds. Todd Howard is nodding in approval, while staring at all the inquiries about The Elder Scrolls 6.

The plan was previously to have this out a year and a half later than Crimson Desert. The devs will miss that goal, but not by much. And after this much time, it's just good to see the game acknowledged at all.

Crimson Desert DLC is coming "this year" as part of "various follow-up strategies" at Pearl Abyss

Having firmly established itself as one of the biggest games of the year, we've been waiting for official word on Crimson Desert DLC since soon after it launched. Developer Pearl Abyss has been clear that expansions are coming, and now it's provided some broad details about what's coming for the fantasy sandbox.

"We are preparing various follow-up strategies for Crimson Desert, including DLCs and platform expansions," the company writes in its latest financial report. "Given that Crimson Desert is an IP with substantial potential for expansion - spanning its rich world, characters, and regions - we plan to extend its product lifecycle through a steady stream of content updates."

This is more or less what the studio and publisher have been saying for some time now, but the next part is what's actually interesting. "We are currently developing the first DLC with the goal of delivering a new gameplay experience, targeting a release within this year," the statement continues. "Details regarding its structure, pricing, and exact release schedule will be shared during the third quarter."

These things are always written in corpo-speak, but that sounds like a release window and a timetable for when we'll hear more. I'm not entirely sure if "within this year" means the calendar year or the fiscal year, but either way, it's not too far off, and knowing the cadence for when we'll see it is coming in the third quarter is helpful as well.

Pearl Abyss finishes by saying nothing is set in stone right now for how much DLC is on the way and what it'll all look like. "Our primary focus is on ensuring the quality and successful execution of the first DLC," it says, which is an entirely fair and grounded outlook.

We mightn't see a roadmap any time soon, but Kliff will have more of the wilds of Pywel to wander through in the not-too-distant future. Glorious.

Crimson Desert finally fixes one of its most annoying bugs after weeks of complaints

It may have taken a little while, but Crimson Desert developer Pearl Abyss has finally rectified a niggling problem around how food showed up in your inventory. The latest patch addresses the issue, quelling weeks of unrest from players who were growing weary of the annoyance.

The irritation lies in how the fantasy adventure automatically prioritizes your supplies. Regardless of what you're prepared and collected, low-grade items would wind up in the quick slot for fast usage to replace whatever you've just used. If you just finished a soup that buffed your health, it'd be replaced by some impractical vegetables rather the next hearty meal you were carrying, requiring you to manually place something more useful and nourishing in there instead.

Pearl Abyss has now stamped out this particular bug. "Fixed an issue where an unintended item was assigned to the quick slot after all of the assigned food had been consumed," read the patch notes.

And the crowd goes wild. Players within the community were quick to celebrate the change. "Rejoice the food has been fixed!!!" says an elated commenter on Reddit. Amusingly, the top-rated comment is someone complaining about seeing this complaint on every thread.

A solution that truly makes everyone happy. You can find complaints about this stemming back weeks and months, with players growing increasingly tired of having to rejig their quick slot during boss battles and other testy encounters.

It's definitely a bugbear, and likely something that's been in the queue for addressing for the devs for some time. The day is now here! And now there's one less thing to blame when you get stamped out by a big beasty. Time to get good.

Crimson Desert update overhauls the game's economy with 133 new trading posts and trade goods that change in price

The joy of gaming is often in getting stuck in for yourself. But, returning to Ghost Recon Wildlands for its new, free Last Rites update (part of the series' 25th anniversary celebration), I'm reminded that there's also something special about not getting your hands dirty. I crawl on my elbows towards an enemy outpost, pop up my drone-cam to scout the area, and command my squad to cover marked enemies before I give the command to silently open fire on them all in sync, staying undetected.

Slow and steady can feel as good as going in guns blazing, and the joy of Ghost Recon is in making that tactical pace feel like a real thrill. Having an excuse to revisit Ghost Recon Wildlands makes for some of the most exciting open world stealth I've experienced since my last Metal Gear Solid 5 replay (or the more fantasy-tinged Styx: Blades of Greed). In a gaming landscape where even the best shooters grow more reliant on explosive set-pieces, I'm overjoyed to return to something a bit more cerebral with Ghost Recon Wildlands – Last Rites.

Ghost revisitation

For some reason the first new Ghost Recon content we've had in years has been added for free to Wildlands, first released in 2017, which isn't even the most recent game in the series. 2019's entry was, however, more divisive – we called it "ridiculously repetitive" in our Ghost Recon Breakpoint review. That might be because Wildlands' Bolivian setting – despite causing a diplomatic incident – still feels more ripe with possibility that Breakpoint's archipelago. Even in the base game, the scale and density of Bolivia always left you with the feeling that there was more to discover.

Ghost Recon Wildlands – Last Rites sees the four-person Ghost Squad (though you can play solo with no companions still, if you wish) called back to Bolivia after several years to tie up loose ends from their original mission, centering on the emergence of a new faction, a cult led by the mask-wearing La Llorona. At odds with UNIDAD (who have also returned – if only to provide a reason for their camps to be repopulated), this shadowy group worships their leader like a religious figure. Though her identity is secret, it seems she has history with the CIA, who are the ones that task Ghost Squad with quashing this uprising.

In practice, Last Rites forms six missions, essentially making La Llorna herself an extra one of the many boss nodes that scatter the base game's map, with her influence spanning just a few regions of Bolivia. Early missions push Ghost Squad out of their comfort zone as they secure evidence of La Llorna's existence from UNIDAD compounds are highlights, and there's a creepy sense that they've been thrust into a conflict beyond their understanding as they stumble upon some very grisly scenes a few steps behind the cult.

As usual, part of the joy of these Wildlands missions is how you're free to choose your own method of approach – whether that's going in guns blazing or sticking to the shadows, or literally adjusting your direction of entry. One has me trading a truck for a motorbike, going off-road over a mountain so me and the squad can snipe our way through a base from the high ground rather than try to drive through blockades towards the booby-trapped entrance to a cultist outpost. Another has me liberating an impressive arsenal from a cult armory that I can then take into the next mission to give myself an advantage (though I lose it all when I gleefully drift into a pile of explosives and we all immediately perish).

Six missions can only sustain so much, however, and it leaves the ending of this storyline feeling a bit rushed. It feels rotten to grumble about free content, but it speaks to the strength of Last Rites' set-up that I wish there was more to this. La Llorna is just as compelling an antagonist as the base game's El Sueño, if not more so, so there's the sense that something is off when he has a massive network that fuels the whole base game, whereas La Llorna is taken out by Ghost Squad in just a handful of missions. Though, as part of the anniversary, Ubisoft has teased that development of a new game in the series is well underway. Leaving us wanting more is definitely part of the plan with Last Rites, and who knows – maybe La Llorna's influence could persist in a new entry?

As well as the Last Rites story expansion, Ghost Recon Wildlands has received a big update with a list of huge improvements – 4K/60fps support on PS5 and Xbox Series X, new customization options from gear to difficulty and other gameplay parameters, and the restoration of previously time-limited content including the Predator crossover (who killed me and my squad many times). Personally, I love it when late updates to games do away with FOMO and restore previously limited content. It feels like a real celebration.

But, Ghost Recon Wildlands still feels like a game from 2017. Even on a PC with the settings cranked up to ultra, it's pretty but you can see the cracks. Both enemy and squad AI can get more than a little wonky. There are plenty of animation bugs, ranging from me permanently getting stuck in a 'caught in a beartrap' pose that forced me to restart from a checkpoint, to having a squad member respawn within a truck as we made a fast exit out of an enemy base only to have them glued in a standing and firing position to the exterior of the door itself.

Yet, expecting perfection in any game – even a modern release – is exhausting. Video games are playful creations with so many moving parts that seeing the cracks just proves actual people made them. Even the most famous paintings in the world have some odd brushtrokes. Even James Cameron is willing to leave in a shot that includes the camera lens being wiped with a cloth.

In the grand scheme of things, these moments will feel unobtrusive, ideally any annoyance lost in a sea of much better points. Ghost Recon Wildlands has plenty of issues, but returning to it all these years later, the simple joy of tackling a massive open world full of baddies to track down and defeat makes for a great mission sandbox, like a soupy mix between Far Cry 3 and Metal Gear Solid 5, with a touch of Watch Dogs 2 with its drone-based enemy marking.

Back then, shooters felt over-stuffed with this sort of thing, with plenty of franchises chasing the open world bone, and it made Wildlands – despite its unique blend of mechanics – struggle to stand out. Revisiting it now, it's almost refreshing. It makes me wonder how many older games could be revitalized with an injection of new content.

In a struggling games industry with bloated game budgets and production schedules, where dropping the cash on a major new hit may still not return enough revenue to keep creatives employed, I'm not the only one thinking this could be the move. After all, even The Witcher 3 is getting new DLC with Songs of the Past. If this becomes a trend, I'm fine with it – my backlog may be heaving with more potential than I realized.

Check out our best open world games list for more big adventures, and our best Tom Clancy games ranking for more espionage.

Yet another Crimson Desert update is rolling out across each platform in what's become an almost weekly tradition for developer Pearl Abyss. New week, new patch. This one overhauls the open-world game's economy with 133 new trading posts and more ways to fatten your pockets with the weight of endless gold.

Those 133 trading posts will start popping up after progressing through quests, but what's more interesting is how players can now interact with the game's various traders. Harder-to-reach trading wagons will offer you higher prices for the same goods, for example, while royal posts offer you quadruple the price they used to for selling stuff.

Trading posts also stock a more diverse range of goods, wagons no longer disappear after delivering goods to a royal post, and "trade good prices change when too many are sold at a single location." The basics of supply and demand, now in Crimson Desert. Essentially, there's more ways than ever to get rich quick and make the stonks shoot up.

"Added 24 new types of high-value trade goods and 4 new types of regular trade goods," Pearl Abyss' patch notes explain. "Packaged trade goods can now be stacked up to a maximum of 10 or 100, depending on their price."

There's also now a 'Claim Bank Strongbox' feature. "Depositing 10 or more bonds allows you to start investing," the studio says. "Bonds can be exchanged for 10 Gold Bars." And you can buy rare items with your bonds, too.

With so many new trading outposts and ways to engage in Crimson Desert's economy, the map will also let you use filters to find posts, royal posts, wagon workshops, and wagon routes. Heck, you can even filter the map to only show you trading posts that sell the items you're looking for, which is really handy for a game that now has over a 100 vendors.

I'd recommend skimming the rest of the patch notes to get a gist of everything that's new, alongside all the bugs Pearl Abyss have squashed.

While Crimson Desert continues to receive near-constant updates with free content, Pearl Abyss is also working on paid DLC that's "substantively different" at the same time.

See what else is on the horizon with our new games of 2026 guide.

Today's Genshin Impact 7.0 livestream confirmed an expansion to the game's To Temper Thyself and Journey Far event, better known as the 5-star Constellation selector. With nine new characters added to the selectable roster, the free 5-star options have grown considerably as the event enters its fifth cycle.

Provided you already have the character themselves, as of update 7.0 you'll be able to claim one free Constellation for the following characters in addition to those already available in the selector:

• Lyney
• Wriothesley
• Navia
• Xianyun
• Chiori
• Sigewinne
• Clorinde
• Emilie
• Yumemizuki Mizuki

As expected, the newly added characters are Fontaine-focused, though some players have also expressed their shock at seeing Sumeru characters like Al Haitham skipped over.

Wriothesley, who was recently buffed with the introduction of the Stellar Conduct reaction, is comfortably one of the strongest picks for an early Constellation.

Standard character Yumemizuki Mizuki, who seems to benefit from the addition of the Stellar Swirl reaction in update 7.0, is also surprisingly relevant. I'll probably end up snagging Wriothesley for power, Xianyun for exploration, and Chiori and Emilie to make them slightly stronger as off-field options.

The rules of the selector haven't changed from the first four cycles. As developer Hoyoverse reiterated on-stream, players "can claim one Stella Fortuna [Constellation upgrade] for characters you own from the list above. Each character can only receive it once."

As ever, you can claim these freebies by completing daily tasks multiple times a week for eight weeks in a row, with miscellaneous bonus rewards to follow once you claim the Constellation for each cycle.

All Genshin Impact codes and how to redeem them.

Late last year, Dungeons & Dragons publisher Wizards of the Coast revealed that it's working on a new open-world game, the ever-mysterious Warlock, and its cast has now added a well-known games star.

The Hasbro company didn't unveil too much about the exciting title, aside from the fact that it is not, in fact, a turn-based game like Baldur's Gate 3 (much to many fans' disappointment, I'd say) – no dice rolls, and a less "tabletop" vibe. It's also evidently magic-heavy, if the name didn't give it away, and an entirely single-player experience.

Warlock almost strikes me as a mashup of Skyrim and D&D so far, but it's difficult to tell… yet.

What we do now know, however, is that Tasha – the archmage and demonologist you might recognize from various adventures in the Forgotten Realms – is featured in Warlock, and she's voiced by none other than Lady Dimitrescu actor Maggie Robertson.

Yes, the very same Maggie Robertson who plays Orin the Red in Baldur's Gate 3. She'll be taking care of Tasha's motion performance capture as well, if her voice wasn't exciting enough.

Kaatri, the protagonist of Warlock, also has quite the star backing her voice: Tricia Helfer of Battlestar Galactica and Lucifer.

It's shaping up to be one heck of a cast, that's for certain – and if other D&D games like Baldur's Gate 3 taught us anything, it's that the cast can shine very brightly in such titles. Something tells me that Warlock will serve as a great example of this, too, when it arrives sometime in 2027.

I'm excited to see how Tasha fits into Warlock and what the dynamic is like between Kaatri and the historically chaotic evil mage – there's a lot that Wizards of the Coast and developer Invoke Studios could do here lore-wise, but they're not being too open with what we can expect to see just yet.

Searching for other new games to hop into? Here are the best tabletop RPGs you and your pals can enjoy this year – there's more than D&D out there, after all.

Treyarch's original Spider-Man game lacked something. It was solidly made, and enjoyable enough to play, but failed to replicate the visceral thrill of hurtling through New York as a web-slinging superhero. It didn't capture the freedom, speed and fluidity of movement that makes Spider-Man so compelling.

Jamie Fristrom, one of Treyarch's first employees and a key member of the development team, had been away on his honeymoon when work started on Spider-Man, which was based around the first instalment of the Sam Raimi trilogy. Fristrom returned to the office to find that his colleagues had embarked down a different path to the one he envisaged.

Webs were essentially cosmetic and players could swing continuously from one to another, regardless of whether they attached to anything or not. They didn't respond to your momentum either, carrying you along at the same steady pace regardless of circumstance.

Fristrom felt that the web-swinging experience wasn't anywhere near dynamic or immersive enough. It also made Spider-Man too easy, depriving the game of the necessary speed and peril. "I was pretty disappointed by that, but I also knew that doing something more 'realistic', with physics and grappling hooks, where you actually attach to stuff, was probably not going to fly," he says. "But, during the development of that game, I did work late to cobble together my own ideas. About six months into production, I'd got something that I liked and I showed it around the team. They thought it was interesting and had potential."

That initial discussion with team members gave Fristrom the confidence to push his idea further. "I talked to the owners of Treyarch – my college buddies – and said, 'Here, look what I did.' They were like, 'Come on, Jamie, be reasonable. You can't change the core game mechanic halfway through!' It also wasn't quite there yet. You'd swing and you'd stick to a wall automatically, because Spider-Man was pretty sticky back then. That wasn't fun."

Treyarch decided to continue with the initial plan and put Fristrom's ideas to one side, at least temporarily. After the game was released in 2002, the development team went to watch Spider-Man in the cinema for the first time, an experience which changed everything. Spellbound by the film's sheer dynamism, they recognised that a more ambitious approach would be needed to ensure the sequel lived up to heightened expectations.

"Maybe we still didn't know what to do next, but we knew exactly where we were heading. Now we could do iteration after iteration. If you feel it strongly enough, getting there is just a matter of work. And we were excited enough that we didn't care how much work it would take," says Tomo Moriwaki, the game's creative director.

Soon after Spider-Man shipped, the next game was underway. Treyarch had two years to deliver Spider-Man 2 and spent the first six months of that in preproduction, refining Fristrom's prototype. "We had this period where we had one team working on gameplay and controls and character and how the camera would work, and then another team working on the tech," he explains.

"In today's world, with the kind of budgets that would be in place for a game like that now, it's unreasonable. Our bosses would have stopped us," says Moriwaki. "But, at the time, there was more distance between publisher and developer, and even the leaders of the development company. We were given a wider berth."

There was no guarantee that all this experimentation would deliver the results they wanted, causing a lot of anxiety. "There were several months of us telling our bosses, like, 'Don't look at it yet! Don't look at it yet!' That moment came where we couldn't hold them off anymore," recalls Fristrom. "That was a great day for us because they were all very impressed. They ran it all the way up the chain to the chief operating officer of Activision to show everybody what we'd done."

The new fluid style of web-swinging, in which Spider-Man would latch onto a building, lamppost, tree or other structure and pivot like a pendulum, was given resounding approval. The more attachment points that were added, the smoother the experience became. You could suddenly cover large distances much more quickly than before, in a way that felt liberating and much truer to the film. "Spider-Man becomes more like a ball that just moves through space and is influenced by the choices we make with the controller," says Moriwaki. "That shifted our thinking towards uninterrupted movement. We were on the hunt for animation transitions that took account of player velocity. If you were swinging at like 70 miles an hour, if you let go, you'd fly at that speed before starting to slow down."

This one fundamental change served as the catalyst for so many others that came together to make Spider-Man 2 far more engaging and memorable than its predecessor. Building a large open-world environment – a faithful recreation of Spider-Man's version of Manhattan that players could freely explore outside of missions – was one of the most significant, drawing inevitable comparisons with Grand Theft Auto.

Programmer Greg Taylor led the city's construction, which was a huge task. "It took longer than we expected. Greg definitely did get pretty stressed out," says Fristrom. "One of the things we had that GTA 3 didn't have was the verticality. On GTA, you're usually down on the road so you can't see that far. If you haven't loaded in distant neighbourhoods because you don't have the memory, or whatever, then it didn't matter that much.

"With Spider-Man, you could go up to the top of the Empire State Building and look around so we needed something. You couldn't just have a fog plane, like so many games did back then. Somebody came up with the idea of loading in these low-detail neighbourhoods that were basically just boxes. Always having those things in memory was pretty key, and then just having the nearby stuff loaded in high detail."

Eric Pavone and other designers populated Manhattan with activity to keep players occupied between missions. You can make deliveries for the pizzeria and take photographs for the Daily Bugle. There are various races to complete, hidden tokens to collect and crimes to stop, each earning you Hero Points that are used to buy upgrades like new attack moves or increased swing speed.

The most common type of challenges in Spider-Man 2, where you have to stop a crime or help a member of the public, were referred to as 'shenanigans' by the Treyarch team. Some had to be initiated by players, while others occurred at random, leaving you to choose whether or not to intervene. Time limits occasionally applied, like when a ship was sinking or a construction worker was about to fall from a ledge.

The lack of variety in shenanigan scenarios is one of the game's biggest drawbacks, forcing players to stop an armed carjacking, rescue a kid's lost balloon or retrieve a stolen purse from a mugger many times over. This was a by-product of the approach the team had taken and the scale of what they were trying to achieve. "Part of the problem is that, in hindsight, we were a prototype game long enough that we had to use whatever the results were," says Moriwaki. "We were just diligently going on, building all kinds of complex infrastructure for a system that we didn't know would work. Because of the way we were doing it, it had to work.

"Some of that stuff, like the armoured car robbery, was really complicated. It was already a huge logical difference to the way we scripted gameplay. It meant we were going to have to be responsible for itemising what we pulled into the scene, and also when we dumped it out. That required a difficult and complex memory management and streaming logic model."

Screen to controller

Matthew B Rhoades adapted the Spider-Man 2 screenplay to create the story. It covers the main plotline, the rise of Doctor Octopus and his fusion experiment that threatens to destroy New York, but other Marvel villains like Rhino, Mysterio and Shocker are drafted in to extend the gameplay. A highly sexualised Black Cat competes with Mary Jane Watson for Spider-Man's attentions as he struggles to reconcile his superhero responsibilities with his normal life as Peter Parker.

"We had to get approval and that wasn't automatic for us. We did a first round of just asking for a lot of different characters and a bunch of them came back 'no'. All the stuff that they said 'yes' to, we basically came up with a rationale for it," says Moriwaki. "We broke up the overall story into half a dozen pieces and then plopped the movie script's key points across that timeframe. We just found a place for it to fit in."

There was lots of extra content that the team wanted to include. Too much, as it turned out. "We were definitely behind schedule near the end. If the movie had come out when they originally said it was going to, I don't know what we would have done," says Jamie. "We got a three-month reprieve. That gave us time to bring more polish. Even with that, we had plans to do this whole sewer system with the Lizard boss, which ended up making it into the third game eventually."

Looking back, Moriwaki believes that the team were simply too close to the project, and too passionate about it, to recognise that their bold plans were getting out of hand. Eventually, Activision had to intervene, requesting that Treyarch narrow the scope of the game considerably to ensure that everything could be finished in time. Some painful sacrifices had to be made. "Spider-Man 2 must have more cut content than any game that had come out until that point," says Moriwaki. "The amount that was cut is staggering. There were some people on the project who had almost their entire work removed from the shipped game and that's terrible."

The control system used in Spider-Man was completely overhauled to make the sequel's gameplay as fluid and fast-paced as Treyarch wanted it to be. Amid all the excitement about what they'd created, there was an underlying concern that players might find the new controls too complex, potentially alienating a significant chunk of their audience.

Feedback from playtests was inconclusive. The team estimated that 10% of players might struggle but worried that the true figure could end up being even higher. "It's probably one of the most difficult core game mechanics that you can dump in somebody's lap and say, 'Here, learn this!'" says Jamie. "I was nervous as we were shipping the final thing. It was like, 'Will people just buy this and not be willing to figure out how to play it?' Most games with 3D swinging do fail, but I have a theory that the lure of Spider-Man means people are willing to get over that learning curve."

The new control system was much less intuitive than the previous one, but with the time and space to practise, which the open-world setting offered in abundance, its intricacies would gradually become second nature to most players, making Spider-Man 2 a far more rewarding experience. Treyarch's leap of faith paid off spectacularly. With the success of the film, which was the third-highest grossing of 2004, Spider-Man 2 was always destined to sell in huge numbers. Perhaps more significant was the overwhelmingly positive reception from players and critics, who praised the game for its vast scale, daring style and sheer fun factor. Sprinting, swinging, climbing and leaping around Manhattan was an absolute joy.

The developers reflect fondly on the process that led them there too. "I had an extremely good time and a ton of those people are still basically like family to me," says Tomo. "What we were able to discover, and accomplish, together was super-satisfying. It was a lot of work and, I think in hindsight, it was maybe at a somewhat unreasonable pace, but even that over-commitment just felt like mad science and experimentation.

"We developed a control scheme and a locomotion experience that could sustain an almost unlimited amount of exploration. We had no precedent for what we did and the way we did it gives me this clear example of why we take chances."

"In a lot of ways, I still feel like it was the peak of my career. Even over 20 years later, that's the coolest thing I've ever done, other than having kids!" laughs Jamie. "There's just something about Spider-Man 2 that's special and enduring.

"The fact that Spider-Man games keep coming out, and they keep paying homage to that swinging mechanic we developed, really makes me happy and proud still to this day. We changed gaming history in our own tiny way, right?"

Take a look at the best Spider-Man games for more web-head adventures!

Video games can transport you across kingdoms and dimensions, so developer Rockstar was bold in deciding to set its 2006 open-world drama Bully in a New England boarding school. 20 years later, there still isn't anything quite like it.

Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser tells IGN during a San Diego Comic-Con interview, "The team did an amazing job bringing [Bully] together, and it's a game that's unlike any other games out there."

"You know," Houser added, "I think people are always looking for games that play like normal games, but with different tone and different setting. And Bully really found that." The teen angst simulator puts faith in its moody protagonist Jimmy, whose normal-ness sets him apart from other AAA game heroes. As him, you try winning over each of Bullworth Academy's stereotypical cliques – Jocks, Nerds, Greasers – while dodging adults, drinking soda, and Rated T smooching the NPC of your choice. It's a classroom daydream where you outrun the hall monitor and become a John Hughes hero.

Naturally, players got happily lost in it. Our contemporaneous GamesRadar+ review calls it a "cavalcade of favors, beatdowns, vandalism, minor theft, humiliation, blackmail, make-outs and a whole lot of sticking it to The Man." Basically, it's awesome.

Though, Bully was controversial ahead of its release as parents panicked about the name "Bully" (our review references this by calling Bully either "the ruin of Western civilization or a Catcher in the Rye for the videogame generation"). Rockstar wasn't worried about what was ultimately an anti-bullying statement as Houser pulled freely from his childhood memories while working on the game's story. That grubby authenticity ultimately helped make Bully a popular, empathetic open-world game people could really see themselves in, and it prevented Bully from being another great game overshadowed by moral panic – which is what happened to the other 2006, boarding school nightmare Rule of Rose.

"I think people love open-world games anyway – particularly, ones that are made with integrity," Houser tells IGN about Bully. "We've got amazing art direction from [former Rockstar lead] Steven Olds, you've got incredible music, you've got some really memorable characters, and it's a unique setting. It came together really well."

Find out where Bully falls on our ranked list of the 25 best Rockstar games of all time.

Cyberpunk 2077 is a six-year-old game at this point, but the open-world RPG probably still offers even its most committed players more tucked-away secrets to discover, according to CD Projekt Red associate game director Paweł Sasko.

Responding to a fan on Twitter who hadn't yet realized they could creep through Cyberpunk musician Kerry Eurodyne's laptop and read his aspirations about being painted nude, Sasko says, "Part of our design philosophy is to provide the player with optional ways to explore the depth of the design and narrative."

"In Cyberpunk those are emails, files, shards with additional articles and books," Sasko continues, "all telling the story of the place, characters and completing their arc."

Kerry's hilltop mansion Villa Eurodyne is particularly crammed with detail, as Sasko says, "This whole villa was designed and implemented by me, and I have hidden a lot in this space."

Some intriguing threads leave you with nothing once they're pulled – like the "random locked room" fans assumed Kerry had designated as a sex-murder dungeon, but noclip-ing into it revealed a much less fascinating, empty room. Other times, you might discover – as one fan on Reddit did – that there are two corpses facedown in the dirt outside of Kerry's villa, and this is what happens to you after you try to steal one of Kerry's guitars; a datashard near the thieving pair reveals their thwarted, deadly plan.

Cyberpunk 2077 fans are good about sharing their in-game finds as they stumble upon them, though Sasko does not not say that there are more Villa Eurodyne mysteries to unearth. So who knows – even after six years, Cyberpunk 2077 and its sleazy mansions might have more for you to learn, if you look hard enough.

Cyberpunk 2077 is a better role-playing game than The Witcher 3.

Genshin Impact's free 5-star selector, To Temper Thyself and Journey Far, will begin its fifth cycle on August 10, loosely coinciding with the expected release date of update 7.0 and the Snezhnaya region. The milestone, tucked away in the game's new event timeline, is significant, as it marks the end of the giveaway's four-part debut cycle and could open it up to changes including new characters being added into the rotation.

To Temper Thyself and Journey Far lets Genshin Impact players obtain free Constellations for 5-star characters they already own by repeatedly completing in-game tasks. Each cycle is 12 weeks long, and you have to log eight completed weeks in that time to earn a Constellation (among other rewards), completing at least five days of tasks each week.

The other catch is that you can't redeem the same character multiple times to stack up Constellations. Most people use the event to take a character with no Constellations to "C1," unlocking the first passive ability normally acquired by pulling duplicates of that character. But if you had a character at C1, you could also use a freebie to upgrade them to C2, and so on.

With the next cycle of To Temper Thyself and Journey Far beginning, players will seemingly be able to claim another four free Constellations in the year ahead. The question is whether the selection of characters will be updated in the Snezhnaya era – either expanded, with more characters becoming redeemable, or edited, with some characters rotating out.

Many players have expressed hopes that more and better characters will be added to this event following Snezhnaya's release. Yumemizuki Mizuki is a notable absentee as the only standard-banner character not available, though she is included in the dedicated standard 5-star selector that comes around with Genshin Impact's anniversary.

The timing of the event could leave the door open to more Sumeru or even some Fontaine-era characters becoming available, though I wouldn't expect the strongest of the lot to be given free Constellations like this. As one of the 11 people who pulled Chiori and Emilie, I don't think adding them to the list would be a threat to characters like Zibai or Nefer.

The original roster mostly consisted of old and outdated characters, like Kamisato Ayato and Eula, but some found new life with free Constellations. A C1 Shenhe is a more compelling teammate for the meta-relevant Cryo DPS Skirk, and a C1 Hu Tao isn't an unreasonable Pyro partner for modern support character packages like Columbina and Ineffa.

The value of the characters in the event has changed in the past year, which has seen the power level of new characters rise considerably alongside buffs to older units. For example, recent changes to Yae Miko have made her probably the best C1 pick in the entire game for her synergy with the Stellar Conduct reaction which much of the Snezhnaya cast will evidently be built around. Cyno, another Stellar Conduct target, is in a similar position. Likewise, characters like Albedo and Klee benefited from buffs to units with the Hexerei faction tag, making their early Constellations more appealing.

Valve has "a nice thing going on on PC," Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney says, but "they're missing out on a lot of opportunity" without the likes of Fortnite and Genshin Impact.

Pearl Abyss has rolled out yet another update for Crimson Desert, this time bringing cross-save functionality to its enormous open-world adventure.

Crimson Desert patch 1.14.00 is available now across PC and consoles, and while it also boasts a number of bug fixes and improvements, cross-save functionality is definitely the star of the show. If you own a copy of the game on PC and PS5, for example, you'll now be able to use the exact same save file on both if you choose, rather than having two separate adventures on the go.

In a FAQ section on the official site, Pearl Abyss explains the process – you'll just have to link a Pearl Abyss ID to your accounts for whatever platforms you're planning to play on (for example, to your PSN account). The devs clarify that you only get one cross-save slot per Pearl Abyss ID, although you can freely link and unlink accounts.

Again, to be clear, this is only for folks who own multiple copies of the game – you won't be able to start playing for free on Xbox just because you own the game on Steam, for example. But there's no doubt this is going to be handy for anyone who wants that flexibility to switch around.

One thing to be aware of is that any "paid items" (so, those in the Deluxe Pack) will only appear on the platforms you bought them on. Pearl Abyss says they "will appear disabled on platforms where they have not been purchased," and although "you can still load the save file and play," you'll need to "purchase the disabled items separately to use them on that platform." Kinda harsh, although I suppose it makes sense that Pearl Abyss wouldn't want you to be able to access a Deluxe version of the game at the price of the standard one.

Yet to play? Be sure to check out our Crimson Desert review to find out why it's one of the most popular new games for 2026.

Given it's easily one of the biggest games of the year, you would imagine Crimson Desert developer Pearl Abyss is keen to get the fantasy adventure on as many platforms as possible. You'd be right, because there are plans for a Switch 2 version, though when we might see it is another question entirely.

The subject came up during a shareholders' meeting (thanks, Inven Global), where Pearl Abyss CEO Heo Jin-young made his desires clear by saying the company wants Kliff's quest to be on "as many platforms as possible," but expanded on the intricacies of such.

"We are reviewing the Nintendo Switch 2, and it is currently being developed to a level where basic gameplay is possible," he says.

"However, platform expansion is not just a simple port; the key is whether we can fully maintain the graphics, action, and open-world experience of Crimson Desert on that device," he adds. The same dilemma as the first Nintendo Switch, then.

Since Nintendo's new hardware is also handheld, the specifications aren't as high as what you'll find in a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X/S. This often leads to hurdles with performance for developers who're porting blockbuster games, like Crimson Desert.

It doesn't make doing so impossible, just more difficult. Pearl Abyss' CEO is optimistic about getting it out on Switch 2, but won't be tied down to any kind of launch window at present.

"The Switch 2 version still requires optimization and technical verification, and we must also review partner collaboration and whether it meets our quality standards," he says. "Therefore, it is difficult to confirm a release schedule. We will announce it transparently once there is confirmed information."

Keep in mind too, that Pearl Abyss has been consistently updating Pywel since release, and there's still major DLC to come as well. It's all go over there – rest assured, we'll keep you informed on when Switch 2 players can join the party.

If you're yet to dive in yourself, you can check out our Crimson Desert review to find out why it's one of the most popular new games for 2026.

Crimson Desert's one trillionth update is rolling out now and comes with 39 pieces of new gear, plenty of fixes, and a must-have feature for any action game - the ability to snuggle in bed with your pets.

Developer Pearl Abyss released Crimson Desert's 1.13.00 patch earlier today, and the headlining new feature is that Oongka and Damiane can now enter the Abyss as well. "Accordingly, the locations of Memory Fragments for certain rematchable bosses have been changed," the developer writes in its latest page of patch notes.

That's all well and good, but it pales in comparison to a game-changing new addition that should really be an industry standard across all games: "Summoned pets will now rest together with the character when resting in bed." Your fluffy friends will simply teleport next to you whenever you climb onto a bed and curl up into a ball.

Kliff and Oongka now also have 39 new pieces of equipment, including boss gear and complete sets. Damiane just gets 8 pieces of gear. Poor Damiane.

The rest of Crimson Desert's new patch is absolutely packed with smaller but still nice changes, including loads of bug fixes and slight tweaks here and there. "Changed certain disguise outfits that could not be dyed so that they can now be dyed," is one example from the patch notes. "Improved gathering so that up to 3 fireflies can be obtained when gathering from a firefly colony," is another.

Compared to similar single-player open-world games, Crimson Desert's enjoyed a frankly bonkers cadence of near-constant updates. Everything from Pinball to boss rematches have been added in the months since launch, and that's only beginning to tell the full tale. Marketing director Will Powers recently said the updates aren't Pearl Abyss' attempt to sell more copies, however.

Crimson Desert DLC "will be substantively different" to the main game, Pearl Abyss PR lead teases