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

Video games, like any other popular form of art, can be excellent advertisements for tourism. I always get the bug to browse flights after playing a new Assassin's Creed, for instance, and I don't think that's a coincidence. On the back of Ghost of Yotei, the eponymous Yotei area of Hokkaido is pushing for more visitors, apparently signing a deal to sell associated merchandise to curious travelers.

According to Japanese outlet Nikkei, Niseko, a resort town for skiing in the area, has entered into an agreement with Sony through a third-party firm to produce a line of Ghost of Yotei items visitors can buy. The first iteration of this agreement is a set of wooden knick-knacks from Kumagera Seisakusho, a producer of pendants, fridge magnets and other products that use locally sourced timber.

The aforementioned items and many more, including pin badges, come emblazoned with symbols associated with the historic open-world game. From the promo images, it seems there are quite a few available, which will no doubt encourage hardcore fans to do some collecting.

A representative of Niseko told Nikkei that they hope the game inspires more people to visit after seeing the area through various in-game seasons. This is yet another layer to what's proving to be a happy relationship between developer Sucker Punch and Japan's tourism industry.

Ghost of Yotei's predecessor, Ghost of Tsushima, likewise caused a spike in tourists for its island setting, to the point that the local economy enjoyed a meaningful jump thanks to more guided tours and merch attached to the game. Leads from Sucker Punch even became ambassadors.

Where the Ghost series goes next might be a heated choice, as other places have surely started noticing the knock-on effect. All I know is that whenever I go to Japan, there will be two stops on my list, and two particular games made sure I won't be missing them.

When it comes to RPG design, Fallout: New Vegas lead Josh Sawyer says Ghost of Tsushima and Yotei have "some of the best armor I've ever seen"

Pearl Abyss PR and marketing director Will Powers says that Crimson Desert's near-constant slate of updates hasn't been a ploy to sell more copies, instead it's about celebrating the game's success.

Obviously, GTA 6 is the big new game for 2026 that has and will continue to dominate the conversation, but outside of that absolute behemoth, Crimson Desert has certainly felt like the game people have been most into (alongside Resident Evil Requiem, of course). The massive open-world game released back in March, and has become an impressive success, especially for a new IP, with it selling over five million copies within its first month. That's on top of the positive Crimson Desert reviews.

However, one thing that has definitely kept Crimson Desert in the conversation is how much support the devs have given it following its launch, with post-launch updates turning the game into a full-blown pet sim in the weeks since release, for example, and even some more out there additions like a pinball mini-game, which I'm not sure anyone was asking for, but it's a welcome addition.

Speaking to CGMag, Powers says: "A new IP selling five million copies in a month should be celebrated. There's too many layoffs and studio closures, and bad news that I think that we all could benefit from spending some time around the good news."

He adds that because of this impressive feat, "this should be a celebration in general, because Pearl Abyss isn't taking a victory lap in the sense of 'All right, how can we sell more?' It's 'How can we give more back to the community?'"

Powers explains: "Their approach post launch has been mostly around what we can do in order to reward the players that have been there from day one and continue to make the game this living breathing experience." Pearl Abyss has said you can expect more free updates as long as the playerbase is interested, but the developer is also working on a "substantively different" DLC alongside it.

Still playing? Check out how to make money fast in Crimson Desert and how to unlock all Crimson Desert characters.

Josh Sawyer, best known for his work on RPG gems like Fallout: New Vegas and Pillars of Eternity, says Sucker Punch Productions and Sony Interactive Entertainment created some of the greatest armor sets he's seen in video games.

To be precise, the developer and publisher did so in Ghost of Tsushima and its more recent sequel, Ghost of Yotei.

Speaking in a new Q&A on YouTube, Sawyer admits as much, first explaining that artists gain far more freedom during development when they don't have to "worry about every single part of the body" separately or "follow very strict rules for where every part of armor is broken up."

Not only does it look great, though, but it's technically more practical as well. "The stat bonuses are all built into one suit of armor, and the themes can be just built right around that," Sawyer describes. "All the stats just grow in a very straightforward way."

He does go on to share the appeal of other systems, in which armor sets are "divided" differently and allow the players, rather than the artists, "a lot more freedom," too, though.

Honestly, I feel as though varying armor systems fit well in their respective games – much like Ghost of Tsushima and Yotei's do. It's part of the core identity that titles, especially RPGs, carry with them… and there's no one right way to do it.

Itching to play something fun yourself? Browse through our roundup of the best RPGs out there, or check out a few of the most exciting new games coming this year and beyond.

Crimson Desert might be a stoic open-world action game on the surface, but with every passing day, it strays closer to its true calling as a cozy life sim. Look no further than Pearl Abyss' latest update, which adds new furniture, outdoor decoration options, and much more.

Pearl Abyss is now rolling out a Crimson Desert update, and it's headlining feature finally lets players "decorate the area outside your house." To round out the fresh decoration options, the developer has also added 58 new pieces of furniture to help you stretch your interior/exterior design muscles.

New decorations include four carpets, six hanging planters, four automata toys, a music box, and a couple of pieces of furniture for your one gazillion pets. Notably, all these pieces can now be crafted at either a Workstation or a Loom - and their crafting manuals can be found "from shops, claw machines, the flower basket crafting mission, the box of fortune, and the orb roll challenge."

Souped up house decoration, crafting recipes and workbenches, a growing list of junk to Tetris around your house... Oh, Animal Crossing, how we've missed you!

Crimson Desert's impressive post-launch support has seen it occupy territories you wouldn't expect from an otherwise serious fantasy game. The game's pet sim aspect has been expanded a lot in the weeks since launch, for example, and it even has a Pinball mini-game now, of all things.

The Crimson Desert 1.12.00 patch notes detail an exhaustive list of new changes, including new armour sets and improvements to certain abilities. But for anyone hoping to see an absurdly in-depth fossil-digging and bug-catching feature, there's hope. Pearl Abyss has said players can expect more free updates as long as the demand keeps up, while the developer works on a "substantively different" DLC.

Still playing? Check out how to make money fast in Crimson Desert and how to unlock all Crimson Desert characters.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 seemed to have been put to bed as developer Insomniac switched its focus to the upcoming Marvel's Wolverine, but apparently there's at least one more surprise in store. Alongside the release of today's Spider-Man: Brand New Day trailer, Insomniac revealed that Spidey's new look is coming to the game in a free update on PS5 and PC.

"Get a fresh start in Marvel's Spider-Man 2," the studio exclaims in a tweet. "Swing across skylines in Peter Parker's 'Fresh Start' suit inspired by the upcoming film, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, in theatres July 31! The suit will be available in-game via update July 28 on PS5 and PC at no additional cost!" You can get a very brief look at the new suit at the end of the trailer below.

The game already features an array of suits paying tribute to Spider-Man's varied appearances across different media, including designs inspired by both the Sam Raimi films and the modern MCU movies. But this update is particularly notable simply because it's the first major change to the game in over a year.

In fact, the last update of any kind for Spider-Man 2 appears to have been a May 2025 hotfix for the PC version. That version, of course, launched some time after the PS5 original, and brought with it the sad news that no story DLC was planned for the game, despite some seemingly obvious teases for it in one of the side stories.

With that in mind, it's notable that Spider-Man 2 is getting what's likely its final update in time for the upcoming film. Any excuse to go swinging through digital NYC again is a good one in my mind.

These are the best Marvel games of all time.

Pearl Abyss has yet to properly reveal its in-development Crimson Desert DLC, but whatever shape it ends up taking will supposedly be very different to the base game.

The massive open-world romp has welcomed an almost unbelievable amount of post-launch content since it came out in March, with near weekly updates adding everything from boss replays, new abilities, a full-fledged pet system with 100 fluffy friends to register, more cool mounts, a Pinball mini-game, a gun (yes, a gun), and so much more. But that's all free. What about the upcoming DLC?

Pearl Abyss' PR and marketing lead Will Powers spoke about the unnamed expansion in an interview with The Gamer, where he teases it'll be "substantively different, whether it's in scope, scale, size, it'll be different" to the base game. "What it means beyond that, we're not talking about yet." Alright then, Powers, keep your secrets.

Speaking on the developer's stunning pace of updates, Powers explains the patch cadence comes from Pearl Abyss' experience working on MMO Black Desert, which also received frequent support, as is customary for the genre. "The DNA of the company is inherently live service," he says. "So, although this is a single-player game, that doesn't change the core identity of who the developers are and how they want to support the community."

Pearl Abyss isn't done with free updates while it chips away at its big DLC plans, however. Earlier this month, the developer released a roadmap of everything it wants to add to the game between now and September, including cross-save support and tweaks to "further strengthen the narrative flow of Kliff’s journey."

Yet to play Pearl Abyss's massive open-world game? 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 latest patch has arrived and, in what's no longer a surprise, it has a focus on the game's pet system.

Despite Mina the Hollower being the highest-rated game of 2026 and Resident Evil Requiem tearing up the sales charts, Crimson Desert certainly feels like the biggest of all the new games of 2026. Pearl Abyss' open-world game has been a massive hit with players online, with the game offering up so much to do that a large percentage of players haven't even seen the game's ending.

One of the things earning the game favor with fans is the sheer amount of post-launch support that Pearl Abyss has been giving to the game. It feels like you haven't been able to walk ten feet without stepping in a new update for the game, and today is no different, as the studio has released the patch notes for version 1.11.00 on the game's website.

While the patch notes for Crimson Desert have been tackling some of the big issues with the game, anyone who has been paying attention to each update will notice that there's someone at Pearl Abyss that really likes the pet system. 1.09 added "approximately 30 species of small animals that can be registered as pets," and now with 1.11, the only specific change listed in the "Major Updates" segment is: "This patch adds new challenges that let you register more pets."

Specifically, you can now register up to 100. There's now also a dedicated map icon for baby wyverns, and a change has been rolled out so that your beloved pets actually keep their names as they grow.

Although despite the lack of mention in the "Major Updates" section, there are some other really good changes in here, too, such as "Shopkeepers will begin collecting and reselling lost rare equipment." Otherwise, there are improvements to the pinball minigame added in the previous patch (which also added more pet improvements, by the way) – the ball should now feel heavier, shouldn't get stuck in the top left corner as often, and some pins have been moved around.

If you're yet to play, be sure to read our Crimson Desert review.

Already a big, big game in and of itself, fantasy open-world adventure Crimson Desert's going to continue to grow. According to a lead from developer Pearl Abyss, we can expect substantial updates as long as players are enjoying the continent of Pywel.

Being one of the most popular games of the year thus far, Crimson Desert's done quite well for itself. Commenting on that momentum, Will Powers, the PR and marketing director at Pearl Abyss, tells Dexerto that updates will keep happening "as long as there's demand for it."

Essentially, he says, the studio views the game similar to its other major release, the MMO Black Desert Online. "This is a model that gamers aren't used to, of a premium game giving consistent and free content post-launch," Powers says.

It's all in service of keeping Crimson Desert in the charts for concurrent players, always providing fans with more to do and see. This, in turn, creates organic marketing that draws in more people who wish to see what the fuss is about, or catch a glint of an interesting addition.

"Having continued support and continued content both rewards your community and the people that have invested time in it, as well as doing free marketing without having to spend it elsewhere. So you're spending it on adding more content to the game instead of spending it on advertising," Powers adds.

As of now, the roadmap leads us up to September, with a healthy cadence of improvements coming for the main story as well as combat, cross-saving and more. Pearl Abyss is working on DLC too, which it teases will be, "a meaningful addition to your journey."

It seems we can expect this rigor to continue. If Kliff's popularity remains steady, so shall these updates too.

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

Crimson Desert's relentless update cadence isn't slowing down anytime soon as the open-world game just got another bonkers patch, this time adding some minigames and the ability to nurture your baby pets until they become formidable, rideable mounts.

Developer Pearl Abyss today dropped Crimson Desert's 1.10.00 patch onto all platforms, and in my eyes, the headlining feature is the two new minigames: Pinball and Orb Roll. As someone who plays Yakuza minigames until my thumbs turn to jelly, these have me slightly scared, but imagining a medieval Pinball machine in the middle of this fantasy world is also a sight too funny to ignore.

Up next are improvements to the still work-in-progress re-blockade feature, which re-arms enemy strongholds now and then to keep the post-game world a little more populated. This time, Pearl Abyss buffed up the rewards from re-blockades and added the ability to suppress re-blockades in each region by going to the contribution assessor.

Finally, remember those baby wyvern and baby chick pets? You can now feed them, nurture them until they grow up, and then ride them into battle once they're big enough to carry your hench protag. I didn't expect Crimson Desert to have a lite pet sim side months after launch, but here we are...

All in all, Crimson Desert already seemed like a kind of Everything Game that wanted to throw as many features as possible into its sandbox. Now, I'm really, really convinced that's what's going on what with its in-depth house decorations, farming, pet management, minigames, side activities, and of course, all the action-adventure stuff you expect. Heck, even the farming scythe item can now actually be used to gather crops.

To see all the additions and bug fixes, check out Pearl Abyss' full patch notes.

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

Crimson Desert's story is the least impressive thing about the skyscraper-sized, open-world fantasy game, but Pearl Abyss is ready to change that. Soon, the developer will start fiddling with its narrative that tries convincing you a guy named Kliff could be someone's savior, and Fallout: New Vegas director Josh Sawyer is giving the company his storyteller blessing.

Pearl Abyss says in a June 2 update describing its plans from now until September that it's been "carefully reviewing the story-related feedback you have shared with us" – so Pearl Abyss might have seen some of those overstuffed Reddit threads calling Crimson Desert's story "terrible," "aggrovatingly bad," and "absolutly non sense." Therefore, "To further strengthen the narrative flow of Kliff’s journey and to make it more engaging, we are working to refine and improve the coherence of key scenes," Pearl Abyss continues. "We hope these improvements will offer something new even for those who have already experienced Pywel."

Since even Pearl Abyss' shareholders were questioning Crimson Desert's lackluster drama about restoring the dignity of the shattered Greymane faction, I think it's smart the developer has decided to go forward with storyline changes rather than focusing exclusively on gameplay patches. While you don't often see developers reworking key cutscenes to a launched game, game expansions and DLC frequently elaborate on mythology, so I don't find Pearl Abyss' plans shocking.

Game director Josh Sawyer, whose experience leading games like Pentiment and Fallout: New Vegas make him an expert in video game stories that endure, seems to think the same thing. He addresses Pearl Abyss' narrative game plan in a Bluesky post, saying, "I think this is fine / good even if it isn't ideal."

Fixing up a game's story is "like patching anything," Sawyer continues. "It's better to patch story content to make it better than to say 'We fucked up on release but we won't do anything about it because story is different from everything else.'" He refers to his own history as a designer on 2000 D&D game Icewind Dale, explaining that the 2001 expansion Heart of Winter "was both short and expensive so we made Trials of the Luremaster as a free expansion." That's sort of a narrative patch, too.

Pearl Abyss is in good company, then, even if the way it's choosing to address narrative issues through future updates is unconventional – and risky. There's always the possibility that Pearl Abyss' post-mortem surgery on Crimson Desert makes its gaping plot holes more obvious, but I think the studio should at least try to fulfill its vision of a more interesting story. For Kliff's sake.

Crimson Desert proves it's better to wait for games than play at launch.

Crimson Desert DLC has been officially confirmed as Pearl Abyss also outlines a number of key areas it's working on for the base game, including story improvements.

In a dev update shared today, Pearl Abyss thanks fans for their feedback on its open-world behemoth up to now, saying that "Crimson Desert has come this far thanks to the support and feedback you've shared with us since launch." But while Pywel is already massive, the experience is clearly going to get even bigger.

"We are also hard at work on an upcoming DLC for Crimson Desert, and while we cannot share the details just yet, we are preparing it as a meaningful addition to your journey," Pearl Abyss teases. "We will share more details in the future, so stay tuned."

It's definitely exciting news, but admittedly not the most surprising. Only last month, Pearl Abyss stated that "we are currently exploring various ways to broaden the game to the next level, including DLC," but clearly, since then, work has begun in earnest.

No timeframe has been given for when we can expect the DLC to launch, but we can at least look forward to the upcoming improvements to the base game that Pearl Abyss plans to roll out between June and September this year. Perhaps the most surprising thing listed – but definitely the one I'm most interested in – is the plan to improve Crimson Desert's lackluster story.

"We have been carefully reviewing the story-related feedback you have shared with us," Pearl Abyss says. "To further strengthen the narrative flow of Kliff's journey and to make it more engaging, we are working to refine and improve the coherence of key scenes. We hope these improvements will offer something new even for those who have already experienced Pywel."

The extent of these improvements isn't clear, but considering that even Pearl Abyss CEO Heo Jin-young previously admitted that the game's narrative wasn't the best it could have been, it'll be good to give it that boost it needs.

Elsewhere, Pearl Abyss is planning alterations to re-blockade – specifically, "a new phase is being developed to make the flow before and after a blockade more natural, along with ways to defend certain strongholds from the threat of invasion." We can expect improved rewards, too. What's more, the devs are "working on a cross-save feature" that'll let you play across multiple platforms with a linked account.

Otherwise, the devs very vaguely tease "new combat-focused content" that'll allow players to "prove their true strength as a Greymane," as well as improvements to "Damiane and Oongka's overall gameplay experience." Pearl Abyss explains: "Various adjustments will be made so that all three playable characters can get a share of the spotlight." Step aside, Kliff.

Finally, it also sounds like we can expect some general quality-of-life improvements, as Pearl Abyss says: "We will continue making improvements to non-combat content, such as trading and farming, to address areas that players have found inconvenient."

We'll just have to watch this space and see when these changes arrive – the last time Pearl Abyss outlined three months' worth of updates, it ended up releasing everything within just weeks. We obviously shouldn't expect that to be the norm, but to say the devs have been hard at work making Crimson Desert the best it can be would be an understatement.

Take a look at our Crimson Desert review to find out why it's one of the biggest new games for 2026.

Continued updates and post-launch support is a big reason why the Dying Light franchise stayed relevant during a seven-year gap in releases, its former franchise director Tymon Smektala says.

While it might seem like an obvious concept, it's one that developer Techland didn't properly consider in the early days of the franchise. The Dying Light veteran said as much at a Digital Dragons panel attended by GamesRadar+, explaining that the team's original post-launch plan was "actually quite limited, because we wanted to release the game, respond maybe to some potential bugs [...], and then focus on the release of the two DLCs for that quarter."

Those updates sort of had a snowball effect, though. "Players are there, they are excited, they are supporting us, they want more of the game, so we did more. The appetite grew, they wanted even more, so we kept going," he says. "And, in the process, we had created a business model that was very unique at that time, and it's a triple-A game with long tail post-launch support."

Smektala sheds light on an internal initiate Techland called 10 in 12, the team's plan to put out 10 free DLCs in one calendar year. "Then it continued, and then it continued, and in the end, the support lasted for 10 years. Last year, we released a graphics update for Dying Light called Retouched."

Developing free updates with no new source of revenue won't work for every team, the ex-boss acknowledges, but he says it made sense for Techland because "it keeps the game on the hard drive, it builds the community trust, it makes the game sell for longer, and you can keep the price at a higher level." It also has the added effect of building hype for a sequel.

"If you can plan the production around this wisely, the game will give back."

It's not just The Witcher and Cyberpunk devs – former Dying Light lead says not properly recording work makes sequels so much harder

The Witcher 4 and Cyberpunk 2077 makers CD Projekt Red recently talked about how shoddy documentation can quickly turn the development of sequels into nightmares, and, now, the former franchise director of Dying Light has exactly the same warning for fellow developers.

Speaking at a Digital Dragons panel attended by GamesRadar+, former franchise lead Tymon Smektala shared a "quick time traveller lesson" to developers in the audience that he would teach to the team at Techland if he could reverse the clocks: "It's take care of your documentation."

Smektala explains that the studio "didn't really pay that much attention to documenting features" during the production of the first game. "We didn't update the documents that well, we didn't make sure that they cover everything. A lot of the things just happened at the computer of a programmer or a designer," says.

It wasn't just features that weren't being properly recorded. Dying Light's lore wasn't either, probably because the team "weren't thinking that we are starting a new franchise with this particular game." As you can imagine, improper documentation led to lots of problems while making Dying Light 2, like trying not to break continuity or getting specific in-universe dates correct.

"So afterwards, in the years that followed, we spent a lot of time trying to reverse engineer some of the features or collect our lore in one place, and usually we were doing this by going to Wikis made by players, always feeling a little bit ashamed about it, that we had to take it from the players," he adds.

"So, the time traveller lesson – do care about your project documentation if you are working on the first game, because years later, when you are making a sequel and expansion pack, you will be very grateful to yourself for it."

CD Projekt Red imparted similar advice to folks at Digital Dragon, explaining how the studio basically had nothing to reference when it came time to remake The Witcher 1.

Don't expect a Witcher 4 expansion: CDPR says "it would be difficult" to make extra content when it's already trying to squeeze 3 Witcher games into 6 years

Pearl Abyss has released patch 1.09 for Crimson Desert, which finally allows players to remap controls and adopt a whole host of little critters as pets.

Crimson Desert was already a contender for one of the biggest new games of 2026 when it launched – both in the sheer amount of things in it and popularity – but Pearl Abyss somehow decided that it could be even bigger. The studio has been updating its massively popular open-world game constantly since it launched back in March – and clearly someone on the dev team is really keen to get Kliff as many pets as possible.

In the last Crimson Desert patch, Pearl Abyss gave Kliff the ability to adopt a Baby Wyvern into his roster of pets, and with today's patch, the game has "added approximately 30 species of small animals that can be registered as pets." I haven't got around to playing Crimson Desert yet, but in my mind, I hope there is no cap on the amount of pets you can have, and that Kliff is able to form an army of critters. But if not, at least there's more variety. Another major addition listed by Pearl Abyss is that this patch "added animations for picking up and putting down certain pets," and suddenly I'm anticipating the game's transformation into a cozy farm sim.

Elsewhere, the game also added a personal favorite option of mine, the ability to remap controls. I'm sure the basic controls were good, given that I haven't seen complaints about it, but the option to change things up is always appreciated. And on top of these, there's a ton of fixes and tweaks that you'd expect from patch notes, including one clearly from whoever really likes the pets: "fixed an issue where bears would try to eat fish dropped on the ground but fail to do so."

I've already been putting off Crimson Desert because, frankly, it's too massive and I don't have the time between other games I'm super keen to play to really give it the time it deserves. But seeing how much the devs are updating and improving it, I'm actually glad I've been waiting.

Only 6.8% of Crimson Desert players on Steam have finished the open-world game 2 months after launch, and that means 93.2% of them are playing it right

It is time to face facts: AI is making plenty of our games these days and in the days to come. In some cases, generative AI is making assets (often placeholders) to populate game worlds. In others, it is mimicking the work of actors. But AI is also coming for the programming sector of video games, and I don't know that we're prepared for just how bad "vibe-coded" games can possibly be.

In a lengthy feature in Edge Magazine surrounding the rise of AI tools in games development, Clint Hocking, who besides serving as director on Far Cry 2 also led the team on the upcoming (and potentially witch-y) Assassin's Creed Hexe, shares that he too thinks that it is inevitable that AI will be implemented into games production. He also admits to having used AI to help him learn how to code in the past.

Speaking on the experience, Hocking says, "It was brutal. ChatGPT kind of sucked. It didn't really know how to code. Everything was broken."

He continues, "It was mostly me trying to debug code without knowing how to code myself." After about half a year of untangling ChatGPT's messes, apparently often into the late of night, Hocking says he finally learned how to code in Javascript and no longer uses AI tools to code.

Though Hocking did ultimately learn the skill he set out to, he "acknowledges in some ways he learned to code despite ChatGPT," which he likens to a tutor more than an alternative, and a kind of unruly one.

Hocking, who was recently working on the future of the Assassin's Creed franchise via both Hexe and the Assassin's Creed Infinity platform, also shares some insights into Ubisoft's own work with AI, stating that no one at the company lost their jobs to AI as far as he could tell, and that the developer was at one point looking into generative technologies that might've powered his last major title at Ubisoft, Watch Dogs: Legion.

Former Square Enix exec says backlash over Final Fantasy 6 AI mock-up shared by the JRPG series' creator "shows how far down the rabbit hole the madness goes"

Now that Crimson Desert's firmly established as one of the biggest games of the year, the big question becomes if we'll see more of the fantastical sandbox. While we wait to hear more of what Pearl Abyss has in store, the voice behind protagonist Kliff is clear he'll happily come back.

Alec Newman, the actor who portrays our hero in the game, said as much during an interview with Fall Damage. "If they asked me, I'd happily record Kliff forever," he says at one point, addressing the topic again in another answer.

"Those relationships are very rich," he muses, while talking about Crimson Desert's supporting cast. "Some of the most fruitful stuff was between Kliff and Oongka for me. They do have history together, which feeds into why their relationship and their bond is so strong, and it's a similar thing with Damiane. It's territory that could be even further developed."

Crimson Desert has a wealth of side-characters who offer narrative runway for expansions. Oongka in particular is ripe for some form of prequel, to fill parts of he and Kliff's storied past and help contextualize their current situation.

There are plenty of others as well, such as Matthias, who tests your sword-fighting early on. The developers aren't short of potential directions for major DLC, or even a follow-up when the time comes to decide on that.

For the time-being, the team is focused on updates and patches to make sure everyone's enjoying the release to the fullest. But I suspect it won't be long before Crimson Desert 2 or similar starts to become a prevalent topic.

Only 6.8% of Crimson Desert players on Steam have finished the open-world game 2 months after launch, and that means 93.2% of them are playing it right

A new Crimson Desert update is upon us, adding everything from a cute Baby Wyvern as a pet that will eventually transform into a mount to the ability for Kliff to wield muskets and shotguns.

Already standing as one of the biggest new games of 2026, it's hard to imagine Pearl Abyss adding even more to Crimson Desert – but, thankfully, the developer continues to do so.

The last patch was quite a massive one, all things considered, too, tackling endgame emptiness even further with five more boss rematches, extra mounts, and new skills. Another Crimson Desert update is upon us now, although it's arguably a bit smaller.

Smaller in size, that is, but not in impact. As per the latest patch notes from Pearl Abyss, this Crimson Desert patch is quite simple: it "adds a pond and a Baby Wyvern as a new pet, along with various bug fixes and stability improvements."

If you ask me, that's a pretty big (and very adorable) deal – but it's not the only thing to land in the open-world game today. There are 20 species of small animals to look out for.

And not only are Baby Wyverns taking our side, but they'll "be able to grow and be registered as mounts in a future update, so stay tuned." As for Wild Wyverns, they "can now be temporarily used as mounts after being subdued." My dragon-loving self is absolutely thrilled to hear it, honestly.

The patch isn't entirely wyvern and creature-shaped, however. Pearl Abyss has also graced us with a new slot to equip tools. These include the logging axe, mallet, shovel, broom, scythe, pickaxe, drill/chainsaw, and fan.

Kliff can now use muskets and shotguns, too, while Damiane and Oongka get a skill equivalent to the "Focused Aerial Roll." There's a lot more as well, ranging from fixes that are more significant to more minor quality-of-life tweaks, so I'd recommend checking the patch notes out fully – and keeping an eye on whatever's next from Pearl Abyss.

Hopefully, this inspires folks to finish the game – as it stands, only 6.8% of players have completed the main story on Steam… but everything's easier with a Baby Wyvern by your side.

If you're curious about the game yourself but have yet to play, check out our Crimson Desert review for our own honest thoughts on it.

The majority of Crimson Desert players on Steam are toiling to finish the gargantuan game's main quests two months after launch, global gameplay statistics reveal, and that's not a bad thing. Developer Pearl Abyss' latest release thrives when the player luxuriates in size and variety, while the storyline it provides protagonist Kliff is as satisfying as you'd imagine an epic created for a man named Kliff.

Which is to say, the game is "far better as a sandbox than as a story," as GamesRadar+ guides writer Joel Franey writes in his four-out-of-five Crimson Desert review. The Steam stats gaming content creator TheRealZephryss shares on Twitter seem to confirm this as the personality quips, "Looks like everyone is still in Hernand" (the starting area a lot of people really were trapped in for more than two weeks after launch).

At the moment, Steam achievement stats show only 6.8% of Crimson Desert players have completed all the game's main quests… of which there are many. GamesRadar+ estimates the time to beat Crimson Desert can easily surpass 200 hours if you're going for 100% completion, while a more ascetic main quest playthrough lies in the 35-50 hours range.

Steam stats also show 22.6% of players haven't even made it through Crimson Desert's first chapter – there are 14, if you count the prologue and epilogue – and that only 25.4% of people have made it halfway through the game's main story and completed Chapter 7.

Considering Crimson Desert reached 5 million copies sold within four weeks, that's a lot of Greymanes staggering around Pywel with their scabbard on backwards, drifting from infinite boss fights to wolf mounts, picking up cute clothes, wandering dense forests, and generally suffering to absorb the content flood that is Crimson Desert. But for some, the work is a duty and honor.

As one fan on Twitter tells TheRealZephryss, "It's not that finishing is difficult, I am just taking my sweet, sweet time, living day by day." Kliff has some wisdom to impart on players after all.

Crimson Desert Kliff actor says video game acting wasn't treated as "proper acting" by peers who are now asking how to get into the industry.

Crimson Desert star Alec Newman says video game acting wasn't always treated with respect by his peers, but that's all changing now.

Alec Newman's been a part of some beloved games in recent years, having voiced Cyberpunk 2077's Adam Smasher, the main character in horror gem Still Wakes the Deep, and most recently, Crimson Desert's Kilff, the blockbuster game's main character and the face on the box.

But he's also been a video game voice actor for well over a decade, stretching back to supporting roles in Fable 3 and Star Wars: The Old Republic, a time when Newman remembers his peers not taking game acting very seriously.

"When I started doing voices for video games, it wasn't like a dirty secret or anything, but it somehow wasn't treated by my peers as proper acting," he recalls in an interview with Fall Damage. "And, now, all of those peers are ringing me up and asking how to get into it."

Video game actors are now more visible and more recognizable than ever before, partly thanks to the internet and partly because games are penetrating the mainstream zeitgeist deeper and deeper every year. When games like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 or Baldur's Gate 3 house meaty acting roles that lead to tons of acclaim, it's no surprise to hear that once-cautious actors are now curious about the medium.

As for Newman, he hasn't played "a second" of Crimson Desert "because my gaming sort of ceased when my daughter was born," but he still has nice things to say about the open-world hit. "The game is beautiful. It's unlike anything I've ever been involved in."

Crimson Desert patch tackles endgame emptiness further with 5 more boss rematches, extra mounts, and new skills