Nintendo finally just gave the Switch 2 a boost in TV mode by adding VRR (variable refresh rate) support to its dock. It's a feature that should have shipped with the handheld last June before being quietly removed at launch, but it looks like Ninty finally nailed the HDMI 2.1 perk just in time for the Zelda Ocarina of Time remake.

Switch 2 dock VVR support officially arrives as part of system update 23.0.0 today in Japan. In the patch notes, Nintendo says, "When both the software and the TV support it, the video will be output at a refresh rate that matches the game's processing speed." That theoretically means you can switch on variable refresh rate and dynamically sync things up to match frame rates, but it'll only kick in on games that are specifically optimized.

Unlike with the PS5, it seems you can't just force VRR in games that aren't specifically optimised on the developer side of things. Instead, the Switch 2 will use a whitelist to confirm whether support is officially present, and at this time, the only release that's compatible is the Switch 2 Welcome Tour.

Naturally, a bunch of Switch 2 games should be added to the whitelist soon, as it's easily days for docked VRR. Again, Japan is getting the update first, so by the time it reaches other markets, some of the biggies on the gaming handheld should benefit from the frame rate-syncing tech.

VRR in Switch 2 docked mode has been a long time coming, as Nintendo started hunting for an engineer to solve its output woes back in July. Update 23.0.0 confirms that the console maker has managed to iron out those prior quirks, and as I've already alluded to, I can't help but feel like it was racing to sort it out before Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake lands.

That's not to say the new Ocarina of Time will make the Switch 2 sweat, as Nintendo's engine will be heavily optimized for the handheld. But, that's not to say there won't be frame rate dips in specific scenarios, as while outings like Breath of the Wild run at a solid 60fps, dense textures or extra fancy ray-traced lighting effects could take things up a notch.

Even if the Ocarina of Time remake features stable frame rates, VRR is a "nice to have" feature that will help smooth over slight dips. It's also going to benefit some the demanding third-party romps announced during the latest Nintendo Direct, including Final Fantasy 7 Revelations.

Even if you're not too fussed about display tech, VRR in docked mode has been a long time coming. Technically speaking, alternatives like the SIWIQU Switch 2 dock should support variable refresh rate provided you use an HDMI 2.1 cable and the right screen port, but I'll confirm that once I'm at my test bench.

• Switch 2 consoles at Amazon
• Switch 2 docks at Amazon

Swing by the best retro handhelds if you'd rather play classic capers on the go.

The Blood of Dawnwalker's protagonist, Coen, is rather salty. He's just been turned into a vampire against his will, his family has been kidnapped, and I'm making him eat a lot of rats. If there's a silver lining, he can't touch it.

Going into my playthrough of The Blood of Dawnwalker on the hardest difficulty, Duelist, I intend to take Coen's vampirism as far as it will go – partly to keep up with the challenge, but mostly because I just think vampires are neat. The gnarlier the better, and if being an unstoppable creature of the night helps me complete September's RPG Club challenge, Coen will have to suck it up with the rat blood.

With just 30 days and nights to rescue Coen's family – and on Duelist to boot – there's a long month ahead. I'll be chronicling my journey with weekly write-ups, starting with my eventful first days in Vale Sangora below.

Quest Log

Exit, pursued by a bear

I like to leave the beaten path as soon as possible in RPGs, so I leave Coen's smoldering village and wander toward the mountains. Time in The Blood of Dawnwalker is a resource itself – think Persona, where choosing to do an activity uses a portion of your time – and while I'm not worried about my 30-day deadline (yet), I do have one pressing concern: I am getting my ass beat.

A sloping path winds into the mountains proper, where I follow the sound of wind chimes to standing stones in a cliffside clearing. That's as much as I take in before one of the standing stones gets up – oh, it's actually a massive bear – and charges forward. I roll out of the way, but a swiping paw catches me off-guard and kills Coen in a single hit.

Duelist mode amps up enemy aggression and makes their attacks much harder, while Coen's stamina is greatly reduced. The only saving grace is that enemies have less health. You don't have the stamina to play sloppily, so combat is surprisingly close to the likes of Sekiro – requiring you lean into the momentum with perfect blocks and last-second dodges. But knowing what to do isn't the same as being able to do it, and after repeatedly dying, I make the executive decision to run away.

Fleeing downhill, it dawns on me that this bear is the least of my worries. It's optional! But the main goal of September's RPG Club, saving Coen's folks and siblings in a month, isn't – and will presumably involve fighting tougher foes than bears. On the bright side, now we have a concrete plan for our first week in Vale Sangora: gitting gud.

Bat-man

With bears now off-limits, puny humans seem like the best targets for combat practice. Vale Sangora is occupied by an army of Brencis' footsoldiers, and as night falls, their torches and campfires make them easy to spot. I spend perks in the vampirism skill branch, upgrading my claws to inflict bleeding and stamina to… not die, then prowl the roads for easier prey.

The Blood of Dawnwalker's stealth isn't great. You can sort of skirt around enemy detection, but it's an imperfect science and rarely worth trying. I shadowstep behind a straggling guard outside a ruined tower and sink my fangs in, but his pals immediately throw themselves at me. They're nimble, but I've trained at the school of Big Bear. Coen's claws feel far more fluid than his sword, and having made the connection to Sekiro, I'm finding more success through last-minute parries. Within a minute, there's nothing left of the guards but bloody corpses. I'm not faring much better – after taking one too many blows, I scurry away to drink rat blood and heal.

Over the next few days and nights, I take every opportunity to fight Brencis' men. It's certainly easier as a vampire, with shadowstep and souped-up claws proving invaluable, but the practice turns me into a pretty mean swordfighter by day. While rescuing the local miller from a fortified outpost, I also make inroads with Vale Sangora's rebel faction, who tell me to seek them out in the capital city of Svartrau once I've proven myself an enemy of the vampires. Getting to grips with Duelist mode has already raised my notoriety by a few notches, while also turning up leads on prisoner transports to ambush and blood stockpiles to destroy.

After four days of hit-and-run war, I feel ready to head south and wade into the main story. First, there's unfinished business in the mountains . Who would win in a fight: a bear or a guerilla?

Having honed my skills, I charge into the sunny clearing and meet the bear's charge head-on. Now used to fighting crowds of soldiers at once, one enemy proves much easier to predict. Perfectly blocking every paw-swipe leaves the bear open to heaving greatsword slashes across its chest, and within a minute of furious back-and-forth, Big Bear is dead. Our reward is a glyph on the standing stone, which allows Coen to summon a flock of ravens in battle – but only as a human, so it's not especially helpful as my plan is to go all-in on vampirism. The real reward is knowing that we're ready for The Blood of Dawnwalker in Duelist mode, as well as a valuable lesson that Coen puts best: "Bears are fucking scary."

Having fun isn't hard...

With just three days left in the week, I head south to meet with Anca. She believes an abandoned convent may hold the secrets we need to beating the vlakhir, with forbidden books hidden inside. There is, predictably, just one problem. The convent is shrouded in scarlet fog, and its nuns have all died of plague. The problem, though, is that they're still walking. The courtyard is thick with shambling undead, their faces peeling and eyes clouded. Worse yet, there seems to be no way to kill them – after besting one, I'm halfway through investigating the corpse when it shoots back up, arm outstretched.

A cohort of soldiers have barricaded themselves in the infirmary, and offer to let us through – a safe passage to the library – in return for a relic they've been sent to retrieve. Instead, I make a mental note to come back and drain them dry, spend the night looking for clues, then ring the convent's church bell to draw the horde away. At dawn, searching the library leads us into the catacombs, where a rotting nun hacks long cuts of meat from her arm. She turned to the devil to protect the convent from the Black Plague, and is too far gone to be talked down from yet another ritual.

As the inevitable boss fight begins, I'm– dead. Wow. And again. Days of practice were enough to fight a bear, it seems, but not a supernatural nun. She can use the spell I learned earlier that day, pointing flocks of ravens in my direction, as well as blink across the catacombs and raise more undead. I'm hard-pressed to keep up, constantly dying to surprise blink attacks and her dagger, which seems to swing from every angle at once.

After too many failed attempts to count, I draw on the teachings of Big Bear – constant aggression, no breathers – and triumph, killing the nun and lifting the convent's curse. Our reward is a trove of banned books, which we haul to Anca's hideout to sift through. This turns up two promising leads – a saint's magical sword, and a mysterious Font of Life – but reading eats through the day. Old maps suggest the Font of Life lies in nearby mountains, but Anca (sensibly) won't go hiking at night. I raid nearby blood stockpiles until dawn, but ding-ding-ding. Our first week is up.

So far, The Blood of The Dawnwalker isn't what I expected. It sits close to The Witcher 3 in style and tone, but there haven't many meaningful side quests to sink my fangs into. On the other hand, combat in Duelist mode has been an absolute treat – as challenging and expressive as last year's Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, albeit even less forgiving. But with combat fundamentals locked down, my plan for next week is to search for the Font of Life before visiting Svartrau for the first time. I'm a sucker for big cities in RPGs, and have high hopes for Vale Sangora's Big Apple. See you there?

Subway Surfers codes were once a welcome part of this fast-paced endless runner, giving mobile players various rewards including free coins, keys, and even some fresh characters to dash down the tracks with! While it's been some time since we last saw a new promo code announced, the game continues to be immensely popular and has recently spawned a sequel, so there's still plenty of attention on it and a comeback isn't out of the question. To get up to speed with the current situation, here's what you need to know about promo codes in Subway Surfers.

All Subway Surfers codes

The following Subway Surfers codes are currently available:

• No active codes

There are no promo codes for Subway Surfers that work at present, so the only rewards you can currently unlock are for completing the various in-game challenges – though there are plenty of those to keep you going!

How to redeem Subway Surfers codes

The previous in-game option to redeem Subway Surfers codes directly through the main menu has now been removed, so the only way to claim promos is to scan the above QR code or visit the official redeem page on your mobile phone. Type a code into the text box that appears, then hit the CLAIM REWARD button to be taken back to the game and see if the promo was successful.

Expired Subway Surfers codes

• giftDiscord2124 – 7,000 Coins, 7 Keys, 1 Mystery Box
• RunnerUp888 – 8,000 Coins, 8 Keys
• hellochangan – 5,000 Coins, 5 Keys
• 9yearsrunning – 9,000 Coins, 9 Keys, 1 Mystery Box
• houstonkeys – 6 Keys
• 2infinity – 3,000 Coins, 3 Keys, 1 Score Booster, 1 Headstart
• instalove200k – 5,000 Coins, 4 Keys
• fridaycheers – 1,000 Coins, 5 Keys
• eggstremecoins – 5,000 Coins
• hoppyfriday – 1,000 Coins, 5 Keys
• rabbotday2021 – 3,000 Coins, 6 Keys
• springtime – 5,000 Coins, 5 Keys
• happyfriday3 – 3,000 Coins, 3 Keys
• funfriday2 – 3,000 Coins, 3 Keys
• sybotv5milion – 1 Mystery Box
• luckyday2021 – 8,000 Coins
• sybotv5million – 5,000 Coins, 5 Keys
• funkyfriday1 – 3,000 Coins, 3 Keys
• welcome2ny – 5,000 Coins, 5 Keys
• ScareFriday3 – 2,000 Coins, 3 Keys
• instalove100k – 5,000 Coins, 6 Keys, 10 Hoverboards
• Facebook3M – 3,000 Coins, 3 Keys
• Insta50K – 5,000 Coins
• HalloBerlin – 3,000 Coins, 6 Keys
• RaveFriday1 – 2,000 Coins, 3 Keys
• LNYLucky7 – 7,000 Coins, 7 Keys
• SYBOTVLNY5 – 5,000 Coins
• SYBOTVFriday42 – 2,000 Coins, 4 Keys
• HappyHolidays2020 – Mimi
• Nice9435 – 2,000 Coins
• Naughty2315 – 2,000 Coins
• Naughty3973 – 2 Keys
• Nice1721 – 2 Keys
• Nice4329 – 500 Coins
• Naughty8734 – 500 Coins
• Naughty5784 – 200 Coins
• Nice5193 – 200 Coins
• singaporedollars – 5,555 Coins
• Diablo60 – Diablo, 5 Keys
• keys2singapore – 8 Keys
• mimimonday – Mimi
• DiabloNow – Diablo
• HereKittyKitty – Kitty
• mmcablegoat – 5 Keys
• mmbatpin – 5,000 Coins
• moscowsurprise – Leaf
• moscow6keys – 6 Keys
• back2moscow – 9,001 Coins
• UnlockBCN – 13 Keys
• BaliSummer – 10,000 Coins, 10 Keys
• bdaycoins – 7,000 Coins
• bdaykeys – 7 Keys
• Keys5Zurich – 5 Keys
• KEYSSS – 5 Keys
• MissMaiaGP – Miss Maia
• potofcoins – 5,000 Coins
• Sybo10k – 10,000 Coins
• Subway2019Venice – 9,999 Coins
• Frank4Lyfe – 5,000 Coins
• GIEFROCKETPLZ – Rocket
• London2018Coins – 10,000 Coins
• Kiloo19Keyz – 19 Keys
• Tonsofkeys – 100 Keys
• Bangkokcoins – 5,000 Coins

There are a large number of expired Subway Surfers codes that have fallen by the wayside over the years, which is a shame as a lot of them had quite lucrative rewards and even new characters to unlock. We can only hope they get revived at some point in the future, so check back for updates.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

SEGA announced last June during the Sonic the Hedgehog 35th Anniversary festivities that two game collections were heading to the Nintendo Switch, and now they're finally available to pre-order.

The Classic Sonic Collection and Modern Sonic Collection are available for $49.99 / $49.99 at Best Buy each, and are expected to launch in October later this year. The collections provide exactly what they say on the tin - a collection of old-school and modern Sonic games in two physical releases, something that can please both types of fans. Though don't expect them to include every game in Sonic's massive 35-year lifespan.

Most notably, my personal 'modern' favorites, Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2, are missing from the Modern Sonic Collection, which is a bit of a bummer. Instead, modern fans can find Sonic Forces, Sonic Colors Ultimate, and Sonic Frontiers all on one cartridge. Meanwhile, old-school fans can take Sonic Mania, Sonic Origins, and Sonic Superstars for a spin, and you can find the best pre-order links for these below.

While these collections aren't as complete as they could be, Sega has thrown in a 35th Anniversary Logo Patch and reversible coversheet. There's no sign of what these actually look like, as we've only got the small mention of them on both games' box art to go off on. However, I'm always going to be an avid supporter of finding physical extras with my physical games.

As you've also likely surmised, these collections are for the Nintendo Switch and aren't exclusive to the Switch 2, so you'll still be able to play them even if you haven't invested in Nintendo's newest handheld. However, if you have forked out the now $499.99 MSRP for the console, it's worth noting that you can also grab the new Sonic Frontiers Definitive Edition.

It's also available for $49.99 at Best Buy today and doesn't just include the base game, as found in the Modern Sonic Collection. Instead, you've also got the extra 'The Final Horizon' story campaign and extra content updates, alongside a digital art book and mini soundtrack to enjoy. The only thing better than Sonic the Hedgehog is even more Sonic the Hedgehog.

View all upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 games at Best Buy

Love physical Switch games? Check out our Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time Remake pre-order and Fire Emblem Fortune's Weave pre-order pages while you're here.

Australian Steam users are now unable to access any age-restricted content on their account without having a credit card thanks to the introduction of the government's Online Safety Act.

This is in line with the Australian government's Online Safety Act 2021, which noted that any "app distribution services" must have age assurance requirements in place by yesterday. This means the user will not be able to access the storefronts of any games rated MA15+ or R18+ by the Australian Classification Board, which includes games like Cyberpunk 2077, Resident Evil Requiem, and The Last of Us Part 2 without proper verification.

The Online Safety Act has been a major topic with both the UK and Australian governments, with many places requiring access to users' photo IDs to allow them to browse certain apps and websites unrestricted. This has caused privacy concerns among many as to how their data is being used and potentially sold, as well as prompting worries about security breaches. Valve, seemingly wanting to avoid this, has opted to make the verification based on having a credit card.

However, the real kicker is that it doesn't matter how long you have had your Steam account – users who opened their account in 2004, or any other year that would give you an account over the age of 18 are also not immune. Over on the Australia subreddit, one user notes "I'm 43, and have had my steam account since it first started," while another adds, "So basically, I can't see any remotely mature game on my 20-odd year old account because I'm financially sound enough to not have a credit card?"

Users note that credit card use is not as widespread in the country, with one saying, "This is so USA centric of Steam, they just assume everyone has a credit card." On top of that, users with disabilities are reporting that since they are on Australia's Disability Support Pension they are unable to get a credit card, and thus are locked out of accessing these games on Steam unless another option reveals itself.

Thankfully, users are reporting some workarounds, including that that some debit cards and games purchased on other storefronts still work.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation might have "even more content" than Rebirth, director Naoki Hamaguchi says, who reckons that's "part of what makes the game so appealing." But if you're already feeling overwhelmed, don't stress – the devs really wanted to give you "the choice" this time over what you want to spend your time on.

Depending on how many games you play a year and how much free time you have in your life to spend on them, you might have a very different opinion on the concept of playing an enormous, content-packed JRPG. It's hard to argue that it's a bad thing for a game to be big, but it sure can be overwhelming, and potentially off-putting for those who don't have a spare hundred hours or so lying about.

Speaking to Hamaguchi at Gamescom 2026, we ask about the scale of Revelation compared to Rebirth – a JRPG he acknowledges "had a lot of content in it as well," and Square Enix hasn't slowed down since. "I'm pretty sure that Revelation has at least the same, and probably actually even more content in it than Rebirth had," he tells us. "But it's all good content. It's all going to be really appealing to play."

Hamaguchi knows, however, that for some players, bigger isn't always better. "I am aware that there is a number of players of [Rebirth] who said that the content was just too much and that they felt they were overwhelmed by it. I do understand there are people out there who felt that," he admits.

However, this hasn't put him off from the idea of making Revelation a behemoth, too: "I feel that having that huge amount of content is part of what makes the game so appealing. I don't think it's that kind of game, so I'm very confident in what it is because of that."

With that said, though, Hamaguchi says that "what's important is not how much content there is, it's how you make that interesting and accessible and enjoyable for players to interact with." He tells us that he's learned from fans' feedback following the release of Rebirth, and going into Revelation, not only is its content "all quite different," but he's taken on board the importance of communicating with players "what kind of rewards you can expect, and what kind of experience you're going to get when you take it on."

Hopefully, then, you can expect clearer signposting of what's worth it to you if you're not someone who wants to take on everything the game offers. He notes that we can now expect rewards to be split up across different types of content accordingly, with character upgrades locked behind the battle-focused content, while minigame rewards will be customization options within that specific minigame, for example.

This comes in direct response to Rebirth, where "all of the side content was tied to the Materia development system. So if you wanted that Materia, you had to do all of the content, regardless whether it was something that you would be interested in otherwise or not," he continues. "So I really wanted to address that and maybe improve it for people who felt that, like, feeling of obligation that they had to do it, but they didn't really want to."

Ultimately, the devs wanted to pay attention to the "idea of allowing the player the choice of which content they want to engage with and which they don't," he concludes.

So then, no pressure if you don't want to experience everything Revelation has to offer. Unless you're a hardcore completionist, of course, in which case it sounds like you're going to have your work cut out for you come its release in April.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation director says "open-world fatigue" is real, and since "the world is even bigger than it was in Rebirth," Square Enix specially focused on guiding players.

The Highwind floats above the world. Yuffie Kisaragi dives out of the airship, party in tow, and falls through the air with a keen speed before I unleash her parachute, softening our hero's descent into the rich wilderness of Mideel. It's immediately apparent that if we thought Rebirth was big, Final Fantasy 7 Revelation is overwhelmingly enormous.

There's something strange about the Final Fantasy 7 remake trilogy. The numerous differences from the original 1997 title make it almost entirely new, and yet it's easy to feel at home in its many locations, from Sector 7 to Gongaga. The same sensation floods my senses as I tear through feral beasts, before encountering a chubby baby Chocobo.

Not my home but I know my way around

Aware of the limited time available during my hands-on preview session at Gamescom 2026, I fast travel back to the Highwind, and set sail from the skies above Mideel for Wutai. I'm playing as Yuffie after all, and I'm told this section of Chapter 4 is dependent on my visiting her homeland to progress the story. I must admit I didn't really expect to just fly straight over to the place myself – I anticipated a cutscene – but the open world exploration is seamless as I guide the vessel before sending Yuffie back to the deck for another Fortnite-esque descent into the land below, something director Naoki Hamaguchi confirms is an intentional display of "inspiration".

Again, I'm staggered to feel immediately at home in Wutai, but this feeling tracks with the developer's design ethos. "Everything in the game has to feel both nostalgic and new at the same time" Hamaguchi tells me, explaining the need to deliver what fans know but with enough change to maintain player interest. He also clarifies that any big changes have to be made by the original FF7 creators.

One particular change I inquire about is the manner of Aerith's demise in Rebirth, and by inquire I mean demand an apology from Hamaguchi-san. He laughs and tells me "so sorry" but I press him on the matter, producing more laughter from the veteran gamemaker. He then tells me "You need to experience what happens in the very end. You may change your opinion then."

Similarly, piloting the Highwind to named locations and then descending via parachute is an important part of leveling up the experience of Revelation from Rebirth. "The way you explore the world is all tied to that vertical element," Hamaguchi states, and the effect is a sense of scale so grand I have to fight off choice paralysis with every fiber of my being.

Hamaguchi touches on the size of the game, saying "I'm pretty sure that Revelation has at least the same – and probably actually even more – content in it than Rebirth had, and it's all good content." He also adds that he's aware some players were overwhelmed by the amount in Rebirth, but feels "having that huge amount of content is part of what makes the game so appealing."

Another standout component of my preview session is the lack of Cloud and Tifa, with the roster of available characters instead sporting Cid, Vincent, Cait Sith, Barret, Red XIII, and the aforementioned Yuffie. Having been struck by Aerith being a key focal point of Rebirth, I ask Hamaguchi if we can expect the light to shine more on Yuffie or other characters in Revelation.

"Cloud is still the main character," he asserts, before explaining that the team know some players "want to see more of the other characters too, so we very much wanted to have content that goes into each of those characters," which, as a card-carrying member of the Zack Fair Appreciation Society, is music to my ears. This includes such options as completing side quests with different characters depending on your preferences, as well as the more simple but equally satisfying ability to swap out party members on the fly.

It's been one of the great joys of my time with Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Rebirth that I've been able to revel in the company of Cloud's companions. Don't get me wrong, I really love the moody merc and his big beautiful blues, but the added depth to Tifa, Aerith, and many others has resulted in a richer narrative experience.

Not all new content is perfect though, as proven by the mere existence of Chadley, and I'm alarmed by multiple interruptions from MAI, the AI entity created by the precocious young scientist. This apparently feminine-presenting version of Chadley eagerly bombards me with available side quests the moment I set foot in a new place, and it's agonizing given my preview slot is an hour. I'm hopeful Mai will feel less invasive when I'm able to play the game at leisure, but something tells me 2027's Most Annoying Sidekick Award is already en route to Square Enix HQ.

Those Who Fight Further

Throughout my session I enjoy multiple battles. In addition to Yuffie and her fast-flowing combos, I try out Vincent Valentine, whose ranged-based fighting style feels more safety-conscious yet no less satisfying. Then I give Cid Highwind a go, and he swings a spear-type edge weapon with a blend of elegance and brutality that feels perfect for hacking through Wutai's wildlife.

With the ability to mix up the party frequently, I'm eager to see what each combination of fighters will bring, especially now Tifa has appeared as a Black Mage in promotional materials, and other jobs in the FITS system are available too.

Upon arrival at Wutai a cutscene plays out – which I won't spoil – where it dawns on me how incredible a performer Suzie Yeung really is. The Persona 3 Reload actor delivers an expressiveness that virtually propels Yuffie through the screen, which seems fitting given Wutai introduces the ability to use a grappling hook for traversal.

Zipping between rooftops, I find my way to the Happy Turtle bar and restaurant after photographing a cat and having a quick swim in the sparkling waters that surround the traditional Japanese-inspired architecture of Yuffie's homeland. As I walk through the grand building, I strike up a conversation I never get to hear as the session ends.

Now I'm left wondering what the NPC was going to say, what the other areas in the preview build had to offer, and what the unaccounted for characters were getting up to during this section of the game. Above all I wonder how Naoki Hamaguchi and Square Enix so masterfully manage to weave nostalgia into something so obviously new in so many ways. Maybe I'll never truly understand but, if I am able to, it won't be until Final Fantasy 7 Revelation releases on April 8, 2027.

If this is far from your final adventure, check out our games like Final Fantasy recommendations, or our best RPGs and best JRPGs ranking for more to play next!

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation director Naoki Hamaguchi has apologized for what happens to Aerith in Rebirth, but if you're still upset about it, he insists you stick around to the end of the remake trilogy, because you might just "change your opinion."

Before we get into it, please take this as your final – very obvious – spoiler warning for the events of Final Fantasy 7 and Rebirth's ending. I'd be shocked if you didn't know what we were about to get into by now, but don't say I didn't warn you if you didn't.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth might have gone about things slightly differently to the OG 1997 JRPG, but one unfortunate fact remains – Aerith dies at the hands of Sephiroth. Ouch. It's arguably made even worse by the fact that, for a brief moment, it looks like things are about to pan out very differently, but alas.

Speaking to Hamaguchi in an interview at Gamescom 2026, GamesRadar+'s James Daly tells the lead how upset he still is about what happened to Aerith, prompting a big laugh. "I hope you have some expectations towards what the final outcome is, though, and I hope you can look forward to seeing what actually happened," Hamaguchi first teases, via interpreter.

He then directly offers an apology himself: "So sorry!" Gotta be honest, though, I'm not sure how sorry he is based on how hard he's laughing.

This comes up again towards the end of the interview, at which point Hamaguchi suggests something rather interesting. After another laugh, he hints: "I mean, really, you need to experience what happens in the very end. You may change your opinion."

Obviously, he's not going to elaborate on what he's referring to at this point, but could there be a glimmer of hope there for Aerith fans? Perhaps, or perhaps not. All will be revealed when Final Fantasy 7 Revelation launches on April 8 next year.

Square Enix's "graphical goal" for Final Fantasy 7 remakes was 2005 spin-off film Advent Children as it's the "ideal version" of the 29-year-old JRPG.

We'll be back gallivanting with our favorite dragon early next year when Spyro: A Realm Beyond comes out. To celebrate the character's anniversary this year, we've gotten a little tease of what's coming.

Toys For Bob is handling the game, having previously worked on Spyro Reignited Trilogy and Crash 4. Since the namesake scaly mascot first arrived in the US on September 9, the studio decided that day would be a solid choice for another snippet of his upcoming return.

Sadly, there's no new trailer yet, but we do get a better look at one of the areas, Arcadian Vale, a lush blend of old crumbling ruins, hills, and rivers. There are two pieces of concept art provided: one showing the landscape more broadly, and the other depicting a point of interest sitting on a cliff.

They tease the kind of place you'll spend a while just hopping around, having fun, picking up gems, and taking out enemies. "Arcadian Vale captures the charm and wonder that defines Spyro’s new adventure," reads the description.

"Made up of a calm, serene atmosphere, Arcadian Vale is a vibrant landscape filled with natural beauty," the studio continues. "Across the scene are cascading waterfalls tumbling down from towering cliffs. Ancient stone structures and weathered monuments rise from the terrain while lush greenery blankets the valley floor, creating a destination that feels magical and alive."

Sounds delightful, and exactly what I'm looking for from a new Spyro sequel. This is his first full new game since The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon in 2008. That's almost 20 years ago! Hopefully this can live up to the wait - going by what we see here, I'd say so.

Physint goes from PlayStation to Xbox as Sony "unexpectedly" drops Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid spiritual successor

Former PlayStation boss Shuhei Yoshida has seemingly reacted to the news that Sony has dropped Hideo Kojima's highly anticipated stealth game, Physint, allowing Xbox to swoop in, and he's just as surprised as we are.

Overnight, PlayStation announced that "we have made the difficult decision to step away from collaborating with KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS on its project PHYSINT." However, Kojima's own statement highlights this move as being a lot more one-sided than you might expect: "In mid-June of this year, we unexpectedly received notice from PlayStation Studios that they would cancel the PHYSINT project," he reveals, going on to say that "we have spent the last three months searching tirelessly for a new partner," leading Kojima Productions right back to Xbox, which it's also teaming up with on horror title OD.

The concept that any company would want to cancel a Kojima game is shocking, and the situation of PlayStation essentially handing it over to its main competition only makes it weirder, even though it's unclear if Sony could have known that's where the game would end up. Yoshida, former president of Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios, has responded to the news on Twitter, expressing how "surprised" he is (translated by GamesRadar+).

Although his original post isn't shared in response to anything in particular, it's obvious that this is what he's referring to – he doubles down on the sentiment in a separate reply to someone asking him about it directly.

While Yoshida might not have said much, the fact that the news has prompted him to respond like this at all speaks volumes. Sony is in desperate need of a win after its announcement that it's stopping production of physical discs for new PlayStation games in 2028 – the backlash it's prompted from folks opposed to an all-digital future has been immense, with the company's comment sections everywhere filled with cries of "no disc no buy" more than two months on.

Needless to say, deciding it doesn't want to bring Kojima's Metal Gear Solid spiritual successor to life isn't it – in fact, it looks like the opposite. Even with the company's reassurance that "we continue to have great admiration for Hideo Kojima's vision for the game," the general response across the internet is disbelief that Sony would give up on what, from the outside, looks like an easy win.

Despite the change in circumstances, Kojima is clear: "Please rest assured that development of PHYSINT, our genre-defining action-espionage title, is ongoing and will continue moving forward."

As Hideo Kojima turns 63, the Metal Gear Solid and Death Stranding creator says "I would like to remain focused on creating games" despite the interest in movies.

In a surprising – yet very welcome – move, Ubisoft is opting to trade in its required launcher on PC for more seamless, built-in connectivity that allows players to navigate games through Steam… and Steam only.

It's a tale as old as time: a company outside of Valve requires players to use its own launcher, even if they're accessing a game through Steam. EA immediately springs to mind, as does Ubisoft, but the latter is apparently looking to scrap this pesky system in favor of a smoother experience for fans who don't appreciate a billion log-ins and pop-ups.

It reveals as much in some minor new patch notes for Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown over on Steam.

"Introducing Ubisoft Connect Services," Ubisoft's announcement begins, dubbing the new integration "a simpler launch experience on Steam" – which, yeah, it certainly sounds like it is.

"Starting with Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, we are testing a new Ubisoft Connect Services Steam tool that keeps Ubisoft game features such as cross-progression, cross-play, player safety, challenges and rewards, among others."

What's new, though? Well, it's all "without requiring the Ubisoft Connect PC launcher to be installed or launched."

As Ubisoft says, "This first version is an initial step toward a smoother and more streamlined launch experience on Steam. We will continue to iterate and improve Ubisoft Connect Services over time, with the goal of delivering the features and services players use and expect while making the Steam experience as seamless as possible."

It won't stop with Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, either. "Ubisoft Connect Services will progressively evolve and roll out to more Ubisoft games on Steam in the future." That's quite exciting, to say the least, seeing as pretty much nobody would prefer the current system.

Over on Reddit, folks are discussing the new system, and, yeah, they're thrilled. "Imagine how much they had to lose to admit this was needed," reads the top comment.

"Finally," another exclaims. "Now add this for all previous titles, and I will buy Ubisoft games again!" And, thankfully, it sounds like that's precisely what Ubisoft plans to do… and hopefully carries onto new games down the line as well.

Xbox disc-to-digital missing Elden Ring and Final Fantasy as publishers including Bandai Namco, Square Enix, Ubisoft, and Sega seemingly skip the feature.

Xbox has announced it's working with Hideo Kojima and Kojima Productions on its Metal Gear spiritual successor, Physint, after PlayStation apparently wanted to cancel the project earlier this year.

Following Death Stranding 2's release, the list of upcoming Hideo Kojima games comprises OD, his new attempt at a horror game in partnership with Xbox following the Silent Hills debacle, and Physint, a return to the action espionage genre in the vein of Metal Gear, which Sony made a big song and dance about when announcing. The latter seems like a somewhat personal game to the director, as he says it was conceived while he was sick during the Covid-19 pandemic, realizing people wanted something like Metal Gear from him.

Earlier today, PlayStation's Twitter account posted a statement saying, "After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to step away from collaborating with Kojima Productions on its project Physint". Then, within two minutes, Xbox posted on the Xbox Wire Blog that it would be publishing Physint.

Despite Sony's messaging that it simply stepped away, Kojima himself explained "In mid-June of this year, we unexpectedly received notice from PlayStation Studios that they would cancel the Physint project."

He adds, "Physint is an important project both to me personally and to Kojima Productions. Determined to keep the project alive, we have spent the last three months searching tirelessly for a new partner."

Kojima explains, "We found in Xbox a partner with whom we share a common vision for the future, and we have decided to team up with them once again."

Kojima adds: "Please rest assured that development of Physint, our genre-defining action-espionage title, is ongoing and will continue moving forward."

The combination of this news and a litany of decisions from Sony over the last few years once again leaves me questioning PlayStation's plans for the future.

After the Concord debacle, the cancellation of Naughty Dog's The Last of Us 2 multiplayer leading to it looking like the developer is going to skip the PS5 generation, Horizon Hunter's Gathering in general, and even going back to the closures of Bluepoint and Japan Studio, Sony seems allergic to what made PlayStation so beloved over the PS4 generation.

That being said, Xbox doesn't exactly inspire me with confidence either, following its repeated string of mass layoffs and high-profile game cancellations like Perfect Dark and Everwild. Hopefully OD does well, because right now I'm not exactly confident Physint is still coming out.

Hideo Kojima is "envious" of 21-year-old Backrooms director: "I made Metal Gear at 23 – but A24 didn’t get in touch with me until I was about 59"

An important piece of gaming history has been preserved today, as a leaker has released the ROM files for Project Dream, a canceled proof-of-concept for a Rare-developed pirate RPG that would eventually become the basis for the beloved Banjo-Kazooie series.

You can check out a video of the alpha footage below, and if you do, you'll probably find it hard to believe that this game was originally intended to release on the 16-bit Super Nintendo. The sole character model and jungle environments look more advanced than anything that released on the SNES, and it was only a prototype for the full game, which was canceled and reworked by Rare in 1997 after 16 months in development, largely due to technical problems.

To be clear, Rare itself hasn't been shy to talk about or even show footage of Project Dream, but this is the first time it's been made widely available online. The leaker, who only says they obtained the prototype "from someone who got it from someone, who got it from somewhere," says in a manifesto-style writeup that they chose now to release everything to help offset all of the evils of the world.

"With the current state of the industry and Microsoft's current heartless gutting and mismanagement of Rare and other companies it controls, plus with how long it's been, I feel it's more important to make sure this is properly preserved, and the ROM dissected by people with far more knowledge on how to do such things," says the leaker.

"I hope by releasing this, that it also inspires other people to release what they have as well. I know the Twelve Tales Conker 64 prototype is out there somewhere, but sadly, this is the only thing that I have."

It's hard to get much more explicit than that, but the uploader, who goes by FvckAsha&Phil online – an apparent reference to Xbox CEO Asha Sharma and her predecessor, Phil Spencer – goes even further to explain why Project Dream is surfacing online now of all times.

"There is little joy left in the industry, as it relentlessly marches towards AI, layoffs, l anti-preservation and ownership tactics, and, in Microsoft’s case, the support and approval of literal genocide in Gaza.

"Let's get the last beautiful things hiding on our hard drives out there for everyone. That's all we have left," says the leaker, imploring readers to "Please delete Microsoft and Sony from your lives, install Linux, boycott Switch Game Key Cards and buy Nintendo Switch 2 titles that still come with the full game on the cartridge.

"Your dollar is the only thing that counts in our late stage capitalist hellscape."

Rare was heavily impacted by Microsoft's unprecedented downsizing that began in July with the gutting of 1,600 jobs and which will result in a further 1,600 redundancies by the end of the company's 2027 fiscal year. Rare's would-be next game, Everwild, was canceled in the blitz after six years of development. This is amid a seemingly endless era of downsizing in the games industry that saw an estimated 45,000 cut jobs between 2022 and 2025.

We'll never know if Project Dream would've joined the ranks of the best SNES games of all time.

Even if you don't know Takaya Imamura's name, you're likely to know his work. He was, after all, the artist who designed the Star Fox characters, and the one who gave The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask its signature dark look. Imamura collaborated with Shigeru Miyamoto regularly over the course of his 32-year career at Nintendo, and he believes that divisive art style of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake is reflective of Miyamoto's love of puppet theater.

Retweeting an image of the new Link design, Imamura says (via DeepL translation), "Looking at this model, I felt that… Mr. Miyamoto’s love of puppet shows really comes through here, too."

Miyamoto's love of puppetry is well known, and it's particularly well evidenced in Star Fox, which both Imamura and Miyamoto were deeply involved in. The original Star Fox was marketed with puppets, and that old influence seemed to come back on its own modern Switch 2 revival, another new art treatment that got the cold shoulder from some fans.

But while the Star Fox designs are reminiscent of muppets, the new Zelda look has more in common with marionettes. And, in fact, there's some pretty compelling comparison shots showing the new Link and Japanese TV marionettes side-by-side – frankly, it's more than enough to convince me that puppetry was indeed a big inspiration here.

Either way, Imamura is excited to simply play a classic Zelda game again. "I haven't played Ocarina of Time since the 3DS version, so I'm really looking forward to it," he says in another tweet (again, DeepL translated). "The color palette and lighting are great... As expected!"

For more upcoming Switch 2 games, you know where to click.

When Arthur Morgan contracts tuberculosis near the beginning of Red Dead Redemption 2, you're supposed to feel sad. Arthur's a good guy with a troubled past, and he's the hero of the story. Him getting a death sentence right at the start of his journey is all bad news, but from here on out I'll only be able to react to his increasingly labored coughing fits with disgust, because now I know actor Roger Clark was actually hacking up a phlegm-filled lung in real life while recording some of those scenes.

Asked by YouTuber and games journalist Cade Onder if Arthur Morgan's coughing fits were taxing on the actor's throat, Clark says those scenes were "not as bad as you'd think" because they were spread out over five years and "if ever there was a really bad coughing scene, we'd always save it for the end of the day." That's good, but it turns out there was some serious method acting going on beyond the scenes that will forever alter how I react to Arthur Morgan's illness.

"In five years, there's plenty of colds and there was a lot of data that we got that was pretty damn genuine," Clark says, confirming that he would purposefully record dialogue when he was sick with colds, lending an authenticity to those coughs that only a real-life viral infection could bring.

"I'd be like, 'hey, I got a cold, let me get in there," and they're like, 'OK' ... nice, good bit of phlegm."

Grossness aside, I have to say I admire Clark's work ethic. When I'm down and out, all I want to do is lay in bed and watch Seinfeld reruns, but Clark's first instinct is to think about making Arthur Morgan sound as convincingly sick as he possibly can. That commitment paid off in an incredibly absorbing performance, even if I'll be playing Red Dead Redemption 2 while wearing a medical mask from now on.

GTA 5 left Rockstar feeling "slightly nervous" about Red Dead Redemption 2 as devs worried fans "were going to be bored" by only having one protagonist to play as

Elden Ring streamer Bushy has put more time into FromSoftware games than almost anyone on the planet. After roughly 4,000 hours of Elden Ring, he wants to beat Elden Ring another 726 times, and he's spun up a custom mod to do it.

On August 3, Bushy began a journey to beat Elden Ring using every weapon (and shield), totaling 447 runs. On August 26, he officially expanded this to every weapon, Ash of War, staff, seal, and spell in the game, bringing the run total to 726.

The idea, he suggests, is to create a full video library that shows how every possible attack style deals with all of the bosses in Elden Ring. With that in mind, Bushy's enlisted some help to speed things up.

In a video showcasing the Black Flame spell, Bushy explains, "I've commissioned a mod to make this series even bigger and better." This mod essentially condenses the exploration and progression of each Elden Ring playthrough, making it a lot easier to unlock items like flask upgrades, DLC Scadutree fragments, merchant upgrades, collectible talismans, and so on. If it's just lying around on the ground, it can now be found at a special menu or automatically obtained by beating story bosses which lead to new chunks of the world.

"In order to skip the tedium of picking up all of the same stuff over and over for 726 runs, this is the solution that we have," Bushy says. The mod doesn't affect the experience of fighting bosses, which is the stated point of this challenge, but it does make it a lot easier to get to those bosses over 700 times.

Even with this mod's help, each run still takes several hours, so Bushy will probably be pushing 7,000 hours of Elden Ring if he actually finishes every last playthrough. So far, he's done about 20 by my count.

Bushy's behind many of the strangest and most difficult Elden Ring runs you can find online – from randomizers to a billion Malenias to deathless NG+7 – so I don't begrudge him a little time save. This challenge does feel like a pretty obvious infinite stream content generator, but on the other hand, I've never seen a man kill everything in Elden Ring with the heavy crossbow.

"While I will miss the extra running around content, I fully understand how much better this will be for you to streamline this series even just a little bit," reads one YouTube comment.

"Might actually have another fromsoft game by the time this is done," says another. And they might be right.

Deep in FromSoftware's sicko arc, Elden Ring and Dark Souls boss Hidetaka Miyazaki says "you can't make anything that's as fun" just by following the same old rules.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One of the reasons Leon Kennedy is such a great horror protagonist is that he carries himself with an unshakeable sense of humor despite always being faced with the most unimaginable atrocities. Even after barely escaping the clutches of a giant, mutant alligator with his life, Leon still manages enough levity to quip, "Chew on that, you overgrown son of a" you-know-what.

For me, Leon being an absolute himbo genuinely breaks up the tension I feel while playing a Resident Evil game, and this contrast was put to especially good use in this year's Resident Evil Requiem, which features some of the scariest sequences I've ever experienced in my 30-plus years playing horror games. But as it turns out, some of Leon's funniest lines were actually left on the chopping block, as proven by newly leaked cut voice lines from Requiem and Resident Evil 4 Remake.

Two separate videos, one that lets you hear close to 400 cut voice lines from Resident Evil Requiem, and another with more than 600 cut lines from Resident Evil 4 Remake, were recently posted to YouTube by prominent modder Keff0 (via PC Gamer). As a longtime Resident Evil diehard, it was fascinating hearing all of Leon's bad puns, Grace Ashcroft's panicked breathing, and even lines from less central characters like RE4's Merchant and Requiem's Chef Zombie, that Capcom for whatever reason decided didn't cut the mustard. As for the Leon one-liners, I'm disappointed they were left out, because some of them sound like they could've been genuinely great in the right context.

"Shucks, no time for an encore."

"Someone needs to work on their parallel parking."

"Eight legs, no brains."

"That again? You're a bit of a one-trick spider."

Naturally, longtime Leon actor Nick Apostolides delivers his lines beautifully, but I would love to see the exact scenarios onscreen that would've triggered them. Unfortunately we'll probably never know, and Leon's not the only one with some gems in the vault. I mentioned RE4's Merchant, and he's another that had some lines cut that I would've loved to see in the actual game.

"This'll perk you up," he says in one cut line. "Relax mate – it's not that kind of herb." I think all Resident Evil fans can imagine the exact situation that would've prompted that line, and I can understand why Capcom ultimately decided against including it, but man, what a loss.

"It's important to stay young at 'eart. Especially at times like these," is another line from the Merchant I would've smiled at in the game.

At this point, I feel like I'm spoiling these gems for fans, so I'll leave the rest for you to uncover on your own. There's even a cut line from RE4 Remake that seems to reference Resident Evil Village, which is completely unnecessary but fun nonetheless.

Lies of P director says Resident Evil Requiem is one of the games he enjoyed most this year because Leon is "still as cool and tough as ever."

It's almost become tradition at this point: the announcement of a new release with massive historical significance gets buried within a sizzle reel in a Nintendo Direct. Today, we got a shadowdrop for Dragon Quest Heroes: Torneko's Mystery Dungeon Classic HD. This Super Famicom roguelike went untranslated for 33 years, despite building a massive following in Japan and laying the blueprint for the expansive Mystery Dungeon series.

Torneko's Mystery Dungeon is available today for $25 across Switch, Switch 2, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC via Steam. It is a roguelike in the most traditional sense – as in, it's a lot like the original Rogue. This is a top-down dungeon crawler where every step you take is a turn. You delve into a massive dungeon, grab as much treasure as you can carry, and build up your experience to survive into the deepest levels. If you die, you start back at the very beginning.

That concept will be intimately familiar to modern gamers, but the roguelike boom was decades away when this game was first released. Developer Chunsoft took the bones of a fiddly PC game, stuck a familiar Dragon Quest character into the role of protagonist, and suddenly had a hit on its hands. But with the then-limited success of JRPGs in general and Dragon Quest in particular outside of Japan, an English release never actually happened.

Despite that, the Mystery Dungeon series would ultimately develop a global legacy. Chunsoft would spin it off into an original IP with Shiren the Wanderer, and we'd eventually get other licensed takes like Pokemon Mystery Dungeon and Chocobo Mystery Dungeon, which themselves would spin off into entire series of their own.

The Classic HD version of Torneko's Mystery Dungeon seems to mostly stay true to the original's old-school sensibilities, with a lightly upgraded look putting it in line with Square Enix's modern HD-2D games. But the devs do have one big modern tweak in mind – at least for the Steam version. This edition offers a free bit of streamer-focused DLC that allows viewers to influence "mysterious events" that occur throughout the dungeon. It's not a feature that the vast majority of players will ever engage with, but I'm at least interested to see what kind of chaos it adds to the adventure.

Here are the upcoming Switch 2 games you need to know about.

There's a lovely new limited edition The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Switch 2 console on the way to commemorate the upcoming remake's November 5 launch. The handheld has got some nice detailing and colors, but if you haven't already pre-ordered it, your odds of getting one are shrinking. Scalpers were unfortunately first to the scene with Nintendo's new hardware.

The special edition Switch 2 only went on sale yesterday, after its reveal during Nintendo's 40th Anniversary Zelda Direct previewing the Ocarina of Time remake, a total redo of the N64 classic.

Already, many retailers like Walmart, Target, and Best Buy are sold out of the $520 console, which is to be expected. Not only is this console related to Zelda, but Ocarina of Time? Every collector and fan wants it in their possession, and sadly, the vultures know that.

You can find many Ocarina of Time remake Switch 2 consoles listed on eBay right now for around $850 and upwards. Plenty of scalpers managed to get this hardware for reselling purposes, it seems.

Though scalping almost always happens with exclusive game releases, it's still disappointing each and every time – because it could mean a true fan is losing an opportunity to someone who wants to make a quick buck. But if the FOMO is getting to you, please don't indulge in these Zelda Switch 2 listings. There might be more stock coming to official retail websites and in-person Nintendo stores once the special Switch 2 launches October 29.

Walmart is our highest recommendation for purchasing the console itself, while Best Buy is good for the Pro Controller, and old reliable Amazon has you covered for the Ocarina of Time remake itself.

The best reaction to scalping is always just not engaging, even if it means missing out on a collectible you have your eyes on.

Young Link has a face only a mother could love in Zelda Ocarina of Time remake, and even the series' most dedicated fans are struggling: "They did him dirty."

It always feels a bit bizarre to experience Lara Croft's adventures on anything but PlayStation hardware, but the upcoming Tomb Raider Legacy of Atlantis is coming to the Switch 2.

As unveiled during the latest Nintendo Direct, you can take on this reimagining of the original 1996 classic and pre-order it for $59.99 (GameStop) physically (game-key card release) or digitally via the Nintendo eShop once listings go live.

It's great to finally get confirmation that it's making its way to the Ninty console, especially if it means I can get my dual pistol-wielding hands on that Collector's Edition. Announced on June 2 earlier this year, the snazzy Collector's Edition from Crystal Dynamics and Flying Wild includes the game and some physical goodies, including an incredibly detailed statue of Lara taking on the T-Rex.

I maybe would have preferred to see a real-life replica of the Hand of Midas as found in the OG Tomb Raider so I could turn my Switch 2 into gold. However, the statue is just as impressive, and it's available to pre-order for $199.99 at GameStop today. So far GameStop is the only place to find it, but I'll be using my Lara Croft skills of discovery to update you on the best places to find the Collector's Edition and all Legacy of Atlantis Switch 2 pre-order links as and when I find them before February comes around.

Where to pre-order Tomb Raider Legacy of Atlantis

FAQ

Want more Switch 2 games? Check out our Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time Remake pre-order and Fire Emblem Fortune's Weave pre-order pages.

A long running sort of ironic Xenoblade theory has finally been laid to rest thanks to today's Nintendo Direct. The canon child of one of Xenoblade 2's main heroes has been unveiled, and it's not the crusty villain that much of the fanbase had been willing it to be.

A fresh trailer for Xenoblade Chronicles 3's Nintendo Switch 2 Edition was shown off today, highlighting more of the Heroes' Vault mode, which sees you take on waves of enemies while grabbing upgrades as you go, be it for your abilities or to bring new allies into the fray.

More excitingly, though, we've been given our first glimpse of the JRPG's upcoming new Hero. Her name is Shimmer – she's got blonde hair, a white outfit, and the Foresight ability… sound familiar?

We're going to get into some spoilers now for a revelation that comes at the end of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 – as well as a rather obvious observation about its Future Redeemed DLC – so proceed with caution.

At the end of Xenoblade Chronicles 3, we see a photo of an aged-up Xenoblade 2 cast, including protagonist Rex standing behind Pyra, Mythra, and Nia – each holding a child, with the implication that he's the father of all three. We meet Pyra and Rex's daughter, Glimmer, in the Future Redeemed DLC, and it's quite widely accepted that 3's co-lead Mio is most likely Nia's daughter, too. But what about the remaining blonde baby we see Mythra holding?

Well, with no concrete answers up to this point, fans have been… creative, with their theories. Perhaps the most common – though how seriously it's believed varies from person to person – is that it's one of Xenoblade 3's villains, Dirk, otherwise known as Consul D. He's, uh, not a nice guy. Even before becoming one of the Moebius (you know, the bad guys you're fighting for the entire game), he was a twisted, sadistic soldier. So what's the evidence of him being related to good guys Rex and Mythra?

He's blonde, I guess? There is a bit more to it than that, actually – folks have also pointed out before that he and Rex share similar ear shapes and facial hair, and have names with comparable meanings. Dirk is also lacking a significantly expanded backstory unlike many of the other baddies in the JRPG, leaving some to wonder if it connected to this larger plot point. For many, it's been more of a meme than anything – after all, he's hardly a likeable character, so willing it to be true is more funny than anything else.

Anyway, today, all of that has been debunked, and fans are mixed on the outcome. "Dirk Mythra kid truthers it's so over," one writes on Twitter, as another responds: "We fought hard it was a good run."

Others, however, are more welcoming of Shimmer's existence: "Finally that fuckass theory of dirk as mythra kid is disproven," one says. Another writes: "Thank God Shimmer finally exists because I was tired of the whole Dirk is Mythra kid BS Theory."

I, for one, am also accepting of Shimmer as our official Mythra Kid. Honestly, my only real problem is with her name. You're telling me that Rex really looked at two of his newborn children and said, "Yeah, that one can be called Glimmer and the other can be Shimmer"? …Actually, yeah, that tracks.

Xenoblade Genesis is coming in 2027, and it looks very different to Monolith Soft's last JRPG trilogy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PowerA has come to the rescue for those who don't put Ocarina of Time on a pedestal. The accessories brand has announced two new Nintendo Switch 2 accessories via its Twitter (X) account, but rather than plastering them with artwork taken from the upcoming Ocarina of Time Remake, they instead take inspiration from Tears of the Kingdom.

The officially licensed goodies are live at Amazon Japan starting from 3,530 yen (approx $23) and show off a wireless gamepad and a Switch 2 case. The controller isn't draped in green and gold like the new first-party Switch 2 Pro pad, but instead features a black chassis with gold Zonai-like embellishments and the game's fractured Master Sword front and center. If you aren't on the hunt for a new controller, the brand is also launching a leather-like bound case that features the Hylian crest, with both expected to drop on October 9 later this year.

Yet, while these Switch 2 accessories are newly announced, they're already available at Amazon US. You can grab the controller and case for $64.88 and $24.99 respectively, without having to wait for the spooky season to come around. There's every chance that these new versions could include updated features, but if you're in the market for new Switch 2 Zelda goodies and Ocarina isn't your jam, you have the option of not waiting around.

The Switch 2 pad shown off at Amazon Japan looks to be the exact same PowerA Advantage Wireless Controller available for $64.88 at Amazon US. That's not a bad thing, as this controller is packed with Hall effect sticks to help prevent any dreaded drift issues, motion controls, up to a 30-hour battery, and mappable back buttons.

If you're thinking of picking this up over the newly unveiled Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Switch 2 Pro controller, it's already far easier to find in stock, but there is a caveat. This controller, while being an officially licensed Zelda accessory, is missing the HD rumble and NFC-reading tech of Nintendo's first-party alternative. That means you're not going to have the full gamut of features on display with this, as you could with the premium option.

The PowerA Protection Case for Nintendo Switch 2 is also already up at Amazon US, and it is the cheaper accessory of the two with its $24.99 (Amazon) MSRP. It's also based on Tears of the Kingdom, which is unmistakable from the Zonai-pattern creeping in the corners of the exterior of the case, and the little green and gold tag on the inside.

Much like the best Nintendo Switch 2 cases, this accessory includes space for the handheld, smaller accessories via a fabric mesh pocket, and space to store up to 10 physical games. While I haven't tested it myself, I'd honestly recommend it over the new $39.99 (via Nintendo) 40th Anniversary case that's available via the official Nintendo online store.

The new 40th edition case looks to be based on the official Nintendo Switch 2 Carrying Case, which is one of my biggest Switch 2 shopping regrets since the console's conception. Unlike this PowerA option, it doesn't have a hardened exterior, and never felt like it could give my pricey bit of Ninty tech the protection it deserves. If you want to keep your pricey handheld safe and protected (and have ample storage for extras), this PowerA option looks far sturdier.

Better yet, you won't have to wrestle with any pre-order queues to grab it, as it's readily in stock and ready to ship. Though anyone based in Japan will still have to wait a few weeks - though that's nothing a quick rendition of the Song of Double Time on the ocarina can't fix.

• View all PowerA Nintendo Switch 2 accessories at Amazon

Check out Hasbro's new Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom toys if you're a fan of Link's Switch adventures.

The Blood of Dawnwalker has been out for a good few days now, giving Rebel Wolves – the studio headed by CD Projekt Red veterans with credits on bangers like The Witcher 3 – time to patch its new vampire RPG up a bit with hotfixes.

And that it has, with the latest little patch to drop for The Blood of Dawnwalker being an especially, erm, amusing one. Hotfix 1.0.4, as it's officially dubbed, might not be a huge update, per se – but it brings a good few much-needed fixes… and some hilarious tweaks, too.

I mean, as per the patch notes, one of the noted highlights is literally that "torches can no longer grow uncontrollably," because of course it is.

Another one of my favorite notes also has to be the fact that, uh "dead NPCs can no longer start dialogues" now. Although I never encountered that bug myself, thinking of a deceased guard or zombie nun speaking to Coen is truly wonderful.

That's not all, either – if you remember that placeholder dev asset Rebel Wolves (likely) accidentally used in The Blood of Dawnwalker's prologue, you'll be happy to learn it's gone.

You know, the one that was bright red and labeled "DO NOT USE" over and over again? As the studio writes in its patch notes for the RPG, "We are no longer using that one red pipe asset we weren't supposed to use."

As funny as it is, I'm sure it was a bit of an immersion-breaker in the silver mines, so it's nice to see the devs have removed it. That's not to say there aren't some more "serious" fixes, though.

Rebel Wolves tackles plenty of bugs, crashes, and soft locks in 1.0.4, while also explaining that the devs have "improved the game's stability" overall with the hotfix. So, it's not all laughs, but I'm personally here for the parts that are.

As for what's next, the studio likely has a lot up its sleeve, as so far, we've just seen smaller patches. I'm keeping my own fingers crossed for a combat rework of sorts… but I know that's a hot take.

I suppose we'll just have to wait. One thing's for certain, however – whatever Rebel Wolves drops in the future won't be nearly as silly as this hotfix, with all of its seemingly random adjustments.

Read our The Blood of Dawnwalker review to find out why we think it has "clear Witcher DNA" if you're thinking about playing one of this year's biggest new games yourself.

All Star Tower Defense codes might have been around a long time, but they're still showing no signs of slowing down as the popular game stands the test of time. Whether you're just getting involved for the first time or you're a long-term player, the following promos will be super helpful to your progression.

Anime tower defense games are rife on Roblox, so it's hard to know which ones to play, but thanks to its longevity, you know ASTD is a good choice. As you assemble your best team of anime champions and prepare to take on your next boss, redeem these ASTD codes for a boost.

Plus, if you want more general rewards that apply to all your experiences, take a look at our list of the latest Roblox promo codes up for grabs.

All ASTD codes

These are the All Star Tower Defense codes you can redeem right now:

• ReturnOfTheLobbies - 4,000x Gems, 150x Stardust
• ALateSummerAwaits - 4,000x Gems, 100x Stardust
• AwesomeBeginnerCode - 4,000x Gems, 50x Stardust, 1x Otherworldly Pickle

As you can see, ASTD codes tend to grant players with a combination of Gems and Stardust, which you need to summon new units to your team. On occasion, you may even get a special Unit, which could either be pretty weak but fun, or incredibly powerful, so don't miss out.

How to redeem ASTD codes

To redeem All Star Tower Defense codes, you must first click on the Settings button in the top-left hand corner of the screen. You'll find the codes redemption box at the bottom of the window that opens up. Enter the code into the box as it appears above then hit Enter or your platform equivalent.

There is no on-screen message to let you know that the code has been redeemed unless it awards a Unit, which will pop up, but if it's been successful, you'll see a change in the amount of currency beneath the window.

Expired ASTD codes

• FusionReborn - 4,000x Gems, 150x Stardust
• TheOverlordArrives - 4,000x Gems, 250x Stardust
• WhoInvitedThisGuy - 4,000x Gems, 250x Stardust
• tboicats - 3,000x Gems, 170x Stardust
• sorryfordelayandmonkeyking - 4,000x Gems, 280x Stardust
• yickadee - 2,000x Gems, 230x Stardust
• twete93dont - 2,700x Gems, 170x Stardust
• tungtungnobannersahur - 2,700x Gems, 170x Stardust
• cosmicrebel - 2,700x Gems, 170x Stardust
• omgupdate2026 - 2,700x Gems, 170x Stardust
• fordanielxd - 67x Gems, 67x Stardust

Since ASTD has been around for over six years, there have been plenty of expired codes, including the selection seen above. The valid codes will also expire at some point, so it's worth redeeming them as soon as you see them to avoid disappointment.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Nintendo just announced a new Metroid game in Metroid Ravenous! While it may seem a little soon (Metroid Prime 4: Beyond only released last year, after all) there's far more to this story.

Metroid Ravenous is set to be the first new 2D Metroid game in over five years, with the Metroid Dread release date passing us by way back on October 8, 2021. Thankfully, it looks like this new collaboration between MercurySteam and Nintendo EPD will pick up right in the aftermath of planet ZDR.

Metroid Ravenous was revealed during the September 2026 Nintendo Direct, with a reveal trailer showing cinematics, gameplay, and highlighting a few new powers for a returning Samus Aran to play with in the new game. Thankfully, we won't have long to wait to play it for ourselves, with Nintendo setting the Metroid Ravenous release date for early next year among the line up of upcoming Switch 2 games.

You'll learn more about the new 2D Metroid game below as we walk you through everything we know so far.

Metroid Ravenous release date

Nintendo has officially confirmed the Metroid Ravenous release date for January 28, 2027.

This was announced on September 9 as part of a Nintendo Direct presentation. Metroid Ravenous is set to be one of the most prominent upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 games of next year, and a key platform-exclusive alongside Pokemon Winds & Waves. Metroid Ravenous will land over five years since the last 2D Metroid game landed on Switch – as you can recap in my 2021 Metroid Dread review, a fun adventure that was let down by its frustrating boss battles.

Metroid Ravenous platforms

Metroid Ravenous will be a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive. This means it won't be available to play on the original Switch family of systems. This is unlikely to change in the future, with the vast majority of new first-party games published by Nintendo developed to take advantage of the increased power of the improved system. If you're looking to buy a console to play Metroid Ravenous (as well as some of the best Switch 2 games already out in the wild) then we're tracking the best Nintendo Switch 2 deals here.

Metroid Ravenous trailer

The first Metroid Ravenous trailer landed on September 9, 2026. It was positioned as part of the Nintendo Direct September 2026 showcase. While there were rumors that the game was in development, this first look was an official confirmation that the game is coming to Switch 2. You can watch the new Metroid trailer above.

Metroid Ravenous developer

While Nintendo is yet to officially confirm who is developing Metroid Ravenous, it's expected that it'll be MercurySteam once again taking on lead production duties. If you aren't familiar with the name, MercurySteam is an independent studio who has partnered with Nintendo in the past – collaborating to deliver Metroid Dread (2021) for Nintendo Switch and Metroid: Samus Returns (2017), which was a rather delightful remake of the Game Boy's Metroid 2: Return of Samus for 3DS. Basically, to cut a long story short: 2D Metroid is in exceptionally good hands here.

Metroid Ravenous pre-orders aren't live yet

Nintendo is yet to make Metroid Ravenous pre-orders live in the US or UK. However, we do know what to expect when they do eventually launch. The publisher announced that there will be both a regular and a special edition of the game available from January 28, 2027, with the limited release featuring a Steel Book, copy of the game, and a special Amiibo depicting Samus in a green Metroid Suit. And speaking of Amiibos, there will also be new products sold separately in the form of a Samus figure and a Chozo Statue.

Metroid Ravenous screenshots

Nintendo has released a bunch of new Metroid Ravenous screenshots. You'll see some of the more story focused snapshots on this page, but you'll want to click through this gallery to see over 20 direct-feed Metroid Ravenous gameplay screenshots which showcase some of Samus' returning abilities, new powers, and hint towards some of the threats we'll face this time around.

Metroid Ravenous gameplay

Metroid Ravenous is a 2D Metroid game with side-scrolling action, leaving you to forge a path forward through a labyrinthian maze of a world. While Nintendo is yet to officially detail what we're seeing in the reveal footage, it does look clear that this 2027 release is picking up in the immediate aftermath of Metroid Dread .

Which, spoilers, saw Samus able to directly absorb energy through her hands as a result of the Metroid DNA within her. It looks and sounds pretty clear that Ravenous will see Samus grapple with the fact that she's slowly transforming into a Metroid, an effect which will unlock a new suite of powers and abilities – alongside some returning classics. We'll likely learn more in the weeks ahead.

Have your say on Metroid Ravenous

Dive Deeper into Metroid

Raid codes are still in high demand for this long-running turn-based RPG, as players do the bidding of the Arbiter and work towards defeating the Dark Lord Siroth. If you want to restore peace to the realm of Teleria then you're going to need strong fighters and plenty of resources, so it's handy that there are promos specifically for new players to unlock a Champion, along with separate rewards for regulars. To find out more, here are all of the Raid Shadow Legends promo codes and how to redeem them.

All Raid codes

The following Raid Shadow Legends codes can be claimed by all players:

• RAIDAUTUMN – 50x Multi-battles, 1x Five-star Chicken, 300,000x Silver
• HAPPYBDAYUDK – 300,000x Silver, 15x Brews, 50x Auto-battles
• Dorothy – 1x Full Energy, 1x Four-star Chicken
• INTHEWEB – 250x Energy, 500,000x Silver, 15x Brews
• raidwebstore – 500,000x Silver, 5x Energy Potions, 1x Five-star Chicken
• TOALLFROMMID – 150x Auto-battles, 30x Brews, 300,000x Silver, 100x Energy
• RAIDSHADOWLEGENDSCOM – 15x Brews, 1x Five-star Chicken, 50x Auto-battles, 250x Energy
• raidtogether – 200x Energy, 500,000x Silver, 15x XP Brews.
• HUNTINRAID – 1x Five-star Chicken, 1x Full Energy Refill, 15x XP Brews, 300,000x Silver
• midgamejoke – 50x Multi-battles, 1x Five-star Chicken, 1x XP Brew, 1x Mystery Shard, 100,000x Silver, 1x Energy
• midlove – 15x XP Brews, 100x Multi-battles, 150,000x Silver
• DearSirNicholas – 50x Multi-battles, 1x Epic Tome, 300,000x Silver, 1x Energy Refill
• RAIDBROTHERHOOD – 1x Five-star Chicken, 300,000x Silver, 1x Full Energy, 15x XP Brews
• epyre – 10x Brews, 1x Energy Refill, 100,000x Silver
• AMG25 – 1x Epic Skill Tome, 150x Multi-battles, 100x Energy, 200,000x Silver
• winmidgamewinter – 100x Multi-battles, 30x Brews, 200,000x Silver, 100x Energy
• PP500 – 50x Multi-battles, 400,000x Silver, 200x Energy, 500x Plarium Points (Plarium Play only)
• GAMELEAP – 1x Epic Tome, 100,000x Silver, 1x Energy Refill

There are plenty of Raid codes available, but you are limited to only being able to redeem one promo per day, so think carefully about what you claim first based on your current needs.

For new players, only one of the following Raid codes can be redeemed within a day or two of creating a fresh account:

• MYTURN – Alure, 20x Magic XP Brews, 200,000x Silver
• GODSPEED – Apothecary, 5x Magic XP Brews, 5x Greater Arcane Potions, 100,000x Silver
• WELCOMEGIFT – Bellower, 11x Void Brews, 100,000x Silver, 3x Rare Books
• KITTYCUT – Cheshire Cat
• DASPIEL2024LIEBE – Chonoru, 300,000x Silver, 1x Three-star Chicken
• BECURSED – Cormac the Highpeak, 15x Magic XP Brews, 1x 3 Days XP Boost, 3x Energy Refills
• 2GTLUCKY2026 – Deliana, Multi-battles, Silver, Energy, Force Brews, Potions, Epic Skill Tome, 1x 3 Days XP Boost, Legendary Regeneration Gear Pieces
• XOXO25 – Fenax, Tallia
• BOUNTY – Fenshi, 10x Force Brews, 10x Greater Force Potions, 200,000x Silver
• GETFENSHI25 – Fenshi, 200,000x Silver, 10x XP Brews, 40x Potions
• PESTCONTROL – Hoskarul, 10x Spirit Brews, 200,000x Silver, 10x Greater Spirit Potions
• LILHELPER – Jinglehunter, 10x Spirit Brews, 200,000x Silver, 10x Greater Spirit Potions
• 2GT24Knight – Knight Errant, 100,000x Silver
• RAIDWITHKYTIS – Kytis, 5x Energy Refill, 5x Spirit Brews, 200,000x Silver
• GETLOKI – Loki The Deceiver, 300,000x Silver, 15x Spirit Brews, 15x Greater Spirit Potions
• LURIA – Luria, 5x Spirit Brews, 5x Greater Arcane Potions, 100,000x Silver
• 2QLRAID – Luthiea, 150,000x Silver, 1x Energy Refill, 15x XP Brews, 20x Multi-battles
• MAGEOUT – Mausoleum Mage, 5x Energy Refills, 300,000x Silver, 1x 3 Days XP Boost, 30x Force Brews
• CHUG – Melga Steelgirdle, 10x Spirit Brews, 300,000x Silver
• FIREBURN – Mordecai, 50x Multi-battles, 10x Force XP Brews, 200,000x Silver
• MYCELIUM – Myciliac Priest Orn, 10x Spirit Brews, 200,000x Silver, 10x Greater Spirit Potions
• GETOBORO – Oboro, 10x Void XP Brews, 5x Greater Arcane Potions, 300,000x Silver
• RAID7 – Pelops the Victor
• GOFAST – Razelvarg, 15x XP Brews, 15x Greater Magic Potions, 300,000x Silver
• REVIVER – Rector Drath, 10x Force Brews, 300,000x Silver
• MIDGAMETOP – Sigmund the Highshield, 100x Energy, 5x Magic Brews, 700,000x Silver, 50x Multi-battles, 5x Greater Arcane Potions, 1x 3 Days XP Boost, 1 Silver Chest
• HUNTMASTER – Stag Knight, 15x Spirit Brews, 150,000x Silver, 15x Greater Arcane Potions
• STAGSLAYER – Stag Knight, 1x Epic Skill Tome, 45x XP Brews, 150,000x Silver
• MONKEYKING – Sun Wukong, 300,000x Silver, 15x Spirit XP Brews, 15x Greater Spirit Potions
• SUPREME6 – Supreme Galek, 25x Void Brews, 5x Great Void Potion, 300,000x Silver
• DEMONSLAYER – Tholin Foulbe, 15x Greater Spirit Potions, 300,000x Silver
• STONECOLD – Thylessia, 25x Force Brews, 3x Rank 3 Chickens, 3x Epic Skill Tomes, 300,000x Silver
• FREEFROG – Toragi The Frog, 20x XP Brews, 200,000x Silver
• UDKING – Ultimate Deathknight
• SUBSCRIBEMIDGAMECHANNEL – Urticata, 10x Spirit Brews, 100,000x Silver
• 2GTSpringTricks – 1x Four-star Chicken, 50x Energy, 200,000x Silver
• RAIDCURIOUSER – 50x Multi-battles, 20x XP Brews, 1x Energy Refill, 200,000x Silver
• SpringTricks2GT – 1x Four-star Chicken, 200,000x Silver, 50x Energy
• TRICKORTREAT – 250x Energy, 25x Void Brews, 1x Five-star Chicken, 150x Multi-battles
• TRIVIADUNGEON – 30x Multi-battles, 15x XP Brews, 300,000x Silver

Many of these starter promos unlock a Champion alongside other useful resources, and if you're struggling to decide which one to pick then a lot of players recommend MONKEYKING to get Sun Wukong as a useful fighter.

How to redeem Raid promo codes

To redeem Raid Shadow Legends codes on PC (via Plarium Play only) and Android, all you need to do is tap the three bar icon on the left side of the Bastion screen to open the menu. From there, select the Promo Codes option and then enter a code before hitting Confirm to claim your reward.

However, you can't redeem Raid codes directly through the game on other PC formats or iPhone, so instead you need to visit the official Plarium promo codes website to claim them there. Log in to your linked Plarium account, then use the Enter Promo Code text box to type in a code before hitting Redeem to send your rewards to the game.

Remember, you can only redeem one Raid Shadow Legends promo code per day, regardless of the entry method you use, so make it count!

Expired Raid codes

• 1MGIFT – 300,000x Silver, 1x Energy Refill, 2x Rare Skill Tome, 3x Rank 3 Chickens
• 2GTNEWBIE – Kellan the Shrike, 2x Energy Refill, 200,000x Silver
• Click4Gameplay – Mordecai, 1x Multi-battle, 10x Force XP Brews, 200,000x Silver
• FROSTBRINGER – FrostBringer, 15x Magic XP Brews, 300,000x Silver
• only4midgamesubs – 1x Four-star Chicken, 10x XP Brew, 200,000x Silver
• POWERSTARTER – Tallia, Energy, Multi-battles, Silver
• RAID450K – 15x XP Brews, 1x Epic Skill Tome, Energy Refill, 450,000x Silver
• RAID7YEARS – 1x Void Shard, 300x Energy, 300,000x Silver, 20x XP Brews
• SUPERPOWERS – Deacon Armstrong, 1x Epic Book, 200,000x Silver, 24x Magic XP Brews
• wefinallyplayedit – 10x XP Brews, 1x Energy Refill, 100,000x Silver
• Yearlygift – 150x Multi-battles, 1x Four-star Chicken, 10x XP Brews, 500,000x Silver, 100x Energy

There have been plenty of expired Raid codes over the years, and some of the more recent ones are listed here for reference only. Promos tend to come and go, so make sure you keep on top of the current codes to no miss out on any rewards.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Changes are coming in The Witcher 3 remaster and Songs of the Past, and your trusty steed, Roach, is among the areas where you might notice some alterations. The mighty horse definitely has a distinct personality in the original game, and aspects of that have been upgraded for this update and the Songs of the Past DLC - but you can turn that all off if you prefer.

In an interview with Fall Damage, Karolina Kuzia, the design director at Fool's Theory, the studio that helped make Songs of the Past, addressed whether Roach's bugs had been fixed. "When it comes to Roach and her shenanigans, why take something that is light?" she asks.

She then passes the question to her colleague, Miles Tost, the level design lead at CD Projekt Red, who elaborates. "I don't know of any Roach bugs, I think she's perfect," he says. "Having said that, one cool thing about the remaster update is that we have updates to Roach's movement behavior, so on that count, that may be disappointing to you."

Yes, that is a little disconcerting, because Roach is truly a singular equestrian companion, even if she has a tendency to get in doorways you need to get through and other impossible places. She's a mess, but she's our mess, and we've grown to love and accept her in all her multitudes.

CD Projekt Red anticipated this by adding a toggle for the older and newer behavioral patterns. "You can turn that off," Tost adds. "If you prefer legacy Roach, the way you have grown to know her, be my guest."

Be your guest I shall be, Mr. Tost. I do enjoy keeping some aspects like these in remasters, because they become indelible to my nostalgia. Roach reminds you you're in a big, goofy fantasy game, and in a world like Geralt's you need that sometimes.

After 20 years voicing Geralt, The Witcher 3 star Doug Cockle says revisiting his character for Songs of the Past is "like slipping into a warm bath"

After 24 years, Star Fox Adventures is back. Rare's 2002 GameCube title turned Nintendo's beloved rail shooter into a Zelda-style action-adventure game, and while my nostalgic love for it runs deep, it's always had a controversial legacy among series fans. Now, we're all getting a chance to revisit it on Switch 2, as announced during today's Nintendo Direct.

Star Fox Adventures joins the GameCube library on Nintendo Switch Online today, September 9. As with all the recent GameCube re-releases, it will only be available on Switch 2, and only with the premium Expansion Pack version of the NSO subscription.

I used to earnestly assert that Star Fox Adventures was the only good Star Fox game, but, well, I played it when I was 12, and I liked Zelda a lot more than I liked Star Fox. I doubt that opinion fully holds up, but I do think Adventures was given a lot more guff than it deserved by hardcore Star Fox fans over the years.

It's a solid action-adventure game, it was graphically astounding in its day, and it has dinosaurs, after all. It famously started life at developer Rare as an original game titled Dinosaur Planet. Shigeru Miyamoto himself eventually proposed that it should be a Star Fox game and the rest, as they say, is history.

Here's hoping that Star Fox Adventures lives up to my memories of it at least a little bit. I'm gonna need something to fill the void until I can get my Zelda nostalgia fix with that Ocarina of Time remake.

Kirby and the World Beyond looks like the first open-world Kirby game, and it's coming to Switch 2 in spring 2027.

Today's Nintendo Direct showcase gave us a sneak peek at some exciting new games underway for the Switch 2, including none other than Kirby and the World Beyond.

It looks like a stunning little entry to Nintendo's 34-year-old series, standing as its second 3D entry after Kirby and the Forgotten Land – a title that itself launched a few years back in 2022 for the original Switch console.

Not only is it as visually vibrant and cozy as you'd expect a Kirby title to be (especially a 3D one after Forgotten Land's colorful debut), but Kirby and the World Beyond is also seemingly an open-world game. As per its trailer, it allows players to "freely explore" – so, yeah... I'm thinking it is indeed an open-world Kirby experience.

If so, it'll be the first of its kind. Sure, Kirby and the Forgotten Land had "open" areas that definitely felt more free than those in past platformers, but this would take it up a notch... and then some. And the gameplay? It looks as adorably action-packed as always, with inspired 'fit swaps for Kirby and more.

There's not too long left to wait to experience it, either. Kirby and the World Beyond is set to release sometime in the spring of 2027, which is just months away now (yes, time is passing that quickly). After all, the end of 2026 is approaching.

You can pre-order Kirby and the World Beyond now over on the Nintendo Store – if you can get through the Ocarina of Time remake queue, that is.

Searching for more to look forward to? Browse through our quick roundup of the best upcoming Switch 2 games arriving this year and beyond to wishlist.

Silent Hill 2 Remake studio and Cronos: The New Dawn creator Bloober Team has officially announced Onyx: The Dark Grip for Switch 2 – formerly known as Project M – at Nintendo Direct September 2026.

Earlier this year, fans had passed whispers about how the developer applied to trademark the title in 2024.

But no one dared to start a rumor ambitious enough to explain how unusual Onyx: The Dark Grip really is – the psychological horror game steeped in fluffy mist is playable exclusively in Switch 2 handheld mode.

The Dark Grip initially looks like a 2.5D Silent Hill game in its Nintendo Direct trailer. Protagonist Holden seems like a tired and unremarkable man, with his face peppered in 8 o'clock shadow and a sensible suede coat on his back, but even mundane aspects of his life are being manipulated by a supernatural force slowly eating all his sanity.

This sounds like it could be Silent Hill 2 and its unhelpful hero James Sunderland all over again – but, this time, the player is that supernatural force. That's right, we've all been offered a new job as Pyramid Head without abs.

"Survive as a vessel and interfere as a god," instructs a Nintendo press release. Onyx: The Dark Grip's trailer disclaims that the game can only be played in the Switch 2's handheld mode, since players will have to use the console's touch screen to perform interventions like unlocking doors, reading NPC minds, and moving objects.

But when you interfere with Holden's reality, he perceives you as a poltergeist, and the world starts to fuzz in shades of gray as he goes fully crazy.

"Play as the mysterious Entity," Nintendo continues, "guiding the actions of a lone traveler who arrives in a desolate ghost town. Manipulate the environment with your supernatural powers, solve puzzles, confront terrifying creatures and don't let your puppet descend into the depths of madness. Blur the line between the game world and reality."

Bloober is good at that – from its 2016 breakout game Layers of Fear to its work on the Silent Hill franchise, the developer favors horror narratives that grab a candlestick to melt the line between art and real, deep-breathing life.

And, while The Dark Grip will be the first Nintendo exclusive for the developer, Bloober CEO Piotr Babieno is a noted fan of Nintendo's few horror games.

"This is a vision that could only exist on Nintendo hardware," Babieno said about Onyx: The Dark Grip in 2025, when the game was known as Project M. He also assured fans of games like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and 2002 GameCube exclusive Eternal Darkness that they "will immediately feel at home" playing Onyx: The Dark Grip.

Well, let me start packing my things.

Prepare yourself for even more upcoming horror games in 2026 and beyond.

Mario Kart World is getting yet another free content update today, this time adding our first batch of new tracks.

Specifically, courses from Super Mario Kart are being added to the VS Race mode. We see SNES Choco Island 1 and Choco Island 2 now available as options under the standard Choco Mountain track, for example. Vanilla Lake and Ghost Valley are also coming, amongst others, for a total of 10.

Another neat Super Mario Kart nod comes in the form of the ? Panels on the road, which you can drive over to get items.

In addition, two extra Knockout Tour routes are being added, named Propeller Rally and Turnip Rally. There's clearly still more to come, as footage from today's Nintendo Direct still shows four further routes hidden behind question marks, so the devs aren't done supporting the mode.

Although it wasn't mentioned in the Direct itself, Nintendo also states via a press release that a new Spectator Mode has been added for when you're playing with friends online or through LAN play, and now that I'm saying that out loud, I can't believe it wasn't an option from the start. Better late than never, though.

Honestly, though, it's the new tracks that make 1.8.0 Mario Kart World's best update yet. It was always going to be hard for the Switch 2 racer to compete with Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which simply has so many more courses to race around, especially with all its DLC, and this thankfully gives World a bit of a boost in the right direction. Hopefully we can expect more in the future.

Be sure to keep up with our Nintendo Direct September 2026 live blog to see everything announced during the show.

After five years, we're finally getting a new 2D Metroid game. Metroid Ravenous was announced as part of today's Nintendo Direct, it looks like a direct follow-up to Dread, and it's set to launch very soon: January 28.

The first trailer teases plenty, but the key bit seems to be some sort of feeding mechanic. We see Samus repeatedly absorbing energy from her enemies like, well, a Metroid, and the idea of hunger would certainly explain the title. The energy Samus drains from enemies appears to fill a meter in the upper left of the screen, but it's not immediately clear whether that's a health bar or some other sort of power meter.

The story sees Samus attacked and trapped on a mysterious moon by an unknown group of enemies wearing sick space samurai gear. Which, honestly, sounds like a solid setup for a Metroid game. And it's equally fun and terrifying to see Samus's fusion with the Metroids back on the GBA manifest in some new powers.

Nintendo did not confirm the developer in today's announcement, but this sure looks like another MercurySteam joint, as the counter-heavy gameplay of the studio's last effort looks to be very much intact here.

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond's ill-fitting open-world structure left a poor taste in my mouth last year, but I loved Dread, and I'm hopeful that Ravenous can offer a proper feast. We don't have to wait long to find out, either way.

Mario Kart World's best free update yet adds 10 retro tracks from Super Mario Kart today.

I hate bugs. Big, small, somewhere in between – anything with more than four legs needs to stay as far away from me as possible. Which is why, sitting down at Gamescom 2026 to learn more about developer Behaviour Interactive's then-nameless new co-op shooter, I very nearly asked to leave.

Heartbreakingly, Exterminauts is not Dead by Daylight with guns. It's a PvE shooter that riffs off the likes of Helldivers 2 with obvious aplomb, down to the hammy, tongue-in-cheek pseudo patriotism. Punching in with your fellow blue collar employees at an extraplanetary pest control company, your mission is simple: wipe out hordes of creepy crawlies across the galaxy and make it home in time for supper.

I'll be honest: nothing about Exterminauts' premise excites me from the off. But forty minutes hands-on is all it took to change my mind about a genre I've long avoided, and guess who got the highest score of the session? Me.

Another day at the office

It goes without saying that, as someone who has never played a millisecond of Helldivers 2, I thought I was in for a rough hour playing Exterminauts. From shrill voice comms barked between teammates to center-screen aiming in the vein of the best hero shooters, I think back to my time with Marvel Rivals and shudder.

I take my seat and opt for the healer character, whose special ability is to spawn first aid drones out on the battlefield. I don't pay much attention to my actual loadout, but every character seems to have a basic weapon and a huge heavy weapon with unique elemental affinities. Charging up my heavy attack and releasing it after a few seconds unleashes a huge icy explosion, freezing any space bug or winged denizen unlucky enough to have crash-landed into the blast zone at the wrong moment.

Happily, the bugs in Exterminauts don't resemble actual bugs as I know them (Grounded should learn a lesson here). They more closely resemble ugly monster beasties than giant space ants or scuttling roaches, which is a huge relief as someone who thought she'd be throwing her headset down and screaming for the nearest exit post haste.

I spend most of my time in Exterminauts blasting bugs out of the sky while my teammates set about doing the actual tasks at hand. We need to head over to various abandoned space bases across this wild planet, itself consisting largely of red dirt plains with vivid patches of alien flora and fauna, to complete a series of mini-missions indicated by a directional ping on the HUD.

Again, I can't speak too much to what those look like — push a few buttons on a rusty control panel here, leap up a giant metal structure to turn a valve over there — but they aren't exciting enough to pull me away from peppering all creatures in sight with bullets, grenades, and frosty ice blasts aplenty.

Power attacks are replenished using bug goo drawn from the baddies I slay, and re-stocking ammo is as easy as finding stockpiles dotted across the map. I learn quickly that being teammates doesn't imply chivalric duty – my sneaky fellow employees frequently leave nothing for me after beating me to the chase – so I make sure to snag all the bullets and grenades I can carry when I reach a stash first.

This doesn't stop me coming out on top as the Employee of the Shift, with the most kills and fewest deaths. Not to brag, but I don't think I died at all.

Project management

Exterminauts' goofy premise and relatively low-pressure, low-stakes fun means I finally get the Helldivers 2 hype.

That said, I have my concerns about Behaviour's latest as it stands – the worlds themselves are gorgeously vibrant and playful, and I adore the art design there, but knowing that character barks were made with generative AI sours me on the creative vision. I'm told Behaviour will replace them with human voices at launch, but what's wrong with putting a dev behind a microphone for the time being?

Despite that singular gripe, though, Exterminauts has colored me impressed as well as in shades of bug gore. This is my first time playing a PvE shooter of its ilk, but after leaning into its comedy and embracing the twitchy gunplay in a fantastical sci-fi world, it might not be the last.

I've finally fallen in love with Helldivers 2, thanks to Super Earth's immaculate Halo 3: ODST vibes

Halloween the Game codes do exist, but at the moment they're restricted to a single promo in conjunction with the Regal Theatre chain in the US. There is a promo code redemption box in-game, which is how you can redeem one of these codes if you're lucky enough to have one, but I hope this means there'll be more Halloween the Game codes in the future - for all of us.

Halloween the Game codes

As I've mentioned above, the only Halloween the Game redemption codes at the moment are through a collaboration with Regal Theatres. Anyone who is part of the Regal Crown Club and sees any movie from the Halloween Series in one of their theaters automatically gets sent a redemption code for a 3D Glasses cosmetic item for civilians. You'll receive the code to your inbox at the email address associated with your Regal Crown Club account.

You'll also be in with a chance of winning a code for the actual game, if you don't already own it. If you're lucky enough to win and do, you can always get it on a different platform - but be aware that there's no cross-platform saves if you have access to multiple versions.

How to redeem Halloween the Game codes

To redeem Halloween the Game codes, head to the Graveyard tab at the top of the screen, then scroll down to Extras, indicated by three horizontal dots. Here, you'll find the Redeem Codes button where you can open the redemption box, enter your code, and redeem your reward.

So, it's not great news for everyone yet, but hopefully there will be more Halloween the Game codes added in the future, perhaps in a similar fashion to DBD codes.

With or without 3D Glasses, you'll want to check out my tier list of the best Halloween the Game civilians, as well as my top Halloween the Game tips.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

It's been almost three years since we saw the first trailer for GTA 6, and Rockstar North's co-studio head has now revealed – perhaps unsurprisingly – that the game wasn't "fully formed" at that point. Despite that, though, the song used in it was a "mission statement" for what was to come.

The wait for GTA 6 has felt extremely long, with Rockstar's sparse marketing certainly not helping matters. Trailer 1 was all we had to go off for a long time, introducing us to Lucia and who would later be confirmed as Jason, the Vice City setting, and, uh, a 2025 release window. Yeah, that didn't age well, but the accompanying music – Tom Petty's 'Love is a Long Road' – really helped set the vibe for the game, and seemingly not just for the fans.

Speaking in a new interview with French outlet TroisCouleurs, Rockstar North co-studio head Rob Nelson notes that when the team starts on a new game, they don't necessarily all have the same image in their heads of what it's going to look like. "It may be an image, often it is a song we rally around," he says.

As for Rockstar's process, "the first thing we always do, once we decide where we want to set the game, is we'll go there. And just feel it, and go out and just drive around," he says, adding that the devs will "take a ton of pictures, and soak as much of it up as we can and see what speaks to us and start to talk about it and share ideas about what we want to incorporate."

He continues: "So, I'd love to say that it was an image from here that was in our heads, but you're usually chasing something a little bit out of reach and then you see something, and choose a piece of music, and these two things start to work. The game starts to pull together these sorts of pieces."

Nelson then points to GTA 6 trailer 1. "With the first trailer for this game, the Tom Petty song [Love is a Long Road] was a real sort of mission statement," he explains. "You don't have the game fully formed, you have an idea of what it's going to be, but you really have to push hard to pull that together and so when this team is able to do that – and it's definitely made with everything that you've got, but it's the best of everything you've got at that point – it's put together in such a way that it helps be a bit of a guiding light of what it needs to feel like."

Looking back, it seems pretty obvious that GTA 6 wasn't "fully formed" at that point – after all, we're going to have been waiting for the best part of three years since then when we actually get to play it. What we saw even then though looked extremely good, and I suppose that's just what Nelson is talking about when he refers to it as "the best of everything you've got."

But the music choice was clever, too – the lyrics gave us a bit of a hint at what we might be able to expect from the story and Lucia and Jason's relationship, more than what was actually shown in the trailer itself. And, if this is something that Rockstar used as inspiration itself, it's only fitting that we were teased with the very same song.

GTA 6 boss says "there will always be things to satirize," but Rockstar has to "be careful about what we pick" because after 11 years of development "it could be gone, it could change, it could be dated."

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

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

Waxing poetical

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

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

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

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

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

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

Man of the land

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

These Anime Dice codes grant a handsome number of rewards, all of which are useful for obtaining better characters and upgrading your best for increased earnings and better fighting abilities.

Anime Dice is a combination of some of the most popular Roblox experiences, rolling Gacha and combat into one. Not only do you need the best anime-inspired characters to rake in as much cash as possible, but you can also pit them against bosses in a combat card game to climb the tower and earn even more rewards. You'll need all the help you can to get as far as possible, so redeem the Anime Dice codes below.

If you're searching for more general rewards that you can apply to all of your experiences, then we've got the latest Roblox promo codes you can claim.

All Anime Dice codes

These are all the Anime Dice codes you can redeem right now:

• 5KCCU - 2x Lucky Spins, 5x Trait Rerolls, 5x Gems
• 1KCCU - 2x Lucky Spins, 5x Trait Rerolls, 5x Gems
• UPDATE3 - 2x Lucky Spins, 7x Trait Rerolls, 7x Gems
• UPDATE2 - 2x Lucky Spins, 5x Trait Rerolls, 5x Gems
• UPDATE1 - 2x Lucky Spins, 3x Trait Rerolls, 3x Gems
• RELEASE - 1x Lucky Spin, 2x Trait Rerolls, 2x Gems

As you can see from the list above, Anime Dice codes tend to reward a combination of Lucky Spins, Trait Rerolls, and Gems. While Lucky Spins can get you some superb rewards if luck is on your side, Trait Rerolls and Gems can be used more specifically to upgrade your best characters.

Anime Dice codes aren't case-sensitive, so you only have to worry about spelling, but you should still just copy and paste them from above if possible to avoid mistakes.

How to redeem Anime Dice codes

To redeem Anime Dice codes, you must first click on the Shop button in-game. The confusing thing is that there are two Shop buttons, so you must choose the one on the left-hand side of the screen, marked by a shopping basket icon. You can also get here by heading to the Market stall in the center of the arena.

Either way, you should then scroll to the bottom of the shop screen where you'll see the codes redemption box. Enter a code into the box as it appears above, and then hit Redeem.

Expired Anime Dice codes

• There are no expired Anime Dice codes.

Anime Dice is still a relatively new Roblox experience, so no codes have expired since release. However, I don't doubt that those codes above will expire at some point, when I'll move them down here, so redeem them while you can.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Oh Link, you've met with a terrible fate. You might not be a Deku Scrub, but you are absolutely lost in the uncanny valley thanks to Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake.

Link's younger self stands out among all the other re-modeled characters for many of the wrong reasons. His chubby, babyface cheeks and big round eyes contribute to the feeling that we're looking at someone just slightly too inhuman for their own good.

In reaction to Nintendo showcasing the remake, people have been quick to gawk at the choices made regarding our protagonist. One popular tweet compares a picture of Hyrule's hero and that cursed hellspawn Renesmee animatronic baby from the Twilight film franchise.

I'm sorry to say, but there's a clear resemblance. It's in the eyes and how the air gets a little colder whenever you're looking into them. One of many photoshops doing the rounds hammers this home.

Speaking of hammers, another post makes it clear violence would've been employed in another time for the intrepid adventurer. "Me and my friends would have killed Young Link with hammers I can tell you that much," says a post, and going by the numbers, I think a few would've joined them.

In a crossover within the same franchise, one Twitter user points out Link's resemblance to Malo, the infant-looking Ordonian from Twilight Princess. A reminder Nintendo has form for this, however cursed.

"They did him dirty," one fan proclaims, and, well, yeah.

One huge change in the Ocarina of Time remake: full voice-acted cutscenes for everyone, except Link of course.

Various new games – and I mean various – have reportedly suffered countless spoilers thanks to a Steam leak that's seen their achievements go entirely public.

From Kingdom Hearts 4 to Persona 6 to Silent Hill: Townfall to… well, you name it, there's a downright plethora of titles seemingly affected by the massive leak on Valve's platform.

You can find lists of every game (and their achievements, be warned) on online forums and websites like Twitter – and it's all so big it's nearly mind-blowing. They're all live on achievement tracker site Exophase, too, but I'd once again caution checking anything out in too much detail.

Not only does the leak apparently expose a load of upcoming games' achievements, but it also lifts the veil on many "unannounced" titles, as users point out in a social media thread on the whole debacle.

There's an "unannounced Dune game" in there, an "unannounced Twin Peaks game," and even a dang "unannounced Shrek 2 Remaster" mentioned, y'all… and, erm… Penis Bird? Put simply, it's one heck of a leak – and not just of games we knew about.

So, how did this all happen in the first place? Well, it seems to boil down to an API error that isn't exactly new to Steam. For anyone who might not know what that means (because I certainly didn't), API stands for application programming interface, and it's essentially a set of rules that allows software programs to communicate.

Exophase owner "x3sphere" has described it a bit over on ResetEra, confirming what happened.

"I am the owner of the site and this is what appears to have happened," he writes. "Seems like a possible screw up on Valve's end, a bunch of games with achievements that should be private are accessible through the API right now and that's why they got scanned into the site. I usually never see games without an actual name pop up with achievements, yet over the past hour or so a bunch have."

Oof.

Valve has yet to respond itself, but I'm not sure it will aside from remedying the apparent private information from each game. As for studios like Sega and Square Enix which have seemingly seen their unreleased games go a bit more public, I doubt we'll hear anything, either.

So, there you have it – you can go explore the findings yourself if you're interested it, but after taking a peek at the alleged Persona 6 achievements myself, I can say I sort of wish I hadn't.

Spoilers, spoilers everywhere… and I shan't be sharing them here.

Kingdom Hearts 4 script "almost twice as big" as KH3's, Tetsuya Nomura says: "There were more parts that I wanted to include, but I was already pushing it."

Persona 4 Revival might not be making any major changes to its characters, but the remake has still given Atlus the opportunity to "go more in-depth" with some of them, the game's producer reveals.

I spoke to producer Kazuhisa Wada at Gamescom last month, where I asked him about the previously announced changes to Yosuke – a party member with some homophobic dialogue in the original JRPG and its Golden re-release, which was obviously never going to make it into the remake without some serious alterations. Wada told me that "the characters are all the same people. We haven't changed any parts of their personalities," but that "we've adjusted dialogue to make it more modern and to be more effective telling the story."

Even if Atlus isn't changing anyone's personality, though, Wada now tells Eurogamer in a new interview that we can expect some characters to be further explored in the remake. "In a lot of ways, there has been something more we could explore with every character," he begins.

"Since Persona 4 came out, there have been a number of spin-off games that have been released, where we developed the characters and their personalities. So when we were making Revival, we took aspects of that and helped it to inform our characters and add detail and depth. For the team, it was Yosuke and Kanji that they really wanted to explore and go more in-depth with."

Art director Akane Kabayashi adds to this, noting that returning to the RPG made her realize that "Chie is forced to wear a lot of different hats and do a lot of different things. You can see that Chie and Yukiko are like 'double heroines,' but Chie is given a lot more stuff to do than Yukiko is, and it made me really respect that aspect of her."

I'm particularly interested by Wada highlighting Yosuke and Kanji here, especially the former. Going back to Yosuke's homophobia in the original – aimed at Kanji, as it happens – many had theorized that this could be recontextualized in Revival as internalized homophobia via a newly added romance route between him and the protagonist. After all, datamined voice lines from the OG JRPG suggest this was once meant to be an option.

However, Wada also told me at Gamescom that despite being aware of the fan demand for Yosuke romance, "we were thinking, if we did Yosuke, we kind of would have to do all the other male characters as well. And if we did that, that is a lot of work. So we were thinking about our time and schedule. I don't know if we could actually handle this, so we decided to let Yosuke float on by."

So, that theory has been debunked. Even if there's no actual romance route though, Wada's latest comments do have me wondering how Atlus has expanded on Yosuke's character, and if that aforementioned idea could have been explored without changing his social link. For now, we'll just have to wait until February to find out.

Persona 4 Revival is the best looking Persona to date, and after 1 hour playing, I'm already desperate to return to Inaba.

Nintendo just unveiled the Legend of Zelda special edition Nintendo Switch 2 console during the brand's 40th Anniversary Direct. With a release date set for October 29, pre-orders have kicked off in Australia. Us early buyers are all lamenting the fact those gorgeous dark green Joy-Con and that sparkly dock aren't available separately, but those holding out for a special edition console will want to get their pre-order gameplan in order.

So far, JB Hi-Fi and EB Games have both opened pre-orders for the limited edition console.

Where can I pre-order the Legend of Zelda Nintendo Switch 2 in Australia?

Of course, Nintendo itself is going to be a front runner in many bookmark lists here. It's typically harder to get yourself in line here, though. The Switch 2 was locked behind playtime quotas and membership lengths, and even then Nintendo operated on an invite-only system for the first few waves of stock.

We're out of the woods with that original launch yes, but the special edition Zelda Switch 2 is likely to move fast still.

How to plan for your Legend of Zelda Nintendo Switch 2 pre-order

Nintendo also dropped news of Hasbro's new electronic Master Sword and the new Lego Link and Epona set in its Direct, but you can also check out all the best Legend of Zelda merch we've found so far.

Mark Cerny, PlayStation's lead systems architect, says he's "nearing the end" of his career and wants to "pay it forward" by investing into future generations of game developers. His method of doing that is teaming up with The Game Awards host Geoff Keighley and forming The Nova Games Foundation, which will award grants to aspiring developers worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, potentially for decades to come.

Cerny and Keighley tell Game File the plan is to give $100,000 to each of 20 young game designers every year, with eligibility for up to $500,000 more for the most promising projects. Meanwhile, Nova will do its part connecting developers with publishers and marketing their games, but it won't profit financially from any of its investments. Meanwhile, recipients will be free to work with publishers of its choosing and determine which platforms their games are available on.

Applications begin in December for the 2026 to 2027 class of 13 college programs across eight countries, including New York University, the University of Southern California, Scotland's Abertay University, France's Cnam-Enjmin, Germany's TH Köln, and Australia's Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.

"I've always wanted to give back, but given my role in the industry, I've never felt it appropriate to commercially invest in games," says Keighley. "I've never owned stock in a game company or taken a financial stake in a game. Nova is philanthropy: we aren't taking equity or looking to recoup the grants. The return we're hoping for is creative—helping new voices make games and find their footing.

"Mark and I have each made multi-million-dollar donations to establish the foundation, and we intend to keep contributing. We hope others will join us."

One key developer already recruited by Nova is Josef Fares, lead designer at Hazelight Studios, the company behind hit co-op games It Takes Two and Split Fiction. "I'm proud to support Nova because it gives the next generation of creators the freedom to explore their creativity and hopefully bring their unique visions to life," Fares says.

Cerny and Keighley are looking for other high-profile games industry figures to join the cause, and Keighley says "dozens of leading game directors" have already shown interest.

Cerny hopes Nova can grow "over the next 10 or 20 years."

"The industry has changed immeasurably since I started in games in 1982," he says. "These graduates have talent, training and tools that outclass what we had back in the day by an astonishing amount. But they face a tough road ahead getting traction in the industry, and many could benefit from our support. We want to be there to give it to them."

Here's hoping one day this list of upcoming games includes some Nova recipients.

Sony is set to give physical PlayStation games the axe in 2028, and it's a safe guess that other console manufacturers will follow suit. But PC has already been effectively digital-only for decades, despite the platform arguably having an even greater legacy when it comes to physical media. Now DRM-free storefront GOG is stepping up its efforts to preserve the good ol' PC gaming experience with a new way to enjoy the classic big box experience.

As part of GOG's Preservation program, Myst, Descent, Hitman: Codename 47, Star Trek: 25th Anniversary, and Armikrog each now include "an interactive 3D scan of its real, physical box art," according to the announcement. "We had the actual boxes scanned – front, back, spine, the works – and turned into rotatable 3D models you can download after purchase and open right in the 3D viewer that’s already built into Windows and Mac. No extra software, no plugins. Just spin the box around on your screen like you’re holding it."

If that kind of thing sounds familiar, you might have seen Big Box Collection. This is a fanmade website dedicated to letting you look at extremely sharp 3D models of big box PC games right from your browser. Frankly, I'm constantly astounded by just how much fun it is to spin these digital boxes around. Those scans look real good.

And GOG isn't just lifting Big Box Collection's concept wholesale. It's also working with Benjamin Wimmer, the creator of the project, to offer "flat, printable versions of the same box art, so you can cut, fold, and glue your own physical big box at home. A proper papercraft project for anyone who misses shelves full of PC game boxes."

Game preservation isn't just – or even primarily – about making sure the games themselves remain available on modern stores. Preserving the full context around those games, including their packaging and the items included in the original box. That's especially important for the old-school PC games that GOG specializes in, since those titles often included all kinds of essential books, maps, and supplements that were part of the full experience.

"What we definitely need are heroes to step forward and take good care of our games," Wimmer says in an interview for GOG. "Christopher Nolan stepped up to have Kubrick’s 2001 unrestored and thus preserved for us to experience it as envisioned and I’m sure there are gonna be heroes doing the same for games."

The Witcher 4 probably isn't coming to PS5 with a physical disc, CD Projekt Red boss says, but fans will still get something to "open up and enjoy."

Ever since God of War Laufey was revealed this past summer, fans have been squabbling over Sony Santa Monica's decision to move aside Kratos as the game's main protagonist in favor of his second wife and mother to Atreus, Laufey. Well, that debate has now been ended quite decisively, as none other than Kratos actor Christopher Judge has stepped in with an unequivocal stamp of approval for the upcoming sequel.

"It's a banger," Judge said during a Fan Expo Canada panel (via Collider) "People are going to be blown away." Speaking directly to Woll's casting, Judge added, "She's so beloved in so many fandoms, and man, she brings it. She absolutely brings it."

Indeed, Woll is a beloved and prolific actor with major roles across TV, film, and video games. She's known as Jessica Hamby in True Blood, Karen Page in the MCU, and Faye, or Laufey, in the Norse era of Sony's God of War games. Though she was briefly seen, dead, in the first God of War from 2018, she appeared more prominently in cutscenes in God of War Ragnarok, and Laufey will be her first appearance as a playable character in the series. And if Judge is correct, you won't want to go back.

We saw plenty of Faye's moveset in the 20 minutes of footage shown in God of War Laufey's announcement, and the nimble, acrobatic hero couldn't be more different to the hulking, lumbering Kratos. Woll herself previously called Kratos's gameplay "fantastic because he's such a heavy hitter," but added that Faye is "just as strong and just as good a warrior." Of course, if you've spent any time on the internet ever, you won't be surprised to hear there were some negative reactions to Laufey being the main protagonist, which Woll has wisely shrugged off.

God of War Laufey hits PS5 on February 16, 2027.

God of War Laufey proves women are still gaining ground in gaming, and I'm thrilled Kratos is sitting this one out