GTA 6 fans will not allow a peaceful nudist resort in Florida to be nude in peace. They tracked down the real-life location, which would appear to be in Rockstar's crass open-world after doomed crypto scammer Cyberleek showed off a similar naked palooza in gameplay clips this August, and now its owner is ready to pull a GTA 5.

Cypress Cove Nudist Resort in Kissimmee, Florida looks to be represented in GTA 6 as a pleasant retreat with a stocked bar, blue pool, and more penises than you could count – though Cyberleek tries their best to be destructive in their leaked footage that ends in a naked bullet hail. Before that, GTA 6 protagonist Jason is only passively criminal, leering at strangers with a pair of crystal-clear binoculars, which I imagine isn't what most people want to see when they have their nipples out. GTA 6 fans make this known in their fake five-star Google reviews of Cypress Cove, which are glowing, despite their in-character references to Jason and his wandering eyes.

Many of these reviews seem to have been deleted as of writing, but Cypress Cove left at least one up as a warning. That review says, "Had a great time until a man pulled out his binoculars." But this was the wrong thing to say to Cypress Cove – which also claims GTA 6 trolls are petitioning the business for money in order to delete their reviews.

"SPAM / EXTORTION REVIEW," the nudist resort labels it. "For anyone wondering about the suddenly recurring references to 'Jason Duval,' 'Lucia,' binoculars, a pool, firearms, and other suspiciously similar details — those are references to Grand Theft Auto VI. Yes. A video game."

Cypress Cove continues, "These reviews appear to be part of a coordinated series of fabricated posts using GTA VI references and attaching them to our actual business. They were then followed by a request that we PAY MONEY to have the reviews changed or removed."

The business vows: "We will not pay. We will not negotiate. We have documented the reviews and the request for payment. This activity is being reported through the appropriate channels." It continues to warn GTA 6 hopefuls that, while "we appreciate the commitment to the GTA storyline, [...] Cypress Cove is located in Florida – not Leonida."

"Unfortunately," the nudists conclude, "our marketing budget also does not contain a line item for 'internet ransom.'"

"The owner definitely wasn't happy about the comments," correctly observes a Reddit thread on the topic. Screenshots show other five-star reviews that reference "what happened on August 24," the day Cyberleek shared that footage of Jason killing everyone at the nudist resort in GTA 6, and subsequent warnings to "beware of the guy named Jason Duval." Cypress Cove has the same response to all of it, "SPAM / EXTORTION REVIEW."

"A nudist resort DENYING exposure??" says one incredulous Reddit comment. But I think I understand why a friendly nudist resort for relaxed hippies in Florida wouldn't want to be associated with an illegal video game leak that shows a man murdering innocents from the edge of its pool. Even for an R-rated location, it isn't brand safe.

"They already view us as a people who can't fight back and don't care if we're chained up," writes one purported nudist in the subculture's Reddit, who is horrified with Rockstar's horny representation of people that simply want to feel the wind on their butts. "We need to make it apparent to everybody just how inaccurate this parody truly is. If we can't unite, we're already dead."

So, there are some people out there who would gladly defend Cypress Cove's honor against GTA 6 miscreants. They might encourage fake reviewers to turn off the laptop, take off their cloth tops, and enjoy the real Florida sunshine before GTA 6 glues everyone and their underwear to their gaming chairs on November 19.

GTA 6 extended reveal caused a surge in PS5 and Xbox Series X sales, analysts say – now imagine the response if consoles didn't cost an arm and a leg.

EA's new Saudi Arabia owners are reportedly looking to shuffle the publisher into a new gaming giant that would combine and spearhead the country's gaming strategy.

Bloomberg reports that early considerations at Saudi Arabia, the supermajority owner in a new consortium of investors that took EA private in a deal that closed August 4, would see EA merged with Savvy Games, a group established by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) in 2021 as the bedrock for yet more billions in investment.

EA and PIF representatives evidently declined to comment on the report.

The report stresses that final decisions have not been made and are unlikely to come until, at the very least, Savvy can close the $6 billion acquisition of Chinese studio and Mobile Legends maker Moonton.

On the Public Investment Fund website, Savvy Games' stated goal is "achieving leadership status in the games industry by 2030."

"Savvy has been growing rapidly since being established, with ESL FACEIT Group, the world’s #1 esports company, and Scopely, the #1 mobile games company in the United States, under its portfolio," it adds.

If such a merger goes through, and passes regulatory scrutiny, it would put EA's sports franchises and Scopely's Pokemon Go – not to mention Monopoly Go! – in the same place.

Buying one of the largest game publishers in the US for $55 billion and then almost immediately pushing it into a merger with your other company – which you pumped $38 billion into in order to acquire some of the biggest players in mobile gaming – would, perhaps, raise an eyebrow in an antitrust case.

The considered merger appears mobile-heavy, but the PIF didn't snatch up EA just for phone games, and this move could land it one of the world's biggest gaming companies altogether.

It could also spell the end of EA as we've known it for years, if you generously assume that this takeover hasn't already settled that. The EA deal stoked fears of mass layoffs at the company, even as EA leadership insists "our creative freedom and player-first values will remain intact," and being wholly merged with Saudi Arabia's very own mobile foothold surely wouldn't settle those fears.

EA staff fear new Saudi Arabia owners will police their games: "Projects just won't get signed because they don't align explicitly with what the Saudi government wants."

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation will launch on a physical disc, but there's an important caveat in that the game still requires an online download. That's in contrast to the previous two parts of the remake trilogy, which launched with multiple discs containing the entirety of each respective game. Director Naoki Hamaguchi says releasing the entire game on disc would've meant compromising on the RPG's quality.

"When we had an internal discussion with the development team about how we wanted to approach the physical discs and the physical releases of FFVII Revelation," Hamaguchi tells IGN, "initially there were conversations about using the same disc size as we did for, say, FFVII Rebirth. But if we were to do that, it would mean that we would have to make a compromise in terms of the fidelity and the quality of the game. So as a development team, we didn't want to do that. We didn't want to make any compromises for the game."

I very much wish that Hamaguchi had gone into more technical details here, because it feels like the answer is obvious: just put more discs in the box. The physical versions of Rebirth and the original PS4 release of Remake each featured two discs, after all. Would Revelation's file size have stretched it out to three discs, or more? Would three discs have been too expensive for Square Enix to justify manufacturing? Is there some technical limitation on the console making a three disc version impossible? Hamaguchi doesn't elaborate.

"Realistically, the only choice that we had was to release this physical disc, but with certain sections of the game being a digital download format through the physical disc," he concludes. "With that being said, I completely understand that not all players might be happy with this decision, but at the same time, I am happy that we were still able to release a physical format of the game. So I am quite satisfied with the end results as well. I would hope that our fans and players would be able to share that as well."

There are two primary benefits to physical games. One is that you have a physical object that you can lend, trade, give away, or sell whenever you want to. The other is that – in theory – you've got a permanent archive of that game which you can continue to play long after patching servers shut down. I'd take having one of those things over getting neither of them, but I wish I wasn't having to compromise at all.

Tired of digital everything, more people are buying physical media: CD sales are up 58% and vinyl records jumped 17%, according to new report.

Although Starfield stands as one of Bethesda Game Studios' most ambitious RPG projects to date, it didn't exactly outshine the likes of The Elder Scrolls or Fallout – and that may just be because it was a bit too ambitious.

Speaking to FRVR, Starfield lead systems designer Kurt Kuhlmann admits as much, first explaining how everything being "new" – because, you know, the space RPG did see the "largest engine overhaul" from Bethesda since the original Oblivion – complicated things right off the bat.

Developers "needed this new system to work" before building on it, he says, "and the later that goes, the less time you have to work with it." The size of the team working on Starfield was simply not it either, considering the sheer scope.

"Even with the size of the team that we had for Starfield, it wasn't big enough to create the amount of content that the grand idea of the game really required," as Kuhlmann recalls. "Like, we needed way more [devs]."

Why was the scope so wide for Starfield, though? Well, Bethesda head Todd Howard wanted it to be one heck of a game.

"He wanted to make a big open-world space game which, to him, wasn't Skyrim in space and you just go on this one planet and then a bit on this other planet," says Kuhlmann.

And, while "it is what we built," the lead says it might've been a bad idea. "That is an ambitious as hell vision, and I don't think, especially in retrospect, we shouldn't have made it. We couldn’t really make it." Bethesda did do its best, however.

As Kuhlmann concludes, "We pulled it off to quite an impressive degree, but yeah, it was not our forte. It was not leaning to our strengths."

I suppose I can see that – as a usual fan of all things Bethesda myself, Starfield didn't exactly mesh well with my tastes. I would've much rather played The Elder Scrolls 6 (sigh), but I am glad to see studios try new things – even if they don't always work out as well as they could've.

"Most people wanted" to make The Elder Scrolls 6 after Fallout 4, says Skyrim co-lead, but then Todd Howard said "No, we're doing Starfield"

A couple of weeks ago, Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026 provided us with our first look at both The Witcher 3 Remastered and CD Projekt Red's brand-new expansion for the RPG, Songs of the Past – an expansion that wouldn't have happened without the remaster.

Or, at least, that's what CD Projekt Red says in a recent interview with BBC News over on YouTube.

As Jakub Rokosz, game director behind both The Witcher 3 and now Songs of the Past, recalls, "the stars had to align and the conditions had to be just right to make this [the new expansion] happen." And right they became, as "the story of Dandelion's past and homeland came into our spotlight" at the perfect time.

Right when "CD Projekt Red started talking to us about about doing it," other "work on the remaster" was underway – "and those two things are intertwined in a way that the realization of Letten, Dandelion's hometown, wouldn't be possible without the remaster upgrades."

As Rokosz concludes, "there are a few things that had to click together" to make Songs of the Past "possible." And, thankfully, those things did indeed click.

Considering the sheer scope of Songs of the Past, I'm honestly not too surprised to hear Rokosz say that The Witcher 3 Remastered was practically necessary to make the expansion work.

After all, the original RPG from CD Projekt Red launched way back in 2015, leaving over a decade of technological advancements between then and now. Plus, it sounds like the remaster will be quite the overhaul, also.

We've got everything from "improved combat" to massively reworked visuals to look forward to, at times making it sound more like a remake than a remaster, honestly.

It's one heck of an undertaking for developers, undoubtedly, anyway, considering all of the other upcoming CD Projekt Red games, too. Coupled with Songs of the Past – which Rokosz makes seem huge as well – we Witcher stans have a lot to be excited about.

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"

The new Fable has the unenviable position of bringing the series to a contemporary audience. After all, it's been 16 years since Fable 3, the last mainline entry. Playground Games is taking that responsibility seriously, with combat that merges new school and more classical mechanics.

"When we're talking about being faithful to the classic franchise, we thought about how there was an approachability to combat there," Will Kennedy, associate game director, explained to TechRadar. "And we knew that we wanted to be able to capture some of that for our game as well. But at the same time, we're making a game for gaming today."

It's a tricky balance. Fable has a lot of fans who've been waiting around for another installment - myself included - and we want this sequel to feel like the other games. But game development has evolved, and you don't want to alienate newcomers for the sake of making sure it still feels like 2009 to our old, decrepit hands.

"We wanted there to be breadth and depth to it, so we landed on wanting to have style-weaving combat," he says. "We wanted to be able to move from move to move really smoothly and easily, and that combined with the level expression that you've got."

The system Playground Games created is all about versatility. You can edit your loadout from the top down, and you have four spell slots to tinker with to see what works for you. Kennedy notes that you won't be playing long before "you have a really broad, deep, rich suite of options to choose from."

He adds the team is "really proud" of how "satisfying" the RPG feels. "We've landed somewhere that is still approachable but has that depth that we want and so therefore is faithful but works in gaming today as well for players, which is sometimes to be proud of," he finishes.

We'll see just what he means when Fable arrives in February 2027.

Fable devs originally had a tool to randomize the RPG's 1,000 NPCs that "would have saved us so much time," but that "just didn't make as much sense"

GamesRadar+ Replay is the gaming show made by you from all the clips you send in. Whether that's something you're proud of, or can't quite believe happened, all your impressive moments, displays of prowess, or clutch survivals are worthy fodder for our entertainment.

Round Up #6 features the best clips from the last month and includes some of the most Far Cry Far Cry that's ever Far Cry'd; some incredibly painful deaths in GTA, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Watch Dogs 2, not to mention an actual dog in Fallout New Vegas, and that's just a few options.

If you want to submit your own clips and be a part of it all then there's a big orange button below that will let you do that. There are £/$250 Amazon Vouchers to be won each month for the best videos (here are last month's winners) and you can send in any clips for any game, as well as a special 'speed theme' for September, giving you two chances to win:

By submitting your clip, you agree to the Terms and Conditions.

If you need a helping hand, here's how to record gameplay on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, and Switch/Switch 2 to save your highlights.

Now let's take a look at the latest Replay clips:

It's finally here – Final Fantasy 14 just got the very exciting Patch 7.56 earlier this week, and the star of the show is most definitely the MMO's new limited job: the Beastmaster.

In case you've not had the chance to experience the class yourself just yet, it plays a whole lot like Pokemon or Palworld in concept.

You capture creatures from all over Eorzea (yes, old A Realm Reborn regions are finally coming back to life), whip 'em out in combat and use all sorts of deadly combos and actions, try to catch more beasts, and… rinse and repeat. There's a handy little bestiary to help you on the way, too.

Put simply, you've gotta (and will wanna) catch them all – and it's genuinely good fun. I've spent hours grinding away in Central Shroud myself, looking forward to the Crucible, in all its painful roguelike-ish glory… and, of course, the glittery Tourmaline Golem mount you can nab by making the duty's official rankings.

I'm not the only loving Beastmaster, though. Discussions over on Reddit prove as much, with one thread dubbing the job "really fun!"

Its poster exclaims, "This content is great," adding that the achievements tied to the new job "are really cool" as well.

A separate post on the Beastmaster sees fans sharing a similar sentiment, with folks writing that they "wish it was a standard job" rather than a limited one – and, honestly, I agree. Another person chimes in that they've "been having a blast" with the job, with a plethora of replies backing their take up.

My favorite conversation so far stems from a screenshot of somebody's Warrior of Light dressed like Ash Ketchum from Pokemon, personally.

"Had to use the appropriate glam," its accompanying words read – and I love it. I also stand with the responses declaring that "the Pokemon vibe is honestly perfect." What else does Beastmaster carry with it, if not a nice old Pokemon vibe? And, that vibe is why so many of us adore the job already.

Obviously, however, not everyone likes it. There are comments here and there about how Square Enix could improve the Beastmaster (and, of course, fears that it might end up a bit… forgotten, like the Blue Mage).

Overall, though, spirits seem high when it comes to the limited job, and I can't say I've found much else to want out of it aside from, well, more levels and more utility in other parts of Final Fantasy 14.

I'm excited to see what Square Enix does with Beastmaster and how it evolves over time. Fingers crossed it's more memorable than Blue Mage – although, for me, it already is.

Final Fantasy 14 fans spot Evercold character in the MMO's Patch 7.56 screenshots, immediately theorize the expansion's new DPS class: "Is that a crossbow?"

The first substantial Star Wars Zero Company patch is out, and it remedies some latent performance problems in the tactics game. These issues vary from crashes to mere graphical glitches, and a considerable amount of them have now been quashed to improve your playing experience.

These changes are right at the top of the patch notes from Bit Reactor. "Fixed various crash issues," reads the top bullet-point. "Fixed various visual stutters," reads the second.

Problems for the Beskar mode - where you can only use one save and if someone critical dies, the run is over - have been sorted as well. There was a recurring crash, and a problem where saves were being "temporarily deleted." Both sound rage-inducing, and it's good they've been quashed.

Numerous other issues are listed, across customization, databank, strategy, tactical, and more. There are a couple of additions as well. The back option in the Weapons Mod menu will close the tutorial, and the last fight in Tel-Rea's hero mission will now succeed at the end of the final enemy's turn, rather than finishing prematurely.

Lastly, if you're using GTX 10-series or RTX 20-series graphics cards, the post says that "adjusting a specific video setting can help improve your overall framerates." Switching the Environment Geometry Detail to off should help your machine if you're finding it's crawling along.

This is a truly deep post-launch update, designed to address many bugbears in one fell swoop. It comes on the back of dispiriting reports that much of Bit Reactor's staff were furloughed ahead of launch, with the possibility they'll be brought back if the game is successful. Hopefully this helps encourage players to check it out and lets those devs get back to their positions.

Star Wars Zero Company studio furloughed staff right before the strategy game launched due to reportedly running low on money

The GTA 6 extended look presentation on Netflix caused a pretty substantial surge in sales for PS5 and Xbox Series consoles in the US.

Netflix's GTA 6 extended look had 31.1 million viewers in four days, which is to say it seemed to go down pretty well, especially since you could watch it for free on YouTube hours later. It was a massive success: the game looked extremely impressive throughout the showcase, and it clearly pulled in some, as PS5 Pro stock disappeared pretty soon afterward.

Circana's Mat Piscatella reports that following the premiere of the GTA 6 extended look, "In the US, combined PS5/XBS hardware unit sales for the week ending Aug 29 increased 14% versus the prior week."

He notes that PlayStation grew by 17% and Xbox Series X|S by 9%, and that "The combined increase across both platforms amounted to less than 8k units." Meanwhile, Nielsen IQ (via The Game Business) reports that in the UK console sales jumped by 33% for PlayStation and 34% for Xbox.

But you can only wonder what the jump would've been like if consoles weren't becoming somewhat prohibitively expensive for many. The PS5 Pro is almost a grand after Sony bumped the price up by 150, with the regular PS5 consoles getting $100 on top, while Xbox consoles jumped by $100-$150 depending on whether you get a 512GB or 1TB console.

Since the GTA 6 premiere, I've had multiple people who haven't jumped in on this generation ask about which console to get for GTA 6, but many are simply unwilling to spend that much, especially since this is the only generation where consoles have gotten more expensive as it goes on.

So yes, it's a big bump, but you have to wonder how much bigger it could've been if not for the ongoing global RAM shortages courtesy of it being funneled into the AI slop industry.

GTA 6 wasn't "fully formed" when Trailer 1 released, Rockstar boss says, but the Tom Petty song it used was a "mission statement" of where it was going

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?

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.

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"

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.

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.

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"

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.

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.

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.

Elden Ring players were happy to discover there was a glitch that made the game's new $5 Tarnished Pack DLC appear in their multiplayer kingdom, even if they hadn't paid for it. But developer FromSoftware has speedily issued a patch stopping players in their path.

"Patch 1.17.1 has been released for #ELDENRING," says the official Elden Ring account on Twitter. "This update fixes an issue in multiplayer where, under specific conditions, DLC-specific items could be obtained when not normally eligible. No additional content is included. Thank you for your support, Tarnished."

After Patch 1.17 introduced new, paid content that comes included with Elden Ring's fresh Switch 2 edition – the $5 pack contains the Idus Knight and Heavy Knight starting classes, plus more weapons and glamorous horse armor – a helpful bug made it so players with DLC items would automatically spawn copies of those items as pick-ups when entering a multiplayer game with someone who didn't have the DLC. It was the Lands Between's equivalent of dollar bills raining from the sky.

But Patch 1.17.1 smacks players' wrists and tells them to get their own $5. While Elden Ring fans can still trade DLC items with each other, including with people who don't own the Tarnished Pack, they can no longer enjoy a bounty of doubles. And they are not happy.

One exasperated Twitter reply says to the official Patch 1.17.1, "In other words someone found out how to get the $5 Tarnished DLC stuff for free. It should have been free anyway, guys. Charging $5 for a few pieces of gear is the biggest L From Soft has taken in a long time."

"I'll get downvoted for this, but it's crazy they released a whole patch for something as harmless as this," another player reacts in a Reddit thread on the topic, "but they can't bother to give us more balance or QoL changes. You know stuff that would actually improve the game's experience?"

"People love to claim that From soft is somehow beyond criticism," says another Reddit comment in the same thread, "but this was clearly a financial decision. They want more money from people. Simple as that."

As much as it pains me to agree as a hardcore FromSoftware fan (I've played all the games more than once, I've watched a total of at least 100 hours of lore videos), I do. The Tarnished Pack DLC is the developer's first experiment with something close to "microtransactions," and I have to try hard not to see it as the first ember in a house fire. Usually, I fail. But it's clear from Patch 1.17.1 that FromSoftware has the opposite reaction – if $5 DLC is an ember, it wants to keep it glowing.

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.

The Blood of Dawnwalker developer Rebel Wolves has been clear from the start: it wants to turn the vampire RPG into a multi-game "saga" where your choices carry forward between each entry in the series. With 1 million copies sold in just a handful of days, it seems the devs have no reason to pump the brakes on those plans, either, so they're already hiring to continue the story forward.

"The Blood of Dawnwalker released to critical acclaim and sold over one million copies in the opening weekend," narrative director Jakub Szamalek says in a LinkedIn post (via ResetEra). "But! We're not resting on our laurels – no, siree! We're already thinking about [what] comes next. And so! Drum roll please! I'm looking for a Lead Writer to help me and the narrative team craft the next chapter in the Dawnwalker saga."

The actual job listing doesn't offer any additional meaningful information on what to expect from the sequel – in fact, it's written as if The Blood of Dawnwalker hadn't yet been released. "We're looking for someone who, to put it bluntly, writes EXCEPTIONALLY well," Szamalek explains, and someone who "has a track record of excellence and experience in team management."

I'm only a handful of hours into The Blood of Dawnwalker, so this part isn't a spoiler: the story will take us into a modern-day setting as Coen's story carries on. The devs themselves confirmed as much in a Summer Game Fest trailer teasing the future of the budding franchise.

"When you have the last save, your choices will go with you," CEO and game director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz told us at the time. "From the beginning, we were telling people that we're planning a saga, and right now, this is the proof that we are doing it."

But it's not always assured that new studios, even those with veteran developers at the wheel, will get to continue working after launching their first game. After all, it was just last week that we learned that many of the developers behind the excellent Star Wars: Zero Company were quietly furloughed just before launch.

Rebel Wolves seems to have escaped an unfortunate fate, however. The Blood of Dawnwalker launched on September 3, and by September 5, the developers announced that it had already hit 1 million copies sold. Not a bad start for a new team – even if that Witcher 3 pedigree is certainly playing a part.

Our The Blood of Dawnwalker review praised the game's worldbuilding and hands-off approach, but we were also hungry for a little more, so a sequel sounds just fine.

With how long it takes to beat The Blood of Dawnwalker, we've at least got a meaty adventure to replay a few times before the sequel drops.

The Blood of Dawnwalker released last week to sky-high expectations, and largely delivered. The open-world dark fantasy RPG, directed by Konrad Tomaszkiewicz of The Witcher 3 fame, launched to "mostly positive" Steam reviews and, despite a few outliers including our own 3/5 star review, largely glowing impressions from critics as well. Crucially, it seems CD Projekt Red fans are turning out in droves for Rebel Wolves' debut title, with one analyst reporting that a majority of The Blood of Dawnwalker's Steam player base previously played The Witcher 3, an unexpectedly huge crossover.

As reported by Alinea Analytics' Rhys Elliott, the "premium" game whose player base most crosses over with The Blood of Dawnwalker's is the Witcher 3. That's not a surprise considering Tomaszkiewicz's involvement, but what is surprising to me is just how many Witcher 3 players are turning out for Rebel Wolves so quickly after launch. According to Elliott, 58% of Blood of Dawnwalker players on Steam are The Witcher 3 players, proving CDPR fans stay loyal to individual developers even when those developers have moved on from CDPR itself.

Personally, I'm among the class of RPG enjoyers who've tried countless times in earnest to get into The Witcher 3 but couldn't for some unknown reason. Meanwhile, I'm only a few hours into The Blood of Dawnwalker and so far it's everything I was hoping for and more. Its world, lore, and characters are as richly developed as I was expecting from a team of CDPR vets, but the thing I'm surprised by the most is the time-as-a-resource mechanic and how essential it feels to the whole experience. I always liked the idea on paper but felt hesitant about being bound by it in the main mission, but it never feels cumbersome and adds a sense of urgency that makes the world feel more alive and reactive.

Even in the short time I've played both games, it's easy to see The Witcher 3's influence everywhere in The Blood of Dawnwalker, from its grimdark setting and branching narrative to its fast, fluid swordplay and deep RPG systems. Dawnwalker isn't seeing the universal acclaim of The Witcher 3, but there's a chance its standing among RPG fandom improves as players have more time to dig into its world, not to mention the "saga" of sequels Rebel Wolves is planning.

If you're just starting out, here are the best Prologue quests to do before Mass in The Blood of Dawnwalker.

More than a year after Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 helped make French game studio Sandfall Interactive an international superstar, France's president Emmanuel Macron has announced a new international gaming festival.

The festival does not yet have an official date, scope, or location, but Macron nonetheless revealed his plan for France during September 7's Lumiere Summit, which intends to unite purveyors of "the moving-image," per its website.

"Because video games are part of our culture, we are creating an international video game festival," Macron writes in a Twitter post accompanying a clip of his Lumiere Summit speech, translated by GamesRadar+. He also shares his desire to bring video games into the larger world of exceptional French art.

So, Macron's goal for his video game festival would be to publicize and popularize French video game development. He references "huge, global successes in French video games" that France needs to spend a lot more time paying attention to.

It almost sounds like Macron wants to create another version of Gamescom, the Germany-based conference that brings international industry leaders together in Europe. France already has a smaller-scale version of this in its Paris Games Week, but Macron is yet to say how the two differ.

Anyway, Sandfall Interactive has managed to place the limelight on the French development scene, and now its home country is keeping the momentum. At this point, Clair Obscur is a landmark game after sweeping awards ceremonies and becoming a genuine industry darling. But France's future of gaming could be even more exciting.

In December 2025, Macron congratulated the makers of Expedition 33 for the second time, calling the RPG a historic French title.

This proposed international festival could be an opportunity for French developers to proceed with more Clair Obscur-type ambition. For all we know, the next Clair Obscur could already be out there – it only needs a place to reach you.

Pokemon with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's combat sounds like a bonkers idea, but one fan's now given us a taste test.

The decision to delay The Elder Scrolls 6 to make room for Starfield and, somewhat distantly, Fallout 76 came as a surprise to many at Bethesda, according to former Skyrim co-lead Kurt Kuhlmann.

Chatting with FRVR, Kuhlmann recalls the comfortable rhythm that Bethesda had established in its production: Fallout, then Elder Scrolls, then back to Fallout. Switching series and genres like this gave the team a welcome change of pace, Kulhmann says, so after the release of Fallout 4, "we all expected" The Elder Scrolls 6 would be next.

Instead, Fallout 76, which was not "supposed to involve our whole studio," became a much bigger project that extended the latest Fallout phase of the cycle. But more impactfully, Starfield happened.

"What we were supposed to be working on next – it wasn't ever that we were about to suddenly work on TES 6, even though that's what I think most people wanted," Kulhmanns says. "And then Todd [Howard] was like: 'No, we're doing Starfield. I got that approved. It's going to be a new IP. It's going to be this ambitious [game]. It's going to be the greatest space RPG ever made.'"

Kuhlmann reckons Fallout 4's success gave Howard the leeway to successfully pitch an offbeat game like Starfield to the higher ups at Bethesda and Zenimax (just don't ask how Fallout 76, another experiment, launched). "I would've much rather have been making TES 6 instead of 76 and Starfield, personally," he reiterates, "and I think that would probably be true for the majority of the studio."

But Starfield did indeed happen, and it took many years to come together. In 2023, Howard said "I thought we would find the answers faster" after it took seven years just for Starfield to reach a state that it could be called fun to play.

"It wasn't like Starfield was this big internal like, 'Hey, we all want to make this space game, Todd,'" Kuhlmann says. "It was very much, 'Guess what, team? We're making this space game.'"

Today, eight years since its announcement, The Elder Scrolls 6 still doesn't have a release date or window. New Xbox CEO Asha Sharma is reportedly pushing Bethesda for faster releases, and said just last month that a "live playthrough" of The Elder Scrolls 6 showed "incredible" scale.

As part of its big Fallout 5 and The Elder Scrolls 6 information drop, Bethesda said Starfield has reached 17 million players. Those players can also look forward to Year 3 of post-launch support, with Bethesda eying more Starborn content, gameplay improvements, and additional story quests.

The Elder Scrolls 6: Sentinel could be the title of Bethesda's next RPG according to a solid fan theory that dates back to a Starfield teaser.

Gorr the God Butcher is officially coming to Marvel Rivals, and although we have the announcement, the wind was taken out of its sails thanks to a flub by the PlayStation Store. Key art for Season 10 managed to slip onto Sony's platform a little earlier than expected, giving us a tease of what was coming before today's unveiling

Players browsing the store noticed some changed imagery yesterday, September 7. Among various new releases, you could see the Marvel-based hero shooter being advertised with the incoming tenth season, and a particularly gruesome looking character standing tall to boot.

No proper details were meant to be available, making this a clear mistake. Marvel has since released the trailer for the multiplayer skirmish's next season, featuring voice-over from Gorr, who fits the subtitle of 'Butcher's Blasphemy' extremely well – the season set to begin on September 11.

If his gnarly sword and the fact he's holding another incapacitated enemy in his other hand didn't give it away, he's a generally bad dude. One of the worst, in fact, and he's a contemporary enemy of Thor, since Gorr tends to like his gods butchered rather than alive.

You might not think you know him, but you do if you follow the MCU at all – Christian Bale portrays the character in Thor: Love and Thunder. If you've watched that movie, you may remember his goal is complete deicide – the death of all gods. I mean, it's in the name, but he gets pretty close thanks to his symbiotic relationship with his blade, the Necrosword, a weapon capable of actually hurting deities.

He's bad news, and his presence tends to be stressful for pretty anyone who stands in his way. Expect this season to be bloody.

Marvel Rivals hasn't managed to beat Overwatch's stats yet, but Disney boasts it's still "attracted 40 million players worldwide."

A gang of thugs surround me on a dirty street in 1940s Osaka Japan early into my time playing Stranger Than Heaven. I throw a jab into one and block their reply. I follow up with a pair of hooks, sending them to the ground before grappling with another.

The biggest one swings a blunt weapon my way, which I block with both arms, and I assess my options. For the first time RGG Studio has me feeling outmatched rather than an overpowered man of danger, and I'm in awe of Stranger Than Heaven's ability to make me feel that way through game design alone.

Eyes wide open

Hiroyuki Sakamoto, producer on Stranger Than Heaven, explains how the game's combat is very different from the Like a Dragon series. "Frankly speaking, with Yakuza titles, you could even play it with closed eyes sometimes if you just continue pressing buttons," he opines. "You could blindly defeat an enemy," he adds, and I tell him with a smile that I have indeed done just that, much to his amusement.

"But this time we wanted to make it more intuitive and more rough," he continues. It takes mere minutes with Stranger Than Heaven in a Gamescom 2026 preview session to understand what he means. The game's combat utilizes a left and right structure, with LB and LT (on an Xbox gamepad) controlling the left arm, while RB and RT handle the opposite side. Pressing B and LB or RB will perform a one-armed block, while pressing all three inputs uses both arms.

The result is a greater sense of rhythm during combat, which Sakamoto describes as "the feeling of being more involved in a fight," before assuring me I'll get used to it. He's right on the money, as I start leading with my left and relying more on my right side, displaying a sense of intuition I usually reserve for Time Crisis 2.

The preview session is split into three sections: 1915 Kokura (easy mode), 1929 Kure (normal) and 1943 Osaka (hard). Each section is a short stroll through a street before clashing with waiting enemies. Kokura serves up a small group who serve as welcome tutorial fodder, while Kure has a bit more of an edge. The gang here are smarter and attempt to form a circle around me but die trying, including a tall mini-boss.

Osaka is not quite so chill, presenting one knife-wielding foe who is eager to slice through my character. Rude as he is, he's also annoyingly strong, able to kill me faster than you can say "hey don't kill me!" – a command I can't help but blurt out during my first attempt. However, while I may not be the fastest, smartest, or strongest person who will play Stranger Than Heaven when it launches on January 15, 2027, I am resilient. I've overcome Lies of P, Hollow Knight: Silksong, and numerous FromSoftware games, and I'll be damned if some punk from an RGG title is going to keep me down.

Attempt two goes better, with well-timed blocks proving a veritable kryptonite to the blade-boasting bastard. That is until he switches up his stance, leaps at me with an almost comical speed and bodies me again. I realize now I've no choice but to sit up straight and lock in.

This time I use the blocks to close the gap between us, doling out hooks when gaps appear, before using both hands to grab my enemy and strike them with a vicious force, laying them down to the ground. They rise up, and fly at me like shit from a shovel, but I block with both arms and grab them again. Another blow sees them go down, and I have the scent of blood in my nostrils, which is fitting given the impressive display of gore Stranger Than Heaven delivers during the fight.

My opponent stands up one more time, bloodied and desperate. I can sense something brewing, some kind of last-gasp attempt to change the momentum, but I nip it in the bud with a left hook to the face. They're done, and so is my preview session, but my excitement to play more has only just begun. Stranger Than Heaven is not what I ever expected from RGG Studio, but the developer has once again impressed me with its innovation. Now I have to wait until January to see what the game has in store.

There's nothing strange about wanting to play more while you wait for Stranger Than Heaven, so take a look at our best Yakuza games or best ARPGs rankings!

Ubisoft, Sega, Bandai Namco, and Square Enix are reportedly some of the publishers who are not supporting the Xbox disc-to-digital program, leading to concerns of the initiative's viability as a preservation tool.

Microsoft announced its disc-to-digital initiative for Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One games last month, and at the end of the month, users on the Xbox Insider Program were able to access the feature in a beta form. This led to interesting discoveries like Activision's Deadpool, Transformers: Devastation and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan, as well as assorted titles from other publishers like Rock Band 4 and Lego Dimensions being available despite being delisted from digital stores.

However, unfortunately, Xbox Insider users have seemingly discovered another piece of the puzzle. As reported by users on Reddit, Ubisoft-published games are completely locked out of the program, with a message that reads, "This game is not participating in digital licensing." And since then, players on Reddit have reported the same thing is the case for Sega, Square Enix, and Bandai Namco, which in turn means every FromSoftware game, barring Sekiro, is unavailable on the service.

Sega is particularly interesting given that Sega president Shuji Utsumi pledged his support for physical games following Sony's announcement it's abandoning preservation by killing PS5 discs. On top of that, Sega has been a big supporter of the likes of Xbox Game Pass and Play Anywhere, so many are disappointed to see it seemingly isn't on board with this. However, the feature is still in beta, so hopefully Sega and others get on board once it's out in public.

13 years after famous Microsoft dunk, ex-PlayStation boss Shuhei Yoshida says Xbox disc-to-digital feature is "a great move"

August's GamesRadar Replay winners feature a perfectly timed disaster in Call of Duty multiplayer, and an alligator in Red Dead Redemption 2 that took a look at physics and said 'nah'. Both win a $/£250 Amazon Voucher for capturing the moment, and it could be you next time!

Replay is all about you sending us your most impressive clips every month for the chance to win one of two $/£250 Amazon voucher prizes. It can be funny, amazing, weird - the only real rule is it's got to make people stop and say 'what?!'

The two prizes are split between one for the best clip overall from any game, and one for the best Theme of the Month clip, and that theme for September is "Speed". We share all the best clips on the site and across our socials channels - so if you want the world to see your achievements, accidents or discoveries, let us know! (You can have a credit to wherever you want, or stay anonymous.)

If you want a chance of winning the September prize then submit your clips via the big orange button below. You can send in anything from gameplay or a stream - a funny moment, an amazing clip, a weird bug, or just some good chat.

Remember, there are two $/£250 Amazon Vouchers to be won - one for the best video overall, and another for our speed Theme of the Month.

By submitting your clip, you agree to the Terms and Conditions.

If you need a helping hand, here's how to record gameplay on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, and Switch/Switch 2 to save your highlights

The August Winners!

This month's overall Replay winner is this beautifully timed Call of Duty killstreak accident during a pep talk.

We've rarely seen more perfect comedic timing and context is everything here as... well, you can see.

And for our August Theme, which was animals, this physics-defying alligator takes the prize. There so much to unpack here: the graceful flight, the escape, the fact it was all an elaborate distraction John never saw coming.

If you want to see what the Replay community has contributed already, then take a look below:

If there's one thing to know about me, it's that I can't resist a creature-collecting RPG. Despite that, the Dragon Quest Monsters spin-off series has somehow always managed to pass me by. But, with less than an hour played of Dragon Quest Monsters: The Withered World, I already know that I'm not going to let myself miss out for any longer come its December launch.

Dragon Quest games are never lacking in charm, and The Withered World is immediately full of it. Guided by a cute companion creature known as Fluffy, I'm quickly acquainted with the concept of befriending and battling with monsters and given a personality quiz to determine my first ally. Fluffy decides I'd be a perfect match for a Woebergine – the name speaks for itself. Not sure how I feel about that, to be honest, but it sure is cute, so I'll take it.

Befriend 'em all

After this, I make quick work of recruiting all the nearby monsters I can – I've completed too many Pokedexes in my career to waste time here. You can attempt to 'scout' a monster at any time during battle by using a 'show of force,' but as genre veterans will expect, it's more likely to work if you've weakened them first. I also find out the hard way that failing to scout a monster can leave you unable to try again in the same battle – you can't approach it like Pokemon where you can just toss as many Pokeballs as you like until one works – something I'm glad I discovered in the game's opening section rather than later on when a rarer, more desirable monster was on the line.

I say 'more desirable,' but right from the start, there are plenty of loveable creatures to encounter. I can't overstate how delighted I am to encounter a Fat Rat, who – you're not gonna believe this – is a rather rotund rodent. Very early on, I also run headfirst into a battle with a 'super strong enemy' – a Drakularge (shocker, a big dragon) – which immediately one-shots my entire team. Clearly, some things are meant to be returned to later.

With over 500 monsters to tame, you're not just limited to scouting new allies in battles to expand your collection, either. In a different section of my hands-on, I'm given free rein of The Withered World's synthesis system. A returning feature, synthesis allows you to merge two of your monsters together to form a new one, allowing you to pass on things like abilities in the process – think breeding for perfect IVs and Egg Moves in Pokemon.

Before synthesizing, you're shown what monster you're going to get, including whether or not they'll be a special monster. Some of the pairs and their outcomes make more sense than others – blending a Slime and Platypunk gives me a special Mottle Slime, for example, which half tracks, unlike my Skeleton and Platypup producing a Guaardvark – but I know the countless combinations here are going to have me constantly coming back for more to see what possibilities my monsters hold.

While it'd be difficult to form a real bond with anything in under an hour – especially with the knowledge that I'll be leaving it behind me in a room at Gamescom, never to be seen again – my main takeaway from my time with Dragon Quest: The Withered World is that I'm going to adore whatever my team of monsters ends up being. The punny names, the cute designs, the fact that your ragtag team follows you around as you explore the world – everything is designed to be as endearing as possible, and by god, it's working. I will do whatever it takes to raise my Cruelcumber to be a strong, reliable ally, and fight proudly by their side – whatever The Withered World's story has in store for me, well, that's just a bonus.

On your own quest to play more like this? Check out out best JRPGs ranking, or our games like Pokemon recommendations!

Playground Games has seemingly shut down rumors that Forza Horizon 6's PS5 release has been delayed by reiterating that it's a 2026 release.

Last month rumors emerged that Forza Horizon 6's PS5 release had been quietly pushed to 2027, with The Verge reporter Tom Warren saying he's not expecting to see it release in 2026, and there was a bit of fire alongside the smoke as it was corroborated by IGN. Given we're rapidly approaching the end of the year and the AAA games industry is practically abandoning November thanks to GTA 6, the lack of announcement is questionable, but Playground Games has seemingly addressed these rumors.

The Forza website was updated with a blog post about the latest update, focusing on British Automotive, which introduces the likes of the 2025 Bentley Continental GT Speed and 2006 Vauxhall Astra VXR to the game. Plus, there's a new Drift Attack challenge added to the game with this update.

However, right at the bottom of the lengthy blog post, Playground acknowledged the PS5 version, saying, "If you’re planning your trip to Discover Japan on PlayStation 5, stay tuned! Forza Horizon 6 will be releasing on PS5 later this year," while sending players to the Wishlist page on PlayStation.

While not a concrete release date or much of a clue as to what the release plans actually are, this seems to be Playground acknowledging the rumor mill. Granted, I don't think this means a delay to 2027 isn't possible, as we've seen plenty of times that games can be delayed close to the finish line. However, with how crowded September and October are, and the monolith of GTA 6, it's probably best not to expect to see Forza Horizon 6 on PS5 until December.

Forza Horizon 6 has its own community villain in the form of a driver who's griefing everyone across Japan

Now that the GTA 6 release date is set in stone, we can start worrying about the exact time the juggernaut crime sandbox will become available. Some detectives have dug through data on the game to find out when each territory can jump in, and as you might expect, fans down under should be getting a head start.

The outlet GTA Vice put together a full breakdown of the times by country and region, using timestamps from the PS Store to extrapolate the global launch. If you want to be among the first people to gallivant through Leonida, you'll need to head toward New Zealand or Australia.

The former is first up, getting it a good 13 hours before Britain, and 18 hours before the east coast of the US of A. That's a solid head start on one of the most anticipated games ever made, and I wouldn't put it past some particularly eager fans to migrate just for the sake of an extra half a day's gameplay.

The last region to get access to Grand Theft Auto 6 will be Mexico, lagging just behind the United States. Mexican and American players will need to cover their ears for the last day ahead of launch to protect from spoilers, since you can do a lot in 18 hours, and I suspect many won't be sleeping much during this time.

This is all assuming Rockstar sticks to a staggered schedule. The company employed one for Red Dead Redemption 2, but eschewed it for GTA: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition.

I would say it's likely this turns out to be close to the truth. It gives Rockstar time to ensure the infrastructure can handle the millions of players who'll be downloading the game and getting into it, and lets anticipation build across social media. And it's nice to give Australia and New Zealand a bit more excitement, as well.

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"

The Arbiter Armor in The Blood of Dawnwalker is pretty clearly the best armor in the game, unlocked as part of the quest "A Bulwark Against Darkness". To craft the Arbiter Armor, you'll need to find four rare ingredients scattered around the map, then find a blacksmith to assemble them, finishing up with a ritual in which you have to kill a bear for some unclear reason. It's definitely worth the effort though, as this is undoubtedly the best armor available, so if you want to complete A Bulwark Against Darkness and get the Arbiter Armor, here's where to go and the locations of all the components.

Want an offense to match your defense? Check out how to complete The Blood of Dawnwalker Forge It Anew quest and how to get the legendary Sword of St. Mihai.

A Bulwark Against Darkness quest walkthrough for The Blood of Dawnwalker

You'll get the quest A Bulwark Against Darkness in The Blood of Dawnwalker when you're suddenly given a Smuggler's Letter with the components needed to create the Arbiter Armor. There's a few ways that this can happen, but one is to reach Infamy Level 4 and speak to Anca at the Crossroads Inn. She'll tell you that a letter was sent, but this is only one way for it to happen. You can also simply be given the note by a smuggler while exploring Svartrau!

Either way, once you read it, it'll outline the four components needed to create the Arbiter Armor, as well as explaining that you'll need to find a Blacksmith who can combine them.

Where to find all the Components for Arbiter Armor in The Blood of Dawnwalker

There are four ingredients, or components, needed to make the Arbiter Armor in The Blood of Dawnwalker. Some of them can be found in multiple locations, others appear to be unique. Below we've laid out the best places to get them, and will go into greater details for each one further down.

1. Bundle of Silk Threads. Found inside a cavern with a Murohn boss during the "Come Hither" quest.
2. Relic of a Saint. You can get two Relics - the Saint's Tibia and the Relic of St. Tyna - during Anca's quest "Echoes of the Silenced Bells" at St. Tyna's Monastery.
3. Flask of Quicksilver. At the top of Aurelius' tower is a ritual room, inside of which you can find a Flask resting on a desk.
4. Moult of a Large Lizard. On the border of Briar Sloughs and Maragir Wealds is an unmarked cave full of Tatselwurms, and the moult is at the back.

We've also marked the location of the Uriashi Blacksmith, so you can have an NPC who can piece all this stuff together. Keep in mind that before you go about this quest, it might be worth investing in The Blood of Dawnwalker armor proficiency perks, as otherwise the Arbiter Armor may be a bit underwhelming.

Bundle of Silk Threads

There are two Bundles of Silk Threads in Vale Sangora, both found at different The Blood of Dawnwalker Sanzhana locations. One of the fairies, in the "Pearly and Precious" quest, will sell you the threads for 6,000 Denarius, but if you go to the "Come Hither" quest, you'll be tasked to kill a Murohn boss in a cave. In that same arena, resting on a rock, is a bundle of Silk Threads you can grab for free, with no consequences.

Relic of a Saint

There are multiple viable relics you can use for the Arbiter Armor throughout the game, but if you went through Anca's questline at St. Tyna's and did the choice about if you should throw the notes in the fire in The Blood of Dawnwalker, you might already have two of them. The Saint's Tibia is found on a body beside the building that the soldiers are hiding in (as shown above), and you can also use the Relic of St. Tyna that the soldiers ask you to get, though obviously you probably don't want to consume an amulet with an actual function.

If you missed your chance there, you can also find another relic with Lacra in her quest "The Night of Horrors," and purchase relics from Vicho in Svartrau.

Flask of Quicksilver

There's only one flask we know of right now, found at the top of Aurelius' tower in the south of the map. If you've been pursuing the Rebel's questline, you'll eventually be sent here and have to complete The Blood of Dawnwalker Home Sweet Home quest. After doing this, in the topmost room of the tower, to the left of the hanging golem, you can find a flask of quicksilver on the table.

Moult of a Large Lizard

Like with the Flask, there appears to only be one viable item to serve this function that we know of so far. If you head to the area marked East of the Briar Sloughs bog, you can find an unmarked cave with multiple Tatselwurms inside. Kill them, and you can use Focus mode to find an abandoned moult at the back.

How to craft the Arbiter Armor in The Blood of Dawnwalker

After finding all four components, you need to find the Uriashi Blacksmith at the Northwest location marked above. If you've already done the quest for the best weapon in The Blood of Dawnwalker, you'll have already met her.

Either way, come back with all four pieces and she'll begin a ritual wherein you have to kill some spirit wolves and a bear boss fight (at this point in the game you should comfortably know how to handle both). When it's done, the Blacksmith will give you the Arbiter Armor set, divided into the following:

• Enhanced Armor of the Arbiter (Chest)
• Enhanced Shin Guards of the Arbiter (Legs)
• Enhanced Bracers of the Arbiter (Arms)
• Enhanced Boots of the Arbiter (Feet)

This armor is that from the game's cover and promotional artwork, and it's certainly very good for both day and night builds. It offers a wide array of buffs for both human and vampire selves, and is pretty clearly meant to be the game's best armor, with the flavor text practically admitting as such. Make sure you regularly upgrade it so it keeps pace with your own level!

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

As an asymmetrical multiplayer game, there's a lot to think about when diving into Halloween The Game, not least which side to play on. Playing as Michael pits you against a team of four players all on your own, while playing as a civilian leaves you vulnerable to a deadly killer - and the relative skill of your teammates.

With that in mind, I've collated the main tips I wish I'd known when I first started playing Halloween The Game to help you get a head start no matter which team you play for.

Tips for playing Halloween the Game as a civilian

As survivor, your basic goal is to escape with your life, and if you can take some other Haddonfield residents with you, all the better. However, you can also try to take Michael down, and it's even possible to detain him, so ending you're after, here are my top tips for playing as a civilian.

1. Utilize Residents to do things for you

Alongside the four-man civilian team, there are a few NPC residents dotted around Haddonfield - and even more when the police start to arrive. Don't underestimate these NPCs as they are incredibly useful to you. By triggering and completing a conversation with them, you can ask them to call the police, follow you, or head to an exit if there's one available.

The latter will only increase your points at the end of the game. However, getting NPCs to call the police gets them to arrive much faster, and also helps if you're playing a civilian with a low personality trait, including those who rank highest on my Halloween the Game civilian tier list. You can also hand them weapons, and they'll fight back against Michael if it comes to it.

The best option, though, is to get them to follow you, as they will do all of this off their own back. They're rummage through storage, pick up weapons, and call the police. Just beware that the more people you have with you, the more detectable you'll be to Michael.

2. Call for backup from police and Loomis

As I've mentioned above, calling the police is useful, and you, your teammates, and NPCs call all do so from the many phones found around Haddonfield. You need to pass skill checks while you're own the phone, and the better you do, the more convincing your call will be, but the more calls placed means more police presence - and, eventually, a new exit option.

However, help also comes in the form of Sam Loomis, a character as iconic as Michael and Laurie. Like Tommy from Friday the 13th, if you ever played it, Loomis is a player character, enabling one killed player to return to the game. To call Loomis, keep an eye on the top of the screen for the 'Reinforcements in...' countdown to appear. Once it reaches zero, it will say 'Reinforcements Available', and the message 'CB Radio Activated' also briefly appears on-screen. Now you must find a CB radio somewhere on the map - it'll be highlighted once you're near - from which you can call Loomis. The first player to have died will return immediately unless no one has died at this point. In this case, the first player to die from then will respawn as Loomis. Players who escaped successfully do not respawn.

One more thing, be sure to pay attention to your map as a civilian. If you do respawn as Loomis, your map markers will reset, but you do spawn in with a gun and 12 bullets, so that's something.

Explore the whole map to reveal locations

Rather than staying where you spawned and meticulously searching every nook and cranny for items, it's best to try and quickly explore as much of the map as possible, as finding important locations, including all of the Halloween the Game escape methods like the car and hatches, will then cause them to show on your map. This way, when you do find the items you need to open the various exits, you'll know where to go. This is much better than getting your hopes up when you find a gas can, only to never find the car. Of course you should still have a bit of a look around as you go, but don't waste too much time opening every drawer.

But do look for a weapon early

While I've said don't take too much time to look around at first, you should keep your eye out for a weapon as soon as possible. If (and when) Michael does find you, you can try and wiggle free once you know how to complete the skill check, but you're guaranteed an extra chance at life if you're carrying a small weapon like a pocket or butterfly knife. You can use it when grabbed by Michael to briefly stun him. They also only take up on small inventory slot.

Meanwhile, larger weapons like guns and axes take up their own slot, and can be used to fight back before Michael even grabs you. You can even down him with enough hits - but he won't stay down for long. Down him enough times with enough manpower to support you, and you can detain him for good. Well, until the next time he breaks out.

Tips for playing Halloween the Game as Michael

As Michael, your main goal of course is to kill everyone, which includes three 'special targets', five NPC residents, and the four player civilians. There are the policemen that are called to the scene, as well as Sam Loomis, if he's called in, but you don't have to kill them. Interestingly, though, and fairly faithful to Halloween lore, once you've killed the 12 main victims, Michael can escape. So, if you're picking up the mantle of the infamous fictional killer, here are my top tips.

1. Play single-player

One of the greatest advantages you have as a Michael player is the single-player mode where you can home your skills against NPCs while completing various chapters based on the franchise's iconic movies.

Here, you'll learn how to kill, how to use your skills, how Michael moves, and most other factors about the character that you can take into the multiplayer mode.

2. Use your skills well

Naturally, Michael's powerful skills each have a cooldown, so you should get used to using them at the right time. For example, you might want to save his something ability for when you find a resident or are near police, as knocking out nearby lights will prevent you from being seen. Similarly, the something ability, which allows you to briefly reveal the location of civilians, wears off fast, so pair this with the something skill to get sneak up on players and NPCs quickly and efficiently. Remember, they'll be warned when they've been detected, so they'll move out of the area hastily.

3. Don't waste time on one civilian

Speaking of civilians moving hastily, don't ever waste your time chasing one who's running away from you well. You can dedicate a bit of time to chasing them, but if it's clear they're giving you the run around, it's worth moving on. All the time you're chasing them, someone else is likely already opening another exit, so trigger that something skill and move out of the area, keeping the pressure up on the entire map instead of one localized zone.

4. Concentrate on kill skill checks and don't look for special kills

When you have a victim in your grasp, you can find special environmental kills around you that trigger a unique kill animation. However, to do so, you'll have to be able to carry the writhing character to the marked destination.

Trust me, I know it's tempting to try and find as many cool kills as you can, and you're more free to do so when killing an NPC, but if you've a player character at your mercy, concentrate on killing them as soon as possible with regular skill checks or a held weapon. Carried civilians are given skill checks when you have a hold of them, and they can wiggle free quickly if you give them the chance - so don't.

With all of this in mind, you should have a slightly easier time getting to grips with Halloween the Game, allowing you to just enjoy the carnage and the recognizable locations a bit more.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

As a civilian, knowing all the ways to escape in Halloween the Game is the only way you're going to stand a chance to get away from Haddonfield before Michael Myers gets his hands on you.

There are a few different Halloween the Game exits, and you need to find different elements to open them, so knowing which exits require which items and tools and how to find them is necessary to getting out alive.

All Halloween the Game escapes

There are four main ways to escape Haddonfield on any of the Halloween the Game maps. They are:

• Cellar hatches
• The Sedan
• Gate exit
• Police escort

The easiest of these is the cellar hatch, as even the most difficult can be opened with the fewest items, followed by the powered gate. Getting away in the car, meanwhile, requires a few more things to come together in your favor, but is certainly possible, especially if you're working as a team. Finally, there's the police exit, which is simple in itself, but doesn't activate until later in the game. Here's each of them explained in more detail:

Cellar hatch escape

This is the easiest way to escape and, if you're lucky, you can even make it happen quite quickly. There are usually a couple of different hatches on each map, and they each have various requirements. While they're all locked, one might be covered with leaves while another can be blocked with wood you need to cut through. If you're really lucky, you may find a hatch that's only locked with no other requirements, and this is obviously the quickest and easiest escape of all.

What's even better is that you can open the padlock with either a key or boltcutters, so the odds are really in your favor, as long as you can find the hatch itself.

Sedan car escape

To get out alive in the sedan car, you need to find a total of four things: the sedan key, a gas can, a repair kit, and the car itself, which is a big ask. As I've mentioned in my Halloween The Game tips guide, it's best to check out as much of the map as possible as quickly as possible, and the main reason for this is the car. At least once you've found it, if you are lucky enough to find all three of the other items, you'll know where to head with them.

Gate escape

On the outskirts of the town, you're able to find a powered gate, which lets you out once you have two things: a bolt cutter or exit key and a fuse. This was one of the hardest escapes due to the rarity of fuses, but they seem to be more common now. There is also a chance you'll need a hatchet to destroy boards blocking the gate, making this exit slightly more troublesome.

Police escape

There are a couple of ways to escape via the police, but the main one is to make enough successful calls to the cops that a police wagon turns up. Once on the map, you can simply head into the back of the van for a safe exit. This requires an additional phone call to the police once the full three-star alert level has been reached.

The other method can be done much sooner but isn't as easy. You can escape in any of the police cars that appear throughout the match, but you'll need a police person's car key to do so, which can be found on a dead cop's corpse. Eek.

Something that plays heavily into getting out alive is which character you choose to play, so take a look at my Halloween civilian tier list if you want to pick the best.

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Four playable factions have been confirmed for Total War: Warhammer 40K: Space Marines, Orcs, Aeldari, and the Imperial Guard. But there's at least one more group we'll be seeing whilst fighting amongst the stars – the Traitor Guard, branches of the Imperial Guard who have turned on the Imperium due to Chaos corruption or plain ol' revolution.

I spotted the Traitor Guard's faction icon while playing Total War: Warhammer 40K at Gamescom, although I never encountered them first-hand. Afterward, I caught up with Dave Petry, battle product owner for Total War, and asked whether the Traitor Guard would function differently in battle compared to the Imperial Guard, or if their shifting allegiance would be purely cosmetic.

"There will be some presence of traitorous things occurring," says Petry, picking his words carefully. "They'll be around [as] things that you can fight, and will be causing trouble and uprisings throughout your campaign. And that's probably all that I ought to be talking about for now..."

Whether the Traitor Guard will differ from the Imperial Guard remains to be seen, but there is precedent for unique factions not being immediately playable in Total War. The first Total War: Warhammer launched with chivalric faction Bretonnia on the campaign map, but they were only made playable when their roster was fleshed out the following year.

Of course, the Traitor Guard could just be grumpy Imperial Guard. But given the secrecy, I wonder if Creative Assembly has more tricks hiding up its sleeve? There has been no concrete sign of Chaos in Total War: Warhammer 40K, with my campaign preview focused on fighting orcs as Space Marines, but the developer has already confirmed plans to add more factions post-launch. Given Creative Assembly wants to make "the seminal Warhammer 40K game," it will only be a matter of time until the heretics arrive.

Total War: Warhammer 40K is getting a closed beta, and its latest gameplay has convinced me its battles will be incredible

Rockstar once worried that fans would find Red Dead Redemption 2 boring after spending time with GTA 5 and its trio of protagonists.

After years of primarily offering a singular protagonist for you to experience its in-game worlds through, Rockstar broke tradition by going with three for GTA 5 – giving you the option to swap between the trio as their narrative journeys intertwined with each other. Considering GTA 5 still sells millions of copies a year, I'd say it worked pretty well.

In fact, it almost worked too well, as Rockstar became nervous about moving on to Red Dead Redemption 2 and the singular cowboy it offered to you to play as.

Speaking to TroisCouleurs about GTA 6, Rockstar North co-lead Rob Nelson delves into the journey from GTA 5 to Red Dead Redemption 2, and how that's influenced where the developer is today.

"We always look back at the last games and think about how to evolve on them and move them forward," he says. "And so, with GTA 5 with three protagonists that were connected but individual in their own way, and then going to Red Dead Redemption 2, which was obviously Arthur’s story, we were slightly nervous people were going to be bored with just one protagonist.

"And we did have people ask, 'Are you going to be able to switch between members of the gang?' There were questions about that. I forgot about that until now. And you think about it, and you know, people speculate."

Looking back, Nelson says that it "feels funny now," because Arthur "worked as a character." Partly because Rockstar gave itself the space to "really drill into his journey." In fact, the way his story shifts depending on your choices left such an impact on the team that you can see some form of it in GTA 6.

"We wanted to take the depth that we were able to add into the world of Red Dead Redemption 2 and the ability to interact with the world in a much more significant way, but then also this sort of emotional connection that people end up having with Arthur," Nelson shares. "Is there a way that we bring that into GTA, and how could we do it? So, we had played around with different ideas; we knew we wanted to come back and continue playing with the idea of multiple protagonists.

"We thought about different options but ultimately wanted to try a duo, a partnership of some kind. If they're in relationship, or have the potential to be in [a] relationship, what does that feel like? So it's a couple, it's Bonnie and Clyde. And then as soon as we thought about it, it was obvious. It became the very clear choice for us and felt like something we had to try."

Considering that Rockstar was once worried about Red Dead Redemption 2 boring GTA 5 fans, you have got to say the outcome the team got wasn't bad at all, hm?

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."

Final Fantasy Resonance's director says the upcoming throwback JRPG is part of a "resurgence" of turn-based games, though one that still has plenty of fresh ideas.

Wrapping up a chat with RPG Site at PAX, director Hiroto Furuya says we're in the middle of a "resurgence of turn-based RPGs and JRPGs" – which sounds pretty darn good to me. And if that sounds pretty darn good to you, the Final Fantasy Resonance devs hope the Final Fantasy Brave Exvius refresh might be of interest.

"Looking at the recent wave of things globally, it seems there's a resurgence of turn-based RPGs and JRPGs," he says. "It is kind of like being re-examined once more.

"We consider Final Fantasy Resonance as one aspect of that overarching wave or trend. I think there is something to note about the appeal of classic RPGs, and the fun of classic RPGs, really. We're trying to capture that through Final Fantasy Resonance – but not stop at that.

"We wanted to ensure that we're delivering a new experience, a new title, to audiences all around the world."

Having played the demo myself, I can see part of what Furuya means. Final Fantasy Resonance is very much playing the hits – you've got crystals, chocobos, and a mixture of magic and machinery. More to the point, though, there's a turn-based battle system with some deeper series cuts. There's an order to who moves next, but filling a foe's stagger meter shakes that up – and ensures you'll get a window to deal increased damage.

What I've most enjoyed, though, is that the visuals and action are really dialed up to 11. The art style remains the HD-2D style popularized by Octopath Traveler, though cutscenes, both mid-fight and in-story, really deliver a sense of spectacle.

Of course, when Furuya talks about the trend of turn-based RPGs and JRPGs, it goes beyond what Square Enix has managed to accomplish with the Octopath series and other HD-2D remakes. Atlus has been holding down that fort for a while with the likes of Persona and Metaphor: ReFantazio, and genre love letter Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has won so many awards it's hard to ignore. Speaking of awards, the J'RPG is only really rivaled in recent times by Baldur's Gate 3. I'm starting to think there's something to these turn-based games.

Final Fantasy Resonance appeals to my inner child like no RPG since Chrono Trigger.