Dave Bautista has addressed his casting as Kratos in the upcoming God of War series. He's replacing Ryan Hurst in the lead role after the actor sustained a serious on-set injury.

Posting on Instagram, the Guardians of the Galaxy star shared his training for the role, set to the audio of "Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in." He captioned the video, "3rd week into weight training again. 2 more months to get to where I need to be. Like ridin' a bike! LFG!"

Bautista recently lost a lot of weight after bulking up for his role in Knock at the Cabin. However, it seems like he's pivoting once again to play Kratos in the upcoming Amazon adaptation of the beloved game.

The new update also confirms when filming is due to pick up again. There were initial reports that production would resume in mid-October, but it seems like this is actually closer to November based on Bautista's caption.

Based on the hugely popular PlayStation video game franchise, the Amazon God of War series is being adapted by Ronald D. Moore. The story follows Kratos and his son Atreus as they travel to the highest peak in the nine realms to spread the ashes of their wife and mother Faye.

As well as Bautista, the show stars Callum Vinson, Teresa Palmer, Max Parker, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Mandy Patinkin, and Ed Skrein. Kratos' video game actor Christopher Judge recently revealed that he also read to play the live-action version of the character, but says he had "no desire" to be the lead actor of a TV show again.

Currently, there's no release date for the God of War series. In the meantime, check out our picks of the best Amazon shows as well as our guide to all the upcoming video game adaptations you need to know about.

RuneScape developer Jagex is showing Dragonwilds players its appreciation by bucking one of the conventions of releasing a game out of early access. Instead of launching into 1.0 with a hefty price increase, as is the standard with early access games going into 1.0, RuneScape Dragonwilds will stay exactly the same price, £24.99 or $29.99, when it leaves early access on September 15.

According to Jagex, this is for no other reason than to express gratitude for a community of fans that has kept RuneScape in the gaming zeitgeist for 25 years.

"Since we launched into Early Access, we've been extremely proud of the amazing work that has gone into RuneScape: Dragonwilds," reads an update shared to the game's official website. "So many of you have taken the plunge into Ashenfall, and with every update we are humbled by the number of you trying out Dragonwilds, recommending it to friends and leaving reviews on Steam. The feedback has been incredible, and the game continues to improve with every update, guided and informed by our vision, and your feedback, working together in harmony.

"Dragonwilds' success is because of the invaluable participation of our Early Access players, but also thanks to the support and excitement shared by the countless number of fans waiting for Kuldra's Saga to be complete before you took the plunge with us. We hope this small gesture goes some way to showing our endless appreciation for your support and belief."

Jagex also confirms that Dragonwilds will continue getting monthly updates "as the game grows" in its post-early access life. And speaking of which, the next major update is coming sometime in the vague window of "Winter," and it'll be called Luminance. That, like the smaller updates, will be a free grab for players, although Jagex has yet to say a whole lot else about it.

"We'll share more about our 2027 plans once we've delivered our 1.0 release, and you can tune into our Summit at RuneFest to hear more about 2027 and the next Saga in Ashenfall's story," says the dev.

RuneScape: Dragonwilds 1.0 is just one of many upcoming launches on our big Fall Preview 2026 guide of our most wanted games.

The time to beat The Blood of Dawnwalker and how long it takes to complete the game will vary hugely, as parts of the game get gated off as you progress, and it's possible to complete the game at a very early point without seeing most of what the world has to offer. Without spoiling anything, we'll explain how long Dawnwalker is going to be for most players, and lay out some estimates of length according to our own experiences.

How long to beat The Blood of Dawnwalker explained

The time to beat The Blood of Dawnwalker could be anywhere between 20 and 50 hours, but most players will likely beat it between 30 and 40.

The reason for that is the structuring of the game, which in many ways is somewhat similar to Breath of the Wild. Once you complete the tutorial, you're given a task to complete and 30 in-game days to complete it, but can attempt that task far earlier, depending on your actions. If you're focused and particularly skilled, you can probably complete the final challenge before 7 days have elapsed (one of our team took 9 in-game days to complete it, and that was on his first attempt). For more info, check out our dedicated guide on The Blood of Dawnwalker time mechanics.

However, for most players, I would estimate between 30 and 40 hours, which allows for you to experience all the major questlines and some side activities, and progress through most of the in-game timeline. It's also worth mentioning that there is a post-game, and you can continue to play Dawnwalker after the main quest is completed.

Want help with the essentials of the game? Check out all The Blood of Dawnwalker best perks, or find out how The Blood of Dawnwalker armor proficiency works!

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Claws and swords in The Blood of Dawnwalker are one of the big dilemmas, as while Coen during the day is limited to either bare fists or blades, at night his vampire side awakes and he can use long claws in combat to devastating effect. But with the choice between them, which is better, swords or claws? The answer actually has some nuance to it, as I'll explain below.

Learning the ropes of the game? Find out what to do first in The Blood of Dawnwalker, or find out how time and the day/night cycle works in Vale Sangora!

Should you use swords or claws in The Blood of Dawnwalker?

When choosing between swords or your claws in The Blood of Dawnwalker, the reality is that it depends on your equipment and build, but ultimately I'd saw claws are slightly better in most cases, at least unless you're using the very best weapons in The Blood of Dawnwalker or have a very specific sword-focused build.

Claws tend to be faster and quicker and often just as damaging as blades, so tend to be slightly more impactful. However, there are perks, armor and weapons that all increase the damage or effect of one or the other, so it's worth looking at what you have equipped and choosing accordingly.

If you need help choosing, check the bottom of the inventory page beneath your items, which tells you the current damage of both your sword attacks and your claw attacks. If one is clearly better than the other, that's a good sign to pick out that one specifically.

All that being said, I do recommend seeing if you can create a powerful sword build for both day and night, as you'll get more use out of it if you can make it deadlier than your claws, which by definition is only useful half of the time. Finding all The Blood of Dawnwalker sword shard locations will allow you to unlock a powerful weapon for exactly that purpose: the fabled sword of St. Mihai!

Weighing up the morality of life as a vampire and more? Find out the consquences of the tough force feed choice in The Blood of Dawnwalker, or decide whether to throw Anca's notes in the fire in The Blood of Dawnwalker.

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The best weapons and swords in The Blood of Dawnwalker are always legendary swords, and depending on your own build, you might even be deadlier with your claws than any blade that you could pick up. However, if you're fighting during the day, you'll need a good weapon, and the best sword we've found so far is, appropriately enough, the only one with a major questline in The Blood of Dawnwalker leading up to it and focused around it, as we'll explain below.

For more details on the choice between claws or sword in The Blood of Dawnwalker, check out our guide for the important differences between them!

The best weapon in The Blood of Dawnwalker

The best weapon that I've found after playing through The Blood of Dawnwalker (and conferring with another player and his experience) is The Imbued Sword of St. Mihai, a legendary greatsword that Coen can earn through a long series of quests. You won't get it quickly, but starting this long chain is arguably a good thing to do first in The Blood of Dawnwalker.

Here's a basic walkthrough on how to get The Imbued Sword of St. Mihai, which isn't found or purchased, but crafted as part of a quest

1. Follow Anca's questline until after the Font of Life quest (and potential romances and relationship scene). She'll discover the existence of the legendary weapon.
2. Follow the subsequent quest to the Cathedral and stick with it until you have a boss fight with an undead ghoul. This will give you The Broken Sword of St. Mihai, which you can use, but is not as powerful as it could be.
3. Find all three Blood of Dawnwalker sword shard locations, spread around the map. Our guide will help you pick them out, but they're tied to Kobold dens.
4. Locate the legendary Uriashi Blacksmith. She's found in the Northwest of the map, in the location shown below.

5. Speak to her to combine the Sword Shards with the Broken Sword. Each one you add makes it more powerful.
6. With all three Sword Shards added, the Blacksmith will give you a quest that directs you to a shrine to the Northwest. Inside, you'll have a boss fight against several spirits collectively called The Echoing Anger.
7. After this is done, interact with the altar to Imbue the sword and make it into its most powerful form.

The Imbued Sword of St. Mihai has superb stats against supernatural enemies and a higher crit rate and damage, as well as a weapon art that allows you to do huge spinning strikes that knock down nearby foes, but perhaps most importantly, it just has a very good base damage for its level. That being said, remember to upgrade it with any blacksmith to keep it at your level! Otherwise it'll get left behind as you get stronger. You'll also want to make sure to get all The Blood of Dawnwalker best perks for Swordmastery, and I suggest grabbing the The Blood of Dawnwalker armor proficiency perks too for ensuring that you can get the best buffs from your other equipment.

If you want other powerful swords, check out those aforementioned Blacksmiths, as there's usually one in each settlement. Each smith sells a unique legendary sword, all supposedly their previous submission to a master smithing competition. These are expensive, but strong weapons, and may better fit more specific builds.

There's more hidden in Vale Sangora! Find out how to find Gremla's banner in The Blood of Dawnwalker, or have The Blood of Dawnwalker time mechanics explained for you in our handy guide

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After beating Leonica in The Blood of Dawnwalker, you're given the choice throw the notes in the fire or give them to Anca. It's a loaded choice, to say the least - pages of black magic that Anca is eager to reverse engineer for the sake of saving the sisters of St. Tyna's. You can advise against it in dialogue, but ultimately Anca's so set on this course of action that the only way to stop her is throw the notes in the fire and give her nothing to work with.

Of course, it doesn't especially help that Dawnwalker isn't especially clear about what the risk to Anca is, making it hard to tell what the consequences will be, but don't worry: our guide will lay out the two outcomes and which is better.

Should you choose to throw the notes in the fire in The Blood of Dawnwalker?

I would say it's better overall to let Anca have the notes instead of throwing them in the fire, though there's not a huge difference to the game either way.

If you burn them, basically nothing changes: Anca is upset, but it's forgotten before long and you're both back on the main questline regardless, with no impact on the possibility of The Blood of Dawnwalker romances. If you allow her to go through with the rituals, it successfully dispels the magic and frees the undead nuns from the curse, but it's implied that Anca did dark things to successfully perform the ritual and has suffered for it in the process... Though again, this is something that's forgotten about pretty quickly except for the occasional passing mention in dialogue.

Otherwise the only other time it comes up again is in the post-game recap, as The Blood of Dawnwalker ends with a description of the world when it comes to the long-term consequences of your choices. We won't spoil, but the fate of St. Tyna's is brought up here, though it has no impact on you mechanically.

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When Anca gives you herbs to brew medicine for your mom in The Blood of Dawnwalker, you have to create them from the recipe yourself. That would be fine, except it's not made clear that you have to brew the herbs in a specific way from memory, and can't back out to check the recipe at any time. If you need a refresher, here's how many spoonfuls of herbs to use and how hot the water should be.

Doing chores on the first day? Make sure you know what to do before sundown Mass in The Blood of Dawnwalker!

How hot should the water be and how many spoonfuls to use in The Blood of Dawnwalker?

Once you get ready to brew the herbs for your mother in The Blood of Dawnwalker, you'll have to choose the temperature of the water and the number of spoonfuls of herbs to use, according to the note she gives you. With that in mind, choose the following options:

1. [Use hot water]
2. [Add three spoonfuls of herbs]

That matches the recipe given to you by Anca back at her cabin, assuming you remembered to read it from your inventory. At this point you'll be able to give it to her in a cutscene, so you don't have to repeat the brutality of the force feeding choice from earlier.

We haven't tested the outcome of getting this recipe wrong, but unlike the moral choices that arise throughout Dawnwalker, this one is a clear correct/incorrect memory puzzle, so it seems safe to say that there'd be little benefit to getting this incorrect, unlike the stay with Anca or go choice in The Blood of Dawnwalker from earlier.

While still exploring Laslea, make sure you know how to find the banner in The Blood of Dawnwalker when investigating for Gremla! Or check out what Dawnwalker romances and relationships are potentially in your future...

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When starting The Blood of Dawnwalker, you'll be given a day before sundown and Mass in which to do chores and explore the village of Laslea, with a few obvious priorities, but nothing that'll take the entire day. With multiple potential chores and quests laid around the village and each one using up a certain amount of time, I'll lay out the best ones to do before time runs out.

Everything you should do in The Blood of Dawnwalker before Sundown Mass

There are five major quests you'll want to hit prior to sundown in The Blood of Dawnwalker, laid out on the map below.

1. Getting herbs from Anca. This is a mandatory one that starts you off after the brutal Force feed choice in The Blood of Dawnwalker, and will include learning how to brew the medicine, as well as sparring with your father afterwards to learn combat mechanics.
2. Fishing with your siblings. This introduces a key element of the mythology, the Uriashi, who you won't meet until later otherwise.
3. Chase down Vasil. This is a surprise quest that occurs when a local lout called Vasil hurls an insult at you, at which point you'll have to chase him down. Depending on the choices you make, you'll learn unarmed combat mechanics from this quest.
4. Help Iorgu find his lost pig. This grants you a small amount of money and meat at the end of the quest you can use later.
5. Help Gremla find the lost banner. This introduces Focus and investigation mechanics, and for more help, find out how to find the banner in The Blood of Dawnwalker.

All these quests should line you up perfectly with the amount of time needed to fill the day, without starting anything that you don't have time to finish. Keep in mind that you don't necessarily have to do them in the order shown above.

In reality, it doesn't matter too how much how this time as spent, as the tutorial doesn't have a huge amount of lasting impact and even the rewards you get from Gremla and Iorgu aren't particularly significant, but this combination of quests above gives you a solid combination of background lore and tutorials for key mechanics that might otherwise go unexplained.

For more help setting out on your journey, check out the best weapons in The Blood of Dawnwalker so you know what to look for, or for a later decision with Anca, find out: should you throw the notes in the fire in The Blood of Dawnwalker!

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The mechanics by which time passes in The Blood of Dawnwalker can be a little confusing early on, especially as an integral mechanic that's going to come up a lot, especially with regards to the day/night cycle. If you're struggling to understand it, I'll explain how time works in Dawnwalker, what the various symbols mean, and when the clock moves forward.

For a wider perspective, check out our answer to the question: how long is The Blood of Dawnwalker, and how many hours will it take you to get to the end?

Time passing mechanics in The Blood of Dawnwalker explained

Here's a simple summary of the time passing mechanics in The Blood of Dawnwalker and how they work:

• Time does not pass automatically, and is only linked to quests, choices and progression. This is very important: running around the map or standing around in the overworld doing nothing does not cause time to pass. You can run to the bottom of the map, back up to the top, and repeat this a hundred times, and not a single time section will pass.
• Time does pass when you trigger certain events. You're nearly always told when this is about to happen, but interacting with certain objects, making certain dialogue choices, or going into certain areas for the first time will cause time to pass (the amount will vary depending on the choice). For example, when you go to save Mert the Miller in The Blood of Dawnwalker, opening the cell will take several time segments. There might also be optional time-syncs, such as choosing to stay with Anca in The Blood of Dawnwalker early on, which takes up time, but allows you to know this character better
• Quests have markers in your journal telling you how long they'll take to complete. It's worth keeping in mind that these time lapses do not happen instantly, but might occur in the middle of the quest, or in multiple stages. For example, if a quest takes five hours, three of those might be spent at the beginning when Coen researches something, and two more spent at the end when he travels with somebody. If the amount of time will cause it to change from day to night, there'll be an icon of an hourglass with an arrow leading to a sun or moon, warning you about the time change. For example, certain quests to The Blood of Dawnwalker romances and relationships are time-sensitive - nobody likes a late date, after all.
• If you're nearing a location where time is about to pass automatically, you'll get a warning. If you're approaching an important place or NPC who will trigger a time jump just by proximity, you'll hear a ticking noise, and a section on the clock in the top-right of the screen will be greyed in. This is to alert you to the idea that "if you continue, this is what you'll have to spend immediately".
• Some quests have to be completed within a certain time. If a quest is marked with an icon of a blue clock (as shown in the image below), it will disappear at some point and you'll miss your chance to do it. Make these a priority.
• Some quests are specific to day or night. If a quest is marked with an icon of a sun or moon, you'll have to start it at day or night respectively, otherwise it'll be locked off. See more on that below,

Once they've completed the tutorial, players are given thirty days and nights to complete the main quest, though it can be completed before that. You can also keep playing the game once the main quest is done.

Day and night cycle in The Blood of Dawnwalker explained

The day and night cycle in The Blood of Dawnwalker will impact your gameplay in the following ways:

• Day and night are broken into eight "sections" each. You can see how far you are through each phase of the day via the bar in the top right of the screen.
• You have access to different powers. During the day, you can use your Witchcraft abilities, whereas at night, you use Vampiric powers. Vampire powers, including teleportation, wall climbing, and your claws, tend to mean that you're overall much stronger at night. When unlocking The Blood of Dawnwalker perks, they'll be labelled either "Daytime", "Nighttime," or "Anytime", accordingly.
• At night you risk giving into the hunger. If your health is one segment or lower during the night, your dialogue options erratically change to "Give in to the hunger", which will cause you to attack and kill the person you're talking to.
• How you heal changes. Potions and healing foods that work for humans during the day won't work at night. At that point you'll depend on blood, either pulled from items or drunk from enemies.

Can you turn off or change the time mechanics in The Blood of Dawnwalker

No, there is currently no way to modify or turn off the time passing mechanics in The Blood of Dawnwalker. While some players might find this system a bit alienating, the idea of time pressure is very clearly meant to be part of the intended experience by the developers.

Fortunately, I can say that thirty days is far more time than it sounds, and players will be able to see the vast majority of the game in that time, especially if they aren't using up much time to train their abilities.

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If you've just made it through the tutorial in The Blood of Dawnwalker and the 30 day timer has begun, you'll be wondering where to go and what to do first. You're given a few threads to follow up on, but ultimately there's a lot of options left to you, and the ticking clock can definitely add some urgency to proceedings. Below I'll explain what to do and where to go first in Dawnwalker for the best initial start, though keep in mind that this is a game with a pretty brutal introduction, and there's no obviously easy choice.

Best things to do first in The Blood of Dawnwalker

After leaving Laslea village and separating from Anca in The Blood of Dawnwalker, there are several threads to follow, and multiple locations nearby to hit. Here are the ones I'd recommend:

1. Go to both Scouting Towers. Now that you're in vampire mode, you can scale both the Tower in Laslea and the one in the Marshes to reveal the most northernly section of the map.
2. Clear the soldier's camp outside of Laslea. This will give you a basic array of rewards that can help you going forward, including better gear. They're hardly the best weapons in The Blood of Dawnwalker, but it's a start.
3. Speak to the Miller's wife. This starts a new quest about rescuing the Miller that will put you in contact with the Rebels. It's easy if you don't try and free the Miller, but difficult if you do. If you want some help, check out how to save Mert the Miller in The Blood of Dawnwalker.
4. Save the prisoners. There's a caravan of prisoners on the road to the military camp who you can save. I definitely recommend doing this at night for the best advantage, as at this early point in the game, the choice between claws or swords in The Blood of Dawnwalker is pretty straightforward.

With that in mind, you should have taken down a couple of (easier) challenges and set yourself up for a bit more freeform exploring, or even an attempt to save the Miller himself, if you're feeling brave.

Keep in mind that The Blood of Dawnwalker is hardest at its early hours (at least from my experience) but will get easier as you acquire more perks and weapons, as well as come to learn the nuances of gameplay. So while the challenges listed above may be difficult, they're still about as easy as the game gets at this point. If it's still too hard for you, considering tweaking the difficulty settings in the menu.

For more advice, find out all the The Blood of Dawnwalker romances and relationships waiting for you in the world! Or check out how to find all the The Blood of Dawnwalker sword shard locations, collectibles that lead to a deadly silver sword.

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Mert the Miller in The Blood of Dawnwalker is a character who's been placed in the Stoneward Post jail, and while it's not mandatory that you free him if you just want his information on the rebels, there is nonetheless the option to try and break him free. It's not easy though: Stoneward Post is full of soldiers, and they'll take your weapons off you when you try to enter. If you want help breaking Mert free from Jail as part of The Firebrand and Take Back What's Mine quests, I'll explain how to do it here.

How to find the Miller in Stoneward Post in The Blood of Dawnwalker

Your first step is to find the Miller, which can be done non-violently and simply requires some clever manipulation. This process won't free him, but it will allow you to get an audience with him in jail.

1. Approach Stoneward Post during the day and speak to the guard on the main entrance. You'll have three dialogue options: visit a prisoner, message for the commander, or to enlist. All of them will gain you access and it doesn't really make a difference.
2. Agree to give up your weapons. You won't have to fight anybody yet, so it's safe. Otherwise they won't let you in and it'll go to violence.
3. Approach the main stone tower. In front of it, you'll see a woman and a prisoner's brother arguing with a guard. Talk to them to find out that the guards are stealing from prisoners.
4. Talk to Yenno, the merchant back by the entrance, and threaten to tell the Commander. He tells you Friedo and Cerbus are his accomplices.
5. Go into the stone tower to meet Friedo. Tell him you want to meet a prisoner, and that you know about his deal with Yenno and Cerbus. He'll let you go down and speak with the Miller.

Congrats! At this point you can go down the steps and talk to Mert the Miller through the bars of his cell. If you tell the guard he's going to be sick, he'll leave and give you both the chance to discuss the rebels. That takes up 2 time segments, but you lose those time segments talking to Mert no matter how it happens, even if you slay the guard first.

How to save Mert from Jail in The Blood of Dawnwalker

if you agree to save Mert from Jail, it's not going to be easy, but it is doable. Here's the best way I know of to do it.

1. Leave the Jail and come back at night. It's too difficult for most early players to do this during the day, so having your vampire powers will make a big difference. Keep in mind that you'll want to do this early at night, not close to dawn!
2. Use your teleport and planeshift powers to stealthily break in. Approaching Stoneward Post from the back, you can climb up the tower and come down through the roof without being noticed by anybody except the guard on Mert's cell. Kill him.
3. Get the Prison Keychain. They're upstairs in the same room as Friedo, hanging on the wall. Use Focus to spot them and take them with stealth. You'll need them both to access the downstairs dungeons, and to break Mert free.

4. Release Mert. Unlocking the Miller's cell (somehow) takes three time segments, hence why it's important to do this early at night. You don't want to turn back into a human mid-mission.
5. Head up with Mert. This is where things get tough - there'll be a boss inside the tower called Rayko the Incorruptible, and once you leave the Tower, you'll immediately be attacked by the nearest guards and their dogs. You'll have to kill them all, so be ready for combat.
6. Turn left for the secret entrance. Rather than leave out the main way you came in (with far more guards), head left and around the back of the tower to find a small locked gate. The keys you took from Friedo will also open that gate, so just head out there with him and you're done!

Later on, you can meet Mert in the Almshouse in Svartrau (the major city to the South). Otherwise, the main rewards are the opportunity to loot Stoneward Post (which is a pretty good haul for the early game), and the 250XP gained from breaking Mert free.

Grabbing early game quests? If you're headed to see Anca, check out whether you should throw the notes in the fire in The Blood of Dawnwalker, or if you're starting out, find out how long is The Blood of Dawnwalker here!

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After getting the medicinal herbs from Anca in The Blood of Dawnwalker, she offers for you to stay and study Latin with her, which will take time, or you can go there and then, missing the chance but saving an additional hour before Mass later that day. I'll run through the best choice below as to whether to stay with Anca, or to go accordingly.

Should you stay with Anca or go in The Blood of Dawnwalker?

After collecting the medicinal herbs from Anca in the opening of The Blood of Dawnwalker, she'll offer to practice Latin with you to wait out the rain, triggering two potential responses.

1. Gladly - I've missed it too. (2 time segments)
2. I really have to go. (1 time segment)

Of those two, I'd definitely suggest picking the second option and saying that you have to go. Having played both options, there doesn't appear to be any benefit to burning up time with the former (knowledge of Latin doesn't really come back up later, and your relationship with Anca doesn't seem to change). With that in mind, it's better to keep the extra time segment, so you can do more quests around the village before running out the clock before Mass.

Presumably, the only time that you'd want to pick the option to study Latin would be either if you're leaning hard into roleplay, or if you've played the game before and are happy to speed-run this part of the tutorial. A choice like this reduces the amount you need to do prior to Mass and the game starting properly.

Back out in the village, find out how to find the banner in The Blood of Dawnwalker, or get a reminder of how to brew the medicine in The Blood of Dawnwalker that Anca gave you. More broadly, just make sure you know What to do before sundown Mass and the first day ends!

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Perks in The Blood of Dawnwalker are broken into three skill trees: Witchcraft, Swordmastery and Vampirism, each one offering various advantages.

However, unlike in many games, it's not just about levelling up normally: in Dawnwalker, players will have to spend time segments on certain perks that represent time spent training, so some perks will end up pushing the clock forward. Still, that can be worth it, as these usually mark the better skills and abilities that will have the greatest impact on gameplay going forward.

Still starting the game out and planning ahead? Check out our guide on what to do first in The Blood of Dawnwalker!

All the best perks in The Blood of Dawnwalker

Below we've laid out all the most essential skills and perks for players to get in Dawnwalker, broken up into the three main trees. Keep in mind that some of these may be more or less important to you, depending on your preference for playing in the day, night, or if you have certain strategies you prefer.

Best Witchcraft Perks

Witchcraft is focused on spells, resource gathering, crafting, and the bonuses gained from items. Most of these powers are locked to daytime use.

• Mercurial Fervour. A fast moving sprint will make daytime exploration far more tolerable.
• Frugal Witchcraft. Allowing you to heal when you kill an enemy with a Witchcraft spell helps negate a lot of the dangerous health sacrifice that comes with casting these spells.
• Forbidden Sigils. Unlocks new Witchcraft Ability Slots for more options in combat.
• Amalgam. Allows you to stack buffs from multiple long-term consumables, meaning you can bolster multiple stats at once.
• Life Lock. An Active Ability that lets players reflect the next few instances of damage back at the dealer, with comparatively little health sacrifice.

Best Swordmastery Perks

Swordmastery focuses on weapon combat, stamina carry capacity and armor use, as well as direct combat abilities. These perks all apply whether it's day or night, and it's arguably the most important of all three skill trees for that reason.

• Sustained Focus. Unlocks more activation charges. Essential for pretty much all builds, as all active abilities draw off these.
• Second Skin II. Reduces the penalties associated with heavy armor by granting armor proficiency, a massive advantage for your equipment in the late-game.
• Perfect Block. With how much this is going to come up, maximising the bonuses to Stamina and Activation Charge restoration on perfect parries is a worthwhile investment.
• Sharp Eye. Debuffs enemy defense and damage after a perfect block, which is hugely helpful in all encounters.
• Master Fencer. Increases Swordmastery Ability Slots, allowing for more useful powers and abilities.
• Endless Effort. A basic stamina enhancement that's effectively essential once you're out of the early game.
• Broad Swing. An AOE sweep that hits all enemies nearby. Very good for camps of foes.
• Swiftness. Increases attack speed after a perfect block, giving you longer to exploit their weakness with a riposte.

Best Vampirism perks

The Vampirism skill tree is all about mobility, damage dealing, health restoration and bolstering your associated claw attacks. All of these Perks are exclusive to night, of course.

• Shapeshift. The nighttime answer to long-distance travel, this allows you to transform into a wolf and gain Haste.
• Death From Above. A stealth kill power that allows you to jump on enemies beneath you, killing regular foes and badly wounding bosses.
• Voracious Bite. Upgrading your basic bite attack is essential, as it allows you to both damage and heal, with buffs for later upgrades.
• Endless Hunger. Increases your max health at night by a seriously high amount, as well as making it less likely for you to lose control and give into the hunger accidentally by extension.
• Nourishing Blood. Increases the healing received from drinking blood. Useful both in and out of combat.
• Hastened Corruption. Increases the speed at which you gain Corruption, before eventually bolstering your health too when upgraded further. This effectively acts as an XP multiplier, so you'll want to get it early.

Best Ultimate Perks

Each skill tree in The Blood of Dawnwalker has three ultimate perks (for nine in total), but you can only unlock one of these per skill tree, effectively blocking you out of the other two for the rest of your playthrough. Here's our choices for the best Ultimate Perks from each one:

• Runic Bulwark (Witchcraft): Grants a 15% chance to put a random Hex on an opponent when you Perfect Block them. At the point in the game where you unlock Ultimate Perks, you should be Perfect Blocking more often than not, so that makes this incredibly powerful.
• Last Stand (Swordmastery): It's a close call between this and Tactical Mastery, but doubling all weapon damage when on 30% health or less is a huge bonus, especially if you're playing as a vampire and given more control over your health.
• Renounce Death (Vampirism): Instead of dying, once per combat you come back with 10 seconds of lifestyle and immortality. Considering that everything you do comes down to not dying, this is the most direct way of handling it.

Ultimate Perks in the Witchcraft and Swordmastery trees require you to have spent 35 Perk Points in each of their respective trees. To unlock the Ultimate Perks in the Vampirism Tree, you need to increase your Corruption to 15.

How to unlock new perks in The Blood of Dawnwalker

Perks in The Blood of Dawnwalker or bought with perk points at road shrines, and perk points are unlocked when you level up. However, there are a few more factors to keep in mind.

• Most perks require some time to learn, usually between 1-3 time segments. Check the time cost before committing to learning them.
• Some perks, or their upgraded versions, require you to find Manuals. These are items in the world that are consumed from your inventory. Manuals are sold by merchants, found as rewards, or spawn randomly in bookshelves that you search.
• Some Vampire powers are gated behind Corruption, which increases every time you drink blood from any source, be it human, animal or monster.
• Other powers in certain skill trees are gated behind quests or boss fights. For this reason, not every player will unlock even the chance to buy every Perk in the game.

For more info on how Coen works within this world, check out our explanation of the Blood of Dawnwalker time mechanics, or find out whether you should use claws or swords in The Blood of Dawnwalker!

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Sword Shards in The Blood of Dawnwalker are needed to build the Sword of St. Mihai, a weapon that'll give you a serious edge against Brencis. You'll likely end up around Val Songara's Svartrau Cathedral following the A Monk and a Saint questline that has you following the footsteps of St Mihai, said to have battled Vrakihiri himself. Find where he's buried, and you may find the perfect vampire hunter gear, including the legendary silver sword of St. Mihai, which is arguably the best weapon in The Blood of Dawnwalker.

The road to the best gear is never simple, however, and this is actually a multi-step process that, once started, you may need to come back to later on. The quest markers themselves don't give you an awful lot of guidance, meaning you'll have to figure out some steps yourself or by poking around Vale Sangora. Or, simply ask us. As, below, I have collected together steps that'll ensure you get your mitts on this legendary sword for yourself.

How to get Sword of St Mihai in The Blood of Dawnwalker

The main quest to track down the Sword of St Mihai, and St Mihai's crypt, is called "A Saint and a Monk". This takes place in Svartrau, and has you tracking down a scholar by following markings in Focus mode within the Middles District around the city walls before heading to the unmissable Svartrau cathedral.

If you don't have this quest yet, one way to get it to appear is to follow Anca's questline past your excursion to St Tryna's, clearing Echoes of Silenced Bells and researching books with her in Beyond the Words. There may be other routes, but this one definitely works, and it allows you to build up one of The Blood of Dawnwalker romances along the way, if you're interested.

Once A Saint and a Monk takes you to Svartrau Cathedral at night, you'll find the quest marker is quite big, and there are some dead ends that can make progression unclear. Though the crypts outside the cathedral are obvious and glow yellow, Coen won't be able to decide on which one is St Miha's until you obtain more information, especially his emblem. Even though you can find caves within a nearby well that go near the crypt, and research about St Mihai in the library (entered through the unlocked door on the balcony), these don't progress the quest.

Instead, you'll need to gain access to the cathedral via the scaffolding on the belltower (on the opposite side to the crypts). Inside, you'll find Xanthe, who is quite dangerous. She can be avoided, and studying the frescos on the interior roof will reveal St Mihai's mark.

Pick up the rooftop key to exit near the crypts, and explore within. After some fighting you'll obtain the Broken St Mihai's sword. It needs to be restored by collecting three silver shard pieces, and getting a blacksmith specialist to repair it – kicking off the "Forge It Anew" quest line.

All Sword Shard locations in The Blood of Dawnwalker

At first, Forge It Anew does not direct you to any specific locations. The three pieces are hidden in caves across Vale Sangora, though as you approach one the quest name 'Forge It Anew' with a subtitle will be added to your Journal so you know it's correct. Each cave has a map for the other ones, so you only really need to find one. I found my first by just exploring, though some books and other clues in other areas give some hints as to where they may be found as well.

The first location is in the western wilderness of Vale Sangora, not too far from Uriash territory, beneath some large crags (so, approaching in a westerly direction is best). Within, you will fight a big kobold called Munch-Munch, who guards the shard. Pay attention to markings on the walls to learn more about the story, as well as mark quest circle locations for the other two Forge It Anew caves on your maps (though these can be done in any order).

The second location is in the north-east, and is probably intended for lower level characters – though it's tucked away enough I didn't notice it early in the game. If you're struggling to find it as I did, focus mode will help you observe and follow evidence of a guard patrol that was hunting down kobolds, leading you right to the entrance. Inside, you'll find several of the monsters as well as dead soldier bodies to loot, and the shard itself. Like before, more markings can be observed here too.

The third location gets a bit more complex. To do it as intended, the cave is in the south-east, but you'll find it empty, with clues pointing you to one of Xanthe's camps nearby as they looted the shard already on her behalf. Simply follow the path to the camp, and clear out the difficult enemies, and you'll find it lying within the main tent.

Where to find the Uriashi Blacksmith

Now you'll need someone to reforge the sword. The Uriash Hermit with the rune-powered forge is the one you're looking for, at the very north-west of the map if you discount your village starting zone from the prologue. She's so near the starting area that I actually found her very early in the game, but she refused to talk to me until I was pursuing the Forge It Anew quest. She'll explain everything you need, though you may need to be careful using haste powers around her as it makes her scared and un-interactable for a few seconds.

With all three shards, she will reforge the sword into a formidable weapon, but your task isn't done yet. She points you towards a nearby cave, slightly further in the north-west, where you can have the sword blessed to restore it to its true former glory.

How to temper St. Mihai's sword

Reforged sword in hand, the cave entrance is a short sprint from the blacksmith's, within a cave covered in red vines that make it impenetrable until now, marked as part of the quest. Pressing a button will have Coen simply destroy this strange growth.

Inside will be the red supernatural glow you'll likely be familiar with from other ancient sites. There are plenty of spectral enemies to face here as you navigate a short sequence of platforms, including an Echoing Anger mini-boss.

Once you've cleared the enemies, you can interact with the ancient site to temper St Mihai's Sword, finally upgrading it into a Legendary Greatsword: the Imbued Sword of St. Mihai.

The exact level, like most loot, depends on your own when obtaining it, but it's a very powerful sword that boasts large bonuses to damage against supernatural enemies, higher critical hit rate, and more, though obviously you'll have to pick out the best perks in The Blood of Dawnwalker for Swordmastery to get the most out of it. I ended up using it through to the end of the game, though depending on your specific build, you might still struggle to choose between claws or swords in The Blood of Dawnwalker, as your talons can still be very powerful if upgraded right.

For more help with the world of Vale Sangora, find out how long is The Blood of Dawnwalker from beginning to end, or check out how to unlock armor proficiency in The Blood of Dawnwalker for defense that's as good as your offense.

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With so much choice in how you progress in The Blood of Dawnwalker, which characters you get close to and complete quests with is in your clawed vampire hands. The Blood of Dawnwalker romance revolves around whose questlines you choose to follow and picking options that'll make you endearing.

Only a few of the main characters are romanceable, and it's usually quite clear which ones are up for exploring relationships with Coen. Likewise, in dialogue, it's usually laid out quite clearly whether you're being nice or mean, or are about to enter into romance or relations with another character. Below, I'll detail the romances we've uncovered in The Blood of Dawnwalker so far to give Coen the ultimate guide to forging bonds and having a good old time across the Vale Sangora.

Warning: The following will contain spoilers for certain questlines.

All Romances in The Blood of Dawnwalker

There are three characters in The Blood of Dawnwalker we've discovered that can be involved in romances and relationships with Coen.

• Anca. The village healer of Laslea and introduced in the prologue with the choice of whether to stay with Anca or go, she's a former nun with a few dark secrets.
• Lacra. A vampire with a ruthless streak, Lacra can get close to Coen while investigating Brencis' history.
• Crake. The leader of the rebellion fighting against Brencis, Crake is a guerrila warrior who recruits Coen to help rise up against Brencis.

The romances we've uncovered so far all revolve around characters who you interact with through multiple connected quests. So far, they all seem to hinge around getting a story choice to eventually be intimate with them, or to stay as friends. Choose the former, and you'll have an explicit scene. Generally, you can talk about what happened with them afterwards and say you want more, but because of the context of the 30-day time limit, time pressure stops you from doing it again.

Every romance has been quite forgiving so far, and I've yet to be turned down by anyone even while disagreeing with them. Still, as a rule of thumb, here's some tips for how we've been approaching forming strong relationships.

1. Being nice to characters instead of mean.
2. Pursuing their questlines promptly – many of which are optional.
3. Being honest about decision choices, not simply people pleasing.
4. Declaring your romantic interest whenever possible, don't hide how you feel.
5. Taking upgrades for ourselves.

How to romance Anca

Introduced early on in the game's prologue when you're still deciding what to do before sundown Mass in The Blood of Dawnwalker, Anca is flagged as a romance option before we even meet her as Coen is teased by his siblings about his interest in the former nun turned learned village healer.

I successfully romanced Anca by choosing to spend time with her whenever we had the opportunity, being nice to her, and reassuring her about her witchcraft past and her anxiety around being an older woman. However, you don't have to spend time with her after she teaches you how to brew the medicine in The Blood of Dawnwalker early on in the first day - another player chose to go, and there was still potential for romance later.

There appears to be a lot of flexibility here. Whether you spend additional time with her in the Prologue doesn't seem to matter, nor does the early Anca questline choice at the end of "Echoes of Silenced Bells" at St. Tryna's, where you have to decide: should you throw the notes in the fire in The Blood of Dawnwalker.

If you continue on through her storyline past St. Tryna's and where she sets you on the path to the Cathedral and finding The Blood of Dawnwalker sword shard locations, you'll reach a quest called "The Font of Life. " Throughout that quest, we emphasized our romantic interest in Anca. Afterwards, back at the inn, we met her on that level, triggering an intimate scene.

How to romance Lacra

Spend time in Svartrau and you'll eventually trigger the "A Friend Like This" quest near the cathedral, leading you to follow supernatural signs of a struggle (you can also trigger it by slaying Ambrus). At the end, you'll have the option to forge an alliance with Lacra, an older Egyptian vampire who also wants to rid Vale Sangora of Brencis, though she's often quite brutal in pursuit of her goals.

Following through her questline, there's plenty of time to interact. Despite often disagreeing with Lacra and talking her down from violence throughout the Song of the Mountain quest (both denying her feeding from a shepherd, and attacking the Uriashi), I still had the option to romance her in the end – at least, partially.

Once Lacra opens the option to pursue the "Midnight Reckoning" final questline that will end the game, she also presents you with an optional quest, "The Night of Horrors", to find another ancient vampire's remains by following will o' wisps through a deadly bog. This quest isn't just important for romancing Lacra, but in deciding her ultimate fate, so you definitely want to do this quest if you're interested in her wellbeing.

At the end of the quest you uncover some Mandrakes, a blood magic source of power that Lacra equates to being the closest a vampire can get to feeling drunk. You need to accept the Mandrake, as refusing to do so prematurely ends the quest. Going along with her also leads to her offering her blood to you so you can enjoy the taste, evolving into her propositioning you, which you can agree to in order to see a romance scene.

After that, though, she leaves you to wake up alone (to be fair, as a Dawnwalker, only you can walk through the morning sun). Talking about it with her back at her base in the ruins has her saying she appreciated the fun, but isn't looking for anything serious. So far, that's the only ending we've reached for a Lacra romance option, which itself doesn't seem to directly affect her fate.

How to romance Crake

Also known by his birthname of Marat, romance with Crake is tied to the rebels' storyline, which you can start early on by going to save Mert the Miller in The Blood of Dawnwalker after the prologue and following his information to meet the Manumits. I recommend generally treating Crake fairly – don't question his processes too much or judge the tough decisions he has to make, and you'll generally get good reactions. He wants somebody who understands the struggles he's going through.

Crake will give you a task to raise your infamy, one of the first things to do in The Blood of Dawnwalker, before then going to meet them in the city. This starts a longer questline to investigate a winged monster. Pursue it to the point where Crake takes an injury to the shoulder, at which point you can offer to help him remove his armor and tend to the wound in a way that is obviously laden with sexual tension.

Afterwards you'll be given a few quests. Pursue the one that Crake gives you to follow a man named Ascar, called "Distant Shadows". After this is done, go back to report to him and he'll get angry and leave, triggering a time-locked quest called "A Closer Look." Meet Crake outside of town, and eventually he'll kiss you, with the option to kiss him back – triggering the romance scene.

In the wake of that scene, Crake admits that he doesn't really have time for long-term relationships with the rebellion, but is willing to be with Coen once Brencis is ousted, arguably making him the most serious of the three main romances, as he's the only one who really seems willing to make a long-term commitment with Coen in the aftermath.

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The choice to force feed your mother Esme in The Blood of Dawnwalker is one of the first and toughest choices you'll have to make. It's a brutal decision wherein Coen's mom is refusing all food, but his father Pieter wants to keep her strength up or risk the wrath of Brencis, the vampire overlord who takes a disapproving view of weakness. Having played out both choices, I'll explain whether you should force feed her or not, and what the long-term consequences are.

If you're still in the early hours, make sure you know what to do before Mass in The Blood of Dawnwalker!

Should you try to force feed Esme or say you won't feed her against her will in The Blood of Dawnwalker?

When Pieter decides to force feed Esme in The Blood of Dawnwalker, you're given three responses.

1. All right. Let's try.
2. I won't feed her against her will.
3. She's gone to mass before. (optional)

Picking the third option simply brings you back around to the choice between the first two options, and of those, I suggest that you don't try to feed her against her will.

Having played out both outcomes, there actually isn't a real difference between the consequences of both choices that I can see. If you try to force feed Esme, she ends up thrashing and knocking the food away regardless, and this all leads to the same outcome, wherein Coen is sent to obtain medicine for her.

So considering that she doesn't get fed either way and you end up in the same place, you might as well spare yourself the distressing sequence of trying to force her, and leave it be.

Make sure you understand the prologue of the game and know what you're getting from it. Find out how to find the banner in The Blood of Dawnwalker for Gremla, how to brew the medicine in The Blood of Dawnwalker that Anca teaches you the recipe for, or simply find out whether to stay with Anca or go in The Blood of Dawnwalker when she suggest that you wait out the storm with her.

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The stolen banner in The Blood of Dawnwalker was taken from Gremla's shed as part of the Blasphemy quest in the beginning, and she asks you to find it (and by extension the thief). This is one of the optional quests of the tutorial that's largely about introducing Focus Mode as a mechanic, the system by which you highlight and analyze objects of interest. Below I'll show you who took the Banner and how to find them, so you can complete the Blasphemy quest in Dawnwalker.

Exploring Laslea for the first time? Find out what to do before sundown in The Blood of Dawnwalker, or make sure you understand the Blood of Dawnwalker time mechanics so you know when it's going to pass.

How to find the stolen banner in The Blood of Dawnwalker

When investigating Gremla's shed as part of the Blasphemy quest, the specific things of note that you need to scrutinize are the footprints around the back of the shed, and the bloody scrap of the banner that they lead to.

The odd footprints and the blood on the banner give you two clues about the thief: that they have an injured hand, and that they walk with a cane, which definitely narrows down the villagers. Of course, Laslea isn't a small community, and even finding the person who matches that description isn't easy.

Where is the villager thief with the walking cane?

The banner thief in the Blasphemy quest is Premysl, the old man found sitting by the farm at the Northeast side of town at the location shown above. He has both the right injury and a cane, and will break under the pressure of questioning if you talk to him. However, this leads to a reveal about what's on the banner, and the subsequent choice about how to handle it.

Should you tell Gremla about the banner or not?

Premysl reveals that the banner is a monstrous presentation of vampiric butchery, which Brencis (if he gets it) is going to hang in the church instead of the cross. Premysl, a devout Christian, sees this is an unforgivable act of cowardice if they let it happen, whereas Gremla is just happy to make the banner if it means that Brencis leaves Laslea alone.

Of the two choices - telling Gremla that Premysl stole the banner or keeping the secret - I recommend that you tell Gremla the truth, but it doesn't really make a huge difference either way. She'll give you a small amount of money (25 Denarius), but without meaning to spoil, the consequences aren't really going to come up again in a significant way.

Find out more about the prologue of Laslea! Find out what to pick in the brutal force feed choice in The Blood of Dawnwalker, how to brew the medicine that Anca teaches you to make, or simply whether to stay with Anca or go in The Blood of Dawnwalker when offered a Latin lesson.

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If you're stressed about AI slop creeping its way into The Witcher 4, fear not, CD Projekt Red says it's still using humans as its primary means of developing games, even if robots are seemingly replacing people at an alarming rate everywhere else.

During CDPR's latest earnings call, joint CEO Michał Nowakowski was asked to explain the company's current approach to AI in game development, and he toed the line in a similar way to most executives from major studios. Essentially, he acknowledged the tech's usefulness in certain areas of development but rejected straight-up AI-generated games, which isn't a particularly hot take but is noteworthy coming from the co-head of a studio behind some of the most anticipated games on the horizon.

"AI is definitely becoming a thing in the games development as well. We are still predominantly using people and this is our plan, to make games where we're not walking away from that," says Nowakowski. "AI, if anything, is a tool like many others that's helping in places that can maybe become more helpful in the future but we're not planning to rely on AI making complete games."

Well, that's certainly a relief. Here I was worrying a piece of obscure AI-generated concept art would find its way into The Witcher 4; now I have to deal with the idea of completely AI-generated games, but thankfully Nowakowski made it clear CDPR draws an ethical line on atrocities like that. What other developers do with their games, however, is up to them.

"To be honest, especially with very complex games like ours, I don't even think this is the right or ethical path to follow, so whether this is true for the whole industry, I'm not the person to make those statements. I think everybody has to make those judgments on their own."

Ultimately, Nowakowski's current philosophy on AI in game development mirrors the most common sentiments expressed by video game executives across the board: it's largely fine if used to streamline processes as long as it doesn't make it into the final product. There's no telling whether that approach will change as the technology evolves, but for now we can rest easy knowing AI-generated Geralt only exists in our nightmares.

"It creates lesser games": Indie game studios are supposed to love generative AI, so why do the 25 devs I spoke to avoid it?

There are a lot of things we don't know about GTA 6, but arguably the biggest is what the heck the next generation of GTA Online is going to look like. Given how much money the online mode attached to GTA 5 makes, a follow-up seems inevitable. But how is Rockstar going to convince players who've spent over a decade investing time and money in the current GTA Online to move on to an all-new game?

You can count Chet Faliszek, a 12-year Valve veteran who wrote for the likes of Portal, Left 4 Dead, and the Half-Life 2 episodes, as among those trying to wrap their heads around the possibilities. "Are they just going to kill Grand Theft Auto 5?" he asks in a new YouTube short. "Is it just going to be one continuous thing that they move over and you get upgrades? Can you play it with either game? That would be crazy."

Technically, we don't even know for sure that GTA 6 Online will exist at all. Online features similar to those built alongside GTA 5 were outed as part of Rockstar's ongoing union dispute, but even if they were in development, there's no guarantee that they'll make it into the final game. Still, with the GTA 6 budget speculated to be in the billions, it's hard to imagine Rockstar or Take-Two turning their nose up at next-gen GTA Online bucks.

"What are they going to do?" Faliszek continues. "That's a mess. We can all look through recent history, without pointing fingers, and see some people who did it by just total replacements. We can see people who tried to win people over and when that didn't happen, shut down the other thing. It's really hard to move people off, because I think people don't understand. At this point, someone's bought Grand Theft Auto 5 for, like, 50 cents, and they're playing it online for free. And that's their world. What is Grand Theft Auto 6 going to bring us online that Grand Theft Auto 5 doesn't have?"

With a knowing look, Faliszek acknowledges the big thing GTA 6 Online might have. "We all know: better monetization, right?" he says. "That's going to be their big innovation. They're going to have to figure out how to get you over to better monetization. You're in charge of Rockstar. How do you move people over to Grand Theft Auto 6 Online? Cuz you're making billions in Grand Theft Auto 5 Online, so you want to make even more billions on 6. How do you do it?"

One thing that's at least close to certain about GTA 6 Online: it won't be there at launch. Rockstar hasn't offered a single official word about an online mode even now, with single-digit days remaining until GTA 6's launch. And the studio already set a precedent with GTA 5, where its online features were turned on weeks after the release date. We might have an even longer wait for GTA 6 Online, but either way, Faliszek thinks a delayed rollout is a smart move for Rockstar.

"I think this is why they're waiting to do it until after launch," he says. "They're just saying 'oh, no, we're doing single-player at first at launch.' Cuz they don't want that negativity around whatever they're going to do at launch. They just want you to buy the game and get in the ecosystem and then they'll figure it out. I think that's a smart move by them. They're just saying 'we know we're going to anger people no matter what we do. And we're thinking about really angering people. So, let's not do that yet.'"

GTA 6 isn't flashy for the sake of it – I'm impressed at how additive every new detail feels to gameplay.

Hideki Kamiya, one of the big brains behind franchises like Devil May Cry and Bayonetta – as well as the practice of threatening people on Twitter – has a good reason to be worried. Under all the ex-Capcom hero's bluster, there is a genuine concern for a healthy and well-preserved video game industry, and publishers are becoming increasingly obvious about the fact that they don't care.

PlayStation has become an expert in launching mood-killing torpedoes, having recently paired its decision to phase physical game discs out in 2028 with the assertion that "reasonable consumers" know they don't actually own digital games when they buy them. Meanwhile Xbox chews these torpedoes into toothpicks while announcing 3,200 layoffs and getting confronted with Scabby the Rat as its executives enjoy The Elder Scrolls 6. Now, Kamiya is unsurprised we're seeing the end of physical discs you're glad to pass to a friend, but he implores IP owners to think of the future.

"I don't buy a single physical game these days – every single game I buy is 100% digital," Kamiya tells Video Games Chronicle adding that "I look at that decision [to discontinue PlayStation discs] and think, 'Yeah, I guess this is where things were heading.'"

The more important question to Kamiya is instead "whether or not the IP holders are going to take responsibility for ensuring that all of these games will continue to be available to future generations in order for them to be played."

He continues, "Whether that's physically or digitally is less important to me, just so long as these games will be available to people in the future."

Kamiya adds that, "There are already so many of these older classic games that are not playable on modern hardware at all, and I hope that the IP holders will recognize that and continue to make those games available to future people not just from a gameplay perspective, but also from a game culture perspective, and to continue to foster and grow that that culture of gaming." Publishers do seem especially keen to kill that culture these days. I think Kamiya's fears and eager initiatives like Stop Killing Games are the most natural ways to respond.

Resident Evil Requiem is "way too scary" says Resident Evil 2 director Hideki Kamiya, who'd rather Capcom put paper bags over all the enemies' heads: "It's not a joke."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Industrial Light & Magic animation supervisor Hal Hickel says that impossibly sweet scene in The Mandalorian and Grogu where Rotta and Grogu play together on the beach meant a lot to director Jon Favreau (and me, personally).

"That was maybe the most important scene to Jon. It's the heart of the whole movie for him," Hickel told StarWars.com.

The scene is a moment of stillness in the movie, and it comes shortly after Rotta the Hutt (voiced by Jeremy Allen White) is rescued by Mando from almost being killed in a rotten deal that kept him trapped as a fighter in order to entertain the people of Shakari. Grogu and Rotta simply pass a ball back and forth, and it seems like the worst is over.

Not only that, but also, the scene represents how Rotta never really got the chance to be a playful, carefree kiddo, thanks to being related to the absolutely terrifying and terrible Hutt family. So we love a multi-layered moment that makes us cry a little.

As there likely won't be another season of The Mandalorian, it's unclear when we'll see Rotta the Hutt again. Next up for Star Wars is Ahsoka season 2, which hits Disney Plus in the new year.

The Mandalorian and Grogu is streaming on Disney Plus now, and you can read our guide to all the other The Mandalorian and Grogu Easter eggs through the link.

For more, check out our guide to all the upcoming Star Wars movies and TV shows, or our The Mandalorian and Grogu review.

The Witcher 4 is in production – or, more specifically, "full-scale production," as developer CD Projekt Red put it back in 2024. The studio has offered the public only a few small, tantalizing glimpses at the upcoming RPG, but it's passing new internal development milestones all the time. Those kinds of things are just too technical to announce to the public.

With The Witcher 4 officially targeting a 2028 release, joint CEO Michał Nowakowski was asked about where the team is at in regard to key development milestones as part of a recent investor Q&A. "As we have stated quite a few times before, we're in the full production stage of The Witcher 4, which roughly means – in very broad strokes – that we know what kind of game we're making," Nowakowski says.

"Then it's filling the game with content and so on," he continues. "We're not going into specific details. There's a lot of milestones we have internally. There's a pickup of specific batches, pickup of specific milestones. So we're not announcing all of them because a lot of them are very technical, very internal, and actually wouldn't really mean a lot to the external audience."

For those of us who don't work within the halls of CD Projekt Red, The Witcher 4 has appeared in the form of an extended cinematic trailer, an open-world tech demo, and various statements from executives and developers just like this. The devs themselves would seemingly prefer to keep their heads down and stick to actually building the game.

"This is what is happening right now: the actual making of the game till its release date," Nowakowski says. "Every milestone is a moment for us to look at it and ponder where we are, how well we are progressing with the development. Is anything hindering us? Is there any iteration that is required? And so on."

CD Projekt has set a high bar for itself with one of the best RPGs ever made.

Nintendo's surprise update for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on Switch 2 turned out to be a wrecking ball for the game's existing world records, implementing a sweeping speed increase that makes everyone – regardless of kart and racer – faster by a substantial measure.

As highlighted in a viral video being shared across social media in the wake of the update, Mario Kart 8 race, player speed has been increased across the board "by the equivalent of one coin," according to the official patch notes. In case you're unfamiliar, players pick up speed in Mario Kart 8 when they collect coins, with each coin adding an equal speed boost up until 10 coins, at which point full speed is reached. This update raises the baseline speed up to what was reached by collecting one point in previous versions of the game.

You might've glossed right over this change considering the surprisingly chunky Mario Kart 8 – yes, not Mario Kart World – update's other additions, which include "clearer" visuals, better load times, 5-8 player multiplayer support, and GameChat support. Essentially, the update brings Mario Kart 8 up to par with Mario Kart World in terms of Switch 2 compatibility, which is really a peculiar move from Nintendo considering Mario Kart World was the Switch 2's big launch title.

Anyway, as you might expect, Mario Kart 8 world record racers are scrambling to make sense of a world where every racer is suddenly considerably faster than before. Naturally, existing world records are just waiting to be smashed, and likely already have been at the time of writing. As one "friendly neighborhood Pokemon New Yorker" put it on Twitter, "RIP every MK8D World Record in the last 5 years."

You get the idea. To you and me, a marginal baseline speed increase might not seem like the Earth-shattering news that it is for Mario Kart speedracers, but if you're rightfully proud of clearing a map faster than literally anyone else in the world, well, if you're a glass-half-full type of person, you could see this as an opportunity to prove your drifting precision and red turtle shell dodging abilities to the internet once more. We live in a post-4.0 Mario Kart world (not that Mario Kart World) now, so you better keep up.

Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto never wanted to compete with other game devs: "I view the Rubik's Cube as my eternal rival"

The themed popcorn trend continues, but this time around it's a bit more practical. Regal and has unveiled a special popcorn bucket to celebrate the release of Resident Evil... and you can put your organs, or, uh, water bottle, in it.

The upcoming movie follows a medical courier named Bryan who is in the process of making a delivery to Raccoon City General Hospital when an outbreak forces him to fight for his life. The bucket, which you can see below, is indeed a medical courier bag that also looks like the "Insert First Aid Kit" box from the Resident Evil Remake video game. Best part? It's insulated! So you can use it for popcorn, sure, but you can also take it to the park or the beach. It also might keep a spleen on ice for a while. We love having options.

Zach Cregger directs from a screenplay he wrote with Army of the Dead scribe Shay Hatten. The cast includes Zach Cherry, Kali Reis, and Paul Walter Hauser.

We can expect to see a lot more game imagery and Easter eggs in the film, especially given the fact that Cregger is a big fan of the franchise (so much so that he made the brave mistake of playing Resident Evil: Village in VR) and we've already seen certain shots from the film stylized in first-person POV.

Resident Evil hits theaters on September 18. For more, check out our guide to upcoming horror movies, or, check out the ever-growing list of video game movies.

If I can do justice to the hour I spent playing Afterworld, you'll see why it's the most exciting reveal of Gamescom 2026. Even if you don't like grand strategy games, which this is, Afterworld may be the first one you fall for. It's designed to be the "most approachable" game from developer Paradox Interactive (Crusader Kings, Stellaris), says game director Dan Lind, and although I've struggled to make sense of many of the developer's previous titles, I jumped into this one and intuitively had a blast.

By blast, I mean 'I made my settlers live in an irradiated factory and they started having mutant fish-people babies'. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, let's catch up on what Afterworld is – then we can talk about all the ways I was a terrible warlord.

Crawl out through the fallout

At its most basic, Afterworld is about ensuring your tribe survives in post-nuclear apocalypse America. But its most interesting dynamics are established before then. Beginning my preview, I'm asked to choose my tribe's origin story and how it handled pivotal moments in its history.

I picked a tribe leaving their underground shelter, which meant deciding how they navigated an earlier food crisis – cannibalism? Hoarding? – and whether a period of unrest was settled by ceding control to rioters or quietly killing its instigators. Each option has lasting effects on my tribe going forwards; the descendants of cannibals will still eat people, for example.

These identities keep evolving. Sending rangers out of the vault to find somewhere to settle, I discover an abandoned car manufacturer with water and wood within reach. It's more irradiated than its neighboring areas, but that seems like a long-term problem – what's a few spare noses among friends? Meanwhile, technology and belief trees are fleshed out through exploration. Finding the sea adds a research node for fishing, for example, while standing my ground against would-be bandits nudges my society further towards autocracy. Later, settling in radiation comes back to bite me in the gills as my people start giving birth to fish-human hybrids.

Even in this small window, I get the impression that Afterworld will be very dynamic between playthroughs. For starters, the societal side of the map – covering the whole of the U.S.A., with parts of Canada and Mexico – is randomized, with game director Dan Lind telling me that New York City can be a hole-in-the-ground in one playthrough, or ruled by mutant kings in another. When your society has taken root, you'll come up against Ancients – warlords who have been around since before the apocalypse happened 100 years ago – and decide whether to go up against them or fall in line, the latter letting you earn favor by working for them and following their rules.

"A lot of the dynamic playthrough comes from a lot of random actors, like the AIs and stuff, doing their thing [...] playing their own game," says Lind. "All the AIs have their own plans, right? Some may not have expansion plans, but a lot of them do. And when you have that combinatorics, a lot of agents doing a lot of stuff, and you also throw in things like beliefs and stuff that can affect each other, you get like an almost infinite soup where a lot of stuff can happen."

"And then a lot of it is creating those things, making them visible to the player, and also showing that they can become powerful," he continues. "So it's not just them like picking a different custom. It is because they picked this custom, they now become religious zealots to go on a crusade, and that's why they're coming to your town. A lot of our thinking about games is very much working backwards from cool stories that could happen, which is why I really like reading books and movies and being like, 'Okay, so this story happened in this book. How can we make this, the simulation of the game, output the story like that? What are the building blocks we would need?' And then breaking those down."

While Afterworld is unmistakably a grand strategy game (my jaw hits the floor when I zoom out and see its continental map), its depth is both accessible and in service to the game's overarching fantasy.

I'm reminded of two post-apocalyptic novels, Stephen King's The Stand and Robert R. McCammon's Swan Song, in the sense that seeing how new societies rise is fascinating. Both are influences, and Lind's face lights up when I mention Swan Song in particular – it's one of his "main inspirations" behind the game, and is featured in his introduction deck for new developers.

"It's the natural progression to grand strategy games – you scale up," says Lind on why he was drawn to that bigger-picture approach. "You're always looking for ways to affect the world outside and push your vision of what is true. And it's a great way to project what people think. You see this throughout human history – there are battles of will, battles of faith, right? So it's part of creating friction and argument. It's also a fantastic way to deliver lore."

Crucially, Afterworld is also much easier to get into than any other Paradox game I've played. I could just about manage Stellaris, but found Crusader Kings 2 and the Europa Universalis series were too menu-dense to get to grips with. Here, even just having characters and models to physically follow is a huge help. But it's tutorialized in a way that promotes discovery without being overwhelming. In similar fashion to society sim Dwarf Fortress, you're introduced to a few basic concepts at once (settling, migration, gathering) and the rest gradually unfurls as you prod in different directions – supporting your curiosity instead of smothering it.

Dwarf Fortress comes to mind because I've been playing it all month. But Afterworld also speaks to the part of my brain that snoops on every terminal email in Fallout and spends hours in Warhammer lore rabbit holes. To me, immersion comes from believability. The thought of seeing Afterworld's history being woven excites me as much as the finished tapestry – including the tribe of cannibal fish-people that would have conquered the surface, if only I had more time to teach them violence.

The 25 best strategy games to play right now

If you aren't much of a fan of limited-edition tech that leans hard into nostalgia, then the new Designed for XBOX Cozy Collection might be more your style.

Landing on the back of the Xbox 25th Anniversary Collection, this new accessory set trades the transparent green tech for earth tones and images of adorable pixelated woodland creatures. As revealed via Xbox Wire today, it's made of existing 8BitDo and SteelSeries accessories, like the SteelSeries Arctis Game Buds, and coats them in creamy and green colorways to "bring a little wonder" to your Xbox or PC setup.

With the fall season starting, the forest-green colors are maybe a bit behind. That being said, if you're fed up with being pandered to with nostalgia-fueled transparent tech, this cozy collection feels like a nice consolation prize. Should you want a bit less nostalgia and a bit more whimsy in your life, I've gathered all you need in order to transform your Xbox/PC setup below.

8BitDo Retro 87 Mechanical Keyboard – Forest Wonder

The first and biggest part of the Designed for XBOX Cozy Collection is undoubtedly the 8BitDo Retro 87 mechanical gaming keyboard. This 87-key wireless board is a feast for the eyes with its green and creamy-brown color combination and adorable pixelated imagery.

While this board is not officially affiliated with Stardew Valley in any way, everything from the tiny patrolling bear on the space bar to the pixel acorn escape key feels really reminiscent of the equally cozy farming sim.

You can typically grab this board for $99.99 at Amazon, so there is an upcharge of $20 to be found with this collection. Yet whether you opt for the new Forest Wonder edition or any of the brand's existing models, you'll still get the RGB backlit keys, independent control panel, large dual super custom buttons, and 8BitDo Kailh switches to play with.

8BitDo Retro R8 Mouse – Forest Wonder

The keyboard perfectly matches the Forest Wonder 8BitDo Retro R8 Mouse. Again, this isn't an entirely brand-new product, as you've been able to grab the gaming rodent in a range of designs, but this is the first time it's sported this green and yellow color palette.

This gaming mouse comes with a charging dock, which shares some of the same adorable pixel art as the keyboard, and it's equipped with customizable side buttons and HUANO micro switches. You've also got your pick of playing wired or going wireless with Bluetooth 5.3 or via a low-latency 2.4G connection.

8BitDo Ultimate 3 Controller – Mossy Lagoon

This is my personal favorite accessory of the lot. Rather than drawing inspiration from forest creatures, this Mossy Lagoon controller sports a murky blue color palette that makes it look like it was fished out of the nearest lake, and I'm all for it.

The pixelated creatures are also a bit different this time around, showcasing little jellyfish and crabs instead of any forest inhabitants. The bright and vivid sea life pops against the blue chassis, as does the yellow-orange color of the gamepad's sticks.

Talking of which, this is an 8BitDo Ultimate 3 controller you've got TMR sticks, hall-effect triggers, back buttons, an up to 1000Hz polling rate and an integrated charging dock at your disposal.

SteelSeries Arctis Gamebuds & KontrolFreek No-Slip Thumb Grips – XBOX Cozy Edition

SteelSeries's accessories aren't as visually interesting as the rest of the Cozy Collection, but I'm still a fan. The SteelSeries Arctis Game Buds remain the best gaming earbuds I've used to date and continue to be part of my gaming and everyday setup, so I'm always on board to see them get a makeover.

SteelSeries has draped its iconic earbuds in new Matcha and Yuzu colors (basically green and a creamy yellow) which are available straight from the brand's online store. Despite being released as part of an official Xbox accessory collection, SteelSeries has generously provided both Xbox and PlayStation models of the earphones, which are available for the same $199.99 MSRP.

No matter which model (or color) you pick up, you'll be greeted with the same fantastic-sounding 6mm neodymium drivers, Bluetooth and 2.4GHz connectivity options, tap controls, charging case, and support and EQ customization via the brand's easy-to-use app.

KontrolFreek's No-Slip Thumb Grips match perfectly with the buds. The "Cozy Edition" textured grips share the same Matcha and Yuzu colorways, which makes sense as SteelSeries owns the KontrolFreek brand. These can easily slip onto the sticks of your favorite Xbox Series X controller to add a drop of color, provide more grip for heated gaming sessions, and protect the default gamepad's sticks from general wear and tear. There's no mention of them being compatible with the 8BitDo Ultimate 3 gamepad above, but as a long-time collector of KontrolFreek grips, I find you can manage to stick them on pretty much everything if you try hard enough.

• View all 8BitDo Xbox accessories at Amazon
• View all SteelSeries Xbox accessories at Amazon

Want more Xbox? Check out our Xbox Series X25 Special Edition pre-orders for more exclusive accessories for your Microsoft machine.

From hosting the best Skyrim mods to some of the wildest fan overhauls for The Witcher 3, Nexus Mods is well known as the go-to spot for modding any and every PC game – and, now, it's also the parent company of SteamDB.

In case you're not familiar with the latter, SteamDB came to life back in 2013 as a fan project led by Pavel "xPaw" Djundik and Marlamin. The two were interested in Valve's ever-growing catalogue of computer games, hoping to track them and their updates.

Since then, it's grown into the largest free database containing just about everything on Steam's listings, from their price histories to their expansions to… well, you name it, honestly.

Understandably, it's not an easy database to manage – and that's why, as xPaw writes in a new announcement, Nexus Mods has officially acquired SteamDB.

"When Marlamin and I decided to start this project back in 2013, we were driven by pure curiosity and a desire to make helpful public services for the community," he recalls. "We were young and passionate" – and, of course, fans "of Valve's games."

That's why "creating a project like SteamDB has been a natural progression of that drive," but it got big… huge, even.

"Years went on," as xPaw states, "and the site kept growing and the amount of relentless work kept increasing. Marlamin decided to step back from the project for personal reasons. That was around the time Steam Direct launched, and the number of games and new users has exploded since then."

With its increased size came increased difficulty in management. "With its helpfulness came growth, but that doesn't come for free," as xPaw says. "I have always considered SteamDB to be my hobby, but the amount of hours I have worked on it could be considered a full-time job. It was pure passion, and the ever increasing self inflicted workload has taken its toll."

According to the SteamDB mastermind, he began "experiencing burnout."

He tried to search for a new team to take over, but he couldn't find anybody reliable, so he stuck it through. Nothing ever got easier, though.

"Steam keeps growing, in terms of games, players, and the number of new features being added. It's hard to keep on top of this alone, and the mental load has only kept increasing, and in good conscience I cannot continue like this. Running a service like SteamDB is not easy."

One thing that xPaw isn't willing to do, however, is let the database go down. So, he once again embarked on a journey to find help in January – and, "This is where Nexus Mods comes in."

Much like SteamDB, as its creator points out, Nexus Mods "grew from a passion project into a service relied upon by tens of millions of people." This means a lot to xPaw, as he wanted a team that understands his own position.

Despite fans' fears regarding the acquisition – which I've already seen making the rounds on X and Reddit – he assures that "SteamDB will continue to be SteamDB. The goal is not to change what makes the project special, but to give it the resources, development capacity and long-term stability that I could no longer provide alone."

As for the folks over at Nexus Mods itself, CEO Victor Folmann and founder of Chosen, its parent company, issued a statement.

"SteamDB is exactly the kind of project we want to be a home for," it reads. "Pavel has spent 13 years building something remarkable that millions of gamers, developers and publishers have come to rely on. We don't take the responsibility of becoming its next steward lightly. Our job isn't to change what makes SteamDB special."

Instead, it's to provide resources and the long-term stability it deserves," Folmann explains.

"There will be things we want to improve and new things we want to build, but we'll do that thoughtfully. SteamDB has earned the trust of its community over more than a decade, and our job is to earn the right to carry that trust forward."

What are those things, though? Well, there's no real way to tell until either xPaw or Nexus Mods announce them. Here's hoping it all works out regardless… I know I personally frequent both sites, anyway.

Searching for some new games to play? Check our roundup of the best PC games available to experience right now.

StarCraft sequel rumors are blazing after a report claims that South Korean-Japanese publisher Nexon is close to acquiring development rights for the sci-fi onslaught from IP holder Blizzard.

South Korean newspaper The Chosun Ilbo reports (according to machine translation) that, as of September 2, Nexon and Blizzard are on the knife's edge of finalizing their deal, which would allow Nexon to make that StarCraft sequel people have been fretting over since 2025. At that time, it seemed that Nexon was in competition with fellow South Korean developers Krafton, Netmarble, and NCSoft before the Arc Raiders publisher bested them.

The Chosun Ilbo – through a translation by Twitter account KoreaXBOXnews – notes that StarCraft is still immensely popular in South Korea nearly 30 years after the original game's release, and it consistently ranks among the top 10 games people swarm to PC cafes for.

Nexon apparently has to wait to make it official, but the studio has reportedly already started work on its hypothetical StarCraft sequel – which could very well be StarCraft 3, 16 years late. But no one knows that yet except Nexon, which hasn't shared any details about its StarCraft plot throughout this year-long saga.

It at least seems that Nexon's hypothetical StarCraft game is unrelated to Blizzard's hypothetical StarCraft game. Blizzard decided to halt StarCraft 2 expansions in 2020, though the developer was fiddling with another entry in the StarCraft series as recently as 2024. So there is a world in which famished StarCraft fans are suddenly handed two new games like plates of bottomless breadsticks. Nexon just needs to wrap up its rumored deal with Blizzard, and Blizzard needs to figure out if it's really as committed to keeping StarCraft alive as it occasionally pretends.

Nexon has at least seemed to make some progress with its take on StarCraft. It's reportedly collaborating with StarCraft map modder Choi Jun-ho, who would lead the StarCraft sequel at Nexon's subsidiary that made the free-to-play FPS Sudden Attack. StarCraft 3 sounds promising, if it exists.

Arc Raiders boss promoted to Nexon chief backs AI push for "redesigning game development" after building a hit "at a fraction of the cost you'd expect for a AAA game."

Banjo-Kazooie composer Grant Kirkhope says he'd still love to work on the series, but pitches for its return have been turned down over the years.

Banjo-Kazooie is probably the game series with the biggest being dead to huge fanbase ratio (that or Mother). It's coming up on two decades since Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, which divided fans for not being a platformer despite being a great game in its own right. So, for most, it's been closer to 25 years since the last Banjo-Kazooie game, and despite appearances in Super Smash Bros. and re-releases of the original games, it doesn't look like there's much going on with the series.

Speaking to FRVR, Kirkhope reckons the chances of a return are higher than they've been in some time, saying "I used to always say there's zero chance of another Banjo-Kazooie game and right now I feel there's a slight chance." And that if such a game were to happen, he'd "absolutely" want to be involved in it. Kirkhope previously returned to create a new arrangement of his music for the duo's Smash Bros. appearance in 2019.

Kirkhope notes that the lack of a new Banjo isn't down to a lack of interest, at least outside of Rare itself. He explains that he knows of "like three companies" that have pitched to either Microsoft or Rare "about making another Banjo-Kazooie game, and I don't think anyone was successful." Kirkhope claims "Rare just typically say no to everything," saying that the likes of cartoons were rejected by the company over the years.

As for who could make a new Banjo game, Kirkhope says "Rare would never do it because they're too busy," but reckons the developers of Bradley the Badger – which he is composing the music for – Day 4 Night Studios, would be a good fit for the job. Spyro developer Toys For Bob is also reportedly interested in taking on the franchise, however it is currently working on Spyro: A Realm Beyond.

New Banjo-Kazooie releases are "native ports," so devs could add cut content and "bonus features" to the N64 classics.

In 2011, Iello and Richard Garfield released King of Tokyo, a kaiju-centric game in which players wrestled for control of Tokyo. The heart of the game used a Yahtzee-like mechanic, in which players repeatedly rolled a set of six dice. Different symbols translated to different results, ranging from gaining resources, dealing damage to other monsters, or gaining victory points. While the game has seen several variant versions over the years, it always wore its largest inspiration on its sleeve – the iconic monster franchise Godzilla.

After 15 years, Godzilla is now part of the King of Tokyo franchise. This summer, Iello released a new King of Tokyo: Godzilla game, featuring six monsters from the Godzilla series. The new edition is a loving homage as a result, with dozens of art pieces made by Markus Erdt. Not only does the new game pay proper respect to the monster IP that inspired what is one of the most enduring and arguably best board games, it also wisely retains the core King of Tokyo franchise, making it extremely accessible to players of all skill levels.

Power up

King of Tokyo: Godzilla sticks with a time-tested game formula that has held true for the last 15 years. Each player controls a single monster, each of which comes with a bespoke game board and an evolution deck. The game board tracks a player’s overall health and victory points. In certain conditions (which we’ll get to later), players can draw from their evolution deck and choose an evolution that upgrades their monster in some way. Each monster has their own evolution deck, with abilities that range from one-time uses to persistent buffs.

The final "piece" of King of Tokyo: Godzilla is the power deck. The power deck consists of generic abilities that any player can purchase if they have enough energy. These range from one-time use abilities to persistent power-ups that stay in play for the rest of the game.

So far, so familiar.

The one new wrinkle in King of Tokyo: Godzilla's gameplay is the use of Event cards. These enter play when placed into the power card marketplace. Every Event comes with an effect that impacts all monsters for the duration that the card remains in play, as well as a discard ability. Players can purchase the Event with energy and discard it, gaining some kind of benefit.

While this is the game's major change, it's not the only addition. Another way that King of Tokyo: Godzilla stands out is its premium wooden components. The dice, and energy markers are all made of wood, and even the cardboard standees are built from sturdier material than other games in the series. While King of Tokyo: Godzilla isn’t billed as a premium edition, it certainly feels like one solely due to the quality of the game components.

Be prepared

King of Tokyo: Godzilla’s gameplay is precisely the same as the base version of King of Tokyo, so your mileage will vary depending on how familiar you already are with that system.

Players take turns rolling a pool of six dice, setting aside the results they want to keep. You can usually re-roll your dice up to two times, and every result returns different effects. A monster footprint deals damage to other players, a heart restores life, energy symbols gain energy that can be used to purchase power cards, and victory point symbols score victory points (but only if a player gets three of the same number). If a player rolls three hearts, they can bypass the healing and opt to gain an evolution instead. It's nice and simple.

Outside of rolling dice, players also battle for control of Tokyo. You score victory points for entering the city and gain more for remaining in control of it at the start of your turn, so it's the prize everyone's got their eye on. This is where the game's strategy rears its head; while in Tokyo, a player’s attacks can target all other monsters, thus dealing waves of damage to each opponent. However, you'll also be the target of every other player’s attacks and can’t heal on your turn either. Because you can leave Tokyo at any time, you've got to weigh up risk versus reward. How long do you stay?

There's an added layer to contend with as well. If a player cedes control of Tokyo, whoever's turn is next will immediately enter the city, so you need to always be prepared for the potential of taking a round of attacks from others. There's more to juggle than you might think.

Gameplay continues until one of two victory conditions are met. Either a player gains 20 victory points or one player is the last monster standing. I’ll note that in all my years playing King of Tokyo, I’ve never seen a game go until 20 victory points. That’s not to say that it can’t happen, but it’s far more likely that the game becomes an all-out monster brawl instead of a strategic race for victory points.

While King of Tokyo: Godzilla isn’t technically a party game, it’s enjoyed best in large groups. The game can be quite chaotic and a lot of the game is outside of a player’s control. Sure, players can take advantage of power cards and evolution cards, but there’s no way to mitigate bad dice rolls, and there’s few ways to block damage. The key to enjoying the game is to just embrace the chaos – you’re not going to win every game of King of Tokyo, but if you don’t take it too seriously, you’ll have a good time.

Should you buy King of Tokyo: Godzilla?

King of Tokyo: Godzilla is essentially a premium version of King of Tokyo. It has better components, better artwork, and actual recognizable monsters instead of generic homages to different sci-fi movies.

However, it’s still King of Tokyo, one of the more popular board games released over the past 20 years. If you have a base version of King of Tokyo, this version features a few new mechanics found in various expansions. If you’re a King of Tokyo fanatic, all this game offers is some new monsters and a single new novel mechanic.

Still, this was an easy buy for me. My family loves King of Tokyo and Godzilla, so this was a day one purchase for me. The artwork is fantastic and gives the game a very unique vibe that, when coupled with the premium components, makes this game feel a bit different from the base version. Even my veteran board game group ooohed and ahhed when I pulled this game out, precisely because it looks and feels so nice. So, if you like Godzilla or want a premium King of Tokyo experience, this game is definitely for you.

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Looking for another new spin on an old favorite? Horrified: Ravenloft is a slam-dunk for D&D fans, but innovation is starting to be 'mist'.

This copy of the game was bought by the reviewer. For more details on our process, see this guide on how we test board games or the GamesRadar+ reviews policy.

While Han Solo doesn't appear in The Mandalorian and Grogu, a sneaky, unintentional Easter egg referencing him does – and it involves Rotta the Hutt.

In the original trilogy, Han was in a lot of trouble with Rotta's dad, Jabba the Hutt. In one scene in the 1997 Special Edition of Star Wars: A New Hope, Jabba even comes to speak with Han by the Millennium Falcon while it's docked in Mos Eisely. During this chat, Han walks over Jabba's tail, which Jabba doesn't seem too pleased about.

In The Mandalorian and Grogu, Rotta fights Din Djarin in a gladatorial ring, and everything comes full circle...

"It goes by super fast, but there is actually a moment during their fight when Mando circles behind Rotta, steps on his tail to get a little height, and then knocks his arm out of the way," Industrial Light & Magic animation supervisor Hal Hickel told StarWars.com.

"We didn't put that in there as a wink to the original gag, but still – it's like poetry, it rhymes," he added.

Even though the call back wasn't on purpose, it certainly is a nice parallel between father and son – though, of course, Rotta is pretty adamant that he's nothing like his dad.

Next up for Star Wars is Ahsoka season 2, which lands on Disney Plus on January 20. The first trailer was finally unveiled to the public at this year's D23, and it features Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker, Grand Admiral Thrawn going up against the New Republic, and Ezra Bridger back in action.

The Mandalorian and Grogu is streaming on Disney Plus now, and you can read our guide to all the other The Mandalorian and Grogu Easter eggs through the link.

For more, check out our guide to all the upcoming Star Wars movies and TV shows, or our The Mandalorian and Grogu review.

Co-director of Avengers: Doomsday, Joe Russo, has addressed going into production on the Marvel Phase 6 film without a finished script.

The movie was originally set to be Avengers: The Kang Dynasty; however Marvel pivoted away after Jonathan Majors was convicted of assault. The Russos took over, and shooting began without a finished script.

However, according to Joe Russo, that's not necessarily a drawback. "We always view the script as a living organism," Joe told AP News. "We're improvisation-based, rehearsal-based directors. We like to see what the actors bring to the characters, and sometimes you don't get the actors until a few days or few weeks before you shoot them. And a lot of the time, that's when the magic happens."

The supersized Doomsday cast list includes Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Anthony Mackie as Captain America, Chris Evans as Steve Rogers, the Thunderbolts, the Fantastic Four, Letitia Wright's Shuri, Tom Hiddleston's Loki, and, of course, Robert Downey Jr.'s Doctor Doom.

"Honestly, I have absolutely no idea because we didn't even have a script," Bucky Barnes actor Sebastian Stan revealed, when asked by Le Journal du Dimanche what to expect from Doomsday. "We were just shooting scattered scenes. It's a different way of working, continuous, constantly evolving. The producers didn't want us to read it in its entirety, to avoid journalists asking us questions."

But, Nightcrawler actor Alan Cumming did lay eyes on a script. "We eventually saw a script. It took a while, but we had a script," he told ET.

"Yeah, I did read a full script, but those scripts change quite a bit. You know what? Probably not, it probably didn't have a full, like, third act. I don't think it had an ending. I don't think anyone gets to see that stuff," The Thing star Ebon Moss-Bachrach told the Happy Sad Confused podcast.

Avengers: Doomsday arrives this December 18. While you wait, check out our guide to all the upcoming Marvel movies and shows for everything else the MCU has in store.

The GamesRadar+ Fall Preview is here to be your companion as sunny days fade away and the colder and darker months tempt us back inside to revel in some cozy gaming while staying warm. While one game is set to dominate – GTA 6 when it releases on November 19 – we're eschewing the titan for now to focus on some alternative new releases that equally deserve a spot on your radar.

In fact, because of GTA 6's release date, we've noticed that many games seem to be landing either side of it to avoid the blast radius, meaning that September and October are specially packed with contenders for the best RPGs, best shooters, and more. It's this period we're focusing on below, but at least one December pick has made it in. We have to follow our hearts. Below, we're breaking down our Fall Preview most wanted list genre by genre. There's plenty for everyone to enjoy.

We're already in the middle of a storm of new games we've been giving our verdicts on that are well worth your time, with our The Blood of Dawnwalker review discussing the ambitious new RPG, our Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy review spotlighting a bold adventure from a talented but small team, and our Star Wars Zero Company review exploring a genuine tactics competitor.

While you're reading, consider joining the GamesRadar+ Community for more curated picks going forward. Our Fall Preview is for everybody, but we have plenty of long-reads and member clubs that dive deeper into potential new favorites releasing every week. Joining the GR+ Community is free, it's fast, and it lets you leave comments on all of our articles. What better way to spend Fall? Let us know what you're looking forwards to playing next!

The Most Wanted Action-Adventure games of Fall 2026

The Most Wanted Action-RPGs of Fall 2026

The Most Wanted Horror games of Fall 2026

Most Wanted Live-Service games of Fall 2026

The Most Wanted Metroidvanias of Fall 2026

The Most Wanted Shooters of Fall 2026

The Most Wanted Racing games of Fall 2026

The Most Wanted RPGs of Fall 2026

The Most Wanted Strategy games of Fall 2026

The Most Wanted Indie games of Fall 2026

Want more? Keep an eye on the upcoming PS5 games and upcoming Series X and Games Pass games we think are worth your attention!

A new trailer for HBO's Harry Potter TV show has landed, and it's seriously reminding us of the movies.

In the footage, which you can watch above, Harry, Ron, and Hermione take the Hogwarts Express to their first year at Hogwarts. Harry faces the Sorting Hat, whispering "not Slytherin, not Slytherin," and we get teases of Quidditch, feasts in the Great Hall, the ogre fight in the bathroom, and the Philosopher's Stone itself.

In short, it all looks very familiar if you've seen the original movies, right down to the set and costume design.

The first season of the show arrives this Christmas, and it will tell the story of the first book in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (released as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the US).

Season 2 is already filming; however, don't expect to see it any time soon. "For some of the bigger shows like Harry Potter or House of the Dragon, or The Last of Us, huge world-building shows, it would be nice to have those on an annual basis," HBO boss Casey Bloys has said previously. "But from a production point of view, it’s just not possible."

The second season will adapt the second book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, with a further season per book planned to take us through 10 years (even though there are only seven books).

The Harry Potter TV show arrives on December 25. While you wait, check out our guide to all the most exciting upcoming TV shows for everything else the year has in store.

Nodusfall does not look like your typical Hoyoverse game. Distinctly lacking in bright colors and bubbly anime-style characters, it's hard to believe that this gloomy, intense PvE action game comes from the same studio behind Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. But after a brief hands-on session with the game, I'm already eager to dive back in for more.

It might not look like a Hoyoverse game, but there's one thing Nodusfall certainly does look like. Namely Elden Ring, and by extension, its co-op sibling Nightreign. This doesn't end with its reveal trailer vibes – we have a summonable Torrent-like steed who can be called with a very familiar-sounding whistle, a character who can transform into a phase two Malenia lookalike with massive, crusty wings, Estus flask-like healing potions, and bonfires to rest at.

Rest and rally

Needless to say, it's hard not to draw comparisons – 'we've got Elden Ring Nightreign at home,' my brain screams. However, while teaming up with other players to take down big bosses might evoke feelings of FromSoftware's co-op title, there's a big difference with Nodusfall: it's not nearly as hard.

This can be considered a blessing or a curse depending on where you stand on Soulslike difficulty. As a fan of the genre, I still found myself having plenty of fun taking down the three bosses in my hands-on session, including an enormous dragon and Qiongqi (a horned and winged tiger-like beast from Chinese mythology), but my victories definitely didn't come with the same level of satisfaction as they might have had they been slightly harder won. I can't recall falling in battle even once, largely thanks to what felt like an unlimited supply of heals.

To be fair, this factor may also have been helped by one of the playable characters being a dedicated healer, who I choose to play in my session. I have strong magic attacks up my sleeve, from small projectiles to ice-powered strikes and an enormous laser beam move, but my main contribution to my team comes in the form of my healing abilities. I can choose to lock onto a specific ally to unleash a steady flow of health restoration, not unlike Mercy's Caduceus staff in Overwatch, or heal multiple teammates around me at once in a smaller burst.

The specific ally lock-on heal can feel a little clunky at times – there were more than a few times where I assisted someone who definitely didn't need it because they were awkwardly stood in front of someone else who desperately needed my help.

Comparing directly to Elden Ring Nightreign, though, it's really cool to have a healer option in the first place. Again, it seems that Nodusfall doesn't come close to being as challenging as FromSoftware's Soulslikes to begin with, but having a medic role like this is no doubt going to provide a welcome option to players who aren't as comfortable with getting up close and personal on the frontlines of a brutal battle. I always tend to gravitate towards support classes in games – there's just something so satisfying about keeping your friends and allies going – so I'm pleased to be allowed that here.

I'd have been curious to try out the other playable characters to get a greater feel for Nodusfall's combat. What I experienced was fun, but my attacks felt like they were lacking weight, leaving me craving just a tad more oomph. You really can't fault the boss battles when it comes to how cinematic they are, though – my team and I tore through multiple phases in each fight, with our final battle against the Maldrake dragon evolving after the knight riding on its back dismounted their steed and began attacking us from the ground, forcing us to split our forces to take on two enemies at once.

Onward

Though my Nodusfall experience was limited to co-op PvE, Hoyoverse has clarified that PvP and PvPvE modes are also planned for the long term, and that you'll also be able to enjoy most of the core content solo. From what I played, though, it'd be a shame to do so since you'd miss out on the flashy Joint Execution moves – who doesn't want to team up to drive a massive greatsword through a beast's head?

I was also pleased to learn that, despite plans to make Nodusfall a free-to-play game, playable characters won't be locked behind a gacha system. With that said, the devs are considering monetizing cosmetics, and I can't say I'm surprised. While kitting out my healer girl with a new outfit, various accessories including a fancy, glowing cape were screaming microtransaction potential. I can't say I love that aspect, but I'd certainly much rather the monetization be incorporated here than the core gameplay.

As someone who loved Elden Ring Nightreign, I suppose it's only natural that I'd enjoy Nodusfall. Its vibe is very similar, but I'm very curious to see where Hoyoverse takes it from here. The concept of an easier, more accessible co-op action game like Nightreign is bound to be appealing to many, and could be a bridge for those who find FromSoftware's games a bit too difficult. Regardless, there's something in here that's got me craving more – but for now, I guess I've literally got Nightreign at home.

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

Resident Evil director Zach Cregger says the giant fetus in Resident Evil: Village gave him a panic attack, and I totally understand.

"So I played [Resident Evil: Village] in VR, and as an adult I've never really noped out of anything," Cregger explained at a special Q&A event where the first 30 minutes of the new film were aired. "But playing Resident Evil 8 in VR... you go into that doll's house in the basement, and you've got that mannequin person on the operating table, and then you're going down these dark passages in that thing, and then there's this gigantic baby that is chasing you through the dark."

The baby in question is a deformed fetus that says "mama" and "dada" and a plethora of other creepy sounds. In virtual reality, the baby is quite literally behind you... and it's the worst.

"And the sounds that it makes are so fucking scary, and I'm in VR, I'm in the garage, and I'm having a full-blown panic attack," Cregger continued. "And for the first time in my adult life, I had to take it off and just be like, 'I'm gonna take a break. I'm gonna go eat some candy or something. And then I'm gonna come back and try this again. I mean, that is legitimately terrifying."

From what we've seen in the trailers, there aren't any giant baby monsters in Cregger's Resident Evil... though there are some pretty cool first-person POV shots that truly emulate the games. The upcoming movie stars Austin Abrams (Euphoria, Weapons) as a medical courier who is in the process of making a delivery to Raccoon City General Hospital when an outbreak forces him to fight for his life.

Cregger directs from a screenplay he penned with Shay Hatten. Zach Cherry, Kali Reis, and Paul Walter Hauser also star.

Resident Evil hits theaters on September 18. For more, check out our guide to upcoming horror movies, or, check out the ever-growing list of video game movies.

A new PlayStation State of Play is happening this week. In fact, Sony is airing two shows, with State of Play Japan to follow the main showcase. Here's how to watch the show and what we're expecting to see.

In typical Sony fashion, we only know about one game ahead of the showcase, with a new look at Final Fantasy 7 Revelation confirmed to be closing out the first show. We just saw Square Enix's next major release at Gamescom last week, but it was a bit of a short look, so hopefully we get something a bit more substantial this time around.

We're also approaching Tokyo Game Show later this month, and fittingly, Sony is airing a new State of Play Japan presentation immediately following the regular show. This will feature "deep dives into upcoming games from game studios in Japan and Asia, including new gameplay, announcements, and more."

Last year's State of Play Japan featured announcements from Capcom, Sega, Square Enix, and Bandai Namco among others, so perhaps announcements from these publishers will be saved for the second presentation this time around.

As for what I think we'll see? Upcoming games like Rayman Legends Retold, Star Wars Galactic Racer, and Control Resonant feel like a good shout, while there will hopefully be some surprise announcements coming too. However, I can't say I'm expecting much from Sony itself.

One thing I'm 100% certain we'll see however, is the chat for the stream flooded with cries of "no disc, no buy," calling out Sony's decision to end physical game production for new games in 2028 and the company's continued insistence to remind you that you don't own your digital games – with its lawyers offering the argument that only one person could own the game if that were the case.

How to watch the PlayStation State of Play September 2026 showcase

The PlayStation State of Play will air live on Thursday, September 3 at 6am PT / 9am ET / 2pm GMT. Once the State of Play comes to an end, State of Play Japan will begin.

Sony has not confirmed how long either broadcast will be however. Last September's State of Play ran for 40 minutes, while November's State of Play Japan was also 40 minutes long. I don't expect to see an 80 minute showcase, but there's a chance we get an hour-long event like the shows from February and June of this year.

Watch the State of Play steam here

The shows will air live on PlayStation's YouTube and Twitch channels simultaneously, so just pick whatever platform you prefer.

Last week, Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026 provided us with our first look at both The Witcher 3 Remastered and CD Projekt Red's new expansion for the RPG, Songs of the Past.

The expansion marks the return of Geralt's voice actor, Doug Cockle, who is taking on the role of the game's silver-haired protagonist once more… a role he's now been familiar with for over 20 years, since the original Witcher game.

How does Cockle feel stepping back into Geralt's boots for Songs of the Past, though? Well, he tells GamesRadar+ at Gamescom 2026.

"It's always a thrill to step back into Geralt's shoes," Cockle admits. "He is a character I know very, very well, so it's always a pleasure to revisit him, and it has been for Songs of the Past as well."

It's comforting, too, as per the actor's words – sort of like… taking a hot bath at the end of a tough day, apparently? "I always describe it as like slipping into a warm bath," as Cockle puts it. "It's just very comfortable, very easy."

Acting is "still work," however, as he goes on to say – "but it's work that is very comfortable for me to to move back into, and it's always a pleasure." That makes sense.
After all, "I've been voicing Geralt since 2006, I think it is," Cockle recalls, "so over 20 years now, and as long as CDPR keeps asking me to come back…" he will. Yes, even if he's "like 80 years old," he'd still be willing to voice the beloved witcher.

John Schwab, voice of Dandelion, largely feels the same. He tells GamesRadar+ that he "got more excitement stepping into the booth because I was returning to the character."

So The Witcher RPG series is one its actors are not only comfy with at this point (and then some), but also one that they genuinely enjoy being a part of. As a fan myself, as much is made obvious by their observable talent.

Nobody was more surprised by The Witcher 3 Songs of the Past than Geralt and Dandelion's actors: "They announced the expansion pack before we knew what we were doing."

The Turtle Beach Kevin the Cube controller is a pretty, purple sight to behold. The Switch 2 accessory was unveiled during last week's Gamescom celebrations and is inspired by the aforementioned glowing purple cube that has remained part of Fortnite's wider (and very confusing) lore since Season 5.

Much like its namesake, the $69.99 Rematch controller has a stunning purple exterior which is coated in runes. However, while Kevin's runes sent the terrain of Fortnite's map into flux, the ones across the controller remain stationary until you pick up the pad. Using it reveals a rainbow spread of hieroglyphic-like text, and there are four lighting effects in total to play around with.

I've just got back into Fortnite, and this is the exact kind of controller I'd love to have at my disposal while trying to claim my way to victory on the Switch 2. Turtle Beach must've known, as they've generously chosen to throw in a Capoeira emote with every pad, which can be claimed when it launches on October 8 later this year.

I know not everyone is a fan of the often garish look of RGB lighting, but Turtle Beach has a good track record.

I currently have the Turtle Beach Rematch Mario and Luigi gamepad, which is part of the same line and one of the best Nintendo Switch 2 controllers I've laid my eyes on. At first I was worried the dynamic lighting effect would look tacky, but witnessing the dazzling effect of Mario series power-ups shining through the plastic chassis was super impressive in person.

The Switch 2 controller is one of the rare Ninty accessories to receive a "woah" reaction from my friends, and I feel almost certain that this Fortnite release would elicit the same enthusiastic response. By default, the purple colorway and the matching buttons spread across this pad look fantastic, and glowing rainbow runes would only make that better. Not to mention the RGB Rematch lighting effect on the brand's Rosalina controller literally flows across the pad, and that'd lend itself to this Kevin the Cube design.

I'd be remiss to not mention that the Turtle Beach Rematch line-up is also pretty grand, RGB lighting or not. While you're missing the premium features of the Switch 2 Pro controller, from NFC-reading tech to HD rumble, it feels fantastic in the hands. You've also got stick-defying TMR thumbsticks to take advantage of, mappable back buttons, and an impressive 40-hour battery that's left me rarely having to charge the Mario and Luigi version I have sitting amongst my controller collection.

If you do happen to want something a bit more premium, the brand's Victrix Pro BFG Reloaded Fortnite Drift controller was also being shown off at the Gamescom floor.

• View all Turtle Beach Nintendo Switch 2 controllers at Amazon

Check out our guides to the best PC controllers for gaming, the best PS5 controllers, and the best Xbox Series X controllers while you're here.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is widely considered to be one of the best outings of the entire franchise, and a lot of that is down to the vision that Alfonso Cuarón brought to the franchise. The auteur, who is also behind films like Y tu mamá también, Gravity, and Children of Men, brought a unique take on one of the darkest Potter books, and it really paid off.

Fans of the franchise have long wondered why he didn't return to direct any more of the movies. Now, producer David Heyman has elaborated on this, explaining the answer is pretty simple.

"We asked Alfonso if he wanted to do the fourth, and he said, 'Cabrón,'" Heyman said on Harry Potter: The Official Film Podcast, referencing a Spanish slang term. "I think he was exhausted. I look at pictures of Alfonso from then – Alfonso is one of my best friends, and he's my son’s godfather, and I love him. But I look at him from then, and I just look [at him]… Because he was exhausted."

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire went on to be directed by Four Weddings and a Funeral helmer Mike Newell. He only signed on for one movie, also, before passing the baton to David Yates, who directed the final four films.

Heyman was speaking as part of the Harry Potter: Official Film Podcast, which is set to turn into the official series podcast when the HBO Max series begins airing this Christmas. The new show will adapt Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in its first season, before tackling a new book with each subsequent season.

You can watch the Harry Potter movies on HBO Max. For more, check out our guides to the best shows on HBO Max to stream now.

Viz Media's new Pokemon: 24-Movie Collection is a Blu-ray behemoth. The collection was announced on the brand's X (Twitter) page today and encompasses every single Pokemon movie on a set of 16 Blu-ray discs. From Pokemon the First Movie and even its CGI remake, Pokemon: Mewtwo Strikes Back Evolution, you're getting all of the franchise's theatrical outings in one complete set, which is a win for physical media and Pokemon fans alike.

Yet owning this limited-edition Blu-ray collection, which doesn't launch until November 14, 2026, will cost you the privilege of a whopping $399.99 at Amazon. I wish I were telling a Snorlax-sized fib, but the Amazon exclusive collection is sitting at the retailer for its $400 MSRP, although in a cute Poke Ball-shaped case, might I add. It's available to pre-order starting today if you're eager to own the franchise's movie history in one complete set. However, I'm going to need Viz Media to divulge more of the Blu-ray's contents before I lay down my savings in an effort to collect and watch them all.

Viz Media has been pretty sparse with the details of its new Pokemon: 24-Movie Collection so far. The short item description on US Amazon reads that the "explosive 24-movie collection" allows you to follow Ash and friends' adventures from "the origins of Mewtwo in Pokémon: The First Movie to the Unova region in Pokémon Black & White, leading finally to the deep Forest of Okoya." Yet we haven't got a full movie list to see exactly what's in store.

If I were about to drop almost a Nintendo Switch 2's cost equivalent on a complete Pokemon movie set, I'd hope that this would also include the franchise live-action outing, Detective Pikachu, but there's no mention of it. I fear this set is more tailored for the anime fans, as checking the official Pokemon website movie list accounts for 24 releases, but there's no sign of the coffee-drinking CGI Pikachu. For me, that's a bit of a deal-breaker, as that means this "complete set" is missing a big part of the Pokemon movie history puzzle.

The content details are also a little sparse. The Amazon listing states that the films use the Japanese language, and that's it. For a complete set, I'd hope that this release would include the option of the original Japanese voice actors and the English dub cast, particularly so I can relive Veronica Taylor's wonderfully nostalgic portrayal of Ash Ketchum at the start of the franchise. Her name is listed as a "Contributor," which gives me hope. However, there's no indication of whether that means that she contributed to the text in the hard-bound book that encloses the discs, or that it alludes to the English Dub tracks.

There's also no sign if any of the pre-film animated shorts are also part of this set. As a physical film collector, I have the Pokémon Movie Collection Limited Edition Steelbook on my shelf. It contains the first three movies but none of the shorts which proceeded them in the cinema. During a recent Pokemon movie marathon, I was heartbroken not to hear the catchy start of Vitamin C's "Vacation" during the Pikachu Vacation short, as it simply wasn't on the disc.

Hopefully Viz Media has truly made this a collection for Pokemon film fans by rectifying that glaring omission. Or at least, I'd hope that's the case for a set that wants $399.99 of your hard-earned Pokedollars. But we'll have to wait until November 14, later this year, to find out for sure.

In the meantime, check out my top tips for building the ultimate Blu-ray film collection if you're looking to expand your physical film collection ahead of the Pokemon: 24-Movie Collection drop.

• View all Pokemon Blu-rays at Amazon

We're also rounded up the Spider-Man: Brand New Day Blu-ray pre-orders if you're a physical media fan.

It goes without saying that TCG availability is dire across the board right now, but it seems as though there's no escaping this card game rat race; even an accessory company is adding chase editions for its latest binder.

Revealed on Twitter/X, accessory maker Vault X has announced that it's celebrating its 30 year anniversary by releasing the "ultimate collector’s binder" for a limited time. Besides only being available for 30 days (between September 1-30), each size features "just 500 Chase Editions, hidden at random." According to the product listing page, these include gold detailing, a gold-pattern microfiber lining, and individual numbering.

Don't get me wrong, the binder looks beautiful regardless of whether you're getting the 4, 9, 12, or 16-pocket version. Thanks to a crisp white design and a golden zip, it's very sleek. More power to you if the idea of a chase edition has you excited as well – I'm not here to judge. I actually think it'd be neat if not for the state of the industry. However, the limited nature of this drop has me feeling tired to my bones.

I've spent a long time reporting on how absurdly difficult it's been to get hold of new sets for Pokemon, Lorcana, Riftbound, and more (as demonstrated by our guide on where the buy Pokemon TCG 30th Celebration), so seeing a company lean hard into that same scarcity while using it as a marketing ploy is… well, it's exhausting. It makes the whole hobby feel like a grind which thrives on fear of missing out. TCGs seem more obsessed with resale value and rarity than ever these days, and it's as though this VaultX chase edition celebrates the very thing that's sucking the air from the room for those of us who just want to play.

What do you think? Are you game for an exclusive chase edition binder, or are you feeling as tired of the grind as I am? Let's get that discussion started in the comments below.

Want a break from that endless battle with resellers? Check out our guide to the best card games.

• See the best prices on VaultX products at Amazon

Hideki Kamiya, legendary Capcom veteran behind gems including Resident Evil 2, thinks newer games from the studio like Resident Evil Requiem are… too scary?

Yes, indeed, Kamiya finds games like Capcom's more recent Resident Evil entries a tad too spooky for his tastes, as per a recent interview with VGC.

First declaring that "this is not a joke," the Devil May Cry mastermind says he's "being one hundred percent serious when I say that I wish they would make it so that their games can also be enjoyed by people like me, who can't handle scary games at all." And… honestly, I get it.

Look, even Resident Evil 7 director Koshi Nakanishi admitted his game was "possibly too scary" and "some people couldn't handle it" last year (and as somebody who loves the seventh entry, I'd most certainly agree).

Requiem, according to Kamiya, isn't any better. "Just recently this year we had Resident Evil Requiem and the big return of Leon Kennedy, and he went back to Raccoon City… reliving all of those memories and all of those experiences."

He then states that, "As somebody who directed that original game, Resident Evil 2, I was curious to know how that panned out for him." Unfortunately though, the horror-adjacent side of Requiem made that impossible for Kamiya.

"I wanted to experience that myself as a player," as he says, "but the game was way too scary, and I couldn't." So, what's the solution, then, so that all flavors of player can enjoy Capcom's stories? Apparently, a less scary game mode.

"It's not a joke," Kamiya explains. "I legitimately wished it would include some kind of non-horror mode for people like me." He outlines how he's spoken to "folks who are on the Resident Evil teams at Capcom" and admitted as much to the devs.

"I tell them that their games are way too scary, and they're like, 'What, come on, they're not that scary,'" the Resident Evil 2 legend recalls.

Kamiya concludes that the devs "seriously seem to have no awareness of how scary the things they make actually are, so I really hope they address that at some point" – even if that means just making it "so that the zombies' faces aren't so scary."

You know, "Why not have a mode that just puts, like, brown paper bags on all of their heads, or instead of having these dark, dingy rooms everywhere, they could have really pleasant mood lighting" – which I'm not too sure I agree with...

These are horror games, after all, and this isn't the first time he's brought the topic up. Earlier this year, Kamiya said Capcom "should make a 'non-scary' mode" because "look, I just want to enjoy the puzzles."

So, there you have it – Resident Evil has become too frightening for the very folks who helped mark its name amid other survival horror giants.

If you're yet to play it, be sure to check out our Resident Evil Requiem review to find out if it's worth your time, or our Resident Evil Requiem safe codes guide to help you through it.

St Amelia is where dreams go to die. Not unlike many other British towns, I think. I can tell as much as soon as I wash up on the shores of Silent Hill Townfall's Scottish-coded (though never stated outright) island, where fog sinks into the spaces between each cobblestone. I've lived in the UK full-time for about four years now, so there are many jokes to be made about feeling right at home in its dreary gloom (I'll save those for another time). But even if the setting's subtle iconographic accuracy is lost on those less familiar with Great British environs, it's the perfect canvas for a Silent Hill game.

The first thing that strikes me about Silent Hill Townfall is how deserted it is. That, and how choppy the animations get when you climb or descend stairs. You've got smudgy grey fog. You've got empty streets with lights still flickering in vacant apartments, as if the town's inhabitants vanished on the spot mere moments ago. You've got an amnesiac protagonist wearing a hospital bracelet. Let's go, am I right?

Pacing through the town center from a first-person perspective – a series-first for a mainline game, as seen in PS5 freebie Silent Hill: The Short Message – I expect some sort of glimpse of an enemy. An early warning that I'm not as alone as I feel, just like in Silent Hill 2.

But even after getting curiously turned around while picking through St Amelia's detritus, I don't come across a single bad guy. This wouldn't be a problem if the rest of my hands-on demo session had more to show for itself than 70 minutes of walking and cutscenes, always keeping me at arm's length as I experimentally press against its edges, getting little in return

These dark times

Don't get me wrong. Silent Hill Townfall is a gorgeously rendered nightmare. Developer Screen Burn has clearly put a lot of love for its Scottish roots into this place, which is as immersive and spooky as you'd expect from one of the best horror game franchises that built its name specifically off creating oppressive vibes from the get-go. But I feel more like a ghost haunting the streets than a character inhabiting the world, because there's very little to actually interact with.

I spend most of my session inspecting things. Leaflets on the ground, hand-scrawled notes left in the local doctor's window. Information boards at viewpoints dotted along the boardwalk, looking out upon the murky waters encircling St Amelia.

By the time I reach the telephone box – ringing, of course, with no one on the other end when I go to pick it up – I feel like a local historian. One who fails to clock that I have to type in a specific number, listed on the short telephone directory as "save yourself", in order to save my game and trigger a cutscene. So I instead go back out into St Amelia to see if I missed anything. Spoiler alert: I have not missed a single thing, and lose another 10 minutes retracing my steps.

The above is entirely my fault, but it does mean that after being rescued from my predicament by a fellow demo player, the frustration gets compounded by having to sit through a lengthy cinematic that teleports me to a brand new location: a hotel room.

Here is where the radio mechanics and minigames come into play. For all the distance I feel is being put between myself and the game world, Screen Burn incorporates analog technologies in a beautifully on-theme way, tying back to Townfall's setting in the mid-'90s. I have to tune my device to individual frequencies, picking up either echoes of the past (or present? Who knows) that give me hints to solve puzzles or the staticky outlines of nearby enemies projected on the palm-sized screen.

Except I don't actually see any before my eyes. Delaying the moment we first lay eyes on a monster is a clever way to build up tension in any horror game or film – fear of the unknown, the unseen – and suggest the ephemeral manifestation of the character's guilt and trauma. But by this point in my hands-on demo, I am desperate for something a bit faster paced. I've just spent ages wandering barren streets only to be met with the winding basement of an abandoned hotel. Enemies seem so far away that I couldn't stumble into one if I tried.

Silent Hill Townfall has the makings of a brooding horror game. It just fails to communicate that in a vertical slice demo by virtue of its slow-build horrors being so excruciatingly slow. Here's hoping that I'm able to get a bit more absorbed in it from the comfort of my own home than I was on the bustling show floor of Gamescom 2026.

Konami wants Silent Hill to have "an annual release of new games," and it's already working on "many" unannounced projects

The second Lego Skylines was announced, I could hear it. That click-clack of speed-building Lego sets has become synonymous with cozy joy for kids and grown-ups alike, particularly on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Lego Skylines takes the kind of setup you see in the dad's basement in The Lego Movie and takes it city-wide, putting industrial-scale creation in your hands for a fraction of the cost (and floor space).

However, just because it's a Lego game doesn't mean it's a city builder for kids. I've just spent 3-4 hours with a playable preview build of the game, and this is still as complex and multi-faceted as either of the Cities: Skylines games, but with some delightful Lego tweaks that make this a seriously fascinating game. Created by Iceflake Studios – the same team that's now running Cities: Skylines 2 – it's what you'd hope, of course, but I'm already mentally planning out my cities, and we don't even have a release date yet.

Brick by click

My preview build is split into two parts. The first is a tutorial area of sorts, which I'm told is inspired by the start of the game but made specifically for this preview. It's delightfully small-scale, starting with a single family asking for help turning a pretty much abandoned island into a rural village. My first task is to place a house, and I'm immediately given a choice of what kind of style I want it to have. This isn't a brick-by-brick creator – you're not going to be building everything from scratch here with different blocks – but there are some elements that are more modular, meaning you feel a lot more in control of the wider aesthetics than you do with other city builders.

Once I've placed the house, the dad asks for some yard modifications, and I'm zoomed into an editor that's reminiscent of build/buy mode in The Sims. I can remove picket fences and carrot patches to make way for a patio table and BBQ if I so wish; tweak bush and flower arrangements to my liking. Despite being a 'city' builder, Lego Skylines is already very good at making things feel a lot more personal. The little people – or minifigs – of Lego Skylines feel important and individual, but so does where they live on a very micro level, and that's reflected in the personal missions they'll send you on too. Even just in this preview build I found myself creating a cabin in the woods for one soul looking for solitude, while also making sure there were enough flowers in town for another.

Zooming out slightly from an individual plot, each household has a preference for the kinds of decorations they'd like placed nearby. Different flowers or natural foliage might tick off requests for 'natural' vibes, but the playful theme lets you dabble in different playpark equipment, and cozy coded items bring more rural, farmyard elements to the fore. It allows you to quickly bring in visual variation and personality without hand-placing every petal. But of course there's tonnes of Lego whimsy in there too, so just discovering what's new with every unlock becomes another little moment of glee in this game.

That customization extends to the city buildings too, with modules that you can add onto facilities like farms or universities, all the way to the sewage works. These add-ons give them upgrades and perks, but also a little visual va-va-voom, because even poop deserves a little customization love in a Lego game.

Still a city, just with more bricks

Of course, that zooming out continues all the way to the city's infrastructure. The Skylines part of the game's title is alive and kicking, with plenty of high-level management required to keep things clicking along. From the utilities like water and power, to emergency services and education, constantly striving for the perfect balance is still a quest for your role as Master Builder. But the focus on leisure and beauty is bigger than it's ever been in Cities: Skylines, and there's a particular joy scrolling around the late-game city I'm also given access to and seeing Lego people flipping tricks at the skate park or playing tennis.

It's these varying levels of involvement that make Lego Skylines an interesting hybrid for city builder fans. It's about watching Lego come to life, literally hearing those clicks as the steamroller that unfurls the roads you've just mapped out or the cars clacking from bricks to vehicles as your minifigs go about their days. People matter, their homes matter, and ensuring individuals are satisfied is the core gameplay loop – it's not just about building a city that works well. Taking time to make things look and feel as good as they run is what is going to make Lego Skylines distinct – not to mention the potential for cross-collaborations and ever-growing new items to unlock. Lego Skylines is already exactly what I hoped it would play like, so I just can't wait to see more.

Lego Skylines is coming to PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, and Switch 2 at some point in the future. There's currently no confirmed release date or release window.

While we wait, let's click back into the best Lego games of all time

Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis has an unenviable task before it. Reimagining a 30-year-old game for a modern audience is no mean feat, but in a genre that has moved on so far and with a heroine who has become such an icon, the line that must be threaded between the new and the old is a veritable tightrope. Too far one way and you'll recreate a now-outdated experience in too much veracity to warrant its existence. Too far the other way and you risk excising what made Tomb Raider interesting, lumping it in with modern genre tropes that don't suit a remake like this.

For now, Crystal Dynamics seems to be treading that line. My hands-off demo shows off the Damocles Trial from the game's second level, so named for the giant swords hanging from the ceiling that threaten to skewer Lara should she linger too long on the wrong floor tile. For game director Raul Siquera, the goal is to show "how much we've preserved from the original, and the little things we did to make it special" in a modern overhaul.

Familiar tombs

"It was really important for us, from a level design perspective, to preserve what was in the original game, but find ways to enhance it for a modern audience," Siquera explains. "You should recognize the places that you know," he says, or if you're like me and are too young to remember the original games, you should still be "delighted by the grandeur" of the levels.

Those modern enhancements present themselves almost immediately. Stepping into the trial, Lara is set upon by a horde of bats, reimagined to move around in a more unpredictable, swarm-like manner than in the original game. She takes a few scratches before shooting down enough that the rest of the swarm disbands, but thankfully she's collected enough resources from around the level to create a healing balm. The presence of a crafting system might seem like an overly-modern touch, but Siquera explains it's part of an attempt to dispel the anachronism inherent in the older Tomb Raider games – finding a medbag in a temple supposedly untouched by modern civilization isn't always great for immersion.

Past the bats, Lara's day continues to get worse, a snarling leopard dropping down into the next room. This iconic Tomb Raider threat is far smarter than before; in the ensuing fight, it uses geometry to block Lara's line of sight; crawls away through cracks in the rock when it's taken too much punishment, and then attacks from behind when you let your guard slip. "You're not supposed to stay still," Siquera says. Combat is fast and fluid, but a time-slowing Focus gauge allows for a moment of relative calm in the midst of some frantic fights, even as Lara's acrobatic 'dodge-cartwheels' make her a particularly flamboyant target.

It's beyond the leopard, as Lara enters the arena at the heart of the Damocles Trial, that Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis is forced to diverge further from the 1996 original. The core theme remains intact, but the intervening decades have transformed players' expectations. The puzzles maintain the ideas that shaped classic Croft, but they're grander in scope, Damocles' enormous stone swords crashing to earth with a deafening clash from the distant heights of the temple's ceiling if Lara puts a foot wrong.

But this version of Tomb Raider doesn't only have to capture the scale and artistry of a modern game – it also has to offer something to players who didn't cut their teeth in the days of 1996's game design. Lara's explanative dialogue is one example of Legacy of Atlantis' desire to guide players through its puzzles, as are the markings on the wall that gently outline the intended parkour route.

Neither of these are too invasive, but the addition of a new Scanner tool, which Lara can use to outline the moving parts of the puzzle she's contemplating, is a much more powerful tool. It's a bit much for a modern game, fully anachronistic in one that's supposed to be keeping half its gaze so firmly in the past. But, Siquera explains his team saw this coming – the Scanner is totally optional, and its tutorial will make clear that it can also be used to offer new lore insights. It's a smart compromise, but a strong example of just how difficult Legacy of Atlantis' task of balancing the old and the new is going to be.

As someone who doesn't have the nostalgia for the original game – I came to the series with Tomb Raider Legend on PSP, a full decade later – I think Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis is treading its difficult tightrope relatively well. It's clear the team understands the delicacy of its task, and there's an obvious desire to offer a version of this game that can speak in the same breath to those returning after three decades and those who've adopted the rhythms of a new era of action games.

From the small amount we've seen so far, it seems to be working – purists will likely find themselves disappointed by the modern touches, but those are largely optional, and subtle enough not to derail the original experience. As the start of a new era for Tomb Raider, Legacy of Atlantis' task was never going to be easy, but it seems to be stepping up to the mark.

Want to explore more of Lara Croft's legacy? Our best Tomb Raider games ranking will guide you towards your next adventure!

The Mandalorian and Grogu are coming home. Four months after the Star Wars film brought the saga back to the big screen for the first time in seven years, the Razor Crest is touching down on Disney Plus this September 2.

The film arrived a lengthy three years after its (less well-received) third season and didn't quite set the box office on fire. It scored a reasonably low 60% on Rotten Tomatoes, and many have questioned the wisdom of turning a streaming show into a theatrical movie – or criticized the film for focusing on a standalone adventure story rather than weaving in the wider galaxy.

Still, despite it all, I firmly believe there was no better film to kickstart Star Wars's theatrical comeback than The Mandalorian and Grogu.

Welcome back

That might seem like a nuclear take, but I have my reasons. Personally, I simply loved the movie: an all-grown-up Rotta the Hutt became my surprise MVP; Grogu, continuing to grow into his Mandalorian and Jedi potential, was a delight; and I thought the whole thing was a good old-fashioned, fun adventure tale with cool and creepy critters, spectacular action set-pieces, and all the heartwarming Clan of Two moments you could ask for.

I'm not alone in this, either: the film was well-liked by the audiences who showed up for Din Djarin and Din Grogu, with a healthy 86% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and an A- CinemaScore on opening night. The box office may have been a somewhat underwhelming $345.8 million (though, on a budget of $165 million, that's not a total disaster), but the film succeeded elsewhere. It returned us to the Mando-verse era of the Star Wars timeline just in time for Ahsoka season 2, and it also seemed to give the three seasons of the flagship show a boost: The Mandalorian was Disney Plus's third most-watched original series in the first half of 2026 with 2.4 billion minutes viewed, according to Luminate. That's particularly noteworthy considering the show hasn't released a new episode in three years.

Aside from the film deserving a much warmer reception and boosting the show's streaming fortunes, though, it was also the right choice for getting audiences used to Star Wars as a theatrical experience again. Seven long years have passed since The Rise of Skywalker, and, in that time, the franchise has released a whole host of Disney Plus shows. Like Marvel, this seems to have contributed to a certain dilution of the franchise, with every new Star Wars project no longer feeling like an unmissable event – unthinkable even 10 years ago – regardless of each show's quality. But, despite the more lukewarm reception to season 3, Mando and Grogu have remained instantly recognizable Star Wars icons, even though they originated on streaming themselves. Choosing this duo to launch Star Wars's return to theaters made total sense.

While the film drew criticism for its self-contained story, going in such a standalone direction was also a wise move. There's nothing more off-putting than feeling like you need to do your homework before you head to the theater, after all. And, since the film is so self-contained, it's also primed to be a new generation's introduction to Star Wars.

Maybe most importantly for the saga at large, though, The Mandalorian and Grogu set the stage for Star Wars: Starfighter. Any film tasked with bringing Star Wars back to the big screen was going to face a great deal of scrutiny – and the pressure of high expectations – but, now that Mando has broken that barrier already, Starfighter has something of a clearer runway.

Next moves

Judging by The Mandalorian's streaming boost, it's likely that the movie will do very well on Disney Plus. In the wake of The Mandalorian and Grogu's theatrical performance, it's hard to imagine Disney and Lucasfilm won't pivot when it comes to its theatrical slate. I would bet that Dave Filoni's movie, announced at Star Wars Celebration 2023 and set to tie together the Disney Plus shows, will be reconfigured into a streaming event (most likely an Heir to the Empire-style showdown against Grand Admiral Thrawn, considering the Ahsoka season 2 trailer).

The future of Star Wars on the small screen seems less certain, with nothing live-action confirmed past Ahsoka. It's doubtful that Lucasfilm will abandon TV entirely, but I expect the days of multiple Star Wars shows a year are long behind us.

But for the saga's return to the big screen, I'm glad Lucasfilm chose The Mandalorian and Grogu. If nothing else, the film was a fun few hours at the theater this summer, and it reunited me with two of my favorite Star Wars guys. This is the way.

The Mandalorian and Grogu is streaming on Disney Plus now. See what else the galaxy far, far away has in store with our guide to all the upcoming Star Wars movies and TV shows, or check out our The Mandalorian and Grogu review.

Back in the 2010s, it felt like we were witnessing a race to the most "realistic" graphics possible. As consumer hardware and game dev tools got more powerful, the piss filter faded into obscurity as lens flare, more detailed textures, and a push to make the most of next-gen gaming PCs came to the fore. We saw an influx of video games striving for a hyper-realistic look back in those days, that were inevitably followed by even better-looking remasters of themselves as time went on. For a while there, more realistic meant better, but I was hoping that school of thought had disappeared.

Graphical fidelity hasn't stopped progressing, but I really thought we were past that quite narrow-minded view of "objectively" good or bad video game graphics. Now, Nvidia is preparing to boot DLSS 5 into our games, and it somehow feels like we've taken a backstep.

If you haven't heard, DLSS 5 is making its way to 50 Series GPUs at the end of this week, initially launching alongside NBA 2K27, but almost certainly coming to other titles in due course.

When I was at Gamescom last week, I saw a behind-closed-doors look at the latest form of Nvidia's upscaling tech, and I got to ask questions about how the brand intends it to be used.

One of my initial concerns during the demo was about how this Generative AI layer flattens the nuances of art direction. I don't want to see an AI filter over beloved indie games with highly stylized visual design; I don't want to see games like Dishonored pushed through an AI model to make them look more "realistic" because that would kind of be missing the point.

Thankfully, Nvidia did reassure me both that developers can opt into specific DLSS 5 support, and that it's only really being intended for games that strive for a "photorealistic" look. Thank god! But even then, I still have concerns.

I, for one, really enjoy the subtle differences in graphical stylings when looking at games that you could argue strive for some sort of photorealism. Battlefield 6, Control, GTA 6, The Last of Us Part II, and even Hunt: Showdown all have aspects of realism, but I would argue they all know where the line is.

I wouldn't argue that any of these games are necessarily striving for "photorealistic" graphics, though, even if some of their art styles do have very lifelike environments, lighting, facial models, or weaponry. I really thought we had reached a point where we realised that video games look great because they don't look photoreal. Everything appearing like it's been captured in live action is certainly impressive, but it'd be a horrifically boring video game market both on the software and hardware side if that's what all of them looked like.

Video game art styles are interesting because of their unique detachments from photorealism, and it feels like Nvidia is completely missing that in the name of being the brand to finally crack the puzzle.

Sure, we now know that thanks to DLSS 5's developer controls, artists and game devs will be able to have some say over how the tech changes their work, but I'm not personally sure they'll have enough control to let their unique looks shine.

DLSS 5's developer controls let them choose between three different AI models for each object, character, and sometimes clothing within a scene. They can then use sliders that will increase or decrease the structural and tonal intensity of the object within DLSS 5's parameters.

But here's the thing: it's still a generative AI layer that's trained on striving for photorealism above all else; it might be somewhat more sensitive to visual styles now than it was when we initially saw "yassified" Grace and Leon back in March, but it's still using its AI model to make things look more photoreal.

While Nvidia thinks this makes games look objectively better, I don't agree.

In fairness, this difference of opinion makes sense. Nvidia has been striving to create the best graphics cards for decades now, with an end goal always to provide the power to gamers so that they can say they have the best graphical power on their machine, which can produce the most realistic lighting, faces, and objects in their titles.

And DLSS 5 feels like it's achieving that sort of goal. It's certainly impressive in some contexts - the comparisons from NBA 2K27, a game that's striving for as close to photorealistic visuals as possible to give you a hyper-accurate simulation of pro basketball, are pretty bang-on. I can't lie and say the "DLSS on" comparison shots don't look more photoreal and more like the human athletes they're trying to recreate. But I'm still not sure they're "objectively better" than the hand-crafted characters the developers of the game made themselves. I like the original work's small imperfections, I like the stylised visuals, I like the fact I'm not looking at live-action characters when I play games.

I'm also not sure harnessing generative AI for this is the best way Nvidia could have gone about achieving photorealism.

Our brains are getting better at looking for generative AI imagery by the day. As advanced as AI gets at creating false photography and graphics, I can spot it a mile off because I'm morally opposed to the use of AI for creative ventures. I don't see "more photoreal" graphics when I look at DLSS 5; I see uncanny AI that reminds me of how disruptive and broken it's making so many creative industries. If anything, that presence of AI takes me out of things more than slightly less realistic graphics made by humans would. I'd happily sustain my belief with NBA 2K27's best attempts at making realistic athletes in games, but I can't do that with generative AI faces because I'm thinking more about AI than I am about how impressive it all looks.

And yet, I feel as though that strive for realistic graphics back in the day was so that people would feel more immersed in their games. It might sound counterintuitive, but I think the less photorealistic a game looks, the more of my imagination it's likely to capture.

It also might be worth looking at the best CPU for gaming, the best RAM for gaming, and the best computer speakers if you're interested in improving your gaming setup.

Orzly has been knocking out cases since the original Nintendo Switch was all we knew. For years, the brand has provided options for those who want more color variety, plenty of game and accessory storage, and a way to protect and carry their pricey Ninty tech without spending more than they have to.

When the new generation of Ninty tech arrived, naturally so did a new Orzly case, and I was eager to see if it would take the best Nintendo Switch 2 case crown. While the brand hasn't rocked the boat with new dramatic changes, the Carrying Case for the Nintendo Switch 2 is proof that Orzly remains the same budget-friendly kings of cases this generation as it did the last.

Design

The design of the Orzly Carrying Case is ripe for customization.

There are no large, garish logos plastered everywhere. Instead, the case features a glossy exterior with an embossed rectangular space in the center and tiny 'Orzly' branding towards the bottom right corner, and that's it. Not to mention, it's available in a huge variety of plain colors, so you have your pick of a base for whatever your artistic heart desires.

Throughout my time testing the clamshell case, I had to constantly fight down the urge to grab my acrylic paint pens and give it a makeover. I wanted to ensure it looked exactly how it would arrive at your door in my photos, should you choose to get one for yourself. However, I must admit, it wasn't easy to keep that restraint.

While the design of this case may be so simple that it feels like an open canvas for customizability, it still looks great. I was provided with a black, Poke, and blue version for review, but gravitated towards the black colorway for its sleek and professional appearance. The 'Poke' version is definitely a runner-up for my favorite colorway, as it opts for a red and black color combo that's more subtle than official Pokemon cases I've tested.

Features

Orzly doesn't just keep the exterior of the case plain and simple. The inside features space for the handheld, some games, and accessories, and that's pretty much all you get - but that's not a bad thing.

Orzly keeps things simple, but spacious. The interior of the case includes a fabric mesh pocket which can be fully zipped closed to keep the smallest of accessories from going missing. Behind this lies an empty pocket of space which would be ideal for gaming manuals, if they were still a thing. If you do happen to be someone who keeps physical notes on your Ninty games, you could use it for that too.

While the upper portion is where you'll find the accessory storage, the bottom is where you'll find space for both the handheld and some physical games. The case is moulded perfectly for the Switch 2, and includes a velvet-like fabric coating that helps protect against general wear and tear. The center of this moulded interior includes a velcro strap which is designed to adhere to a flap of fabric that sits above the console to keep it secure, and to give you a place to store up to 21 games in total.

Performance

During the weeks I used the Orzly accessory to protect and carry around my precious Switch 2, it was this spacious storage that impressed me the most.

Often, cases that include a fabric mesh pocket designed for accessory storage aren't actually that advisable to use. That's because overloading it with controller parts and spare Switch 2 microSD Express Cards can result in unwanted pressure being forced up against the display of your handheld during travel. However, Orzly gets around this as the carrying case includes a deep-set upper portion that allows plenty of space to float between whatever you choose to store and your Switch 2 below.

Rather than feeling like I was zipping up a ready-to-burst suitcase, closing the accessory each day left me feeling reassured that my tech was safe and away from harm. I will say, though, that the stress of worrying about an overloaded accessory pocket made me pack light, which likely helped further negate any undue stress on the display. During the entirety of testing, I made sure to only pack a spare set of Joy-Con 2 rails, a stylus touch pen, and a packet of four spare thumb grips with me any time.

My only annoyance with the case comes down to those extra designs I was provided with for review. I primarily kept to testing the black colorway, and so I assumed it'd have a black interior. However, even the lovely vivid sky blue version shared the same insides, which was a little boring. If I was opting for a colorful Switch 2 case, I'd hope that the interior was just as interesting to look at. Though there's every chance the plain black insides are what help keep the Orzly Carrying Case and all its many color options so affordable at $29.99, and less when there are sales abound.

Should you buy the Orzly Carrying Case for the Nintendo Switch 2?

The Orzly Carrying Case isn't draped in colorful, officially licensed art of Mario and friends, nor does it boast flashy features like the best Switch 2 case champion, the Belkin Charging Case Pro. Yet, if you have a $30 / £20 budget and don't want to spend a penny more, it's this case that I'd recommend, with one little caveat.

The spacious interior I lauded earlier means that this is bulkier than your garden-variety hardshell option. If you're light on space enough as it is, the PowerA Slim Case is going to be a better fit, and it's $19.99 / £9.99, so it's even cheaper too. You will have to be okay with negating the existence of accessory storage altogether, but it remains the go-to option if you're already Tetris-ing the contents of your backpack as you game on the go.

If you can facilitate the added bulk and want a huge variety of color options to suit your Switch 2 setup aesthetic needs, this Orzly case is a winner. It's also one of those cases that's prime discount fodder when the biggest sales events come around, so you're bound to find it at an even more agreeable price point too.

How I tested the Orzly Carrying Case for the Nintendo Switch 2

For this review, I was sent three different colorways of the Orzly Carrying Case for the Nintendo Switch 2 to sample, but I spent most of my time testing out the black version. During a two-week period, the case became my main method of carrying the handheld with me wherever I went, whether that was from room to room in my house, into the city center, or just to a friend's for some co-op gaming. I also made sure to take advantage of and test its accessory storage by placing a range of physical games and smaller handheld accessories inside.

For more information on how we test accessories for the Nintendo Switch 2, check out our full GamesRadar+ Hardware policy.

I've also rounded up the best Nintendo Switch headsets, the best Nintendo Switch microSD Express Cards, and the best Nintendo Switch 2 cameras if you're on the hunt for more top-tier Ninty accessories.