If you were hoping to do some invading and such in Dark Souls 2 or 3 over the weekend, you would've seen that those features are currently disabled. Servers have been shut down for both games, but fear not; it's a temporary measure to fix some issues on FromSoftware's end, though a return date hasn't been set.

Online features for both installments of the Dark Souls series suddenly went down on Friday, October 30, after a brief warning per FromSoftware. At the time, the only explanation was that an issue had been discovered, and no timeline was given for when they'd be back up.

Fast forward now to Monday, November 2, and there's been a small update. Servers on Dark Souls 2 and 3 "have been temporarily suspended for all platforms due to identified security vulnerabilities," reads the post. "We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. Thank you for your patience and understanding."

It's clarified that this includes every platform, and it means the games can't be played in online mode whatsoever. Offline is still completely fine.

This might be frustrating for some Dark Souls 2 players in particular, because that game went offline during the week for what appeared to be routine maintenance. It only came back on October 28 before going down again.

That's an annoying coincidence if that's been your entry of choice for trolling others or helping weaker players out. Without an explanation it's hard to say what's actually going on, but hopefully there hasn't been any kind of actual cyber-attack and the devs are simply fixing up the existing patchwork to be more robust.

These games have been out for over a decade, they need to be kept up to date. Thankfully, Form is doing that, you might just need to head back to Firelink Shrine for a minute before getting to play them again.

New Sony patent proposes using AI to alter boss fights in real time, and now I'm having nightmares about a totally unpredictable Souls game

The Phantom Blade Zero A Healer's Mercy quest sees you hunting down four injured thieves scattered in and around the Crimson Forest Thieves' Camp so that you can give them some life-saving medicine. Their locations are conveniently listed in a note and marked on the map, but these pointers will only get you so far – one of the thieves is locked in a dungeon, for example. What's worse is that if you progress the main story too much, you can permanently fail this Phantom Blade Zero quest and all the thieves will die, so let me help you get 'A Healer's Mercy' done as swiftly as possible.

Phantom Blade Zero A Healer's Mercy thief and dungeon key locations

For all four thieves that you must help for 'A Healer's Mercy', you just need to find and speak to them to automatically hand over Yu'er's life-saving pills and heal them. To avoid failing the quest, you should find all four thieves before you reach the end of the Crimson Forest region. I'd avoid going any further than the Cliffside Lodge, since the thieves can all be found at or before this point.

Remember, if you click on one of the thief markers on the map screen, you can swipe up on the PS5 controller's touch pad to reveal a marker in the world that can roughly guide you to the precise location.

To get you all the way from there, here are the locations for all four thieves for the 'A Healer's Mercy' quest and the Thieves' Camp Dungeon Key you need to reach one of them:

Lean Monkey

From the Outlaw Trap Bell, jump into the nearby pit that you should have opened using the Crimson Forest Tunnel Crank.

Look for the table near the wooden bridge and you'll find the Lean Monkey thief in the tunnel just beyond.

Flying Rat

From the Outlaw Trap bell, head right and go into the large cave with the blue Memory Flower in front – this is also next to the uphill path where you can begin the quest that leads to you answering the Phantom Blade Zero Nimble Thief questions. You'll find the Flying Rat almost immediately upon entering the cave, lying against some machinery on the left.

Slippery Eel and Thieves' Camp Dungeon Key

Go to the Cliffside Lodge which is not far beyond the Thieves' Camp and get inside the basement by finding the necessary crank on the upper floor.

Thoroughly explore the basement and get the Thieves' Camp Dungeon Key off the dead body on the upper dirt path.

Follow this path to the end and you'll find a door you can open which leads into a small cliff clearing where the Slippery Eel thief is sitting. You can use the nearby wooden ladder to climb out. It's worth mentioning that you can just climb down this ladder to reach the thief right away, but the Thieves' Camp key can only be obtained via the lodge basement.

Night Raven

Go back to the Thieves' Camp and open the dungeon door using the key you just collected. You'll spot the fourth and final thief lying on the ground on your left.

It's also well worth exploring this dungeon for extra loot, including one of Quick Hand Zhang's treasures for the Crimson Forest, two Sha-Chi Amber Fragments, and the Brass Chest Guard Accessory. However, to reach some of it, as well as the small Lakeside Arch Bridge area beyond the dungeon, you need to have the Bastion shield Phantom Edge to block the crossbow bolt traps.

Now that you've healed all four thieves, return to Yu'er in the Thieves' Camp to complete 'A Healer's Mercy' in Phantom Blade Zero. You'll get the Calming Gourd Accessory as a reward, which makes it so that whenever you use medicine, you recover from having your guard broken and don't consume Sha-Chi for three seconds. As far as I'm aware, there is no other way to get this Accessory if you fail this quest, so make sure you don't miss it!

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The people love a good action RPG. At least that's what the numbers around the launch of Phantom Blade Zero would indicate, since it's managed to shift millions of copies and attract north of 820,000 concurrent players on Steam in its first weekend.

Developer and publisher S-Game shared one of these stats on social media, posting a nice big graphic on Twitter announcing that Phantom Blade Zero crossed the four million mark in copies sold in just three days. An impressive turnaround by any metric.

"Thank you everyone from the bottom of our hearts for all the love and support!" reads the caption. The image notes the Metacritic score of 88 and the Steam review score of 89%. Not too shabby whatsoever.

Speaking of Valve's store, a healthy amount of these players are jumping into the Phantom World on PC. On Steam Charts, the peak concurrent player count sits at 822,361. That immediately places the release among the most popular games currently on the store, outstripping the all-time records of Marvel Rivals and Battlefield 6, and even the 24-hour peaks of stalwarts like PUBG and the omni-present Bongo Cat.

At time of writing, nearly 400,000 are playing on the PC marketplace. A healthy, robust audience was ready and waiting for this game, it seems.

Drawing on wuxia, a genre of Chinese storytelling that fuses martial arts and fantasy elements, Phantom Blade Zero involves you trying to help an assassin clear his name after he's framed for a murder by the organization he works for. The history Chinese setting looks gorgeous and the martial arts-infused combat seems like a tonne of fun.

Donnie Yen is involved, and part of me likes to think he's a driving force behind the emphatic playerbase. We're unlikely to ever get an Ip Man game, but we have this, and it's close enough, in all honesty.

Phantom Blade Zero is the perfect action RPG for people tired of Soulslikes: Dev says "have fun, unwind," and let "those who seek a challenge" crank the difficulty up.

The Blood of Dawnwalker, the debut title from Rebel Wolves, is one of the year's best releases, and my personal pick for GOTY 2026. While it's likely to be passed up by more critically acclaimed horror games like Resident Evil Requiem and, for the top award this year, GTA 6, I found it to be a delightfully old-school horror RPG with gothic vibes galore and a story worthy of multiple playthroughs. The secret sauce, according to the studio itself, is not to chase any current trends, but to make the game that you yourself want to play.

Korean publication Inven (via Otakukart) recently visited the Rebel Wolves headquarters in Warsaw, where studio leaders shared insights into their game development philosophy. Not unreasonably, the developers just want to make games they want to make without influence from the stock market or industry trends. Speaking on the studio's founding, a Rebel Wolves spokesperson described by Inven as "a marketing representative" said: "We wanted to create an environment where we could focus entirely on the project itself without being driven by stock market pressure or tight deadlines."

While Rebel Wolves does receive support from outside backers like minority stakeholder NetEase and The Blood of Dawnwalker publisher Bandai Namco, it's still an independent studio with full creative control over its games. With The Witcher 3 director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz as co-founder and CEO and other ex-CDPR devs working at the studio, there are obvious Witcher influences in The Blood of Dawnwalker, but the game very much has its own identity that I'm looking forward to seeing expanded in the sequel. That's because, in the studio's words, "We are rebels. We don’t want to follow trends. We want to make games that we ourselves want to play and enjoy."

What exactly that looks like probably won't come into view for quite some time, but it's very possible it'll include The Blood of Dawnwalker's somewhat controversial time limit mechanic. I thought the timed quests were a genius way to add stakes and consequence to the game's missions, but understand the potential for FOMO some other players have experienced.

6 things I need from The Blood of Dawnwalker's sequel

The Phantom Blade Zero Festering Secret tasks you with helping the Mandate clear out some warriors in a sealed-off courtyard that have gone a bit evil due to Transcension. But you'll come up against some major obstacles along the way, the first being that you need to beat a nearby boss to be able to break the chains to the courtyard. The second is that you need to get a key for a gate which you can't reach until you defeat a different boss. To clear up how to complete this quest, I've laid out all the Festering Secret steps below.

Phantom Blade Zero Festering Secret walkthrough

After hearing the guards in front of the chained fence talking, here's what you need to do to complete the Festering Secret quest:

1. Defeat Peng Meng to get the Dread Axe.
2. Go back to the chain fence and use the axe to break the chains. This is also near where you can find the Phantom Blade Zero Cell Key.
3. Explore the courtyard area and kill everything.
4. Go to the Mandate captain dressed in white near the Outpost entrance gate and get his orders.
5. Progress through Weeping Creek Valley, hit the Creek Valley Plains Entrance Bell, and reach the Sha-Chi Tower.
6. Clear the Sha-Chi Tower and reach the Great Waterfall, then defeat The Hunt to get his Chain Sickles.
7. Go back to the Sha-Chi Tower, climb to the top, and grab the Sha-Chi Tower Base Camp Gate Key from the platform using the chain sickles to grapple up there.

8. Return to the Creek Valley Plains Entrance Bell and open the gate using the key.
9. Explore the base camp and find the blue-robed swordsman sitting at a table in a house. Speak to him to give him the captain's orders and you'll get a book page for the Phantom Blade Zero Four Fierce Axes quest in return.

10. Go back to the Outpost captain and speak to him to conclude the quest.

For your efforts, you'll get… nothing – how ungrateful. The captain will, however, tell you about a body on the cliff across the ravine.

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Completing the Phantom Blade Zero Four Fierce Axes quest takes a long time as it requires you to reach the game's fourth region before it concludes. However, the bulk of the work is a hunt for book pages around Weeping Creek Valley, and you can't find all but one in your first few hours of playing. That last one is a right pain to get as it's locked off in an area of the valley you can only reach after getting to a completely different region of the game. So, if you're stuck at any point of the Four Fierce Axes quest in Phantom Blade Zero, I've laid out all the steps and book page locations below.

Phantom Blade Zero Four Fierce Axes walkthrough

Here's how you find all the pages of The "Four Axes" Case Files book and prove that The Axemaster, Peng Meng, was framed by leaders of the Mandate for a rebellion:

1. Defeat Peng Meng, The Axemaster to get 'The Axemaster's Final Request' book page, the first page of the 'The "Four Axes" Case Files' Book.
2. Collect the seven remaining "Four Axes" Case Files book pages. The locations of these pages will be marked on your map, though there's a chance you may have found some already too. You can collect them in any order:

3. Reach Pangzhen, the game's fourth region and get to the Huang Manor Crossroads Bell.
4. From the crossroads near this bell, go up the steps to the right, then immediately turn right again and head towards the tower with red lanterns and several Mandate warriors outside.
5. Fight your way inside the tower and climb to the top. After fighting the enemies on the top floor, you'll get the Pavillion of Knowledge Rooftop Key.
6. Use the key to open the door onto the roof and head out to find the Child of Insight.
7. Speak to the Child of Insight to complete the Four Fierce Axes quest.

Soul will provide the Child of Insight with the case file and, in return, the child will award the Axemaster's Blood Oath Dagger, which you can use to soul temper the Dread Axe to improve its charge-up speed. If you don't know what "soul tempering" is, you need to go down the other crossroads path in Pangzhen to eventually meet Myst.

The Phantom Blade Zero Whence the Weeping quest ends even later, making it a very long quest. When you return to Weeping Creek Valley for the final page, you may also want to try defeating the Phantom Blade Zero Three-Faced Puppet boss and take on the Phantom Blade Zero Gold-Masked One at the Long Pillar.

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FromSoftware isn't having a great week. Right on the heels of delaying The Duskbloods out of 2026, it's now announced that the servers for Dark Souls 2 and 3 are temporarily going down on all platforms due to an "issue," and it's not going to tell you when they'll be back.

"Due to a server issue, the game servers for the following titles will be temporarily unavailable on all platforms," FromSoftware writes in a post on Twitter, listing Dark Souls 2 and 3.

"We will provide updates once we have information regarding the server restoration time," it adds. "We apologize for the inconvenience."

This was around eight hours ago – no update has been given since, and the lack of indication of how long it'd take in the place is concerning, to say the least. After all, Dark Souls fans have lived through months-long server outages before. Back in 2022, the PC servers for Dark Souls Remastered, Dark Souls 2, and Dark Souls 3 all went, well, dark for most part of the year following security concerns. They all came back online eventually, but it was pretty rough for anyone wanting to play them thanks to the co-op and invasion features being totally dead.

Hopefully this latest outage doesn't last as long, as there's also the added concern of it being across all platforms this time rather than just PC.

While FromSoftware offers no explanation as to what the server issue is, it notably comes around a week after numerous sites and online services were temporarily taken down in the wake of new PHP vulnerabilities being discovered. Whether that's played a role here isn't known – separate server maintenance for Dark Souls 2 only just came and went a couple of days ago.

Dark Souls director Hidetaka Miyazaki was always "fascinated" by the "weird" executives of other companies: "I use some of them as enemy characters in our games."

The Phantom Blade Zero Gold-Masked One is a mysterious recurring boss you'll find at Long Pillars throughout the game, who is also a lethal swordsman like Soul. That means fighting him is pretty difficult, serving as a reflex test. Ultimately, that means there's not much advice to impart other than – I'm going to say it – getting good. But there are some things to bear in mind for your build and during the fight, so here's my advice for beating the Gold-Masked One in Phantom Blade Zero.

Phantom Blade Zero Gold-Masked One boss fight tips

Defeating the Gold-Masked One in Phantom Blade Zero's Long Pillar's essentially comes down to your ability to perfectly parry and dodge his attacks. It's like the Phantom Blade Zero Three-Faced Puppet boss in that it's testing your understanding of the game's combat, so here's how you beat him:

1. Learn his blue and red-flash attacks and play defensively: The Gold-Masked One uses all sorts of rapid sword combos that you can easily block but also throws in a lot of blue and red-flash attacks to end them – parry the former and dodge the latter, then quickly go on the attack to wear down his Sha-Chi and break his guard. Crucially, you need to be highly reactive when he's attacking as many of his blue and red-flash moves are similar-looking jumping overhead attacks, so you can't easily predict what's coming.
2. Avoid his grab attack as best as you can: This is much easier said than done as it feels like your reaction to this barely telegraphed red-flash attack must be instant. Mess it up and you'll get a beating that shreds Soul's health. You can at least heal easily afterwards while the Masked One collects his sword, but getting hit by this repeatedly is a surefire way to rapidly chew through your medicine.
3. Use the Ancient Armor Fragment and Medicine Case Accessories: These Accessories can be obtained in Weeping Creek Valley. The Ancient Armor Fragment found outside the Crimson Manor gives you damage resistance based on how full your health is. And the Medicine Case, which you get from completing Yu'er's Apprentice Healer quest, improves the amount of health your medicine restores. Together, these make any boss fight much more forgiving, especially making the Gold-Masked One's grab attack far less deadly.
4. Avoid using Phantom Edge attacks: I've found that most Phantom Edge weapons are generally too slow to be any more effective than Soul's normal weapons. Importantly, the Gold-Masked One can continue attacking even when you're hitting him with a Phantom Edge, so don't use one when his Sha-Chi guard is intact.

Successfully dodge and parry your way through the fight and you'll eventually overcome the Gold-Masked One… for now. Bear in mind that the same advice applies whenever you fight him, but he also gains different moves at each Long Pillar throughout Phantom Blade Zero. For example, at the second Long Pillar, the Gold-Masked One employs Sha-Chi draining strikes, forcing you to also master switching your weapons.

However, for each Long Pillar victory against the Gold-Masked one you'll learn more about this mysterious warrior and get an Accessory – the first being Counterstrike Bracers, which give you a short damage buff after parrying.

If you're still in Weeping Creek Valley, go and defeat the Phantom Blade Zero Hua boss and collect the Phantom Blade Zero Flesh Lily for Yu'er.

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Defeating the Phantom Blade Zero Aberrant Three-Faced Puppet is difficult but this is a boss you're meant to discover early and come back to later. It's also a much simpler fight than it seems as you effectively just have to play very defensively until you break the puppet's guard and then go on the attack. The main issue is that the Three-Faced Puppet has a lot of health and takes a long time to defeat. My tips below will help you bring this Phantom Blade Zero boss as quickly and painlessly as possible.

Phantom Blade Zero Three-Faced Puppet boss fight tips

The Aberrant Three-Faced Puppet boss in Phantom Blade Zero is a test of your endurance and the fundamentals of combat that you probably won't have honed the first time you face it. After dying, Soul will even talk about how this is not an enemy he can face now, but it's not invincible. You just need to come back later once you've got some better weapons and accessories (your weapons should be at least level 10), improved your health and Sha-Chi, and mastered parrying – taking in some Phantom Blade Zero tips will help too:

• Be prepared for a long fight: Even with upgraded gear, the Three-Faced Puppet is still incredibly spongey and takes a very long time to wear down. When I finally beat it, it took around seven minutes of almost constant parrying, and losing focus even briefly can put a quick end to your attempt.
• Parry, parry, parry: I've mentioned it plenty already, but this is the best tip I can give for overcoming this fight. The Three-Face Puppet's attacks are quite fast but well-telegraphed and reasonably predictable, meaning they're easier to parry than they look. Since the Three-Faced Puppet also doesn't seem to have any blue-flash attacks, you've got to perfect parry every attack you can to quickly break its guard.
• Get the Ancient Armor Fragment Accessory: You can find this Accessory outside the Crimson Manor, which is reached via a lift under the Sha-Chi Tower in Weeping Creek Valley. It provides great damage resistance, making many of the Three-Faced Puppet's attacks less deadly, so the fight is less likely to go very wrong very quickly. I'd argue it's one of the best Accessories in the game and you should wear it for every boss fight at the very least.
• Don't try to attack while the puppet's guard is up: The Three-Faced Puppet attacks relentlessly, so there's very little point in trying to get a hit or two in as this will likely harm you more than the puppet, especially if you end up missing a parry as a result. But once you break its guard, go all-out with Sha-Chi attacks and Power Surges.
• Switching weapons is essential: Because you must be so defensive in the face of the puppet's hard and fast attacks, including plenty of devastating Sha-Chi-draining blows, keeping your Sha-Chi up is crucial. Keep an eye on your Sha-Chi bar and switch weapons as soon as it gets close to emptying, instantly refilling it.
• Heal when the puppet goes through a rift: The puppet attacks relentlessly throughout the boss fight, so you don't get many chances to heal, but make the most of the brief opportunities when it flies through a portal.

Endure the parry-fest and you'll bring down the Three-Faced Puppet eventually, though there aren't many useful rewards for doing so. You'll get 30,600 Remnant Dust, the Three-Headed Doll story item, and the next step of the Triple Threat quest, which is to find out the identity of the puppet.

If you haven't already, make sure you defeat the Phantom Blade Zero Hua boss and collect the Phantom Blade Zero Flesh Lily for Yu'er.

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When I first played Phantom Blade Zero earlier this year at Gamescom Latam, I left the hands-on demo with a spring in my step. I had just played a Dark Souls-style action RPG (though decidedly not a Soulslike), and I kind of kicked a bunch of ass. The action was fast-paced, the combos were slick, and most importantly, boss fights didn't leave me questioning every decision in my life that led to the encounter. I liked it, and I wrote a whole piece about how I wished more big-budget action RPGs were similar.

Now that the wuxia-flavored Phantom Blade Zero is out in the wild, it's clear that it's the entry level dark fantasy action RPG for me and for everyone else who's tired of seeing a new game, being intrigued by it, and then being pounded into submission by that game's ridiculous difficulty curve. As I said back in May, I want to love Elden Ring. I want to love Sekiro. I really want to love Bloodborne. They just need to chill a little bit, or at least give me the option to lower the difficulty.

Phantom Blade Zero, on the other hand, shares some of the same attractive qualities of a good Soulslike—the lengthy, cinematic boss fights, the grotesque enemy designs, the deep lore—but without the mandatory brutality. Critic and player reviews alike suggest the game is far more forgiving than your typical Soulslike, with difficulty options in case you want more or less of a challenge. And in a Twitter post from game director and S-Games CEO "Soulframe" Liang, it's made explicitly clear that Phantom Blade Zero was designed for players of all skill levels.

"Over the past few years, we have taken a close look at many of the conventions that action RPGs and action games have long treated as unwritten rules. We have asked ourselves what players want most, and how to bring those elements together to achieve our goal: a game that everyone who loves wuxia and spectacular action can enjoy. After all, this is game," says Liang.

That last part, to me, reads like a direct answer to the ubiquity of Soulslikes in recent years. I am absolutely not judging Soulslike fans, but it's nice to see a new action RPG that's catered to a more casual crowd when there are already so many games that pride themselves on being extremely hard. After all, this is a game.

"We want as many people as possible to have fun, unwind, and enjoy the experience, while offering an extra rush of adrenaline to those who seek a challenge," says Liang.

Talking specifics beyond basic enemy damage and player health, Phantom Blade Zero doesn't punish you for dying, enemies don't respawn, and boss fights have reload points at different phases, making them much more forgiving. That sort of stuff should go a long way in keeping people like me, who don't suck at video games but are simply less patient than your average Soulslike enjoyer, engaged.

Speaking of people who want more of a challenge, for your first playthrough you'll have three difficulty settings: Wayfarer (easy), Pathbreaker (normal), and Hellwalker (take a guess). I've yet to play the release build, but it sounds like if you're expecting anywhere near the level of challenge in, say, Elden Ring, you'll want to play in Hellwalker mode, and then the permadeath challenge mode that unlocks after your first playthrough. As for me, I think Pathbreaker sounds like a nice balance.

Phantom Blade Zero has the perfect solution to Elden Ring's biggest buzzkill

The Phantom Blade Zero Hua boss fight is an optional encounter early in the game, and she's quite a tough one to beat. Wielding a massive sword and summoning flowers that sap your Sha-Chi, this puppet bride really tests your positioning as you need to constantly stay moving to stay out of danger. While she moves slowly, she also has some fast and savage attacks to be aware of, including a lethal grab attack that's not always easy to avoid. So, bear my tips in mind when facing Hua in Phantom Blade Zero and you'll cut her strings with ease.

Phantom Blade Zero Hua boss fight tips

Hua can have a lot going on in her boss fight but once you know how to deal with her attacks and powers, she's quite simple and doesn't require any specific weapons to beat – although, as my Phantom Blade Zero tips say, you might want to use the Wooden Sanguine sword to parry as you'll deal substantial guard break damage, which is great against Hua. As with pretty much all combat in Phantom Blade Zero, you just need to stay focused and react quickly:

• Most of Hua's attacks are slow and easy to parry: She swings her massive blade around in wide slashes which are all pretty easy to parry, even during her combos. Parry as much as you can and you'll deal solid Sha-Chi guard damage and wear her down. One of the only attacks that can be tricky to deal with is her teleport, where she will suddenly reappear from a different angle attacking immediately.
• Watch out for her overhead attack: Just make sure you don't try to parry her overhead slam that turns your screen briefly black and white as this will drain so much Sha-Chi in one go that you'll often end up guard broken and vulnerable to other attacks. However, heavy attacks like this one also mean a longer recovery time for Hua, giving you a chance to get a couple of slashes in and wear her down.
• Be ready to dodge her grab: Hua has one red-flash attack and it's a brutal grab that deals substantial damage. It was responsible for several deaths of mine, and she often uses it at the end of a combo, so be ready to dodge rather than parry.

• You also need to avoid all flowers! Hua summons several types of flower throughout the fight, each complicating things in different ways:
  • Red flower patches: While standing in these flower patches or rings, your Sha-Chi steadily drains. After a while, they'll explode. Get away from them as quickly as possible. Don't confuse these with the lighter-red flowers already in the arena – thankfully, these ones don't drain your Sha-Chi!
  • Large white flowers: Hua will throw out several of these at once and they'll aggressively seek you. If one hits, you'll be briefly incapacitated, allowing Hua to instantly perform her grab attack. Blocking them is best but they can also be dodged.
  • Large red flowers: If one hits, it deals damage and drains Sha-Chi. These often orbit Hua and will eventually converge and explode. Stay away from them as best as you can.

Successfully stay out of the way of all the flowers and make good use of punish phases from breaking her guard and you'll defeat Hua eventually. Depending on the level of your weapons, this fight might be quite a slog, so, if you're struggling, I recommend coming back to Hua once you've done most of what there is to do in the Weeping Creek Valley.

But defeat Hua and you'll get her Scarlet Wraithblade, a hefty armament whose Sha-Chi attacks summon those draining flower patches, and it's pretty good! Before leaving the boss arena, make sure you also collect the Phantom Blade Zero Flesh Lily that Yu'er requested and gather the remaining book pages to complete the Hua The Bride book.

Weeping Creek Valley has plenty of other quests and things to find like the Phantom Blade Zero cell key but you don't need to worry about the Phantom Blade Zero Whence The Weeping quest.

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Phantom Blade Zero is the best action RPG I've played all year. The staggering variety of imaginative weapons available to wuxia hero Soul, all painstakingly animated via authentic martial arts choreography, is what really sets the game apart. This is not a Soulslike. You lose nothing upon death, enemies never respawn, stamina is plentiful, there are no RPG stats, and you will restart at phase two of a boss if you clear phase one. Yet Phantom Blade Zero solves two of my biggest complaints with most Soulslikes, one of which still bothers me whenever I sit down to play Elden Ring on a new character.

The weapon emporium is open

Nothing bums me out faster than barely surviving a tough boss fight and then eagerly sprinting to the blacksmith to forge their weapon, only to learn it has almost the exact same move set as the longsword I found in a bin 40 hours ago. This instrument of death feared across the lands is, actually, a normal sword with better stats. If I'm lucky, it may have a special charged attack – often one so slow that I can only use it against most enemies by giving 14 days advance notice.

Weapons in Phantom Blade Zero – the main ones that you swing all the time, and the sub-weapons you break out for special occasions – all feel distinct, and almost every major boss drops one (there are a lot of bosses). There are a lot of swords in this game too, and it feels great to swing them, to hear steel clash like colliding icebergs. There are also twinned daggers that attack on their own, gauntlets that pulverize the very air, great swords that trade your health for damage, chained axes that would be the envy of Kratos, and literal instruments whose plucked strings send searing arcs of energy tearing through enemies. Swords extend, spirits surround you, bludgeons spin like food processors (dude processors, if you will), and fire roars at your request.

Now for the best part. You're perfectly capable of using all of these weapons all the time. Elden Ring is full of unique dispensers of death, but its weapon upgrade system is so laborious that you're often stuck with a handful of weapons until you get very late in the game and materials become buyable. Even then, you can only max out a few weapons each playthrough. The question is not, "Do I like this new sword more?" Instead, you wonder, "Can I upgrade this to the same level as ol' reliable?" Don't take me to a buffet and then give me a plate the size of my fist. I wanna pig out! I wanna try it all, and Phantom Blade Zero lets me.

When you upgrade a weapon in Phantom Blade Zero, you dump materials into it to boost its attack power and unlock additional bonuses and attacks. One-handed, two-handed, and dual-wielded weapons have their own upgrade materials, as do different archetypes of sub-weapons. This encourages you to use, say, a one-handed sword and a dual weapon so that you can upgrade them both maximally, whereas two different one-handed swords would compete for materials.

If you ever want to change weapons, you can just downgrade your current one to refund all the stones and XP that went into it. It's so easy. It doesn't cost anything until you hit level 10, and even then it only requires a coupon I've found dozens of. It's such a simple and elegant system. Finding upgrade materials doesn't enhance one weapon – it increases the effective level of all your weapons.

It's hard to overstate how much this one change improves the flow of a playthrough. Every new boss weapon is exciting because I know I can immediately use it. There are no stats or stones to hold me back. I change weapons all the time in Phantom Blade Zero – not because I get bored, but because I want everything.

The best games of 2026 so far, with plenty still to come.

The Phantom Blade Zero 'Whence The Weeping' quest is one of the first you'll pick up as Soul can hear a woman crying in the Weeping Creek Valley with no clear source, but there's not much to be done at first. This is a long-term quest that doesn't really require you to do anything specific for many hours – just following the main story will suffice. That means there's not much to explain but if you want to know when you need to be paying attention to 'Whence The Weeping' and how to complete it, here's what you need to do.

I've kept things vague but be aware of mild spoilers below!

Phantom Blade Zero Whence the Weeping walkthrough

As mentioned, the 'Whence the Weeping' quest in Phantom Blade Zero mostly leaves you to your own devices throughout the early stages of the game. That means you don't have to really do anything but be patient until about halfway through:

1. After first hearing the weeping in the Weeping Creek Valley and beginning the 'Whence The Weeping' quest, you must "find the source" of the weeping, though there is no source to find here. Just press on through the creek to reach the Crimson Forest.
2. Follow the main quest through the Crimson Forest and you'll pick up more details about the weeping, eventually leading you to the final boss of the area. Beat them to reach the next region, the Village of Lu.
3. Carry on and you'll meet Jewel in the Village of Lu region. Exhaust all her dialogue options, particularly the one about 'faint weeping', to learn about the Illusory Pipa and the Chord, who seems to be the source of the weeping and is likely in the northern mountains.
4. Reach the Pangzhen region and meet Myst, then beat the final boss of Pangzhen to unlock a way into the Meigu Lake region.
5. Find all three pieces of the Illusory Pipa and visit Myst to repair it.
6. Head to the barrier in Meigu Lake and use the pipa to bring it down, then enter the now accessible region beyond.
7. Defeat the final boss of this region to finally complete the quest.

Weeping Creek Valley has plenty of other quests and things to find like the Phantom Blade Zero cell key and the Phantom Blade Zero Flesh Lily.

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Phantom Blade Zero is finally out, and has already gotten off to a massive start as one of the most-played Steam games of the year as far as concurrent players are concerned.

S-Game's long-awaited action RPG has already landed a Metacritic score that places it as one of the top games of 2026, with the game also up for Ultimate Game of the Year at The Golden Joystick Awards 2026. On top of that, Alinea Analytics predicted that Phantom Blade Zero had already sold over one million copies across PC and PS5 before it had even launched, positioning it for a huge release day. And, as one of the last major releases before the GTA 6 tidal wave arrives, it's looking like it's already hit big.

Over on Steam, at the time of writing (via SteamDB), Phantom Blade Zero has peaked at 595,711 concurrent players today as it launched around 10 hours ago. This is a number that has gone up multiple times during the process of writing this, but at the very least, well over half a million players have booted up S-Game's Wuxia action game.

This number places it behind only Palworld 1.0 as the biggest launch of 2026 so far. But perhaps more impressively, it's already in the top 20 biggest games ever on Steam as far as concurrent player peaks go, beating out the likes of Hollow Knight: Silksong, Slay the Spire 2, and Terraria.

And from covering Steam peaks over the years, typically the way things go is that a game will hit its biggest ever peak on the Sunday after it releases, so there's still a chance for Phantom Blade Zero to become one of the biggest Steam releases of all-time – well, even more so than it already is.

If you're one of the over 500k players hopping in today, check out our Phantom Blade Zero tips and guides on how to find the cell key, Flesh Lily, and all the answers for the Gentle Thief's questions.

Monster Hunter Outlanders codes will get you well prepared for the journey ahead by helping you stock up on various supplies to aid you while crafting and hunting. There's a lot to discover as you explore the island of Aesoland, as you study the Radiant species found there and protect the villagers from the monsters attacking their homes. To get you up and running, these are the current redemption codes for Monster Hunter Outlanders and how to claim them.

All Monster Hunter Outlanders codes

The following Monster Hunter Outlanders codes can be redeemed:

• famitsumho2026 – 2,000 Zenny, 3 Energy Drinks, 3 Mega Potions, 3 Antidotes [only on North America, Europe, and Japan servers]
• mho1029 – 20,000 Zenny, 200 Rutacoins
• mhogohunt – 3 Mega Potions, 3 Antidotes, 3 Energy Drinks, 2,000 Zenny, 5 Verdant Dew

There are currently a few redemption codes for Monster Hunter Outlanders available, with a decent variety of rewards up for grabs if you claim them. So far each of them has included an amount of Zenny currency, and you generally get a mixture of Mega Potions, Energy Drinks, and Antidotes to keep your inventory stocked up.

How to redeem Monster Hunter Outlanders codes

To redeem codes in Monster Hunter Outlanders you need to reach Adventure Rank 5 to unlock Events, so work your way through the initial quests until you hit the required level. Once you've done that, an icon will be available at the top of the screen to access the Event Center, so hit that and then pick the announcement option from there. Select CDKey Redemption, then enter a promo in the text box before using the Confirm button to claim your rewards via the in-game mailbox.

Expired Monster Hunter Outlanders codes

• No expired codes

There are currently no expired Monster Hunter Outlanders codes, though the game has only just launched so this is to be expected. Often promos tied to release don't stick around for too long, so make sure you get to Adventure Rank 5 quickly and redeem the active codes to avoid missing out on anything.

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These Phantom Blade Zero tips will give you a helping hand if you've just started the wuxia adventure through the Wulin, as there's a lot to learn and master. As a fast-paced action game with all sorts of weapons to wield, you need to learn how to use them all effectively, be that through deft parrying and weapon switching and just knowing how best to upgrade them and sort your build. And then there's plenty to do in each region of the game too, from pages to collect and quests to complete. With that all that in mind, here are 12 Phantom Blade Zero tips for new players just getting into it.

1. Learn how to parry

Parrying is an essential mechanic in Phantom Blade Zero, so my number one tip is to learn how it works as soon as possible – it's the same in most other games in that you want to press the button (L1 on PS5) just before an enemy attack hits you. Thankfully, it's pretty forgiving, with most enemy attacks having plenty of parry-able frames and most of Soul's attacks and combos being easily interrupted to parry. Just don't try and parry red-flash attacks as these can only be dodged!

When bosses use long attack combos, blocking by holding the button instead will do you just fine. But a perfect parry against a blue-flash attack deals substantial Guard Break damage, massively draining an adversary's Sha-Chi to stagger them faster. Nailing parries makes boss fights much easier!

2. Interact with everything in sight

Phantom Blade Zero features all sorts of collectibles and interactables around the world, from things like book pages to gather and bloody writing on walls to read. It's worth engaging with all of these as you're rewarded with Remnant Dust (the game's main currency) for doing so. Admittedly, not loads of the stuff, but it all adds up, helping you afford crucial weapon upgrades or work towards new Abilities.

3. Explore each area thoroughly before moving onto the next one

While you can freely travel between regions using Bells, I found that it's best to ensure you've done as much as possible before leaving a region. Try and find things like keys before heading off as they're usually not too far from the thing they unlock, such as the Phantom Blade Zero cell key. There are also quests you can fail by leaving them too long, such as the 'A Healer's Mercy' quest in the Crimson Forest, which will lock you out of getting a reward.

4. Don't spend loads of Remnant Dust on upgrade materials

By rinsing each area as I went, I also found that I had plenty of upgrade materials for my weapons and Phantom Edges. That also meant I rarely felt compelled to buy materials from the shop while resting at a Bell and I recommend similarly restraining yourself so that you don't waste your Remnant Dust. And it's not like selling materials is especially lucrative either, so save your materials for when you need them and keep your Remnant Dust for other upgrades.

5. Be prepared to backtrack

While I strongly recommend mopping up quests and investigating secrets as you go, you also need to recognize that there are lots of things you just won't be able to do until you come back several hours later. Conveniently, many of these things are marked on the map with a red icon that turns green when you have the thing you need. As an example, very early on you'll find obstacles that can only be dealt with using a specific Phantom Edge that you won't get for another few hours after a boss fight (and this happens a lot throughout the game), and there's also an optional puppet boss found in a rift that is extremely difficult to fight, so you'll need to come back later when you're stronger.

Furthermore, lots of quests in Phantom Blade Zero follow a Dark Souls/Elden Ring format in that you do a few objectives and then then the quest will effectively go cold and continue elsewhere, such as the Phantom Blade Zero Flesh Lily quest. This is often in an entirely different region, so some side quests are long term adventures that you complete alongside the main quest.

6. Switch weapons in combat often to keep your Sha-Chi up

Phantom Blade Zero teaches you this very early but I need to reinforce how important it is. Quickly tapping the button (D-Pad Left on PS5) to switch to your other equipped weapon will instantly refill your Sha-Chi, potentially saving you from a Guard Break after facing an onslaught of enemy attacks or letting you keep up a relentless combo of Sha-Chi attacks of your own. Importantly, there is a cooldown timer for switching – a very short one when you switch once but then a much longer one if you switch again – but you can reduce it with certain Abilities.

To keep your Sha-Chi up, you also need to avoid boss attacks that can instantly drain all your Sha-Chi. Rather than being telegraphed with a blue or red flash, your screen will turn black and white very briefly instead, indicating that you need to dodge out the way. Getting hit, by one of these leaves you highly vulnerable to fatal follow-up attacks.

7. And you should change your weapons outside of combat too

Phantom Blade Zero gives you new weapons, whether they're regular armaments or special Phantom Edges, at a fairly regular pace and most of them steadily improve upon ones you already have. It's therefore a good idea to be adjusting your build often, using the best weapons you have available to you and then choosing appropriate Accessories top round things out.

This also encourages you experiment with all the weapons you get to find what you like. It might be that you find a new favorite or really don't get on with a particular weapon, even if it has slightly better stats compared to what you were using before. In which case, there's no real harm in using what you know and upgrading it until you find something you definitely prefer.

8. Upgrade only the weapons you're currently using

Speaking of upgrades, Phantom Blade Zero has a slightly complicated but very convenient weapon upgrade system in that you can revert any weapon back to level 1 at any time, refunding all spent upgrade materials. And you should revert every weapon back to level 1 when you stop using it to ensure you're not wasting upgrade materials on useless gear. This means you can maximize the power of your current weapons, and you'll often be left with plenty of spare Remnant Dust that you can spend on Soul's Abilities or shop items instead.

9. Ensure your build is made to exploit boss weaknesses

If a boss keeps killing you, spending some time adjusting your build at a nearby bell before rushing back in, especially if they have obvious unique mechanics or weaknesses that can be exploited. For example, if a boss has a blue shield bar over their Sha-Chi bar, you should increase your shield-breaking power – I recommend wearing the Shieldbreaker Talisman and using the Dread Axe Phantom Edge. Similarly, fleshy enemies can also suffer bleed damage, so you might want to use the Jagged Steel sword to exploit that, but puppets and other foes will be immune to this effect.

Generally, you should be thoroughly reading about what each weapon does, as each one has its own special attacks and tricks, with more to unlock as they level up. Combining these appropriately is how you'll get the most damage out any weapon, so it pays to know how they work and the sorts of enemies they're best for.

10. The Wooden Sanguine sword is pretty good

It sounds absurd that a wooden sword could be so good in Phantom Blade Zero but with the best Guard Break power in the early-game, it's well worth using Wooden Sanguine, particularly against bosses. When a boss goes on the offensive, draw the wooden sword and parry as best as you can to deal high damage to their Sha-Chi bar for an easy stagger. At this point, switch to your other weapon and go nuts until the boss's Sha-Chi bar regenerates.

In general, I strongly recommend aiming to maximize your Guard-Breaking power and anything that reduces enemy Sha-Chi for boss fights, and this sword is another tool in your arsenal you can use to help with this. Once an enemy's guard is broken, you can unleash a high-damage Power Surge (L2 on PS5), assuming you have a Sha-Chi Essence to spend.

11. Get Boundless Capacity as soon as you can

It's the second Ability in the top row and costs 10,000 Remnant Dust. Unlocking it gives you a third accessory slot, which is well worth getting as early as possible as Accessories can provide some potent buffs for Soul. Having as many as possible is never a bad thing. There are even more Boundless Capacity upgrades to get across the Ability tree in Phantom Blade Zero too, maxing out at six accessory slots.

12. A stealth approach can be very efficient

The stealth system in Phantom Blade Zero isn't especially deep which means it's sometimes easy to forget it even exists like I did, but it's well worth exploiting to make combat encounters easier. Approach an enemy from behind without them moving to attack and you can perform a high-damage assassination which often results in an instant kill on weaker foes. Best of all, if there are multiple enemies close together, a quick-time event will pop up, letting you chain your assassination to thin the crowd. So, spending a little time sneaking can make fights much quicker and easier overall.

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Finding a Phantom Blade Zero Flesh Lily is one of the first tasks you'll get in the game if you speak to Yu'er out in the Weeping Creek Valley. She says she needs one to make a medicine that can help her sick father but has had no luck – naturally, that's where you come in. The problem is that there is only one Flesh Lily in this region, you can't get it for at least another couple more hours of playing, and it requires you to defeat a boss first. If you're dead set on finding this Flesh Lily in Phantom Blade Zero to help Yu'er, here's where you need to look.

Phantom Blade Zero Flesh Lily location

You can find a Flesh Lily in the boss fight arena for Hua, Deadly Betrothed. This boss is found near the Valley Sha-Chi Tower, which is towards the end of the Weeping Creek Valley region – you'll reach the tower just by progressing the story, but Hua is not found on the main path.

To get to Hua, Deadly Betrothed, start at the Valley Sha-Chi Tower 1st Floor Bell and run to the opposite side of the tower, bearing right. You'll come across a large hole in the floor with a wooden slide. Ride the slide down and, once you've killed all the enemies at the bottom, take the path covered in red flowers and candles to your left.

To get the Flesh Lily you must defeat Hua first (unfortunately, you can't just grab the lily and dip) which is quite a tricky early-game boss fight. My advice is to avoid the red flowers as much as possible and use this as an opportunity to practise parrying and dodging, particularly to avoid her brutal grab attack.

Once Hua is defeated, grab the Twin Flesh Lilies blooming from the corpse in front of her dresser and then use the nearby Flesh Lily Fields Bell to fast travel back to the Outpost Bell. Speak to nearby Yu'er and hand over the Flesh Lilies. Since she needs only one, she'll insist you keep the other. There are no other rewards for helping Yu'er at this stage, but there's more to the Flesh Lily quest that comes much later in the game.

You should also look out for the Phantom Blade Zero cell key while exploring. Why not also read my Phantom Blade Zero tips to help you at this early stage of the game.

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The Phantom Blade Zero Gentle Thief's questions will be practically unanswerable to you unless you paid close attention to a note penned by the Nimble Thief. Since the Gentle Thief can't read, it's your job to prove to him that you saw the Nimble Thief in his dying moments (if you have the note, it actually means you were the one who killed him) by correctly answering three questions about his life for the Honor Among Thieves quest. So, here's how you answer these questions three in Phantom Blade Zero.

All Phantom Blade Zero Gentle Thief questions and answers

All the answers to the Gentle Thief's questions in Phantom Blade Zero can be found in the 'Blood Letter from the Nimble Thief' page in the Wulin Tales book, which you should have as the Honor Among Thieves won't begin without you getting it by killing the Nimble Thief near the Outlaw Trap bell. But I've laid them all out here so that you don't have to go looking – and if you get any wrong, you can just try again by speaking to the Gentle Thief:

1. "What did he do at thirteen that he never stopped bragging about?": Stole a landowner's jade belt.
2. "The hairpin that doomed him for life. Do you know what its head looked like?": Butterfly.
3. "Do you know what became of that poor family's child?": The letter never said. His fate is unknown.

Get all three of these correct and the Gentle Thief will be satisfied that you are being honest and that the letter from the Nimble Thief is in fact real. In return, the Gentle Thief will give you the Silent Wrap Accessory, which reduces noise from footsteps and assassinations by 40%.

While stealth isn't all that important in this game, I did mention in my Phantom Blade Zero tips that stealth can be useful for efficiently bringing down groups of enemies, so this is ideal if you want to lean into that playstyle.

If you still need to clear up some quests in the Weeping Creek Valley, make sure you find the Phantom Blade Zero cell key and the Phantom Blade Zero Flesh Lily.

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The Phantom Blade Zero cell key is the first key you can find in the game, letting you unlock a jail cell just outside the Weeping Creek Valley outpost. If you're being thorough in your exploration, you should find it reasonably easily but it's very easy to miss if you’re just focused on the main quest. And while the reward inside the cell isn't especially exciting, it's nevertheless useful and is worth backtracking for. So, here's how you get the cell key in Phantom Blade Zero.

Phantom Blade Zero Cell Key location

To get the cell key, head through the outpost, passing Forge and the Outpost Bell, until you go through a wooden doorway at the top of some steps and find a glowing red shrine.

From just before the shrine, follow the path to the right that goes uphill and you'll reach a wooden shack. Head inside the main room of the shack, then head right, climb through the window, and go up the stairs. You'll find the cell key on the ground next to a dead guy.

Now head back to the cell outside the outpost and interact with the door. Soul will automatically use the key, letting you grab a Blackstone Fragment within. Unfortunately, that's all there is to get and this fragment doesn't do anything on its own as you need a total of four fragments to create a full Blackstone. However, doing so permanently increases your Attack and Guard Break by 10%, so gathering these fragments is well worth it!

While you're in the Weeping Creek Valley, look out for the Phantom Blade Zero Flesh Lily quest too, and make sure you check out my Phantom Blade Zero tips!

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While it might feel like Phantom Blade Zero and developer S-Game sprang up out of nowhere, the new action game's legacy stretches back decades – all the way to an indie game built in RPG Maker as a hobby. We haven't even hit the Phantom Blade Zero release time and analysts suspect that it's already sailed past 1 million copies sold, so it's safe to say this is a major glow-up.

"Twenty years ago, while I was still a student, I completed my first indie game, Rainblood: Town of Death," creative director and S-Games CEO "Soulframe" Liang says in a message to fans ahead of Phantom Blade Zero's launch. "It was a hobby project made with RPG Maker. With the limited skills I had at the time, I built the fantasy world I had imagined: the Phantom World, rooted in traditional Chinese wuxia but infused with elements such as body modification, parallel world, and more."

Liang has previously described Phantom Blade Zero as a "spiritual rebirth" of Rainblood, and it's easy to see the parallels, even if the scope of the new game is absolutely massive. The original Rainblood: Town of Death – which is still available for $7 on GamersGate – is far more impressive than the typical RPG Maker game, with a unique art style that has the vibe of a long-lost anime.

"Back then, I had no idea where my life or career would lead," Liang continues. "Making games had simply been a source of comfort while I studied abroad, but before I knew it, it had become one of the most important parts of my life."

Rainblood eventually spawned a franchise with some 20 million fans, though many of the games have never been released outside of China. Phantom Blade Zero is taking the center of a far more global stage, and it seems S-Games is going all in on this specific title.

Liang says the team canceled its other projects and "kept expanding the scale of production" for Phantom Blade Zero. "Making games is not always a rational pursuit," he admits. "Sometimes, it is passion and a little madness that give a game its richest flavor."

It seems like the dedication is going to pay off. Our Phantom Blade Zero review calls it "a GOTY contender with combat that looks as good as it feels," and the early Metacritic score puts it as one of the top action games of 2026 – a year which, I've gotta note, is filled with incredible entries in that genre.

Not a bad outcome from such humble beginnings. "Its roots lie in the indie game I created during my student years, at a time of hardship and uncertainty," Liang concludes. "But it also holds everything we have been able to give."

These are the best ARPGs you can play today.

Phantom Blade Zero has likely sold over one million pre-release copies, according to estimates from the market research firm Alinea Analytics.

The Wuxia action RPG Phantom Blade Zero is set to release in under 24 hours, and with one of the best Metacritic scores of the year – including a four-and-a-half stars out of five in our Phantom Blade Zero review – it's shaping up to be a big release that most will want to pick up before GTA 6 takes over the world in a few weeks' time. Although you'll want to make sure you have the hard drive space since the developers suggest having 300GB free for the install process.

Rhys Elliott – head of market analysis at Alinea Analytics – posted a newsletter with sales details ahead of the RPG's release tomorrow. According to their estimates, Phantom Blade Zero has already sold 850,000 copies across Steam and PS5 – with 80,000 being sold after the review embargo lifted earlier this week. On top of that, Elliott notes that "A significant number of Phantom Blade Zero copies" will have been sold on Tencent and WeGame, so "It’ll be WELL past 1M at this point."

Phantom Blade Zero is developed by Chinese dev S-Game, and it has seemingly done very well in its home country – much like the support Chinese gamers gave to Black Myth: Wukong in 2024. Elliott also notes that 62.5% of copies sold so far have been in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, accounting for 75.9% of Steam sales and 24.9% of PlayStation sales.

However, Elliott insists, "It won't hit the highs of Black Myth's insane sales, but it'll sell a lot of copies this year in a crowded market." Earlier this year, reports emerged that Black Myth: Wukong has sold over 30 million copies since its launch in 2024, making it one of the 50 best-selling games of all time. On top of that, it picked up Ultimate Game of the Year at the Golden Joystick Awards 2024, and nabbed Game of the Year nominations at The Game Awards, D.I.C.E Awards and GDC Awards.

The Golden Joystick Awards 2026 are open, with Phantom Blade Zero as one of the nominees, so vote for your own Ultimate Game of the Year now.

The Phantom Blade Zero release time is imminent, with the game coming out on October 29 in most parts of the world with a global simultaneous release. But that means you need to be aware of when it'll be available in your region as, for example, you might be staying up very late if you want to play at launch in Europe or waiting to play this evening if you're in the US. It's quite confusing, so I've explained everything you need to know about the launch times for Phantom Blade Zero below, as well as some pre-loading details.

Phantom Blade Zero release date, time, and platforms

Phantom Blade Zero launches on PS5 and PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store at 10AM Beijing Time on October 29. That works out as the following times around the world:

• US Pacific: 7PM PDT on October 28
• US Eastern: 10PM EDT on October 28
• UK: 2AM GMT on October 29
• Europe: 3AM CET on October 29
• Eastern Australia: 1PM AEDT on October 29
• New Zealand: 3PM NZDT on October 29

It's also worth mentioning that pre-loading for Phantom Blade Zero is available now on all platforms, letting you get the game ready on your PC or PS5 ahead of launch if you've pre-ordered. I highly recommend that you pre-install the game too as it's massive – the devs recommend 300GB of disk space on PC as Phantom Blade Zero is about 150GB. I've been playing on PS5 already and it's around the 130GB mark there, so get some space cleared in the meantime. And just in case you're holding out for a Phantom Blade Zero PS5 physical copy – a dying breed – developer S-Game announced there will be a physical release in 2027.

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Kingdom Come: Deliverance developer Warhorse Studios has been hit with a cyberattack, the studio confirms, with both company systems and data accessed.

Warhorse acknowledges the cyberattack in a statement posted on its website, noting that measures are already underway to investigate and secure its systems.

"Warhorse Studios confirms that it has been the target of a cyberattack," the statement begins. "We are working with cybersecurity experts to secure our systems, investigate the incident, and assess its full impact. The attack involved unauthorized access to company systems as well as access to company data. We are coordinating with the relevant authorities as the investigation continues."

Warhorse CEO Martin Frývaldský has also responded to the situation. "This is a serious incident for Warhorse Studios and everyone affected," he says. "Our immediate priority is to secure our systems, establish the full extent of the breach, and take the necessary steps to protect our employees, partners, and community. We are dedicating the resources needed to address this situation and will communicate further information as soon as we responsibly can."

Right now, Warhorse hasn't stated whether any information – be it about its employees or the projects it's working on – has been leaked online, but the statement acknowledging that company data was accessed suggests there's a strong possibility it has.

Sadly, we've seen this happen before with other studios. The infamous Rockstar Games hack of 2022 saw the first wave of GTA 6 leaks shared online, and 2023's Insomniac Games cyberattack saw not only employees' personal data stolen but also early, leaked gameplay from Marvel's Wolverine posted.

Earlier this year, it was confirmed that Warhorse is working on both a new Kingdom Come game and an open-world Lord of the Rings RPG. The former could be launching as early as April 2027, according to Embracer Group CEO Phil Rogers, with the company hoping to launch it some time between then and March 2028.

Updated Phantom Blade Zero PC system requirements affirm a 145GB install size, which is about on par with today's storage hogs (derogatory). The truly scary part is the 300GB that developer S-Game reserves for pre-loading and installing the dang thing.

In a recent Twitter post, S-Game shared Phantom Blade Zero's final PC specs along with a few scary words of advice – update your GPU drivers, install the game on an SSD, and so on. But then the hammer falls: "The game is approximately 145 GB. Please reserve at least 300 GB of free disk space for the pre-load process."

Even accounting for compression and install hurdles, 300GB is a terrifying volume of storage for a studio to recommend. The good news is that the other system requirements are pretty tame – 16GB of RAM, an Intel i5-10600k or AMD Ryzen 5 5600X, and an Nvidia 3060 or equivalent are recommended for 1440p – and Phantom Blade Zero is worth a significant portion of your drive.

Our Phantom Blade Zero review calls this kung fu epic "a GOTY contender with combat that looks as good as it feels." We're in good company: Phantom Blade Zero's Metacritic score puts it ahead of Capcom's Onimusha: Way of the Sword and Koei Tecmo's Nioh 3, which are both fabulous new action games in their own right. Like many others, we reviewed the PC version of the game, so we can also confirm that it goes in the coveted 'good PC port' jar.

I was spared the review grind, so I'm only about 12 hours into Phantom Blade Zero myself, but I can already tell that it's going to rank highly on my own Game of the Year list. All of those hours were logged this weekend (on PS5, where it also runs well), and I was reluctant to put the game down come Sunday night. I was able to sample Phantom Blade Zero multiple times thanks to demo and developer interview appointments leading up to release, and I always had a good feeling about it. It's a relief that the full game is as good as I'd hoped, even if it does demand a harrowing percentage of your SSD.

The Golden Joystick Awards 2026 are open, so vote for your own Ultimate Game of the Year now.

The best games of 2026, so far.

Wuxia action RPG Phantom Blade Zero's Metacritic score has the game looking likely to be one worth adding to your backlog's ever-growing list of 2026 bangers.

I don't know if anyone has noticed, but there's been a lot of good games this year. And while the early months were filled with some pretty substantial hits like Mewgenics, Resident Evil Requiem, Pragmata, and Pokemon Pokopia, the last couple of months have been non-stop thanks to the impending GTA 6 launch leading developers to drop everything as soon as possible.

Onimusha: Way of the Sword, Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave, Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve, and Star Wars: Galactic Racer all dropped within a month of each other; and I'm both happy and sad to announce it looks like another banger has dropped into the backlog.

Phantom Blade Zero's Metacritic score has debuted at 88, which places it at 21 in the overall top games of 2026 list – although that top 20 is also filled with Switch 2 ports like Elden Ring, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, and the Resident Evil Remake trilogy, as well as some DLC, so in reality it's closer to 13th. Meanwhile on OpenCritic, the game sits at a 91, tying it with Forza Horizon 6 and Mina the Hollower as the second-highest rated game of the year behind Trails in the Sky 2nd Chapter remake.

This score also has it beat out Nioh 3 (86) and Onimusha: Way of the Sword (85), making it the top dog of sword fighting this year – at least as far as review scores go, it'll have to be something special to beat Onimusha in my eyes.

In the GamesRadar+ Phantom Blade Zero review, freelance writer Luke Kemp gives the game four-and-a-half stars out of five, saying, "With fights that feel great and flow smoothly, Phantom Blade Zero proves itself as one of the best action-adventures of the year." Elsewhere the game received full marks from the likes of TheGamer, But Why Tho, and PCGamesN, with only two reviews being dubbed "Mixed" by Metacritic's standards.

PlayStation killing discs is bad for everyone, whether you care about physical games or not.

Phantom Blade Zero is not a Soulslike. This needs to be the first thing that I tell you, because you need to wipe away any such preconceptions in order to fully appreciate what it is (and is not) doing. The intricate combat and hostile land come instead from wuxia storytelling traditions, and a supernatural martial arts world that can be traced back to the director's first game Rainblood: Town of Death. While "very, very good" is not a genre, it's certainly an accurate description of this game.

Following the events of a prologue I'm not allowed to tell you about, our hero Soul is left with just 66 days to live. This doesn't mean a Dead Rising style time limit – in-game time only passes after specific story beats – but it does mean that anybody feeling particularly brave can opt for a hardcore difficulty that wipes your progress after 66 deaths. That could potentially mean losing dozens of hours of play, so if you opt for that, consider yourself warned.

Developer S-Game is keen to celebrate what it calls a "kungfupunk" aesthetic. It's an appropriate turn of phrase. As I explore the Phantom Realm, meeting new people and chopping them up, I find characters and locations that subtly fuse nature, supernatural horror, Chinese history and mythology, and a hint of the modern world. I fight faceless warriors wielding blades, phantoms playing pipas, deformed monstrosities that could never be mistaken for human, and much more. All this across locations including cliffs, a lake, fields, villages, caverns, and a lavish estate.

Phantom Hiddelston

Combat is at the heart of it all. And what combat! Every time I start a fight – which happens a lot – it's with a smile on my face. Every clash is a deadly dance between my opponent and I, and we both look like masters of the craft. Together, we weave graceful tapestries of blocks, swing, parries, lunges, dodges, and violently flamboyant strikes. Avoid button-bashing (which will usually see you punished anyway), and Phantom Blade Zero offers that rarest of things; combat that looks as good as it feels.

Visually, the combat owes much to S-Game's commitment to motion capture, including a number of martial artists. Hong Kong movie legend Donnie Yen (who you may know from the Ip Man series, or as Caine in John Wick: Chapter 4) is credited as Creative Consultant, and he even took part in some motion capture himself. It's not all relentless flailing, either, as enemies (particularly some of the tougher bosses) will sometimes size you up or wait for you to approach before striking.

Scraping away the impressive visual flourishes, I still manage to find one of the best combat systems I've come across in a long time. From the first few fights right up until the final boss, I sometimes catch myself thinking this just works so damn well. Yes there are parries, yes there are unblockable red-flash attacks, and yes weapons are upgradeable; but it doesn't quite feel like anything else in the best possible way. I block a series of attacks from a boss, yet can still get in a few hits of my own before they're finished. Failing a parry or a dodge, I'm punished ruthlessly. Next time, I just… stay out of range, then dive in with fists full of vengeance. Too often in other games, that's not even an option.

Then there are the weapons themselves, another stroke of genius. There are a total of 30 regular ones, most of which are entirely missable in the expansive world. Each and every one has some kind of unique trait, and gains even more as they level up (you equip two weapons at a time, switching between them instantly refilling the Sha-Chi depleted by blocking and strong attacks). An early one I stick with for over a dozen hours builds up bleed status in human enemies, while another comes with a jug of booze to induce Tipsy and Drunk states (don't drink and dice, kids). Some excel at breaking through shields, others can counter enemy attacks, and not a single one is a match for any other.

Then there are the many Phantom Edges to find and use, limited-use weapons that might do anything from strike enemies from a distance to temporarily summon minions to your side. A small number feed into the light brush of Metroidvania to the experience, in that they can (without cost) be used to traverse or open up new routes in the world. On rare occasions this will be compulsory to advance the story, but usually, it simply allows me to sate my curiosity for a previously inaccessible area.

Finding where to use my new blocker-cracking goodies is nice and simple, as relevant areas are marked on the map automatically; and turn a pleasant shade of green when you have the corresponding Phantom Edge. In fact, despite the often challenging combat, Phantom Blade Zero does a lot to smooth your progress. Save/respawn points are (usually) placed very generously, medicines are refilled each time you come back to life, and – this is a biggie, and may prove a point of contention for some – enemies almost never respawn. Like I said, it's important to remember that this isn't a Soulslike.

Although Phantom Blade Zero has a huge map with multiple regions, it doesn't quite feel right to call it open world. For one thing, it's tightly designed and tightly paced, with almost no wasted space. Whenever I uncover a new area or decide to wander off the obvious path, there's always something to find (usually including something, or several somethings, that want me dead).

The main story drives me forward, with no doing laps of the same area or regular backtracking to well-worn paths. Nonetheless, I find exploring irresistible, and make a habit of wandering down routes that lead away from my next objective. I'm regularly rewarded for doing so. There's some traditional "collect four X to increase your Y", and in addition to this, the more I explore the more weapon upgrade materials I find. I stumble on many hidden bosses this way, too, laying my hands on powerful weapons I would have otherwise missed. Curiosity is, quite literally, good for my Soul.

I find the combat fantastic, exploration compelling, and the storytelling… inconsistent. There's quite a lot of it. There's in-game dialogue, traditional cutscenes, and a few more experimental approaches that I heartily applaud. There are also seemingly hundreds of notes scattered about all over the place, which I'm less a fan of. I'm usually happy to read in-game text, but there are far too many bits and pieces here, especially for an action game. I quickly adopt a habit of picking them up and then instantly exiting the text screen.

Bloke Zero

The worst offenders, for me, are the Memory Flowers. These contain some of the most crucial story details and are, in addition, tied into HP increases and unlocking some of the more powerful character skills. Whenever I Interact with one, Soul stands perfectly still, staring down at a blue flower while voices play in his head for a few minutes. I have the option of skipping through lines at least, but I stubbornly refuse. Doesn't that kind of defeat the point?

The storytelling ranges from the great to the weak, and while it's mostly pretty straightforward, some of it goes over my head a bit. It's more of a minor annoyance than anything else though, and so it says something that this is my greatest criticism of the game. I do run into a few bugs – two boss fights see me getting stuck on the scenery, resulting in me taking unavoidable damage which makes me say very naughty words – but these are relatively small ones that can and, hopefully, will be patched out on or shortly after launch.

After 30-35 hours, I reach the final boss and – eventually – emerge victorious. Of course I do. Look at how much I've buffed up Soul and his weapons! After all that time, and a great deal of chasing down sidequests and digging out secrets, I am rewarded with what is very definitively the Bad Ending. It's abrupt, and unsatisfying on a few different levels. Nonetheless, I'm surprised to find that I'm not too bothered. There's so much of the map I have yet to explore – including an entire region – I immediately dive back in, eager to see what I'll find next.

One of the things I find is that some secret bosses crucial to the True Ending represent a stratospheric difficulty increase. I'm not quite sure how I feel about this. I was doing so well up until then! But in the end, I decide I'm OK with it. After all, there's so much still to see and do, and I can't wait to see and do it.

Phantom Blade Zero was reviewed on PC, with a code provided by the publisher.

Vorp! With a simple sci-fi sound effect, BioWare tore apart the gleaming hull of the Normandy SR-1, scattered a great deal of what came before to the void, and split its burgeoning action-RPG series clean in two. Save files from 2007's Mass Effect might have brought with them an XP bonus or credit dump as well as the player's established continuity, but rarely before or since has the reset button been pressed so swiftly, or so heart-wrenchingly.

It was exactly what the series needed. One-time Xbox 360 exclusive Mass Effect had been a bright spot of promise for the console, buffed to a lens-flare-spilling sheen by being billed as a franchise that would move beyond binary morality and deliver a meaningful, ongoing space opera – one that wasn't Star Wars for a change. (Many studios now promise episodic gaming, but BioWare was crafting series-spanning narrative arcs long before that buzz-phrase was coined.) The opening part of the trilogy was certainly grandiose and epic in scope, yet somehow austere, a feeling compounded by a glut of anodyne shootouts and awkward driving filling the time away from its much-admired conversation wheel. It wasn't Star Wars, but nor had it found an identity among all its copious lore. As a concept piece, a pilot, it was tantalising enough, but more of the same would not do, especially when the world was then drowning in third-person cover shooters thanks to 2006's punchy, hyperviolent Gears of War.

Oh the horrors

And so millions watched the SR-1's malady in horror, took brief control of malleable returning protagonist Commander Shepard for a spot of eye-searingly beautiful Dead Space homage heroism, and then shaped a 4-billion-credit rebirth. This wasn't just a sequel, it was a reinvention, and BioWare made sure everyone knew it.

Even if the point hadn't been hammered home, returning players would have noticed from Shepard's first woozy steps across a Cerberus lab. The Commander, once stately and tank-like under the sticks, now moved with a fluidity uncommon in the recently deceased, sliding into cover across Teflon floors on Vaseline-smothered boots. Even your starting pistol could dominate early combat spaces with a snap, crackle, and mechhead pop that flash-vaporised expectations of another 20-plus hours of drab, feedbacklight gunplay.

But the real revelation would come when you fired up the power wheel for the first time and unleashed one of the new biotic or tech abilities. Mass Effect's array of buffs, debuffs, and crowd-control powers had hewed close to BioWare's RPG roots, though yoinking enemies out of cover and into the path of a sniper rifle was quite the trick in 2007. The sight of Shepard dashing across no man's land in a haze of roiling blue fire to explode into the enemy and shove a shotgun up their nostrils, however, promised a very different kind of combat interstitial between conversations. If Mass Effect games were Luc Besson movies, the original had been Lucy, all big ideas but little convincing peril, and 2 was The Fifth Element: an intergalactic excuse for daft, glorious carnage.

Daft, not stupid. Players didn't even have to wait for the introduction of creepy new Reaper lackeys, the Collectors, before they started having to manage enemy damage, with a separate bar each for tracking shields, barriers, armour and health. Of all the combat system's renovations, this was perhaps the most crucial, a gentle subversion of the RPG's long-in-the-tooth type-based attacks that meant the series could jettison the notion of a tough fight as one where health bars are hidden behind multiple blocks of blue shield and bullet-sponge powers. Mass Effect 2 wouldn't ask you to face ice monsters that were weak to fire, but shields did melt away under the sustained pressure of an SMG, while biotic power Reave stopped health regenerating so you could put down tough organics such as the Krogan or nightmare-imp newcomers, the Vorcha. And you'd have to control space as well as damage output, since enemies were as aggressive as you, flanking, setting up kill boxes, invading your personal space or flushing you out with flamethrowers.

BioWare could afford to bury the needle north of hectic, because any Shepard, regardless of gender or class, had a secret superpower: the ability to freeze time. While others have made entire games out of frozen moments, here they elegantly and invisibly support tactical play, as you let the stale air in your lungs seep from your lips, read the situation, and adapt. Yes, Shepard may have been able to make enemies hilariously pinwheel in slow motion through the air, then biotically dash them to oblivion – kudos to whoever worked out how to really get some use out of Unreal Engine 3's physics simulations – but on the higher difficulties, Mass Effect 2 became as much the thinking man's cover shooter as a heady power fantasy.

Whizz bang pop

The shooting brought the game in line with the best of its peers, but the series' newfound sense of personal drama is what makes it unforgettable today. BioWare's genius was to add a generous extra glug of soap opera to its po-faced space opera mix, producing something all its own as a result. Where else in games can you assemble a team that consists of a dying part-monk, part-hitman seeking absolution in your noble suicide mission, a none-too-stable tatted-up psychopath who looks like Natalie Portman circa V for Vendetta, and an unflappable sentient machine construct housing 1,183 digital minds, much less bicker with or seduce half that crew? You may have to put the old band back together, but damn if you haven't pulled in an orchestra's worth of exotic new instruments along the way.

Indeed, the reason Mass Effect 2 still stands as the high point of the series is that it is fundamentally a game about people, not concepts. Every Shepard is different, and so will their interactions be, but those are simply the filling between layers of rich character drama. Every principal cast member has something to say. Miranda has to deal with the pressures of being engineered for perfection, putting up an all-too-human wall of ice after years of dealing with a pushy father. Garrus and damp squib Jacob are takes on feeling ineffective in their work, though the former gets a chewy revenge subplot, too. The list is too long to recount here, and loyalty missions double down on the character development – success in the final act, where the entire galaxy is threatened, is dependent on solving personal crises, changing inner universes.

Forget fetch quests, strip mining and moon caches – helping Jack get some closure after her time as Subject Zero at the hands of Cerberus felt like it mattered. It is these stories, these little moments of pathos and reconciliation, where BioWare finally grounds its big questions about life. Gradually, you begin to feel as if it might be a tragedy to lose this universe, this diversity of damaged characters trying to find their way in the uncaring vacuum, to the Reapers. In providing robust inner lives for its alien-packed cast, BioWare finally found the window on humanity it had been seeking.

Shepard's uneasy alliance with Cerberus is the smouldering fuse that regularly threatens to detonate all of these volatile personalities, but it is also an excuse to let the player deviate from the virtuous Paragon path if they so wish. Anecdotal evidence suggests that when given the choice, many will opt for video game good over video game evil. But so often in games, the evil path is simply the stupid one where you act like a dick to others for no good reason. Human civilisation is founded on social imperatives, so it's little surprise many struggle to shrug off their conditioning without incentive. By casting Shepard not as the white knight of humanity trying to earn our place in the stars but as an agent of a pro-human terrorist group that cares more about results than ramifications, the Renegade options finally made a little more narrative sense.

Which isn't to say Mass Effect 2 delivered nuanced morality – that takes more tallying up good and bad actions on separate scales – but it did at least make roleplaying meatier. Would you taser an engineer to sabotage the gunship of a telegraphed later boss to make the fight easier? Or are you the sort of person who leaps in to defend a Quarian from racial harassment at the hands of a pompous Volus and a bent cop? You might feasibly be both, assuming you're not gaming the system to max out one type of conversation-wheel option. Getting the player involved in everyday strife as well as world-ending crises lent the series an intimacy it had lacked. Anyone can be a hero when the only criterion is that all the bad men are dead at the end, but how you played Mass Effect 2 had the power to say something about you as a person.

It's easy to forget, in the wake of Mass Effect 3's reductionistic endings, how much Mass Effect 2 felt like a realisation of the series' promise to respect your choices. Entire missions winked into existence or out of it based on your Mass Effect playthrough, old faces appeared in unexpected places, and you could alter the texture of the galaxy, even if the artifice involved meant the core structure had to be much the same. To replay Mass Effect 2 now is not just a chance to pursue new combat options and morality; it is a reminder of what the most ambitious ongoing saga in video games set out to achieve, and how choice-centred the universe it provided was, even when it fell short.

Perhaps most importantly, it is proof that just because something's a sequel, that doesn't mean it can't be a total reinvention, at least given a studio at the height of its powers and a silly sound effect.

This Mass Effect 2 article was first published in issue 273 of Edge Magazine. To get more like this delivered straight to your doorstep (or digital device) consider subscribing to Edge.

After weeks of outcry, Blizzard has seemingly caved to pressure from the ever-vocal Diablo 4 community and increased stacking on Prime Evil Splinters from 1, which means no stacking, all the way up to 99, a 9900% increase. That's not just a compromise, that's a full-blown reversal seemingly based on feedback from the players.

"WE GOT A SPLINTER STACK SIZE INCREASE," reads an excited Reddit post featuring a screenshot from the latest Diablo 4 patch notes, which confirm, "The stack size for Prime Evil Splinters increased from 1 to 99" starting October 28. Unfortunately, the reaction at least on the Diablo 4 subreddit hasn't been as positive as Blizzard is probably hoping. In fact, the vast majority of comments, including those with the most upvotes, are from players who feel the change is too late, if not too little.

"Nice. Wait until the bulk of the playerbase has given up in disgust," reads the top comment on the post. I very much doubt "the bulk of the playerbase" has really given up on Diablo 4 because of this, and in fact I'd argue the majority of players don't give a damn about stackable Splinters, but it seems the subreddit is in agreement that it simply took Blizzard too long to make this change.

Season 15 has been out for a few weeks now, and this whole time the seasonal Prime Evil Splinters you use to grant yourself Prime Evil powers have been locked to one per inventory, meaning you could only have one of each type on you at any given time. Diablo 4's endgame grinders hated that so much that they came up with an incredibly fussy and demanding workaround, but now Blizzard has made that technique obsolete by letting you stack up to 99 of the suckers, which seems excessive to me.

Regardless, Diablo 4 players aren't letting Blizzard off the hook for this one.

"Too fuckin late," says another disgruntled denizen of Sanctuary.

"I’m good. Too little too late!" says another, and so on...

Although unstackable Splinters have been seen as a season 15 bug by many, I'm convinced Blizzard was being very intentional when it limited players to just one per type. The wording in the new patch notes to me suggests a reversal rather than a bug fix, which makes this yet another example of Blizzard's willingness to make significant design changes in response to feedback from players.

Diablo 4 PTR 3.3.0 confirms Season 16 is "carrying forward" some features by popular demand, and Blizzard is taking Druids back to school to address broken tags

The new Diablo 4 PTR period is right around the corner, and Blizzard's revealed what changes players can tinker with ahead of the full update. The druid class is receiving some significant tweaks, war plans are getting deeper and more intricate, and more.

"Some features from the Season of Hell's Legacy will be carrying forward into Season 16," the introduction says. "However, these will not be part of this PTR, as we want to focus on new features for testing."

The notes from the devs start with what's happening to war plans, and it's a good place to kick off. Firstly, there's a new progression system specifically for the endgame quests. Conveniently called War Plans Tactics, the notion is to make the missions you do and what you get out of them more specific.

"Earn points from completing War Plans activities, then invest these points into nodes to increase the chance of preferred activities or rewards appearing," the official description reads. "This allows you to tailor your War Plans more closely with both your goals and playstyle."

You can add up to three points into any given selection, which will increase the odds of it coming up for you as a potential choice, and you can do the same for the type of reward you'll get. On top of this, Marks of Wisdom, a currency for war plans, is being introduced.

These are what allow you to change nodes across your war plans and tactics skill trees. It's mentioned they're capped at 20, but I don't know if that's the amount you can carry or have in use - one to clarify once you're in the public test realm.

The druid rework is pretty hefty, and according to the dev team, it's based around two guiding principles. First, prevent druids from stacking tags as much, and second, to give resolve and fortify more pep in their step as builds.

They go about the former by removing Nature Shift and Shapeshifting tags from skill upgrades. Instead, either will simply be tied to the base ability, and if one or other was part of the tags on an ability, it'll now be removed.

The second is achieved more roundly through changes across how druids are built up. There's a lot to go through in terms of what Blizzard's changing, and I'd expect a lot of experimentation when this PTR arrives. It kicks off on October 27, and runs until November 3.

Diablo 4 players rally for a homebrew fix to a huge season 15 annoyance, but you'll need at least one very good friend

The Genshin Impact livestream 7.2 codes are the latest promos to drop in the long-running action RPG, providing plenty of Primogems to spend alongside a decent supply of Mystic Enhancement Ore, Hero’s Wit, and Mora. While the most recent special program gave us an insight into the new content arriving with version 7.2, it's the codes revealed during this regular developer presentation that are of most interest here. As always, they will expire in the near future, so here are the Genshin Impact livestream 7.2 codes and how to redeem them.

Genshin Impact livestream 7.2 codes

• HourofRuin - 100x Primogems, 10x Mystic Enhancement Ore
• ExpertMitya - 100x Primogems, 5x Hero's Wit
• PhotoTime - 100x Primogems, 50,000x Mora

The above promos were announced during the latest special program broadcast, and will be active until Sunday, October 25 at 9PM PDT, which is Monday, October 26 at 12AM EDT / 4AM GMT – so make sure that you redeem them as soon as you can to bank all of the rewards on offer.

How to redeem Genshin Impact livestream codes

In some versions of the game you can redeem Genshin Impact codes directly, by opening up the Account menu under Settings and then selecting the Redeem now prompt before entering the code.

You can also redeem Genshin Impact codes by visiting the gift redemption page on the game's official website. Once you're there, log in with your HoYoverse account and make sure the correct regional Server and Character Nickname are selected – these should be completed automatically once you've logged in. All you need to do then is type or copy/paste a promo into the Redemption Code box, before hitting Redeem to claim your rewards.

Either way, the rewards will be sent to you via the in-game mailbox, so head there next to pick them up. You don't have to do that immediately, but in-game mails usually have an expiry date of one month after sending, so don't leave it too long!

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

The Splinters of Evil are some of Diablo 4 season 15's rarest drops, but once you get your hands on a specific type – Hatred, Terror, or Destruction – that's all you can hold of that type at once. Blizzard seems to have intentionally designed this specific seasonal drop to not stack, meaning you can only have one splinter of each type in your inventory at once. That might seem like a pretty niche problem applicable only to endgame players in the highest Torment tiers, and it is, but for those players it's a major issue precisely because splinters are so rare. Imagine having to walk away from one of the game's rarest drops simply because you already have one in your inventory, and then you can understand why endgame grinders have rallied for a homebrew solution, and found one.

As detailed in a new video from prolific Diablo creator Rob2628, there's a fairly simple – but tedious – workaround you can do if you really want duplicate splinters in your inventory. As Rob2628 points out, you'll need at least one friend who's leveled enough in Diablo 4 to access Torment tier 10 where you can farm Splinters of Evil from Diablo, Mephisto, and Baal.

Once you've successfully bribed your buddy with delivery pizza – ideally the good stuff from your local Italian joint and not just some fast-food slop – you'll need to invite them to your party once you've got your duplicate splinter to drop. Next, have them hang out near the splinter while you switch to another character that doesn't already have that same splinter in its inventory, and then have your friend invite your alt to the server with the dupe so that you can pick it up.

In Rob2628's words, your friend is essentially "holding the instance" so that the duplicate item doesn't despawn when you log out as your primary character, which makes it very important that they decline the prompt to return to their own world.

I haven't tested this trick out myself yet, and frankly I wouldn't be able to because I only have one character that can get into Torment 10, but I see no reason it wouldn't work. It's just bound by so many limitations and requirements tied to other players that I'd be much more likely to just close the game and play something else. Rob2628 adds in his video, "many of you don't have friends" anyway.

One of Diablo 2's most coveted items surprise-drops in Diablo 4, and it's just as overpowered as it was 25 years ago

A Diablo board game is on the way, but don't assume it'll be a classic dungeon crawler; the developers are calling it a "dungeon battler" where you'll fight to the bitter depths for glory and loot against unrelenting foes.

So far, it sounds grim enough to gel with Diablo's gritty atmosphere. After selecting a dungeon in the darkest corner of Sanctuary, you'll fill it with a horde of monsters and bosses represented by gnarly miniatures before grinding your way through them using one of four iconic classes (the Barbarian, Paladin, Sorceress, or Rogue). These all feature distinct playstyles, extensive customization, and unique skill-trees, so when combined with what Glass Cannon Unplugged describes as a "highly modular structure," the Diablo board game – officially titled 'Diablo: Unbound' – should be pretty replayable.

Although its crowdfunding campaign isn't due to go live on Gamefound until early 2027, the Diablo board game will be playable much earlier than that. To be precise, you can go hands-on with Diablo: Unbound at this year's SPIEL Essen (one of the world's biggest shows for the best board games) between October 22-25.

"You get the high-stakes showdowns of a boss battler—and hordes of monsters that never let up," says Glass Cannon Unplugged CEO Jakub Wiśniewski. "But you don’t crawl through dungeons. You battle your way down. That’s why we call it a dungeon battler."

Diablo: Unbound isn't a mindless hack-and-slash, though. Each boss has its own unique attacks, for example, not to mention a lair and multiple combat stages. When combined with the game's many ways to earn loot (be it via chests, side quests, defeating Elite enemies, or gaining a kill streak by battling mobs), there's a push-your-luck element where you're always tempted to do just a little more.

You won't be down the proverbial mines all the time, either. A 'Town Phase' takes place before each encounter, letting you improve skills or respecialize character builds.

While the game features three acts with three dungeon levels each (and every dungeon takes up to 90 minutes), the fun isn't over when you've passed the finish line. There's also an endgame 'Torment' mode that lets you take on bosses in their ultimate form, so at least you don't have to down tools like in some RPG board games.

We'll hopefully be able to find out more (and go hands-on) with the Diablo board game soon, but until then, you should be able to get your fill via the Gamefound pre-launch page or if you're lucky enough to be at Essen this year.

Want something atmospheric for spooky season? Here are the nine best Halloween board games available right now.

• See all Glass Cannon Unplugged games at Amazon

Playing Stranger Than Heaven, I see obscured police officer reflections through the well lit high-fashion storefront windows. They shout "Where the hell did he go? You're not gettin' away with murder! Just give up!" as an unknown man covered in dirt and grime emerges into a back alley, clearly on the run. A loud foghorn blares in the distance, signaling a ship departure and the man stumbles through the alleyway in the direction of the horn. This mystery man donning a ratty blonde wig and big pink bow in his hair slowly makes his way through the alley as jazz music swells to fill every crack in the brick lined walls.

He approaches the quiet and foggy docks only to catch more police officers lying in wait. The only way onto the boat is through them, and so they duke it out. Back up against the ocean with nowhere else to run, a seemingly impossible opening presents itself and the man makes a break for it, leaping into the ocean to chase after the boat, to leave America behind, and start again. Those are my opening moments with Stranger Than Heaven's protagonist Makoto Daito, Yakuza developer Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio's latest project, a game that finds ways to blend familiar ideas of found family with new and ambitious storytelling structures.

Finding home

Stranger Than Heaven posits the question of what it means to belong in this world, to have a sense of home. Daito is of blended American and Japanese heritage, ceaselessly wrestling with not being enough of either nationality to find acceptance amongst his peers. This thread carries through the early hours of my hands-on, eventually coalescing into a powerful moment shared between Daito and a companion, where he is welcomed home for the first time in his life. He sits there, pondering the words over a drink, quietly muttering "welcome home" to himself, realizing it's the first time he's ever felt like he belongs.

This somber moment of reflection helps paint the larger picture of Stranger Than Heaven's bigger ideas of self identity, taking the concepts often found in Yakuza that deal in identity as it relates to group roles and dynamics and pairing it down to focus on an individual. Putting the emphasis on the life of Makoto Daito through multiple different eras of his life and the ever-changing landscape of Japan, we get to see a whole life lived.

1915 Kokura, Kyushu island's castle town, is the first of many stops in my preview. While this section sees high-stakes action in the form of a warehouse raid to free a kidnapped love interest, it's also juxtaposed with comedic relief. International smuggler and Makoto's mentor Orpheus (Snoop Dogg) takes time to teach Makoto how to roll a cigarette, which acts as a moment of levity while also showing how to create an item that boosts both attack and defense.

Kokura in this era is a large town with small village vibes. Numerous storefronts line the dirt roads I walk. I visit an apothecary to stock up on healing medicine, I drink straight from a water faucet in the ground to sober up after having one too many drinks, and of course, I pick a fight or two.

Combat is drastically different from anything RGG Studio has done before. Attacks are mapped to the shoulder buttons and triggers, meaning the left and right bumpers swing each matching fist while the triggers control my kicks. It's a system that takes some getting used to, especially as I attempt to weave in more complicated inputs like grabs and parries.

Stranger Than Heaven's combat feels more akin to the flow of a fighting game rather than a traditional beat 'em up. I find myself getting better with each fight, becoming more confident in each swing. I can feel Makoto getting more knowledgeable through the eras as well.

"Once you start using the same weapon, for example, Daito will start to learn a lot of skills based on that weapon," says director Mikinobu Abe. "So, it's more like you can customize Daito's life to your preference of what weapon you want him to master. If you want to use a knife throughout the 50 years of his life, of course Makoto himself will get good at the weapon, and that triggers making him do more move sets and more combos."

Later, Abe makes an announcement that there is a dangerous samurai near the river, advising against fighting him too early. So, naturally, I head straight for the katana wielding madman by the river.

Under the moonlight we clash steel. I learn to parry his seemingly never-ending combo strings. Constantly switching between my left and right arm to block his multi-directional strikes, trading heavy blows back and forth, I finally stagger him. This provides my opening to get a few good hits in. Using both triggers I grab and toss him to the ground and begin slamming him with everything I have until he rises to his feet again.

We swap hits back and forth again until he knocks me onto my back. Slashing down at me I roll out of the way so it misses me by a hair. It's like a choreographed action movie sequence, but one that feels natural and intuitive to unfurl during play. Plenty of other side activities I encounter have this same sense of flair, space between missions always have a sense of absurdity and danger.

Jumping ahead 14 years to 1929 Kure, Hiroshima, Daito is older, a little more established, and growing in confidence. As I approach alongside a trolleycar while walking Kure, Daito hops up and grabs the side, hanging off of it as it carries me down the street. Despite it being my first time in Kure, it's clear Daito has been around the block a few times. The way he enters shops, takes part in the underground fight clubs, and enters his home presents a more mature version of the man I knew nearly fifteen years prior.

There's a liveliness to Kure in the daytime. People dining in the streets, old men playing Menko along the river, and hooligans looking for a street brawl. I spend most of my time in an underground fight club, defeating a rotating cast of difficult enemies for pocket change and bragging rights as I master challenges under special conditions ("no weapons", for instance).

Make some noise

Fast-forward to 1943 Minami, Osaka and things have changed quite a bit again. The low hum and bright glow of neon signs seep color onto the streets below. I hop into the first building I see, a small theater venue looking to put on a performance. At this moment I learn about Makoto's involvement in show business, and how deep those systems go.

Everything in Stranger Than Heaven feeds into a system that allows Makoto to gather music inspiration. Colorful bubbles populate the screen during combat, when Daito hears a small tune from a nearby radio, or the sound of dice rattling in a cup before being thrown. The world is filled with little bits and bobs for Makoto to grab. Focusing one of those bubbles and clicking a button lets you hone in and obtain the inspiration for later use.

After collecting a few different inspirations from local storefront radios I make my way to where this all comes together, my base of operations – marked with a house icon on the map – going upstairs to where the upright piano is. Here I talk to pianist Takashi to begin composing music. Each song has different moods that can be tweaked and changed to alter the way it sounds. Taking a piano backing that's tagged as relaxing and swapping it for a more intense sound changes how people respond to it when played live.

After changing out the instrumentation of the song I head over to a nearby desk where I begin selecting ticket prices, hiring musicians and singers, and customizing the stage lighting and attire in order to ensure the show is profitable. It's reminiscent of the Yakuza 0 cabaret minigame, but blown up to be much more detailed.

Music plays a massive role in Stranger Than Heaven, not just as a tool for Makoto to make money, but as a way of connecting to people. "He finds the joy that music is something that needs no explanation with a race or a language barrier," says Abe. "And that was something that was really important for Makoto to progress, having motivation within his life, as well as something that he could connect with people."

There's still so much more to uncover in Stranger Than Heaven, but after this relatively small slice of the game, I'm excited to see what's waiting for Makoto Daito through the rest of his life.

Wondering what heavenly gaming experiences will tide you over while you wait for Stranger Than Heaven? Look no further than our best Yakuza games or best ARPGs rankings for what to play next!

Blizzard's Diablo series is what most people think of when they hear the term ARPG, but Path of Exile is without a doubt the closest runner-up. Itself directly and explicitly inspired by Diablo 2, Grinding Gear Games' free-to-play ARPG has an extremely dedicated and sizable player base all its own, and it's not hard to find genre enthusiasts who consider it their favorite for all sorts of reasons. The example we're here to talk about is Joe Ziegler, the game director best known for leading Riot's competitive shooter Valorant and later Bungie's extraction shooter Marathon, who says he has a staggering 3,437 logged in Path of Exile because of the unparalleled depth of buildcrafting it offers.

"ARPGs to me are [about the] buildcrafting and the cleverness of putting things together," Ziegler tells PC Gamer. "And I think Path of Exile is the most freeform version of that. The level of experimentation you can get in that game is so wide in terms of thinking about how you can make builds.

I play a variety of builds. I have a fondness for playing Totem builds, and then second to that is, when I'm feeling really lazy, I like one-button builds, like Whirlwind builds … that's the fun part of Path of Exile, to be honest, is that it's just such a Rube Goldberg machine of effects and things that you can make, and you're just trying to figure out how to deal the most damage and kill things the fastest."

You don't have to read a whole lot of my work to know I'm a lifelong Diablo nerd, and while I've tried so, so many times to get into Path of Exile, I always find myself lumbering back to Sanctuary. I don't know if it's just the nostalgia that's baked into my bones from 30 years of familiarity—it's probably that—but frankly, it's silly of me to even think I have the time for another ARPG obsession. Ziegler, meanwhile, can't move past the original Path of Exile even with glowing reviews for Path of Exile 2 Early Access.

"I think I've changed my expectation around ARPGs because of Path of Exile," he says. "It's funny because I've played Path of Exile 2, and it's a little bit more limiting, and it totally makes sense because it's built around more of an action environment. But I definitely feel like Path of Exile 1 was more meant for me."

The reason I've been explaining my own ARPG history is basically to say there are a million different reasons people play these types of games, and they can be extremely specific to each player. For me, I still play the original Diablo and Diablo 2 even more than Diablo 4 because they're extremely comforting worlds for me, and the simplicity makes them great for turning off my brain and idly playing while listening to my favorite podcasts.

When I was a kid, I played Diablo almost exclusively for PvP, but now it's just about returning to a familiar place, soaking in the immaculate vibes, and giving myself something to do when I don't feel like thinking. For those reasons, the complexity and focus on build theory in Path of Exile actually makes me a little less interested in investing the time in another massive game I don't have time for. To each, as they say, their own.

Path of Exile co-creator is "tentatively hopeful" Diablo 5 will stick the landing

Malls, in pop culture at least, are inhabited by three main groups. Zombies, the monster-battling kids from Stranger Things, and teenagers in Avril Lavigne music videos. Stupid Never Dies’ Davy is somehow all three at once: a hoodie-wearing defector from the zombie horde, facing off against other monsters in the hope of saving the life of – and winning the heart of – the cheerleader he’s crushing on. Even though they've never spoken, because she's in a kind of accidental cryostasis, in an ice-cream shop's storage freezer.

So, in short: he was a boy (before he died and rose again), she was a girl (before she gave herself the Walt Disney treatment). Can I make it any more obvious?

This ‘00s pop-punk vibe really does bleed into every part of Stupid Never Dies, from Davy’s baseball-cap-hoodie-&-kicks dress sense through to the game’s theme song (actually kind of a bop), which has a music video you can watch from the start menu. And, most striking of all, its zine collage aesthetic. Every cutscene, collectible, and bit of UI is composed of marker-pen scribbles, stickers, and images apparently torn out of a magazine, like a mixed-media shotgun blast to the eyeballs.

As for the mall? In Stupid Never Dies it’s a House Of Hades-style hub, with a host of friendly-ish faces – who include a were-chihuahua, a gargoyle in a shopping trolley, and the aforementioned icy crush – all waiting for Davy to return from adventures so they can sell him upgrades. Much like in Hades, once you’ve done all your admin it’s off to the underworld to see how deep you can go this time. Unlike Hades, the way you enter it is by flushing Davy down a toilet.

Get stupid

GPTRACK50 was founded by veteran Capcom producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi and Stupid Never Dies, the studio's debut, is basically a greatest-hits mashup of his back catalog. The maximalist punk style and fondness for toilet humor are a reminder that Kobayashi worked with Suda51 on Killer7. And once you’re in the dungeon, the combat mixes the aerial hack-and-slash and combo grading of Devil May Cry with the ridiculous crowds of enemies found in Sengoku Basara.

Not content to be purely a tribute act, though, Stupid Never Dies does throw a few new fresh ideas into the mix. And, in classic Capcom fashion, a whole new vocabulary of terminology to go along with them. There’s Davy Burst, Stupid Parries, Heat Attacks, Instant Skills, Style Eat, Metaphitic Miasma Layers… at this point, I admit, I’m pulling names from the in-game tips guide just to make a point. But let’s translate the important ones.

Stupid Parry, for example. This is an action game made in the 2020s, and so the inclusion of a parry is basically mandatory, but this is an unusual take on the idea. It’s called ‘Stupid’ for a reason: Davy dashes into the attack, and is guaranteed to take damage, even if there’s nothing to be parried. If it does connect, though, you’ll reduce the hurt Davy would have received, and convert it into chip damage that can be recovered later on.

And, if you parry into a gold-flashing Heat Attack, it’ll trigger a ‘Stupid Impact’. This stuns your assailant and exposes their glowing core so that Davy can do what zombies do best: take a big old bite of their innards.

This is how you offset all that damage you’re voluntarily taking, but it’s also how you tap into the game’s defining feature, the Style Eat. Not content with just being a pop-punk teen zombie monster hunter, Davy is also a kind of undead Kirby.

Eaten mess

For every core you chomp down, you’ll steal an ability from your victim. If it’s a rank-and-file monster, like one of the hordes of skeletons and lizardmen, this will be a single-use Instant Skill that shoots out a blast of bones or lizard-claw scratches. Useful enough, if not especially exciting.

But if you’ve just taken a bite of one of the elites – a werewolf, a vampire or, why not, a fairy – then you’ll perform a Style Eat transformation. Davy is able to shapeshift into their form, or at least a version of it topped off with a baseball cap. (The character designs for these transformations are an absolute delight, and maybe the best reason to Style Eat your way through the game.)

So, with a tap of the D-Pad, you can now turn into a werewolf, able to bound through the dungeon on all fours, attack with speedy flurries of claw strikes, and – classic lycanthropy stuff, this – backflip off walls to reach high ledges. Plus you get one random ‘Style Skill’, pulled from a pool of possible powers.

Including your default zombie state, there are 11 Styles on offer, each with its own move set and playstyle, and a choice of five possible special abilities to augment that. The necromantic lich, for example, can summon skeletons to do the fighting on your behalf; its Style Skills include a giant scythe swing, sapping the health of your skellies to boost its damage, and one that turns you and your bony minions into spinning tops that hurt anything they touch.

This is a remarkable amount of variety, but it’s also a lot for any developer to take on, let alone one as small as GPTRACK50. Not every Style here is created equal, and it’s hard not to conclude that the studio might have – ahem – bitten off more than it can chew.

Creature features

While becoming a werewolf makes Davy more agile, this is very much the exception to the rule. Most are really slow and ungainly, something that makes sense for a hulking tank form such as the golem or cyclops, but less so for the floating will-o’-the-wisp or fairy. Meanwhile, the merfolk Style allows you to swim underfoot like one of Splatoon’s Inklings, but just for a couple of seconds at a time. Then you have to waddle around on land like your Speedos are chafing, waiting for the swim bar’s cooldown to complete its agonizingly slow refill.

Traversal isn't a huge part of Stupid Never Dies, however: it's just how you get from one arena fight to the next. So the much bigger problem is how many of these Styles feel ineffective in combat.

Sticking with the merfolk for a moment, you’re intended to stay underground and close in on prey before popping out for a powerful uppercut. Cool in theory, but just not especially practical when you need to chew through enemies by the dozen. It’s a similar story with the snow fairy, which grows more powerful for every enemy you freeze, and the will-o’-the-wisp, which can immolate itself to hurt anyone who touches it. There is no shortage of ambition in the design of these transformations, but that's frequently undermined by their execution.

This problem plagues almost every part of Stupid Never Dies’ combat. It’s not just that hits lack the sense of connection that makes Devil May Cry’s melee sing – that would be an unreasonable standard to hold this game to, even given their shared heritage – but that, often, they don’t connect at all. There’s no lock-on targeting, which makes sense given the quantities of enemies the game throws at you, but that means you can never quite rely on your hit landing where you want.

Your foes seem to be suffering from the very same issues. They’ll often stand around idle for seconds at a time, before charging forward with some powerful attack that misses you by miles. And if this initially sounds like a blessing, remember Stupid Parry’s vital role in the combat loop. There’s an awful lot of chasing after Heat Attacks, trying to throw myself in front of them so I can line up a Style Eat – and hoping that it doesn't simply sail past the intended victim and chomp down on thin air instead.

Meanwhile, there’s always a ticking clock at your back. There's a time limit on how long you can spend in the dungeon before the game… well, it doesn't immediately kill you, but it nerfs Davy so hard that, honestly, you might wish it did.

So, with all that in mind, why bother wrestling with the intricacies of any Style that leaves you waiting on a cooldown for an attack that might just miss, when it’s so much quicker to slash your way through the hordes at werewolf speed?

And so, that’s the way I end up playing Stupid Never Dies. Relying on the same two or three Styles (the werewolf, the lich, the vampire at a push), hammering Stupid Parry for all it’s worth and just kind of hoping for the best. Occasionally, I’ll even turn on the Go Nuts Mode, which makes you – quoting the menu directly – "strong as shit", just to chew through repetitious segments quicker.

I do feel bad for throwing out most of the game’s more interesting ideas but, honestly, they’re necessary for a functional experience. And the more I play, the more I realize that combat finesse isn’t really the deciding factor in success or failure. This is first and foremost a game about leveling up: every run at the dungeon boosts the amount of XP collected, so that by your hundredth attempt you might be able to do 20 level-ups within the first minute.

It’s an RPG on fast-forward, the numbers going up over and over again. And as long as that number is higher than the next layer you enter, it’ll be a cakewalk. Try to reach beyond your assigned level, though, and you’ll find yourself throwing punches at a brick wall.

Leveling up at this ridiculous speed, with visual fireworks that go off every single time, does have a certain dopamine-loop satisfaction to it. That makes it easy enough to pour time into these dungeon runs. But for all the color, and the cool visual flourishes, and the poppy soundtrack, I find myself playing Stupid Never Dies with my brain only ever halfway engaged, not really feeling much of anything. For hours at a time, I’m just as much of a zombie as Davy.

Stupid Never Dies was reviewed on PC, with a code provided by the publisher.

Never die, and never stop playing, with our best ARPGs ranking that bring you even more action. Keep an eye on our new releases list for what's coming next!

Diablo 4's deeply nostalgic season 15 is loaded with all sorts of neat references to the series' history, including a whole quest recreating OG Diablo's critical path and an entire armor set themed around the notoriously elusive cow level first introduced in Diablo 2. Players were pretty quick to find out how to get all of the pieces of the Bovine armor set except one: the gloves, or the Foreshanks, sending the community into a weeks-long treasure hunt that, until now, has come up empty. As it turns out, the Bovine Foreshanks simply hadn't been added into the game until now. See, there's a cow you have to pet to get the gloves, and that cow didn't exist until patch 3.2.3 went live this week.

As reported by Icy Veins and independently verified by me, the newest version of Diablo 4 adds a cow that spawns in Old Tristram behind the Cathedral. All you have to do is pet the cow and it'll drop the Foreshanks of the Bovine. It's really as simple as that. Diablo 4 players have been tearing apart season 15 looking for the missing piece of the cow armor set for weeks, and Blizzard just casually snuck it into a patch with no mention of it in the patch notes. That's, uh, that's gotta sting a little.

On the bright side, Diablo 4's tireless loot chasers can finally acquire the full set, with this handy guide from Auscraft detailing exactly where to track down each piece. Now, depending on how you like to transmog your Diablo 4 character, you might find the Bovine set utterly repulsive or extremely cool. Personally, I'm a huge fan. It's disgusting, and I don't know how else Blizzard could've paid tribute to such a beloved part of Diablo history other than going full camp and making the armor look like an actual live cow grazing the fields of Old Tristram. I'll let you be the judge:

One of Diablo 2's most coveted items surprise-drops in Diablo 4, and it's just as overpowered as it was 25 years ago

A month and a half after the release of The Blood of Dawnwalker, developer Rebel Wolves is cooking up a major selection of improvements to its vampire RPG. Update 1.1 will soon arrive with a long-awaited respec option, alongside animal petting, an easier difficulty mode, and well over a thousand additional upgrades.

The respecs certainly seem like the biggest addition. "Free your mind with the Draught of Mind Rebirth," the devs explain in truncated patch notes shared on Reddit. "Forget all your Swordmastery, Witchcraft, and Vampirism abilities, and use the time you spent learning them to master a different set of abilities."

In its original form, The Blood of Dawnwalker offered no respec option at all – a pretty harsh limitation in a game where your resources are already tightly constrained thanks to the time mechanic. Unofficial mods quickly appeared to offer respecs, but they were only useful to players on PC.

Rebel Wolves is also finally committing to the Can You Pet the Dog? crowd, and they're apparently doing it in style with a whole minigame built on the RPG's combat mechanics. "What happens when you merge a directional combat system with an ability to pet dogs and cats? Directional. Animal. Petting." I don't know exactly how that'll work, but it sounds adorable.

The other major new gameplay feature is an additional difficulty mode. The current "story" mode will be renamed "forgiving," and "story" will now get you into an even easier mode with an "additional combat assist."

All this launches as part of update 1.1, which is set to land sometime "next week." The rest of the updates come in the form of more general "improvements" to combat, traversal, and the camera, as well as new subtitle and frame-generation options. The patch also includes "over 1,100 other improvements and fixes," so if you're still exploring Vale Sangora, the experience is about to get much smoother.

"I'm surprised there's any backlash": Baldur's Gate 3 lead doesn't see why The Blood of Dawnwalker's time feature is so controversial, says it's "perfectly interwoven."

Beast of Reincarnation hasn't been around for long, having only just launched in August – but Pokemon developer Game Freak is already seemingly pulling the plug on the action RPG.

The studio announces as much in a new post over on X (as translated via the built-in tool, DeepL, and Google), first thanking players for engaging with Beast of Reincarnation. The devs then explain that their post-launch update cycle is "coming to a close" following their next planned patch on October 19.

After that, there won't be any more "frequent" updates or major patches, sadly – although fans can still share any pressing feedback.

In other words, Game Freak is closing the book on Beast of Reincarnation after only two months, it seems. I can't say I'm too surprised, unfortunately, however, considering the action RPG's shaky launch.

Heck, the game's director himself publicly apologized for it, saying he was "truly sorry" that the game hasn't "provided a sufficiently enjoyable experience" for fans. The statement came after it racked up "Mixed" reviews from critics and players alike.

Folks were dubbing Beast of Reincarnation a "bad and laughable" new IP from Game Freak, slating its awkward combat and story pacing – features the devs actually went on to promise they'd remedy.

While they did drop various updates, with the most recent having addressed some of the biggest pain points cited in reviews, the game's rating never really significantly went up. A quick look over at its Steam page tells me as much.

It sits with "Mixed" reviews over there, boasting just a "Mostly Positive" rating if you sort by more recent feedback… which, yeah, isn't great.

That's not to say that has anything to do with Game Freak's decision here, though. The studio doesn't actually give any reason as to why it's wrapping up work on its action RPG, even if it stands as one of the new games that's only launched this year.

There's no telling unless the devs speak on it, I suppose.

Here's why we think Beast of Reincarnation is a Pokémon-inspired soulslike without the cruelty of Dark Souls – and it's better for it, if you're interested.

We know development on Diablo 5 is well underway, since the sequel was announced at this year's BlizzCon with a snazzy trailer. How far along is another question, since no gameplay was shown; however, production on the action-RPG's cinematics is now in motion.

We know this thanks to Neil David Carter, the cinematics director for the Diablo series at Blizzard. He posted an image on Twitter of an empty soundstage, ready for production crew and actors to start putting scenes together.

"First shoot Diablo 5," he says in the caption. Nothing else is said, but he wouldn't be at liberty to discuss any of the finer details right now. And I imagine a lot of material will still be in flux, too.

This is day one of filming, aspects of the script will almost certainly still be up in the air. Things can change quickly, scenes can be shot that are either changed later or scrapped entirely. These things happen on TV and film productions all the time, and this is a medium where the cinematics are more dependent on what makes the cut for the released product.

Right now, Diablo 5 is eying a 2029 release window, leaving some time for the devs to sculpt the next installment of the beloved series. But it could easily be delayed, and, in fact, Chris Wilson, a central designer on fellow ARPG Path of Exile, believes we could be waiting until 2030 or beyond for the fifth Diablo to arrive.

Plenty of time and space for the cinematics to require another go. I'm curious about who they might get to star in these scenes. MCU actor Simu Liu did an advert for Diablo 2: Resurrected, and they've had the likes of Debra Wilson and Ralph Ineson perform various roles in recent games.

Those would all be worthy additions to this iteration. It's all go at Blizzard HQ, anyway. We'll be back in Sanctuary before we know it.

Diablo 4 update fixes problem preventing players from completing the Season 15 questline properly - but there's still no splinter stacking

As it turns out, there was a bug in Diablo 4 Season 15 that prevented players from finishing the main questline. Mercifully, the issue has been rectified in the latest patch, though there are other problems players hope Blizzard will look into.

The topline change in the update focuses on players getting access to a Splinter of Prime Evil before they're supposed to. Doing so stops you from finishing the central quest, because the Prime Evil powers are meant to be part of your reward.

The glitch has apparently been rectified, but anyone who's already gotten it will need to use Blizzard's workaround to sort out their character, since quest progress isn't affected. "This change prevents this bug from happening but does not reset quest progress on characters who are already bugged," reads a developer's note.

"To allow affected characters access to Prime Evil Powers, create a new character in the same partition (Normal/Hardcore and Normal/SSF) and complete the seasonal questline," the post continues. "This unlocks Prime Evil Powers for all characters in that partition."

Not ideal, but at least there's a fix of some description. Another bugbear where four affixes couldn't be rerolled using the Horadric Cube has been remedied as well - sadly, the wasted resources can't be returned, but at least it's sorted.

While these are certainly helpful alterations, they don't stack splinters, a mechanic players have been requesting for several weeks now. "Splinters not stacking is truly the dumbest decision of the season," writes one Redditor, summing up a theme across the comments responding to this update.

We'll see if Blizzard decides to address that problem in the coming weeks. For now, at least you can definitely complete the current questline without extra hassle.

One of Diablo 2's most coveted items surprise-drops in Diablo 4, and it's just as overpowered as it was 25 years ago

Finding Laudanum in Valor Mortis is the focus of the titular quest, and it's not easily done. If you've been working your way through The Outskirts chapter of Valor Mortis, you've probably been using the Island of Whispers lantern quite frequently, as the area loops back to it multiple times. While opening the final shortcut, you've also probably been summoned to speak with an old lady by a door who has asked you to find a bottle of Laudanum for a side quest by the same name. Lucky for you, we know where to find it. Here's how to find the Laudanum.

Where to find the Laudanum bottle in Valor Mortis

As you work your way through the area, you'll eventually come across the Market Square lantern. This is where you'll want to fast travel to when you're ready to track down some Laudanum.

From the Market Square lantern, continue ahead until you come across Barnaby's house, which you'll need to pass through along the main path anyway.

Inside the house, head up to the top floor. In the corner is an opening you can drop through.

On a bedside table, you'll find a bottle of Laudanum. Pick it up, then open the door nearby and continue down the main path.

Next, head outside and knock down the nearby wooden ramp to allow you access back to the Market Square lantern. Use it to fast travel to the Island of Whispers lantern.

Head back across the stone bridge to the Old Lady's house, interact with the door, and listen to her dialogue. She'll give you a Mythic Catalyst Clot, which can be used to grant yourself some Catalysts at your convenience.

However, the quest isn't quite over yet, as the Old Lady makes it pretty clear the Laudanum was secretly for her all along, rather than the children she originally promised you she was trying to save.

Return to the lantern, rest, then head back to the Old Lady's house once more. You'll find that the door is now open.

Inside, interact with the dead Old Lady and the nearby journal on the dresser.

This will complete the Laudanum side quest. Though you won't get any additional in-game rewards for doing so, you'll pop the "Laudanum" trophy or achievement for your troubles, which gets you one step closer to completing the full list.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Monster Hunt in Valor Mortis, encountered as part of The City of Orphans chapter, is one of the game's longest and most challenging side quests. Started by interacting with a photo hanging on a tree at the very beginning of the chapter, this quest requires you to find sixteen total drawings of monsters hanging in hidden spots around the city. Luckily, we've tracked them all in order of appearance, so you're in good hands. Here's where to find every drawing for the Monster Hunt side quest in Valor Mortis.

All Monster Hunt Drawing locations in Valor Mortis

This list walkthrough begins at the Tribunal Square lantern. We'd recommend starting there and working your way through each of these one at a time.

Drawing 1

Starting at the lantern, follow the main path around a bend to a city street with enemy patrols. There are stairs on the right of this street leading down into an aqueduct.

You'll find the first drawing on a wall in the aqueduct.

Drawing 2

After blasting some glowing spots with your pistol to clear the way through the large house early in the level, you'll have to pass through a burning section with charred bodies on spikes (yuck).

When you emerge from this claustrophobic section, immediately turn left and search the corner here for the second drawing.

Drawing 3

Shortly after the last drawing, you'll enter a wine cellar. Before heading up to the second floor, check behind the only stairs in this building for the third drawing.

Drawing 4

After the wine cellar, you'll be back on the city streets and likely have opened a shortcut back to the Tribunal Square lantern.

In this new area, you'll once again face a burning corridor, except there will be a challenging foe pacing through it.

Just before passing under the bridge section here, take a quick left to find the fourth drawing on the wall.

Drawing 5

Immediately after the last drawing, you'll pass under the aforementioned bridge and spot a treasure chest to the left.

Just left of the chest, you can find the fifth drawing well hidden on a cart.

Drawing 6

A little ways after the last drawing, you'll find yourself in a house filled with spots you can interact with to create and remove cover. Kill all the enemies here, then use your power to remove a piece of cover blocking a way into a cellar below.

Drop into the cellar, quickly escape the poison gas, and then kill the enemies down here. Grab the sixth drawing on the wall.

Drawing 7

Right after the last drawing, head back up to the higher level of this house, then grapple across into a new house.

You'll see the seventh drawing in a wardrobe within this house.

Drawing 8

A little further into the level, you'll open a large gate and descend some stairs to a new area. Here, you'll notice a large building to the left. Enter it and make your way to the very top floor.

Outside on the balcony of the top floor is the eighth drawing.

Drawing 9

After you leave the previous house, take the left path under the archway. Defeat the enemies here, then make your way up the slope toward an archway containing another burning section on the other side.

Before passing under the archway, look to your left to find the ninth drawing on a wall near some stairs.

Drawing 10

You'll soon enter a large courtyard with a statue in the middle. Kill all of the enemies here, then make your way behind the statue.

Behind some barricades is the tenth drawing.

Drawing 11

After climbing to the top of the tower and having the children unlock the sewers for you, you'll zipline down into a new area. Before heading into the sewers, wrap around toward a large gate.

You'll find the eleventh drawing against a wall to the left of the gate.

Drawing 12

While in the sewers, you'll come to a spot with a tall enemy who shoots at you and a ladder going down right behind him. Instead of taking the ladder down, look to the right to spot some wooden beams you can pass through.

After passing through these beams, it will initially appear that there's nothing here but water. However, look straight up to spot a grapple point, so use it to ascend.

Follow the linear path above until you find the twelfth drawing on a wall.

Drawing 13

Return to the area with the ladder mentioned above, take it down, and kill the two difficult enemies at the bottom. Then, follow the path until you reach a spot with a rifle soldier.

On a rickety bridge here, look left to see an enemy that spits at you. Shoot it down, then leap across to find the thirteenth drawing.

Drawing 14

While exploring the sewers, you'll eventually use the Sewer Key to enter a new tunnel with a grapple point across the way. Use this grapple point, then follow the path to the right.

At the end of this corridor, next to another locked gate, is the fourteenth drawing.

Drawing 15

After grabbing the last drawing, make your way in the opposite direction.

The fifteenth drawing will be clearly visible beside an archway.

Drawing 16

After exiting the sewers into an area with cliffsides ahead, kill the enemies roaming around (including one with more health than you might expect).

On the right wall here is the sixteenth drawing.

That's the last drawing, meaning the quest should complete when you pick it up. For finishing the quest, you'll earn a Quintessential Transmutation Material, which can be used to upgrade one of your transmutations to the highest tier.

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The Lost Boy quest in Valor Mortis kicks off in chapter 5 when you reach Wolfsbane Field and find a boy called Marek is missing. There's a large house just left of the lantern, and if you've go through the door around the back, you'll find a piece of paper that you can interact with to begin this mission.

Thankfully, you won't have to travel too far to wrap up this quest. Even so, this lost boy is doing a pretty good job of staying hidden out of your main path, so we'll tell you how to find what you're looking for below. Here's how to complete The Lost Boy side quest in Valor Mortis.

How to complete The Lost Boy side quest in Valor Mortis

From the house where you started this quest, continue along the main path forward, jump over a bridge, and take out the enemies near the house and shed you'll find here.

Once the enemies are done you'll find another bridge to the left a bit that is partially submerged in the water. Cross it that well.

Behind a stack of boxes are two enemies, including one that can put up quite a fight. Tread carefully to try and sneak past or break the boxes and take them head on, and then look into one of the paths here for a grapple point.

Grapple to the next platform to fight a tough opponent that will easily set you on fire. This can be a challenging showdown, especially if you're too close to them, so it's best to keep your distance as much as possible.

When this enemy is down for the count, head up the pathway on the left side of the platform into a room with a treasure chest. Open it, then continue to the back of this room.

On a platform down below, you'll now find the Cellar Key next to, unfortunately, the deceased body of the eponymous lost boy.

Grab this key and then return to the house so you can use it on the locked door you found way back at the start. You can now head down into the cellar and interact with a piece of paper on a desk you'll find here, to complete this quest.

That's one down, but there are many more side quests to come in Valor Mortis, including some with far more involved requirements. So, lock in and keep your eyes open for more opportunities to discover these optional objectives, as the sweet loot you get as a reward can come in handy.

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Valor Mortis first-person Soulslike experience is challenging at the best of times, so these tips and pointers will help you get started more easily. With punishing combat encounters and a wealth of optional side quests and well-hidden collectibles scattered around, you'll have plenty to keep up with across 15 or so hours of adventuring. If you're just starting out, though, things can feel pretty overwhelming — so I've compiled some early game tips here to help you acclimate to Valor Mortis.

The Rapier is the best weapon once you have it

You'll start Valor Mortis with a Saber, but there are two additional melee options. The first is the Rapier, which you'll get very early on. As you might expect, this weapon excels at poking enemies, and provides you with enhanced parrying options.

While the Saber is good to start with, the Rapier tends to be more versatile and can prove a better main weapon when dealing with bosses and one-on-one fights with tougher opponents. That's thanks to it's ability to attack very quickly while providing fast, easier parrying opportunities.

More importantly, though, it allows you to target enemy weak points - those glowing orange sacks of pus - on their head, chest, or back. By poking these you'll deal significant damage, so it's always a good idea to aim for them first. Use that strategy and lesser baddies will often go down in just a hit or two.

This farming spot can help you level up fast

Things really start ramping up around Chapter 3 in terms of difficulty, so with that in mind, there a fantastic farming spot near the Marketplace lantern you can use to net a few extra levels before facing the horrors ahead. And, since it's right by a lantern, you can rinse and repeat this over and over again for as long as you'd like.

Just fast travel to the Marketplace lantern, then find the barn right next to it. Inside are a group of standard enemies that will charge out at you each time you get near it. So, for some easy points just equip your Fire Transmutation and approach the barn until they start running at you. Burn them all, using the door to funnel them together and once they catch fire it should be enough to automatically kill them, granting you 600 Catalysts for only a moment of your time.

Rest at the lantern and repeat this process until you've gained at least a handful of additional levels, then head forward with all the extra confidence you've gained in the process.

Don't worry about the green poison gas until much later

When you come across green poison gas, don't worry about it quite yet. Trying to get through it when you first find it will only get you killed. So just take note of these areas and and move on as you can return once you find a way to cross them much, much later in the game.

It's definitely worth returning as well when the time comes, as you'll be able to score some excellent optional items once you've obtained the ability to pass through the gas. Just be prepared for a challenge, as many of these locations house some of the game's toughest combat encounters as well, as a roadblock between you and that sweet loot.

Check the environment for easy kills

Once you know where to look and what to look for you'll see easy environmental kills everywhere in Valor Mortis. Keep an eye out for glowing spots you can shoot with your pistol, as these are often environmental traps that do things like unleash a cart that will roll over every enemy in its path, drop large boxes on snipers in the distance or make entire platforms disappear. You can also shoot lanterns to release pools of fire as well as slightly more obvious big red barrels.

These opportunities are scattered throughout your journey and range from obvious (like in the picture above) to surprisingly well-hidden. If you see a large collection of enemies, look around or up above them to see if you can spot any traps you might be able to unleash. If not, well, it looks like you'd better be ready for a showdown.

You can buy flask upgrades at the Church

Flask upgrades allow you to increase how many of these healing items you can carry and how much they heal you. For the most part you'll find them while out exploring, however, once you reach the church you can swing by Louis's Laboratoire to buy a handful of these upgrades using Catalysts. They're a little pricey but if you have Catalyst Clots in your inventory, now is a good time to pop them, as having improved healing is far too important to sleep on.

Keep in mind that both Louis and James also offer upgrade materials for your weapons and transmutations, too, which can give you a head start on doing a bit more damage. So, maybe it's time to head back to that farming spot we mentioned above and start saving up a little, huh?

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The In the Name of Art quest in Valor Mortis is a chapter 5 objective in the Vale of Wrath, where you find the Under the Bridge lantern. There are a few side quests in this vicinity you won't want to miss, including this one which has you seeking out a basement key to discover something gruesome about a local painter. Here's everything you need to know about where to find this quest in Valor Mortis and how to complete it.

How to find and complete the In the Name of Art side quest in Valor Mortis

As you work your way down the main path from the Under the Bridge lantern (near the The Deserter quest), you'll discover a house on the right. It's the only one in the area, so it's impossible to miss.

Wrap around the outside of the house to find a window, then use your pistol to shoot the glowing spot inside.

You can now enter the house through the front door, so do so, then head upstairs. Interact with the painting next to the hanging man, then gaze through the window that is revealed, noting the platform cliffside across the way. This will formally begin the In the Name of Art quest.

Go back downstairs and out of the house. Check for a path on the right side of the house leading up to the area you could see from the window. Grab the Basement Key you'll find here.

Now go back inside the house and use the Basement Key on the door at the back of the bottom floor, then make your way down into the basement.

This area is linear, so just keep making your way through, defeating the various enemies you'll encounter as you go. Eventually, you'll find a blue memory to interact with, which will open another door for you to pass through.

Follow the path from here until you reach a note on the ground next to the body of a dead woman. Interact with this note to end the quest and get the reward.

For completing this quest, you'll earn the Butcher's Carnage Amber. When equipped this will make melee attacks replenish health but in return you'll lose access to your healing flask, meaning you'll be entirely reliant on dishing out damage to stay alive. It's a high-risk, high-reward playstyle, but it can prove rewarding.

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The best skills in Valor Mortis to unlock first focus on stamina, defense and health. The options here don't exactly match the usual suite of Soulslike stats to invest in, opting instead to provide you with a selection of powers and abilities to purchase with each level-up suited to its first person combat. The skills available might look simple and easy to choose, but the ones that make a dramatic difference to your survivability tend to fall into the melee category, as it's the only option available to you at all times. With that in mind, here's our pick for the best skills to buy first in Valor Mortis.

What are the best Skills in Valor Mortis?

Here's quick summary of the best skills for you to buy first, before we go into detail on each one further down.

• Maximum Endurance (Rank 1)
• Blocking or Parrying Impact (Rank 2)
• Melee Damage (Rank 3)
• Melee Endurance Cost (Rank 5)

Maximum Endurance (Rank 1)

Endurance is arguably more important than any other of your upgradeable stats in Valor Mortis, as nearly everything you do will revolve around it. Pumping four points into Maximum Endurance first will guarantee you can comfortably block, attack, and dodge more often without running out of stamina.

While you should eventually put points in Maximum Health, too, most early enemies will deal enough damage quickly enough to kill you in just a few hits anyway, so having more Endurance will help you block, parry, and exploit attack openings more effectively instead. In the long run, this is all but guaranteed to make you a better player.

Blocking or Parrying Impact (Rank 2)

Your next best unlock is either Blocking or Parrying Impact, and the decision may come down to which of the game's two early melee weapons feels best to you. (More on that in my Valor Mortis tips)

If you're primarily using the Saber, Blocking is a vital choice because it will reduce the Endurance used by blocking, as well as increase the amount of health you can recover by attacking shortly after. Four points in this can make a huge difference to your defensive capabilities.

If you're primarily using the Rapier, you'll find that its playstyle eschews blocking altogether in favor of enhanced parrying. Pairing this with Parrying Impact ensures that your successful parries cause more posture damage to enemies, allowing you to go in for critical hits more frequently.

Melee Damage (Rank 3)

This one is about as straightforward as it gets: Pumping points into the Melee Damage skill improves how hard your weapons hit. Whether you're using the Saber or Rapier, this is a must-have skill that will make your adventure considerably more manageable from beginning to end.

Even if you're relying heavily on your Fire Transmutation during the opening hours of the game (reasonably so), Nephtoglobin is a finite resource that you'll often need to replenish by performing melee attacks, so you might as well hit as hard as you can in the process.

Melee Endurance Cost (Rank 5)

Much like Maximum Endurance from the first rank (and again later in the sixth rank), the best option in the fourth rank of skills is Melee Endurance Cost. As expected, this will reduce how much Endurance you expend when attacking with any of your melee weapons.

And again, it's important to remember that all of your other abilities need to be replenished in various manners, so even if melee attacks aren't your favorite way to attack your foes, it's still an important part of your toolkit that you'll have to maintain. Being as prepared as possible is always a good bet.

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The Deserter quest in Valor Mortis is found after reaching the Under the Bridge lantern and involves finding parts of an Anubis doll from some beehives scattered around the area. Below, I'll fill you in on the locations of all the beehives and more so that you can complete The Deserter before wrapping up the Vale of Wrath chapter. You'll also find the In the Name of Art quest in the nearby area.

How to complete The Deserter side quest in Valor Mortis

Continue forward from the shack where you picked up the note to begin the quest. When given the choice between staying straight or taking a path to the left, stay straight. Eventually, you'll find a grapple point leading to a challenging foe outside of a hut.

Defeat the enemy to be rewarded with the Beekeeper's Hut Key. The hut is directly behind where you fight the enemy, so use the key to open the door.

Inside, interact with the paper on the desk then head back outside the hut and check near one of the beehives for a piece of paper mentioning that the most dangerous hives have been marked with a red X.

Avoid interacting with any of the hives, except the one furthest away from the hut which will give you an Anubis Figurine doll part.

You'll need two more of these Anubis Figurine Parts to complete the doll, both of which are found at additional beehives in the nearby area.

The second set of hives can be found a bit further down the main path. Look for a dead horses by a carriage right before the tall, wooden encampment, then look to the right to see the hives.

Interact with the beehive on the right to get the second Anubis Figurine Part.

The third part of the Anubis doll can be found after leaving the encampment and crossing the long bridge to a new section of the area. Immediately after opening a gate here by using your Statis Transmutation on a gear, you'll be near the hive.

Step through the now opened gate and look to your right to see an open door you can enter.

Pass through the door and you'll find the last set of beehives. At a glance, there only appear to be three total, but there's actually a fourth sitting slightly hidden against the side of the house. This is the beehive you want.

Interact with it to receive the final Anubis Figurine Part, which will subsequently complete the quest and get you one step closer to wrapping up all of the game's optional adventures. There are still more awaiting you, though, so keep an eye out as you work through each area.

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The Shrike's Anthem quest in Valor Mortis can be picked up at the Island of Whisper's Lantern in the Outskirts during chapter 7. By crossing over the sunken house by the lantern and interacting with a piece of paper on the ground you'll start things off, and then need to find four verses of the Shrike's song scattered about the area. Luckily, I've got every verse location for you below to save you time searching.

All Shrike's Anthem verse locations in Valor Mortis

There are four verses to find in total. To follow the walkthrough below I recommend starting from the Island of Whispers lantern.

Shrike's Anthem Verse 1 location

Continue along the linear path just a bit further until you come across a door leading into a house on your left. A deceased horse is lying just outside of this building.

Inside this house is the first nest. Interact with it to obtain the first verse of the song.

Shrike's Anthem Verse 2 location

After crossing the bridge from the previous house to a new area, kill the enemies roaming around, then take note of the large building on the left side.

Enter this building, then duck into a small room inside to find the second nest. Interact with it to obtain the second verse of the song.

Shrike's Anthem Verse 3 location

Continue through the previous building until you exit near the water outside. On the right side of this pathway, you can jump over to a sunken house. From this house, leap into another house directly beside it.

You'll find the third nest here. Interact with it to obtain the third verse of the song.

Shrike's Anthem Verse 4 location

Shortly after the last nest, you'll need to ascend a large building. Eventually, you'll reach an area with rafters you can walk across. Follow these over to a room off the beaten path.

Here, you'll find the fourth nest. Interact with it to obtain the fourth verse of the song and complete the quest.

For completing The Shrike's Anthem, you'll get the Tiny Whisker's Gift, which can be used to gain 3,000 Catalysts, which is extremely useful for levelling your character or buying something of your choosing.

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The Lullaby quest in Valor Mortis is a strange chapter 3 side quest you can find involving a ghost of a baby. Just left of the Marketplace lantern in the Fallen Village chapter is a home you can enter, containing a crib in the center of the main room. Go there and approach the crib, and you'll hear a baby crying and immediately be given a sidequest called The Lullaby.

So I'll admit this is a bit creepy, but if you want to add a unique Amber to your equipment it's worth doing. So let's take a look at what you'll need to do to complete this side quest in Valor Mortis.

How to complete The Lullaby side quest in Valor Mortis

Before leaving the home where you find the crib, head out the back door to find a group of enemies waiting there. They should be easily mowed down with the new shotgun you'll have recently obtained from the carriage you passed through on your way to this area.

Once the enemies are gone grab the Weathered Key on the ground and then return to the lantern and rest. Now, starting from the lantern again, turn around and backtrack through the carriage to the area before this one. After defeating the large, powerful enemy on the other side, take the path on the right.

Follow this path straight until you enter an area with a bridge that you can jump over directly ahead of you, with a house visible on the other side. You'll need a running start to leap over to the gap in the bridge so make sure you're ready when the time comes.

Using the Weathered Key you picked up after killing the enemies on the door here, you'll be able to enter the house. Once inside look around for a Toy item you can pick up.

Once you have it return to the original house where you found the crib, and place the toy inside it to complete the quest. That will then earn you the Tomorrow's Promise Amber.

Tomorrow's Promise can be equipped to cause the Ferrofluid Flask (your primary healing item) to regenerate your health over time. However, this replaces the immediate heal effect from using the Flask, replenishing more health at a slower pace instead. The upside here is that there are three of these Ambers to find, with each one you get levelling up its effect. Make sure you weigh the pros and cons of using this in your build before equipping it to an Amber slot. It'll depend a lot on your playstyle as to whether the smaller instant heal, or more over time, works for you.

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The Till Death quest in Valor Mortis first appears after the Cursed Hollow chapter of Valor Mortis, where you'll face off against a boss called The Bride. After defeating this tough foe, you can interact with her wreath at the altar in the boss arena, which begins the side quest proper.

It'll require you to make a bit more progress and find a special item that can be easily missed, so I'll fill you in on what you need to know below. Here's how to complete the Till Death side quest in Valor Mortis.

How to complete the Till Death side quest in Valor Mortis

Till Death is a chapter 6 Cursed Hollow quest in Valor Mortis to find a Red Ribbon at a church and return it to the Bride's wreath at the altar where you first accepted the quest.

When you reach the church you'll first get the Claymore, the game's final melee weapon. Immediately after that, you'll leave through a door on the opposite side of the church where you can then follow a path around the outside of the church until you're given the choice between going left or right. Choose to go right to a dead end where a blue memory awaits you.

In the same spot, you can pick up a Red Ribbon in front of a grave.

With the Red Ribbon now in your inventory, return to the Village Church lantern. From the lantern, walk forward and take the second left to once again find the wreath.

Interact with the Wreath to place the Red Ribbon on it, which will earn you the Tomorrow's Promise Amber which can give you healing over time. If you already have it from an earlier quest, this will upgrade it (and there are three in the game to find).

As I mentioned Tomorrow's Promise causes your Ferrofluid Flask to regenerate health over time. Importantly, this replaces the instant heal you'd normally receive from using the Flask. Instead, your health will fill at a slower pace, and unpgrades with each version of the amber you find. So be sure you consider whether this would benefit or hinder your preferred playstyle.

Once you've placed the wreath, your quest will update to inform you that there's likely still more to the story. Return to the lantern and rest, then head back to the wreath one final time. Interact with it to find that the Red Ribbon caused the wreath to bloom, which finally finishes the quest.

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