New Steam game Dinoblade allows you to become a tweenage Spinosaurus capable of manipulating a colossal greatsword with its carnivorous mouth, so yeah, it's sold 36,000 copies in 24 hours.

"36,000 COPIES SOLD IN 24 HOURS," exclaims developer Team Spino's founder Jean Nguyen on Twitter. "The last 24 hours has been an emotional rollercoaster," continues Nguyen, who's also a senior gameplay animator at Ghost of Yotei studio Sucker Punch.

A AAA smash and certified indie Steam hit all in the same year? Nguyen's game developer bingo card must be fully maxed-out. Earlier this week, the developer shared on LinkedIn that Dinoblade had surpassed 600,000 wishlists on Steam – a huge feat.

One day after launch, Dinoblade had already earned a globally Very Positive rating on Steam, with 89% of its total 562 reviews expressing something like "Dinosaurs (Really Cool) + Blades (Really Cool) = Dinoblade (Hell Yeah)." Nguyen's already crossed two impressive milestones for an unconventional game about a scaly sword fighter.

Dinoblade's Steam description calls it "an intense action RPG set in a prehistoric world forever changed by a cataclysmic event." As the young Spinosaurus, who I'd name something powerful, like… Bill, you "confront rival dinosaurs, some armed with weapons of their own, all in a desperate fight to prevent a looming extinction."

It sounds existential, goofy, and most importantly for fellow dinosaur lovers, full of those big, prehistoric guys. There will be more to come soon – Nguyen says he's already "made a patch to fix controller issues. I'll be keeping my eyes out for more hotfix, tweaks, etc. Thank you all for making Day 1 unforgettable!"

I'm sure the rest of Dinoblade's days will be similar; it's about time someone made a game like it. I've always thought that, if we can't bring back the dinosaurs, we could at least give them swords.

Ghost of Yotei was such a hit that the actual Japanese region of Hokkaido is getting official merch amid a tourism rush highlighting areas from the game.

It would appear that the name of the next entry in the Kingdom Come series has been revealed. A trademark filing points towards a slightly different naming convention for the upcoming installment in the historical epic, though other details remain scant for now.

As spotted by The Phrasemaker, on the European Union Intellectual Property Office's online database, you can find an entry for a game called Kingdom Come Salvation. While not proof of anything in and of itself, the logo being stylized like the Kingdom Come Deliverance games definitely makes it seem like a potential spin-off, and then we have the information on who made the filing.

It was Warhorse Studios, on July 23, just yesterday in fact. This was handled by a representative, a lawyer named Dana Lukajová. According to the EUIPO's website, this is Warhorse's first trademark, hence getting third party assistance.

As if all that wasn't enough, Kingdom Come Salvation is listed as "computer gaming software" and "entertainment services for matching users with computer games." It all looks and sounds like an upcoming game, but what that means is another question.

Warhorse confirmed in May that another Kingdom Come game is in the works, and that it would be an RPG. Information is limited beyond that, but considering Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 only came out last year, the follow-up is likely still quite early in the process. Since the developer is now working on a Lord of the Rings project as well, there were questions over when we might see another quest set in the Kingdom of Bohemia.

It seems we may not be waiting all that long, but when we get more information is totally up in the air. The Game Awards seems probable for The Lord of the Rings, if that's in a state to be shown off at all, and I suspect we'll hear more about what they're doing in Middle-earth before we learn about this.

But I'd be happy to be proven wrong. Whatever Kingdom Come Salvation turns out to be, I'm ready.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2's Hans Capon actor says the RPG's success hasn't led to more work, even though "Warhorse have been absolute gems."

The One Ring in The Lord of the Rings is generally bad for you. Besides attracting Sauron's attention, the dark magic imbued inside doesn't yield many positive side effects. A particular piece of jewelry in Diablo 4 is garnering a similar reputation, since players are finding it causes them to die unexpectedly.

According to its stats, the Wendigo Brand is meant to make you more powerful the more kills you get. Specifically, getting 15 kills within 50 seconds makes you tougher and increases your life. What's not included is that wearing it could cause you to suddenly and inexplicably drop dead.

That's what fans across the community are reporting, anyway. Threads across Reddit, dating back months, have players saying their health is depleting rapidly after partaking in encounters wearing the ring.

One ring to rule them all. This ring will make you go crazy and eventually will kill you. from r/Diablo

This has led to people losing battles they really should be winning while grinding in the action-RPG. "One ring to rule them all," reads a Reddit thread. "This ring will make you go crazy and eventually will kill you."

The comments contain several more anecdotal reports of the equipment harming their progress. "Removed it from my build and random deaths just stopped," says the top commenter. What's happening, according to those who've experienced it, is that when you reach 50 stacks on the health effect, it starts draining your life instead.

Whatever's going on, it isn't good, and claims that it's a bug have been substantiated to an extent by Blizzard itself, as the developer is now investigating. "Thank you all for the reports, team is looking into this," Marcus 'Marcoose' Kretz, senior community manager on the Diablo games, said on the official forums.

I implore them to proceed with caution. We all saw what happened to Gollum. And Isildur. And Boromir. And Frodo himself. Patch it out quickly and effectively.

Diablo 4 hotfix makes it easier to farm Mythics as Blizzard confirms Season 15 will remove Mythic reroll crafting from the Horadric Cube, "adding a direct upgrade" instead

Former president of Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios, Shuhei Yoshida, has no idea why PlayStation hasn't released a PS5 or PC version of Bloodborne, and as a mega fan, he personally hopes that a port, remaster, or even a special edition is on the horizon.

While speaking about Bloodborne during his keynote speech at the Computer Entertainment Developers Conference, that's been translated by GamesRadar+, Yoshida expresses his disbelief at Sony's decision to keep his favorite Soulslike as a PS4 exclusive.

"This game [Bloodborne] has a lot of fans all over the world, and it still doesn't have a PS5 version," Yoshida says. "PlayStation's first-party team is releasing a ton of remasters, so why don't they release this one? There's no PC release.

"I am often asked why these haven't been released, but it's a complete mystery. Maybe they'll come out in the future. Maybe they won't. Maybe they'll make a special edition. Maybe they won't. As a huge fan, I hope it will come out."

Yoshida also boasts about his Bloodborne platinum trophy, though he complained about some of its more challenging bosses. He also jokingly called the "highlight of his career" defeating hell beast Watchdog of the Old Lords live on stage.

During the speech, he talks about almost 30 games he helped shape during his time at PlayStation, starting with Crash Bandicoot all the way through to Ghost of Tsushima and his work promoting indie games.

"I should have listened properly to Miyazaki": Ex PlayStation boss admits giving FromSoftware "the lowest number possible" for physical copies of Demon's Souls after getting stuck in its "demanding" starting area.

Ex-PlayStation boss Shuhei Yoshida has spoken about his history with the company, including his biggest career fumble with Demon's Souls. When he failed to understand the genius of its challenging, opaque gameplay, very few copies were printed, which led to Sony stopping him from signing Dark Souls due to his lack of support for its predecessor.

While giving the keynote speech at the Computer Entertainment Developers Conference, which has been translated by GamesRadar+, Yoshida, the former president of Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios, explains how he didn't understand Demon's Souls when he first played it.

"At that time I should have listened properly to [Hidetaka] Miyazaki-san [FromSoftware president and Demon's Souls director] and the in-house producer about what type of game they were making," he says. "I just thought they were making a kind of fantasy-themed action RPG.

"When I tried it, after two hours I was still standing in the spot at the very start of the game. I thought, 'why is this game so hard? Why is it so demanding?'" Sony was split by region at that time, and each region would pitch games developed on their home turfs to the others. Yoshida's pitch to America and Europe must have been pretty underwhelming as neither chose to pick it up.

"In Japan production started with 20,000 copies, the lowest number possible," Yoshida says. "And it wouldn't be sold in Europe or America." However, despite its limited release, Japanese gamers began to catch on to how special the game was, and word of mouth saw it gain success steadily. "At that time users online, on places like 2chan, were really excited about it saying things like, 'Isn't this actually really fun? Isn't this a god-tier game?'" he remembers.

Demon's Souls was picked up by Atlus in the US and Bandai Namco in Europe, but there was still a lack of trust in the series at Sony. "After that, the spiritual successor Dark Souls was announced," Yoshida starts. "Because we knew how amazing Demon's Souls was, and that in truth it was an amazing concept and a new type of game, we asked if we could have it, but Sony said 'You didn't really support Demon's Souls.'"

Reflecting on the fumble, Yoshida blames his history with platformers, where onboarding your players is vital, for his distaste of Demon's Souls' blatantly opaque systems. "I realized that it's important to truly understand the kind of user experience the developer is trying to create when they make a game," he reflects.

His opinion of Soulslikes has become a lot more positive over the years. To pay for his sins, Bloodborne was eventually signed with Sony, and Yoshida nabbed the platinum trophy. He even calls defeating Watchdog of the Old Lords live on stage the "highlight of his career."

FromSoftware experts find evidence Hidetaka Miyazaki's breakout RPG Demon's Souls deleted the biggest middle finger in the series: giant birds that hurl you off cliffs.

The latest Diablo 4 Season 14 patch is now available, and once again, it's tweaking drop rates for Mythics and making them easier to get in general. This has been a running theme since Season of Death Awakening kicked off at the end of June, though the current changes should help alleviate lingering frustrations.

In Undercity, you now have a much better chance of getting a Mythic from the Mythic Tribute of Armaments. If you're Torment X, the odds are "greatly increased," while for Torment XII, they're now totally guaranteed. Those are more forgiving numbers all around.

On top of this, Superior Lair Keys are now part of the last Glints of Hope cache, creating a way to farm them. This will make getting more Mythics easier in general, in terms of gathering Pandemonium Fragments and for finding the items after a big encounter.

These efforts are part of an ongoing clean up from Blizzard since Season 14 turned the hunt for Unique Mythics into a complete disaster. Drop rates are practically non-existent in some cases, as multiple players and streamers found that they couldn't find any Uniques despite playing for hours-long sessions.

Then, a limitation of only being able to carry one crafted Mythic made building characters a headache. The devs have been progressively dismantling and reworking these hurdles, but as always, changes need to be methodical and gradual, lest they over-correct and create issues going the other way.

More changes are already hallmarked for Season 15's Horadric Cube, too. "We're removing Mythic reroll crafting and adding a direct upgrade to Mythic that preserves the original unique item," Marcus 'Marcoose' Kretz, senior community manager on the Diablo series, says in a developer's note referenced by YouTuber Cliptis. "We'll evaluate bringing back this rule for that specific crafting path only."

As it stands, upgrading to Mythic gives you a random item of that class in return – it doesn't guarantee what you're upgrading is what you'll get. Cliptis adds that he believes if Blizzard does this, the rule of only allowing one crafted Mythic will come back, but that's just conjecture at the minute.

The team would be hard pushed to make matters worse than high-level players not finding particular treasure whatsoever, but I digress. This hotfix, and others that are no doubt in the pipeline, should make people's lives in the underworld a little better. For now, anyway.

Diablo 4 players are accidentally trashing their best items due to an "objectively misleading" recipe, and it's the best argument I've seen for yellow paint in games.

What constitutes worthwhile evolution in RPG design is a contentious subject. For every player who prefers the action-oriented route of modern Final Fantasy games, you've got those who want a return to the turn-based days of yore. The same is true for Diablo and action-RPG fans, as Path of Exile co-creator Chris Wilson explains how more modern, intuitive character progression is less fun to genre diehards.

Wilson went through the logic in a new YouTube video. He says the key problem for ARPG players stems from what are known as breakpoints – the benchmarks for when a particular action stat actually changes or improves. For instance, you don't automatically get quicker in spellcasting each time you move up a level. Instead, your ability goes up by increments after you reach a certain number of levels.

"There are arbitrary sweet spots of attack speed, cast speed, and hit recovery that players want to reach, because the jump in animation speed happens all at once," Wilson explains.

As a response, Diablo 2 "players created tables of speed breakpoints and optimize their characters around these thresholds," Wilson says. "Many of them had a lot of fun doing so, and it was an important part of the game for them."

The Diablo audience is such that I don't think there's any struggle in imagining players putting together spreadsheets of information on how each build can best level up. I've not done it for this series, but I've definitely been known to open up Excel or get out a pen and paper for a Dark Souls game over the years.

In my experience, Wilson is correct: it's fun. Strategizing your build brings a more tangible element to what you're doing and lets you test just how far the developers went with their balancing.

Where Wilson's perspective also holds water is in the fact that other action-RPGs fail to capture the Diablo 2 playerbase. They have less of these breakpoints, thus disappointing people who live for a good graph.

If you want old school players, you've got to play by old school rules. It's that simple.

25 years later, Diablo 2 director still hasn't gotten over how much the stamina bar sucks: "It's like a newbie tax almost."

Nier series director Yoko Taro has expressed his concerns over the decline of physical video games, after Nintendo started to replace some Switch 2 cartridges with Game-Key Cards, and PlayStation announced plans to end physical disc production for new games in 2028.

Following up from a tweet in which he showcases his physical copy of Hi-Fi Rush, the legendary game designer writes about how he is "saddened" by the loss of physical games. Yoko thought that publishers would continue to distribute games physically in some form, but now believes the industry is going in a different direction.

As translated by GamesRadar+, Yoko says: "Personally, I'm saddened by the loss of physical media, but that's just the way things are going." He goes on to explain that he never thought physical media would be phased out completely.

"As keeping control of physical distribution has its advantages compared to just releasing games on Steam etc, I thought that in the future, even if digital game downloads were pushed, there would still be expensive limited editions (like what we see with CDs). Seems I was wrong," he writes.

He continues by talking about Nintendo's controversial Game-Key Cards, which the company has been offering as a replacement for some physical releases. Rather than having the data for the purchased game on the cartridge, Game-Key Cards allow players to download the digital game once they are inserted into the Switch 2.

"Switch 2 keycards are more confusing than normal ROMs," Yoko says. "And they're specified with a huge label on the cover of the box like 'THIS IS A KEY CARD.' I guess that's just the future…"

It seems as though like many players, Yoko has resigned himself to a future without physical games despite how unpopular Sony's announcement has been.

As PlayStation declares nobody wants physical discs anymore, Gen Z is helping fuel a 16% surge in US music CD sales.

Another day, another Diablo 4 stir-up. This time, however, I'm not sure how much blame can be reasonably placed on developer Blizzard, as a big part of the issue stems from some very important – and not even very fine – print that's just not being read.

I'm always cautious to throw up a shield around Blizzard when disgruntled Diablo 4 players come a-knockin', but in this case, the root of the controversy can be pretty evenly divvied up between legitimately confusing precedent set by another crafting recipe, and also gamers' unwillingness to read onscreen text.

See, Diablo 4's season 14, which hasn't been going down well at all, introduced a new crafting recipe for the Horadric Cube. It's called Upgrade to Mythic, which at face value would make you think it's a way to take a Unique and make it a Mythic item with all of the same properties and one additional Mythic power. After all, the pre-existing Upgrade to Legendary path does exactly that, but at the Legendary tier. But no, the Upgrade to Mythic recipe takes your Unique and gives you back a random Mythic item of the same type. So your Unique dagger is going to come out a Mythic dagger, but here's the rub: it won't necessarily be the same dagger that went into the Cube, and in all likelihood, it will be a completely different item with its own stats.

The tooltip for the recipe reads verbatim: "Transmutes a Unique equipment item with at least 850 Item Power into a random Mythic of the same item slot," which is pretty darn unambiguous. That said, I can understand that the Upgrade to Legendary recipe being what it is can cause some confusion. It's just that, still, at the end of the day, simply reading that recipe description even just once would completely eliminate any doubt about what the crafting tool is going to do.

Still, "Diablo 4 Players Keep Destroying Valuable Items Because of One Misleading Recipe," reads a recent headline from Icy Veins. "Guilty," reads the top comment on a Reddit thread discussing the article. "I lost a really good dagger because I thought I was 'upgrading.'"

"Me too. I logged off for a few days afterwards," says another commenter.

"Same lol," says another.

"Yup me too," says another. And so on.

Again, I'm not saying Blizzard is completely blameless here. It is undeniably weird that the Upgrade to Mythic recipe destroys the input item and gives you something completely random when the Upgrade to Legendary recipe gives you the same item but Legendary, but I also can't help but think this whole mess is a pretty compelling argument for the infamous yellow paint that's often used as a visual cue to guide players toward their goal. In this case, it's not about reading between the lines – it's literally about reading the lines.

On the bright side: New Diablo 4 hotfix finally increases Mythic drop rates and removes limits on equipping them as Blizzard admits "not every idea lands exactly as intended."

After almost three weeks of community outcry, Blizzard is modifying the drop rates for Mythics in Diablo 4 Season 14. Players had been finding it tough to get Unique Mythics, to the point where many couldn't find any despite farming specifically for them, and now hotfixes are being rolled out to take the edge off.

"We've heard your feedback on Season of Death Awakening, including Mythic unique drop rates, equip limits, and more," Dan Tanguay, the design director of live service for Diablo 4, says on the official Blizzard forums, as relayed by Marcus 'Marcoose' Kretz, senior community manager for the Diablo series.

"In a patch releasing today, we're increasing the drop rate for Mythics from the Corrupted Reaper boss fight and removing equip limits for Mythic Uniques," he writes. "Additionally, in a patch coming next week, we're adding Superior Lair Keys to the Glints of Hope repeatable cache and increasing the Mythic Tribute drop rates in the Undercity."

How much the drop rate for the Corrupted Reaper battle increases will need to be tested, but seeing as numerous players have gotten exactly zero uniques from that encounter, things can really only go up. Letting people equip more than one is helpful as well – you can only have one crafted Mythic at a time currently, significantly reducing the options for any given build.

His post was made on July 16, yesterday at time of writing, meaning it should be live and available to you whenever you boot up Diablo 4 next. A fan on Reddit amusingly told others they can now "re-install Diablo 4," since a few had commented they were ostensibly avoiding this season due to what was happening with Mythics.

The second patch Tanguay mentioned should massage out further problems, too. "Seasons are where we experiment with new ideas and push Diablo 4 in new directions," he finishes. "Not every idea lands exactly as intended, but we’ll continue listening to your feedback, addressing what’s not working, and applying those lessons to future seasonal updates."

Diablo 4's Overwatch crossover skins have been revealed and they are completely cursed: "Mercy looks like a 90-year-old grandma."

Castlevania Belmont’s Curse is a Metroidvania with a capital Vania 'V'. It’s the first proper Castlevania game in 12 years, and a proud 2D action graduate of the Symphony of the Night school of design – not only one of the best Metroidvania games, but the one that set the blueprint for hundreds of replicas, establishing the genre.

Thousands of Metroidvania have followed in Symphony of the Night's wake, with a surge in indie popularity following 2014's Castlevania Lords of Shadow 2 – the most recent game in the series. So, how do you bring the originator back into a space that’s now overcrowded with imitators?

Whipped into shape

This question stays at the forefront of my mind for approximately 10 seconds as I settle in to play the first 3 hours of Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse. But any thoughts about the weight of the franchise's genre-defining legacy quickly fade, replaced by one singular obsession: the Vampire Killer whip. When will I get the whip? Where do I get the whip? Will the whip feel as good as it looks?

Every second I spend without the whip is agony. Hooks dangle tantalizingly from the ceilings, begging to be traversed, but remain out of reach to my bare beginner hands.

I find myself galvanized, utterly fixated on claiming this weapon, a wry smile creeping across my face as the obsession takes hold. You see – this feeling, that gnawing sense of desire, is quintessential Castlevania.

Few series understand the power of longing quite like Castlevania. Whether it's a weapon, a spell, a trapped item, an inaccessible path, or simply the relief of the next save point, these dense, Gothic labyrinths have a particular talent for making the player truly, deeply want things. And I want that whip.

As Rose Belmont, the daughter of Trevor Belmont and magician Sypha Belnades, I storm, whip-less, through the blood-soaked streets of Paris until I meet the first proper boss in the game: The Fallen. He throws a large Holy Cross my way, it spins and ricochets against the walls, and every fiber in my being tells me to jump. But, then what? In a thoughtless moment of frustration on my fifth attempt, I slice the Holy Cross. A cocktail of surprise and satisfaction ripples through my mind, because in true Castlevania fashion: the less likely option has been rewarded.

Cleaved by his own cross, The Fallen is now down to his second phase, gripping me within his far-reaching whip, or using it to swing between walls. It’s difficult to get close enough to land a hit on him in this phase, and the fight is admittedly very challenging for a first boss.

But alas, the greater the trial, the finer the weapon earned. It would be an insult for the Vampire Killer whip to be wielded by an enemy less fierce.

As with all truly great bosses, I breathe a sigh of both relief and dismay upon defeating them. Glad that the stress of his second phase is over, but sad that I’m no longer fully absorbed in the all-consuming tension and rhythm of the fight.

But most importantly, I finally get my hands on the Vampire Whip. And it absolutely rules. There are few moments in life where the catch lives up to the chase, but this weapon is one of them. It’s a sheer joy to use from the moment it’s equipped.

I traverse new aerial routes via the hooks, swinging upwards through the vertical climbs with fluid motion. I whip onto enemies, using their positioning to access unreachable areas. This is a weapon that works in harmony with an inquisitive mind – experiment with it and you’ll be amazed at what it can do.

When in Paris

Wayfinding is intuitive in Belmont’s Curse, with exploration rewarded as the vast city of Paris gradually opens up around you in a non-linear map. With a setting as cool as 15th-century Paris, Konami would have been fools to confine the game to a single castle. Instead, there are beautiful gothic streets and catacombs to roam, alongside burning, imposing buildings to climb.

The city's architecture, with its lofty, monumental landmarks, complements the verticality of the game beautifully. Long stretches of vertical traversal feel exploratory rather than repetitive, as sweeping rooftop views of Paris unfurl around you.

Boasting a striking 2.5D art style, Belmont’s Curse is a feast for the eyes. But it doesn’t really look like a Castlevania game. Its solid slabs of colour and cartoony animations lack the rich, gothic detail I associate with the series. From an aesthetic standpoint the game has far more in common with Dead Cells.

I was wondering which aspects of developer Evil Empire would shine through in Belmont’s Curse, and turns out: it’s not the roguelike gameplay, it’s the art style. Belmont's Curse may wear the stylish clothes of Dead Cells and The Rogue Prince of Persia, but it doesn't play the same way at all. The shared ground between these Evil Empire games is predominantly the visuals.

While the bolder look is a swerve of direction that will take some adjusting for longstanding Castlevania fans like myself, it is fitting for a game series that recently had a huge hit animated show on Netflix. The game and TV series clearly share a visual identity, which makes sense considering that Belmont’s Curse will be many fans’ first Castlevania game after binging the likes of Castlevania: Nocture.

Growing up loving a game series the way I love Castlevania, it’s hard not to get bogged down in nostalgia. My eyebrows shot up with skepticism when I began moving around as Rose Belmont. She feels so different. Easily the most agile protagonist the series has ever seen. But, stepping away from the blueprint doesn’t mean losing what made the series great. In fact, I appreciate that Konami and Evil Empire are willing to push Castlevania forward with a fresh feeling character rather than opting for the more rigid, familiar style of movement.

Rose is an absolute joy to control, with a nimble moveset that lets her slide behind enemies, vault through the environment, and wall-jump her way across the streets of Paris. Alongside her trusty whip, Rose wields the Arcana System, a magical toolkit powered by enchanted tarot cards gifted to her by her late mother, Sypha Belnades.

Defeating powerful foes allows Rose to seal their essence into these cards, transforming them into Arcana that grant new abilities. These powers can range from devastating, screen-clearing spells to subtle enhancements that completely reshape how she approaches combat and exploration, making every new card feel like a meaningful expansion of her arsenal. Belmont’s Curse carries all the grace and elegance of the Castlevania series in an excitingly different way. Yes, it’s back to a 2D action adventure world, but it’s back to anything but basics.

It’s a tricky tightrope to walk: keeping old Castlevania game fans happy whilst simultaneously pleasing a new, modern audience derived from Netflix. There are plenty of nods to both to appease fans. But, the core of Castlevania is preserved here, with its beloved SotN-style gameplay of tight combat, intriguing exploration, and arcane spells. And I’m thankful for that: I’d much rather Belmont’s Curse play like a Castlevania game than just look like one.

Want to hop in? Check out our where to start with Castelvania tips!

Sony plans to end physical discs by 2028, assuming no one wants to hold anything in their hands anymore now that we have the Fortnite item shop to provide us with Skibidi Toilet backpack in exchange for real money. But if that were even a little bit true, then Mortal Shell 2 developer Cold Symmetry wouldn't have to be so despondent. Its PS5-exclusive Revered Edition with a physical disc is running out of stock, which is great, but Cold Symmetry doesn't yet have confirmed plans to replace it.

"Demand for the PS5 physical Revered Edition of Mortal Shell 2 has exceeded expectations," Cold Symmetry writes in a July 16 Twitter post, ahead of the grim Soulslike sequel's August 20 launch. "Unfortunately supply across a number of retailers has now been fully reserved, meaning that in a growing number of markets fans are unable to pre-purchase a copy of the game. We apologise for the lack of availability."

Mortal Shell 2 follows the first game from 2020 in being a frigid stone slab of an action-RPG, all gray and mist blue as you possess fallen warriors' empty Shells and use their combat powers against heretics. Its fancy $70 Revered Edition comes in a big box with a physical game, steelbook, artbook, and in-game exclusives. While most major retailers seem to still be accepting pre-orders for the Edition, Cold Symmetry suggests there's no guarantee your order will be fulfilled if you place one.

"There is a very low chance of additional physical copies becoming available before the game's release," the developer continues on Twitter. "We are working with our distribution partner to review ongoing demand and we'll update as soon as we hear their decision on next steps."

"To be clear," Cold Symmetry reiterates, "there is no guarantee of a stock replenishment plan after launch as this decision is not ours to make."

But even if the Revered Edition's physical games are sold out for good, fans have decided Mortal Shell 2 will still be the accidental poster child of discs. Niko Partners video game market analyst Daniel Ahmad writes on Twitter about Mortal Shell 2's slipping stock, "Granted this is overall a supply issue rather than demand, but it does show this model works and could continue working."

Others scoff more full-throatedly at PlayStation for ever doubting the game format. In any case, it seems that physical media doesn't lie down and die just because Sony wants it to.

Sony's attack on physical goods spreads to Crunchyroll as it adds a $14 subscription requirement just to access new store "experience."

The Iconic Mythics saga in Diablo 4 just won't end, and as Blizzard continues to step on rakes to the wide ridicule of the game's most hardcore fans, the devs have announced that they're looking into how to escape the rake field they now seem to permanently reside in. In less hyperbolic terms – yes, they know Iconic Mythics aren't dropping, and yes, they're trying to figure out a solution.

A recent update was meant to actually get Iconic Mythics dropping again, as the patch notes promised that Blizzard had "increased the chance of naturally dropped Mythics being an Iconic Mythic." By all accounts, however, they're still effectively impossible to farm.

"Clearly the patch failed," as one irate post on the official message board put it. "Iconic mythics were supposed to start dropping. Now the community has collectively wasted millions of lair keys for no chance at iconic mythics still. Remove the crafted tag from AT LEAST the iconic mythics at blacksmith. They got nerfed with patch anyway. I just wasted 70 Lair keys on Grigoire for ZERO mythics of ANY kind."

In response to that message, a Blizzard community manager promises that "this is being looked into, as well as other issues surrounding mythics." The CM has, in fact, repeated that sentiment several times in response to other, similar messages over the past few days. But if you're looking for concrete details about what's changing and when, the devs have not provided them just yet.

Outrage over the state of mythic items across the game has been ongoing since before Season 14 hit the PTR at the start of June, and while Blizzard has offered various olive branches to the community and implemented changes to the system, it seems that there's still work to be done.

Diablo 4 streamer spends "20 hours non-stop" farming bosses for the ARPG's rarest items, doesn't get a single one: "Don't try this at home."

FromSoftware just remembered it's got a new game scheduled for release this year, as it's now confirmed that The Duskbloods' closed network test will take place next month.

During last month's Nintendo Direct, FromSoftware mercifully acknowledged the existence of its elusive Switch 2-exclusive multiplayer game. Things have been very quiet about The Duskbloods since its announcement last year, but we were assured we'd be able to try it out at some point "soon," and now we know exactly how soon that is.

FromSoftware confirms the network test will kick off on August 21 and run until August 24. Each day boasts at least one four-hour time slot, with some clearly more in mind for specific time zones than others. For example, the first slot on August 21 starts at 03:00am PDT (equivalent to 12:00pm CEST), but a second test later in the day begins at 19:00pm PDT (04:00am CEST the following morning). With that in mind, hopefully everyone will be able to join in at a time that isn't meant to be spent asleep at some point during the test days.

If you're interested in taking part, you'll have to register on the official site – you can do so from next Wednesday, July 22, with those selected set to be notified on August 7.

"We plan to conduct large-scale network load tests to check different technical aspects of the game's online systems," FromSoftware writes. "We look forward to you taking part and helping us make The Duskbloods as good as it can be!"

The devs note that the test is planned to trial the game's servers, multiplayer experience, as well as game balance, so if you encounter a particularly broken weapon, there's no promise that the devs won't go in to tweak it. "The Duskbloods Network Test allows for up to eight players to participate together in each of the multiplayer matches while the game is still in development," FromSoft adds. "We ask for your understanding that bugs may occur during gameplay."

We still don't know exactly when The Duskbloods is meant to release beyond the vague promise of sometime this year – hopefully, the imminent network test is a good sign of an announcement to come. At the very least, fans being able to get their hands on it is going to provide plenty of news about what we can expect from the full launch whenever that does arrive.

The Duskbloods' winged rat "elderly gentleman" was actually FromSoftware's rare attempt at something "Nintendo-esque" and "cute."

There's a new Diablo 4 patch out, and while it addresses a couple of the latent problems in Season 14, the bigger issues surrounding Mythic Uniques remain. Specifically, their drop rate is far too minimal, and crafting them is still not worth the effort.

As usual, players have been quick to see what's been altered in the latest update, and what they've found is disconcerting. Prominent Diablo 4 streamer and YouTuber Rob2628 noted on Twitter that after a quick session beating the newer Reaper Bosss over and over for loot, he got plenty of Mythics, but none of what he's been looking for.

"Got 14 Mythics in 30 minutes but still no Iconics," he posted on Twitter. Diablo 4 and Path of Exile 2 YouTuber wudijo did the same, and he had slightly different results. "Managed to get two Mythics from boss trophies," he says in a tweet. "They come with the 'CRAFTED' tag, though."

The problem here is that you can only equip one crafted Mythic at a time, another aspect that isn't sitting well within the community, because you can't stack them in your builds and it reduces the impetus to collect them. Another player delivered some dispiriting stats on Reddit.

"Out of a total of 830 boss chests, I got 38 Mythics in total but zero Iconic Mythics. I ran Grigoire, Butcher, and Reaper," they write. The drop rates vary between 2% and 14% depending on which one of these you're facing, and you'd think that'd ensure at least one Iconic across the bones of one thousand chests, but apparently not.

"Never regretted buying the add-ons more than right now," says another Redditor in the comments. "This season is a joke, a bad one," writes a second fan.

"I'm done with this shit. See you in S15 (or not, we will see)," adds another. "The fact that they are essentially doubling down on their decisions, by making the patch the way they did pisses me off. They just never learn, except if we quit and don’t buy the shit from the shop."

Blizzard did state this patch would remedy some critiques, but clearly more work needs to be done. At the very least, I'd expect those drops to get easier, because getting nothing doesn't do much for anyone.

Diablo 4 streamer spends "20 hours non-stop" farming bosses for the ARPG's rarest items, doesn't get a single one: "Don't try this at home"

Monster Hunter Wilds has had quite the turbulent journey since its 2025 release, grappling with a climb from negative to middling reviews and ongoing performance issues on PC – but there's good news regarding the action RPG now.

It's getting a permanent price reduction from Capcom, to be precise – and new DLC bundles.

The studio reveals as much in an exciting new post, writing, "Hunters, we are streamlining the available options for new and returning hunters joining Monster Hunter Wilds. We plan to discontinue sales of some of our existing bundle products and release new value bundle products." Folks can expect these to start rolling in on August 3.

Attached is a little infographic that explains the Deluxe Edition, Premium Deluxe Edition, and Cosmetic DLC Pass are goin' in the woodchipper later this summer to make way for the new bundles.

First up, there's the Monster Hunter Wilds Gold Edition, which includes the full game and DLC collection. Then there's the Cosmetic DLC Collection, which includes 10 DLC packs, including the Extras cosmetic DLC Pack.

Finally, there's the Extras Cosmetic DLC Pack (I think I've written "cosmetic" so many times I no longer remember what it means). This one boasts "select paid cosmetic DLC only previously available as standalone products."

Capcom clarifies, "The premium bonuses will be included in the new bundles above" – but that's not all. That price reduction I mentioned earlier on? Look forward to it on August 4.

"In addition," as Capcom reveals, "the Monster Hunter Wilds base game will receive a permanent price reduction starting August 4, 2026." That's pretty good news – although the team doesn't specify what this reduction will look like.

As it stands now, the base game costs a whopping $69.99. I suppose this figure might align more nicely with Monster Hunter World, which is a whole $40 less. Perhaps in the $50 or $60 ballpark?

There's no telling just yet, but for now, fans seem pretty thrilled. As one comment reads, "Oh wow, the permanent price reduction is nice." Others request more changes from Capcom – but I say, one step at a time.

At the least, the studio is heading in the right direction.

Monster Hunter World has sold over 30 million copies, further cementing its lead as Capcom's best-selling game and leaving Wilds in the dust after a year of performance woes

Hopes were high that the latest Diablo 4 patch would address the problems around Mythics introduced in Season 14. Alas, this isn't the case, as the update, coming tomorrow, July 14, only addresses a sliver of the issues, leaving players hoping for more systemic change in the weeks to come.

Essentially, the new season, Death Awakening, made Mythic Uniques a general pain in the backside. Crafting them is trickier; the drop rate for the items as loot is staggeringly low, and even using them isn't as effective as it once was.

Blizzard made a small mess here, and despite allusions to fixing things in this patch, the most glaring problems remain unaddressed, per the patch notes. That said, the process of acquiring and using Fragments for crafting Mythics is becoming easier, which is a welcome alteration.

Prior to now, it took five Fragments to make a Mythic Unique in the Horadic Cube. That turned out to be a pretty high number for how rarely they actually appeared after an encounter. Now, Corrupted Reaper will drop two of them per Hoard Chest, and you can get four if you utilize the Lair of Plenty War Plan.

On top of this, you'll only need four Fragments to craft a Mythic Unique. These aren't the total systemic changes many players were hoping for, but they should relieve some of the tension while the devs look into fixing other aspects. Drop rates are rarely simple to fix, since an overcorrection in the other direction won't help the game.

The patch notes state a bug where some Lair Bosses weren't dropping Uniques like they should has been fixed too, which may help you find some if you've been trying and failing to build up your collection. The usual smattering of fixes and tweaks across various aspects is included otherwise.

Diablo 4 streamer spends "20 hours non-stop" farming bosses for the ARPG's rarest items, doesn't get a single one: "Don't try this at home"

If any game typifies annoying side characters, it's The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and that pesky Navi. "Hey, listen!" is embedded in the brains of anyone who's ever taken that particular quest to stop Ganondorf, and another adventure's suffered the same plight, leading to a patch.

In this instance, it's recently released action-RPG The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales, a game published by Square Enix. There are clear Zelda influences in the use of a single, sword-wielding protagonist on a mythic date with destiny, who's accompanied by a glimmering butterfly named Faei.

Though meant to be helpful, it turns out Faei's contributions were a little more irritating than intended. "Think Navi from Ocarina of Time except it's [around ten] seconds of hammed up anime girl interjections," reads a negative Steam review. "Add that to Elliot's 'Hyah' which only has [three-to-four] variations. and jumping noise, it's like one of those brain rot simulators."

The devs are aware of these complaints, and have decided to remedy the situation by adding an off switch. The latest patch lets you simply remove Faei's insights entirely, and you can feel a certain sigh of relief emanating from the community.

There were settings for minimizing how often you heard her in-game, but according to the same reviewer above, even the lowest option still has a voice line across several more activities than you might like. Generally speaking, choice is good, and while some may enjoy Faei, it's clear plenty don't, and letting them switch it off seems like a wise move.

Nintendo has never offered any such thing for Ocarina of Time. I can't imagine, even if patches existed in the late-'90s, the company would've bothered. It's just not how the house Mario built ever operated. I lament this each and every time I head back to Hyrule, to be honest.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 lead says Zelda: Breath of the Wild was "the first open-world game that actually delivered on the promise of an open world"

The Blood of Dawnwalker is taking remarkably big swings for developer Rebel Wolves' debut game. I played the upcoming RPG for four hours earlier this month, and came away fascinated by how physically it involves the player in its world. Time is an action point-style resource that keeps the game's world moving forward, while protagonist Coen's playstyle varies greatly as a vampire by night and human by day.

While its third-person action and open-world setting betray its developer's experience on RPG hits The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, The Blood of Dawnwalker shows a clear drive to go deeper on role-playing elements. Catching up with game director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, I suggest that a lot of the game's depth is typically reserved for isometric-style RPGs – think Baldur's Gate and Fallout, wherein rules and systems are used to reinforce their respective fantasies.

In another life, The Blood of Dawnwalker could have mirrored those examples even closer. "At the beginning of the game, we knew we wanted it to be third-person," shares Tomaszkiewicz, "[but] when we started thinking about combat, we thought maybe we would make it isometric."

"In the end, we thought that telling the story and being immersed with your characters is best when you see it all the time on screen," the director continues. "A big part of RPGs is itemization – changing your character, putting new clothes and weapons on, and so on. You want to see them on your character all the time, and in isometric games it works but the characters are smaller and the details are harder to see. We knew we had the technology and know-how to do really detailed characters, knew those materials would be really good, and decided to create a third-person [perspective] where you can change the distance from the character."

Fighting talk

Rebel Wolves opted for real-time combat for the same immersive gains. "The goal we had was to not create combat where you see pretty stuff on the screen, like you're pressing a button and watching a movie. We wanted you to feel that you are in the center of combat, that you need to observe your opponent, and react, and learn to fight. I compare it to Guitar Hero, because there is a similar feeling that in the beginning – you cannot hit these buttons! – and after a week, you're doing it really fast [...] Here, you'll also have this learning curve."

I expected The Blood of Dawnwalker's combat to mirror The Witcher 3, which Tomaszkiewicz directed, but in play it's quicker and more dynamic. Your mouse or analog stick input determines the direction Coen's attack swings from – mixing it up makes enemies less likely to block your blows – and similarly, blocking or parrying a blow requires matching the direction it's aimed from.

How Coen fights depends on the time of day. When the sun is up, he's a fairly normal swordfighter, able to use combat techniques via an ability wheel – but not his vampiric powers. Those are limited to nocturnal use, letting Coen fight with his claws and other supernatural powers. A Dishonored-style blink allows you to reposition instantly and often, and while you can't heal by eating food in vampire form, you can snatch an enemy in combat to gain health with quick gulps of their blood.

Playing Coen at the start of his journey means I don't have access to some of his more dramatic powers, but it already feels exceptional – comparable to Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 and Dragon's Dogma 2, but easier to get to grips with. It's right on the sweet spot, involved enough for the sickos and straightforward enough for more casual fans – how did Rebel Wolves get there without over-cooking?

"Oh god, it was a lot of iteration," laughs Tomaszkiewicz. Combat started with a simpler concept and "quite easy" opponents, but it "started to get boring" over multiple playthroughs, leading to further additions. "From iteration to iteration we'd add something, change something, and in the end we are where we are now. There is no other way [to get it right] than iterating and playing all the time. If you're playing this game hundreds of times and still have fun when you fight, that was the goal – to create a combat system you can enjoy and you can repeat."

"The example I like to give here is Max Payne," he adds. "I replayed it five times, because I like the things I can do there, how it looks, and so on. I wanted to create it here, with similar feeling [and] different tools."

Through the lens of combat, I get the impression that Rebel Wolves has spent the last four years untangling itself from the RPG genre's norms and expectations – instead following the fun and seeing where it leads. Its much-lauded time system is "like Persona," says Tomaszkiewicz, but argues The Blood of Dawnwalker's shifting day and night dynamic is unlike anything we've seen before. "There are no games we could have compared this to. We created two different loops, and [essentially] needed to create two games in one."

"You can play the same quest at day or night, and it's a little bit different," the director adds. "Different choices, different consequences – it's a lot."

The developers of Monster Fantasy have addressed comments that its upcoming title is perhaps a bit too similar to Capcom's Monster Hunter series.

Last month, the reveal trailer for Monster Fantasy was revealed from Jotoyo. The game is described as an action RPG with life sim elements, however, the trailer caught the eyes of many for another reason, that being some striking resemblances to another game with Monster in the title.

Now, the gaming community does have a bit of a tendency to be quick to label things a "ripoff" at the slightest similarity. Most new indie farming sims will be dubbed a Stardew ripoff (even if Story of Seasons heavily inspired Stardew), and we can even look as far back as the likes of Uncharted being dubbed a Tomb Raider ripoff and Digimon being called a Pokemon ripoff. However, I absolutely see the similarities when it comes to Monster Fantasy.

The game's trailer opens up with some landscape shots of biomes that look strikingly similar to the biomes from Monster Hunter Rise, and the music feels a few notes away from being the Capcom series theme song Proof of a Hero – with a similar build up to its main melody – as a Rathalos lookalike emerges. Fans have even noticed similarities with some of the weapon animations, specifically the bow and sword. The comments on the trailer aren't exactly shy about it either, with the refrain of "we got monster hunter at home" being a common comment.

In a Steam FAQ (via Automaton) posted by the developers, the team is facing the comparison head on, with a question titled: "The game looks very similar to Monster Hunter. Does it have its own unique features?" The developers respond: "Monster Hunter is indeed one of our sources of inspiration, and our core creators are big fans of the series. However, Monster Fantasy places greater emphasis on the new experiences created by the interaction between different gameplay systems."

It continues, "We understand that some of the combat demonstrations in the trailer may remind players of Monster Hunter. However, once players actually try the game, we believe they will find that the overall experience is quite different."

The post claims that the hunting "is only one part of our gameplay" and the developers really want to present "a fantasy world where, beyond hunting and combat, players can truly immerse themselves: building villages, enjoying a relaxed life, and forming friendly relationships with villagers."

The devs add, "Of course, the content we have shown so far is still from an early stage, and we understand that some footage may have given players the impression of a high degree of similarity. We have taken this feedback seriously and are already adjusting and improving the design."

Obviously, there's nothing wrong with games taking inspiration from others, we wouldn't have most of the games we love if not for that, but sometimes the similarities are a touch too blatant to ignore. Especially when we've seen instances like the Pokemon Palworld alleged patent infringement lawsuit, even when the survival game is a different experience than Pokemon, it maybe wore some of its inspirations a little too much on its sleeve for The Pokemon Company to ignore – and the massive success probably didn't help.

Monster Hunter Wilds fans collectively sigh as Ascendance expansion brings back hated elder dragon Kushala Daora: "I'm just really tired of seeing him."

Before landing The Blood of Dawnwalker's lead role as vampire protagonist Coen, actor Will de Renzy-Martin summarizes his prior work in games succinctly: "I walk into a room, I scream 'grenade!', and then I walk out again."

It's a far cry, then, from the demands of playing Coen. In The Blood of Dawnwalker's prologue, we see his quiet village life torn apart. His loved ones are slaughtered and kidnapped following blood tithes to their vampiric overlord, while Coen himself is forcibly turned into a vampire and left to die in the sunlight, surviving only because he's left part-human. Believably portraying that traumatic descent is a tall order, as is the sheer amount of work required for the main character of a 40+ hour game.

The actor is no stranger to games, with recent credits including 007 First Light and Crimson Desert. But the story of The Blood of Dawnwalker, which can play out in many different ways depending on the players' decisions as Coen, offered an unusual treat. "It's been a massive pleasure to spend so much time working on something so specific," Renzy-Martin tells me, suitably, in the booth of a converted crypt. "It's very rare you get to do that."

Reflections

When Renzy-Martin auditioned to play Coen, he had "fairly limited information" on the character and The Blood of Dawnwalker's wider world. He landed a callback, where he learned the game was being made by Rebel Wolves – a studio co-founded by veterans from The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red. "I probably shouldn't have looked that up before the recall," he admits. "I was slightly too excited! But here we are, so I'm glad it all went my way."

From the four hours I've played, Renzy-Martin convincingly captures Coen with rawness and pain. Equally impressive is how quickly we're made to care for the hero. Playing the prologue, much of my time is spent fetching medicine for Coen's mother and helping his siblings fish – making me all the more empathetic for him when, later, I lose control in dialogue and fatally drink from one of his terrified friends.

Renzy-Martin says the senselessness of Coen's devastation draws him to the character. "The really interesting thing about him is that there's no reason why this has happened to him, his life was hard enough as it was," he says. "He's weak at the start of the game, he's not drawing from these massive reserves of power that are available to a superhero. He's just someone thrust into the spotlight [...] That's a fascinating character to portray, and it's been amazing to see through that journey and find the different [places] where that can end up."

For a long time, the actor admits he had "absolutely no idea" that Coen's story marked the beginning of a saga spanning from 14th-century Europe to the modern day. The silver penny dropped with The Blood of Dawnwalker's announcement trailer, which includes a timeline-style shot dating the RPG's medieval setting. "I was watching it and was like 'Oh, it's from this time, that's exciting,'" he recalls. "I then spent the next few months worrying – is it a saga about Coen?!"

"By the end of recording the game, I could see how it's going to shape up," he continues. "Not what the plan is, but how it will shape into a bigger universe. But it didn't affect [my performance] at all, because it's such a self-contained thing that plays out. The overarching context adds a bit more zhuzh, but that's something that's going to be experienced within the game."

When I parted with Coen he was freshly-turned, setting out to dismantle Vale Sangora's royal vampire court and find his family. It remains to be seen how we'll reach the modern era, but I look forward to seeing how Renzy-Martin carries Coen through the centuries – especially as the scope of Rebel Wolves' ambitious RPG becomes clearer.

From its first hands-on preview to revealing developer interviews, dive into this month's Big Preview for Blood of Dawnwalker

It's supposed to be difficult to get a mythic drop in Diablo 4, but the latest season, Death Awakening, accidentally made it practically impossible. The Iconic Mythics are a unique treasure for experienced players, but after anecdotal research showed the drop rates are ludicrously low, Blizzard's doing some fine-tuning.

A patch is on the way that's going to respond to criticisms over season 14, according to information from the Diablo Partner Program. Specific details aren't given, but we can guess the update will fix a few known problems, such as all Mythic Uniques coming with the Crafted tag when gotten through the Horadic Cube, and the aforementioned chance of getting certain items in battle.

The latter's been tested specifically by Diablo YouTuber Wudijo, who spent hours grinding for an Iconic Mythic only to come away empty-handed after 20 hours. Seriously, he played for that long and didn't get a single one, suggesting the RNG here is off-kilter.

Annoying as is, because you want proper prizes for taking on the wretched hellspawn of Diablo 4's depths, this creates limitations for particular builds because certain staple pieces of equipment are now nigh unobtainable. It seems like a classic case of tuning the drop rate just a little too strongly for its own good, but we'll see what emerges in the patch notes.

This update is expected to roll out within the next week or so, making it around the middle of July. However, it's worth noting that Blizzard's parent company, Microsoft, has been making substantial changes across all its studios of late, including laying off hundreds of staff.

Expect release schedules to be at least a little up in the air for the time being. An internal memo suggested how this all impacts Blizzard would be revealed later, but don't be surprised if things take longer than usual at present.

Blizzard says fine, it'll "split the difference" with Diablo 4 players outraged over Mythics, keeps core changes intact to ensure the ARPG's "long-term health"

Diablo 4's new season, Death Awakening, kicked off on June 30 with some highly anticipated adjustments to the game's rarest loot, now called "Iconic" Mythics. The TLDR is that Mythic Uniques now come with two guaranteed powers that synergize with the item's unique abilities, replacing the completely random rolls that garnered so much controversy in the PTR, but even if Blizzard's compromise with players completely restored the community's goodwill (it didn't), it seems there's a whole new pain point emerging: drop rates.

According to one extremely thorough study from Diablo 4 content creator wudijo, Death Awakening's drop rates for Iconic Mythics are pretty darn stingy. In a new 20-minute video, wudijo says he spent "20 hours non-stop farming bosses" to bag himself some Iconic Mythics – in particular the El'Druin Sword of Justice – to no avail.

Wudijo spent most of two full real-world days farming Helltides, "not doing anything else in-between," and ended up with 850 lair keys, 900 greater lair keys, and 127 superior lair keys. Using those farming those bosses netted him a little over 100 Mythics, five Mythic Seals, and more than five billion gold, but unfortunately, not a single Iconic Mythic.

Even after salvaging "almost all" of the Mythics he looted at the blacksmith and trading them for Resplendent Sparks to make new items, "I just don't have that item, with all of my effort with all of the crafting, with all of the Sparks, and all of these lair bosses... so this is what happened here, and I am very sad," says wudijo.

Acknowledging that farming Helltides is an "extremely good" way to rack up regular Mythics and Mythic Seals, wudijo concludes that if you're looking for a specific Iconic Mythic, or really any Iconic, "this is definitely kind of disappointing."

It doesn't help that, in his experience, farming for a Mythic version of a Unique that otherwise fits your build often ends in disappointment.

"Most of the time you will have found so many good Uniques that, by the time that you have any realistic hope of getting the Mythic version, that the Mythic most often just ends up being worse, or at least not much of an upgrade in the first place," wudijo says.

As an example, wudijo says he found a particularly viable Unique Eaglehorn bow and wanted to see if he could find a better Mythic version for his Rogue build, but by the time a Mythic Eaglehorn actually dropped, it wasn't as good as the normal Unique one because "it rolled two bad stats," and since Diablo 4's reworked loot system only lets you re-roll one of a Mythic item's powers, his Mythic Eaglehorn went to the blacksmith for salvaging.

Wudijo is far from the only Diablo 4 player feeling unhappy with Iconic Mythic drop rates in season 14, with one heavily upvoted Reddit thread calling them "broken." Having fond memories spending entire summers as a kid chasing the rarest items in the games, I think there's value in having items so rare that they genuinely feel mythical when encountered, but at the same time, one of the new Diablo 4 season's biggest focuses is the Mythic rework, so it does seem peculiar that there's an item class eluding players as dedicated as wudijo, especially when Diablo seasons only last about three months. We'll see if and how Blizzard responds to the latest kerfuffle from the Diablo community.

Blizzard devs in the dark for now as president of the World of Warcraft and Diablo studio says they "can expect to hear more" soon about Microsoft's plan for the studio as Xbox faces 3,200 job cuts

Follow-up Soulslike Mortal Shell 2 is coming to PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC on August 20, and I'm encouraged by the variety of disgusting bosses shown off in its new trailer.

Developer Cold Symmetry released a new trailer locking in the date and showing off the sequel's upgraded, grisly combat. Like the original game, Mortal Shell 2 is a third-person action RPG where you melee, parry, and now shotgun your way through hordes of Gothic enemies that are equal parts gross and majestic. As you explore a world that's said to be much larger this time around, you unlock eponymous Shells to equip on your primordial hero, changing their abilities and fighting style dramatically, a bit like channeling the spirits of past warriors.

The original Mortal Shell played and performed fine enough – that is, fine enough to give Cold Symmetry space to make a much more ambitious sequel that, so far, actually feels a lot better. The open beta (really, the demo) for Mortal Shell 2 is still available on Steam, and I was quite taken with it when I gave it a shot. The best demo experience is one that makes you hungry for the full game, and I was certainly disappointed when I remembered I was only playing a vertical slice.

In its early hours, Mortal Shell 2 sheds much of the clunk that saddled the first game and injects ranged weapons that make combat feel more dynamic. I'm the kind of Soulslike glutton who will clear just about anything with a half-decent parry, but I'm properly looking forward to this one after some hands-on time. More polished combat was basically all I was looking for, so if the game also bears out Cold Symmetry's bold promise of a gigantic, dungeon-filled world, this could end up being something special. It helps that it's only $50, too.

The "final game" from Half-Life 2 and Dishonored's late art director has been revealed: "The world's first Soulslike FPS," an apocalyptic Western at "the end of America."

The Blood of Dawnwalker is the product of lives spent worshipping RPGs. Its developer, Rebel Wolves, was co-founded by a cohort of CD Projekt Red veterans – writers, artists and directors with credits including The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Cyberpunk 2077. After spending four hours with The Blood of Dawnwalker, sucking blood and coming to grips with being a vampire in an open-world RPG, I caught up with game director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz and environment artist Adam Payet to learn more about the personal tastes driving their studio's debut.

Tomaszkiewicz, best known for directing The Witcher 3, found his way to the genre as a means of stepping out from the real world. "My father was a surgeon, but also an alcoholic. It was really hard in our childhood, and video games were my escape," he tells me. "I started from the Spectrum [computer] and I'd rewrite games from the magazines. Then I had an Atari and the NGPC games, and I also played pen and paper RPGs."

Meanwhile, Payet fell in love with the first Baldur's Gate and the rest was history. "In terms of [Tomaszkiewicz's]personal and family-related background, it's a very similar story to me, weirdly," he says. While Tomaszkiewicz channeled his passion for RPGs into CD Projekt Red over the years, moving from The Witcher trilogy's story and game design to lead quest designer and ultimately game director, Payet was inspired by Minecraft to broach game development during the COVID-19 pandemic. "I was taken by the fact there was a world I could shape as well as explore," he recalls. "At one point I got frustrated that it's all cubes, so I started learning software to make my own things."

Salem's Gate

Although I spent four hours playing The Blood of Dawnwalker, it took a fraction of that time to lose myself in its setting. It's something I discuss in my hands-on preview, but the speed at which Rebel Wolves makes you care about its 14th century world is remarkable. So much has happened here before Coen's story begins – war and the Black Plague have left their mark on Vale Sangora, their effects visible in dilapidated villages and looming stone watchtowers. Some of the threads I pull at during exploration, from folktales mentioned in passing to wall paintings in an ancient tomb, hint at lore stretching back hundreds of years.

Main antagonist Brencis has been sucking blood since the Roman Empire's rule, and as freshly-turned progeny Coen fights his sire's rule in Vale Sangora, the ancient vampire and his court can retaliate by issuing edicts and wielding their influence against him across the open-world. In tandem with The Blood of Dawnwalker's time-as-a-currency mechanic, in which quests and side activities nudge the clock hands forward, the world feels truly dynamic – I'm desperate to run amok, but equally feel like I've just started a good book.

Having played my fair share of slow-burn RPGs, I don't take The Blood of Dawnwalker's immediate magnetism for granted. Pressed on how it's achieved, Tomaszkiewicz points to the team's "years of experience" working with "the best in the industry" – which, he adds, includes Rebel Wolves in its current iteration. "We put our heart and soul into [our] games," says Tomaszkiewicz. "We fight a lot while we're doing it, and there's a lot of complaining about the stuff we don't like, so we try to make it better and better. This way, with a lot of iteration, we are where we are."

Joining The Blood of Dawnwalker's development at a later date, Payet's introduction to Vale Sangora mirrors my literary impressions more directly. In his first week at Rebel Wolves, he was asked to read the game's hefty "lore bible" and told that the game's world "is huge not necessarily in terms of physicality, but in terms of lore."

"All of that has been painstakingly researched and written so that what you see in the game is just the tip of the iceberg," he adds. "But the iceberg does exist, and that lends credibility. It makes it so much easier to build a world when you know its history."

What's in a name?

The RPG genre has worn many hats over the years. Tabletop RPGs hitch their wagons to raw imagination and remain timeless for it, and while video games initially sought to replicate that as authentically as possible – often with mechanically dense isometric titles and some of the best tactical RPGs to date – years of lighter third-person adventures and action RPGs have broadened their horizons further. Even now, we see the likes of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, and Baldur's Gate 3 find mainstream success by building upon the genre's earliest philosophies and mechanics.

With the term 'RPG' now standing for so much, I ask the pair whether they feel a core identity remains or if player taste has fragmented too much for an umbrella term.

Payet brings up a recent conversation within Rebel Wolves. "We miss when genre wasn't a thing, back in the '90s or early 2000s. When you bought a game pre-YouTube, pre-[online] games media, all you had was the title and a blurb of text on the back. Three screenshots, and you didn't know anything until you opened the booklet!"

"It wasn't like 'Oh, that's an RPG', or 'that's a roguelike', or Metroidvania, or whatever," he adds. "It was just: it's a game – go do the thing! Not being constrained by a label of this or that genre made it so people went out with crazy ideas."

"For me, the core will always be the same," says Tomaszkiewicz. "The clue is [in the name] – to get into the role."

The director likens shifting norms and features to "branches" of the genre, and in doing so, speaks to the ambition that marks The Blood of Dawnwalker as one to watch. "I hope that we created our own [RPG] branch," he says. "With this narrative sandbox, this particular combat, and day and night creating other ways to experience the game, this is the branch we want to develop. We want to have our own identity."

One more bite?

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is a generational historical RPG that deserves every ounce of praise it's gotten, and in my opinion was every bit as deserving of GOTY 2025 as Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, but apparently the actor behind one of its main characters hasn't been able to share in its success.

In conversation with Firezide Chat, Luke Dale, the charming face and voice behind Hans Capon in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, says he turned to streaming after becoming recognizable as Hans Capon, a role you'd think might open up a lot of professional doors for an actor.

"I wish I could say that Kingdom Come 2, the work I've done and the fact it's been played by millions of people led to more work, but it didn't," Dale says.

"I was hoping it would, but I always hedge my bets because I don't think the industry has been particularly kind to me. Warhorse have been absolute gems. They're so supportive and really believed in me the whole way through. But the industry at large has never really given a fuck."

As the games industry rushes to replace humans with AI on the payroll, and as seemingly unending layoffs make work more competitive, there's no denying that it's a hard time for everyone right now, actors and voice actors included. That said, Dale has managed to accumulate an impressive 72.2 thousand followers on Twitch and 177 thousand YouTube subscribers, which is likely at least in part thanks to his role as Hans, so it's not like his post-Kingdom Come professional life has been entirely thankless.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 lead designer says "friction is intentionally" in the RPG because when "you overcome the friction, you feel better about yourself"

Former Tekken series lead Katsuhiro Harada says FromSoftware boss and Dark Souls creator Hidetaka Miyazaki is a "unique" developer with a "'mad scientist' side," thanks to his "deeply serious, obsessive approach to creativity." However, when it comes to Dark Souls, it's not the notorious difficulty that makes Miyazaki's creation stand out – it's the world.

Harada and Miyazaki are both legendary games industry veterans in their own right, but asked about the Dark Souls mastermind on Twitter, the ex-Bandai Namco dev has plenty of thoughts to share.

"Miyazaki is a rather unique, yet extremely serious game developer," Harada begins, noting that the FromSoftware lead "didn't become a game developer until he was almost thirty years old," meaning he wasn't even in the industry for "the dawn of the polygon era" – making his impact on the scene "remarkable." It's that latter part that makes Miyazaki's career path "exceptionally unusual," Harada adds.

As for Dark Souls, it's not the difficulty of the game that stands out to him – in fact, Harada actually hits us with a 'skill issue' midway through his essay, as he notes his belief that "Dark Souls has fairly simple action mechanics, and I don't actually consider it to be an especially difficult game." Damn, OK. Rather, Harada says, "Miyazaki's true creativity shines through in the world he created."

To be fair, I'm sure Harada's not the only one who thinks this. The Dark Souls games aren't just notoriously difficult; they're also famously complex when it comes to their world-building and storytelling. As Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 lead Guillaume Broche discussed recently, the majority of Souls players will "finish the game the first time and haven't understood a thing." However, look a little closer under the surface, and you can uncover deep, fascinating lore and cleverly built locations full of details.

It's no doubt partly thanks to this that the series has cemented itself as such a firm favorite amongst fans, especially over time. Speaking from his experience "overseeing both production and marketing" of the Dark Souls games and Elden Ring, Harada says: "Dark Souls didn't suddenly become a massive success overnight. It was the result of everything Miyazaki and his team had built up through their previous titles."

In fact, there were times when "his team were struggling," which Harada looks back to now that Miyazaki "receives offers from all over the world," making him feel like some folks have had "complete reversals in attitude" to FromSoftware's work since it's become so successful.

Reminiscing about Miyazaki's approach to game development, Harada also looks back to the creation of the VR game Summer Lesson (which was released in 2016, and sees you take on the role of a tutor for a high school student), when the Dark Souls lead tried an early build of the game.

"While everyone else was laughing, chatting, and having fun with it, Miyazaki alone played it with incredible seriousness," Harada recalls. "Then, after everyone had finished and started discussing their impressions, he remained completely silent, staring intently at the preview monitor, deep in thought.

"Everyone became curious and finally asked him, 'Miyazaki, what are you thinking about?' He suddenly smiled and said, 'Oh… I got completely absorbed in thinking about what I would do if I were making this, and what kind of game I'd create,'" he continues. "What he talked about after that was, in the best possible sense, completely insane. It was one of those rare moments when I caught a glimpse of what I'd call his 'mad scientist' side – his deeply serious, obsessive approach to creativity."

The former Tekken boss wraps up by discussing why Miyazaki tends to avoid appearing in live streams and video interviews, and it might not be the reason you'd expect. As well as disliking seeing "himself moving around on video," which any camera-shy person can understand, Miyazaki apparently thinks there are "many people in this industry who know games far better than he does," which makes him believe "his own understanding is still shallow," so "he's not yet in a position to be the one talking about games."

This is, of course, a wildly modest thing for the creator of Dark Souls to think, which Harada acknowledges. "I mean… it's common for well-known developers to say, 'I still have a long way to go.' But whenever someone like him says that, my reaction is always, 'Come on… if you say you're still not there yet, then the rest of us won't feel qualified to talk about games at all.' (laugh)"

In the same enormous post, Harada also speaks about Super Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai, who he clearly also has immense respect for. In what might be the best form of compliment, he compares him to a Dragon Ball Saiyan "who genuinely believes he's just another ordinary human" – and apparently sometimes says things that make him sound "exactly like Goku."

Hideo Kojima and Dark Souls creator Hidetaka Miyazaki's games have something other AAA titles don't, former PlayStation boss says: "You can tell it's their visions."

Guillaume Broche, creative director of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, says Kingdom Hearts 2 is one of the best action RPGs ever created.

Speaking to Konbini on its Jeux Video Club series (below), Broche singles out Kingdom Hearts 2 as one of his "top five games of all time," adding: "You have to admit that Square Enix has managed to create something truly exceptional."

He points to the gameplay in the series, "especially in the second game," which he considers "one of the best action RPG's ever created," while shouting out the late-game combos and fusions you can acquire throughout the adventure.

"There's really something about that gameplay that I've been looking for ever since Kingdom Hearts 2," he says, adding: "You could spend 150 hours in the late game."

Obviously, there have been games in the series since then, and Broche notes "Kingdom Hearts 3 isn't bad, but it didn't manage to recapture everything it did in terms of gameplay, which was exceptional." He doesn't say if he's played the litany of other titles that are all somehow canon, so maybe Kingdom Hearts 0.2: Birth by Sleep – A Fragmentary Passage would hit the mark for Broche.

For as much as a breath of fresh air Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was seen as for many, it's very much a game that proudly wears its inspirations on its sleeve. Of course, the game is heavily inspired by Final Fantasy in more ways than you can count, while Verso's gameplay heavily leans on Devil May Cry – a game which Broche previously uploaded challenge runs of before developing his own game – with the ranking system and pretty much every one of his moves being ripped straight from Vergil. With the blend of action and RPG mechanics, it's not a shocker to hear that Broche is pretty keen on Kingdom Hearts too.

"It's a pure skill issue": Clair Obscur Expedition 33 head says the RPG's notorious volleyball minigame is "easy," then proves it on stage.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance and its sequel are games that pride themselves on their historical realism, with a story rooted in 15th century Bohemia wartime, characters based on real-world history, and architecture that closely resembles the buildings that actually stood, and in some cases still do stand, in that region of the world. But if we're talking about the first game specifically, there's one key aspect of the story that developer Warhorse well and truly whiffed, and that's how much in-game time transpired over the course of the main story.

During the epilogue of the first Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Hans Capon asks Henry how long they've known each other, having met near the beginning of the game, when Henry arrives in Skalitz as a refugee. Capon suggests it's only been a couple of weeks since they met, implying the entire main story took place over a matter of some 14 days, meaning in that space of time Henry went from being an orphaned son of a blacksmith with no combat experience to a master swordsman with a body count to rival Nathan Drake's, earning him the trust of nobles to carry out high-stakes missions.

Now, this being a video game, I think most of us went, "Huh, that seems a little unlikely, but so does the premise of pretty much every video game ever made," but not one Twitter user going simply by Paul, who assigned himself the task of mapping out how long Henry's journey actually took, canonically. "Given the KCD saga's (hilariously) tight timeframe, I thought it would be fun to 'map out' just over how much time the main story actually takes place," he says before presenting a quite nifty calendar of events and how much time likely transpired between them.

Admittedly, the space in mind allotted to Kingdom Come: Deliverance is entirely occupied by the riveting events of the second game, and it's been about seven years since I touched the first one, but from what I can tell this calendar seems logical, organized, and well-researched. Paul estimates Henry would be bedridden from his combat injuries escaping Skalitz, not to mention fever likely from infection, for about two weeks, which sounds like a reasonable recovery time.

In Kingdom Come: Deliverance and its sequel, you can sleep in any bed or pile of hay you find around the map, although you'll likely get woken up if you don't own the bed, but that's not relevant to the canonical timeframe of the main story. So Paul maps out how long he reckons each quest takes Henry in terms of the in-game timer, and he does so meticulously ,with "a bunch" of self-imposed metrics accounting for side quests and travel time – not to mention detailed notes of Henry's daily activities. Ultimately, the character's calendar stretches out just beyond two months, which sounds a lot more logically consistent than two weeks, for sure.

"Obviously the results are incredibly subjective," Paul admits. "kcd is a brilliant game in that nearly no two playthroughs are exactly the same. i could've easily failed a skill check that set me back a day, or i could've been attacked by bandits and missed someone before they went to bed, etc.

"I mainly thought this was fun since the in-game world time counter is incredibly inaccurate. it doesn't account for henry's 2 week stint in bed and it skips forward by entire days A LOT (drinking with godwin, theresa's second date, jobst's meeting)."

I'm deeply impressed by Paul's studiousness when it comes to Kingdom Come: Deliverance's world and the illogical pace of its elusive clock, and apparently, so is Warhorse. "At this point you're possibly more organised than we are!" the studio's official Twitter account said in reply to Paul's work. Paul, as any self-motivated superfan would do, decided to then shoot his shot for employment at Warhorse. Henry would be proud.

Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 adds Balatro's Jimbo in a surprise new quest with a huge addition to the RPG's best minigame

Capcom has confirmed that Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen director Kento Kinoshita will be returning to the director's chair for Dragon's Dogma 2's expansion.

Dragon's Dogma was pretty liked when it launched back in 2012, but what really led to the game becoming the legendary title it is today was its expansion, Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen, which released a year later. Dragon's Dogma 2 then released a decade later and was seen as an all-timer by anyone who wasn't a coward, but 2025 came and went with no word of an expansion.

This, mixed with Dragon's Dogma series creator Hideaki Itsuno leaving Capcom in 2024, led some to believe a Dark Arisen-like expansion wouldn't be happening, but with Kinoshita still being at Capcom, there was a little bit of hope left. And during the Nintendo Direct earlier this month, we finally found out Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen is happening later this year.

During last night's Capcom Spotlight stream, it was revealed that Kinoshita is once again taking on the director's role for Dark Arisen as he hosted the segment about the game. The expansion is set to feature a new region for the game in the form of Norgan, which is a snowy area at the north of the map with a new relic system, which allows you to create fresh weapons with unique class skills. The base game's map is also set to be expanded with 12 dungeons.

The segment also introduced the Fallen Dragon, which is set to be a major enemy found in the expansion, alongside the NPC we saw in the trailer called Eir, who is seeking out the dragon. Details about this part remained fairly light, but it seems like the main quest of this expansion will focus on these two.

Former Devil May Cry and Dragon's Dogma 2 director says he can't make "the kind of games I'd most like to" as "they'd be too out there" and "probably wouldn't sell."

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 has a surprise new quest with a familiar face offering Henry the challenge of a lifetime: beat Balatro's Jimbo in an updated version of the RPG's best minigame, and you'll get a reward commensurate with your effort.

Warhorse surprise-announced the new Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 update on Twitter, revealing a new "Balatro-inspired quest" and introducing Jimbo as the open-world RPG's newest NPC. I love Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, and I love video game crossovers, so I immediately sprung to my PS5 and checked for an update.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 version 1.5.6 was waiting for me with about 7GB to download, and after just a few minutes I was able to dive in and see what's new. Jimbo is said to be hanging around the Hangman's Halter Tavern, but he wasn't there for me immediately. However, once I slept and saved in a bed he spawned just out front of the tavern.

*Spoilers for the quest to follow. Turn back if you haven't completed it and you want to go in blind*

If you initiate a chat with the new Jimbo NPC, he'll tell you he's traveled from Italy with a new twist on the popular Dice minigame that uses a very Balatro-coded version of a weighted die. Accept his offer and you'll sit down across from him at a table outside the tavern, and he'll loan you his special die to use against him.

The die, called Balatro's die, has a side with the jester's grinning face on it, and if it happens to land with that side up, you get to choose how it's counted. So, if you're one die short of a great combo, you'll be able to use Balatro's die toward whatever number you need. I was able to beat Jimbo my first try using it, and was extremely pleased to see it in my inventory alongside Tin Balatro's badge, which lets you change the result of your Balatro's die once per game.

Once you've obtained your Balatro die and badge, Jimbo will leave town on other business, but he says he'll be back "in a few days," suggesting there's more to this storyline.

There are a few much smaller updates in the 1.5.6 patch notes, chiefly among them the addition of Steam Controller support, but let's be real, we're all here to see Henry and Jimbo team up to cure all of the world's evils.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 lead designer says "friction is intentionally" in the RPG because when "you overcome the friction, you feel better about yourself."

You can never have too much of a good thing, at least where character upgrades in Path of Exile 2 are concerned. The latest update for the action RPG brings another skill tree into the mix, granting you even more ways to build out your characters in Wraeclast.

This Path of Exile 2 update adds the Atlas Passive Tree as part of the Runes of Aldur, the current season's league. The tree contains 24 nodes for you to earn and then tinker with and try out as you see fit, and many of them lean toward the Expeditions that are central to the Runes of Aldur.

What you get from each node varies. Some provide a buff, others a mechanical shift or choice for how you'd like to be rewarded. An example given in a developer overview from Jonathan Rogers, Path of Exile's 2 game director, contains the possibility of either increasing how many Expedition Encounters you trigger, or finding additional Remnants.

It all comes down to what you need or value, and whether you want more passive changes or active ones. In a follow-up example, Farrow starts selling a brand spanking new currency, just to demonstrate the variability here. As is typical of Grinding Gear Games, the level of choice is almost comical, since the game's existing skill trees are vast as is.

In more anarchic changes, there are several new Orbs of Sacrifice you can earn, that trade a modifier chosen at random from an attached item for a stacked corruption. You get them by beating Atrizi, and, frankly, good luck with all that because it's a little too chaotic for my tastes.

Uniques are being scaled to your character's level, too. Ones that grant new skills will be toned down if you're at a level lower than the expected threshold, because the devs considered it a "real shame" they were gatekept by late-game requirements. "This should open up a whole bunch of builds available to play much earlier," Rogers says.

The Path of Exile 2 0.5.4 update has been rolled out. Rogers mentions it'll be the last major patch "for a while," as the next will bring further alterations. And maybe another skill tree, who knows.

"I saved you all": Path of Exile 2 player sacrifices rare level 100 character to give everyone else a free skill point as world-first "Martyr of the First Edict."

Grinding Gear Games co-founder Chris Wilson wants everyone to know his new, unannounced action-RPG won't be comparable in size to Path of Exile, and he worries his fans will be disappointed when it's revealed.

In the latest video posted to his official YouTube channel, Wilson gets into all sorts of fun topics like whether there's really fishing in Path of Exile (don't expect a clear answer), the games he's been playing (Project Diablo 2 and a mobile fishing game), and his plant wall. Most relevant to this story, he also gets into the game that's in development at his new studio, Light Pattern, which has yet to reveal its debut title.

"What we're making is small," he stresses. "What we're making is not a thing that's huge, like Path of Exile, and I worry that because at some stage we're going to announce our game – this is years away, like we're in stealth mode for quite a while – but at some stage we'll announce our game, and I really worry the reaction is going to be, 'What? All this time and you just made that?'"

Wilson adds that people expecting "the next huge online game" with a $100 million budget should know Light Pattern is a "tiny" studio with about 10 employees. Wilson is "loving" working with such a small team because "you get to work really closely with everyone" and "you understand everything that's going into the game" like "the good old days of game development," but it sounds like the project is much smaller in scope than something like Path of Exile or, to an even greater degree, Diablo 4.

Ultimately, Wilson says the opinion he values more than anyone's else is his own, since he's funding the project entirely by himself.

"I think I'm going to like the game. And to me, being the person who's funding this and, you know, [is] so invested in it, that's the important part," he says. "And we will, at some stage, talk about it, but it's going to be substantially closer to completion at that stage. We want the ability to kind of just cook on what we're working on, and not really have to worry too much about keeping up a public image of doing marketing and providing updates and that kind of stuff."

As a lifelong Diablo 2 player, I couldn't be more excited to see what Wilson and co. are cooking up. Wilson himself makes me look like a dirty, filthy casual when it comes to passion for Diablo 2, and of course Path of Exile itself is a fantastic spiritual successor to Blizzard North's 2000 opus, so I'm hopeful his next project will be imbued with some of that same magic.

Path of Exile co-creator "would have scoffed at something like Baldur's Gate 3" 10 years ago, but now he knows why live service isn't necessarily "the future"

Blizzard has partially caved to Diablo 4 players outraged over changes to Mythics introduced in a recent playtest and planned for a permanent release in next week's Season of Death Awakened. Instead of completely reversing course, the studio is meeting players in the middle, insisting that the fundamentals of the updates are necessary for build diversity in the long-term.

ICYMI, Blizzard revealed the full details of Diablo 4's 14th season in a recent blog post, showing off a slick (but slightly jarring) Overwatch collab, a new endgame activity, and a Warlock free trial. But despite all of that cool and fun stuff, everyone's talking about Mythics, which are now just Mythic Uniques instead of their own distinct item rarity. The big hullabaloo is that Blizzard planned to completely remove the guaranteed stats that synergized with a Unique item's, ahem, unique powers. Suddenly, Uniques didn't sound so unique anymore, and the most powerful, rarest loot in the game, Mythic Uniques, were shaping up to be barely indistinguishable from Legendaries.

As you might expect, that didn't go down well with Diablo 4 players, and after testing the changes in the PTR, Blizzard has a pretty significant update tucked into the new season's announcement. Mythics are still just charged-up Uniques and any Unique can still be turned into a Mythic at the Horadric Cube, but crucially, Mythics will have two guaranteed bonuses instead of being completely random. The other two stat bonuses will still be random, but one of them will be able to be re-rolled through the Enchantress in town. Also, you'll still be able to convert a Unique to a Mythic Unique at the Cube, but now it'll give you something for the same slot, whereas in the PTR you could chuck in a Unique helmet and get a Mythic shield.

All in all, this updated system seems like it'll restore a lot of what made Mythics so fun and rewarding to chase in the first place without letting any single item completely dominate the meta, which of course means everyone's happy and no one's upset and life can just go on now, right? Right?!

Nope.

"So they ignored all the PTR tester feedback on the Mythic changes and they still went ahead with them?," reads one of the top comments in a Reddit thread discussing the new season. So much for that.

While that comment has more than 400 upvotes at the time of writing, suggesting, at the very least, people on Reddit who play a lot of Diablo aren't happy with Blizzard's compromise, there's no denying there is a compromise happening here. The original plan as tested in the PTR was for Uniques to drop with completely random stats just like any old item, which I was admittedly baffled by, but with the new setup of two fixed stats and two random ones, Blizzard is essentially going halfsies with players. It gets the randomness it wants for long-term build variety, and players get the thrill of chasing down one of a kind, incredibly powerful items as a reward for all their clicking. That's the way Blizzard sees it anyway.

"There's a handful of them that just become best-in-slot," Diablo 4 live-service lead Dan Tanguay says of the current selection of Mythics in an interview with GameSpot. "Once you can earn that, you get lucky enough to roll it, drop it, or craft it, that's it–you're never going to worry about that slot again.

And it kind of narrows the types of builds that players will pursue, especially if they're reading Maxroll or Icy Veins or something like that. We really want to increase the possibilities at the end of the game for what your build can be, and we need to look at mechanics that allow us to do that."

Blizzard softening its initial plan from the PTR and making Uniques considerably less random is part of its plan to "split the difference" with players wanting a full reversal of the new structure. That's not going to happen, but Tanguay says Blizzard will "keep iterating" on Uniques "until we arrive at something that we think is good for the long-term health of the game and that players really like."

You have to feel for the people at the frontline fielding these sorts of problems at Blizzard, constantly in a push-and-pull with the community over issues that, realistically, 90% of the player base will never even encounter. Again, Mythics are the rarest items in the game, and unless you're at the point where you're farming endgame bosses to get an item you need for a build you read about on Icy Veins, you'd never even know or care that those drops went from fixed stats to random ones. But because Blizzard is wisely taking on feedback from its most devoted players, I can only imagine the people calling the shots on this sort of stuff are in a near-constant state of stress.

Evidence of Diablo 4 coming to the Nintendo Switch 2 ramps up, as Blizzard Entertainment's RPG gets another rating.

A crossover between Diablo 4 and Overwatch should be an easy win. They're both owned by Blizzard, and they each have huge fanbases who generally love aesthetics and a bit of novelty. The in-game rewards are all well and good, but the action-RPG's new skins from the FPS aren't getting the strongest reaction from players.

Just like World of Warcraft and Starcraft before it, Overwatch is stepping into the hellfire of Diablo 4. Starting June 30, you can earn Eye of the Overwatch currency through defeating Elite and Champion foes to spend on special loot, for a limited time. In the game's regular shop, you'll find skins themed around the hero shooter, though players don't seem too fussed about those from first impressions.

"None of these look appealing or fit the universe to me," a fan bluntly says on Reddit. I can sympathize with the latter, because a couple of them are close to their original designs. Mercy's the biggest perpetrator, in my eyes, and the skin sticks out from Diablo's gloominess.

Commenters aren't holding back. "Mercy looks like a 90-year-old grandma here," writes another fan on Reddit. "This some bad comic con cosplay type shit," says a Redditor. "And even that's being disrespectful to cosplayers because most of them are miles better than this."

The frequency and pricing of these collaborations are big factors for the disdain. The StarCraft skins, for instance, ran you $185 for a complete set. World of Warcraft's came to over $540. Those are comfortably more than what it would cost you to buy the individual games and their expansions.

One player on Reddit notes the pricing on Fortnite, where such crossovers are rife, is much more reasonable collaboratively. "For context, an expensive bundle in Fortnite is generally less than half what the 'discounted' WoW bundle cost," they write. "Diablo 4's item store is completely insane and totally unacceptable for a game someone has already potentially spent £100 buying."

The Overwatch collaboration kicks off as part of Diablo 4 season 14, on June 30.

Overwatch charges nearly $100 for cosmetic bundle introducing a new skin rarity, and even cat maid outfits aren't enough to quiet the backlash.

Diablo 4's Age of Hatred story arc, which began with the base game's launch back in 2023 and included several seasons and two distinct expansions, has come to a close with the recent Lord of Hatred DLC, and the first new season of the next era of the action RPG kicks off next week.

Blizzard announced the aptly grim Season of Death Awakening on its official website, teasing a characteristically macabre story involving ruptures spawned from dark rituals across Sanctuary. Three different types of ruptures comprise the new season's endgame activity, sending out waves of new Gravehound monsters with a chance to summon the enormous Realmwalker boss. Kill that and you'll gain entry to the Deathtoll Chamber mini-dungeon where, you guessed it, more baddies await your sword, but here's where you'll find the lair keys you need to access this season's Lair Boss Hoard.

Anyway, it's a new Diablo season. If you've been around the block at all, you know generally what to expect. New enemies to kill, new loot to get, a new seasonal battle pass, a freaky new pet to collect for free. All good stuff, but fairly standard fare. That said, there are a few things coming with Season of Death Awakening that break from the usual Diablo 4 seasonal mold.

For one, Blizzard says it heard your feedback from the PTR about that change to Mythics. Instead of getting rid of the guaranteed stats that synergized with a Mythic Unique's powers, which was the controversial plan that led to widespread blowback from the PTR, Blizzard now says Mythics will have two guaranteed bonuses, "preserving what makes it distinctive while opening new possibilities for build diversity." Everything else will still roll randomly, but this new change will let you swap exactly one of them out to your liking.

Following the Paladin free trial from back in March, Diablo 4 will soon let you try out the new Warlock class from Lord of Hatred free of charge, for a limited time. From June 30 to July 7, all Diablo 4 players on all platforms will be able to sample the demon-summoning ways of the Warlock class up until level 25, and naturally, your progress will carry into the full game if you buy the Lord of Hatred DLC. I'm more of a Paladin guy myself, but I hear Warlocks offer a little more to chew on for buildcrafters.

Finally, Blizzard is doing the inverse of Overwatch's recent Diablo crossover with Overwatch-themed items in Diablo 4. Right at the start of the season, you'll be able to earn Eye of the Overwatch currency from elite and champion monsters and use it to unlock themed cosmetics, which will also be available in Diablo 4's cash shop. This is also the first time we actually see Overwatch characters in Diablo, and I have to say, the bright, colorful look of the hero shooter clashes pretty starkly with Diablo 4's grimdark world. It's neat seeing characters like Reinhardt, Genji, Reaper, Mercy, Brigitte, Moira, Roadhog, and Kirkio in a Diablo setting, but the promotional image below makes this look more like Diablo 3 than 4:

Diablo 4: Season of Death Awakening kicks off June 30.

Evidence of Diablo 4 coming to the Nintendo Switch 2 ramps up, as Blizzard Entertainment's RPG gets another rating

Grinding Gear Games co-founder Chris Wilson once believed in the live-service video game model wholeheartedly, and this conviction undoubtedly helped him be online RPG Path of Exile's fearless leader until he officially left Grinding Gear in 2025. Now, Wilson is a free bird, and he's free to scrutinize the monetization pathway he once thought might redefine video games.

Wilson explains this in a new video on his YouTube channel, in response to a fan's question wondering what strongly held belief he's changed his mind about in the last decade. He says, "10 years ago, I felt that live service was entirely upside in all cases." Because of this, Wilson thinks there was a time when "I would have scoffed at something like Baldur's Gate 3, which isn't getting a sequence of updates."

He says plainly, "I just basically thought that live-service games were the future." It's a monetization model Path of Exile helped perfect, in the sense that neither it nor Early Access sequel Path of Exile 2 ever make you think that hard about its microtransactions or battle passes – unlike other, more cynical live-service titles. Path of Exile, instead, is a forever free-to-play work-in-progress, and its commitment to simply existing without smashing you over the head with a vase full of tantalizing ads makes some players question if it's really a live-service game at all (in a good way).

This relaxed relationship with money is what Wilson appreciated about live-service in the first place, remarking that, "It often meant that a game could be free. It meant that a game had variable monetization, so people who didn't want to spend money didn't need to spend very much money – it kind of scaled to the amount that someone was willing to spend.

"It meant that, because a game was getting constant updates, there was always more to the game. It was kind of a relationship that a player could have with the game, that would span potentially a lifetime as the game gets updated over and over, and these all seemed like incredibly good things," Wilson says.

But then time passed, and while live-service games like Fortnite fulfilled Wilson's prophecy of "the future" by becoming some of the most popular titles in history, they also became more associated with parasitic microtransactions – and increasingly demanding players wanting more for all those dollars they've dropped here or there.

"You get situations where you have to make certain changes, even if you do not believe that is the right thing for the game, because otherwise your release will get boycotted, or you'll get review bombed," Wilson says, "and games that do not have any changes because they're just finished and complete often don't have these pressures."

In that sense, Wilson can now see that a clean, complete experience like Baldur's Gate 3 helps create "a far more nuanced field" when placed next to the live-service games he's used to.

"There are so many different ways to monetize a game," he admits. "Every one of them has drawbacks."

Path of Exile 2 director says Temple farming ruined his Christmas and "destroyed" him, and he loves "obliterating" it: "I don't care if it's a mid-season nerf."

When Elden Ring was first revealed at E3 2019, I had no idea it would become so special to me. I remember cheering with glee when Hidetaka Miyazaki's name first appeared on-screen, then gasping at the name that followed: George R.R. Martin.

Before I could fathom a collaboration between these two creative powerhouses, a foreboding voice cut out from the trailer: "I doubt you could even imagine it."

Not just a game

That turned out to be true; I had no idea what was coming at the time, but I'm not the same person as I was before Elden Ring came out.

In 2020, severe bouts of depression led me to give up on myself. I lost more and more motivation each day, every little light within me either flickering weakly or already snuffed. I would lay slumped in bed, body held hostage by mind.

At my lowest, I scratched and clawed just to hold onto life. I would rewatch the Elden Ring announcement trailer, reminding myself that I had to stick around to play this game. No matter what, I promised myself I would pull through this world so I could experience theirs.

Elden Ring's reveal offered tantalizing first glimpses of The Lands Between, from rampaging general Radahn to the lurid body horror of Godrick the Grafted. But the character who gripped my attention hardest was the red-haired goddess in golden Valkyrie armor, who we now know as one of the toughest bosses in any of the best FromSoftware games: Malenia.

Witness true horror

Several years later, I found myself standing in front of Malenia. For years she was just an image in a trailer. Would she be able to live up to my hopes as a boss?

Fear turned to panic as she purposefully strode toward me and began unleashing a flurry of attacks. Chaining rapid slashes into long, unbroken aerial combos. I was in awe. I was galvanised. Suddenly my life's mission was not simply to stay alive, but to land a hit on Malenia.

When I managed to strike her with my poison-infused Antspur Rapier, she responded with Waterfowl Dance, and amidst the whirlwind of blades I howled with laughter. Her life bar was going up? She was actually healing from my meager damage every time she landed a hit on me. It was the first big chuckle I'd had in years.

After hundreds of failed attempts, there was a point where the intro of her fight would strike dread into my heart. But then I noticed that dread and fear sit very close to excitement; I was feeling all those emotions because I finally cared about something again.

Rather than submitting to Scarlet Rot, Malenia shouldered the life-long burden and is stronger for it. Though her tragedy is written in scars and sacrifice, her story of loss is also a story of resilience. She is both afflicted and defiant, a warrior who embraces her pain and continues to walk forward while carrying the weight of her curse. To me, Malenia is a statement that reads: if I can live through this, I can live through anything.

Thanks to Malenia, I can now see that I am strong enough to endure the darkness of depression, even on the days when I can barely stand. Her backstory helped me to understand that unbreakable will can blossom from the most harrowing of places, and such resolve is instrumental in fighting against your own demons.

Her final words – "your strength... extraordinary" – gripped my heart tightly when I finally heard her utter them. More than a line of dialog from a boss fight, these words remind me just how far I've come since the Elden Ring trailer was released.

Hope, anew

I had to respec my character to defeat Malenia, casting away the Bloodhound Fang and Golden Halberd I had grown so attached to. But once I threw off the shackles of my familiar build, I made more progress and chalked up another Elden Ring life lesson: don't be afraid to try new things.

With seven years having passed since the first Elden Ring announcement trailer, I rewatched it recently and reflected on all the ways in which I've grown thanks to this game. It taught me a level of patience and perseverance that helps me deal with depression every day. As it turns out, repeatedly dying in The Lands Between is a great way to learn how to live.

While I might never get better, Elden Ring taught me that there's always a way to get good. My brain may still become an unwelcome place thanks to mental illness, but this game has shown me how, with ceaseless effort and unflinching grit, a hostile world can become home.

Hunting for your next round of pain? Check out some of the best games like Elden Ring to put your action-RPG skills to the test.

More signs point to Diablo 4's potential arrival on Nintendo Switch 2 after the Blizzard Entertainment ARPG got yet another rating on the platform.

The Taiwan Entertainment Software Rating board recently listed the Nintendo Switch 2 as one of Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred's supported platforms, despite the game and its expansion not having been officially confirmed for the handheld-hybrid console. The rating was posted to the website in April and either went unnoticed this whole time or was only recently made public. (Good spot, NintendoEverything). Although, the rating seems to have now been scrubbed for good after the internet got a whiff of it.

This isn't the first time a country's accidentally (and only maybe) spilled the beans on Diablo 4's upcoming plans. A security flaw in the Indonesian Game Rating System (IGRS) exposed major spoilers for several games, including 007: First Light, but also showed a Switch 2 rating for Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred. Where there's smoke...

When asked about a potential Switch 2 port a year ago, former franchise manager Rod Fergusson said, "I think there's opportunity there for sure. I mean, we have Diablo 3 and Diablo 2 Resurrected already on the Switch, and with backwards compatibility it'll be playable on Switch 2."

Fergusson then explained any potential challenges around the port would be less about the hardware - this is a console that can run Cyberpunk 2077 pretty competently, after all - and more about how "live services on Switch have been a little bit challenging in the past." It's unclear what those challenges were or if the Switch 2 has alleviated them since, but playing grindy ARPGs on a handheld device until your neck jams at a 90 degree angle is what Lilith intended. Don't let her down, Blizzard.

After 392 billion monsters slain in Diablo 4 Lord of Hatred, Blizzard stats reveal ARPG players prefer Warlocks to Paladins by almost 2 to 1

Elden Ring Nightreign, FromSoftware's surprise roguelike spin-off game, seems more or less over when it comes to new updates. After the release of the Forsaken Hollows DLC, there hasn't been any hints at more to come.

While desperate fans despair at FromSoftware's silence, the rest of us can enjoy the fruits of some fans who are making their own fun. Animator and artist Keith Garces—who made some of the best "Hop on Nightreign" videos out there—and programmer Spagato just dropped an endless runner based on Nightreign.

It's called Revenant Run and it stars the short doll Nightfarer and the gigantic sword that players love to give her in every meme. Your goal in it is pretty simple: smack monsters, collect runes, level up, and avoid running into trees.

There are some clever nods at some of my favorite enemies from Nightreign, like the big guy with a pumpkin head and the little pot boys. Revenant slashes through them with one swipe and keeps moving like someone just told her there's a bigger sword somewhere to the right of the screen.

If I had access to this game in the computer lab of my middle school I would've never went back to class. Flash games might be gone, but at least we have people on Itch.io keeping the dream alive.

Garces says the game was made to "celebrate a very dedicated community," in a message below the game on Itch.io. They also thanked all the players who enjoyed their videos in the description of the YouTube trailer. "It really is a pleasure to know that the same videos I do for fun is something that can resonate with others," they wrote.

We can only hope The Duskbloods cultivates a similarly creative bunch of players who will keep the game alive much longer than FromSoftware will. Or whatever games studio president Hidetaka Miyazaki was talking about in a recent statement about what's on the docket for the future.

Elden Ring Nightreign was a bold yet flawed Soulslike experiment, but I think it could shape the entire industry's future

The work on Borderlands 4 isn't over quite yet, as Gearbox reveals the final Vault Hunter to come this September as part of the looter shooter's optional Story Pack 2 DLC – and she is downright stunning, to be fair.

Her name is Loveless, as per her short teaser from Gearbox, and she's "an ex-Anshin hacker turned assassin," according to the developers. "Equipped with the highest-end cybernetics, Loveless also shares her mind with a digital virus of her own creation, which can digistruct into a physical form that acts as a deadly extension of her shared, perfection-seeking will."

She sounds absolutely badass – and straight out of Cyberpunk 2077, honestly.

I'm not alone in thinking so, either. The top comment also likens her to a Cyberpunk hacker, reading, "We got a netrunner in Borderlands." Another further down exclaims, "She looks like a netrunner from Cyberpunk" – and yes, yes she does.

There are some other interesting comparisons in fans' replies, with some even citing Ciri from The Witcher 3, and others asserting that "she looks like an Aldar from Warhammer 40k."

Overall, the community seems thrilled with Loveless' design – and, I mean, how could they not be? From her long white hair done up in a high ponytail to her gold piercings and cat-like expression, she's drop-dead gorgeous. If looks could kill, and all that… Not to mention the tech-savvy queen's description from Gearbox.

The whole "digital virus" bit is intriguing, to say the least, and I'm personally excited to see how it affects her in-game.

If you're as sold on Loveless as I am, you can grab the Vault Hunter Pack now on Steam for $49.99. It includes both Story Pack 1 and 2, along with Rogue – and soon, Loveless. If you bought the Super Deluxe Edition of Borderlands 4, however, you don't need to purchase any DLC for extra money, as it'll all land automatically in your copy.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a teaser to rewatch… and a game to redownload.

Gearbox head Randy Pitchford says Borderlands maker won't use AI for "any work that could ever be seen" after posting ChatGPT-generated image of a Gearbox employee.

FromSoftware is in a curious position. It released Elden Ring, its most successful and arguably best game, and ever since has exclusively released games that are very different to Elden Ring. And yes, that does include Elden Ring Nightreign, an experimental spinoff that cleverly reuses some assets and shrinks the world, then builds a PvE battle royale experience around it.

We've had Armored Core 6 and we've got The Duskbloods coming, but FromSoftware hasn't announced a new single-player dark fantasy RPG of the kind it's known for. This has left many fans revisiting the RPGs FromSoft has already released, most especially Elden Ring and its gargantuan world and DLC. It's hard to think of anybody who has gotten more out of Elden Ring than Bushy, a challenge runner who's beaten this famously long and difficult RPG over 400 times by his best estimate.

On Twitch and YouTube, Bushy is known for completing challenge runs in Elden Ring, and occasionally other games, that put restrictions on how he plays. Across hundreds of clears, he's amassed a huge collection of absurd rule sets. You have the classics, like one-hitting bosses, never dying, never getting hit, always getting hit, or kicking enemies to death. Mods, some of them commissioned by Bushy just for this purpose, also allow for stranger runs with teleportation, mismatched areas and enemies, or randomized items. Then we get to the truly specific stuff, like his most recent video: "Elden Ring But I Can Only Use White Items".

It was this color-specific video series that pushed me to reach out to Bushy. Man, I thought, this guy has done everything. And it's easy to think that Bushy must be running out of ideas or growing sick of the game by now, but he tells me he's every bit as in love with Elden Ring as he has been for the past "3,500 to 4,000" hours of game time.

"I think it's the greatest game that's ever been made," Bushy says. "I always just have a ton of fun with it. If I didn't have that much fun with it, I wouldn't still be trying to come up with new, inventive ways to beat it. Don't get me wrong, part of that is absolutely that it's my job, and there are external forces that are encouraging me to play Elden Ring. But I think it's honestly more of a blessing than it is a curse."

The release of Elden Ring Nightreign did give Bushy some space to play another game, and the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC was a refreshing injection of new content and items, but he always comes back to the game.

He considers the pessimistic read of his position. "You could look at that in a negative light," he says. "You're playing Elden Ring because you have to, because it's the only thing that makes you money. But that's not really how I look at it. Elden Ring is a game that is big enough, massive enough, deep enough, that has such a breadth of content, that having motivation and a reason to actually play it that much is really quite the blessing. I get to play it a whole lot more than other people do."

Bushy's putting every last grain of Elden Ring under the magnifying glass. Like a speedrunner, he talks about individual bosses as things to "practice". His videos often see him deliberately rotate through spells, weapons, and items in order to explain and engage with multiple parts of the game rather than simply using the first winning option he can find, and his rule sets regularly lead to interesting discoveries about overlooked items and strategies. I'm reminded of MMO players running self-sufficient accounts, whose self-imposed challenges force them to play the game in novel ways.

His favorite challenge runs are those that dramatically change the game and are "higher effort" overall, like the one where he was teleported to a random checkpoint every five minutes. He also played the game with an aggression mod that made every enemy follow and attack him at all times, with basically no way to lose or avoid aggro. It didn't go well.

Now, Bushy can just throw out obscene sentences like this: "I've on average beaten the game probably twice a week since the game came out." This schedule wasn't immovable, but his channel history bears it out. I've learned not to underestimate FromSoftware fans, but I certainly haven't met anyone else who's rolled credits this many times. Additionally, Bushy says, "the longest I've gone not playing Elden Ring since it came out has probably been like three weeks."

Bushy is certainly looking forward to future FromSoftware games, but somehow reckons he's got more than enough Elden Ring challenge run ideas left in the tank. When he started playing the game for a living, building on years of streaming other games, he was "hopeful" after his early challenges got some attention. "I made lots of very bad videos and got more views than I had ever gotten at the time," he recalls. Elden Ring's massive audience was enough to turn the game into a career for him, not unlike how creators like VaatiVidya make a living by interpreting FromSoftware lore.

"I still want to do them," Bushy says of his challenge runs. "Simply because it's cool to talk about all of the unique interactions that I can find with specific weapon types and what I think they're strong at, what I think they're weak at, and share the experience that I have in this game with the people that are interested in it. As long as people are interested, I'm more than happy to do it."

FromSoftware boss Hidetaka Miyazaki teases unannounced games, says the studio should do what it wants as the investor that told Nintendo to charge "99 cents just to get Mario to jump a little higher" fights its parent company.

Minecraft Dungeons 2 is making a big change. When its predecessor launched in 2020, it was a compelling side-quest for Mojang – a dungeon crawler which sought to deliver a more accessible entry point to the ARPG genre than the likes of Diablo and Path of Exile. It was a fun experience, although its limited points of exploration made it something of a divergence from what we've come to expect from Minecraft games. So Mojang is making some changes for the new game of 2026.

"In Minecraft Dungeons, we had a simple game loop," says Mans Olson, creative director. "You played a mission through to the end, you got a reward, and then you went back to your camp. In Minecraft Dungeons 2, we have what we call an interconnected world."

Internonnected, but not fully open. Olson stresses that Mojang "is purposefully not calling it an open world" as the studio is still creating a curated-style of game. "It's more of a guided experience that we think works really well for Minecraft," he says, adding: "But you will be free to explore the overworld; Minecraft Dungeons 2 is a lot larger than the first game."

Design director Laura de Llorens tells me that "you can walk from one end of the world to the other" in the upcoming Xbox Series X game, as the team emphasises the importance of exploration – unique and rare items, along with powerful Talismans, can be found by digging into every corner of the map. Speaking of maps, there's been some other changes to the Minecraft Dungeons 2 UI to accommodate the shift in focus. "Up in the right-hand corner we have a little mini-map, and we also have a very beautiful world map as well."

Given the 'All-Ages' framing of Minecraft Dungeons 2, are there any concerns over players getting lost in this interconnected world? Thankfully, a click of the left-thumbstick will enable a 'Guiding Light' (that can be activated by any member of your party, at any time) which will "always assist you in finding the next step in your quest," says de Llorens.

Minecraft Dungeons 2 may not be an open-world game, but it is inching ever closer to reflecting its ARPG ambitions into the original Minecraft style with this new interconnected world. The game is an exceptionally fun time, as you can learn more about in my Minecraft Dungeons 2 hands-on preview.

Minecraft Dungeons 2 is out for PC, PS5, Nintendo Switch 2, and Xbox Series X on September 29, 2026.

Capcom says Steam accounted for almost double the amount of revenue than PlayStation in its previous fiscal year.

If you're old enough to remember the time before PC gaming was as big as it is today, you'll no doubt remember how much of a flip of the coin it would be whether Japanese companies would release their games on the platform. And typically, if they did, it would end up being significantly later than those on console. For example, Final Fantasy 13 took almost five years to release on PC. And it's not even too far in the past either; Monster Hunter World, Persona 5, and the Yakuza games all took a while to make the jump to PC. Hell, Vanillaware is bringing one of its games to PC for the first time next year. But thankfully, we're mostly in an era of day-and-date releases. And this is something that is definitely working out for Capcom specifically.

In Capcom’s securities report (spotted by Automaton), the company revealed that, through Steam, it generated 40.383 billion yen (approximately $252 million USD), accounting for 20.7% of its earnings between April 2025 and March 2026. For comparison, PlayStation accounted for 10.6%, with 20.741 billion yen (approximately $129 million USD).

Granted, this isn't exactly a surprise, given that Capcom announced earlier this year that PC sales make up about 50% of its game sales, with the other 50% split between PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo consoles. So it's pretty natural that it is making a lot of money from Steam, as the leading PC storefront. Even so, PC sales doing that well in a year where Monster Hunter Wilds' PC port was a well-known disaster is somewhat impressive.

Devil May Cry and Bayonetta creator says he'd rather have a game canceled than release "something subpar"

Mistfall Hunter kicks off in a familiar fashion for anyone who has played Dark Souls, or most any other Soulslike – I'm a husk revivified by a mysterious energy and shunted off to fight through a dying land. Shambling dead lunge at me, huge gates must be opened, and I'm jumped by a hulking monster right at the end and smashed into pieces. But, this Steam Next Fest beta has a twist of its own to offer.

Along the way through this brief tutorial, I've been shoving loot into a swelling inventory, and once felled by the boss monster at the end I have one more chance to steer my spirit back to my body to get back up again. From there, I summon a strange bell creature onto the map, tracking and slaying it to gain the ability to make it ring and extract with my collected loot. From here, it's all about deploying into and extracting out of bigger fantasy maps, filled with goodies to collect, monsters, and other players (and if you want to give it a go, you can check out our Steam Next Fest guide for more).

Misty mountains

Mistfall Hunter is the debut project from Bellring Games, and it feels like the purer action RPG take on the extraction genre that I expected from Elden Ring Nightreign pre-release (which is more focused on providing a randomized co-op challenge). Mistfall Hunter has more in common with the likes of Arc Raiders or Marathon, except, of course, it's a fantasy ARPG. One we've been hotly anticipating since we first played it last year.

I spend most of my time playing with a melee focused build, the mercenary, just because that's what I'm used to from playing Dark Souls, but there are multiple classes on offer (which you can swap between back at the hub – though you can also level up a skill tree to enhance each). Archers and sorcerers round out available weapon types, but more specialized roles are in the mix too – such as the stealthy Shadowstrix or the magical healer Seer. Able to group up, assembling a varied team will give an edge on being able to extract with the best loot possible, and keep rival players at bay.

Naturally, some of the loot dropped by monsters can be equipped there and then – important if you've lost all your stuff or are just starting out. But, the best goodies I find are locked in chests, or dropped by boss-level foes (and usually, to unlock the former, you must defeat a stronger enemy anyway). Rare ingredients are handy, but precious Gyldenblood will goop out of certain foes, the major currency that's used for core progress. There's a time limit on each match too as the Gyldenmist threatens to corrupt everything in the land, so extracting before then is vital if you can fight it out over a bell or come to an understanding between fellow players.

Playing as my melee character, combat is familiar – hitting the right bumper to slash with my sword, and the left to raise my shield to defend. Triggers, meanwhile, are essentially weapon arts, which operate on generous cooldowns so I can drop deadly abilities with ease. Swapping to a big hammer changes these abilities instantly, while giving me more powerful attacks with, as expected, more wind-up.

Combat itself isn't as refined as FromSoftware's Soulslikes – what is? – meaning there's an amount of chafing against hitboxes and animations that can at times feel weightless, but with the dip in and out extraction structure the lightweight nature suits it so far. Will I feel the same if I lose gear I've spent hours collecting in the full release because of it? Perhaps not.

Yet, I find my first few loops through Hallowgrove, on the path to Brandrgarde (the two maps in the current build, which also have 'chaos' variants) compelling. In the past, I've struggled to get into extraction shooters because I prefer my blasting to come in the deathmatch variety.

Something about considered fantasy RPG combat – the hallmark of the Soulslike – just fits the extraction vibe better to me, and I definitely wish instead of writing this I was stepping into the Gyldenmist afflicted land to hoover up more loot for more go-around. It's easy to see why Mistfall Hunters has been Steam Next Fest's top demo so far – so play the beta while you can.

If you miss it, there's not long to wait. Mistfall Hunter launches on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S on July 29, with its beta running through Steam Next Fest.

Looking for more along these lines? Check out my best Soulslike games list!

Blizzard has confirmed that Diablo 4 season 14 is called the Season of Death Awakening, and promises to unveil more info about it next week following a PTR that's left fans a bit mixed.

Diablo 4 is now somehow over three years old, and we're deep in the midst of its Lord of Hatred era (that being the name of the latest expansion, not a manifestation of players' reactions to Diablo Immortal). The latest expansion launched alongside season 13 of the game – titled the Season of Reckoning – but now Blizzard is gearing up to release its first new season since the expansion launched with the Season of Death Awakening.

On the Blizzard website, the studio announced the new season in a blog post and confirmed a livestream on June 23, 2026, at 11am PT, 2pm ET, and 7pm BST. Obviously, the important info is going to be saved for the stream, but Blizzard did note what to expect in the new season, aside from the typical seasonal quest and Seasonal Lair info.

The post reads, "Major updates include the new Mythic Uniques item rework, class balancing, and the official launch of the Tower and Leaderboards. We’ll also reveal details on quality-of-life changes such as Party War Plans, Solo Self Found, crafting upgrades, and higher currency caps. There will be a Q&A section at the end of the stream for you to ask questions directly to the team."

On top of that, there's going to be a special Twitch drop for watching Diablo 4 streams while the update livestream is ongoing, with the Falx Infectus sword cosmetic up for grabs for anyone who watches for 30 minutes. Plus, Blizzard is teasing the return of "a familiar adversary," which I'm sure the community will be able to figure out from the name of the season.

Some players have already gotten their hands on the changes too through the PTR, and it's uhh... Either incredible or really bad? Looking at the Diablo Forums, there are posts like one titled "Season 14 Is Exactly What Diablo 4 Needs," and another called "Season 14 Is Awful," which has several removed posts to boot. This isn't just mindless opinion flinging, either, as both threads feature long arguments about why the season is great or awful.

Even searching for Season 14 on the Diablo 4 subreddit yields similar results, with players either decrying or loving the changes Blizzard is making. So it's safe to say that early reactions are a bit mixed, which hopefully Blizzard takes into account ahead of next week's stream.

After 392 billion monsters slain in Diablo 4 Lord of Hatred, Blizzard stats reveal ARPG players prefer Warlocks to Paladins by almost 2 to 1

Mortal Shell: not bad. Developer Cold Symmetry's debut Soulslike had real style and interesting ideas, plus it was pleasantly short, but some clunkiness and dull levels held it back. Luckily, Cold Symmetry was able to make Mortal Shell 2, an expanded sequel which just dropped an open beta in time for Steam Next Fest, Valve's big demo blowout. At the time of writing, it's the most popular true-blue Soulslike in the event, and based on my limited time with it, Mortal Shell 2 has made some solid upgrades. (Mortal Shell 2 beta rewards and progress transfer explained in depth here.)

Mortal Shell 2 will feel fairly familiar if you played the original. If you're coming to it from other Soulslike action RPGs, such as Lies of P or Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, it may feel incredibly different. The titular shells frame an interesting class system: each comes with its own abilities and bonuses, though there's further room for customization in weapons and upgrades. Combat just has a different heft to it that's hard to compare – somewhere between the original Dark Souls and the modern Lords of the Fallen, perhaps. It's profoundly heavy, but not in a bad way since the game feels adequately built around it. For example: there's no stamina bar, so swing away.

From the jump, the starter knight shell commands weight and crunch, and even as a heavier shell, doesn't have the same clunk that was discussed with the first game. I was still a little iffy on the feel of melee combat until my parry reflexes returned. That first, perfectly timed flash of gold was enough to jolt me right up. I'm also a big fan of the greatsword attack where you club dudes with the hilt.

There's a thick sense of forward aggression here, cleaving through crowds with the expected light and heavy attacks, but weaving in a petrify spell to make enemies vulnerable to stun damage and finisher attacks that fit seamlessly into combos.

Also: a gun! Ranged attacks seem heavily pushed in Mortal Shell 2, and the satisfying chonk of the first gun, a sort of ballista shottie, is a good sign. Maybe the modders were right and Dark Souls really did need a shotgun.

It's pretty impressive to pull off third-person shooting and slashing in a way that flows naturally. Enemy design has a rock-paper-scissors thing going on that encourages you to use whatever attacks certain enemies are weak to, and while this could theoretically limit variety, so far it feels great to chew through enemies while rotating through my arsenal and conserving specific resources.

The main appeal of Mortal Shell 2, for me, was something I can't possibly experience in this limited demo: "more than 60 dungeons," as Cold Symmetry promises. If this game can actually serve up a world worth exploring, I figured I'd be all over it. But after messing around with the combat for a little bit, I kind of just want to hit more dudes, and moreish definitely wasn't a word I busted out for the first Mortal Shell. For a free sample, this is about as good as I could ask.

Years ago, we spoke to the makers of Mortal Shell as part of our develop-led explainer on what defines a Soulslike.

The Path of Exile 2 full release date isn't known precisely, but we do know that Grinding Gear Games are trying to get the 1.0 update out before the end of the year. Path of Exile 2 launched into early access on December 6, 2024, so the projected release target roughly coincides with this two-year early access anniversary and should see the game enter a complete state with a full campaign and endgame. Here are the basics you need to be aware of for the 1.0 launch of Path of Exile 2 and when the full release date is likely to be.

Path of Exile 2 full release date

As mentioned, Path of Exile 2 hasn’t got a release date for version 1.0, but we know that it's targeting a 2026 release for after ExileCon, which runs from November 7-8. That means the full launch date should be between November 9 to December 31, 2026, but expect solid details to get announced at ExileCon.

The endgame-focused 'Return of the Ancients' update, which launched on May 29, was also the final major update before the full release of Path of Exile 2. Assuming there are no delays, that means players will be going roughly six months without new content, though the developers at Grinding Gear Games will still support the game in that time with balance updates and tweaks to polish the whole thing.

In terms of what will get added with the full release for POE2, players can look forward to a completed campaign with Acts 5 and 6 getting added, but the four missing Path of Exile 2 classes (Duelist, Marauder, Shadow, and Templar) might not all make it in time for 1.0.

Game director Jonathan Rogers told Eurogamer that "[the developers] want to make sure that all the character classes we do have are finished and they've got all the ascendancy classes they need, and they've got all the skills they need, and everything like that." He adds that the focus is on ensuring the game "feels complete" with a full campaign and endgame in working order. The absent classes will arrive eventually, but don't expect them to be there for POE2's full release in 2026.

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Humanoid monsters line up to face my blade. I dodge and parry their incoming strikes, carving through each foe with relish. With my protagonist's supernatural speed and meaty swings, I briefly forget that I'm not playing God of War Ragnarök, before the eerily beautiful rendition of Edo-period Kyoto (fictional, of course) drags me back to my senses. Onimusha: Way of the Sword is an action-adventure title that instantly feels at home in the hands of modern-day Kratos fans, but trades Norse deities for Japanese mythology.

Diving into the latest demo at Summer Game Fest 2026, I'm enraptured by the world of Onimusha: Way of the Sword. This new slice of the game is larger, deeper and more immersive than the recent sampler shadow-dropped on PS5 after Sony's last State of Play. NPCs populate the map, existing out of sight of the genma, the demonic enemies that constantly find themselves impaled on my blade; while the map features more streets and buildings to explore.

Myths and monsters

The way in which Onimusha: Way of the Sword serves up an in-game world full of the supernatural and yet realistic in feel is impressive, and is in touch with the franchise's roots as an old-timey alternative to Resident Evil. The key difference compared to its contemporary, biohazardous cousin, though, is in the game's combat.

Main character Miyamoto Musashi wields his blade with a sumptuous smoothness, cutting down basic monsters with moreish fluidity, and savoring boss encounters like warm sake. It's a combat style that brings to mind Kratos, although Musashi's personality isn't quite a perfect match. Both characters are stoic, but where the Angry Spartan is often, well… angry, Onimusha's protagonist tends to be more tongue-in-cheek when met with antagonism.

It's shortly after eradicating a group of genma and helping myself to the nearby treasure chest that it dawns on me just how similar to God of War this new Onimusha is. The dynamic combat, mythological mobs and deific forces at play are all akin to Sony Santa Monica's epics, but set in a time and place that some may find more appealing. I'm not saying it's God of War Japan, but there's a welcome sense of that flavor.

This fictional version of Edo-era Kyoto is loaded with atmosphere, in part thanks to the presence of blood-red fogs that make parts of the map inaccessible to Musashi. The way enemies chase down civilians – some we can save, some not so fortunate – adds a grim reality to the world. The bleakness levels up when I talk to a one-legged man who cheerfully tells Musashi how his knee used to ache terribly before he was kindly separated from it. I pull the same dumbfounded expression as the sword-swinging hero as I digest what's just been said, before long encountering the cretinous being that offered the deal.

Named Rasho-gan, this medley of assorted limbs is the boss fight of the demo, and I eagerly face off against them. Slash, dodge, swing, parry, slice, kick; playing on Action difficulty (the game's harder mode) I'm bemused by the creature's poor offering. This thing is supposedly capable of extorting limbs from humans and yet can barely hold its own in a fight? Get your refunds, my friends.

My arrogance is dashed when Rasho-gan hits me through a dodge, knocking me to the ground and throwing me off my rhythm. As I try to regain my composure I'm hit again through a dodge, clearly not timing it correctly. I implore Musashi to stand back up, but he's already dead.

Attempt two starts much the same, only this time I know to parry instead of dodge certain attacks. I quickly put the wretch down but they have a second health bar. Fine by me, I'm enjoying the contest. Turns out Rasho-gan has figured out my strategy as they ignore my seemingly-ill-timed parry and body me, unleashing a flurry of blows that drains me to zero before I can think.

Attempt three proves to be the charm as I combine my previous learnings to best the abomination before me, smugly dodging, parrying and hacking through the boss with an earned sense of ease. The duel ends with Rasho-gan running away before being shot down by an archer with a golden, godly aura. Once again I'm reminded of God of War, as Musashi converses with this divine figure as both lesser and equal, as only a true hero can do.

As the demo comes to a close, I'm in awe. Capcom has produced a unique title that blends many of the elements behind the success of God of War with the developer's own expertise for crafting worlds teeming with horror and intrigue. It's a breathtaking cocktail, and one I can't wait to guzzle down when Onimusha: Way of the Sword releases on September 25, 2026, for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch 2.

Capcom is "quite confident" Onimusha: Way of the Sword will give players a challenge after the demo was "too easy"

Path of Exile 2 lead designer and co-game director Mark Roberts holds a nasty grudge for one of the game's most enduring exploits: Vaal Temple farming, which he says ruined his Christmas, left him traumatized, and made him gleeful about nerfing it down.

You'll likely remember the Path of Exile 2 community's infamous temple snaking strategy from the most recent league, Fate of the Vaal, but you probably don't recall it as vividly as Roberts, who spent his 2025 holiday season alongside Grinding Gear Games identifying exploits, pumping the game full of balance fixes, and trying to ensure the in-game economy didn't implode under the crippling weight of the all-powerful Temple farming grind. The exploit's largely been wrangled as of now, but it had a lasting impact on Roberts' psyche.

"I know we nerfed it recently," Roberts says during an interview with PoE creator Zizaran (thanks, PCGN). "There was a bit of a, 'yay, let's not have that again.' The Temple ruined Christmas for me."

Hilariously, precisely as Roberts is going on about how much he hates the Vaal Temple, Zizaran reports live that "people have broken the Temple again." In disbelief, Roberts says nothing seems "that out of control right now," but eventually he and co-director Jonathan Rogers receive word from GGG homebase that, indeed, there's a "T1 issue with the Temple" that would have to be discussed after the interview. Roberts and Rogers then break down in laughter. It's actually very entertaining if you're the type of person who gets amusement out of mild misfortune.

"The amount of joy I can get out of just going and obliterating the Temple right now, trust me. I don't care if it's a mid-league nerf," says Roberts. "I've lost all sympathy for that bloody Temple and everyone running it for now.

"I'm being extreme. Obviously I don't want to actually just make it bad, but it's left some trauma," he clarifies.

Roberts probably feels comfortable expressing all of this because, at least based on conversations I'm seeing in Path of Exile communities online, most people are pretty over the whole temple snaking exploit too, especially as it seems to continuously resurface with new strategies despite endless nerfs. Maybe it really is time to "burn it all down," as one commenter suggested.

"I saved you all": Path of Exile 2 player sacrifices rare level 100 character to give everyone else a free skill point as world-first "Martyr of the First Edict"