While Hideo Kojima is best known for Metal Gear and Death Stranding these days, his older catalog includes many more cult classics – including graphic adventure games like Snatcher and Policenauts. As the latter game turns 32, the beloved director is taking the opportunity to remember just how long he had to wait to finally create it.

"I first came up with the concept [for Policenauts] when I was 26, right after the release of Metal Gear 2," Kojima says in a tweet. That'd be in 1990, which is a year Kojima has already spoken of as a tumultuous time in his own career. Metal Gear 2 was itself delayed so Kojima could help fix an "emergency situation" on an RPG spin-off of Snatcher, and it seems his role didn't stop shuffling once the stealth-action game was out.

"After that, I was transferred to a planning-focused department" at Konami, Kojima explains. "The following year, I moved to the Technical Research Institute. Then the PC Engine version of SNATCHER interrupted things, and the PC-9821 version [of Policenauts] was released when I was 30."

While Snatcher was released in English on the Sega CD (a release that now often commands $1,000 or more on the secondhand market), Policenauts was never officially released outside of Japan. Kojima apparently agrees with one fan saying that "it's a shame most people can’t play it without emulators and the translation patch," since he's retweeted the sentiment.

Many of Kojima's early games are locked up in some sort of limbo or other, as the publishing rights seem to remain with Konami. Kojima and Konami had a famously messy breakup after the launch of Metal Gear Solid 5, and while Metal Gear itself has proven a lasting enough brand for Konami to invest in various remakes and remasters, the likes of Policenauts and Snatcher are seemingly too niche to get the same treatment.

There are plenty of upcoming Hideo Kojima games keeping the director busy.

Hideo Kojima still wants to go to space, but for now he's going to keep making games, and he says that's a good thing.

Metal Gear Solid creator Kojima really hasn't kept it quiet that one day he wants to go to space, so much so that Valve boss Gabe Newell tried to set Kojima up with a tour of SpaceX. Over on Twitter, Kojima recently posted a video of his comments during a panel at Il Cinema in Piazza – a film festival in Rome – where he explains (translated by Genki_JPN) his current thoughts about his space travel aspirations.

"I want to share this with all of you: We all want to make our dreams come true, right?" he begins. And obviously he isn't talking about his dreams with "voluptuous nude women," reanimated "decomposing bodies," and a very impolite coach, as he explains, "I want to go to space and I want to make a movie." However, he adds, "it wouldn't be good if those dreams just came true."

"That's because dreams are goals," Kojima explains, "The idea is to achieve the second, third, and fourth dreams along the way before reaching your ultimate dream." He adds that "for the time being, I think I'll keep on making games without going to space."

I would say perhaps he can go to space once he retires from creating games (although he said he has no plans to retire). However, at that same event, he also said he wants to die in a movie theater, preferably just after the trailers, so unless they build theaters in space, he's probably going to have to come back to Earth at some point.

The original Metal Gear Solid is free to play on Steam this weekend as Konami gears up for Master Collection Volume 2.

Ahead of Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Volume 2 releasing next month, Konami is letting everyone play Metal Gear Solid for free this weekend.

2026 has been a landmark year for those of us who are still obsessed with the year 1998. Spyro is getting a new entry, Resident Evil Requiem felt like as much of a sequel to Resident Evil 2 as anything else, Pokemon Gen 1 returned, and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is set to get a remake releasing later this year. So, not to be outdone, Konami decided to remind everyone what the real best game of 1998 was, and is letting everyone play Metal Gear Solid.

Over on Steam, the Master Collection Volume 1 edition of 1998's Metal Gear Solid is free to play for anyone right now, which grants you access to the PS1 classic, as well as its expansion pack Metal Gear Solid VR / Special Missions, and the Japanese exclusive Integral. On top of that there's a full screenplay and "Master Book" which features artwork, character bios, a series timeline and the like.

This free weekend also arrives alongside Metal Gear Solid Master Collection's deepest Steam discount to date at £24.99 | $29.99 (which it's only been at twice before in the previous two Steam Summer Sales).

The best part of this deal, however, is that Metal Gear Solid is not really all that long. You could absolutely beat the entire game as part of this free weekend and experience one of the all-time greats free of charge

Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol 2 brings 4K 60fps to MGS4 and Peace Walker, Konami announces, but Switch 1 still gets saddled with 30fps.

Lead developers of Castlevania: Belmont's Curse have spoken about the process that led to the creation of Rose Belmont, the game's protagonist. Initially, they didn't have a specific gender for the protagonist in mind, but after developing the story, they wanted to base it around the strong bonds between mother and daughter.

In an interview with Famitsu, as translated by GamesRadar+, director Yukiko Hokao explains how the process of developing Belmont's Curse began without a specific protagonist in mind. "At the start we hadn't decided that the protagonist would be a woman," she says. "While we were building the world and the story, we thought the role would best suit a woman, and it was decided that it should be Trevor Belmont's daughter."

She goes on to explain how the original concept for the game had the protagonist's mother die before the beginning of the game. After discussing the game's world with Motion Twin and Evil Empire, it was agreed upon that the main character should be a woman.

Producer Tsutomu Taniguchi expresses how the game's world didn't feel right for a male protagonist. "For example, if this story featured a male protagonist, we'd have to consider the type of world depicted, and I think that could be cool," he says. "However, for this story, it was naturally decided that a female protagonist would be the best fit."

Creative director Emmanuel Nouaille further explains how the protagonist's gender fits into the game's themes. "Particularly, considering her mother Sypha's curse would be inherited by her daughter, there's a bond between parent and child," he says. "There is a strong connection between the two, and it gives her a clear motivation to avenge her mother's death and face her cruel fate. From this, the protagonist became Rose Belmont, and the role was best suited for a woman."

Castlevania: Belmont's Curse wants you to find the "joy" in the difficulty and it won't be "simple or easy": "That's not Castlevania."

Leads working on Castlevania: Belmont's Curse have spoken out about how it will continue the series' tradition of challenging difficulty, while allowing players ways to mitigate it through level ups, exploring alternative paths, and if none of that works for you, difficulty settings.

In an interview with Famitsu that's been translated by GamesRadar+, Belmont's Curse's producer Tsutomu Taniguchi describes how people might mitigate the difficulty by using the game's mechanics. "People might find the game difficult if they can't win a certain battle, but there are always numerous alternatives," he says. "There is also a level up system so new players and those who are not good at action games can still play. That's always been a part of the series."

Though there are ways in-game to negate the difficulty, there are also settings that deal with potential issues more directly. "For those who still feel that it's difficult, there are settings that adjust the level of difficulty in the options menu," he continues. "Whether someone is good at action games or not, there should be a setting that will leave as many players as possible satisfied."

However, the game's director Yukiko Hokao wants to emphasize that Belmont's Curse will still have the challenge the series is known for. "We didn't want it to be a simple or easy game," she says. "That isn't Castlevania. Looking at early games in the series, I think there is a kind of joy in making progress steadily through a difficult game."

Creative director Emmanuel Nouaille also weighs in with how fairness is at the core of the gameplay. "We also placed a big emphasis on gameplay being 'fair,'" he says. "We're confident that the level of difficulty will satisfy existing fans, and by removing barriers for new players it should be easy for them to get into the game as well."

Castlevania: Belmont's Curse was made to enlighten players who "love Metroidvanias" but have "never played a Castlevania game," Konami lead says.

Konami has revealed the performance targets for Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Volume 2, and 4K 60fps Metal Gear Solid 4 is finally within reach, even if Switch 1 users are getting shortchanged again.

Konami released details about both Metal Gear Solid 4 and Peace Walker's performance on its website. It's mostly as you would expect based on the previous game: Xbox Series X, PS5, and PC will be running at 4K 60fps; Switch 2 and Xbox Series S will be 1440/60 – with 1080/60fps in MGS4's handheld mode and for both on Peace Walker for Switch 2.

Once again, the original Nintendo Switch is stuck with 1080/30fps in docked and 720/30fps in handheld. That includes Peace Walker – a 2010 PSP game that ran at 60fps when its HD edition was released on 2005's Xbox 360.

Metal Gear Solid 4 at 60fps was already revealed a few months back with the first gameplay of the re-release. On Switch 2, the game has selectable image modes between "Adjusted and Original," with the handheld mode only getting Original. Presumably, one of these matches the other platforms, with a slightly more inconsistent framerate.

Funnily enough, Metal Gear Solid 4 was always capable of 60fps, but getting it to run as such on PS3 was only possible in really specific circumstances, and most of the time you'd be dealing with sub-30fps in action scenes. But having the game run at a stable 60fps will be a game-changer.

Peace Walker, on the other hand, has a number of different resolution and upscaling options. Konami also released a video showing off the "High Resolution" mode for the game's hand-drawn cutscenes, with the new version having a much clearer image compared to the somewhat blurry original.

While Metal Gear Solid 4's big return is the clear star of the show here, I'm hoping to see Peace Walker's stock rise with this re-release, so people can finally see it for being one of the best Metal Gear Solid games… perhaps even better than MGS4 some may say.

After almost 25 years, Metal Gear Solid 2 players are still finding secrets: "This is the kind of stuff somebody posts on an online forum in 2005 and no one believes it"

Castlevania: Belmont's Curse producer Tsutomu Taniguchi explains that he proposed the development of a new game in the series after reading comments from Metroidvania fans who'd never played a Castlevania game.

Castlevania may be the one half of the genre name, but according to Taniguchi, many self-professed Metroidvania fans admit they've never played any games from the franchise. In an interview with Famitsu, he spoke about how development of Castlevania:Belmont's Curse began from this revelation.

As translated by GamesRadar+ Taniguchi says, "I was a fan of Castlevania long before I started on this project. Since joining Konami, I kept seeing people on social media and in fandoms saying that they love Metroidvanias but they've never played a Castlevania game. They might have seen the anime, but they'd never played the games."

Taniguchi realized that while Castlevania has good brand recognition, it doesn't mean that everyone has had the chance to play the games. "I started to think about what I could do about this as both a Konami employee and a fan," Taniguchi says. "So we began by porting old games to collections to create a way for people to play previous works."

Castlevania has received three larger game collections: 2019's Castlevania Anniversary Collection, 2021's Castlevania Advance Collection, and most recently 2024's Castlevania Dominus Collection. Despite the wide range of series games distributed across these collections, the series' most popular entry, Symphony of the Night, hasn't been part of a collection since the PSP's Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles and its update 2018's Castlevania: Requiem.

"We also wanted to build more ways for new players to experience Castlevania, like the [Dead Cells] DLC I mentioned previously," Taniguchi continues. "Of course, I also wanted to see something new, so I proposed Castlevania: Belmont's Curse."

Fans have waited 12 years for a new Castlevania game, but Belmont's Curse is an even greater gift for swine like me who have never played the series

An unofficial Castlevania: Symphony of the Night PC port has finally emerged from its crypt, but it's based on the Xbox 360 edition of the game rather than the original.

Recompilation efforts have made a big wave in the industry over the last few years, and so far – a few outliers like Sonic Unleashed and WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2007 notwithstanding – have mostly focused on the fifth generation of consoles, with most of the all-time N64 classics having brilliant PC versions available right now. Super Mario 64 was the first time I'd heard of it happening, but impressive ports for Banjo Kazooie, Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and Majora's Mask have been big hits among fans.

When it comes to iconic games from the fifth generation, there's far too many to mention, but one of them is undoubtedly Castlevania: Symphony of the Night – the reason that genre is called Metroidvania and not just Metroid-like.

And would you look at that, the newest game to join the long line of recompiled PC ports is Symphony of the Night. NocturneRecomp was released by birabittoh (thanks Time Extension) earlier this month, and ends an almost 30 year wait for a PC port.

However, it's not the PS1 original, the Saturn version that featured exclusive content, or the PSP release with a new translation that was later adapted for its PS4 port. Instead it's the Xbox 360 edition from 2007, which is the version I first played the game on and still has the iconic intro voice acting, so not a bad version at all, but a hindered one. It lacks the CG cutscenes and ending theme from Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater singer Cynthia Harrell.

Of course, you'll need to have dumped your own copy of the Xbox 360 version of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night to use it, but considering that version is still readily available on the Xbox Store (and backwards compatible) that shouldn't prove too difficult.

With that said, you could just play it on one of those consoles if you have it, but thanks to the power of modders, the prospect of restored Saturn content potentially coming to the PC port is certainly exciting, alongside those CG cutscenes.

Fans have waited 12 years for a new Castlevania game, but Belmont's Curse is an even greater gift for swine like me who have never played the series.

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!

A modder has made Grey Fox playable in the original Metal Gear Solid, and it's way more impressive than it sounds.

Despite Snake (and Snake, and Snake, and Snake, and…) being a contender for the greatest video game character of all time, Metal Gear has a variety of side characters that all absolutely rule, and many hope for the chance to play as them. And while there's been the odd opportunity to play as whoever isn't the main protagonist of a given game (Tanker and Snake Tales in MGS2, Ocelot in Metal Gear Online), Metal Gear is pretty strict about having you play as the main character.

One such legendary side character is Grey Fox, who – after appearances in the MSX2 originals – appeared in Metal Gear Solid 1 as the series' first Cyborg Ninja. The character was so popular that he was the selling point and cover star of Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions, where he was briefly playable for a couple of missions. And while Hideo Kojima wanted the character to get his own game as a sequel to Metal Gear Rising, it never materialized.

However, Grey Fox is finally getting his day in the cold alaska moon, as YouTube user Perfect Pizza has released a first look at the final version of their "Playable Grey Fox mod" for Metal Gear Solid. On first read this may not sound that impressive, perhaps the thought of "oh they just moved the VR Missions character into the main game," crossed your mind? Well this mod is not nearly that simple.

Watching the trailer, right away you'll notice you have access to Grey Fox's arm cannon, which saw use throughout Metal Gear Solid, but never actually got used in his previous playable appearance. The High Frequency Blade has gotten a buff too with a new trailing effect and the ability to ricochet bullets back at enemies, and there's new movement options with crouch walking introduced. The mod promises a ton of changes, like "automatic open and close face visor upon alert,""custom animations," and "custom codec calls".

On the mods Discord, Perfect Pizza explains "This mod uses the PSX decompilation project’s ability to modify the game’s C code and build a new executable using the developer version of Metal Gear Solid." Adding "At the time of creation, neither the AI Grey Fox boss nor the playable VR Ninja have been fully decompiled. As a result, everything shown so far has been recreated through reverse engineering, existing game code, experimentation, and educated guesses."

They explain, "The goal is to let players experience an expanded version of Grey Fox vs what was given to us in VR missions with as many of his signature abilities and some new ones as the game’s limitations allow, while preserving core gameplay features such as crawling, elevators, weapons, and environmental interaction." and that "This project also lays the groundwork for a future version that could allow players to experience the entire game as Grey Fox."

Perfect Pizza also says "This is not a complete story-mode conversion" but that "A separate project, which I am not affiliated with, is working toward making the full campaign playable by rebuilding all the stage overlays and making the compiled exe shiftable. The future of a complete Grey Fox playthrough depends heavily on that effort."

Regardless it's an impressive mod that actually allows playable Grey Fox found in VR Missions to live up to the version we hoped he would be all along, and even if a full version doesn't show up, it'll be fun to play about with.

After almost 25 years, Metal Gear Solid 2 players are still finding secrets: "This is the kind of stuff somebody posts on an online forum in 2005 and no one believes it"

David Hayter, the striking voice behind the Metal Gear series' various Snake roles, isn't a fan of Sony's decision to end physical disc production for new games on PlayStation consoles in 2028 – and he's certainly not afraid to show it.

The end of physical media as we know it is dominating online discussions following Sony's announcement, which cited how "general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs" – a statement that plenty of folks definitely cannot get behind.

One of them is none other than David Hayter, the iconic voice actor known for his work on Metal Gear Solid games as Solid Snake, Old Snake, Naked Snake… you name it.

In a new online post, Hayter makes this as clear as he possibly can, sharing a picture of all his consoles and games (physical, of course, mind you). Between the Xbox and PlayStation 5 – and various controllers – I see a plethora of gems, including everything from GTA 5 to Red Dead Redemption 2.

As for his caption? "No disc, no buy." And, yes, he tags the official PlayStation account on Twitter, too, so as to catch Sony's attention.

Unsurprisingly, fans are largely in agreement with the actor, who admits in the comments that "this is a fraction of my game collection" as well. Not to mention, "I also have 2500+ DVDs." Physical media, you say? Hayter's no hater in that department.

He's not alone, either, as big developers in the industry themselves have spoken out against the move toward digital-only. Take former Blizzard boss Mike Ybarra, for example.

He says "we can't live in a world of fear if our games will work in the future or not," and game preservation experts share in that sentiment, explaining how this will all lead to more piracy.

Just yesterday, CEO of Lords of the Fallen 2 publisher CI Games, Marek Tyminski, also stated that Sony's choice to axe discs and the fact that GTA 6 is going disc-free itself "feels unfair to studios still backing physical" – so, yeah.

There's no telling what the future will bring for physical media enthusiasts, but I'm choosing to remain hopeful that game discs won't do a DVD on us and all but disappear. Something tells me Hayter is, too.

Here's why we think PlayStation killing discs is bad for everyone, whether you care about physical games or not.

Konami is getting a bit of a spotlight for Prime Day deals so if you're looking to catch up on some of its latest titles, you're in luck. We're keeping an eye out for Silent Hill 2, which is one of the Prime Day gaming deals that has sold out since we started writing, but don't worry there are still a whole host of Konami games on offer with chunky discounts.

We've got record low on the new Silent Hill f, and even Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater. Whether you're looking for horror or action RPG, or something else, there's probably a Konami game here for you.

We gave Silent Hill f a glorious four-star review, citing its "terrifying yet beautiful foggy atmosphere" and amazingly gnarly creature designs. The combat has had some improvements since launch, but we've always loved its excellent writing. We've called it "some of the best horror I've ever played", which is pretty high praise from horror nerds.

Snake Eater also got a 4-star review, with praise heaped on its authenticity to the original. Modernization has happened of course, but there's plenty of original charm here. A faithful recreation warts and all lets say. Definitely worth a play through.

Metal Gear Solid 2 is now approaching 25 years old, and players are still discovering things about the classic game.

Metal Gear Solid 2 is one of the PS2 titles that truly felt 'next-gen' when it came out, or so I'm told since I was five at the time and only cared about Crash Bandicoot. But all of the little details that make that game's world so special are well known now – things like how the ice cubes would melt slowly if you shot the bucket at the bar, or Snake getting a cold if he stays out in the cold too long.

And yet, multiple playthroughs later (including one about a month ago), and I never knew about one hidden detail, and it looks like almost no one else did, either. "After more than 2 decades of playing MGS2, I thought I'd seen everything, then this happened", a user on Reddit writes, sharing an extremely specific interaction that can happen towards the end of the Tanker chapter.

When Snake is making his way to the room where Metal Gear Ray is housed, there are multiple open areas you can hide in off to the side, but as has now been discovered, peeking round the corner at the approaching enemy will cause a metal pipe to fall, alerting them.

After more than 2 decades of playing MGS2, I thought I'd seen everything, then this happened. from r/metalgearsolid

The comments are just as shocked as me to find this out, with the top response saying: "Holy shit, what? Same here. This game is legendary, man." A response adds: "I think the insane level of detail on these games, particularly MGS2 and MGS3 is often overlooked. I was absolutely blown away by MGS2 when I was a teenager playing it for the first time, and even now I think the graphics and overall environment design are unbelievable." Meanwhile, another puts it perfectly, "This is the kind of stuff somebody posts on an online forum in 2005 and no one believes it to be real."

And sure, a pipe falling over isn't exactly mind-blowing stuff, but it's just one of the myriad details that makes Metal Gear Solid as a series so beloved.

Metal Gear Solid Snake actor David Hayter didn't understand all of Hideo Kojima's story while recording, but says he didn't need to: "That's what makes Metal Gear, Metal Gear."

Fog clings to the island of St Amelia like taut plastic on skin, but I'm still not convinced Silent Hill: Townfall makes sense in the Konami psychological horror franchise. The 30-minute hands-off demonstration developer Screen Burn shows me during Summer Game Fest 2026 is laden with Silent Hill's trappings, milky fog and scabby monsters, but it's missing the cigarette-burned soul.

It's all too clean. Leading man Simon Ordell has ripped himself out of a hospital bed with all the tape and needles attached. A cannula pokes through a vein between his fingers, allowing healing liquid to revive him when he's injured, and a tight medical bracelet sticks to his wrist. But Simon is otherwise spotless while investigating St. Amelia in 1996, with vague instructions to find a brunette who I need to double check isn't Mary, the missing brunette from the soul-tearing Silent Hill 2. In only 30 minutes, I notice many callbacks to fan-favorite, early Silent Hill games – and I worry the unique parts of Silent Hill: Townfall can't compare.

Take me upstate

Townfall follows 2025's Silent Hill f, which was set in Japan, in taking Silent Hill international. I still yearn for the original lakeside town in Nowhere, USA, and the slow, somewhat inviting decay it represented, but I appreciated Silent Hill f's invention of a highly stylized, red spider lily landscape, too. Townfall's Scottish island St. Amelia is ruled by realism. Its cobblestone streets and neat white houses are hyper-realistic, looking better-suited to Call of Duty than an introspective horror game. Nonetheless, they are impressive. When the camera lingers on a bit of patterned wallpaper in an abandoned home, I can imagine what it would feel like just by looking at it.

Less tantalizing to me, someone whose favorite aspect of the best Silent Hill games is the poetry of their strangeness, is that Silent Hill: Townfall also employs realism in its puzzles. Rather than adding names to the Grim Reaper's list, as you do in the original Silent Hill, or burning pork liver to reveal a path in Silent Hill 3, the Townfall demo I saw has Simon searching for a prepaid electric card common in '90s Scotland to get the house's lights working.

Again, Screen Burn is demonstrating an impressive attention to detail here. But I don't play Silent Hill games for their faithfulness to history, and especially not to reality. I love them for the way they use magic to reveal our skeletons. Whenever the occult Otherworld falls over a Silent Hill protagonist, you're confronted with the rust under the hospital room paint, blood beneath a young woman's skirt, denial before freedom. I've always thought the supernatural was more real than real, so I've found comfort in past Silent Hill games, which lie on the cliff between observable life and hidden feelings. They push into each other, yin and yang, to make a whole world.

But Silent Hill: Townfall seems more oriented toward its surface. I'm first introduced to Simon as he's seated near a town monument littered with protest signs – "We Need The Truth," "Whatever Heart This Town Had Has Stopped" – and their unsubtle nature reminds me of Dead Space graffiti that routinely took me out of that game's horror. A Screen Burn developer also suggests during my Summer Game Fest session that Townfall uses first-person perspective because the series' usual third-person does more to coddle you from horror. In a sense, that's probably true. It's more viscerally horrifying to play Resident Evil in a VR headset than with ungainly tank controls, after all.

But third-person also encourages players to connect with a game's protagonist, as you can observe them as you control them, linking your movements with their mind. And since the average Silent Hill story is a storm whipped up to torment its main character, specifically (there are very few all-purpose spooks aimed at you, the player), third-person helps its effectiveness.

Though, Townfall isn't completely devoid of fantasy. It pays homage to the series' early convention of letting you identify monsters with a stammering radio by replacing the tech with a handheld CRT TV, which also swaps the need for on-screen UI by flashing cryptic images of your next location. It's an intriguing change, as the CRT TV is an elegant way to focus the player's attention on their next game objective while still being immersive in its story. However, I don't think a Silent Hill game's user interface has ever dulled the impact of its corpse nurses and brown toilets for me.

Ultimately, I feel like Screen Burn is worried about iterating on the wrong genre conventions.

I'm confused by all the changes I see in my Silent Hill: Townfall demo that are neutral at best. When the monster finally arrives, it's a melted flesh humanoid with its head sharpened into an axe. It looks like a struggling Lying Figure from Silent Hill 2... except with an axe for its head.

I thought this was supposed to be the fun part, but it's still too tame.

Refresh your memory of the Silent Hill we left behind with our list of the best Silent Hill games.

Tonight's big Summer Game Fest event, the annual Xbox Games Showcase, brought us a release date for Castlevania: Belmont's Curse – you know, the game we've been waiting 12 years for now.

In case you're out of the loop, Castlevania: Belmont's Curse was first unveiled earlier this year during a February PlayStation State of Play – but since then, we've not really received much news on the new 2D action game... until now, that is.

Today has brought with it a new trailer and word from Konami on the hotly anticipated Castlevania: Belmont's Curse release date. That's right, it's no longer just a general "2026" launch window... the game is coming October 15 this year, right on time for Halloween.

That's not all, though. The trailer gives us a longer look at actual gameplay, and it's pretty impressive. Contemporary visuals paired with ye olde Metroidvania mechanics make for quite a compelling combo – and I'm personally sold.

If you're just as excited as I am to step into the shoes of the young Belmont protagonist, you'll be able to play Castlevania: Belmont's Curse on PC, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox Series X|S come October.

Here's hoping the new Castlevania adventure we've waited over a decade for is a good one.

Searching for something else to wishlist? Here are the best new games coming this year and beyond to look forward to.

During yesterday's PlayStation State of Play showcase – the first big event to come out of this year's Summer Game Fest – we got a new glimpse at Silent Hill: Townfall, as well as our first word of its precise release date of September 24, 2026.

It was a big moment for longtime fans of Konami's beloved horror game series, as Townfall marks a very different entry to Silent Hill – and one that features a greater emphasis on stealth-based gameplay, apparently.

As per Sony's official blog post on the upcoming title, combat might feel a bit removed from predecessors as evasion, hiding, and general stealth seem to be more of a necessity at times rather than a workaround.

"The trailer also gives us our first glimpse of a new creature, seen stalking Simon in the darkness of the Otherworld," it reads.

"With some enemies, combat is an important aspect of survival. In others, evasion is your only option. Using the CRTV and peek mechanic to assess the situation as you navigate, staying out of sight and moving carefully is paramount, as being seen can lead to a terrifying chase and dire consequences."

That certainly makes it sound as though stealth is a core component of Townfall's gameplay – and, coupled with its new focus on a first-person point of view, something tells me that fans are bound to have thoughts on how it plays come this fall.

I'm immediately reminded of Silent Hill f and its divisive action-packed combat, which left fans unable to decide whether or not it was a positive change or a negative one.

Thankfully, Sony's little SGF update on Townfall does make it clear that it's still got many of the features Silent Hill players know and love. I'm personally hopeful that the game's blend of old and new works, but I suppose we'll just have to play it to see.

Silent Hill Townfall, Onimusha: Way of the Sword, and Control Resonant all launch a day apart in September as everyone gets the hell out of GTA 6's November.

It's that time of year, as Summer Game Fest rolls around with various new reveals and sneak peeks – and today's big PlayStation State of Play showcase from Sony certainly offers no exception there, giving us another look at Silent Hill: Townfall.

That's right – Silent Hill: Townfall is back in the limelight after its big release date reveal during tonight's State of Play event, finally confirming just when Konami's new horror game is set to launch.

There's apparently not too long left to wait, as the exciting trailer unveils the title's arrival: September 24 of this year. While we already knew it would come in 2026, the precise day is news... good news.

After all, it's nearly been a year since Silent Hill f, the previous series gem, dropped in September of 2025 – and yes, that means that Silent Hill: Townfall is marked to launch around the same time of year as its most recent predecessor.

Will it be as good as the last series entry, though? Only time will tell, but honestly, if this new trailer is anything to go by, then I'm voting that it almost definitely will be.

Just look at the terrifying creatures and scenes protagonist Simon will witness in St. Amelia, the new Silent Hill setting – it's all too reminiscent of an old-school camcorder horror film for me, but I'm loving the eerie vibes.

And, what's more, we can finally put a face to the mysterious voice previously heard on the CRTV in Konami's reveal trailer... Zoe. As per Sony's blog post on Silent Hill: Townfall, she's a nurse from a local family clinic. Simon evidently doesn't recognize her, much like he doesn't recognize St. Amelia itself.

We also get a quick look at some of the upcoming Silent Hill: Townfall puzzles – and, yep, it's looking like the game will feature the series' iconic mind-boggling scenarios to solve between all of the monstrosities and mystery.

As Sony puts it, "Solving these puzzles isn’t just a way to progress in the game, though, but rather a way to understand the situation Simon finds himself in." Hm – that's a bit of a head scratcher in itself... but it does leave me all the more excited.

Here's hoping Silent Hill: Townfall is as promising as it appears it'll be so far. September 24, 2026, please don't be late.

Searching for something else to wishlist? Here are the best new games coming this year and beyond to look forward to.

Konami has revealed the first gameplay of Metal Gear Solid 4 in Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol 2, and fans have noticed subtle changes and the return of the iPod.

While Metal Gear Solid 4 was in PS3 jail, many speculated that it was just a game that would be impossible to bring back, thanks to all its dumb little details and licensed content. But in a stream on the WasayaganaTV YouTube channel – hosted by Jujutsu Kaisen actor Yuichi Nakamura and radio personality Mafia Kajita – we got our first look at Guns of the Patriots running on new platforms. And within the steam it was shown that the Apple iPod is back in the game, signaling the return of its licensed content.

We didn't see them in the stream, but elsewhere in Metal Gear Solid 4, Otacon uses an Apple Mac computer, so it's probably safe to assume that sticks. There's also a crossover with Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed series, which allows Snake to don Altaïr's robes while sneaking around – this was confirmed to be returning in an interview around the time Solid Snake was added to Rainbow Six Siege. Also, fans spotted that the "No place for Hideo" box is still in the game; however, the link to the now-defunct Hideoblog was removed.

Naturally, however, fans are speculating about how some of the PS3-specific parts will translate. Notably, there's an iconic scene during the game's Shadow Moses segment, in which Otacon pushes Snake to swap to disk 2 before realizing "we're on PlayStation 3" before talking about how good Blu-ray discs are. The question is whether this scene will remain in the game as is, be replaced with new voice lines about the specific consoles, or be nixed entirely.

The rest of the stream also showed some of the improvements coming to this version. Notably, Metal Gear Solid 4 running at 60fps is witchcraft we could've only dreamed of, and as one Twitter user pointed out, the loading times are way shorter when transitioning between areas. Although if you aren't stuck on a loading screen between chapters staring at Snake smoking for 15 minutes, are you really playing Metal Gear Solid 4?

I replayed Metal Gear Solid 4 last year for the first time in about a decade after beating Metal Gear Solid Delta, but I may just find myself returning to it sooner than expected to experience the upgrades on show.

Metal Gear Solid Snake actor David Hayter didn't understand all of Hideo Kojima's story while recording, but says he didn't need to: "That's what makes Metal Gear, Metal Gear"

There is a fight boiling over in Silent Hill – not for love, lust, nor the pendulous future of your sinner's soul, but over pop legend Madonna and how much she influenced the horror franchise's 2001 sequel. Silent Hill 2 artist art director is adamant the answer is barely at all.

A popular Twitter post says facetiously that Madonna's music video for 1998 anthem 'Nothing Really Matters' was "inspiration for the atmosphere of silent hill 2 so technically we have madonna to thank for the perfection that is silent hill 2." They're referencing a deleted post Ito made in 2019 naming the 'Nothing Really Matters' video as one of his influences while curating Silent Hill 2's rotten mood. But the horror artist says he's been misunderstood.

"I said I inspired by Madonna's Nothing Really Matters video," Ito writes in a May 21 Twitter post, "but I meant the Butoh-like dances by Asian dancers painted entirely white in the video, not herself/her song." Butoh is a beautiful, nauseating form of Japanese dance theater defined by sharp and labored movements. Artists of all kinds have used its tender-to-touch action as inspiration for their own vulnerable horror – the blurry ghosts of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's 2001 film Pulse, for example, twist into Butoh-like configurations before inspiring victims to kill themselves immediately. Guillermo del Toro also had actor Jacob Elordi learn Butoh in order to become the miserable Creature in 2025's Frankenstein.

In Madonna's music video, background dancers wearing all-white shiver and moan in a Butoh style while the singer pulsates in red, dancing against Silent Hillish rust-stained hallways. "Just a coincidence," according to Ito.

Nonetheless, the video was simply "1 of inspirations for the Lying Figure, BHNurse's etc [animations]," Ito says about Silent Hill 2's armless sacks of skin and nasty Bubble Head nurse enemies, who both approach you while trembling like flies. "That's all. Plz don't jump to conclusions."

He's warned fans of this before, clarifying in 2024 he was inspired "NOT from the song BUT from the video." He's very insistent, and he does not like Madonna.

But the subset of horror fans who happen to also love Madonna – personally, I've been known to occasionally have 'Like a Prayer' on replay – are distraught. They're denying Ito's own memory, informing him that Madonna "birthed silent hill." Meanwhile, Ito is growing increasingly aggravated, saying, "Even if that person posted it as a joke, once it spreads, many people take it at face value."

And he is right. At the same time, though, I'd really love to introduce Pyramid Head to 'Like a Virgin.'

Konami seemingly confirms Silent Hill Townfall will be a PlayStation console exclusive at launch.

A modder is fixing an issue that has persisted with Metal Gear Solid 3 since 2011's HD Collection release – one that most people didn't really notice.

Metal Gear Solid 3 is the greatest game ever made – this was the subject of the first thing I ever wrote for GamesRadar+, about a game I've inhaled as many times as Kirby inhales a Waddle Dee. And yet, somehow, I never noticed that the 2011 HD collection version of the game, which was then ported over to Master Collection in 2023, actually had a broken camera in it the whole time.

As spotted by PC Gamer, Afevis Solmunko, one of the developers behind the MGSFix mod – who also found a hidden third-person mode in Metal Gear Solid 2's HD port – is working on a fix for the Metal Gear Solid Master Collection to fix the framing of cutscenes so that they match how they appeared in the PS2 original.

"In both 2011 [HD Collection] & 2023 [Master Collection], the camera in ALL of MGS3's cutscenes is ~10% higher than PS2's framing, cutting off the bottom of the screen," he explains. "Now fully corrected/properly centered by MGSHDFix."

Turns out, Metal Gear Solid 2 has the same issue, with Solmunko also speaking about potentially fixing that one, too, in a message on the Metal Gear Network Discord server.

Granted, there aren't massive things being missed in the HD version's framing, as in, there's nothing as bad as The Simpsons was on Disney+ at launch. Clearly so, since most of us never actually noticed the difference for 15 years.

Metal Gear Solid's Snake actor didn't want to sound like the character Hideo Kojima took so much inspiration from it reportedly nearly got him sued.

After 15 years, Metal Gear Solid 2's unfinished third-person camera mode has finally been found in the Master Collection version of the stealth classic.

Afevis Solmunko – one of the developers behind the MGSFix mod, which spruces up the PC version of Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol 1 – posts on Twitter (spotted by PC Gamer), "accidentally found third person view in MGS2MC" while sharing videos of it in action. They note "it locks the camera to overhead view when in super-tight corridors so you don't clip through walls, but otherwise... yeah, it been there for 15 years."

15 years in this case refers to the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection, released by Bluepoint Games in 2011, and the basis for the versions of Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 in Master Collection.

As a user in the responses points out, series creator Hideo Kojima mentioned in an interview around the release of HD Collection that "we experimented with putting a 3D camera in there" and turns out the experiments were hidden in there the whole time. This change effectively gives Metal Gear Solid 2 the same treatment as Metal Gear Solid 3 Subsistence, where you can turn it into a more traditional third-person shooter style of play.

It's definitely going to be fun to return to Metal Gear Solid 2 to check this out, but I can also see it being a Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes situation. The GameCube remake of the original Metal Gear Solid added in the first-person aiming from its sequel, which in turn absolutely killed the balance of the game, since the world wasn't planned for you being able to properly aim (the most notable being the Revolver Ocelot fight, which becomes a total joke). So, a third-person MGS2 could definitely see the same balance issues, but as a fun way to replay the game, I'd have loved to see an official version of this emerge for the HD Collection.

Metal Gear Solid's Snake actor didn't want to sound like the character Hideo Kojima took so much inspiration from it reportedly nearly got him sued.

Despite being the star of the series, Metal Gear Solid actor David Hayter says he doesn't fully understand the story of the series either.

Speaking to Fall Damage, Hayter is asked about the series' storyline, responding, "Do I understand the story of Metal Gear Solid? Uh, basically I do; Do I understand all of it? Absolutely not," adding, "I didn't understand all of it while we were recording it."

"I'd be like, 'What does this mean?' and they'd say, 'just say it. And I'd be like, 'Okay.'" Hayter recalls. But he doesn't begrudge the series for it, as he adds, "again, that's what makes Metal Gear, Metal Gear." Hayter explains, "There's more information. There's more character development. There's more detail to the story than you can ever possibly absorb, no matter how many times you play it." He adds, "that's what makes the world feel real and rich and lovable."

Metal Gear is one of those series that gets hit with the 'nonsensical story' stick often, and while it does venture into some wild territory, the core storyline has always been pretty easy to follow. Not to mention it takes place across seven canon games, so we're hardly talking about Kingdom Hearts or Persona, where a golf spinoff would somehow be canon.

Although even the most hardcore of Metal Gear fans like myself will admit that it got a touch convoluted around Metal Gear Solid 4, with elements like a possessed character actually just brainwashing themselves to think they were possessed for two games, a character who was immune to the villain's greatest weapon because he has chronic IBS, and some frankly dumb retcons to tie things into other games.

Metal Gear Solid's Snake actor didn't want to sound like the character Hideo Kojima took so much inspiration from it reportedly nearly got him sued

Metal Gear Solid lead actor David Hayter says he intentionally didn't try to mimic Snake's inspiration when creating the voice for the character.

Speaking to Fall Damage, Hayter says, "When we started Metal Gear and I started taking on Snake, I didn't want him to sound like Kurt Russell from Escape from New York." He explains: "I knew that there were similarities there and I felt like he needed to sound more weathered, you know, that he had been through a lot more than I had been through at that point in my life."

Russell played the character Snake Plissken in the film, a mullet-donning, cigarette-smoking, eyepatch-wearing badass, to which Hideo Kojima was clearly inspired for both Solid Snake and Big Boss. He even acknowledged this, with Metal Gear Solid 2 introducing Iroquois Pliskin a character who looks suspiciously like Solid Snake (but it couldn't be, he died on that tanker two years ago).

Before Hayter was replaced as Big Boss – with Kiefer Sutherland playing the role in Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes – Kojima actually tried to get Kurt Russell himself to play the character in Metal Gear Solid 3. Escape from New York director John Carpenter also revealed that the studio wanted to go after the game for ripping off the film, but "I told them not to do that. I know the director of those games, and he's a nice guy, or at least he's nice to me."

Hayter has a point, though, while Metal Gear Solid was many people's entry point to the franchise, Solid Snake was already in retirement by the time that game took place, with the original MSX2 games taking place 10 and six years before the PS1 title (where he would get a voice for the first time). So, the weathered take on the character was probably the right one, and would prove to be one of the most iconic voices in gaming.

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."

French developer Evil Empire is following Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 by going all-in on injecting its culture into the upcoming Paris-set Castlevania: Belmont‘s Curse.

At the Triple-i showcase yesterday, we finally got another look at Castlevania: Belmont's Curse – Dead Cells DLC developer Evil Empire's take on the classic Konami series – and alongside new gameplay, the developers gave a brief commentary over the trailer to let fans know what to expect from the game. This helped give an idea of what the developers' intentions with the franchise are, and how it plans to bring its own spin on it, and turns out that is by being French.

"Being a French team, we were arrogant enough to set the game in France," Evil Empire's marketing manager Matt Houghton explains, and being a game set in Paris, you'll be scaling Notre Dame, exploring the catacombs, and doing battle with a corrupted version of Joan of Arc, because France. Houghton also gives a sly shoutout to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, adding: "Only berets and baguettes are missing, but I think you've had enough of that already."

Elsewhere, the devs double down on the fact that the game is not a roguelike, with Konami producer Tsutomu Taniguchi saying "we drew significant inspiration from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night" in a separate interview that aired after the showcase.

Notably, the developers behind Belmont's Curse are still playing very coy about who you'll actually be playing as in the game, referring to the character as simply "a Belmont." Fans have speculated that this game will be following a new version of Sonia Belmont who is the child of Trevor. The original version of the character featured in Castlevania Legends and the canceled Castlevania Resurrection but was struck from the canon by Koji Igarashi due to clashes with Castlevania: Lament of Innocence.

And the fact that Evil Empire is intentionally not naming their lead character only seems to further the theory that she's back. Well, and Sony seemingly leaking it over a month ago, but that's unofficial for now.

Dead Cells devs' Castlevania game is just "the beginning," Konami says there are "numerous new products" in the works

Konami has confirmed that – despite its developer's pedigree – Castlevania: Belmont's Curse will not be a roguelike or roguelite.

The PlayStation State of Play last month confirmed that Konami's third return is underway. After bringing back Silent Hill and Metal Gear Solid, Castlevania is now awakening from its 100-year slumber with a new 2D side-scroller (with "numerous new projects" in the works alongside it). Perhaps the most exciting part of this announcement is that it would be developed by the team behind the Dead Cells DLC and Rogue Prince of Persia developer Evil Empire (with help from Dead Cells base-game dev Motion Twin supporting development).

After Dead Cells' excellent Castlevania-themed expansion, naturally, this duo was a match made in heaven. However, some were unsure whether this would be a classic Castlevania experience or a roguelike version of the franchise, like the studio's take on Prince of Persia. Despite Konami never describing it as such.

Konami's head of communications for the Americas, Tommy Williams, told The Verge, "Castlevania Belmont’s Curse is a 2D Action-Exploration game where players can freely explore vast, elaborately crafted maps," outright confirming, "It is not a roguelike or roguelite game."

While the trailer looked very much in the classic Castlevania style, the description of "Action-Exploration game" sounds like the Metroidvania style will be returning.

A Castlevania legend made non-canon by the Metroidvania series could be making her return in Belmont's Curse

Whether they're adding tank controls to Resident Evil 2 Remake or making dragon marriage legal in Skyrim, mods are capable of beautiful things. The latest example lets Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain players experience the game the way Hideo Kojima originally envisioned: with Ground Zeroes serving as a prologue at the beginning.

Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes was originally being developed as the opening mission and prologue to The Phantom Pain, but it was split off and released as a separate game because Kojima wanted fans to have something to play when the new generation of consoles, then the PS4 and Xbox One, released. However, Kojima reiterated in a 2023 social media post that the original plan was for Ground Zeroes to simply be a prologue quest in The Phantom Pain.

It only took 11 years, but you can finally play the two games as if they were one, as Kojima originally envisioned. Created by RLC and uploaded to NexusMods by CapLagRobin, the mod fully integrates Ground Zeroes' campaign, which takes place a few months after Peace Walker, to the beginning of The Phantom Pain, bridging the two games into a cohesive whole that theoretically is more true to Kojima's original vision.

The modder admits "many issues persist" and there are some "features not implemented," but if you follow the instructions (which require you to own a copy of Ground Zeroes), the Ground Zeroes mission will be added to The Phantom Pain's mission list on the iDroid. By default, the game will transition into the Ground Zeroes mission automatically after you beat Episode 1: Phantom Limbs, but there are options to let you turn off automatic transitions.

Of course, this also means Ground Zeroes' Camp Omega map is now fully explorable in The Phantom Pain's free roam system, allowing you to run around as Venom, do fun stuff like Fulton extractions, and even do side ops. There's no way of knowing if these elements were added in a way that's entirely faithful to Kojima's original plans, but until we get an official re-release bridging the two games together, this is by far the closest we've got to the developer's original vision.

10 years later, Metal Gear Solid 5 remains a masterpiece that was never going to live up to its own hype

Solid Snake is finally back on the right path once again as Rainbow Six Siege gives him bigger cheeks than his most recent appearances.

Snake had a hard life. Not only has Metal Gear Solid's star player not had an appearance in the games since 2008, but since then his crossover appearances have committed crimes against him. In Metal Gear Solid 2, 4, and Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Solid Snake is caked up, Kojima insisted that he has a better ass than Raiden, and boy did the team deliver which led to the iconic "the clap of my ass cheeks keeps alerting the guards" meme that even David Hayter himself got in on.

But Snake's first appearance in 10 years for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was the start of a worrying trend, yes it was nice to see Snake again, and some signs of life for the then-dormant Metal Gear series, but his cake was heavily nerfed, he had a flat ass. Then years later when he appeared in Fortnite, it got even worse, it was gone, he was so flat he made Hank Hill look like Aunt Fanny from the 2005 film Robots.

However, there is a spark of hope. As Twitter user HEITAIs points out (via machine translation) that with his upcoming appearance in Rainbow Six Siege, Ubisoft is trying to right one of the most horrific wrongs bestowed upon Snake, as he appears to be a bit more thick than his Fortnite and Smash days. Granted, he's still not the whole bakery as he was in his heyday, but it's a good first step in the return of Metal Gear.

Hayter even commented on the shrinkage, calling it "concerning if true", so with Snake himself alerted of some of the wrongdoings bestowed upon him, hopefully Metal Gear Solid 6 will have him as caked up as Kojima intended.

Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 2's included games disappear from storefronts without warning

It seems Silent Hill Townfall, a spinoff of Konami's legendary horror series set in Scotland, will be a PlayStation console exclusive, at least at launch.

Silent Hill Townfall emerged from its four-year hibernation for last week's PlayStation State of Play with its first full-on trailer, showing its protagonist, Simon Ordell, arrive in the fictional Scottish town of St. Amelia in order to "put things right." There's fog, melancholic music, and clear evidence that something's gone horribly wrong here. In essence, a classic Silent Hill setup, for better or worse.

It also seems Silent Hill Townfall will continue Konami's long-running partnership with PlayStation as a PS5 console exclusive. Bloober Team's Silent Hill 2 Remake had a one-year PS5 exclusivity window before launching on Xbox, although NeoBards' Silent Hill f launched on PS5, PC, and Xbox Series X at the same time last September.

According to the official Silent Hill Townfall website, the game is only confirmed for PlayStation and PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store. Also, looking back at press emails from last week, the only platforms listed are PS5 and PC. I'd be surprised if it never releases on Xbox, but it seems there's an exclusivity window similar to Silent Hill 2 Remake. I've reached out to Konami for clarification and will update this story if I hear back.

Whatever the platforms, Silent Hill Townfall is due out sometime in 2026.

There's still time for Silent Hill Townfall to join our list of the best horror games to play in 2026.

Hideo Kojima is reminiscing over the Metal Gear Solid 3 Premium Package, and the impressive list of contributors for its included book.

Metal Gear Solid 3 is the best game ever made if you ask me (which you should, because it's true). Over 20 years later, there's a reason the game that was the worst-selling Metal Gear Solid game of the original four entries is one people still talk about to this day, and the one Konami elected to remake with 2025's Metal Gear Solid Delta. And even though he's no longer involved with the series, series creator Hideo Kojima has been reminiscing over his magnum opus.

Over on Twitter, Kojima posts images of one of the books included in the Japanese-exclusive Metal Gear Solid 3 Premium Package, recounting the wild list of contributors included. Names like future Kojima collaborator Guillermo del Toro, filmmaker John Woo, Parasite Eve author Hideaki Sena, and Polish author Stanisław Lem were included in the book. Kojima notes, "The lineup of contributors has now become legendary."

Kojima recalls, "At the time, neither the contributors nor I had any fear. The energy we had was incredible." He also includes photos of messages left by some of the contributors, with del Toro saying "all of a sudden, Pain, Fear, and Sorrow are things I look forward to" in reference to the game's boss fights, adding: "Konami has nailed the mood, the moves, the fights. Awesome!"

Woo says the series has "played an important part in the history of the video game industry," and adds, "The classic battles between Liquid Snake and Solid Snake definitely belong on the big screen."

Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 2's included games disappear from storefronts without warning

Without warning, Konami has delisted the games featured in the upcoming Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 2.

Delisted games are nothing new – it feels like every other week there's a new story of a classic being removed, leaving no way to purchase them. Typically, these are due to rights issues, with Marvel vs. Capcom, The Simpsons Arcade Game, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game all being ripped from stores over the years. But other times, delistings happen to push you to the new version of the game, like we saw with Rockstar, which delisted GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas in favor of the anything but definitive Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition.

Metal Gear games have been delisted in the past, with historical footage used in Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 causing those games to be delisted in 2021. However, this time around it seems like Konami might have pulled a Rockstar.

After the announcement of Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 2 last week, fans noticed that the PS3's Metal Gear Solid 4, PSP's Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker, and its console version Peace Walker HD have been removed from the PS3, PSP, and Xbox stores, meaning the upcoming release will be the only way to get both games digitally. I've personally checked on the PS3, Vita, and Xbox Stores, and can confirm the removal of these titles.

While this sucks anyway, it's especially bad for anyone still on Xbox One, as Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 2 won't be releasing on the last-gen console. So now there's simply no way – outside of tracking down a physical copy – of playing Peace Walker on the platform. Plus, it's a bit unfortunate considering the collection is still six months away, meaning no one will be able to pick them up in the meantime.

As weird as it is to say, however, I really hope it simply is a case of wanting to push players to the new edition, because Monster Hunter content and The Carpenters' music are integral parts to the Peace Walker experience, and them missing from a future re-release would be a huge shame.

Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker co-op, inspired by the Monster Hunter craze, lives on in Master Collection Volume 2

Shutaro Iida, a longtime Castlevania legend and developer with a plethora of titles under his belt, has passed away at the age of 52 after a nearly two-year-long battle with cancer.

Iida, who was most recently working on Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night sequel The Scarlet Engagement, first announced that he had been diagnosed with cancer in 2024 in an online post, explaining that he would be stepping away from game development to focus on his health.

Earlier today, his family took to his account to share that he had died on February 10 due to the illness, expressing gratitude for the kindness he had been shown.

Since the news was made public, other devs have posted their own tributes for the talented man, with one especially heartfelt message (as translated by Automaton) coming from fellow Konami Veteran and Bloodstained lead Koji Igarashi, who had worked alongside Iida since Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow in 2003.

In his response, Igarashi looks back on his history together with Iida and toward the future of Bloodstained, with its sequel in mind.

"In the early hours of Tuesday, February 10, 2026, our Creative Director, Shutaro, passed away peacefully after battling cancer for approximately one and a half years," writes the dev.

"Our first project together was Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. It is no exaggeration to say that numerous titles hailed as masterpieces would not have been possible without his contributions. His talent was truly exceptional."

Igarashi goes on to say that he's "profoundly grateful" Iida accepted his invitation to join him on the development of Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, with the 2019 gem's success only "made possible by his tremendous support," as he puts it.

"Looking back, he supported me for over twenty years. He was someone who constantly thought about games, approaching development as if it were burning his life away."

The dev hopes that Iida is now at rest. "When it was discovered that he had a terminal cancer in September 2024, it came as a tremendous shock. The subsequent year and a half of battling the illness must have been unimaginably harsh. His passing is profoundly regrettable, yet knowing he is now free from suffering brings a sense of relief. Having run at full speed all this time, I hope he can now rest peacefully."

As for the Bloodstained sequel, Igarashi confirms it's still underway – and still carries Iida's influence.

"The game he was working on, Bloodstained: The Scarlet Engagement, is currently in development. It is a precious work imbued with his vision. We shall carry forward his aspirations and see the game through to completion, determined not to disappoint him. We ask for your continued support and encouragement, now more than ever."

The statement ends with Igarashi's "deepest condolences" to Iida's family, with various replies expressing love for both developers. May Shutaro Iida rest in peace.

The most dramatic thing about Silent Hill Townfall is its first person perspective. It's the only aspect that has me inching forward in my seat while watching the upcoming horror game's first proper trailer.

Heavy fog creeps through a washed-out, nondescript coastal town called St Amelia – based on a Scottish island, I learn through a 30-minute deep dive. A man cradles a gun, a disembodied woman's voice tells him he "did what he did," there's plenty of hospital imagery, and finally, violent manifestations of his guilt-ridden consciousness swarm him in the streets. It boasts everything that made the best Silent Hill games memorable to begin with. And somehow, that makes Townfall's reveal a bit of a letdown for me.

Déjà vu

I have nothing against Townfall's 1980s Scottish backdrop. On the contrary, I'm glad that Japan-set Silent Hill f kicked off a new trend, challenging the notion that the American town itself needs to be featured or referenced in every series instalment. But Silent Hill f was more than a physical departure from the USA; it elevated my expectations of Silent Hill's style, flair, and artistry going forward.

A huge part of that is its strong visual identity and how intrinsic it is to the game's narrative. Silent Hill f takes place in Japan because it's a story that cannot be told in a generic foggy American town. Silent Hill Townfall's first trailer has me thinking the total opposite – and I'll need some convincing that it had to take the leap across the pond in the first place.

Perhaps it's an unfair comparison. Watch any Silent Hill f trailer, and even if you're unclear on the narrative beats, its setting is immediately recognizable; period-specific buildings, use of Japanese language, intelligent monster design with tangible cultural connotations, even the red spider lilies blossoming from the object of Hinako's horror, all reinforce a coming-of-age story that is inextricable from its time and place.

Silent Hill Townfall has no such distinction – for me, at least. My British colleagues seemed incredulous to the fact that I didn't instinctively recognize the generic cobbled streets, red-white-and-blue bunting which could have belonged to any country whose flags possess those colors, and other apparently obvious signifiers that point to Townfall's Scottish setting. As a British person who grew up in Southeast Asia, I was very confused about how they saw something I’d missed entirely.

Connecting the dots

Can you blame me? The protagonist – Simon Ordell, as his hospital bracelet reads – is an American man. A plummy Englishwoman's voiceover is heard at multiple points throughout the trailer, too. If I have to watch thirty minutes of additional lore to get a first sense of place from a game trailer, I have to assume that the setting does not matter at all.

Unless you have an extensive understanding of vaguely British iconography, St Amelia could be anywhere. But Silent Hill, the place, represents that already. It's the everyman setting of survival horror, somewhere that exists perhaps not physically but psychologically. So was there really a need to bring the franchise to Scotland to prove that this meme is correct? And is coastal Scotland really as recognizable as the developer hopes it is outside of the British populace?

It'll take more than a few cobblestones and cups of tea to make Townfall a quintessentially "British" game. Hell, I think Still Wakes the Deep and Atomfall already have this base covered. The potential for a truly spooky Silent Hill incorporating Scottish folklore and history was right there, an opportunity to feed off its location much as Silent Hill f does.

Perhaps that is Screenburn's intention for the final product, but if that is the case, it was lost on me in the trailer. Instead, Townfall looks like Silent Hill distilled to its most obvious parts, with a very naughty boy reminded to have a conscience by a likely dead, imprisoned, or otherwise imperiled woman, who exists as nothing more than a conduit for his punishment or redemption. I sincerely hope I'm wrong, and look forward to being proven so – but so far, the artistic intelligence and bravery of Silent Hill f has cast a long shadow over Townfall.

Replay some of the best survival horror games while you wait for Konami's next sare-'em-up

While Castlevania has thrived on Netflix, its gaming side has atrophied. Its last new title was 2014's third-person Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2, although as part of Konami's fragmented reboot, you would have to go all the way back to 2009 to find the series' last mainline entry. In the interim, we've had nothing but light touch remasters – which is why the reaction to Castlevania: Belmont's Curse, an all-new 2D entry being developed by Motion Twin (Dead Cells) and Evil Empire (The Rogue Prince of Persia), could be measured on the Richter scale.

I'm one of the many fans going feral, but perhaps not for the same reasons. As much as I adored Netflix's Castlevania adaptation, I've always found the series' highest points – now several decades old – to be impenetrable, and have bounced off Symphony of the Night (gasp) many times. Still, I suspect I'm not the only one who's been waiting for an invitation in, and therein lies the true appeal of Belmont's Curse.

High stakes

While Castlevania has lurked outside of the spotlight, the genre it inspired has thrived. Metroidvanias like Hollow Knight, Blasphemous, and Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown have all iterated upon Castlevania's side-scrolling adventure formula, and as the genre's contemporary successes have spawned sequels (Hollow Knight Silksong, Ori and the Will of the Wisps), they have owed less and less to Castlevania and staked more upon their own identities.

As a result, playing Symphony of the Night in 2026 feels jarring. While its premise is timeless, decades of iteration leaves something to be desired in execution. Still, there's a reason Castlevania made the leap to animation so fluidly. It's European occultism viewed through a folksy lens, Bram Stoker's Dracula as told by Aleister Crowley, and that hook is as killer now as it was in the '80s. All it ever needed was a modern vessel, and given the popularity of both Metroidvanias and the Castlevania animation series, it's strange it took this long for something like Belmont's Curse to arrive.

Although I question Konami's reluctance to engage with Castlevania over the years, I can't fault the company's decision-making around Belmont's Curse. Evil Empire has a stellar record in the 2D space – which fittingly includes 2023's Dead Cells: Return to Castlevania – and it's bracing to see Dead Cells' original developer, Motion Twin, working on Belmont's Curse in an advisory capacity. The result looks slick and irresistible. Its crimson-wash palette and 15th century Parisian backdrop stands out even in a genre that's almost competitively expressive; the fluidity of Vampire Killer feeds into movement and combat beautifully.

Crucially, Belmont's Curse seems to tick all the right boxes with or without the Castlevania name. Here is an opportunity to revive Castlevania proper – treating not just with existing fans as with Konami's many remasters, but with Metroidvania fans who were born too late or otherwise missed Castlevania at its peak. The audience is certainly there: Hollow Knight Silksong was one of the best-selling games on Steam last year, and a sizable portion of its fans will be curious to explore its progenitor.

Looking further afield, this could herald the start of a new era for Castlevania. Konami's whip-smart taste in developers has breathed new life into Silent Hill, with Bloober Team's Silent Hill 2 remake and NeoBards' ground-breaking Silent Hill f introducing the series to a whole new generation. Still, baby steps. Castlevania is back, and we can talk about what that means after whipping vampires in the face.

We don't have a release date for Belmont's Curse just yet, but you can stretch your legs with the best adventure games

Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Volume 2 was revealed at yesterday's Sony State of Play presentation, confirming that Metal Gear Solid 4 is finally being freed from its long-standing PS3 jail. The collection also includes the 2000 Game Boy Color game Ghost Babel and the 2010 PSP title Peace Walker, but there are plenty more Metal Gear entries not present here – including Portable Ops.

Portable Ops, released in 2006 for PSP, is something of a black sheep in the series. It's set after Metal Gear Solid 3, telling the story of how Big Boss first built the military unit that he'd lead in Peace Walker and MGS5. It'd make perfect sense for inclusion in Volume 2, since it bridges the gap between MGS3 in the previous collection and Peace Walker here.

But series lead Hideo Kojima only had minor involvement in the development of Portable Ops, and specific events from the game are only tangentially referenced in later titles. Its status as a semi-canon title might account for its exclusion here – but Ghost Babel, an entirely non-canon game, is still part of the package.

"Such an underrated game," one fan laments on Reddit. "Legitimately I think the story is the best sequel to 3 we ever got, and the gameplay is way overhated. Imo this game should be considered an integral part of the saga. Legitimately it’s story has more impact than V’s somehow."

It's not impossible that Portable Ops might sneak into the collection – after all, Konami did only reveal the NES games included in Volume 1 some time after the original announcement. "It'll either be a bonus game, Vol 3, or it's never happening," another commenter suggests, and yeah, that does seem to cover all the bases.

Likely the biggest reason we're not getting Portable Ops is that it's never previously been ported. The version of Peace Walker included in Volume 2 is based on the one included in the old HD Collection, which likely lessened the development load here. Portable Ops would need a whole new port, and given the resources Konami's already putting in to finally get Metal Gear Solid 4 off the PS3, well, maybe it figures that another bigger port project is better saved for a possible Volume 3.

There's still plenty of Metal Gear left to fill out future collections, too. There are the Acid games, PSP deckbuilders with big cult followings, and Platinum's excellent, over-the-top action title Metal Gear Rising: Reveangance. Plus, of course, Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain and its premium-priced preview, Ground Zeroes. Heck, there's even Metal Gear Survive if you really need to scrape the bottom of the barrel. Maybe it's premature to talk about all this when Volume 2 was only just announced, but there's more than enough material left to fill Volumes 3 and 4.

Metal Gear gave us some of the best PSP games ever released.

Konami has confirmed that despite online modes being stripped from Metal Gear Solid 3 and 4's Master Collection editions, Peace Walker will keep its online functions in Master Collection Volume 2.

Metal Gear Solid 4 finally escaping PS3 jail was the headline of last night's PlayStation State of Play for Metal Gear fans. But as an elderly person – aka someone who still has his PS3 hooked up – the biggest deal for me was that Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is back, and I'll be able to play it on Nintendo Switch 2. Not only is it the most underrated of the series canon entries, but having a portable version that doesn't require the dreaded claw hand technique for camera control is a big deal.

When it was confirmed that Metal Gear Online 2 won't be back with Metal Gear Solid 4 I did get a bit fearful, but the PlayStation Blog post about the collection spoke some beautiful words to me: "This title can be played online in CO-OPS, a cooperative mode for 2 to 4 players, as well as in VERSUS OPS, a competitive mode for up to 6 players."

Now I'm a big single-player guy but Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker's co-op is one of the best things about the game. You see, Peace Walker isn't really much of a Metal Gear at all – at least in terms of the games that came before it. No, Peace Walker was Monster Hunter all along.

The game introduced the mission-based structure later found in Metal Gear Solid 5, along with lengthy boss battles akin to Capcom's flagship series – which in turn, encouraged you to play co-op to take down them together. There was even three missions where you actually took down monsters from the series with a Tigrex, Rathalos, and Gear REX – an original monster based on Metal Gear Rex who I desperately want Capcom to add to Monster Hunter Wilds.

This is why, I suspect, it's often not liked as much as the other main entries, hell, even I didn't like it the first time I played it; it took a second playthrough for me to really get that it's a banger, and stands alongside the rest of the numbered entries. And keeping the co-op that makes that experience even better will hopefully give Peace Walker a chance to stick out once more.

Death Stranding 2 PC port out in March with “unlocked framerates” and ultra widescreen support, Kojima truthers rejoice

Fans think that Castlevania: Belmont's Curse could be reviving a character who was struck from the series' canon.

Castlevania: Belmont's Curse throws the series back to its 2D roots and is set to feature a descendant of Trevor Belmont and Sypha Belnades from Castlevania 3: Dracula's Curse roaming about Paris 23-years after the events of that game. Some are speculating this to be Sonia Belmont – who starred in Castlevania Legends and the cancelled Castlevania Resurrection – thanks to a striking resemblance to the character.

Sonia was originally the first member of the Belmont clan and was theorized to be Trevor Belmont's mother. However, her existence was eventually made non-canon by series director Koji Igarashi due to clashes with Castlevania: Lament of Innocence – which established Leon Belmont as the first known Belmont. So this could be Konami's way of introducing Sonia (or at least, someone very similar) back into the canon.

"Is that Sonia?" reads one of the top responses to the trailer on the Castlevania subreddit, while another says, "I'm guessing it's basically a Sonia-inspired new Belmont character."

Meanwhile, others are questioning the weird familial shenanigans attached with making Sonia Trevor's daughter in the new canon: "Trevor’s mom became his daughter, ain’t no way." While another (jokingly) reckons it's connected to 1947 novelty song I'm My Own Grandpa, saying "The first line of 'I’m My Own Grandpa' is, 'many, many years ago when I was 23', Belmont’s Curse takes place 23 years after Dracula’s Curse. Surely this can’t be a coincidence."

Timeline shenanigans aside, others are just happy to potentially see this displaced character return, saying, "Getting her out of non-canon jail would be great," with another adding, "Yeah, at this point they could make her Julius' time-displaced robo-daughter, I don’t care. just give me my GOAT."

However, in the current canon, Trevor did have two daughters, with Ann Belmont marrying into the Morris Clan, which eventually would reach John Morris and Johnathan Morris – the protagonists of Castlevania: Bloodlines and Portrait of Ruin, respectively. Mary Belmont, meanwhile, married into the Helsing family, with Van Helsing being a descendant of hers.

Although, these familial ties were established in unreleased production material for Bloodlines (thanks Castlevania Wiki), so Konami is technically off the hook for acknowledging it since it never happened in-game. One Reddit user ponders, "I wonder if they’ll go by the unreleased Bloodlines family tree," with another responding, "Ann makes the most sense and fits right in the timeline without asking how this affects other titles." So even if it isn't technically Sonia, nothing is stopping Konami from making the character very similar to her non-canon grandma.

Dead Cells devs' Castlevania game is just "the beginning," Konami says there are "numerous new products" in the works.

After the series being dormant for around 13 years, Konami says Castlevania: Belmont's Curse is only the beginning.

The new PlayStation State of Play gave us a declaration from Konami that it is ready to enter a Capcom-style redemption arc. Not only is Metal Gear Solid 4 finally escaping PS3 jail, Silent Hill Townfall re-emerged looking to continue the series' hot streak, and finally, after years of me talking about it before every Nintendo Direct, State of Play, Xbox Showcase, or Geoff Keighley event, Castlevania is finally returning, and to make it even sweeter, its being developed by Evil Empire of Dead Cells and The Rogue Prince of Persia fame with Dead Cells developer Motion Twin listed as the "advisory game studio".

But just like when Silent Hill returned, Konami isn't putting all its eggs in one basket. In a post on the Castlevania website, the series production team says, "This year marks the 40th anniversary since the original 'Akumajō Dracula' first saw the light of day. In this commemorative year, 'Castlevania' will be revived." The post adds that "This is the beginning of numerous new products around Castlevania." Given how much a Bloodborne-inspired Castlevania action game would be a slam dunk, I'm very glad to hear this.

The Castlevania team also praised the developers behind the new entry, saying "We couldn’t think in[sic] other studios to work together rather than Evil Empire and Motion Twin, studios brimming with talent and passion, to deliver a new exploration-based 2D action game that captures the essence of Castlevania while bringing fresh innovation." Presumably, the excellent Dead Cells: Return to Castlevania DLC was somewhat of a pitch by the developers, and I'm glad it worked out.

Legacy of Kain is back with a chunky retro platformer featuring M-rated pixel gore and "lore-heavy" PS1-inspired 3D

A new PlayStation State of Play is upon us, blessing us with plenty of trailers and big announcements – one of which is none other than Castlevania: Belmont's Curse, the first big 2D title in the beloved 40-year-old series in a long time.

Just in case you missed it, there is indeed a new Castlevania game underway – and it looks stunning. Set in medieval Paris, it follows a protagonist who could be anyone from Trevor Belmont's successor Richter to Sonia Belmont in the city under attack by monstrous creatures emerging from the shadows. Armed with the legendary holy whip, the Vampire Killer, our hero will take the bloodthirsty beasts on.

Not only is the nostalgia-inducing 2D art grabbing my attention, though, but the fact that the game is being developed by Konami, Evil Empire, and Motion Twin is. For anyone unaware, Motion Twin is the talented studio behind indie gem Dead Cells, while Evil Empire helped design the 2018 roguelike's Return to Castlevania DLC, as well as The Rogue Prince of Persia.

As per Sony's new blog post on Castlevania: Belmont's Curse, the upcoming game isn't just similar to its beloved predecessors thanks to its aesthetic – it'll also play like them, and remain "true to the roots of the series" with colorful characters to meet, formidable foes to face, secrets to uncover, and a plethora of mysteries to unearth. It's perfect for longtime fans, basically... but also newcomers.

Considering the connection to Castlevania: Nocturne, I'm certain that there will be plenty of fresh faces exploring the games come the release of Castlevania: Belmont's Curse. I, for one, am thrilled at the potential resurrection of the decades-old series – especially seeing as it's not 3D this time (*ahem* I'm looking at you, Lords of Shadow). I'm sure it could work one day, but...

For now, I'll just wait for Castlevania: Belmont's Curse, as it's set to release this year – although there's no solid launch date aside from 2026 just yet.

Looking for something else to wishlist? Be sure to browse our roundup of the best new games coming this year and beyond for even more to anticipate.

Although Metal Gear Solid spin-offs have tended to be more good than bad, most of them are pretty forgettable. A possible collaboration between series creator Hideo Kojima and Respawn, however, would likely have been a standout if it came to pass.

During a tribute to Vince Zampella at DICE 2026, Kojima revealed that conversations about such a game had taken place between him and the Call of Duty co-creator after the release of Metal Gear Solid 4. As reported by VGC, Kojima stated the notion was a first-person shooter set in the world of Solid Snake, and it was one of the potential ideas for a then-nascent Respawn Entertainment.

Zampella co-founded Respawn with Jason West in 2010, following them being fired from Activision after a period of tension between the publisher and Infinity Ward. A Metal Gear FPS was among the avenues considered to help the fledgling team get off the ground.

No reason is given for why it didn't happen, but ultimately, the devs went with an original idea, eventually making Titanfall. Zampella and Kojima maintained a relationship, as the Death Stranding creator says he sought advice when going independent himself, after parting ways with Konami to form Kojima Productions.

"Without him, the gaming industry wouldn't be what it is today," Kojima added. Zampella passed away late last year. As one of the central architects behind the Call of Duty series and Respawn, that description is more than apt. More recently, Zampella led DICE through the development and launch of Battlefield 6, breaking multiple records with the blockbuster sequel.

Metal Gear Solid 2 is "often mistaken for a story about AI," Hideo Kojima says, but it's actually about "what human life would become" in the digital age.

Silent Hill is a spreading sickness, and Konami is determined to keep propagating it in a variety of great, fine, and startlingly terrible ways. The publisher has just confirmed that – shortly after the disastrous Return to Silent Hill movie, alongside Bloober's promising Silent Hill 1 remake – it's also currently working on the new Silent Hill: Townfall.

Don't confuse it with middling Silent Hill: Downpour from 2012, or the awful interactive TV series Ascension from 2023 – though Townfall was originally announced at the same time as the latter, in a 2022 stream. Konami hasn't spoken about the mysterious game at all in the four years since then, though it's told Japan gaming news site Gematsu that Townfall is indeed its "brand-new Silent Hill title" currently in development.

Otherwise, Konami simply vaguely referred to the game as "a continuation of our ongoing efforts" in its latest earnings report, and even Townfall's reveal announcement was obscure. In a one-minute teaser, an unknown voice commends you for being "here to be punished" while indistinct images of bloody hands and empty hallways flash onscreen.

Konami is co-publishing the game with Annapurna, the Outer Wilds and Stray publisher, and Screen Burn Interactive (formerly known as No Code) is handling development. That's all fine. But as a long-suffering Silent Hill fan, what am I supposed to think? In a 2025 post announcing its name change, Screen Burn explains that Townfall was first conceived in 2020. "We keep saying 'we can’t wait to share more' and it's still true," the studio behind sci-fi drama Observation says. "We're getting closer and closer, but we're a small team making a big game."

So, Townfall is in approximately its sixth year of active development, with no release date, gameplay, or more than a minute of trailer footage behind it. I feel neither enthusiastic nor concerned. Konami raised my expectations for its games with the elegant Silent Hill f, then mashed them into the ground again with Return to Silent Hill. I'm going to give up and see if Pyramid Head will give me his number.

Silent Hill legend Akira Yamaoka doesn't think the franchise has changed as much as you do, since Konami's "philosophical approach" has always been the same.

Like most great American towns, Silent Hill has changed, I think. Snow had already turned it gray by the time you're introduced to it in the first game from 1999, but the next few decades pulled the series into real, bloody purple decay – the original Team Silent development team was defunct by 2007, and Konami made a pachislot spinoff game, for example.

After decades of fan frustration with what seemed like a perfect survival horror series left to die, 2025's excellent Silent Hill f revived the franchise by transporting it to the Japanese mountainsides, polka-dotted with red flowers and flower monsters. While I think the widely disliked new Return to Silent Hill movie confuses things again – read about it in my Return to Silent Hill review – former Team Silent member and long-serving Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka tells GamesRadar+ he disagrees.

"To me at least, there's no significant change [in the Silent Hill franchise] since I first got involved 30 years ago," Yamaoka says to me through an interpreter during a recent interview. "The main reason for that is, at the time, we were trying to create a new experience – a new, totally different approach [to horror]."

"We had strong, original creative ideas for creating the Silent Hill franchise," Yamaoka remembers, and he feels like Konami has been true to that beginning: "the philosophical approach has been the same."

With that in mind, Yamaoka says he was "honored" to be the first person director Christophe Gans allowed to watch Return to Silent Hill, including its multiple edits. On his initial watch, he remembers thinking, 'This really reflects what I have envisioned for Silent Hill 2.'"

And yet it's difficult to resist the draw of that American town from 30 years ago, softened now by both fog and memory. Yamaoka eventually muses when I ask, "I have a very special feeling about [every protagonist], but if I had to pick [a favorite], probably Harry from the first Silent Hill."

"We worked together to create the character," he says. "And we have very wonderful memories of the process. Until then, I don't recall there being any game where the father tries to find his daughter."

"We're catching the beauty within": Silent Hill legend Akira Yamaoka says horror isn't as important to the franchise as "emotional complexity."

The man Akira Yamaoka is as much a part of Silent Hill as its ashen sky or molten fog. Ever since Konami released its first Silent Hill game in 1999, the composer has made dark ambient music for nearly the entire franchise – including its new movie, as we note in our Return to Silent Hill review – that is unnervingly gorgeous. That's the goal, he tells GamesRadar+.

"Silent Hill, to me – it's not just about the fear and anxiety. There are many elements that the franchise has, that Silent Hill has," Yamaoka tells me through an interpreter. "It's our emotions when we see something beautiful, and we feel, 'Oh, wow. This is very beautiful.'"

My favorite moment of Return to Silent Hill inspires this muscle-deep sensation of awe that Yamaoka is describing; while I'm introduced to another one of director Christophe Gans' pained abominations, the new Yamaoka song "Moth Mary" begins to play.

It interpolates music the composer wrote for Silent Hill 2 in 2001, the waterfall mist of tears that is "The Day of Night." "Moth Mary" grounds some of that other song's airiness with a marshmallow-soft piano melody and vocals that sound like a bittersweet farewell. It makes me want to both recoil from the Silent Hill monster on the screen and kiss my kitten on the head, tell him I love him.

"That emotional reaction is very important in the world of Silent Hill, but it's not so much of a simple, one-directional emotion," Yamaoka observes. "Our emotion is much more complex. Sometimes we see something, and it has certain elements that make us feel fear, and we feel anxiety.

"But within that experience, somehow, we're catching the beauty within."

Experience Yamaoka's complicated music in many of the best Silent Hill games of all time, ranked.

Silent Hill f writer Ryukishi07 says that series producer Motoi Okamoto explained to him that Silent Hill isn't a town but a phenomenon when he asked how the game could be set in Japan. This further confirms the theory put forth in Silent Hill: The Short Message that was divisive among fans.

The series of Silent Hill originally was set in or around the titular American town, but has expanded far beyond these boundaries in the games developed and released since the series' rebirth. The Silent Hill revival has been rocky to say the least, with fans receiving emotional whiplash from the lows of The Short Message and Ascension, juxtaposed against highs of the Silent Hill 2 remake and Silent Hill f.

While the name Silent Hill comes from the town, the series is more centrally themed around the otherworld, a supernatural space that reflects the occupants' tormented inner psyches. In various Silent Hill games you can find notes that describe people seeing the otherworld as being infected by a disease, but this never truly matched what was being told through the gameplay.

As the legendary writer behind the Japanese horror franchise When They Cry, Ryukishi07 found after he was asked to bring his expertise to what would be the first Silent Hill game set in Japan. Speaking to Famitsu in an interview that's been translated by GamesRadar+, Ryukishi07 says he questioned how a game named after an American town could be set in his home country.

"I discussed a lot of things with series producer Okamoto in a meeting after I received the request [to write Silent Hill f,]" Ryukishi07 recalls. "Like 'Why is it set in Japan?' and 'What exactly is Silent Hill?' In the end, we came to the conclusion that Silent Hill is not just the name of a place, it is a phenomenon. Looking back I think I was able to create a pretty satisfying base for the story and world from this."

This theory was first stated explicitly in The Short Message in a note that describes the appearance of the otherworld as, "the 'Silent Hill Phenomenon,' named after a similar event that occurred in an eponymous U.S. town." With this new entry set in Germany, Konami made it clear that it wanted to expand the setting for Silent Hill beyond the former tourist town.

Much of the Silent Hill series is left up to players' interpretation, and this idea is no different. While fans might not be enamored by this explanation, they seem united under their joy at the series expanding outside of the U.S.

After Silent Hill 2 remake and Silent Hill f got the series "back on track," Konami aims to release "about one title per year" in the horror franchise

Thomas Grip, co-founder of Frictional Games and the designer behind genre icons such as Penumbra, Amnesia and Soma, has a peculiar piece of advice for horror game creators: make it boring. "It's critical it's not too engaging," he says, "because then it's like playing Tetris while you're in the spooky mansion. The ghost is standing behind you, but you don't notice because you're too involved in the game of Tetris. You kind of want gameplay that is dull, repetitive or simplistic."

Brian Clarke, creator of 2022's The Mortuary Assistant (one of the best horror games ever) and now the in-development Paranormal Activity game, has a similar ethos. Explaining the tactics for building an effective scare, he says the goal is to focus the player on something innocuous and then suddenly break the silence.

"The key is that the player has something to do that distracts them from the elephant in the room," Clarke explains. "'I know there's something creepy in here – but I have to make sure that this swipe-card reader works'. The horror is almost secondary to the menial task."

This approach characterises a certain type of horror game. Think of Slender, where all you do is walk through a (very plain) forest and pick up eight pieces of paper.

The Five Nights At Freddy's series, especially the earlier games, is similarly routine: check the cameras, monitor the power supply and, if you need to, shut the doors. If survival horror dominated the '90s, then this subgenre, which DreadXP head of operations Henry Hoare calls "blue-collar horror", is one of the biggest today. "The player develops expectations in their mind," Hoare says, referencing other examples such as Lethal Company and Repo, "and then you can subvert those expectations."

Unearthing nightmares

Towards the end of the '00s and during the early years of the '10s, horror games, in the mainstream at least, fell out of vogue.

Beginning with Resident Evil 4, Capcom transformed its flagship horror series into an over-the-shoulder third-person shooter. While the 'action-horror' hybrid was an exciting prospect in 2005, after the dour responses to both RE6 and Dead Space 3, the subgenre lost some of its power. At the same time, Konami was farming Silent Hill out to third-party developers, with varying results – if Shattered Memories and Origins were mild successes, the prestige of Silent Hill was undermined by Downpour, Homecoming and the widely disparaged HD Collection.

But while horror struggled in the world of triple-A, it was gaining new life elsewhere thanks to an emerging cadre of middle-budget and independent developers.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent wasn't the first game to pit players against an invincible monster, with no weapons to defend themselves, but in 2010 it felt like a statement.

If horror had swung to one extreme, with too many enemies, guns and explosions, Amnesia dragged it back to the opposite pole: no resources, no combat. This purified subgenre – 'run-and-hide horror' – gained further traction thanks to Outlast, Layers Of Fear, Alien: Isolation and dozens more.

More recently, games such as Poppy Playtime and My Friendly Neighborhood – all inspired by the pioneering FNAF – have helped to settle and formalise another type of horror. The mechanics are straightforward; the story is drip-fed, and deliberately ambiguous.

If Twitch and YouTube Live also hit their strides during the past decade, 'mascot horror' has become the perfect streamer game, simple enough that you can easily talk and perform to the camera while playing, and with plenty of conjecture, lore and 'theorycrafting' to discuss with your viewers.

Combined with throwback horror games such as Crow Country, Back In 1995 and Signalis, and the sleazy splatterhouse work of developers such as Benedetto 'Puppet Combo' Cocuzza and Jordan King, the horror genre in 2025 comprises a rich combination of visual styles, mechanics and conventions – the traditional survival horror that predominated 30 years ago may still exist, but it's now complemented by several other horror types.

The genre's current popularity is the result of more than just range, however. Crow Country creative director Adam Vian puts it down partly to an inherent 'guarantee' that horror provides.

Sure shot

"A horror game is a promise of a meaningful, emotional something," he says. "It's saying: 'This is going to try and move you. You're going to be jolted by it'. It's also a counter to a bloated triple-A scene, where games are too long, and have too much 'stuff' in them.

"It's nice to make a game that has the scope of Resident Evil 2, something you can finish in two or three days, then maybe replay a few times. That's a model that we should never have abandoned."

So, how is it done? How do you craft a horror game, or, more specifically, the perfect scary moment? Think of the classics: the dogs smashing through the windows in Resident Evil; the mirror scene in Silent Hill 3; the dreaded Mr Tibbits' dead body fakeout in Condemned: Criminal Origins. Stark, sudden and almost certain to make you shriek out loud, these sequences also have something structurally and philosophically in common: they all catch you when your guard is down.

You might not think it, but rather than grotesque monsters or constant stress, one of the first keys to a successful horror game is creating a sense of calm. Developers need to lower your heart rate and keep you in a sweet spot where you're engaged, but not frustrated. That way, when they finally do spring a big scare, it has the maximum effect.

"You need a sense of place and a sense of tranquillity," Vian says. "The save room is there for the moment that you have to leave the save room. Without that, there would be no up and down, tension-wise – it would just be a flat line." "It's amazing how many 'cozy' places are perfect horror settings," Grip continues. "We spend a lot of our time making sure our environments are beautiful. We want to invite the player to stay there."

The element of surprise is also, of course, fundamental. A sudden stinger – a sharp jump scare, with a big noise and something leaping out onto the screen – may seem like a simple thing to create, but timing is everything. "It's good to ratchet up the tension to where the player expects something," Vian explains, "but don't give it to them at that point. Give it to them just after."

In Crow Country, Vian puts this theory into practice. One puzzle involves turning four gravestones so that each faces a specific direction.

While you're moving them, a grandfather clock is ticking loudly in the background, implying that, once the riddle is complete, something awful will be unleashed. Nervously, then, you align the headstones. The clock stops. And… nothing happens. But then, just before you leave the room – as you're still basking in a sense of relief – a giant monster bursts through the wall.

But this is a contained set-piece. If videogames are premised on freedom of exploration and player agency, and a good scare has to be carefully choreographed and authored, horror developers face an inherent challenge: how do you build the tension and then deliver the payoff at just the right moment if you also have to let the player roam? The Mortuary Assistant, with its bespoke 'Haunt System' created by Clarke, illustrates a convincing solution to the problem.

Clarke designed approximately 100 different possible scares, which reside in what he calls "a bucket" behind the scenes. As you're playing, depending on certain in-game factors such as your location, how far into the story you are and which scares you have or haven't seen already, these sequences may be pulled out of the bucket and "fire" on screen. As well as making each subsequent replay feel unpredictable, The Mortuary Assistant's Haunt System means players find the frights for themselves.

"In most horror games, you'll be doing something and then the camera is taken away from you, and that's the jump," Clarke says. "I wanted it to be like watching a movie and noticing something in the background. At the beginning of the game I'm pulling on small events, then I go to medium, then large, so you also have this growth. And there are other subsystems: even if two players get the same event, for one it might happen under the desk and for another it might be in the corner of the room. That's what gives it mystique."

Fear of the unknown

Which brings us to another pillar of horror – and perhaps the greatest creative challenge for horror developers.

Once again, they have to reconcile an essential conflict between the nature and language of videogames and what we traditionally find scary. Games are built on systems and mechanics: press X to jump; earn 10,000 XP to gain a new level; defeat the boss to get to the next world. If the rules are too loose or ill-defined, a game might feel frustrating.

But horror, in contrast, is often rooted in the unknown and unknowable. We fear what we don't understand and can't see – the bogeyman is scary precisely because he exists in our heads, where we can project onto him all our darkest, subjective, imagined terrors. Once the abstract becomes tangible, it loses its grip on our psyche. "You know there's something hiding behind the door," Grip explains, paraphrasing a famous quote from Stephen King. "You open the door and it's a ten-metre bug! And then you're like, 'Oh my god! I'm glad it wasn't a 30-metre bug!'"

So, how do developers balance the systemic with the speculative? How can you build a playable, non-frustrating videogame, with firm mechanics, while also stoking players' fears of the incomprehensible?

"You should put in systems so that players have something to push up against," Grip continues, "but you should never make them so clear and defined that it takes away the player's imagination. Players want to be immersed, and want to feel like 'This is a big monster and I'm really being chased', but also they want to optimise their play style and 'win' the game. When it works best, the player is achieving the most optimized gameplay by acting like they're immersed."

Grip uses the example of the first fight with Pyramid Head in the original Silent Hill 2.

Players have weapons, first-aid kits and a defined and consistent set of combat mechanics. When Pyramid Head attacks, you know how to defend yourself – press one button to aim, another to fire, and watch your ammo and health gauges. This constitutes the concrete, immovable, mechanical part of the scare.

But Team Silent also creates gaps in your understanding, gaps that your imagination can't help but fill with fear. Pyramid Head doesn't have a life bar. Though shooting it seems to have some effect, at the end of the 'battle' the monster doesn't run away; there's the sound of an air-raid siren, the bottom half of the room fills with a dark liquid, and Pyramid Head turns away from you and slowly walks into it until it's fully submerged, then vanishes. "The next time you meet Pyramid Head, it's like, 'Should I shoot it?'" Grip explains. "And dynamic choices make you the most anxious."

Do you leave the door open and pray Foxy doesn't kill you, or play it safe, burn through some power and risk a blackout before 6am? Should you go back and get some gasoline from the safe room, and maybe get chewed up by the zombies on the way, or just hope that you can get everything done in this area before this dead ghoul comes back as a Crimson Head? When you have to make a decision – when you have to act on something – you naturally feel more apprehensive and more scared.

Fifteen years ago, one of the most frightening things that horror developers could imagine was a monster that was unkillable; a game that flatly did not equip you to protect yourself or fight back in some way. But that creates a strange contradiction.

When you don't have any weapons and there isn't any kind of combat system, you also know, fundamentally, that you're never going to have to make an active decision – when confronted with an enemy, the only thing you'll ever be expected to do is to run away. If players only have a single choice, they're protected from any responsibility. Paradoxically, if you give players a weapon, it can make them feel a lot more vulnerable.

Where's my oar?

"If you don't have a gun, you kind of know, 'Well, I'll be fine'," Vian explains. "There's this bit in The Last Of Us Part II. There's no combat, but then the tension starts to increase and you start finding ammo pickups. You're thinking, 'The rules of video games mean I'm about to be attacked, because why else would they be giving me ammo?' You don't get attacked. But the fact they start giving you ammo makes it better."

"What makes cosmic horror scary is the idea that you have all the agency in the world, but good luck, because it won't help," DreadXP director Hunter Bond continues. "If you have all the tools you need to interact with the environment and we haven't obfuscated your abilities at all, and yet you still find yourself up against something that you can't reckon with, that feels like cosmic horror."

Perhaps run-and-hide horror, of the type popularised by Frictional Games, is less fashionable or subversive now. Lunar Software's Routine gives you a taser-style weapon for defending yourself. Even Amnesia has a gun these days, used to great effect in 2023's The Bunker. Other horror trends, however, are still going strong.

Although Dead By Daylight dominates the world of asymmetrical PvP horror, knocking to the wayside would-be rivals such as Killer Klowns From Outer Space and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the broader concept of co-op horror is being continually refined thanks to games such as Content Warning and The Outlast Trials. Mascot horror also appears to be alive and well: Five Nights At Freddy's: Secret Of The Mimic came out in June and chapter five of Poppy Playtime is ostensibly due in the near future.

Back to basics

Another horror subgenre is also still thriving. You might call it throwback horror, the 'Resident Evil-alike' or 'boomer' horror – think of Heartworm, Conscript, You Will Die Here Tonight, Hollowbody and, of course, Crow Country, games that have PS1-inspired visuals and make use of classic conceits such as fixed camera angles and limited inventory space.

At least to some extent, the success of these types of games is a byproduct of players' and developers' nostalgia. But there's more to this trend than hollow sentimentality. For some developers, making a game that looks like Resident Evil is just the setup for a bigger twist.

"I don't think that the wave of stuff inspired by the '90s is about replicating so much as following personal inspirations," Hoare says. "But it also speaks to something that horror is good at, which is subverting expectations. If players have nostalgia, they also have expectations for games of that time, and you can subvert those."

Jordan Mochi's Conscript may use the mechanical rudiments of survival horror, but they're redeployed for a story about World War I. Signalis, by Rose Engine, also has a lot in common with old-school Resident Evil and Silent Hill, but what we might derisively describe as the game's nostalgia baiting is really just the feed line for a more complex, and frightening, cautionary tale about dwelling on the past.

If one of the fundamentals of horror is taking something familiar and comforting (say, a nice suburban house) and turning it into a grotesque of itself (making it haunted by the ghosts of the family that was murdered there), the beloved games of our collective childhoods make fertile soil. It's what you remember fondly – but with rows of hidden teeth.

Looking beyond nostalgia and the throwback subgenre, however, there is a deeper and more complex 'need' for lo-fi or (apparently) low-budget visuals in horror games.

We go back to that idea of the power of the imagination. It's not about what we can see; we're scared of what we can't see. Modern, big-budget, quasi-photorealistic graphics fill in the details for us. Visuals that are lower in resolution or more abstract create cracks in our comprehension.

"I think when we hit PS3 graphics, all the mystery was gone," Vian says. "On the PS1 and PS2, things are kind of flickering and you can't see what it is exactly, and that's just scarier." "Those dogs, man," Bond says, thinking back to the first Resident Evil. "It's a dog-shaped blob. It's not rendered sharply. But it's achieving the most with the least."

Perhaps this is why there are so many independent and solo-produced horror games: if you don't have much money, or even much game-making experience, horror naturally lends itself to a rough and raw kind of design. You can play on the fond, childhood memories of players and also stir their imaginations with a low-res art style.

"Imagination drives horror," Sniper Killer and Night At The Gates Of Hell developer Jordan King says. "When describing my style, I just use the term 'low poly'. It's a quick and messy style but I think thematically it fits with the experience being presented."

Hoare has another way of explaining this. When we ask why horror is one of the most accessible genres for budding developers, and why players, more than forgiving them, actually relish and identify with certain technical eccentricities, he puts it simply: "Horror as a genre is more forgiving of the seams."

Guess who's back

Almost 30 years since Resident Evil formalized its most recognizable tropes, and a decade and a half after Amnesia gave the entire genre a soft, spiritual reboot, the horror game seems to be back in favour with gaming's mainstream.

Beginning with Resident Evil 7, a more traditionally designed survival-horror game, and following it with a trio of crowd-pleasing remakes, Capcom has carefully reestablished the core of Resident Evil – if Village strayed too far from the series' fundamental principles, the next upcoming horror game in the franchise, Resident Evil Requiem, already feels like an attempt at recentring things.

Silent Hill is also back, courtesy of The Short Message, the Silent Hill 2 remake and Silent Hill f, and there are even cautious attempts in the mainstream space to launch new horror properties, such as Cronos and Reanimal. If the general audience lost faith in the horror genre during the mid 2010s, it seems the successes of medium-budget and independent titles have incentivised a comeback.

"We released Crow Country in May 2024," Vian says, "and I'm not saying we caused anything, at all, but it feels like since then the floodgates have opened. It's happened on both sides of the coin. Indie horror is doing great and triple-A horror is doing great."

Alongside that optimism, though, Vian has cause for concern. Reflecting on how many horror games have been released in recent years – or even during the past 12 months – he's worried that Crow Country and its developer SFB Games may have been "on the last helicopter out of Saigon", and that the current popularity of horror games might not last much longer.

Jesse Makkonen, a solo developer whose work includes the trippy 2D adventure Afterdream and psychological horror series Distraint, is similarly cautious.

Despite receiving glowing reviews on Steam, his latest game, visual horror novel Without A Dawn, has struggled to find an audience since it was released in May. Though he has no illusions that the game is "a heavy experience, which surely puts many people off," Makkonen also says that it's getting harder for new titles to be noticed in an increasingly crowded horror genre.

"Since there are so many games coming out, making a successful one requires market research and a design tailored to the market, which I find incredibly uninspiring," he explains. "I've been just making the best games I can and trying to market them to the best of my ability. It's increasingly difficult to survive this way, though."

And is big-budget horror really 'back', or are triple-A developers still playing things comparatively safe?

In 1999, Silent Hill felt unusual, dark and experimental. It had a distinctive visual style and offered a fresh take on terror: where Resident Evil had been rooted in body horror and monsters, Konami's effort was psychological and surreal, and played on the twisted illogic of bad dreams.

It was a mainstream game, certainly, but one with bold ideas. We may be seeing positive signals from the likes of Capcom, Konami and the other major horror names right now, but some developers have yet to be convinced of the genre's big comeback.

Dull, repetitive or simplistic mechanics might be a good way to lull players into a false sense of security, but if we're talking about the long-term success and ultimate survival of the broader horror game genre, Thomas Grip thinks it's going to take more unconventional ideas to keep things alive. "I feel like we have a lot of lizard-brain stuff," he says. "Playing a lot of horror games now, they're fun, but not really saying anything. I would like to see more horror games where it's not just scary, but it's interesting."

"It's awesome to see more Resident Evil and Silent Hill, but they're all safe spaces that these developers have already established," Clarke concludes. "It lies dangerously close to remake after remake after remake. Until I see a big company make a brand-new horror IP that feels like it's really out there and trying to do something, I'll feel like we're heading down the same route and rehashing the classics. I don't know if I would call it a resurgence – yet."

Explore the best survival horror games of all-time if you're hungry for more chills and thrills (and inventory management(

2025 has been a weirdly brilliant year for horror. Not just in the usual "there's a guy with too many teeth chasing me" way, but in the sense that developers keep finding new ways to ruin our sleep schedules. Some games are existential, some are grotesque, some are just about being trapped in a corridor while the news tells you everything's fine (it's not). And somehow, one of the best horror games of the last 12 months stars a gang of stumbling bean-people who can't walk in a straight line.

That's not to say 2025 was all about the sillies. Many of the titles selected below are potential spot-holders on our list of the best survival horror games ever, while others are right up there as the most inventive indie terrors of this generation. True, they're not all super polished – that'd be disappointingly sanitized – but all of them are unforgettable. Here are the best horror games of 2025 that messed with our collective sleep schedules the most, and hopefully at least one will require you to turn on every light in a mile radius

5. Routine

Developer: Lunar Software
Platform(s): PC, Xbox Series X

You're a software engineer sent to investigate a system malfunction on a lunar base in Routine, a horror game first announced in 2012 that somehow manages to feel fresh and new despite the protracted development.

Routine's atmosphere is top-notch, and the robots (and other spooky monsters) that populate the now-abandoned moonbase are worth the price of entry alone. The Player – really, that's the character's name in the credits – isn't a soldier, and you're armed with nothing but your Cosmonaut Assistance Tool and your wits. The stealth is slightly uninspiring, but stick with it: Routine is a visual feast, and an intelligent horror game where the story being told will both draw you in and justify the time you've spent with it.

4. No, I'm Not A Human

Developer: Trioskaz
Platform(s): PC

With the help of just one L-shaped hallway and a greenish filter, No I'm Not A Human's developer Trioskaz has managed to make one of the creepiest games of the year. You, a mysterious homeowner, are stuck in the liminal space of the hallway while the world catches fire outside by day and each night waves of human detritus wash up against your door.

Or, at least, they appear to be human. Some of these humans are actually Visitors, human-faced imposters that will pick off your human friends in the dead of night if you let them in. But you have to let someone in, as having other humans is essential for your survival. The horror here is all in the paranoia as you watch TV broadcasts to try and work out how to find the Visitors amongst you, and the hopelessness when you realise there's just no way to know for sure.

3. R.E.P.O.

Developer: Semiwork
Platform(s): PC

R.E.P.O. isn't even out yet, but it's somehow one of the best horror games of the year – even in Early Access. You star as one of up to six tiny bean-shaped… somethings toddling into abandoned facilities to loot valuables in the name of profit. It's the mundanity that makes R.E.P.O sing, the fact you're essentially playing in the role of a team of furniture movers until something appears and tries to brutally murder you.

R.E.P.O. is my favourite of the recent wave of "friendslop" horror games, mostly because the physics-based movement gives every encounter a slapstick edge that only makes the terror hit harder. You're always slightly out of control – tripping over debris, sliding off railings, fumbling furniture while something growls in the vents. The systems keep piling small disasters on top of each other until your extraction turns into a frantic, screaming relay race. It's messy, it's chaotic, and it's proof that horror doesn't have to be stoic or serious to be effective. Sometimes fear is funniest when your friend Tim is giggling away from his hiding place under a coffee table as you're dissected by someone with blades for arms. This is an upcoming horror game to watch for non-PC owners. Unless you do have a PC... in which case, what are you waiting for?

2. Dying Light: The Beast

Developer: Techland
Platform(s): PS4, PS5, PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X

Dying Light: The Beast is Dying Light 3 by another name. Originally conceived as a DLC to Dying Light 2, this actually erases a lot of the missteps of that game and makes the most exciting Dying Light game so far, in addition to bringing back original series protagonist Kyle Crane with a host of superhuman abilities. Is it fan service? Sure, if you're one of the people who can tell the multitude of different white dark-haired leading men in video games apart.

The story is B-movie schlock but the teeming swarms of zombies are deadly serious, and at nighttime they'll feel like it as these are the best zombies in video games. They're joined by Chimeras, experimental creatures that you can inject into yourself to juice up your own abilities. Dying Light: The Beast starts as a revenge thriller but expands outwards as you meet more people and explore the vibrant area of Castor Woods. Lean into it and learn about the world around you, and it's impossible not to be drawn in for a fun, zombie-splattering, time. Our Dying Light: The Beast review will give you all the grisly details.

1. Silent Hill f

Developer: Konami, NeoBards Entertainment
Platform(s): PS5, PC, Xbox Series X

It's been, what, 13 years since we last got a new mainline Silent Hill game? Yet Silent Hill f proves that the series doesn't need to be set in the foggy Pyramid Head-infested streets of Silent Hill to be scary. The series has had a bit of a renaissance after last year's Silent Hill 2 Remake, when Bloober Team surprised the doubters and got everyone excited about fog and whacking things with a steel pipe again.

The Japan-set thriller is one of the more unique titles among the best Silent Hill games on top of being my number-one pick for best horror game of 2025. But the more things change, the more they stay the same; protagonist Shimizu Hinako is as troubled as James Sutherland, while the fictional Japanese village of Ebisugaoka, while a departure from previous US settings, is every bit as terrifying as the series' eponymous hometown when the fog draws in.

Fungal bloom replaces industrial decay, but Silent Hill f is just as adept at using notes, enemy designs and cutscenes to show a shattered psyche. It's enough to make Silent Hill f stand toe-to-toe with the best Japanese horror games, replete with challenging puzzles and fiddly Souls-y combat, but even if the latter gives you pause, you should be here for the atmosphere. Trust me – it delivers in spades.

Silent Hill f is one of the best games of 2025. See where it ranks among your favorites!

The must-play action-adventure games of 2025 are dynamic, unique masterclasses. Different genres of games serve a wide range of purposes to the discerning player. When I'm playing a grand strategy title, I'm ensconced in a virtual library, breathing in the scents of mahogany, tobacco and leather.

When I play a game like The Return of the Obra Dinn, you might as well give me a meerschaum. But when elements of the best action games find confluence with the sense of exploration governing the best adventure games, something magical happens. Enter: the action-adventure. This genre is all about getting into a spirit of mad excitement and at the same time, unraveling a plot that keeps you engaged until the final reveal.

It's a broad church. There's been a ton of action-adventures from this year that have hit all these notes, but ultimately, we've got to whittle this down to a top five; the truly peerless titles. Whatever kind of action-adventure antics you love, whether whimsical or dramatic, there's something here that you'll love.

5. Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater

Developer: Konami
Platform(s): PC, PS5, Xbox Series X

One of only two games that I know of that actually uses a Greek delta in its title, the other being the excellent ΔV: Rings of Saturn, MGS Delta feels like coming home. For those who have been under a cardboard box for the last 20 years, Metal Gear Solid 3 is widely regarded as the best in a brilliant series, and it's easy to see why. The game's pristine Cold War vibes, survival elements, and an iconic range of enemies make it an absolute classic, and Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater is the best way to play it.

It is a rigid remake, but a stunning one, bringing out the beauty of the jungle like never before. Whether you're returning to Snake Eater as a practiced veteran of European Extreme or want to take on the Cobra Unit for the first time, you'll find the vicious brutality of the jungle exciting, engaging, and cinematic.

4. Ninja Gaiden 4

Developer: Team Ninja, Platinum Games
Platform(s): PC, PS5, Xbox Series X

It's kind of hard to believe that until this year, it had been a long 13 years since the last Ninja Gaiden game, and nearly 18 since the last one that you'd actually want to play. What a joy it is, then, that Ninja Gaiden 4 is a breath of fresh air for the franchise, picking up from the second game and running with it. Ryu Hayabusa, the long-time protagonist of the series, is joined by a new ninja, Yakumo, who comes equipped with extremely strong blood powers.

This isn't the only way it truly feels like an evolution for the series, either. Team Ninja being joined by PlatinumGames means that, as Oscar Taylor-Kent said in his review, it "can feel as much a successor to Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance as it is a perfect passing of the torch forward for Ninja Gaiden." A sensational game that helped breathe life back into a franchise that had lost its way.

3. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

Developer: MachineGames
Platform(s): PC, PS5, Xbox Series X

In true Indy fashion, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle has broken into the treasure vault of this top five list by dint of its PS5 debut in April, five months after its Xbox and PC launch. If you've yet to check out this game, you're in for an absolute treat. Indiana Jones games have been few and far between, despite the franchise's legendary status, and the Great Circle feels like an extremely fitting instalment. Complete with Nazi fighting, treasure hunting and whipcracking, it feels truer to the franchise than the last two films have, that's for sure.

Coming to us from Wolfenstein veterans, MachineGames, gunplay takes a backseat, as brawls are the order of the day. It's perhaps the most straightforwardly adventuresome game on this list, and one that you'll be able to pick up relatively cheaply in upcoming sales, so make sure to keep your eyes peeled!

2. Hollow Knight: Silksong

Developer: Team Cherry
Platform(s): PC, Switch, Switch 2, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One

Few indie games can reach the level of anticipation that Hollow Knight Silksong garnered, and fewer still are able to make good on all that hype. Silksong, the long-awaited sequel to 2017's Hollow Knight, is bigger, tougher, and more colorful than its predecessor. Players step into the shoes (wings?) of Hornet, as we traverse Pharloom, where cute bugs become not so cute thanks to a silken plague called the Haunting.

Acrobatic and intense gameplay lets you take down even the toughest bosses, though, if you're like me (i.e., fairly mediocre at it), some bosses will require a whole fistful of tries. It's varied, too, with each environment boasting its own sets of challenges. Silksong is a rare example of a game that managed to well and truly live up to its hype.

1. Donkey Kong Bananza

Developer: Nintendo
Platform(s): Nintendo Switch 2

The Switch 2's launch line-up wasn't particularly spectacular, but one month later, this absolute bundle of joy was released, and we've been enjoying it ever since. The first Nintendo-developed DK game since Jungle Beat, Donkey Kong Bananza does for the big ape what Super Mario Odyssey did for Mario way back in 2017, and unleashes him in a sandbox with added destructibility.

It's great fun to smash your way through Bananza's world, and its strong variety helps keep the game fresh through to the end. Aside from this big attraction, Donkey Kong can also transform into a variety of different forms to solve puzzles and platforming challenges. The Switch 2's current killer app, Bananza is a deserved winner of this category, and a game that ought to be played by every Nintendo fan around.

See how your favorites stack up in our list of the best games of 2025

Freud offers several options for why men are so afraid. Castration is a big one. Lacan then posits a bit nervously that "there is no such thing as Woman" – since her existence is encompassed by mankind, isn't it? But the philosophy of Silent Hill f scriptwriter and When They Cry manga creator Ryukishi07 is more simple. To the horror legend, men are scared, women are scary, and that's just a beautiful thing.

"These are my personal opinions, so allow me to apologize in advance if my answers seem off," Ryukishi07 tells GamesRadar+ when I ask him, "What is the importance of female characters in Japanese horror?"

We can take the shortcut. "My understanding is that the horror fanbase tends to skew towards men, and in the eyes of men, the opposite sex can be something that conjures in them a variety of contrasting emotions, from endearing to terrifying," says Ryukishi07. "I feel that women are often featured in Japanese horror as characters or themes because the emotions that surface as a result of their existence becomes the sources of intricate drama."

But the way Ryukishi07 himself feels is labyrinthine. Silent Hill f is a good example of that – set in strict '60s Japan, the psychological horror game sees disturbing expectations for good girls and good wives as legitimate cosmic horrors. The game's enemies include pregnant tumors that burp out murderous babies, a bride in white who spreads fog like disease, and the most helpful thing Ryukishi07's sweet protagonist Hinako can do is kill everyone. With a pipe.

"For me personally, the opposite sex (women) is something that I respect, revere, befriend, and fear – something that I am enamored with, forever scared of, yet fascinated by," Ryukishi07 explains. "To this day, I have penned severed stories that fall under the horror umbrella, but not one would I have been able to complete without the existence of women."

That said, telling stories hasn't necessarily helped Ryukishi07 demystify women – who are kind of lovely cosmic beings to him, too. The horror he writes for them is like a prayer. He tells me, "None of us will ever truly understand the opposite sex. Claiming to do so would be direly presumptuous. We must properly revere, respect, love, and understand that we will mutually misunderstand one another."

"Working on themes based around women is, to me, the greatest act of respect that I can dedicate to them," Ryukishi07 concludes.

Silent Hill f writer knows you don't really want to see "a happily ever after," and the game's horrific portrayal of young womanhood makes it my GOTY.

The town is a crucial aspect of any Silent Hill game, including the series' latest installment Silent Hill f, which ditches Americana to instead cattle prod its tortured protagonists in the fictional Ebisugaoka. But developer NeoBards tells me the haunted mountaintop – based on a real Japanese location – barely existed when it first started working on the horror game.

Director Al Yang knew whatever NeoBards pitched to publisher Konami had to ensure "the story would undoubtedly feel like a 'Ryukishi07 work,'" he tells GamesRadar+. Scriptwriter Ryukishi07, celebrated horror writer behind the When They Cry manga series, had already outlined his sympathetic story for Silent Hill f – and the development team had to honor it.

"I first read the initial draft of the script a few years ago," reflects lead level designer Kaiyu Chang. "At the time, I was pregnant, which made the story's depiction of the expectations and constraints placed on women by traditional society resonate with me even more deeply. Many scenes struck a strong emotional chord."

So while "the core essence of the story never changed," Chang continues, "we made a number of adjustments to its presentation." In fact, "many of the locations in Silent Hill f did not exist initially and were carefully selected to enhance not only the script, but also the atmosphere and world of the game," Yang adds. "An example of this is the school, which was initially proposed by the team at NeoBards, and then discussed carefully with Konami and Ryukishi07."

And Protagonist Hinako's house – one of the most substantial puzzle sections in the game, where family secrets are revealed – "was originally conceived simply as a labyrinth with an otherworldly atmosphere," says Chang.

"Later, we introduced the element of 'memory,' added multiple timelines, and allowed the space to shift depending on the route and ending," she continues. "Throughout this process, Ryukishi07 continuously wrote new text and lore to support gameplay needs. After countless rounds of discussion and refinement, the in-game version you see today finally took shape."

Then the team ended up with another one of Silent Hill series' characteristic towns swaddled in fog – where horror is unavoidable, but hope still lives.

Silent Hill f writer knows you don't really want to see "a happily ever after," and the game's horrific portrayal of young womanhood makes it my GOTY.

Each year, the lines between remasters and remakes get blurrier, which makes it interesting that in 2025, the biggest remakes have taken a relatively more conservative approach to the concept. We may expect remakes to be more than just a new lick of paint but sometimes fans aren't looking for embellishments, just simply the best way to experience a beloved classic that can also hold up to modern expectations.

So even while one of these entries does explicitly title itself as a remaster, in our eyes these are all remakes that do a fantastic job of rebuilding the original game through a modern lens while any new elements feel naturally part of its core essence and structure. If a remake feels like the perfect entry point that doesn't have you pining for the original, then it's surely done its job.

5. The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered

Developer: Virtuos / Bethesda Game Studios
Platform(s): PC, Xbox Series X/S, PS5

Gloriously rebuilt from the ground up in Unreal 5, with ray-tracing, new animations, and new menu design, it's almost incredulous this handsome new version of Bethesda's 2006 RPG classic is merely labelled a remaster when similar examples would have made do with up-ressed textures.

But while The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered features some gameplay changes, such as sprinting and a Skyrim-inspired levelling system, deep down it's still fundamentally the same game with its janky combat, minigames, and an open world stitched together with loading screens (but also including all existing expansions). At the same time, you might also say that's just part of the Bethesda charm, and more than enough to keep fans satiated as the wait for news on Elder Scrolls 6 continues.

4. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4

Developer: Iron Galaxy
Platform(s): PS5, PS4, Switch 2, Switch, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PC

Given the success of the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 remakes a few years ago, repeating the trick with the following two entries, including THPS3 that is often considered the series' peak, is a no-brainer. Although handled by Iron Galaxy rather than Vicarious Visions (now merged with Blizzard), it follows on from the previous remake package by not only presenting the skating in modern visuals but also adding new content and reworking mechanics, even if nothing is quite as gamechanging as THPS 1+2 incorporating the revert mechanic first introduced in THPS3.

There may be controversy as purists lament the omission of certain licensed songs as well as the open-world career mode in the original THPS3, but when it gets it right there still aren't other skating games that reach the same highs as the Birdman.

3. Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater

Developer: Konami Digital Entertainment / Virtuos
Platform(s): PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC

Making a new Metal Gear Solid post-Kojima is a contentious affair, let alone remaking arguably the best and most beloved instalment in the series. Perhaps this is why Konami along with porting powerhouse Virtuos (remaking the Virtuous Mission, how apt!) opted to keep much of the original vision intact, including retaining all of the voice-recorded lines from the 2004 original that helped cement its place among the best stealth games.

Sure, you could just play the HD port (based on the superior Subsistence release) for a fraction of the price, but those new gorgeous Unreal 5-powered visuals really do make the 1960s Soviet jungle come alive while Snake's moveset has also been welcomingly modernized, including crouch-walking and a less fiddly way to execute CQC actions. More than two decades later, you also can't deny that Cynthia Harrell still has the pipes!

2. Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles

Developer: Square Enix (Creative Studio 3)
Platform(s): PS5, PS4, Switch 2, Switch, Xbox Series X/S, PC

28 years since its original release, Final Fantasy Tactics' epic tale of class warfare remains as potent and relevant for our times. It's perhaps for that reason that the latest version, handled by FF14 and 16's Creative Studio 3, doesn't try to overhaul the visuals, instead maintaining the grid-based turn-based battles on maps presented isometrically populated with deformed character sprites.

What however elevates the script, previously given a more Shakespearean localization in the War of the Lions PSP port, is the very welcome addition of voice-acting, finally giving this medieval fantasy the theatricality it had always aimed for. Just as impressive is that The Ivalice Chronicles doesn't set out to rewrite the historical record as it also preserves the PS1 original (actually more of a reconstruction due to the original master data source code having been lost), essentially giving you two games in one. It's one of the best Final Fantasy games for a reason. Play it and thank me later.

1. Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter

Developer: Falcom
Platform(s): PS5, PS4, Switch 2, Switch, PC

Although there are various arcs in Falcom's long-running JRPG series (aka one of the best anime games) to jump in from, the way each installment is a narrative continuity as complex as the MCU means the best way to start is usually from the beginning. Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter succeeds in updating Estelle Bright and her adoptive brother Joshua's quest to become Bracers so that it looks and plays just like the modern Trails games, including an even-richer shader as well as integrating the latest installments' hybrid battle system where you can freely switch between real-time and turn-based combat in the field.

But even with voice acting and more cinematic direction, what's most important is that the story's script and structure has been kept faithfully intact. It's proof that not every RPG remake needed to be an indulgent and bloated reimagining like Final Fantasy 7.

Be sure to check out our ranking of the best games of 2025 to see how these remakes fared against brand-new entries this year.

The pills don't seem dangerous. The slender red capsules are immediately useful in Silent Hill f, like money you didn't know you had in your pocket, though nervous protagonist Hinako's increasing reliance on them may be unsettling to some people. Not to me, though. I'd never let anyone take away my pills.

(Major spoilers for Silent Hill f ahead).

It feels wrong to say that. I resisted taking medication for my obsessive-compulsive disorder for most of the nearly 10 years since being officially diagnosed, but then a period of extreme insomnia hit me like cold water at the end of 2024. I felt like I might drown if I didn't start exploring medication, and I think Hinako's supposedly evil little pills might have saved her, too.

Self-help

Hinako gratefully places the red capsules I find into her mouth like they're indulgent chunks of cake, not just sugar-coated mystery drugs. I don't question her. The red capsules are a good last resort for fighting the increasingly disgusting monsters which have taken over her hometown –– naked, ball-jointed dolls with puckered scars where their nipples should be, pregnant bellies protruding from a faceless mass of hair and legs the way swollen grapes hang on a vine. The pills don't restore my health as effectively as a cloth bandage, and they don't soothe my dwindling sanity meter as much as bubbly Ramune, but they're decent enough at both that I come to rely on them.

By the end of Silent Hill f, I have at least 50 pills piled like stuffed animals in my inventory, and I've learned the truth. Hinako is not the schoolgirl she portrays herself to be, shoving herself uselessly against the locked door that is the unfriendly world of '60s Japan – she's a woman. She's getting married. Those weren't monsters I've been brutalizing with a steel pipe, but guests at Hinako's wedding ceremony. Puddles of their blood in the first possible Silent Hill f ending, Coming Home to Roost, purples the ground.

Earlier, I watched as Hinako was enraged by her dysfunctional parents and older sister Junko, now a pacified wife, as they nudge her toward getting married. She defies them by gobbling handfuls of those red and white pills, the ones I've been feeding her through my entire game. Junko is shocked – she doesn't understand how Hinako keeps swallowing lungfuls of the medicine, which she swears helps her relax. In truth, they seem to be keeping Hinako in a state of fragile psychosis, and the spider lily horror of Ebisugaoka is ultimately all in her head.

Self-flagellation

Most of the other, more "true" endings for Silent Hill f require you don't take any pills for the entirety of your playthrough, which, to me, confirms their mind-altering properties and apparently evil nature. Shu, Hinako's childhood friend with a secret crush, never told her what they'd do to her head. Because of this, I'm initially inclined to think of the capsules as just another method for the men of Ebisugaoka to control Hinako. But I change my mind once I take my nightly fluvoxamine.

Self-care

There are many reasons why I, for so many years, hesitated to take medication. First, there was the nature of my OCD – the disorder is defined by unwanted, intrusive thoughts known as "obsessions" and illogical, ritualistic behavior to suppress them called "compulsions," and I frequently obsessed over the idea that taking meds would ruin my life. What if SSRIs completely changed my personality? What if they didn't work, and I became stuck in the barbed wire of my mental illness forever? What if they made things worse? What if they made my fiancé break up with me?

In 2024, I couldn't sleep. I obsessed over it, compulsively read nightmarish articles about insomnia, and clawed my way down into a dirty, depressive hole. I decided I had no choice but to die. Instead, my therapist suggested medication.

For the first time in 25 years of debilitating symptoms, I decided pills were worth the risk. Later, I listed off the new medications I was initially prescribed at the pharmacy – gabapentin, trazodone, Lexapro. I remember bristling against the societal stigma I felt wrapping me like shedding snake skin. These were crazy pills, I thought. Why couldn't I be like the beautiful, normal people I imagined all around me, floating from happiness to happiness like all-natural fairies? I hate asking for help. But I was in desperate need.

It's now been a year since I started taking medication for my mental health, and, for the first time in my life, I feel safe. I'm no longer worried about what people think of me for taking meds, and I'm proud of myself for taking them. They've calmed my symptoms and helped me love being alive.

I imagine Hinako's red and white capsules make her feel the same way in the patriarchal confines of her reality – they allow her to transcend it. A woman in a blood-stained wedding dress, Hinako on meds defies societal expectations. She isn't nice, she's a goddamn murderer, but she'd rather be on the run than a wife.

It's her ideal self. In my case, my ideal self is a person who doesn't waste daydreams on sharp knives. We aren't quite the same, but I believe our pills set both me and Hinako free. We're two flightless birds finally ready to look up at the sky.

The best part of Silent Hill f is also my favorite from Bloodborne, and it has nothing to do with "Soulslike" combat.