Palworld publishing lead John "Bucky" Buckley should've known better when he asked his Twitter followers for suggestions on new content following the game's 1.0 release last month. Specifically, he should've known they would all lay out their wildest hopes and dreams on virtual paper instead of submitting reasonable requests, and now he's paying the price.

On Thursday, Buckley took to Twitter to thank players for a successful Palworld 1.0 launch, which is a lovely gesture. But where he went wrong was teasing future content and asking players for "suggestions" as the devs get back to work on whatever's next for the game.

"Shot myself in the foot here, 1.7k comments later," reads a follow-up tweet from Buckley sent out the next day. "Things like 'add a new continent', 'add 20 more levels' and similarly massive undertakings are not really what we want to do with v1.1.

"Open to ideas but, we're not planning to spend a year making a massive update for 1.1."

For those wondering about the scope of feedback Buckley and Pocketpair are requesting, I'll point you to a recent Palworld patch that made building bases over water a lot easier and let you earn World Tree Holy Water through expeditions rather than just farming. That's probably a much more realistic idea of the types of additions Pocketpair is planning for 1.1. If and when something like a Palworld 2.0 comes out, that's when you'll see much bigger adds like new continents and levels.

In the meantime, it's not unreasonable to hold out hope for a new Palworld collab, although Buckley himself recently made it very clear just how selective Pocketpair is about who is collaborates with.

Palworld TCG devs "sincerely apologize" as unprecedented demand and scalpers make enjoying the Pokemon rival next to impossible

The scariest noises in Hell Let Loose: Vietnam are the quietest. The dry-rattle of gunfire is too constant, and helicopters' telltale thwup-thwup gives plenty of warning before dropping fresh troops. Maps are big, so sound is one of the best tools for gauging the flow and geography of a match. When the fighting isn't as loud – if you're separated from the capture point or creeping through the jungle behind enemy lines – rustling leaves and snapping twigs may as well be fireworks.

My reaction speeds are slow, so when that crunch is a half-second warning, I'm often the first to die. But that's a fair price to pay for atmosphere. The best FPS games don't underestimate immersion: Marathon sparked my imagination earlier this year, and now Hell Let Loose: Vietnam is doing the same; pairing Battlefield-style 50v50 matches with gritty realism and more emphasis on teamwork.

"From day one, we wanted to be immersive and intense," says game director Paul 'Rushy' Rustchynksy. "We're trying to capture moments of 'If you put yourself in the boots of this conflict, how would you feel?' You would feel like you're exposed at all times, at any moment you could die."

Hell Let Loose: Vietnam doesn't hone in on the human cost of the Vietnam War, as many games and films have done before. Instead, its source material funnels directly into how the game is experienced as a shooter. "Stress can really affect how you play. It's not the sort of thing where you're running around on maps at 20 miles an hour, dashing between gaps," Rustchynksy explains. "You're thinking about every move you make. You're leaning around corners. You're talking to your squadmates about where [enemy] infantry are, and you're never running headfirst into things."

"Well… Maybe some players do. Initially."

(Don't) run through the jungle

Hell Let Loose: Vietnam's setting creates a different dynamic to Hell Let Loose. More weapons are fully-automatic, sightlines are shorter, and factions have unique tactics to reflect their real-world counterparts. The North Vietnamese Army can dig tunnels to cross areas undetected, while the US Armed Forces use helicopters for similar utility.

"The pacing of the game is generally faster because there's more modes of transport," says Rustchynksy, "and [there's] generally much more close-quarters combat this time around, whereas World War 2 was much further away."

But the "heart" of Hell Let Loose: Vietnam, Rustchynsky argues, is its asymmetric design. I agree: having two functionally unique factions brings out the character of both sides, whether it's pulling off the perfect flank as the NVA or being flown over the jungle and dropped into the frontline in a U.S. chopper. It's part of a broader tactical layer (each team is led by a commander, who gives orders through squad leaders) and feeling like a small cog in the machine lends itself well to immersion.

At times, merely being part of something bigger is enough to get the heart racing. I recently played as a crewman, operating an unwieldy tank turret while my friend managed the armor's gears to drive us to the frontline and support infantry. We won, and it was even sweeter because I could point exactly to how our contributions helped. Sometimes those moments are more dramatic: in the final throes of that match I fired a frag round into a descending helicopter's cockpit, taking out a full flight of troops who would have reinforced the capture point's defenders. The game after, I was a sniper separated from my spotter, and spent 15 minutes picking off marching troops – at one point lying in a bush to hide from a passing tank – before we could link up in friendly territory.

"It's these little things that really stand out," says Rustchynksy, speaking to my favorite part of the game: the stories you get from playing. "It's not something you can overly engineer. It's just making sure that the tools and things we allow the player to do inside the game [create a] free-form, sandbox-like experience [...] Where these emergent moments can happen."

"It's also really rewarding to see when some of the strategic plans come together," agrees Sam Warren, development director on Hell Let Loose: Vietnam. "Bits like that are magic."

The original Hell Let Loose brought in many players from beyond the usual military-sim crowd, and in the years since, the likes of Arc Raiders and Marathon have pushed punishing shooter mechanics to the mainstream. There's more interest in traditionally 'hardcore' experiences, especially as many players jump in and find there's a lot more to the experience than shaky aim and quick deaths.

Put simply: more people are trying games they aren't immediately good at. I ask Rustchynksy whether that's good for Hell Let Loose: Vietnam, and while he believes it is, he seems more enthused by the prospect of generally harder games. "I think this is a fantastic trend in general, because if you take away too much friction from games, it removes so much of the enjoyment. You need that little bit of friction so that when something satisfying happens, it feels really good. And also typically with games that have a bit of friction, the ceiling for mastery is often a lot higher."

In some ways, Hell Let Loose: Vietnam is harder than conventional multiplayer shooters. A hidden sniper or mortar team can send you back to HQ without ever being seen, and it takes confidence to jump into a random squad and follow orders. But when you take a step back, its chewier features are in service to an immersive and more deliberate experience, rather than simply making a tough shooter. Wits and vigilance pay off more than being quicker on the trigger – though on many occasions I've wished I was faster – and if you slow down to meet Hell Let Loose: Vietnam at its own cautious pace, you'll find there's oceans more to discuss beyond difficulty.

We've ranked the best FPS games to play in 2026 - how many have you cleared?

On February 25, 2027, Pokemon Bank will shut down, leaving seven generations worth of creatures trapped on old game cartridges. It's a sad milestone if you want to keep adventuring with your childhood Pokemon pals, but if you're purely interested in completing the modern Pokedex, you still can – well, mostly. With the app's closure, a small handful of Pokemon will be unobtainable in the modern console games, and nobody's quite sure when that's going to change.

The current hub for digital Pokemon collecting is Pokemon Home, a storage app that allows you to upload your creatures from any of the Switch games. For now, it also accepts transfers from Pokemon Bank, a 3DS app which – through a long, convoluted history of transfers, trades, and Virtual Console releases – allows you to upload Pokemon from every game released prior to the Switch.

There are now 1,025 Pokemon, and 1,018 of them can be uploaded to Pokemon Home via the modern Switch and Switch 2 games. The missing 'mons? Spinda, Deoxys, Celebi, Victini, Zarude, Iron Leaves, and Walking Wake. Currently, you can catch Deoxys in the eShop versions of FireRed and LeafGreen, and once those games are updated with Pokemon Home support in October, you'll be able to upload that catch with all the others.

That gets us to 1,019 out of 1,025. The Pokemon Company recently announced that the October Pokemon Home update will also give a reward to players who've fully completed the FireRed and LeafGreen Pokedex – a free Celebi. Now we're up to 1,020, but the immediate good news stops with just five Pokemon left to go.

Zarude is a relatively modern addition to the series, as it was introduced in Pokemon Sword and Shield, and is still distributed via online events about once a year. It's safe to expect another such opportunity will come around soon enough. Similarly, Walking Wake and Iron Leaves have been regularly distributed through events for Scarlet and Violet.

Then there's Victini. This li'l guy dates back to Pokemon Black and White on the DS, and has only ever been available via event distributions. And even those have dried up since 2022. There is an important caveat here, since Victini can be caught in Pokemon Go and transferred into Home that way. But if you want to catch all your Pokemon through the mainline RPGs, Victini is currently off the board.

The real, final outlier – the one who's going to leave your Pokedex sitting at 1,024 out of 1,025 – is Spinda. You can catch this Pokemon without much hassle in Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, but it's got a weird, unique gimmick: a spot pattern with billions of unique values. That seems to be the reason it's the one and only Pokemon from the Diamond and Pearl remakes that can't be uploaded to Home.

Legends Z-A and its DLC made a wide array of hard-to-obtain Pokemon reasonable to catch once again, but these outliers are all notable exceptions. They've been the subject of plenty of discussion among Pokemon fans on social media, with a lingering question: when will these creatures be catchable again?

Maybe some of them will be reintroduced in Pokemon Winds and Waves. Maybe we'll get to see Spinda again in a seemingly inevitable eShop release of Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald. Or maybe The Pokemon Company will simply open the floodgates with a host of event giveaways in the near future. For now, we're all just gonna have to make peace with some incomplete checklists.

Check out our ranking of the best Pokemon games.

GTA 5 roleplay server nopixel is nearly ready to show off its big GTA Online refresh, nopixel V, which was made in collaboration with Rockstar.

Nopixel creator Koil announced on August 13 in the server's official Discord, "Surprise! We are excited to show you what we've been working on, the hours poured into this project, and the journey that's about to start."

The lead developer shares that nopixel V's Closed Beta period begins for an exclusive group of players on September 8, so you'll soon have another distraction from the slow crescendo of GTA 6 paranoia as its November 19 launch date approaches.

Well… if you're eligible. Nopixel currently has a list of nearly 450 content creators and normal people with roleplay characters invited to nopixel V, which Koil calls "a full rebuild" in his Discord message. The creator goes on to explain nopixel V's refreshed "allowlist," in which "invites to nopixel V will roll out in phases. While the first phase of invites is nearly complete, it's just the first group. If you haven't received an invite yet, you haven't been ruled out."

"Over time, access will expand, including more phases of invites," Koil assures aspiring roleplayers. Previous versions of nopixel have stirred up ill will for charging server applicants for priority boosts, costing up to $500 for only 15 days of potential access, and offering extra roleplay character slots for a fee.

Koil doesn't mention the state of paid priority boosts in nopixel V, but it seems at least some things about nopixel's allow list are changing to be more inclusive. Koil says, "We're using this moment as a genuine reset and a fresh start for the nopixel whitelist. And for everyone on nopixel Public and nopixel 4.0, nothing changes. Both servers will remain active and supported. Everyone has a chance at a path in."

Meanwhile, Rockstar might be preparing a bigger renovation of GTA Online, or its online services in general. It acquired the mod team behind FiveM – the GTA 5 multiplayer mod that powers nopixel – back in 2023, and then it elected to collaborate on nopixel V after years of the server being just a fan project. Plus, nopixel V is coming to the proprietary Rockstar Games Launcher, which I think further indicates Rockstar wants you to think of its most popular mods as extensions of The Official Brand, rather than as unconfined experiments. It's trying to claim ownership over the online aspect of its own games.

I don't know whether that impulse comes from a need to stomp out fan-made competition, or as an easy way to invest in the longterm growth of the GTA brand outside of the firecracker release that will be GTA 6. Realistically, it's both, and simply by making me report the verifiable fact that nopixel V is "made alongside Rockstar," it's working.

With Grand Theft Auto 6 on the way, it's down to the community to bring back the best (and stupidest) thing about GTA Online.

Generally speaking, you're best off using official channels for any video game purchases. There are exceptions when it comes to delisting and preservation and whatnot, but the simple fact is Steam, GOG, and others protect your investment more than third-party resellers, and one indie dev is reminding people of that by deactivating illegitimately gotten copies of their game.

The repair shop sim ReStory: Chill Electronics Repairs managed to shift 300,000 copies in its first week. An incredible result for a small team, but it's been tainted slightly because a small percentage of them have been blocked by publisher tinyBuild because they were ill-gotten keys.

"We just revoked 649 game keys for ReStory most of which were confirmed to have been sold on shady key reseller websites," Alex Nichiporchik, CEO of publisher tinyBuild, said on Twitter. "If you bought the game off shady reseller websites and lost access, contact said shady reseller website."

To make his gripes here clear, he shares a news story from 2016, where tinyBuild says it lost $450,000 due to key resellers. A decade later, and it's still a problem.

"We identified the leak and will not be working with that part moving forward," he adds. "Also just buy games on Steam. If a deal looks too good to be true, it's probably not true."

This is fundamental to how these sites operate - they tend to offer keys at discounted rates compared to proper channels. In some cases, they operate on a lottery, where you pay in a certain amount and can end up with a major triple-A release, or something smaller. Either way, it's money the devs and publishers are losing out on, and you're risking your funds on a platform with very little in the way of customer support.

For what happened here, Nichiporchik explains that scalpers bought copies on Steam priced cheaper in certain regions. If you release a game on Valve's store and don't set the price in each region individually, universal pricing creates discrepancies where this can happen. These were then being sold on less regulated marketplaces.

Remember, most games aren't coming from huge corporations. Any lost sales can hurt them. Nichiporchik clarifies afterward that some Green Man Gaming copies have been lost in the mix, which will be restored in time. "If you bought the game through GMG - a replacement key is on its way! No action needed on your end," he says.

"Just pirate it": Roguelike dev would rather you download its games illegally than buy from Steam code resellers.

A short while back, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick confirmed that the Ultimate Edition of GTA 6 has sold more copies (despite the $100 price tag and all) than the cheaper version… and boy, has it.

Now, we know exactly how much, thanks to new reports from digital intelligence firm Sensor Tower (as per GamesIndustry.biz).

Apparently, a whopping 89% of pre-orders so far have been for the Ultimate Edition rather than the Standard Edition, which costs $80 – $20 less. The percentages are comparable across PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, too: 88.5% on the former and 90% on the latter.

Those… are quite big figures, all things considered – even when you take into account what Zelnick said, that it "might be a reflection of the fact that the most avid consumers are the ones who are pre-ordering."

Karl Kontus, senior vice president and general manager of video game insights at Sensor Tower, finds it surprising, too, even though special editions "always tend to perform well during the preorder period."

According to Kontus, he's "never seen a 90% premium share before." He has seen 50% – but "typical premium shares for games tend to be at around 10–20%." While he sees the figure dropping over time for GTA 6, "it's likely it'll stay significantly above the industry standard" still.

Rockstar's long-awaited game is "very hard to forecast," though, "given it lives in a league of its own." That, it very much so does. "There is no benchmark for how this game will perform from here," as Kontus concludes.

But why is the Ultimate Edition doing so well now? There is, of course, the very reason that Zelnick gave – but Kontus also proposes another very simple one: the fact that the difference between $100 and $80 isn't all that much, considering all of the digital goodies you get if you opt for the pricier version of GTA 6… and, yeah, I suppose that makes sense.

I'm curious to see how GTA 6 does come its November 19 release, personally – and also to find out whether the split between the Ultimate Edition and Standard Edition's popularity stays the same or balances out by quite a bit.

GTA 6 fans don't "go around buying nerdy niche" games, indie says, so fellow devs don't really need to get out of Rockstar's way

While I usually don't like to date reviews too much, I'd be hard-pressed not to mention that we're experiencing a time when just about every aspect of gaming is getting more expensive. Consoles continue to get price hikes, and finding SSDs and storage for a reasonable amount of cash is almost unheard of, so it makes sense that anyone after one of the best gaming headsets may not want to spend a fortune. If that sounds like a familiar scenario, then the Corsair HS35 V3 might be up your street.

The wireless version I've reviewed today is just $79.99 / £69.99, and provides more than enough to warrant its MSRP. You've got wired, Bluetooth, and 2.4GHz wireless support, compatibility with a range of platforms including the PC and PS5, and it's an absolute joy to have on the head. The pair doesn't do quite enough to knock my favorite sub-$100 pick out of my gaming accessory rotation, but it's easily become one of my new go-to budget recommendations to date.

Key specs

Design

This is the third iteration of the HS35 (if you didn't already surmise from the 'V3' tacked on to its name), and Corsair chose to model it more after the second release. I'm pretty glad they did, as I much prefer the pill-shaped earcups over what came before.

For this over-ear, closed pair, the exterior of each cup features the Corsair logo printed on a recessed and textured circular pad. It's a purely aesthetic choice, as the design isn't textured enough to form a good grip, but it looks pretty swell all things considered. But then again, I'm always pretty privy to the look of the brand's headsets - the Corsair Virtuoso Max wireless and its space-age metal look is still up there amongst my favorites in the brand's repertoire.

For this review, I was provided with the White version, but the pair is also available in Carbon black, and there's a cheaper £39.99 / $49.99 wired version available in the same two-color combos. The white version contrasts nicely with the grey soft fabric ear pads and matching floating headband. When it comes to color, that's pretty much all she wrote, as there's no RGB lighting to be found on this new Corsair release.

Features

As far as features go, the HS35 V3 keeps things pretty simple. There are 50mm neodymium audio drivers powering these cups, with a sound that can be personalized with Dolby Atmos Spatial Audio (via the PC Dolby Atmos app). There's no iCue connectivity here, which is ideal for those who aren't big fans of Corsair's proprietary software and want to keep software bloat to a minimum.

Besides the sound, Corsair has included a detachable omnidirectional microphone, up to 30 hours of battery life, and Tri-mode connectivity. The cups come packaged with a USB-C cable for charging and wired connectivity, along with a two-part wireless dongle. The dongle is a USB-A adapter and USB-C port in one, and the USB-C part neatly attaches to the side to form one of the handiest and most compact wireless transmitters I've ever used. And trust me, I've used a lot.

Performance

Before I started testing, I made sure to toggle off any 'Audio Enhancements' via Windows 11's sound settings. By default, these can render the Dolby Atmos app entirely useless. If you just bought the HS35 V3, or have any other headsets that rely on Dolby Atmos, I highly recommend you check that you haven't got any silly Windows settings interfering with your personalization. Ah, the joys of Windows.

The existence of the Dolby Atmos app is why I chose to start with PC testing; that and the fact that it was incredibly handy for GamesRadar+ purposes. Its plug-and-play attitude made it my go-to choice when chatting to the rest of the hardware team about what we were getting up to, and it's likely going to make appearances in many more Google Team meetings to come. For gaming, it doesn't provide a sound mighty enough to knock the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Omni off my desk, but it was still pretty marvelous.

By default, there's a lot of power going on. The HS35 V3 can get plenty loud, and it was a relief after testing the unfathomably quiet Glorious GHS Wireless InfinitePlay. From the get-go, there's a pretty evenly levelled sound to low, mid, and high frequencies too. The Counter-Strike 2 title screen jingle sounded pretty fantastic for one, though it did feel like it was missing that oomph I always strive for when it comes to headsets or headphones of any calibre. Equipping the 'Warm' Game setting in Dolby Atmos helped rectify that pretty fast, and it even made bullets feel just that much more impactful.

Luckily for me, a lot of those were being fired into the enemy and not at me, as the spatial audio tech helped me flank down folk pretty fast. Additionally, I made sure to load up Marvel Rivals on Steam to see how it meshed with the Corsair cups. Ensuring the 'Warm' setting was on to boost the bass and lower frequencies equally helped even out the soundscape with NetEase Games' hero shooter. When it came to playing the PS5 version of the game, I did noticeably miss its more rounded-off sound, particularly as it helped the backing music and sound effects of my pulsating Invisible Woman attacks mesh together in a more cohesive way.

That's not to say the HS35 V3 sounded bad with its default audio on the Sony console. It was just audibly missing that extra creamy sound, which, when you factor in that Dolby Atmos is only available on PC platforms, leads me to recommend it for PC players above all else. I ended up using the cups for music the most out of everything, as its super lightweight 250g form factor and easy setup made it easy to pop on and off. Any time I wanted to have a little alt-rock disco to myself at my desk while listening to Garbage's self-titled 1995 album, or head-bop to the pop, bassy stylings of Troye Sivan's 'One Of Your Girls', the HS35 V3 got the job done. Of course, having Dolby Atmos's app in my corner helped just as much as it did for gaming.

I made sure to toggle on the 'Warm' setting under the 'Music' subheading to crank up the bass, and that made them a dream for pretty much all of my most liked tracks on Spotify. Regrettably, I didn't have the app at my disposal for listening to music on the go, so I left these at home. But I've been seriously considering swapping out my SteelSeries Arctis Game Buds for this headset for my weekend music-filled train journeys regardless.

Of course, if I were, I'd have to make sure to leave the microphone at home. Thankfully, that's an easy feat as it's detachable, which is how I personally like my microphones to be. I also like them to be easily adjustable, and Corsair has that down pat, as the boom arm is made from a bendy metal arm, which actually stays in place. There's nothing more infuriating than a headset microphone that flails around in your peripheral vision.

As you can hear from the sample above, the microphone in question sounds pretty great. It was louder than I had hoped, so you may want to tweak your audio settings before joining in on a game of Big Walk, or, in my case, Marvel Rivals, with your mates. However, just like the Corsair Void Wireless V2 review, I was yet again impressed by the brand's mic quality.

Should you buy the Corsair HS35 V3 wireless gaming headset?

The Corsair HS25 V3 is not the most revolutionary new headset, but it's a less-than-$100 pair that's super comfortable, looks great, sounds pretty fabulous, and just does the job. If you're specifically looking at options below that price mark, it's definitely one I'd recommend picking up, particularly if you're a PC die-hard and aren't too fussed about its minimal EQ options.

Is it my favorite sub-$100 option out there? Technically no, if you can find the SteelSeries Arctis Nova 3 Wireless on sale. The 3 Wireless retails for $109.99, but is prone to discounts that mark its price down to below that sweet $100 spot. Much like the HS35 V3, it's a no-fuss pair that's compatible with the PC, PS5, Nintendo Switch 2, and more, but it has the benefit of having SteelSeries' app to back it up.

With no iCue support and the Dolby Atmos app on Windows being your only source of audio customization, console players are not going to be able to take full advantage of the HS35 V3. Meanwhile, you can use the SteelSeries phone app to tailor the Arctis Nova 3 Wireless's sound to your liking and select from hundreds of game audio presets. That's why it remains my top value headset pick, but should you not dig SteelSeries' vibes, Corsair's HS35 V3 is a valid alternative.

Plus, the built-in "headset connected" voice is one of the nicest I've heard on a piece of tech, if you should care about those things.

How I tested the Corsair HS35 V3 wireless gaming headset

To get the full lay of the land of what the Corsair HS35 V3 had to offer, I used the headset for a little over two weeks. Whether I was chatting to co-workers in meetings, catching up with friends on Discord, or playing on my PC, PS5, and Nintendo Switch 2, the headset was with me. On PC, this meant using it get good at Counter-Strike 2, Marvel Rivals, and Dispatch. Meanwhile, on the PS5, I used the pair to see how it compared with the console version of Marvel Rivals, Doom Eternal, and Lego Batman Legacy of The Dark Knight.

When it came to the Switch 2, I tested it alongside the usual testing games of choice, from Mario Kart World to Donkey Kong Bananza, as well as Splatoon Raiders and Final Fantasy 14. When not gaming, I turned up the volume and blasted out bands like Garage, Biffy Clyro, and Boards of Canada on Spotify. I also used the headset to catch up on new additions to Netflix, including the documentary A Toxic Love Story. For more information on how we test gaming headsets, check out the full GamesRadar+ Hardware Policy.

Check out our best PS5 headset, best PC headset for gaming, and best Nintendo Switch headset guides to see how we rank the Corsair HS35 V3 against the best cups on the market today.

Anyone who's tried to get into Gears of War's PvP multiplayer recently knows it can be absolutely brutal. Hunky soldiers zip from cover to cover and back again in the blink of an eye, but one of the series' co-creators says its wallbouncing mechanic was never supposed to dominate the competitive meta for decades. It's as accidental as his cult classic platformer turning fans into furries, he reckons. Hold on.

For anyone who hasn't been shotgunned into bits faster than you can say the word gnasher, wallbouncing in Gears of War refers to how players use the game's snappy, almost magnetic cover system to zip around maps. Quite literally, it looks like they're bouncing off the walls. Paired with the close-range gnasher shotgun, there's basically no playstyle that's even half as viable as learning to wallbounce - a meta that's kept more casual players away from Gears' Versus mode.

Original Gears of War co-creator and former series lead Cliff Bleszinski (AKA CliffyB) has now compared the mechanic to, well... here's what he had to say in a recent tweet. "Wallbouncing in Gears is like Jazz fans becoming furries," he tweets. "It wasn't the intended nor desired effect, yet here we are."

Bleszinski likely isn't referring to actual jazz music fans here - the famed game dev cut his teeth as a designer on Epic Games' oft-forgotten platforming series, Jazz Jackrabbit, which apparently served as a gateway into the furry community, at least somewhat.

Furries aside, his point is that Gears of War's snappy cover system wasn't meant to lead to an inescapable wallbouncing meta in the same way that Jazz Jackrabbit wasn't created with furries in mind.

Over in a different post, Bleszinski explained that anyone who masters wallbouncing becomes "unstoppable" and "this is not the way the game was meant to be played." He's quick to note that wallbouncing isn't strictly a bad thing - it's really fun to watch and pull off, in fact - but it was never supposed to become the entire game, as it has nowadays.

"It breaks the game for anyone else trying to play it in any other way," he adds, which is a shame considering Gears of War's damn fun sandbox of weapons. Thankfully, it's a problem that Gears of War: E-Day is looking to solve when it comes to PC and Xbox Series X|S in October.

Gears of War: E-Day's Steam player count has once again blown past the series all-time peak thanks to the beta's second week

Somehow, it's been ten years since No Man's Sky launched. 2016 was certainly a simpler time, and looking back on the space exploration sim, Hello Games managing director Sean Murray has some sage words for his younger self.

"I would tell that guy, don't do all the press and stuff like that that you're doing," he tells GamesRadar+. "Guess what? You never wanted to do press and be a sort of frontman. You don't enjoy it, you won't enjoy it, and you also won't be very good at it."

He points out this is going back further than 12 years, to 2014, when the press for No Man's Sky started to ramp up. The game was a regular at showcases and trade shows, usually with Murray in tow, who did plenty of interviews across print, online, and television.

Hello Games enjoyed the double-edged sword of producing a game that captured people's imaginations, and then having to go out and publicly represent it. Promotion can be exhausting, and Murray believes he was always better served at his desk.

"Just avoid that whole thing and stick to just making games and coding," he says. Coming back to the present, he points out that Hello Games has become a much more mysterious entity. Very little is actually known about upcoming release Light No Fire, and that's a result of lessons learned from No Man's Sky

"We've lived that over the ten years since, right? That has been a big change in my life, right? Where I haven't chatted to any press in like four, four or five years or something," he says. "The most communication we do now is the occasional emoji or whatever, and that suits me just fine. I'm much better at just sticking to development.

Don't expect those vague teases to end any time soon. To be fair, when your game is the second most-wishlisted on Steam, you can take a chill pill.

"There is probably some end" to No Man's Sky, says Hello Games boss, but he'll probably come back 10 years later for a surprise update anyway

In the leadup to GTA 6, I've got just one person on my mind: Lucia, the film noir protagonist. Anyone who has even casually played Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto series will recognize the debt it owes to Hollywood. From Vice City's nods to Scarface, to the '90s urban crime dramas echoed in San Andreas and numerous Back to the Future references in GTA 5, the games' magnetic style has always felt cinematic.

The series' women also belong to a particular big‑screen lineage shaped by film noir: mysterious, morally grey, and narratively intriguing, embracing the qualities that made classic movie stars immortal. Yet they also inherit the genre's limitations, often functioning as accessories in male‑focused stories with little agency of their own.

As Lucia Caminos becomes the first substantial female lead in a main GTA instalment, the historic parallels between celluloid and console offer clues to where her journey might lead.

Light, camera, action

Mid‑20th‑century noir specialized in categorizing women. There's the femme fatale, a seductive catalyst who lures men into danger; the hustler living on the fringes whose autonomy was framed as threatening; and the good girl who represents a path out of the shadows.

These archetypes produced icons — the lethal calculation of Double Indemnity's Barbara Stanwyck, Rita Hayworth's charismatic Gilda, and Lauren Bacall's graceful edge in The Big Sleep — but they were also bound by the era's constraints. Made largely by men and shaped by strict censorship, noir demanded that female transgression be punished, limiting how complex these characters could truly become. Historically, noir women operate on the sidelines, and GTA has been no exception.

The series' 3D titles absorbed noir's gender patterns wholesale. GTA 3 frames Misty and Maria as stylish side characters: seductive silhouettes or kidnapped catalysts who motivate Claude without shaping the plot themselves.

Vice City exaggerates the femme fatale through Mercedes, a glamorous presence reminiscent of Kathleen Turner in 1981's Body Heat, albeit with less control. San Andreas' date choices offer a variety of different women, each of whom symbolise CJ's choices rather than drive their own arcs. They weren't bad by any means – these are characters who can be funny, thrilling, and ultimately memorable – GTA 3's Misty, thought to be named after the 1971 Clint Eastwood neo-noir Play Misty for Me, became an icon of the game through its advertising. However, as the series grew in scale, these character boundaries became more obvious.

The HD era unlocked the true potential of the GTA formula: vast cities buzzing with businesses, characters, and missions all ready to explore. There were never more possibilities for the player, but the women in the lives of the playable characters were slower to evolve. GTA 4's Mallorie and Kate show glimpses of depth and drive the plot forward significantly, but are ultimately there as foils or moral leverage for Niko. The fifth instalment has a significantly larger cast, but still fits in those broader archetypes.

Amanda and Tanisha are variations on the good girl, while Tracey's fame-hungry exploits are the catalyst for Michael's interventions. There was more personality, but still, these characters were part of the greater architecture rather than standing out on their own.

Not-so shaken or stirred

It's here that it becomes clear that the role of women in noir hasn't evolved as much in the games as it has in its cinematic inspiration. Femme fatales, hustlers, and good girl archetypes served the earlier games well, as they were immediately identifiable in games where graphical limitations meant broader storytelling beats. In a sense, they were historically accurate, given cinema's own issue with female characters. However, there have been evolutions on the big screen that could inspire the route ahead.

In recent decades, the femme fatale in particular has evolved – Kill Bill's blood-spattered bride needed no male assistance in taking out her revenge, while in the world of superhero movies you could argue Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow and the various depictions of Selina Kyle aka Catwoman showed female characters who assisted the male lead while also have backstories and motivations of their own. The mystery, seduction, and strength of female noir characters doesn't preclude depth and independence, which is what makes Lucia's potential so exciting.

As a co‑protagonist, she can retain the charisma of crime movie heroines, but become a driving force for the narrative in a way no female character has done before in the series. The Florida setting evokes neo-noir hits like Out of Sight, Spring Breakers, and Zola, signalling a shift toward crime stories where women possess agency, humour, and substance. Lucia's presence forces Rockstar to rethink its long‑standing male perspective, opening space for a female character who isn't defined by how she destabilises men but by how she influences her own journey.

Empowered doesn't mean virtuous – this is still GTA. Lucia can be as messy, complex, and morally layered as her predecessors, showing female ambition that isn't punished and a character intriguing enough for players of every background. The walls of movie lovers the world over are adorned with posters of women who broke the mould and changed the way we saw things. If GTA 6 seeks to confirm itself as the world's biggest media franchise, offering a similar icon could be part of that masterplan.

GTA 6 fans don't "go around buying nerdy niche" games, indie says, so fellow devs don't really need to get out of Rockstar's way

Almost every video game under the sun is running away from GTA 6's November release date, but indie developer Tomas Sala doesn't think that should necessarily be the case because the main audience for GTA 6 probably isn't rushing to buy the latest buzzy visual novel or management sim about running a movie rental store, let's say.

The acclaimed developer behind aerial combat sim The Falconeer and its city-building sandbox spin-off Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles is gearing up to release another game in the gorgeous series: ShipShaper, a game about designing your own ships that's hitting early access on September 2.

Speaking to GamesIndustry, Sala explains that when it came time to settle on a launch window for ShipShaper, he "saw all this stress about, 'Oh my God, GTA [6] is coming, you have to pack it before September.'" But despite squeezing into the crowd of new games seeking refuge from Rockstar Games' blockbuster, Sala doesn't think it was strictly necessary.

"I don't see why people are scared of it," he tells the outlet. "It [GTA] has its own f***ing audience that doesn't go around buying nerdy niche sailing games or nerdy puzzle games or tiny story-driven emotional deckbuilders. They just want to play GTA."

Sala notes that purchasing habits don't support developers' fears that everything will be buried by GTA since most players don't actually buy games all that often, as odd as that might sound.

As GamesIndustry notes, a 2025 Circana survey found that only 4% of US players buy a game more than once a month, and 33% of the US gaming audience buys a game less than once a year: "I'm pretty sure that's not the GTA audience." Some of the biggest games on PS5, Xbox, and Steam are often ones that came out years ago, too.

Another big reason why GTA 6 is being treated like an incoming meteor is because it'll inevitably suck up a lot of air in the room - social media algorithms and the front page of websites will surely be full of GTA 6 stories come launch - but Sala also doesn't see that as a problem for most indie games that struggle to get coverage with or without a GTA on the horizon.

But successful indies can break out without influencers or traditional media "because they find their audience." The 'nerdy niche' crowd will find their 'nerdy niche' games, regardless. "We can talk about the industry as if it's in a downturn – and for many people it is – but if you look at what gets made and put out, it's a golden age," he says.

Take-Two boss says GTA 6's $100 Ultimate Edition is outselling its cheaper alternative thanks to "avid consumers."

World of Warcraft is unsurprisingly no stranger to account boosting and other no-no forms of real-money transactions, with Blizzard cracking down every now and then on guilty players.

This month is no exception, as the developer has sent out another wave of bans against folks it believes are responsible for engaging in real-money transactions – namely in the EU.

You can find countless streams (some mid-raid and all) of entire guilds being wiped out by game mods over on Twitch and the like, seeing players pulled from the game unexpectedly. It's not the first time that Blizzard has taken action, and it certainly won't be the last.

One of the biggest talking points with this round of bans, however, is the removal of players that supposedly weren't participating in real-money transactions but were in guilds that have other people who are – and, you know, reports that Blizzard is also ripping a very rare mount from fans' accounts in the process: the Mythic L'ura mount, to be precise.

You'll find such discussions over on Reddit, where players post the message they got from the dev.

"During a recent review, we found one or more rewards gained on this account were connected to activity that violates our in-game policies," the supposed prompt from Blizzard reads. "As a result, we have removed these rewards from your account."

Comments also mention other allegedly affected players, with some describing how they lost the Mythic mount even though they didn't violate the Terms of Service.

"A LOT of people in my guild (including myself) lost it because people were in our group who paid for a boost without any of us knowing," as one reply puts it. "Kind of fucking sucks."

There are various other threads on the forum (and elsewhere online) claiming the same scenario. It's a tough one, for sure, because Blizzard technically isn't doing anything wrong by cracking down on real-money transactions.

On the other hand, though, it'd be nice to see a better system of detection that snapshots individuals rather than entire guilds – and, evidently, I'm not alone in thinking so.

Blizzard fires World of Warcraft dev after using "development-only spells on a live realm" to help a friend breeze through bosses

Razer is adding more exclusive keycaps to its arsenal, but this time, instead of cute 3D depictions of Hello Kitty and friends wielding the brand's iconic tech, it's a detailed and, if I can be frank, somewhat terrifying Triple-Headed Snake Edition keycap inspired by the brand's "legendary emblem."

The Artisan Keycap is set to drop on August 23, later this month, and you can sign up to be notified when stock slithers to the site via the official Razer online store, should you want more Team Sneki representation. Unlike the brand's best gaming keyboards, this is a truly cosmetic addition to your setup and has no in-game benefits besides some bragging rights and the ability to bop the heads of a highly detailed snake as you game away.

When Razer's PR came to me about the keycap, they mentioned it was a bit of a "quirky" release, and I fully expected something along the lines of their recently released Sanrio line, but this is far more fancy-pants. According to the official blog post shared on August 13, 2026, the cap was brought to life using "advanced 3D modeling techniques" and then manufactured using resin.

The resin was mixed with color to "the ideal ratio" and "fully cured for maximum hardness", which should mean there are no air bubbles in sight in the final product. Back in my cosplaying days, I made a fair few accessories with resin, and air bubbles were my biggest nemesis, but I'm sure Razer has a better tight-knit manufacturing process than some bottles of UV resin and a nail gel light.

What I admire most about the Sneki accessory is that each one has been individually hand-painted. If you were worried that the process would result in errors of paint going out of line, I wouldn't be. Razer iterates that each cap is scrutinized against the original 3D model, and any errors, like visible air bubbles or surface defects, are taken care of. If only I had that amount of energy for scrutiny when it came to my cosplaying back in the day, I would have been unstoppable.

The finished product is designed to fit securely with cross-stem switches, so you don't even need a Razer-branded board like the Razer Huntsman V3 Pro to add it to your keyset. MX cross-stem switches are pretty much the standard these days, so you shouldn't have much issue with having a board that can facilitate the keycap, though I'd definitely triple-check before making the purchase. Anything that's labeled as a "one of a kind" collector's item is likely not going to come cheap, and you don't want to fork out a large sum on something you can't actually use.

If you do still feel compelled to add the highly detailed snake to your board, I recommend signing up to be notified about its drop on Razer's site, as these are being "produced in highly limited quantities and never to be found anywhere else." I suspect they will creep onto second-hand sites like eBay shortly after release, but you can definitely expect an inflated price to come along with them.

• View all Razer gaming keyboards at Amazon

Want to give your PC setup a makeover? Check out our guides to the best Razer headsets, the best gaming mice, and the best gaming chairs while you're here.

A good soulslike hits like no other game. From Hollow Knight to Lies of P, the combination of demanding combat and a haunting-yet-gorgeous game world is a winning formula.

But sometimes a game can struggle to find the balance, leaving me masochistically forging on while not quite having fun, like 2025's Hollow Knight Silksong. Lucky for me, then, that Beast of Reincarnation has taken another approach to deliver an action-RPG that challenges without feeling cruel.

(Game) Freak off a leash

As a fan of Pokémon since playing Yellow as a child, I've lamented Game Freak's decline in recent years. Sure it still sells plenty of games, but as someone who hasn't bought Legends: Z-A or Pokopia due to being disappointed by Shield and Violet, I've long-believed the developer could impress again by adding more RPG depth, straying from its usual story beats, and escaping the confines of Nintendo hardware. Beast of Reincarnation delivers precisely that.

Playing on PS5, the lush foliage within Beast of Reincarnation is a far cry from the limited pixels of Pokémon Legends: Arceus - the last Game Freak title I really enjoyed. Large vine-entangled animals suffering from Blight roam the environment, serving up a realistic aesthetic paired with a sprinkling of fantasy, almost as if to demonstrate an alternate reality where the Nintendo's series embraced higher-fidelity graphics. This thought is quickly dashed when I plunge my sword clean into the back of a deer-like creature with lurid red eyes, before clashing with robots in the area.

These mechanical, humanoid enemies feel the most soulslike of all the foes within Beast of Reincarnation. They amble towards you with the grace of Dark Souls' skeletons, similarly pathetic when one-on-one, but a hazard in a pack. Some of them are larger and more capable in a fight, but patience will see you triumph, be it by parrying and dodging as required, or relying on a ranged weapon.

The biggest skill checks are the game's bosses. Often presented as enormous monsters infected by Blight - a corrupting growth that's infecting the world - these encounters can feel borderline Monster Hunter at times, given the immense scale of your opponents and the fact you've got your trusty dog sidekick fighting by your side. Similarly, you can draw parallels to Elden Ring's Elden Beast, or Dark Souls 3's Midra, with the arenas being large, relatively simple spaces designed purely to accommodate the boss housed within, although Beast of Reincarnation's fights feel more engaging and satisfying than the two FromSoftware critters.

Nothing to lose

The soulslikes comparisons are plentiful in Beast of Reincarnation, from its enemy types to the bonfire-esque rest points that let you upgrade your character and refill your healing items. But the key distinction is how little you lose when a fight goes against you.

From progenitor Demon's Souls to spiritual cousin Lies of P, soulslikes usually equate losing a battle with losing your currency, be it souls, ergo or whatever the game uses as a volatile currency. It's an accepted feature of the format to lose more than the encounter offers, but Beast of Reincarnation bucks the trend by letting you keep your wallet's inventory intact. Instead, you wake up with your canine companion at the last checkpoint you activated.

This change is huge for Beast of Reincarnation, as it allows the player to continuously explore and fight without any meaningful downside. No more worry of recovering your souls – just excitement of knowing you can charge right back into the fray.

Naturally you won't want to keep losing fights - at least I don't, unless it's the best boss in Silksong - but if the only drawback to trying is to try again, as you were, then the fear is gone. All that remains is a game to be played, and that's precisely what I come to Game Freak for in the first place.

As for what prompted this defiant stand against the soulslike structure, I honestly can't say. Maybe the developer learned from all the players who resent their dropped money after losing Pokémon battles? Or maybe it simply felt off in the world of Beast of Reincarnation? All I know is this: I don't want to turn Beast of Reincarnation off when I lose.

Check out these games like Elden Ring for a soulslike slaughterfest in another fantasy realm.

My Baldur's Gate 3 no weapons challenge is well and truly underway. Having finally inched my way into Act 2, things are starting to get spicy – and oh boy, am I suffering.

If you're new to the RPG Club, welcome. You might want to start with my first entry in this four-part series if this is your first time joining us. For returning adventurers, you'll know the score. I'm going back through one of my favorite games of all time and applying a strict new set of rules: no weapons, ever. The consequences of this restriction are starting to rear their ugly heads in the most unexpected ways – including impacting the areas I choose to explore versus ignoring entirely.

In a regular playthrough, my path of choice to the Shadow-cursed Lands would take me through the Underdark. There are a few cool tools to pick up in the gloomy depths, from sussur bark needed to craft a masterwork weapon to the Phalar Aluve longsword. But weaponry is the farthest thing from my mind this time around.

Quest Log

Monastic crimes in hands-free times

Instead of powerful blades, glaives, and crossbows, I'm opting for scrolls, grease, and tavern brawling. Which means I've made the executive decision to skip the Underdark completely and take the mountain pass shortcut into Act 2, even though it means losing out on more opportunities to level-up.

Since my last post, I've successfully cleared Act 1. The goblin camp was a doozy (dropped Minthara down a hole with a trusty firebolt, poisoned the goblins' beer supply) and I made my way to Rosymorn Trail shortly after. There, I killed Lady Esther for The Graceful Cloth monk robes, successfully broke the zaith'isk at Crèche Y'llek, and managed to slip out of the monastery without succumbing to the siren song of the Blood of Lathander mace lurking beneath it.

I know, I know. It feels close to sacrilege to skip one of the coolest dungeons in the game – if not the coolest. But this is just one of many moments that is rendered completely superfluous when weapons are out of the question.

Instead, I'm all about speed and efficiency. I hit Level 5 right as my party heads up the Mountain Pass toward the Shadow-cursed Lands, and I already know what to expect. Two Death Shepherds will be roaming ahead, alongside a handful of ghast minions, so I have Shadowheart with me to take Spirit Guardians out for a spin. I'm already regretting not doubling back to grab the Luminous Armor from the Selunite temple beneath the goblin camp, but truthfully, I hadn't trusted myself to be able to turn back once making it that far – the entrance to the Underdark is close by after all.

Luckily, a cleric's spells are incredibly powerful with or without that one piece of kit. Spirit Guardians is the kind of spell I refuse to do without in Baldur's Gate 3. Who needs a weapon when I can just have Shadowheart dash into the battlefield while the undead charge dumbly into her personal space, bursting into holy flames one by one? Between being well-prepared with Shadowheart at the ready and pelting any stragglers with Fireball, I manage to decimate these Level 6 nemeses with relative ease.

It reminds me just how simple it is to get to Act 2 when you skip the Underdark and all its fascinating distractions, opting instead for a practical approach I'd usually shy away from.

Dark and dangerous

Contrary to many, Act 2 is my favorite part of Baldur's Gate 3. I love the menacing darkness of The Shadow-cursed Lands, especially when I have a cleric in tow. However, my challenge difficulty goes up quite a few notches very quickly.

Well, the FOMO side of it does. Reaching Last Light Inn and seeing all of Quartermaster Tali's delightful swords and axes on display is just the beginning – Act 2 is going to be hard without the reliable tools I'd ordinarily depend upon.

I regretfully sell a powerful helmet found in the Mason's Guild basement since it buffs weapon attacks I don't have access to. I can't buy a piece of Barbarian armor for Karlach at Moonrise Towers since its main perk is buffing melee weapon damage, so I'm glad I took time to check the tooltip before purchasing. I even hesitate for a moment before letting Shadowheart cut herself with a dagger in the secret Sharran sanctuary, but since she never actually equips it in more than a cutscene, I let it slide.

While there are some things I am missing by skipping the Underdark, there are plenty of workarounds. I take extra care to be thorough in Act 2, seeking out opportunities I'd usually skim past in order to speed things up. The one that stands out the most in the Selunite Resistance.

For the first time ever, I discovered Selunite outposts dotted across the map, from the basement of the Last Light to a forgotten chest nearby those pesky Meazels that ambush you outside the bridge towards the Towers. This side quest leads me to find the Luminous Gauntlets and Coruscation Ring, each applying stacks of damage output-reducing Radiating Orb to all enemies hit by radiant spells.

It immediately makes all the fights against shadow-cursed enemies much snappier – especially the one against Flaming Fist Marcus, where I successfully protect Isobel thanks to the Turn Undead spell, Guiding Bolt, and Karlach throwing the traitor at his Winged Horror minions.

Later, I manage to find the Ring of Spiteful Thunder to pair with the Gloves of Belligerent Skies, creating an excellent Reverberation build for my draconic lightning sorcerer. I've never been so specific in my build-crafting before, and now I don't even feel bad about missing the Boots of Stormy Clamour down in the Underdark.

Throwing down the gauntlet (of Shar)

The finish line is well in sight, folks – at least as far as finishing up in the Shadow-cursed lands. I didn't expect a no weapons run to change up my approach to the story path itself, but taking stock of my journey so far, it's affected far more than just combat encounters.

While I'm feeling good about my choice to take the Mountain Pass to Act 2, I know that the journey to Baldur's Gate itself will be much more straightforward. I don't have to choose my path as wisely this time (there's just the one after all), but I've learned some valuable lessons about choosing my side quests and party makeup more carefully.

I try to keep to the usual structure of balancing spellcasters with melee fighters, and I'm delighted to report that watching Karlach and Lae'zel throw Shadow-cursed Harpers at one another is just as effective as hitting them with a giant hammer. I do, however, find myself wanting to respec my party yet again from time to time, though I've only done so once in Act 2 so far, as per my ruleset.

Gale's our new Necromancer, for no other reason than I was finding very little use for his talents when a sorcerer is so powerful, and as I inch toward the RPG's biggest maps, I'm planning some fairly sweeping respecs for my team very soon. But we'll save that for next time, after my battle against Ketheric.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Golden Spirit codes are a great way to get ahead in this officially licensed RPG of the hit anime series, where you can build your dream team from a huge selection of playable characters. The gift codes available will help you out when you're picking your squad, by delivering an instant supply of resources without having to earn them first. If you're ready to jump into the action, then these are all of the gift codes for JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Golden Spirit and how to redeem them.

All JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Golden Spirit codes

The following JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Golden Spirit codes can be claimed at the moment:

• JOJOGS – 10,000x Coins, 10x Courage Crystals, 10x Refined Iron
• GS2026 – 10,000x Coins, 10x Courage Crystals, 10x Refined Iron
• JOJOFANS – 50x Astrogems, 10,000x Coins
• BIZARREADV – 50x Astrogems, 10,000x Coins
• CBT2026 – 1x Oraora
• ORAORA2026 – 50x Astrogems, 10,000x Coins
• MUDAMUDA – 10,000x Coins, 10x Courage Crystals, 10x Refined Iron
• GOLDENSPIRIT – 50x Astrogems, 10,000x Coins
• GOLDENSPIRIT2026 – 50x Astrogems, 10,000x Coins
• AX2026 – 10x Card: Uncharted Fate
• PREJOJO2026 – 50x Astrogems, 1x Card: Uncharted Fate
• JOJOGS2026 – 50x Astrogems, 1x Card: Uncharted Fate
• JOJORPG2026 – 50x Astrogems, 1x Card: Uncharted Fate

As you can see, there are a lot of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Golden Spirit codes to redeem as the developers have been particularly generous to start with. Claim them all and you'll have stacks of Astrogems and Coins to spend, along with Uncharted Fate Cards to recruit new characters and plenty of other resources.

How to redeem JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Golden Spirit codes

To redeem JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Golden Spirit codes, you first have to progress through the opening missions until your reach N1-4, at which point you can take full control over your actions. Hit your character icon in the top left corner of the screen, then from the menu that opens tap the cog icon in the bottom right corner to reach the Settings menu. From there, select Exchange Code on the list to the left, before using the text box to enter a gift code. Note that codes for JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Golden Spirit are case-sensitive, so enter them exactly as we've listed.

Expired JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Golden Spirit codes

• No expired codes

There are currently no expired JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Golden Spirit codes, as we're still in the launch period and this is all rather new. That isn't likely to last though, so make sure you claim all of the active codes while they're still working.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Fans of Middle-earth got a lovely surprise this week when The Lord of the Rings: War in the North was suddenly available again thanks to publisher Aspyr. A bit of a hidden gem among video games based on JRR Tolkien's work, one of the devs overseeing the original game is glad it's getting another shot after living in The Elder Scrolls' shadow when it launched.

Christian Allen, design director for WB Games during War in the North's development, commented on social media about the circumstances surrounding the action-RPG's release. "Wow, this is cool," he says, sharing the game's trailer. "15 years ago I argued vociferously not to release this up against Skyrim, as it wouldn't get a fair shake. I got overruled."

When you look at the release schedules, it's plain to see he had a point. War in the North arrived November 1, 2011, in the US, while Skyrim followed on November 11. There are a lot of The Lord of the Rings fans in the world, but it would've been hard for anything to compete against the sequel to Oblivion - especially since this one had dragons.

Sure enough, War in the North became an immediate casualty of Bethesda's vacuum, and pretty much died on the vine at launch. Middling reviews didn't help, pushing it further into relative obscurity.

In the replies, Allen clarifies that he was only part of the leadership team, since his role included managing IP-related pitches and releases, and that all actual credit for the game goes to the devs at Snowblind Studios. This would be their last release before becoming part of Monolith Productions in 2012.

Jump forward a decade-and-a-half, and people can give War in the North a fairer shake. Oblivion Remastered came out last year, as did Clair Obscur, and Baldur's Gate 3 was three years ago. The field is clear of major rivals, letting anyone who fancies the quest therein, where a number of heroes help in the battle against Sauron parallel to the Fellowship, enjoy it at their leisure.

Aspyr's teased more releases from the franchise's history are coming too. I've said it before, and I'll say it again - The Third Age is overdue a re-evaluation. But for now, War in the North has earned its time.

One Lord of the Rings fan is fighting back after Google removed the extended edition from their digital library

• Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls is perfect if you want to throw hands across a gorgeous celebration of Marvel comic characters in an excellent fighting system

Here's the 60-second pitch for why you should play Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls this weekend: The developer behind the excellent Dragon Ball FighterZ and Guilty Gear Strive have turned its hand to Marvel to create a 4v4 tag-fighter that's a love letter to the comics, and feels like a fresh take on the beloved combo action in Marvel vs Capcom (without the Capcom, of course). No reskin, this uses the Marvel theming to its fullest, and with a fun story to follow, great training modes, and simple controls, this is one of the easiest big budget fighters to get into without sacrificing depth.

Why play it today?

• Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls feels like the next evolution of some great gaming branches, serving as both a Marvel must-play and a next-level expression of the genre. Like Marvel or not, Tokon is simply an excellent fighting game.

Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls is the fighting game equivalent of hero shooter Marvel Rivals. It's the next big budget Marvel game before Marvel's Wolverine. It's a fresh take on the superhero tag fighting of Marvel vs Capcom 3, and the developer's follow-up to Dragon Ball FighterZ.

Visually, Marvel Tokon is a stunner, continuing to build on Arc System Works' anime style that almost looks 2D until the camera whips around to highlight the impact of attacks. A Japanese studio, this take on Marvel is infused with nods to the culture, such as vampire hunter Blade having trained as a samurai, or Iron Man's armor looking almost Kamen Rider-like. But, it's heaving with nods towards Marvel comics as well, feeling like a love letter to the medium right the way down to deep cut references, and menus designed to look like comic book drafts.

As ever, the best time to check out a new fighting game is always as soon as possible. There's just something special about learning a new system alongside a community as everyone figures out how it all works. Knowing Marvel Tokon may appeal to comic or film fans first and foremost, great effort has gone into making the fighting controls easy to use and learn. Though, there's still some wild combos you can pull off once you get used to Tokon in action.

Time commitment:

Marvel Tokon is a great game to fit into your schedule with a low time commitment that's flexible to what you're looking to get out of it. But, don't be surprised if evenings disappear in a blur of superhero clashes.

Single-player episode content is split into separate chapters, so story content will take six or so hours to beat, with plenty of challenges and arcade modes on top. But, there's no need to play solo at all. Through online or with friends, matches themselves can take only a couple of minutes (or seconds if you're unlucky). This is a 4v4 fighter, but all your characters share a health bar, so few matches will feel like wars of attrition like you can get in Dragon Ball FighterZ.

This is an online game you'll want to keep coming back to, especially as new content is added over time through DLC fighters.

Play Marvel Tokon if you love:

Skip Marvel Tokon if you want:

One thing to know:

While Marvel Tokon has solid solo content for a fighting game, this is a genre that often lives or dies on multiplayer staying power. Whether that's matchmaking online through ranking queues, exploring room lobbies, or playing party modes; or beating up your pals locally or connected, you'll get the most out of this with other people. Don't forget that it's all good to play against players matched to your level and have fun that way. You don't need to be top of the leader boards to have a good time.

A moment you'll remember:

Batting away your opponent with the tag-based counter system and then managing to respond with a proper combo for the first time. Fighting games have a weird bell-shaped learning curve where the more you learn the worse you can feel, but nothing beats when it all comes together and you realize the squad of characters you love to play actually kind of works.

The final verdict:

In the words of Alan Wen, who penned our Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls review, this is "a stunning comeback for superhero fighters, essential for Marvel and genre fans alike". Superhero fans will find plenty to love in this gorgeous but fresh take on familiar faces, the fighting game curious will find Arc System Works' friendliest combat system to date, and fighting game veterans will cackle as they air-combo opponents into oblivion with Goblin Glider cancel combos.

So, where can you play it?

Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls is developed by Arc System Works but published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, so you'll currently only find it on PC and PS5. It is not part of any PS Plus subscription tiers at the moment.

How to get started with Marvel Tokon:

On launch, Marvel Tokon pulls you into a well-designed tutorial that will show you the basics, giving you the option to continue with more advanced training once completed. After that, you can continue to practice in the story or arcade modes, or hop online where you'll have to complete 10 casual matches before you can join Ranked matchmaking. For the most part, though, grab a controller and dive into matches! There's no better way to learn.

Have your say:

Just want more comic fun? Check out our best Marvel games ranking!

While it hasn't quite reached Overwatch's pre-relaunch numbers, Marvel Rivals has managed to court a still very impressive 40 million players around the world.

Perhaps no game has lit quite so big a fire under Overwatch's heels as Marvel Rivals, a superhero shooter that remixes that same team-based formula with a third-person perspective. Since Marvel Rivals' 2024 launch, the two games have been compared endlessly and have arguably pushed each other in the right directions, and now, we finally have some solid stats.

Disney today revealed that Marvel Rivals "has attracted 40 million players worldwide" since its release. The company's executive vice president of video games, Sean Shoptaw, says the game is "a really good example of just how powerful and meaningful these worlds can be."

A whopping 60% of those 40 million players are also under the age of 24, according to Disney. "These are platforms where Gen Z [and] Gen Alpha primarily are spending a lot of their time, hanging out with their friends," Shoptaw adds.

A huge success, for sure, and definitely an indication of how important the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies have been in giving younger audiences an attachment to these comic book characters. But Blizzard Entertainment likely isn't sweating since, even before it made a free-to-play pivot, the original paid release of Overwatch sold upwards of 50 million copies. The lively game's population has probably grown in the years since it was made freely available to anyone with a modern console or PC, as well.

Blizzard hasn't given an update on Overwatch's player figures in years, but the candy-colored hero shooter did knock out a major comeback in January with a huge update that overhauled many parts of the game, added five new characters at once, and won back fans that fallen off since the first heydays of Overwatch. Blizzard also apparently became Xbox's top studio after Overwatch's overperformance.

Marvel Rivals devs respond to Storm summer skin controversy, promise to do better but say harassment "is not acceptable"

JSAUX has been in the business of producing accessories for 10 years, and it's currently dropping the prices of plenty of its goodies to celebrate, including the JSAUX EnergyFlow JoyCon Charging Dock.

The charging gadget earned a 4.5-out-of-5-star review when I took it for a ride late last year, as it not only looks pretty funky with its rainbow lighting effects, but at just $22 it was a handy yet affordable addition to my setup. Now, it's even cheaper at just $16.99 at Amazon, only a few cents off its lowest-ever price of $16.14. If you don't have additional Joy-Cons, I'd steer clear, but this $17 add-on is one of the best Nintendo Switch 2 accessories I've used to date and a dazzling tool to have in your gaming arsenal.

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The JSAUX EnergyFlow Joy-Con Charging Dock is a controller holder and charger in one - perfect for anyone with an additional pair of Joy-Cons, it can charge up to four of Nintendo's controllers at a time. Essentially, you could have your handheld sitting in its dock and juicing up your original pair, while this is attached via the USB-C port charging up two more.

As with most modern gaming goodies, the EnergyFlow is alight with RGB lighting, which is super luminescent and just darn right pretty. If you find lighting on your gaming tech gaudy, you'll be glad to know that there's a button on top to turn it off. You will have to remember to do so each night, and otherwise it'll be keeping your living room illuminated, or in my case, glaring into my cat's eyes as he tried to sleep on the sofa. However, it's at least nice of JSAUX to provide the option for non-RGB fans.

If you want more JSAUX discounted goodies, it seems the celebrations aren't unique to Amazon, as you can find them on the JSAUX online store too. The EnergyFlow is available for the same $16.99 discounted price straight from the source, and I recommend having a little rummage through the rest of the brand's online store, as it's the only place to find accessories like the JSAUX 6-in-1 Switch 2 Dock, which I reviewed just last week and loved just as much.

• View all JSAUX Switch 2 gaming accessory deals at Amazon

Want more accessories? Check out our guides to the best Nintendo Switch 2 controllers, the best Nintendo Switch headsets, and the best Nintendo Switch 2 cases to grab more for your setup.

Story-driven action-adventure games have a special place in my gaming time, because my wife and I have been bonding over them for years. What started as a desire to show her why I was so obsessed with Metal Gear Solid eventually became a couples' tradition, where she'd sit in and we'd enjoy the twists and turns of games like Uncharted and Yakuza together. When Insomniac announced Marvel's Wolverine, I instantly figured it'd be perfect for our gaming time together.

That thought was instantly wiped away when I saw how violent Wolverine is going to be. I can't blame Insomniac for wanting to be true to the character's violent lore, but my partner has an intense blood phobia. Even a quick glimpse of the goopy gore that permeates the game's trailers would likely be enough to push her to the edge of a panic attack.

So when Insomniac announced that it was introducing a new accessibility option for Wolverine which will allow you to toggle off blood and gore, my interest was more than academic. Alongside my hands-on time with Marvel's Wolverine, I had to get the developers' insights into implementing this option and finding new ways to cater to players – and watchers – with diverse needs.

What I do isn't very nice

While I don't have direct access to the violence options in my hands-on, creative director Marcus Smith demonstrates them ahead of my demo. "Yes, we are making a Wolverine game," he says. "Yes, it is extremely bloody. But we also understand that not everybody has the same level of squeamishness where it comes to blood. So we have settings where you can disable blood, disable gore, disable [dismemberment]."

He shows a screenshot of a character on the wrong end of Wolverine's claws. This enemy soldier is spattered with blood, with gore shooting absurdly from the spots where you'd expect. In the next screenshot, everything's the same – all the visual and emotional content is there – but the red stuff is gone. It's not a haphazard edit. It genuinely looks like a version of the game that was targeting a T for Teen rating from the start. There are other content toggles, too, like an option to turn off profanity if you simply want to make the game's dialog a bit more family friendly.

Offering these kinds of options is a big technical challenge since the gore itself is built from "a very complex set of systems," according to head of technology Mike Fitzgerald. "The way it affects characters is one thing. The way it affects environments is another thing. The way it sprays out of the characters is another thing. A lot of cinematics have custom authored blood that's independent [to what] someone very carefully painted onto a character or object. Finding all those places, making them all relate into the accessibility system the right way, took quite a bit of work, effort, and testing."

No surprises

When I first heard about these sorts of accessibility options, my instant fear was that not every edge case would be accounted for. There are, after all, cutscenes where characters get beheaded, or we see Wolverine get shredded to the bone by gunfire. In cases like those, the game simply blurs out scenes with content you don't want to see.

People like my wife have "a real reaction to that stuff," Fitzgerald acknowledges. "We don't want to surprise anyone with it when they think they have it turned off."

A part of me does wonder if these gracious nods to accessibility might undercut something of the game's bite. "The tone of this game is a bit darker, more mature than recent Insomniac games," Smith says, "and the reason for that is because we need to stay true to these characters. They have lived long and complex lives, and the only way to represent them with authenticity is to do so unflinchingly." Is a blood toggle a flinch?

"Wolverine is a brutal character," senior project director Jess Reiner-Reed acknowledges. "That's a part of the DNA of Wolverine. It is rated mature as far as topics, and as you mentioned, as far as violence, but Logan is not somebody who is ever glorifying violence. He's not cutting up people for violence' sake. He's doing it because he got into some situation. He has to defend somebody who can't defend themselves. He has to fight [against] injustice."

That distinction, I think, is why letting people play a substantially less violent version of Wolverine makes sense, even within the themes of the character. This Logan lives in a brutal world, yes, but his own brutality exists as a shield to protect others from having to endure the same hardships. And personally? I'm just glad my time playing Wolverine won't be as lonely as I feared.

We'll keep you up to date with every upcoming PS5 game worth knowing about.

The current voice of Kratos, Christopher Judge, has thrown respect towards his predecessor, TC Carson, on the back of the original God of War trilogy being remade with the first voice of the titular character in tow. To him, it signifies just how much Sony Santa Monica cares about the legacy of the series, since Carson's a large part of the reason why anyone still cares.

Judge spoke on the subject during a panel at Fan Expo Boston, per Collider. "I'm glad it worked out," he says. "And the thing I'm glad, too, is that TC isn't forgotten because where we are now is because of TC Carson and how magnificent he is."

The God of War Trilogy Remake was announced back in February, giving the first three adventures starring Kratos top-down reworks. We don't have many other details beyond Carson's involvement and that it's happening, but it's exciting as is. The original God of War and its immediate sequels haven't gotten much attention since the days of the PS3, and given how big the property is now, it's high time newer fans got a history.

"I'm so happy that they're remastering the original games, and then that will find a new audience, and I just think it's wonderful," Judge adds. I'm somewhat curious both what creative liberties the devs take, and how the games themselves land overall. These are different games to the 2018 installment and Ragnarok.

Their worlds aren't as big, Kratos is more two-dimensional, he's got no little companion around him, and there are jokes and set-pieces that haven't aged well. If you know, you know. All I'm saying is I neither expect, nor necessarily want, these to be one-to-one updates.

To finish, Judge, who's been the voice of Kratos since the 2018 game and is now very much a face of the franchise, says Sony Santa Monica's reverence for the fanbase is what's keeping the series going strong after two decades. "That is a testament to not only Cory [Balrog, creative director at Santa Monica Studio], but all of Sony Santa Monica and their investment in this," he explains.

"They actually respect the fans," Judge continues. "Like, it's not that hard of a thing to do. You ask people to pay for your product, or people invite you into their homes, the least you can do is respect what they have to say, and Sony Santa Monica actually does that."

The next God of War game is Laufey, following Kratos's wife in her journey through the underworld. It's due out next year.

God of War star Christopher Judge criticizes The Last of Us and similar adaptations for excluding people who made the games: "What are you thinking?"

The Gears of War: E-Day open beta has re-emerged for its second go, and once again, the shooter has set another series record on Steam.

Last week, the Gears of War: E-Day beta went live exclusively for pre-orderers and Game Pass Ultimate subscribers, but that didn't stop the taste test from beating every other game in the series when it came to concurrent Steam player numbers. Now that the beta is finally open to everyone on PC and Xbox Series X|S, the chainsaw-gunning prequel has pulled off the trick for a second week in a row.

About eight hours ago, the open beta managed to horde together 22,084 Steam players at the same time. The first leg of the beta pulled a crowd of 18,000 concurrent players on Steam, which was already bigger than every other game in the series that's released on the platform, including Gears of War: Reloaded (just under 5,000), Gears Tactics (7,351 players), and Gears 5 (over 10,000).

Of course, those numbers don't include the Xbox Series X|S and Xbox PC players who roadie ran into the fray. According to Rhys Elliott, head of market research at Alinea Analytics, about 1.2 million Xbox console players tried out the first stretch of the beta last week. That crowd will no doubt get much larger as more people gain entry.

Should you be interested in shotgunning bug monsters into meat chunk confetti, the E-Day open beta is live until August 17. The early look includes a tutorial, the PvP Versus mode, and the massive PvE Horde Siege mode that has three different squads tackling side objectives and fending off waves of enemies in crumbling city streets.

Burying EA, Gears of War: E-Day devs say there's no "pride and accomplishment" grind, just "old-school" unlocks from playing the game

Pokemon Pokopia has only been out in the wild for a little over five months now, but with the recent release of its first DLC Bubbly Basin, it's managed to hit over five million sales.

That's no small feat, seeing as that marks it as Nintendo's second best-selling game on the Switch 2 – after Mario Kart World, of course, which itself boasts over 15 million copies sold, last we heard officially.

The company confirmed the exciting Pokopia-shaped news yesterday, as per Business Wire, with word of its five million sales coming shortly after the release of Bubbly Basin: the cozy spin-off's first-ever expansion, focusing on islands' water rather than land.

In Bubbly Basin, there's a brand-new underwater town to explore, ocean-themed Pokemon to befriend, mermaid-esque furniture to collect, and various outfits to snag.

It's the first part of Pokemon Pokopia's recent expansion pass, which comes with three DLC: Bubbly Basin and two mysterious additions that Nintendo has yet to fully unveil. As it stands now, the pass is $34.99 and includes 30 rare Pokémetal items if purchased before August 31, 2027.

That's quite a bit of time – and, personally, I wonder how Pokopia will be doing by then. Will it boast even more sales? Probably. It strikes me as the infinite-life sort of sandbox sim game that Minecraft is, with no real limit to playtime.

The capacity to build and explore seems endless (heck, so much so, that I feel like I'm constantly encountering complaints that there's too much to do and it's almost overwhelming to folks).

I'm excited to see what the future holds for Pokemon Pokopia – and for us eager players as well, with the second and third part of Nintendo's expansion pass.

Pokemon Pokopia was bioengineered to be the "best selling spin-off" according to Koei Tecmo CEO, but he had no "real expectations" for the cozy game until it became an international hit

Disney has nine game franchises that have made over $1 billion, and Kingdom Hearts is one of them, which should hopefully raise the chances of seeing Kingdom Hearts 4 at this weekend's D23 panel.

Disney's executive vice president of global games, Sean Shoptaw, recently announced the firm holds "nine games that have grossed over $1 billion at retail" and emphasized the importance of "telling truly original stories that really are unique to this medium, specifically."

The Disney exec didn't list all nine of the company's $1 billion gaming franchises, but he did single out Kingdom Hearts and Marvel Strike Force as examples.

The Square Enix series has been putting clown-footed anime protagonists into the background of iconic Disney scenes for about 24 years and 13 games, so it's likely Kingdom Hearts grossed a modest $1 billion a while ago, but this is the first time the company has publicly given the series its flowers in this fashion.

And the timing couldn't be more perfect - especially if, like me, you've been patiently waiting for more Kingdom Hearts 4 news since its reveal 1,587 days ago... or something... not that I've been counting.

The long-awaited sequel finally reared its head with a new trailer earlier this summer, and fans are convinced that another look is right around the corner at this weekend's The Deep Dive into Kingdom Hearts D23 panel, owing to the fact that the game's co-director and cast are confirmed to be in attendance. We still haven't seen any actual Disney worlds in the Disney crossover project - now's a good a time as any to show Sora punching up with Peter Griffin, then.

Last we heard, Kingdom Hearts had sold over 38 million copies over its entire history. That was just before Square Enix put out a mammoth All-In-One Package full of re-releases last year, and then another re-release package with this year's Kingdom Hearts Collection.

Further proving Kingdom Hearts' existence is a miracle, ex-Disney CEO says he can't even remember why he greenlit the JRPG in the first place

Halo: Campaign Evolved's lack of PvP multiplayer is probably the remake's biggest drawback, a baffling letdown for fans of the original 2001 classic FPS with beloved memories playing against friends in the same room on the same TV. I'm having a great time playing through the campaign in co-op mode with a few pals, but what good is playing games with friends when you don't end up hating each other at the end?

Anyway, Halo: Campaign Evolved doesn't have PvP, and Halo Studios has provided zero indication that it'll be added at any point. One prominent analyst has suggested this fact is one of the key reasons the Halo remake isn't selling nearly as well as a pair of newly released Call of Duty ports, and now one of the progenitors of the Halo franchise is straight-up calling the game's lack of PvP a mistake.

"Split screen MP in Campaign Evolved should have been included. There's little excuse aside from lack of oversight and poor planning that led to this misstep," says Halo co-creator and OG Combat Evolved art director Marcus Lehto on Twitter. So sad this wasn't included."

Lehto confirms in a follow-up tweet that he's specifically referring to Halo: Campaign Evolved not having "PvP".

Of course, there's always the possibility that Halo Studio ends up adding PvP to Halo: Campaign Evolved, but honestly, even just considering the title of the remake, which clearly indicates the specific mode included in the package, it seems pretty unlikely. Still, Lehto adds that it would be "awesome" if that were to happen.

Lehto hasn't been shy to share his thoughts on the remake online, calling the campaign "simultaneously a blast from my own past and fresh re-envisioning of the game I helped create." However, in addition to the whole PvP thing, or lack thereof, Lehto also criticized the look of the new ring world.

"While Forerunner tech was metal (not stone) it was also ancient, vast, alive, and a tomb to the horrors that lurked within," he said. "It had seen hundreds of millennia of conflict. Yet the game shows it as shiny metal that looks like it was built a few years ago."

Be sure to check out our Halo: Campaign Evolved review to hear our full thoughts on the game.

Here are the best FPS games you can play in 2026.

10 long years since Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, all of us Naughty Dog fans are ready for more Nathan Drake, even as the studio presumably barrels full-steam ahead on Intergalactic: A Heretic Prophet. We still have the Uncharted: Nathan Drake Collection, which includes beautiful remasters of the first three games, as well as the excellent Uncharted 4, on modern platforms, but for people like me who've played those games so many times you could recite the scripts by memory, the itch for another adventure in that world is stronger than ever.

Original Uncharted: Drake's Fortune designer Benson Russell feels the same, and just in case Naughty Dog is taking its marching orders from me and him, we don't want another remaster or remake.

"Uncharted as a thing is still in the zeitgeist," Benson tells FRVR. "There's already a version you can play on modern consoles [to] get the experience. What's the point of remastering [or remaking] it? ... You'd have to rewrite the whole story to make it better which means you're going to change the spirit and you're going to change the scenes and what the first one was about, right?"

Having played the Drake's Fortune remaster not too long ago, I think it holds up pretty well considering it first released in 2007, almost 20 years ago now, but again, I might be biased due to the amount of times I've played through it over the years. Even if its gameplay is a little dated and it doesn't nail the cinematic beats like, say, Uncharted 4, I definitely agree that a full-blown remake feels unnecessary at this point.

From Benson's perspective, the Uncharted series is still a modern-enough IP that it won't attract a "new audience" with a remake of Drake's Fortune, and he'd rather see Naughty Dog "take the lessons of Uncharted 4 and make a new game that’s in the past or wherever you need it to be." Benson adds that he felt the same way about Naughty Dog's somewhat controversial remake of The Last of Us. "These are old games for a reason," he says.

Ultimately, an Uncharted remake would feel "more like a cash grab than it would feel like anything necessary at this point," argues Benson, which is what a lot of fans thought about The Last of Us Part 1 when it came out. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is a good deal older than The Last of Us, and it does feel that way when you play it, but with Naughty Dog only able to take on so many projects at once, I think most would agree an Uncharted 5 or prequel is much more attractive than Uncharted: Part 1.

OG Last of Us designer is still "pissed" about Naughty Dog re-doing his work for the remake: "It is literally taking my scripts, pushing delete, and putting all new scripts in"

A Pokemon PC port known as Gen1Recomp has been going viral over the past few weeks, thanks largely to mods turning the original Game Boy RPG into a three-dimensional voxel world. The project launched with support for Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow, and beta support for Pokemon Gold has just been implemented. Developer BryanThaBoi has also thoroughly answered questions about the project's AI use – though those answers may not be what you're hoping to hear.

Gen1Recomp functions similarly to other PC ports we've seen of classic games. It can play classic Pokemon games pretty much as you remember them, just as an emulator would, but with additional graphics options. Wanna play the game with an ultra-zoomed-out view allowing you to see miles of the map at once? You can do it.

The actual exciting part of these PC ports, however, is the modding potential. Gen1Recomp already has a ton of mods, including some that turn the entire game world into a 3D voxel map, allowing you to see it from an all-new perspective. That's a novelty that's helped shoot Gen1Recomp into stratospheric popularity.

If, however, you don't like your fan-projects to be AI-powered, I'm afraid there's some bad news: Gen1Recomp was made with AI. Or, rather, it was made with help from AI – a distinction BryanThaBoi is very keen to emphasize.

"no, the recomp was not 'made with claude,'" the dev says in a statement on Discord. "was AI used? yes. those are two different sentences and the whole problem is that most people hear them as one. Specifically, using AI = vibe coding. Which is not true. It CAN be true, but in this case it is not."

BryanThaBoi suggests that "vibe coding" is specifically the work of an inexperienced developer who's using AI to paper over the gaps in their own knowledge. That's the kind of thing that the devs behind PS3 emulator RPCS3 were trying to head off when they stopped accepting AI code submissions altogether earlier this year.

But BryanThaBoi insists that his use of AI is different: he's an experienced software developer using AI as an assistant tool, just as he does in his day job. That's the kind of sentiment we saw Valve boss Gabe Newell express when he described AI as a "cheat code" for developers.

"when someone asks me point blank 'is it AI' i have said no, because in the way they mean it, it isnt," BryanThaBoi says. "the second you say 'i use AI' the assumption is vibecoded, hands off, doesnt even know how to develop. thats not what happened here. So it's close to impossible to answer people like this who either have a closed mind about the subject, or dont understand it at all and are just mad any AI touched anything ever."

To those angry about his stance, BryanThaBoi offers a GIF in response. It says "eat a shoe," and you can probably guess what it depicts. I suppose there's something to be said for making your stance clear, but I doubt this response is altogether endearing to anyone who's rejecting AI outright.

These are the best Pokemon games of all time.

Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls has managed to sell a total of 485,000 copies across PS5 and Steam in the week since it launched, but Alinea's head of market analysis Rhys Elliott guesses the 4v4 tag team fighter could have done much better than that if Steam reviewers didn't hate its PC port so much.

The game itself is great. Guilty Gear Strive developer Arc System Works predictably infused Marvel Tokon with its characteristic, ostentatious combat style and vibrant art, leading writer Alan Wen to say in GamesRadar+'s four-and-a-half-star Marvel Tokon review that the game makes you "so convinced that it's 2D animation of the highest caliber until you launch an opponent or execute a screen-filling super skill." Notably, Wen played the game on PS5. Many of Marvel Tokon's Steam reviews, instead, fixate on the fact that the game requires a PSN account to play on PC, and then it crashes, and they bemoan missing Linux support, which makes Marvel Tokon incompatible with the Steam Deck.

Marvel Tokon's overall Mixed Steam rating is complicated in this sense – many of its 2,658 total negative reviews have no problem with Arc System Works's actual game. But they see Marvel Tokon as a representation of everything currently wrong with PlayStation, which is now experiencing the beginning of the three million years of bad karma it's earned for its decision to stop producing physical game discs.

A popular negative Marvel Tokon review with over 1,000 "helpful" ratings on Steam explains it this way: "As much as I adore this game, i will call out the blatant bullsh*t Sony pulled to make TOKON on PC the way that it is... My review will remain negative until the game is optimized enough for all users that can run the minimum reqs, as well as Linux support at some point…"

So, yeah, according to Alinea, Marvel Tokon moved 485,000 copies and made $33 million. It should be a full-fat comeback story for Marvel fighting games, a niche previously made boring by the underwhelming Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite in 2017, but Elliott emphasizes that 485,000 copies sold is a minimum.

He recognizes Marvel Tokon's Steam launch "was marred by performance issues, bugs, intrusive DRM, and no Linux support." And "the Steam review score is pretty telling," Elliott continues, "at under 50% positive as I write this. It's just 19% positive among those who played under an hour, suggesting a wave of bounce-and-refund players."

"Arc has been patching hard, and many issues are already fixed, but first impressions are sticky," he concludes. "Tokon might have sold closer to 1M if the Steam stuff hadn't been such an issue. Word of mouth was cut short." Huh, it sounds like prioritizing people over the mirage of fast, infinite growth is important. Who knew.

Sony killing PlayStation discs will make PS Store prices cheaper, former Square Enix financial exec says, and you only need to look at Steam to understand why.

Rebel Wolves has made a lot about Blood of Dawnwalker's open-ended campaign and completely non-linear narrative path, having previously said "everything is optional" in the vampiric open-world RPG. In a new video overview of the upcoming title, the developers take that design philosophy and frame it like a challenge, confirming that you can beat the final boss the moment you leave the tutorial section and preemptively handing out "legend" status to anyone capable enough to do so.

"You have one clear goal, but there's no single linear way to complete it," Rebel Wolves says in the below video. "Every activity and quest is optional and serves as a building block of your own crafted experience. The valley is a big place open for exploration. You can look for opportunities to learn new things and find allies, or you can even decide to storm [main antagonist] Brencis's castle as soon as you're out of the prologue.

"However, remember that defeating him as a freshly made Dawnwalker will be a feat worthy of legends."

I don't know how to respond to that besides saying: challenge accepted. I'll no doubt eat my words when the time comes, but damn it I'll try. Just like in 2017 when I confidently glided into Hyrule Castle to kill Ganon right after getting my paraglider only to get stomped by the first of the Blight Ganon bosses, I won't let hard-lost lessons get in the way of video game convention defiance where it's allowed.

The Blood of Dawnwalker is easily one of my most anticipated games this year, even amid other big September releases like Marvel's Wolverine, Control Resonant, and Halloween: The Game (that's right). I'm obsessed with vampire lore and have been desperately waiting for a good RPG adaptation, and with The Witcher 3 director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz at the helm of Blood of Dawnwalker, there's a lot of reason to think this might be The One.

Everything I've seen, as well as hands-on insights from Blood of Dawnwalker previews from GamesRadar+ and other outlets, has been highly encouraging. It's definitely too early for a verdict, but I know what I'll be drinking on September 3, and it ain't red wine.

The Witcher 3 director says solely aiming for high sales is a great way to make a game "fail," and he wants to measure his new RPG The Blood of Dawnwalker by the "opinions of fans."

Bethesda recently breathed, or gently sighed, new life into The Elder Scrolls 6 by getting Xbox CEO Asha Sharma to tweet about a "live playthrough" of the game she apparently experienced in some form. The brief, top-level mention re-confirming the existence of the Skyrim follow-up some eight years after its announcement successfully whipped up the Elder Scrolls player base by obscuring its official subtitle behind eight loud asterisks, leading to a soft consensus on what that subtitle is.

And yet, despite Xbox and Bethesda's collaborative effort to revive Elder Scrolls 6 discourse without actually saying anything of substance, not to mention the rebellious display put on by OneBGS Union in protest of Microsoft's recent layoffs, the intrepid indie developer making their own Daggerfall-style RPG isn't deterred, now 132 days into development.

You might've caught wind of The Indie Scrolls through frequent updates posted to the apparently solo developer's Twitter account, or via this writeup from GamesRadar+'s Ashey Bardhan, but in case you hadn't, well, it's an indie take on the Elder Scrolls universe with beautiful pixel art and overall presentation reminiscent of The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall.

The latest update, shared on August 13, shows an armed and armored player character exploring a quaint farm, abruptly made less quaint by the protagonist's butchering of a poor little brown chicken by sword and fire. I'd say I'm impressed by the detail of the bloody chicken corpse, but frankly, I'm equally disturbed.

The developer, going by RAIZA online, has previously said the Indie Scrolls is "inspired by TES but in a Daggerfall visual key," and is designed with "modern and updated RPG gameplay but with classic graphics," you know, "since TES 6 is [taking] forever to come out." It isn't clear when the project will release, but if we're going purely off the consistency and pace of updates shared with fans, I'd put my money on The Indie Scrolls coming out before The Elder Scrolls 6.

Now that The Elder Scrolls 6 is playable, Bethesda's RPG nightmare of its own making is nearly over

The devs behind Palworld have never been shy about collaborations in their monster collector. Valheim, Ultrakill, and Terraria are just three notable partnerships Pocketpair's orchestrated. But the latter drew some ire lately, prompting an explanation on Palworld's collabs from the company's ever-present head of publishing and communications, John "Bucky" Buckley.

"I think the Terraria collab in Palworld was pretty great!" Buckley said on Twitter. "Completely understand some people would prefer a more lore-first approach but we've been very open about our fun-first approach since day one!"

That much is hard to argue against. Palworld's been a joyful, upbeat, anarchic game since the moment it was announced. The "Pokemon, but with guns" first impression gave way to a boisterous blend of survival mechanics and good old fashioned rounding up of cute critters.

Each collaboration has been predicated on increasing the laughter therein – I mean, why else does a game with cute animals work with a game called Ultrakill? On the back of this statement, Buckley then points out that Pocketpair's actually extremely picky about who gets near the massive fantasy adventure.

"If it really doesn’t make sense then obviously we would never go ahead with it," he adds. "You guys simply do not realize the sheer number of collabs we've rejected or scrapped for that reason."

He doesn't provide any further details – why would he? – but given Palworld's huge numbers, especially since launching 1.0, I can easily believe him.

Palworld has a reputation to uphold, and it's admirable Pocketpair's not done anything purely for what'd be an obvious payday, or a higher profile. It just makes the community seem all the more special. I mean, when you're able to do your own weirdo dating sim, what can anyone else offer you, really?

New Palworld patch makes building bases over water much easier, and finally lets you earn World Tree Holy Water through expeditions rather than just farming.

When does Fortnite Season 4 of Chapter 7 start is a question we have the answer to now, as Override will get underway on August 20, 2026. The tagline for the fresh season is "Break the rules. Change the game." so you can expect things to get switched up, with new areas of the map to explore, familiar faces and new characters to meet, and no doubt some updated mechanics to get to grips with.

Epic aren't known for resting on their laurels and are always planning the next stage of development in Fortnite, so there will certainly be more changes brought in during the course of the upcoming season and beyond. If you're looking forward to Fortnite Season 4 of Chapter 7 and are wondering what changes it may bring us, then here's everything we know about it so far.

What will be the biggest changes made for Fortnite Season 4 in Chapter 7?

A significant change being introduced affects your collection of Fortnite Sprites, with all of those you've rounded up in Season 3 being immortalized in the new Sprite Garden. You can visit this island getaway to play with your Sprites, use it to showcase your collection, and also visit friends' sanctuaries to see theirs. Season 4 will feature a whole new generation of Sprites to collect, which will immediately be added to your Garden as you catch them.

In a leaked teaser trailer for Fortnite Season 4 in Chapter 7, we catch a glimpse of the Tetris crossover which is due to kick off the season. This is rumored to feature tetrimino-shaped clouds, a Junk Rift item that drops tetriminos from the sky, and a Tetris-themed POI or Landmark, with more additions likely. Eagle-eyed viewers have also spotted clouds in the shape of Dr Eggman and a Pac-Man Ghost, suggesting more gaming crossovers will be involved.

This is backed up by another leaked teaser for a Sonic the Hedgehog crossover, which should include a Sonic skin, a mythic item so you can run faster, and a themed POI on the map.

It was also originally thought that there would be a crossover with either Minecraft or Five Nights At Freddy's as the phrase "Survive the night" had been discovered, but it turns out this is actually for a 99 Nights in the Forest collaboration.

Separately, a new "Recap" website has been discovered, which should be launching around the same time as Fortnite Season 4 in Chapter 7. This should let you view and share your stats from individual seasons, including hours played, matches played, XP points earned, eliminations, quests completed, and more!

How much will the Fortnite Season 4 in Chapter 7 Battle Pass cost?

Fortnite is free to play, but buying the Battle Pass will get you lots of additional rewards. The Fortnite Season 4 of Chapter 7 Battle Pass will be available for 800 V-Bucks, which means it will still be enough to purchase the smallest V-Bucks bundle in the Fortnite store, priced at $8.99 / £6.99 to get 800 V-Bucks. By completing the Battle Pass you can earn 800 V-Bucks back through unlocks, but you can no longer collect additional V-Bucks above that.

It's possible to get a head start by buying the Battle Bundle upgrade. This will get you to Tier 25 on the Battle Pass instantly. Doing so will cost you 2,600 V-Bucks, which you can get for $22.99 / £17.49. You can also sign up to the Fortnite Crew subscription service, which costs $11.99 / £9.99 per month but gives you access to all of the Fortnite Passes including the Battle Pass, as well as awarding a bonus 800 V-Bucks every month and other exclusive rewards.

If you don't want to spend any money, you can always try to get free Fortnite V-Bucks for the Fortnite Season 4 in Chapter 7 Battle Pass, but don't fall for online scams! If you choose to save up some V-Bucks, remember that you only need 800 of them to unlock the next Fortnite Battle Pass starting in August 2026.

And that's everything we know about Fortnite Season 4 in Chapter 7 for now, but keep checking back and we'll have more details as soon as they're revealed!

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Although The Sims 4 sadly doesn't feature an open-world map the way that The Sims 3 (my beloved) did, one talented modder has stepped up to the plate and is making it feel a lot more seamless and united.

How is he doing that, you might ask – and the answer is, well, by changing up the boring world selection screen and transforming it into a map that's almost reminiscent of The Sims 2 (minus all of the customization, but we can't win 'em all).

Aptly dubbed "The Immersive World Map" by creator SimMattically, the mod is rightfully making rounds online as it does what Simmers have hoped EA would do for years.

SimMattically describes it in a recent online post, calling the exciting new mod "a complete overhaul of the world selection screen, featuring a custom map design and a seamless layout that connects all Sims 4 worlds together."

He notes that it's available in early access over on Patreon, and you bet I'm running… not walking.

An attached video shows the map in action, too, and I'm all the more convinced I need it in my game.

It's downright stunning as well, combining all worlds into one unified map that just… well, makes sense. From Chestnut Ridge to San Myshuno, everything appears to fit perfectly, with bodies of water spacing out "continents."

Thematically, it all aligns, making navigation easier and less of an eyesore. I'm evidently not alone in thinking so, either, as comments show many already deem it one of the best Sims 4 mods to date.

"Beautiful and gorgeous," writes one Simmer. Another calls the mod "so sick." SimMattically confirms that it works with custom world map replacements, too – a dream come true.

He put a lot of effort in as well, stating he "did a ton of research" on every region "to see what real-world places they're based on." Then, he "tried to match them with the right culture, climate, and geography." EA could (or, perhaps more accurately, would) never.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a Patreon to subscribe to and a brand-new world map to behold – borders be damned. Maybe one day we'll even see a worthy open world mod come to light, too… a girl can have hopes here, right?

EA finally admits adding autosaves to The Sims 4 is a good idea after 12 years, slapping a band-aid on over a decade of heartbreak from crashes and lost progress

A cult classic book that served as a major inspiration for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 - you know, the game that won basically every GOTY award out there - is finally getting its first English translation.

Alain Damasio's Horde of the Counterwind, originally published as La Horde du Contrevent, became a beloved French novel more than two decades ago. It'll soon become available to the English-speaking world when a hardback copy of the book finally hits store shelves on October 13 in the US (you can find it on Abrams Books) or November 12 in the UK (and here's an Amazon link)

"Twenty-three adventurers––some trained since birth, some gathered up over the course of an interminable journey––climb endlessly against the wind that plagues their desert homeland. Their only purpose: to make it to the Upper Reaches and identify the wind’s mysterious source. Thirty-three hordes before them have tried and failed over the course of 800 years," the novel's blurb reads. "The brave warriors of this wildly imaginative universe must learn to coexist and fight to survive. Each Horde member has a unique personality and a precise duty, and collaborating as a unit is their only hope."

Alain Damasio's sci-fi cult classic deals with many of the same ideas as Sandfall Interactive's RPG. Grief and tragedy, an impending doom, a voyage to stop everyone's inevitable deaths.

For more than 20 years, the book's often been considered impossible to translate thanks to its unconventional wordplay - even the novel's English translator, Alexander Dickow, once called it "untranslatable." Much has changed in the decade since that proclamation, it seems, since he's now giving it his best shot.

Sandfall Interactive co-founder and lead programmer Tom Guillermin cited Horde of the Counterwind as an influence on Clair Obscur shortly before the game became a mammoth hit. "A story about venturing into the unknown on a dangerous adventure" fits both the book and the game, he noted in an interview with Unreal Engine at the time. That's on top of the inspirations that stemmed from Final Fantasy, Persona, Lost Odyssey, and Attack on Titan, of course.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 on Switch 2 is a "big technical challenge" because many Unreal Engine features "don't work," leads say, but Sandfall is "interested" in pulling it off

Unfortunately, reactions to Game Freak's new action-RPG Beast of Reincarnation haven't been the strongest, with players complaining about performance issues and other problsm. The studio, most widely known for Pokemon, is aware of the problems, and the devs are hard at work rectifying whatever they can.

Kota Furushima, game director, spoke to 4Gamer about the response and how the team is handling it. "I honestly feel that there are still areas in the game that require our sincere attention," he says, as translated by Automaton. "I'm truly sorry that parts of the game haven’t provided a sufficiently enjoyable experience."

It's worth noting this was before the first big post-launch patch, meaning his position may have since softened. But it's still a solid reminder that developers are often more than aware of the same problems you're seeing; they're just playing whack-a-mole with everything.

That said, Beast of Reincarnation "needs polishing," according to Fukushima, and Game Freak is digging in to provide as much as possible in the coming weeks and months. On the flipside, he's confident in the flow with your canine companion, and he believes the atmosphere is especially distinctive for the genre.

"I feel the aspect of defeating enemies alongside your partner has been well-received, and we’ve also received positive reactions regarding the overall atmosphere of the game," he comments. "I think the unique post-apocalyptic vibe of the world is resonating with many players."

I'll definitely give Beast of Reincarnation that much; it has a sense of place I'd put up there with Nier: Automata. But then, I have a soft spot for overgrown cities where plants are gradually subsuming our concrete tombs. In any case, it seems like you can expect plenty more fixes and changes to the game soon.

Beast of Reincarnation's first update is here, and it aims to fix story issues and more as "Mixed" Steam reviews dub Game Freak's new action RPG "bad and laughable"

In the ongoing horror that is the RAM Storage Crisis, you're likely reading this while struggling to budget for just 1TB of storage for your gaming PC or PS5. Yet companies like DapuStor are out there unveiling massive 512 TB solid-state drives at FMS 2026, the Future of Memory and Storage 2026 conference held in Santa Clara, California.

512 TB is a lot of space. I can barely fill up the 4 TB I have jam-packed into the M.2 slot of my PlayStation 5, so I can't imagine having enough games and data to fill 512,000 GB worth of space. Yet, as reported by StorageReview, DepuStor unleashed the massive SSD onto the world at the event's show floor, which is an industry first and the latest in the brand's R6060 QLC Series.

The huge 512TB SSD is not an M.2 2280-sized drive like the best SSDs for gaming that you can simply fit into your gaming rig, if you were wondering. But with some 4TB SSDs like the Samsung SSD 990 Pro costing as high as $999.99 (now $839.99 at Amazon) in April earlier this year according to my CamelCamelCamel price checker, that's probably a good thing. The price of a 512TB drive designed for gaming would likely amount to the same amount of cash I need to pay off my mortgage.

Instead, the 512 TB R6060, like the rest of the R6060 QLC series, is an Enterprise drive with an E2 flash form factor. These kinds of drives were typically used for archival purposes, as they can store a hefty amount of data. Now, the E2 drives, which were developed by the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) and the Open Compute Project (OCP), according to Memphis.de, are used to handle "ultra-dense storage" utilized in AI data centers and other AI-powered Workstations.

Right now, you can't just log into Amazon and pick up this hefty drive for yourself. The 512TB drive remains an enigma that was shown off at Booth #115 on the FMS 2026 show floor alongside the rest of the brand's family of SSDs. No pricing or availability has been officially announced so far, but I can only imagine the cost is going to be extortionate if everyday SSD prices continue on the uphill trajectory that they're on.

While gaming SSDs don't come in capacities quite as high, there have still been new releases amongst the dwindling stock and chip shortages. Samsung recently released the Samsung 990 SSD, a PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe M.2 drive which is available in 1TB and 2TB models. The drive launched for £212.19 / $269.99 (1TB) and £411.99 / $529.99 (2TB) and is still in stock at US retailers. Though you can grab them for $229.99 and $369.99 right now at Amazon, respectively.

Discounts on newly released game storage are pretty unheard of, so it's definitely one to grab while you still can. Or before it gets swiped up to be utilized within AI Data centers like the DapuStor's 512TB NVMe SSD.

• View all gaming SSD and hard drive deals at Amazon

Need more space? Check out our guides to the best SSDs for PS5, the best external hard drives for gaming, and the best Xbox Series X hard drives where you're here.

It took Hollywood decades to learn the truth about superheroes: the origin stories are usually the most boring part. Insomniac Games was clued into that fact from the start with the Marvel's Spider-Man games, which deliberately avoided showing us Peter Parker's fateful meeting with a radioactive Spider. It seems they're taking a similar approach with Marvel's Wolverine.

"During our story, Logan already has adamantium infused to his bones," creative director Marcus Smith explains at a preview event for Marvel's Wolverine. "He does not remember how that happened, why it happened, and we are not really covering it because we're not doing an origin story."

During my hands-on time with Marvel's Wolverine, I saw the very start of the game, which does open with a brief flashback. There, we see Logan in the woods, seemingly feral, when he meets Nathaniel Essex – a character whose name will ring a calamitous bell for X-Men fans. The scene is just a few moments, and we quickly fast-forward apparent years to the actual action.

There's a sense of history to the characters, as they regularly reference past events and conflicts, but it's all flavor that makes the world seem bigger. If you have history with Wolverine in the comics or other media, you'll have a pretty clear picture of what these events look like – if not, it'll just be there to make the characters seem richer.

It's the exact same approach we saw Insomniac take in Marvel's Spider-Man, which references Spidey's origins and history in ways that make sense and add to the story, but never explicitly spells out that story. Perhaps the most important part is that it lets players just start being a superhero from the second they load up the game – whether we're talking about Peter Parker or James Logan Howlett, there's no need to make people wait for the fun part.

These are the upcoming PS5 games you need to have on your radar.

There's a moment in the Marvel's Wolverine story trailer released toward the end of July where we see the camera pull back behind Jean Grey as she enters a dance hall. To my eye, it seemed like an obvious tease of a playable sequence featuring Jean, but looks can be deceiving – Insomniac tells me in no uncertain terms that Wolverine himself is the game's only playable character.

When I alluded to that moment with Jean Grey in the trailer in an interview with senior project director Jess Reiner-Reed and head of technology Mike Fitzgerald, they both registered a bit of genuine confusion, before they both told me, "Wolverine is our only playable character."

That'll likely be a relief to many players of Insomniac's previous superhero games. I never hated the Mary Jane stealth sections in the Spider-Man series as much as other people seemed to, but they're unequivocally the least exciting bits of those games. Insomniac going all in on the game's central hero sounds like a good thing to me.

My hands-on time with Marvel's Wolverine was still filled with loads of side characters, and many of them do have a role to play not just in the story, but the gameplay. In my demo, there were big combat sections where Wolverine is accompanied by Sabretooth or Mystique, who'll dynamically join in with your combos for little team-up moves to knock out the bad guys.

Some similar interactions with Jean were shown in the public gameplay reveal, and "there's more of that," Fitzgerald explains. "There's definitely the team vibe in that sense. But we were really focusing on Wolverine as a playable character and making sure we nailed that."

For more, check out all our Marvel's Wolverine Big Preview coverage.

Insomniac built the adamantium skeleton for Marvel's Wolverine with its Spider-Man games. The upcoming PS5 game clearly builds on the combat, the cinematic presentation, and even the progression systems of those previous titles. But after spending two hours playing Marvel's Wolverine, touring Insomniac's Los Angeles headquarters, and speaking to some of the developers bringing the game to life, it's clear that this is more than a simple reskin of Spider-Man. James Logan Howlett's burning heart beats at the center of it all.

"One thing we're really proud about at the studio is shipping games," head of technology Mike Fitzgerald tells me. "This is our fifth title on the PlayStation 5. We're really proud of that. Part of that is knowing how to build on prior games effectively. If we'd taken a Spider-Man game and put a Wolverine character model in, that wouldn't feel right. It wouldn't be right for the character. It wouldn't be fulfilling the player fantasy for the fans. So it's about building carefully on what we have and then rethinking a whole lot of the fundamentals."

So the flippy, acrobatic combat of Spider-Man – which, itself, echoes Rocksteady's Batman: Arkham series – has slowed down, with a closer camera perspective and more tightly-packed enemies. The violence is more extreme. The story is darker. And, most obviously, we're now following a linear, globe-trotting adventure rather than exploring a singular open world.

Rage against the killing machines

"Throughout development," senior project director Jess Reiner-Reed explains, "any decision we're making, we're trying to go: 'Is this right for Wolverine? Is this telling a Logan-centric story? Is this the best way we can do this to make the player feel like they're playing as Wolverine?'"

Nowhere is this intent more obvious than with the Rage system. As you fight, striking enemies and parrying their attacks, you build up a meter representing Wolverine's bestial anger. Once it's maxed out, the color drains from the scene, Wolverine powers up, and you can launch instant-kill takedowns by pulling both triggers at once. The meter quickly drains once you reach this state, but you can keep it going longer by continuing to kill.

This system really incentivizes you to be aggressive, constantly escalating the speed with which you're taking down the bad guys, perfectly in line with your character's own overflowing rage. It's introduced with a great little moment in the game, where Logan's anger at seeing his fellow mutants mistreated boils over, and you're given control with maximum Rage to rip the perpetrators to shreds. If you've seen any of the trailers for Wolverine, you'll know just how bloody this game can get. But, importantly, Logan's violence feels like an outpouring of his desire to protect others.

"He's not bloodthirsty," Fitzgerald says. "He's not a sadist. He's not reveling in the violence that he's doing. We want the game to reflect that as well. The game itself isn't like 'look at how bloody and gross we can be.' It's more like this is a natural consequence of who this character is and what he grapples with over the course of the game."

The Rage system also accounts for Wolverine's superhuman healing. You do have a traditional health meter, but as long as you've got some Rage in the tank, you can get back up and keep fighting. Die without any Rage to keep you going, though, and you'll have to restart from a checkpoint. It may not be 100% true to the specifics of Logan's mutant ability, but it does keep the spirit of those powers intact and faithfully represents the character's relentless nature.

"You wouldn't see another character with that set of abilities or mechanics," Reiner-Reed says. "This is uniquely Logan."

This is no origin story

The start of the game shows a brief flashback to when Logan was living a seemingly feral life in the wilderness, just as he meets a mysterious figure promising a home for mutants. But this isn't Professor X talking about a home for gifted youngsters. This is Nathaniel Essex, a character with a lengthy X-Men comic history as the villain Mister Sinister.

But if Essex is going to become the villain of this story, that's going to be a late game twist. Insomniac dragged out the ultimate heel turn of Otto Octavius as Doctor Octopus in the 2018 Spider-Man game, which could be the blueprint for what's happening here. For now, though, the game flashes forward, with Wolverine rejoining Mystique, Jean Grey, and Sabretooth as part of Team X to rescue Essex from the anti-mutant extremist Bolivar Trask.

What follows is something of a superpowered D-Day invasion, where I charge up a muddy hill toward a massive fort, slicing through Trask's minions as I go. While there's plenty of action and bombast, this is very much the game's tutorial, as I'm introduced to the basics of combat. The true depths of the Rage system haven't unlocked yet, but even here the combat feels meaty and rewarding.

My favorite move is pushing triangle to leap forward and quickly close the distance with an enemy. It's not entirely dissimilar to Spider-Man's Web Strike, but at this closer combat scale, it reminds me of how Batman would automatically leap between opponents in the Arkham games. Here, it's an active ingredient in the combat soup, something to stay engaged with as the rhythm of parry, dodge, slash slash slash carries on.

I find myself surprised by how quickly I can get around the game's bigger areas. Wolverine can't use web shooters to speed through these levels, but he can still move. Logan runs quickly, can climb up walls, and leap leg-shattering distances. There's an open-ended area early on where I have to take out a series of mutant-detecting alarms guarded by patrolling soldiers. It feels like an absolute playground, thanks largely to how quickly I can move through it, and how easy it is switch between brutal, stalking stealth and full-blown combat.

I'm also introduced to each of the game's major cast members, but notably, this isn't their first meeting. Nor do I hear much about Wolverine's backstory, and that's very much by design. "Logan already has adamantium infused to his bones," says creative director Marcus Smith. "He does not remember how that happened, why it happened, and we are not really covering it because we're not doing an origin story." There are already plenty of places where you can learn of Wolverine's origins, and having the specifics shrouded in mystery here helps build gravity and intrigue around his relationships.

Later in the demo, I'm whisked forward to a part near the end of the game's first act. Here, I get the culmination of all the combat tricks I've learned up to this point as I take on a massive Sentinel prototype. It's a multi-stage boss fight where I've got to wear down its various weak points to deal big damage.

It's familiar stuff if you've, uh, ever played a video game before, but it's a great little challenge. In fact, it's the only time I die outside of a later optional challenge room – and it sneaks in a few unique mechanics, like an ability to call in a sniper shot from Mystique with a tap of the R1 button, which stuns the giant machine so I can get a few extra licks in.

Madripoor me another

Eventually, Logan ends up in Madripoor, and here the game allows me a bit of a breather. The story slows down as I wander a small bar and nearby stretch of street while Logan meets up with his allies to discuss everything that's transpired. There are fun little Easter eggs to discover here – a playing card hinting at Gambit wandering around this universe, for example – but the real treat is the character interactions.

I'm impressed by just how convincing the storytelling and character performances are. There's a wonderful little moment between Logan and Mystique where they play a round of "never have I ever," as our hero is grilled on topics like lost loves. I get to choose what parts Logan drinks to, and relish the chance to get inside the character's head and imagine his past and what's brought him to this point.

There's a haunted sense of history to how Logan and the crew refer to their past adventures and the mistakes they've made along the way, and it works in part because the story is so well-delivered. The devs say getting this right was a monumental task. "Cinematics is something where there's not, 'Hey, this is just the cinematics department, and they take care [of it],'" Reiner-Reed explains. "It takes everybody. There's lighting, there's artists, there's performance and optimization, there's animation, mocap."

This Madripoor section is also my first opportunity to properly explore, finding collectables here and there that tie into the game's various upgrade systems. I'm able to unlock a few new abilities – both passive buffs and active attacks that run on a cooldown in combat – and check out some additional suits for Wolverine, but I don't have much space to actually dive into those systems before my time with the demo ends. For now, it feels more like a teaser for the fact that, yes, there will be reasons to explore and go off the beaten path in the full game.

There are also additional challenges to take on in a sort of dreamy cabin space that will apparently appear at various points across the story. Inside, Logan can interact with various totems to take on optional timed challenges, like fighting hordes of soldiers in a snowy battlefield or racing through an abstract, nearly psychedelic collection of parkour obstacles. I certainly wasn't expecting to be reminded of Mirror's Edge during Wolverine, but the abstracted arenas for the traversal challenges put me in a similar frame of mind. These time trials are fun enough, but those that I played were pretty simple and easy. I was able to get not just a gold rating, but platinum after just a couple of tries.

The combat challenge I took on, however, really put me through the ringer. Here, I had to manage an array of goons pelting me with fists and bullets while I whittle down a big, muscular brute with parries, dodges, and strikes – then I had to do it again, with a second wave of foes, all within a strict time limit. I failed this one over and over, but I had a great time doing it, and really learning the fight made my eventual success feel pretty sweet. The solution? Rage. Building up that rage is essential.

Before playing Marvel's Wolverine, I was afraid I would miss so much from Insomniac's previous Spider-Man games. Sure, the combat and missions in those games were fun enough, but the truly excellent part was swinging through the streets of New York City at breakneck speeds and digging for little odd jobs and side missions along the way.

Going hands-on with the game completely erased those fears. Insomniac has repurposed the fundamentals of its previous games here, yes, but it's done so in a way that feels appropriate for Logan. The turn from friendly neighborhood wall-crawler to this brooding new hero makes all the difference.

More from our interviews with the Marvel's Wolverine developers and further impressions from our hands-on time are still to come. For now, here are the upcoming PS5 games you need to have on your radar.

Pokemon Bank is officially shutting down on February 26, 2027 - meaning the last proper route to move Pokemon from older generations to the Switch era is being cut off.

Pokemon Day is February 27, and to celebrate, The Pokemon Company has plans to leave our dusty, sometimes life-long pocket monsters stranded on the Nintendo 3DS. But at least it's giving us time to prep beforehand.

"Pokemon Bank, a Nintendo 3DS application that lets players deposit or withdraw Pokémon they have befriended in Pokemon titles on that system from online Boxes, will be ending service," the company writes in its announcement.

3DS players had long been able to store the critters they caught in Pokemon Black and White, Black and White 2, X and Y, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, and Sun and Moon using the handheld system's Pokemon Bank app. Using some creative workarounds, even Pokemon from the GameBoy era were able to be preserved.

Of course, Pokemon Bank was eventually delisted alongside the entire system's eShop in 2023, but since then, fans have been able to transfer creatures over to the Nintendo Switch generations using the more modern Pokemon HOME alternative - as long as you're a paying member, I should add.

"As a result, transferring Pokémon from Pokémon Bank to Pokémon HOME will also no longer be possible," The Pokemon Company continues. "If you have Pokémon stored in Pokémon Bank that you wish to carry over, please move them to Pokémon HOME prior to Pokemon Bank's end of service. Please note Pokemon Bank is not currently available for download."

While Pokemon Bank compatibility is coming to an end, the price of a Pokemon HOME Premium membership isn't changing. To make up for the loss, The Pokemon Company is simply increasing the number of creatures you can store from 6,000 to 9,000 Pokemon starting this October. The Switch ports of Pokemon LeafGreen and FireRed are also getting Pokemon HOME support at the same time.

In any case, you have less than 200 days to dust off your old 3DS clams or 2DS bricks, scramble to find a charger that's probably tangled into oblivion, and save your childhood 'mons from being permanently lost in a dark digital void. Does a Jigglypuff still sing if no one can hear it?

$9,000 eBay auction might hold a secret Pokemon game that's been lost for 20 years

There are many, many downsides to Sony ending physical disc production in 2028. However, one small silver lining, according to a former higher-up at Square Enix, is that games will get cheaper.

On Twitter, Jacob Navok, director of business development at Square Enix from 2010 to 2015, commented on the nature of video game pricing. "Competition between publishers is what drives pricing pressure, not competition between digital stores," he says. "This is because publishers set pricing on digital stores."

The likes of Epic Games Store and Steam having to compete makes life better for developers, because their cuts improve - hypothetically, at least - and on digital storefronts, the basement continually lowers for many releases. "You can see how the floor moves downward," he says, showing a chart of Final Fantasy 16's pricing on Valve's platform as an example. "It moves downward because as the title competes with other titles, it gains a natural downward pressure."

His stance, then, is that Sony going fully digital through the PS Store adds another layer, because it'll force publishers to be more wary of their libraries and each other. "The more the PlayStation Store becomes digital only, the greater this trend will accelerate," Navok observes. "You will see more sales and dynamic pricing similar to Steam because publishers will compete among themselves to a greater extent."

Even before considering how publishers have more control over the end price for digital goods over physical, the mere fact that manufacturing and shipping costs won't be involved means we should see cheaper games. Throw on top of that the direct competition, and you have a climate where releases will likely become easier to afford, especially during sales, when more companies will vie for your attention and money.

But that doesn't change the erosion of consumer rights due to the precarities of digital ownership, nor does it negate the lack of a physical option for people who want one. Sure, Final Fantasy 16 might reach new lows price-wise quicker, but fans looking for a disc version are being cut off. It's give-and-take, and whether this is ultimately good for PlayStation users is a matter of perspective.

Square Enix doesn't promise to keep games playable forever, but it will "continue to create pathways" for fans to enjoy them "even after service has ended"

Marvel Rivals studio NetEase has now responded to hours of fan backlash aimed at a new costume for Storm, promising that the X-Men icon will receive more cosmetics in the future.

This week, Marvel Rivals announced a new set of Summer Special swimsuit cosmetics for a bunch of heroes, including beach-themed skins for Magik and Scarlet Witch, but it's Storm's summer costume in particular that spurred intense online backlash within the community.

A 'JusticeForStorm' hashtag went semi-viral, and all of Marvel Rivals' online posts were flooded with complaints accusing the game of neglecting the weather-controlling mutant, at best, and of racial bias against the game's limited roster of black heroes, at worst.

For context, Storm's Sacred Skies skin was the only swimsuit cosmetic for a female character to be Epic tier, rather than the Legendary skins that every other woman in the heroic lineup enjoyed. That also meant the cosmetic came without the modified visual effects that Legendary skins normally offer - plus, the bundle's very limited recolor options didn't help matters. Having the only black woman in the game excluded certainly didn't look good to many.

And while the subpar Storm skin may have been the catalyst, criticism of Marvel Rivals' (mis)management of black heroes has been bubbling for months now. One player noted that Black Panther hasn't gotten a store skin in well over a year, while Storm's one and only Legendary skin came almost two years ago.

Of course, Marvel Rivals is a free-to-play superhero shooter that lives or dies based on cosmetic sales, so you'd expect NetEase to put more resources into its best-selling characters. That's understandable, sure. But white heroes with similar pick rates often receive far more support than characters like Blade, Moon Girl, and Black Panther - and the concept of Elsa Bloodstone, of all people, getting more support than Storm, a frequent X-leader and comic book trailblazer, is pretty absurd even without the wider context.

"We've seen the community's feedback regarding today's announcement of Storm's most recent costume as well as the overall sentiment towards her cosmetic options," developer NetEase writes in a new social media post. "We hear your passion and want to share our plan going forward with the community."

For starters, the studio is upgrading the Sacred Skies swimsuit into a Legendary costume at no extra cost to buyers. "This upgrade will include an all-new lobby animation and an updated MVP animation" at its current price of $16.

Looking to the future, NetEase is also promising "there will be more Storm Legendary tier costumes coming, so please keep your eyes on the skies over the rest of the year."

All the discourse may have made NetEase reverse course on its plans, but the studio is still quite rightly urging players to keep things respectful: "While we understand that tensions run high, harassment of our staff, including the development team and moderators, is not acceptable. As the upgrades will take some time, please be patient, as we are already hard at work on the above. Get ready for the Mistress of the Elements to reign over the battlefield soon."

Marvel Rivals Season 9.5 update will shrink the game by up to 40GB thanks to a texture revamp from NetEase

Now that Resident Evil Requiem has been out in the wild for nearly half a year, we can look at how Capcom's latest survival horror has performed in the market – and whether folks have opted to go physical or digital with it.

The topic of physical game copies and companies' choice to lean more into digital versions has been in the limelight recently following Sony's decision to end disc production for new titles on PlayStation consoles in 2028.

It's safe to say it's quite the hot topic, with game preservation experts predicting it'll just lead to more piracy and folks in the industry speaking out against the move toward digital-only gaming.

How are physical copies performing in the market, though? Well, when it comes to new games like Resident Evil Requiem, it seems they're doing good enough… except for in the United States, apparently.

According to The Game Business co-founder Christopher Dring (as per statistics from Ampere Analysis), the split between physical and digital copies is far more significant in the US than it is elsewhere – and, I mean by a lot.

As per Dring's roundup post on the stats, the US market saw 22% of Resident Evil Requiem sales being physical, while a whopping 78% have been digital.

Overseas, it's quite a bit more even. In the United Kingdom, 60% of sales were digital and 40% physical. Over in Australia, 43% of copies sold have been physical, whereas 57% were digital. It's certainly balanced when compared to the US, anyway – but there's more.

France's Resident Evil Requiem sales have been 55% physical and 45% digital. The most balanced figures, however, come from Japan, where 51% were physical and 49% digital – that's nearly even, almost a 50/50 split.

It's an intriguing set of stats for sure, especially as it comes amid the huge physical versus digital debate. Will numbers like this affect companies' decisions moving forward? Maybe not, but it's all still informative.

I'm personally choosing to remain hopeful that we'll still see discs and other physical media prevail – even if it's on the way out. All we need to do is convince American consumers to opt for more physical copies, right? Right…?

Capcom hopes Resident Evil Veronica follows Requiem's lead in sparking interest in the wider horror series

The biggest problem with Fire Emblem: Three Houses, if I were forced to try to consider what didn't work as well as it could have in my favorite Fire Emblem game to date, is that it locks you into something like 50 hours or more of a single route early on. In a game with four of them total, that's a whole lot of unseen gameplay and cutscenes and dialogue. The natural solution is, of course, to simply play those 50 hours or more four distinct times, but Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave has instead actually learned its lesson and gone down a different path.

Or, more specifically, Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave goes down all of those paths at once. Narratively, the games set our protagonist on a path to travel back in time to change the fates of four distinct heroes – Cai, Dietrich, Theodora, and Leda – in order to have a chance against the demon god, Balor, in the present. (Future? Whatever, it's Intelligent Systems' fault for doing a time travel story.)

Different perspectives

Mechanically, this means you can swap around as you like to play through the events of the Heroic Games from whichever point of view you choose. Want to see what Leda was up to during that time and her personal quests, subquests, retinue, and so on? Go right ahead; you can just power through that if you want. But if you want to see contemporaneous events from, say, Dietrich, you can just swap over to his path and play. Think of it a bit like having four saves within one umbrella save that you can dip in and out of, tied together from one central hub.

That might sound a bit like rehashing a whole lot of the game multiple times, but it's actually less than it might appear. While technically all four participate in the Heroic Games, it's not really the same experience as the plots diverge and converge. As just one hypothetical example, Leda might hear about how one character lost out on a massive opportunity during a chat with them, but maybe Dietrich actually directly caused that to happen during an in-game cutscene that feeds into his story.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses notoriously tried something similar with interwoven stories, dropping lore hints or explanations across its several paths that gave context to other events or histories, but with the obvious shortcoming that any particular narrative thread connecting to another might be buried somewhere dozens of hours deep. Even if you're paying attention, it isn't always easy to catch given the gulf of time between encountering two (or more) loose ends.

It's not just the narrative aspect that helps keep the various paths distinct, however. There are plenty of supporting mechanical differences that make each one wholly unique. Dietrich, for example, can learn new abilities from special enemies he hunts down on the world map using his Hero's Relic. Leda, meanwhile, is tasked with learning new songs by finding locations to perform, which unlock Blaze Arts she can use to buff allies in battle.

These Blaze Arts, which are unique to each path's main character, are immensely powerful, but cost health with each use. Sure, Dietrich can speed around the battlefield using his strange cloak to essentially teleport, and Leda can buff a huge number of nearby characters at once, but the lower health can quickly put them in danger of being one crit away from a failed mission. Sometimes, though, it's worth the risk to body a man with a boulder from distance as Theodora.

This is all just scratching the surface, of course, and is representative of only a section of the game. All of the classic Fire Emblem features like grid-based battles that value positioning with terrain advantages, support conversations between characters, recruitable allies, and more make for a truly full experience. As someone that plugged over 200 hours into Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, I can already see myself doing similar in Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave.

And I can't wait.

Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave is set to release for the Nintendo Switch 2 on September 17, 2026. If you're looking for something to keep you busy until then, be sure to check out our ranking of the best tactical RPGs.

The first Legend of Zelda Nintendo Switch Pro Controller is still available online if you know where to look. While its Tears of the Kingdom-inspired look isn't quite as snazzy as the leaked 40th Anniversary Switch 2 Pro controller, it has the benefit of being an accessory that 100% exists, and that you can grab for not only the OG Switch, but the new handheld too. Yet if you do pick it up for the latter, you will have to be okay with missing out on waking the console from sleep mode.

The $74.99 Pro controller (which is more likely to be found for $79.99 at Amazon for a refurbished model) can only wake up the original generation of Switch consoles from their suspended naptime. Holding down the 'Home' button when connected to the Switch 2 won't do anything but result in a little green light blinking on your pad, and you'll have to physically get up and use your Switch 2 Joy-Cons to start gaming again. Yet, if you're okay with that, it's still a gorgeous Zelda-themed accessory worth picking up, especially if you don't want to wait for that leaked model to become a reality.

Originally unveiled at the end of a Tears of the Kingdom presentation held on March 28, 2023, the first Zelda Pro controller is so gorgeous that I still long to own it despite it missing not just the wake-up feature like the best Nintendo Switch 2 controller, but the GameShare 'C' button functionality too. Its black chassis is slightly transparent, giving it a more mystical appearance, as you can see bits of the accessory's PCB beneath the Zonai-tech-inspired design.

While it's not green and gold like the Tears of the Kingdom OLED Switch, I still love the fact that the circular patterning found across the faceplate feels like it matches the right Joy-Con of the limited edition console. Much like the Resident Evil Requiem Switch 2 Pro controller that launched late last year, its design feels pretty subtle as it's mostly black against black, but it still feels like a premium collectible that ties into the world of Hyrule. I'm also a sucker for those black-and-white contrasting grips.

As much as I still want to incorporate it into my current-gen Ninty setup, I have to admit that full compatibility is why I am more intrigued by the leaked Switch 2 Zelda controller. While both share the Triforce insignia, the packaging of the still-rumored pad (as shared by users like Nintendeal on X (Twitter) just screams "Legend of Zelda" more to me. It's probably its combination of the green and gold, which my brain automatically links to Link and the Triforce, doing all the work. However, I'm also partial to the inclusion of the tiny NES Link that's shown to be stuck on the back, shooting the 'Nintendo Switch 2' logo.

I'd have maybe preferred a design that felt more related to the upcoming Ocarina of Time Remake overall, as we don't really have official pads that are inspired by even the classic N64 game yet. Yet I suspect, judging from the vast amount of officially licensed third-party Zelda pads from brands like PowerA and Turtle Beach we've had over the years, that a future filled with models sporting art from the game will be an inevitability.

If you don't mind losing out on some Switch 2 features, the Tears of the Kingdom Pro Controller is still out there, though it's sold out across both the US and UK Nintendo websites. If you're happy sticking with a second-hand version, it can be found across the likes of Amazon, or starting from $71 on eBay and other second-hand stores.

• View all Legend of Zelda Switch controllers at Amazon

Already got yourself a Pro Controller? Check out the best Nintendo Switch 2 controllers, the best Nintendo Switch headsets, and the best Nintendo Switch 2 cases to grab any accessories you might be missing instead.

The CEO of publisher Saber Interactive has responded to writer Stella Sacco's claim that she was replaced by AI on developer Unigine's upcoming driving sim Rideshare "Stimulator," and it's bizarre. He says Sacco is mistaken, but he wishes he did replace her with AI.

On August 11, Sacco explained on BlueSky about Rideshare "Stimulator," "I was lead writer on this one!" But "Saber replaced me with ChatGPT midway through development. All the passenger voices were AI too" – and Saber CEO Matthew Karch doesn't outright refute this in the extravagant statement he gives This Week In Videogames.

Sacco also noted the Steam page for Rideshare "Stimulator" doesn't yet reflect the use of any AI tools. Another statement from Saber, given to GamesRadar+, roundly shoots down these claims. "Neither Saber nor Unigine have replaced any writers with AI for Rideshare or any other game," the company says. "In fact, Saber's staff of writers has tripled since 2023. Rideshare's story was written entirely by real people."

Sacco stuck to her guns in a follow-up comment to PC Gamer. "They took me off the project to use ChatGPT to write the rest of the text, including planned live updates," she says. "If they changed plans in the intervening years, that's great, but again: I was there, and it was my job to write the game, and then it wasn't once Matt Karch decided using ChatGPT would be great publicity for the game."

Karch responds, "Stella who? I had to ask Claude because I have never spoken to her or seen her," he says to This Week In Videogames. "We have already said we are using AI for certain parts of the game and will update the Steam page once we have finalized the feature set."

He maintains the Rideshare "Stimulator" script is all human-written, adding that, "Were it to win an award, it would go to someone who can walk up on stage and receive it."

Karch then claims Sacco "violated her confidentiality clause" by mentioning the game's incorporation of AI before Saber could. "It was always our intention to reveal this," he says.

"We look at our use of AI in this particular game, which will be a lower-priced title, as a plus for consumers," Karch adds. "As far as Stella is concerned, she was replaced by someone more talented and terminated for a variety of reasons a few months later. From what I can gather she enjoys controversy even more than I do. I would frankly in retrospect have been happy to replace her with AI. At least we would be dealing with someone programmed to be honest."

In another public post, Sacco triples down on her original comments. "I think it should be obvious to anyone who reads that statement that he's lashing out because he did not want people to know there was AI use in the game," she writes. "Everything I said was true. Here's more truth: that statement is remarkably pathetic for the CEO of any company to be making, and combined with the AI use it will do far more damage to Saber's reputation than it ever could mine."

I certainly wouldn't say Saber or Rideshare "Stimulator" are looking particularly good here. Generative AI is becoming pretty common in the industry, though replacing devs outright is a whole other level of ick. Plus, at the time of writing, Rideshare "Stimulator" still doesn't have the boilerplate AI disclosure on Valve's marketplace.

"Once it's finalized, we will update the Steam page," Karch tells IGN when asked about this. "In Rideshare we added an unrelated experimental mode to the game to play around with these concepts. It's not the core experience. And even in this case it required us adding two writers and multiple coders to work with AI tools to try and get a reasonable result."

He defends Saber's AI use by claiming it's about helping the process rather than downsizing. "It's not and has never been about efficiencies and team reductions. Rather it's about how AI can improve the game experience," he claims.

Baldur's Gate 3, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 star didn't believe she was in Space Marine 2 until fan messages sent her sleuthing through receipts.

Obsidian Entertainment has just put out an early access roadmap for Grounded 2's Year 2, promising everything from an expanded map to new weapons and bosses, but there are still a few secret things the developer's keeping a tight lid on.

Just a few days ago, Grounded 2 enjoyed its meaty new Into the Abyss update, which included a brand new area, overhauls to swimming and underwater exploration, plenty of new backyard critters to fend off, the surprise addition of fast travel, and much more.

But Obsidian wasted no time in letting folks know what else to expect from their shrunk-down survival game, via an updated roadmap. New SCA.B Flavor Schemes (colors for your HUD), a rotting wood pile area, and a new potato beetle mount are headlining an unnamed update due this fall.

More new buildings, building materials, buggies, bosses and creatures, and Tier 4 Omni-tools are due in the winter update. And then the ability to move your entire base is promised in the roadmap's more vague "future plans" section, alongside more of the things you'd expect.

The famed studio isn't revealing its full hand as the Year 2 roadmap has plenty of upcoming features spray-painted over. From what we can tell, the devs really don't want to ruin the surprise of one particular enemy type, two incoming areas, and a community-requested building feature. Alright then, Obsidian, keep your secrets.

Obsidian's silence hasn't stopped the community from crafting their own theories, however. "I'm guessing the next major area in the Winter update will be the Sandbox area," one fan writes over on Reddit. "The last update in the roadmap includes an expansion to the Abyss, so I'm assuming it'll be the Explosion area south of the Pond."

The other elephant (or wolf spider, in this instance) in the roadmap is Grounded 2's 1.0 release window, which isn't mentioned here at all. "We aren’t locking ourselves into a hard date just yet; it'll really depend on how things go and how much we add based on your feedback," the game's Steam page notes. "We'll keep you posted along the way!"

Fallout: New Vegas studio Obsidian reportedly working on a new Fallout RPG after forced pivot from Xbox kills Avowed 2 and other games

Hogwarts Legacy is officially getting a sequel – but that's about all we know, as Warner Bros. quietly unveiled the follow-up action RPG in a letter to shareholders.

Yes, that's right – Hogwarts Legacy 2 is happening, although it's unclear what shape or form it'll take just yet… or when it'll come.

Warner Bros. reveals the "second installment of Hogwarts Legacy," as it writes, casually in a recent letter to shareholders, first detailing how "games remain an important growth lever as we work toward our long-term Studios segment goals." That's where the Hogwarts Legacy sequel comes in.

The company mentions LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight and mobile title Game of Thrones: Dragonfire, stating, "These releases marked the first launches under our refocused strategy centered around four key $1 billion+ franchises with disciplined investment behind fewer, higher conviction titles."

Although they don't mention what four franchises these are here, we do already know Harry Potter is one of them.

"We expect Games to more meaningfully contribute to segment profitability going forward as our pipeline expands, including the second installment of Hogwarts Legacy," Warner Bros. goes on to say – and, yes, that's sadly all we've got on Hogwarts Legacy 2 for now.

It's likely that we'll learn more about the Harry Potter-inspired game soon, though, seeing as this short mention of its existence will undeniably spur various discussions. Hogwarts Legacy's release three years ago was accompanied by debate due to the views of Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling. You can read our Hogwarts Legacy controversy explainer for the full story.

Until the game releases, wizarding fans have the Harry Potter TV series to look forward to, as it's bound to come sooner than Hogwarts Legacy 2 with its December 25 release date.

The next Kingdom Come game now has a big ol' release window, and you might be pleased to hear there won't be another seven-year gap between Warhorse Studios' massive open-world RPGs.

Publisher Embracer Group put a more concrete release window on the still mysterious new Kingdom Come game, which hasn't even been properly named yet, in its most recent financial report. According to Embracer CEO Phil Rogers, the company expects whatever the next Kingdom Come is to launch before the end of its fiscal year 2028.

In less business-y terms, that means Warhorse Studios should be releasing another entry in its historical series before April 2028. At least, that's what the developer's parent company is expecting - anything can happen in game dev land, of course, and corporate expectations aren't always strictly prophetic.

We don't know much about Kingdom Come: [Insert Epic Subtitle Here], but don't worry about your favorite series suddenly heel-turning to become a medieval shopkeeping game or a horseback jousting sim. Warhorse confirmed in no uncertain terms that the project is indeed both a video game and an open-world RPG. Phew.

What makes the game's new release window such a pleasant surprise is the fact that Warhorse took seven years to make the excellent Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. Should Embracer's forecast rain true, the next game in the series will only have made fans wait for about three years - and that's without mentioning that Warhorse probably has its hands full on a The Lord of the Rings RPG that's also in development at the same time. My backlog is practically trembling from the fear of two, probably very big open-world games on the horizon, but hey, I can't complain too much about getting more adventures from the studio behind one of 2025's best games.

The next Kingdom Come game will seemingly drop the name of the Deliverance RPGs, based on a new trademark from Warhorse