Cyberpunk 2077's redemption arc is long complete, 2023's acclaimed Phantom Liberty expansion cementing the RPG's legacy as one of this generation's all-time greats. Even as I sit here in 2026 writing this, it's still jarring to talk about Cyberpunk 2077 in such a uniformly positive light, and that's because I was doing this exact same job back in December 2020 when the game finally launched after multiple delays... and got absolutely dragged through the mud. We have a curated list of the best Cyberpunk 2077 bugs we could find at the time, if that gives you an idea of the state of the game at launch.

Shortly after launch, developer CD Projekt Red began rapid firing patches and updates at Cyberpunk 2077 in an effort to address widespread performance and technical issues, culminating in the massive 1.5 "next-gen" update that really marked a turning point in the game's overall trajectory. The whole Edgerunners update and Netflix tie-in sealed the deal, and Phantom Liberty felt like icing on the cake. Cyberpunk 2077 was back, baby. And yet, its initial launch was so disastrous that it'll forever remain a scar on CDPR's resume, a fact not lost on designer Pawel Sasko.

Reflecting on three years of Phantom Liberty in a lengthy Twitter post, Sasko says: "I do not think Phantom Liberty erases the launch of Cyberpunk 2077, and I would never want to tell our story that way." I have a feeling there's a part of every person working at CDPR that wishes things were handled differently at Cyberpunk 2077's launch, but I admire Sasko's acknowledgment of the very real issues paying customers like myself faced six years ago.

"Phantom Liberty sold more than 15 million copies by now. I am incredibly grateful for those numbers, but what stays with me most after three years is what making this expansion taught me about directing games, trusting people, making choices meaningful, giving characters space to breathe and accepting the scars that come with making something this difficult," he writes.

Not to beat a previously dead horse, but Cyberpunk 2077's launch wasn't just a technical mess. It was a full-blown disaster, prompting several storefronts to offer refunds and Sony to issue a warning on the PlayStation Store not to buy the game on PS4. Yes, Phantom Liberty is great, and yes, it absolutely does not "erase the launch of Cyberpunk 2077."

CD Projekt Red worked backwards from Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty's brutal final choice "and rewrote scenes many times," lead dev says

The remaster of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt comes out tomorrow, and CD Projekt Red has released a list of the most notable changes you'll find in the mammoth RPG. You've got plenty of audio and visual improvements, of course, but there are some deeper tweaks to be mindful of, too.

One such example is in the skill trees. "Skills are now organized into a skill tree and each skill has three ranks," read the notes. "Unlocking new skills now requires having the necessary prerequisite skills rather than spending a set number of skill points."

Your existing skill points will be reset if you're importing a save file, so be wary of that, and several of the skills have been renamed to be more appropriate to what they represent. No examples are given, so it'll be worth scanning through to re-orientate yourself across your entire build.

A real quality-of-life improvement is that quest markers have been altered in your world map. Incomplete questlines have their own marker now, letting you choose what you're up to much more easily.

Another change that I quite enjoy is that meditation will now give you a neat little time-lapse rather than just putting you into a menu. This is the kind of little detail that can improve immersion, especially in longer sessions, and I'm glad it's now part of the game.

A big addition is the Bard's Ballad mode for accessibility. It's "designed to reduce cognitive load for players who experience mental fatigue or have difficulty concentrating. It streamlines gameplay by simplifying certain mechanics and disabling select features for a smoother, more focused adventure."

Anything that makes games like this more approachable and relaxing is good by me. Even the photo mode's got a look in here, with loads more options for your camera work, including the power to insert any character into the frame after you've picked your shot. Mighty.

Have a perusal of everything once the update lands tomorrow. Then you can start preparing for Songs of the Past to arrive next year.

The Witcher 3 writer behind the RPG's most iconic questline returns to CD Projekt Red after 10 years, right on time for The Witcher 4

Although The Witcher 3 came out over a decade ago now, it still boasts some of the greatest talent the video game industry has known – especially in the writing department.

Karolina Stachyra is no exception, having worked at CD Projekt Red as a senior writer on The Witcher 3 from 2012 to 2016.

She helped shape the "main storyline," as her LinkedIn profile highlights, but she also designed some of its greatest questlines – including what might just stand as the greatest of all: Bloody Baron. Stachyra created a good chunk of expansion content, too, like the Dead Man's Party quest.

In other words, she's incredibly skilled… and after about 10 years, she's returning to the beloved Witcher studio as an "expert writer" – right on time for The Witcher 4, you know.

Stachyra doesn't actually specify what projects she's working on now, however, so it might not be The Witcher 4, to be fair. There's a small chance she's contributed to The Witcher 3 Remastered or Songs of the Past as well, considering the timing.

Stachyra's profile says her new stint at CD Projekt Red started in February this year, when she joined as a freelance consultant. August is when she stepped into her presumably more stable role as expert writer – but that's all the LinkedIn specifies, really.

It's exciting to see, nonetheless, especially as her return marks yet another talented arrival at the studio. Back in May, there was senior Kingdom Come: Deliverance designer and writer Zdeněk Glatz.

Before that, CD Projekt Red welcomed other Warhorse Studios veterans, an ex-Baldur's Gate 3 dev, a former Mass Effect lead, and more – over 220 new developers, in fact.

The future looks bright for the company, if you ask me, with so much in store. There's The Witcher 4, of course, but also Cyberpunk 2 and other new titles shrouded in mystery. In other words, it's a brilliant time to be an RPG stan… that's for certain.

Searching for new games to wishlist? Browse through our roundup of the best upcoming CD Projekt Red games to keep an eye on.

Veteran Elder Scrolls loremaster Kurt Kuhlmann suggests that Bethesda's fantasy RPG series never saw a Fallout: New Vegas-like spin-off because a "very protective" Todd Howard didn't want to create another situation where people might question whether his studio is best placed to handle the series.

In a new interview with FRVR, Kuhlmann – who also served as Skyrim's co-lead designer, a quest designer on Oblivion, and more before leaving Bethesda in 2023 – implies that New Vegas's success may have unintentionally created the perception of competition between Bethesda and Obsidian, namely when it comes to which studio makes the better Fallout games.

"The whole New Vegas thing did create this, at least the perception of this, 'who makes a better Fallout game?' 'Oh, they should just give it to Obsidian,'" Kuhlmann explains. "There are the Obsidian, New Vegas people that think obviously New Vegas is way better, Obsidian is way better at making those games, and why don't they just get Fallout altogether."

Furthermore, Kuhlmann adds: "I don't know that Todd wanted to create that situation again for The Elder Scrolls. Todd, from my time there, he is very protective of it."

Even though Fallout fans might pit Obsidian and Bethesda against each other depending on their favorite Fallout games, prior evidence suggests there's no actual beef between the two studios. In an interview late last year, Howard went as far to say Obsidian was "the only choice" to create a new Fallout game after 3, and before that, the Bethesda lead had expressed his "huge respect to the folks at Obsidian" for their list of 2025 releases.

Now, you'd certainly hope there's no vicious rivalry between the two, since not only are they working on a new Fallout game together, but Bethesda has actually taken over management of Obsidian following more reshuffling and restructuring at Xbox. Bethesda president Jill Braff has reportedly stated that the New Vegas studio will keep its "creative identity," though concerns were still raised by Baldur's Gate 3 publishing director Michael Douse, who said he "can't imagine" that the move "feels great" for the devs.

Xbox is in the midst of a "reverse acquisition," analyst says, with Activision "best equipped to run the studios Microsoft built itself."

A Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 modding group has released an open beta for a mod that turns the game into an open-world multiplayer experience.

Co-op mods for games that don't exactly support it are nothing new. While most FromSoftware games do have online multiplayer, the most popular mods for them are the ones that implement seamless co-op into the likes of Elden Ring, Dark Souls 3, and even the ones that didn't have multiplayer like Sekiro Online. However, rather than continue the trend for one of 2025's biggest RPGs, the Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 modding community has instead decided to turn it into a platform.

In a post on the KCD Multiplayer website, the developers announced that the KCD Multiplayer mod for Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 is now in open beta, available to anyone who owns the game on Steam.

The developers describe it as "not a mod that adds a second player to the story, but the ground for many kinds of multiplayer on top of the game you already own." And that "The first thing you will play is free roam: ride out across the whole map with the people on your server and do what the road brings."

Anyone who launches the game on a public server will be taken to the game's RP server mode, allowing you to explore the map of Bohemia with your friends in a persistent world where doors, gates, and chests are the same for everyone.

The developers have also shared clips on Twitter showing the combat in action, with abilities like perfect blocks and ripostes implemented into the mod's multiplayer experience, with the devs noting, "Every punch, block and dodge lands the same on both screens, because the server decides the damage."

Proving Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2's authenticity, Warhorse's biggest fan hikes through Czechia "by foot" to make 3D maps of the RPG's historical locations

Cyberpunk 2077's excellent spy thriller expansion, Phantom Liberty, is three years old now. To mark the anniversary, Cyberpunk 2 associate game director and the expansion's lead quest designer Pawel Sasko looked back on the project with a few new details.

First up, it's pretty hard to ignore the stomping elephant in the room of Cyberpunk 2077's disastrous launch when talking about Phantom Liberty's impressive turnaround. To make sure Phantom Liberty dodged the base game's launch woes, developer CD Projekt Red had to "rethink how we were making games," Sasko writes on social media.

"During Cyberpunk 2077 development we had worked in a structure much closer to a waterfall model, where work moved between departments and many decisions accumulated around leads and directors," he explains. "For Phantom Liberty we moved toward multidisciplinary content teams, our pods, where designers, writers, cinematics, art, audio, QA and many other disciplines could work on the same piece of content together. It took a long time to learn how to work this way, but once it started clicking, I could feel the difference."

The team also "looked at spy fiction" for inspiration on the Idris Elba-fronted story, which sees protagonist V infiltrate Night City's even more dangerous and lawless Dogtown. "We looked at spy fiction ranging from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy to James Bond, The Bourne Identity, Bridge of Spies and Ocean’s Eleven," Sasko says, with genre becoming a "very practical tool for me." You can even see some James Bond influence when V moves through the lux Black Sapphire party - not to mention the incredibly stylish musical opening sequence.

Now's the time to look away if you've yet to play Phantom Liberty and want to avoid all spoilers, because Sasko also goes into that brutal final decision where V chooses between saving Songbird or helping Reed. It was "one of the most important things for us during development," and CD Projekt Red apparently "worked backwards from it and rewrote scenes many times." Part of what makes the decision so tough is that Songbird and Reed are equally likeable and untrustworthy - sometimes all at once. You don't know quite who you can trust, but you can't help but feel for them.

CDPR knew "both of them had to have contradictions, weaknesses, secrets and reasons you could understand," as Sasko puts it. "This was also something I had learned from Cyberpunk 2077. Sometimes our choices and consequences in the base game were so subtle that players did not even realize something was a consequence of an earlier decision. In Phantom Liberty we all pushed strongly for more branches and clearer consequences while still keeping them inside the world. Messages, photographs, returning characters and different quest paths could remind you that something happened because of a choice you made. We never wanted the game to tell you what the correct decision was. I wanted you to live with your own interpretation of it."

Despite glowing reviews and over 15 million copies sold on the expansion, Sasko still doesn't believe "Phantom Liberty erases the launch of Cyberpunk 2077," but he's grateful for it all the same because of what it "taught [him] about directing games." Good thing, too - Sasko's leading the next mainline Cyberpunk RPG.

"I hope that, in your eyes, Cyberpunk 2077 has earned its place."

Cyberpunk 2 lead says "you are the reason we can do all this work" as Cyberpunk 2077 hits 40 million copies sold

My eyes glaze over as I fight Bakir for the 13th time in The Blood of Dawnwalker. The crazed Genghis Khan wannabe puts his fingers to his lips. I can't actually hear the whistle as he summons five blood-birds to swan dive at me – I always, always mute games when I need to focus – but I've memorized Bakir's attack pattern so well that I now have dreams about it.

A bird shoots toward me, an arrow loosed from an invisible bow. I dash left at the last moment. Another follows suit; I dash right. Left, right, then left again. Right trigger to teleport behind Bakir. Hit the shoulder buttons. Repeat. I know how to win this fight. It took me three or four failed attempts before my first victory, but with 12 consecutive successes under my belt now, I still harbor the delusion that maybe, just maybe, it will all work out this time. Because that's how video game bugs work, right?

Crash out

Like all neurotic kids who grow into perfectionist adults, I have a problem: I'm cursed with the conviction that I am special. I respect others' failures but cannot tolerate failure in myself. I am built differently and, even when presented with evidence to the contrary, rise above the slings and arrows of outrageous (mis)fortune that plague everyone else.

This serves me well when it's a matter of pushing myself to work harder. But it's less helpful when it blinds all sense and keeps me from accepting objective truths. You see, The Blood of Dawnwalker is still going through some teething problems on PC and Xbox Series S, and my game keeps crashing immediately after one particular boss fight. It does not have any autosaves, either, meaning each crash has me starting the battle all over again.

A quick Google search reveals a probable cause – the boss fight is notoriously buggy. Many others are struggling with frequent crashes throughout the game, with the transitions between cutscenes at the end of boyar Bakir's fight at the Lunar Games being a top-reported trigger point for critical shader loading failures. Instead of waiting for the devs to simply drop a hotfix (you know, like a normal person), I take the bug personally. No, I say; my game is not bugged, and I vow to keep throwing myself against this particular wall until I either succeed or become a garish red splatter against it.

Get your head in the game

Bakir's fight is not the hardest in the game, necessarily, but he has a very specific attack pattern. It's luckily not too varied, consisting of three well-telegraphed spells, a lot of punches, and unblockable roundhouse kicks, but it doesn't help that you fight him stripped of your usual gear.

Having been crowned the victor of Bakir's Lunar Games, I join him and his goons for a celebratory drink. My identity is concealed by a rather fetching moth mask, and I've spent the testing trials trying hard to avoid blowing my peasant cover and exposing myself as the notorious Dawnwalker, Coen of Laslea, slayer of Bakir's vrakhir siblings. When the sadistic mongol asks me to remove my mask – we are all champions here, after all – I am all too happy to acquiesce. Oh yeah; it's boss fight time.

Of course, I have to pick off Bakir's lackeys first. They don't give me much of a challenge, especially now I can use my vampiric abilities to claw their faces off and pop health bars like blisters with Blood Surge. If they land a blow, I can even sup on their delicious throats for a little pick-me-up. This time I quicksave right after slaying the final goon, looting her body for some health potions. The big guy enters the ring, and I am thoroughly locked in.

Bakir's bare-handed wallops and hefty kicks are just the start; he teleports across the arena and pounds soil sending out rippling waves that can damage and stun me. Like all his other moves, Bakir's first spell is all about timing. He sends out four or five reverberating shocks, each of which can be easily dodged by hopping left, right, or even backwards. He raises his arms to soak in the praise of invisible cheering spectators, leaving him wide open for me to shadowstep behind him and hammer the attack button. I've also built up enough ability charges to hit him with Blood Surge. The spell is fully-upgraded, taking a good chunk off his health bar with each cast.

His next spell is the one I mentioned earlier. Bakir whistles and conjures a flock of birds out of blood, which hover above him in a semicircle before darting my way one by one. Again, the attack is clearly indicated, this time through Bakir backing away and whistling loudly, so all I have to do is time my dodges carefully just like how I countered his ground pound.

Spoils of war

But the biggest and nastiest move is reserved for after I smash through the first two of Bakir's three health segments. He teleports to instead of away from me and does yet another ground pound – sometimes telegraphed with a little voice line like "get in here".

This one is a devastating AOE – get caught in the eruption of blood that encircles the brute, and you're immediately stunned; primed for Bakir to punch you to death.

The instakill is a sore spot for many. It's a nasty surprise that just gets nastier the more times you lose to it, which I manage to only do once. I reload my sneaky quicksave to avoid having to battle Bakir's gang all over again. I make it through the whole encounter near perfectly, including keeping extreme distance when Bakir's on his last health segment, until the mongol finally falls to his knees. I watch the cutscene, relief flooding my body, and choose to bite Bakir. But my victory is short-lived. No sooner do I drink from the boyar, the cutscene attempts to transition into an Assassin's Creed-like chat with the deceased… And suddenly I'm staring at my Xbox home screen.

It must be a fluke, so I try again: I defeat Bakir. I skip through the cutscenes. It crashes again. I do this four more times before heading to bed in a blinding rage. I wake up in the night and reload to an earlier point to see if this specific choice path is bugged – to no avail. Tomorrow, I tell myself; I will try again tomorrow. Naturally, the same crash happens each and every time I best Bakir.

I had set out to somehow debug my game through abject refusal – succeed or die splattered against the invisible wall keeping me from my prize, right? Well, consider me thoroughly splattered. 13 victories and counting, here is your sign to accept that some games are just bugged and cannot be overcome with sheer willpower and sharp reflexes. Not even if you, too, are a Special Little Girl.

Simon Collins-Laflamme, the founder of Hytale studio Hypixel, is offering a massive monetary reward for whoever becomes the first person to complete a challenge in next month's massive Hytale update.

Hytale's big Chapter 1 update is coming to Hytale early access on October 12, and in advance of that, Hypixel dropped a teaser trailer previewing some of what's to come. The video, which you can watch below, showcases some new areas including a huge underground cave environment with acid rivers and waterfalls, and gives players a glimpse at an upcoming boss, apparently called the Gobliterator, a hulking, charging, fist-pounding giant of a goblin. He looks pretty scary, but he might make you rich.

"I'll donate $15,000 to the first streamer who kills the Gobliterator boss in hard mode, no armor, no potion, no glitch, in hardcore mode (you can use iron weapons available in Exploration Mode)," says Simon-Hypixel on Twitter. "It must be streamed so we can watch the VOD; don't cheat, bro."

Mr. Hytale says he'll do a "full rundown" of the terms and conditions of his challenge before the update's launch, but he specified a few rules in the comments section. "It must be a full legit run in solo; you can't just creative-mode your way in there!" he says. "It will be interesting to see strategies: risk time in practice, or just go straight for the kill?"

This is great marketing for Hytale's next update, but it also seems pretty clear that Collins-Laflamme is completely serious about the challenge and reward. Several commenters said they would love to participate but didn't own the game, and Collins-Laflamme replied to many of them asking them to check their DMs and suggesting he'd sent them game keys. Talk about putting your money where your mouth is.

Here are the best RPGs we recommend playing in 2026.

Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave is an astonishingly large, whale belly of an RPG. At least, that's what my intuition tells me – I haven't personally finished playing publisher Nintendo's latest installment to its tactical fantasy since it launched on September 17, and it seems no one else has, either.

The Nintendo Switch 2 game's listing on the usually reliable How Long To Beat website is unusually empty; at the moment, there are only two respondents, who report taking anywhere between 74 and 99 hours to finish the game's main story and a selection of side content. But, considering there are only two respondents while fellow RPG Trails in the Sky 2nd Chapter, which also launched September 17, has six poll replies, "99 hours" sounds more like a hopeless plea for salvation than a real experience someone had.

At the same time, truly and fully experiencing every game in the Fire Emblem series requires you sacrifice several years of your life. RPGs have a reputation of being giant, over-puffed affairs that take forever to cut through, and Fire Emblem fits the stereotype: the last game, Three Houses, took an average of 75-and-a-half hours to beat, while the most popular Fire Emblem: Awakening takes a more modest, but still excessive compared to the other chores in your life, 44-ish hours on average.

"Really feels like there's just not enough time to play," says one Reddit commenter who notes they already have dropped 50 hours into Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave in a thread discussing playtime.

"45 hours in have to stopped to go ti sleep and go back to work," says another haggard Reddit reply. So we may not know exactly how long it takes to beat Fortune's Weave, but a safe assumption for now is – it takes a lot out of you.

Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave is my ideal RPG sequel and the Three Houses followup I always wanted.

Food Devils, a "spicy" take on Fire Emblem and Hades with a distinct focus on the culinary craft, is now releasing a little sooner than originally planned. It's all thanks to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake.

Have you seen the anime Delicious in Dungeon? If not, you should go and do that. If you have seen it, you'll likely remember it fondly when you hear what you'll be doing in Food Devils. Studio Daimon describes the game as "tactical combat where you literally cook your enemies," and that seems to be at the center of the main gameplay loop.

In Food Devils, you're the last living chef in a post-apocalyptic world, tasked with luring world-weary adventurers with the scents and tastes of delicious food... made of monsters. "See that pesky monster over there? That’s your dinner! Plan your tactics in ever-changing biomes full of tricky maps, and scavenge as many ingredients as you can," reads a tweet from Studio Daimon announcing a November 5 release date, published on September 7, one day before Nintendo surprise-revealed the Ocarina of Time remake's release date of... November 5. Yikes.

"WHOOPSIE we were just kidding, the game isn't releasing on Nov. 5th anymore, and definitely not because Zelda shadowdropped its release date right after we announced ours," reads a new tweet from Daimon with an updated release date. "You'll get your dose of 'indie spicy Fire Emblem' even sooner now, when FOOD DEVILS releases on Nov. 3rd!"

Honestly, this is all good news for us on the receiving end of both of these games. We're still getting the Ocarina of Time remake, but now we're getting a weird, super fun sounding, food-focused tactical RPG a couple of days early. And we get to call Food Devils an "indie spicy Fire Emblem" without an ounce of shame, because that's what the developer itself is calling it. And a lot of us are aware Food Devils exists because of this little release date snafu. And I got to recommend Delicious in Dungeon, one of the rare anime series that doesn't put me to sleep these days. That's what I call a feel-good Friday story.

Even after Palworld 1.0, Pocketpair lead says 2026's best indie could be this Overwhelmingly Positive Steam roguelike citybuilder: "I haven't played a game more addictive since Balatro"

The Blood of Dawnwalker features a controversial time restriction that adds a layer of stress to every decision and quest in the RPG – and according to Rebel Wolves, it was actually a lot more difficult to grapple with prior to the game's launch.

That's because, as director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, who has the likes of The Witcher 3 under his belt from his time at CD Projekt Red, tells Eurogamer in a new interview, the mechanic was far more strict during early development – until fans shared their concerns following the game's reveal about it being too challenging, that is.

"We had at first a more restricted time where it was harder to beat the game," Tomaszkiewicz recalls. "But, after all of those voices, before release even, we knew that it can be a problem and we rebalanced it this way to give the buffer for the people to not fear this."

Although Rebel Wolves largely kept the RPG's opening the same, the studio did change "the main game, besides the prologue, because we were afraid that people will complain too much that it's too restricted."

I mean… how much worse could the original take on the mechanic have been? "Quite" a bit, according to Tomaszkiewicz.

"You needed to think about everything even more carefully. But we started to speak with Mateusz [Tomaszkiewicz, creative director] and the rest of the team about what we wanted to achieve, and we figured out that we don't want to create a mini-game from it. We wanted to give the player the proper feeling and proper emotions in the main story."

That checks out, honestly. As Tomaszkiewicz concludes, "This is the purpose of the main story, not to create a challenge for it." I'd say it feels well-balanced to me – but, considering all of the drama the mechanic in its current iteration has stirred, Rebel Wolves certainly made the right choice in simplifying it.

Heck, the first and biggest mod for The Blood of Dawnwalker reworks the time restriction altogether, proving that it's an uncomfortable feature for lots of folks.

Tomaszkiewicz himself also said that upcoming sequels might scrap the feature or at least change how it works. With the new update coming next month, I wonder whether we'll see some tweaks to it a bit earlier on, too – guess we'll have to wait and see.

Interested in one of this year's biggest new games yourself? Be sure to read through our The Blood of Dawnwalker review to learn more.

• Nighthawks is a gorgeous text-based vampire RPG that is perfect to play on Steam Deck, thanks to its special settings to suit smaller screens.

Out and about this weekend and looking for something to keep you company on your travels? Finding the best games to play on Steam Deck can be stressful, especially when the whole "verified" thing can be pretty hit and miss. But Nighthawks is my top pick for anyone looking for an engrossing new game to play on handheld consoles that won't melt your battery on a long train ride (or force you up off the sofa to hunt for a charger, for that matter).

Why play it today?

• Nighthawks' larger text mode makes it a great pick for Steam Deck owners, and the smaller screen doesn't ruin the experience at all.

Nighthawks is well worth a play if you're looking for a thrilling text-based vampire RPG that makes you use your brains instead of just hammering the attack button. Plus, it's less than 20 bucks.

Fall is here, and vampires are everywhere! I played Nighthawks right off the back of The Blood of Dawnwalker, and while I was still in the mood for bloodsucking mayhem, I was feeling a little burnt out when it comes to heavy combat loops. I had Nighthawks cued up to play next ahead of its launch earlier this week, but instead of sitting down to my gaming laptop, I downloaded it to my Steam Deck instead. I fancied curling up on the sofa for something quieter and more cozy, like reading a good book, and handheld consoles are the perfect way to get the best of both.

I was skeptical at first, since as a pre-launch game, Steam gave no indication as to its Steam Deck Verified status. But I was glad to see that Nighthawks has a special mode for smaller screens, toggled over in the settings window, and it works perfectly. I loved playing Nighthawks on the couch, in bed, on the bus... Anywhere but sitting upright at my desk!

Time commitment:

I finished Nighthawks in well under 20 hours, and that includes reloading the final moments of the last Act a few times to see all of the endings available to me. The game spans five Acts, taking you from fledgling vampire to the lap of luxury as you choose (or face) your destiny.

The main plotline is rather linear, but with ten prospective companions each sporting their own stories and side quests, no two playthroughs will play out the same. Paired with the various character backgrounds, powers, and skill proficiencies to choose from, Nighthawks really is a beast of your own making.

Play Nighthawks if you love...

Skip Nighthawks if you want:

One thing to know:

While I had zero performance or formatting issues playing it on Steam Deck, Nighthawks is not yet officially Steam Deck Verified. The only sign of this I could find was in the button mappings; your Steam Deck's joysticks won't move your cursor across the screen and instead help scroll through on-screen text and dialogue choices, but using the D-pad is just as intuitive. The touch screen is also fully compatible with the game, and saves time scrolling through points of interest with the directional arrows!

A moment you'll remember:

Using a haunted dollhouse to uncover what happened to a unfortunate family who hired a vampire nanny to look after their son. With the house on the left side of the screen and the text boxes on the right, look out for little hints you see in each room to direct you to the next memory vignette.

This mission is beautifully presented to draw out the tension and intrigue of such a sad investigation, so don't forget to follow up on your side quest leads even if they don't feel pertinent to the main missions! Nighthawks shines in its darkest details, and this one is no exception.

The final verdict:

As far as atmospheric, pacey, well-voiced narrative RPGs, you really can't get much better than Nighthawks. It's the perfect game to play in a weekend because it envelopes you in its world so seamlessly, you don't realize how much time you've spent in it until you reluctantly have to save and quit (sleep is a thing, I guess). Paired with the fact that the very helpful text size settings make it very comfortable to read on smaller screens like the Steam Deck, Nighthawks is a cozy thrill you can't help but sink into for the ultimate pre-Halloween treat.

So, where can you play it?

Nighthawks is out now on PC via Steam.

Nighthawks not your cup of blood? Check out our best RPGs round-up to find the right fit for your weekend.

By most metrics, Starfield should be considered a success. At least 15 million players since release. A Metacritic score in the 80s. Enough hype to draw one million concurrent players at launch. Yet it's fair to say that most Bethesda fans consider the space RPG a disappointment – a dramatic comedown from the heights of Skyrim and Fallout 4. In any case, you probably shouldn't count on there being a direct follow-up.

"I would be very surprised [if there was a sequel]," Kurt Kuhlmann, who served as lead systems designer on the game, tells FRVR. "I don't think Starfield was anywhere near successful enough to do a Starfield 2."

Kuhlmann ultimately left Bethesda around Starfield's launch for reasons that went beyond the space game, but he still believes a sequel could better deliver on its promise. "It's, in a way, too bad," he explains, "because I think with the lessons learned on Starfield, a Starfield 2 could have been much closer to the game that Todd [Howard] had [in mind]. You can envision that game, you can imagine that game. That's not quite what Starfield really is."

We know that Todd Howard had been dreaming of a game like Starfield for decades, and it's tough to imagine that the game we got was quite what he had imagined. Sure, it's got moments of brilliance, but those moments are held back in a game which, as Kuhlmann puts it, isn't "fully coherent."

Take the outpost system as an example. "For what it is, as a standalone system, it’s cool, but it’s not nearly as integrated with the rest of the game," Kuhlmann explains. It ultimately feels less fully baked than the settlement system in Fallout 4, which caused its own development issues – problems that weren't solved in Starfield, either.

"It caused problems for it to be integrated with the story and the missions and stuff in Fallout 4, so it was kind of put to the side," Kuhlmann says. "Which begs the question of, well, why is it still in the game? That’s a decision above me, it wasn’t my decision. You might say, well, we shouldn't have it then if we’re not going to integrate it with the story, then it’s just this system sitting over there with a massive amount of work involved."

In previous comments, Kuhlmann suggested that Bethesda "shouldn't have made" Starfield, because "we couldn’t really make it." It was simply too ambitious for even a studio as mighty as Bethesda to handle. Here's hoping that The Elder Scrolls 6 takes these lessons to heart.

"Most people wanted" to make The Elder Scrolls 6 after Fallout 4, says Skyrim co-lead, but then Todd Howard said "No, we're doing Starfield."

If you took a survey of every Dragon Age: Origins player ever, I'd imagine most of them wouldn't have the most positive impression of the game's Fade sequence, which whisks you off to a bizarre alternate dimension separated from the rest of your party. Naturally, there will always be Fade apologists who argue the tonal and mechanical shift keeps things fresh, but there seems to be a general consensus that it wasn't the best use of resources, and now one of the most foremost authorities on the game itself is solidifying that notion.

"It's not very good content," says Dragon Age: Origins co-director Mark Darrah in a new video posted to his TikTok account (via Kotaku). In the video, Darrah is responding to a commenter who asks what features he would remove from each Dragon Age game if he had the chance, and he goes straight to the Fade as an example of a sequence that didn't "age super well."

"I think I would be tempted to either cut or dramatically reduce the dream sequence part from the Mage Tower," says Darrah. "It's not very good content. It's kind of filler. It was definitely done pretty fast in the end."

That settles it. If you've spent the last 17 years breathlessly defending BioWare's bold experimentation in the Fade, you now have one of Dragon Age: Origins' directors working against you, essentially admitting the whole sequence was a rushed effort to pad out the game's runtime – even though it would still be an absolutely massive RPG without it.

Dragon Age was always "too niche, too backwards, too old-school" in EA's eyes, former BioWare lead argues

The Witcher 3 Remastered release time is almost upon us, which means you'll soon be able to visit the upgraded and enhanced Northern Kingdoms as you travel with Geralt of Rivia in search of monsters to slay. Helpfully there's only one time you need to know about as there's a simultaneous global launch taking place, though naturally this means the release will be more convenient in certain parts of the world than others! To find out when the adventure starts in your region, this is when you can play The Witcher 3 Remastered wherever you are.

If you want the lowdown on the biggest changes to look forward to, then here's a round up of what's new in The Witcher 3 Remastered.

What time does The Witcher 3 Remastered come out?

The updated version of the game is arriving on September 29, and the launch will be simultaneous globally with The Witcher 3 Remastered release time set for 10am UTC on all platforms. This translates around the world as follows:

• US West Coast: 3am PDT
• US East Coast: 6am EDT
• UK: 11am BST
• Central Europe: 12noon CEST
• Eastern Australia: 8pm AEST
• New Zealand: 11pm NZDT

That means The Witcher 3 Remastered is launching early morning in the United States, around lunchtime across Europe, and late evening in Australia and New Zealand. As this release is simultaneous, this is nothing to be gained from any tricks to change the internal clock on your device to another time zone or use a VPN to make it think you're situated in a different location.

When it does go live, all you need to do is update your game on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, or Switch 2 to get the Remastered version for free, which also includes the Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine expansions at no additional cost. If you're still on PS4 or Xbox One then you won't be able to get the Remastered upgrade, but those two DLC packs have now been made free so you can at least check them out if you haven't already.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Even as Fallout has evolved into a mega-franchise with massively popular open-world games and TV show spin-offs, certain elements of the original 1997 RPG remain – things like the SPECIAL stat system and the iconic Vault Boy mascot. As it turns out, these two creations were very closely related.

Fallout was originally meant to use the Generic Universal Role-Playing System (GURPS), a tabletop RPG system published by Steve Jackson Games. In this iteration, Fallout had a bunch of different characteristics between skills, advantages, disadvantages, and quirks, all of which had to be rendered in a way the player could understand at a glance.

"For every single one of those characteristics, we had to make an icon, because the game used the icons when the skill or advantage or disadvantage was displayed," OG Fallout lead Tim Cain explains in a new YouTube video. "We used an icon next to its name so that later on, if something happened related to that skill in places we didn't have a lot of room for text, we could use the icon."

The work of creating all those icons fell to an artist named Arlene Somers. "I think there were over a hundred, maybe close to 200 when you summed up all the different things," Cain says.

Cain was starting to lose his color vision around this time, so he encouraged Summers not to use color as a differentiator for the icons. It started to become more and more difficult to create icons that were distinct enough from each other to tell them apart at a glance – which was the whole point of the icons in the first place.

The solution came from art director Leonard Boyarsky. "Leonard had the idea that the skilldex – where we had the title and the description – instead of putting the icon there, we do a cartoon of somebody performing the action or looking like the attribute that was in question," Cain explains. "He even referenced Monopoly, the rich uncle Pennybags, and he created it. He sketched it up and we all thought it was really cool."

Artist George Almond further refined the Vault Boy design, and the job of actually drawing all the final Vault Boy icons fell to fellow artist Tramell Ray Isaac "He drew hundreds of these things," Cain says. "If you're going through Fallout, they appear in the skilldex. They're all over the manual. They're in the opening cinematic. And now, of course, it's on mugs and bobbleheads and all kinds of things. It was a really creative thing he did."

Famously, however, Vault Boy is part of why Fallout had to drop the GURPS system, as it was one of the key issues Steve Jackson himself took issue with. According to a 1998 PC Gamer feature, Jackson didn't like the violence in the opening cinematic, the small-scale characters, or the Monopoly-inspired Vault Boy. Cain expands on those objections a bit in the video.

"Among other things that Steve Jackson Games didn't like about Fallout was Vault Boy," Cain says. "They specifically singled out Vault Boy as needing to be removed. They didn't like it. We explained the Monopoly reference. They didn't like it. They thought it tonally didn't fit. Keep in mind, we already had done the cinematic and they didn't like it there. There's other things in the cinematic they didn't like, but they didn't like Vault Boy there either."

Unwilling to accept these kinds of demands, the devs ditched GURPS in favor of their own home-grown stat system, and eventually, SPECIAL was born. So, in a way, Jackson's objections to Fallout accidentally gave us two of the series' most iconic legacies.

Correction: A previous version of this article identified artist Arlene Somers incorrectly. We regret the error.

Where would the best Fallout games be without Vault Boy?

The Witcher 3 Remastered is coming to all players as a free update on September 29, and new footage from developer CD Projekt Red suggests you'll want to take a close look at what settings you have enabled, because I fear some details and atmosphere may be lost in translation.

CDPR posted a new side-by-side comparison for The Witcher 3 and its upcoming remaster on its channels, and boy has it stoked some conversation. The clip sees Geralt torching a group of Drowners in a swamp with a flame spell, both pre- and post-remaster.

I hate to say it, and I'm surprised to say it given how good the remaster has appeared in footage until now, but the new version looks worse to me. With zero hyperbole, I had the "before" and "after" clips mixed up for several seconds, to the point that I checked CDPR's YouTube and Twitter to make sure the studio hadn't made a mistake in the labels.

The caveat here is that we don't know the exact graphics settings or hardware environment that were used for these side-by-side clips. Maybe some elements were disabled to emphasize others. The video also comes with a disclaimer: "Work in progress. Does not represent the final look of the game." But we are just days away from the remaster's launch, so I don't know how much work is left.

A few changes stand out. The skin and muscle of the Drowners feels less detailed, not necessarily because it is – you can see the same creases and patterns if you look close, though they do seem scalier in the original – but perhaps because of the bizarrely glossy, metallic shine they have in the remastered clip. Either these are rare Chrome Drowners or GPUs have gone too far.

The fire effect lingering on the Drowners arguably looks more realistic in the new version, but it feels less powerful to me – artificial, less like an inferno and more like a torch. In the new version, it looks like there is fire on them; in the OG, they look to be on fire. The remastered clip also doesn't have the same fiery, scarlet reflections in the water, which is strange given how gorgeous the updated water is otherwise. The lighting on the plants, which are certainly lush, also seems less affected by the fire itself in the remaster.

Maybe this is a function of when during the in-game day these clips were recorded, but the original Witcher 3 has more noticeable fog and a rich, dusky atmosphere with a warm redness to it, while the remaster feels almost sterile in its path traced brightness. Combined with the missing fire reflections, the new version feels a bit washed out, and this is worryingly close to the color shortage and vibrancy famine that we've seen in some other remasters as well as modern AAA games.

I look at this clip and I feel a clash of contrast. A lot of individual components might look better up close in the remaster, but when you pull back and see the whole canvas, the original game looks more cohesive to me, not to mention more saturated. Maybe that will change when I'm actually in, and accustomed to, the remastered game world, but a lot of these differences feel pretty empirical. I have a pretty beefy PC, so I would definitely throw this remaster under the microscope when we get it in our hands.

Many other people seem to feel the same. "Why removing the colours and the fog?" replies one Twitter user. "Hope you add those sparkles and reflection you did a great job," says a YouTube viewer. "Lighting and Clarity in the latest looks great , but I really liked the red glow/filter (idk) in the before," agrees another.

CD Projekt Red has now moved on from its in-house REDengine and adopted Unreal Engine 5 for The Witcher 4, but co-CEO Michał Nowakowski says that wasn't due to the technical issues that Cyberpunk 2077 ran into.

What's new in The Witcher 3 Remastered?

Storied RPG studio Obsidian is now a part of Bethesda. That news came alongside Xbox's latest round of layoffs and reshuffling, and it's not entirely clear what it means for the studio's future. Apparently, it'll be little more than "a change in reporting structure" – according to a leaked memo from Bethesda president Jill Braff, anyway.

"The creative identity and strengths that make Obsidian distinct will remain at the core of their studio and work," Braff says in an email to employees, obtained by Aftermath. "[CEO] Feargus [Urquhart] and the Obsidian leadership team will continue to lead Obsidian, with the studio reporting to me. Bethesda Game Studios will continue to lead the Fallout franchise."

Earlier this year, Bethesda and Obsidian announced that they were collaborating on a new Fallout game, 16 years after the two studios worked together on the beloved Fallout: New Vegas. That project became official shortly after behind-the-scenes reporting suggested that Microsoft had swooped in to kill Obsidian's Avowed sequel and put the devs to work on Fallout.

"Together, the teams will build on their longstanding relationship and the early work already underway on a new Fallout project, with more to share in the months ahead," Braff says in the leaked message. "This structure supports the franchise-led model we've been strengthening while keeping accountability for both the studio and the franchise clear."

For much of the past decade, Obsidian has put its resources into developing original IP, including The Outer Worlds, Grounded, and Pentiment, as well as a fresh take on its Pillars of Eternity series in Avowed.

While I love New Vegas as much as anyone, and a new Fallout game is long overdue, I have a hard time restraining my cynicism over Obsidian's future. The studio was clearly passionate about its own, internal IP, and this talk of "franchise-led" development feels all too familiar. We have, after all, spent years watching studios like Ubisoft and Activision slowly turn their vast rosters of internal studios into little more than support houses for big franchises like Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty.

Baldur's Gate 3 publishing lead Michael "Cromwelp" Douse shares those concerns about Obsidian. "I can't imagine what it must feel like to have independent agency and then, suddenly enough, find yourself working *under* a competitor," he writes. "I can't imagine that feels great." Especially with reports of 25% of the studio being laid off as part of the transition.

Another Fallout RPG was in development at Obsidian Entertainment before Bethesda pulled the plug "a while ago," ex-studio lead says.

Just yesterday, we learned that Bethesda is taking control of Obsidian Entertainment amid all of the Xbox reshuffles – but not everyone is sure it's a good move.

Baldur's Gate 3 and Larian Studios publishing director Michael "Cromwelp" Douse is one such person, stepping forward to share his concerns of the management handover on Twitter.

"I can't imagine what it must feel like to have independent agency and then, suddenly enough, find yourself working *under* a competitor," he writes. "I can't imagine that feels great." I suppose his take makes sense, but commenters don't necessarily agree.

One person points out that the two studios aren't necessarily "competitors" anymore, so to speak, as they've both been under the wing of Xbox for some time now, prompting Douse to respond.

"Putting aside the fact I was referring to a time prior to the sale, the fact that you think two entities under the umbrella of one parent company can't be competitors tells me you've never had a corporate job," he replies – and that does check out, as they certainly can be.

But, again, it's important to note that both Bethesda and Obsidian have been working together for a while now. Two months ago, they unveiled their mysterious, collaborative new Fallout game – although we're not quite sure what it is just yet.

At that point, Bethesda said Fallout 5 is in pre-production and unveiled both Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas remasters, so it could be any of these… or perhaps something else altogether.

Only time will tell, I suppose, but, again, Douse's worries here aren't out of place at all. The industry is suffering quite a difficult time. After all, Microsoft's plans to cut 3,200 employees at Xbox hit both Bethesda and Obsidian previously, with the latter reportedly seeing around 25% of its studio impacted.

Following 1,600 redundancies from earlier this year, another 268 layoffs of that total 3,200 were announced yesterday. You know, the same time that news of Bethesda's new management over Obsidian dropped – so, yeah… it's not really a strange time to have a bit of anxiety about it all.

Searching for some new games to keep on your radar? Browse through our roundup of all the upcoming Bethesda games to look forward to.

Bethesda Game Studios is now managing Obsidian Entertainment – news that comes just two months after the studios unveiled their mysterious, collaborative new Fallout game.

Xbox Game Studios has managed Obsidian for over seven years now, following the acquisition of the legendary RPG developer in November 2018. The team delivered Grounded and its early access sequel, Pentiment, Avowed, and The Outer Worlds 2 during this time.

While the change in leadership is certainly big news, it does make a degree of sense. Bethesda is of course the the studio behind Fallout and The Elder Scrolls, franchises that Obsidian and its leadership are strongly aligned with. This news is especially intriguing right now, seeing as we know there are various projects in the works currently that are relevant to both teams.

There's the new Fallout game that Bethesda confirmed it was working on alongside Obsidian back in July – but it's not clear which Fallout game this is. In the same breath, Bethesda also had said Fallout 5 is in pre-production and unveiled both Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas remasters as well.

So, could it be Fallout 5 the two are collaborating on? I'd wager it's more likely to be the Fallout: New Vegas revamp, seeing as Obsidian headed the original back in 2010, or potentially something else entirely.

It's exciting news nonetheless, especially when the industry is otherwise suffering quite a difficult time. After all, Microsoft's plans to cut 3,200 employees at Xbox hit both Bethesda and Obsidian, with the latter reportedly seeing around 25% of its studio impacted.

Following 1,600 layoffs taking place earlier this year, another 268 layoffs (of that total 3,200) were announced today, as was news that Rare, World's Edge, and the Halo franchise will be moving under operational control of Activision Blizzard.

I'll be keeping my own fingers crossed for what's to come from the dynamic duo now that they're working more closely together than before, that's for certain. Who knows – perhaps we'll see something entirely new come from the two rather than just a remaster. Only time will tell for sure.

Searching for more new games to keep on your radar? Browse through our roundup of all the upcoming Bethesda games to look forward to.

For almost two decades, I've played more creature-collecting games than I can count. With a love started by Pokemon, I can almost always find something to enjoy in an RPG that lets me loose on a world full of fun monsters to befriend, and I can confidently say that after an hour with Honkai: Nexus Anima, these are some of my favorite creature designs I've ever encountered – I only wish its battle style didn't leave me with so many reservations.

I'll admit that I'm easily charmed when it comes to this genre. I see a cute animal design, I click. Blend those animal designs with food inspirations? Now we're really cooking. During my hands-on session of Honkai: Nexus Anima – the upcoming creature-collecting strategy game from Genshin Impact developer Hoyoverse – I'm constantly delighted by almost every creature I encounter, from the donut merchant rabbit Donubi to the ramen seal Pupanoo and pancake dog Puddlipup. The non-foodie Anima are great too – the very fashionable pig, Hoggit, is another favorite – but I can't deny there's a theme to my preferences here.

Feel the joy

My hands-on is a somewhat unusual one as I'm dropped into a preheated save file (already in the late level 40s, though I'm unsure how much playtime this equates to) with the freedom to explore the world, capture Anima, participate in battles, and progress story quests as I please. I find myself scanning the various tutorial pages looking for guidance on how the battle system works, as there's a lot to take in. I have dedicated Frontline and Backline Anima, each with traits that offer different benefits. Protectors, for example, take enemy aggro and regenerate energy when they're hit, while Masterminds have high damage output, with skill regeneration every second.

Dispositions, meanwhile, give Anima unique additional abilities even among the same species, making each one you capture slightly different. My Marshalbird comes with one that restores 5% health to the rest of my team when it falls in battle, for example. Between all this, as well as factors like your team's composition influencing status effects that are triggered in battle – Joy can trigger the Ecstacy status, for instance, but I couldn't find any explanation of what this actually means – I feel almost overwhelmed by the systems laid out in front of me, but eager to work out how they all click together.

Except, when I actually jump into some battles, it quickly becomes clear that I didn't have to feel overwhelmed at all. Combat works on a real-time autobattling system – your team of Anima is thrown into a top-down battle arena and immediately start charging toward their foes, autonomously using their abilities. While you do have some involvement – you have a number of cards at the bottom of your screen representing different human characters known as Eidos, who have various skills you can deploy when you like (cooldowns pending) – things generally take care of themselves.

Now, I don't know if I've been given a particularly souped-up team for my demo or if this is indicative of the game's difficulty in general, but my squad consistently wipes out every enemy it faces in a matter of seconds. Like, so fast I can't really process what's happening. I certainly never have to apply any thought or strategy, despite the systems clearly being deep enough to allow for such things.

Perhaps this is my own personal preference coming through, but this idle game-esque combat system is sadly where things fall apart for me. Admittedly, I've never been a fan of the format, but here especially, I can't help but feel disappointed that this is the battle style these incredible creature designs are locked to. They're shrunk down on the screen to fit into the surprisingly small arenas, with so much action unfolding that it's hard to pick them out individually most of the time. It almost feels like a waste of such fantastic ideas that I know I'd fall in love with in either a turn-based format or something more akin to Palworld's real-time combat, for example.

Autobattler fans may feel differently here, but I can't deny I'm currently unconvinced that Honkai: Nexus Anima will stick the landing for me at launch. Maybe with more time to learn the battle system from the beginning of the game, things may click into place, but for now, I'm left uncertain that there's enough going on here to keep me hooked, as much as I wanna befriend those cute Anima.

Looking for your next-us adventure? Check out our games like Pokemon recommendations, or our best RPGs list for more!

Nighthawks is exactly what I wanted Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 to feel like. Not in terms of its format as a text-based RPG (the excellent VTM visual novels can hold their own), but in the depth, character, and intrigue of its vamp noir dystopia.

I start off my journey as a fledgling vampire, hunting for my sire's vassal – a servant, bound in blood to their Master – on the grimy streets of Cradlebridge. Blood junkies, thralls, and the great lost masses haunt the gloom, congregating around a vampire-owned nightclub by the name of Nighthawks. A short cab away is Angelbreach, all fishnets and sleaze painted in hot pink neon desperation. Prim and proper Fountaincourt is the only neighborhood with any decency around here, but to paraphrase a particularly colorful saying I saw on Reddit once, we're all bare necks in the shower.

Sucks and the city

Nighthawks is a tale as old as the night is long: while working my way up the social ladder from fangless nobody to apex predator, I'll be making frenemies and solving mysteries in the big city. I'm also crowned the new boss of the eponymous nightclub fairly early on in the proceeds, after its original owner gets on the wrong end of a giant vampire's massive boathook.

But there's more to life as a vampire than shady club dealings and social politics. Well, kind of. Nighthawks features a robust stats and traits system. Skills can be improved through equipping certain pieces of gear, and can be further buffed by having a companion join you on your adventures – recruited and dismissed from the club's bar. Your credentials chosen at the start of a new game indicate your character's background, special powers, and blood lineage. My vampire is a Continental vampire whose scholarly pursuits were granted and encouraged by her sire, for example, and she can communicate with rats and other undesirable creatures to obtain information or gain control of sticky situations.

The above dictates how I play Nighthawks. I'm not the most brawny of vamplings, so rely heavily on seductive words and stealth to get my way. It means I get beaten up pretty badly the first few times I'm ambushed around Candlebridge, but buying and equipping some knuckle dusters ups my intimidation and brawler stats considerably.

Exploring the city is sumptuous on your own – developer The Curiosity Engine sure knows how to pen a heady, slick mystery yarn – but Nighthawks truly shines in its characters. The veritable buffet of companions draw inspiration from countless other pulpy thriller games and movies. Only this time, there's a little extra bite.

Lux is a magician at a rival burlesque nightclub, with a secret lying dormant in her ice cold veins. Eccentric book shop owner Maze is even seedier than he looks, and as a dude with gold-capped fangs and red-lensed glasses, that's really saying something. There's a human PI called Domino, working out of a neighboring room in the hotel you start off in. You get to see his butt later on, too – though I must warn the horndogs out there that Nighthawks is far more PG-13 than its risque Steam listing might've indicated before Valve relented.

Each of these characters has a unique story to uncover, from life as a female captain during the Golden Age of Piracy to that of an elite, tortured artist bound by the harsh covenant of her pedigree blood. Uncovering them between main obligations is my favorite thing to do; each of the game's acts (I'm on the fourth right now) gives you one overarching task to complete within a month, which is fairly easy to accomplish and leaves plenty of time to get closer to your newfound fang-mily. Who you travel with in a given night also affects your role-play options – as a con-man, Maze is wise to tricks throughout town, and Domino, for instance, might be able to use the warmth of his blood to assist where your undead nature may cause problems.

These little mysteries keep me curious as I play through Nighthawks, picking at a thread and seeing where it takes me. If I'm not losing myself in the winding sewers with my rodent buddies, I'm purchasing the latest finery before a trip to the swankiest member's club in town. Sometimes I stumble upon a random group of nerds playing a vampiric tabletop RPG in the local diner and indulge in a little double-layered roleplaying. Most of the time, though, I'm visiting Cradlebridge's answer to a Cyberpunk 2077 ripperdoc – only instead of high-tech implants, the undead medic simply mends my health-sapping Wounds, restoring my vitality to its fullest.

My biggest gripe with Nighthawks so far is that I didn't discover the mail inbox until halfway through Act 2. Your phone is your lifeline in this game, and only when I was frustrated with a particular mission chain taking so long did I stop to study the device properly, only to learn that I had to read one particular email in order to progress it. I also am kicking myself for not picking up a more useful power – Tenebrous Form would have been handy for teleporting around obstacles, while every time a grayed-out Corpsetalker interaction pops up, I yearn for all the secrets I could be privy to had I not chosen to be a rat whisperer instead.

Regrets and boomer tech tendencies aside, I have loved my time with Nighthawks so far. Its weighty decisions leave me torn down the middle, the stellar voice acting makes the action jump off the screen, and the text-based RPG loop is so engaging that I've foregone a lot of sleep to play it as much as humanly possible over the past week.

Above all, the small yet mighty RPG reminds me just how much Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 pales in comparison. And not in the "sexy vampiric pallor" way, either. The long-awaited sequel was meant to be another supernatural noir RPG, just like this one. But my Bloodlines 2 review had me despairing as I bit randoms in the street with little to no repercussions, and paced a deserted city between the same four locations on a desperate hunt for something to make life after death more interesting.

Nighthawks, meanwhile, lets me plan out my hunts strategically across a selection of prime stalking grounds, relying on skill checks and smart decisions before I get a taste of the good stuff. You don't need a large 3D open world to create a city that feels alive in an RPG. And did I mention all the butts?

Nighthawks delivers what Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 failed to accomplish in its first 5 minutes. The two games are like night and day, and as someone who prefers the shadows myself, I'll stay here on the dark side with Nighthawks.

Nighthawks was played on PC, with code provided by the publisher.

Vampire games were neglected last year, but their shunning only proves my point: it was the year of the underdog bloodsucker

The Blood of Dawnwalker is getting quite a hefty update in October, with a new difficulty option, combat changes, and more – and perhaps even New Game Plus, if we're lucky.

That might be pushing it, though – but the update is a significant one, from the sounds of it. Director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, who has the likes of The Witcher 3 under his belt from his time at CD Projekt Red, reveals as much in a new interview with Eurogamer.

First, he teases the new difficulty mode, which is actually an easier option rather than a more difficult one. And, honestly, as someone invested in The Blood of Dawnwalker myself, I get why.

"We will introduce an additional difficulty level, but an easier one, because many people are asking for a more easy difficulty," as Tomaszkiewicz says.

"The Story mode which we have right now will be a different difficulty… and we will add a new Story mode which will be even easier for people who don't want to experience the combat, they just want to learn the story and go through the game without this gameplay challenge."

As for the old "Story mode," the lead says "we will call it Demanding or something like this" instead.

Combat is similarly being tweaked, with Rebel Wolves moving away from its, erm, controversial target-locking system. You know, the same one that swaps who you're fighting if you use a stun ability (like my favorite, chucking a bunch of sand in an enemy's eyes).

The director explains that this feature is "my fault," and actually "worked differently" initially. In October, they'll be swapping back to that old system because "people complain" about the current one (guilty as charged).

"There will be three hits you need to take off this stun. We will see how people will react to that because, as I said, it can create another bad feel, but we will see. Maybe people will switch between targets fluently and if they want to just stun, it will be fine, and if they want to stun and hit a few times, it will be also fine."

Then, there's the issue of performance on PC – but Tomaszkiewicz does admit that taking things from 60 frames per second to 120 isn't a huge priority… although Rebel Wolves is still on the case.

"It's not a shooter – it's not a game where it's so important. But people want to have good performance or performance above good: it's fine. We're working on it and we will still work on it."

There's also the whole running away from combat thing, of course. As it is now, it's pretty dang difficult to get away from enemies – but it won't be for much longer.

"Right now we're doing the fix where when you run or escape, you will ignore the nav mesh and it will be fluid; it will not be clunky," as Tomaszkiewicz states. "We're working on escaping from combat and running in combat and it will be a big change for people."

And, what's more, enemies will be less spongy as Rebel Wolves addresses balance.

There's quite a bit to this new The Blood of Dawnwalker update, it seems, and it's not too far off. Tomaszkiewicz himself says "it's quite close" and "will be somewhere in the beginning of October," concluding, "It will be the big patch which will deliver a lot of upgrades for people."

Interested in one of this year's biggest new games yourself? Be sure to read through our The Blood of Dawnwalker review to learn more.

There's a lot of new stuff coming to The Witcher 3 Remastered, and it's not just a graphical or performance overhaul, as there are some gameplay and mechanic changes being introduced to boot, many of which will come as great news to existing fans of the iconic RPG.

The best news about the remaster is that it comes as a free upgrade to anyone who already owns the base game, so whether you're wondering what's going to change in one of your favorite games or you're considering buying it now for the first time, here's what's new with The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt Remastered.

Want to know when you can take a look at these features for yourself? Then find out The Witcher 3 Remastered release time in your region.

Everything new in The Witcher 3 Remastered

Here's a list of most of the new additions and changes coming in The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt Remastered:

• Upgraded visuals
• Enhanced combat
• New Witcher Signs FX
• Revamped mount handling
• Improved traversal and movement
• Refreshed monster behavior
• Revamped skill tree
• Transmogrification
• Expanded photo mode
• New finishers
• Immersive meditation
• Refined animations
• New quest tracking
• UI improvements
• Looting rework
• Refreshed motion blur
• New accessibility features
• Improved menu navigation
• Ray tracing improvements
• Updated textures
• Foliage shading rework
• Global lighting rework
• New shading model
• Cross-platform mod support
• Xbox Play Anywhere support
• Switch 2 exclusive features

This is just the start of what's set to change with the remaster of The Witcher 3, with this list taken from the official announcement trailer, where you can see even more details, including Nvidia DLSS 4.5 and AMD FSR 4 compatibility, tutorial modernization, and PS5 Pro support.

While there's a lot to dissect here, I'm just going to highlight a few of the most prominent changes below.

Revamped Mount Handling

Perhaps one of the most exciting changes for The Witcher 3 fans is going to be the overhaul to mount handling, one of the most famously frustrating parts of the original game. Hopefully this means you'll get stuck on objects a little less, and path finding should feel much smoother. Given the changes to character movement as well, it may even mean your horse will be able to jump fences. After all, as you can see from the announcement trailer, Geralt can now vault fences and walls, a new mechanic added with traversal and movement improvements, so this could - and should - apply to mounts as well.

Enhanced skill tree

Another massive change from the original game comes in the form of a Skill Tree overhaul, which seems to suggest you'll be able to unlock skills in a new and more cost-effective way. Instead of being forced to unlock a certain number of basic skills before moving down the skill tree, there seems to be more fluidity between branches now, letting you unlock some of the more advanced skills earlier.

Upgraded visuals

Naturally, you'd expect a visual overhaul with any remaster, and Wild Hunt doesn't disappoint. Alongside a standard graphics update, we can look forward to the likes of updated textures, a foliage shading rework, new shading, raytracing, and lighting, and even ray-traced hair, which, as we can tell from some of the most downloaded Witcher 3 mods, is an important feature for many.

Alongside graphical changes, there's even more to make Geralt, Ciri, and even the world's monsters more easy on the eye with new Witcher Signs effects, new finisher animations, and a completely new transmogrification system.

Among the rest of the changes, I'm also particularly excited about quest tracking improvements, making it easier to track and complete all of the Witcher 3 side quests and Wild Hunt contracts, hopefully with some sort of level or distance filter. I also can't wait to make the most of the improved photo mode and capture the newly upgraded visuals in all their glory.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave has only been out for a few days, but someone has already discovered tech to help you recruit units even faster.

In Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave, your chosen character gets their own party members to take part in the Heroic Games. However, during your downtime outside of these battles, you are able to explore Dagdan and meet new units who you can then convince to join your cause.

However, it's not as simple as walking up to someone and asking if they'll potentially die for you in combat, as you'll need to fulfill some requirements to convince them to join you. These are determined by your Renown: a stat you can boost while performing actions in-game, and Support: a bond with the character akin to Persona's Social Links. However, it turns out the Support requirements can easily be skirted.

Per Twitter user SubwayBossING07, "you can cheese the fuck out of recruitment" by performing a trick with the game's ability to restart a chapter. Once you give a gift to a recruitment target, they can be invited out for a meal – which in turn will increase their Support rank, eventually allowing you to have them join your squad once you reach their requirements. However, if you get them to the meal stage, and then leave inviting them to the meal until the start of the next chapter of the game, save following it, then restart the chapter, the Support rank change won't reset and you'll keep the higher rank while being able to have another meal straight away.

It's unknown, but it definitely seems like this is an unintentional bug in the game, and its unclear whether Nintendo is planning on changing it. But for now, your recruitment prowess can be sped up. That is, if you want to bypass the time mechanics of the game, which wouldn't be unique to Fire Emblem, given The Blood Of Dawnwalker got a mod to change up the in-game timer within days of its release.

Plus, the later in the game you recruit a unit, the higher their level will be, and given you can only use a specific number of units per battle anyway, it may be better in the long-run to keep them away unless you plan on using them there and then.

Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave is getting an infamous gacha gun from one of the series' mobile games, and I have questions.

Good news for Xbox users: CD Projekt Red says that The Witcher 3 Remastered will be part of Microsoft's Xbox Play Anywhere program come its September 29 release.

What exactly does that mean? Well, put simply, folks who play The Witcher 3 Remastered on the Xbox Series X|S will be able to play on PC as well… entirely for free.

CD Projekt Red confirms as much over on Twitter (as machine-translated via the platform's own built-in software, DeepL, and Google), stating that the Xbox version of the RPG's remaster will support Xbox Play Anywhere, the program that allows us to play Xbox games on our computers, too.

It's quite good news, seeing as people won't have to 'double dip,' so to speak, should they already own The Witcher 3 on Xbox – and it's made all the better by the fact that the remaster itself is arriving as a completely free upgrade for those of us with the base game in our libraries.

We've got everything from "improved combat" to massively reworked visuals to look forward to with it, too, which is just the cherry on top.

This marks yet another win for the Xbox brand as well, seeing as it's had a few (and then some) recently.

There's the whole disc-to-digital program that's rolling out, allowing users to claim digital copies of games they buy physically. Then, there's the fact that Physint, Hideo Kojima's upcoming project, has now moved from PlayStation to having Xbox as its publisher. All in all, Microsoft's gaming arm is clearly celebrating various wins.

CD Projekt Red's free availability on PC for Xbox users is another, I suppose. Now we just need to (im)patiently wait for The Witcher 3 Remastered… and all the other upcoming CD Projekt Red games, from The Witcher 4 to the long-awaited Cyberpunk 2077 sequel, whenever it may come.

But, with the remaster and new expansion Songs of the Past in the works, I'd say we'll have plenty to tide us over.

The Witcher 3 "is not a monument" says lead writer ahead of Songs of the Past, which means "adding a new expansion is not such a huge deal."

You'll want to redeem the latest Slayers 2 codes, whether you're still getting used to the RPG game and want to reset your Skill Tree to try something new or if you're saving up your Wen for a new Breathing Style.

The latest promos are incredibly useful thanks to the variety of rewards they grant, so even if you aren't looking to reset your Skill Tree stat points in this Roblox experience, there's still plenty of useful gear to get hold of.

If you're after some more general rewards that can be used in all of your experiences, then we've got the current Roblox promo codes covered too.

All Slayers 2 codes

These are the Slayers 2 codes you can redeem in-game right now:

• RELEASE26 - 100x Wen, 30x Spins, 1x Ore
• SKILLTREERESET - Skill Tree Points reset

There are some caveats with the current Slayers 2 codes. First off, to redeem RELEASE26, you must first like the Ouw Productions Roblox Community. You don't have to like the game, even though the text suggests to do so. Once you've joined the community, you still need to enter the code in the redemption box on the landing page.

For any Skill Tree reset codes, you will receive a warning as the effect is immediate, and therefore the code should only be redeemed if and when you want to reset your skill tree.

How to redeem Slayers 2 codes

To redeem Slayers 2 codes, you need to enter them into the redemption box on the game's landing page. To return to this screen from within the game, click on the menu button at the top of the screen, then select 'Return to the Main Menu' at the bottom of the list. Alternatively, you can just redeem codes when you launch the game.

Expired Slayers 2 codes

• EVILARTSPINS - 54x Spins
• SORRYFORSHUTDOWN - 39x Spins
• POINTSRESET - Skill Tree Points reset

Slayers 2 already has some expired codes since it got its new name, and no doubt those at the top of the page will join them soon, so redeem them as soon as possible. When codes do expire, I'll move them down here so you don't waste any time.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

If life is but a dream, then The Blood of Dawnwalker's Home Sweet Home mission must be a nightmare. I stumble into it as a bit of an afterthought, having fought my way into the alchemist's tower while investigating the clay-baked gargoyles plaguing the city of Svartrau. But instead of leaving to show Marat the alchemist's notes, as per my next objective, I head up the spiral staircase and ascend further into the tower.

A short cutscene plays out when I reach the landing and interact with a closed door. The alchemist himself is just inside, Coen notes – should I head inside to confront him? Thinking it would be yet another boss fight, I choose to follow my curiosity. But, instead of a blistering encounter with a magical artificer, Coen steps through the door and right into his family home.

Family business

I put the controller down and give myself a long hard stare in the TV's reflection. From Max Payne to Night in the Woods and Mass Effect 3, dream or nightmare levels are the bane of my life in video games.

They are discombobulating by design, an intentional frustration that never fails to hit its mark. Some are repetitive walking sims. Others are combat or traversal puzzles with few, if any, auto-saves to cushion your mistakes (some might argue that a full-level reset makes for a seamless, uninterrupted experience; I heartily disagree). You need to learn the rules of the dreamworld and obey them for a time in order to escape its clutches. Unfortunately, this Blood of Dawnwalker mission involves elements of all this and more.

It starts off simple enough. Coen awakens to find his entire family at the breakfast table, waiting for him. He stutters something nonsensical about how none of this can be real (duh), but as his mother turns to ask what he'd like on his oladkas, Coen is momentarily stunned to hear her voice again.

By this stage in my Dawnwalker adventure, I've uncovered a little of father Pieter's backstory and have pieced together that his mother, Esme, suffered some kind of psychotic break many years before the events of the game. Coen never goes into detail about what happened to her or his late little brother, Alin, but it's all implied as a sore spot for him.

Monsters attack the homestead, sending Coen's family scattering in fear. He rushes out of the house, desperate to save them, and as I resume control following the cinematic, the first thing I do is check my inventory for the inevitable.

All of my high-level armor, my weapons, potions, powerful vampire abilities – all gone. In its place I have a common-quality sword that deals 40 damage per hit, zero equipped trinkets, and not even a pair of bog-standard bracers to keep me company. It's like that nightmare scenario about going to school totally naked, only so much worse.

This is enough to make the dream terrible already. But, when I speed off down the path (after looting all the consumables I can from nearby carts), I'm faced with the fight that makes me want to end it all. Five ghoulish specters are swarming Coen's mother. I'd make quick work of the lot in the real Vale Sangora, but here in dreamworld, it's a blistering fight that puts my direction block and parry skills to the test.

Each strike of my sword barely makes a dent in my spongy foes. In contrast, a lack of proper armor means just one of their attacks can take off a third of my health bar easily. I die maybe four times before giving in to my tried and true method for all timing-heavy combat in video games: I mute the TV.

When I finally declare victory over the spirits, having hushed their nerve-wracking wails, Esme rushes over to thank Coen. I have options here again: encourage her to get to the others and head to the church for safety, or dip an experimental toe further into the dream (very, very gingerly) and talk to Esme as if she is real.

I resist the urge. Much as I'm desperate to know more of Coen's family backstory, I don't want to get sucked into the dreamscape. So I forge on ahead, leaving a confused and sobbing Esme wondering why her eldest boy is being so dismissive.

I drop a quicksave (thank god) and head through some gates into a larger town square, lined with locked houses. Immediately I set off to gather up all the consumables in the vicinity – healing salves, an apple, an ironic clove of garlic – before Coen draws his sword again as wraiths start popping up all around me. I start hacking and slicing at the coming horde with gusto, and again, they barely take damage.

Wraiths hit incredibly quickly, so much so that I barely have time to react when the directional warning indicates a coming attack. So swarmed am I by the black-cloaked enemies that I don't see that one spirit is wreathed in red instead.

It's familiar. I put two and two together just as I die for the sixth time: just like when I fight wraiths at haunting sites in the "real" game, I need to target and defeat that red spirit first otherwise it will draw health from the others and keep spawning new lackeys.

I reload my quicksave and get right into the fray again, this time bearing in mind the above info (enemy variety isn't that broad in Dawnwalker). I rescue my siblings, again forgo the white dialogue choices indicating exploratory conversation, and head up to the church to confront my father. And, shock horror, a gargoyle – which is much easier to fight, considering I am a parrying pro and this is one enemy instead of a dozen.

Home to roost

I've done it, I think. I've completed the dream and rescued my family, so heading into the church to join them will surely wake Coen from the dream! Except, it does not. I enter the church and am right back where I started at Coen's family home. The dream has looped – but a fleeting image of a well in the village square flashes across the screen, and I make a mental note to check it out later.

When I re-enter the breakfast room and the family greets me, I experiment here with a little backstory text. I have all the time in the world, it seems, and if I have to go through all that again, at least I can do it with more narrative depth.

Here is where the root of Coen's savior complex is slowly uncovered. He tells his mother how he's missed her, but also how he hates her for abandoning the family by retreating into her own mind. He mentions his brother, briefly – has she never forgiven Coen for what happened to… Alin, was it? Nevermind. The monsters descend and it's time to charge back through the dream, and this time, I do a pretty decent job. I need to get to that well, and no ghoul or wraith can stop me.

After clearing the wraiths from the town square, Coen mentions the well. I run over and interact with it, only to be faced with his reflection.

It's angry. Coen chides himself – he's a coward, unable to come to terms with what happened to his little brother nor forgive himself for the role he played in his death. Only by screaming his brother's name – Alin! Alin! Alin! – does the dream start to crack at its seams.

If I'd ignored the well I would have stayed stuck in the nightmare's loop, resulting in one of the secret and most depressing Blood of Dawnwalker endings, but I am more than happy to be rid of this place. My vampire powers are back, and I'm able to shadowstep up the icy cliff in front of me and make my way through a maze of memories.

Rebel Wolves does a beautiful job of telling rather than showing the shame and guilt Coen carries with him. He blames himself for the accident that took Alin's life when they were both mere children playing on a frozen lake. Alin was there one moment and gone the next. But he cannot square away the feeling that he could have done something – until Alin himself appears before him.

He tells his brother to forgive himself; that the worst thing he has done is not visit Alin at the site of his death. He's been waiting for him for years, after all. Coen breaks down as Alin hugs his big brother before sinking to his knees, clutching Alin close. Alin tells him goodbye one last time and, with a shove, sends Coen tumbling out of the dream and back into consciousness.

I did not expect such a painful dream sequence to result in an equally painful narrative revelation. The pressure I was under as Coen, fighting through Hell to save his family with barely anything to his name, is the same pressure he had taken upon himself when Alin died.

Home Sweet Home turned out to be one of the most poetic examples of narrative and level design confluence I've ever experienced. It's also completely optional. After waking up and killing the alchemist, I check my mission log to find that it was actually one of long-dead boyaress Xanthe's branching side quests (she was the first of Brencis' lieutenants I killed in the game). I'll bear that in mind for next time. As touched as I was by Coen's redemption after years of emotional torment, Home Sweet Home is still the best Blood of Dawnwalker mission I will not be hastening back to in an inevitable replay. I've had enough nightmares for days, thanks Rebel Wolves.

Is The Blood of Dawnwalker one of the best RPGs of all-time? Watch this space...

Next year's big Fable revival is being handled by Playground Games, the Xbox-owned studio behind the Forza Horizon series, taking over from Lionhead Studios. The developer just launched Forza Horizon 6 to near universal acclaim this year, but now it's set to release Fable on February 23, 2027, and everyone's eager to see what a fantasy RPG from a beloved franchise looks and plays like when it's designed by a team that's only ever made racing games.

The choice of Playground Games as Fable's developer might seem like an odd one at first blush, but from the perspective of the studio, it's an opportunity for them to prove themselves in a completely different space.

"I think there was a little bit of pride in proving we could cut it in a different genre," Playground co-founder and Fable game director Ralph Fulton tells The Guardian, who points out the open-world format that both Fable and Forza Horizon share even though only one of those series takes place entirely behind the wheels of an automobile.

"It made sense not to fall too far from Horizon. This project definitely wasn't going to have cars, but open worlds felt like an area where we had transferable skills," says Fulton. Playground Games was brought under the Xbox Game Studios umbrella in 2018 (then Microsoft Studios), and there was zero hesitation years later when they were asked to tackle Fable.

"When Xbox mentioned Fable, every other opportunity dissolved into the background. It was all we could think about," says Fulton.

Relatedly, Fable lead says "every single member of the team is first and foremost" a fan of the original RPG trilogy

The Blood of Dawnwalker, the newly released vampire RPG from the new studio led by The Witcher 3 director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, was made on a budget of $40 million under NetEase.

That's according to a new article from Bloomberg covering the game's development. The budget is the standout: Chinese company NetEase gained a 26% investment in The Blood of Dawnwalker developer Rebel Wolves and set its budget, while Bandai Namco ultimately stepped in as the game's publisher. In 2024, NetEase found a big hit in Marvel Rivals, which remains a popular multiplayer shooter.

This $40 million figure is significant for a few reasons, though it doesn't tell the whole story about The Blood of Dawnwalker's development or profitability. We do know that the game sold over 1 million copies in a few days, which was good enough for Rebel Wolves to dive headfirst into plans for a sequel.

This budget also puts The Blood of Dawnwalker in the same constellation of RPGs as AA hits like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 (a reported budget of roughly $41 million) and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (a smaller but still fairly AA budget of just under $10 million).

Games like these have, in recent years, been held up as examples of a healthier approach to game production: smaller teams, smaller but still rich games, and significantly smaller budgets.

Multiple current and former studio heads and industry experts have backed the rise of AA games. Jagex CEO Jon Bellamy, now in charge of the RuneScape empire, argued you could take "a tenth" of a $400 million AAA budget and "deliver not so different results if you get it right."

A 2023 court document leak for Sony revealed that the likes of The Last of Us Part 2 and Horizon Forbidden West cost upwards of $200 million to make. After many years and many delays, it's estimated that the combined budget for GTA 6 could top $1 billion.

In a recent report on the ongoing buckling of the AAA games industry, layoffs watchdog Amir Satvar reckons Japanese companies like Capcom and Nintendo are faring better today because they don't see the same redundancies, exorbitant executive salaries, or massive teams as Western studios.

The Witcher 3, due for a free remaster in just a few days, is another useful comparison: back in the 2010s, it cost developer CD Projekt Red a combined $81 million. This point of reference also opens the discussion up to several other factors that affect a game's finances: how much its developers were paid, how many man hours were put in, what cut the studio gets after publisher and investor recoup, and how much the game costs ($70 in this case).

But there's no arguing with a few numbers: The Blood of Dawnwalker sits at an 84 on Metacritic, making it one of the highest-rated games and RPGs of 2026. Post-launch, its Steam reviews have settled at 86% positive.

The AA games industry needs "a few more Expedition 33s" before publishers stop seeing smaller games as a major financial risk, says Valor Mortis director.

• Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave is perfect if you want hours upon hours of grid-based tactical combat, plenty of role-playing game elements like levels and classes, and so very many different characters.

Here's the 60-second pitch for why you should play Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave this weekend: Fortune's Weave has consumed my life. While that might at first sound hyperbolic, please understand that I nearly completed three out of four protagonist routes before the Nintendo Switch 2 game was even released. I'm not even close to done, either. Between the multiple protagonists, lengthy combat cycles, RPG elements like levels and classes, and multitude of recruitable characters, there's still so much to see and do that I can't wait to experience.

Why play it today?

• Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave feels like a long time coming. It marks the first true sequel (prequel?) to Fire Emblem: Three Houses, the SRPG with a new Fire Emblem continuity that absolutely blew me away back on the Nintendo Switch. It takes all of the elements that I loved so much and enhances them in ways I'd not expected.

My Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave preview gets into it at length, the my biggest problem with Fire Emblem: Three Houses wasn't the length; it was the fact that you essentially committed yourself to a single path several times over. Fortune's Weave gets around this by constructing a narrative reason for you to mechanically swap between different routes at will without making a mess of things. In fact, there's every indication that this might actually be useful to do.

So if you've been looking forward to a meaty, chunky RPG with plenty of combat skills, support conversations, team composition considerations, massive amounts of proper nouns, and a singular conceptually fascinating story told from multiple vantage points, your prayers have been answered in the form of Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave.

Time commitment:

If you're looking for how long it takes to beat Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave, the exact amount of time will vary because of how many different paths you take or want to explore more thoroughly. At 95 hours, I've yet to roll credits myself, so expect to spend several long sessions putting your units through their paces.

Play Fire Emblem Fortune's Weave if you love:

Skip Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave if you want:

One thing to know:

Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave is, to stress again, a game that you'll be in for the long haul. Even if you're looking to put in the absolute bare minimum amount of effort in order to roll credits, you are almost certainly still looking at sinking above 60 hours into it.

A moment you'll remember:

From the moment you begin, Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave absolutely dumps you into the deep end. Between proper nouns, references to events in other games, and a wild pivot from fantasy to something much more heavily inspired by science fiction than might be expected, the game doesn't hold your hand, nor does it hold you back. But it is a lot to take in.

The final verdict:

Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave is really for a particular kind of sicko. The kind of person that happily dumps dozens of hours into moving digital dolls around maps but also goes "and now kiss" from time to time. It's a great RPG with multiple elements from previous Fire Emblem games returning, a smart tactical game with plenty of grid-based combat to go around, and an absolutely massive tome of story and lore for anyone that ever wanted more of what Three Houses was doing. It's not perfect, but I also can't recommend it highly enough.

So, where can you play it?

Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave is now available on the Nintendo Switch 2, and it's an exclusive; you cannot play it on the OG Switch.

How to get started with Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave:

Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave is better off for not immersing yourself in tips and tricks, but if you absolutely must know where to start with Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave this weekend before you begin, we've got you covered.

Have your say:

If you're looking for something in a similar vein, more Fire Emblem-style games appear in our best RPG games ranking.

September 28, 2026: There are no new World Zero codes today, but I have moved two promos which have now expired.

If you redeem the latest World Zero codes, you'll be able to use the valuable rewards to help you as you complete the OG Tower as part of the Roblox The Hunt 20 event.

While World Zero promos are rife anyway, the Roblox game is getting more hits than ever thanks to being part of the celebratory event, so whether you're a new player experiencing it for the first time or a regular, there's something for you here, including items specific to the latest update.

These aren't the only rewards you can claim during the Roblox The Hunt 20 event, as you can always take a look at the latest Roblox promo codes, all of which can be used across different experiences.

All World Zero codes

These are the World Zero codes you can redeem right now:

• 925KLIKES - 150x Crystals

Many World // Zero codes are for event items, and you can see that from the list above. You can also redeem codes for Crystals, Coins, and cosmetic items, as these promos change a lot.

How to redeem World Zero codes

To redeem World Zero codes, you must first complete the tutorial, then you can access the code redemption screen via the Rewards button in the Main Menu. Enter a code from the list above into the box before hitting Redeem to claim your rewards. You do this from the lobby and from inside a tower.

Expired World Zero codes

• KRAKENINSANE - 25x Kraken Coins, 1x Summer Present
• YARRR - 1x Sea Present, 25x Kraken Coins
• KRAKEN26 - 1x Sea Present, 25x Kraken Coins
• SUMMER26 - 1x Sea Present, 25x Kraken Coins
• HEAVENRAID - 1x Holy Key
• NEWTUTORIAL - Chad Statue
• JIMOTHY - Jimothy Mount
• STOCKBUG - 150x Crystals
• SEASON22 - 50x Guild Coins
• VANE26 - 1x Manga Present, 25x Dragon Coins
• ANIME26 - 1x Manga Present, 25x Dragon Coins

Since World Zero has been around for a little while now, loads of old promos have expired, and I've no doubt those on my list further up the page will join them soon. As such, I'd always recommend claiming codes as soon as possible so you don't miss out.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

The launch of Cyberpunk 2077 was a trying time for CD Projekt Red. After years of anticipation, the RPG arrived glitchy and broken, leading to a number of post-launch patches and updates to make it more playable. It was the last major release from the studio to use REDEngine, its in-house engine, before switching to Unreal Engine 5 for The Witcher 4, but one of the company's leaders contends this is more of a coincidence.

Michał Nowakowski, the joint CEO of CD Projekt Red, appeared on the Deconstructor of Fun podcast (thanks, VGC), where he explained why the decision was made to change technology.

"A lot of people think like this, but this is a bit of a false assumption, I would say," he explains when asked about if the sci-fi blockbuster influenced the choice, "because the issue with Cyberpunk was not really REDengine itself.”

The logic internally was that CD Projekt Red makes games, and the REDEngine was really a byproduct of doing that. "The dream of the company was actually never to make technology, it was to, yes, create visually and technically cutting-edge games," he adds. "But most importantly telling the stories in the most convincing and immersive way."

The incentive to switch came about when we got that The Matrix Awakens demonstration of Unreal Engine 5. At that point, the technology wasn't quite where CD Projekt Red would like, but Nowakowski and the rest of the company's leadership could see it was going to be formidable.

"If we form a relationship with Unreal and if we work on certain things which are specifically required to make games of the size and scope and certain technicalities about it that we need for the games, it could actually work," he recalls thinking. "And that's where we came to the table with the guys from Epic. That's where we made the strategic collaboration."

Now CD Projekt Red is one of the few developers helping to forge the engine from the inside. Which makes sense, since not only is it being used for The Witcher 4, it's behind the remaster of The Witcher 3 as well.

"We're actually, I think, the only team in the world outside of Epic that deals with the inside of the 'black box' that the engine is. Nobody else is doing that except for us and them, which we do through collaborative efforts together," he comments. We'll start seeing what improvements this all provides when The Witcher 3 Remastered arrives in just over a week.

The Witcher 3 "is not a monument" says lead writer ahead of Songs of the Past, which means "adding a new expansion is not such a huge deal."

Fable game director Ralph Fulton says the team behind the reboot of the classic RPG series was built with fans of the original games.

Rebooting a franchise that has been pretty much dead since 2010 is going to be a daunting challenge for anyone. But for Playground Games, not only are the developers rebooting Fable, a franchise that it did not originally develop, but on top of that, it's the studio's first foray outside of racing games, and it's a game that's garnered over six years of anticipation since it was first announced (without rumors starting even earlier). However, the studio's approach to Fable sounds like it's one of reverence for the original trilogy.

Speaking to the Future Games Show, Fulton explains, "I'll tell you, every single member – and I can say this without qualification – every single member of the team is first and foremost a Fable fan." He says that "many of them, if not to say most of them, have traveled from all over the world to our little town in the middle of Warwickshire in England. And the reason they did that; it wasn't to work for Playground Games."

Instead, he says, "Each and every one of them came here because they're a Fable fan. They love the series, they want to bring it back." He adds that on everyone's first day at the studio, something that they "had in common with everyone else was that they were here to make a great Fable game, and I think that you can feel that from the game that they've made."

The team being fans of Fable certainly helps explain comments from Fulton that the team is confident they have stuck the landing of the upcoming RPG's ending, because they'll know better than anyone how much Fable 2's ending stunk. So here's hoping that experience is put to good use in tackling some of the franchise's biggest issues.

Amid relentless layoffs at Xbox, Fable lead says "so many people" at the company see the RPG as "vital to the DNA of the platform," which "protected us over a long development cycle."

Opportunity is not only knocking, it's about to punch down your door – Steam is discounting a whole bunch of RPGs like it always is, and Larian Studios' Divinity: Original Sin is currently available for its lowest price ever, at 90% off.

That makes the now-standard Enhanced edition of the hardcore fantasy game $3.99, or two packs of gum, and its coinciding Collector's Edition is $6.99, or three packs of gum… This is making me realize how much inflation has impacted packs of gum, but for a beloved 2015 RPG? These prices are perfect.

SteamDB confirms that $3.99, down from $39.99, is the lowest-ever recorded price for Divinity: Original Sin, though this isn't the first time that Larian has bestowed the giant discount. Since May, the publisher has been pricing Original Sin at $3.99 for at least a few days each month for Steam sales like Summer Sale 2026, and also just for fun. So if you don't purchase the Enhanced edition of the game before its current discount period ends on September 21, there's a good chance you'll have another opportunity to do so soon.

The same goes for the Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition - Collector's Edition, according to its SteamDB history. $6.99 instead of $69.99 is its lowest price in history, but Larian's been returning to it nearly once a month since December 2025. So, really, consider this your notice to never buy Original Sin at full price. That would really be a sin.

But if you haven't yet played the game that really solidified Larian as the master of gloomy fantasy realms, you should think about doing so soon. Its upcoming Divinity reboot – the first new game in the series since Divinity: Original Sin II in 2017 – is just beyond the horizon. The unconventional follow-up to Baldur's Gate 3 does not have a release date, but it does come with a guarantee from Larian technical animation director Ricardo Ayasta that, "I can guarantee that all the genitals in the game be manually crafted with love." So that's something.

It's likely that the Divinity reboot will target a 2027 release date at the very, very earliest. Last we heard from Larian CEO Swen Vincke, the game was "in that stage of development where there is a lot that is still rough or missing, but where you sense that a game is coming alive."

"Something was created out of nothing, and you now get to experience what it feels like," Vincke continued, "knowing that things are still very moldable and that from here onwards, it can only improve. It's a good moment in the life of any game. And it's one I expect many developers recognize."

But even if Divinity were a million years away, the earlier installments of the RPG might take you as long to beat, so you might want to start building your backlog soon.

Former Dragon Age lead says Baldur's Gate 3 studio Larian is taking a "risk" by making Divinity right after its 2023 RPG hit, but he applauds the devs for it.

Although The Blood of Dawnwalker only launched this month, fans are already waiting to see what the former CD Projekt Red masterminds behind the vampire RPG have in store – and it looks like it'll be New Game Plus.

Now that we know The Blood of Dawnwalker will have sequels of some flavor in the future, fans have been wondering whether the current game itself will perhaps get a New Game Plus – and yes, yes it will... much like The Witcher 3 did after its own launch.

Director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz confirms as much in a new stream on YouTube, casually admitting, "New Game Plus? Yes, it's coming." It's only something folks have had on their mind since The Blood of Dawnwalker's release, you know.

He then doubles down that, yes, "it's coming" – but Rebel Wolves isn't ready to share when exactly that'll be. As Tomaszkiewicz throws in, "But I won't tell you when."

It's likely to be part of some free update later down the line, of course, although there's no real way to tell when said update (if it turns out to be part of one) will drop. The Blood of Dawnwalker recently got a little patch, after all, which proves the studio is actively working on it.

What will New Game Plus entail, though? Could it axe the controversial time mechanic that the game's biggest mod reworks, giving us a bit more leeway in what we do and how we experience the RPG's story?

Maybe – I mean, Tomaszkiewicz did also just state that upcoming sequels might scrap the feature altogether, or at least change how it works. There's no knowing what New Game Plus looks like until it's here, of course, however.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a tad more freedom, personally, come New Game Plus – but I'll be happy to see any new content or difficult come to The Blood of Dawnwalker either way, whether we lose the time limit or not.

CD Projekt Red fans stay loyal: About 58% of The Blood of Dawnwalker's Steam player base also played The Witcher 3

Aniimo codes can be used to get the best start in this open-world RPG, as you explore the continent of Idyll, rounding up creatures to add to your collection. As you encounter and capture unique Aniimo you can utilize their abilities to travel further and reach new areas, as well as battling against others in exciting completions. To find out more, here are all of the gift codes for Aniimo and how to claim them.

Note that while Aniimo is available now on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X, it doesn't launch on mobile for Android and iPhone until September 23 – but when it does your character and any rewards you have already redeemed can be transferred between platforms through cross-progression.

All Aniimo codes

The following Aniimo gift codes are available to be claimed:

• aniimofreetoplay – 50x Glimmer, 5x Aniipod Pro, 5x Growth Flower new!
• aniimotogether – 3x Growth Flower, 10,000 Credits
• aniimoidyll – 5x Aniipod, 10,000x Credits
• aniimowelcome – 50x Glimmer, 5x Aniipod Pro, 5x Growth Flower
• twinewithaniimo – 50x Glimmer, 5x Aniipod Pro, 5x Growth Flower
• anyoneaniimo – 5x Aniipod, 10,000x Credits
• aniimobonus – 50x Glimmer
• aniimoopenworld – 5x Aniipod, 10,000x Credits
• aniimolaunch2026 – 5x Aniipod, 10,000x Credits
• ANIIMOGIFT – 10x Glimmer, 20,000x Credits, 10x Growth Flower, 5x Aniipod Pro
• Aniimo2026 – 20x Glimmer

Right off the bat there are plenty of Aniimo codes available, providing Glimmer and Credits to increase your balances alongside other handy items such as Pro Aniipods for capturing those elusive creatures.

How to redeem Aniimo codes

To redeem Aniimo codes, hit Esc or Options to bring up your in-game phone, then select the Cog icon down the right-hand side to reach the Settings menu. From there, scroll down to the Account section, before selection the top option for Gift Code Redemption. On the next screen use the Enter redeem code text box to type in a promo, then hit Redeem to unlock your rewards.

Note that gift codes for Aniimo are case-sensitive, so you need to enter them exactly as they are shown on our list. Also bear in mind that although you can redeem codes almost as soon as you start the game, you need to progress through the initial missions to unlock the mailbox function before you can actually receive your rewards.

Expired Aniimo codes

• aniimoparty – 50x Glimmer, 5x Aniipod Pro, 5x Growth Flower

There is already an expired Aniimo code to report, as some of the promos have a limited number of uses before they run out. Initial codes often expire quickly to reward early adopters, so it may not be long before more active promos start moving down here.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave is finally here, and a day-one patch has made a crucial addition to the new strategy RPG – you can now use a gacha gun as a weapon.

No, really. Fortune's Weave's first update adds a number of collab weapons from the series' two mobile games – Kurt's Royal Sword from the Among Us-esque spin-off with evil furries, Fire Emblem Shadows, and a trio from the 2017 gacha game Fire Emblem Heroes. Progress through the story enough, and you can get your hands on Heroes protagonist Alfonse's Chosen Sword, Fjorm's Chosen Lance, and most importantly, the Summoner's Breidablik.

If you've not played Fire Emblem Heroes before, the gacha system is rather simple – your self-insert character, the Summoner, has a divine gun they can shoot to summon various Fire Emblem characters out of their individual worlds and timelines and into the mobile game's land of Askr. While it can also be used as a weapon in the mobile game, its main purpose is to burn through all your precious in-game currency (Orbs) as you hope to see your faves pop up on the summoning screen, sometimes wearing fun seasonal outfits.

A screenshot of the weapon in Fortune's Weave shows that its attacking animation imitates the summoning animation from Heroes, which is a neat nod, but also raises an important question – could Leda, Dietrich, Cai, Theodora and the gang use it to bring in a load of duplicate 3-star Robin, Wrys, and Bartres to bolster their teams? Even better… could they fire out people as projectiles? Being hit in the face with a Chrom flying through the air at full speed has gotta hurt, after all.

Unfortunately, in the reality of the game itself, the answer is no – there are no actual gacha or human-projectile situations in Fortune's Weave. But in the lore, I wanna believe they could use it like this if they wanted to.

Fortune's Weave having gun-like weapons in the first place is already very funny, so I'm glad to see the devs took the opportunity to bring in the series' ultimate gun here – the only one capable of pulling beloved characters wearing Halloween costumes out of thin air.

Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave Metacritic score matches Three Houses, but still isn't the peak of Nintendo's strategy RPG series.

The Blood of Dawnwalker has been largely well-received by most fans, much to the delight of the former CD Projekt Red masterminds heading the vampire RPG – but there's one controversial mechanic that's brought up time and time again: uh, literally time.

In case you're out of the loop, time is core to The Blood of Dawnwalker. You're given 30 days and 30 nights to save protagonist Coen's family and complete the main story, and everything in the world between then can cost you time slots.

How you choose to spend your time is, however, largely up to you – but the stress and sheer fear of missing out is undeniably real. So much so, in fact, that the game's biggest mod reworks the cycle altogether.

Now that we know The Blood of Dawnwalker will have sequels of some flavor, it comes as no surprise that folks are wondering whether they'll employ the same time mechanic – and, well, the answer is maybe.

Director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz tells Eurogamer as much in a new interview, explaining that Rebel Wolves – the studio comprised of veterans with credits on bangers like The Witcher 3 – isn't quite sure what it'll do yet.

"We didn't decide it, to be honest," he says. "We will play with it. If we will have parts of the story, or the whole story, to which it fits, then we will use it. If we will have stories where it does not fit, we will not force it. We will play with this system and we will try to use it to boost the urgency of some events in the game. But I'm not saying that in every game we will have the same scheme or loop – it's not like this."

That's not all, though. Tomaszkiewicz drops a bit of a teaser, too: "We are also considering and researching some other crazy ideas which can make the RPG genre different to surprise people in the future."

Color me intrigued – the day and night cycle (as well as the whole 30 days and 30 nights thing) are already very unique to the genre… what more could Rebel Wolves have in store? I personally can't wait to find out.

So, there you have it – The Blood of Dawnwalker sequels (whenever they may come) might feature a similar time mechanic as their predecessor… or they might not. We'll just have to see when Rebel Wolves is ready to unveil any future projects.

CD Projekt Red fans stay loyal: About 58% of The Blood of Dawnwalker's Steam player base also played The Witcher 3

Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave joins Three Houses as the second-highest rated game in the series, but Awakening still rests at the top of the pile.

Not counting The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake, Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave is undoubtedly Nintendo's biggest release of 2026 – which says a lot considering we've already had the likes of Pokemon Pokopia and Star Fox. The excellent tactical RPG series is returning with what looks to be an incredibly ambitious follow-up to fan-favorite title Three Houses, with four protagonists leading the story this time (although it was almost as high as eight!).

At the time of writing, Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave has landed on a score of 89 over on Metacritic. This places it alongside the massively beloved Switch release Fire Emblem: Three Houses, which Fortune's Weave could be a sequel to if some of the character appearances in trailers are any indication. This places it as the joint second-best game in the franchise as far as Metacritic score goes; however, Fire Emblem Awakening – the game that saved the series – still reigns supreme with a score of 92.

Among 60 critic reviews, 15 of those gave the game full marks on their review scale, including the likes of IGN and Eurogamer. Meanwhile the game's lowest scoring reviews are three 7/10 ratings, which is still a pretty great score.

In the GamesRadar+ Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave review, freelance writer Alan Wen awarded the game a rating of four out of five stars, saying "Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave builds on Three House's multi-path structure as an even grander and more ambitious epic, with a gripping story and engaging battles that would shine brighter were it not for the myriad of busywork dragging down its momentum."

It's taken 9 years, but a great feature from one of the best 3DS Fire Emblem games returns in Fortune's Weave, and it's probably going to make the tactical JRPG even bigger.

As The Blood of Dawnwalker sinks its fans into the community, I've been keeping an eye on player sentiment. Some, like me, have been transfixed by the plethora of choice available. I love how the vampire RPG's open world unfolds at your own pace despite the 30-day timer – which isn't as punishing as I thought it would be. Others have bones to pick with its design elements, from wrestling with awkward camera angles in combat to the curious lack of proper stealth.

While I find it an impressive effort from a non-triple-A studio like Rebel Wolves and am more than happy to forgive its maiden voyage a few teething problems, there is a more simple reason many players might expecting something different to what they get. Namely, I think some were expecting more than just Witcher 3 vibes in The Blood of Dawnwalker.

Twinsies?

Ever since the game was first revealed in January 2025, discussions around The Blood of Dawnwalker inevitably bring CD Projekt Red into the conversation. Reddit is still awash with very similar questions today: how much like The Witcher 3 is The Blood of Dawnwalker, really, and does liking one mean you will love the other?

Well, the answer really depends. As a project created by ex-Witcher 3 developers – a tagline that, admittedly, has been done to death by myself and fellow games journalists in the leadup to the game's launch – it does share some DNA. By that, I mean both Geralt and Coen exist in medieval high-fantasy worlds, and that dialogue choices shape the story you will experience.

The game director himself is "really comfortable" with the comparisons, but having played both The Blood of Dawnwalker and The Witcher 3 to completion, let's be real. The two RPGs are mechanically and tonally alien to one another.

While playing Dawnwalker for the first time, I thought back to the closed-doors Witcher 3: Songs of the Past demo I was privileged to attend at Gamescom 2026.

Watching Geralt run barefoot through the leafy countryside town of Letten before punching a dude in the face to get his best friend's lute back, all in time to swan into a mansion wearing last night's gladrags – it's the kind of lighthearted opening fodder Coen of Laslea couldn't dream of. We never get a glimpse of a happy Coen; the game starts in a black plague fever dream throwback, and things never get better for the unlikely hero.

Even when Songs of the Past's mysterious drama starts unfolding – companion Dandelion has vanished, and it's up to his sister and Geralt to search for him – there's a warm, almost self-aware familiarity about it. There are tough decisions to be made in The Witcher, but this world is as much a campy fairytale as it is imperiled. Case in point: Geralt gets so stoned in one mission that his horse can converse with him.

That tonal balance can be seen in Geralt's new-and-improved combat capabilities coming in the DLC. Not only does he still have his trusty steel and silver swords at his back, for man and monster respectively, Geralt will have a silver hook on a chain for fancy ranged attacks. It'll be a new stand-in for the crossbow come the expansion's 2027 launch, a throwback to the source novels that gives Geralt even greater combat diversity and shows off his status as a tried-and-true battle master.

But then, there's Coen in The Blood of Dawnwalker. Anyone who comes to Rebel Wolves' RPG expecting a Witcher 3-like combat experience will be sorely disappointed. Without his witchcraft or vampire abilities, Coen is all melee, all the time. The directional blocks and dodges are another fresh challenge, requiring keen reflexes and even greater dexterity since Coen cannot simply dodge-roll around the battlefield and buttonmash to success. So why are we all comparing Dawnwalker to The Witcher 3?

Separate ways

I'd say the exact same thing even with combat put aside completely. Coen has a time constraint. Geralt does not. Coen's actions in the open world get punished by edicts, increasing pressure on the player as you fight back against vamp lord Brencis. Geralt's are not.

When I see prospective Dawnwalker players asking how lively or dense the open world of Vale Sangora is compared to Geralt's Continent, I wince. Coen's world is not the size of a literal country. It does not have the enemy or mission variety of The Witcher 3, which had a book series and two games to draw upon, and as the first game in a would-be saga, nor did I expect it to.

I feel partly responsible for the constant hat-tipping to The Witcher 3 that set The Blood of Dawnwalker up for these comparisons. It was a way into the new IP that, at the time, created an immediate touchstone for players to better understand the overall vibe and style of the game before we knew much about it.

But now that Dawnwalker is out in the wild, hear my plea: It's time to leave Geralt alone and appreciate Coen on his own merit. Comparing the first in a potential saga to a soon-to-be four-part video game series sets up unrealistic expectations for everyone. I wonder if the comparisons will hold up when The Blood of Dawnwalker closes in on its modern day timeline, or if Cyberpunk 2077 will be the new chosen one?

Check out all the upcoming RPGs for 2026 and beyond if you've had your fill of Vale Sangora.

Fire Emblem is no stranger to epic narratives with diverging paths that span generations, whether that's with one or multiple protagonists. Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave isn't just Intelligent System's most ambitious iteration of these ideas, but one that ties together its disparate threads into one coherent unifying saga that had been lacking from, say, Fire Emblem: Three Houses' four different parallel routes, or Fire Emblem Fates where you had to pay for the privilege of unlocking its true path.

Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave's bold solution, however, is to almost take a bird's eye view, pulling back to reveal the big picture from the outset, not only from the creation of your custom protagonist (canonically named Eshmel), and meeting with godly figures, but in showing what's at stake by having you cut down the game's four heroes – Cai, Dietrich, Theodora, and Leda – within the opening prologue. When you start, the world has already fallen to dark undead forces with the return of demon god Balor imminent, and your high-level character is seemingly already at the endgame.

But, with the aid of Fortuna, the goddess of fate, you can travel back in time five years to rewrite the fate of each fallen protagonist, turning the tables to fight alongside you in the final battle. The time trip transports Eshmel to the year 1449 in Dagsion, a Rome-inspired city that is holding its Heroic Games where each hero is participating for their own reasons, with the victor granted one wish. As to how each can go on to win the Games before joining together in the final act – well, I wouldn't try to think too hard about that in an already fairly convoluted story that features ancient yet futuristic sci-fi tech and undead warriors of past ages.

Four the win

This narrative approach risks feeling a touch too meta and alienating when you're knowingly manipulating characters like chess pieces. But it's also an improvement on Fire Emblem: Three Houses, where everyone has to awkwardly revolve around your mute avatar. By having Eshmel as just a distant observer in the guise of a Pale Raven (a literal bird's eye view), it means you do get to be more emotionally invested in your respective hero's arcs.

For instance, young Cai enters the Games to rescue his imprisoned father from execution, while Dietrich, hailing from the continent of Fódlan (the setting of Three Houses), has an insatiable thirst for battle. Others have even more complex backstories, such as Theodora, the warrior queen from the Kingdom of Samaris, whose tale begins years earlier as you follow her ascent to the throne following assassination and betrayal that could be lifted from Game of Thrones. But it's musician Leda's story that I ultimately gravitate towards the most, witnessing the destruction of her home and her father's murder, which takes her down an obsessive path of revenge. The Games becomes her route to crossing the culprits off her list.

Since Eshmel is essentially a conduit for these heroes, you're not locked into any one route but can return to the Obelisk Chamber, located in the game's present, before hopping over to another hero's path, giving you the freedom to pursue all the campaigns in parallel if you want. Initially, it's a good way to dip your toes into each route and appreciate the differences in how they play, even if they all share the core grid-based tactical battles and team-building downtime that defines Fire Emblem's flavor of strategy RPG, with the exploration loop of more recent entries that takes you beyond Dagsion's walls to the rest of the Dagdan Empire as an explorable world map.

In Leda's case as a musical performer, she can find towns she can dance at where she'll learn new songs that she can play during battle to buff her allies. As the youngest protagonist, Cai has more to prove but can also speak to other allies to receive mentoring, while Dietrich starts off as a seemingly overpowered warrior, all the more deadly as he has the ability to warp several spaces to attack enemy units further away.

These new skills complement the series' solid tactical foundations giving you all the clear information you need, whether it's bestowing your unit a terrain advantage that also baits the enemy to come to you, or the subtle hum of HD rumble warning you if the flying cavalry you're moving is going to be within the fatal range of an enemy archer. Then, there's always the satisfaction when you manage to trump the battle forecast and deliver a critical that kills your enemy in one go while you come away without a scratch.

Yet, being able to alternate between paths is also a double-edged sword, especially in the early chapters, where you inevitably encounter a lot of the same onboarding quests, including the same cinematics, such as when each respective protagonist enters Dagsion for the first time. There are nonetheless differentiations between each character's perspective, not just in the immediate allies you have and can recruit, but also how your protagonist's social status will determine which parts of the city they will have access to first.

It's intriguing seeing how their respective paths overlap, which might have one team working together in a battle, before their next encounter in the arena sees them fighting each other. But, the slow progression and momentum that comes with rotating between paths meant that, after 20 hours, I ultimately prioritized seeing Leda's path through to completion first. However, this focused approach also doesn't remove the game's pacing issues.

Turn on, turn off

If Fire Emblem: Three Houses was the series taking a leaf out of Persona with its expanded relationship mechanics between party members and activities to undertake in between the main quests, then those elements carry over here, including picking a posse for meals, or training your weapon skills required to promote to higher ranked classes. However, the other Atlus title I can't help but think about is Metaphor: ReFantazio, where your considerable downtime can also be used to explore the wider world, whether that's farming resources, discovering towns with unique wares, or just gaining XP through mini skirmishes.

There's even a nod to Fire Emblem: Shadows of Valentia, with mini dungeons you can explore in third-person. While you take a smaller party than usual in these excursions, that's also because enemy encounters play out as clashes much like classic turn-based command battles. Unfortunately, they lack any of the strategic spark from a Final Fantasy or Persona, and given you can also just skip straight to the automated outcome, I soon find myself defaulting to that for quick XP before moving on. To some extent, these mini dungeons exemplify my biggest problem with Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave. It's so stuffed with filler that feels too granular compared to the larger goals – I don't want to feel bogged down with busywork while I leave the threads of fate dangling.

Your free time is measured not in calendar days but in turns, which can feel inconsistent. It can take multiple turns just to reach another destination on the world map – more if you run into a skirmish or decide to poke around a newly opened path – but, you also have to awkwardly move one turn at a time, as opposed to having the option to use up, say, three turns immediately to reach a farther location. Even then, most activities within Dagsion itself don't cost turns but party members' motivations, a completely separate resource.

On top of that, you do also have to take the calendar into account as many activities in Dagsion have a limit that refreshes every week. Want to spend more time bonding with your allies, or training up their combat skills? You're going to have to kill time out in the world until a week passes. That then also puts a cap on just how far out you want to be exploring, although initially some paths are gated until your Renown has leveled up from story and side quests you have completed.

Do I spend more time exploring the desert and seeing what secrets I can uncover, or do I hurry back in time for my next chance to have a dinner date? Pushing at the boundaries of resource limitations can be where the best Fire Emblem games shine, and to a point having to balance what's important to me can be compelling – but the web of different resources can feel exhausting to navigate for what often feel like low stakes choices.

Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave may have dialled back on the series' fanservice, but building relationships remain a core part of the game. It does, however, force you to meet several requirements before you can recruit them, which can feel arbitrary. You can come across a character who has such a high Renown level requirement that you may as well forget about them until you've progressed the story a few chapters, or you meet someone else who technically can be recruited early on except you have to bribe them with enough pointless gifts and activities to raise their bond level first.

But just like friend-bombing, I can't help but feel disappointed by how less emotionally invested I am in my recruits compared to past entries, which is also reflected in how few support conversations party members share between one another, if they have any at all. Even though the real bonds do persist on the battlefield where buffs are applied when units are fighting adjacent to each other, I still find myself pining for the way past games more meaningfully present this by showing a dear ally follow up with an attack, or sometimes jumping in at the last moment to save you from an enemy's fatal blow.

Battle-weary

It frustrates me having to get into the petty things that Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave does to annoy me at every turn (no pun intended), because whenever you do get back onto the main event, it's a really engrossing yarn. While I'm still accustomed to playing Fire Emblem games portably, the presentation – from the flashy cutscenes to the grandeur of the score – deserve to be experienced on your TV.

The grid-based battles carry over the best of the series, including combat arts that enhance attacks, like improving an axe's accuracy level, at the cost of the weapon's durability, while protagonists' new powerful bespoke Blaze arts come at the cost of their HP but also have a risk/reward where using them more unlocks even more powerful options but can also reduce their maximum HP.

The conceit of the Heroic Games also allows for elaborate arena set pieces, where you might be facing against chariot-riding units, or targeting a flying enemy who's immune to arrows, and there's even an unsubtle homage to a certain wooden horse. Yet, as the opening prologue should indicate, it's not a spoiler to say that these Games are just a warm-up before the stakes ratchet up significantly across the story's lengthy runtime.

There's even a whole mid-section that you have the option to skip entirely, though this was ironically where I found Fortune's Weave at its strongest, as it does away with its bloated systems for back-to-back unadulterated sweeping drama and hardcore battles. And from there, the most devious showdowns keep coming, as goalposts shift mid-battle, with more treacherous debuffing environmental hazards to navigate, bosses with more than one pool of health or even regenerating shields, and the kind of relentless pressure of reinforcements more reminiscent of XCOM.

It's the kind of dastardly challenge that may even have purists abusing the game's unlimited rewinds, while you can also unlock divine blessings that give buffs to the whole party that turn that can often prove decisive.

Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave has such grand scope and ambition that it might have been the series' high, were it not for its mire of busywork that persists through to the endgame, which doubles down by introducing another kind of grind altogether. Yet, when you wade through some seemingly impossible odds to land the killing blow that ends a gruelling battle in triumph, it does compel me to want to see the other remaining paths through to completion so that I can see this rich tactical tapestry in full. All you need is time, and turns, to spare.

Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave was reviewed on Nintendo Switch 2, with a code provided by the publisher.

No video game is perfect, regardless of how popular or enduring they are. The Witcher 3 is no exception, and on the back of the upcoming remaster, one lead developer makes it clear he'd revisit quite a bit of the massive RPG.

"For me, The Witcher 3 is not a monument and is not untouchable. It is still vivid in my memory, and it is still something that is not maybe a point of reference, but something that still may be improved," Marcin Blacha, lead writer on The Witcher 3 and now vice president of narration at CD Projekt Red, tells PC Gamer.

"When I'm playing The Witcher 3, I still find some places that I think maybe nowadays, I would do it differently."

I can understand this mentality. There's a lot to do in Wild Hunt, and since it's been over a decade, Blacha's now got the value of hindsight in what could've been more efficient or better.

Not only is the base game about to get a sizable lick of paint, but there's an expansion coming too, Songs of the Past. They provide a decent amount of changes and additions to the 11-year-old game between them, and Blacha found the whole process to be invigorating creatively.

"Adding a new expansion is not such a huge deal," he explains. "In fact, discovering we still have it, you know, we have this thing, and we are still able to create a story that fits not only vanilla Witcher 3 but also Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine. It is still a very uplifting feeling – a time machine that brings me 10 years back, when I was younger and maybe more passionate and more enthusiastic."

To compound what he's talking about, the chain weapon Geralt uses in Songs of the Past was an idea for the base game the team couldn't figure out in time. It seems like the devs still have more to say in The Witcher 3, and more power to them for making good on those opportunities still.

And it helps that Songs of the Past will take the edge off waiting for The Witcher 4.

The Witcher 3's Songs of the Past expansion wouldn't be "possible" without the RPG's remaster, says CD Projekt Red: "The stars had to align."

Upcoming Mass Effect-like RPG Exodus takes romance seriously, which means you'll need to get comfortable with the idea that serious romance requires sacrifice, and, sometimes, a pig pen of mess. You'll be able to date around, but not without consequence.

Exodus narrative director – and Mass Effect's lead writer – Drew Karpyshyn tells Game Informer that romance was mandatory for the sci-fi drama because "it would feel almost hollow" without it. "Romance is a huge part of the real world," Karpyshyn adds, and Exodus encourages you to be reasonable when you feel a familiar spark in-game.

So while "you can have multiple romances going at the same time," Karpyshyn says, "eventually, there might be some issues with that, depending on which companions [you choose]."

It's like any other situation where one partner wants to discuss non-monogamy and the other wants to throw their copy of The Ethical Slut into a funeral pyre. Basically, "Not everybody is comfortable with that," Karpyshyn says, "and as the story develops, your romance might go from something like a casual relationship, more of a fling, to something much deeper."

"In that case," the writer says, "most of the companions would not want you to have a very deep emotional connection with somebody else as well." You may choose to ignore your lovers' wishes if you'd like to live your life in space as an evil bachelorette, but keep in mind that Exodus' romance is connected to its affinity system. So, the more you risk your tires getting slashed – or whatever the intergalactic equivalent of that is. Your rocketship will get keyed.

Even mission scenarios can risk pissing off your partner. Karpyshyn explains, "You might get into a situation where you think, 'Well, for this mission, I actually agree with this character, but I've been romancing this character. Should I just back them anyway?"

"If you do," the writer continues, "that'll obviously get you more affinity with that character." But "if you decide not to back the character," he warns, "you might get yourself into a situation where they are not very happy with you. I'm sure anyone who's been in a relationship has experienced that."

Karpyshyn explained to GamesRadar+ in February that playing as the main character doesn't give you magic heartthrob status. Its approach to relationships, as I'm sure you've been starting to pick up on, is more realistic than that. The narrative lead said at the time, "There are some games where, literally, you can just romance anyone, because you're the hero, and you just get it." Exodus doesn't waste its time with something so easy.

"We want it to be a little bit more than that. We want these relationships to feel real, which means there's sometimes conflict, there's sometimes push and pull. Sometimes you've got to earn it" – something you should keep in mind for your time both in space and on Earth.

Exodus steps out of Mass Effect's shadow with combat that builds on BioWare's RPG and a galaxy that I'm itching to explore.

Kurt Kuhlmann became a central figure for The Elder Scrolls in the two decades and change he spent as lore expert and world builder at the studio, and, from where he's standing now, Bethesda owner Xbox's decision to cut veteran devs from the team working on The Elder Scrolls 6 doesn't make a lick of sense.

Kuhlmann discusses his experience at Bethesda with FRVR, noting that layoffs didn't happen until after Microsoft acquired the company and Zenimax. He echoes criticism from the Bethesda union, arguing that the layoffs didn't hit the "14 layers of management" decried in Microsoft's plan to streamline Xbox. Rather, dozens of experienced, hands-on developers were cut.

"They weren’t laying off the people managing things," he says. "They were laying off people that were creating the game." He describes the impacted devs as "very senior and longtime, like, the best people you can imagine."

Devs impacted by layoffs at Bethesda include 27-year veteran Christiane Meister, a core artist for Skyrim, Oblivion, Morrowind, Fallout 3, and Fallout 4; Ray Lederer, the last Skyrim concept artist still at the studio, and a Bethesda artist of 18 years; and Ben Carnow, whose weapon and creature designs are a fundamental part of Fallout and Elder Scrolls lore.

"I can't say I understand it, even from a pure just business money point of view," Kulhmann says of the layoffs. "If you want the money from [The Elder Scrolls 6], why would you fire people who are working on that and are going to make it happen, and make it better, and get it done faster? Why would you do that?"

The layoffs followed a report that new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma is pushing Bethesda to speed up production for new Fallout and The Elder Scrolls games, stoking fears that the "do more with less" management mentality afflicting many companies had finally come for the studio.

"These aren't people that screwed up, were slacking off, or bad at their jobs," Kuhlmann adds, having worked with many of the people affected. "That means anyone could be laid off. That means you have no way to know. You can’t just be good and work harder and know you’re safe."

In August, Sharma, amid an executive visit that saw union members protest outside the studio campus, said she'd seen a "live playthrough" of The Elder Scrolls 6.

"We shouldn't have made it," says former Starfield lead, because something more than "Skyrim in space" was too much even for Bethesda.

Nighthawks is an upcoming Steam vampire RPG where you have to navigate a modern underworld after awakening as a newly minted member of the undead. You can't have a vampire story without at least a little seduction, but Nighthawks steers well clear of anything more risque than you'd see in a PG-13 movie. It's easy to understand, then, why the devs were so worried when they got slapped with an "adults only" rating from Valve just days before launch.

"We are aware that Steam has classified Nighthawks as an adult game and has excluded it from searches (and delisted it entirely in certain countries)," producer Dave Gilbert said in a September 13 Bluesky post. "We are working on it. Valve is under the impression that this game is way sexier than it actually is."

The game's actual Steam page describes the mature content as follows: "Nighthawks features strong language and adult situations, with occasional moments of non-explicit nudity in romance scenes. Most mature content is only conveyed using text, with no graphic sex scenes or sexual violence."

In other words, it's less explicit than, say, Baldur's Gate 3, a game which does have full-frontal nudity and sex scenes worthy of late-night Cinemax showings. Despite that, Larian's RPG never got an adults-only rating because, well, it's not pornographic. Neither is Nighthawks, but with launch set for September 22, that age restriction was severely limiting the game's visibility to prospective players.

"Much as I hate to turn down possible buyers," writer and designer Richard Cobbett added, "if you acquire Nighthawks specifically for the sexy, you will swiftly be disappointed that it consists of a couple of butts and some largely comedic romance sequences with conveniently placed hands or scenery."

It's unclear why Valve slapped the adults-only tag on Nighthawks, but after a couple days worth of nonstop stress for the devs, it's finally been removed. "I want to make a joke like 'Sorry it's not porn,'" Gilbert says, "but honestly I'm just happy this has been resolved."

Valve's willingness to seel pornographic games alongside mainstream titles on Steam has put the company in the unenviable position of having to define what pornography actually is, and its answers have never been perfect. The real question about Nighthawks is how it got slapped with the adult content tag in the first place, but that's one that hasn't been answered. At least it's all worked out in the end.

"Now that this whole 'adult content' debacle is over, I think I can call it a net positive," Gilbert concludes. "More people know about our game than ever. I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome. That said, I hope to never have to go through anything like this ever again. I wish I could say I planned this as some kind of marketing stunt, but I’m not that smart and I’m not that dumb."

Valve locks Australian Steam users out of age-restricted store pages if they don't have a credit card, even if their account is over 18 years old.

Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave director Toshiyuki Kusakihara has revealed that the developers of the RPG once considered having eight routes for the game.

Fire Emblem post-Awakening has felt very keen to make things bigger every time. Fates took the Pokemon approach with two different games – you could buy separately, with a third arriving as DLC – then Three Houses took it a step further with the titular three houses (which actually had four routes with side story as DLC).

Engage was a bit more linear, but that seems to be the exception not the rule, as Fortune's Weave is going to one up Three Houses by going for four-tunes (I tried, OK). However, rather than being separate playthroughs, these intersect into one major plotline starring the game's actual protagonist; it sounds huge, but it was apparently going to be even bigger.

In Nintendo's newest "Ask the Developer" interview, Kusakihara explans, "We were very fortunate that so many players enjoyed Fire Emblem: Three Houses, but at the same time, we had an enormous sense of responsibility. We spent a lot of time wondering how we could create something that would surpass it."

He reveals, "we came up with the bold idea of increasing the number of story perspectives from three to eight." While Three Houses' protagonists were working against each other, the idea of stories intersecting into one allowed the game to expand somewhat.

While eight sounds like a mammoth undertaking, the developers seemed to give it a fair chance, with Three Houses director and Engage producer Genki Yokota (who is also a producer on Fortune's Weave) saying, "Going from three perspectives to eight is a pretty big jump. Kusakihara-san had really developed a clear theme for each protagonist, and I felt it could lead to something really interesting." And as games like Octopath Traveller 2 and Live A Live have proved, you can make a compelling RPG with multiple protagonists that eventually cross paths.

However, it proved to be a bit too much, with Yokota explaining, "With eight protagonists, there was almost too much we could do... It seemed like players would have a lot to keep track of, which could make the game feel complicated. So, we decided to put the focus on four of those protagonists instead."

Frankly, I'm pleased. Not only would having more protagonists potentially dilute the stories of each of them, but sometimes a game can feel too big. As much as I adored Three Houses, I didn't have it in me to return for Dimitri or Edelgard's stories after beating Claude's. I was originally worried about the prospect of four in Fortune's Weave, but the idea of them being all one playthrough – even if it takes just as long as doing each of the three houses – makes it seem a bit more manageable.

It's taken 9 years, but a great feature from one of the best 3DS Fire Emblem games returns in Fortune's Weave, and it's probably going to make the tactical JRPG even bigger.

The developers of Fable are confident that they have stuck the landing when it comes to the ending of the upcoming RPG.

The Fable series is home to some fairly beloved games when people get past the perhaps overhyped pre-release comments about everything you can do in them, with Fable 2 generally being the favorite of many. However, Fable 2 simultaneously has one of the worst endings ever put to a game. Spoiler alert: the final boss confrontation against Lucien, who you have been chasing the entire game, boils down to you playing a music box, shooting him once, and him falling off his pedestal dead – or with someone else shooting him if you let him talk too long. It's comedic for sure, but given all the horrible stuff your protagonist went through at his hands, it's a bit too anti-climactic.

Thankfully, Playground Games co-founder and Fable (2027) game director Ralph Fulton seems to be assuring an ending that bad won't be repeated. Speaking to The Guardian, Fulton explains that the main quest won't feel quite as urgent, to push players into messing around in the world, and to allow more meaningful player choice. He adds that the finale is the only time a player will be locked into the story, and promises that "most importantly, we stick the landing.

"It's easy to look at industry metrics saying 100% of people start a game and only 25% finish, and decide not to invest heavily in the finale," Fulton explains, adding: "We relentlessly pursued quality here."

What that ending is remains to be seen when the game releases next February, but Fulton teases that "in great Fable fashion, it culminates in a choice that really challenges you to think about who you are, with a real personal cost to weigh against the outcome."

Amid relentless layoffs at Xbox, Fable lead says "so many people" at the company see the RPG as "vital to the DNA of the platform," which "protected us over a long development cycle."

It's no secret that the video game industry isn't exactly being kind, even to the best of folks – including Kurt Kuhlmann, Bethesda Game Studios veteran and legendary Elder Scrolls "lore master" who worked on gems like the original Oblivion and Skyrim.

Although Kuhlmann hasn't been at Bethesda for quite some time now, having reportedly left over Bethesda's "bureaucratic" baggage, in his own words, and broken promises from Todd Howard about leading The Elder Scrolls 6.

He landed on his feet after leaving the company, however, moving on to work as a principal world designer at AAA studio Lightspeed LA… only to lose his role following a wave of layoffs earlier this summer.

Kuhlmann discusses his situation in a post on LinkedIn, putting into perspective just how difficult the industry is for developers right now – old and new.

"Along with most of the Last Sentinel team," he writes, alluding to his job at Lightspeed LA, "I was laid off in July, so I am back on the job market." He then flags potential employers: "If you know of anyone looking for a senior/principal/lead designer, please let me know or pass them my information."

It hits hard, honestly, seeing an industry veteran of his measure with literal decades of dev and leadership experience seeking work – but it's sadly not surprising.

Heck, just take a look at what's been happening all over, from the relentless layoffs at Xbox (which are ongoing, with Microsoft's plan to cut 3,200 employees at Xbox having commenced in July) to those elsewhere, even at indie companies, things aren't easy… anywhere, it seems.

And, as Kuhlmann proves, nobody is immune. He's got loads of know-how in the industry, and then some, as he lays out in his thread: "I spent the majority of my career at Bethesda Game Studios (BGS), and I've done pretty much every design-related thing for BGS games – narrative design and writing, world-building, combat balance, character systems, minigames, crafting, gameplay scripting, etc."

All of this and his time at Lightspeed LA. Kuhlmann concludes that he's "prioritizing jobs that allow remote work but I'm open to any opportunities that are a good match for my skills and experience" – and I sure do hope some come his way soon.

Fallout co-creator tells new devs terrified of layoffs they're "wrong" to expect making games to be a "stable job": "Art itself is inherently unstable."

Fable has been a long time coming, with its development spanning several waves of layoffs at publisher Xbox, as well as the cancellation of high-profile projects. But the RPG's director suggests that the RPG has been unscathed because it's viewed as "vital to the DNA of the platform."

A new interview with The Guardian really puts into perspective how long Fable has been in the works, with production apparently starting as far back as 2016. We wouldn't see Playground Games' reveal trailer until 2020, but even then, fans have been waiting over six years for the RPG, during which time there have been major changes at Microsoft and Xbox, as well as across the industry as a whole.

We've seen thousands of layoffs at the company over the last few years – only in July, a further 1,600 roles were eliminated, with another 1,600 to come throughout the 2027 fiscal year as part of what CEO Asha Sharma called "the most significant restructure in Xbox history." A number of games have also been scrapped – last year, the Perfect Dark reboot was canceled as developer The Initiative was closed down amid a different wave of layoffs. ZeniMax Online Studios' new MMO, Project Blackbird, was also lost at this point, which led to former Elder Scrolls Online boss Matt Firor leaving the company.

Needless to say, there's been a lot of instability at Xbox, but thankfully, Fable is still set to release next year. "I genuinely think Fable is an important game. What has protected us over a long development cycle is that so many people within Xbox view Fable as vital to the DNA of the platform," says Playground Games co-founder and Fable director Ralph Fulton.

"I would go a step further and say it's important to video games as a whole," he continues. "It offers a combination of elements that simply doesn't exist anywhere else."

It's appropriate, then, that this Fable game isn't just releasing on Xbox Series X|S and PC; it's also coming to PS5 – a plan that's not changed since Xbox outlined its recent plan to "reevaluate our approach to exclusivity" after its prior move to let more of its titles fly the nest to competitor platforms.

Unfortunately, the RPG was also recently delayed – avoiding GTA 6, it'll now be launching on February 23, instead.

Fable is "15-20 hours" long, Xbox confirms, but you can "literally play it forever" if you treat it more like a life sim than an RPG.