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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kingdom Hearts is receiving a retrospective showcase at D23 2026, Disney's massive celebration for all the magic it's had its hand in creating, and I'm very excited. I've been obsessed with the series ever since a friend at school whispered to me in maths class a whole 22 years ago, "Hey, you know there's a game that crosses over Disney and Final Fantasy into one, right?"

That blew my mind as an obsessive fan of both, and ever since, I've longed to bask in as much Kingdom Hearts-ness as I can get my hands on. Yet, out of all the games and best toys that have alluded me the most, it's Bandai's Proplica Key Blade Kingdom Chain that I covet every single day. Like the rest of the Proplica line, it was a replica of Sora's iconic weapon that launched in April 2018 for 20,350 yen (roughly $127.80), and it not only looked like the real thing, but it lit up and even projected a key hole on the wall, so you could pretend you were sealing your own Disney world. It doesn't get much better than that.

Bandai went the extra mile by equipping their Proplica Keyblade with three modes: attack mode, magic mode, and key mode. Attack mode made the replica emit sounds from the game, so you could swipe at the open air and pretend you're Sora, hacking and slashing your way through hordes of Heartless.

According to Bandai's official blog post shared on April 26, 2018, holding down a button on the blade would result in a flow of sounds, or pressing it continuously would allow them to emit randomly. I'm not sure if, like the brand's Proplica Master Sword that I do have in my collection, the sounds correlated to your every movement, but if they were to give this a re-release, that'd be a neat upgrade to have from the get-go.

Besides attack mode, you had my favorite mode of all, magic mode, which is one of the key reasons (excuse the pun) why I covet this toy. With this mode, pressing and holding the button hidden within the blade's hilt would allow you to cycle through spells from the game, including Fire, Blizzard, and what the English-text version of the site calls sander, aqua, cial, and gravide. I can only assume that they're referring to Sora's Thunder, Cure, Aero, and Gravity magic. For the spells, the base of the blade glows the corresponding color, eg red for fire, blue for blizzard, and plays their in-game sound effect simultaneously. It's an incredible feature judging from the Bandai Tamashii Nations Proplica Keyblade YouTube video I was able to find online, which I only wish I could witness in person.

Key mode is likely the one other fans will fawned over at the time. As I mentioned above, it projected a keyhole on any wall or surface. That's not the best part, as holding the button will project it and play the sound effect that emits in the original game whenever Sora seals a Disney world. I'm a full-grown 35-year-old adult, but I can entirely foresee myself welling up with tears if I were to get this toy and witness this in person.

In fact, the entire thing would likely result in me becoming a teary mess, as I adore Kingdom Hearts and have dreamed of owning this piece of toy history. At the moment, my Proplica collection consists of Sheryl Nome's microphone from Macross Frontier, and the Master Sword, but it's the Proplica Keyblade that I've been yearning to own the most. The only problem is that it's long out of stock, is no longer being manufactured anymore, and can reach close to (and even over) $1K on eBay, and other second-hand websites. I don't have a thousand Munny to drop on a piece of merch alone, so instead I dream for a re-release that I can pre-order to prevent giving resellers the time of day.

If you thought you did see a re-release of this toy last year, you aren't entirely wrong. Bandai released a smaller, 20-inch Key Blade, which was available to pre-order for $146.99 at BigBadToyStore and comes with its own set of lighting and sound effects. While smaller than the older release, this version's Magic Mode emits lighting at the end of the key and has a Music Mode, which felt sorely missing from the older version.

The Music Mode allows the prop to play the iconic Dearly Beloved track, along with the 'Sora' song from the game series, which is pretty neat. I've known about this version for a while, but as much as I long for an official Key Blade replica, I ignored pre-orders simply for the fact that I wanted one that felt more true to size. Really, I should have just gone for it, as this is likely to become another Kingdom Hearts collectible destined as reseller fodder on eBay, but it just wasn't what I was looking for.

I have a dream of displaying my Proplica Master Sword alongside a realistically sized Keyblade crossed over one another on the wall, and something smaller just won't do the job. It's a silly nitpick, but here's hoping that if they can release another one, and Square Enix can release a replica of Kingdom Hearts Donald Duck's Mage Staff for $62.13 at Aitai Kuji, they can give the original another go. With D23 2026 incoming and Kingdom Hearts 4 on the horizon, who knows what the future holds.

• View all Kingdom Hearts merch at Amazon

Are you a big Disney fan? Check out what our toy expert Benjamin Abbott has to say about the Disney Castle Lego set.

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

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

Different perspectives

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

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

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

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

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

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

And I can't wait.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Earlier this week, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma experienced a "live playthrough" of The Elder Scrolls 6, and offered some exuberant praise for it, alongside with an extra little teaser: eight asterisks. These eight asterisks, apparently, represent the game's subtitle, and they're lending credence to a longstanding theory that the title of the upcoming RPG will be The Elder Scrolls 6: Sentinel. It seems Bethesda may have even been planning this reveal since Starfield.

Both Asha's tweet and a follow-up message from Bethesda's own account were quite conspicuous in repeating "********," so it seems clear the devs expect us to be speculating on an eight-letter subtitle for The Elder Scrolls 6.

"Sentinel" instantly became a frontrunner among the guesses, since the name has history in Elder Scrolls lore. The kingdom of Sentinel – and the capital city of the same name – is a prominent location in Hammerfell, which has long been rumored as the RPG's location. That alone makes it a pretty compelling guess, to the point where even former Bethesda dev Michael Kirkbride had co-signed it, but there's more fuel for this fire.

When you create your character in Starfield, there's an employee number listed at the bottom of the screen: 190514-2009140512. You can split that number into two-digit components, as in 19, 05, 14, 20, 09, 14, 05, and 12. Count out each number to a corresponding letter in the alphabet and, well, you can probably guess where this is going. You'll get S, E, N, T, I, N, E, and L.

The Elder Scrolls 6 and Starfield were both announced at the same time, and certainly by the time Starfield was actually released in 2023, it's possible Bethesda had already decided on the next game's subtitle.

In any case, it's safe to say that the Elder Scrolls community has been taken by Sentinel fever at this point. The whole Elder Scrolls 6 subreddit has been overtaken by Sentinel fever, especially after the apparent Starfield teaser was pointed out. I'm on board with the sentiment the folks behind the UESP Wiki are tweeting: "I am starting to believe."

The Elder Scrolls 6 demo had a surprise guest at Bethesda HQ: a giant inflatable rat set up by protesting employees to watch Xbox execs who oversaw "devastating layoffs."

So actor Doug Cockle, who's been the smoky voice of Geralt in The Witcher series since the first game in 2007, hates generative AI – join the club, right? Totally, but Cockle is in a unique position when it comes to feuding with the technology notorious for stealing from artists, taking over jobs, and dissolving your neuroplasticity. Generative AI steals audio of his voice as if it's the Sea Witch to his Little Mermaid, and it is hard for a hate to get more personal than that.

That's why, "if I had the power, the money, and the influence," Cockle tells Polygon in a new interview, "I would sue every single AI platform out there with my voice on it. I would sue them into the ground."

Many popular AI chatbot platforms like Character.AI feature Geralt as a companion people can do things like roleplay with, or talk to about their impending divorce. Some like Talkie even feature generated audio that pulls from Cockle's distinct rasp, so that you can hear the "real" Geralt tell you how much he loves your tawny hair and amber eyes, and stuff like that.

Actually, I just watched a YouTube documentary that chronicles a married mother's romance with her Geralt companion bot, who grumbles flirty commands in Cockle's scratchy voice.

I'm sure hearing yourself saying filthy things to a stranger isn't great, but Cockle seems truly disturbed by the more evil way people use AI to strip a real person's sense of self: using AI text-to-speech to create convincing fakes of anything they want. In Cockle's experience, they usually want something disgusting.

He says he wouldn't hypothetically sue AI companies for "money or anything else," but, instead, primarily out of exasperation with being violated in this way.

"They can make Geralt say horrible things," Cockle says. "They could make Geralt a racist. They could make him a misogynist. They could make him have political views that are absolutely horrific."

"I'm being a little bit passionate about this," he continues, "but it is the bugbear of my life at the moment."

I'm not surprised – us normal people have increasing reasons to worry about generative AI ruining our lives, whether through deepfakes, layoffs, or one of the other billion ways the tech seeks to harvest our data, then punish us with it. I imagine for someone like Cockle, whose voice is featured in hundreds of hours of publicly accessible audio through The Witcher games – basically one ginormous database – the threat of AI is much more a reality.

So he reminds those who use AI and create their own made-up realities that, actually, "There are people behind these voices – they're not just digital imprints." Someone needs to tell them – using their real, human voice.

Echoing Palworld dev, video game lawyer says all her clients have anti-AI contracts because gamers hate it and it's a copyright landmine: "I think we're going to see lawsuits."

Yesterday, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma said she'd had a "live playthrough" of The Elder Scrolls 6, teasing its subtitle in an asterisk-filled tweet. Hinting at the scale of its open world, as well as its story, it looks a lot like Sharma has seen some kind of milestone demo, steered by Bethesda leadership, likely a step up from what fellow Xbox leader Matt Booty saw earlier in the summer when he said the next Elder Scrolls was "coming along well." That milestone likely means The Elder Scrolls 6 is in a playable state, and we've finally reached the beginning of the end of Bethesda's long, self-inflicted nightmare.

Sharma's tweet is far from meaning that the Skyrim sequel is just over the horizon, let alone close to release. But it does mark a major step in drawing to an end a deeply unfortunate era for one of the RPG giants.

Presentations like this are an integral part of game development at this scale, a chance for those at the top to check that the work they're paying for is actually getting done. These milestones are so clear-cut that union reps were able to organize a high-profile protest around Sharma's arrival at Bethesda yesterday. It's likely that what Sharma saw is a heavily-scripted 'slice' of The Elder Scrolls 6 that emphasizes its key features - think something like the Witcher 4 State of Unreal presentation, which looked at tech and world-building more than character or gameplay. But the fact that Bethesda has reached this point – and that Xbox is starting to talk about it publicly – remains a pretty big deal.

It's been more than eight years since Bethesda announced The Elder Scrolls 6. In that time we've had little concrete information other than the original 'trailer' and a static image to hint at its setting. That's fewer teasers about the actual content of this game than the number of times Todd Howard has had to publicly apologize for announcing it too early.

Other games are a factor in that long wait. Bethesda can't really be accused of resting on its laurels since Skyrim – multiple remasters are proof enough of that, and the releases of Starfield and Fallout 76 have obviously slowed down progress on a new Elder Scrolls game. But it's easy to forget that all three of those projects were announced at the same time. Fallout 76 was technically unveiled a month or so before Starfield and TES6, but Bethesda's E3 2018 showcase lifted the lid on three substantial RPGs at once. It was always going to be a long wait, even before complications like Fallout 76's launch and remote pandemic-era working reared their heads.

The result of that triple-whammy is that The Elder Scrolls 6 has become the albatross around Todd Howard's neck. Skyrim was a generation-defining phenomenon, and no new IP or multiplayer spin-off was likely to sate fans' desire for its successor. Knowing that game was lurking somewhere towards the bottom of Todd's to-do list hasn't made the intervening eight years go any faster. Instead, as Xbox ceded the last battles of the console war to PlayStation, struggling under the weight of billions in acquisition costs and no successes material enough to pay for them, Bethesda's deliberately slow production times were an increasing problem. And when Starfield failed to make the cultural splash Microsoft needed, the absence of The Elder Scrolls and Fallout became an even larger problem.

Finally, that problem is starting to abate. First with a suite of new Fallout projects to fill the gaping void that still awaits us before Fallout 5, and now with real, genuine signs of life from The Elder Scrolls 6. The wait is likely to be long - I'd be shocked if this wasn't a cross-gen Project Helix launch title. But after nearly a decade since its initial reveal, any sense that this most long-awaited of projects is drawing nearer is an important win for Xbox - one that could prove crucial for its transition into its next generation.

The Elder Scrolls 6 will be hurt and potentially delayed by Xbox layoffs, Bethesda devs expect: "This has had a crushing effect on morale."

BioWare parent company EA was acquired by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund plus private equity firms Silver Lake and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners in a $55 billion deal this month, which is indicative of the world we live in. Fans are understandably concerned that the Dragon Age and Mass Effect studio will get cut and have its organs sold if its new overlords decide they only care about EA's biggest franchises, but former BioWare executive Mark Darrah thinks the company can make it out alive.

The developer discusses the topic in a new YouTube video; in the comments, he replied to a fan hoping for "Bioware and its staff to survive this," saying, "I do too. There are several ways that happens." But if BioWare survives, it won't be without sacrifice. So prepare those organ donation bins.

In one potential scenario, according to Darrah, EA sells BioWare along with its IP, back catalog, and possibly even access to its proprietary Frostbite engine. Darrah says, "Certainly, if I was buying BioWare, I would want everything. I would want the entire back catalog. I would want all the tech. I would want unlimited rights to use the tech that's still owned by EA, so that I could do remasters and remakes."

But Darrah wonders who, at this point in video game history and the layoffs Armageddon, would even want to purchase an entire company. Instead, Darrah pictures EA bundling poorly performing IP and auctioning them off at a discount, getting bored and leaving BioWare alone, or selling BioWare IP individually, like slices of pizza. Though, "I don't know who's looking to buy IPs right now. Again, money's really tight."

So, uh, does Darrah really think BioWare has a chance? Kind of. It seems to depend on how good EA and its new owners want to look. Darrah suggests BioWare could even end up independent if EA decides to relinquish it for "entirely" PR reasons, or BioWare could be protected by an imaginary "son-in-law of a Saudi prince who really loves Mass Effect." Hey, you never know.

But "chances are, if [EA's new owners are] coming in, and they're very involved, they're going to do a lot of damage," says Darrah. OK. Perhaps there's no hope after all.

Saudi Arabia's $55 billion takeover of EA could waste "one of the best catalogues in the industry" by reducing it to a "sequel-and-mega-franchise machine," Helldivers 2 boss worries.

Update: CD Projekt Red has confirmed the below reported layoffs impacting the team working on the multiplayer Witcher spin-off, Project Sirius.

"We adjusted the size of the Sirius team to reflect the project's needs at this stage of development," a CD Projekt spokesperson tells IGN, confirming that four Boston-based workers and five Warsaw-based employees have left the company. Meanwhile, nine other CDPR employees have been offered the chance to apply for potential roles on other projects in development at the studio.

Original story:

Perhaps standing as one of the least historically healthy upcoming CD Projekt Red games, the mysterious multiplayer Project Sirius is reportedly suffering yet another round of layoffs.

Although we don't know too much about Project Sirius, we do know it's been in the works for a solid four years now under The Molasses Flood and CD Projekt Red… and its teams have already undergone a couple of significant layoff rounds, having taken quite a notable hit back in 2023, "mainly on The Molasses Flood's side."

Now, according to Kotaku, it's all happening yet again.

Apparently, nine developers – albeit unnamed (with no specific roles disclosed) were affected by these most recent layoffs, with Kotaku stating another nine are "in the process of moving to other projects within the studio, alongside a broader shift in development strategy."

It sounds a whole lot like the layoffs a few years back, which were attributed to a "restructure" of sorts as well. Regardless, if true, it's certainly not good news.

As of now, Project Sirius largely remains a mystery in its content. The devs behind it have reworked it a few times now, and CD Projekt Red itself lifted the veil on some sort of free-to-play multiplayer Witcher RPG a couple of months back – but the studio never really confirmed that it was describing Project Sirius.

It's likely that we'll hear more about it soon, though, considering Kotaku's report and its implications.

Here's hoping we end up seeing Project Sirius come to fruition one day – and, if developers have truly been affected by layoffs again, they're able to land on their feet.

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

Bethesda has been on a roll with its Nintendo Switch 2 ports despite Skyrim's troubled (but now fixed) version in late 2025. Fallout 4 was a stunner with several performance options, and MachineGames' Indiana Jones and the Great Circle – a current-gen beauty with unique challenges – also made the jump successfully. Now, The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered has managed to surprise me as well, despite enduring hiccups tarnishing the overall experience.

Below its shiny Unreal Engine 5 surface, Oblivion Remastered remains the same 2006 RPG despite some upgrades and tweaks to certain systems. This means its charming Gamebryo jank was left untouched, but also that base-level performance problems were never removed. With UE5 adding a handful of quirks of its own, which few developers have been able to treat successfully, technical issues have stained a big refresh that's otherwise lovely. It seems we're cursed to never have a stable version of this unique open-world RPG. Regardless, this Switch 2 port impresses and has given me hope for further optimization patches.

Still good-looking (mostly)

Oblivion Remastered's first Switch 2 trailer didn't fill me – or anyone, I think – with confidence. Like in the first look at the Fallout 4 port, visuals were jagged and visibly dialed down. The end result, however, fares quite well. We're dealing with a less detailed and sharp version of the RPG's visual overhaul here, but it retains all the key visual features of the PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC versions. Yes, even fancy UE5 features like Lumen lighting and Nanite's virtualized geometry system.

Switch 2's unique hardware features – with its proper DLSS upscaler saving the day once again – elevate yet another ambitious port. When compared to how much the game's visual presentation is compromised on Steam Deck and other handheld PCs, Nintendo's hybrid console emerges victorious by a wide margin. Visuals are sharper across the board; settings to achieve 30 FPS are higher; and the big UE5 lighting and geometry features make Cyrodiil's sun-bathed vistas pop in a way that I wasn't expecting.

There are two points on the graphical front that deserve special attention though. First, there's a clear gap between the handheld and docked modes, with portable play getting additional cuts – mostly to draw distances – and unavoidably grainier image output at 900p versus TV mode's 1080p. Mind you, DLSS does a lot of heavy lifting here, but expect a less detailed presentation in handheld mode even if the smaller screen helps hide many of the cutbacks.

As you can tell in the above screenshots – handheld left and docked right – trees are way less detailed in portable play, and lighting and grass also take additional hits. In addition to the resolution cut, it's enough to keep the game mostly locked at 30 FPS. Most of these changes are more obvious when walking around the open areas around the cities and towns, with interiors faring much better.

Second, the Switch 2 port surprisingly retains a Screen Space Reflections toggle as it's the one and only video setting beyond brightness and FOV modifiers. As expected, these advanced – but outdated – reflections enhance water surfaces, but also cause odd visual artifacts with moving objects, including the weapons you hold. This isn't an Oblivion Remastered-specific issue, but it's worth noting. Outside of that small annoyance, it seemingly has no effect on performance, so I'd recommend keeping it on for better reflections. Look at the screens above for a quick comparison.

Hello stuttering, my old friend

Performance is a trickier matter. By and large, Oblivion Remastered on Switch 2 isn't a disaster, and actually feels perfectly playable in most scenarios considering it's a slow-paced action RPG. Its 30 FPS target is hit most of the time. Even the mouse mode and motion gyro controls feel useful despite the lack of higher framerate modes. But it can become a stuttery mess at times, and that's harder to overlook.

This is more of an inherited problem than something wrong with the port. In fact, Bethesda has teased some of the under-the-hood improvements that made the Switch 2 release possible could come to other platforms. I just think there's something fundamentally wrong with how the original remaster was put together. The hitching while traversing the open areas is even worse than in the original Oblivion, likely the result of Gamebryo and UE5's worse aspects being combined without enough deep tinkering to offset their limitations. In the busier cities, turning the camera around too fast can also result in distracting stutters. Frame times also feel off, though the console's own screen seems to mask them better than a TV. Some of these issues could be fixed, but I'm not holding my breath when it comes to recurring – and even decades-old – ones.

In the end – and unless substantial updates clean things up – we have a port that's equal parts impressive and frustrating. All the work that has gone into making it work on far lesser hardware while retaining its beauty shouldn't be overlooked, yet the technical issues that ruined it for many players continue to cast a shadow over the effort. Platform-specific optimizations could still arrive, and some of the weirder behavior that might be tied to CPU limitations could be rooted out with decent patches, yet I'm fairly sure we'll never be able to go for a smooth horseback ride around Cyrodiil.

Those who were never dazzled by Bethesda's post-Morrowind Elder Scrolls won't be charmed by Oblivion Remastered in portable form, and it's harder to deal with rough edges when you aren't used to the game's eternal jankiness. But longtime fans that have closed the Gates of Oblivion time and again over the years will no doubt pour hundreds of hours into the first portable Oblivion experience that just works out of the box. Plus, Bethesda listened to code-in-a-box criticisms and delivered a true physical release. All things considered, I'm giving this one a thumbs-up. By Azura!

We've ranked the best Elder Scrolls games

The Elder Scrolls 6 is once again back in the limelight following Xbox CEO Asha Sharma's "live playthrough" of the upcoming Bethesda Game Studios RPG, as fans (and developers, it seems) try to decipher what the game's setting might be.

It's a tale as old as time – The Elder Scrolls 6 theories running rampant online. This time, though, they may actually have a foundation to them, as Sharma's used exactly eight asterisks to note the game's title… and Bethesda did the same in response.

So, what could those eight asterisks stand for? Not Hammerfell, sadly, but that doesn't mean the massive region is off the table entirely. Sentinel just so happens to fit the eight-letter bill here.

Fans have noted as much on a post regarding the "teaser" from Xbox (if you can call it that), suggesting "Sentinel" as a potential title – a potential title that former Bethesda developer Michael Kirkbride himself evidently feels is plausible.

In response to the suggestion, he leaves a comment himself: "Yep." Understandably, the Elder Scrolls veteran's agreement here has us thinking that the Hammerfell kingdom might truly be it.

That's not the only possible setting or title, though, of course… there's still High Rock (if you remove the space between High and Rock, that is), and Starfall, as in Starfall Bay, as an Elder Scrolls stan points out on X.

The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages – the biggest (and best, if I do say so myself) wiki on Bethesda's series – has rounded up plenty of potential fill-ins for the eight asterisks in a thread, too, and there are many.

Orsinium immediately catches my eye, standing as the legendary capital and ancestral homeland of the Orsimer, as does Aldmeris… perhaps because I'm unapologetically a High Elf in every possible Elder Scrolls entry myself, and, you know, because I'd like to see Bethesda shake things up a bit with The Elder Scrolls 6.

What better way to do that than to explore some of the series' mythology in-depth?

Heck, I'd love to see the studio deviate from the timelines it's previously covered by a lot, although I doubt I will (my dream to see the Dwemer and Falmer take center stage will never come to life, I'm afraid).

I'll be happy with whatever Bethesda cooks up at this point, however. I mean, after well over a decade now, The Elder Scrolls 6 might just stand as one of the most hotly anticipated new games – so, yeah.

The Elder Scrolls 6 demo had a surprise guest at Bethesda HQ: a giant inflatable rat set up by protesting employees to watch Xbox execs who oversaw "devastating layoffs"

Oblivion Remastered has by and large been a huge success for Bethesda both critically and commercially, but even more than a year after launch, it still suffers from poor performance including stuttering, frame rate instability, and crashes. The Nintendo Switch 2 version of the game launched today with touchscreen, mouse control, and gyro aiming support, as well as general improvements like DLSS anti-aliasing and "performance optimizations from the original Oblivion Remastered release," according to Bethesda itself. There's been no official sign that these performance improvements are coming to other platforms. Not until now, at least.

"We've heard your feedback asking for an additional patch for Oblivion Remastered," reads a tweet from the official Bethesda Twitter account. "The Nintendo Switch 2 version of the game has a number of optimizations that we are looking into bringing to other platforms and we will share more when we are able."

I haven't had the chance to play Oblivion Remastered on Switch 2, but I played it a lot on PS5 last year and definitely felt like it could use a little polish despite the incredible visual overhaul and systems refinements. The trademark Bethesda jank is well-reserved and arguably necessary, but random frame rate drops and progress-killing crashes are a straight-up hinderance.

Of course, the improvements to the Switch 2 version are frustratingly unspecific, but "performance optimizations" would definitely be welcome on all versions of the game. Hopefully, Bethesda's acknowledgment ultimately manifests into something more than just A Tweet.

Oblivion intern tried to outsmart Bethesda's AI and was stunned when his apple murder strategy actually worked: "I can't believe you accounted for this"

Today, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma got a "live playthrough" of The Elder Scrolls 6, offering exuberant praise of the upcoming RPG's scale and story. Some Bethesda workers took the opportunity to remind Sharma of the 3,200 employees that are being cut under her watch as part of Xbox's massive restructure.

"Today at HQ, we had special guests from Microsoft leadership," according to a Bluesky post from OneBGS, a union representing employees at Bethesda. "We refuse to let executives forget what game studios are actually made of: their workers. As welcome gift, we placed hundreds of flags outside, honoring all of the game workers who have been laid off by Microsoft in 2026 (so far)."

But those flags aren't the only visible form of protest for Sharma's visit: there's also the giant inflatable rat, shown below in a post from journalist Chris Kerr. These sorts of inflatable rat displays are common at union protests and strikes, and the message from employees is clear.

NEW: CWA union members have inflated a giant rat and deployed a wall of red flags representing laid off Xbox workers outside the Bethesda office in Rockville. The protest was timed to coincide with a visit from Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, who is apparently at the studio today.

— @kerrblimey.bsky.social (@kerrblimey.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-08-11T21:26:31.556Z

Members of the studio "decided to make our presence visible at the office to show how our developers have been impacted by these devastating layoffs," according to a statement from Nathan Hahn, technical producer at Bethesda, which was shared with Kerr.

"We're mobilising to fight back against these layoffs not just to ensure impacted XBOX devs and testers get treated fairly, but to remind our company and game studios everywhere that layoffs like this cannot continue," Hahn continues. "If Microsoft leadership does not have the courage to do what's right for our studios to make the best possible games, it's up to us to stand up for each other and protect the future of our careers and the game industry."

OneBGS previously blasted Xbox's layoffs, saying that the studio has "lost dozens of programmers, artists, designers and testers," including "many" who had been at the studio "for decades." The union continued, "If Bethesda fans are worried this will harm the quality of our future games, like TES VI, let Microsoft know!"

The Elder Scrolls 6 was officially announced in 2018 and even now, nearly a decade later, the only evidence of the game's existence consists of quotes from folks like Sharma and Bethesda boss Todd Howard. It has to be released eventually – the only real question, amid Microsoft's nigh-annual mass layoffs, is how many of Bethesda's workers will still be there when that moment comes.

Id Software dev says Microsoft's layoffs prove "they fundamentally don't understand" art, games, the entire business, or the destruction they just caused.

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma suggests she's just played, or at least watched, a "live playthrough" of The Elder Scrolls 6.

"Live playthrough of The Elder Scrolls VI: ******** this morning," Sharma says offhandedly in a tweet. "The scale and grandeur are incredible. The story is even greater."

This "live playthrough" will presumably have been a milestone presentation shown to Sharma and possibly other Xbox executives by the development team at Bethesda, likely including chief Todd Howard, but we can't say for sure what the exact environment was like or how far along the demoed build is.

I've no doubt that Elder Scrolls scholars will pounce on the eight asterisks Sharma uses to censor the title of The Elder Scrolls 6, but I wouldn't put too much stock in it just yet.

That's your regularly scheduled The Elder Scrolls 6 teaser sorted. With the energy of someone who's checked the readings, found them wanting, and shattered the nearest glass labeled "break in case of emergency," Sharma's added another breadcrumb to the pile.

In June, Xbox CCO Matt Booty assured fans that, some eight years since its reveal, The Elder Scrolls 6 is "coming along well." He also joined Howard in the illusion that a game can be un-revealed, or at least revealed twice.

"I would say one of the more challenging balancing acts of someone in a job like mine is balancing that you want to go show the world all the cool stuff you're working on, and you want to get them excited early, but we also know that we want to wait till the right moment," Booty said.

"I can tell you, having visited Bethesda and sat with Todd and seen 'Elder Scrolls' playing, it looks amazing, and it's coming along well," he added. "And we'll make sure to announce it and really reveal it at the right time."

Last month, on the heels of layoffs that hit the studio as part of Xbox's widespread bloodletting, Bethesda announced a whole bunch of stuff about the future of Fallout and The Elder Scrolls. Amidst this torrent of announcements, The Elder Scrolls 6 was described as Bethesda's development priority, with multiple other games caught in its orbit.

The Elder Scrolls 6, like the pre-production Fallout 5, uses Creation Engine 3, which Bethesda says "extends beyond our teams to the technology, tools, and systems that will power the next generation of Bethesda RPGs."

"Unconscionable": The day of Bethesda's Fallout reveal explosion, its laid-off Montreal devs were told they "would receive the smallest severance legally possible" and "immediately" lose health insurance benefits, union says.

It's been 37 days as of writing. 37 days of tears, yearning, and an international campaign from Love and Deepspace players begging developer Infold to restore peace and release Valko, who was supposed to be the romantic RPG's sixth love interest. His launch was canceled on June 30, and Infold decided to never release a new boyfriend again. Over 251,000 Love and Deepspace players have been ignored while praying for Infold to reverse this ruling, so I've joined them in deleting the game.

Infold buried Valko due to concerns, primarily from Love and Deepspace's Chinese fanbase, that the chiseled werewolf boy was a sex pest due to his tendency to swoop in through bedroom windows, or a spy for the Imperial Japanese Army, and other conspiracy theories I never subscribed to. To me, Valko was simply exciting – decidedly not a threat to my womanhood, which is the fear at the center of nearly every Love and Deepspace controversy. Many Love and Deepspace players are, understandably, protective about the fact that the game featuring sparkly dresses, dates with a benevolent mafia boss, and a period tracker is unrepentantly designed for and by women.

But I've been devotedly playing Love and Deepspace for nearly two years – it launched at the start of 2024 – and tech CEO wolfman Valko never made me worry. He just inspired me to consider Team Jacob after all this time. But Infold quickly crumpled under pressure from a group of Valko-negative Chinese fans, who poured blood and left cakes of cow shit at its Shanghai office while demanding more attention for Love and Deepspace's existing companions.

The Chinese government ultimately deemed Valko morally appropriate after initially investigating the character for his breaking-and-entering habit shown in promotional material, but Infold hasn't mentioned Valko once since condemning him to a farm upstate. Earlier this week, I received an email from someone identifying themselves as "A supporter of the international #BringValkoBack campaign," who shared the community's petition with 251,000 signatures, and a Change.org plea with currently nearly 100,000 signatures.

They told me, "Supporters have also organized a coordinated month-long spending boycott and continued contacting Infold. Campaign participants say repeated requests for a substantive response have gone unanswered." GamesRadar+ likewise reached out to Infold multiple times for comment and did not hear back.

Cemetery Gates

"The room was a graveyard of shadows, the only light a pale sliver of moon that cut across the floor like a blade. Valko lay perfectly still beside you," says one harrowing piece of fanfiction imagining Valko's anguish on the despondent r/loveanddepression subreddit. "He knew you would hurt you if he left and even the very thought of it made his wolf howl."

"I feel like a widow," says another post on the sub.

"They don't care about us. They don't care about the boys," decides a writer of one of the subreddit's many "goodbye" posts, who's also frustrated with Times Square's recent rejection of another protest billboard in Manhattan, citing new restrictions on Love and Deepspace content.

"Please... bring me back my peace. Let me go back home with them. I miss them. I miss their voice, I miss their warmth, I miss their presence," adds an especially tormented Love and Deepspace protester.

Estimated revenue data site Gacha Revenue approximates Love and Deepspace's earnings have plummeted $28 million since June, and its downloads are down by 100,000. People are grieving, and they want Infold to grieve with them. Personally, I deleted my Love and Deepspace app this month – though it hurt to recall all the precious hours I spent in the game's character creator, perfecting my main character's nose for ideal making out with my stepbrother Caleb. To me, the War on Valko has been about more than a handsome man with seemingly two pairs of ears (the wolf ones and the human ones).

Between Love and Deepspace and its dress-up RPG Infinity Nikki, Infold has earned itself the reputation of being the lone developer that prioritizes its female player base. But this whole Valko saga has made me realize they really don't get it. Women aren't a fanged monolith – we're as prone to ideological disagreement, clashing interests, and different thresholds for paranormal romance as any other demographic. Rather than submit to the harassment, the stalking and cow poop, Infold should have held its ground and remembered that what some women want is not what all women want.

Ultimately, I deleted Love and Deepspace because I was exhausted with Infold for conflating womanhood with being spoiled. I was frustrated with other players for making the developers feel like they had no other choice but to give in. Womanhood is nuanced, and I once believed Love and Deepspace reflected that in its sometimes provocative, sometimes sweet gameplay. But everything's changed now that Valko's dead, and Infold decided to react to women with fear rather than progress.

Facing Chinese censorship, sci-fi RPG shows 50 million users its most depraved content through stick figure drawings.

Shift Up isn't stopping with Stellar Blade: Blood Rain, with the long-teased Project Spirits set for a proper reveal this year if all continues to go well.

As part of its latest financial briefing, Shift Up says its planning to give the "AAA-class" game an official unveiling this year, and that's not all. Further into the financial presentation, Shift Up offers some more titbits of information to tide us over until then.

Shift Up first tackles a question over Project Spirit's current development status and when it might be unveiled properly. While the Stellar Blade developer isn't going to give much away, we get a sense of what's going on.

In terms of scope, Shift Up says Project Spirit is considered the developer's "next flagship title and a core pipeline project."

When it comes to actually putting the game together, Shift Up says Project Spirits is "progressing smoothly under an efficient and well-structured development process." So much so that the team is aiming to unveil the game in the second half of this year.

In a follow-up answer, Shift Up explains what Project Spirits' "competitive edge" is, given the sort of competition any new game has in the market currently.

"Project Spirits is a AAA-class title built on an 'Eastern fantasy' universe, targeting a global cross-platform live service," Shift Up says. "We are focused on delivering a highly polished game that brings together the development capabilities and live-service experience we have accumulated."

The answer on the whole is interesting, as it sounds like Shift Up is leaning on lessons taken from its other big, rather horny, hit. While plenty may know Shift Up through Stellar Blade, the developer has been working on Goddess of Victory: Nikke for much longer, alongside other games like Destiny Child, which was shut down a few years back.

First released on mobile platforms before coming to PC, Nikke plays the hits as far as gacha action RPGs go. You've got multiple characters you can recruit to your party if you're willing to part with the cash or time – and to make sure you do part with your cash, each anime girl offers the sort of over-the-top proportions you wouldn't want to be seen looking at while working in an office. It's for a story, I swear.

So what links Shift Up's past to its future? Our latest nuggets of information align with the informed community speculation that's been put together through various translated job ads. Alongside multiplayer playable characters, it looks like we're getting open-world areas, towns, dungeons, and a focus on action gameplay.

While Stellar Blade has plenty of semi-open zones and of action-focused combat, everything currently put forward makes this one sound more like Nikke and other games from Shift Up's backlog.

As for when we'll see it, there are a few showcases Shift Up has been known to appear at. Given the update, it sounds like Gamescom is too soon. Tokyo Game Show isn't impossible, but given Stellar Blade: Blood Rain, you'd wonder if The Game Awards is the most likely bet – all things going well, of course.

Either way, it's a long time coming. Project Witches has been kicking around for a while, before it was officially renamed to Project Spirits. The name change came with some new art that was horny enough that cropping it for a previous article was a real chore. Mind you, some weren't impressed, as AI accusations swiftly followed its reveal.

Once Project Spirits is properly revealed, you know people will be closely examining it – for better or for worse.

Stellar Blade: Blood Rain studio CEO defends AI music video because Evie was originally "created from head to toe" by the devs, but fans say that's not the point.

Despite playing "questionable" characters in both Baldur's Gate 3 and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, voice actor Devora Wilde says she found it "fascinating" how differently the pair were treated by fans.

Speaking to IGN, Wilde says, "What I've found is that even though Clea is a questionable character, people have been willing to give her more grace - a lot more grace - than people have with Lae'zel. And I find that so fascinating."

Players' comments and reaction across the two games differ substantially, Wilde states, even though she can see a clear comparison between the two characters.

"People's reaction to Clea is like, 'Yeah, but she's justified, she's the only sane member of the family, she does this because of this.'" With her Baldur's Gate 3 character, however, Wilde says the response was far more black and white: "With Lae'zel, people were like, 'No, she's just mean, she's just bad.'"

If I had to guess why that difference has emerged, it comes down to why those characters react as they do. Clea comes across as pretty cold and ruthless, but there's a clear attempt to do the best she can for her family - most of whom have lost themselves to the painted world - even if it makes them unhappy in the short term.

Lae'zel, on the other hand, is primarily out for herself and her creche, and is also quick to let you know how unimpressive she finds you. It's that combination of relative selfishness and a sharp tongue that probably puts a lot of players off the character before they can get to see her soften as the RPG progresses after the first act.

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

Last year's The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered did a lot more than slap a fresh coat of paint on the 2006 RPG, with environments (but not necessarily character models) that look straight out of a 2026 AAA release, but as anyone who's played the original game knows, it's still very much Oblivion, lovable jank and all. While there was a lot of deliberation about what and what not to modernize during development, Todd Howard and co. drew a hard line between remaster and full-blown remake, opting to market the game as a polished-up version of the original rather than something all new.

That's because, in the words of associate art director Dan Lee, it shares the same "bones" as the original Oblivion. "Obviously the art is remake territory, it was all remade," Lee tells Nintendo Life. "But it really came down to Todd's perception of - well, the core bones are still the original game. So it's disingenuous to call it a remake. We're taking the core engine and then laying all this other stuff on top. We did some other little tweaks and things like that. But the core is still mostly there."

You might think the distinction between remaster and remake is fairly straightforward, and to some degree it is, but since there's such a wide spectrum between straight-up ports and ground-up remakes, the lines can be a little fuzzy and lead to all sorts of controversy when it comes to pricing and availability alongside the originals. On the other hand, there are remakes that are so different from their original counterparts as to be virtually considered separate games, leaving zero ambiguity about how to label them.

"There are all kinds of games that fit on the scale where it's just high resolution and then maybe they upgrade some of the textures or update some character models," adds Lee. "But then you can go all the way over to Resident Evil 2 and Final Fantasy 7 Remake, which are clearly remakes. They're taking the original vision and then just making completely new games based on that vision. Whereas here, we have lots of elements of the original game intact."

I think Bethesda made the right call sticking to remastering Oblivion rather than remaking it. Both Oblivion and Oblivion Remastered are gorgeous games and, with a remake, the studio would've likely had to reallocate resources from The Elder Scrolls 6, which was announced eight long years ago. No distractions, is what I'm saying.

Oblivion intern tried to outsmart Bethesda's AI and was stunned when his apple murder strategy actually worked: "I can't believe you accounted for this"

One of the most delightful elements of a good open-world RPG is the way you can bend and sometimes break systems to your will, giving you the freedom to approach and think about obstacles independently from the intended design. The Elder Scrolls games have been masterclasses in emergent gameplay for decades, as evidenced by a fun new anecdote from Bethesda Game Studios veteran and The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered art lead Dan Lee, who joined the studio shortly after OG Oblivion's announcement way back when.

Talking to Nintendo Life, Lee shares one of his early memories from working on Oblivion as a play tester. Testing persistent AI behavior, Lee chose to use an NPC's hunger mechanic against him instead of tackling the quest head-on as scripted in the linear path.

"I was playtesting and I was learning about how reading AI worked and I learned about the hunger mechanic, how the characters actually look for food if they're hungry. There's a quest that has you getting onto a boat and you have to kill a captain. And then as you do it, his second in command and another guy pop up and ambush you," says Lee.

"I was like, 'Can I abuse this in any way?,'" he adds, a question every self-respecting Fallout and Elder Scrolls player asks dozens of times during any given playthrough.

"So I heard about this eating mechanic, I snuck through the ship into his room, took all the food, left a poison apple in his pocket, and then left. I wait and I get the pop-up saying 'Quest Completed'; he's dead. I ran to [designer] Emil Pagliarulo and said, 'I can't believe you accounted for this. This is great!' And he's like, 'I didn't, that was just the game systems working.'"

These kinds of interactions are what make games like Oblivion, Skyrim, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Baldur's Gate 3, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild feel alive and endlessly replayable.

Lee says that quest has stuck with him for more than two decades because of the way Oblivion's systems "interplay" and result in "unexpected fun," and beyond that, anything that makes an RPG feel less scripted and more organic builds immersion and makes it feel more lifelike.

Of course, the game's lovably egregious bugs arguably subtract from that immersion somewhat, but that's all part of the Bethesda RPG experience we've come to know and love.

Here are the best RPGs we recommend in 2026.

One Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic dev spent an entire day scrubbing through the films in search of a specific word that Lucasfilm said the RPG team wasn't allowed to use.

In an interview with FRVR, BioWare's Mark Darrah - who didn't work on KOTOR but was active at the studio and eventually helped make MMO The Old Republic - said that Lucasfilm had a specific problem with the RPG's language. Specifically, they didn't like the use of the word 'damn', which they claimed wasn't something that a Star Wars character would say.

To prove Lucasfilm wrong, Darrah says that "one of the writers on KOTOR spent an entire day scrubbing through the moves, pulling out every instance of a character saying 'damn'." While Darrah's suggestion - that there were nearly 20 uses - is inaccurate, avid fans have determined that by the time KOTOR was released in 2003, the word 'damn' had appeared thrice - once in A New Hope, once in The Empire Strikes Back, and once in 2002's Attack of the Clones.

Unfortunately, even with that proof, BioWare's victory was only partial. Darrah says that most of the 'damns' were removed from the script because "the rights holder always wins." He suggests that KOTOR was an early casualty of Lucasfilm's attempts to cleanse real-world bad language from the Star Wars universe - something that we've seen over the years since then with the arrival of fake swear words like 'kriff' and 'poodoo'.

It wasn't a total defeat, however - KOTOR's ESRB rating is T(een), with much of that given over to its depictions of violence rather than its very mild bad language. A few real-world cusses made their way into the final script, even if Lucasfilm was able to remove the majority of them from BioWare's work.

5 years after it was revealed, KOTOR remake is "still in development," Saber boss confirms, as we await any morsel of info on the reimagined BioWare Star Wars RPG.

Although The Witcher 3 protagonist Geralt isn't the most visibly (or audibly, for that matter) emotional character out there, he's still human under all that mutating and magic – and actor Doug Cockle wanted to make sure he didn't lose all of that humanity.

The legendary voice behind Geralt of Rivia explains as much in a new interview with Tom's Guide, echoing what he said back in 2018 – that he "never believed" that the protagonist "had no emotion," even if CD Projekt Red wanted him to come across that way.

At the time, Cockle didn't have any source to work from either, having not read The Witcher books or seen the Polish TV adaptation at that point. He only knew what the developers taught him about Geralt.

"The most frequent note I had," as the actor recalls, "was, 'No emotion, Doug. No emotion. Flatten him out.'" Although Cockle definitely understood the assignment, so to speak, he didn't agree entirely with CD Projekt Red's take on Geralt.

"A character with no emotions at all, how can we, as human beings, relate to that? We're not emotionless creatures." That checks out – and doubly so when it comes to actors.

"We deal in emotions," as Cockle puts it. "That's a big part of telling the story." So, that's precisely what he did with Geralt. "I was like, 'Yes, I know, I get it, I'm trying, but he's got to have some kind of emotional life, or why would we care about him?'"

When it comes to The Witcher 3 protagonist, he was aware of Geralt suppressing his feelings – but also of a "dichotomy in himself" that allowed for more than a completely emotionless character.

"He's an emotional being, he does have emotions, but he tries very hard to not let them dictate the actions that he takes." Ciri, Geralt's adoptive daughter (and upcoming protagonist of The Witcher 4, excitingly enough), serves as proof of this – Geralt makes choices that protect her time and time again. Heck, it's paramount to the entire story in The Witcher 3, to say the least. "If he had no emotions," as Cockle says, "he wouldn't make those choices."

CD Projekt Red eventually warmed up to the actor's interpretation, according to him: "As the series of games went on, the writers became more confident in the idea that he can be an emotional being and still be a little bit of a machine."

That checks out, judging by the journey from Wild Hunt to Blood and Wine – and it's evident enough in Geralt's character. It does beg the question though… how will he sound in Songs of the Past?

I suppose we'll just have to wait and see what the new DLC brings…

CD Projekt Red says The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past, Geralt's first expansion in a decade, will get a proper reveal next month

What are the best ways to replay Baldur's Gate 3? I've spent a lot of time thinking about this very question. And when I say a lot, I mean a lot.

Having played close to 1,000 hours of Larian's sprawling RPG since it first released on PS5, I've created many different Tavs, role-played as various established origin characters, and taken a host of approaches over the years. And that's the beauty of a game like Baldur's Gate 3; it's an experience that's meant to be replayed by design, with so much freedom of choice and room for experimentation. But there are definitely certain playthroughs I've done that have been more rewarding or downright run han others, and after much deliberation, I've finally come to the conclusion that the five ways I've listed below are truly the best ways to replay Baldur's Gate 3.

I will say that many of these aren't suited to your very first try at Larian's RPG. For that, I'd suggest following your heart and seeing where the Sword Coast leads you. But once you've experienced what is without a doubt one of the best RPGs for the first time, then my suggestions are here for you when you're ready to step back into Faerûn. Whether you're looking for something playful to shake up your journey, a challenge, or you want something narratively satisfying as you set out to rid yourself of the Mind Flayer tadpole, there's something here for you. So, read on as I guide you through the best ways to replay Baldur's Gate 3.

5. Everyone's a bard run

As William Shakespeare famously wrote, "all the world's a stage", and now you can transform Faerûn into one, too. How? Why, by playing as a bard and reclassing or multi-classing every companion to be one, too. If you want the party to maintain their signature fighting styles, I'd opt for the latter, but if you want to go all in by turning Baldur's Gate 3 into a musical of your own making, then outfitting everyone with bardic skills and instruments is the way to do it.

All you need to do is create a custom game and enable multiclassing, and then once a character levels up, ensure you select multiclass and opt for bard. Or, alternatively, get Withers in your party after finding him in the Dank Crypt in Act 1, and bring each member of your party to him to change up classes. Personally, I think the Bard is hands down the best Baldur's Gate 3 class. Not only do they have high charisma, which gives them the gift of the gab, but they also have incredibly entertaining and useful skills. From Bardic Inspiration, which gives your allies a hearty buff, to the useful Song of Rest action that acts like a short rest to recover, I'll never tire of using Vicious Mockery to hurl insults at my foes, or casting Dissonant Whispers to cause some good psychic damage.

But you also can't discount the simple joy of having them play a ditty, busk for coins from a nearby crowd, or play out a battle to the beat of your drum or strum of your lute. And when your entire party can do all of those things, well, you can transform every fight into a musical. Having each character deliver their own unique put-downs with Vicious Mockery never gets old, either. Oh, and if you want some added entertainment, make sure everyone has the ability to talk to animals.

4. No weapons run

When it comes to combat in Baldur's Gate 3, Larian offers up the freedom to mess around and find out what happens. With so many classes that have their own unique fighting styles, you can do everything from dual-wielding two sticks of salami to using cantrips and spells to find workarounds against the toughest of foes. But if you want a different kind of challenge, consider this: a no weapons run.

Yes, as our very own senior staff writer Jasmine Gould-Wilson outlines for GamesRadar+'s RPG club subscribers, going fully weapons-free is no cakewalk. In fact, it can get downright tricky, but it's also incredibly satisfying to work out ways to defeat enemies when weapons are no longer part of the equation. Naturally, to pull off this run, you need to ensure you don't equip or use any melee or ranged weapons.

Of course, with no weapons in hand, that leaves room for you to use your arms as veritable throwing machines, and creating a character who's great at lobbing stuff could be an approach. Magic is also still an option, but you can't have a weapon equipped to give yourself extra abilities or buffs. Doing this run really will make you think outside the box during combat, and if you're looking to experiment more when it comes to battles, then this is the one to consider trying out.

3. Honour Mode

When Baldur's Gate 3's patch 5 landed towards the end of 2023, the Honour Mode difficulty was officially introduced to the fold, and as its description reads you can expect a "fraught and deadly campaign" should you choose it. And trust me, that's no exaggeration. If you're after a challenge with real high stakes, then it's got you written all over it. As the toughest difficulty option for Larian's RPG, Honour mode gives you a single save slot, and ups the ante from Tactician difficulty by introducing permadeath if a party member dies in combat.

Should your entire party fall during a combat scenario, then that's it. Game over. No reload for you, bucko. So, this is me giving you a warning. It's unforgiving and not one to take on until you're well-versed in Baldur's Gate 3's turn-based combat and class builds. With just a 10% success rate among players a year after Honour mode was added, it's certainly no small feat to complete the sprawling RPG and its many challenging encounters in this setting. You never know what might spell your ultimate demise, as is evidenced from this poor soul who lost a 50 hour attempt, or this unlucky adventurer whose 60-hour run came to an end in the most unexpected of ways.

But if you manage to overcome Baldur's Gate 3's Honour mode, you'll not only earn yourself the Foehammer achievement, but you'll also get a Golden D20 dice which you can roll in future playthroughs and wear like a badge of, well, honour.

2. Origin run - Gale or Karlach

Once you've experienced the story as your own customizable character, you should absolutely explore the RPG as one of the established companions. With various origins to choose from, you can play as any one of the core party members who travel alongside you, and each one has their own unique interactions, motivations, and narrative arcs that allow you to experience the Sword Coast from other perspectives.

While you'll likely be drawn to your personal favorites, I'd personally recommend replaying Baldur's Gate 3 as either Gale or Karlach. Both characters bring something different to the table, and I really love how enjoyable it is to play as either from a role-playing perspective. I first played as Gale back in 2024, after a poll dropped revealing he was the most popular origin among players. When I decided to try him out for myself, I quickly understood why.

Thanks to his Netherese orb predicament, there are so many unique dialogue options, interactions, and moments when you're playing as Gale that shake up the experience of the adventure throughout all three acts. Plus, as an added bonus, you have the adorable cat-like Tressym Tara at camp with you. Karlach, on the other hand, is the only origin companion who has an inner monologue, which offers so much insight into her character during certain story beats and encounters. While I have a deep attachment to the fiery tiefling, I think anyone could get invested in her personal story, too.

1. Dark Urge resistance run

If you were to ask me what the quintessential way to play Baldur's Gate 3 is, I'd give you the same answer every time: The Dark Urge resistance run. Alongside the many established companion origins you can play, there's also the unique and decidedly dark option to play as The Dark Urge. Awakening on the Mind Flayer ship with a bout of Amnesia, you feel a sinister urge which seemingly sparks the desire to kill in a very bloody fashion.

This origin is a role-playing dream come true from the get-go. As you try to understand these unexplained urges and reclaim the haunted past you can't remember, it's left up to you to decide how you handle it. Do you confide in your companions, or try to hide the bloodthirsty side of yourself? You're also free to choose if you give in to these urges or you resist them, and I'd recommend the latter every day of the week.

Not only do I consider The Dark Urge the true canon storyline for my customizable Tav, but the resistance run is also easily the most fulfilling and satisfying way to play Baldur's Gate 3, let alone replay. And if you really want some extra plot goodness from a role-playing perspective, I actually think Astarion's romance is very fitting for The Dark Urge if you're going down the resistance path. Both can connect over some similarities in their unfortunate circumstances and past experiences, and it just enriches the whole experience. But of course, that's entirely optional, and no matter if you choose to romance someone or not, you won't regret diving back into one of the best story-driven RPGs all over again in this way.

Look ahead to more role-playing goodness with our roundup of upcoming RPGs.

Starfield might have been reaching for the stars both literally and figuratively, but its approach to generating 1,000 explorable planets didn't quite work for one veteran Bethesda Game Studios developer.

Having contributed to everything from Fallout 3 and Skyrim to Fallout 4 and the early years of Starfield as a senior artist, Nate Purkeypile recently gave his thoughts about the studio's latest RPG in an interview with The Examined Game YouTube channel. Long story short, "It's very accurate that if I was in charge of Starfield, I would not have done it that way at all."

The veteran developer's main criticism is that the way Starfield handles its endless void of planets clashes with what traditionally makes Bethesda games tick. "I would have done a handful of planets with bespoke layouts," Purkeypile says, explaining that he would often run into repeated content during the main quest since the game doesn't procedurally generate wildly different dungeon layouts and such.

"Even early on, I was drawing parallels to Mass Effect 1 and how those, you know, procedural planets with repeated dungeons panned out. And I was like, I don't think this is a good idea," he adds. "If you're going to do the 1000s of planets thing, you really need to go the full No Man's Sky route and have it actually be generating unique content all the time, not just stitching stuff together in slightly different ways. That's not procedural."

Part of what makes Bethesda's special sauce so special is the surprise that comes from exploration - running toward a landmark in the far off distance, following an NPC that looks slightly sus, going down a footpath that's totally out of the way and finding handmade, sometimes hilarious, sometimes brilliant side stories almost every time. Purkeypile explains that having so much "repeated content" and not being really intentional with "where things are and why" robs Starfield of that Bethesda surprise.

"You go to like the major city in Starfield and it's huge, but then like outside the city, there's nothing. And it's like this doesn't even make sense as a world." Purkeypile doesn't think Starfield is a bad game, however, he'd just change how it's organized somewhat.

Nowadays, Purkeypile runs his own indie developer Just Purkey Games.

Bethesda provides Starfield proof of life – the space RPG "remains an important part of our future," has been played by over 17 million players, and there's plenty to come in Year 3

Arguably the best soulslike made outside of FromSoftware's offices, Lies of P, is also one of the rare games in the fledgling subgenre to include difficulty settings, but the developers only gave fans easier options after half of them got their puppet backsides whooped.

The fairytale-infused soulslike enjoyed difficulty options a few years after its initial launch thanks to the equally excellent Lies of P: Overture expansion. Difficulty options are very contentious with soulsalikelike fans, so you can imagine how hectic the discourse got when developer Nough Studio added not one, but two difficulty settings, both of which were easier than the standard.

In a new behind-the-scenes doc peeking into Lies of P's development, we got a little bit of insight into why Nough decided to seemingly change its mind on what's seen as a cardinal sin to many a soulslike fan.

"Originally, we had everyone do a full playthrough on a fixed difficulty," combat director Lee Jeonghyeon says, while talking about what the studio calls Game Days, a period of time when all developers at the studio put themselves into the mindset of players, pick up a controller, and try to run through the brutal gauntlet they've just created.

"For the combat designers and our more skilled players, getting through the game wasn't much of a challenge," Jeonghyeon goes on. "But for those who weren't as mechanically skilled, most couldn't even get halfway before time ran out. So we introduced a lower difficulty so everyone could complete a full playthrough."

Jeonghyeon explains that once devs at the studio started using those difficulty options, "we received a lot more positive feedback," which subsequently convinced the team "that adding difficulty options would really benefit players."

3 years after the best Soulslike not by FromSoftware, Lies of P leads feel "pressure" to make the sequel even better

Toby Fox's Deltarune has a Pokemon connection: the RPG's recent Chapter 5 features a character designed by artist Hitoshi Ariga, who created painfully cute Ogerpon, among other fan-favorite pocket monsters. However, Fox edited Ariga's notably Grass-type idea before letting it loose in the game.

Fox explains in a new blog post sharing his "Chapter 5 thoughts" and elaborating on Deltarune's newest characters and mechanics, like the bouncy platforming system. He also shares more information about Chapter 5's Netskie enemies capable of assuming the approximate shape and grin of a tricky fox. Deltarune fans knew Ariga helped design the mischievous creatures since he appears in the game's credits as a guest character designer, but Fox elaborates on the extent.

The developer writes in his blog, "Hitoshi Ariga is a Japanese artist who's most well-known for drawing the manga Rockman Megamix and designing a number of Pokemon, including the recently beloved Sneasler, Flutter Mane, and Ogerpon. However, did you know that he also drew the character sprites for many classic games, including Illusion of Gaia?!"

Ariga is indeed an accomplished artist – the designer has been involved in a range of video games since the early '90s, with titles like the ARPG Illusion of Gaia, as Fox noted, and Streets of Rage 2 for the Sega Genesis. He's been creating Pokemon since Pokemon X and Y in 2013, developing fan-favorite monsters like Aegislash since Generation 6, though he's been a Pokemon Trading Card Game illustrator since 2011.

"Anyway, he drew a bit of a fox character," Fox continues, "and then I made some modifications to it for the game."

The character sketch Fox attaches looks more than a little different from Deltarune Chapter 5's actual Netskie enemies, which are rooted to the ground and take the shape of an orange fox with a spread of nine violet tails.

Ariga's original design is much more of a Grass-type baby than that; its body lacks detail other than a few straight lines of wood grain, which scratch out a pair of slitted eyes and a mouth, and its ears and tail are made up of springy green leaves. I think you can sense Ariga's history with Pokemon in his character art – his Netskie would get along well with Leafeon and Deerling and their elegant forested bodies.

But Fox seemed to think this version of a Netskie was better suited for a brighter universe, as Deltarune accommodates dull neon hauntings best.

Deltarune creator Toby Fox says "there are no more wacky silly adventures" as Chapter 6 will finally deal with the RPG's "main mysteries."

Former Baldur's Gate and Dragon Age dev Mark Darrah says that Baldur's Gate 3 is a great sequel mostly because it's so different to the original games.

Speaking to FRVR, Darrah, who was a programmer on Baldur's Gate and its sequel, says that one of the biggest strengths that Larian has when it came to Baldur's Gate 3 was that the game isn't "super literal in terms of what a sequel should look like." However, there have been plenty of games in the time since Baldur's Gate 2 that have been a bit more spiritual successor in their approach. For example he explains, "Pillars of Eternity feels like an Infinity Engine game. It's not. I played it and I'm like, 'wow, this feels very much like a spiritual successor to a Baldur's Gate or an Icewind Dale or something like that.'"

He adds, "I can't fault anything it does in terms of being true to that inspiration, but the reality is that the industry has moved on so much since then that I was like, oh yeah, this is a really faithful adaptation of that and it turns out that I didn’t actually want that anymore."

Darrah notes, "Larian is, they are, Baldur’s Gate 2 and Baldur’s Gate 1 flavored, but they're also Divine Divinity flavoured." He explains that Larian has been flavored by the CRPGs it worked on and that were released in the huge amount of time between the releases of Baldur's Gate 2 and 3. Darrah adds, "So I think it's a great sequel. I think they did what is the right thing to do given that large of a gap.”

For example, he explains, "If you inject Neverwinter Nights and Dragon Age Origins and draw that line, then it leads pretty clearly to a game like Baldur’s Gate 3." With that in mind, he adds, "So the sweep of that arc obviously includes Baldur’s Gate 3, because otherwise we wouldn't be here, but it's not as obvious because the gap is so large."

Larian reveals 10 Baldur's Gate 3 endings and scenes that almost nobody has seen, including the worst fates the RPG can give Lae'zel and Astarion.

EA could never really understand Dragon Age or why people would even want to buy games in the fantasy series, according to a former BioWare producer, which probably explains the years of reported corporate intervention that led to Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

Ex-BioWare producer Mark Darrah – who had a hand in everything from the original Baldur's Gate games, almost the entire Dragon Age series, and Anthem – recently spoke about the beloved but troubled franchise in an interview with FRVR. And, as you might have been able to guess, EA was always a little confused by Mass Effect's fantasy cousin.

"I think you see it in the way that EA interacted with the two franchises," Darrah says. "I think that if you are not a person who plays CRPGs, it's very hard to look at a game like Dragon Age or a game like Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 and understand why anyone would want to play this nerdy piece of garbage. Whereas they look at something like Mass Effect and go, 'OK, it's a Star Wars game.' Like, I get it, even that might be too nerdy for me, but I get it."

2008's Dragon Age: Origins was in development before the publisher eventually scooped up BioWare, but past that point, EA supposedly saw the series as "too niche, too backwards, too old-school."

Mass Effect was an action game with cover-based shooting – from afar, it looked close enough to Gears of War or other shooters that were popular from that era, but Dragon Age was a different story. A high fantasy world full of complicated politics and a game that mixed real-time action with CRPG tactics was apparently less palatable to EA execs.

"You can blame some of the things where Dragon Age has always seemed to be in this perpetual state of flux, a lot of that coming from pressure from EA because people don't understand why people would want to buy this hardcore, tactical thing," Darrah explains.

While Dragon Age: The Veilguard came out after Mark Darrah's tenure at the studio, EA's misunderstanding of the franchise seemingly affected that game's production as well. The story goes, Dragon Age 4 reportedly started life as a smaller scale, more focused RPG that was eventually put on pause, before restarting development as a live-service multiplayer game. It was again rebooted one last time into what we now recognize as The Veilguard, a game that didn't meet the publisher's sales expectations. Layoffs at the storied studio followed shortly after its launch.

Dragon Age is "unlikely" to continue at EA, says former lead David Gaider, but if you gave him the keys to the RPG he'd take it somewhere "dark" and "do things that will make people upset."

Baldur's Gate 3 just celebrated its third anniversary. If you're anything like me, that milestone is enough of an excuse to dive back into Larian Studios' smash hit RPG for another go around the Sword Coast. The challenge is finding a new way to go about it.

Something I've always loved about Baldur's Gate 3 is how flexible its foundations are. Your imagination is the only limit to how you build a character, set up your party, and approach combat, exploration, and story progression – though I'm no stranger to finding clever ways to cheese my way out of sticky situations if plans go awry.

With all those lessons learned, I've settled on something I've never done before: A no-weapons run of Baldur's Gate 3, to see how the world reacts when you aren't approaching all that it has to offer with the sharp edge of a sword (or a quiver of smokepowder arrows). Will it be a joyous way to play, or a disaster that inadvertently gets my character and favorite companions killed?

We're going to figure that out together. Over the next four weeks we'll be exploring a full playthrough of Baldur's Gate 3 as part of the GamesRadar+ RPG Club, and I want you to join me on this journey and share your own experiences. As for my own, it begins where it always does: with character creation and some difficult Act One decisions.

Quest Log

Look, ma, empty hands!

If you're joining us on this no-weapons run through Baldur's Gate 3, you have to know that picking a suitable race is paramount. Ignoring any Baldur's Gate 3 race that offers passive melee perks, or seems otherwise overloaded with weapon and armor proficiencies, the list of options is narrowed considerably.

I ultimately decide upon a Halfling for the Lucky and Brave racial bonuses, a decision which will give me a shot at re-rolling critical fail dice rolls later down the line – not to mention an advantage on certain saving throws.

As for my class and subclass, it's draconic-bloodline sorcerer all the way. Sorcs are some of the most powerful beings in the Forgotten Realms and have little to no need for melee action. With elemental magic given a boost per-level in my chosen lineage damage-type (in this case, lightning), I can already tell that having all of these spells at my disposal from the off is going to be a huge boon. Then, it was time to hop out of my pod and into the fire.

The first thing I do is unequip protagonist Zeraphina's melee and ranged weapons. She looks defenseless and squishy without them, poor mite, but I soon run into Lae'zel, who also gets her tools of the trade stripped away. The imps barely make a dent in our ranks (which lacks the presence of Us, the intellect devourer, since Zeraphina lacked the strength or dexterity to extract him from the skull. Oops.)

By the time we free Shadowheart and I do away with her tools as well, I'm feeling confident about this no-weapons run challenge. I've managed to defeat Commander Zhalk on the nautiloid before, but since his loot is a powerful greatsword and I have no use for it on this run, I let Zeraphina and Lae'zel distract the cambion while Shadowheart dashes for the crashing ship's controls.

The lanceboard is set

Landing on the beach, I dust myself off. So far so good: I have full health and a few spell slots intact, and once I link back up with Shadowheart, I set off to gather my buddies.

As I go, I'm already thinking about how I'll need to respec some of them to suit my challenge. Shadowheart, being a cleric, is still useful to me in her current class. Astarion is next on my checklist – a rogue, soon to become a spell-slinging College of Glamor bard since I'll have no use for his devastating weapon sneak attacks this time – followed by evocation wizard Gale and a very sulky Lae'zel (whom I actually bother to track down this time).

Lae'zel is a greatsword-wielding fighter, which also has no place in my current challenge. Gale actually doesn't need an immediate respec, since wizard's don't rely on weapons anyway, so he can thank Mystra for my great benevolence in keeping his wizardly ways untouched (for now).

But before I can actually assign new classes to my new friends, I need to find me a bone man – aka, scribe of the dead Withers. He's the only way I can respec in BG3, and after so many playthroughs, I know exactly where to find him.

Greased lightning

I have Shadowheart, Astarion, and Gale with me for my trip to the Overgrown Ruins, but my strongest allies are grease and candles.

Paired with Gale's ice knife spell to create small patches of frozen, slippery terrain, the hostile looters are left wide open to a host of other attacks. Shadowheart and Gale are very useful already, proving they don't need to be re-classified, but I do find myself at a loss with what to do about arcane trickster Astarion when he's not picking locks or disabling traps.

Here is where I feel the loss of his sneak attacks most. He's got a backpack full of grease bottles already though, and throwing them at looters makes them fall comically prone every so often. I especially enjoy having him extinguish nearby torches, hide in the shadows, and toss firebolt cantrips (or candles) into puddles of grease beneath foes, dealing critical damage to prone enemies.

The fun really starts when we make our way into Withers' crypt. I go around to each of the not-suspiciously-laid-out-at-all entombed skeletons to steal their tools off them in the hopes that it makes the incoming fight a little easier. Alas, they immediately spring to life and dole out the Silence spells as soon as I touch the button to open Wither's chamber.

I prioritize keeping Shadowheart far from the Silence orbs, hitting the skeletons with Sacred Flame in the vain hope that the cantrip actually works and disrupts their concentration. Gale and Zeraphina have some proximity spells they can use, and I send Shadowheart some looted spell scrolls to help dole out some damage from afar. Astarion is still on his grease-hide-firebolt kick, though he is the first to go down, and I ultimately end up using my first precious revivify scroll to bring the vampling back to un-life. It's a slow, agonizing battle, and by the end, my whole party is hanging on by a few HP apiece.

With Withers on-side and having returned to camp to long rest, I have enough coin to respec two characters at this point. Astarion is perfectly suited to bardhood, I decide after hearing his Vicious Mockery quips at the gates to Emerald Grove, and having another healer would be incredibly useful already. Meanwhile, Lae'zel makes a fabulous monk. Her high strength modifier makes unarmed wallops absolutely lethal, and I already have high hopes for her specific gear build.

But before I think that far ahead, I go right on and recruit Wyll Ravengard to the fold. He'll have to rebrand as the Eldritch Blast of Frontiers, though, because that rapier gets yoinked out of his noble hands immediately. I toy around with changing up his warlock subclass, much as it pains me to play around with the game's canon, but I settle on opting for the Pact of the Chain class feature. Who knows, maybe this time I'll remember to actually use his out-of-combat-only summon?

Next, I need my barbarian. On the way to finding Karlach, I pick up the Ring of Flinging from the vendor in Emerald Groves. It applies 1d4 extra damage to all thrown objects, including improvised weapons (aka, goblins, chairs, you name it), so this item has been a non-negotiable early game pickup for me in every BG3 playthrough to-date. I have grand plans for tavern brawler giant Karlach to make good use of it eventually, since the tavern brawler feat boosts Strength and doubles its modifier when dealing unarmed and throwing attacks too.

I've got a long road ahead

My party is really taking shape, with each new battle forcing me to think outside the box when it comes to creative damage dealing. If I'm not hoarding candles, grease bottles, and other throwables, I'm taking the time to reposition companions before battles.

I'm even all-out skipping whole areas I don't think are worth it given my current restriction – saving Counsellor Florrick in Waukeen's Rest would be pointless (unless you're focusing on Wyll's story), as the reward for doing so is a choice of weapons.

I'm also using the ever-flexible rules of D&D to my advantage in finding smart workarounds for incredibly challenging battles. Did you know that casting mage hand in the Hag's lair to lower Mayrina's cage, casting Longstrider on your party, and jumping down to the exit door without triggering the final battle against Auntie Ethel is totally possible? Me neither, but I was able to slip away for a long rest before returning to finish the job with zero problems at all.

Next week, I'll delve into how playing with no weapons impacts my journey to Moonrise Towers, specifically when it comes to choosing my route carefully to pick up specific gear. Until then, stay safe out there, and don't forget to stockpile those candles!

It's looking likely that we could be getting another look at Kingdom Hearts 4 this month. The franchise is set for a retrospective showcase at D23, and some potential panelists have been revealed, increasing the odds that the latest installment will be part of proceedings in some capacity.

The Deep Dive into Kingdom Hearts panel will take place on August 15, and thanks to the D23 app, we now know three possible participants (thanks, Kingdom Hearts Insider). Haley Joel Osment will be at the event, an expected presence since he's the voice of protagonist Sora as well as the villain Vanitas.

He's being joined by David Gallagher, the voice of Riku, another unsurprising attendee. But the third person listed is an exciting one: Tai Yasue, the co-director of Kingdom Hearts 4.

Now, Yasue also co-directed Kingdom Hearts 3 and a bunch of the spin-offs, including Birth by Sleep and Dream Drop Distance, making him a tenured voice on the property's development, but it's convenient he can speak to the upcoming sequel, too. This could be the first time we hear a lead dev speak on Sora, Donald and Goofy's next misadventure, if it happens, but I should note they're all just listed for D23 in general and not tied to any specific showcase.

Thus far, we've just two trailers. And though it's exciting, it's been difficult to fully contextualize (Kingdom Hearts being obtuse, shocking right?), so it'll be helpful to get some insights into where the narrative is going and what roles some of the characters will be playing.

There's no release window yet for the next mainline installment, and I wouldn't expect one at D23. A showcase handled specifically by Square Enix is much more likely for that information, but we may get a little more footage alongside whatever the panelists can tell us. We've come a long way from sealing the darkness in Wonderland and the Deep Jungle, and the road forward continues unabated.

Canceled Kingdom Hearts spin-off's intro apparently leaks online and not even veteran fans understand what's going on: "Why does it look like Pacific Rim but with Keyblades."

Former Dragon Age series producer Mark Darrah says fellow game developers should "absolutely" listen to player feedback, but when it comes to identifying solutions to problems, he says it's best to look elsewhere.

"Of course you should listen to people that are playing your game," Darrah says in a new YouTube video titled 'Why 'Listen to the Community' is Bad Advice'. "Except it's more complicated than it sounds, because people don't talk with one voice, because the loudest voices in your community don't always represent the majority of your players, and because players don't always know exactly what they want."

Immediately upon watching this video, I was reminded of a similar sentiment expressed by Path of Exile co-creator Chris Wilson, who said recently in his own YouTube video that surveying players can yield valuable information about problems, but not necessarily solutions. Darrah seems to agree wholeheartedly, stressing the value of community feedback but warning against letting it guide development.

"So I don't get completely canceled, let's start by saying developers should absolutely listen to their communities," says Darrah. "Players are incredibly valuable sources of information. They tell you when they're frustrated. They tell you where they're frustrated. They tell you what they like, what they don't like. They tell you where they feel like the game is unbalanced, where they feel like they're not getting a fair shake from the multiplayer systems in your game. They tell you where they're getting lost and confused. They also give you a great insight into how they're actually playing the game as opposed to how you wish they were playing the game.

"A lot of times they're going to identify problems way faster than even the best QA team possibly can, because there are so many more of them," adds Darrah. "If you ignore them completely, you're making a game in a vacuum. This is a complete mistake.

"Players are really, really good at identifying problems. What they're a lot less good at is identifying solutions. They're not developers, they're game players. They know they don't like something, but the solution they may come up with may not be the best."

Darrah then lists a number of ways players might identify a pain point but misidentify the problem at its heart. "If they're saying this enemy AI needs to be smarter, it might be that the AI is bad, [or] it might just be that the creatures are dying too fast and the balance is off," he says. "It might be a simple mistake in pathfinding. The feedback that this class is boring or these enemies need to be smarter isn't useless. It's incredibly valuable. It's giving you a window into what they're feeling. You need to understand and pick apart that feedback and understand the problem underneath the solution."

Another issue with listening to player feedback is that it's generally "not a monolith," meaning any given player base is going to have people all across the spectrum from casual to hardcore, from people who play games for the story to math nerds who just want to watch numbers go up.

"Especially if you're a studio that's been around for a while, you've built up a pretty deep relationship with one of those groups, and then a weaker relationship with a couple of others, and there are some groups which you are never talking to at all," says Darrah. "Those hardcore players, they want more math, they want a crunchier system, they want realism, they want complexity, but that's going to potentially make the systems unconsumable by other players."

I've long recognized this as a potential issue with Diablo 4, a game I love dearly but whose online communities and discourse I can't relate with because I don't play the game nearly as much as they do. It very much depends on the season, but it seems like Blizzard allocates a disproportionate amount of development resources to making sure the top commenters on r/Diablo4 are happy, when I reckon those folks make up a tiny portion of the overall player base. That leaves more casual players like me and my wife feeling a little left out of the conversation, although great expansions like Vessel of Hatred and Lord of Hatred compensate for that very periodically.

"You need to remember that your community is a bunch of different groups, and when you are in a conversation that seems to be unified by your community, take a step back and ask, 'Is this actually all of the community, or have we built up a very special relationship with a specific part of the community and we are listening to them to the exclusion of other groups?'" Darrah says.

"Most of your players aren't talking to you at all. Most people buy a game, play the game for a while, maybe really enjoy it, and then finish it and move on. They're not yelling about the game on Reddit, or tweeting about what they want, or engaging with the community, or making YouTube videos. Most people aren't terminally online."

Ultimately, Darrah says the trick is to "get as many different data sources as you can, get the feedback from the community, but do playtesting, put telemetry in, look at what's actually happening with sales of other games to try to figure out what the reality is versus what the community is telling you."

Darrah's final piece of advice for developers navigating community feedback is to "remember your vision." As a creative myself, I've always been intrigued by the fact that games are one of the very few creative mediums where the artist so often takes cues from the consumer and actually changes the art based on feedback.

If a movie or TV show comes out and the viewers don't like that a character dies, the director doesn't go back and make them survive. As much as Game of Thrones fans protested over the disastrous eighth season, it remains streaming on HBO Max exactly as it first premiered (trust me, I've had the displeasure of re-watching it). Of course, games, especially online multiplayer games, are a whole different beast with continual updates, limited-time modes, seasons, and the like, but the principle remains: should developers be twisting their visions to suit the desires of gamers? Darrah says no.

"If you get the best suggestion form your community but it violates the vision of your game, it's not actually the best suggestion. Not every suggestion is going to line up with what the game is trying to be, and that's OK. And there will be more games for those players to experience, and they may get that feature in a game in the future."

"We try to lean in on the things where our idea of what Starfield should be aligns with the feedback that's coming in from folks who get the game": How community feedback helped Bethesda shape Starfield's biggest updates

Not releasing a new Fallout game alongside the popular Amazon Prime TV show might seem like a missed opportunity, but Obsidian Entertainment co-founder and Fallout: New Vegas writer Chris Avellone reckons the decision was likely a "personal" one for the devs.

It's now been over a decade since Fallout 4, so to say fans have been patiently waiting for the next mainline entry would be an understatement. Thankfully, Bethesda has now revealed the tiniest glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel with confirmation that Fallout 5 is "currently in preproduction," albeit with The Elder Scrolls 6 remaining the team's priority.

Beyond that, it's also been confirmed that remasters of both Fallout 3 and New Vegas are on the way, as well as a new game that's being developed by New Vegas studio Obsidian, which raises the question – why didn't Bethesda align any of these releases with the first or second season of its TV show? Asked about why we've not seen more Obsidian-led Fallout games or a new title to coincide with the show on a new episode of the Human Can Opener podcast on YouTube (below), Avellone gives his thoughts.

"I think whatever the decision was not to do that, it didn't feel like a business decision," he begins, saying that to him, it appeared to be a more "personal" one. "But I don't know for sure," he adds.

What "personal" factors might have come into play here are another matter that Avellone doesn't elaborate on, but to suggest it wasn't a business decision would certainly track. After all, the TV show saw the existing series surge in popularity as fans new and old were inspired to jump back in. Just imagine how popular a brand new game would have been if it launched around the same time? Well, it's not like the Fallout TV series is over yet, so who knows, perhaps one of those upcoming releases will align with one of the future seasons.

Fallout 3 was "not what we intended" after tech constraints in 2008, says Bethesda vet Nate Purkeypile, so it's time for a "better" remaster.

You can make all sorts of romantic decisions across the Mass Effect games, each with their own distinct narrative arcs. An unexpected one actually happens based on the choices you don't make, and it was so surprising, it caught a developer completely off guard.

In Mass Effect 3, if you don't lay it on hot and heavy with either Tali or Garrus, they will hook up. It's a nice bit of narrative flavoring that makes your crew feel more alive and autonomous; if you've a personal life on board the Normandy, so do they, and even your rejections have consequences.

Kris Schoneberg, a level designer on Mass Effect 3 and card-carrying Garrus stan, tells us she found out about this literally while playing the sci-fi RPG. "I was testing the save game, and I didn't know that occurred," she recalls to GamesRadar+.

"I am a Garrus [superfan], like you can't see it but there's a Garrus shrine over here," she explains. "I loaded up the save game, and I'm running around The Normandy trying to test the bug that I have. And I open up the door, and yeah, they're standing in the doorway, right?"

The galaxy's greatest sniper and your crew's most elusive member, having a sneaky little rendezvous together. The scandal, it's like something out of a soap opera. Distressed at the shock, Schoneberg took this to the writers and demanded answers.

"I put the controller down, and I marched over to the writer's room, and I was like, 'When? When was this?'" she remembers. "So relatable, highly relatable."

We've all been there, in real life and in video game form. Just goes to show, you've got to shoot your shot at any and all opportunities to do so. Otherwise it might be your crush hanging out with a mysterious quarian or a galactic war hero.

"I hope PS6 will be a disaster": Sony reminds everyone it's taking discs away in warnings reportedly added to new PS5 consoles.

10 extraordinarily rare endings and moments in Baldur's Gate 3 have been uncorked by Larian senior communications dev Aoife Wilson, who's packed some serious narrative whiplash into just a few minutes.

Obviously, there are Baldur's Gate 3 spoilers ahead, though odds are good you'd never normally uncover these details for yourself.

A new video on Larian's side YouTube channel reveals "10 Of The Rarest Scenes In Baldur's Gate 3," many of which cover obscure endings for individual characters.

Not many numbers are shared, and it's unclear how these may have been ranked hierarchically, but from the very first example, which sees Lae'zel use a sword to take her own life in her "saddest fate," we're in the double-digit range for folks who've actually seen these corner cases. "If you got this ending in-game, congrats, you're one of about 50," Wilson says of Lae'zel's demise.

On the niche case of Wulbren Bongle, a gnome first encountered in Act 2, Wilson says, "Have you ever failed a roll so spectacularly that someone would rather stay in Absolute jail? We have, and let me tell you, it stings."

The whole video is a gallery of the unlikely and improbable. For example, Githyanki hero "Orpheus may propose an alliance with your tentacled form," Wilson explains, with a little "help from frog-wife" Lae'zel in negotiations. Given how the Githyanki feel about Mind Flayers, this is no small feat.

Minthara and Astarion appear a few times. In one scene, Minthara offers a rare compliment, and in another, she takes your tentacled hand in hers to "take the sting out of not having your personal Elder Brain to command."

One rare scene sees Astarion smooched by Gale after the wizard's ascendance to arcane godhood. In the next, he's reduced to a forgotten zombie in the lair of Cazador, the vampire lord encountered at the climax of his personal quest, but as a vampire dreg cursed with immortality. Even Cazador finds it cruel of you to kill Astarion in Act 1. And really, how could you?

For Baldur's Gate 3's third anniversary, Larian also recently unveiled a truckload of player data that paints an interesting and concerning picture of the way some people play.

"Baldur's Gate 3 is now canceled": Larian stream smacked down over "violation" for "Body Exposure and Sexualized Behaviors," which feels like high praise for an RPG.

On August 4, like every other Fire Emblem fan, I tuned into Nintendo's Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave Direct live stream. And, after analyzing the full 22 minutes of story details and gameplay footage, I still have a massive burning question that has been bothering me ever since about the upcoming Switch 2 game: where is the love?

Romance in Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave hasn't been confirmed outright yet, and I didn't think I'd need it to be before the stream. The inclusion of some kind of romance system or pairings seemed obvious, given the franchise's long history of including relationships in its stories. Ever since the first game in the series came out in 1990, love interests have been a thing. And, even during the games with less overt romantic options, we at least had some kind of married couple, or relationship drama to watch unfold on the battlefield.

But as the recent Fortune's Weave presentation went into detail about its plot revolving around multiple timelines and time travel, distinct characters, and gameplay features, the absence of any love system or romantic pairings shown fills me with dread.

A confusing relationship

The more I reflect back on the Direct, the more I worry that romance and any kind of non-platonic pairings will be done away with completely this time around, because from the current known Fortune's Weave story details, I have no idea how it will fit in meaningfully.

So far, we know that a big chunk of Fortune's Weave's story revolves around four distinct heroes that enter the "Heroic Games", a competition where the winner gets a wish granted. Similar to Fire Emblem: Three Houses, who you pick will have a unique storyline to follow, and each main hero has a cast of allies that are there to help them. However, the main plot twist is that while you control your chosen hero for at least a portion of the game, the main protagonist is Eshmel, a soul later summoned by the Goddess Sothis.

We know that Eshmel's section of the game (which is likely to be the largest part considering they are the "true" protagonist) happens five years after the Heroic Games. The four heroes have vanished, and Eshmel is tasked with defeating a revived demon god.

Eshmel has the option to go back in time and change the fate of the four heroes, and in the stream we do see Eshmel physically meeting each one in some kind of way. Now, with all that in mind, I don't see Eshmel realistically romancing anyone as an essentially newly summoned soul, guardian-angel type. And I'm fine with that fact. I am worried, though, that this story structure will stop any potential romance that could have been forged between the four heroes and their allies, as well as other pairings from allied NPC units. The shift in focus to a divine being may result in human connections falling by the wayside and us getting a more generic depiction of relationships.

The importance of love

Romance has always been one of my favorite elements of Fire Emblem. It makes characters feel more real and the consequences of letting them die in battle more impactful.

Romance also feeds into the general support system as well where NPCs with raised bonds get bonuses in battle. But gameplay advantages aside, the real draw of pursuing relationships is how much more fleshed out every character interaction feels as a result. I rarely care about NPCs in games; however, following a romantic side plot, seeing allies with chemistry and then getting to see what pairings developed after the fog of war has settled is one of the reasons that Fire Emblem has become one of my favorite titles of all time.

The franchise's romance system, especially how it pairs couples based on support points and the bonds you raise, is also one of the reasons it stands out as unique. Few other tactical RPGs utilize romance to enhance their worldbuilding, and also care enough to make each of their NPC characters feel fully realized. Romance and relationships are universal to the human experience – of course feelings would form between allies – and a Fire Emblem game without either would be a downgrade.

A hopeful future

Not all romantic hope is lost. The Direct did show that you can develop support points with allies and potential recruits through sharing meals and giving gifts. We did also see support conversations. Hopefully this means that my fears are unfounded and romance will be integrated in at least some of these relationships. And, hopefully, the timeskip won't negate them or completely abandon the mechanics once it happens.

On the other hand, we have to take the last game into account and how it handled romance too. Fire Emblem Engage did away with pairings completely. And despite having amazing tactical gameplay, its story was one of the series' least popular because of it. One common complaint about Fire Emblem Engage is its characters feeling shallow (just read our Fire Emblem Engage review for more details on that), especially in comparison to Three Houses. Now romance isn't the only factor that contributed to the writing issues, but it does add to the problem.

Romance was an afterthought in Engage, with the game featuring no pairings outside of the player character and romance being tied to an optional map that many missed. It fundamentally misunderstands how pairing characters makes them feel more human, and how that simple mechanic makes players more invested in their stories and, by consequence, whether they live or die in combat.

I really hope that Engage's criticism is taken to heart, and that if we don't get romance storylines as the player character in Fortune's Weave, we will still see other characters' pairings and developing relationships. Love is intrinsically human. It is also one of the pillars that makes Fire Emblem so special, and for a mainline title, Fortune's Weave should hopefully remember its importance to the series DNA.

While we wait for Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave, you can check out our lists of the best tactical RPGs and the best Switch 2 games to play today.

Join the GamesRadar+ RPG Club today.

There are few things in entertainment like getting completely lost in a great role-playing game. One minute you're setting out to save the world, and the next you've spent five hours exploring hidden caverns, romancing unassuming companions, tweaking your character cosmetics, or convincing yourself that the next piece of loot that you find will be worth the encumbrance cost. RPGs are sprawling, surprising, and wonderfully personal – which is exactly why we love them, and we suspect that you do too.

RPGs are also some of the best video games to talk about.

Welcome to the RPG Club, a month-long adventure through one unforgettable role-playing game. Over the next four weeks, we'll be playing Baldur's Gate 3 together, tackling the story in weekly chapters and comparing notes along the way. As we document the trials and tribulations that shape our journey back into Larian Games' iconic adventure, we invite you to jump into the conversation with your own triumphs, mishaps, and the memories forged in the Forgotten Realms.

Below you'll find your Quest Log, which explains the rules for this month's playthrough, should you want to join in this adventure. But even with shared objectives, we know that no two RPG sessions are ever the same. Maybe you solved a quest in a way we never considered, or found a secret that completely changed the way you survived a scenario. That's the magic of the RPG genre: Every choice matters, and every player ends up with a tale worth telling. We want to hear yours.

Whether this is your first time with Baldur's Gate 3 or your eighth with an entirely new build, RPG Club is your place to celebrate everything that makes these games and this genre so special. Gather your party, stock up on supplies, and get ready to share your stories around the RPG Club campfire. After all, the best adventures only get better when you've got people to share them with.

Quest Log

RPG Club: Baldur's Gate 3 (August 2026)

Meet this month's RPG Club host

This week's big question

RPG Masterclass

Get started with Baldur's Gate 3

Submit your best BG3 clip

Grab any great clips during your return to Baldur's Gate 3? Don't forget to submit them to GamesRadar+ Replay. Not only will this give you an opportunity to share your gaming highlights with the GR+ Community, but the best clip of the month wins a $250/£250 Amazon voucher too.

At long last, Deltarune is approaching the end of its story and creator Toby Fox is warning folks to not expect more whimsical detours. Chapters 6 and 7 are all about paying off everything that's been set up over the last few years, but you might need to wait until the finale for it to all make total sense.

Deltarune Chapter 5 popped out of the blue earlier this summer, which means all eyes are now on the episodic RPG's final two installments. Chapter 6 isn't due to come out until sometime next year, but Undertale maestro Fox has now thrown hungry fans a bone.

"Chapter 5 was a really fun chapter, and with that last big burst of craziness out of the way, I'm sure everybody is eager for Deltarune to start directly tackling the main mysteries of the game," Fox writes in a new blog post. "Me too!" (And me three.)

Fox calls Chapter 5 the final "necessary setup" for the story's conclusion, so everything that happens from here on out will be about seeing answering questions and dealing with more pressing issues. "There are no more wacky silly adventures," in other words.

"Chapter 6 is a shorter, straightforward chapter that focuses on one aspect of the story. Because of that, many things are still not touched on here – in fact, it may surprise you what was missing! But one thing will be clarified, whether you're ready or not," Fox continues, very ominously.

He also acknowledges that some fans might be clamouring for longer chapters as we inch toward the finale, not shorter ones. "That's an extremely reasonable concern," he writes, "but... by the end of Chapter 7 I'm 100% sure you'll understand why I feel confident about the way I'm telling this story. Don't worry about the pacing until it's over!"

Deltarune Chapter 6 is still planned for release in 2027 and won't come alongside Chapter 7, according to Fox's note.

"Recently, I finished writing a few more sequences towards the last third of Chapter 6 and rearranging the rooms to fit the new structure. Once we make these adjustments and tie everything together, we will be able to play rough draft of the chapter from beginning to end. Barring any major restructuring, the main things that will continue to need development time are the boss of the chapter and polishing cutscenes," he explains.

Deltarune first began drip feeding fans in 2018 with the same humor and heart that made Undertale such a hit. Fox and his team have since been releasing new chapters whenever they're ready.

Deltarune's "last patch" before Chapter 6 offers "Nicer or Meaner" modes for Chapter 5's Shadow Crystal boss, with a sweeter reward if you up the difficulty.

Baldur's Gate 3 developer Larian studios – specifically, senior communications developer Aoife Wilson – has been streaming a Dark Urge playthrough of its own RPG for over a year now. On August 5, somebody, or some automated system, finally had enough of the game's stupid, sexy devils and flagged the latest stream as inappropriate, so risque are its characters.

Larian publishing director Michael Douse shared a livestream violation notice sent to Larian, saying, "Baldur's Gate 3 is now cancelled."

The notice appears to have come from YouTube, as the latest episode of the Durge playthrough is perfectly viewable on Twitch but conspicuously absent on Larian's YouTube channel.

The notice reads: "Your LIVE 'Larian's Dark Urge Run: Claws' streamed on 08/05/2026 at 12:46pm has been discontinued because of a violation: Body Exposure and Sexualized Behaviors."

"Getting banned on your birthday is such a cool & edgy thing to do," Douse adds, clocking Baldur's Gate 3's third anniversary.

"Oopsie," replies Wilson.

Obviously I watched the Twitch vod to see what happened, and, well, there is indeed body exposure and sexualized behavior. Wilson reaches the hellish House of Hope in Act 3 and ends up tangled in bed with demonic denizens. An emergency D20 sticker, slapped over the stream like a black bar, can't keep up with all the exposure.

"Good for her. Good for us. Good for everybody," Wilson says of one sexy scene. There's just one problem.

"Why are Haarlep's nipples not censored?" Wilson wonders, referring to her conspicuously nude demon partner. Her custom character's own nipples are decidedly censored, seemingly thanks to the nudity settings used for the run. "Why are the nipples not censored?" she asks again, the D20 censor struggling to keep up with Haarlep.

I doubt this scene was somehow missed by the in-game censor all these years, so maybe one of the mods used in this run interfered or a setting just got borked. Either way, the outcome angered the internet's censor gods, making for a very funny example of a developer getting smacked for streaming its own game.

Larian just released a bunch of Baldur's Gate 3 stats, and 9,122 of you need to be jailed immediately.

Former Bethesda artist and Fallout 76 lead Nate Purkeypile is just as glad as you are that Bethesda has a Fallout 3 remaster on the way. Purkeypile worked on the original RPG back in 2008, so he's acutely aware that it could have been better.

Purkeypile tells The Examined Game host Steven Lake in a new YouTube interview, "I'm personally looking forward to [the Fallout 3 remaster], because we were, like, super tech-constrained making Fallout 3." The dev says, "you could only place so many lights," plus textures were small, and devs were "constantly worrying about the memory budgets, or how much stuff you're putting on-screen... So it's not like it's exactly how we intended."

Recalling video game development in 2008, nearly 20 years ago, is like revisiting an archeological site. Culturally, no one could decide if video games were really art, but teams crunched hard trying to at least make something good. Fallout co-creator Tim Cain recalls in a 2023 YouTube video on the subject, "Many, many people worked many, many hours more than eight in the '80s and '90s, and even into the early 2000s. Part of it was passion, part of it was necessity. There was just no way to get games finished without crunch."

Then, in terms of technology, 2000s gaming was stone and bronze compared to the iron tools we have today. Unreal Engine only went up to 3. No one sat around evangelizing about 4k resolution, because there was none to be had. Developers had to be flexible with their limited options, but some didn't like to be, so Purkeypile says, "I get why people are more upset over movie remakes and stuff. But, in the case of games – and particularly the art side of it – it's 100% not what we intended, and it was very, very constrained."

"Even before I was doing games professionally," the developer remembers, "I started making games before we had color. So, I was seeing [development] change dramatically over time."

The past 20 years of technological evolution we benefit from now is helpful not only to new games, but also to remakes. Purkeypile emphasizes, "I think a lot of these remakes have been done, frankly, better lately, too."

He continues, "Like the Resident Evil ones and stuff, those were fantastic. Whereas, for a while, I think a lot of those updates were like, 'Oh, we made the textures a little bit bigger, and, like, threw a sharpen filter in Photoshop,' and it doesn't really look that much better, or actually as good as other games coming out."

Ideally, the Fallout 3 remaster ends up a perfect balance between the old and new world: more faithful to its original developers' ideas in 2008 while also being a genuinely competitive modern title.

Fallout 3 is a masterpiece and I hope the remaster comes to Switch 2.

PATCH NOTES v05.08.2026 – Baldur's Gate 3 developer Larian Studios released some fresh game statistics, showing how modding has kept BG3's playerbase engaged and thriving to the tune of one billion mods downloaded in just three years – encroaching upon a position held fast by Skyrim for years.

What's going on this week with Baldur's Gate 3?

• Larian Studios released a series of infographics on X that give insight into player choice and actions
• Stats reveal 500 million game mods have been downloaded through the Baldur's Gate 3 internal modding client and 509.4 million more through Nexus Mods

Why is this happening now?

• Mods help players make games their own, keeping games like Baldur's Gate 3 relevant for longer
• The infographics were posted in keeping with Larian's trend, releasing statistics to mark milestones in the RPG's life cycle

Community Update

Baldur's Gate 3 has been blinding success since it launched out of Early Access, and after the last of its mammoth post-launch updates was deployed in April 2025, fans have turned to mods to inspire repeat playthroughs. The internal modding client – offering new classes, party size limit removal, and a higher level cap to experiment with – was added to the game as part of September 2024's Patch 7 as Larian started the process of leaving the game in players hands to pursue its next big project (later revealed as a new Divinity game).

According to the latest statistics released by Larian to celebrate BG3's birthday, the game has seen 500 million mods downloaded internally while 13,000 others have been uploaded to the mod library. It's safe to say that the developer's hopes that the community would carry the game's future on its own has paid off, with studio lead Swen Vinke responding with shock to a remark on X that the number of mods downloaded between the game's client and Nexus Mods put together brings us to over "one billion" in total.

Meta Shift

• Freedom to mod is the future of legacy RPGs, but it's also the genre's past

This is a funny one. Baldur's Gate 3 going from strength to strength with such a lively and active player base, evident by over a billion mods being downloaded since the client launched in 2024, sounds jawdropping. But it also echoes the journey of RPGs like The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim (as well as The Sims and Minecraft) over the years.

Skyrim is still the most heavily-modded game of all time, having racked up six billion downloads on Nexus Mods by the time Larian launched its internal Baldur's Gate 3 modding client in 2024. That's to be expected, since Bethesda's RPG enjoyed a 13-year head start. But with BG3 being a more recent release, we're seeing those numbers stack up in real time – and now, we're actively paying attention to the game that might actually unseat Skyrim.

Games that not only permit community mods but embrace them have a proven track record of success over time. Seeing Baldur's Gate 3 achieving a cool one billion mod downloads in just three years, one of which went by without an internal modding client at all, crystallizes the power of passing the reins on to players. Which was, as it turns out, Swen Vincke's hope for it all along.

Patch Notes summary

Since leaving active development on Baldur's Gate 3, Larian's latest batch of statistics spotlights how popular mods have been and points to one of many reasons why the game has sustained a thriving playerbase. Steam player counts still point to healthy numbers being maintained long past its final major update, with mods being downloaded both internally and via platforms like Nexus Mods speaking to the continued excitement around the three-year-old RPG.

I've yet to see a single week without Baldur's Gate 3 making headlines for one reason or another since 2023, and useful as these stat drops are in keeping that momentum going, it's clear that BG3 fans are the ones keeping this fantasy alive.

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For the first time in a decade, I'm playing a farming sim that isn't Stardew Valley. It's called Fields of Mistria, and since picking it up for $14 on my Steam Deck two weeks ago, I've spent 34 hours building a new life – and, er, ignoring my real one – in the titular town of Mistria. There are familiar comforts. I farm, fish, raise livestock, try my hand at artisanal crafts, and brave monster-infested mines; befriending townsfolk by forcing eggs upon them.

But Fields of Mistria's RPG roots run deep. While in-game days are still measured by strict 2AM bedtimes and limited stamina, you're otherwise free to spend your time however suits, with no deadlines on quests or townsfolk requests. Combined with the fact that there's so much to do – with many trainable skills to achieve the overarching goal of raising Mistria's reputation – Fields of Mistria lays out an easy-going vibe and sticks to it, offering a world I can't resist slowing down for.

All-season chill

Previously, I've bounced off slice-of-life games like Tales of the Shire and Palia because there wasn't enough to do. That's ironic, given the genre is largely about intentionally slowing down and living life day-by-day, but without enough of a motivator – a museum to stock, or getting to know a villager I'm smitten with – I can't buy in. The reverse is also true. With Stardew Valley, for example, restoring the community center becomes such a singular goal that it takes over my playthrough. It's a productivity trap: there needs to be a strong foundation for me to want to build tens of hours upon, but too much busywork risks upending the casual fantasy I come to games like Stardew Valley for.

In Fields of Mistria, everything is worthwhile. Smithing, carpentry, and cooking can all be as profitable as farming, and while that means money is easily made, there's no shortage of places to spend it. Some expenses are practical (stone and wood are crucial for Mistria's various building projects, but pricey) and if you don't like smithing, you can buy improved tools from the local blacksmith instead of making your own.

With so much to do and no time pressure to rush me through it, I've been able to lean into Fields of Mistria's easy-living fantasy. Because gold isn't the be-all and end-all here, it's alright to spend on little things – like two lattes at the Saturday Market (one for me and one for my future wife Juniper), or a fancy bookshelf from the next stall over. Sure, some mornings I'll beeline to the mine to further my quest to reach the bottom, but that's because I want to. Just as often, I'll take a day to mind the farm, laying the paved path and picket fence I've been plotting out all week, or decorating my cottage to maximize its rustic coziness.

The only other game I've played where every avenue feels so meaningful is Old School RuneScape (OSRS). Like Fields of Mistria, OSRS is unique in the sense that no single pathway is a 'correct' use of your time. Some players dedicate their accounts solely to leveling non-combat skills – my vice is spending too much on my house – and like Mistria, there is so much to be done that I never feel like I'm wasting my time. So what if I want to stick a film on and chop trees instead of fighting bosses? That's woodcutting XP, baby!

Slowly playing Fields of Mistria makes for a cozier world, but it also creates a better game. I've just reached my second spring, and because I didn't prioritize hoovering up all season-specific museum donations the year prior, there's plenty left to do. Besides the museum, there are still unfulfilled requests from last spring to complete, competitions to win, and a certain bathhouse owner to woo.

I'll get to it all eventually. But by approaching Fields of Mistria as I would the best RPGs – playing not to complete them, but to stoke immersion – I'm settling in for the long haul, and recommend you do the same. If you're jumping into Mistria for the first time now that it's fully released, be sure to take things easy. Walk for the sake of it. Pop by the inn on Friday night. So much work has gone into making Fields of Mistria feel like a living, breathing world, and it would be a shame to let it pass you by.

We've ranked the best farming games, and you'll see at least one familiar face on there

Size up every god in all the realms of Baldur's Gate 3 and you'll find no force mightier than the quicksave key, an ancient relic capable of instantly anchoring you in the timestream. In newly released player stats, developer Larian reveals that the most devoted among us have invoked the key's divine power over 1,400 times in a single playthrough.

Once again breaking down Baldur's Gate 3 by the numbers, Larian, in one slide of its report, puts perfectionistic players under the microscope.

"560+ manual saves were made by a handful of players in a single playthrough," the studio explains. "1,400+ quicksaves were made by an even smaller handful of players. You doing okay there?"

I should hope they're doing okay after that many saves. If anything, I'm surprised these figures aren't higher. I was pretty new to the genre, and even I, in the 140 hours I put into Baldur's Gate 3 on my first run, surely racked up a few hundred combined saves. That was me actively trying to limit save scumming, believe it or not. I was just being meticulous about backing up my progress after a few unfortunate crashes, I swear. Generally, I try (not always successfully, I admit) to follow the Slay the Spire rule of save scumming in all games: mistakes are forever, but honest and disastrous misclicks can be undone.

Frankly, few things more reliably dispense relief than slamming the quicksave button after something good happens. That lucky break was just a memory before; now it's recorded history that those explosives that I definitely saw before casting fireball just so happened to kill everyone except my party.

But it's a slippery slope. The key's power can be habit-forming. A lockpicking check here, a stealth check there, and then before you know it, you're min-maxing the whole timeline, flickering in and out of existence in a way that would surely alarm the Faerun pantheon. "What is that mortal doing?" one perplexed deity would ask, checking in on the mortals as you or I would watch birds. "I think they're trying to hit two nat 20s in a row," another would answer.

This is, of course, why Larian saw fit to test humanity with Honor Mode and forbid any and all save scumming. Fortunately, other games have gone all-out with it and built entire combat systems around making the most of your saves.

Larian just released a bunch of Baldur's Gate 3 stats, and 9,122 of you need to be jailed immediately.

Baldur's Gate 3 is officially three years old, and developer Larian is ringing in the year ahead with another batch of fascinating, horrifying player data that once again proves there ain't no sicko like an RPG sicko.

In a new Twitter thread, Larian goes over some standout figures from the past three years of all our Faerun fun. Baldur's Gate 3 has crossed 500 million mod downloads, for one, with 13,000 unique mods uploaded across all platforms.

It wouldn't be a Baldur's Gate 3 report without some murder, so Larian quickly delves into the story NPCs who died under mysterious circumstances most frequently. And boy, y'all really hate Zevlor, the Act 1 Tiefling refugee leader. He died more than anybody else, and was the second-most-common victim of Dark Urge players to boot.

"More non-Dark Urge players have managed to murder Alfira than Dark Urge players," Larian adds. "Spawn of Bhaal or not, maybe it’s time to stop pointing fingers." Guilty as charged.

But all that murder pales in comparison to the final stat in the report. A full 9,122 players have outdone every Durge, every thief and cultist, and every last Baldur's Gate ne'er-do-well by playing the game in unspeakable resolutions.

"114 of you decided a 1:1 ratio would be the best way to play," Larian explains, suggesting over 100 players managed to get Baldur's Gate 3 to display on, I don't know, an Apple Watch? A Game Boy? An in-flight airplane media screen? Or, in their defense, perhaps the best screen they had access to.

A further "9,008 of you thought it would be fun to play in a 9:16 aspect ratio," the report adds. That'd be the sort of vertical-oriented resolution commonly used as a third screen in bigger setups, especially for programmers who want to see a lot of code at once, writers or researchers displaying search results or editorial tasks, or possibly Twitch or YouTube streamers popping out their chat view.

It is not a very good resolution for playing games, with the possible exception of games like vertical shoot-'em-ups or the likes of Downwell. Paying Baldur's Gate 3 vertically sounds like going to an IMAX theater just to watch while laying on your side – or worse, Baldur's Gate 3 for the short-form video-rotted brain. That said, I do wonder how some of this was measured. Could split-screen co-op affect the numbers somehow? If someone accidentally booted the game on the wrong monitor, would that factor in? I'm assuming Larian accounted for how long people played with these resolutions. Whatever the case, jail.

After Baldur's Gate 3, Divinity scholar tries to unmask Larian's next big RPG villain by painstakingly translating ancient symbols from behind-the-scenes footage.

There are, apparently, multiple Fallout games on the way, including one being made by Obsidian Entertainment. This is an appealing prospect, since that's the same studio that gave us Fallout: New Vegas, and rumor has it Josh Sawyer is back in the director's chair as well. One of the studio's co-founders believes this much is good for both the company and for publisher Bethesda.

Chris Avellone, a co-founder and former senior designer at Obsidian who worked on New Vegas, Star Wars: Knight of the Old Republic 2 and more, told the Human Can Opener that he immediately got excited at the prospect of New Vegas's writer returning. "If they got John Gonzalez to be the lead writer again, that's going to be awesome," he says.

"I have yet to play a game that John wrote for that I didn't really enjoy the story," Avellone explains. "Overall, I love his writing. I want to know the answers to these questions that he's presenting to me in the narrative. Having him back at Obsidian is going to make that Fallout game shine."

Gonzalez did come back to Obsidian in January 2025 after a spell at Guerilla Games working on the Horizon series, where he's now creative director. "Back to Obsidian for exciting times! (No, it's not [Fallout: New Vegas 2])," he says on LinkedIn, putting a dampener on Avellone's hopes.

However, it's unclear if he's updated his page since Xbox's massive restructuring of its games studios, where there were hundreds of layoffs, and many teams had their slates changed. Obsidian is one such team, where Fallout became a more central priority according to reports. Gonzalez's focus may have shifted as a result.

Naturally, Avellone gives a hat tip to Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky, developers who worked on the original Fallout and its sequel and are now at Obsidian, where he "can't imagine" they wouldn't be incorporated into a new Fallout game in some capacity. "I think it's going to be both good for Obsidian, because I don't know how well their original IP was gaining traction," he adds.

"And I think it's going to be good for Bethesda, in many ways," he says. "Bethesda has chronically long lead times for all its titles coming out, it's just how the studio's always worked." Obsidian could be a "satellite studio" to help share the publisher's workload and increase the cadence of releases.

Considering we're now 11 years removed from Fallout 4 without any concrete evidence of Fallout 5, he has a point. We'll see what the future has in store.

You can't buy Fallout 5 or Elder Scrolls 6 yet, but you can buy Bethesda's new $160 Nuka-Girl statue

Nintendo has officially confirmed that Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave's mysterious white-haired character is the true protagonist of the story.

Since Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave was announced last September, it has been pitched as a story about four people. Those being Cai, Leda, Theodora, and Dietrich, akin to picking your house in Fire Emblem Three Houses. However, there has been an elephant in the room: a white-haired figure who appeared in trailers and on the game's box art, with both male and female versions. This was speculated to be this game's equivalent of a Robin, Corrin, or Byleth-like protagonist, and in the Fire Emblem Fortune's Weave Nintendo Direct, we finally got confirmation.

After going over the details of our four potential heroes' stories – including the somewhat massive news that you will be able to switch between the four protagonists whenever you like to play through their stories simultaneously – we were shown that five years had passed since the Heroic Games. Clearly something is amiss as the Dagdan Empire is in shambles from the rebirth of the demon god Balor, and the white-haired protagonist (whose canon name is Eshmel) will now have to scrap with them.

Nintendo doesn't try to sugarcoat it either, with the Direct narrator saying, "this is the story's true protagonist." With Eshmel, you can go take the fight to the demon right away; however, thanks to the Goddess of Fate Fortuna, Eshmel is able to travel back in time to change the fate of the four protagonists and allow them to join you in the future to prevent the end of the world.

The footage shows four altars, presumably representing different timelines where each of the four protagonists won the Heroic Games, so it seems like you won't have to replay the game multiple times to see all of their stories through, like in Three Houses.

It's a big day for Intelligent Systems fans, as today also sees the release of its canceled Virtual Boy game D-Hopper.

Devora Wilde appreciates the similarities between her Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 character Clea and Baldur's Gate 3 githyanki maneater Lae'zel, partly because someone has to defend Lae'zel from being players' least favorite ex-girlfriend.

"One of my favorite lines was, 'What an auspicious start,'" Wilde tells IGN about Clea, "because it's like Lae'zel when she says, 'Auspicious.' I don't think that was done intentionally, but I love that it was a little throwback." Wilde notices a connection between the two RPG characters, too, in that they are both problematic mean girls.

Dessendre heir and talented painter Clea is a cold, clever, and highly irritable person. The warrior Lae'zel is similar in that she pursues what she thinks is right with frosty discipline, and she's quick to inform a well-meaning person that they're wasting her time. If it weren't for her offensive sense of githyanki superiority, Lae'zel would probably enjoy hanging out with Clea and discussing how everyone else is an idiot.

"Interestingly enough," says Wilde, "what I found is that, even though Clea is a questionable character, people have been willing to give her more grace – a lot more grace than people have with Lae'zel."

"I find that so fascinating," she continues, "like, reading comments and people's reactions to Clea is like, 'Well, yeah, but she's justified. She's actually the only sane member of the family. She does this because of this.' With Lae'zel, people are just like, 'No. She's just mean. She's just bad, she's mean.'"

That fan reaction could come from the fact that Lae'zel is a romance option, so her sharp words seem pointed directly at your heart, and are therefore less tolerable.

Clea, instead, mostly aims her disgust and disinterest at her own family members that disappoint her – so, while she could probably stand to drop her defenses a bit and admit things like "I'm scared," or, "I miss you," Clea's harshness is easier to relate to than a grump with green skin. But, you know, it's not Lae'zel's fault that she's so beautiful.

Baldur's Gate 3 Lae'zel actor almost broke up with the character during her playthrough, but "didn't have the guts to go through with it."

Baldur's Gate 3 actors, from Astarion's Neil Newbon to Shadowheart's Jennifer English, are well-known for playing their own characters in Larian's award-winning 2023 RPG, and it's always fascinating to hear how they interact with their virtual fantasy avatars. Lae'zel actor Devora Wilde documented her own playthrough a couple of years back, but she's now revealing some conflicted feelings about the character she played so famously.

"When I'm playing, the experience I'm having with Lae'zel is as if it's somebody else," Wilde tells IGN. "I think it's because the voice is quite different to mine, some of the mannerisms are different to mine, because obviously we created a character. So, I'm just getting to enjoy it, and I don't have that feeling of, 'Oh, that's me.'" Because it doesn't really sound how I sound. I think I'm quite bubbly and quite enthusiastic."

Wilde adds that she "nearly broke up with her the other day," but ultimately, "didn't have the guts to go through with it."

Hearing Wilde talk about Lae'zel is like listening to a loving parent acknowledge their child's, uh, differences compared to other kids. She references a hilarious exchange between famous rivals Shadowheart and Lae'zel in which Shadowheart asks if they've "buried the hatchet," and Lae'zel takes it completely literally. "Shadowheart's like, 'Girl, I'm just trying to get you to bury the hatchet, you know what I'm saying?' But she doesn't get it. She's just a sweet little queen lizard."

Wilde also invokes one of my all-time favorite lines from Baldur's Gate 3, in which Lae'zel drops one of the sickest burns of all time on Tav, who she says has a "large, fleshy nose" that looks "like a mistake."

"You never say that in real life, do you? You shouldn't," Wilde says.

It's true that Lae'zel can be a little tough to get along with, and if you're Shadowheart, specifically, you want to tread very carefully, but she also has one of the most rewarding storylines in the game if you choose your dialogue wisely. Wilde says one of her favorite scenes involves the romance path with Lae'zel and, without spoiling anything you might not have experienced yet, it is genuinely one of the most beautiful, heartfelt scenes in the whole game. Don't judge a Githyanki by the cover, and all that.

After Baldur's Gate 3, Divinity scholar tries to unmask Larian's next big RPG villain by painstakingly translating ancient symbols from behind-the-scenes footage.

While we eagerly await the next drop of information for the upcoming Divinity game from Larian Studios, one fan believes they've uncovered a secret hidden in plain sight. Some behind-the-scenes footage of the first trailer appears to contain a byzantine clue about who the RPG's major antagonist will be.

This line of investigation comes from WolfheartFPS, an RPG aficionado on Twitter. They noticed that the symbols on the crown of the man who's immolated in the teaser are different in the making of clips shared by studio Unit Image, who oversaw the CG announcement trailer. Through a bit of digging, they realized the symbols are derived from Elder Futhark, an ancient alphabet.

"It's tough to decipher as Elder Futhark is significantly more phonetic than modern English, and there are also several variant systems," they explain in the post. "You can't directly translate to modern English."

But being a dedicated fan who's determined to see if this actually goes anywhere, Wolfheart sat down and, over the course of five-and-a-half hours, managed to discern something resembling a cohesive message. In the version of the crown in Unit Image's video, you could interpret the words as, "Chaos is coming."

I say interpret, because there's a certain amount of guesswork here - long-dead languages weren't designed for modern internet sleuths - but this phrasing works because the Lord of Chaos is a figure in the Divinity lore. He goes right back to Divine Divinity, in fact, and as Wolfheart points out, a prevailing theory among the fanbase is that you'll finally face him in this next installment.

That's definitely one way to ramp up the stakes after the Original Sin games and Baldur's Gate 3. As yet, the trailer and this newer production footage are all we have to go on. Larian recently teased we'd be hearing more about Divinity in the near future. Whatever's coming, don't expect much sunshine or rainbows.

Baldur's Gate 3 hits its lowest price ever as Larian celebrates 3 years of RPG greatness: "This is the price of having a nice time with your friends"

Nintendo has confirmed that Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave will be the focus of the next Nintendo Direct, with a presentation airing tomorrow.

Over on the Nintendo Today app, it was confirmed that not only are we getting a Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave Nintendo Direct, but it's happening in about 24 hours.

Nintendo also confirmed that we'll be getting a 20-minute presentation of the game, so expect it to go into some detail about what to expect when it launches next month on September 17, 2026.

Not counting the upcoming The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake, this is arguably Nintendo's biggest release of 2026, so a dedicated direct was always a given. And when it comes to size, it will almost certainly be Nintendo's biggest release, as it's decided that Fire Emblem: Three Houses wasn't enough houses and is splitting Fortune's Weave into four stories (potentially more, given Three Houses let you split off in some paths).

How to watch the Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave Nintendo Direct

The Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave Nintendo Direct will take place on August 4, 2026 at 3pm BST | 10am ET | 7am PT, and is set to last 20 minutes.

You can watch the stream on Nintendo's YouTube channel.

What to expect in the Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave Nintendo Direct

Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave seems to be particularly massive, so we'll likely have a lot to see during the showcase tomorrow. One major point of speculation is whether the four protagonists will be the true protagonists of the game, or whether Fortune's Weave will feature an avatar character, as in every entry since Awakening.

On the game's box art, there are two white-haired figures slap bang in the middle, with many assuming these are the male and female designs for the avatar character. However, given we have seen footage of the four protagonists running around the overworld in the previous Nintendo Direct, I'm not entirely convinced this is the case, so maybe we'll figure out what purpose this white-haired duo serves in the Direct tomorrow.

It's a big day for Intelligent Systems fans, as tomorrow also sees the release of its cancelled Virtual Boy game D-Hopper.