If anyone deserves a nice, safe retirement away from the horrors inflicted by a variety of viruses, it's Leon Kennedy. To say the poor guy has really been through it in the Resident Evil series over the years is an understatement. When he's not being attacked by infected dogs, stalked by a hulking, hat-wearing tyrant, or dealing with men wielding chainsaws, he's rescuing the president's daughter, uncovering a conspiracy, and returning to a place of great trauma.

Isn't it high time that after all that, he gets to kick back and take it easy? This isn't me saying I want the iconic action man to step away from the limelight after Resident Evil Requiem. On the contrary, I want to experience the retirement Kennedy deserves, and to do that, I need Resident Evil 2 director Hideki Kamiya's joke conceptual pitch to be anything but a joke. The pitch in question? A cozy life sim starring a retired Leon fishing, baking, and having barbecues with old pals. Now that idea is in my head, I can't let it go. And as a scaredy cat who loves Resident Evil from a safe distance, I'd give just about anything for Capcom to actually make it into a reality.

Home over horror

Just like Kamiya, I'm definitely not a horror fan. Even so, I've always had a great fondness for Resident Evil. I love the over-the-top silliness, corny one-liners, and lore of the infected world, but I'll be the first to admit I still find it too scary to play myself. So how do I enjoy it if I'm not playing? Well, the way in which my relationship began with the series kickstarted how I would go on to experience it from then on: by watching others play.

Witnessing my dad play through Resident Evil 4 on the GameCube way back when is one of my favorite gaming memories. I loved Resident Evil 4 (and its bingo line) so much I even attempted to try it for myself, but I quickly came to the conclusion I just couldn't handle the creepy zombie villagers and scary atmosphere upfront. By watching someone else play, I could enjoy the story and action and put some distance between myself and the horror.

But what Kamiya jokingly pitched would deservedly put some distance between the horror for Leon, too, and better yet, it would bring to life a game set in the Resident Evil universe I could actually play. In the words of Kamiya, "it'd be a game where a retired Leon spends his days in the countryside fishing, gathering wild vegetables, baking bread, walking his dog, tending to his garden, driving 50 kilometers to the nearest general store, inviting his old friends over for barbecues, fixing his elderly neighbour's oven, and selling homemade lemonade at the local festival."

The sweet concept sounds like a laidback life sim with ingredients plucked right out of games like Stardew Valley, and as an avid player in the cozy game scene, that's really speaking my language. Not only could it bring a whole new audience into the world of Resident Evil, but Capcom could tap into the genre in such a novel way for longtime fans by bringing to life a cozy life sim experience led by an established character with such a rich history.

Handy man

Just think of all of the references they could pack in, with framed pictures and belongings dotted around Leon's retired abode in the countryside that nod to past encounters and meaningful moments. Not to mention cameos from other familiar faces who pop over for barbecues. I also love how the pitch so perfectly captures Leon Kennedy. He'd never be content to rest on his laurels completely, and I could see him getting very involved with the little neighboring communities. It's easy to picture quests, for example, that make him go out of his way to help others in more day-to-day ways.

After all, you don't have to fight zombies and put a stop to the schemes of a dastardly corporation to be a hero. I'm sure Leon is just as much of a hero to the elderly neighbor whose oven gets fixed as he is to Ashley Graham in Resident Evil 4.

Kennedy is easily my favorite character in the Resident Evil universe, and imagining him stepping into one of my favorite game genres sets my heart on fire. I mean, who wouldn't want to kick back in the countryside with the retired action man and sink into a relaxed routine of dog walking and bread baking?

I know I'm letting my imagination run away from me, and this is just a joke from Kamiya. Even so… what I wouldn't give for it to be made into a reality. Sure, Resident Evil has brought us many of the best survival horror games over the years (and will no doubt continue to do so with the likes of Resident Evil Veronica on the way), but I would love to see a spin-off that goes in a wildly different direction. And when it comes to a cozy life sim, there's undoubtedly a market for it. So, this is my open letter to Capcom: please bring to life an idyllic retirement for Leon Kennedy so we can both get a break from the scares.

Look back over the series' highlights with our ranking of the best Resident Evil games.

Resident Evil 2 director and Devil May Cry creator Hideki Kamiya has jokingly detailed a concept for a cozy life sim game starring a retired Leon Kennedy.

Outside of series creator Shinji Mikami, you could make an argument for Kamiya being the most impactful person to be involved with the Resident Evil series. After the original game was the first game he was credited on, Kamiya then directed Resident Evil 2 which is still considered by many to be one of, if not the best game in the series. That second game is also the one that introduced us to Leon Kennedy, who has gone on to be the series' most beloved character.

But despite his massive impact on the series and the survival horror genre in general, Kamiya has openly said he hates horror, and earlier this year he pitched Capcom creating a "'non-scary' mode" for Resident Evil Requiem so he could enjoy the game's puzzles in peace. Now, over on Twitter (translated by Automaton) Kamiya has responded to fan requests for him to return to the Resident Evil series – which he hasn't been involved with since his Resident Evil 4 turned into Devil May Cry – by detailing what he would do with a new game.

Kamiya says if he made a new Resident Evil title, "it'd be a game where a retired Leon spends his days in the countryside fishing, gathering wild vegetables, baking bread, walking his dog, tending to his garden, driving 50 kilometers to the nearest general store, inviting his old friends over for barbecues, fixing his elderly neighbour's oven, and selling homemade lemonade at the local festival. Would you still be OK with that?"

Given how huge the cozy game market is, people naturally are still OK with that, with one comment saying they'd be interested in "Resident Evil Pokopia." Kamiya acknowledges the fan response, saying: "Capcom, there seem to be a lot of people asking for a Resident not-Evil game like this. If you ever have the time, please consider making it… I'd like to play it too."

Are you playing the latest game in the series? If so, be sure to browse through our roundup of Resident Evil Requiem safe codes for an easier time progressing.

Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami believes that if a fan is satisfied with just watching a playthrough of a game, then it can't have been that good of a game in the first place.

With the advent of YouTube gaming content creators, popularization of let's plays in the late 2000s, and subsequent popularity of Twitch, people simply watching someone else playing a game has become a commonplace thing. While these streams and playthroughs have proven to work as great advertising in places – especially for the likes of Among Us, Five Nights At Freddy's, and Phasmophobia – for single–player games, some found that simply watching someone else play the game was enough for them.

As reported by Nikkan (translated by Automaton), comedian and YouTube creator Eiko Kano recently spoke on TV about an exchange he had with Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami after the popularity of his own streams of the series. When Kano asked Mikami about his stance on players streaming titles of his and potentially letting users get their fill of the game through someone else, he reportedly responded, "If viewers watch a playthrough of a game all the way to the end and are satisfied with just that, then it was only that good of a game."

Obviously, games are an inherently interactive medium, and as such you would miss out on a key facet of what it is by just watching it – the same way you would lose out on elements by reading a film's screenplay. Kano says Mikami explained: "Our job is to make games that leave people wanting to clear them with their own hands, even if they've watched someone else do it, so keep streaming."

Kano also recalls that Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii gave a very similar response to him when asked, while Final Fantasy 7 Remake series director Naoki Hamaguchi said recently that RPGs "need to be careful" about a lack of player agency otherwise they "might simply watch a stream and feel satisfied without ever playing the game themselves."

Resident Evil Veronica's first-person trailer was a deliberate misdirect, Capcom producer confirms the horror game is fully third-person.

2026 has been good to me. My Resident Evil Requiem review points to the staggering impact of Capcom's latest, charting the path forward for a survival horror legacy by bringing us back to where it all began.

The moment I rolled credits, I already had my suspicions about what might come next. Requiem's ending builds two futures at once, seeding what might transpire in the mainline series as well as hinting at which remake could come next. Now that the Code Veronica remake has finally been revealed, I'm even more excited to see how Resident Evil's past might influence its future – but in order for that to work, I'm all too happy for Capcom to rewrite itself.

New nightmares

Resident Evil Veronica is my most-anticipated upcoming horror game of the next year. A huge part of that is down to two words in the official game description: "reimagined story."

It's no secret that much of Capcom's older material hasn't aged well. Subtle changes in Resident Evil 4 Remake suggest that the developer itself is keenly aware of it. I fully expected that any remake of Code Veronica/X would have a few nip-tucks to update the humor for a modern audience, so I would be very surprised if Claire still calls Alfred Ashford a full-on slur in 2027. The bigger mystery is how the eccentric villain will be presented at all, since the original game's big twist plays on outdated shock tactics that are in dire need of an update.

I won't spoil the above for you, but it does leave me wondering if Resident Evil Veronica's "reimagined story" will update more than just a dicey script. This is Capcom's chance to alter who these characters actually are and keep the game in line with the modern day.

That idea alone might have you clenching your jaw, but hear me out. Following on from three stunning remakes created alongside the series' mainline entries, Resident Evil is running out of viable options to choose from. Resident Evil 5 is still one of the most controversial games of the bunch, while even the best Resident Evil game spin-offs are such an acquired taste (including my beloved Morpheus from Resident Evil Dead Aim) that many of those might be discounted on principle.

If Capcom wants to maintain pace with its rapidfire releases – and I really hope it does – it's time for all of us to call a spade a spade and admit when something just would not hit the same in the 2020s as it did in the early 2000s. We need small, meaningful changes that maintain the series' integrity, preserving pivotal plot points while reframing the supporting narrative.

It's something we already see hints of in Resident Evil Requiem. Wesker is miraculously "back" again, perhaps another clone, since he was supposed to be dead as of Resident Evil 5. More than that, the game's finale suggests that Oswell Spencer was potentially not quite the palm-rubbing psychopath many of us had him pegged as for 30 years. None of this makes sense given the current canon laid out by Code Veronica and Resident Evil 5, but maybe it will once Resident Evil Veronica sheds a little more light.

At this early stage, there's no telling how big or small Capcom's changes might be. Maybe the lengthier exposition with Claire seeking Chris out in Paris, as seen in the announcement trailer, will be all there is to it. Or maybe Capcom will take the opportunity for reinvention that so few developers ever get, soldering the future of Resident Evil in the process.

Check out our best Resident Evil games list for more to play while you wait!

I've always felt a little sorry for the Xenomorph, though the creature's ingenious design leaves hardly any space for pity. Its shining muscles are coiled into roses, its reinforced cranium could withstand nuclear winter – and yet the space thing is hunted throughout Ridley Scott's anxious Alien franchise for acting on its instincts, which unfortunately happen to revolve around impregnating innocent civilians.

"You can't kill it in our game, so in that sense it's thriving and doing really well," Alien: Isolation 2 art director Ana Sopikova consoles me during Summer Game Fest 2026, where I experienced an Alien: Isolation 2 preview that made me confront my affection for the Xenomorph like an awesome, blinding light. Developer Creative Assembly's sequel to its 2014 stealth horror masterpiece Alien: Isolation already looks and feels as meticulously crafted as its title villain, the gasoline black alien, which was constructed with the hope that you'll remember it forever.

"It's the perfect organism," creative director Al Hope reminds me about the Xenomorph. And Creative Assembly has worked hard to make its game technology worthy of a well-oiled animal. Like the oppressive original game – and 1979 movie – Alien: Isolation 2 pits a capable, soot-covered woman against an even more practical Xenomorph who knows all the best ways to crush a rib cage. Except, this time, Creative Assembly takes it outside, and players will need to confidently navigate a moonlight blue colony planet in addition to the franchise's more typical, cramped space vessels.

Outer space

"I really love the idea that the player will be in those interiors, and they'll be feeling trapped and wanting to get out," says a sadistic Hope. "Then they manage to escape and get outside, and after that initial rush of success, they start to feel vulnerable and exposed, and, actually, they'd quite like to go back inside again. We get to play with that seesaw of emotion and motivation."

Hope and Sopikova both emphasize the power of the technology Alien: Isolation 2 is built with – Unreal Engine 5, but also custom visual and audio systems. With sound in particular, Hope says "we're doing some really fantastic things [...], where we're effectively remixing the audio on the fly, in real time, in response to into what's happening on the screen: where we are in the story, [with the] understanding of what's just happened, what might happen in the future."

He continues, "That's really, really complex stuff. Obviously, we don't surface that to the player, but it creates the whole experience." I saw proof of this in even my tight 20 minutes with Isolation 2; the big scares happened in the suffocating hug of the Sevastopol space station from the first game, but my mood is most impacted by everything outside of it.

"Something like wind removes information, audio information, so you can't tell, maybe, how close the creature is," says Hope, and I'm already feeling more nervous. "Something like fog and rain also reduces visual information, and so you can't see it, but that might actually be good, because it can't see you."

Far, far away

Ultimately, Protagonist Blake has landed in an environment defined by fog so dense, it could be a birthday cake, and whooshing wind seems to even blow the galaxy's distant stars nearer. It's totally disorienting.

I loved it in the demo. The look, the sound, the physics of wind whipping around my first-person perspective character was exhilarating in a way that most hyper realistic games aiming for "immersion" aren't. Alien: Isolation 2 has style, and Creative Assembly seems to want it that way.

Now I have to ask about the saliva. When I eventually meet Alien: Isolation 2's Xenomorph toward the end of my demo, it unhinges its impressive jaw to reveal rows of onyx teeth, cobwebbed with silver spit. The creature looks hungry to see me, and Sopikova says, "It's all about the attention to detail."

"It's something that the team takes just incredibly seriously from every angle – has to be perfect," Sopikova continues. "At no point we want player to realize, 'Oh, yes, this is a video game."

Instead, Hope and Sopikova want Alien: Isolation 2 to become a memory. A real one, not just a hazy recollection of you at your PC with a big diet Mountain Dew. Alien: Isolation 2 is proof of endurance.

"It's a game about choices," Hope says when I ask how Weyland-Yutani employee protagonist Blake relates to us earthbound fans. "We're not a scripted choreographed survival horror experience, it's all systemic. The alien is listening, and it's using its ears and eyes, it's listening and looking for you," he adds. "Every playthrough is different, so everyone has their own story to tell, their own individual journey."

Awake and afraid

For this reason, "I don't think [...] fear kind of dialed up to 10 across the whole game is what we're aiming for," Sopikova says.

"I think what we're trying to create is once again a really unforgettable journey – not in a trite way, like genuinely unforgettable," Hope explains. "Whatever's going on in the world right now. I guess the goal for us is people will still be talking about Alien: Isolation 2 in 10 years, just as they are about the first game," he continues.

The world. Earth. Sometimes thinking about the billion miles of space makes me sad, because I have to confront how pitifully we spend our time on our one, cozy earth. War, work, anxiety, repeat – the Xenomorph's undoubtedly sour breath smells like lavender in comparison.

I wonder, can fear from a horror game like Alien: Isolation 2 save us all? This is the kind of outcome I'm searching for, I think, when I take refuge in exhilarating horror media, which is what Alien: Isolation 2 is turning out to be.

"I think any strong emotion sometimes can be very cathartic," Sopikova says. "Maybe the fear, as you say, it's a strong emotion, so it's just another way of getting that."

With Alien: Isolation 2 specifically, "it kind of is asking you questions about how you're going to do this, how you're going to survive, and maybe that is a could be seen as a kind of a mirror, you can be really proud of managing to confront something that seems really terrifying and scary, and you managed to do it," Hope says. "You can be super proud of that journey."

I suppose if I admire the Xenomorph's bulletproof elegance, I should also recognize its, in a way, unkillable adversary: you and me – the real protagonists of a game driven by real-time

decisions.

"We're giving you [...] more meaningful choices," Hope says. "So maybe you can reflect back on that. And that says something."

Alien Isolation 2 claustrophobic new trailer promises pure terror 12 years after the Xbox 360 survival horror classic.

Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival is launching October 8 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, developer Saber Interactive just announced alongside a new trailer. Considering the quickly closing wall of death for video game releases in September – Marvel's Wolverine, Silent Hill: Townfall, and Control Resonant are only some of the major titles out that month – it feels like Saber is giving us a surprising, but much needed, break with its October plans. At the same time, I expect that Hellraiser: Revival will spank us into the Underworld.

You can watch the latest redband trailer for the upcoming Hellraiser survival horror shooter on the game's website, and I recommend you do so on an empty stomach. Saber developers told me during Summer Game Fest 2026 that they had to keep vomit bags around for a recent demo session featuring a typical Hellraiser franchise sex scene (the series' lovers may end up in Hell, or with their intestines missing. Usually both). I already got a sense from my Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival preview that Saber takes series creator Clive Barker seriously, and Revival's latest trailer makes this only more painfully/pleasurably obvious.

"These are experiences like no other," declares lead Cenobite and most fashionable pin cushion Pinhead in voice over, with original actor Douglas Bradley's characteristic snarl. Indeed, I don't think I've ever seen some of the things Hellraiser: Revival seems to have in store in a mainstream video game before; we've got our hero Aidan gushing blood from his mouth to his exposed penis, and the interdimensional, demon Cenobites' hooks are so deeply sunken into his flesh, his bare butt quivers like maggot-infested piglet until the metal rips it from his spine. Chunks of blood and muscle collapse on the ground in heavy ice cream scoops as the Cenobites – who we get a long, luxurious look at – watch impassively.

All our best friends from the original Hellraiser movie are here. There's Pinhead, of course, who would chain up each molecule of our bodies in his basement if he could, plus the lipless Chatterer, the sluglike Butterball, and the woman Deep Throat, whose neck is held open with needles to expose the diamond of her trachea.

"Take on Hell's wretches, deviants, cultists, and its most infernal priests in an unholy war for your immortal soul, all while trying to thwart the sinister plans of the Cenobites," recommends Saber in a press release. Hey, those are our friends you're talking about.

Pre-orders for the $39.99 Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival Standard Edition will soon begin, and Saber will later reveal contents and pre-order information for its $49.99 Deluxe version of the game. Hellraiser: Revival also still has a $199.99 Collector's Edition available, which includes the game, an art book, and more, if your dorm room in Hell has enough space for all of that.

Need something more tame? Can't help you there, unfortunately, but I can point you to some of the best horror games according to our ranking.

The Hellraiser horror franchise has simple rules. You should never ask for the truth unless you've prepared your mind and body to know it. Then, you must recognize the perversity of that truth: pain and pleasure are sisters. And I'm OK with that, but I was surprised to see it reiterated at Summer Game Fest 2026, while I played a demo for the upcoming torture-shooter Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival.

I don't know what else I expected. I guess I thought developer Saber Interactive would stick to typical video game conventions like most studios adapting major horror franchises do; Friday the 13th: The Game never dared to show a bit of nipple, for example, even though toplessness famously makes Jason feel extra murderous. But, no, Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival is faithful to Hellraiser writer and 1987 movie director Clive Barker, whose oeuvre of fantasy film, horror writing, and 2000s PC shooters obsesses over unctuous, black, and unspeakable things – especially if you can find them between human thighs. It's freaky incarnate, and it makes Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival better.

My Summer Game Fest demo starts somewhere in the middle, after new character and wayward sadomasochist Aidan is forced to retrieve his girlfriend Sunny from Hell. Having had enough with injectables, bad sex, and other earthly delights, Sunny did what you should really never do in the Hellraiser franchise and opened a strange puzzle box, banishing herself to the blood-drenched Labyrinth to be tied up and stripped of her flesh for all eternity. Bummer.

Good suffering

Developers Vid Rajin and Danira Karović Lačević tell me they needed vomit bags for players during a different demo session, which included a sex scene at the beginning of Hellraiser: Revival. During my time with the first-person perspective game, I never feel sick. I take stock of all the interesting ways Saber Interactive has chosen to apply leather.

True to the Hellraiser films, in which the extradimensional Cenobites summoned by the puzzle box inform clueless solvers that their suffering will be legendary, Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival clearly wants me in agony – but it expresses this with the mutilated wink of an eyeball pinned open. My demo takes place within a pleathery clubhouse, in which Aidan is in the midst of incinerating Cenobite cultists with the Genesis Configuration, an alternative puzzle to the Lament Configuration of the movies. Instead of playing an odd lullaby and opening up a portal to the sex dungeons of Hell, I discover the Genesis Configuration can swallow light and fire from nearby power sources to completely cremate my enemies. I never fully figure out how to best aim the box during my more advanced demo, though, and I'm miserable when I learn the Genesis Configuration's blast radius doesn't discriminate. When I hold it too close, it sizzles pink, orange holes into my skin and I swear I can smell burnt pork through the screen as I try to slap the fire out with my palms.

The pistol I have equipped feels practically pacifist in comparison, and I reach for it often while sneaking around the clubhouse searching for a way out, occasionally ogling posters advertising things like the Voyeur Fetish I should "CUM and SEE," or a cultist's relaxed stance in his skintight pants as he describes slicing Aidan's "cock off and [shoving] it down his throat." I get the sense that, in some circles down here in Hell, that would be considered a compliment.

But things in my Revival demo don't really get fucked until the Voyeur Fetish show. The serrated sword I carry in my Resident Evil-style inventory helps in calming my nerves, as I know that I can simply slice the forearms off anyone who approaches me with unfriendly-looking clamps. But once I'm through that red door to the show, Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival shifts into the jagged fantasy the Hellraiser movies present as being a constant presence in buttoned-up, daily life, only tucked away in the attic.

In the Fetish room, Aidan is blasted with visions of both his past and, seemingly, his future as Cenobite leader Pinhead (whose role here is reprised by the indomitable Doug Bradley) would like it. A woman – Sunny? – is suspended by chains pulled into the shape of a grotesque star; hooks pull at her lips, breasts, and stomach, encouraging various white organs to spill down her legs like exposed worms.

I'm transported into a hallway lined with more of these chains, which chime sadly and gently as they knock into Aidan's thick skull. Reality is flexible here, as it was in 1988's Hellraiser 2, which also sees its protagonist braving Hell to save the one she loves. Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival, though, is more cynical about it in this demo.

After managing not to be disemboweled by a few environmental puzzles, including a room-size Configuration box, I get trapped in Aidan's initially unremarkable house. Old post-it notes left to Sunny reveal our supposed hero's desire to poke her sensitive flesh with needles and lick up the blood, plus empty syringes, and other evidence of the numerous ways the lovers destroy themselves just to feel anything. Finally, Aidan finds Sunny, or maybe his idea of her, hogtied in their bed. Her eyes have been completely scooped out of her skull, so when he reaches his hands out to caress her mottled cheeks, a part of me expects him to press his thumb into the muddy holes left over.

I think that's because I, like all those who dared to open the box, often turn to the taboo for comfort. When you're a self-conscious person, it can be easier to place yourself among things that are already dirty and unwanted – broken porcelain and soiled dresses – instead of daring to imagine yourself as lovely, or loveable. I look to horror games to indulge in this dark sense of belonging, as my favorite characters like Alice from Alice: Madness Returns or Jennifer in Rule of Rose also inspire me to come up from the mud, at least sometimes.

So far, Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival seems poised to do the same thing, while daring to be even more explicit in its imagery – including genitals, yellow fat, crushed skulls, and other things I've never seen a rated-M game utilize for their artfulness, rather than just shock value. Through them, I think I'm starting to pick up on a message. You can try eviscerating yourself through bloodbaths and sex magic, but your soul remains intact. It'll cry and ask you why you've ignored it, but it'll still be there.

Upon realizing this, suddenly, I want to shut the demo off and make a bowl of my favorite apple cinnamon oatmeal. But, like Aidan, I instead dare to coexist with the muck I've chosen to live with. But I can tell Hellraiser: Revival has many more lessons for me once it releases in full, and I'm ready to receive.

Can't wait to be punished? These are the best horror games you can play today.

Capcom is on a bit of a roll at the moment. Resident Evil Requiem, Monster Hunter Stories 3, and Pragmata have all landed with solid success, and we're not even done with the year yet. Part of the secret, according to Capcom itself, has been shifting away from auteur-driven development and trusting in the wisdom of a wider team.

"In the game industry, when a title becomes a series, it often ends up depending heavily on a particular developer, becoming what you'd call an individual-driven title," president and COO Haruhiro Tsujimoto tells Famitsu (thanks, Automaton). "If that person doesn't make one, there's no next installment. The direction of the series becomes tied to the ideas of a single creator."

He's not wrong, as the industry's history throws up plenty of examples. We've yet to get a new Metal Gear Solid game at Konami without Hideo Kojima in the picture, for example. You can also see examples within Capcom itself. The likes of Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, and Street Fighter are still going strong despite being created years ago – in many cases, with the original creatives having departed some time ago. For Capcom, shifting away from an individual approach meant they were caught out when that individual was no longer with the company.

“We discussed the issue with the central figures behind each franchise and ultimately agreed that we should abandon that approach," Tsujimoto says. "What we came up with instead was the idea that every title should essentially be rebuilt from the ground up. We didn't mind even if sales temporarily declined as a result, and by switching to a team-based approach to game development, Capcom changed dramatically."

Capcom's stance paints a hopeful picture for some of the games we haven't seen much of lately. The developer has said it wants to "nurture" games like Devil May Cry – with DMC 5 recently hitting a record number of yearly sales despite launching seven years ago. Creative lead Hideaki Itsuno's departure might be a hurdle to that, though it sounds like Capcom is more than prepared to trust a team to do the game right.

Resident Evil Veronica's first-person trailer was a deliberate misdirect, Capcom producer confirms the horror game is fully third-person.

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

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

Take me upstate

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some people become experts in wine – instead, I tip my top hat and consider myself a connoisseur of asymmetrical multiplayer horror games. As an expert, I must warn you the fields that allow genre superstar Dead by Daylight and more recent breakthrough The Outlast Trials to flourish are brittle and unloving – competitors The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Friday the 13th: The Game, and Evil Dead: The Game were all discontinued or removed from sale in just 2025. But publisher Bloober Team knows this, and it seems to have prepared its upcoming Saw: Genesis multiplayer for a difficult winter.

"[Most of the games] you mentioned are dead, so, I think there's space," jokes representatives from co-developer Anshar Studios when I ask them at Summer Game Fest 2026 if they're nervous to enter a genre where ambitious new titles seem destined to be gobbled by Dead by Daylight the way Saturn gargles his son. They continue honestly: "We know this is the genre that kind of wasted big studios as well. But it's also a different approach we have. [...] We have this experimental attitude."

Saw inspiring

To this point, Saw: Genesis currently has a waitlist for its closed alpha playtest, which already has a "huge amount of subscribers" a Bloober representative won't elaborate on when I poke him about it. But he says it's an overwhelming number, and Anshar plus Broken Mirror – Bloober's new splinter studio dedicated to psychological and survival horror games – seem to be proud of it. When they demonstrate hands-off gameplay, I decide they have plenty of reasons to be.

Since the Saw: Genesis footage I'm shown is so early, my main conclusion is that this is a smart game. It borrows aspects of Dead by Daylight and The Outlast Trials to its own advantage.

Of course, there are also plenty of clear parallels to the 10 Saw movies I know better than my own heart. I realize this while gleefully kicking my Mary Janes – some traps' death scenes seem to induce the disorienting, distinctly 2000s music video fast cuts the Saw franchise is infamous for.

Unlike the movies, Saw: Genesis forgoes the straightforward explanation that Jigsaw, who's really the sadistic brain cancer patient John Kramer, does things like kidnapping suicidal people and greasing them up with lighter fluid while making them hold a lit match in a room dusted in broken glass because there's something wrong with him.

Instead, Saw: Genesis makes a historical analysis of misguided evil and brings us to World War 1. There, Jigsaw's forefather the Judge is habitually forcing three Accused into seemingly unconquerable situations involving clamps, barbed wire, and even the infamous reverse bear trap from the movies, which separates your jaw from the rest of your body like you're an easy-to-peel orange.

Bloober compares Saw: Genesis' premise and gameplay to something like Saw 2, the 2005 movie where a group of idiots are meant to work together to survive the nerve gas Jigsaw is pumping into their blood. But I also see clever call backs to The Outlast Trials. That game, one of the only asymmetrical horror games to withstand Dead by Daylight, is based on the premise that an evil corporation is conducting debauched Cold War experiments on unwitting, unwilling volunteers.

The similarly, delightfully ahistorical Saw: Genesis borrows The Outlast Trials' vintage touches, and its roster of Accused characters are carefully designed with gothic horror in mind – the "songbird" character wears a glittering dropwaist dress with a 1920s flapper's fluffy feather in her hair, while an apparent young veteran's face is uneven with long, white scars – horrible cat whiskers. They pucker and stretch as he screams.

Meanwhile, the Judge reminds me of Dead by Daylight's inaugural killer, the Trapper. Both are like deranged animal control employees, armed with rusty bear traps; in the case of the Judge, players will also have to strategize how to manipulate the level they've dropped their Accused into and plan routes and tricks to efficiently encourage them to scoop their eyeballs out with a spoon.

Though, in a unique twist from its competitors, Saw: Genesis makes its Judge – whose jaw seems to have been blasted off during the war, poor thing – physically vulnerable, and players can stab him to Hell if they plan correctly. I also notice and appreciate in my preview evidence of the game's originality while contributing to the ridiculous Saw canon; it seems to feature a girl version of the beloved Billy the Puppet, the ghost-white mascot on a tricycle who flaps its wooden lips on behalf of its master Jigsaw. Girl Billy is similarly black-eyed and menacing, and I think the image of her and her greasy, long hair is a perfect addition to a franchise that eschews subtlety for blood smears, leg stumps, and squeaky, creepy tricycles.

In noting this during my Saw: Genesis preview, I'm also made to consider the essence of Saw – why do I love it so much, and why do I think this game does it justice? Once I go digging for it, the answer surprises me in its simplicity: excess. The Saw movies – and if this early look at Summer Game Fest is a good indicator, then the game, too – makes pain seem ubiquitous, inevitable, and powerful. It helps me process my smaller, more quiet pains; like, at least I don't need to slice bacon bits of my stomach fat to appease a crazed old man's vision of salvation.

And, though the Saw movies' vision of redemption is completely clueless, at least Jigsaw thinks it's possible. I appreciate the idea that any tragedy is surmountable. And if Saw: Genesis lets me achieve that ideal from the comfort of my TV room, where I can eat a nice chocolate chip cookie instead of being submerged in nerve gas, then, even better.

Check out our best horror games list... if you dare!

Capcom remains surprisingly secretive about Resident Evil Veronica. Despite offering a behind-closed-doors presentation at Summer Game Fest, the company didn't show anything beyond what everyone got to see in the public reveal, but producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi did reveal a few details in a Q&A with members of the media. Perhaps most notably, this is a fully third-person game, despite the extended first-person segment we saw in the trailer.

Hirabayashi confirmed in the Q&A session I attended that the long-awaited remake will be a third-person game. Recent Resident Evil titles have typically included an option to switch between perspectives, and Resident Evil Requiem encouraged players to stick with first-person for Grace's horror-focused sections and third-person, but despite the fact that the original Code: Veronica also featured dual protagonists, there'll be no similar split here.

What, then, are we meant to make of the extended first-person sequence we saw in the announcement trailer? Hirabayashi hints that this scene wouldn't necessarily be the same in the final game, and Capcom wanted to build a bit of mystery to create some surprise for the trailer. He also suggests that this scene won't necessarily be at the very beginning of the game.

Hirabayashi notes that Capcom "loves surprises," and that includes the release date – sorry, there were no secret teasers about when in that vague 2027 launch window that Veronica will actually be released.

He also shoots down some speculation about the "REV" acronym that briefly appeared in the trailer, confirming that the V is not meant to be a Roman numeral. It does, indeed, stand for Resident Evil Veronica rather than Resident Evil 5. While this is technically the fifth entry in the remake series, Hirabayashi says that Capcom has no intention of trying to erase previous entries, including the original Resident Evil 5.

That said, Hirabayashi also emphasized that Capcom is treating Veronica as a full-fledged, main series entry in the Resident Evil story. Given just how gosh-danged weird the original Code: Veronica is, I'm desperate to find out what the devs will do with the remake.

Stick with us for more news on all the new games for 2026 and beyond.

I suppose there are worse places to be than a spaceship; Earth, for example. So I'm happy to become Alien: Isolation 2 protagonist Blake during a preview of the horror game sequel at Summer Game Fest 2026. Though, it's obvious developer Creative Assembly doesn't want me easing into any cathartic sense of "escapism" with the franchise's apex predator, the Xenomorph, skulking around. Nearly 15 years after the first Alien: Isolation game made horror history, Alien: Isolation 2's unkillable, highly intelligent monster is even more adept at drooling over each crunch of your knuckles – this is a game about escaping.

So, I need to stop wanting to die. That's something I like to do in horror games – it's the closest I can get to finding out what the real thing is like – which I passively yearn for during both minor inconveniences, like running out of salt, and larger, life-altering tragedies. Horror games let you indulge in death and dying without any of the real drama. I can tell Blake has a sad fuzz around her, too, as she chooses to explore a piece of the infested Sevastopol station from Alien: Isolation, even though it's an obvious trap.

Escape from Kurosaki

But, Alien: Isolation 2 doesn't seem interested in our self-pity. I like that. All my favorite horror games, including Silent Hill 3 and Haunting Ground, challenge their female protagonists and often female fans in choosing life, even when unspoken trauma, unspeakable harm, and starving monsters forecast clouds and hellfire for the rest of time.

Blake and I could use the kick. In my case, bad news and politics often leads me to taking my sleeping pills early and hiding in a dream. Similarly, it seems like Blake made an attempt at sleeping through life before embarking on this job she's on in my preview. She attempts small talk with her new crewmates Cole and Otto – Cole is the one with the beard, he's more crabby than the other – about how she's been under cryosleep for eight months, and her mom back on Earth. The men suggest eight months is too long to be refrigerated, but, as Blake, I shrug them off. We're self-consciously apathetic.

But Otto and Cole are, too, seeming defeated by the demands of their work, and our wary camaraderie is just starting to stick together like alien tentacles when something weird happens. Our spacecraft goes down fast, and I'm now seeing Cole's hairy chin as an assurance of this guy's experience handling shit instead of ever bothering to shave. So I'm not scared yet. He's handling it.

We land onto a seemingly empty colony world – safely. There are little patches of flame here and there like freckles, but Blake seems invigorated. The woman who has been asleep is now awake – and that's a gift, even when I crawl out of my new ship alone.

Blake must be used to being alone. She's spent so long inside her mind, and I know from experience that there isn't anything lonelier than that.

Though this Alien: Isolation 2 preview is pre-alpha footage, as I duck under alien trees and scrape ragged cliffsides looking for Otto and Cole – they're OK, but a short walk away as I learn to sprint and climb in a tutorial – I'm impressed by how beautiful the horror game already looks.

The facts of the environment are maybe not beautiful: fat plops of rain, soupy mist, and increasingly angry wind, which is making every slender tree around me shiver like it's nervous. But, Creative Assembly has done a lovely job matching realism with style – it communicates that this soaked planet is something to be intimidated by, since no one ever wants to be stuck in the rain in a place they've never been before. At the same time, everything is so soft and blue, like waking up in the middle of the night. There's a romantic drama to it.

Blake clearly thinks so. You know the movie, Earth Girls Are Easy? Not this one. When the crew discovers another crashed station, she insists on forcing her way in to find survivors. Cole decides he wants nothing to do with it, but Otto is vaguely interested in the scavenging opportunity. So, Blake pops open a door that says not to open it, her hands no doubt strengthened by the stubborn curiosity I know I'd have too. I want to see what's inside the ship that's now a ring of fire. I'm ready to stop dreaming.

I guide Blake into that ship which, Otto acknowledges with a sigh, most people wouldn't bother with. The power's dead, so I need to complete the simple task of picking up a few pieces of scrap to fix it at a main controller panel.

This ends up being more difficult than I'd like. Alien: Isolation 2 uses first-person perspective, which the original 2014 game employed to make you feel like its slinky stalker enemy, the Xenomorph, really wanted to grind your bones into bread. The quiet (aside from suspicious squeaks and the occasional, baby chick beep of an abandoned computer) ship is tilted and disorienting. At times, I'm too physically nauseous from motion sickness to let myself curl into Alien: Isolation 2's tense stomach.

But, the glimpse of the Xenomorph I get during my preview sobers me up like a mosquito bite. The titular alien, an avenging angel the movies established as the ultimate mama bear, likes to penetrate your guts and have her babies pull them out. In Alien: Isolation 2, she's apparently even better than she used to be at identifying you by sight and sound – Creative Assembly tells me in an interview that even the shifting wind can carry the slow creaks of your footsteps to her.

So once she reveals herself to Blake, I think I know what to do. I crouch. I stay low, and… I'm too eager to leave the nest. I stand up unreasonably quick, and the Xenomorph dinosaur-walks over to me, shiny and Cadillac black – the unkillable creature is more machine than the soft, pillow tummies we associate with other mothers. She opens her beetle-butt head to reveal multiple rows of teeth sparkling from saliva dewdrops. And then I'm dead.

But I don't want to die anymore. I want to play more Alien: Isolation 2, and now I wonder who's hungrier to tiptoe in the shadows for the sake of proving herself – my enemy or me?

If the Xenomorph isn't scary enough, check out our best horror games ranking for more you could play with the lights out!

For my money, Capcom couldn't have picked a better game to remake than Resident Evil: Code Veronica, the survival horror classic that made its debut on Sega Dreamcast all the way back in the year 2000. Capcom announced the remake during Summer Game Fest 2026, and I just about cried tears of happiness. Finally, after 26 long years, I'll get to experience one of the strongest stories in the Resident Evil franchise, hopefully through gameplay that doesn't make me want to chug a vial of T-virus serum and be done with it. Oh, and that voice acting. God, the voice acting.

In fairness to the English-speaking actors who brought characters like Steve Burnside, Alfred Ashford, and Albert Wesker to life, voice acting was universally bad in the late '90s and early '00s. But in the wake of the Code Veronica remake reveal, fans are lovingly revisiting some of the most egregious performances in the original game, a reminder of how far we've come in terms of video game production, and a moment of appreciation for folks like Nick Apostolides and Angela Sant'Albano, the actors behind Leon Kennedy and Grace Ashcroft in Resident Evil Requiem, a game whose top-notch performances make you feel connected to the characters and thus elevate the horror and emotional stakes dramatically.

Anyway, things were different back when Code Veronica came out, as evidenced by these, uh, memorable performances highlighted by a number of content creators and commentators. It's worth nothing that some of these clips contain story spoilers, so if you haven't played the original game and want to go into the remake completely blind, unfortunately you might want to revisit them later.

In this clip spotlighted by horror content creator DEERE, we hear Claire Redfield accuse bad guy Alfred Ashford of being a "cross-dressing freak," which I can only imagine won't make it into the Code Veronica remake. "Clair is a TERF confirmed," jokes DEERE.

Here's a compilation that I think does a really great job showcasing the distinct cartoonish quality of Code Veronica's acting. I simply can't watch scenes like the one with Alfred Ashford's ridiculously extended sigh of anguish and Steve Burnside's confused reaction and not laugh, which really puts a damper on the whole horror side of the game.

The grand finale of bad Code Veronica acting, seen in the video above, is the most infamous scene of them all. Another gem from the character Steve Burnside, in this clip we see a tortured son forced to shoot and kill his own father, which is objectively horrible, but again, any dramatic weight held by the situation alone is negated by the character's wildly inappropriate tone while screaming in agony.

Of course, plenty of fans want to see this masterclass in comedic acting preserved in the remake, but again, the idea is to scare people. You physically cannot be scared with scenes like these in the game, and thus, I'm pretty sure we'll have to keep watching them in clips online or, heaven forbid, by playing the original game.

ILL is the most violent horror game I've ever seen, it makes Resident Evil and Dying Light look kinda cute

Silent Hill 2 remake studio Bloober has just revealed Saw: Genesis, an asymmetrical, 3v1 horror multiplayer game it's publishing based on Lionsgate's Saw movie franchise at Summer Game Fest 2026. Related: I need someone to fan me with a wind turbine generator to calm down.

Saw: Genesis, according to a new website Bloober's created for the game, is a prequel set 100 years before the brain cancer patient John Kramer, or Jigsaw – my grandfather – became a serial killer convinced he was curing society's depression with handmade traps that snap your limbs off at the joints and dump them into vats of green acid, and stuff like that.

He had brain cancer. But Bloober's game suggests a more mystical impulse for Kramer's sick devotion to butchery, and in it, players will need to sacrifice their appendages to weasel out of traps made by a sadistic "Judge" determined to save their tragic lives through more pain. You can watch the reveal trailer below, which also alerts you to an alpha sign-up you can access from the game's website I mentioned earlier.

I am a pathetic, dedicated fan of the Saw movies the same way a housecat sadly accepts dry snacks when it knows it could be eating fresh rat – the past decade of awkward spin-offs and limp prequels have only brought me disappointment.

I've become increasingly desperate for a return to the blood vessel-bursting camp of the early 2000s films, where buckets of black gore were always served with a salty rim of intentional melodrama.

That's the perfect Saw recipe. And Saw: Genesis, co-developed by Anshar Studios and Broken Mirror Games seems to acknowledge this in a perfectly disgusting trailer featuring back alley surgery, broken teeth, and soldiers missing jaws against the hopeless background of World War I. Excitingly, the puppet king Tobin Bell – the legendary horror actor who's played John Kramer since the first movie in 2004 – will also be in the game.

Are Jigsaw and his Billy the Puppet on a tricycle primordial beings, risen from the atomic soup to punish humanity with sticks in our eyeballs and nu-metal title screens? God, I hope so.

I'm a freak, Jigsaw and his puppet son are freaks, and I want to freak out forever. Now in multiplayer!

007 First Light roadmap revealed, including New Game Plus and the return of Lenny Kravitz's Bawma in a new story mission.

Alien: Isolation 2 received a freaky new Summer Game Fest 2026 trailer with enough rows of marbled Xenomorph teeth to fill each of the 12 years since Creative Assembly's last survival horror game.

The sequel to the heart-thumping, claustrophobic classic Alien: Isolation is currently available to wishlist, and it'll eventually arrive on Xbox, PS5, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC via Steam. Watch the full trailer below.

The pre-alpha footage shown in Alien: Isolation 2's new trailer is soaked in shades of slate gray, dusk blue, and the mandatory, black, nighttime sparkle of a Xenomorph's perverse flesh. A narrator refers to an "expensive" mistake as we're shown a dismal slideshow: chopped, knobby trees eaten by mist, the twisted intestines of a ruined spaceship, and someone's sweating face as their wide eyes seem to scream.

Alien: Isolation 2 apparently follows the original in offering first-person gameplay to make you extra anxious, and its new trailer teases the emergency flares, environmental puzzles, and monsters you can expect while bearing the consequences of your so-called mistake.

That brings us to the trailer's apex, one of the apex predators of horror history – the salivating Xenomorph. The Summer Game Fest trailer gives us just a glimpse at the protective mother, but the glimmer of its teeth burn a deep and horrific impression.

Even better, art director Ana Sopikova describes the creature as an "unkillable, relentless alien," and it'll skulk around the "unsuspecting colony world" Kurosaki Station, which you're tasked with escaping.

"Players will face a desperate struggle to survive," she says cheerfully, "and we cannot wait to show you more."

The game does not yet have a release date.

Cuphead devs announce two new games: a hand-animated successor, and an 8-bit throwback.

The next Resident Evil remake has officially been announced: The 2000 Dreamcast classic survival horror game Resident Evil - Code: Veronica is getting the RE Engine treatment and releasing in 2027.

Capcom kicked off this year's Summer Game Fest by announcing the Resident Evil Code Veronica remake and showing off a good 3.5 minutes of cinematic footage, ending with a shot of the iconic Gold Lugers, which shimmer beautifully in the new engine. The remake, titled simply Resident Evil Veronica, is due out in 2027 for PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC.

Check out the reveal trailer:

Code Veronica was the first Resident Evil game to launch on a non-PlayStation platform, and it was also the final full-blown survival horror game before the series took a turn toward action horror with Resident Evil 4, and then 5 and 6, before Biohazard took it back to its roots and scared the crap out of everyone.

The story of Code Veronica centers around siblings Chris and Claire Redfield and takes place about three months after the events of Resident Evil 2. After escaping Raccoon City, Claire is captured by Umbrella and imprisoned on an island in the Southern Ocean, which is experiencing a T-virus outbreak. Chris eventually shows up in search of her, and gameplay is split roughly equally between the two characters.

Code Veronica is one a lot of casual fans skipped out on due to the inaccurate perception that it's a spinoff due to it not being a numbered entry, when in reality it's very much a mainline title with a story that's crucial to fully understanding Resident Evil 5. The gameplay is rough, there's no getting around that, but that's why I'm so excited about the remake. It'll give a whole new generation of fans a very good reason to play one of the strongest games in the series, at least in terms of story, world, and atmosphere, and it'll give old fans like me a much smoother experience.

Capcom producer teases a Resident Evil based in Japan: "It might make an appearance at some point"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One of my low-key favorite reveals from last night's PlayStation State of Play was The Lost Wild, a dinosaur-infested survival horror title developed by Great Ape Games and published by Annapurna Interactive. It had been so long that I'd managed to forget that The Lost Wild was actually first revealed way back in 2022, but the new trailer and accompanying details have me beyond excited for what these devs are cooking up.

Gary Napper serves as game director on The Lost Wild, drawing on his time helping build one of the best survival horror games of the modern era. "My experience working on Alien: Isolation has inevitably shaped how I approach horror design and is definitely a lens I view this game’s design through," he says in a PlayStation Blog post.

The Lost Wild will not load you up with shotguns and rocket launchers to take down the prehistoric creatures that populate it. "When encounters happen, players evade, hide, create distractions, and use the environment to escape," Napper explains, and the game avoids offering predictable attack patterns or obvious vulnerabilities to exploit.

"From the outset, our goal has been to create a world where dinosaurs are not framed as monsters, but as believable animals," Napper says. "They exist within the world with their own instincts, behaviors, and drives. This shift in perspective fundamentally changes the player’s role. You are not the dominant force, the hero or the conqueror, you are the outsider, vulnerable and exposed, trying to navigate a food chain where you no longer sit at the top."

That's something even the best dinosaur games often miss, treating their star creatures as monsters rather than simply big, scary animals. The Lost Wild is certainly playing with tone to emphasize the terror here, as watching the seemingly impossible – yet pretty much realistic – Quetzalcoatlus lumbering around the foggy, burnt forest trailer is scarier than any shuffling zombie, but it's clear there's a grounding force here.

At this point, I'm not convinced that Capcom will ever give fans the Dino Crisis revival they've been demanding, and the drip-feed of information we've been getting about Jurassic Park Survival has been so slow that I'm still not sure what to expect from it. But between the trailer and Napper's design philosophy, I think The Lost Wild might be just what the raptor ordered.

The Lost Wild is scheduled to hit PS5 and PC in 2027.

There's a lot more coming in the Summer Game Fest 2026 schedule.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Resident Evil Requiem put the power of nostalgia on full display with the return of longtime hero Leon Kennedy and with Raccoon City as a delightfully dilapidated playground, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a Resident Evil fan that hasn't fantasized about a future entry based in Japan, where developer Capcom is based. According to Resident Evil Requiem producer Masato Kumazawa, everyone at Capcom has considered the possibility too, and nothing's off the table at this point.

"I think a Japanese setting is something every Japanese Resident Evil fan has though about, and I've also considered it myself," says Kumazawa in an interview with Japanese publication Futaman (translated by Automaton).

"Since the development team is primarily based in Japan, I think every member has given it some thought. While Japan hasn't appeared as a game setting so far, it might make an appearance at some point in the future."

A Resident Evil set in Japan is a no-brainer, and you only need to look at the success of Konami's Silent Hill f for proof. If anything, Silent Hill is even more synonymous with its titular Maine resort town than Resident Evil and Raccoon City, even if the excellent Resident Evil Requiem triumphantly returned the series to its geographical roots.

If Silent Hill f can completely abandon the series' namesake, introduce a whole new cast of characters, fly off to the opposite end of the world, and still be a massive hit with fans new and old, surely Capcom can do the same with Resident Evil.

If that were to happen, however, Kumazawa says the series' identity would remain the same, which is something I struggled with playing Silent Hill f.

"We won't compromise the core elements of the series, such as the characters and the events that unfold, and we'll continue to preserve what the series holds dear," assures Kumazawa. He adds, "However, if we keep releasing the same kind of game over and over, players will eventually get bored, so we'd like to keep taking on new challenges moving forward."

I love almost everything about Silent Hill f, the combat being the key exception, but it doesn't really look, sound, or play like a Silent Hill game. That hasn't stopped me from thoroughly enjoying multiple playthroughs, but it created a void that Silent Hill Townfall is unlikely to fill. If Resident Evil does go to Japan, I hope it doesn't lose its Resident Evilness.

After 2 hours, this new Lovecraftian horror game feels like a faithful mashup of Resident Evil and Silent Hill.

Over the course of the three entries thus far, the Dying Light series has become a staple if you're a fan of outrunning hordes of zombies. That said, the road to last year's Dying Light: The Beast wasn't the smoothest, as studio Techland learned some hard lessons from the second installment.

"It's the details that make your game, because your franchise is not only about the great vision, the pillars, but the little things that create the unique feel of your game," Tymon Smektala, former franchise director at Techland, said during a Digital Dragons talk attended by GamesRadar+.

"We learned that right away when we launched Dying Light 2 in 2022. It was a hard lesson," he explained. "The game was very hyped, millions of players [were] waiting for it. We launched it and quickly realized that even [though on the] surface it's quite similar, almost the same type of game, we had missed a lot of the details, the little things that were important for players, and they were very vocal about it."

He puts this down to a mixture of focusing on deadlines and working on a new engine and other requirements that warped the perspective somewhat. In Dying Light 2 updates, then, Techland wound up trying to make something for everyone, which didn't work either.

"Some want more tension, some want more RPG elements, more parkour," he says. "Combat could be less bloody, more bloody. Realism, power fantasy, the first game again, or maybe something new. So, you want to give everything to everyone all at once, but it is a trap."

Honing in on what makes Dying Light special - in my view, the particular blend of carnage, exploration and terror - allowed The Beast to be a return to form, of sorts. It was "very strong proof" of a solitary principle.

"We learned that quality beats quantity," Smektala explained. "We slowed down, we focused more, we adapted that for Dying Light 2, and kept using that mindset for Dying Light: The Beast, understanding that the quality of core elements is more important than satisfying all of the needs and expectations."

It worked, because The Beast released to over 90% positive Steam reviews, and a fervent player-base who were quick to stomp the undead by the billions. Sometimes you just need to figure out what really works, even if it includes a gratuitous amount of headshots.

Dying Light: The Beast's Restored Land update isn't DLC, lead says – it's "another chapter" in the survival horror that's adding permadeath, New Game+, a hunger meter, and more

Former Dying Light lead says the moment he realised the devs at Techland weren't afraid to think outside of the box was when he tried to jump for the first time in the game.

Speaking at a Digital Dragons 2026 panel attended by GamesRadar+ the now-former Dying Light franchise director Tymon Smektała – who announced he was stepping away from the zombie franchise after 13 years earlier this month – recalled the first time he got his hands on the zombie parkour classic. "I had just joined the studio, I knew we were making a game about parkour, so running, jumping. I held the controller, I started moving, I wanted to jump, so I pressed 'A' – the same way that you were doing in all of the other games back then."

He recalls "there was a gameplay programmer sitting next to me… and he created the parkour system. So, he looked at me smiling… and he said, 'You know what, we don't jump with 'A' here.' And I remember thinking, OK, so these guys, Techland, they are not afraid to do things differently."

And while it was presented as being different, Smektała explained "it was not different just for the sake of being different. There is a reason why in Dying Light you jump [with] the right bumper – you jump [with the] right bumper because you don't have to take your finger off the right stick, so you can look where you jump." But he explains, "for me, that small thing was a sign of a bigger attitude, that Techland was brave from the beginning, and Dying Light was brave from the beginning."

Not to burst Smektała's bubble, but Mirrors Edge actually did the same thing for its first-person parkour about seven years before the release of Dying Light. Still, it is an unconventional control system, and considering how many devs map a dodge/dash button to one of the face buttons when it absolutely should be on the triggers, it's still worth applauding that Techland made the right choice with its mapping.

Former Dying Light lead says devs have an "obligation" to listen to player feedback even if "they're very often wrong"

Tymon Smektała is proud to say he helped developer Techland establish a reputation for truly listening to its players. After operating as Dying Light's franchise director for 13 years – the gaming vet recently stepped away from the zombie-slayer horror series – Smektała knows the customer is… not necessarily always right, but they need to be heard.

There's no other option in the video game business, which relies on hordes of other people to take your art seriously enough to make it part of their routine – after work, before dinner, as the basis of their Twitter arguments, and so on. Smektała tells other developers during a Digital Dragons Conference talk attended by GamesRadar+, "I believe very strongly that this makes it your obligation to focus and listen to the players."

"As soon as you release the game, it stops being only your game. Suddenly, there are hundreds, thousands, hopefully millions of 'stakeholders,' players with opinions, expectations, memories, frustrations, theories, ideas, requests," Smektała reasons. "Suddenly, the game starts belonging not only to you, the makers, the creators, but also to the people who play it."

That said, Smektała isn't convinced by old business advice recommending you tell your customer exactly what they want to hear. He reminds developers, "we are not just selling products to customers, we are building a leading relationship with our community."

"This doesn't mean that you have to do what the loudest players are saying," the former director adds. After all, players loudly say all kinds of things, like that Dying Light protagonist Kyle Crane "is sexy" and deserves a big birthday present and kiss on the mouth. Well, in this case, they're correct.

But Smektała reminds developers "players are not always right about the solution," although "what they mostly shout are the solutions: do this, do that, change this into that. They're very often wrong."

However, they're also experts at detailing their opinions – whether it's favorable, like their thoughts on hard-boiled protagonist Crane, or angry. For this reason, Smektała says fans "are always right when it comes to the feeling, so if something frustrates them, something disappoints them, if something excites them, scares them, or makes them feel somehow special – you should pay attention." Now that's good advice.

Try these 10 games like Dying Light 2 to play once you're done with Techland's latest.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Capcom isn't using generative AI to make any of the assets you see in Resident Evil Requiem or Monster Hunter Stories 3, for example, because the developers behind some of this year's very best games are simply better.

In an interview with 4Gamer, with quotes translated by Automaton, Capcom executive Shinichi Inoue, who serves as the company's vice president of game development platform and AI solutions, says the publisher isn't using the controversial tech for asset generation and has no plans to do so. The reason is pretty simple: Gen AI can't stand up next to the stuff Capcom's devs make.

"What we in the entertainment industry consider extremely important in contrast to artificial intelligence is human sensibility," Inoue says. "Even top-tier AI still cannot match our creators when it comes to sensibility. That's the current reality. Because of that, concentrating human effort on work requiring this kind of sensibility is more efficient from the standpoint of human capital management, and it's also important for coexistence with creators."

Capcom is embracing the tech in other areas, though, specifically when it comes to communication-related tasks and debugging. The publisher is apparently cutting down on this "routine work" with a playtesting system driven by Google Gemini and in-house AI that "reports its findings to debugging check agents, but rather than leaving everything to humans, another agent first evaluates the reports against the game director's concept."

"A huge volume of this checking and evaluation work is carried out while humans are asleep," Inoue adds. "After that, the system screens for issues that are highly likely to be 'incorrect when compared to the game's intended concept' and presents them."

As Automaton notes, just last year the publisher toyed around with the idea of using generative AI to make the hundreds, if not tens of thousands, of assets required for blockbuster games nowadays – your in-game TVs and trees and chairs and sinks and so on. But it seems, somewhere in that last year, Capcom's had a change of heart.

Just recently, the company stated that "we are currently testing out various methods" of AI usage "across our departments, including graphics, sound, and programming," but affirmed that "our company will not be implementing any AI-generated assets into our video game content."

Capcom's glad we hated Resident Evil Requiem's terrible DLSS 5 AI demo, because it means fans "really liked the original design of Grace."

The Sinking City 2 had me anxious before I booted it up for the first time, and that had nothing to do with the cosmic horror in store. I'm a long-time fan of Frogware's Sherlock Holmes games, and really enjoyed the open-world investigation of the original The Sinking City in spite of its clunky combat. The news that this sequel would focus on that survival horror, frankly, isn't what I was hoping for. But, one of the great, cosmic unknowables lies between what we think we want and what we actually want. So far, I'm pleasantly surprised to be loving the drippy, tentacled survival horror in The Sinking City 2.

This sequel shifts the action from Oakmont to Arkham. Like the first game's setting, this city is also under the grip of a supernatural flood, completely submerging the many streets between buildings, the water bringing with it tentacled horrors from the depths to infect and destroy surface dwellers like the fedora-wearing Calvin Rafferty, who's come to the town to hunt down Faye, his missing wife. This city, after all, is where they fell in love.

Water we like

The Sinking City 2's wife-hunt survival horror premise isn't the most original in the world. In all things, this is a genre-savvy outing, and having played both the Silent Hill 2 remake and the Resident Evil 2 remake to death in recent years I'm right at home from the moment Calvin wakes up in the local university's waterlogged library annex. If it ain't broke, well, you know.

Soaked in darkness, Calvin has a torch that can light the way. On the hunt for a mysterious book, I push forward through any doors that aren't locked, pulling up a map screen now and then which is helpfully annotated with nearby pick-ups and points of interests, and switches its rooms from red to blue once they've been appropriately scoured for goodies.

My goal lies upstairs, and, pleasingly, the map isn't perfect. Broken walls and rubble can block off passages that at first seem viable on the map, while at other points partial collapse can connect new pathways through rooms. Cautiously, I move through the shin-high water, ripples as Calvin moves forward putting me on edge, and some wonderful gnarly set-dressing doing much the same. This library is infested with thick, leech-like worms, and dead bodies that they're doing something to litter the hallways. With glistening terrors aplenty, The Sinking City 2 offers up some stomach-churningly good horror.

Before long, the ripples in the water aren't coming from Calvin alone. A bloated human – or former human – twitches towards me, pus covering its body. Playing on normal difficulty, I end up unloading most of my handgun clip to down the monster in a panic, feeling thoroughly resource-starved as I creep towards the library's upper levels.

Then, I'm jumped by a small, spindly monster that knocks me back down over a balcony, splashes a quick retreat, and awakens more bloating shamblers. This time, I take a breath and aim at the monsters' pus-clusters. They pop, and finally I feel like my pea-shooter has some impact. The clusters reform, and I burst them with another bullet to finish them off.

The next one I stagger takes a knee, and I run over to stomp on it while it's down to conserve ammo and end the encounter with impact. It's a returning move from the first game, but it's nice to see the stamp get some extra love in this new context. These don't lock you into finishing animations like they do in Resident Evil Requiem, nor do they feel as punchy – but it's still nice to feel like there is a rhythm and process to optimally keeping the drowned at bay, though I still fall into a panic on occasion.

Soon enough, I'm leaving the library behind, navigating the flooded streets on a tiny motorboat in order to reach The Devil's Reef Hotel (a curious detail for those familiar with the Oakmont branch). A blocked gate forces me to detour into a church, fighting and sometimes running through its graveyard full of the spider-like spindly creatures that I only briefly encountered before.

Ready to jump at Calvin and claw at his face, the strategy of dodging out of the way at the right moment from the first game persists, their flubbed pounce opening them up to a good stamping or, better yet, sending them hurtling into one of the many bear traps the residents of Arkham seem keen to leave around the place (to be fair, with the size of these monsters, mousetraps wouldn't cut it).

It's here in the church I finally get to put my detective fedora back on to puzzle through a Lovecraftian mystery. With the floodgates locked, I have to explore in and around the church to puzzle it out. Picked up clues can be placed on a mind-map investigation board, and connected together freely to infer solutions.

Though, you don't need to do so. Only a couple of clues are required to find the code, and it's up to me whether I continue my investigation to uncover the true mystery behind the strange church, a mysterious trident, and an obelisk puzzle in its garden. I'm only pushed to do so as reaching its end is part of my demo, otherwise I'd be free to progress to the hotel.

In typical Lovecraftian fashion, the answers I get just raise more questions, and I'm curious how optional sections like this will square with Calvin's larger quest. But, with resource rewards and an upgrade currency for Calvin's Nightshade mask (a weird blank-faced mask that Calvin has for some reason) up for grabs for correct solutions, they're worth puzzling out even if only to twist the cosmic to your own ends.

Call the medic

From there, I'm skipped ahead to play through the beginning of a much larger, twistier building – the Akeley Memorial Hospital. Still riddled with the tentacled, the bloated, and the wet, there's also weird science afoot that suggests a broadening of the Lovecraftian mythos at play within Arkham's streets. Here, the labyrinthine halls that I slowly open up through finding keys and opening up bolted doors are sometimes blocked by strange, slick, curved metal mirrors that will only open up to specific faces.

The MacGuffin that Calvin is here to collect lies behind a similarly high-tech lock, which combines science with runic symbols – having me combine both at charging stations to suck up energy into a prism device. I only get to work part of my way towards this goal before my demo is over, yet this location doesn't just up The Sinking City 2's strangeness, but suggests how sweeping and maze-like some of the game's later areas could get (this, I'm told, is about midway through).

It's high praise to compare The Sinking City 2 to the modern takes on Resident Evil 2 and Silent Hill 2. This definitely feels a bit ropier, especially when it comes to combat, though later weapon upgrades promise a smidge more punch. But, as ever, this is Frogwares absolutely locking in to punching about its weight, and, to be honest, I didn't expect pivoting from the investigation-focused original to survival horror would work nearly as well as my two hours hands-on with The Sinking City 2 has shaped up. The studio definitely knows its stuff when it comes to developing in this new genre.

It's a mechanical pivot that still won't be for everyone, though. While it's great to see investigation elements make a return, the emphasis on survival horror will still turn away some of those who are only interested in the mysteries. But, it does further delineate the studio's cosmic horror series with its Sherlock Holmes one. And, it works well for me – because I just so happen to also really like survival horror as well as a good mystery. This combination of both feels a bit forbidden, but I won't be able to resist cracking it open to peer in once more once The Sinking City 2 releases later in 2026 across PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.

Take a look at our best survival horror games recommendations if you're feeling brave enough for more!

Stellar Blade developer Shift Up has confirmed that Unbound – the new studio founded by Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami – is working on multiple titles.

Unbound was founded by Resident Evil director Shinji Mikami in 2022, with an action RPG having been in development at the studio for a while now. And while nothing is actually known about what Mikami and team are making, earlier this year it was announced that Stellar Blade developer Shift Up will be joining forces with Unbound, and is set to publish the studio's debut title – alongside the sequel to Stellar Blade – with the studio describing it as an "acqui-hire deal" in its latest earnings report.

The studio explained the partnership, saying, "Shift Up and Unbound share a strong alignment in strategic direction, and the synergies achievable through collaboration were clear, making the decision to join forces a natural one. We are already collaborating across multiple areas including worldbuilding and creative planning, generating positive outcomes for both parties on the game development front."

Shift Up continued, "Unbound's team of approximately 60 developers – many of whom have experience creating and successfully launching globally recognized IPs – is fully dedicated to bringing new titles to players. With multiple projects currently in development spanning both high-end and mid-scale titles, we expect a sequential rollout of new releases. Details on the titles under development at Unbound will be shared with the market and players progressively over time."

While the sequel to Stellar Blade and Shift Up's "Project Spirits" are set to be revealed within the year, the studio didn't elaborate on when we may be seeing what Unbound is working on. Although, whatever it is, I'm seated, because there's not many in this industry with the resume of Shinji Mikami, and I'm always willing to give a game by the director of God Hand and Vanquish my full attention.

Stellar Blade lead believes AI is essential for South Korea to compete with studios in the US and China, with the government to provide financial backing to support the use of the tech.

In Resident Evil Requiem Leon Must Die Forever, golden spiders are often seen skittering about, and you can even hear them twinkling in the background, but what are they for? Thankfully, they won't hurt you, and the fact that they're gold might give away that they have a beneficial use.

Leon Must Die Forever is the first minigame to be added to Resident Evil Requiem, and it features roguelike gameplay as our protagonist makes his way to Victor once again. You're on the clock, though, and these golden spiders might be worth your attention when time's running out - here's what they do.

What do golden spiders do in LMDF?

In Re 9's Leon Must Die Forever mode, golden spiders appear with a number above their head, which relates to the amount of extra time given when they're killed - simple as that.

Since they give you more time, they are worth killing, but obviously don't waste more time chasing them down. I also strongly recommend killing them with your hatchet so you don't waste valuable ammo - though you'll find there is plenty of it, at least in the earlier ranks.

Speaking of ranks, once you've completed you first runthrough at Rank 1, you'll unlock Wolf Leon, one of four LMDF skins available, each with their own starting weapons and enhancements. They might not be among the best LMDF enhancements, but these unique starting criteria can make your playthrough a little easier - or provide an extra challenge.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

It might not be Cat Leon, but one of the Leon Must Die Forever skins in Resident Evil 9's minigame turns the horror hunk into a wolf - complete with a cute, fluffy tail - so you might be wondering how to unlock this furry favorite.

This Resident Evil Requiem minigame takes on a roguelike format, as you defeat enemies in different 'rooms', moving between areas via glowing red doors, before finally beating Victor at the end - all, hopefully, before your timer hits zero. With the Leon Must Die Forever skins below, you can then restart again with a new challenge, thanks to varying starting equipment - and a new look to boot. Here's how to unlock them all.

How to unlock the Leon Must Die Forever wolf skin

To unlock the Leon Must Die Forever Wolf Mode skin, you just need to complete the minigame once - AKA Rank 1. From here, head into the Special Content section from the LMDF main menu, where you'll be able to equip your new costume.

Leon's wolf skin starts you off with a powerful SMG, the Stiri REVO3 SA1, as well as your usual hatchet, making the next Rank that much easier to complete. You'll also start with Surveyor, one of the many Leon Must Die Forever enhancements.

How to get the Leon Wolf skin with different effects

Leon Must Die skins aren't just to look pretty, they also grant special starting gear for an easier time or an increased challenge. However, if you don't want flashing lights on your head (see below), you can equip one skin but still have Leon look like a wolf by unlocking the Accessory Appearance upgrade.

Unlock this by completing Leon Must Die Forever in Forever mode, Rank 4. Then you can equip any of the other costumes for their effect and press the left and right buttons on your controller to scroll through all unlocked skins in-game - including cat, I mean wolf, Leon.

Other Leon Must Die Forever skins

Aside from the obvious choice, there are three other Leon Skins in Leon Must Die Forever. They're a bit daft, but they do have unique effects that you might want to consider.

• Turbo GT - Turbo GT headgear
  • Start with the MSBG 500 and a hatchet
  • Start with the Strategist enhancement
    • Complete LMDF on Forever - Rank 2
• Hot Fuzz - Flashing light headgear
  • Start with a Classic 70 and a hatchet
  • Start with the Big-game Hunter enhancement
    • Complete LMDF on Forever - Rank 3
• Axe-orcist - Glowing red eyes
  • Start with just a Hatchet
  • Start with the Maverick enhancement
    • Complete LMDF on Forever - Rank 5

Again, once you've unlocked the Accessory Appearance upgrade, you can equip any of these while wearing any unlocked costumes, but you'll have to beat the mode a few times first!

While you're looking at Resident Evil Requiem unlocks, have you tried playing the base game with infinite Re9 ammo yet? And if you're unsure, here's what those glistening LMDF Golden Spiders do.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Capcom has announced the free minigame for Resident Evil Requiem, giving Leon Kennedy a sequel to Resident Evil 7's Ethan Must Die minigame.

Resident Evil Requiem director Koshi Nakanishi announced that Resident Evil Requiem DLC is in the works earlier this year, but ahead of the DLC, we were also told that a mystery free minigame would be added to the game. Then, last week it was teased that players in Japan will want to beat the main storyline during Golden Week, suggesting its release could be imminent, and this turned out to be true. This morning, Capcom surprise-dropped the brand new Resident Evil Requiem update, adding Leon Must Die Forever.

The roguelike mode sees you take control of Leon throughout areas of the main game, with Capcom explaining that you must "clear numerous stages while using randomized enhancer abilities as you race against the clock." It's not The Mercenaries, another staple mode of the Resident Evil series, but its the type of mode that gives you a way to play about with the action gameplay. The enhancer abilities and stage-based layout were a part of Resident Evil Village's version of Mercenaries, so fans of that version may be happy.

This mode also gives Leon some new costumes, including one where he wears his Porsche on top of his head like a bicycle helmet, and one that gives him wolf ears and a tail that definitely isn't going to send a contingent of the Leon Kennedy fanbase into overdrive.

If the "Must Die" suffix sounds familiar, you may remember that Resident Evil 7 had Ethan Must Die, which is a similar mode to this (or you're thinking of the Dante Must Die difficulty from Devil May Cry). And, funnily enough, the answer to what this minigame would turn out to be was right in front of us for months. As a fan points out, in the video where Nakanishi announced the DLC, he was wearing an Ethan Must Die t-shirt, which in hindsight was a definite hint of what was to come.

You can check out our Resident Evil Requiem review if you're yet to play the horror game yourself, or our guide to Resident Evil Requiem's safe codes to help you through it.

Dying Light franchise director Tymon Smektała has left developer Techland after 13 years at the company.

In a statement released on his Twitter account, Smektała says, "After years with Dying Light, I'm moving into a new chapter. It's been an incredible journey, and I'm proud of what we've built." He thanks those involved in the development and publishing of the series over the years and the community of Dying Light fans.

Per his LinkedIn, Smektała joined Techland in 2013 as a game designer during the development of the first Dying Light game, becoming franchise director in 2022.

As for what's next for the series, Smektała says that "the franchise is in great hands, and I'm excited to see it grow even further, and I can't wait to experience its next chapter as a player. I'll always root for Dying Light!" It's currently unknown what's next for Dying Light, but after the release of Dying Light: The Beast last year, with it just receiving a persistent survival mode in the form of Restored Land earlier this year, it's maybe safe to assume that a proper third entry is in the cards somewhere down the line.

I haven't played the series past the first game, but one thing that has always stuck with me is how much Techland has supported all of the games in the series even years after they first release. My only hope is that kind of effort continues with the new leadership, and that Dying Light 3 can solve some players' major issues with the second game in the series, like the cut mechanics and worse physics compared to the first entry.

Why not check out our guide for Dying Light The Beast docket codes and how to redeem them?

If you were somehow worried that Resident Evil Requiem was a send-off for Leon Kennedy, I wouldn't stress, as the game's director is down to bring him back after retirement age.

Speaking to Eurogamer, Resident Evil Requiem director Koshi Nakanishi explains: "It's not a cast iron rule that whenever we come up with a new game and we decide to release it here, that we have to exactly age everyone up to match it or anything like that." Granted, age has never really been a factor – Leon himself is pushing 50 in Requiem, but he moves and looks far younger than that (especially at the end of the game).

And while the passage of time in the series should necessitate its characters passing the torch as they age out of zombie-killing territory, Nakanishi says Capcom doesn't "feel the need to replace [its most recognizable faces] with younger characters... we don't really think of it in those terms."

Even at his older age, the people loved Leon, dubbing him a "hot unc" almost the second he was revealed for Requiem. Nakanishi seemingly agrees with this assessment, saying: "I mean, I think Leon is really appealing in his current form." And if you thought there was a chance that Requiem would be a final send-off for the character, he may have good news for you, saying: "Who knows, we could bring him back when he's 70, and I'm sure he'll still be a great character."

Normally I'd stress the importance of boosting the series' longevity by introducing new characters, but Resident Evil is already pretty good at that. Sure, Ethan was – intentionally – a bit bland at times, but he's become a faceless icon of the series, and shared the screen with Chris in Resident Evil Village. Meanwhile, Grace was a great addition to the series and managed to hold her own alongside Leon. Plus, with how little Claire and Jill have been used since the early years of the series, they may as well be new characters if this point if Capcom ever decides to go back to them.

If you're yet to play the newest Capcom horror game, be sure to take a look at our Resident Evil Requiem review. You can also check out our guide to Resident Evil Requiem's safe codes if you're looking to uncover all its secrets.

When Nvidia unveiled its AI-powered DLSS 5 tech earlier this year, Resident Evil Requiem was one of the titles on display. The yassified versions of Leon and Grace that accompanied the announcement were presented as next-generation graphics technology, but most people with eyes pretty quickly recognized them as a serious insult to the original game's art direction. For its part, Capcom is glad people hated the demo, since that means they liked the real Grace's look.

"The fact a lot of players commented they really liked the original design of Grace and didn't want to see it changed was a positive," producer Masato Kumzawa tells Eurogamer. "It meant we got the design right [and] points to the fact that Grace quickly established herself as a fan favourite, that people had such strong opinions on her design."

It's unclear how much input Capcom had into Requiem's appearance in Nvidia's DLSS 5 demonstration, but as part of the announcement executive producer Jun Takeuchi called the tech "another important step in pushing visual fidelity forward."

I guess some might argue that Grace did, indeed, look "better" under the DLSS 5 filter, but that's largely because of all the traditional beauty markers. She's got brighter eyes, plumper lips, and clearer skin with DLSS 5 on, but it's tough to say the actual graphical fidelity has actually improved at all. And, personally, Grace doesn't strike me as the type to apply her finest lipstick before delving into unknown horrors.

Nvidia has issued contradictory explanations of how DLSS 5 works, with CEO Jensen Huang insisting that it integrates with a game's internal rendering in order to apply its questionable magic. A few days later, another Nvidia employee confirmed that, nah, it really is just an AI filter applied over 2D images. DLSS has, up to this point, encompassed some genuinely cool and useful machine learning based upscaling tricks, but DLSS 5 is doing an incredible job of throwing that goodwill away.

As Garry's Mod successor quickly becomes overrun with gen-AI after launching on Steam, Garry himself commits to "taking action to promote human creativity."

Naturally, a Resident Evil Requiem fan appreciates the delicate nature of heroes Grace Ashcroft and Leon Kennedy, but a true connoisseur reaches in the back for something rough and bleeding from the eyes. They're loyal to mutant Selena Corey, the septic diva Capcom clearly made as more zombie meat to cut through, but who – to actor Isabella Inchbald's delight – has instead become a star.

After seeing so much Resident Evil cosplay, fan art, and even soft rock songs dedicated to the zombie, I had to talk to Inchbald about Selena Corey's current status as the It-girl of Rhodes Hill Care Center. The actor – whose past credits include morally dubious scientist Lucy in Dying Light: The Beast, and the English voice of the eponymous nun Indika in the existential horror hit from 2024 – can't believe it.

Though, when I first had my head split open by Selena's witch scream in Resident Evil Requiem, I could tell she was special. It doesn't hurt that, compared to the other patients of Rhodes Hill Care Center, where T-virus has popped everyone's brain like a birthday balloon, Selena Corey is somehow still gorgeous.

The mutant, whose name and story players only know through patient records strewn throughout Requiem, is a red rose with all its petals plucked. She was originally admitted to the Care Center for her histrionic personality disorder, which provides a clinical explanation for the romantic white ruffles she sways with, despite the various bile stains on her dress, as well as the way she lingers in the West Wing lounge, crooning fluttery oohs between nonsensical giggles.

During our recent interview, Inchbald tells me she takes no credit for Selena's history. She didn't provide motion capture movements for the character, and Capcom hadn't given her enough details during recording for her to invent her own. But Inchbald says, "I think what I was channeling when I was recording her was kind of half-child and half-siren. She's an attractive zombie, who is really a little girl that wants attention."

"Thankfully, that matches her backstory a little bit," she says.

It seems that Capcom – which, deep in Pragmata's release cycle, declined to comment for this article – never anticipated Selena's status as fan-favorite. The developer didn't even mention the character's name as Inchbald recorded her distinctive mermaid melody.

The 2024 audition that led to Inchbald getting cast as the Resident Evil Requiem lounge singer required her to do "a bunch of zombie noises" for 20 minutes, and she didn't know – even during recording – that she was working on a Resident Evil game. Inchbald says, "I didn't even know that my character was called 'Selena Corey,' actually, when I was recording. I didn't even know that."

Capcom did, at least, share its goal to make Requiem's monsters more empathetic. The T-virus victims were meant to seem as if they were creatures "in between human and zombie," says Inchbald, "so they still retain some of their memories, and they're still sort of behaving like humans at certain points."

"That obviously fed a lot into the direction [for Selena Corey], rather than just, 'Be a zombie on a killing spree," says Inchbald. "It was a bit more cerebral than that."

Without hardly any other guidelines to use, Inchbald describes her work on Resident Evil Requiem as a "let loose kind of recording experience." She was told to sing, but not what to sing, or how. Ultimately, "It was quite liberating to be emoting in that way, rather than being restricted by words – words that you haven't written," says Inchbald.

In-game, surrounded by vomit and hospital rooms, Selena's song is a drama queen's proclamation that no doctor, no hazardous smell, and not even T-virus itself can kill her misguided ego. For many female horror fans who have rallied around similarly sadistic princesses, like Mia Goth's Pearl, or Katharine Isabelle's American Mary from the 2012 cult hit, these characters represent the cycle of self-obsession and self-destruction that comes when little girls are encouraged their whole lives to seek (a man's) approval.

But, from a practical standpoint, "I really am shocked in the best way possible that fans love her so much," Inchbald says to me. "Obviously, when you're playing a big role in a video game, you might think, 'Oh, where might this go?' But when you're playing a smaller role – and, frankly when you're playing a zombie, you don't think that's going to really amount to any kind of recognition."

Resident Evil Requiem changed that expectation. So "I'm glad that I've made them feel something," Inchbald says of Selena Corey's admirers, "and they've, in return, made me feel something, too."

Capcom uses Pragmata star Diana to make fun of Resident Evil heartthrobs Leon Kennedy and Chis Redfield.

Capcom is using Pragmata star Diana to hack a number of its games' accounts, and has used it to clown on the Resident Evil series, and the fans' need to know Leon Kennedy's marriage status.

Earlier this week, the Pragmata account on Twitter posted (posing as the game's star Diana), "After I hacked into those strange objects, I got access to a whole bunch of new data," with an image showing trinkets from Monster Hunter, Resident Evil, and Onimusha, with Diana alerting that she'll be showing up on other accounts now. Some of these posts just have Diana commenting on goings on in the various series', such as talking about how cool Alma from Monster Hunter is, or reacting to the flat earth joke in Onimusha.

However, aside from fun nods to the series, Capcom is also using Diana to clown on various fans. One post pokes fun at Chris Redfield's antics in Resident Evil 5, saying, "I'm having so much fun getting all this data! Ooh, I found out that one time, someone PUNCHED a boulder just because it was in his way!" Meanwhile, there's a post poking fun at the insatiable need Resident Evil fans have to find out who Leon Kennedy is married to, with a post reading, "I found a file with a bunch of details on different agents. Ooh! There’s one on someone named Leon too...but I can’t crack the security! But I bet there’s nothing important in there that everyone’s dying to know, right?"

But Resident Evil fans aren't the only ones being teased, as the Monster Hunter account posted "I found a file in the 'Monster Hunter Stories 3' folder that says 'DeviljhoTail.mp4' but I'm not sure what that means. It says 'highly confidential' so I guess I'll leave it alone for now!" This is in reference to a popular misconception / Mandela effect within the Monster Hunter community that the big pickle dino Deviljho eats its own tail in the games… which has never actually happened.

Diana also noted that she tried to hack the accounts of Mega Man and Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, to no avail. That and she's commenting on fanart, including one crossing her over with Metal Gear Rising Revengeance villain Senator Armstrong, which brings everything full circle as the very first game Pragmata director Yonghee Cho was credited on was Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, where he helped design the likes of Armstrong. The director reposted this on Twitter, simply saying "OMG" to this collab.

Resident Evil Requiem devs cut an entire chapter from the game like they did with Resident Evil 7

GamesRadar+'s visit to the set of the Resident Evil movie does not quite go to plan. Just after we arrive at the cavernous Jordan Studios on the outskirts of Prague on a cloudy December afternoon, everyone else starts to leave. Director Zach Cregger is unwell, and filming has been shut down for the day. Instead of housing its usual hive of activity, the sound stages are abandoned, and I'm tempted to call out, "Hello? Is anyone there?", final girl-style, as I embark on an eerily quiet walk through the deserted warehouse from the press tent to the bathrooms. Here be zombies, after all.

In Cregger's new take on the survival horror franchise, rather than video game mainstays Leon S. Kennedy or Chris Redfield, it's Bryan who takes on the undead. He's a hospital courier on a job from hell, as he encounters horrors even worse than the gig economy over the course of one fateful night. Played by Weapons breakout Austin Abrams, Bryan is an original character with no link to the Resident Evil games. "I never wanted to tell the story of any of the characters from the games," Cregger tells us over Zoom a few months later.

"Leon exists in the games. I don't want anyone to ruin that for me," he continues. "I don't think that me telling a story that's not about Leon is a violation of the Resident Evil world, because the games do that all the time. Leon's not in 7 or 8. So I figure if I am honoring the games, I'm just going to tell another story that feels like playing in the world of the game, but I'm not stepping on the toes of any of Leon's storyline. I'm not recasting Leon, god forbid. You know, I'm letting Leon stay Leon. And I feel like that's the most respectful thing I could do."

Return to Raccoon City

Back in Prague, everyone, including leading man Abrams, is incredibly apologetic about the disruption on set, but there's still plenty to see, and people are still busy behind the scenes – including our guide for the day, production designer Tom Hammock. "I play video games, but I'm not… I mean, Zach is obsessed," Hammock, who worked with Cregger on Weapons, tells us with a laugh as he shows us around. "I remember being in college in '96 and my roommate got Resident Evil 2, and I'd come home and he'd be playing in the dark and completely petrified himself. That's what Zach wants to capture. The first time you played the game, you didn't know what was going to happen, so he's trying to recreate all the scares, the flashlight work, the amount of darkness, the tension as you move through these spaces."

Don't be fooled by the film's first trailer, which sees Bryan arrive at a creepy remote farmhouse in need of a phone: Raccoon City is still on the map. "It takes detours," says Cregger. "The whole point of the movie is he's got to get from hospital A, through the mountains and into Raccoon City to deliver something to hospital B. And as he's going over this mountain pass, things turn bad." There's no hint of rural America in Jordan Studios, though: we've touched down in Raccoon City.

Hammock gives us a tour of a handful of sets: a dark, damp sewer, a hospital ward (sticky with the residue of 500 gallons of fake blood), and a few floors of a skyscraper, complete with working elevator, all built from scratch. We also venture into the production design office, which is a veritable treasure trove of storyboards, models, and a "creature wall", which does what it says on the tin, showcasing mock-ups of zombified rats, dogs, and more. "You'll see a lot of Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil 6," Hammock says, gesturing to the creature wall. "So Zach and I went through and pulled specific creature elements that we like from the games, whether it's tentacles, the teeth integration, and then tried to take that language and move it over to these creatures.

"I spent a lot of time in medical research libraries, so everything comes from nature," he adds. "But we also went as far as diseases. I used to work as a virologist long ago, so just having access to medical libraries gave us a really grounded starting point for all the creatures. And then you try to mix that with, you know, the insanity."

Although this movie may be a standalone piece, Cregger explains that the story occurs "on the periphery" of the second game. "You know, where Raccoon City is having its big night, but tell just another story that could be happening in parallel to that."

That extends to the production design, too. "We really designed the city based on Resident Evil 2, trying to get that look," says Hammock. "Lots of brick, lots of texture, lots of rain, and then the only change we really made was going heavier with the snow. We even found somewhere that looks exactly like the police station, by chance here, by the Opera House, which is pretty exciting."

But the hardest part of recreating Raccoon City in Prague? "It sounds so foolish, but one of the hardest things on the movie is Zach had me make Raccoon City manhole covers for the top of the sewers," Hammock says. "So hard to do. Everybody made their manhole covers, like, 50 years ago. It's not such a thing anymore."

Cregger reiterates that the movie is a "very simple and self-contained" story that doesn't depend on the viewer being as big a fan of the games as he is – but, if you are, there'll be some fun extra nuggets. "A lot of the references to the games, if you don't know them, they're just gonna go right over your head, and they're not gonna waste your time. I don't spend a whole lot of time talking about stuff that's only in the games," he explains. "The pacing of the games is very much in the movie. But if you don't know the games, that's not going to penetrate; you won't realize it. And the graduation of guns. You start with a pistol, you graduate to a shotgun, and then by the end, he's holding a machine gun. All the gamers are going to understand exactly what's happening, but if you've never played it just won't register."

Along with the pacing, Cregger says he also pays homage to the visual "vocabulary" of the Resident Evil games. "Sometimes I jump into first person, sometimes I use standard coverage if he's having a conversation with someone. But I really, really wanted to embrace that immersive feel that I get when I play the games, and so I feel like, to use their visual language… why wouldn't I do that? It's so cinematic anyway," he says, after flicking through a hardbound book of the movie's storyboards for us. "People who love the games are going to feel seen in a lot of ways, I hope, when they watch this movie, but I hope that the visual vocabulary is something that's really going to punch."

Away from the PlayStation, Cregger notes that he took inspiration from movies as far-reaching as Son of Saul and Evil Dead 2, but he wasn't thinking about any of the previous Resident Evil adaptations (six movies were released between 2002 and 2017, with a reboot following in 2021) – because he hasn't seen them. "Frankly, the reason I didn't see them is because I was such a fan of the games, and they just didn't look like the games to me, you know? And it was so obvious that they were not the games that I was like, it's not for me," he says. "Maybe they're great. I have no idea. But I just wasn't interested in that, because I feel like what's great about the games is they're shrunk down into this single perspective, and it's about this pacing and this horror, and those movies just didn't look like horror things to me."

Labor of love

If the work of Legacy Effects is anything to go by, however, Resident Evil certainly will look like a "horror thing." The Legacy team, who have worked on everything from Avatar to The Mandalorian, has set up camp in what appears to be a dressing room, lined with lightbulb-studded mirrors and furnished with makeup storage, but instead of lipsticks and powders, they're covered with displays of "messed up" models. Legacy is showcasing their favorite creations from the shoot for us: a mottled stretch of life-like skin, freakishly long limbs, something with three eyes. "I suppose it's a compliment when people think it's all done with computers," creature FX designer Shane Mahan (an industry veteran whose career began four decades ago with The Terminator) tells us amidst this gleefully gory tableau.

"Within the first two minutes, the audience should not be aware what they're looking at and just believe what it is," he adds. "Otherwise, there's no fun in that. If you don't believe that it's really there, there's no fear. Part of the fun is being frightened."

Some of these creatures will appear in a scene in a hospital ward. But, this is Resident Evil, after all, so this hospital has huge, fiberglass egg-like membranes and an assortment of tentacles clinging to its walls, and Hammock points out some cleverly concealed holes when we walk through the plasticky smell of fake blood to take a closer look at the set.

"There's a whole steel structure above with grids and pulley rigs. And what's going to happen is stuntmen, upside down, have been training to hold their breath so they're there against that membrane," he explains. "They pour, like, 50 gallons of slime in with the stunt guys, and it oozes down. And then the membrane breaks, and they fall into the sets, in-camera, which is pretty cool… It took, like, 15 people two weeks to glue the tentacles. Every one is hand-cut and then glued, and then held up. So it's this labor of love."

Lastly, we're taken to see a real, working elevator built on a sound stage, a short drive from the rest of the set. Construction is still underway, and Hammock has to raise his voice to be heard above the drilling and hammering. After climbing a flight of metal stairs, we find ourselves in a fresh paint-scented corridor with six doors on it. Cregger noticed that there are "too many doors" in Resident Evil, Hammock notes, and is working with "misdirection" in this set piece. "Just like in the game, you go to the side [just] to have something burst out of the other door, out of your peripheral vision."

Now we're inside the skyscraper itself, which is based partly on Guy's Hospital in London (the tallest hospital in the world), partly on a brutalist Swiss ski resort, and partly on '20s Czech cubism as "an homage to where we're shooting." Climbing a flight of concrete stairs, we get a better look at the elevator itself. The team has modified a sports stadium-style cable camera to operate vertically. "It goes all the way up and down, so it could track next to Austin as the elevator moves with him." It really is a fully functioning elevator, built from scratch, which will be involved in an action-packed set piece that we're not allowed to allude to further.

While it seems there's going to be some pretty gruesome stuff in this movie, Cregger says he never had any pushback from the studio. "They gave me the keys of the car, and I got to drive it where I wanted to drive it," he says. "And honestly, the person I feel the most responsible to is the [person] who loves the games, so that really was who I'm trying to please with this."

Resident Evil arrives in theaters on September 18. In the meantime, check out our guide to the other upcoming video game movies to add to your watchlist.

Resident Evil Requiem director Koshi Nakanishi has revealed that the developers cut a chapter from the game before release.

In an interview with Denfaminico Gamer (translated by TheGamer) Nakanishi recalled a cut chapter from Resident Evil 7 Biohazard, saying, "Up to now, I’ve talked in interviews about how Resident Evil 7 had a 'phantom Chapter 2' that got cut during development. It was supposed to be the section where you move from the guest house to the main house." He then segued to the latest entry, saying, "Actually, Resident Evil Requiem had its own 'phantom Chapter 2' as well."

Nakanishi explained, "As we lock down the structure of the game, we go through a pretty intense process of deciding things like, 'Let’s push this scene further back,' 'Let’s just cut this entirely,' or 'Let’s add something different here.'" Although he reiterates that this isn't uncommon when it comes to developing the series and that "It’s not like we suddenly remove things at the very end of development, of course. More often, we build a rough version early on and keep revising it over and over." He adds, "It’s actually pretty common for an entire chapter to get cut."

Aside from Resident Evil 7, there have been substantial bits of cut content in other titles in the series, most notably, Resident Evil 4's remake originally had an introduction sequence that had you playing as Ashley Graham; this got far enough into development that scenes from it actually featured in trailers for the game. But in the case of Resident Evil 4, that segment likely would've been a chore in replays (shoutout Resident Evil Requiem and 2 remake's orphanage segments), so perhaps this missing chapter was also for the best.

You can check out our Resident Evil Requiem review if you're yet to play the horror game yourself, or our guide to Resident Evil Requiem's safe codes to help you through it.

Hideki Kamiya has confirmed a long-standing fan theory that Leon Kennedy is named after the titular character in Luc Besson's Léon: The Professional (or simply Léon for those outside of the US).

Over on Twitter, Kamiya recalls that during the result of his directorial debut, Resident Evil 2, he consulted Resident Evil series creator Shinji Mikami about what he should name the protagonist of the game. He claims that after being shot down on a few ideas, he suggested taking the name of the character of a film he had recently watched, which just so happened to be Leon.

Leon Kennedy and the titular Jean Reno-played hitman don't have very much in common, mind you, but the connection was made through other references found in the series. In the film Léon, takes in a 12-year-old girl after her family is murdered, the girl in question is called Mathilda (played by Star Wars' Natalie Portman in her first film role), and in Leon Kennedy's next game, you can unlock a gun named Matilda, which is also unlocked alongside the "Professional" difficulty setting, further referencing the film.

Kamiya notes that naming the gun Matilda – which is based on Leon's fully upgraded handgun in Resident Evil 2 – wasn't actually his idea; rather, he credits someone else at Capcom, which is a given considering Hideki Kamiya's version of Resident Evil 4 was a lot more Devil May Cry-esque than Resident Evil, and ended up being released as… Devil May Cry. Still, that's another long-standing fan theory that has been put to bed by someone simply tweeting it out, and I'm sure the cross-section of Resident Evil theorycrafters and French cinema enthusiasts are feeling victorious on this day.

You can check out our Resident Evil Requiem review if you're yet to play the horror game yourself, or our guide to Resident Evil Requiem's safe codes to help you through it.

Resident Evil Requiem director Koshi Nakanishi has teased some details about the upcoming free mini game set to release in May, and it sure sounds like we're getting Mercenaries.

In an interview with Denfaminico Gamer (translated by Genki_JPN), Nakanishi was asked about the free mini game, with the director confirming that it will be a single-player minigame, and teased that it will focus on the game's combat: "For those who have cleared the main game and are thinking 'I still haven't done enough rampaging yet' I think you might enjoy it and go 'Whoa!!', so please sharpen your tomahawk and wait."

We know the free mini game will release in May, since Capcom announced the Resident Evil Requiem DLC is in the works. However, it may end up being in our hands sooner rather than later, as Resident Evil Requiem producer Masato Kumazawa explained that the mini game will be unlocked for players after completing the game's main story, and that Golden Week may be a good time to clear the main story of the game for anyone interested. Golden Week in Japan runs from April 29 to May 6, so Kumazawa's comment could be seen as a teaser that the minigame may be in our hands as soon as next Thursday.

Nakanishi's comment about "rampaging" and the implication that the mini game may be combat-focused certainly suggests we're getting Mercenaries mode in Resident Evil Requiem. And given that Leon's combat is perhaps the best in the series in the latest game, that's certainly an exciting prospect. Mercenaries has long been one of the best parts of many Resident Evil games (or the best part, in Resident Evil 6's case), and Capcom's latest version of it in Resident Evil 4 remake certainly set a high bar for it. Let's just hope it's not as limited as Resident Evil Village's was before it was updated to add extra characters as DLC.

You can check out our Resident Evil Requiem review if you're yet to play the horror game yourself, or our guide to Resident Evil Requiem's safe codes to help you through it.

Resident Evil Requiem has hit a new sales milestone, with seven million units sold within the game's first two months.

Resident Evil Requiem director Koshi Nakanishi posted an image to his Instagram story (spotted by TwistedVoxel) featuring two cakes. One reads "Grace Congratulation on 7 million," with a cookie version of Grace Ashcroft sitting atop it, while the other features a Leon Kennedy cookie and is in the style of Resident Evil 2's iconic banner, saying "Welcome to 7m Leon" (and they didn't even make the spelling mistake that the RPD officers did, either).

Capcom hasn't released an official announcement about the milestone yet, but after announcing that Resident Evil Requiem had sold five million copies within the first week, it was seemingly already the fastest-selling Resident Evil title of all time, beating 2023's Resident Evil 4 remake, which took about two days to sell three million copies. Capcom then outright confirmed this when Requiem hit the six million mark just over two weeks after launching.

Earlier this week, industry analyst Mat Piscatella also noted that it's already one of the top five selling games in the series in terms of "all-time US dollar sales," and that's not to mention that it became the US's best-selling game of the year in just a day.

If anything, this is proof that Capcom's strategy of simply releasing good games works. Resident Evil has been on a hot streak since Resident Evil 7 Biohazard almost a decade ago, and with the extremely well received Village, two all-time great remakes, and the underrated Resident Evil 3 remake, fans are all-in on the series.

But we've seen the inverse from Capcom too. Monster Hunter World and Rise's love is also what propelled Monster Hunter Wilds to sell eight million copies in three days last year, becoming the company's fastest-selling game ever, but it didn't keep its momentum due to its performance issues, with sales stalling as a result.

You can check out our Resident Evil Requiem review if you're yet to play the horror game yourself, or our guide to Resident Evil Requiem's safe codes to help you through it.

Resident Evil Requiem is off to a hot start, and whether you want to attribute its success to Grace's old-school horror or Leon's UILF action hero persona, early sales figures have been extremely impressive. It launched as the fastest-selling game in series history, and that momentum seems to be continuing. A new US sales report suggests that, just two months after launch, Requiem is already one of the top five best-selling Resident Evil games ever released.

"After just two months in market, Resident Evil: Requiem now ranks among the top 5 best-selling Resident Evil games in all-time US dollar sales," according to Mat Piscatella of analysis firm Circana, posting on Bluesky. "It trails only Resident Evil 5, Resident Evil 4 (2023), Resident Evil: Village and the original Resident Evil 4."

Circana only analyzes the US market, so all the data we're looking at here applies exclusively to that country. But even discounting the global numbers, these results are still extremely impressive. While technically, yes, that is two months of sales data, remember: Resident Evil Requiem launched on February 27. Circana's last report covered February 1 through February 28, so it became the best-selling game of the year in just a day.

This month's Circana report covers March 1 through April 4, so all told, Resident Evil Requiem actually reached the series' top five in just 36 days. There's some irony in the fact that the grand return to Raccoon City has, in fact, outsold any of the previous games set in that location.

While Resident Evil Requiem remains the best-selling game of 2026, it actually placed second for the month of March behind MLB: The Show 26, Sony's venerable baseball series. The rest of the top five was made up of new releases WWE 2K26, Marathon, and Pokemon Pokopia, but there's another important caveat here. Circana does not track digital sales from Nintendo, so Pokopia's ranking comes purely from sales of the physical game-key cartridge – it's possible that game has done better than the rankings show.

Still, it seems that Resident Evil Requiem is the title with all the momentum here in 2026. Personally, I loved half of it and merely liked the rest – I'll let you guess which half is which – but I'm delighted to see Capcom continuing to release banger after banger. The fact that these excellent games are all single-player titles with definite endings just makes Capcom's resurgence all the sweeter.

Requiem ranks pretty high on our list of the best Resident Evil games.

Resident Evil Requiem players are completing the game at a far higher rate than other AAA releases, with 70% of people who played the game on PC finishing it.

As spotted by UnGeek, Steam Achievement and PlayStation Trophy data for Resident Evil Requiem reveals that 70% of players on Steam have the Rookie Agent achievement, which you get for completing the game on at least Casual difficulty, while over on PlayStation, the number is slightly lower at a 66.9% ratio.

Incredibly, as users on Twitter point out, that same number for Xbox users is all the way up at 90%, although some speculate this could be due to the console having a lower player count than the others. Gaming market data firm Alinea Analytics suggested in the first five million copies sold, only 300k were on Xbox as opposed to the estimated 2.3 million on Steam and 1.6 million on PlayStation, which would back that idea up.

But regardless, its an impressive stat. What is probably the contender for the shortest Resident Evil game – Resident Evil 3 Remake – only has a 50.4% completion rate over on Steam based on achievements. Requiem's predecessor, Village, sits at 48%, while the beloved Resident Evil 4 Remake has a 53% completion rate. Meanwhile, the Resident Evil 2 number is 51% for Leon's story and 36.4% for Claire's, but only 28% have beaten the game's true ending.

As a long-time fan of the series, the cultural phenomenon around Resident Evil Requiem is definitely the biggest the series has felt in a while. It's likely the result of nine straight years of Capcom putting out fantastic entries in the series, starting with Resident Evil 7 Biohazard in 2017 (yes, Resident Evil 3 remake is a banger too, don't @ me). But even so, you'd be hard-pressed to find many AAA releases in recent memory that have a completion rate that high. Even Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 – the most awarded game in history – only has a 39.4% completion rate on Steam.

Be sure to take a look at our Resident Evil Requiem review if you're yet to play the game, or read our Resident Evil Requiem safe codes guide if you're just getting started.

Uncharted 2's truck chase was apparently added because Neil Druckmann really liked a similar scene from Resident Evil 5.

During Uncharted 2's campaign – in one of the seemingly endless ways Nathan Drake gets put into immense amounts of danger throughout its campaign – you get chased down by a truck down an alleyway that you'll need to shoot enough times to blow it up. Now, according to former Naughty Dog designer Benson Russell (who worked on the Uncharted trilogy and The Last of Us), this sequence only made it into the game months ahead of time because Druckmann saw something similar in another game.

Speaking to Reece 'Kiwi Talkz' Reilly, Russell explains, "that was taken directly from Resident Evil 5." He adds, "Neil was playing Resident Evil at the time and played that sequence and [was] like 'oh this is so fuckin' awesome' and he wanted to put something similar [in the game]".

The scene in question is a relatively minor moment in Resident Evil 5 where Chris and Sheva cross a bridge as a truck heads straight for them, and using carefully placed explosive barrels can flip it over and allow you to move on.

Russell continued, "There's definitely influence, they see things in other products and games that they're like 'this is amazing,' but it's always like 'can we do that?' or 'can we take that and modify it' and make it work within our product," adding that studios can't just lift it wholesale.

Obviously, games being inspired by other games is nothing new, but the story in particular puts into perspective just how much the industry has changed. Resident Evil 5 was released in March of 2009, with Uncharted 2 coming out seven months later in October, and yet that was still enough time for Naughty Dog to be inspired and implement an entire segment based on it into the game. Meanwhile, now we're lucky if we see one Naughty Dog game per console generation.

"We were on fire with something to prove" - 15 years later, Naughty Dog veterans call Uncharted 2 the game that "completely changed our lives"

Resident Evil Requiem dataminers have seemingly found an alternate form of Victor Gideon that went unused in the final release.

Spoiler warning for the finale of Resident Evil Requiem to follow, so read no further unless you've beaten the game (or don't care, either or).

So, at the end of Resident Evil Requiem, you'll never guess what happens. A Resident Evil villain decides it's time to take advantage of the virus or parasite of the week and turn into a giant monster thing. It's a constant of the series and always fun to see what a relatively humanoid figure will morph into by the end of the game, and Requiem's already-pretty-creepy-looking Victor Gideon is no different. Except it was a bit strange to get the revelation that Gideon was a Nemesis bioweapon, taking on a form similar to our beloved Nemmy's final form.

But that choice is maybe a bit more understandable now when you find out that it seemingly wasn't the first choice for Gideon's inevitable big monster form. Dataminer team Umeda Japan posted on Twitter (via TheGamer), that within the files of Resident Evil Requiem they uncovered an alternate form of Victor Gideon in-game.

In this version, Gideon's final form takes on a chimera-like appearance, with multiple versions of his face, body parts, and snakes (which explains the snakeskin coat he's wearing) protruding from the massive lump of flesh. There's also another model of the character of Gideon missing an arm with a Sephiroth-like one wing sticking out, presumably making this transformation a bit gradual.

I obviously don't know why Capcom decided against the new form, or how far into development it got, but Gideon being a Nemesis was undoubtedly one of my least favorite parts of Resident Evil Requiem. It was my personal "okay, this one too many" for Requiem's nostalgia-filled moments, so it's interesting to see it was seemingly not the original plan, although it's a shame a far cooler form is now resigned to being hidden in files forever.

The clip of Resident Evil 2's Ada Wong actor teasing the character's return is a dud, as it actually surfaced from a fan's Cameo request

If you're the type to flip on arachnophobia mode in games like Grounded 2 and Monster Hunter Wilds, turn away now and run. Run far, far away, because we're talking about a new survival horror game all about giant, killer spiders.

Lurking, from indie developer Ctrl Freak, exists in defiance of arachnophobia modes. Spiders were obviously explicitly designed by god to be as scary as possible. The eight legs. The multitude of eyes. The venom. Spiders are not serious creatures. Their sole purpose on this planet is to evoke horror, making them pretty ideal antagonists for a horror game.

Likewise, the premise here is simply horrifying: You play as one of those weirdos that keeps spiders as pets, when one day the inevitable happens. The spiders' carefully constructed plan to escape finally succeeds and sure enough, your whole apartment and the surrounding building are crawling with ginormous killer spiders. I'm not sure how they became giant, but it doesn't matter now, the only thing you need to worry about now is survival.

"Stay low. Stay quiet. Stick to the shadows," advises Ctrl Freak in Lurking's Steam description. "You're trapped, but if you can keep it together, you might still find a way out."

"If it bleeds, you can kill it. But does it bleed?"

Assuming Google hasn't failed me, I'm pretty sure spiders do bleed, so yeah, kill those suckers. The above trailer shows the player character putting a homebrewed flamethrower to excellent use on one six-legged freak, so you're definitely not completely defenseless. That said, Ctrl Freak says enemy AI will exhibit "dynamic spider behavior that reacts to your actions" as well as "highly realistic spider movement," which sounds like a genuine nightmare. There are also "multiple endings based on your choices," which definitely implies there's a few ways this all can go sideways.

The best part, for me, is that Lurking only has "approximately 2 hours of gameplay." I don't have a spider phobia, but I do have a fear of long games as someone in his mid-30s who's becoming increasingly aware of The Big Clock. Seriously, if you're in games PR and you want a pitch to grab my attention, go ahead and put "short game" in the subject line and you're pretty much guaranteed to be successful.

Anyway, Lurking is very obviously and explicitly inspired by Resident Evil, and it features low poly visuals reminiscent of the series' origins, which is always a bonus in these kinds of games. It's out on Steam at some point in 2026.

In the meantime, here are the best horror games to play in 2026.

A surfaced clip of Resident Evil Ada Wong actor Jolene Andersen that led some to believe the character was returning for a new project turned out to be a Cameo.

Over the weekend, a clip of Anderson – who played Ada Wong in Resident Evil 2 Remake – surfaced in which she gives well wishes for the new year before adding, "Speaking of missions, I’m getting ready to go on a very top secret mission myself. I’d love to tell you all about it, but uh… that information is classified. Now, I don’t want to be a rookie about it, because I wouldn’t want to end up like Ben, now, would I?"

Obviously, Ada Wong is known for being all-in on espionage throughout the Resident Evil series, so the "top secret mission" line had fans of the series interested, and with Ben being a reference to Ben Bertolucci – the journalist aiming to expose corruption within RPD found in Leon's campaign in both the original and 2019 remake who promptly gets got by one of the giant monsters depending on which game you play – it seemed like a direct nod at something, especially when the current rumor is that Ada will return for Resident Evil Requiem's upcoming DLC.

This story gained traction, with some taking it as confirmation that Anderson was returning to the role after Ada was recast in Resident Evil 4 remake. However, it's since surfaced that this clip actually emerged from a Cameo Anderson recorded, with the YouTube channel that uploaded the clip posting the full transcript in the comments.

Of course, there's still a good chance that Ada Wong will return for Resident Evil Requiem's DLC, especially since Ada is a constant in the games where Leon Kennedy features as a protagonist. However, the character was previously recast with actress Lily Gao – who also portrayed the character in the Welcome to Raccoon City film – so if Ada does come back, it's very likely that Anderson won't be included.

Resident Evil Requiem suspiciously references Dreamcast classic Code: Veronica as remake rumors continue

You might be surprised to learn, if you didn't know already, that happy-go-lucky Metroidvania Yoku's Island Express featured a pair of devs who contributed prominently to Helldivers 2. The pair, Linus Larsson and Mattias Syngg, are now working on something horror-flavored, but they clearly recall just how much they needed some democratic violence after shipping the former.

"So before we worked on Helldivers, Matthias and I did Yoku's Island Express, which is a very cute Metroidvania game," Larsson tells GamesRadar+. "And coming out of that, I remember vividly a conversation going, 'I can't make another game that's this happy. I need to get to blow someone's head off with a shotgun in the next game that I make.'"

Well, considering all the blood and dismembered limbs and explosions Helldivers 2 has, he got his wish. Larsson was world director on Arrowhead's sequel for a time, while Mattias had a spell as the art director on it.

Needless to say, constructing planets full of bloodthirsty bugs and mechanized killmachines provides quite the creative contrast to the pinball-pogoing of Yoku's Island Express. Much as I enjoy that game, I can imagine spending months upon months within that aesthetic would leave you wanting a different kind of challenge.

Now, they're combining the two wavelengths, in a manner of speaking, for Silver Pines, a Metroidvania-type spin on Resident Evil and Silent Hill. It involves making your way through an unnamed small town in America, taking on all manner of terrors while you solve a bizarre mystery.

There are guns, and from the look of the trailers, there'll be a few exploded heads. Larsson's clearly found his lane. Silver Pines comes from Wych Elm, and it's due out at some point this year.

"The more things that can break when you pull the trigger, the better": Helldivers 2 veterans stole Arrowhead's "fantasy approach" to action while making stunning new horror Metroidvania

This is no April Fool's joke. Capcom's just casually dropped the original Resident Evil trilogy onto Steam without warning, alongside the publisher's cult classic JRPG Breath of Fire 4.

With no prior announcement, Capcom re-released all three PS1 games in its first survival-horror trilogy earlier today: 1996's Resident Evil, 1998's Resident Evil 2, and 1999's Resident Evil 3. All un-remade and un-remastered.

The only improvements that are present come from the games' previous GOG ports, which include "improved timing of the cutscenes," "improved game video player," and new rendering options, as well as the four localization options that the games first launched with. All that is to say, expect a very different kind of horror if you first jumped into the series with its boulder-punching memes or hot witches/uncles.

Breath of Fire 4's Steam version is also a similar deal. The oft-forgotten fantasy romp previously came out of retirement on GOG, and this new re-release includes many of the same features, including but not limited to improved keyboard and mouse support, restored audio, and more graphics options.

Best of all, all four classics are available with a -50% introductory discount slashing their price tags down to $4.99/£3.99 for the next two weeks – that's less than a cup of coffee in most places nowadays and an absolute steal for games this good.

All four games have also already amassed 'Very Positive' reviews on Steam – no shock there – but reactions aren't universally glowing. Capcom's quietly and retroactively added DRM, Enigma, that wasn't bolted on to the games' GOG releases.

DRM is almost always a sticking point for gamers concerned about their privacy and possible performance issues, and the same applies to these older Resident Evils and Breath of Fire 4.

"DO NOT BUY RE1 FROM STEAM, BUY IT FROM GOG," as one fan puts it. "Windowed mode is broken, no steam overlay, no achievements, minor graphical issues, and more. These issues persist over ALL 3 original games." Some other user reviews claim these versions are broken on Steam Deck and refuse to launch entirely on certain PCs.

Resident Evil director's new AAA studio is "joining forces" with Stellar Blade developer Shift Up "to create a masterpiece of a game" – and no, this isn't an April Fool's joke

It's official! Resident Evil's will-they, won't-they sparring partners Leon Kennedy and Ada Wong are in love, and they have a baby. It's a 27-year-old man who should be sued for medical malpractice.

His name is Dr. Zayne Li, though he usually just goes by Zayne, and he was one of the main romantic interests in dating RPG Love and Deepspace before he got adopted by fans into the Resident Evil universe this week. So the man has been reborn as Zayne Wong-Kennedy, and though I'll miss being disappointed by his notifications each time I get an in-game text from him instead of my second boyfriend Rafayel, I am glad he's now avoided court fees and has hot parents.

"The Resident Evil fandom has adopted Zayne," announces one post with nearly 4,000 upvotes on the Love and Deepspace subreddit, like Paul Revere riding through Massachusetts Bay. "If I didn't know any of these characters, and you told me Zayne Kennedy was their kid, I'd believe you though. lol. same brooding face!"

"And it actually make sense since the game LaDs is supposed to take place in 2048 and lets just assume Leon and Ada had a kid in 2021 since that's the year that Zayne was born in and boom," reasons a popular post on Twitter.

It is undeniable that Dr. Zayne Wong-Kennedy has his new mother Ada's dark hair and stone eyes, while clearly exhibiting his father's unstudied charm and giant pecs. In terms of personality, I guess his history as the Love and Deepspace main character's primary care physician with snow magic powers puts him somewhere between the two. Though I'm not sure if good cop Leon would appreciate his son doing so many HIPAA violations by making out with his patients across space and time rifts.

"HE'S THEIR FIRST BORN," another popular Twitter post reminds me. That may be true, but I know that both Leon and Ada have an awkward history with genetically enhanced medical professionals who have a false god's hubris. Zayne's little snowmen and other magic tricks are cute while he's at the newborn age of, like, 27-to-45, but what about when he grows up? What if he swaps the Love and Deepspace main character's flu shot with 100% T-virus? Will his sharp jaw and abyssal eyes be sweet then?

Actually, nevermind, I just saw a picture of Zayne shirtless.

After gracing Final Fantasy 16 and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 with his silky voice, actor Ben Starr is ready to tackle dating RPG Love and Deepspace: "I love feral people."

Nearly a month after announcing that it would be expanding its "self-publishing capabilities" and is "preparing for a new leap forward in the global market," Stellar Blade studio Shift Up has revealed it's "joining forces" with Unbound – and no, it's not an April Fool's prank.

For anyone out of the loop, Unbound was founded by Resident Evil director Shinji Mikami in 2022, with a new action RPG reportedly in the works from the young studio. Now, Mikami is teaming up with Stellar Blade developer Shift Up, with an exciting partnership announcement on YouTube outlining the situation.

"Shift Up and Unbound are joining forces," as he reveals, going on to praise the former dev for its titles – and founder Kim Hyung-tae.

"The best part is Kim-san at Shift up," says Mikami. "He's a creator too, working on-site and putting his all into making games. After speaking with him, we decided to aim for the same goals together. In other words, at Unbound, we're going to create a masterpiece of a game."

Kim echoes the Resident Evil veteran's words, stating that Shift Up is "happy to announce our partnership" with Unbound – and the future looks bright for both.

"I'm eager to fully support creating a title that showcases the studio's unique charm, and I'm really looking forward to seeing it come to life," as Kim describes.

"I've come to see my vision and ideals more clearly, and I don't think I've ever been in a situation where, as a creator, our wavelengths and direction align this closely. So, for as long as my career continues, I would really like to keep working together."

That's… a pretty big statement, all things considered. And, as Kim goes on to say, "For the first time in a while, I'll be fully involved on-site to work on a fairly large game, and I'm really looking forward to it. To all the gamers waiting for this, I hope you can wait just a little longer for its release."

What could this mysterious game be? Perhaps the action RPG that Unbound was previously said to be working on?

Only time will tell, I suppose. This is by no means a small announcement, though, and fans know it, too. Comments show folks writing how they're "really looking forward to" what the two studios will create together – and honestly, so am I.

Stellar Blade lead believes AI is essential for South Korea to compete with studios in the US and China, with the government to provide financial backing to support the use of the tech