In part one of our spotlight series into The Blood of Dawnwalker, Rebel Wolves details its ambition to create a video game that draws us "a few steps closer to pen-and-paper RPGs." That's a great place to start, or you can keep reading to discover the studio's approach to building new folklore.

The Blood of Dawnwalker isn't all that interested in tradition. The extent to which developer Rebel Wolves is willing to play with convention extends well beyond its unique approach to RPG design, where every action taken in service of saving your family quite literally costs time – it's the scarcest resource in Vale Sangora, a kingdom ravaged by famine, plague, war, and an undead insurgency. It's also reflected in the characters, story, and the studio's approach to vampire legends too.

Take Brencis, hailing from ancient Rome, and his three powerful vampire allies who have seized control of the open world – sealing it from outside forces as control is exerted over a desperate population. The vampires walking this cursed earth have a maw of needle-like fangs protruding from their mouths rather than two sharp ones; the older these creatures become, the more fangs they are able to grow. A helpful trait, given that humans aren't turned through bites but rather a needle being ripped from the jaw and plunged into the heart of a victim.

"We want to tell a story with vampires, not a story about vampires only," says game director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz. "Our vampires are different. They are more wild and they have these small cliques, and sometimes those cliques fight with one another. Our vampires come from many regions of the world; we tell different stories throughout the game to show you their origins and why they are doing what they are doing. There are interesting stories to be told in the bond between them and how their relationships have changed over time."

He adds: "We have some traditional vampire themes, but aspects like silver, sunlight, and garlic work in different ways." Silver is a great example, as the element helps protagonist Coen to transform into the titular Dawnwalker – a human by day, vampire by night.

Coen suffers from argyria, a silver poisoning that he received from working in mines. This condition weakens his human form, but ultimately protects him from fully transforming into a vampire – giving him the presence of mind to set out on a journey to topple four vampire leaders. "It's another twist on the vampire fantasy."

Coen existing between two worlds will provide an interesting wrinkle to The Blood of Dawnwalker. His two forms not only impact the story – where you'll have the freedom to embark on a quest to save your family, swear revenge on your sire and burn his burgeoning empire to the ground, or something in between across the narrative sandbox – but the way this RPG plays too.

"We needed to create two distinct gameplay loops," says Tomaszkiewicz. "While playing as a human, we wanted to give you the feeling that you're weaker, but you'll have different toys to play with to compensate," he says, teasing out the blades and ritualistic magics that Coen is able to wield by day. "When you're a vampire, you are not only stronger but able to wield vampyric capabilities to reach your goals. With every story, every quest line that we design, we have had to think about these two ways to play."

Almost every quest in The Blood of Dawnwalker can be approached from day or night, or a combination of the two, greatly changing the composition of the experience. A small example of this could be Coen wielding a Hex spell during the day called Compel Soul, which allows the Dawnwalker to communicate directly with the dead to find new paths ahead. At night, Coen could instead choose to wield a vampyric ability like Shadow Step, allowing him to scale buildings and look for alternative routes through quests while weaving around weekly blood mass rituals forced upon the populace.

The problem with the former is that the dead speak in riddles, potentially leading a human Coen into battle with powerful undead threats in ancient catacombs that litter the 14th-century sandbox. And with the latter, any nighttime activity sees you contend with Blood Hunger, an affliction where, should Coen's lust for blood go unsatisfied, he may devour a friendly or key NPC to feed. The Blood of Dawnwalker is packed with these sorts of micro-decisions that play with traditional vampire fantasies, but then nobody said that being caught between two worlds would be easy...

Learn more about The Blood of Dawnwalker as part of our Big in 2026 Spotlight series. Every day this week we are diving deeper into Rebel Wolves' narrative sandbox. We're exploring the the studio's open-ended approach to quest design, how combat leverages Coen's human and vampire natures, and going into more depth on the time resource system which draws all of these ideas together.

Scramble Knights Royale was announced some time ago – you might've seen it in a recent Day of the Devs showcase – and is scheduled for launch later this year, but we'll all have a chance to try it out much sooner than that.

A playtest for Scramble Knights Royale is scheduled to run this weekend – January 9 through January 11 – with sign-ups available right now on the game's Steam page. You can check the official FAQ for details on what to expect from the playtest, but the key caveat is that it'll only be available in North America.

The first thing you'll note about Scramble Knights Royale is just how darn cute it looks. Its art style is reminiscent of the Link's Awakening remake and Echoes of Wisdom, but it goes even harder on the claymation vibes, with unsteady character models that look like they're constantly being pushed and prodded by human fingers.

Matches see 32 players land on an island (via turtleback, naturally) and spread out to discover their own, individual adventures. There are treasures to find and dungeons full of monsters to overcome, all of which will help you power up your character for your eventual battles against other players, with, of course, the goal to be the last knight standing.

It looks like a delightful variation on the battle royale formula, and I'm eager to see what the response to the first playtest will look like. It's a rough time to launch a multiplayer game that relies on a robust player count, but here's hoping Scramble Knights Royale can stand out in the battle royale sea.

Here are the best battle royale games you can play right now.

One look at a screenshot for Terra Invicta will probably tell you if it's a game for you: you'll see a lot of political maps, asteroid charts, and spaceship diagrams overlaid with what you might ungenerously describe as Excel spreadsheets. You've got to fend off an alien invasion while dealing with myriad rival factions across the globe and make plans to colonize the rest of the solar system.

Terra Invicta went 1.0 on January 5, and the game's recent Steam reviews sit at a respectable 87% "Very Positive" score. I feel like this review from user Jerolk sums up the response as well as any: "Look, if you ever wanted a grand strategy game like [Europa Universalis 4] and a more aggressive version of Kerbal [Space Program] to have a baby, all wrapped around a massively long campaign where you may not realize you made a mistake until 30 hours later... this is the game for you. For the certain type of gamer, this is it. You know who you are; Go buy it."

That review, by the way, shows well over 900 hours of playtime on record. Both the positive and negative reviews will warn that if you don't have several dozen hours to burn learning Terra Invicta's intricacies, this probably isn't a game for you. On the flip side, if you've got several hundred hours you want to burn in a massive grand strategy game, this might be just the golden ticket.

Terra Invicta was made by Pavonis Interactive, a studio founded by key members of the dev team behind the Long War mod for XCOM. They began development on Terra Invicta in 2017, ran a $200,000 Kickstarter for it in 2020, and finally launched it into early access in 2022. Clearly, seven years of development has resulted in no absence of depth.

These are the best strategy games you can play today.

With My Winter Car, "very small development team" Amistech Games has more loudly embraced the survival game label, warning players that its latest Seasonal Car Ownership installment is a fierce survival adventure "not recommended for any player not familiar with the original installment." It has also embraced gen AI more than ever.

My Summer Car has the following AI content disclosure on Steam: "There are some AI generated paintings found inside the main house." That's it.

My Winter Car evidently uses gen AI to a greater degree. Its AI disclosure reads: "Some base textures have been AI generated during the development. Some of the imagery and speech audio in the in-game TV programs are AI generated. Some in-game radio music is AI generated."

It's unclear if these textures were only used "during the development" or if they made it into the shipped build of the game, perhaps with a retouching, but it's plain to see that My Winter Car uses gen AI more than its predecessor, and across multiple disciplines.

We've already seen from the likes of Arc Raiders, which uses weak AI-generated voices for characters and callouts, that games can find success and be fun to play despite gen-AI content. In the case of My Winter Car, beyond its AI-generated content likewise appearing supplemental to the experience – the game isn't about audio and music, it's about "severe car fever" and fighting the cold with the heat of burning rubber – it also seems to be getting by on the devotion of a niche audience of sickos who won't be put off by AI in principle if it means they can wreak havoc in a deathtrap in a Finnish winter countryside.

I put a spotlight on this not to suggest it's irrefutable evidence that people don't care about AI content – many do, and player backlash regularly comes thick and fast at the first whiff of slop – but because My Winter Car is simultaneously a fascinating indie success story going into 2026, another case of a well-received game openly making use of AI-generated assets, and an interesting example how AI is being used in games.

The Last of Us star Troy Baker says "we don't need to demonize" gen AI because it's just going to drive people to "authentic" experiences "as opposed to the gruel that gets distilled to me through a black mirror."

"Steam Charts don't measure fun," the statement begins. "They show one number, on one platform, at one given moment." 1047 Games is unequivocally correct; the visibility of Steam figures, compared to the black boxes of consoles, often breeds skewed discussions and an unhealthy and unhelpful obsession with imagined losers and winners arbitrarily measured in concurrent players. That being said, a statement like this is kind of doomed to be, shall we say, not overburdened with winning energy.

"They don't show the full picture or what it feels like to actually play, and they definitely don't capture the community that's actively helping shape what Arena Reloaded is becoming (including upcoming content like Arena Royale)," the studio continues.

"Over the past six months, we rebuilt Splitgate from the ground up because we believe in the game, our team, and our community. The 1047 team remains committed to delivering the best version of Splitgate possible." It's worth noting that in June 2025, the 1047 team became a bit smaller following a "small" batch of layoffs, which also saw the founders forego salaries "as we lock in".

"To our amazing community: thank you. Your feedback and passion have helped make Arena Reloaded better every day," 1047 concludes. "And to everyone who hasn't played yet: Arena Reloaded is free, the gameplay's the best it's ever been, and we'd love for you to jump in and form your own opinion. A lot of passionate people worked very hard on it."

You will never catch me celebrating hard times for passionate people who worked very hard on a game, but you also won't catch me acting surprised by this state of affairs, because boy was 2025 a messy year for Splitgate. It arguably began with CEO Ian Proulx's Summer Game Fest appearance, remembered not for Splitgate 2 news but for inflammatory comments on the FPS space and a choice of hat described charitably as tone-deaf. But this was setup at most; it was Splitgate 2 itself, criticized by fans as a downgrade, that really spiked it. (Our Splitgate 2 review was neither scathing nor glowing.)

1047 Games agreed with players and took Splitgate 2 back into beta to improve it, admitting it "launched too early" and hoping to do better the second time. That didn't pan out, just as the re-release gamble didn't pan out for the likes of Multiversus and Crucible. Then, in one additional act of confusion, the Splitgates were combined into Splitgate: Arena Reloaded, which, well, has now prompted a statement about Steam Charts discussions. Splitgate was highly praised, genuinely massive on Steam and beyond at one point, and now the whole thing is just kind of muddy.

"Not bad for a dead game": Palworld dev fires back at the haters as Pocketpair celebrates its Steam Best of 2025 rankings, says "we're still humbled by our community's endless support."

While Anthem is technically fully playable in single-player, it requires a constant internet connection – which means that once servers shut down on January 12, you'll no longer be able to hop in. With that date now less than a week away, fans are getting in the final bits of playtime where they can, and the Anthem subreddit is starting to fill with players saying their final goodbyes.

"One last flight around Bastion" is the title of a popular post from user RobRagiel, who adds that "I enjoyed it till the end and I have a lot of good memories. It was an honor, Freelancers." The post includes a clip of a brief flight path, demonstrating what's certainly the game's brightest point.

There's currently no official way to buy Anthem on any platform if you're looking to join the players saying goodbye, but used copies of the console versions are abundant and PC keys remain available on grey market resale sites. "I should've bought coffee but eh why not," says EngineerFrosty6633 in a post showing off their new purchase of Anthem, which ran about five bucks – a minor slap of reality among those who remember pre-ordering the game back in 2019.

Another post asks if others are "still pissed off" about Anthem's shutdown. "This is the game that deserves the [No Man's Sky] treatment," Ok_Type3663 laments in a comment. Still another post suggests that fans "petition EA" to develop an offline patch for Anthem so that some part of it can live on, though it seems few have much hope such an effort would have much effect.

The PS4 version of Anthem launched to a Metacritic score of 54, by far the lowest of any BioWare release over the studio's storied history. (BioWare's second- and third-worst rated releases are the PC and Xbox One versions of Anthem, respectively.) Even the game's most ardent defenders wouldn't try to argue that it's flawless, though they've found things to latch onto, praising the combat and particularly the robust flight.

I played Anthem around launch, and I found it a pretty miserable experience from top to bottom even then. The combat, in my memory, was little more than a chaotic jumble of blasts from and against indistinct enemies. The much-ballyhooed flight system ended up just leaving you so distant from opponents that it was tough to even tell what was going on. And, of course, the issues with the game's pacing, structure, and storytelling are very well documented.

That doesn't mean I'm happy to see it die so completely, of course. Anthem remains an important artifact of the modern gaming industry – one of the most high-profile examples of what happens when a beloved studio tries to force itself into a live-service box. It marks a turning point for BioWare's reputation, and the repeated stories we've begun to hear about the development hell Anthem went through are going to have a lot less context when the memories of what the game was actually like begin to fade.

It's also a prime example of the kind of thing consumer rights efforts like Stop Killing Games are engaged in trying to prevent. Anthem sold some 5 million copies, and every player who bought the game – whether they ended up enjoying it or not – is about to have their access to it revoked.

Certainly, I'd never expect a publisher like EA to support a multiplayer game in perpetuity, but equally, there's something sad about seeing a game like Anthem – one which took so many years and so much work from developers to bring to life – disappear like some monument of sand, destroyed when the changing tide inevitably wipes out its foundations.

Someday all of the best online games will be dust in the wind.

Asked by The Game Business about the potential impact of AI and gen AI on video games and the performers behind them, Baker argues AI "can create content, but it cannot create art. And the reason why is because that invariably requires the human experience." And for that reason, he doesn't see much point in panicking about AI replacing art.

"People go, 'Look what AI can do.' It's like, 'Yeah, okay. I see what it's capable of doing. It doesn't matter,'" he says. "And we don't need to diminish it, we don't need to denigrate it, we don't need to demonize it. We need to just go, 'Okay, it's there.' But it still doesn't remove the choice for me as a performer, as a producer, to go, 'But I choose to do this.'"

The fear, Baker adds, is likely more rooted in the saturation of content. "There is no doubt that AI can make content way better than humans, by far. It can crank it out no problem," he adds.

With the rise and growth of AI, Baker expects that content saturation to "drive people to the authentic" – to "artful stories," made with intent and care. "'I want to have this first-hand experience as opposed to the gruel that gets distilled to me through a black mirror.' And I think that it's a good thing. It's a revolution, absolutely," he concludes.

Baker is one of the most prolific and acclaimed actors in games, and his outlook on gen AI is an optimistic one amid a sea of extremes – total rejection on one side, frothing endorsement on the other.

Broadly, artists and creators getting their hands dirty seem more – or certainly outspokenly more – cautious or negative toward the technology, while executives with their hands mostly in spreadsheets and fiscal reports are frequently fiercer advocates. There are middle grounds and exceptions, of course, but the topic of AI is only getting hotter as the tech has meaningful impacts on current and future games as well as the people who make them. One constant is backlash from players, many of whom treat the reveal of gen AI in their favorite games as one might treat the reveal of a live wasp in their sandwich.

Pertinently, The Last of Us co-director Bruce Straley, now head of a new studio making Coven of the Chicken Foot, said in December that he won't be using gen AI even if its output becomes convincing and "compelling" precisely because "I don't think prompting is art."

"I don't know who's asking for it, I don't know who's pushing for it, but I don't think it's the way as a human species we need to be evolving," Straley said.

For the creators of Baby Steps, one of 2025's best and weirdest games, there's no room or reason to surrender creativity to AI: "The player is in communion with a human designer."

In a comment on the official Arc Raiders Discord, in response to the umpteenth player requesting the devs "please nerf the trigger nades," community manager CM | Lily said "the team's looking into some changes to Trigger Nades."

"The team's looking into some nerfs including Trigger Nades, keep an eye on ⁠game-announcements for updates!" a separate reponse reads.

Lily didn't specify how Trigger Nades will be changed; the big question we can instead wonder is what shape the inevitable nerf will take across PvE and PvP.

Trigger Nades are much less of a problem in PvE – against Arc, they provide a sticky alternative to Heavy Fuze Grenades which can make a big difference in certain situations, but that's about it. I don't see the Arc posting complaints on Reddit, and if they were going to, they'd surely rant about Wolfpack grenades instead. "I'm telling you, there's no dodging these things!"

PvP is another story. Compared to other explosives, Trigger Nades win in virtually every major category. Because you can detonate them almost immediately after they land near a target, they have a shorter effective fuse than the likes of Heavy Fuze or Snapback grenades, which take longer to explode. You can manipulate this somewhat by throwing those others in a steep arc outdoors, but Trigger Nades make it so much easier.

Bafflingly, Trigger Nades also deal slightly more damage than Heavy Fuzes and seem to have a comparable damage radius. On top of that, because they don't have the obvious red glow that most grenades use to alert you to incoming explosives, they're harder to see and respond to. A red glow would, of course, ruin the utility of placing Trigger Nades ahead of time and then detonating them when someone walks by, but these things are more often used like explode-on-contact projectiles.

As if that weren't enough, Trigger Nades are extremely cheap to craft. Where most grenades use explosive compounds that you might want to save for PvE monsters like Wolfpack grenades or Deadline mines, Trigger Nades only require readily available crude explosives and largely uncontested processors.

If anything, it's a little surprising that something this plentiful, powerful, and frankly meta-warping has gone unchecked for this long. I've been on both sides of Trigger Nades many times, and it never feels fair. My hope is that the impending nerf can level out PvP without weakening these things so much that they're effectively removed from PvE.

Arc Raiders players make a plea to Embark: don't let PvP in trios poison your solo "aggression-based" matchmaking reputation, but frankly I don't buy it.

Circana's player engagement tracker surprises no one with the news that Fortnite was (according to the "% of active panel that played," Circana's Mat Piscatella says) the most played game of 2025 on both PlayStation and Xbox in the US. Call of Duty came in second on both platforms, though it should be noted that these figures have always been tracked as a series. It doesn't matter if you're playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, or Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, all playtime registers under the series banner.

2025's top 5 most played games on US PlayStation ranked by % of active panel that played:1 - Fortnite2 - Call of Duty3 - GTAV4 - Roblox5 - MinecraftSame list for 2024:1 - Fortnite2 - Call of Duty3 - GTAV4 - Roblox5 - MinecraftSource: Circana Player Engagement Tracker

— @matpiscatella.bsky.social (@matpiscatella.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-01-06T17:36:46.151Z

Grand Theft Auto 5 coming in third might be surprising to some, but its playtime isn't just down to people yearning for the series' next entry following the second delay. This figure includes people playing Grand Theft Auto Online, which continues to support a thriving community.

Roblox comes fourth on PlayStation's list and fifth on Xbox's. Don't worry, they don't diverge too much as conversely Minecraft appears fourth on Xbox's list and fifth on PlayStation's. The data suggests that when it comes to the amount of time people sink into digital worlds, they gravitate towards their online community of choice.

It's no surprise that these games are some of the most popular console games around, but it is surprising just how much our playtime has stagnated at the top. The five games featured on these lists are exactly the same as those of 2024, and in PlayStation's case, they are even in the identical order.

Xbox has switched things up somewhat with Call of Duty topping the 2024 list. However, all of the names remain the same throughout with Fortnite in second, Minecraft third, GTA 5 fourth and Roblox following up in the back. With such long-established games, it feels like a monumental task for anything else to break into the top.

Ex-Rockstar lead says all GTA competitors have "given up," but there's still "an opportunity" to challenge Rockstar: "Everybody's kind of terrified of going against GTA."

Marvel vs Capcom's future seems very unlikely since Sony announced Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls last year – which scratches the tag-team fighting game with Marvel heroes itch. Meanwhile Street Fighter 6 adding Terry Bogard and Mai Shiranui feels like a confirmation that we'll probably not see a full-blown Capcom vs SNK 3 anytime soon. So in what could be seen as an attempt to show Capcom what it could be doing, fans have created a crossover fighting game featuring Capcom and Squaresoft characters.

Capcom vs Square: Parallel Destinies is a 1v1 four-button fighting game that crosses the two companies' rosters over in the Ikemen Go game engine. The game implements mechanics from Marvel vs Capcom, Street Fighter 3, and Capcom vs SNK for a perfect dose of 90s nostalgia. This nostalgia extends to the roster, with the game's FAQ page explaining why it's Capcom vs Square and not Square Enix, being down to "mostly 90s nostalgia."

So far the playable roster features Ryu from Streets, Zero in his Mega Man Zero incarnation, and Tessa from Red Earth on the Capcom side – with Street Fighter's Hugo, Darkstalkers' B.B Hood, and Breath of Fire's Scias in the works. Meanwhile, Square is bringing Final Fantasy Tactics' Agrias Oaks, Ehrgeiz's Han, and – best of all – the tiny kiwi Tiki from The NewZealand Story, with Sundown Kid from Live A Live, Chrono, and Alena from Dragon Quest (who breaks the no Enix rule) coming too. Plus there are four secret characters teased for the roster too.

This is one section where a fan game is better, because I doubt Square or Capcom would make roster choices as cool as having Sundown Kid or Agrias in an actual game roster.

Actually, it's been a great week for fan-made Capcom fighting game crossovers, as Sega vs Capcom: The Next Level released a new teaser showing Vyse from Skies of Arcadia and Morrigan from Darkstalkers joining the likes of Sonic and Mega Man. As someone whose dream Capcom crossover fighter (aside from Capcom vs Capcom) is Sega, I once again hope this project shows Capcom and Sega what they're missing out on. Sega vs Capcom will have a full release this summer, while a full release date for the whole roster for Capcom vs Square is currently unannounced.

OG Final Fantasy Tactics director says he "underestimated" how popular The Ivalice Chronicles would be

In a thread on Bluesky, Igor Sarzyński, cinematic director on Cyberpunk 2077 and creative director for the follow-up, addresses whether extending Act 1 pre-heist would lead to a "better game." He believes not, unequivocally, and breaks down his logic across multiple points. "It's like saying we should spend more time on Tatooine with farmer Luke before he got involved with all this Jedi stuff," he starts.

A sound point to start with. Tattooine serves particular narrative purposes in Star Wars: A New Hope, and if you spend too long there, it would put the film off-kilter. That said, I think his second point holds more particular weight.

So would extending Act 1 (before the heist) in CP77 make the game better?1. No it wouldn't. It's like saying we should spend more time on Tatooine with farmer Luke before he got involved with all this Jedi stuff. (1/3)

— @srznsk.bsky.social (@srznsk.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-01-06T17:29:39.979Z

"It's an open world game, some manage to squeeze 20 hours out of Watson," Sarzyński continues. "Pick your own pace."

This, to me at least, is where a lot of the endearment towards Jackie comes from. He's your partner during some pivotal early-game sequences, creating a sense of camaraderie you can strain for every last second if you'd like.

The next point feeds into that, as Sarzyński notes your motivation "is pretty vague" by design, and too long in that headspace would lead to a "meandering, unfocused experience." He adds there's a divide in the audience around if we get enough time for Jackie to seem consequential. "For some it is, for some it isn't," he says. "All things considered I think we struck a good balance."

I would tend to agree, personally, but I understand why someone wouldn't either. Frankly, I enjoy seeing a developer justify the creative decisions so openly – it makes me that much more excited for Cyberpunk 2, whenever it comes out.

No, Cyberpunk 2077's elevators aren't just loading screens in disguise, says lead: "The engine is a miracle. I will not accept slander."

The demo for Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined launches on January 7 across PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, Switch, and Steam. "Adventures who have demo saved data on their console and continue their journey in the full game will also receive a reward," Square Enix explains, in the form of Maribel's Day Off Dress – a yellow outfit for the party member that you can see in the image below.

Square Enix announced the demo news alongside the release of the opening movie for Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined, offering an extensive glimpse at what the new art style looks like in a selection of lavish CG cutscenes.

Some regions, like Australia and New Zealand, have already crossed into January 7, and a handful of full demo playthroughs have already started to hit YouTube. Judging by those, you can expect to spend about three hours running through this demo. That's a fair bit short of the generous precedent set by the 10-hour demo for Dragon Quest 11 S, but should still give you a meaty look at the opening of the game, including how the devs have cut back the wait to get to the first battle.

If you're still waiting for the demo to drop in your region, check out our hands-on preview of Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined from November.

Here are the upcoming RPGs for 2026 and beyond you need to know about.

As All About AI spotted, Sony's newly surfaced April 2025-published patent (filed September 2024) describes an AI "trained using training footage of gameplay of the game to identify a scenario occurring in the context of the gameplay of the player." Welcome to patent speech, folks. When prompted by the player, through a bespoke interface, button press, gesture, verbal inputs via audio devices, or some combination of these or other methods, the AI would share (via "interactive conversation") or directly demonstrate how to beat sections of a game.

From the patent's verbiage and its attached drawings, this system sounds like watching an overlaid version of your character conjured and controlled by an AI. Picture the player phantoms attached to FromSoftware's iconic messages and bloodstains, but much smarter and more dynamic. A little guy appears to show you where to go, what to do, or even to "provide example controller input sequences."

Rather than Atreus giving you hints on solving puzzles in God of War: Ragnarok, for instance, a ghost Kratos – the ghost Ghost of Sparta – might physically wander around fiddling with all the puzzle pieces in the right order.

This AI is meant to help solve modern gaming frustrations and challenges, Sony suggests. "Although video game technology has seen many advances, some players find themselves in need of assistance," the patent reasons. If nothing else I could see such a system as an immense accessibility win.

"Games become very complicated, so players who are not experts oftentimes quit playing or find it hard to complete tasks," the patent continues. "Players are able to do research for the game or even lookup prior gameplays on internet sites, but that process is time consuming and many times not very relevant to tasks and/or scenarios currently being encountered by the player." (Hey, we're an internet site, and our guide team rocks!)

The patent proposes four interconnected modes for this AI. Story mode would "compile a ghost narrative of only essential story pieces" so you can follow the ghost through the main storyline – the critical path, basically. In combat mode, you'd see more examples of how to fight. Exploration mode would focus on "discovery moments and collecting of new and potentially rare items, weapons, new areas, and the like."

Finally, "full game mode," which I've seen some people misinterpret as the AI taking direct control of your character like an older sibling summoned to just beat this part, essentially combines the three other modes "to lead the user through the game as it is normally sequentially played."

If you do want the AI to literally play for you, look instead to a fifth, separate hypothetical: "Complete mode," which would have the AI "actually completing game tasks and advancing the player" instead of just showing you how it's done. You, the player, can simply follow the ghost around and receive credit for its actions.

The rub, as I understand it, is that you'd get to choose how much assistance you need, and then decide if you actually want to do it yourself. Which, interestingly, isn't far from a central generative AI debate in game development: what is worth doing yourself? To many developers, the answer is everything.

Importantly, "the ghost assistance can be switched on and off at the direction of the player." This addresses a common complaint with some current and proposed AI features: they can get obnoxious, and may be difficult or impossible to fully disable even if unwanted.

This is what gave me pause when Microsoft, which has shoehorned its often frustrating Copilot app into everything it can, commissioned and shared a study that found 79% of gamers are "open to help from AI" in some form. Its sample size of 1,500 didn't instill much confidence since we didn't know how those respondents were selected, nor did we know the specifics of the AI-related questions they were asked. Microsoft didn't specify how that AI would help, and since my experience with Microsoft's in-house AI has been pretty bad, I was fairly gun-shy; I'd at least be more open to something I can turn off like a difficulty setting.

Even if this patent did eventually manifest as an in-game feature for PlayStation games – and Sony patents a lasso for the moon every other month, so don't bet on it coming to fruition – it wouldn't be the first time that games have offered this kind of assistance.

Sony's already dabbled in spiritually similar pointers with PlayStation Game Help, Microsoft has Gaming Copilot, and let's not forget Nintendo Super Guide. Some of these function more as search engines or tip libraries while others deliver a more hands-on guide. You could fairly argue that plenty of NPC companions serve a similar role.

For this ghost AI, specifically, my mind can't escape the FromSoftware phantom motif: press a button, watch the ghost of somebody do the thing, and then do the thing yourself. For "Complete mode," I suppose the comparison would be Elden Ring Spirit Ashes that are so strong they can solo a boss while you cheer from the sidelines. Black Knife Tiche, my beloved.

Or as this immensely amusing example from the patent illustrates: "The player can say 'how do I jump the river' The assistance Al engine will then look to the Al model to determine how the river should be jumped, and the ghost character can speak back to the player to explain how to jump the river. In another embodiment, the ghost character can simply demonstrate how to jump the river."

At last, we can jump the river.

Witchfire CEO says Divinity devs are "definitely not evil" for exploring AI, but the backlash stems from people wanting "to have contact with other humans through art."

Stella Montis, a tiny box of PvP, has become a particular hotspot for such behavior. “Again and again I get killed behind walls or through walls, people are cheating like crazy and it makes me want to quit because you can't do anything against them,” says one Reddit post, with an accompanying clip of them getting blasted through the roof.

The top comment reflects a similar experience: "I convinced a friend of giving the game a try, then on our first Stella Montis we got killed through the roof." It appears to happen with some regularity at present. Out-of-bounds cheats, in particular, have been spreading online.

"Is Embark doing anything about the cheaters? I got killed by someone on the roof somehow shooting inside of Stella Montis," another frustrated Redditor asks. The belief is that those cheating are doing so with specific software you can find online. These kinds of modifications plague many games, including the likes of Battlefield and Call of Duty, and former esports pro Matthew 'Nadeshot' Haag believes there's a troubling standard forming for Arc Raiders.

"The egregious amount of cheating genuinely might be worse than peak Call of Duty," Haag says in a post on X/Twitter. He goes on to propose how Embark should handle cheating.

"I think the only option they have to protect the success of this game is similar to how Epic handled Fortnite in the past - legitimate legal action against providers and individuals who are actively supplying and using cheating software," he states.

While that is an idea, Epic is a much larger company with considerable resources to pile into such endeavors. Embark isn't small, but it's not quite at the same level. However, rising cheating does seem to be a problem the team will want to sort out sooner rather than later.

Arc Raiders players make a plea to Embark: don't let PvP in trios poison your solo "aggression-based" matchmaking reputation, but frankly I don't buy it

Fortnite has crossed over with everything at this point – good, bad, and weird, Epic Games has found a way to get its hands on it. But over the last few years, Epic has really gone after the animated sitcom market. Starting with Family Guy's Peter Griffin in 2024, this was swiftly followed by the likes of Futurama, King of the Hill, Bob's Burgers, and Beavis and Butthead before culminating in an entire season based around The Simpsons last November. But one of the pillars of that genre will be soon joining them.

After some rumor and speculation, today Fortnite posted a picture of Butters from South Park playing the game with the caption "Chaos, loading…" Also included in the post is a date, 1.9.26 (which is three days from now, not September for those of you in countries that do dates the right way).

Fortnite design director Ted Timmins expresses his excitement for the collab in a follow-up post on Twitter, saying: "AHHHHHHHHHHHH WORKING ON THIS ONE MADE ME SO HAPPY." Timmins continues, "Please excuse the lack of professionalism here but working at Epic allows you to have your childhood dreams come true."

What the crossover entails hasn't been confirmed, but given the focus on Butters and the use of "Chaos," it's safe to assume Butters' supervillain alter ego, Professor Chaos, could be part of it.

Fortnite leaker HYPEX claims the crossover will feature multiple skins as well as Mythic items that players can pick up during their battle royale matches, so it looks like it won't just be cosmetics.

I'd also wager some form of Sidekick based on the recent SpongeBob collab, perhaps a Kenny sidekick that has a ton of death animations? We won't need to wait too long to know.

Until then, why not relive the show's finest moments with our ranking of the best South Park episodes.

In an interview with Famitsu, which asks 171 developers their plans for 2026, Kamiya spends almost all of his short section (translated by GamesRadar+), glazing up his co-workers at his new studio Clovers.

"I didn't know what would happen when I casually left [PlatinumGames] two years ago and became unemployed," Kamiya says. "But since then, thanks to the support provided by my many colleagues, I founded Clovers, and I'm enjoying making games more than ever before."

In fact, working with the team at Clovers, and trusting in his co-workers to do fantastic work, has become his whole personality. "When it comes to my 2026 resolutions, above all else I want to enjoy making games in this incredible environment," the director says.

Clovers was founded in December 2024, with the development of Okami's sequel announced shortly afterwards at The Game Awards. However, since the announcement at Keighley's three-hour commercial fest, no further updates on the upcoming Okami game have been given.

"Clovers hasn't made any significant announcements," Kamiya acknowledges. "But behind the scenes we've been slowly assembling a strong team, who have the best game development capabilities. Recently, I feel as though I can just trust my co-workers."

The legendary creative can't help but praise everyone in one final comment. "I look forward to the day when I can show everyone the result of the creativity and developing ideas that my aspirational colleagues come up with every day," he adds.

Resident Evil 2 director didn't want to include any characters from the first game, but compromised by adding Claire Redfield after being grilled about it

Now that Watch Dogs is rumored to be dead and buried, the reception to Saints Row's 2022 reboot probably demolishing any chance of the series coming back in a meaningful way, and Square Enix continuing to hate bangers by not greenlighting Sleeping Dogs 2, the GTA-style open-world genre is almost a thing of the past. And sure, something like Cyberpunk 2077 does scratch the itch of the city-based open world, but that's an RPG as opposed to a pure sandbox like GTA. But despite the lack of contenders GTA veteran Vermeij reckons there's still space for it.

"I would actually say there's an opportunity because it really is just GTA and everybody else has given up," Vermeij, who served as technical director at Rockstar for almost 14 years, explains in an interview with Gameshub. "I think from a business point of view it is tricky now but the games are so spaced out and I don't know if they're going to do another Red Dead Redemption after GTA 6 but there is going to be at least an eight year gap."

Vermeij explains that "if you have a city game release in the middle of it then maybe you could set it in the future or maybe it could be set in Moscow or whatever. I would say that's an opportunity." However, he reckons "everybody's kind of terrified of going against GTA."

Plus there's the fact that a GTA-style open world is going to be a big investment that may not pay off. "Starting a new franchise is so difficult. That's what Leslie [Benzies, the former Rockstar president who founded MindsEye studio Build a Rocket Boy] kind of bumped up against," Vermeij adds. "People don't know your game and it's very easy for people to just walk away from it if there's the slightest thing wrong with it."

Former Rockstar technical director "didn’t like GTA 4 that much" at launch because "we had to sacrifice so much."

All Blade Ball codes

The following Blade Ball codes can be claimed for in-game awards:

• RAMADAN – Free Wheel Spin
• 4BVISITS – Bubble Wand sword skin
• 2BTHANKS – Free Wheel Spin
• SPOOKYSEASON – Free Wheel Spin
• FROGS – Free Wheel Spin
• ENERGYSWORDS – Free Wheel Spin
• SHARKATTACK – Free Wheel Spin
• SUMMERWHEEL – Free Wheel Spin
• SUMMERSTARTSHERE – Free Wheel Spin
• RNGEMOTES – Free Wheel Spin
• GIVEMELUCK – x4 Luck Boost for 10 mins in AFK World
• GOODVSEVIL – Free Wheel Spin
• DUNGEONSRELEASE – 50 Dungeon Runes
• FREESPINS – Free Wheel Spin

As you can see, there are a decent number of codes for Blade Ball that are currently available, with most of them giving you a free Wheel Spin to win Coins and other handy boosts. There are also promos that unlock new Sword Skins, increase your luck, or give you additional in-game currency to spend.

How to redeem Blade Ball codes

To redeem Blade Ball codes, you first need to win at least one match to unlock the options and stats, though you're up against low-level opponents so this shouldn't be too difficult. When the options become available, hit the EXTRA button on the top bar and then choose the CODES option from the menu that appears, to bring up the REDEEM CODE box to type in the promos. Because codes in Blade Ball are not case-sensitive, you don't need to worry about how you enter them as long as the correct letters and numbers are used.

Expired Blade Ball codes

• 5BVISITS – SPARKLERR sword skin
• XMAS – 3 Reindeer Spins
• DELAYBALL – Midas Thorn sword skin
• BPTEAMS – 100 Shells
• DRAGONS – Dragon Ticket
• REBIRTHLTM – Rebirth FFA Ticket
• GOODVSEVILMODE – Free Crate
• BATTLEROYALE – Storm Ticket
• DUNGEONSUPDATE – Free Wheel Spin
• 2BTHANKS – Free Wheel Spin
• ELEMENTSPIN – Free Wheel Spin
• LUNARNEWYEAR – 100 Lunar Coins
• LAVAFLOOR – Lava Ticket
• TOURNAMENTSW – Tournament Ticket
• FALLINGLTM – Sky Ticket
• GALAXYSEASON – 150 Stellar Stars
• ZEROGRAVITY – Zero Gravity Ticket
• SENTINELSREVENGE – Free Dragon Spin
• WINTERSPIN – Free Winter Spin
• HAPPYNEWYEAR – 2 New Year's Spins
• MERRYXMAS – 150 Cookies
• LIVEEVENTS – Infinity for 30 mins
• FIXEDSPINS – 1 New Year's Spin
• 1.5BTHANKS – Ball on Stick sword skin
• UPDATE.DAY – Comically Large Flashlight sword skin
• UPD250COINS – 250 Coins
• SERPENT_HYPE – Equinox Ball Kebab sword skin
• VISITS_TY – Free Wheel Spin
• HAPPYHALLOWEEN – Free Wheel Spin
• 1BVISITSTHANKS – 1B Sword sword skin
• 3MLIKES – Free Wheel Spin
• HALLOWEEN – Pumpkin Pie Blade sword skin
• WEEK4 – Remnant Sword sword skin
• RRRANKEDDD – 200 Coins
• SORRY4DELAY – 160 Coins
• UPDATETHREE – Free Wheel Spin
• 1MLIKES – 200 Coins
• HOTDOG10K – Hotdog Sword sword skin
• SITDOWN – 200 Coins
• 200KLIKES – 200 Coins
• 50000LIKES – 200 Coins
• 10000LIKES – 200 Coins
• 5000LIKES – 100 Coins
• ThxForSupport – Noob Sword sword skin
• 1000LIKES – 100 Coins
• FORTUNE – Free Wheel Spin
• 10KFOLLOWERZ – Naturic Cutlass sword skin
• 500K – 150 Coins

There are plenty of expired Blade Ball codes now, so if you attempt to redeem any of the above promos then you'll receive an error message. While the current codes seem to be sticking around for a while, they won't last forever so make sure you get them claimed as soon as you can.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

From the various optional side bosses to the notoriously tricky Gestral Games, there's no shortage of things to do in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, most of which you can access before taking on the RPG's final boss. Doing so, of course, inevitably leads to you being a higher level than you would have been had you simply pressed on with the main narrative. Speaking to Edge magazine for issue 419, lead game designer Michel Nohra says "the only thing I regret is not making it clearer that if you want the intended difficulty for the boss, you have to go beat it now."

Nohra explains: "Often, people don't want to finish the game, so they do all the side content before finishing it, because once the story is over, you're usually less motivated to do the side content. And that's something I underestimated, which made people that wanted a challenging end boss fight feel a bit disappointed. I don't regret doing it the way we did it, but [we could have] had more explanation about your choice [in Act 3]."

However, lead programmer Tom Guillermin thinks this was partially driven by "humility," with the devs at Sandfall Interactive truly not expecting their game to become the hit it was.

"We weren't sure if our game was going to be that good," Guillermin says. "And if it's not, people may just want to see the story, and go directly to the end of the story. So it was a surprise for us [that] people were doing every single thing there is to do in the game before going to the final dungeon. We're happy about that, but we didn't see it coming."

Perhaps that's something that Sandfall Interactive will keep in mind when making its next game, whatever that might be. One thing's for sure: the devs are still going to be guided by "what we think is cool" rather than being swayed by trying to please everyone.

Before Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 swept The Game Awards, Sandfall was betting it might scrape an 80 Metacritic score.

There's good reason to be excited. The Total War: Warhammer trilogy has long established itself as the seminal adaptation of Games Workshop's high fantasy setting, and the 40K universe offers an even vaster sandbox to play with. Creative Assembly isn't shying away from that scope, instead aiming to capture a galaxy-wide conflict in a way that no Warhammer video game has achieved before.

It's a fascinating level of ambition, but there are still many unanswered questions. To learn more about how Total War: Warhammer 40,000 intends to do so much, I caught up with Creative Assembly's Simon Mann (product owner – campaign design) and Andy Hall (principal narrative designer).

Painting the map

"You can even just play battles if you wish," adds Mann. "Even in that area there are these strike battles – very vital conflicts you need to win where you can just send in your customized troops to fight a battle. If you're the sort of person who's only got a short amount of time, we're here for you, we've got something that you can do."

"Every campaign you play, there is meaning to it," he explains. "It's not just 'I've won that campaign, that was fun'. It's 'I've won the campaign. We have this territory. We've conquered this location, we are now able to push further into this area of the galaxy and play through that way. We really think it adds an awful lot of extra feeling, and kind of internal narrative for you as a player to try these things out."

Here you can see Creative Assembly killing two birds with one stone. Total War: Warhammer 40,000's galactic layer is an effective way of capturing the vastness of its setting, but it's also a smart way to make the later stages of a campaign more important – one of the biggest challenges in strategy games.

As someone with too many stalled Total War: Warhammer 3 campaigns to count, that overarching narrative promises to be the most exciting part of Total War: Warhammer 40,000. Everything else, from tabletop-inspired customization to blowing up planets, is icing on the massive cake – I just hope we don't have to wait long to stuff our faces.

How many of these best strategy games have you already played?

Steam doesn't reveal games' exact position on the Best of 2025 lists, but Palworld appeared in the top 50 most played games on PC and most played games on Steam Deck in 2025. It was also in the top 100 best selling games, and most played games with a controller.

Two years after it originally launched in early access, Palworld has just 3% of the concurrent players that it held at launch. However, as it boasts an all-time peak of 2.1 million players, this still equals a healthy count of around 50 to 70k players per day.

In response to a tweet from the official Palworld account sharing the achievements and that there will be "news soon" regarding the Palworld 1.0 release, communications director and Palworld designer John 'Bucky' Buckley hit back at those who see the reduced player count as a sign that the game is "dead."

"Two years later and we're still humbled by our community's endless support and kindness," Bucky tweets. After saying thank you to the Palworld players, he signs off the message with a cheeky "not bad for a dead game!!"

Palworld's Home Sweet Home update "won't be as content-heavy as you might like," lead warns, but it will help make the survival game's 1.0 launch "the best ever"

"I have no idea," Hale tells the Behind the Voice podcast about whether Shepherd is lined up for the next game. "This is what I say to fans: If you want Shepard in the next game, please email them and tell them, because maybe they'll respond to that."

She reiterates that she doesn't know anything about a prospective Shepard comeback, but she says "I would love it." A fifth mainline Mass Effect game was teased back at the 2020 The Game Awards, though the announcement was really just that, with no further details provided.

BioWare is apparently still handling development on the series, but the current status of Mass Effect 5 or anything else in development there is unknown. Between layoffs and a muted response to Dragon Age: The Veilguard, the studio's been going through a rough patch, and EA's recent buyout announcement has raised questions over long-term plans for any of the publisher’s subsidiaries.

Hale's been on the record repeatedly about her interest in coming back to the franchise. In October 2025, she mentioned it'd be a short conversation, and the following December, she doubled-down, alongside Mark Meer, the voice of male Shepard, who's just as keen to become the commander again.

Whether this will yield anything, or if Shepard is even involved in the game to begin with, remains to be seen. Hale's advice isn't the worst though: If you want more Mass Effect, you know who to ask (respectfully).

Mass Effect 5 devs should use Dragon Age: The Veilguard as a "scapegoat" so they can "get what they need" from EA, says former BioWare exec.

Death Stranding 2 spoilers are mentioned in this article.

Back in November, Kojima tweeted about Predator: Badlands, saying, "It represents a new direction for Hollywood entertainment led by a new generation of filmmakers who have inherited the global 'memes' of manga, anime, and gaming culture."

Director Dan Trachtenberg previously cited games like Monster Hunter, Shadow of the Colossus, and Prince of Persia as influences on the film and said he would love to see a Badlands game, and turns it out Kojima agrees with him.

Speaking to Wired (via Bloody Disgusting), Kojima is asked via a fan-submitted question if there was a specific film he would like to adapt into a video game. Kojima says, "I recently saw Predator: Badlands. That felt quite game-like, traveling with Elle Fanning on your back." The director also cites the TV series Last Samurai Standing as another game-like plot, saying, "I might not make it, but it seems cool."

Trachtenberg himself has caught wind of this clip, and responds on Twitter with a simple message: "Yes please."

Of course, anyone who knows Death Stranding knows that Kojima basically already made a game where you travel with Elle Fanning, given that her character in Death Stranding 2 is revealed to be the baby in a jar you carry around during the events of Death Stranding 1, so perhaps Kojima isn't likely to make this one either. Plus, for my own selfish reasons, in an era where so many developers are busy with other IPs (namely Marvel and Star Wars), having Kojima release original games is a way bigger priority for me.

Sounding like the coolest guy in the room, Hideo Kojima says him being creative "isn't special," it's just as natural as eating: "If creativity were taken out of my daily life, I probably wouldn't survive."

I'm definitely not the only one who can't shake Olden Era's chainmailed embrace. The medieval strategy RPG not only doubles down on everything that made Heroes 2 and 3 so memorable, delivering the most similar gameplay to those early entries out of any other in the franchise, it seeks to actively improve upon it all.

True, there's still no sign of an Early Access release date even as we get stuck into January, but that makes it all the more important for my fellow adventurers to keep their eyes firmly fixed on developer Unfrozen's next move – or check the demo out on Steam if you've yet to do so.

The great unknown

Stepping out into Jadame, whether it's your first time or your fiftieth, is an exhilarating experience. As the game currently stands – remember, this is just the demo I'm talking about – features four of the six playable factions coming to Early Access, quick-play Arena Mode, two PvE modes, four maps with discrete gameplay and winning conditions, and scores of unique heroes to recruit throughout. It's a big, beautiful beast, and it's only getting bigger from here.

One of the most exciting things on the way is the campaign itself. I know this because, during my hands-on with the latest build, I got to sample it for myself. Unfrozen's bid to expand upon the RPG side of strategy-RPG is already evident, with plenty of recorded NPC dialogue and more elements of player choice and consequence than past series instalments. I was also told by lead game designer Leonid Parmenov that the campaign comes with its own set of unique gameplay rules – like, for example, an "endless day" with unlimited movements per turn.

I've also already fallen in love with the two newest factions, though for very different reasons. You'd probably run into a faun or two while playing the demo yourself, but that's just the tip of the fey iceberg when it comes to what the incoming Sylvan faction has in store for us.

It's like chalk and cheese next to the likes of Hive, though – I'm as surprised as you are that bugs are winning me over rather than fairy dragons, but I can't wait to get my hands on the queen bee herself and reign supreme over my kingdom of insectoid minions.

It's this blend of the novel and the familiar that has me well and truly hooked. So much of it feels like home to me, as someone who grew up playing Heroes 3 like it was some sort of religion.

Even the sound design is nostalgic, with each new day heralded by a short musical sting that may or may not be exactly the same as the one which plays out in Heroes 3. But at the same time, there's so much to see, do, and explore that I still don't feel I've seen it all yet.

Unfrozen puts a loving, magical spin on the core of Heroes while leaving plenty of room to surprise and delight even the most staunch franchise fan. The best bit? The studio isn't ruling out adding even more to its content plans, or at least that's what I gleaned from CEO Denis Fedorov's cryptic yet open "let's wait and see" response when I asked what lies on the furthest horizon.

All of this runs through my head each time I play Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era. It doesn't make it any less enjoyable, knowing what's to come while loyally playing the demo to make the wait more bearable . If anything, it makes me appreciate Unfrozen's ambition in leaving so much in players' hands already.

It speaks to the studio's confidence – not only in that fact that the game is good enough to simply leave in our hands already, but that all the new content coming our way will elevate the already polished experience it's handed over for free. Games like these don't crop up every day, and that's why I'm calling it here and now: Olden Era is about to be absolutely everywhere in 2026.

Discover the ultimate and best strategy games of all-time. Though, of course, Heroes will always be a personal favorite.

Kojima has a massive resume by creating a series that is almost entirely composed of masterpieces with Metal Gear, Death Stranding and its sequel, and has been involved with a ton of cult classics like Snatcher and Policenauts. It's not a stretch to call him one of the most creative game directors due to how wholly unique each of his games is, but as it turns out, being creative isn't a big thing to him.

During an interview with Wired (below) where Kojima is asked questions by fans, he's asked, "What does creativity mean to you, not as a creator, but as a person? And from your perspective, what is the true essence of creativity?" Kojima specifically notes the final question saying, "I'd like someone to tell me that."

He explains, "To me, creating isn't special. It's simply a part of my daily life," which is a flex on the likes of me who has missed deadlines simply because I needed to read the Wikipedia synopsis of WWE SummerSlam 2006. Kojima likens creativity to "sleeping, eating, walking, or bathing" as just something you do day to day. "It's built into my body. It's not unique to me."

Kojima continues, "From waking to sleeping, I'm always thinking. When inspired, I instantly visualize and conceptualize. Then I just go to the office and bring those ideas to life." He reckons that most creatives are the same as him, and says: "If creativity were taken out of my daily life, I probably wouldn't survive."

Hideo Kojima calls Death Stranding 2 his "masterpiece," but that's only because his "latest work" is always his best.

Famitsu asked 171 developers what they are most looking forward to in 2026. Resident Evil Requiem, Pragmata, and Pokemon Pokopia were all popular choices, but Rockstar's long-awaited sixth entry to the Grand Theft Auto series came up most frequently in discussions.

As translated by GamesRadar+, long-time Atlus director and producer Kazuyuki Yamai, best known for his work on numerous Shin Megami Tensei games, discusses how he thinks GTA 6 could "raise the bar." "I'm excited to see if GTA 6 will finally be released," he says, adding: "And if it will raise the bar."

CD Projekt Red's localization manager, Yuki Nishio echoes this sentiment asking, "I wonder what innovations GTA 6 will bring…" Meanwhile, legacy SNK art director Nobuyuki Kuroki is more sure of the upcoming game's impact. "I'm really looking forward to GTA 6," he says. "I think it will redefine players' standards, and I have a feeling that it'll be a once-in-a-generation turning point for games."

Some developers were excited to see the game's launch on a personal level. "The game I'm most looking forward to in 2026 is GTA 6," Goddess of Victory: Nikke director, Yoo Hyung-seok says. "Personally, I've been a fan since GTA 2, and every entry continues to surprise me, so I'm really looking forward to this one."

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi thinks it will influence his work. "In 2026, I'm looking forward to the new entry in the GTA series," he says. "As a creator myself, I'm inspired by the world's craftsmanship." Yakuza series director and producer Masayoshi Yokoyama puts his desires more simply, saying: "GTA 6. Please release it."

The strongest sentiment among the creatives interviewed is that GTA 6 will change the industry through its new concepts, and that they will be keeping a watchful eye on it. "The whole world has its sights set on GTA 6," says SaGa director and designer Akitoshi Kawazu. "I think the content and scale will not disappoint. We will be paying attention to what players enjoy about it."

"I feel that GTA 6 will show us the next generation of gaming, and I'm looking forward to it," says Level-5 CEO Akihiro Hino. "As hardware performance improves, I hope to see game development that was unthinkable in the past."

Not everyone is excited to play, but will be paying attention regardless. When asked what he's looking forward to in 2026, Sony's localization manager Ryuki Ishii answers, "Obviously GTA 6. I can't ignore the effect it will have [on the industry.]" However, when it comes to personal tastes he has a very different wishlist. "If you are asking about as a hobby, [I'm looking forward to] Nioh 3, Crimson Desert, Pragmata, Romeo is a Dead Man, and Ananta."

Seems those in the gaming industry will be paying attention to GTA 6 whether they like it or not.

GTA 6 likely won't cost $100, former Rockstar technical director says, and it's all thanks to GTA Online: "This is just something that the internet has decided"

"Our goal is to consistently introduce successful IP that fans will continue to support and look forward to over the long haul, even five or ten years down the line," Sean Kim, co-CEO of Neowiz, tells Game Informer. "Currently, we are internally developing more than five new PC and console titles, while also focusing on discovering global IP through collaborations with Western studios such as Zakazane and Wolfeye."

He adds the company plans to "continue investing" in "strong partners worldwide" as part of this MO. That said, emphasis remains strong on homegrown talent, such as Wonder Potion, the studio behind stylish cyberpunk roguelike Sanabi, and Lizard Smoothie, who put out the fantasy action-RPG Shape of Dreams.

Naturally, none of this precludes Lies of P, which has done extremely well across PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. After two years of updates and DLC, there's a sequel on the way, but Neowiz isn't eager to pigeonhole itself into Soulslikes or roguelikes.

"Of course, the Lies of P franchise will need to be continued. That's a given," Kim states. "In general, our development cycle does not begin with a particular genre. Instead, it starts with the creative vision of our directors. We tend not to begin development by fixating on a play-style or game concept first."

It's believed that Lies of P 2 will draw from The Wizard of Oz in a similar fashion to how the first uses Pinocchio, with Dorothy as the central figure. But beyond that, we'll just have to see what dark delights Neowiz has in store.

"I will not disappoint you": Lies of P director promises "the most fun" as Neowiz prepares a sequel to one of the best Soulslikes ever made, says the Overture DLC was treated "almost as a sequel" anyway.

If you ask me – aside from Donkey Kong Bananza – no game enamored me quite as much in 2025 as Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles. Sure, it's technically a game from 1997, but the improvements and enhancements made to it, namely an incredible cast of voice actors bringing the characters to life, as well as a fully remade version of the classic PS1 game once thought lost, made for what is undeniably one of the best remakes of 2025 – and I'd argue, one of the Best Games of 2025.

Clearly enough people agreed, as Square Enix has announced that Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles has sold over 1 million copies as of the end of 2025. In a press release translated by GamesRadar+ (via Gematsu), game director Kazutoyo Maehiro says, "I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart! Truly, thank you so much!"

He continues: "The entire development team is not only grateful to you, but, in order to spread the joy, create a better experience, and encourage more people to play, we are looking at updating the game in the future!" There's no indication as to what these updates could entail, whether it's something gimmicky like costume or music DLC, or something a bit more substantial like restoring the War of the Lions content or adding new units to the game (maybe other protagonists to supplement Cloud's appearance).

While Square Enix being upset with good sales figures is so prevalent it's become a meme, Ogre Battle creator and original Final Fantasy Tactics director and writer Yasumi Matsuno predicted the game would sell between 800,000 and 1 million copies over three years, so clearly it's been somewhat successful. Matsuno acknowledges this on Twitter, saying, "I underestimated the sales figures by too much."

Given that turn-based tactics games are a bit niche aside from some standouts like Fire Emblem and XCOM (RIP Marvel's Midnight Suns, you were too good for this world), seeing this success is a welcome surprise. Hopefully this pushes Square to do something with the Tactics Advance games or perhaps create a new Tactics game based on the events of the original.

Final Fantasy Tactics director suggested new routes for The Ivalice Chronicles remake that let you save characters who die – but thinks if they could do that, they should just make a new game.

At the launch of early access, Hytale's exploration mode will still be stuck with the "V1" world generation system that the devs built from 2016 through 2020, as explained in a new blog post. Eventually, the V2 system that's been in development since 2021 will come in to replace the world-gen system, and this is where the big changes over the status quo begin.

V2 is still a procedural generation system, as you'd expect from a Minecraft-like, but it allows for more meaningful patterns set for designers. You might bias the generator to create dark-leaved trees over caves, giving players the kind of guidance while exploring you'd expect from a more traditional, crafted game world. The blog post also runs down a handful of more experimental worlds that could be created, like the alien world shown in the video below.

The devs aim to give modders the tools to quickly and easily create their own world-generation parameters, all with no programming knowledge required. A node-based editor will let you tweak all the variables of world-gen, and you'll be able to see those changes reflected in-game immediately.

"This new approach to world generation will redefine the block-game genre," Collins-Laflamme adds. "For the first time, artists and game designers can take full ownership of world generation, with complete control over the final result. This is a fundamental shift away from a world shaped almost solely by programmers."

To that end, the Hytale devs are hiring over 15 world designers, which Collins-Laflamme notes is an unusual position for a procedurally generated sandbox game. "Hytale's vision is to feel carefully handcrafted while remaining infinitely procedural," he adds, "with design always serving gameplay first!"

Hytale lead says "it's a damn miracle we were able to salvage" the once-canceled Minecraft-like: "It should have taken years to fix, but within weeks, we got the game into a playable, fun state."

Trios is practically a different game; you will, without question, meet more aggressive players in groups. Now burdened with knowledge of Arc Raiders' expanded "aggression-based" matchmaking system, which puts PvP psychos with their brethren but corrals pacifist looters in the tranquil herbivore exhibit, some Arc Raiders players reckon your matchmaking reputation should actually be separate between solos and groups.

In a white-hot post on the main Arc Raiders Reddit, user MishRift reckons "Aggression in Trio Should Not Affect your Solo" experience. In other words, your friend's PvP addiction shouldn't land you in the shark tank when you get back to your usual peaceful solo runs.

The evidence is anecdotal – "I noticed after playing with my aggressive trio friends (I'm new so account is fresh) that my solo matches are way more aggressive now" – but the argument is interesting, if only as a demonstration of the inevitable consequence of Embark making and revealing this matchmaking change: players eager to game the system, even when they only a know a bit about one part of that system.

The top reply to the post's top comment, which argues in favor of separate aggression reputations, makes this clear. "After going on a murder rampage in trios, just go in naked in solos and surrender 6-7 times in a row," advises user Traditional-Row7925. "Then do one free loadout to make sure it worked, start spamming 'no shoot' and you'll hear people replying. You're back in the friendly pool. It's not even subtle."

"Agreed. I generally play much more passive and even save fellow raiders from time to time on solos. In trios though I enjoy the PvP and the sheer amount of it is great for getting better," concurs En1gmaMontoya.

"Aggression be aggression. Now you want it easy without your pals? Wow," counters another user in a separate response.

"It's good the way it is. Otherwise you get aggressive trios going to solos to free farm trigger nades or other equipment to be even more aggressive in trios," adds MRjubjub.

A lot of this is classic human selfishness, of course. Some people simply want to have their cake and eat it – drown in PvP loot, but never have the gun pointed at them when it's inconvenient. Messing around in trios? It's on sight. Dying solo while sneaking away from a locked room with full pockets? PvP is bad for the game, in this essay I will – and so on.

The argument I can at least acknowledge is the idea of other players, especially random players in auto-filled teams, tanking your reputation. Obviously you could just not play with auto-fill on, or simply tell your friends you aren't keen on PvP, but the fundamental annoyance – I'm in the shark tank only because I'm chained to a person who dove in – makes some sense. Even so, you still chose to play with them knowing full well – or certainly knowing now, because I'm telling you, after 166 hours, it's not even close – that trio raids have a higher PvP rate, so I don't buy it.

The upside of this matchmaking system, as we understand it, is that it seems self-correcting. If you don't want to engage in PvP, don't, and soon enough you'll experience less of it (but crucially not none). In this application, it's a natural part of the game playing to preferences; I think it can become a problem, and feel artificial, when people hurt or warp their own experience hoping to hide in a specific pool of players. At that point, you're not playing the game; you're trying to eventually play an imagined version of the game. It's a golden opportunity for frustrating self-sabotage: 'I avoided PvP at all costs, Embark, why am I still getting shot at?' asks the raider getting straw all over the place. It's always and forever a PvP game, folks.

Reddit user squidsauce sensibly puts it this way: "After thinking about this for a minute, I'm not going to adjust my play style. It is what it is. If I feel like someone is aggressive I'll shoot. If not I won't. I don't care about this auto balancing script." One thing's for sure: as the PvP goblin poisoning my friend group's matchmaking, I will not apologize.

"What a ride": Arc Raiders just hit 12 million copies sold, analyst estimates, and set a new record for active players 2 months after launch.

It is statements like this from Rebel Wolves CEO Konrad Tomaszkiewicz that have helped propel The Blood of Dawnwalker into the stratosphere. The upcoming RPG is one of the most anticipated video games of 2026 for good reason, an open-world dark fantasy adventure set in 14th-century Europe. What sets this experience apart is its concept, where every action (and inaction) shapes the world around you.

You have just 30 days and 30 nights to save your family from the clutches of a centuries-old clan of vampires; the gothic kingdom of Vale Sangora isolated, its citizens enslaved into ritualistic servitude. This world waits for no one. Every quest you accept, and major action you take, moves the clock forward. "Once you leave the prologue area, there are absolutely no handrails, no invisible walls. You know what your goal is – but how (or even if) you reach it is up to you," says narrative director Jakub Szamałek.

The Blood of Dawnwalker matches this concept with incredible pedigree in the RPG space. Rebel Wolves is staffed by a mixture of fresh blood and CD Projekt RED veterans, including the game director, lead quest designer, and a senior writer of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. "It's taken a lot of hard work to get to where we are right now," says Tomaszkiewicz. "When we started Rebel Wolves in 2022, there were just 15 of us."

Three years on, Rebel Wolves has over 150 developers working to deliver The Blood of Dawnwalker. "The team is not huge, but it's not that small either," considers Tomaszkiewicz. "When we worked with our colleagues on The Witcher 3, the average headcount during production was 160 and by the end I think it was 205, so there isn't a huge gap."

Scaling so quickly was necessary, because time isn't the only complicating factor in The Blood of Dawnwalker's design. The ability to take on any quest, in any order, with time slipping away as you work towards your ultimate objective is complicated by Coen – the protagonist who is human by day, vampire by night. "Each form offers distinct skills and abilities," says creative director Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz, "and most quests can be approached differently during either day or night."

The Blood of Dawnwalker is promising a staggering degree of depth in its narrative sandbox, propagating the sort of freedom and flexibility seldom seen in modern RPGs. Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, who also serves as game director, says that he never feared chasing something so ambitious for Rebel Wolves' debut project.

"I know how to make AAA games, and my experience is in creating story-driven RPGs set in an open world. We wanted to take what we know and evolve the genre. It feels like my dreams are being fulfilled right now, and I'm so happy that we can pursue innovations with total freedom," he tells me. "We knew where we were going from the start. We didn't need to fight anybody to achieve what we wanted to achieve. If you want to do something new, something crazy, going independent is the best way to do it."

"I'm really happy with where the game is today. I'm also really happy that we have the team that we have. That we have created this world together. That there's a great atmosphere without crunch. We've just been so inspired to fight for AAA quality and find creative solutions to new problems," says Tomaszkiewicz. "The Blood of Dawnwalker is going to be really fun – which is important to say, because having fun is the most important thing!"

Learn more about The Blood of Dawnwalker as part of our Big in 2026 Spotlight series. Every day this week we are diving deeper into Rebel Wolves' narrative sandbox. We're exploring the the studio's open-ended approach to quest design, how combat leverages Coen's human and vampire natures, and going into more depth on the time resource system which draws all of these ideas together.

"I've started to get some real interest on the video game front, and I feel I'm finally getting established enough that we can make a Mistborn game happen," the author writes in the latest edition of his annual State of the Sanderson blog. "To that end, I've started talking to some AAA developers."

Sanderson says the project is at the pitching phase right now, meaning that he's simply discussing a potential Mistborn adaptation with various game studios, but it seems those early talks are "encouraging." Especially since, as Sanderson explains, they're no longer tied to the rights for the Mistborn film.

"These rights were tied up with the film rights for the last... oh, six~seven years, so I didn’t get to test the market on them until recently," Sanderson adds. "I'm trying to do things differently this time in an effort to retain control of my video game rights. I already have interest from some major players in the Video Game industry (who I like a lot)."

If the idea of a video game adaptation of Sanderson's work sounds familiar, you might be thinking of Mistborn: Birthright, an ill-fated action game with RPG elements that was in development for several years in the early '10s before it was ultimately canceled. That game would've been a prequel story set hundreds of years before the books.

As for the impending game project, there's no hints about what it might look like, and if it's still being pitched, I suspect whatever idea Sanderson might have for it is very much subject to change. But, it seems, he's keen to get it off the ground. "If you are a decision maker at a AAA studio," Sanderson concludes, "or a major independent, and you’ve always wanted to make a Mistborn or Stormlight game... well, you would want to contact my reps now."

Sanderson has done sporadic work in the gaming world before. He contributed to Subnautica dev Unknown Worlds' strategy game Moonbreaker, and apparently has a standing invitation to pitch something to Bandai Namco. He also wrote a pair of novels developing the lore of Infinity Blade, a mobile game from Epic that played like something of a fantasy take on Punch-Out. That might go some way to explaining why Mistborn's most notable entry into the video game world has come through Fortnite.

Here are the new games for 2026 you need to know about.

Wilson spends a lot of time championing "economic integrity" in such games, which he defines as "the ability for players to fairly earn progress and items through in-game actions on a level playing field without outside influence or cheating" and without letting other people "unfairly get ahead of you." He pays especially close attention to the seasonal format that so many games have adopted, with players racing to climb leaderboards, reach max level, and so on each time there's a new update. These soft or hard seasonal wipes essentially create micro economies, and these, too, need protection.

He encourages online RPG devs to prioritize this integrity by, in so many words, making progression feel meaningful and deterministic. Progress and prestige should be "earned through gameplay and skill, not purchased, botted, exploited, or obtained by socially engineering a studio's customer support department," he says in the video description.

Protecting this integrity may manifest as policy that stops paid spokespeople like streamers from gaining unfair advantages, just to pull an example out of a hat, but it also covers tools and systems to prevent and respond to cheating, real-world trading, and other exploits, up to and including rollbacks meant to preserve the economy, Wilson says.

If there is an issue requiring a painful solution like a rollback, Wilson suggests offering vestigial rewards as compensation like "credits for in-game cosmetics" rather than progression items which could compromise the economy. And if you have customer support staff on hand to field player-reported issues – which you should – empower them to weed out false reports from players hoping to game the system. Beating bots and cheats is a neverending arms race, but you can still arm yourself, basically.

On cheaters and exploiters specifically, Wilson urges a near-scorched earth approach: don't just ban or suspend offenders; delete their accounts or ill-gotten items, too. "It's worth taking the time to clean up every account, even the ones you think are banned forever," he advises. Again, the consistency and reliability of the economy, the yardstick players use to measure their efforts and the health of a game, is paramount in his mind.

Monetization can also pose a threat to economic integrity, of course. (I've seen some people read the timing of this video as a dig at Path of Exile 2's perceived economy woes, both in and out of the cash shop, which isn't an unreasonable read, but Wilson is not at all hostile nor does he single out GGG or any specific dev or game.) Wilson acknowledges that pay-to-win junk "clearly makes money in the short term" but warns it also damages a game's integrity, and he seems to clearly value good will and longevity over a cash shop bump.

Paying for advantage includes buyable progression like instant items or XP as well as premium early access periods, and here Wilson has a shiny "oops" trophy to share with the class. During a previous Path of Exile release – he doesn't specify which expansion, only saying it was around four years ago – launch queues got so bogged down that "a couple hundred thousand" people, including many streamers GGG had paid to play the game on release, ended up in staring contests with login screens. Wilson decided to let the streamers cut in line to get the show moving, and immediately regretted his decision.

"I didn't consider the economic advantage this would give those streamers, putting them ahead of the other players because of a real-world privilege, and how that would be unfair," he says. "We were rightly called out on this, and I instantly realized the mistake I had made."

This example puts a fine point on how even unassuming offers or extras may chip away at a game's economy, with little concessions piling up like white lies until you've got a real problem on your hands. "This was a valuable lesson in how even an hour of headstart was an inexcusably large advantage to give people who had not done an in-game action to earn it," Wilson concludes.

"When I was growing up, games were designed to be fun, not manipulative": Path of Exile co-creator shines a blacklight on the "bulls**t" design tricks infesting all my live service games.

"I've always kind of wanted to shake up the music a little bit in any case and because Ocarina of Time is a brand-new 3D game on the N64, I felt it necessary to change the music just a little bit from previous entries in the series," composer Koji Kondo said in a 1999 dev Q&A for 64 Dream magazine. "Additionally, Hyrule field is so vast that I thought it’d get boring and repetitive to hear the same melody all the time, so I decided to make a variety of music that would never get boring, with additional music and effects depending on Link’s status."

That translation of Kondo's quote comes from an undated post on Javed Sterritt's Good Blood blog. A look at the Wayback Machine suggests the translation went live in 2024, but I only became aware of it when I saw a partial version of Kondo's comments in a recent DidYouKnowGaming video that made a vague reference to a previous translation.

For me, that's a lesson in just how poorly documented a lot of information about video game history still is. Despite all the wikis and YouTube videos breaking down gaming history and trivia, we still have details like this slipping through the cracks. I'm consuming this kind of content every day, yet somehow the answer to this question, which has stuck with me since childhood, slipped me by entirely.

Ocarina of Time's Hyrule Field theme is a banger, but there's a spirit of adventure and grandeur to the original overworld theme that can't be beat. I guess the sentiment from fans like me helped bring the track back immediately for Majora's Mask, but it always seemed like an odd fit for a game that was so offbeat and surreal. Ultimately, it seems we always could've blamed Kondo's desire to do something new – which, in hindsight, isn't such a bad impulse.

It's tough to argue that any other title among the best N64 games can top Ocarina of Time.

"We did consider a VR mode for Ace Combat 8, but after much consideration we decided not to pursue it," says Kazutoki Kono, Ace Combat's brand director. "The VR mode in Ace Combat 7 is something we are greatly proud of, but after completing that process we realized that a great flat-monitor screen game and a great VR game are separate entities. We would have needed to develop two different games for Ace Combat 8 in order for us to provide a successful VR mode."

Reaching New Heights

Virtual reality is the first confirmed kill for Project Aces as it prepares Wings of Theve to take flight in 2026. The focus is on blistering aerial action at nothing less than 60fps; built to a grandeur scale, and embracing bolder speeds, than anything attempted in Ace Combat's 30 years of flight time. This team wouldn't deliver anything less, mind – 2019's Ace Combat 7 registering a franchise-record of seven million sales.

"The success of Ace Combat 7 was phenomenal," says producer Manabu Shimomoto, "and we do feel pressure to deliver for our fans again. We are mindful of the success of Ace Combat 7 and aware of the anticipation it has created for our next game." Shimomoto tells me that this has created a focus across the studio to "bring forward and really prioritize the evolution of the franchise's core concepts."

What we're talking about here are intense dogfights across dynamic cloudscapes, a living sky that transforms as the rush of fast-paced arcade-style action meets best-in-class visual fidelity. Kono says it was important to marry "functionality and beautiful visuals" into a cohesive package. Project Aces is embracing Unreal Engine 5 for Ace Combat 8, as well as a new proprietary technology base called Cloudly, to help realize its ambitions.

"Cloudly allows us to create multi-layered clouds which actually let the player assess their own elevation while flying," Kono continues. "The space is also littered with contrails, which have a function within the game as well. Once the player spots a contrail they are able to follow it to determine where an enemy pilot is. We want players to be able to experience a multi-sensory journey, from discovering enemy fighters to the physical sensation of engaging in combat, to create a more highly-elevated experience."

With such a wide playspace to populate, Ace Combat 8 is operating at a larger scale than ever before too. "Up until Ace Combat 7, we were creating everything in a 10th of an object's original size. So, if a real life aircraft was 20 meters, it would be defined as two meters in the game world. But in Ace Combat 8 we have changed our strategy so that everything is designed in real size and scale."

Kono stresses this design decision in an attempt to help us understand the lengths Project Aces is going in order to deliver a more realistic sense of speed and momentum within its flight patterns and combat models. "What's important is the comparative speed feel. It's harder to experience the actual speed you're flying by yourself, it's always felt alongside something else. Whether it's a jet that you are pursuing, moving closer to the ground, whooshing alongside buildings, or flying along the edges of clouds – these highlight the sensation of flying at high speeds."

"We have put a lot of effort into leading players naturally into experiencing these scenarios," Kono continues. "Obviously, players can choose where they fly – we aren't forcing anyone onto a set route as it were – but I like to use the term 'naturally leading' to describe it. We want to try and encourage players to experience new sensations in Ace Combat 8."

Discover the games that will be Big in 2026

Big in 2026 explores the video games that will help shape the new year. All throughout January, GamesRadar+ is profiling the 50 biggest and most anticipated games of the year with developer access that you can't get anywhere else. Join us daily for new previews and interviews, and be sure to visit the Big in 2026 coverage hub to find every article that we've published so far.

Wading into a Reddit discussion of where Helldivers 2 should go from here, Pilestedt points out that Magicka wasn't review bombed at release because "Review bombing as a concept wasn't a thing". And it's true the practice of sticking it to developers and publishers by hitting them in the user review score over – to distill a wide and gray discussion of review bombing criteria – non-gameplay problems has been deployed far more often in the past decade or so.

Rather, Magicka "got so-so reviews" because it "was buggy and wasn't optimized," Pilestedt says. Famously, this was partly because the game was shipped without the development team's knowledge. "Publisher had hit the release button while we were still fixing bugs - made us release patches every day until it was decent," Pilestedt adds.

There was a bit of confusion given Pilestedt's own prior mention of a Magicka review bombing, but as he clarified, that was related to modern unrest over Helldivers 2 – specifically the great PlayStation account linking fiasco – spilling over to Arrowhead's other games. This, too, has become more common; Genshin Impact players, for instance, have notoriously review bombed games and apps made by unrelated companies in response to bad updates.

"There was collateral on Helldivers 1 from the review bombing which I thought was unjustified, and I then tweeted about it being the same as review bombing Magicka - which some people then took like an instruction," he says.

The sad ending to this story is that Magicka's recent Steam reviews, far removed from any Sony-stoked outrage, are just 58% positive for good reason. This game just does not work half the time and seemingly won't be fixed. Thank goodness for modders.

Last year, Arrowhead had to sit down and recognize just how buggy and badly optimized Helldivers 2 had become, outlining a dedicated repair plan and delaying new content to give it space. I haven't had any massive issues with it myself, and compared to Magicka, it runs downright heavenly.

In August, Pilestedt rather teasingly floated the idea of making a sequel to Magicka. My kingdom for an expanded spin on the build-your-own-spells action game that actually works.

In the nick of time, Helldivers 2 rolls out a "slim version" shrinking file sizes by a whopping 85% on PC: "It's a low-risk way to save ~131GB of space on your drive."

If you paid attention to Resident Evil 4's 2023 remake from reveal to release, you'll have seen a scene in the announcement trailer where Ashley Graham is wandering around the forest area that opens the game before presumably being captured by the Ganados and Lord Saddler. There was also a scene showing the cult performing a human sacrifice in the later story trailer. Except, when the game came out the next year, these scenes were nowhere to be seen in the game, presumably meaning that they were either made specifically for the trailer, or were remnants of cut content that never made it into the remake.

And three years later we have our answer, as YouTuber and modder Michael "Thekempy" Kemp has restored some of the Chapter 0 intro that would've opened the beloved remake (thanks, PC Gamer). The section would've seen Ashley walking down a path, before witnessing the sacrifice seen in the trailer. This would then send Ashley down a separate path that leads her towards the village found in the game's introduction.

The ensuing segment would feature Ashley sneaking around the village while avoiding enemies, before culminating in a section that has her witness Luis' capture and subsequently go into a chase scene featuring a Ganado, which would in-turn lead her to the opening area of Leon's campaign she was seen running through in the original trailer.

Obviously, there's no info as to why Capcom decided to remove this from the game, but Thekempy theorizes that it would have slowed the game's otherwise-excellent pacing, with a slow stealth-focused chapter to start the game probably being a total drag for subsequent playthroughs (like the intro of Resident Evil 3 Remake and Village were).

Resident Evil 1 devs were so insistent on having action mechanics like charged attacks and sidesteps that director Shinji Mikami let them do a test run, but it just made killing zombies look silly and not scary.

Kaneko is best known for his work at Atlus, working as the art director on Shin Megami Tensei and the original Persona series. He created the iconic demon designs across Atlus' long-running series and its spin-offs, including that one. You know the one; the infamous penis monster riding in a chariot, Mara.

He left Atlus during the 2010s and joined free-to-play developer Colopl in 2023. Working for the studio, he created Tsukuyomi for mobile and PC, which was unfortunately critically panned due to its predatory monetization despite its striking visuals and interesting design concept.

Fans of the older series have waited for Kaneko's return to form following his departure from Atlus, and it could be on its way. In a huge feature for Famitsu, which includes comments from 171 developers, Ryoji Tsunoda, executive officer at Colopl, explains the studio's plans for a new game.

"We're working with Kazuma Kaneko on a console game," Tsunoda says in comments translated by GamesRadar+. "This will allow you to be able to enjoy Mr Kaneko's perspective on the world. We hope fans will look forward to it."

Colopl didn't reveal whether the console game would be another free-to-play release. We're hoping that the fact that it's on console means it's the fully fledged, premium Kaneko title we've been dreaming of.

A Persona and Shin Megami Tensei artist trained an AI model to draw like him, and look at that, it wasn't worth it

This information comes from Rhys Elliot, head of market analysis at Alinea Analytics. The outfit estimates that across PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, Arc Raiders just crossed the 12 million copies mark, hitting the benchmark this past weekend.

What's more, the active player-count apparently peaked at around 3.2 million on January 4, 2026, again accounting for all available platforms. Those are some hefty numbers for a brand new IP in a difficult genre like the extraction shooter space, even with the caveat of former Battlefield devs being among the dev team.

So ARC Raiders passed 12M copies sold over the weekend (Alinea estimates). Yesterday was its biggest day ever by DAUs (3.2M).Daily copies sold started to stabilise by early Dec, but a well-timed 20% discount across all platforms – and the holiday boost – reversed that.What a ride.

— @superhys.bsky.social (@superhys.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-01-05T17:23:31.746Z

Elliot states that it looked like Arc Raiders might plateau in December. Since the game launched late October, this would've been a logical and perfectly acceptable place for sales to stall a little, as review buzz and initial hype wanes and other games take the spotlight.

But, as he points out, a holiday discount helped keep players dropping in. "What a ride," he opines.

It helps, too, that Embark launched a massive update, Cold Snap, that put a chill in the air over the festive season, demonstrating the kind of vibrancy people can expect if they choose to stick around. Arc Raiders is evolving at considerable pace.

The devs just confirmed "aggression-based matchmaking" is now well and truly happening, and the roadmap expands ever onward. Whatever's coming next for the human-versus-robots skirmish, there are going to be plenty of players around to check it out.

Arc Raiders legend dedicated to collecting rubber ducks has now amassed an army of 4,200 of them with no end in sight

I caught the second half of the game this morning (the NFL's primetime schedule does not respect my early bedtime) and I thought I was still dreaming when, midway through the third quarter, a graphic popped up comparing the starting stance of Steelers defensive tackle Cam Heyward to a frog. "That's right," color commentator Chris Collinsworth exclaimed, "he's got a frog stance!"

I doubt Collinsworth had any idea the origins of the music accompanying this segment, but for millennial gamers with childhood N64 memories, it's unmistakable: it's the Bubblegloop Swamp theme, the goofy ditty that accompanies the fourth world of Banjo-Kazooie. Clips of the moment quickly spread across social media from shocked viewers barely able to believe their ears.

And, of course, the clip quickly reached original Banjo-Kazooie composer Grant Kirkhope. "So this just happened, thanks to everyone for pinging me," Kirkhope says while sharing the clip on Twitter. "Unbelievable!" In response to a comment suggesting that he was "finally reaping" his career's rewards, Kirkhope says "I wish," and simply laughs at another comment suggesting that somebody involved should've called him first.

It's not clear exactly how the Banjo-Kazooie track ended up on the broadcast, though it's easy to imagine a 30-something member of the production team leaning on childhood nostalgia to select the song. Whether Microsoft was involved in licensing the song for the broadcast is another question. I've reached out to both NBC Sports, which runs the Sunday Night Football broadcast, and Rare, the now-Microsoft-owned studio behind Banjo-Kazooie, for additional information, and will update this story if I learn more.

This certainly isn't the first time Kirkhope has sat on the sidelines as his work appears before a global audience, however. The uncredited appearance of his infamous DK Rap, from Donkey Kong 64, in the Super Mario Bros Movie left him "so pissed" that he still hasn't watched the film.

Banjo-Kazooie is still one of the best N64 games of all time.

As part of a feature in Famitsu, which asked 171 developers for their 2026 plans (translated by GamesRadar+), Yoko shares that his home is still in disarray despite moving into it back in 2024. The developer says that he still hasn't finished unpacking, despite living in his new abode for over a year.

"I moved house in 2024, but I still haven't tidied everything away, so I would like to get that done during this year," Yoko says. "Work comes second to that. Well, probably third. I don't think I'll be invited back [to talk to Famitsu for this feature] next year, but it's just how it is. That's life." He doesn't explain what his second priority is, but it seems developing new games is low on his to-do list.

Despite not prioritizing game development himself, he pleads with some of his contemporaries to see more of their upcoming projects. Using his section of the 18-page feature to speak directly to Fumito Ueda and Hiroshi Iuchi, he asks the creators for information on their upcoming games.

"I want to learn more about Ico's Mr. Ueda's, and Ikaruga's Mr. Iuchi's upcoming work," Yoko says exceptionally politely. "Would it be possible for you to share your progress? I'm sorry to bother you, and I thank you for your consideration on this matter."

Why would he punish us so, when he feels the same way?

Nier creator Yoko Taro says he isn't lazy like fans think, his "weird" new projects just keep getting canceled: "It never ended up seeing the light of day"

Having been involved in the creation of Fallout, Arcanum, The Temple of Elemental Evil, and The Outer Worlds, it's safe to say that Tim Cain has one of the most impressive resumes in the games industry, at the very least when it comes to RPGs. This has led the creator to be asked for a long time why he hasn't created a new IP, given that he clearly has a knack for it, a question he acknowledges in a new YouTube video titled "Why not create a new IP today?" (via PC Gamer).

"I love making games, so it really confuses people when they're like, 'Why are you not making games, new IPs?'" Cain says, explaining, "Other people have made way more money off of IPs I've created than I've ever made. It's not by a little. It's by a lot … the IPs that I made years ago, people who just work on them in a team make more money than I got to even create the IP." And while Cain sounds somewhat annoyed by it, he says it's more down to him being "exasperated with the question."

Cain does note that he simply doesn't have the resources to make a new CRPG, and if he worked with a publisher who could finance and produce the game, he'd end up in the same situation where someone makes way more money off of it. He adds that he's "moved on" from the idea of making new IP.

"If you really care about what I want, I'm still making toys and I love them and they make me happy. I'm over making people really wealthy with my own creations," explains Cain – who is currently working at Obsidian in a full-time role. While Cain's role isn't known, from the sounds of things, he may be back in a non-lead role like he was with the likes of Tyranny or South Park: The Stick of Truth.

However, Cain does note that his interest could be reignited, although not without some major changes to how the games industry works: "When a painting sells, everybody makes money."

"Fallout was always seen as a B project": 28 years since the post-apocalyptic RPG launched, its original creators reflect on a long legacy – starting with that very first bomb.

"Can't stop thinking about Vince," Pitchford said on Twitter Monday. Reminded by his wife Kristy, Pitchford recalled the story of Roth's tour of the Borderlands games, with Zampella and Kristy "playing tour guide."

"Vince was trolling," Pitchford said of Roth's tour. "He would wait until Eli stood too close to a barrel or something and he would detonate it to send Eli into Second Wind [downed state]. Confusion and panic would set in as Kristy helped Eli recover from the situation. Then he would lay off and just when Eli would let his guard down, BAM, Vince would troll him again.

"Kristy was getting wound up – she was sincerely working hard to give Eli a great walkthrough of the game. Feeling Kristy being distraught at Eli's confusion each time he got knocked down it occurred to me that Vince was trolling Kristy much more than he was trolling Eli. Vince would create mischievous joy like that. He was awesome. It sucks he's gone."

Zampella died in a single-car accident in Los Angeles on December 21. You'd be hard-pressed to find a modern FPS that wasn't influenced by his work in some way, major or minor. He was key among the franchise leadership team behind Battlefield 6, which reversed the series' fortunes and outshined Call of Duty in 2025.

In October, Zampella said "The only reason that CoD exists is because EA were dicks."

Patrick Söderlund, the CEO of Embark, spoke about the change with GamesBeat while playing some of the extraction shooter himself. "Obviously, first it's skill-based, of course, then you have solos, duos, and trios," he explains. "And then we also - since a week ago or so - we introduced a system where we also matchmake based on how prone you are to PvP or PvE."

Essentially, how likely you are to aggro other players and get into messy firefights versus trying to simply loot the area and take down drones will decide who you get placed with. He notes "it’s not a full science," perhaps because there's a large, hard-to-define middle-ground here, but agrees "aggression-based matchmaking" is "exactly what it is." Ironically, an opposing player shows up while they're talking in-game, pleading that they're friendly.

A game like Arc Raiders can be trickier if you consistently find yourself at odds with the players you’re matched with. Getting dragged into firefights when you’d really prefer to explore can be frustrating, and there's a danger of always having your rewards diminished because you’re constantly getting shot at.

Introducing a spectrum based on how likely people are to pick a fight brings some balance, but as is implied, there needs to be ambiguity, both to prevent players from seeking out weaker targets and to keep things unpredictable. While this might make your experience generally more pleasant, it should still be challenging.

This comes as Arc Raiders comes out of an incredibly successful launch period. Despite launching amid Battlefield 6 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 fever, it became one of the biggest games of 2025, and shows no signs of slowing down in 2026. Tweaks like these will no doubt help maintain the community for months to come.

Arc Raiders left with a grand question after sacrificing their characters for light Expedition loot: "Was it worth it?"

All Devil Hunter codes

The following Devil Hunter codes can be redeemed for various free awards:

• MELO150K – 1x Fiend Reroll, 1x Clan Reroll, 1x Eraser Devil (Skill Point Reset), 75,000 Yen new!
• RELEASE2026 – 1x Fiend Reroll, 1x Clan Reroll, 35,000 Yen new!
• 20KLIKES – 1x Fiend Reroll, 1x Clan Reroll, 1x Eraser Devil (Skill Point Reset), 50,000 Yen new!
• 10KLIKES – 1x Fiend Reroll, 1x Clan Reroll, 25,000 Yen new!

There are a selection of codes for Devil Hunter available right now, with all of them providing a Fiend Reroll and Clan Reroll to improve your chances of getting the RNG result you want, along with a decent amount of Yen to spend in the store. Several promos also give an Eraser Devil, which can be used to reset your skill points if you want to respec.

How to redeem Devil Hunter codes

To redeem Devil Hunter codes, you first need to join the Devil Hunter May Cry developer group by selecting their name on the main experience page and then following the Join Community prompt. You must then complete The Induction tutorial by introducing yourself to each of the six Division Captains, marked with bronze-colored ? quest markers – for three of them you'll need to take the elevator up from Floor 1 to Floor 2 – then report back to Kintoki to unlock your in-game phone.

To access your phone you need to press N on your keyboard, and at the time of writing there is no corresponding screen icon for this so it may be unavailable to those on mobile or consoles without an external keyboard. Once opened, hit the Codes icon on the phone screen to bring up the CODES menu, then use the Enter code... text box to type in a promo before hitting Enter to confirm. Remember that codes in Devil Hunter are case-sensitive, so must be typed in exactly as they're written or you'll get an error message.

Expired Devil Hunter codes

• No expired codes

As they have only recently been added to the game, there are currently no expired Devil Hunter codes to report. However, this situation is unlikely to continue indefinitely, so as always you should make sure you claim any active codes as soon as possible.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Speaking to GAMINGbible, Metropolis co-founder Adrian Chmielarz explains that "I knew Andrzej Sapkowski from the sort of sci-fi and fantasy fandom conventions," adding: "I just called him one day and said, 'look, I would love to make a game based on your short stories.'"

Chimielarz continues: "If anybody knows anything about Mr. Sapkowski, then they know that he doesn't really care about what happens to his characters outside of his own universe. So he was like, 'oh, fine, you want to do what, a game? That's OK. Show me the money and it's yours.'"

However, Metropolis Software never released The Witcher, and as Chimielarz puts it, it was down to "absolute idiocy." "It was a typical mistake that smaller studios make when they are successful, where instead of just maybe growing large enough to bake two games, we started making four," he adds, "And then we started running out of money."

He adds that publisher TopWare Interactive effectively made the call to put The Witcher on the backburner due to the franchise's lack of fame outside of Poland. Chimielarz explains: "They said, 'no, no, no, you have a real-time strategy game in the making. This sells in Germany, so we're good with that. You have a point-and-click adventure, which also sells in Germany. So we're keeping that.'" And thus, The Witcher died "with a whimper without really being officially canceled."

Then, in 2002, CD Projekt Red (who would later go on to acquire Metropolis Software) signed a deal with Sapkowski to make a game based on the franchise, and while Chimielarz did think that his deal was still valid and exclusive, he "didn't care." He adds, "I knew I wouldn't be able to finish The Witcher, so I said, 'OK, never mind. I hope they make a great game.'"

And he's glad that he didn't care, as Chimielarz says: "I'm super happy that they did, because I love these worlds. I love what they've done. They've done a much better game." Since it's better than "what we would have done with the title," the dev concludes that "it all worked out in the end."

New The Witcher 3 expansion rumored for 2026 launch, weeks after CD Projekt Red mysteriously teased "hinted" content.

As seen on the Monster Hunter leaks subreddit, players have seemingly uncovered text strings and UI features that would point to a Nintendo Switch 2 version. Most notably, this includes a Local Communication option which has the description that mentions "up to 4 people with their Nintendo Switch 2 consoles in proximity." There are also DLSS presets labelled with NSW2 further pointing to a possible Switch 2 version.

The group responsible for datamining the info has also allegedly uncovered graphic presets for the Switch 2 edition (as spotted by VGC) and released a short clip of what a potential Nintendo Switch 2 edition of Monster Hunter Wilds could look like, with the predicted specs being 1080p in docked mode with fidelity above the PC's "Very Low" preset.

Given that Monster Hunter Wilds' performance woes have overpowered the conversation around the game – with the PC version still being in a rough state almost an entire year after it was released – I can't say that I have especially high hopes for a Switch 2 version.

However, given how popular handhelds are in Japan and Monster Hunter being massive in the region, hopefully that means Capcom would do the work to make it run well, which could hopefully give the game the second chance it deserves. Plus, Capcom is supporting the system with day-one launches for the likes of Pragmata and Resident Evil Requiem.

Of course, there's also the chance that this is just some testing on Capcom's part for a potential Switch 2-led Monster Hunter game. The series has two teams, one producing the main titles while another produces what used to be the "portable" editions. We saw this with Monster Hunter 4 and Generations making up generation 4, while World and Rise made up generation 5 of the series.

If it does come to Switch 2, be sure to check out our Monster Hunter Wilds review to find out why we think it's the "new peak of the series," as well as our guide to the best Monster Hunter Wilds weapons.

The sequel focuses even more on building its cast of characters and giving a greater reason to feel invested in a world that will be shaped by your actions across two time periods. Picture an anime-style Dark Souls by way of Back to the Future. I recently had some hands-on time with Code Vein 2, learning more about the mix of sci-fi and dark fantasy and how the developers want to build on the original's character-first action-RPG stylings.

Two timelines, one big quest

Much like its predecessor, Code Vein 2 asks players to build up their custom protagonist's abilities and arsenals to defeat bosses and complete quests in a sprawling world. The sequel carries many concepts and familiar lore from the original, such as vampire-like characters known as Revenants who wield powerful abilities. However, the second game is a standalone follow-up that builds up a story focusing on building a better future by setting things right in the past.

Playing as a hunter of rogue revenants, you're tasked with saving the world following a cataclysmic event known as the Resurgence. After forming a bond with a mysterious ally named Lou, the protagonist gains the ability to travel between two time periods 100 years apart to reverse anomalies in the past, in turn improving life in the present day – but some changes may lead to some unexpected consequences that could put the future in peril.

"The core concepts of Code Vein that I believe define it in the landscape of Soulslike games are really that character drama – the charm that you get from interacting with your partner and overcoming these tough encounters, dungeons, and challenging enemies with your partner," explains producer Keita Iizuka during the extended preview.

There's a keen focus on reshaping the world around you. The time-travel element adds a cool wrinkle to the world, as you restore areas of the present to unlock new zones and side quests. These can also reveal hidden objectives and opportunities to discover, which is an intriguing evolution from the original's more rigid structure.

Seeing the game world shift between two different eras, with the protagonist teaming up with allies from the past and then seeing their impact in the future, is a cool concept for a soulslike. The main quest we focus on during the preview sees the protagonist paired with Josee, a plucky mercenary from the past who seeks to purify a water source within the Sunken Pylon, which is heavily polluted in the present era.

This sequence presents an intriguing setup for one of the early time-travel escapades. As one of the core objectives is to uncover the root causes of the Resurgence, this entails connecting with characters from the past who will eventually become corrupted, monstrous versions of themselves in the present era. In essence, Code Vein 2 actually has you bond and partner up with likeable human versions of Souls-style bosses before they become corrupted. Bonding with Josee during the dungeon crawl before seeing their eventual corruption offers a bit of context that you normally don't get prior to facing off against a boss in a Souls-game, and the inevitable battle against Josee's corrupt form is an unexpectedly tragic boss battle to cap off the quest.

I'm intrigued by the broader scope of Code Vein 2's main story, which feels more conscious of the world and the characters within it, but it also ties into the game's larger world to explore. Tying together the main dungeons and key points of interest are the large open zones to explore filled monsters, hidden quests, and other side-tasks to uncover. It's not on the level of Elden Ring's open world, but it's certainly more expansive than the original Code Vein's structure.

What I did find interesting about Code Vein 2's setting is seeing the larger world slowly healing after completing different milestones. After defeating the Metagen Remnant, which poisoned the water in the past, the next major zone set in the massive city opened up, giving the impression that nature is healing and that your actions are slowly but surely building a better future.

Embracing 'anime Dark Souls'

Despite the larger scope, the dungeon crawls and focused combat encounters are still very much in play in Code Vein 2. The Sunken Pylon hits all the beats of a classic Souls-style dungeon – trapped in a flooded area, I had to defend myself against spiked monsters darting through the area, barely making it out alive with the treasure hidden inside. This area really got me up to speed on Code Vein 2's improved combat. It carries the fundamentals of the original but with a far better flow that feels much more responsive and satisfying than the previous game.

According to the developers, this was a particular area they wanted to improve upon from the original. "We got some not-so-good feedback in terms of the quality of the encounters from the previous game, the action in battles, and the way we adjusted the difficulty compared to other Soulslike games," says game producer Keita Iizuka. "There was certainly room for improvement. So, including upgrading the partner system, we really want to lean into our strengths [of style] and improve some of the areas that need improvement, and to really make battles feel more threatening and keep players on the edge of their seat."

The second game largely sticks with the original's approach to character building and power progression, emphasizing selecting builds and weapon styles and using your partner's skills rather than tinkering with stats. Code Vein kept the familiar combat flow and style of many Soulslikes; but what truly set it apart from other games was its offering of more opportunities to experiment with class archetypes called Blood Codes. Instead of allocating points to individual stats, level-ups are all pre-defined stat buffs, letting players focus more on selecting playstyles and skills to use.

Combat in Code Vein 2 feels far more punchy and precise. I really take to its flow, landing my weapon strikes and combat arts, entering into a third-person aiming mode for my ranged weapon, and utilizing finisher attacks against stunned enemies. In a way, Code Vein 2's flashy, stylized action leans further into the concept of the series being the so-called 'anime-Dark Souls' – the Souls community's endearing way to describe its look and tone. Even though I have a lot of options in fights, I still feel the tension of that underlying Soulslike experience.

I develop a particular fondness for the twin swords and polearm weapons, with each having its own combat arts to utilize. But what really impresses me is the expanded partner system, which is more versatile and helpful this go around. In addition to gaining stats and ability buffs from your chosen partner, who does a solid job of holding their own in a fight, they're also able to revive you if you get knocked out by an enemy – at the cost of their own life, before they revive on cooldown. This 'extra life' of sorts comes in clutch during the more challenging boss battles, giving me a much-needed second wind to power through corrupted Josee.

You can also assimilate your partner, giving the protagonist heightened attack and defensive abilities. It's an exciting option to have – especially for players who feel more comfortable playing solo. I generally kept my partner by my side, but in some of the more challenging battles, I find the assimilate option to be helpful in a pinch, especially while whittling down the last slivers of Metagen Remnant's health bar to close out the Sunken Pylon dungeon.

Upping the stakes

Soulslikes tend to be very isolating by design, so it's neat to see Code Vein 2 lean into its partner system to make those dungeon crawls and boss battles more of a bonding experience with supporting characters. Playing Code Vein 2 already makes me feel more engaged with its setting, much more than the original game. I get the sense that the stakes of the adventure are much greater – a time-travel story that focuses on cause and effect is a fascinating concept for a Soulslike.

While Code Vein 2 hits many of the standard beats of the genre, the sequel is so far building further upon the original's character-focused Soulslike spectacle in an interesting way. Even with Bandai Namco being the core publisher of FromSoftware's Elden Ring, Code Vein 2 makes the case for more story-driven takes on the formula that move away from isolation and more towards bonding with allies. Hopefully, this sequel will stick the landing and embrace its oddities for the larger adventure ahead.

Code Vein 2 launches on January 29 for PC, Xbox Series, and PS5. To pass the time until launch, here are the best RPGs we think you should play at least once

On Sunday, January 4, fans of the longstanding multiplayer game were left without access for a period of time. Servers around the world appeared to be down, prompting all sorts of speculation about what could be going on at Riot Games for something as big as League of Legends to suddenly go out like this.

Was it a holiday blunder? Sudden server demand? A DDOS attack? None of the above, it seems. The issue appears to have been caused by an overdue renewal, according to information uncovered through access to League's client information.

Riot Games let the SSL certificate lapse. SSL stands for 'Secure Sockets Layer' and the certificate essentially makes sure everything is appropriately protected in whatever you're accessing. If a site or game or anything else doesn't have this, it becomes functionally inaccessible as a way of protecting users.

Players used a roundabout method of getting into the game by resetting their clock, but that was just a temporary fix. You can find basic information on these certs relatively easily, just like people have done for League, uncovering that on January 7, 2016, Riot updated the SSL certificate through to January 4, 2026. Oh, how far away that must've seemed, and yet it arrived awfully quick.

I like to imagine there was an internal task and Google Calendar event set up to remind someone of this, but either they don't work there any more or the people who were pinged were on vacation. Either way, nothing happened until it was slightly too late. Now it's been renewed for 100 years.

Riot Games has yet to comment beyond a tweet from the League of Legends account confirming the outage. I'll see you back here in 2125 to check if Riot manages to remember to update the paperwork again. I bet the reminder is company-wide this time, too.

League of Legends is getting a new client, "entirely new visuals," and "a bit of new gameplay" in a massive 2027 update reportedly codenamed League Next.

Looking at Steam250 which tracks the top-reviewed Steam games of a given year, Expedition 33 came in at fourth place. Ahead of it were superhero management sim Dispatch in third, co-op horror game R.E.P.O. in second, and the number one slot was taken by drug-dealing sim Schedule 1. While Dispatch is in a very similar situation to Expedition 33 – that being former Telltale devs teaming up to make a passion project – the top two are early access indies with small dev teams.

When it comes to the Game of the Year nominees at The Game Awards, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 still leads, while Hades 2 and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 took the number nine and 10 spots respectively. In last place is Hollow Knight: Silksong, which sits at number 19. Obviously, Donkey Kong Bananza and Death Stranding 2 aren't on Steam and thus aren't counted, (although Donkey Kong would obviously be number one, if you ask me).

Still, it's interesting to see that even with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 leading the conversation throughout 2025, quietly, drug dealing was the real sweetheart of Steam players. Funnily enough, Schedule 1 isn't the only one in the top 50, with, ahem, "BRAZILIAN DRUG DEALER 3: I OPENED A PORTAL TO HELL IN THE FAVELA TRYING TO REVIVE MIT AIA I NEED TO CLOSE IT" taking the number 45 slot, beating out the likes of Where Winds Meet and Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds.

Before Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 swept The Game Awards, Sandfall was betting it might scrape an 80 Metacritic score.