While EA is largely known as the sports, Battlefield, and Sims factory these days – they also occasionally allow BioWare to release an RPG if the studio does so quietly enough – the studio's catalog includes many, many more franchises. What's going to become of all those IPs after the Saudi Arabia-led buyout of the company? Well, maybe some of them can be sold off to more attentive homes.

That's an idea posited by Emmanuel Rosier, who served as a high-level manager at EA for the better part of a decade, apprising the company of industry and market trends likely to affect their fortunes. Now he's the director of market intelligence at the third-party industry analysis firm Newzoo, and recently spoke to PC Gamer about the situation EA now finds itself in.

"They have a lot of dormant IPs that have not been used for so many years," Rosier says. "You know, they have IPs like Ultima, they have IPs like Wing Commander and this and that, and it's not being used at all. So the question is, would some of them be maybe sold, or will they hire studios to leverage these IPs? Because we see every day the importance of IPs."

EA's taking $20 billion in debt as part of the buyout, and it's widely expected that mass layoffs are going to be a big part of getting that debt under control. Selling off old IPs could be a way to get the cash flowing in a hurry, and as much of a struggle as it's seemingly been for BioWare to even get Mass Effect 5 made, I have my doubts that anyone's going to be able to convince the higher-ups at EA – never mind the even higher-ups in the new ownership group – to sign off on a big-budget revival of an even older series.

"I think there are plenty of IPs like that at EA that nobody cares about at this moment," Rosier says. "I think probably they will leverage that either by just selling it or trying to find external studios that can work on that. Maybe mobile games."

I don't know about that whole mobile games idea – the last time EA translated a classic series into a mobile game, we got Command & Conquer: Rivals. That game was, by many accounts, pretty good, but it left traditional RTS fans feeling burned, and the backlash was so severe that EA built a lavish remaster of the original games as something of a make good.

Ultima and Wing Commander, specifically, are every bit as foundational to their respective genres as Command & Conquer is to RTS games, and the fact that they're sitting in some grand EA vault like the artifacts in Raiders of the Lost Ark is hard to swallow. Never mind the likes of SimCity, Burnout, Dungeon Keeper, Populous, SSX, Spore… the list goes on and on.

I'm not one to demand revivals of every old game, as I do think old franchises have often already had their time to shine. But the fact that so many of these games aren't even available on Steam these days, with their legacy left to wonderful fan patches and sketchy abandonware sites, hardly seems right.

Many of the best RPGs available today simply would not exist without Ultima's influence.

Sony and Microsoft had better think long and hard before pricing the next generation of consoles at $1000, as one prominent industry analyst predicts that could result in a huge drop in sales compared to the current generation.

According to a new report from Ampere Analysis (via VGC), there is a specific set of circumstances which seem entirely plausible that could see combined PS6 and Xbox Project Helix sales plummet 38% over five years compared to PS5 and Xbox Series X sales over the same time period. Those circumstances are A) The next-gen consoles launch with a base price of $1000, and B) they're "conventionally designed, incrementally improved" over the current generation, which is typically the deal these days.

In that scenario, the analyst predicts Sony and Microsoft would see a massive drop in adoption rates as well as a decrease in consumer spending that could negatively impact the overall console games and services market by 12%.

With PS5 Pros going for $900, trade wars ongoing, and RAM shortages showing no signs of improving, a $1000 PS6 isn't such an outlandish prediction. And yet, another industry analyst has gone on the record to say consoles that expensive could price out buyers "quite significantly."

The folks at Ampere reckon Sony and Microsoft could avoid that problem in several ways, either by delaying the start of the next generation until component costs go down, keeping prices low through "heavier hardware subsidies, new monetisation models, more aggressive digital content strategies and optimised sales channels," or by going in another direction entirely and "substantially" innovating in a way that doesn't rely on "graphical improvement." VGC cites the Nintendo Wii as an example of this, trading raw hardware power for form factor innovation.

Considering the Xbox Series S launched for $299 less than six years ago, it's staggering to consider a successor that costs more than triple that as the cost of basic living necessities like groceries, gas, and housing remains elevated. I'm no analyst, but it's easy to see how people living in today's economy would stay out of a $1000 console generation until things settle down.

Threats of a $1,000 PS6 have ex-Sony president just as scared as you are: "How much more ray tracing can you put in there?"

Hayden Christensen says he wants to make a live-action Clone Wars series with the OG cast of the prequel series... and that everyone would be down to come back.

"I know that Ewan McGregor would love to do more with it," Christensen said on the Hey Jonas podcast, when asked by Kevin Jonas if there would ever be a live-action Anakin series. "I've heard Natalie [Portman] would love to come back. Sam Jackson. So you could get the band back together."

As a defender of the prequels, this makes me irrationally happy. Until Ahsoka season 1, Christensen had not revisited Anakin since 2005 (though his vocal 'cameo' in The Rise of Skywalker does technically count). In The Clone Wars TV show, we learn that Ahsoka and Anakin have some serious history together (I also find it endearing that he calls her 'Snips' and she calls him 'Skyguy'). It only made sense that this would carry over into the live-action Ahsoka series.

"I'm ready whenever they are. They just seem to not be ready, but I'm up for it," McGregor previously stated in regards to returning as Obi-Wan. It's been four years since his standalone limited Disney Plus series. The actor reportedly followed Dave Filoni around on set of Ahsoka season 2 (in which his wife Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays Hera) in order to pitch his character's comeback.

Ahsoka season 2 hits Disney Plus on January 20, 2027. The trailer for the new season was released at D23 and you can check out our Ahsoka season 2 trailer breakdown for all the major moments.

Red Dead Redemption lead multiplayer designer Kris Roberts once tried enjoying his much-needed compensated time off. The 2010 open-world game's demanding pre-launch period put him in "an amnesiac state" of sleep deprivation, and he was starting to get irritable with his bosses at Rockstar. But then he got assigned jury duty, and then Red Dead's multiplayer bugs started to show themselves, and any hopes for going to bed on time were replaced with cold panic.

"Sort of like the punchline," Roberts tells Kiwi Talkz in a new interview, which you can watch below. "I was on jury in a criminal case, where somebody was potentially going to go to prison when we shipped. And, I don't know if you were aware or whatever, but when Red Dead shipped, multiplayer was broken. Just absolutely broken." Members of the Rockstar New England team – he credits someone named Jeremy, likely programmer Jeremy Tudisco – helped him patch it up, but not before he was made to have a few 3AM sessions spent staring at the American frontier gone wild.

"There were people riding chickens, and old ladies flying around, and all these wacky things that we had never, ever seen," Roberts says, "and it's like, 'Are we being hacked? Is somebody trolling us? What's going on?"

He'd work on finding a solution after his jury duty sessions, and while presumably unpleasant, the hard work during what was meant to be his free time eventually paid off. "What we discovered was, there were these special assets for the competitive games, these bags of gold that were really resource heavy, because everybody needed to agree, exactly, on who owned them, where they were, all that kind of stuff," says Roberts.

"And I remember riding around in a public session, and near Escalera, or some place like that where there was a competitive game, and I saw this array of bags, like, just there on the ground. Which shouldn't be there. They should never be in free roam. And that was, like, the first clue."

"We never actually, to the best of my understanding, figured out how it was happening," Roberts admits. But Rockstar devs were able to make a good guess: there was likely "some edge case" where a player leaving a competitive game could grab a money bag and take it with them while they free roamed like an outlaw.

"Basically, the theory was those [bags] were soaking up all the resources so none of the actual game logic or scripting could function as designed," says Roberts. Eventually, Jeremy came along and "came up with a script that would purge those bags with extreme prejudice. So, it's like, if you're in free roam, and you're an asset with this ID range, you are a bag, and you are gone."

"It was amazing, we were able to fix that," Roberts says, sounding relieved even 16 years later. Jeremy linked his bag removal script with the sound of a slot machine payout, too, for extra, flashy satisfaction.

Even better, the irreproachable technology of 2010 allowed Rockstar's multiplayer team to release emergency fixes with the easy slickness of shoe polish on cowboy boots.

Roberts observes about the money bag fix, "That kind of thing would normally have to go through a whole patch and approval process and testing, and, you know, it could have taken weeks or longer to deploy that." But developers' Xbox 360 and PS3 kits gave them access to title storage. "The intention was you would get, like, notifications about tournaments, or things that were happening, that could show up on the client," Roberts says, "and it turned out we could deploy Jeremy [Tudisco]'s script through the title storage update."

"So, with no oversight, and no testing, or no delay, we were able to get that script into the public sessions within 24 hours," he says. "I thought we had won the lottery as far as, like, 'It's actually getting fixed. It's not a catastrophe.'

In fact, it was finally over. "And it was three in the morning, or so, and I remember going to talk to – we had a new studio head then, Gordon [Hall] had left – and I remember talking to him," says Roberts. He told his boss, "'This is what we're doing, this is how it's being deployed, blah, blah, blah. But I got to go, because I'm expected in court in a few hours.'"

Sorry, Rockstar – duty calls.

After 16 years, Red Dead Redemption's John Marston actor completes Rockstar's epic Western, breaks down crying during the end credits: "Oh my goodness."

The creator of open-world game Future? No Thanks! says Valve has repeatedly flagged his game as deserving an adult-only rating on par with outright porn games, yet refused to explain its reasoning, reflecting what he calls a "monopoly" on PC gaming that forces devs to comply with opaque rules.

Aftermath spoke to several game developers about the difficult and awkward process of getting games with sexual content rated and approved on Steam. Pedercini's Future? No Thanks! is a comparatively tame open-world game about exploring an "ecosocialist eutopia" as an old man "scheduled for euthanasia."

It's definitely a mature game, but from what I've seen and what Pedercini is saying, it's very far from pornographic. It feels closer to comedy of a Futurama variety. Yet the disclaimer for its Steam demo insists the game contains "implied off-screen sexual activity. Conversations about mature themes such as sex, gender, and death. Depiction of legalized prostitution. Depiction of euthanasia. Drug and tobacco reference sexual innuendos mild swearing [sic]."

Pedercini maintains that the game "has some brief nudity and mature content… but there's no intercourse on screen," and while he's open to adjusting content to meet Steam's standards for a rating which won't kill the game's visibility, he's unsure what needs changing.

"Steam is a monopoly with very few precedents," he says. "As a developer, I’m completely at their whim."

This is something I've heard from many game developers publishing on Steam: the store can be great when it's in your corner, but working against it in any way can feel impossible.

Even after "all the nudity" was removed, by which Pedercini means "putting clothes on the sex worker and the sexbot," the game was rejected again on the grounds that it "contains sexual content that is explicit or graphic and is intended for adults only." However, Pedercini says Valve claims it "can't specify the reasons or point at the content" in question.

Valve is notorious for arbitrarily blocking games with sexual or mature content despite allowing a torrent of actual pornographic games on Steam. There was also a huge stink last year after Valve cracked under pressure from payment processor-pushed censorship and took a sledgehammer to swathes of adult games. Itch.io faced similar issues, which collectively forced countless NSFW games off stores.

The other half of this equation is its alleged monopoly, which is widely argued given its dominance on PC, but is still more contentious.

Games analyst Mat Piscatella commented on this last year, arguing that Steam is not a monopoly simply because of its market share.

"A monopoly is where there's a single seller for a particular service or good with no substitutes and the ability to charge excessively high rates because of this," he said at the time.

One question is whether Steam's dominance is due to Valve actively boxing out competitors, or due to Steam simply being that much better than other PC storefronts and thus eating their lunch passively. Ask Amazon and Epic Games how difficult it is to make a Steam competitor. '

"It's almost as if it isn't providing a shit service," as Baldur's Gate 3 publishing lead Michael Doluse put it.

Valve has repeatedly been accused of, and taken to court over, monopolistic practices on Steam. Earlier this year, deposition from Gabe Newell, attached to a US class action lawsuit mirroring a UK case likewise accusing Valve of abusing its position, emerged. Newell argued that gamers "have enormous choice" and claimed "Valve does not have a policy or practice of dictating prices to third-party software developers on other platforms."

I actually met and spoke to Pedercini earlier this year to discuss another heated topic: why indie devs don't want to use generative AI.

Pedercini showed mercy to GTA 6 by shifting his own open-world game's release date away from Rockstar's.

Gearbox is sticking to its word and continuing to support Borderlands 4 with big new content drops despite what it's admitted was a "softer" launch than expected. The developer has released the full details for the $20 Borderlands 4 Story Pack 2, titled FL4K and the Last Resort, and, as you might've gleaned from that title, the Borderlands 3 playable Beastmaster class FL4K is making a triumphant comeback.

At the heart of FL4K and the Last Resort's story is a rescue mission for the vault hunter's dog, who is kidnapped by Tediore soldiers while accompanying FL4K on a hunting mission on the new tropical jungle map, Providence, which makes up much of the new DLC's visual identity. Art director Chris Neely tells Polygon the update has "a little bit of a Mad Max edge" and "a little John Wick action."

"Tediore has captured one of my best friends. He's a skag, and he's helpless without me. If he is alive, I require assistance rescuing him. If he is dead, go Vault Hunter, put things in their place," says FL4K in the below trailer. Frankly, if there's one guaranteed trick to get me to buy a DLC, it's telling me there's an animal that needs rescuing. Diabolical work, Gearbox.

Story Pack 2 also adds a bunch of new goons called Deadframes to blast through and a new Vault Hunter to embody while doing so, the previously unveiled Cyberpunk hacker, Loveless. Gearbox says Loveless makes use of "advanced cybernetics and a sentient digital virus pet for a unique combat approach," and again, just take my money already.

Ultimately, we're here for the loot, and Story Pack 2 delivers on that front. Gearbox says you'll be able to find two new Pearlescent weapons; the Astonisher Ripper shotgun and the Quadratus, a Vladof Heavy Weapon Ordnance; as well as 18 new pieces of Legendary gear.

Borderlands 4's second big expansion releases alongside a smaller new Bounty Pack, titled Amara and the Vile Shadows, which is a separate $6 purchase and comes with a new replayable mission and new loot including a new Pearlescent weapon and six new pieces of Legendaries.

All of that is releasing alongside a new system update that'll bring the game up to version 1.10 and increase the max level cap by 10 for everyone.

Here are the best FPS games to play in 2026.

FromSoftware president and longtime Souls series director Hidetaka Miyazaki says the studio doesn't make games to target a specific audience. In his case, he says he just makes the games he wants to see.

Miyazaki discusses his, and the FromSoftware team's, design philosophy in an interview with IGN. "We don't really have a set audience in mind at the start," he says. "It's very much showing that this is what I wanted to make; the motivation is that this is a game I want to see exist."

The Duskbloods comes at an unusual time for FromSoftware. 2022's Elden Ring proved to be the studio's biggest commercial success – and, to many or most fans, its finest RPG – which is the type of game that many companies would want to make a sequel for, or at least a similar follow-up. But ever since, and for several years now, we haven't gotten even one of the single-player dark fantasy RPGs that the studio is known for today.

2023 saw Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon, the first-in-a-decade numbered installment in one of FromSoftware's oldest series. Per our Armored Core 6 review, the game was great – but it (very deliberately) wasn't more Elden Ring and didn't scratch the same itch. Ironically, neither did Elden Ring Nightreign, an experimental PvE battle royale of sorts forged from Elden Ring assets in a cave.

The Duskbloods is the studio's next game, and while it is a dark fantasy action RPG, it's a multiplayer-first experience with a blend of PvP and PvE. Thanks to a Nintendo partnership, it's also FromSoftware's first exclusive game since Bloodborne, making it another outlier in about 13 years of otherwise consistent action hits.

Miyazaki says there was no grand design behind this brief multiplayer bubble, nor has the studio moved away from single-player games. "At the end of the day, our motivation is always to just make a game that we want to play, something we've been wanting to make," he reiterates.

"There was never really any big plan that these two games [Nightreign and The Duskbloods] would both release next to each other," Miyazaki continues. "I mean, that's a different director, but both of those ideas just coincided with being multiplayer games. It's not necessarily some big reveal saying that this is the direction we plan to go moving forward. We still have a heavy focus on single-player content as well. This is just something that happened to work out the way it did."

The director of Nightreign, Junya Ishizaki, joined by FromSoft producer Yasuhiro Kitao, said as much to me in an interview last year: FromSoftware is dabbling in more multiplayer, but its interest in single-player games hasn't waned.

However, Miyazaki says it is "very fun to make a multiplayer game like this. It's not something we've done a lot and we're looking forward to seeing players' reactions and getting the feedback."

Separately, he explains that The Duskbloods leverages ideas that were brought up years ago but didn't suit the likes of Dark Souls or Demon's Souls.

Similar comments come up in a separate chat with Inven Global, with Miyazaki reaffirming that FromSoftware hasn't suddenly lost interest in single-player games despite a small string of multiplayer releases.

"Our stance remains unchanged even now: 'We make the games we want to make,'" he says. "The timing of planning The Duskbloods and the timing of planning by the [Elden Ring] Nightreign team happened to overlap by chance, and Nightreign just happened to be released first, which seems to have led to this misunderstanding." The Duskbloods actually entered development before Nightreign, which reflects the quick-and-dirty development pipeline that Nightreign seems to have had.

Stop the Bloodborne hunt, Miyazaki says The Duskbloods is totally unrelated: "I almost regret putting the word 'Blood' in the title."

Development of 2XKO is shutting down this year.

Riot Games has announced that its League of Legends fighting game did not attract enough players to sustain future support, and the final content update will land in October. The game itself will remain playable both online and offline for the foreseeable future.

"Over the last few months, we’ve been monitoring 2XKO’s trajectory closely, and what we’ve seen is painting a clear, consistent picture: while a lot of you jumped in to try the game and there's an incredible community that plays every day, we haven’t seen enough players stick with the game to get to a path toward sustainability," Riot says in its announcement.

2XKO's struggles have been clear since launch, when 80 employees were laid off immediately following the game's release. Riot says that its goal with 2XKO was to satisfy frustrated members of the fighting game community, while simultaneously making a notoriously daunting genre more accessible for new players. While the studio says it saw "small scale" evidence of success with this approach, it wasn't enough.

"In recent months, the team has continued to take bold swings while fully aware of 2XKO's challenges – but to attempt another year hoping for a way forward would have been an irresponsible choice for players and the dev team," Riot says. "To be super clear: we would have continued active development if we saw any viable future, but 2XKO costs us substantially more to operate than it brings in, and engagement has stayed relatively flat despite our larger updates."

2XKO launched in January 2026 as a free-to-play game supported by microtransactions. All purchases made up until today, August 20, will be refunded to players in the weeks to come. On September 8, an update will be released which unlocks all champions for all players. At the same time, a final $40 bundle will be released that contains all previously released cosmetic content.

Lux, a new character who was announced at Evo 2026, will also be released as part of the September update. The final champion, Samira, will be released in an October update that will serve as 2XKO's "final major content patch."

"Looking to the future, you can count on Riot to keep exploring new genres and ways to bring players together," the studio concludes. "For now, we’re focused on leaving 2X in a great spot. Then, we’ll head back into the R&D lab, where we’ll take time to learn and work on how we come back stronger for the next swing at the next genre."

League Classic might sound fun, but as a 15-year League of Legends veteran, I'm here to tell you: You want this less than you think.

Aesthetic and thematic similarities, not to mention the word "blood," have many FromSoftware fans convinced The Duskbloods is related in some way to the beloved 2015 action RPG, Bloodborne. To be fair, they're definitely related by virtue of the fact that they're both developed by FromSofware with Hidetaka Miyazaki at the helm, but according to Miyazaki himself, that's where the connection ends.

"I expected this question, but it is a game with no connection whatsoever to Bloodborne," he tells Inven Global. "In fact, because we've received this question so often, I almost regret putting the word 'Blood' in the title (laughs). There are merely similar terms and concepts; the themes are quite different."

FromSoft sickos have been begging for a Bloodborne remake or remaster, or even just an official PC port, for years now, but so far it seems their pleading has fallen on deaf ears. In fact, FromSoft reportedly shot down a Bloodborne remake pitch from Demon's Souls remake studio Bluepoint before the developer was shut down by Sony earlier this year.

Point being, Bloodborne hopefuls are desperate for something, anything to suggest FromSoft is aware of their existence. But unfortunately, The Duskbloods ain't it, and Miyazaki says the Switch 2 exclusive will prove itself a very different game from Bloodborne at launch.

"In this network test, not much of the world's lore is revealed, so it might be difficult to feel the differences," he says. "However, in the commercial release (the official launch version), much more of the world lore will be uncovered, and I think by then people will realize the two games are completely different."

Right from its announcement, The Duskbloods has been billed as something fresh and new for FromSoft, a PvPvE action game where groups of up to eight players take part in online matches with varying victory conditions. Miyazaki says it's full of ideas FromSoft couldn't fit into Dark Souls or Demon's Souls, including "things that seemed like great ideas, but didn't really fit in the context of a single-player game or within the context of those games, specifically."

The Duskbloods is due out in 2026, and a possible leak suggests a September release date.

The Duskbloods gameplay footage leaks ahead of network test, showing off slick aerial combat, buttery smooth movement options, and a dude turning into a dinosaur.

If you're looking for the best new shows and movies to stream this weekend, you've come to the right place. It's a relatively quiet week for white-hot new releases, though new episodes of Lanterns and Reacher season 4 are still airing weekly. However, it is a great week for under-the-radar shows and movies that you may have missed earlier in the year finally coming to streaming.

From horror film Passenger, which went largely ignored amid the obsession with Obsession earlier this year, to A24's Mother Mary, which is destined to be the least-seen Anne Hathaway movie of the year despite featuring one of her best performances, now is the perfect time to catch up. There's also a fascinating new Disney doc, with contributions from some of the world's biggest filmmakers, including Kevin Feige and James Cameron.

So read on for our picks of the best new streaming releases to watch this weekend on Netflix, Prime Video, HBO Max, Disney Plus and more. And if that wasn't enough, we've also got some guides to the best Apple TV shows and the best Apple TV movies to keep you entertained this summer.

Passenger

Available: US/UK
Where to watch: Paramount Plus

This high-concept horror had the bad luck of releasing one week after Obsession, so not many caught it in theaters despite a buzzy trailer scaring the pants off people. So now's the perfect chance to catch up.

Directed by Trollhunter's André Øvredal, it's about a couple who stop at the scene of an accident on the road, only to later realize that they've picked up a demonic hitchhiker. Hate it when that happens!

In the mood for more? Check out our list of the best movies on Paramount Plus.

Mother Mary

Available: US/UK
Where to watch: HBO Max

After The Odyssey, The End of Oak Street, and The Devil Wears Prada 2, the year of Anne Hathaway continues with Mother Mary. The A24 movie is now streaming on HBO Max after a stint in cinemas earlier this year. But given it made a little over $3 million worldwide in theaters, chances are it will fare better on streaming.

More Black Swan than Vox Lux, Hathaway stars as the eponymous musical artist who reunites with her costume designer (Michaela Coel) ahead of a comeback tour, until the movie takes a hard left turn towards the supernatural. Reviews were divisive, but director David Lowery is the kind of filmmaker who's always worth checking out.

Once you've watched Mother Mary, here are the best movies on HBO Max.

Is God Is

Available: US/UK
Where to watch: Prime Video

Don't be fooled by the title; this isn't Angel Studios' latest faith-based movie. Rather, it's a pretty dark Southern Gothic horror-thriller about twin sisters who want revenge against their own father for disfiguring them as children.

Despite the very heavy premise, it's a movie with a streak of pitch-black comedy running through it, so it isn't a total mood-killer. And it has a striking sense of style, marking writer-director Aleshea Harris out as one to watch. Janelle Monáe, Vivica A. Fox and Sterling K. Brown co-star.

Keep movie night going with our list of the best movies on Prime Video.

The Audacity

Available: US/UK
Where to watch: Netflix

This dark comedy series about an increasingly unhinged tech CEO isn't brand new; it premiered on AMC+ in April. But now that it's made the jump to Netflix, it's opened an under-the-radar show up to a much wider audience.

Creator Jonathan Glatzer previously worked on the likes of Succession, Better Call Saul, and Bad Sisters, so top credentials. Billy Magnussen stars, with Zach Galifianakis and Barry's Sarah Goldberg among the impressive supporting cast. And the good news is, it's already been renewed for season 2.

Fill out your watchlist with our guide to the best shows on Netflix.

Disney Worldbuilders

Available: US/UK
Where to watch: Disney Plus

This hour-long doc about Disney's theme parks may sound like an elaborate advert to make you hand over more money to the Disney Corporation. But there's a little more to it that makes it worth checking out, even if you wouldn't be caught dead at Disney World.

James Cameron, Jon Favreau, Kevin Feige, Pete Docter, and Dave Filoni are among the contributors who discuss, yes, Disney theme parks. But more than that, it's about the creative spark that inspired them to become storytellers, so expect some compelling foundational stories.

Find plenty more to watch with our list of the best movies on Disney Plus.

For what else is coming out this year, check out our guide to all the upcoming movies you need to know about.

A legend is born! Ghost Rider is finally entering the MCU, played by Ryan Gosling. Announced at San Diego Comic-Con 2026, Gosling's introduction into the Marvel universe will be directed by Deadpool and Wolverine helmer Shawn Levy. It's been a long time coming too, with Gosling speaking about wanting to play the character for several years before Kevin Feige gave it the green light.

Now that the news is in the wild, there have been quite a few updates to wade through. The movie seemingly has an official release date and a very cool logo. We've also found out that there's a specific set of comics that it's going to adapt. We've broken down all of this information below to help you navigate the latest MCU entry.

That's not all either, as we've also got a breakdown of all the upcoming Marvel movies and shows on the way, as well as a guide on how to watch the Marvel movies in order if you want to catch up pre-Ghost Rider. The Spirit of Vengeance arrives…

Ghost Rider release date

Ghost Rider is set to arrive in theaters on July 28, 2028.

It will actually be one of three Marvel movies arriving in 2028, beginning with the X-Men movie in May and ending with Black Panther 3 in December. These will all feature as part of a whole new phase for the MCU too, with Phase 6 ending with Avengers: Secret Wars in late 2027.

Ghost Rider plot details

Ghost Rider will star Ryan Gosling, be directed by Shawn Levy, and will be written by Jonathan Tropper. And that's pretty much everything we know so far about the upcoming movie.

No plot details have been announced yet, and we don't even know yet what version of Ghost Rider Gosling will be playing. All Feige has revealed is that the actor had a "specific vision" for the movie.

Speaking at San Diego Comic-Con 2026, Feige told ComicBook.com: "I am going to let Ryan reveal what he wants to reveal, when he wants to reveal it, and what he wanted to reveal today is: he's playing Ghost Rider. He is a huge fan of the comics; he did come to us particularly with a specific vision, based on some particular comics, but I'll let him unveil that as he wants to."

Levy also echoed that Gosling's pitch is very strong. Speaking to People in August 2026, ahead of the release of the duo's upcoming Star Wars movie, Starfighter, he revealed that he was sold on the idea in just six minutes.

Which Ghost Rider is Ryan Gosling playing?

Gosling's Ghost Rider will be the third version of the character we've seen on screens. Nicolas Cage played Johnny Blaze previously in two Sony movies, and Gabriel Luna starred as Robbie Reyes in Agents of SHIELD. However, this will likely reboot the character as the main MCU version from here on out.

As for what version he's playing, we don't yet know. However, we can assume that the movie will hit some of the usual touch points that are typical for Ghost Rider's story. The two main versions of the character are Johnny Blaze and Danny Ketch.

Blaze was first introduced in Marvel Comics in 1972 as a stunt motorcyclist who sells his soul to Satan (actually Mephisto) to save his foster father's life. This leaves his flesh consumed by hellfire at night and around evil, giving him his signature flaming skull look.

The second version of Ghost Rider was introduced in the '90s. Danny Ketch comes into contact with a motorcycle containing the Spirit of Vengeance, which gives him his powers. Blaze is also a part of this story, and it's later revealed that Ketch is his long-lost sibling.

There have been several more versions of the character too, including Robbie Reyes and Parker Robbins. But given these are less-known stories, we'd bet Gosling's film will focus on one of the first two.

Ghost Rider cast

As of right now, the only confirmed cast member of the Ghost Rider movie is Ryan Gosling as the title character. However, we still don't know if he'll be Johnny Blaze or Danny Ketch yet.

If Ghost Rider does adapt the Johnny Blaze storyline, we could see Mephisto appear. The character was introduced in the MCU back in Ironheart, played by Sacha Baron Cohen. He's only appeared in a very small cameo part so far, so this could be a more major role for him.

We'll have to wait and see who else will appear in the movie. However, it's a pretty safe bet that we'll see some familiar faces. This is a Marvel movie, after all.

The full confirmed cast so far simply reads:

• Ryan Gosling as Ghost Rider

Is there a Ghost Rider trailer?

No, there's no trailer for Ghost Rider yet. The movie hasn't started filming yet, as it has only just been released. As a result, we'll be waiting a while until we see any footage from the upcoming movie.

Given that its release date is in mid-2028, we'd expect to see a trailer a few months before. Our best bet at the moment is late 2027 or early 2028. We could also get an early look at Marvel's typical convention appearances in 2027, either at San Diego Comic-Con in July or D23 in August. We'll keep you updated.

In the meantime, check out the announcement at San Diego Comic-Con 2026 above.

For more on all things Marvel, check out our guide to the Marvel timeline as well as our ranking of the best Marvel movies.

Halo universe co-creator and former Bungie creative director Marcus Lehto is having all kinds of strange ideas about the future of the franchise. But before you get too excited and start shooting your Needler pistol into the air, you should know the former Bungie creative director is certain you'll hate what he's thinking, and IP owner Xbox won't care.

"While talk of Halo's future is certainly very exciting, I'm aware that it's fanciful and that I doubt Asha [Sharma, Xbox CEO] really gives a shit," Lehto writes in an August 19 Twitter post. "Also, Halo MUST be built by a local team together," he adds, jabbing at Microsoft's reputation for internal layoffs followed by external contracting, "not outsourced around the globe to a group that has ZERO investment in making something great."

That could be that. But whatever Lehto's been mulling over sounds compelling, and Xbox has lately been experiencing more drastic changes than a little Halo revival, so...

Lehto teases in another Twitter post, "If I were to make another Halo these days, I bet many of you would not like it. It would be a lot darker with a more grounded military feel."

Then, while Halo games have always offered multiplayer PvP – Lehto despises the fact that the new Halo remake left this feature out – they aren't as reliable when it comes to PvE. But it sounds like Lehto wants to rectify this with a truly PvPvE Halo à la Arc Raiders, saying, "PvP would be the brains, PvE the heart and soul."

Ultimately, "It would not be 'everyone's' Halo," Lehto says confidently. In case he hasn't yet sharpened that point enough to tear through your gauzy memories of 2001, he adds that, "I would probably bench much of the current lore – respect it, but build a new future narrative for both the old and new audiences which makes much more sense."

Halo fans finally bared their teeth at this. A spooky, more militaristic Halo? Sure. PvPvE? Interesting. Xbox is currently an unsightly lump of job cuts and drooping revenue – fine, maybe it doesn't even deserve a new Halo game, that's not Lehto's fault. But threats to the lore are simply offensive, fans say, even if they come from the man who helped establish 26th century alien colonization.

"The lore is the only good thing about halo," one person argues on Twitter.

"I know this is just your aspirations, but Halo really can't afford another soft reboot," frets another.

Lehto gets it. If lightning strikes at the right time and his unconventional Halo sequel eventually gets approved, he says, first, "We'd need to sit together, break bread, and enjoy some deep conversation – along with some fine beverages of course." Can we get that in a Halo game?

Give Master Chief a break – I want more Halo games like ODST and Reach.

Earlier today, a wave of hands-on previews for FromSoftware's The Duskbloods went up around the internet. One of them claimed that the upcoming Switch 2 game is due to be released on September 24. Now, Nintendo says that information is "inaccurate," but it's done so in the least convincing way possible.

"The release date is inaccurate because there is no information regarding [the] release date of the Duskbloods," a Nintendo spokesperson tells Eurogamer. I don't know about you, but that's such a bizarrely specific framing that it almost inclines me to believe that the September 24 date is real. Like yeah, sure, maybe the date is "inaccurate" in Nintendo's eyes because it's not officially been revealed yet.

At least, that was my first reaction – my less conspiratorial side is starting to win out. The September 24 date was originally published in a Duskbloods preview by The Guardian, as a footnote at the end of the article. Author Kirk McKeand later posted on Bluesky that "the editor added that in by mistake. It's not accurate and they're amending it."

In my mind, there are two possibilities for how this date slipped into that preview. One is that September 24 is the real release date, and it was meant to be revealed as part of a later embargo. The other is that an under-informed editor thought the article should note the game's release date, then somehow stumbled upon an inaccurate date and simply inserted it. There are, after all, plenty of other notable games launching on September 24, including Control Resonant and Silent Hill: Downfall, so there's plenty of room for confusion.

Ultimately, I do now think the release date was a true mistake, not a leak. Since the launch of the first Switch, Nintendo has tended to release one game per month for the platform. The Duskbloods isn't technically a first-party launch, but it is a big Switch 2 exclusive that Nintendo is marketing heavily. I suspect that the company's partnership with FromSoftware goes far enough that neither would want to step on the other's toes – and with Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave set to be released on September 17, a September 24 launch for The Duskbloods would certainly be a poor dance partner.

The Duskbloods is officially set to launch in 2026, but we've not yet gotten any information more specific than that. There are only two months in Nintendo's 2026 release calendar left unaccounted for, and only two big 2026 Switch 2 games left to fill them. I think the real question is whether we're getting The Duskbloods or the Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake first.

Hidetaka Miyazaki says The Duskbloods is full of ideas FromSoftware couldn't fit into Dark Souls or Demon's Souls: "That was always at the forefront of my mind."

Coming up with new cards when you're making a deckbuilder must be tough. You have to keep finding inventive ways to push players and the game without breaking it. But for the Slay the Spire 2 devs, the best strategy has become obvious: let fans do it for you.

I say that only half-joking, because developer Mega Crit might be half-joking, too. On Reddit, a fan posted a selection of three hypothetical Slay the Spire 2 cards, each with creative effects, like, "Deal damage equal to another player's Block." Other Slay the Spire 2 fans enjoyed them, in the way we all lovingly engage with fanart, but there's one comment that's something special – a response from Casey Yano, a Mega Crit co-founder and co-creator of the roguelike's first installment.

"Wait, these are great, what the heck," the developer says, in what is somehow not the top comment of the thread. I mean, what else could even come close? It's truly a blessing from on high.

"[Anthony Giovannetti] steal these," Yano adds. Giovannetti is another of the central designers behind both Slay the Spire games – he co-created the original and the Mega Crit studio with Yano.

I can see the attraction to the concepts in the Slay the Spire 2 fan's cards. The first idea is called Buddy Slam, and it deals, as I mentioned, damage equal to another player's block. Very nice. The second is Gonna Finish That?, and it makes another player put all of their status cards into your discard pile. Lots of strategic value there. The third card idea is called Done Right, and it has you and your opponent swap hands next turn.

It's all fun and a little chaotic in nature, but the card Buddy Slam is the clear stand-out among commenters. "Damn, I really want Buddy Slam," says one Redditor.

Considering Yano's enthusiasm, who knows, we might see it added to Slay the Spire 2 soon. I just hope Yano understands the floodgates he may be opening in the process.

After dropping a nerf bomb, Slay the Spire 2 devs say updates are slowing down so they can focus on "bigger, more impactful content" like a new character.

Fallout co-creator Timothy Cain, whose most recent portfolio entries include the likes of The Outer Worlds 2 and its predecessor over at Obsidian Entertainment, thinks developers have a lot to learn from bad games – not just successful titles.

It's a tale as old as time, as Cain describes in his latest YouTube video (below). A game becomes a smash hit – think anything from indie to AAA, Meccha Chameleon to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 – and the industry goes wild with copies or clones, attempting to recapture that same success.

This might even lead to other folks copying the bad aspects of "good" games. As Cain puts it, they may "blindly copy" them. These bad aspects could be obvious, and so they're not often overlooked – but "bad" games are, on the other hand, and that takes valuable lessons away from aspiring devs, according to Cain.

"In general," as he says, "bad games are ignored, especially if they weren't part of a popular franchise and or never sold very well." This checks out. When they're sequels of "good" titles, they're not as oft forgotten.

But, "there are so many games out there that one game came out, it wasn't very good, and it was forgotten," Cain explains, concluding, "and I'm saying you could learn a lot from games like that."

Honestly, I get what he means. I'm immediately reminded of that quote about those who don't learn from history being doomed to repeat it, and of the concept of survivorship bias – the overarching theme of the Fallout mastermind's video, actually.

In his own words, "the whole point of this video was [to] please remember about survivorship bias. The qualities of successful games… may not be those qualities which made them successful. And conversely, look at failed ones because some of the things that they share in common may be the reason that they failed."

It's a much-needed message for the industry (and any outside of it as well, for that matter).

Comments see viewers agreeing with Cain, too. "It's the slow path to eventually making the same video game over and over again," reads one. Another adds, "such a simple concept, but you're totally right, they don't ever analyze what makes a game bad."

Fallout co-creator says turn-based and real-time RPGs both have "loud vocal advocates" who won't play anything else, so devs can't please everyone.

The first trailer for Golden Axe has arrived, and it's a silly, action-packed jaunt through medieval times.

In the brief clip, which can be viewed above, legendary warriors Ax Battler (Liam McIntyre), Tyris Flare (Lisa Gilory) and Gilius Thunderhead (Matthew Rhys) are forced to reunite in order to save Yuria from the evil giant Death Adder, who just won’t seem to stay dead.

Per the official synopsis, "their quest is complicated by Hampton Squib (Danny Pudi), an inexperienced and wildly underprepared adventurer whose dream of heroism far exceeds his abilities. Forced to work together despite their flaws, they must find a way to stop Death Adder once and for all." Additionally, Saturday Night Live writer Carl Tart provides the voice for a humanoid panther named Chronos "Evil" Lait.

The animated series was created by Mike McMahan (Star Trek: Lower Decks) and Joe Chandler (American Dad), with Chandler serving as showrunner.

The beat 'em up video game was released in 1989, as both an arcade game and for the Sega Genesis. The player controls one of three characters, Ax, Tyris, or Gilius, with the intention of saving the fantastical land of Yuria from the evil Death Adder. Comedy Central announced a 10-episode order for the series back in 2024.

Golden Axe is set to hit Paramount Plus on September 16. For more, check out our list of all the upcoming video game movies, or, check out our list of all the new TV Shows you should have on your radar.

Console sales aren't looking too hot right now, at least going by numbers from the good ol' US of A. According to analyst figures, the amount shifted in July 2026 reached a low for the month not seen since 2020 – ooft.

These numbers come from Mat Piscatella, senior director and video game business advisor at Circana, who did his usual monthly round-up of industry figures. Circana's data indicates the overall spending on hardware took another hit, bringing numbers comparable to those of six years ago, as he writes: "Hardware spending fell to a July low not seen since 2020."

The boom of the Nintendo Switch 2 around this time last year contributed to the downturn – it's hard to beat a big system launch – but Piscatella points out, "the challenges extend far beyond simple cyclicality." Parts are hard to get a hold of, driving up prices, particularly when it comes to RAM, since data centers are just absorbing so much of the supply.

The hardware market comparables continue to be impacted by the record-setting June 2025 launch of Nintendo Switch 2. However, the challenges extend far beyond simple cyclicality.

— @matpiscatella.bsky.social (@matpiscatella.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-08-20T16:20:01.402Z

"Higher hardware prices driven by the RAM and component crisis have significantly impacted the selling rates of both PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series, with a price hike for Nintendo Switch 2 hardware coming on September 1, 2026," Piscatella writes on Bluesky.

This is all in line with what manufacturers themselves have been saying. Xbox lost around $1.6 billion over the last financial year, and Sony says the PS5 is lagging way behind the PS4 at the same point in its lifespan.

There's a 39% drop in hardware sales overall compared to last July, and the average price of a system is up 16%. Right now, the highest-end PS5 model will run you $899.99. That's a lot of money, and the cheapest version is $599.99, which isn't all that much better. It's difficult to justify the investment for many people amid other economic concerns.

That said, GTA 6 is now right around the corner, and there'll definitely be movement on consoles for the Christmas period and into next year as a result. But how much, and what it'll do to help their makers get back on solid ground, are other questions.

PlayStation reportedly reworking live service Horizon Hunters Gathering into a smaller, more traditional co-op game following ill-received playtests.

Fortnite Cheat Codes have been introduced to replace the Sprite Chests this season, and this fresh mechanic fits in with the general gaming theme for Override. Once you discover a cheat code emblazoned on a surface, you need to match the arrow directions accurately to collect your rewards – it's not quite the Konami Code, but you know the general idea! To get up to speed, this is how Cheat Codes in Fortnite work.

Note that these cheat codes are separate to the Fortnite Lobby Hack codes you enter on the Battle Royale lobby screen, though both provide ways to add more Fortnite Sprites to your collection.

Fortnite Cheat Codes locations

Fortnite Cheat Codes appear on surfaces in many locations around the island, and make a distinctive chime sound when you are close to them in the same way that Chests do. If you've turned on the Visualize Sound Effects option under Audio settings (which I highly recommend you do if you haven't already) then you'll see a blue glow and four arrow icon appear that will lead you to the Cheat Code. The color of it represents the rarity of the Sprite you'll receive if entered correctly, as follows:

• Blue Cheat Code – Rare Sprite
• Purple Cheat Code – Epic Sprite
• Gold Cheat Code – Legendary Sprite

Note that although Fortnite Cheat Codes can appear in the same location for multiple matches, the rarity is randomized each time – so if you find a Gold Cheat Code then unfortunately you can't keep returning to that location and guarantee a Legendary Sprite every visit.

How to use Fortnite Cheat Codes

Once you've found a Fortnite Cheat Code, approach it and follow the ENTER CHEAT prompt to start typing it in using the d-pad or direction controls. Sometimes the camera angle and visual glitches can make it difficult to read the code, so have a quick look at it before interacting so you know what you need to enter. Make a mistake and you'll have to restart, but there's no actual timer so you can take as long as you need to enter the Cheat Code.

Note: If you have one of the Cheat Master Sprites equipped, you can just mash buttons and the correct code will be entered automatically!

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

For years, a group of GTA 6 fans has been painstakingly analyzing every screenshot, every teaser, and every frame of every trailer in an effort to piece together the map for Rockstar's open-world game. What do they think of the map that appeared alongside this week's GTA 6 leaks? Apparently, its contents check out with what they've spent years building.

"After comparing their work with the newly leaked #GTAVI map, they believe it checks out," according to a tweet from iGrandTheftAuto.com, a fansite whose members include folks involved with the GTA 6 mapping community. "While some smaller details appear to be missing, the overall map leak seems to be genuine."

The leaked map appears to be made up of a series of screenshots taken from the in-game map screen, stitched together in order to show the whole open world.

The broad strokes are very similar to the fan-made GTA 6 map, which you can browse in detail on the community website. The community map lacks detail through much of the wilderness, while the leaked map doesn't show smaller roads and other more intricate details.

"The map leak is 100% real," according to martipk, a member of the GTA 6 mapping community whose comments on Discord have been shared more widely on Twitter. "It's just a low render version that doesn't show buildings, small roads, bridges or runners. Everything is correct on the map. There are details everywhere so precise that aren't even on the community map but can still be confirmed from what we know. There is literally no way someone fabricated this."

A bit of skepticism remains among some fans over whether these GTA 6 leaks are even real, but personally, I think the doubt ship has long since sailed away. The video clips are far too specific and detailed to be AI-generated, and even the people behind the mapping project are convinced of the leaked map's veracity.

Plus, the DMCA notices against accounts sharing the leaked materials probably wouldn't be so aggressive if these were fakes. I suspect Rockstar's going to find the next couple of months leading into GTA 6's launch downright excruciating.

GTA 6 leaks go from bad to worse for Rockstar as new footage suggests leaker has access to a playable build.

Nintendo's UK Store has posted on its X (Twitter) page that the Switch 2 will cost an extra £24 (£419.99 in total) when the price increase comes into effect. When the dreaded Switch 2 price hike was originally unveiled, the new US MSRP was laid out, but those of us across the pond had to wait until today to find out our fate once September rolls around.

While the price increase is coming whether we like it or not, there's still 12 days left to pick up a Switch 2 for its original MSRP if you haven't already. Stock of the £374.99 standalone console is not hard to come by, but personally, I recommend you grab the Pokemon Pokopia bundle. It's just £423.99 at Amazon when you can find it as its full £429.99 price pretty much everywhere else. Not only would you be avoiding that extra £24, but you'd be saving £6 off with this deal - no wonder Ditto looks so happy.

• Join GamesRadar+ Deals on WhatsApp for our top daily discounts

This cheap Nintendo Switch bundle is a deal in its own right. The standalone console is £374.99, as I mentioned above, and adding a £58.99 (Nintendo) copy of Pokemon Pokopia into the mix takes your total up to £433.98. By grabbing this bundle at full price, you'd be saving £3.98 instead, which is pretty minuscule, but anything is better than nothing.

If you do happen to pick it up on the lead up to September, I need to let you know that it comes with a digital copy of Pokopia, rather than a physical one. Honestly, that shouldn't be a huge deal, as there isn't actually a true physical release of the game yet anyway. You see, Pokemon Pokopia has yet to receive a full physical release as it's a game-key card title. That means the game is not on the cartridge, and there's a big ugly white banner across the bottom of the box art.

Honestly, I wish I picked up the game digitally for this reason, especially as it's the kind of Switch 2 title you want on your handheld at all times. Each time I want to dive in and create new elaborate habitats for my Poke pals, I have to fish out the game key card, but owning a digital copy like this bundle deal means you'll always have quick and easy access. And trust me, you'll want it, as I've easily sunk over 100 hours into the game, and am likely to sink 100 more thanks to the new Bubbly Basin DLC.

If you're not quite a Pokemon fan, you should check out the Build Your Own Nintendo Switch 2 Bundle instead. You can select the standard console, a game of your choice (that isn't Pokemon), and a Nintendo Switch Online subscription, and get access to an accessory for free of your choosing. Again, I'd recommend you do so before that extra £24 comes into effect.

• View all Nintendo Switch 2 gaming deals at Amazon

New to Switch 2? Check out the best Nintendo Switch 2 controllers, the best Nintendo Switch headsets, and the best Nintendo Switch 2 cases while you're here.

EA, the publisher behind games like Battlefield 6 and The Sims 4 and parent of Mass Effect developer BioWare, is on many a player's mind right now following the $55 billion deal that saw its buyout – one that might spell disaster for Mass Effect 5, apparently.

Although we don't know too much about the next Mass Effect game as BioWare has been too "busy" to share its progress, it's been underway – or at least in some sort of pre-production state – since its reveal way back in 2020.

It's safe to say that all of this doesn't exactly inspire the greatest confidence in folks… and neither does the fact that a trio of private investors led by Saudi Arabia has just acquired EA, to put it lightly.

Former senior manager at EA Emmanuel Rosier, who now works as the director of market intelligence at industry analyst Newzoo, explains how he feels about BioWare following the recent buyout in a new interview with PC Gamer.

"They've been struggling as a studio, as a brand have been struggling in recent years, and I don't know if they [EA] will keep funding that one," he states. "I think that's the biggest question mark for me."

So, what about Mass Effect 5, then? "I will believe it when I see it, the next Mass Effect game, let's put it that way," Rosier says. "I've worked many years with BioWare, sometimes it can stretch for years and years until something comes." That checks out.

After all, Dragon Age: The Veilguard took nearly a decade to develop – and also suffered a rework of sorts as well. It's hard to tell what'll happen with the new Mass Effect, put simply.

"I think everything can happen at this moment," as Rosier concludes. "They [EA] can pull the plug very, very easily. And if the new investors, they don't have that many feelings about the history of the portfolio, they will take the most financially sound decision most probably."

I hate to say it, but I do fear the former EA lead is right here – anything could happen, and it's likely that profits are being taken into account above… well, everything else.

Only time will tell what the fate of Mass Effect 5 will truly be, but I'll be keeping my own fingers crossed that the new RPG from BioWare ends up coming to fruition someday – with a teaser (anything at all, please) sometime soon, to boot.

EA devs feel "the threat of layoffs at all times," especially after Saudi Arabia acquisition: "It's hard to see how teams or games that underperform wouldn't be dissolved"

The Sinking City 2 trident is part of a puzzle in the Church area that involves the nearby obelisk. It's not very clear though, and even if you find and read the various notes relating to it, it can be unclear what you're meant to do with any of it.

I've solved it all already and have explained the process fully in my in-depth Sinking City 2 walkthrough covering the flooded city section. However, if you just want the short version, here it is.

Unlike the Sinking City 2 printing press puzzle, which involves several locations, this can actually be solved the first time you find it, as long as you know how.

What to do with the Trident?

You'll find the Trident in the Church behind the Star locked door, once you have the Star key. But it's not clear what you need to do with it.

You'll actually want to take the Trident and place it on the Obelisk to start things off. Once you've done that, you'll want to rotate the Obelisk symbols using the information found on the "Call Upon Believers" note which lists four gods (found on the altar when you first enter the Church), and the First Vision note which lists their symbols (found in the Star locked crypt in the graveyard).

Matching up the gods and symbols gives you the the order you need to arrange Obelisk sections, while the mention of 'from the depth to the heights' in one note means this order is from top to bottom and looks like this:

1. Yig: Serpent Form
2. Tsog-Nar: Crooked Cross
3. Gyrh: Spearhead
4. Cthylla: Splayed Womb

Once you have the symbols in the right place, lightning will start hitting the Trident at regular intervals so get clear. Some enemies will also appear, so have fun kiting them into the electricity. A tip will light up each time the Trident is hit, and when all three are lit, nip in and grab it.

Now take the Trident and place it back where you found it. When you leave this small room, you'll be in another dimension and the Church will be full of statues. Go to the altar and take the dagger from the statue right in front of it. Place the dagger into the slot in the altar and you'll be lowered into a basement area for a small boss fight. When that's done, you'll find some Dream Essence upgrade points on the altar as you leave.

You'll be at best about halfway through the flooded city area if you're dealing with this as you find it. However, you might be closer to the end if you're backtracking. Either way, my Sinking City 2 Hospital walkthrough is likely to be useful real soon.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

The Duskbloods, FromSoftware's upcoming Nintendo Switch 2-exclusive action RPG, is partly the result of studio president Hidetaka Miyazaki and the other developers behind games like Dark Souls finally making use of ideas they've sat on for years.

Speaking with IGN, Miyazaki explains (via interpreter) that "a lot of our previous titles, such as Demon's Souls and the Dark Souls series" included "a lot of unique online elements" but couldn't accommodate everything FromSoftware had in mind.

"There were also a lot of other things that we wanted to try, things that seemed like great ideas, but didn't really fit in the context of a single-player game or within the context of those games, specifically," Miyazaki continues.

"Over time, a lot of those ideas piled up, things that you wish you could have done here and there. Having an outlet for them, somewhere we can find a place where they all fit, or can be made to fit specifically in that multiplayer context, is something that was always at the forefront of my mind."

On the heels of Elden Ring, which is essentially Dark Souls 4, 5, and 6 in a trench coat, Miyazaki's comments are especially interesting. And even more so after Elden Ring Nightreign, an oddball spinoff that, itself, leveraged some ideas that dated back to Dark Souls 3, as Junya Ishizaki, who was recommended for the director role by Miyazaki, told GamesRadar+ last year. Increasingly, it feels like The Duskbloods will show us a different, even weirder side of FromSoftware.

As a PvPvE game, The Duskbloods leans more into the asynchronous multiplayer that's come to define the Souls games and leverages it in new, still largely unknown ways. Miyazaki mentions one approach here.

"There will definitely be a section of the customization that caters towards that playstyle for people who don't want to necessarily always be in an intense PVP thing, even if they make it to the end and want to take more of a backseat and enjoy the game in a different way," he says.

The Duskbloods has a closed network test rolling out this month ahead of a still-undated 2026 launch on Switch 2.

In June, as FromSoftware owner Kadokawa worked to fend off investors clamoring for a regime change, Miyazaki teased multiple games in the works.

The Duskbloods gameplay footage leaks ahead of network test, showing off slick aerial combat, buttery smooth movement options, and a dude turning into a dinosaur.

PATCH NOTES v20.08.2026 – Fake GTA 6 clips have flooded the internet as Rockstar endures its third day of leaks, fooling many fans and reminding us how hard it is to trust anything you see online these days.

What's going on with GTA 6 and Rockstar?

• A hacker group named Cyberleek started releasing alleged clips of GTA 6 on August 18, with most taken down for copyright violations.

Why is this happening now?

• Rockstar Games announced that GTA 6 would be digital-only in June 2026, prompting widespread backlash from collectors of physical games.
• Cyberleek says it will stop leaking footage if the developer agrees to a series of demands, including a commitment to making physical editions of GTA 6.
• GTA 6 is getting a lengthy preview streamed on Netflix in the coming days, making it a crucial period for the developer.

Meta Shift

• Generative AI has made tracking game leaks even harder

An influx of fake GTA 6 leaks on X and YouTube show how sophisticated gen AI technology has become. While many can see through the charade by picking out "tells" in these fake leaks, such as odd camera movements and dodgy spelling, they are managing to fool others. Even the clips that appear incredibly high-fidelity are major AI red flags, given the photorealistic quality and inconsistent HUD detail – and there are some accounts you can find on X that appear to be teaching the public how to make fake GTA 6 clips using particular pieces of AI software.

Oddly, the only way to make sure you are seeing a "legitimate" GTA 6 leak is to look for the watermarks placed over the footage by the hacker, Cyberleek, who is using the opportunity to promote their own cryptocurrency. There is still no indication as to how or when the hacker acquired the footage. It could be from a year-old development build, according to an alleged Rockstar insider on Resetera, while other fans theorize that the hacker has stolen the footage from the upcoming Netflix special.

But the most recent leaks suggest that Cyberleek might have a playable build of GTA 6 rather than Netflix clips due to how the character appears to spell out the hacker organization's name with bullet holes.

But then again, how can we be sure of any of this? Put simply, we can't. The proliferation of gen AI has made everyone question everything. The result is that many of us are more suspicious than ever of supposed video game leaks, while less vigilant viewers might be easily duped into thinking they are experiencing something true to the actual product.

Patch Notes summary

As the GTA 6 leaks continue, gen-AI fakes are ramping up. It's never been a better time to ignore leaks, as excited as we all are for Rockstar's latest, because there's no telling how genuine any of them are. And for those who are actively trying to avoid spoilers ahead of the Netflix preview, don't worry. Cyberleek's clips are continuing to be taken down by Rockstar parent company Take Two Interactive, so if you're watching something on YouTube that's been up for 16 hours now, you are probably safe to assume that gen AI has struck again.

Related stories

Kingdom Hearts lead Tetsuya Nomura says that Pixar's Coco was chosen as a Disney world in Kingdom Hearts 4 as it was the best fit for Sora's story.

Speaking at the Kingdom Hearts D23 panel (via Genki_JPN on Twitter), after the reveal that The Land of the Dead from Pixar's Coco is the first Disney world featured in the upcoming Square Enix RPG Nomura spoke about world selections.

"Whenever I do have a chance to decide that we absolutely need to include a certain world. I generally think about how well it synergizes with overall the main story progression with Sora" he explains. And that with Kingdom Hearts 4, Nomura adds, "when I thought about the themes, we felt that Coco would be the best world that would help achieve that goal."

Spoilers for Kingdom Hearts 3 (and potentially 4, I guess) to follow.

Okay, so from my understanding as someone who has not played Kingdom Hearts 3 yet (I'm trying to make my way through all of the non-numbered entries between 2 and 3 as intended) Sora sort of dies at the end of the game by being banished from his reality, before awakening in the realistic world seen in trailers for Kingdom Hearts 4, this is known as the Quadratum, which acts as an afterlife.

Not only that, but fans speculate Sora has lost his memories in Kingdom Hearts 4, due to him fainting when seeing visions of Goofy and Donald. This then ties into the Coco world. The latest trailer opens with Hector explaining that people disappear from the afterlife when forgotten (like in the film), which seems like a pretty intentional thing to open with, especially if this theory is true.

Part of the reason the first Kingdom Hearts is my favourite in the series is mostly down to how much the Disney side was integrated into the main plot – which is something I've seen as a major complaint with Kingdom Hearts 3 – so if that's the case again with 4, it's certainly an exciting prospect. But at the same time, I really want the most esoteric crossovers possible to happen with Disney's massive library. Give me an Arlen, Texas world where Sora teams up with Hank and Bobby Hill to stop the heartless from taking over Strickland Propane, I beg of you.

Kingdom Hearts 4's Goofy and Donald are playable for the first time ever, and Mickey's Paper Mario-style sections are "very different from Sora's adventure"

Gabe Newell's appearance at Dota 2's The International 2026 opening ceremony is both rare and expected – an infrequent video message from the soft-retired Valve chief, but a staple of the annual Dota 2 tournament.

"15 years ago, I had the pleasure of welcoming players and fans to the very first International," Newell says at the end of a video posted by Valve's Dota 2 YouTube channel. "A lot has changed since then. Dota itself has changed. It's always evolving, and the best players and teams evolve with it. The Aegis of Champions itself has changed. 58 players have etched their name on that epic trophy. Those players have left their mark on the Aegis, and on the game we all love.

"But there's one thing that never changes. Whether you're at the arena in Shanghai or watching from home, the skill, the passion, the talent of these players is always worth celebrating. And that's what we're here to do. So thank you to the fans for joining us. Thank you to the city of Shanghai for hosting us once again. And thank you to the players for giving us something to celebrate. Today, the finest Dota players in the world will strive to claim the Aegis of Champions. To all of those in the arena, to all of those who are joining us from around the world, I am honored to say: welcome to The International."

The International 2026 is well underway, with over 114,000 people watching the English YouTube version of the tournament stream at the time of writing (currently, Nigma Galaxy vs. Team Falcons). Online, Valve followers seem more enamored with Newell's video message, and his slimmed appearance.

"New Chad Gabe Look Just Dropped," reads a hot post on the Valve subreddit.

"I’m so happy he lost all that weight. Probably bought another 10 to 15 years of life with us," a top reply adds.

"I'm just happy he looks healthy! More time among us," says a third.

A similar post to the LivestreamFail subreddit has attracted similar comments. "I lowkey miss THICC Gabe, but he looks so much healthier now. Really happy for him," says one user.

Valve's video is likewise unable to escape Gaben chanting. "Lord Gaben is getting healthier, love to see it. He looks slimmer than last year's announcement video," reads one top YouTube comment.

For many years, Newell has sat in the center of a nearly unheard-of venn diagram: billionaire CEO and beloved public figure. Enthusiastically pushing AI and dropping hundreds of millions of dollars on yachting and oceanic exploration from a position orbiting, but no longer at the heart, of Valve's operations hasn't dimmed the appreciation or outright affection for the patron saint of Steam sales, praised by fans for pro-consumer policies and level-headed takes on piracy and pricing.

Valve's Gabe Newell still plays at least one game of Dota 2 "every day" in his 60s, so hopefully he's past the noob phase he was stuck in even "after 800 hours."

German brand Beyerdynamic is known amongst audiophiles for its high-quality headsets, and the MMX line in particular, and it's now expanding with the introduction of the MMX 100 and the MMX 130 wireless headsets.

Why release two separate models simultaneously? Well, it appears as though Beyerdynamic wants to please both closed-back and open-back gaming headset fans, as the MMX 100 is closed-back while the MMX 130 is open-back. The brand states that the MMX 100 is designed for those who "want to minimize distracting ambient noise," whereas the MMX 130 is for those who "prefer a more open and spacious sound" and you can have your choice of either when they drop later this year.

The Beyerdynamic MMX 100 is the first of the two headsets to drop, as it launches on September 1 next month in a Black and Arctic White colorway for £89, according to the official Beyerdynamic website. The pair is powered by 40 mm audio drivers, and that closed-back form factor that Beyerdynamic emphasises can reduce external noise and enhance your focus when playing everything from single-player to online games.

That's pretty much the case for all high-quality closed-back pairs with good isolation, and I definitely experienced that when I tested the MMX 150 Wireless earlier this year. Talking of which, much like its 150 brethren, the MMX 100 is equipped with a detachable META Voice microphone and is compatible with everything from gaming PCs, consoles like the PS5, smartphones, and other handhelds via Bluetooth 6.0 or via the pair's low-latency USB dongle and cable.

The MMX 130 Wireless changes things up a notch with its open-back form factor. For those unaware, open-back gaming headsets feature vents behind the audio drivers to allow air (and therefore sound) to move and vibrate more freely. That creates a more natural sound for your games, especially when it's found in the 130 Wireless, which also adds titanium-coated 40 mm drivers into the mix.

If you prefer a more natural soundscape for your games, you'll have to be a bit more patient with the MMX 130 Wireless. It doesn't launch until October 2026, and the brand has yet to give a specific date during the spooky season when you can make it yours.

Furthermore, as a European brand, there's no indication of pricing or availability in the US, if you were wondering. That doesn't mean it won't appear at US retailers, as there are plenty of Beyerdynamic headsets across online shopping spaces like Amazon. However, it might take a little longer for either the MMX 130 Wireless or the MMX 100 Wireless to be listed amongst the rest. When it does, alongside the MSRP for both pairs, I'll be sure to let you know. Though at £89 and £109 respectively in the UK, they shouldn't be pricey.

• View all Beyerdynamic gaming headsets at Amazon

I've also rounded up the best PC headsets for gaming, the best Xbox Series X headsets, and the best Nintendo Switch headsets that you should check out.

The Sinking City 2 printing press is an optional objective that will get you one of two upgrades, if you can find the three printing plates it needs scattered around the flooded opening area. Because it requires a lot of exploring and backtracking to find all the parts, and the lore is buried in notes you night not have read, it might just appear as a strange object you don't know what to do with.

The entire process is covered in depth in my first Sinking City 2 walkthrough, that covers the flooded city section of the game. That outlines everything though, so if you just need need help finding it, the bits you need, or solving the final puzzle, here's the fast track version.

Where to find the Printing Press

The Printing Press is found in the Printing House near the Church. You can only access this once you reach the Saloon during the Move the Whale objective, where you'll find the Graveyard Key. This opens the locked gate in the Church area, and lets you reach the Printing House.

You'll have to work your way through most of the Printing House, as you'll only find the Printing Press itself once you find the secret room in the Director's Office by taking the APH Key. Unlike the Sinking City 2 Trident puzzle that can be solved there and then when you find it, this needs three other items - Printing Plate A, B and C - found in different places around the flooded city.

Where to find all Printing Plates

There are three printing plates to find in the flooded city area, which can be found in the following places, in the order you're most likely to find them:

1. Printing Plate C - found at the Church in the Star Locked tomb.
2. Printing Plate A - found in the Printing House as you pass through an apartment.
3. Printing Plate B - found in the Academic's Apartment next to the Fire Dept. Accessible only once you've taken the claw to move the Whale.

Getting all three plates will involve clearing most of the flooded city area and, by the time you have plate B from moving the whale, you'll only have one area left.

How to solve the printing press puzzle

To solve the Printing Press puzzle you need to place all three plates in it and then rotate the faces to make them all one color, depending on what reward you want:

• All Silver - Two Dream essence upgrade points
• All Gold - Cutter's Study Stock for the shotgun, which increases damage to enemies shot in the back

It's up to you what you pick, but personally I think the extra shotgun damage is the most valuable. You can only have one as the press will break after use.

Whichever one you want, the solution to solving the printing press puzzle is the same. Whenever you rotate a piece the pieces around it on the top, bottom, left and right also turn. The easiest way I've found to solve it is to get the corners the color you want first:

Dealing with just the corners reduces the bits that interfere with each other so should make it easier to get them where you want. When you've done that you just have to flip the middle pieces to get it all the same color.

Once you have the color you want, use the printing press to get your reward. And, as you're likely nearing the end of the flooded city by the time you complete this, you might be wanting the Sinking City 2 Hospital walkthrough next.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

To get the Mortal Shell 2 Genessa Shell, you cannot simply find her around the map as you would the other eight habitable Shells. Instead, you must head to a very specific dungeon where you will obtain an item by defeating Sester Secundus, and then return that item to Sester Genessa in her arena in the Marrow Keep.

It's likely that you'll find this item simply by progressing the story, so if you want to back out now and unlock Genessa at your own pace, then this is your chance to do so. Otherwise, I'll walk you through exactly how to unlock Genessa, so you can equip and start upgrading her as soon as possible.

How to get Genessa in Mortal Shell 2

To get the Genessa Shell in Mortal Shell 2, you must locate the Sester's Censer in the Revenant Graves area, interact with it to enter the dungeon, and defeat the boss within. Then, you must take the Censer, your reward for winning the battle, the Genessa in the Marrow Keep.

You can see the exact location of the Sester's Censer in the image above, and it's easiest to access from the Outskirts of Mammon Beacon. From there, head southeast to the middle of the three bone gates, use it traverse across the gap, then climb the stairs to the large arena area, where you'll see the ghostly red apparitions of other Sesters.

Upon interacting with the Sester's Censer, you'll be warped inside the Censer itself where you must defeat Sester Secundus, a fairly easy boss. For winning, you'll receive the Censer itself, which you can then return to Genessa, thus unlocking one of the best Mortal Shell 2 Shells for use.

From here on in, if you want to equip the Genessa Shell then return to her arena, as you won't be able to switch to her in Zhirelle's chamber.

Don't forget to head to the elevator room of the Marrow Keep to unlock one of Genessa's Mortal Shell 2 Shades - as long as you have a Blackmarrow key to hand. Plus, while you're at Genessa's arena, check out the secret room and Commune with Chaos.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

The next expansion set, Pokemon TCG Delta Reign, now has a release date; it's due to launch at the beginning of November. In addition, we now have a better idea of what the set will offer fans.

Hitting shelves a couple of months after the the 30th Celebration set, Pokemon TCG Delta Reign is eyeing a November 6, 2026 release date - but fans will be able to get early access at special prerelease events starting from October 24. The expansion also introduces 'Legendary Stadiums' (two Stadiums played alongside each other), and more Mega Evolution Pokemon ex. That includes Mega Rayquaza ex, which is returning for the first time since the game's XY era.

Here's a breakdown of what you can expect from the set:

• Four more Mega Evolution Pokemon ex (Mega Rayquaza ex, Mega Golurk ex, Mega Malamar ex, and Mega Golisopod ex)
• 6 standard Pokémon ex
• New Legendary Stadium mechanic that combines two Stadiums together, with three Legendary Stadiums available in the set (boosters with Stadiums include both required cards)
• 14 illustration rare Pokemon
• 17 ultra rare Pokemon and Trainer cards
• Six special illustration rare Pokemon and Supporter cards

Pre-orders aren't available for Pokemon TCG Delta Reign yet, but it probably won't be long before they start to appear. While the Pokemon Center will sell this set in November, it's probably going to run out of stock fast. With that in mind, I'd keep a close eye on third-party retailers like Miniature Market in the US and Wayland Games in the UK. Both typically offer the range at standard (or close to normal) prices, though this does mean the cards sell fast.

That's certainly been the case with the current set; it's incredibly difficult to buy Pokemon TCG 30th Celebration right now. As such, I'd keep a very close eye out for Delta Reign pre-orders in the coming weeks.

While we're on the subject of poor availability, Palworld TCG dev promises more stock with a 2nd Edition printing and apologizes again for poor availability.

• See the latest Pokemon card offers at Amazon

We currently find ourselves on the cusp of a brand new appendage to the Grand Theft Auto series. A release that will find fans returning to a very special place. Liberty City is a virtual homage to the bustling streets of New York and is unarguably the most infamous metropolis of any videogame to date. It's become as iconic to the series as the freedom, the carjacking and the infectious wrongdoing, and for many it marks the very first time they ever came to experience an 'open world' environment in a videogame.

The person responsible for designing and building Liberty City was Paul Farley. Ironically, his background wasn't in programming or videogames – although he admits to being brought up on a staple diet of ZX81 and Spectrum – but in architecture. Working for a small architecture firm after finishing the first year of his degree, Farley came to realise that a career in construction really wasn't for him, and decided to answer a job advertisement, posted by DMA, who at that time were looking to expand and hire a new team of level designers.

"I had no real idea what a level designer was but I'd always loved videogames. The interview process was spread over two days and I remember thinking at the time that it was one of the most challenging things I'd ever been faced with," admits Farley. "On the second day I was sat down in front of a puzzle game that they had in development and was tasked to build a fully working puzzle in 30 minutes. I was left alone to sweat it out. I don't think the puzzle even worked. But they must have seen something, because I got the job."

At the time that Farley joined DMA, the company would be divided while it worked on two very different projects: Body Harvest, a planned launch title for the Nintendo 64, and another, slightly less highbrow game for the PC. Body Harvest was DMA's flagship project, and Farley remembers vividly the interest which the game generated among the new recruits.

"There were four level designers that started at the same time as me. I remember being shown around on that first day. We were going to be split up based on the needs of two new projects that had just been started and we all wanted to work on Body Harvest. It was just so damn sexy, all those 3D graphics, the N64 development kits and Silicon Graphics workstations sat around – it was like mission control at NASA," explains Farley. "Anyway, as it worked out, neither of us got to work on the Body Harvest project, our skills would be put to use on a rather drab-looking top-down racer which at that point had the working title 'Race 'N' Chase'."

'Race 'N' Chase' is where the genesis of Grand Theft Auto can be found. Mike Dailly, who at the time was lead programmer at DMA, had been working on a code that would produce isometric cityscapes. Viewed from an aerial camera that the player could intuitively manipulate, and coined Rotation, this engine would become the first Grand Theft Auto prototype.

However, fate would intervene when Bullfrog released Syndicate Wars, and after spotting its glum Orwellian Blade Runner-style skyscrapers, Dailly knew that his engine looked just too similar and decided to rework it. Oddly, it was after seeing the Sega Saturn game Clockwork Knight that Dailly considered switching the engine to a side-on perspective, but after a conversation with a colleague, he decided to set his sights a little higher.

"I was speaking to John Whyte (who at the time was working on Body Harvest for the N64), and he'd been trying to get an overhead racing game past Dave Jones [DMA's founder] for a while. Dave, however, wasn't interested," explains Dailly.

"It then occurred to me that although I had a side-on engine, all I needed to do was add a floor and it would easily become an overhead engine. I set about using the previous GTA prototype as a base. Using cubes, I built an array of perspective points then, with a simple 3D array, attached faces to each active cube. I removed interior faces (since they couldn't be seen) and rendered the resulting city. Looking at it, they decided to restart Race 'N' Chase, but using the new engine since it would allow far more freedom and a true perspective. GTA was a real team effort, and had input from every team member, this was how it all started. It shows how important true R&D is, without it several DMA games would have never been started."

The parallax movement of the buildings, and the way in which the camera would lock on to your car and pull away the faster it travelled led to the possibility of creating an overhead police chase/action game. And so Dailly's overhead city engine was used as the backdrop.

When Farley was assigned to the Race 'N' Chase project he was keen to utilise his knowledge of architecture, and set about plotting each map on a piece of paper. This was how all of the cities inside Grand Theft Auto would begin – as 2D maps of roads, sidewalks and buildings – and once complete, using a mapediting tool, they would be translated into the vibrant and detailed 3D cities that we can see in the game.

It's a well-known fact that the three game maps – Liberty City, Vice City and San Andreas – were based on the cities of New York, Miami and San Francisco respectively. They also contained subtle nods to well-known areas of each city. For example, Liberty City's sections included Park (Central Park), New Guernsey (New Jersey) and Brocklyn (Brooklyn).

Map at it again

The first hurdle that the team had to overcome was getting to grips with the mapping tools. None of the team had any experience of using map editors, and while the tool chain at DMA was very well instigated, it would take a lot of time for the new team to learn all the different techniques that were available. Also, the team would find that they had no way of viewing the city in three dimensions until they ran it in the actual game.

"Personally, it was a pretty smooth transition to go from designing individual buildings to then designing a whole city. The design criterion is different. For the game, you were designing form and function to support gameplay, rather than in real life where you design a building to support an activity or movement. But the actual process was remarkably similar," explains Farley.

Given the theme and subject of Grand Theft Auto, you'd expect the team to be governed by a strict list of rules and the missions to be pencilled in before development began to help ensure its safe passage through the censors. But Farley confesses that working on GTA was quite a liberating experience.

"The working brief was non-existent other than some guidance from the head of art," recalls Farley. "Most of us had no experience at all and were making it up as we went along. I think that spirit of adventure and freedom is conveyed in the final game and went a long way to helping to define many of the design decisions. In terms of the look and feel of the city the level designers worked closely with the artists to create locations and a style for each of the cities. Once a set of tiles had been completed it was then the level designer's job to use them like Lego blocks to create the city. I think the art team was always quite amazed and sometimes horrified at the manner in which we creatively used their tiles to create new textures and forms."

Grand Theft Auto is a brilliant juxtaposition of a dour and depressing world, but painted with vibrancy and colour. It certainly feels the most chipper of the series, as it holds this brilliant sense of irreverence and fun throughout its missions. The way your character would comically hop over the bonnets of cars and pepper those poor Hare Krishnas all over the road as they tried to cross in front of you was just so strangely enjoyable. The realism and popular culture references of the later games have all but drowned out those jubilant audience cheers and squeaky voices that pumped from those blue phone boxes.

"When we started the game it used 8-bit graphics and the palette was much darker and more realistic than the final release. At this stage PC technology was moving at a really fast rate and with the game taking a while to finish anyway, the decision was made to switch to 32-bit graphics, giving us a much wider palette. I think the whole art department at DMA spent the next two weeks redrawing the game tiles and sprites. The result was a much brighter and more colourful game, which in the long run helped reduce some of the impact of the adult nature of the game," explains Farley.

Liberty City took four to five months to design and build, and the mission design and scripting would take a further six months. Over the course of its development the core team would change, other departments would be drafted in to assist, and at one point DMA's entire art department were put to work on the game.

The original Race 'N' Chase design was the one that DMA pitched to BMG. And it wasn't until after the publisher was on board that the name would later be changed to Grand Theft Auto. As the game presented the player with so much choice, checking for bugs and glitches proved to be very difficult and the game's development would stretch from 15 to 30 months. Its 'open world' environment lacked constraints, allowing for plenty of different routes and ways to complete its missions. And each needed to be played through to its completion because, as was the nature of the engine, every new element that was added could potentially affect another.

"It's kind of hard to overrun when you don't have a schedule, but we were aware that GTA, like all the other projects DMA had then, was taking too long. I think the publisher was more concerned than us though," Farley says. "Most team members worked extra hours because we were all so excited by what we were creating. There was this energy and feeling about the place that what we were working on was really special and that it really mattered. At DMA there was this mentality that a game wasn't finished until they were happy with it. Very few developers are ever in that position so it was refreshing, and ultimately led to some great innovative games. It also led to some turkeys that should have been canned after six months but weren't."

Grand Theft Auto debuted on the PC in 1997. Initially developed in DOS, it would later be ported to Windows, PlayStation and it even found an admittedly poor, but technically impressive, Game Boy Color conversion. There were also rumoured to be Nintendo 64 and Saturn conversions in the works, which would have been refined ports of the PlayStation port, but sadly they never found a release.

What really helped to set Grand Theft Auto apart from other games of the time was its sense of freedom (hence the name Liberty City), as fun could be found by simply deviating from the missions and exploring the game's colourful environments.

On to new roads

The game was well received by many in the gaming press, garnering rave reviews and even a Gold Award in PC Format. However, the tabloids, most notably the Daily Mail, would criticise Grand Theft Auto for its violent themes, which many people felt it was trying to glamorise.

"I think one of the reasons GTA was so well received was the amount of detail – it showed the love and attention that had been heaped on the game by the people making it," says Farley.

"Team members would always come up with new ideas like the tank or the rocket launcher and they would just get added into the mix and no one ever said no, or that something couldn't be done! There are a few things looking back that could have been better – the road layout was trying to map too closely to New York and without diagonal road tiles the area around the park ended up being not much fun to drive around. Also, some of the missions were left over from the very start of the development process and perhaps weren't as well thought out as some of the later ones. But I guess for virtually everyone on the team it was a learning process and, despite all our mistakes, people loved the game, warts and all."

After the release of GTA, BMG was bought by Gremlin Interactive. It was under Gremlin that DMA released two expansion packs for the PC. GTA: London 1969 and London 1961 were Life On Mars-style mission packs that set the series on the streets of London in the swinging Sixties. These expansion packs would help DMA gauge the demand for a full GTA sequel and help to keep the franchise fresh in the minds of gamers.

Colin MacDonald was the producer and project manager for Grand Theft Auto 2, and joined the company shortly after the acquisition by Gremlin. MacDonald first got into games by purchasing a SAM Coupé home computer. Its relatively small installed base meant that there was very little software available for the machine, and what would begin as a hobby for MacDonald – writing software for the machine – soon grew into a small development and publishing company. This would lead him to handling some big licences, including Lemmings, and it would be this Lemmings link that would eventually lead MacDonald to join DMA as a producer and take on the reigns of GTA 2.

"We had a very good idea of what everybody had fun doing in the original, so we didn't mess with that. And in essence, every GTA game ever since has taken the same approach," says MacDonald. "But we added a lot of game functionality to try to enhance the GTA experience. We also gambled with moving away from the contemporary setting of the first game, and opinion has been split ever since on the particular pros and cons of that decision."

For the sequel it was decided that the setting would move 'X years into the future' and the missions, rather than bleating from the hearing end of a telephone or the buzzing of a pager, would come from the mouths of warring gangs that populated the game's three cities. You had the pristinely attired Yakuza, the twitchy Loonies, the Russian Mafia and the Rednecks, among others, and each was given a detailed backstory that fleshed out their world brilliantly. This idea of basing GTA around the criminal activities of contesting gangs has since become a mainstay in the franchise, although from GTA 3 onwards it's been used to help fuel the game's narrative rather than its individual missions.

It was agreed that the underlying engine for GTA 2 would remain similar to the DMA one – which MacDonald admits had gone through a few changes – but the engine was completely rewritten to make the cars look more solid and realistic against their shiny, futuristic setting. They would be first drawn and mapped in 3D before being transformed into the 2D forms that we saw in the game.

"Because we could see from the first game what worked and what didn't, we were in the fortunate position of being able to plan fairly effectively, so there weren't many drastic changes that occurred throughout the development. The GTA 2 pills scattered around the cities for collection is the only major feature that I can think of that wasn't planned from the very start," recalls MacDonald.

Grand Theft Auto 2 was released in 1999, and would debut on both the PC and PlayStation. It was later ported to the Dreamcast and also received a shamefully laggy Game Boy Color port a year later. Shortly after the release of GTA 2, Gremlin was bought by Infogrames, and shortly after Dave Jones decided to leave the company to join Rage Software. DMA was later sold to Take-Two where it was renamed Rockstar North; a move that would change the face of the Grand Theft Auto franchise forever.

Grand Theft Auto 3 was released in October 2001 and debuted on the PlayStation 2. Rockstar's decision to set the game back in Liberty City was a smart move as it would send out a clear message that its intention was to pull the game apart and rebuild it from scratch. The biting satire, glum urban setting and tangible sense of freedom would tilt the videogame industry on its axis.

If you strip it down, Grand Theft Auto 3 can really be seen as a brilliant hybrid of two earlier DMA games: Body Harvest and the original Grand Theft Auto. It's likely that when it was bought by Take-Two, the DMA team would have been a collective troupe that had experience of working on both titles, a team that had expertise in 3D sandbox gaming and a vast knowledge and experience of the Grand Theft Auto licence.

Welcome to the third space

Grand Theft Auto 3 was praised for the technical ground that it broke. Realistic weather effects and full night and day cycles helped lay down the foundation of what we now consider the 3D open-world template, or 'GTA-clone', as it's candidly known as now. The game became a global phenomenon almost overnight, and has retained its prestige ever since.

The series' weird adoration for the Game Boy would end in 2004 with Grand Theft Auto Advance. This Game Boy Advance exclusive, developed by Digital Eclipse, was originally promoted as a top-down port of the GTA 3 that appeared on the PS2. But, probably owing to a large technical chasm, the idea was dropped and instead the game was set one year prior to the events of that game. This would mark the first and only time that a GTA game was not developed by an affiliation of DMA.

For the highly anticipated sequel, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City – which many consider to be the pinnacle of the franchise – Rockstar would continue its geographical trend and return to the second of the first three maps, but would add a brilliant twist: the Eighties. Setting Vice City in the Eighties allowed Rockstar to inject lampoon into the game and base its characters and missions on classic iconic Eighties cinema.

Elements from classic gangster epics, such as Carlito's Way, Goodfellas and, more predominately, Scarface, for its rags-to-riches story, were wholesaled over. And through its loud wardrobes, angular and colourful cars and radio stations, which blasted out emotive rock ballads, Vice City would recapture brilliantly the humour and irreverence of that first game.

If GTA 3 laid down the template that future games in the series would look to adopt, then, like all good cinema sequels, Vice City would lavish itself in its own success, a feeling that seemed to suit its affluent and ornate setting perfectly. And through its property buying elements, you could really begin to feel like you were stretching your power and notoriety and leaving your mark across the whole of Miami.

By the time Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was due for release, the groundswell of hype and hysteria surrounding the series was unlike anything seen before. Feeling the pressure, Rockstar would need to create something bigger and grander in scale than what had come before, and it would succeed in many ways with San Andreas.

With a main story that would take the best part of 70 hours to finish, a lifetime of secrets to uncover, three huge metropolises to work through – connected by miles of countryside – and no interconnecting loading times, thanks to its seamless streaming, no one could argue that the game wasn't a technical marvel. But many felt, by Rockstar adding levelling up and appearing to concentrate on subterfuge elements of the game, that San Andreas lacked one vital ingredient: structure.

In typical Grand Theft Auto fashion, the franchise's transition to a new platform, in this case the PSP, with the 'Stories' series, would prove to be another sterling effort by Rockstar. And also, in typical GTA fashion, it would kick things off by returning to Liberty City.

Liberty City Stories (which was later ported to the PS2) was set three years before the original GTA 3, and with a new protagonist, a new set of varied missions to work through and even allowing you to take to the skies in a helicopter, it would prove to be an almost flawless translation to the handheld. Although Liberty City Stories wasn't the first GTA game to see Rockstar incorporate multiplayer elements (San Andreas has a few co-op missions), it was the first in the series to incorporate an online multiplayer mode, courtesy of the PSP's Wi-Fi capabilities. Rockstar followed up the successful Liberty City Stories with Vice City Stories. It followed the same theme, but had the notable addition of allowing your character to swim and also included a refined targeting system.

So, history's taught us that a return to the oily streets of Liberty City seems to mark an inaugural shift in the franchise, affecting a trilogy of games that seem to span over one generation of hardware. Early word is that GTA 4 will be moving further away from those humble DMA days. Realism is said to be governing the game, with the gameplay, as well as the aesthetics, getting a customary burnished respray. Character customisation and levelling up is said to have been ousted, and the series has been given its most degenerate protagonist to date: Niko Bellic – a human trafficker and remorseless killer who hails from Eastern Europe.

Finally, there's the city itself, which is said to have less emphasis on scale and more on the denizens of Liberty City and the way in which they interact with one another and the player. For all of the cinematic storylines, controversial themes and bravado that drips from each new addition to the GTA franchise – despite being places which in reality we'd probably rather not visit – it's really the cities themselves that are pivotal to the appeal of any GTA game.

They are virtual playgrounds without constraints that allow us to run amok without any fear of consequence. This is likely the reason why many people break free from the main game, deviate from the missions and seem content to find and shape their own Liberty City stories.

This Retro Gamer blast from the past got you eager for more? Our best GTA games ranking runs down the series so far, while our best PS2 games list has more retro favorites you can play next!

Oh, what could've been. It's been a rough year for Bungie, what with updates stopping on Destiny 2. the muted response to Marathon, and now the whole outfit essentially reduced to a skeleton crew. Turns out, we could've been seeing a lot more of the developer, since the teams therein had around a half-dozen games in the works before, during, and after the Sony acquisition, according to a new report.

No, really - that many releases were purportedly in various stages on the slate for the original home of Halo prior to Sony buying the outfit for $3.6 billion. This comes from Jason Schreier of Bloomberg, who spoke about the studio in a new YouTube video.

"As part of that acquisition, Bungie also had a whole bunch of other live service games in the works that Sony wanted to see come out in the subsequent years in addition to, of course, Destiny 2, which is Bungie’s big ongoing project," he says. There were "five or six" in total, and this portfolio was integral to Sony's interest in the company.

But "for a variety of reasons," he explains, "most of those projects fell apart." He doesn't provide any further clues on what these games were, but we can piece together the likely candidates.

There's the aforementioned Marathon, for a start, then the mobile game Destiny: Rising, that came out in 2025. Another game, known as Project Gummy Bears, was taken in-house at Sony and is still in development, though to what degree is unknown.

From there, we know of Project Sunspot, another Destiny spin-off, that was canceled in 2023, and Project Payback, a game inspired by Warframe, which was shuttered in 2024. We could speculate all day on the circumstances behind these decisions - Sony paid a lot of money for Bungie and clearly wanted a return on investment.

Whatever state these games were in, they probably just didn't seem promising enough to do that kind of business. But if at least one was moved to another team, the potential must be there to some degree.

It's all a pity, because now Bungie's a shell of what it once was. Whatever the future holds, we can only imagine how these games would've looked had they come out.

Epic CEO Tim Sweeney suggests AI could've saved Destiny 2 and will "enable games like Destiny to thrive!"

Earlier this year, Terraria saw the release of its long-awaited 1.4.5 update (known also as by its official name, Bigger and Boulder) – but developer Re-Logic has still been working since to patch things up.

The proof is in the pudding, as they say, and the latest serving of pudding is 1.4.5.7 – a handy, seemingly little new "hotfix" that is actually anything but little.

As outlined in the patch notes on Steam, this version of Terraria sees a plethora of additions, adjustments, and reworks land, with some including changes I (and many other fans, judging by circulating discussions online) have spent the last 10 or so years waiting to see come to fruition.

First and foremost, we've got a bunch of new items to look forward to in 1.4.5.7, from staves to accessories, and even materials like the Kinship Peach. There are also "two new secret seeds," as per Re-Logic's patch notes… which I can't wait to explore.

The real excitement (for me, anyway), though, comes from the tweaks the so-called hotfix – which truly does feel like an update – brings. Let's start with the respawn timer.

You know how when you die, you annoyingly have to wait to respawn? Well, not anymore – as long as there's "no great danger around," anyway.

And yoyos, the weapons that have arguably been universally hated and seen as, well, useless since 2015? As one fan so eloquently puts it in a post over on Twitter, they're "not ass" anymore, with buffs and specific yoyo changes like one to the Eye of Cthulhu that spawns an, erm, Eye of Cthulhu upon hitting an enemy.

There are changes across the board to classes and weapons, however, so I'd advise taking a look at the full patch notes – especially if you like playing with magic, like me.

Bosses are different now, too, with nerfs to some (thankfully, the Empress of Light is one of these), and adjustments to many. The Moon Lord, for example, has better-telegraphed attacks in 1.4.5.7, making the fight a bit less painful. The Deerclops' attacks better line up visibly as well.

All in all, it's a downright loaded hotfix, and apparently the "last" to come for the Bigger and Boulder update.

There's genuinely too much to cover here, so again, I'd recommend reading through Re-Logic's roundup – but I personally can't wait to see what's next.

Terraria's biggest mod, Calamity, is shutting down after 10 years over what the makers call a "troubled past" and "irrecoverably tainted reputation."

Halo is renowned for two things. First and foremost is its revolutionary FPS formula – Halo: Combat Evolved is often cited as a turning point for the genre, with a lot of its core principles still prevalent today. The term 'Halo killer' was thrown about in the mid to late 2000s as many developers sought to dethrone the shooter as the pinnacle of console FPS gaming.

The second aspect, though sometimes overlooked, is Halo's narrative. It's all that common, even today, for FPS games to offer little context for all the nonsense other than 'that target is bad and deserves to be riddled with holes'. But Halo's original outings were surprisingly multi-faceted and gripping, with plot twists and intrigue that reached far beyond 'these aliens are bad and they should feel bad'.

The story so far...

This narrative was vastly expanded upon in Halo 2. By Halo 3, the universe's core pillars – Humanity, The Covenant and The Flood – were so fleshed out that seeing their motivations intersect in the trilogy created one of the greatest space operas in all of gaming history.

Halo 3: ODST, Reach, and Halo Wars further fleshed this conflict out, telling stories through other Spartans, regular marines, their commanders, and even a squad of elite Orbital Drop Shock Troopers. These perspectives showed the war not through the visor of a super-soldier, but through regular humans facing overwhelming alien doom. The approach helped these titles stand apart from the original trilogy – bolstering the story, rather than competing with it.

I don't think the 343 Industries era of Halo reached that level of narrative prowess. Halo 4 did have the personal drama with Cortana's rampancy and Chiefs reluctance to let her go, but even that at times felt shallow, as did the conflict with the Didact and his Prometheans. As for Halo 5, the only truly gripping sequences in that game were those on Sanghelios dealing with the remnants of the Human-Covie war; a shadow of the franchise's heights.

Halo Infinite was somewhat of a revelation, at least gameplay-wise. 343 made an obvious effort to reference what made Halo so much fun to play in days gone by, and to a certain degree, this was a success. But the story? Not since Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker has a sequel backpedaled on its predecessors so quickly. Somehow the Covenant has returned…. Again.

Keep an eye on the horizon

But 343 is no more, following a rebrand in 2024. Now we have Halo Studios, and a precedent has already been set. Learning from what worked from Halo Infinite, Halo Studios is now looking back at the successes of Halo, and using that to shape its future. Halo: Campaign Evolved is a clear example of this, taking the original stellar game, and more effectively modernizing it than Combat Evolved Anniversary's Reach-colored paintjob could ever even hope to. But the one thing that gives me even more hope for the future of Halo, is locked away in the bonus missions – Operation: Meteorite.

With three new campaign levels set a year before the events of Halo: Combat Evolved, this mini-campaign sees Chief and SGT. Johnson infiltrate a gigantic Covenant research vessel. The plot may be soft touch, but there's enough intrigue and environmental storytelling to keep you engaged, and even a couple of narrative easter eggs to make you go 'oooh'. It may just be the re-inclusion of the Battle Rifle, but the prologue genuinely feels like Halo 2 Anniversary in its level design and combat encounters, and the Seraph space combat closer reeks of Reach's Long Night of Solace. Bonus point if you picked up on the use of Reach's OST here.

It makes me think that Halo Studios is making the right call in looking backwards at what came before. But is it looking at the right games?

Full-circle

Narratively speaking, Halo could take cues from Star Wars. The sequel trilogy was undeniably divisive, but much less so are the standalone stories that have popped up filling the timeline. The Mandalorian, Maul - Shadow Lord and Andor to name a few, all succeed in fleshing out the Star Wars narrative, flourish in their independence and aren't crushed by the pressure of continuing the same story beat for beat.

There are examples of this in Halo's timeline too, with Reach being the most prominent. But ODST and both Halo Wars titles offer interesting and provocative windows into the long-running conflict. There's over 25 years of Human-Covenant war before the start of Bungie's trilogy, and we've barely scratched the surface.

This is where Halo Studios could thrive, finding or creating unique story-telling opportunities within this rich history. Halo Wars is the only time we've seen another conflict on humanity's colony worlds, for example. We've not seen a Covenant perspective of the great war, in the games at least, since Halo 2, nor have we seen a UNSC perspective outside of chief's since Reach, (not counting Halo 4: Spartan Ops or Halo Wars 2 as those are post-war).

There's also Pre-Humanity. The Flood-Forerunner war has been covered in extended material, and in-game flashbacks via secret terminals, but playing an FPS from the perspective of a Forerunner soldier, witnessing the fall of their civilization and the buildup to firing the Halo array would be absolutely haunting.

There are so many possibilities for Halo Studios to expand the Halo timeline, and while the main campaign of Campaign Evolved may be a strong, albeit somewhat safe, introduction to this 'new' studio's tenure of Halo Titles, it's Operation: Meteorite that excites me for Halo's future.

We've ranked the best Halo games - but if you want something a little different, our best FPS list has even more recommendations for your next playthrough

Fortnite Lobby Hack codes are a new system introduced with the Override season, which ties in to the general gaming theme that's now up and running. By opening the admin panel from the lobby screen, you can type in a selection of secret codes to receive instant rewards, including some powerful Sprites to kickstart your collection and handy gizmos to deploy for an advantage in matches. To find out more, here are all 16 Lobby Hack codes in Fortnite and how to redeem them.

Note that these codes are separate from the Fortnite Cheat Codes you can find and enter during matches, though both of them will unlock new Fortnite Sprites to add to your collection.

All Fortnite Lobby Hack codes

The following Fortnite Lobby Hack codes can be redeemed now:

• Sprites
  • 8BITBLAST – Cheat Master 8-Bit Sprite
  • BORN2PLAY – Cheat Master Adventure Sprite, Cuddle Team Leader Outfit Style for Wrixel
  • GOTTAGOFAST – Cheat Master Sonic Sprite
  • IWANNAFLYHIGH – Cheat Master Tails Sprite
  • PLAY4ALL – Cheat Master Jonesy Sprite new!
• Sprite Dust
  • ABGESTAUBT – 2,000 Sprite Dust
  • CHISPAMBO – 2,000 Sprite Dust
  • MAGILUME – 2,000 Sprite Dust
  • PERLIMPINPIN - 2,000 Sprite Dust
• Gizmos
  • FINDITCHAT – 2 Cheat Code Locators new!
  • O2OVERRIDE – Llama Supply, 5 Portable Extractors
  • PERFECTORDER – 4 Spicy Tacos
  • SURVIVETHENIGHT – 2 Cheat Code Locators
  • TAKEYOURHEART - 2 Extraction Accelerators
• Cosmetics
  • BEMOREALIEN – Override Ready Loading Screen
  • DONTBLOCKME – Briefly turn into a Tetris Piece (can be used more than once)
  • LETSBLOCKANDROLL – Briefly turn into a Tetris Piece (can be used more than once)
  • OVERRIDEXP – 40,000 XP new!
  • REACHYOURIMPOSSIBLE – Block Party Loading Screen

Note that if you redeem a Lobby Hack code for a Sprite that you already have in your collection, you'll receive 10,000 Sprite Dust as a reward instead.

How to redeem Fortnite Lobby Hack codes

To redeem Lobby Hack codes in Fortnite, go to the Battle Royale Lobby in the main menu and select the .../ admin panel in the top-right corner of the screen by following the button prompt or clicking on it. This will open the fortnite admin panel, where you can type in any of the promos before hitting the SUBMIT button to claim your rewards. Fortnite Lobby Hack codes are not case-sensitive, so you don't have to enter them in all caps as long as the correct spelling is used.

These are all of the Fortnite Lobby Hack codes that have been revealed so far, but as more are discovered I will add them to this guide.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Nintendo has confirmed the price increase for Switch 2 consoles in the UK, and it's not quite as bad as expected.

Back in May, Nintendo announced that thanks to expectations that the "impact of various changes in market conditions" will "extend over the medium to long term" – which is to say, AI slop farms are making everything more expensive with ongoing global RAM shortages – the Switch 2 will be getting a price increase in September. Back when it was announced, it was confirmed that the US would be paying an extra $50 as Switch 2 goes to $500, while Europe would get a €30 bump to €499,99, but Nintendo did not reveal pricing for the UK.

Nintendo Store UK's Twitter account announced the new pricing today, with the Nintendo Switch 2 console soon to cost £419.99 in the UK, an increase of only £24. While any price increase is bad, it only being £24 is certainly a bit of a shock, especially when earlier this year we saw Sony increase prices of PS5 consoles by £90 across the board while Xbox prices went up by £130 for the 512GB Series S and £170 for 1TB models of the Series X|S. Not to mention, fellow handheld, Valve's Steam Deck, is now almost £800, a £210 price hike from when it launched for £570.

You still have the chance to pick up the Nintendo Switch 2 before the price increase takes effect, as it's not set to take place until September 1, 2026. So if you were planning on getting one when The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake releases later this year, it may be worth picking up one now (and playing the peak gaming experience that is Donkey Kong Bananza). Although that'll be moot if you want the leaked Zelda special edition Switch 2 console.

A Nintendo Switch 2 OLED model might be on the cards, but don't expect one any time soon

The latest GTA 6 leak situation just went from bad to worse for Rockstar Games, as new apparent footage of the game suggests that those responsible may have access to a playable build, at least in some capacity.

Earlier this week, alleged clips of GTA 6 started circulating online along with an apparent map for the game, watermarked with the name 'Cyberleek,' and shared on a website using the same name. These clips were quickly struck down via DMCA takedowns, suggesting they were the real deal and that someone – AKA Rockstar Games and Take-Two Interactive – really didn't want us to see them.

More footage has since surfaced online, and while there's been some discussion about how old the builds shown in the clips are, the leaker's latest release certainly suggests they didn't just gain access to videos but to something actually playable. The new video shows an extended clip of the player flying a plane over the city before cutting to a different gameplay scene in which the protagonist, Jason, shoots a wall.

Jason isn't just shooting aimlessly, though. Using bullet holes, the person in the clip spells out the word 'LEEK' – an obvious reference to the Cyberleek name, which doesn't just serve as a watermark but also an apparent hint of what the leakers might have got their hands on.

Even if this is true, some elements remain up for debate – namely, it's still not clear exactly how old this build is or how extensive it is, as it may not be the entire game. There's also the question of whether this build is in the leaker's hands or they're receiving footage of it from someone else with access to it, but obviously neither outcome is good for Rockstar.

Regardless, this is also raising alarm bells for fans hoping to avoid spoilers, and if Rockstar wasn't already aware of the severity of the situation, there's no doubt that it will be now. The timing of this latest leak is especially unfortunate for the devs, as there's only a week to go until the release of the official GTA 6 Extended Look.

Rockstar Games is yet to release a statement acknowledging the situation. Back in 2022, following a different wave of leaked footage, it said it was "extremely disappointed to have any details of our next game shared with you all in this way." It was later said that the 2022 leak cost Rockstar $5 million to recover from, as well as "thousands of hours' worth of staff time." The individual behind it is reportedly awaiting retrial this November after previously being set to spend life in a secure hospital until deemed no longer a danger by doctors.

GTA 6 leakers called out by Stop Killing Games after demanding game preservation solutions and physical discs from Rockstar: "Using illegal means to make a point is unacceptable."

The Geeknet Marvel's Wolverine Wired Headset is exactly what it says on the tin: a wired pair of cups that's officially licensed to tie in with the upcoming Insomniac Games release.

The $39.99 accessory is set to launch on September 1, just 14 days before the game and the hoard of official Marvel's Wolverine PS5 accessories that are now available to pre-order. While Sony made sure to slap Logan's ferocious face on a PS5 console, console covers, and pair the design with two DualSense controllers, the best gaming headsets were forgotten. That left Geeknet to fill in the blanks, but at least you know that if you want your entire Sony setup to show off your Wolverine fandom, audio included, you can. As a GameStop exclusive, however, you'll just need to make sure that you're based in the US to make it yours.

I was a bit disappointed to see no headset included amongst the rest of the official Marvel's Wolverine PlayStation goodies whose pre-orders landed yesterday, but not surprised. When the Ghost of Yotei PS5 accessories dropped in September last year, there was no headset either. It was just wishful thinking on my part, as I play my Sony console for games like Marvel Rivals too, and so a themed headset with one of the most iconic X-Men characters pasted on the cups would have been put to good use.

Thanks to this GameStop exclusive, I don't have to imagine, as the Geeknet pair is exactly that: an officially licensed Marvel's Wolverine headset. The wired pair utilizes a 3.5 AUX connection and can plug directly into your DualSense controller to unleash the sounds of its 50mm audio drivers. According to the marketing imagery, the bright yellow cups are "lightweight" by design too, although the specs list at GameStop doesn't actually state how light this headset will be once it launches next month.

Specs aside, as an officially licensed accessory, it's all about that design. The exterior of this headset feels pretty on par with Sony's accessory offerings, as it shares the same vivid shade of yellow with an image of Wolverine's face plastered on the earcups. Fortunately, the entirety of the headphones isn't yellow, as that could have easily looked a bit cheap and tacky. Both the headband and the microphone are black to add a bit of contrast, and there's even some stylish yellow stitching on the edges of the band.

Those of you based in the US with access to GameStop can pre-order this headset right now for $39.99, but as a "GameStop exclusive" it's unlikely to make it across the pond. While that's a bit of a bummer, the Turtle Beach Atlas 200 for PS5 is a similarly priced option that sounds utterly fantastic and one I'd recommend for those on the hunt for a wired alternative. It doesn't come in a model that's drenched in Wolverine imagery, but if you're more interested in audio quality than aesthetics, I highly recommend picking up the $43.28 (Amazon) on the lead-up to the game's incoming September 15 release.

• View all Marvel's Wolverine PS5 accessories at PS Direct

New to the PS5? Our guides to the best PS5 controllers, the best SSDs for PS5, and the best PS5 headsets can help you prepare for Marvel's Wolverine.

Marvel's Wolverine game director Mike Daly says Insomniac is used to online backlash following waves of online criticism after recent gameplay reveals.

Speaking to The Gamer, Daly explained that Insomniac is "pretty used to" criticism, and that it's a "good problem to have" when the fanbase is as passionate as theirs. He cites the three Marvel's Spider-Man games as proof that the studio can make a "great game that a lot of people love," but even then, some people will still "find stuff to complain about."

Insomniac's Spider-Man titles have been generally beloved, but they have also garnered some of the harshest criticism the studio has received to date. Even before the first entry was released, there was Puddlegate, and the typical online discourse surrounding how characters look in-game. As well as gameplay complaints like Mary Jane's stealth missions and Hailey's side mission in the second game.

Daly adds, "I rest easy about this, knowing that our goal for the game wasn't necessarily to accomplish these things that people complain about. Our goal really was to focus completely on making the best game for the character." That somewhat explains decisions that have been criticized, like Wolverine being a linear action game and not an open-world title like the studio's other Marvel titles.

Of course, criticism is healthy; it's just how you go about it that makes the difference. And even as someone who generally enjoyed all three games and didn't dislike those aspects nearly as much as everyone else seemed to, things like Peter's face redesign for the remaster and how Spider-Man 2 falls off a cliff in its third act definitely felt like valid criticism. Not to mention the game has been caught in the crossfire of Sony's decision to end production of discs for new PlayStation games starting in 2028.

"It's a relentless onslaught": As Marvel's Wolverine faces backlash, Insomniac community lead calls out social media algorithms for pushing "negativity"

It took me a second to realize that the Lego Xbox was not, in fact, Lego at all.

In honor of the original console's 25th anniversary, Mattel Brick Shop has produced a 3,000-piece model that recreates the system in all its glory alongside the 'Duke' controller and vignettes from three of its most iconic games. This 'Lego' Xbox also goes one better than many of the best Lego sets by adding controller-activated lights and sounds for these scenes, which is very impressive.

The PR blast promises that this brick-built console is "packed with interactive features, hidden details and memorable tributes," and after a quick glance through the promo pictures, I'm sold. It nails the console's silhouette perfectly and is a dead ringer for the OG controller, yes, but that's not what wins me over so much. No, it's the fact that the console opens up to reveal miniature dioramas lit by LEDs and basking in game-appropriate soundtracks, which are turned on by the controller itself. Lego has hidden scenes in products like the Lego Atari 2600 before, but not with added lights and audio. That's one hell of a step up.

However, I don't think we should roll out the red carpet yet. It is a lot of cash after all, even if the price is pretty standard for Lego/construction models of this size and complexity.

Curious about the Mattel Brick Shop itself? That's fair – it's a new name on the scene, having only been established in 2025, and there's some confusion as to whether it's a rebrand of the old Mega line that put together the previous Xbox 360 kit. Officially, they're separate brands, with Brick Shop focusing more on high-end collector items rather than playsets.

It feels like nostalgia's in the air; just before news of this Xbox throwback dropped, fans were treated to a new Lego Batman Returns Batmobile.

• See all Mattel Brick Shop products at Mattel

There is sadly no Mortal Shell 2 Glimpse farm available in the Soulslike game, as the currency is finite, and primarily available through cleansing Beacons. This isn't great news since Glimpses are required for locating Shells and upgrading them, and there don't seem to be enough of them to fully upgrade every Shell.

That means you need to take care when spending Glimpses, considering your options carefully, which include unlocking Shell locations and deepening your bond with your Shells, thus improving their stats and allowing you to upgrade their abilities. So, if you aren't sure where to get them or how to spend them, here's what you need to know.

How to get Mortal Shell 2 Glimpses

There are three main ways you can obtain Glimpses:

• Cleansing Beacons.
• Exploring behind Cleansed Gates.
• You can purchase one from Merrick in the Marrow Keep.

You can also occasionally find Glimpses by exploring the rest of the world, but they're fairly rare.

The good news is that you can get more in New Game Plus, and you carry your Shell progress through with you, so, as you'll read below, it'll take a few playthroughs to fully upgrade all your Shells. Perhaps one playthrough will give you a chance to try out another difficulty, like the Mortal Shell 2 Slayer Seal.

Check out my guide on the Mortal Shell 2 length to see how long this all might take you.

How to spend Mortal Shell 2 Glimpses

Considering how to spend your Glimpses is incredibly tough knowing that you can't unlock and upgrade all eight Shells. You'll need between three and four Glimpses to unlock the location of each Shell on your map and lots more to fully upgrade them. From various accounts, it seems that you can upgrade two to three Shells each playthrough. Since there is currently no Glimpse refund system, it's essential that you choose carefully, perhaps using my best Mortal Shell 2 Shells guide for advice.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Jason Statham's upcoming cargo ship-set action movie Mutiny has yet to hit the big screen, but pirates have already clambered on board after Amazon somehow accidentally leaked the whole film in HD on Prime Video.

On August 19, Prime Video users found that Mutiny was available to stream in its entirety despite not even being out in theaters yet. The full 1 hour and 35 minutes of the film was streaming in HD on Prime Video US for quite a few hours. However, the movie is now showing as unavailable. Mutiny is set to hit theaters on Augst 21, 2026.

It is not clear how this happened, but the leak has resulted in the movie being pirated and posted on torrent sites. Many online suspect the leak may have been on purpose or could be part of a publicity stunt. But that doesn't seem likely, as neither Amazon nor Punch Palace Productions, MadRiver Pictures, or Lionsgate have yet to comment on the matter despite The Verge reaching out to Amazon for comment.

Mutiny isn't the first movie to be leaked in full before its initial release, as earlier this year new animated Avatar movie Aang: The Last Airbender was posted online in full before it had a chance to make its way to Paramount Plus. But Mutiny's leak is disappointing nonetheless, especially when considering the work that was put into the film's constant marketing online.

Starring Jason Statham, Mutiny follows a disgruntled employee who goes after a gang of thugs aboard a cargo ship after being framed for the murder of his billionaire boss. However, in doing so, Statham's protagonist uncovers a deadly international conspiracy. The action flick has debuted to 49% on Rotten Tomatoes.

You can see Mutiny on the big screen from August 21, 2026. For more, check out our list of the best action movies, and keep up with new movies on the way.

If you're wondering whether you should feed Gorf in Mortal Shell 2, then read on, as this seemingly unimportant character has far more to offer than your first meeting might suggest. It's not all about Gorf, either, as another interesting NPC is crucial to this quest.

When you first meet Gorf near the Widow's Overlook Beacon, he'll ask you for a Weltcap in hope of healing his mystery malady. He's really not feeling well, and you'll find plenty of these red mushrooms as you explore, so you should hand one over. This isn't the last of it, though, and you'll need to get an interesting lady named Hilga involved if you're going to heal him once and for all.

How to complete the Mortal Shell 2 Gorf questline

Yes, you should feed Gorf, and you'll get a valuable Marsh Pearl in return. In fact, to complete the full Mortal Shell 2 Gorf questline, you need to feed him multiple times and speak to Hilda in the Mushroom Village. There are more Marsh Pearls in it for you.

If you don't want me to spoil it for you, that's all you need to know. Each time you interact with either one of the NPCS, you must leave the area to trigger their next action, so it makes sense to simply alternate visits between them until the questline is concluded. You can either do this naturally while you progress through the game, or use Mortal Shell 2 fast travel to complete heal Gorf quickly.

If you want a walkthrough of the whole mission instead, here's exactly how to complete the questline and heal Gorf:

1. First, feed Gorf a Weltcap Mushroom. Speak with him again to collect a Marsh Pearl, which you can sell to Merrick at the Marrow Keep for 2,000 Coins.
2. Then you'll need to return to Gorf twice more, each time gifting him Common Moonshine.
3. The next time you visit Gorf, he'll give you a Poisoned Dagger that has been used to injure him.
4. Take this to Hilga in the Mushroom Village, at the location below.

5. While you're doing all this, check in with Hilda multiple times as well.
6. As soon as you've reached the right place in both storylines, you'll be able to give Hilga the Poisoned Dagger.
7. Now, if you return to Hilga's home, she'll have left you a note vaguely informing you that you'll know where to find her. Of course, she'll be with Gorf.
8. Head back to Gorf to find the two characters together and give Gorf another bottle of Moonshine.
9. Next time you return, Hilga will be gone, but Gorf will have been healed. He'll gift you another Marsh Pearl.
10. Return to Gorf's lair twice more and see the fruits of your labor. I won't spoil the ending for you.

Essentially, all that's in the Mortal Shell 2 Gorf questline for you is a few Marsh Pearls, but they are worth a good few thousand Coins all in all, and a handful of Mortal Shell 2 Gloom. For me, it's more about the beautiful, if a little weird, love story - a nice interval to all the fighting and monsters.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

You can reset the timer, because once again, there's tension between Call of Duty devs and players over online multiplayer. In this instance, Modern Warfare 4 utilizing the matchmaking system from Black Ops 7 Season 5, at least during the upcoming beta, is causing a stir.

To put it succinctly, players simply don't want it, and the official Call of Duty Twitter account's responses aren't helping. "Players are sticking around longer and playing more matches," a tweet reads.

"Since Season 05, quit rates are down across every skill group. For more than half of players, they dropped 41%," the post continues. "Search times are also down vs. Season 04. Average ping has improved too."

The Call of Duty account then revealed more stats on what the devs saw in open matchmaking. There were over 32% higher quit rates, over 14% fewer kills, and over 50% left "Not Fun" ratings. Those are substantial numbers, and paired with the 141% hike in players quitting Nuketown, suggested another structure for doing things was favorable.

Members of the fanbase are contesting these figures. Community notes state search times are actually up, pointing to a video testing such from YouTuber XclusiveAce. Infinity Ward's later claim that 50% of players exit a game when there are disbanding lobbies, a figure that's been dubbed "misleading," citing a guide from the franchise's official site.

Replies by now have gotten a little petty and barbed, and it's worth keeping in mind the beta hasn't actually kicked off yet. ModernWarzone, a dedicated outlet for this FPS series and Battlefield, has been involved in back-and-forths with various representations of Call of Duty on Twitter.

A final statement was made by the central, namesake account. "We asked for feedback and you definitely gave it to us. And that's what a Beta is for," the tweet reads. "We’ll be here online, and in your lobbies, improving as we go. Matchmaking isn't just data, it's a feeling. So jump in, feel it for yourself in Beta."

The Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 early beta runs from August 21 through to August 25.

"CoD got it. Halo didn't" – Black Ops 1 and 2 ports battered Halo Campaign Evolved on PlayStation last month, analyst says, because $60 for a "graphical touch-up" is a rough sell

Niu Lai, a Chinese film produced by a mother-and-son duo, has become one of the most profitable movies of all time – despite lackluster animation and cinemas forcing it out of screens in its home country.

The Chinese production, directed by Xin Yumeng and Sun Lifang, follows the dreamlike story of calf Niu Lai as it befriends a leopard called Bao La.

At a cost of roughly $1000, they brought the film to life and, remarkably, into theaters in China. Despite an extremely slow start, the film went viral thanks to social media posts about its low-quality art and storytelling. In a sense, it is The Room of its day.

But this is no mere flash in the pan. It has now grossed over $4 million at the Chinese box office, making back over 4000 times its budget. By comparison, Obsession (which cost only $1 million to produce) would have had to gross four billion at the box office to match up to that.

According to Hong Kong 01, cinemas in some regions withdrew Niu Lai from screenings over fears it would "damage" its reputation. Spoilsports.

In a statement, director Yumeng was thankful for the "complete creative experience.

Yumeng said, "There was both praise and criticism, and we took all feedback seriously. We understand that there are still many areas for improvement in the work, and we respect the opinions of every viewer."

Between Obsession, Backrooms, and Niu Lai, 2026 really has been all about the cinematic underdogs – and cows.

For more, check out the other movie release dates over the horizon.

The first episode of Lanterns ended with a huge twist: Hal Jordan is dead. Discovered by John Stewart and Sheriff Kane in Rushville, we see Hal's frozen body sitting upright with a bullet in his head at the end of the episode.

This sets up a major mystery about who's behind the big death (you can read our list of suspects here). However, one viewer has noticed something in the show's trailer, which might have blown the case wide open.

Sharing a few screenshots from the new Lanterns trailer on Reddit, they saw a body with a similar wound as well as a similar skull. Check this out below.

"The body Hal drags out from the morgue has a wound on its forehead, exactly where "Hal's" wound is at the end of episode 1," they wrote. "And the skull John picks up also has what looks to be a healed wound in a similar area. Lends me to suspect Hal's still alive, and these are all aliens being murdered."

Another viewer agreed, pointing out that elsewhere in the same trailer, Hal can be seen dragging the body from the morgue into the same football field that his body was found in.

Redditors have been running with the theory. "That's an actually insane discovery. If true, this would be exceptional foreshadowing," one wrote, while another added: "Don't forget they made a HUGE point to tell the audience that there are species of aliens who can shapeshift so well that they can even fool medical scans without an issue."

We've got to admit, we're hoping there's something to this theory. While we'll likely see more of Hal in the series, we're holding out hope that he might somehow be still alive.

For more on Lanterns, check out our Lanterns review as well as our breakdown of the Lanterns release schedule.

Game Science has released 15 minutes of Black Myth: Zhong Kui gameplay with an extremely impressive showcase of the game's graphics.

While it may have been overshadowed somewhat by the likes of Metaphor: ReFantazio and Astro Bot when it came to awards season and critical acclaim, I can't think of a bigger game release in 2024 than Black Myth: Wukong. But the real shocker was when, almost exactly a year after its release, Game Science announced a follow-up, with Black Myth: Zhong Kui being confirmed at Gamescom last year.

And now, perhaps even more shockingly – given that it was described as "little more than an empty folder at this stage" upon its reveal – almost exactly a year later, a surprise drop from the developers has revealed 15 minutes of gameplay from the upcoming sequel.

Immediately, the footage is striking: it looks incredibly detailed, with the description stating "all footage was captured in-game from a work-in-progress build." And without a single word spoken, the footage shows a section of the game in which our yet-unnamed protagonist traverses a derelict mountainous region. The graphics are a big hit with YouTube commenters, too, with one user saying, "If they never released Wukong before this, people would think this is fake."

The gameplay also shows a few in-game battles, and right away it looks like there is now a dedicated parry button included in the moveset (you could parry in Wukong, but it was with a specific ability, and not baked into the protagonist's moveset). The rest will look somewhat familiar to anyone who played the first game. There's also a boss fight included in the footage, with the monster's flailing animations looking mighty impressive.

Unfortunately, there's no indication as to when the game will actually release, with the description claiming the game to be in "early development," so we could be waiting a few years yet. But It's undoubtedly an impressive first showing, and as someone who didn't particularly get on with Wukong, I'm keen to give this one a chance.

Black Myth: Wukong sequel isn't using AI because the devs were inspired by The Odyssey and Christopher Nolan's filmmaking techniques: "No rush"

Believe me when I say I didn't wake up yesterday looking to make a Razer Game Boy. Just like most of you, I picked up the 8Bitdo FlipPad to do that to my smartphone, but the tiny hinged controller ended up incompatible thanks to silly design choices with the Asus ROG Phone.

Yes, I'll get to exactly how I created a Razer Game Boy using 8Bitdo's new flippy retro controller. But first, I want to explain how I got here, just in case some sort of retro handheld court wants to hear my story. The short answer is that my daily driver, the Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro, isn't compatible, and upon discovering that unfortunate hiccup on my review path, I started rummaging for something that could accommodate the buttons.

My whole experience using the 8Bitdo FlipPad so far feels like that "Junk Cars" meme. You know, the one often used to depict monstrous Lego creations that deviate from the instructions, preceded by a "We buy junk... Aw man, what's wrong with my car?" Case in point:

Yes, Asus' daft offset USB-C port means you can't use the FlipPad to turn it into a Pokémon machine. You'll have to stick with the GameSir Pocket Taco if you've got that gaming phone, a sentence that sounds absurd when you say it out loud. What you can easily do, though, is pop 8Bitdo's rival onto the Razer Edge, an Android handheld with a 6.8-inch AMOLED screen, flip it vertical, and you've got yourself a stupidly long, high-spec Game Boy.

I can already hear an angry mob, gearing up to hunt my Razer Game Boy Frankenstein monster and me. One friend remarked, "Ew, what is that?" while another jabbed at my creation, saying, "Game Boy? Looks more like a Long Boi." In making the questionable decision to pair the FlipPad with the Edge, though, I've actually made a handheld that slaps for 2D romps and uses length to become a solid machine for TATE arcade shmups.

Naturally, having 5 inches of screen length stretching past the 8Bitdo FlipPad feels a little unbalanced. Some handhelds that use an extra-long screen, like the MagicX Zero 40 for Nintendo DS games, give you something to grip onto, but holding the Razer Edge by the buttons on the bottom feels a bit like flipping pancakes.

I'd say the benefits of flipping that 20:9 aspect ratio screen really outweigh the cons, though, as you'll end up with a 4-inch Game Boy play window that's larger than the Analogue Pocket. Plus, the colors and contrast rival my Game Boy Color AMOLED screen mod while tapping into the handheld's 6.8-inch display and 2400 x 1080 144Hz capabilities.

Is using the Razer Edge as a Game Boy overkill? Perhaps, but extra length at the top aside, you'll still end up with a really high-spec vertical handheld if you spin it and use the 8Bitdo FlipPad. As I've already spoiled, its real strengths lie in its natural TATE abilities, as that extra 5 inches is perfect for vertical shmups like Truxton.

The only handheld I can think of that offers up a larger screen for blasting down alien ships in a longer dogfight is the Evercade EXP-R. It specifically boasts a TATE mode while placing two alternative A and B buttons to suit the orientation, and Blaze also sells an optional grip. I'd argue the Razer Edge and 8Bitdo FlipPad provide a really similar experience to that portable, albeit with elevated screen specs.

I'll be giving the 8Bitdo FlipPad proper review treatment over the weekend, and that includes sourcing another smartphone for testing. So far, I'm absolutely delighted at its clicky metal dome switches, satisfying magnetic hinge for retaining full screen access, and its overall feel. On the flip side, I reckon phone compatibility, putting the shoulder buttons on the face, and no real standalone connectivity options will stand as controller cons, and that makes sense given my situation right now.

• Retro handhelds at Amazon
• Retro controllers at Amazon

Swing by the best retro consoles for classic remakes and emulation machines.

Following Marvel Studios showing off its upcoming movie slate at San Diego Comic-Con 2026 and D23, you may have noticed that the studio failed to announce any new shows. However, it sounds as though the superhero studio has a few projects up its sleeve.

According to Puck's What I'm Hearing, there are multiple live-action Marvel series in development over at Disney Plus, with official announcements set to arrive soon.

Now, we don't know what the new projects are, but more may be revealed at New York Comic Con 2026. The Marvel Television and Marvel Animation panel takes place at NYCC on Thursday, October 8th. The listing reads, "Join special guests for an inside look at Marvel Television and Marvel Animation’s most anticipated upcoming series on Disney Plus."

The only new live-action TV show Marvel has on the way is WandaVision spin-off VisionQuest, welcoming back Paul Bettany as the hero in his own solo adventure. In terms of renewals, we know that season 2 of animated show Your Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man is set to hit Disney Plus in January 2027. Daredevil: Born Again season 3 and X-Men '97 season 3 (and 4) are currently in development too.

However, Marvel TV has had a bit of a shakeup this year. The studio decided to cancel original superhero show Wonder Man after previously renewing it for a second season. Plus, at SDCC 2026, Marvel head Kevin Feige confirmed the upcoming Nova project, which was previously announced as a TV show, is now going forward as a movie.

Marvel movies, on the other hand, are flourishing. Last month, Spider-Man: Brand New Day hit screens to record-breaking box office takings, and Avengers: Doomsday is set to hit screens this December. More sequels are on the way too, including Avengers: Secret Wars and Black Panther 3. Aside from follow-ups, Marvel announced its upcoming Ghost Rider movie at SDCC and revealed the cast of Marvel's X-Men at D23.

The next Marvel project set to hit screens is TV show VisionQuest on October 14, 2026, on Disney Plus. For more, check out our guide to watching the Marvel movies in order, and keep up with new Marvel movies and TV shows.

After 11 years, The Witcher 3 might finally let us experience Belleteyn firsthand in new DLC, Songs of the Past – if a Gamescom booth from CD Projekt Red offers anything to go by.

Belleteyn has sadly only been mentioned by the developer in The Witcher 3 thus far, as a massive celebratory fertility festival with food, drink, love, and you name it (think Beltane, its real-world Gaelic counterpart).

Interestingly enough, however, it is the birthday of Yennefer, and in The Witcher books, Geralt believes it's also around the same time that Ciri herself was born… so, yeah, it's a pretty big deal.

Why do we think we might get to witness Belleteyn in all of its glory come Songs of the Past, though? Well, it just so happens that Gamescom 2026 is upon us and CD Projekt Red's booth artwork at the annual event appears to show a scene from Belleteyn – fire, festivities, and the like by the water.

It's already caught the eye of excited fans, too, with one post on X reading, "That looks like Belleteyn." Indeed, it does.

Over on Reddit, theories are running wild as well, as a picture of the Gamescom booth has folks convinced it is, in fact, referencing Belleteyn.

The top response literally just says "Belleteyn," so there you have it. Another chimes in, "Looks like there might be Belleteyn festivities artwork on the left side," further solidifying that the festival is what's on all of our minds – but this isn't the first time it's presence in Songs of the Past has been proposed.

A solid five months ago now, a separate thread on the website saw somebody note, "I noticed an X post, it talks about Geralt's sword (surprisingly his THIRD sword here since he already has two on his back) being the exact same one he had next to him during Belleteyn, which is a major spring and fertility festival that corresponds to the real-world Celtic Holiday of Beltane."

This older theorizing stems from older Songs of the Past artwork showing the sword.

So, could this all truly tease some sort of Belleteyn festivities in Songs of the Past? I certainly hope so, but I suppose only time will tell – and the DLC is set to launch in 2027.

The Witcher 3 devs tried to give NPCs "fear reactions" but it got cut after a few horrifying weeks when "women were just dropping their babies, left and right"