• Invoke Studios head Dominic Guay confirms Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons will have a toggleable HUD and minimal waypoint guidance
• Guay says this is to encourage exploration and reduce the "hand-holding" experience
• With these options, he says the game will be "immersive"

Invoke Studios has said Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons will encourage players to explore Darkon's open world by offering a toggleable HUD and minimal waypoint guidance.

That's according to Invoke Studios head Dominic Guay, who told TechRadar Gaming in an interview at Gamescom that the upcoming D&D action-adventure game will ease up on the "hand-holding" you often find in other open-world role-playing games (RPGs).

"It helps that we're trying to go easy on the hand-holding, so that allows us to pull back a little bit," Guay replied when asked why the hands-on demo had such a minimal HUD. "In this case, I'll be honest, though, we turned off some elements of HUD so that it wasn't overwhelming for people watching the demo."

The studio head confirmed the team will add "some" elements to the HUD to help players, but it can also be turned on and off in the settings, adding that there was a time when it "felt the need to put a lot of things in the middle of a screen."

"We realized that players, because they're being eased in with the number of spells they have, the number of things they can do, we don't need to overwhelm them," Guay continued. "And then we will give you some guidance. So the example I always give is, if the quest was to find me, you know, at Gamescom, and you open up the map, then you'd see it.

"We'd put a highlight around [the area], and we say, 'Well, he's somewhere in there, right?' So then you have a compass; you can get there, but we don't want to overwhelm you with too much information. [We want to] keep it immersive."

During the same interview, Guay explained why Invoke chose a warlock protagonist for the game, explaining that the concept of "creative magic" was central to gameplay and story.

Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons launches in 2027 for PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PC.

• Total War: Warhammer 40,000 will be accessible to hardcore fans and new players
• Lead designer Joy Dey says the tutorial will cover everything from story and lore to gameplay mechanics
• Battle product owner Dave Petry adds that the game is "a good entry point" for new players, and Creative Assembly wants to reach as many people as possible

Creative Assembly has confirmed that its upcoming strategy game, Total War: Warhammer 40,000, will be accessible to experienced fans and first-time Total War players.

That's according to lead designer Joy Dey and battle product owner Dave Petry, who discussed the game's onboarding process in an interview with TechRadar Gaming at Gamescom.

The pair shared that they want to reach as many players as possible, so the team made sure the game's tutorials eased newcomers into the experience, while also offering an "appetizer" for hardcore fans.

"We are expecting there will be players who've never played Total War before, and there will be players who don't know the lore," said Dey. "So we have a story within the tutorial that has named characters from the universe, and it's going to ease you in. Like, what is a Space Marine? What is their motivation?"

The tutorial will focus on the Space Marines, the developer added, and players will learn the mechanics "on a step-by-step basis," adding, "It should be a gateway into 'What is 40K?'"

Dey acknowledged that the battles can be "quite complex" but said that every gameplay system, from the pause and play function, how to take cover, analysing the battlefield, and how to use height as a tactical advantage, will be introduced and taught to the player during the tutorials.

Petry added that many new and "reformed battle features" either needed reintroduction or tweaking for the new game, but reiterated how the tutorials will benefit both newcomers and long-time fans.

"So all of those concepts need a gentle reintroduction," he said. "Personally, I view the tutorial for an experienced player as kind of like an appetizer, where, if you know both of these things, you can go in there and be like, 'Yeah, teach me some of the new stuff and get me warmed up with a bit of juicy lore stuff.'

"And if you know nothing, it's just such a good entry point for both of these things, right? And we really want to make sure that we can bring as many people to Total War and to 40,000 as possible. Obviously, 40,000 is absolutely gargantuan, and it's a really wonderful time to be part of that fandom, right? So I think it's also a wonderful opportunity to show people how cool and great Total War is."

Total War: Warhammer 40,000 launches in 2027 for PS5, Xbox Series X, Series S, and PC.

• Creative Assembly says Total War: Warhammer 40,000's new Warcore engine improves almost every aspect of the game
• From rendering and animation to "the sheer volume of projectiles" that can be handled on screen at once
• The studio says the scale has been upgraded, creating "a bigger play area for all the planets, all the solar systems, the whole galaxy"

Creative Assembly has shared just how much its new Warcore engine has enabled it to improve almost every aspect of Total War: Warhammer 40,000.

In an interview with TechRadar Gaming at Gamescom 2026, lead designer Joy Dey and battle product owner Dave Petry discussed the upcoming strategy game and offered insight into how the updated Warcore engine delivers a bigger and better scale than previous Total War games.

"One thing the engine has allowed us to do is take the Total War into space, because we now need a bigger play area for all the planets, all the solar systems, the whole galaxy, really," Dey said. "And I think that's the biggest, biggest thing for the campaign."

Petry added that the engine has also let the studio easily manipulate assets in the game's 3D space and improve other features like rendering and animations, explaining that it was a "required engineering" for the team's vision.

"The rendering of things, being able to improve how we render things and the quality that we are rendering things at, the animation system, our ability to sort of build modular animations in a more modern way, and the retooling of all of that, so that we can build faster and better," Petry said.

"Just frankly, almost everything, and just in how we build and how we tool to be able to make our games a higher quality and at a better rate, right?"

The battle system also sounds amazing, with Petry mentioning the game's Havoc system and saying the engine manages to deal with physical explosions "much better" when it comes to destroying the environment, as well as the number of projectiles on screen.

"So you know, being able to bring in these these tools to be able to solve these new problems that get brought up by these really awesome games is something that we felt we absolutely had to do," he continued, "and it extends to model changes, like being able to just handle the sheer volume of projectiles that we are now spitting out of seemingly absolutely every orifice when it comes to this game.

Petry added, "It was just absolutely necessary to build that new foundation to work from."

Total War: Warhammer 40,000 launches sometime in 2027 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Series S, and PC.

• Invoke Studios head Dominic Guay says Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons has "deep-cut" inspirations from the tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG)
• He adds that the game will still have a mystery for new and experienced Dungeons & Dragons players
• Guay says, "We wanted players coming fresh, with no knowledge of D&D, to kind of figure things out as they play"

Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons draws much inspiration from the tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG), but Invoke Studios head Dominic Guay says the game will still offer mystery for even experienced D&D players.

In an interview with TechRadar Gaming at Gamescom, Guay discussed the many "deep-cut" D&D elements Invoke applied to Warlock, such as monsters, items, and spells; he also touched on the game's setting, Darkon, a realm within Ravenloft's Domains of Dread.

Players can explore Darkon's open world and uncover its secrets in the classic D&D way, which will take "tens of hours," confirming Warlock isn't a 100-hour campaign.

"There have been books written about it. Some of it is deep cuts, but it's still really good material we tapped into," Guay said, but explained that it didn't want to create a D&D game whose world experienced fans are already familiar with.

"We don't want to create a game where if you know D&D, you're like, 'Oh, I know everything,'" he said. "We want players to live that mystery of figuring out, what's that place, what are the rules of that place? So a lot of players are familiar with Ravenloft, which is another Domain of Dread, and that'll give them some insight into some of the things happening.

"But we wanted players coming fresh, with no knowledge of D&D, to kind of figure things out as they play."

Guay also confirmed Warlock has many D&D tropes, whether that's finding a secret door or dodging a trap, suggesting the game will be authentic to the TTRPG.

"We're doing these things in a way that's trying to replicate the feeling, but in real time without rolling down dice or doing these kinds of things," he said.

Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons is slated to launch in 2027 for PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PC.

• Free-to-play open-world adventure Ananta will feature two massive maps
• The second, Chongxiao, was revealed in a trailer at Gamescom 2026
• It's inspired by the real-world cities Shanghai and Hangzhou, home of the game's developers

Upcoming free-to-play Grand Theft Auto 6 competitor Ananta got a new trailer at Gamescom 2026, revealing a second massive open-world map.

Players will be able to venture from the coastal Nova City to the sprawling futuristic metropolis of Chongxiao, with producer Ash Qi promising "dozens of hours of story content and a huge range of urban gameplay" in a new interview with TechRadar Gaming.

"Our goal is to create the biggest open-world game in the free-to-play space," added Qi.

"Nova City was the first map we created," they continued. "Chongxiao is something we knew we had to make about a year into developing Nova City. In terms of scale, Chongxiao is quite a bit bigger than Nova City, but each map has its own identity, with different stories and a distinct atmosphere.

"Nova City leans more into a modern, entertainment-driven vibe, with a livelier, occasionally chaotic energy. Chongxiao, on the other hand, has more advanced technology, richer cultural content, and large-scale tourist attractions for players to experience and explore."

As well as conveying distinct atmospheres, both cities are also dramatically different from an aesthetic perspective. Nova City looks almost like a blend of Tokyo and Los Angeles, while Chongxiao is decidedly more Chinese in its influences.

"Right now we’re building Lingyun, a city within Chongxiao. The inspiration behind Lingyun actually comes from Shanghai and Hangzhou, where our team lives and works. Both cities have very striking everyday scenery and iconic modern landmarks," explained Qi. "Our goal was to have the real cities as a foundation and layer Ananta's setting on top of it."

Plenty of real-world features from both those places were on show in the latest trailer, including a skyscraper that's almost identical to Shanghai's iconic Oriental Pearl Tower. Chongxiao is also built around a huge ancient body of water known as the Weilan Lake, modelled closely on the famous West Lake in Hangzhou — a UNESCO World Heritage Site featured on the back of China's one-yuan banknote.

"Of course, we’re not just recreating these places one-to-one," added Qi. "We’re giving them new settings and memorable adventures shaped by our IP and story needs."

Ananta has already made headlines with its dizzying range of mechanics, with trailers showing off driving, melee combat, third-person shooting, flying wingsuits, and even Spider-Man-like web-slinging. But the cities themselves will also offer a broad selection of unique activities.

"Anything you’d want to do in a modern city: shopping, grabbing a bite at a restaurant, catching a live music show, or dancing the night away, it’s all there," said Qi. "You can even invite your favorite character to do these things with you. Each city also offers its own distinct activities based on what makes it unique. In Chongxiao, for example, you can go boating to experience Weilan Lake."

It sounds like players will have no shortage of things to do when Ananta launches for PC, PlayStation 5, and mobile on January 15, 2027.

• Creative Assembly developed Total War: Warhammer 40,000's controller support alongside the game's battle system
• Battle product owner Dave Petry says the team "landed something that really does work"
• Petry adds that he doesn't believe the "myth" that controllers can't work with real-time strategy (RTS) games

Creative Assembly developed Total War: Warhammer 40,000's battle system and controller support simultaneously, with battle product owner Dave Petry believing real-time strategy (RTS) games can work with a gamepad.

"So, we have a very clear mindset on, or a distinction between platform and controller, right?" said battle product owner Dave Petry in an interview with TechRadar Gaming at Gamescom 2026.

"Because yes, obviously, controllers are your primary method for using consoles, but it's just an input method. It's an accessibility tool, right? It's how you want to play or how you would like to play, and so we've always wanted to be able to bring that experience to people who want to use a gamepad."

He continued, explaining that from the start, Creative Assembly developed the controller support alongside the game's battle system and campaign "to try and get it to the right spot" and believes the team has "landed something that really does work."

Petry referenced the internal experience developing Halo Wars 2, which he said was a "really strong implementation of controller and RTS," and that the industry is creating more and more strategy games that get controller support, and that these studios are doing "a brilliant job of it."

There's also a "myth" surrounding controller support and RTS and strategy games that don't work together, Petry added, but doesn't believe it.

"I think we are learning that we can do this right, and yeah, it's definitely something that we're all keen to keep evolving as we ship and work on it [Total War: Warhammer 40,000]," he said. "I think we've landed in a really solid spot. I think we're quite proud of where we are when it comes to the technical side of things as well."

Petry acknowledged the challenges that come with this technical aspect, but it's something Creative Assembly is "fully committed to doing" to "get us to a point where we are performing in the state we need to for console."

Total War: Warhammer 40,000 arrives in 2027 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Series S, and PC.

• Invoke Studios head Dominic Guay says the team knew it wanted a magic user as theWarlock: Dungeons & Dragons protagonist
• He says "creative magic use was at the core of what we wanted to do in gameplay"
• Guay adds that "the scope of managing what would be in our magic system is a real challenge"

Invoke Studios head Dominic Guay has shared why the team chose a warlock protagonist for Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons, explaining that "creative magic" was central to gameplay and story.

Speaking in an interview with TechRadar Gaming at Gamescom, Guay said the team took time to consider which D&D class to spotlight in the upcoming single-player action-adventure game, but knew from a character and story perspective, a warlock would work best.

"We knew we wanted to write a character, write a story, [and] kind of force [us to pick a] class and kind of explore that," Guay said. "We started from the angle of wanting to have a magic user because creative magic use was at the core of what we wanted to do in gameplay, and we landed on warlocks."

"Honestly, from a storytelling perspective, it's a very interesting class," the studio head added, explaining that the main character, Kaatri, is a patron of a higher being, an ancient witch named Tasha.

"You're talking about someone who's going to step up to a super powerful being and say, 'Hey, give me some power,' and convince them to do it. So we thought, 'Hmm, what kind of character manages to do that?' And that got us to the warlock."

If you're familiar with Dungeons & Dragons, you'll know that the fantasy tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) has many classes players can explore, as well as a great number of spells.

From the gameplay trailer, it's clear that Warlock will have a ton of flashy spells, but according to Guay, it was a challenge to manage the game's magic system.

"Magic, especially if you think of Dungeons and Dragons, it can do everything," he said. "So we had to pick our spells, and we had to pick our battles. We wanted the player to be creative, but at the same time, we can't do everything, right? So the scope of managing what would be in our magic system is a real challenge.

"But at the same time, you know, it's kind of fun. It's fun for us. I've been doing open-world games for a long time, and to play with this idea of a character and use spells in [different kinds of ways]."

In terms of other potential games that could explore other D&D classes, Guay said, "Since we've been working on this game, people have been telling us, 'Would we do another class?'" Laughing, he added, "We'll start with this one, and we'll see. We'll see down the road what other opportunities there are. But for us, this was a cool class."

Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons launches in 2027 for PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PC.

The Lord Of The Rings: War In The North Legacy Edition (henceforth known as WITN) is a new version of the old action role-playing game (RPG) with a few quality-of-life fixes, tweaks, and improvements.

It ends up being diverting fun and well-priced for what it is, and gamers who loved the original (or perhaps loved games like it, such as Dragon Age: Origins) will enjoy the return to this sort of simple-but-satisfying gameplay loop of hitting orcs, looting gear, and upgrading your characters so they can hit orcs harder, faster, and for longer without falling over.

But while much of the game is fine, if not spectacular, it's a shame there are a few technical problems and deeper issues. Swapping between characters on-the-fly is novel, and there has been an effort to incorporate this into all aspects of gameplay. However, hot-swapping is obviously not quite what the original game intended, so there is some awkwardness here, while glitches and bugs sometimes mar the game at key points.

What about second Fellowship?

If you never played the old version, the basis of the game is this: as the Fellowship of the Ring embarks on their quest for Mount Doom, you play an adjacent, original party consisting of Eradan, a Dunedain ranger with all the skills of Aragorn; Farin, a dwarf warrior from the Lonely Mountain who looks an awful lot like Gimli with the serial numbers filed off; and Andriel, a Loremaster elf from Rivendell who can create magical blasts and forcefields.

Together, the 'other' Fellowship party chats with old friends like Aragorn, Arwen and Gandalf, visits familiar and new locations (book-readers will get a kick out of delving into the Barrow-Downs and fighting the famous Wights), and slices through hordes of orcs led by an evil man called Agandaûr, a fallen Numenorean like the Mouth of Sauron. Agandaûr is one of Sauron's trusted servants, one we've never heard of before or since.

So yes, it's all a bit fan-fictionesque, and it plays a lot like other action RPGs set in fantasy worlds, only this one takes the basic fantasy character set and plops them straight into Middle-Earth rather than a parallel-but-similar setting of elves, dwarves and dragons. It's even funnier when you get hold of special character weapon options, and you're controlling a random dwarf running around with legendary gear like Anduril or Sting. Dedicated Tolkien enthusiasts might find it a bit egregious, but it's all in the name of good fun and enabling the sort of repetitive hack-and-slash gameplay the genre is best at.

If you've played any other Lord Of The Rings games, whether the PlayStation 2's Return of the King or a more recent title like Middle-earth: Shadow of War, you'll be used to LOTR games taking these sorts of creative liberties. As a result, it works for what it is, and even as a die-hard hobbit-enjoyer I had fun scything through the dark lord's evil hordes and meeting characters never adapted like Elladan and Elrohir, Elrond's twin ranger sons.

Old game, new tactics

If you've played any action RPG, you'll know what to expect: you and your party are taking on wave after wave of mooks, weapons swinging with basic attacks, but you'll also trigger powerful maneuvers and spells that require cooldowns and replenishing a power meter, so tactical implementation of these moves is vital. Playing as Eradan, I would be skirting low on health and could use my disappearing skill, so I could make a break for it unharmed to Andriel's side, who can create a protective healing field. I'd quickly swap to Farin to unleash War Cry to up my party's health and durability.

It's this sort of synergy that creates tactical play beyond mashing light and heavy attacks until you see the 'Finish Him!' yellow triangle that pops up over an enemy's head. The ability to swap characters allows the quick-of-thumb to set up these combos without the use of the AI characters, who are otherwise competent enough to look after themselves and augment the main player. But you do need to be nimble, as the controls to do this are awkward on Switch: even ten hours in, I was accidentally drinking potions when I was trying to swap from elf to dwarf. Co-operative gameplay is available on most platforms (both online, in which you drop into someone else's game, and couch), but not on the original Switch.

There's a surprisingly steep learning curve once you learn the ropes: enemies come from all sides thick and fast, in numerous varieties, forcing you to switch from attack to defence, and then to ranged as explosive enemies approach, and implement your powers carefully.

You level up quickly too, and loot is plentiful, so there are plenty of regular rewards encouraging you to persevere through the samey waves of orcs and goblins, as PCs, enemies and environments begin to blend into various overlapping shades of brown and grey. I began the game thinking carefully about upgrading stats at each level, but after a while, I just pumped Stamina to keep myself alive while concentrating on that character's main attack stat, and that strategy seemed to work just fine too. I'm honestly not sure how much difference these RPG elements made.

Feeling thin, sort of stretched...

While a simple-but-satisfying gameplay loop, it's still very much of its time, and parts haven't aged well. The target lock-on can get tricky, and you'll occasionally find your character engaged in a long, sluggish animation, swinging their weapon at empty air while you cringe as you watch orcs running at you from behind.

Despite the hot-swapping feature and inclusion of each character's unique secret-finding ability (the dwarf, for example, can detect treasure hidden behind stone walls), the game is clearly still geared for a single-character experience. Ammo drops are still linked to the character you're playing at the time, so you might find you swap to a character without any ranged capacity. You'll also need to visit shops with each character in turn to do a proper gear comparison before buying new equipment, which is tedious.

Your health and power replenish slowly on their own, but once you've cleared an encounter, you're under no pressure to carry on. Occasionally, I found myself putting the controller down unpaused, heading off to make a cup of tea, and returning with my beverage to a rested, unmolested party at full health.

There's no sheathing weapons, so you'll occasionally be wandering around Bree or Rivendell, incongruously with swords drawn ready for action. There's also no jumping, which is fine on its own, but the frustration of encountering a chest-high wall and having to find a set of stairs is a sensation I've almost forgotten about, a relic of level design marred by the technology of the time.

Worst of all are the bugs, Aspyr's revamp of the game delivering fresh technical glitches alongside the improvements. These are quite common complaints on threads about WITN, and my experience was no different: from flashing inventory tiles to small areas of the map that caused my entire screen to flip to solid green. At one stage I was fighting blind, looking at chequered green flashes, while I could still hear Eradan's shouts of 'You face a Dunedan now!'

Others report platform-specific glitches, such as an 0KB save file problem on PlayStation 5.

The North Remembers

I think you already know if you want this game: you're either a Tolkien fiend who likes the idea of exploring and interacting with lesser-known locations and characters in an original story, a fantasy action RPG junkie, or you played the original and remember loving it. At the reduced price it's selling for, it's worth getting if you fit two out of three of the above criteria.

Personally, even though I'm as Tolkien-mad as they come and I've got no shortage of love for the RPG genre, I think The Lord Of The Rings: War In The North Legacy Edition is... fine. Serviceable. Enjoyable at times, but without much to set it apart from all the other games in the space, even back when it was first released, other than its LOTR wrapper and nostalgia goggles.

I liked my experience with the game, but I can't see myself going back to it once done. It's a poor man's bite of lembas compared to the previous generation's excellent Return of the King hack 'em up.

Should you play The Lord Of The Rings: War In The North Legacy Edition?

Play it if...

Don't play it if...

Accessibility

WITN has limited accessibility features. Available languages are English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, and Polish. Four difficulty levels are available: Easy, Normal, Heroic and Legendary.

How I reviewed Lord of the Rings: War In The North Legacy Edition

I played Lord Of The Rings: War In The North Legacy Edition on my Nintendo Switch (generation 1) for 15 hours, trying each character's various combinations and progressing through the story mode. I used the Switch both in handheld mode and on my LG OLED TV. When I encountered glitches, I examined community pages and threads for similar reports.

First reviewed August 2026

Silent Hill: Townfall feels like the culmination of two recent trends: the renaissance of Konami's survival horror series, dormant for the past decade, and the rise of more culturally authentic Scottish games.

As a standalone spin-off, it delivers the first full-length first-person Silent Hill experience that was the initial promise of the cancelled Silent Hills meant to be directed by Hideo Kojima and Guillermo Del Toro (though its playable teaser 'P.T.' ultimately became a horror classic in its own right).

Its setting in the fictional Scottish town of St. Amelia couldn't be more perfect, given that the series is iconic for its fog, which actually occurs on the Scottish east coast when warm air passes over the cold North Sea during the summer and can make its way inland.

And who better to realise this vision than Screen Burn Interactive, the Glasgow-based developer whose acclaimed games Stories Untold and Observation (released back when the studio was known as No Code) were also experienced in the first-person perspective?

Yet despite the authenticity of its setting, the Scottish studio has opted not to feature Scottish-sounding characters in its main cast, unlike the BAFTA-winning Still Wakes The Deep. Protagonist Simon Ordell, played by British-American actor Jovan Adepo, is something of an outsider who has been instructed by a mysterious voice to come to St. Amelia to "make it right" — whatever “it” may be.

Make it right

For the Gamescom demo, things certainly start off not quite right. Simon arrives at the town's harbor not by boat, but simply emerging from the water. Judging by the red wristband with his personal details on one hand and tubes connected to the other (like he’s escaped from a hospital), something's clearly up with him too.

St. Amelia, meanwhile, is a ghost town, as evident by the sight of abandoned shops as well as one street lined with 'house for sale' signs. If you get a creeping fear that this might be one of those indie games from over a decade ago when you just walked around in a photorealistic area in the aftermath of the actual story, it’s instantly resolved by the ringing coming from a nearby public phone box just past the town square.

It goes dead when I pick it up. I survey possible numbers to ring and go with “100,” which tells you to "save yourself" (and is literally how you save progress in this game).

Back in the town square, I spot an upright man being fed some kind of fluid coming from a tube seemingly attached to the sky above. As Simon instinctively goes to free him, his voice is familiar — it's the voice from the beginning calling out to Simon to "make it right". When I next return to the square, things have changed again, with protest banners and placards alluding to a crime that had occurred that may be linked to a company with the acronym 'CEG'.

As eerie, enigmatic, and atmospheric as this beginning is, it also feels a bit aimless. There were several occasions during my session when I was still slowly plodding around St. Amelia's streets, only to discover doors that were locked, and the option to sprint had not yet been unlocked.

It turns out this is because I had overlooked a few key numbers I could have called on the phone. Whereas some games can be overzealous in marking the critical with yellow paint, Screen Burn seems quite content with letting you get literally lost in its world, even if that might make for an even slower burn than intended…

Tactile horrors

If there was one consistent thing about Silent Hill: Townfall, it's that you really do have to pay attention to every detail. That is, fortunately, the benefit of the first-person perspective: you can really scrutinize all the flyers displayed on a community noticeboard without having to bring up a larger text box.

There's also a real physicality to the clues and equipment you have access to, such as a double-sided map you have to hold and flip over manually rather than just bringing up a map UI. The most tactile of these is the CRTV, a portable television that you can tune using the analogue triggers.

So you're not completely lost, a couple of markers do appear at the bottom to hint at the signal you should be tuning towards. Once you get a video clip, it's about carefully scrutinising the image, often waiting for it to loop back, as a hint of what you need to find next or where to go.

Not that these hints will spell it out for you. In one case, I was supposed to look for a white house, which is not the most obvious clue when most of the houses in St. Amelia's streets have white walls.

The CRTV also has another function, as it can be tuned to detect enemies nearby. Even if they're obscured by walls, their outlines can still be made out through noise and static. Alternatively, you can also hold another button along with the left stick to peek around corners.

Even though I only encountered a couple of enemies during my hands-on, which stay true to Silent Hill convention as nightmarish deformed figures with uncanny movements, combat remains a clunky aspect of the game, made no better or worse in first-person. This made it more important for me to prioritise evasion as a tactic.

But from what I managed to play at Gamescom, it's the unsettling vibes that resonate strongest over hostile threats, such as the dread of what could be in a locked box that's meant for carrying human organs, or an extremely Scottish puzzle that involves having to top up an electric meter with a prepaid card from a newsagent.

Having moved to Glasgow under two years ago into a newly renovated tenement building that nonetheless still had one of these relics in the cupboard, it was a moment when Silent Hill: Townfall's mundane horror became a little too real. That's also sure to make this unlike any other Silent Hill game I have played.

Silent Hill: Townfall releases for PlayStation 5 and PC on September 24, 2026.

In the packed halls of Gamescom with so many games to see, it's easy to get tetchy if a session goes on for too long when there's another appointment you have to rush off to see. Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve was a rare exception where I wished I had more to go on than I was given.

On one hand, the Ace Combat series' appeal is a straightforward one. It captures the thrill of flying a fighter jet locked in aerial dogfights without the intimidating knowledge of actually operating an aircraft like Microsoft Flight Simulator, but with more control than a rail shooter like Star Fox.

A new instalment coming just a few years after a new Top Gun movie is even more tantalising for anyone eager to take to the skies like Tom Cruise.

Back to Strangereal

That the series also takes place in an alternate world called Strangereal, which nonetheless looks like our own, means you can enjoy the immersive realism without being drawn into the awkward politics of any real-world conflicts.

For the mission I got to play, titled 'The Fall of the Numbered Fleets', there's already a sense of a meaty narrative to get into, as my squadron, Joker Flight of the Federation of Central Usea (FCU), is tasked with launching an offensive to strike fleets belonging to the invading forces from the Republic of Sotoa.

An added wrinkle is that you also have to contend with a once-friendly squadron nicknamed the Sharks, who have recently defected.

This drama plays out during the mission; banter zips between your fellow wingmen Baxter and Tasha over the radio as you approach the targets on Newfield Island before being interrupted by enemy Sotoan chatter when you manage to deal damage to their fleet and supplies. And of course, it's only a matter of time before the Sharks turn up as sparks fly between factions that wouldn't be out of place in an anime if it wasn't for the game's realistic aesthetic.

Although you have targets to destroy, there are also different approaches you can take to tackle an objective, such as customising your loadout at the beginning. While there's a lot of information on the UI that can feel intimidating, it felt readable when a missile is definitely locked onto a target, while an outline below makes it clear where your bomb will drop when trying to sink ships.

There's a simple satisfaction to see the green display change from 'Hit' to 'Destroyed,' but if you really want to showboat, you can even switch to the camera looking back to enjoy the explosion in your wake.

Cloud control

If 2019's Ace Combat 7: Unknown Skies had already set a new bar for the series' realistic visuals and combat aircraft, then Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve raises it again, not just with Unreal Engine 5 but also with Bandai Namco Aces' own upgraded Cloudly tech.

That said, I spent most of my time a little too close to the ground (a prompt repeatedly telling me to pull up) when trying to aim for targets on land and sea to properly experience getting into the clouds. Yet that showcased another visual leap too, as all the objects you see are rendered at a 1:1 scale. So instead of flying over flat textures or miniatures, you really do feel immersed in the world. That also allows for setpieces such as a moment when you can fly your aircraft through a tunnel to reach an airbase stationed on the other side.

But for anyone who enjoyed the sheer action spectacle of Top Gun: Maverick, it wasn't the action alone that made it a great watch; it was all the other human drama unfolding in between the training, so that you become invested in the characters you want to succeed. Even though I'm not sure any of the characters in Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve are likely to have the same star power and charisma as Tom Cruise, that is something I still wish I could have seen more of in this relatively brief Gamescom demo.

As the first entry to have its story play out through a first-person perspective, it's surely meant to provide a more immersive way to spend time in the company of your wingmen, not just during mission briefings but also when catching up in the canteen or other bouts of R&R.

Having the in-mission banter is nonetheless also a key element, as are the small narrative choices you can make, such as in the demo where Baxter wants one of the Sharks pilots captured alive and asks that you only shoot around his cockpit, to which you can agree, or not.

But with the game's launch not far away, and arriving in time for the series' 30th anniversary, it's looking like Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve is going to soar to a whole new plane.

Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve releases on October 2, 2026, for PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S. Advance access is available from September 28 for those who pre-order the deluxe edition.

The pantheon of US crime dramas is peppered with ruthless, hyperreal villains who have risked it all for a shot at the American Dream. Michael Corleone, Tony Montana, Keyser Söze, Tony Soprano, and Marsellus Wallace are but five of the fictional strongmen now synonymous with getting things done by hook or by crook.

In the 30 years since the inception of the Grand Theft Auto franchise, Rockstar Games has evolved cinematic storytelling in video games to the point that you could, quite feasibly, add Tommy Vercetti, Toni Cipriani, Carl ‘CJ’ Johnson, Niko Bellic, and Michael De Santa to that list.

In the slipstream of Grand Theft Auto 6’s Extended Look, multiple questions emerge about what has become the most-anticipated video game of the 21st century. Most notably, will we soon be able to add Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos to this scurrilous list of ill-gotten individuals intoxicated by life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

As a former developer at Rockstar Games and seasoned industry pro, Mike York is well positioned to explain what the condensed 26-minute slice of gameplay reveals about the lead characters and the title itself.

Miami twice

“I see a heavier tone and a slower pace,” York says of the follow-up to 2013’s GTA 5, which was set in San Andreas, a fictionalised version of California. This time, Rockstar has returned to Vice City, their neon-hued take on the sun-blasted, Floridian playground of Leonida, to bring the couple to life in a Bonnie-and-Clyde-style misadventure befitting the studio’s wild and vivid creative vision.

“Jason moves around very slow and methodical. That's the first thing I noticed. He seemed like a robot — a Terminator —walking through every scene and mowing people down with no emotion,” suggests York of the US military veteran, mirroring some of the observations – and criticisms – that have accompanied the exclusive Netflix promo since it launched last week.

Will the male lead stand up against the aforementioned icons, who have helped cement Rockstar’s brand as pixelated pioneers in these imagined, open-world environments?

York continues: “I want to see that. Niko Belic, for example, is a great character. He was witty and had some great lines, which is why GTA 4 became one of my favourites in the series. I hope we see more of that because right now, Jason seems quite deadpan and monotone.

“Rockstar usually gives us a bunch of neat characters who are funny and have their own flair. I don't know if we're going to see that with Jason, but I hope we do,” he comments. Certainly, if you rewatch the Extended Look, Jason’s demeanour – he warns Lucia to stay cool in the opening seconds as they become embroiled in a meth lab shootout and then scolds her for being late when the pair drive to meet aged accomplice Brian Heder – is of a more self-contained, uptight and introspective personality than his vivacious, chameleonic, and combustible counterpart.

Perhaps that’s the point. As switchable characters, will Lucia provide the Yin to Jason’s Yang? “I think that's what they're going to do,” continues York, pinpointing the passage where the duo emerges at the Effluvia rooftop bar.

“There's that moment in the trailer where they get in an elevator, and he says: ‘Sometimes I'm just more comfortable when I have to use a gun’. She replies: ‘Just be charming!’ Lucia's got this attitude where you can tell she's trying to break him out of his shell. She's the one that probably goes into missions gung-ho, all guns blazing.”

Wired for sound

Indeed, there are further clues about the duo’s depiction in the fluorescent, 80s-colored Extended Look soundtrack. When the focus is on Jason, People Are People by Depeche Mode (featuring the line “I can't understand. What makes a man hate another man? Help me understand”) is used for context. Meanwhile, Lucia’s section of the clip, which sees her marching into Zeke’s Gadgets store to shoot up the place and flipping the bird at a swarm of cops when they make their escape from a second robbery, aptly uses global chart-smashing Devil Woman as the musical backdrop.

“With evil on her mind… She’s gonna get you!” warns the enduringly improbable British pop star Cliff Richard, in a phase that could be seen as Rockstar’s opportunity to showcase a central theme of female empowerment and mutual respect between sexes that has been almost entirely absent from the GTA series. In the toxic shadow of an era defined and divided by the manosphere, could this be an attempt to reset this predominant tone against countless accusations of misogyny that have stalked each title?

“A lot of their games have been viewed in that light. It'd be cool for them to shake that up and flip it on its head,” confirms York. Currently working on Six Days in Fallujah for Highwire Games in Seattle, Washington, he joined Rockstar New England – a studio based in Andover, Massachusetts – in 2012, leaving three years later after playing an active role in the development of GTA 5 and its online incarnation.

Red Dead detention

York’s induction into the much-mythologised studio’s work culture would prove to be prophetic. On his first day, he was instructed to play Red Dead Redemption in full – for the first time, in fact – to prepare for what was coming down the track: extensive animations on its Western-themed successor, where he was charged with designing multiple animal models intended to maraud across the North American frontier at the turn of the 20th century.

Elsewhere, his portfolio – including trailers for Dead Island: Riptide, Fortnite, The Walking Dead, Borderlands 3 and Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines – suggests York could illuminate the top-secret processes that underpin the massively hyped Extended Look, which is only the third official piece of formal storytelling to accompany GTA 6 and pulled in more than 30m views on Netflix in four days.

“We weren’t told anything about trailers, and then, all of a sudden, my animations would end up in one. It’d be like: ‘There's one of my shots!’ I only found out once they were completely released, and we were all watching it.” He says this level of secrecy is baked into the studio’s DNA. “They try to instill in all their employees that you don't say anything anywhere. If you look up most of the people at Rockstar, they don't have any social media presence because they're scared to. I was. When I worked there, I didn't say anything ever.”

Across the industry, how does the decision-making play out for this type of media content? “You don't want to spoil it or give too much away. You want to hint and leave things to the imagination, get people to want to find out what the story is. But things are changing. More and more studios and companies are releasing big deep dives, reveals, and whole chunks of gameplay. We're getting to see a lot of stuff that we never used to back in the day.”

Face off

York was impressed by many components of Rockstar’s mega preview, in particular the visual clarity, use of lighting, and the lifelike physics deployed in specific graphical elements, such as the movement of individual characters’ hair.

However, he also admits being disappointed by some of the “rough” facial animations. He explains: “It doesn't seem like they're using MetaHuman capture technology. It looks like they're still doing it the old-school way, like in GTA 5. It's very similar to that. That might be because of the limitations and what's important.

“I’ve worked with Unreal Engine 5. The high-fidelity facial animation has hundreds of bones in the face. When you add those to the character, it slows everything down. This is the type of stuff you put in cutscenes for The Last of Us Part 2, for example. You want it to look super realistic. On GTA 6, they're not doing that. Everything they show is in-game footage. It's the cinematic version of the character, which still needs to be low-resolution enough so it can do all these things without bogging down the rest of the game.”

York pinpoints other features – citing the weapon wheel and mini map – that also look “a bit outdated and weird”. “The whole UI doesn't really match the style of game and what we're used to,” he comments. “Rockstar has a big and very talented team. If they wanted, they could go in and change those elements before a final release. Will they do that? That's another question because there’s probably a lot of other stuff they're sweating about.”

That said, he praises the overarching LOD (Level of Detail), suggesting that – to date – only the CD Projekt Red team behind the once maligned but now widely celebrated Cyberpunk 2077 has been able to match it. “There are levels to this shit,” he states. “Rockstar are the kings of that.”

Despite any minor quibbles, the Extended Look has reassured York – who runs York Street Gaming on YouTube – that GTA 6 will set a new high bar stretching years into the future. “People will still say it's one of the best games of all time,” he says. “It will perform really well and become something we'll be able to play for a decade later like GTA 5. Online will come out and probably be an ever-evolving metaverse which will carry the franchise forever.”

Grand Theft Auto 6 will be released for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and Series S on November 19, 2026.

Persona 4 was my belated introduction to Atlus's Japanese high school RPG series, so it still has a special place in my heart.

The PlayStation 2 original was, however, also usurped by the greatly expanded and far superior Persona 4 Golden, which is where I racked up my New Game+ playthroughs. Even as I have become more time-poor over the years, I would still dip into its subsequent post-Vita ports.

That does, however, present a problem for Persona 4 Revival. When a perfect expanded version of the game already exists and is available on all current platforms, is a $70 modern remake really needed?

The elephant in the room is that this is also a way for Sega to plug the gap for the long-anticipated Persona 6, though given that it was only given the briefest announcement this year, fans will likely have a much longer wait ahead.

But after about an hour of hands-on time with Persona 4 Revival at Gamescom 2026, I can appreciate the different touches that have gone into making this JRPG classic more palatable to modern audiences, while still preserving key elements of the original.

One more remake

Persona 4 Revival's hands-on demo was split into three parts: the first focused on story, the second on its dungeon-based battles, and the last let me choose how to spend several calendar days as a transfer high school student in the rural town of Inaba.

As a remake, it follows a similar approach to Persona 3 Reload. Character models aren't just a huge visual upgrade over their original lower-poly PS2 counterparts; they're even better than Persona 5's and look virtually on par with the character portraits that typically accompany dialogue boxes. Turn-based battles, meanwhile, have been updated to mirror Persona 5's control scheme, where commands are mapped to different buttons rather than scrolling up and down a menu.

Just like Persona 3 Reload, Persona 4 Revival has also updated its audio with a completely new voice cast and a re-recorded soundtrack, including at least one or two brand-new songs. I don't mind so much the decision to recast the roles, especially as several of the original voice actors have become much higher profile (including Troy Baker, Laura Bailey, and Yuri Lowenthal).

Still, the voice of Teddy takes time to get used to because while some may have found his original voice a tad annoying, now he just sounds a bit too much like another teenager rather than a mysterious being inside a mascot suit.

From what I played, the story seems to unfold virtually beat-for-beat in line with the original. I think that's fine, and given how long the game already was, the script really doesn't need fleshing out in the same way as the Final Fantasy 7 Remake series, for example. But there are still some interesting changes within that.

The most notable is the more interesting camerawork going on, including close-ups, that make extensive cutscenes more engaging to sit through instead of just lengthy dialogue you might be inclined to skip if you can read faster than the characters speak.

The script itself has also undergone some subtle adjustments in the localization process. It might seem very minor, but I picked up on how Yosuke now addresses the other female students like Chie and Yukiko more formally by their family names, which is closer to how real-life Japanese classmates who aren't close friends behave.

I'm still intrigued by how and to what extent Yosuke's character is updated in Persona 4 Revival, as in the original, he behaves like a creep and is pretty insensitive at times. Given there's a moment in the story demo where he gets annoyed with Teddy and pushes him over, my guess is P Studio is still retaining at least some of the more abrasive side of his personality.

Holding on to the past

Persona 4 Revival's visual upgrades apply to the environments too. With a completely free-looking 3D camera, you can appreciate more of the details in the Dojima household, while in the Twisted Shopping District, you can look up and see the strange red and black vortex instead of a sky that indicates you're in the Midnight Channel's parallel dimension.

Nonetheless, the places you go to are still very much as I remember them. Rooms are still separated by loading screens; Inaba's main commercial district has the same businesses, including the item shop that turns into a bar at night. That's also fine for me, as I don't think it would necessarily benefit the game to suddenly expand the real estate.

While seemingly still randomly generated rather than having the bespoke design of Persona 5's palaces, the dungeons you explore have nonetheless been adjusted to be a little less tedious, from having objects you can break to gather resources to a subtle wayfinder if you just want to get to the next floor ASAP. Ironically, I took this as a cue to go the other direction to explore more of the map.

When encountering enemy shadows on the map, the game even clearly indicates whether you've got the drop on them to get a pre-emptive attack. Failing that, Persona 4 Revival also adds the ability to guard against a shadow's attack so that you're less likely to start a turn-based battle at a disadvantage.

During battle, the Baton Pass mechanic has also been passed down from Persona 5 and Persona 3 Reload, which allows you to attack again if you've hit an enemy with their weakness, but pass that turn onto another party member who may have the right attack to exploit a different enemy's weakness.

But whereas Persona 3 Reload was criticized for not being a truly definitive remake, given the lack of an option for a female protagonist like in Persona 3 Portable, Persona 4 Revival at least is confirmed specifically as a remake of Persona 4 Golden. That means it will include that expanded version's additional story content, such as Marie, the mysterious and temperamental guest in the Velvet Room.

Despite those smart updates, I'm still curious why some other elements have been left untouched. For instance, character portraits were used prominently in JRPGs as they were more expressive than in-game models. But when Persona 4 Revival's character models are better animated and expressive, having these portraits seems arbitrary.

Similarly, when you knock down all enemies and trigger an all-out attack, Persona 4 would originally cover the enemies in a cartoon cloud for comical effect, yet the remake opts to keep this visual despite also having party members running in to perform a lot of flashier animations alongside it.

There might be some nostalgic charm to retaining these conventions, but it also feels unnecessary in the context of a modern remake. Similarly, once my hands-on time was up, I came away impressed with what I had played, yet still not convinced why I would drop $70 on it when Persona 4 Golden is right there for a fraction of the price.

Persona 4 Revival releases on February 18, 2027, on Xbox Series X and Series S, PlayStation 5, and PC.

• Two DualSense wireless controllers inspired by Grand Theft Auto 6 have been revealed
• Both editions are said to "capture the essence of Vice City"
• Pre-orders open on September 10

Sony has announced that it will release two limited-edition DualSense wireless controllers inspired by Grand Theft Auto 6 when the game launches.

Revealed during today's State of Play broadcast, the controllers come in black or white with purple chrome, feature the GTA 6 logo on the touchpad, with distinct palm tree designs and glowing buttons inspired by Vice City.

"The black and white limited-edition DualSense wireless controllers each capture the essence of Vice City, from bright days along the coast to vibrant city nights," Sony describes in the PlayStation Blog.

"Both editions feature a shimmering, color-shifting finish that brings together the hues of a Vice City sunset and the glow of neon lights. They both also feature custom palm tree details molded directly into the controller, adding a unique tactile element alongside official Grand Theft Auto 6 branding."

The white edition "embodies Vice City at daybreak, from its white sands and pastel skies to all its laid-back glamour," while the black version "captures the energy of Vice City’s iconic nightlife."

The DualSense Wireless Controller – Grand Theft Auto 6 Black Limited Edition and DualSense Wireless Controller – Grand Theft Auto 6 White Limited Edition will be available for pre-order on September 10 and launch alongside the game on November 19.

Both controllers will cost $84.99 / £74.99 through PlayStation Direct in limited quantities.

Ahead of the game's launch, Rockstar Games treated fans to the Grand Theft Auto 6: An Extended Look, which offered a deep dive into the game running on the base PS5. A new report also confirmed that the game will run at 30fps on consoles.

The spirit forms of The Warrior of Light, Terra, Zidane, and Cloud bob up and down behind each character in my party as I get into battle in an early dungeon in Final Fantasy Resonance.

When the trio of monsters is briefly staggered in front of me, I’m given a choice of which iconic character’s power to unleash to end the battle, and I promptly pick the spiky-haired and Buster Sword-wielding hero of Final Fantasy 7. My reward is a flashy CG cutscene of Cloud obliterating everything on screen in a visual display that seems strangely at odds with the rest of the game's HD-2D style.

But this clash is perhaps to be expected when you learn that Final Fantasy Resonance adapts parts of an old 2015 mobile game, Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, to create a brand-new entry in the traditional turn-based style of Final Fantasy’s NES/SNES golden era.

For players like me whose formative gaming years were spent playing those classics and who long for more old-school turn-based RPGs, it’s the kind of pairing that should shoot Resonance right to the top of the must-play list. And even in just the brief hour I spent with the game, I could feel myself getting sucked into its combat and presentation style almost immediately.

I can’t speak much on the story that frames this fan-service-heavy premise, given I got to experience so little of it, but it feels very much in the vein of a Final Fantasy of old. There are warring factions, a party of adventurers, and crystals to protect in temples dotted around the world.

However, it didn’t matter that I had very little exposition to set up my time with Resonance, given that I immediately saw so much to dig into with the characters and combat.

Alongside the four that were already assigned to my party, there are signs that many more familiar faces from across the full history of the series will make an appearance as Visions that you can equip to your characters.

These provide a vast number of active and passive abilities that can be brought together to create particular builds or strengths that you want characters to focus on.

For example, The Warrior of Light has several physical attacks and defensive magic that work together to make the equipped character a strong frontline warrior or damage-mitigating tank. You can further build upon that with abilities learned and masteries gained from other Visions to perhaps buff your health or offer other worthwhile passives.

I enjoyed tinkering with the makeup of my party to create the classic areas of expertise across all four members — the tank, the physical damage dealer, the mage, and the healer — and I’m sure you’ll be able to create more interesting hybrids as more Visions and their classes become available.

And like the best turn-based RPGs, it was even more fulfilling to see those builds succeed in combat. It led to a satisfying rhythm where you exploit the elemental or physical weaknesses of an enemy to stagger them, earn bonus turns for your characters to create an even bigger advantage in battle, and then unleash a Vision’s special attack once all opponents are in a staggered state.

It’s nothing hugely revolutionary in the world of turn-based combat, but it does add some flair to a familiar formula.

Throw in summons, limit breaks, and more abilities that are exclusive to each Vision, and you have the makings of an exciting and dynamic battle system that still retains some old-school charm.

And that sums up how it felt to play Resonance. Anyone with a hankering for some classic Final Fantasy will find a lot to love here — even beyond the fan service with its large cast of well-known characters from across the series. If that sounds like you, a demo is available to try right now.

Final Fantasy Resonance launches on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, Nintendo Switch 2, Nintendo Switch, and PC on October 22.

When I previewed The Blood of Dawnwalker, its prologue was an impressive snapshot of what Rebel Wolves was hoping to achieve with its vampiric open-world role-playing game (RPG). It was a tight and tense introduction to a game that encourages you to spend your time wisely, live with the consequences of your actions, and balance Coen’s newly acquired Vrakhir abilities with the hope of maintaining his humanity.

Now, after sinking dozens more hours into the full release, this team that includes several ex-Witcher 3 developers hasn’t quite made that formative game’s spiritual successor. However, I can’t fault the ambition found in the studio’s debut release — even if not every idea is fully realised and a few elements lack polish.

Ever since playing through that exciting opening, which sees Coen’s village razed and his family held captive to be used as sacrifices in an upcoming coronation for the valley’s vampire overlord, Brencis, I've been desperate to get back in and see what awaited in the rest of the game.

So, it’s strange that when you first hit the open world, the game starts to feel a little aimless. Your main goal may be to kill Brencis and save your family, but the direct approach is almost certainly going to lead to your death. Instead, it’s smarter to take the time to destabilise Brencis’ reign by going after his generals and increasing your power for the upcoming showdown.

No rest for the wicked

Unfortunately, that means engaging with a lot of dull and fairly repetitive tasks dotted around the map, mostly clearing camps of soldiers and smashing up boxes of supplies. The set dressing changes a little depending on which vampire lieutenant you’re going after (it may be blood supplies for Ambrus or slivovitz distilleries with Bakir), but you’re ultimately going through the same motions.

And I was surprised at how little some of the vampire leaders actually feature in the story while you’re being such a thorn in their side. Most development happens off-screen, while notes are found on soldiers bemoaning Coen’s actions and edicts are issued as you become more notorious.

There isn’t as much time given to interacting with these villains before an inevitable confrontation. And that’s a shame, because when you do come face-to-face with these flamboyant, furious, and fascinating characters, they end up being killed off just as they’re starting to get interesting.

I did find that The Blood of Dawnwalker found its feet when you dig into one of its many lengthier multi-part quests. Given the developer’s history and pedigree, and what was shown off in the prologue, this is more of what I expected. You get to spend time with some entertaining and well-written characters, explore interesting environments and dungeons, tackle challenging combat encounters, and often emerge with some nice new loot.

Choices and consequences come front and center in many of these quests, and I felt the game gives a surprising amount of room, as your investigations can open up different approaches or outcomes. And quite cleverly, not all effects are felt immediately, with some outcomes or repercussions only felt much later down the line. It shows Rebel Wolves really thought about the interconnectivity of its world and wanted to show the impact you have on it. A huge plus for the RPG lovers who thrive on that level of world-building.

The final countdown

Tying it all together is the 30-day time limit that’s central to The Blood of Dawnwalker. Much has been said about this mechanic, but the countdown to Brencis’ coronation and your family’s execution wasn’t a constant threat looming overhead. I considered it a lot at the start, but eventually, instead of making me question whether every single action was worth doing or made worthwhile progress, losing chunks of time eventually became something I just accepted as the price of doing business.

Where it was always a frustration, though, was during levelling up, where almost all skills and perks require you to spend time learning them, meaning you could lose half a day (or night) simply to make Coen stronger. I would understand this if it were reserved for learning more advanced skills, but when the same price must be paid to get 25 per cent more health or some passive stamina regeneration, it doesn’t feel worth the cost.

The transition from day to night didn’t substantially change the game, either. Yes, it enables Coen’s vampiric powers, with neat tricks such as shadowstepping across chasms or walking up walls, but these don’t have the impact I feel they could have.

For starters, there’s so much blood available in consumables or animals to hunt out in the wild that I never felt this moral dilemma the game wants to push about Coen needing to feed. There is a neat idea that only happens if you’re low on health in vampire form and chatting with a non-player character (NPC), where you risk Coen giving in to the hunger and sucking the blood from his conversation partner, but it didn’t happen to me once in my playthrough.

Tonight I'm going to suck...your blood

When it comes to a clash of steel and fangs, the vampire powers don’t elevate what is a perfectly serviceable, if mostly underwhelming, combat system. The foundation is based on directional inputs to attack, block, or dodge, and picking the correct direction will set up your opponent for a devastating riposte from your sword or claws.

You can weave in a few abilities that range from the mundane, such as using pocket sand to temporarily blind an enemy, to several witchcraft or vampiric skills that burn your opponent's blood or set them up for a gruesome and bloody explosion. And while it all works fine, it never flows as smoothly as you would like or feels as impactful as you wish it did. Combat ultimately became something that I got through impassively rather than finding myself excited for the next encounter.

And that’s ultimately what makes me struggle to wholeheartedly recommend The Blood of Dawnwalker. Too many elements are dull, repetitive, or underused to keep me fully engaged over its lengthy playtime. There are captivating moments, though, that I feel some may be able to appreciate more if you’re able to overlook some of its flaws. Perhaps with some updates or a sequel, the ambitions of Rebel Wolves can be fully met.

Should you play The Blood of Dawnwalker?

Play it if…

Don’t play it if…

Accessibility

The Blood of Dawnwalker has limited accessibility features. Subtitles are available in 14 languages, but you cannot customise the size, color, or position on the screen. Two control options are available, with the ability to invert both axes if required.

There are more choices when it comes to refining the difficulty of the game, though. As well as general preset options ranging from Story to Duelist, you can also specifically tweak enemy health, enemy aggressiveness, how easy it is to perform perfect blocks, and whether blocking is automatic if you want an easier combat experience.

How I reviewed The Blood of Dawnwalker

I’ve put around 25 hours into The Blood of Dawnwalker over the past week and a half, and while I haven’t completed it yet, I feel I’ve seen more than enough of the game’s main story and side quests to offer a comprehensive verdict.

I spent all my time playing on a PlayStation 5 Pro on a Samsung S90C OLED TV and Samsung HW-Q930C soundbar while using a DualSense Wireless Controller.

I played on Balanced mode, which aims to run the game at 40 frames per second (fps) in dynamic 4K. A 30fps Quality mode is also available, but I preferred the option with a more stable fps that didn’t impact the visuals significantly. A Performance mode targeting 60fps will also be made available at launch.

First reviewed September 2026.

• Sony is launching a new free ad-supported service on PS5 consoles
• Its 100 live channels cover a wide range of titles across film, TV, news, sports, and more
• Live TV on PS5 is available to US users now, with availability for Canada and other regions to follow

Sony is dipping its toes back into free streaming channels with its new Live TV on PS5 platform — following platforms such as Tubi, Google TV Freeplay, and The Roku Channel.

The gaming and entertainment giant announced Live TV on PS5 yesterday (August 31), revealing that PS5 owners in the US can now access the service’s 100 ad-supported live channels and on-demand titles. Sony also has plans to expand Live TV on PS5 to Canada and additional regions, and will roll out the free service to Bravia TVs later this year.

For a new free streaming platform, Sony is already going big with its entertainment offerings. As far as its movie channels go, Live TV on PS5 has a slew of titles spanning action, horror, sci-fi, and more, all while housing popular anime titles from Crunchyroll.

The service also has a rich catalog of TV titles, including shows such as Community, The Shield, Hell’s Kitchen, The Walking Dead, Forensic Files, Unsolved Mysteries, Deal or No Deal USA, and Fear Factor.

Movies and shows aside, current affairs and news viewing is also available for free, offering programming from NBC News Now, Fox Weather, and LiveNOW from FOX. Additionally, you can also access channels including FOX Sports, NASCAR, NBC Sports Now, and UFC, so sports fans aren’t being left out of the experience.

Just like other platforms in our roster of best streaming services, Sony will keep Live TV on PS5 refreshed with new programming, titles, and channels to expose you to new content and keep you on your toes. Hopefully its library won’t remain stagnant and outdated, but it’s not as if Sony doesn’t know what it’s doing — it’s dipped its toes into the FAST channels waters before.

PlayStation Vue was a live TV service that allowed you to watch titles without the need for a cable box, before Sony axed it in 2020. It’s safe to say that PlayStation Vue was a widely admired service, and countless PS owners have been reminiscing about its nostalgia on Reddit following the announcement of Live TV on PS5 — however, whether the new platform will be a welcomed addition is debatable.

Sony’s decision to kill off physical games and shift to digital ownership is still under intense scrutiny, not to mention the uproar that came when Sony deleted 500 movies users paid for following a licensing conflict. So there’s still the burning question regarding ownership: if everything is digital, do users really own it? There’s also the question of how different Sony’s FAST streaming service is to existing platforms.

In the Reddit discussion mentioned earlier, some users flagged that a lot of the FAST channels available on Live TV on PS5 are strikingly similar to the ones already available on services such as Tubi and Pluto TV, as one user said it ‘sounds like the same channels as [my] Roku TV’. Similarly, another commenter wrote that Sony’s streaming platform looks ‘like a copy of Roku TV, where they only show reruns and older shows, or lesser known shows’.

The common denominator with the best free streaming services are the providers, as another user highlights in the thread, so running into the same types of programming across these platforms isn’t out of the ordinary. For users who use their PS5 consoles as their main media hub, it’s a solid free upgrade and it’s there if you want to use it. At the same time, you can already download Tubi and Pluto TV on PS5, so the competition is tough.

• Asobo Studio says it's interested in making a new A Plague Tale game set in the modern day
• The studio says it would be like The Last of Us, since Naughty Dog's game was a "big inspiration"
• Actor Anna Demetriou says a modern-day spin-off would work well since the Macula is "fantastical"

Asobo Studio has said it "would love" to make a new A Plague Tale game set in the modern day, since Naughty Dog's The Last of Us influenced the series.

In an interview with TechRadar Gaming at Gamescom ahead of the launch of the studio's latest game, Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy, Valérian Robert (lead level designer), Carol Ann Bañuls (lead writer), and actor Anna Demetriou, who played the part of Resonance protagonist Sophia were asked about its next project and confirmed that a modern-day spin-off is something they're asked about frequently.

"Absolutely," Bañuls replied when asked if the setting would be a good pick for Asobo. "Definitely. Personally, I think so. I think it would be great."

Demetriou said, "It's one of the things a lot of people ask me about," with Bañuls adding, "It would be really Last of Us kind of."

Bañuls went on to say that, "Yeah, definitely, because it was a big inspiration. So yeah, if it's in modern days, it would be great."

In the A Plague Tale universe, the Prima Macula is an ancient curse that poisons the blood of certain families and is something that appears in every major A Plague Tale game, including Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy. Demetriou thinks the Macula would work very well in a modern-day setting, because the plague is "fantastical."

"It would be amazing," Demetriou continued, "I would love that to fit into a modern-day setting. Yeah, it would be interesting to see what that would look like. I would love that."

Asobo Studio hasn't announced its next project just yet, but A Plague Tale game set in a time gamers are familiar with sounds awesome. Now, fans can pick up Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy, which is available today on PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PC.

FiiO FG3: one-minute review

As an audio journalist, I’ve covered FiiO plenty of times; the brand is known for beloved digital audio players like the JM21 and digital-audio converters like the FA15. But I was surprised to see the brand enter a totally different market, trying its hand at a gaming headset.

The FiiO FG3 is the resulting device, and it clearly bears some of the audiophile DNA that FiiO is known for. It offers a coaxial dual-driver set-up, which is uncommon in games-focused headphones, and also totes a lightweight DAC control module to jump between audio presets.

So it should be a gaming gem, right? Right? Well, I think something was lost in translation.

FiiO’s hardware is fantastic for music, and the FG3 is the same, with the dual-driver set-up and handy EQ modes working well. However, it’s not quite as good for gaming, which isn’t ideal for a 'gaming' headset.

Audio is often too muddy and rumbly to do justice to the layered sound design of an immersive environment or frantic battlefield. It’s largely the low-end which lets the side down, with higher-pitched sounds cutting through pretty effectively. This won’t affect all games, and dialogue-heavy or rhythm ones will benefit massively from the tuning.

The fit of the headphones isn’t perfect either. While the cups are incredibly soft, the headphones squeeze and the headband is too firm. I had to take breaks from long gaming sessions to avoid my head hurting.

That all may sound like a series of criticisms, but there’s a lot to like here too. The cans are easily portable, and the control app being online-only is a breath of fresh air in this bloatware-riddled world (even if it rules out EQ control when you’ve got no internet).

The FG3 is also, crucially, pretty affordable, and I can see a discount or two making it an absolute bargain. If you’re reading this when they’re even $10 / £10 off, they’ll be an absolute bargain.

So it’s easy to look past some of the more annoying elements, or rougher edges, of FiiO’s sound tuning and design. But I can’t help but hope that the brand’s second foray into gaming headsets makes some improvements on what we’ve currently got.

FiiO FG3: Price and availability

• List price: $69.99 / £69.99 (around AU$140)
• Available in the US, UK and Europe
• Matches RIG R5 Spear Pro HS, undercuts other rivals

The FiiO FG3 sells for $69.99 / £69.99 (about AU$140, though at the time of writing, it’s not on sale in Australia), and was unveiled in June, 2026.

At that price, it undercuts many of the best wired gaming headsets, though it matches our top-rated pick: the catchily-titled RIG R5 Spear Pro HS. That makes it fairly good value for a gaming headset, with many alternatives going for three-figure sums.

For your money, you get the headset as well as a removable microphone, control cable and USB adaptor (which lets you plug the USB-C control cable into a USB-A port, if that’s what you have available).

FiiO FG3: specs

FiiO FG3: design and features

The FiiO FG3 comes with a non-removable cable, which connects into a 3.5mm jack. It’s not long, but it’ll reach a hand-held controller. However, it’s best to connect it to a control module which comes in the box; this offers you the ability to mute, change EQ or modify volume, and has a much longer cable which connects to a device via USB-C (or USB-A, thanks to an included adaptor).

These cans aren’t particularly unique-looking, although the cups are slightly canted, which helps them fit a head shape better. They rotate a little horizontally and vertically, which also helps with the fit, though some other elements like the thin metal headband or certain cheap-feeling plastic elements discourage any notion of these being premium headphones. There are no on-cup controls either.

While the ear pads are soft and comfortable, I did find that the padded headband wasn’t padded enough. Longer gaming stints ended in growing aches; the FG3 fit isn’t as comfortable as other gaming headsets I’ve used. A slight squeeze offered by the cans didn’t help either.

You can fold the cups in on each other, and remove the microphone, transforming the headset into a compact unit which is easy to transport (though it doesn’t come with any kind of carry case). Combined with a feature we’ll get to later, it’s a great headset for people who game in different venues.

Now onto the feature set. A potentially-divisive feature of the FiiO FG3 is that you don’t need to download a control app to clutter up your PC. Instead, FiiO’s website offers the ability to change EQ and flick between presets.

I loved the fact I didn’t need to download more bloating software onto my rig, and that I could tote the FG3 between different systems and locations and still customize them, but it does mean that you get no control while offline.

The control site lets you choose three presets, which the control module lets you change between: a gaming mode, a cinema one, and a music one. The latter list, which includes the custom mode, is the one I found myself using most.

This module also means you can still jump between your EQ presets when you're on a console or handheld, so your decision to play on a Switch, PlayStation or Xbox doesn't mean you're banned from customizable sound.

Don’t expect any Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) here. I found that the Passive Noise Cancellation (PNC) or natural ear cup blocking, managed to cut out annoying background sounds from my street, as did the closed-back design. But it won’t save you from louder interruptions.

FiiO FG3: performance

True to its audiophile heritage, FiiO has packed the FG3 with two drivers per cup: one 50mm dynamic driver designed to handle mid- and low-end, and a smaller 16mm dynamic driver for higher-end sounds. The benefit of dual drivers, rather than the sole unit found in most gaming headsets, is twofold: firstly, each being dedicated to different frequencies means that they can be better catered to them. Secondly, simultaneous sounds can be delivered with better clarity.

This latter is certainly true of the FiiO FG3, which has a distinct V-shaped sound profile; that means that bass and treble are well-defined and clear, though mids are a little lost. This isn’t a huge issue for gaming, as most sound effects are low or high ones, but it’s audible in music (including game scores).

It’s also clear that the high-end dynamic driver does its job well. Dialogue is easy to make out, even in frantic battles, including in-game audio and friends’ voice chats during gameplay. It’s also easy to make out nearby footsteps or the twinkle of a distant collectible.

However, I’m not as sold on the bass capabilities of the larger driver. In music it’s scooping and well-defined, but while gaming it lacks the power or ‘oomph’ of some other headsets I’ve tested. This means the chatter of your gunfire sounds a little dulled, nearby explosions lose a visceral edge, and roaring monsters sound like they have a sore throat.

Perhaps most importantly, the background rumble of a city or busy landscape which so often defines an alive-feeling open world felt a little too ‘rumbly’ for me. Some of FiiO’s equalization modes go some way to fix its issues, but not the whole way; I never found a way to stop the sound feeling a little muddy, and sometimes even made it worse.

A much-touted selling point of the FG3 is the use of Virtual 7.1, an algorithm which spreads sound to give a feeling of surround sound, without using 8 speakers (which would simply be 7.1 sound). It helps a little in spreading environmental and atmospheric sounds about you, though you’ll never forget that you’re simply getting spread-out headphone sound.

The removable microphone is… fine for purpose, but won’t deliver especially crystalline audio. Even recording onto my PC’s own voice recorder app, speech is a little crackly. However, I appreciate how dexterous the strut holding the microphone is: you can move it to different angles or heights, and there’s far more versatility than in many other headsets I’ve used.

Should I buy the FiiO FG3?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

FiiO FG3: Also consider

Here are two more gaming headsets that we've given positive reviews to, if you're not sold on the FiiO FG3.

How I tested the FiiO FG3

• Used for three weeks
• Tested for gaming and other tasks
• Mainly connected to gaming PC

I tested the FiiO FG3 for roughly three weeks in order to write the review. Through this time, I used the headset while connected to my gaming PC; I tried to plug it into my Android phone, but the connection was stuttery.

The majority of the testing was done gaming; predominantly Nioh 3 and Total War: Pharaoh, but with time also spent on Old School Runescape, Isonzo, Slay The Spire, Crying Suns and the Mortal Shell 2 beta. I also used the headset to stream music while at work, and watch YouTube videos and TV shows.

Since I review audio products for a living, I have plenty of experience testing gaming headsets (and using other headphones for gaming purposes). I've also tested other FiiO products.

First reviewed August 2026

Read more about how we test

Onimusha: Way of the Sword has blown me away after 30 hours with its engaging, emotional, and immersive narrative, filled with epic combat encounters. Capcom nailed the sword-fighting in almost all areas, further aided by some of the best boss battles I've ever played in the action-adventure genre.

The enemy variety in Way of the Sword appears a little weak initially, but fortunately, there is surprisingly a decent number of diverse enemy types to tackle, some of which will put players' skills to the test, and enemies that tie directly to some of the darker and morbid aspects of the story — giving me every bit of motivation to defeat those responsible.

Much like previous games in the Onimusha series, upgrades and enhancements work by collecting red souls from defeating enemies or by finding other necessary resources to stay well-equipped for more difficult encounters or boss fights (because there are many of them).

Capcom has blended elements from the beloved franchise with modern elements (notably thanks to the RE Engine, used in Resident Evil Requiem), creating a sword-fighting, narrative-driven experience that successfully revitalizes the franchise for future entries — and yet again, it proves that it's in the best form it's ever been in.

What it takes to be the strongest

In Onimusha: Way of the Sword, we follow Miyamoto Musashi, a confident young samurai looking to climb to the very top to be the best swordsman there is, battling rivals and those with the same goal. When an encounter with a fierce rival, Sasaki Ganryu, goes wrong, both Musashi and Ganryu are thrust into lives and roles neither could ever expect.

Genma (demons) are seeping into Kyoto, Japan, from the depths of hell, and chaos is unfolding, with the lives of innocents taken brutally, and formidable Genma tormenting those who are vulnerable.

Musashi and Ganryu seek the same goal: master the blade and become the ultimate swordsman. However, both will eventually learn that far more important matters are at stake: humanity's attempt to repel Genma is in dire need of attention, and with Ganryu led astray, it's up to Musashi to forge the right path to heroism.

Equipped with Oni gauntlets, Musashi and Ganryu possess strengths far above the ordinary human, with plenty of abilities to challenge and defeat Genma. However, as expected, with that power comes plenty of responsibility.

Do strength and power derive from one's own efforts? Is it honorable to seek absolute power with the sacrifice of innocents? These are questions Musashi is left to answer throughout his journey, learning through victory but also through trial and error, ultimately creating an engaging rollercoaster that kept me on the edge of my seat.

Musashi is far from perfect in his use of Oni powers, but the character's development throughout the Way of the Sword and his bravado (significantly amped by the face model of the late and legendary Toshiro Mifune) are the strongest aspects of the game, keeping you coming back for more after each main story mission.

Miyamoto Musashi shines in every single cutscene, with a level of charisma that accurately represents the legendary Japanese figure, Musashi himself, and Toshiro Mifune's prowess. (Video Credit: Capcom)

As much as Onimusha: Way of the Sword maintains a strong focus on sword combat, it's very much a strong cinematic experience, with cutscenes that are absolutely phenomenal. The level of detail in every character's facial expressions and speech makes it feel like you're watching a movie at times.

Unfortunately, that makes the switch back to gameplay and dialogue sequences quite jarring. It's not that the visuals aren't great during gameplay; it just doesn't match up to those cinematic sequences, and I found myself constantly wishing gameplay looked as great as those important cutscenes — but ultimately, those beautiful visuals are designed for what's most important: the story.

Exceptional, addictive sword combat

Unsurprisingly, the combat in Onimusha: Way of the Sword is fantastic, taking fundamentals from what series veterans are accustomed to, alongside new and exciting skills, making every encounter entertaining.

As mentioned in my preview, the Issen technique makes its return, allowing players to viciously strike enemies right before being hit, and it makes for an incredible spectacle.

More importantly, parrying and deflecting are pivotal to overcoming foes in Way of the Sword. Just like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice by FromSoftware, both defence options significantly deplete enemy stamina or 'posture', leaving them open to attacks for huge damage.

Way of the Sword treats Sekiro's 'deathblows' slightly differently; instead of one central area to attack, players have several options for areas to strike against bosses.

In scenarios where Musashi runs out of Hozuki (used for quick healing), most bosses will have a limb or part of a weapon (notably with the Byakue boss) highlighted in purple that is filled with red, yellow, blue, and purple souls, but does less damage to the enemy compared to the traditional main attack.

It's an aspect of combat that creates a dynamic back-and-forth between Musashi and various bosses, especially if you need more yellow souls for health from dealing too much damage earlier on.

Patience is key when attempting to execute Issen or Chain Issen, as the timing window is very narrow, more so than those for parries and deflects. When mastered, though, you'll overcome most enemies with ease. (Video Credit: Capcom)

Capcom did promise that enemies further into the game's story would be more difficult, after players voiced concerns that the demo was too easy. While I can say that endgame enemies are certainly more formidable and aggressive, some even making me sweat when in larger numbers, most basic enemy encounters are still easy.

This is directly due to Capcom's design for Way of the Sword's combat, which is very obviously focused on replicating samurai-like fights, taking after historical samurai duels that often ended in a single strike. Enemies won't attack Musashi in groups, making clashes with enemies easy, but I can see what director Satoru Nihei was aiming for with slower, more deliberate, and steadily paced sword clashes.

Fortunately, once you beat the game, you'll unlock the hard mode, Carnage, which is encouraged for use in New Game Plus. This raises the stakes to a new level, as a single hit could result in death, similar to Sucker Punch's Ghost of Tsushima and its Lethal difficulty.

While that doesn't directly address the fundamental aspect of enemies not attacking Musashi all at once, it will keep players on their toes to remain efficient in combat.

Onimusha: Way of the Sword genuinely has some of the best animations I've ever seen in any video game, particularly when parrying. Musashi oozes so much swagger in every single fight, making his confident and cocky attitude shine through combat, not just dialogue and cutscenes.

At the same time, I was slightly disappointed to see that Musashi's katana is the only primary weapon to use throughout the game. Yes, you'll find Oni Armaments on the journey, which effectively act as secondary weapons, but they require blue souls to pull off special attacks. It's a step away from a series tradition, where characters like Samonsuke or Jean Reno had a wide arsenal of weapons to use on the fly.

The game excels at its parry and deflect animations, but is surprisingly lacking in the number of animations for enemy finishers — and I couldn't help but feel like another primary weapon besides the katana would instantly fix that.

Nonetheless, Onimusha: Way of the Sword's boss fights make up for it, as they are easily the standout in an already immersive and addictive game experience. While some of the boss encounters are repeated too often, particularly during the game's climax, they are easily among some of the most epic boss battles I've played in games.

Besides the final boss battle, Dohatsu-ten is a strong favourite of mine, putting my reflexes to parry fast attacks to the test, and its design reminds me of Capcom's very own familiar and beloved half-demon, half-human demon hunter, Dante. (Video Credit: Capcom)

If difficulty is a major concern, fear not, because not only are the boss fights a fantastic spectacle, but they're also very challenging. Bosses will often launch attacks (where swords have a purple glow) that can't be dodged or blocked, so players must parry or deflect them or lose plenty of souls in the process.

Losing souls from being hit by an enemy's unblockable attack is very risky, as they'll be collected and used to make them even stronger mid-fight — and this is the last thing you'll want to happen during the final boss fight, which I won't spoil.

Players will also have to look out for bosses attempting to grab Musashi by hitting the dodge button just before it lands, as mistiming this results in serious damage and can single-handedly decide a fight. Pulling off well-timed dodges, parries, deflects, and counters to grabs makes the entire combat experience addictive, and once you unlock the Oni transformation, the game takes a new leap to greater heights.

What about performance?

I played Onimusha: Way of the Sword on my main desktop gaming PC, equipped with an RTX 4080 Super and an AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D processor, and performance was the least of my concerns. Through most of my 30-hour playthrough, I played at maximum graphics settings at the 3440x1440 display resolution, with DLSS Quality enabled, and consistently stayed above the 100 fps mark.

When testing the game on my Lenovo Legion Go S Z1 Extreme handheld gaming PC, I could easily hit around 40fps with graphics settings preset to medium, with FSR set to balanced, at around 24W (power consumption).

This is another Capcom game that runs very smoothly, which was a worry considering some of its semi-open world hubs. The RE Engine seems to struggle in open-world (open-area) games like Dragon's Dogma 2 and Monster Hunter Wilds, rather than those with linear environments in Capcom's Resident Evil games.

I did experience a few odd moments of heavy frame rate dips during some cutscenes, but these were few and far between, so it didn't break the flow of important narrative development.

There is full ultrawide support in both cutscenes and gameplay, which isn't exactly common for PC ports, as the former is often restricted to the 16:9 aspect ratio.

Should you play Onimusha: Way of the Sword?

Play it if...

Don't play it if...

Accessibility features

Onimusha: Way of the Sword has plenty of accessibility options, notably color blindness aids alongside visual and auditory accessibility presets. Within those presets lie options such as subtitles (toggle on or off), subtitle size, subtitle background, menu text size, and HUD size.

There are also numerous options to change the blood color, disable dismemberment, remove action prompts, and motion sickness reduction settings.

Players can also change keybinds for mouse and keyboard play, while there are several different options for sprint control (toggle or hold), deflect control, menu cursor speed, and even one to disable the Windows key's functionality.

The game ships with DLSS 4.5 and FSR 3 frame generation, CPU performance presets, and ray tracing, which doesn't seem heavy to run — at least on a high-end gaming system.

How I reviewed Onimusha: Way of the Sword

Most of my 30-hour playthrough of Onimusha: Way of the Sword was on my main gaming PC, using the LG 45GS95QE OLED ultrawide display, providing exceptional immersion thanks to its 800R curvature.

During my trip to Gamescom, I put Onimusha's performance to the test by lowering my Lenovo Legion Go S handheld's TDP as much as possible, and was quite impressed by how steady it was around 40fps. It's certainly possible to achieve 60fps, but it would require lowering graphics settings further and increasing the TDP.

First reviewed August 2026

• Digital Foundry says getting Grand Theft Auto 6 to run at 60fps on current-gen consoles is "extremely unlikely"
• The tech experts say the 30fps footage from the Extended Look was "the most impressive example of real-time game rendering" they've seen
• It says the eventual PC version running at 60fps would be "genuinely challenging"

Tech analysts have suggested that getting Grand Theft Auto 6 to run smoothly at 60 frames per second would be a massive challenge on console.

After Grand Theft Auto 6's Extended Look, which finally offered a deep dive into Rockstar's biggest game yet running on the base PS5, reports confirmed that the game will run at 30fps on PlayStation and Xbox, with the possibility of 60fps being added post-launch.

That's no surprise considering the scale and how hyper-realistic GTA 6 looks, but according to the tech experts at Digital Foundry, it may be impossible for current-gen consoles to even hit 60fps.

Speaking about last night's extended look footage, the folks at Digital Foundry said it looks like "the most impressive example of real-time game rendering" they've ever seen; the gameplay shown is "relatively stable and well-paced 30fps output, with only very occasional single frame drops (though the nature of the 30fps asset means there could be more, unseen)."

It's believed that, while 30fps might seem low for a current-gen title such as GTA 6, Rockstar appears to be targeting this level to maximize the game's level of visual detail.

"It's clear that the focus was absolutely maximizing the level of visual detail at a fixed 30fps frame rate on all platforms," Digital Foundry wrote. "The rendering, simulation and presentation have all been tuned around that constraint — and the result is an unprecedented level of density, material quality and world coherence, with trade-offs landing primarily in image quality and animation smoothness rather than systemic scale or fidelity."

It continued, "The evidence suggests that the game maintains its 33.3ms cadence with care, and Rockstar has clearly spent immense effort balancing CPU and GPU workloads to fully saturate the hardware."

For this reason, Digital Foundry believes "a 60fps version extremely unlikely on console hardware — there's no way to regain enough GPU and particularly CPU time to make a 16.7ms update rate work without compromising the world."

It also suggests that the game could look better on PS5 Pro, thanks to the console's powerful GPU with PSSR upscaling, but Rockstar has yet to reveal official gameplay running on the hardware.

As for the eventual PC release, which hasn't been announced yet, "some level of caution is required" as while the platform could allow higher resolutions and benefit from upscalers like Nvidia DLSS, the CPU demand of GTA 6's complex world could "make hitting 60fps genuinely challenging in a way we don't often see, and will likely require a high-end CPU like a recent Ryzen X3D to avoid bottlenecks."

GTA 6 launches on November 19 for PS5, Xbox Series X, and Series S, and Rockstar has confirmed that the game can take up to 80 hours to beat.

• Grand Theft Auto 6's hand-crafted NPCs have over 600,000 animations
• Rockstar North co-head Aaron Garbut says Rockstar established a new team that art-directed every single NPC
• Garbut says every single room and the NPCs inside them were hand-crafted

To achieve the grand scale and realism we witnessed this week in Grand Theft Auto 6's extended look, the development team went above and beyond, according to Rockstar.

In an interview with The New York Times about the game's development, Rockstar North co-head Aaron Garbut revealed that the studio established a new Los Angeles-based team of writers, directors, and producers to focus solely on realizing non-player characters (NPCs).

"We art-directed each individual one of them," said Garbut, revealing that GTA 6 has over 600,000 animations, compared to GTA 5's 55,000 and double Red Dead Redemption 2's 300,000 animations.

"Every room in the game, somebody thought about this," Garbut said. "Who's sitting where, what they're drinking, the marks that are left on the table. The pictures on the wall will have the people that are in that room, with their tattoos on their arms and their family behind them. That whole thing has been made, and built, and photographed, and placed in this random room in a random building in a huge city, in a world."

Rob Nelson, the head of development and co-studio head at Rockstar North, also emphasised that the game is "an evolution" of what the studio achieved with Red Dead Redemption 2 and its impressive gameplay systems.

"Once we managed to accomplish that level of interactive fidelity in a more sparsely populated version of America 100 years ago," Nelson said, "we were already imagining what it would be like if we could do that at the scale and density of a modern environment."

GTA 6 launches on November 19 for PS5, Xbox Series X, and Series S, and a new report has confirmed that the game will run at 30fps on consoles at launch.

• Grand Theft Auto 6 can take up to 80 hours to beat
• Rob Nelson, the head of development, says it took him 80 hours, including the main story and some "optional goals with narrative ramifications," to complete the game
• This makes GTA 6 Rockstar's longest game yet

I hope Grand Theft Auto 6 fans have booked enough time off work, because the game will take up to 80 hours to beat, and that's just the main story.

In a new interview with The New York Times, Rob Nelson, the head of development and co-studio head at Rockstar North, revealed that his playthrough took 80 hours to finish, including the main story and some "optional goals with narrative ramifications."

Though we don't know what these "optional goals" are, they sound like side quests that affect the story's outcome, such as personal missions that could pertain to either Lucia or Jason.

This means the game can take up to 100 hours, possibly more, if players want to spend time exploring Leonida and Vice City, engaging in interactive activities, completing side missions, and messing around in the vast open world.

"I hope that there will be people that want to get up, have a cup of coffee, shower, get dressed, go out for a little exercise," Nelson said. "Interact with some people, explore, maybe get into some trouble. Rob some places, make some money."

For context, GTA 5's story takes around 30 hours to beat, while Red Dead Redemption 2 can take up to 60 hours. This makes GTA 6 Rockstar's biggest and longest game yet.

GTA 6 launches on November 19 for PS5, Xbox Series X, and Series S, and Rockstar has confirmed that it will run at 30fps on consoles at launch.

If you missed out on the Grand Theft Auto 6: An Extended Look premiere, here are 16 new GTA 6 details we learned, including new details about Jason and Lucia's romance system.

• Grand Theft Auto 6's romance between Jason and Lucia is completely optional, Rockstar confirms
• Rob Nelson, the head of development and co-studio head at Rockstar North, says if players aren't into it, "don’t bother with it"
• He says players will need to nurture their relationship if they want it to be romantic

Rockstar Games has confirmed that the romance between Grand Theft Auto 6's co-protagonists, Jason and Lucia, is completely optional.

Speaking in an interview with IGN ahead of the Grand Theft Auto 6: An Extended Look, Rob Nelson, the head of development and co-studio head at Rockstar North, revealed that Jason and Lucia's relationship will be central to the story, but whether the player chooses to nurture their romance is completely up to them, and they won't be penalized for avoiding it.

"I have to say it feels great — if you are into it as a concept. Don’t bother with it if you aren’t. Up to you," said Nelson.

"The narrative is structured in such a way that the circumstances they find themselves in require them to stay together for most of the story and work together. At the very least, they will get through most things as partners in crime."

Nelson avoided talking spoilers, but he said the duo's relationship "adds a compelling element to things."

"It’s one of the reasons we wanted to approach this sort of story, because it's completely different for us," he said. "Could we bring some sort of emotional resonance to GTA for people if they wanted to engage with it? Could we also provide mechanisms for people to just opt out of it if they're not into it? If they feel like, 'I don't want a relationship in this?' That's what we're going to find out. It's not something that we want to foist upon players."

If players do want to make Jason and Lucia's romantic relationship flourish, however, they'll have to spend time nurturing it by spending time together in Leonida. Whether that's taking trips, holding hands, walking on the beach, or doing crime together, these activities will build up their bond.

"When you bring them together, it feels like you’re a steward of their relationship, and you feel protective of them as a unit," Nelson continued. "But this is something we did not know when we started, and it really had to be something we felt our way through.

"But I will say that whether you’re getting in trouble, or you’re running from the cops, or getting in a car, or waiting for the other one — playing as them together feels very cool. It feels like you’re taking care of them, if that’s something you’re into."

Last night's gameplay showcase was filled with a mountain of new details, with a new report later confirming the game will launch at 30fps. To catch you up, here are the 16 things we learned from GTA 6's extended look ahead of the game's November 19 launch.

• Grand Theft Auto 6 will launch at 30fps on PS5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S
• Rockstar could reportedly add higher performance modes post-launch
• The footage from the GTA 6 Extended Look was running on the base PS5, which means everything fans saw was 30fps

Grand Theft Auto 6 won't run at 60fps and will reportedly launch at 30fps on consoles, but Rockstar Games may add more performance modes later.

That's according to YouTuber Davy Jones, a content creator who recently visited Rockstar North to preview GTA 6. Jones reported that Rob Nelson, the head of development and co-studio head at Rockstar North, told him the game is currently running at 30fps on console during development.

Flow Games also interviewed Jones about his time at the studio (translated via Kotaku) and reported that performance could change post-launch.

"According to Rob Nelson, Lead Developer and Co-director at Rockstar North, during this development period, the consoles are running the game at 30 frames per second," the Flow Gams report reads.

"According to the director, it is still necessary to consult the technical team to determine if there will be a 60 FPS option at launch (or in the future). He also emphasizes that he does not currently have details on resolution and other technical qualities, such as the use of Ray Tracing, but the performance, for now, is 30 FPS."

For now, Rockstar also hasn't confirmed whether the game will run at 60fps on PS5 Pro.

Last night, the long-awaited Grand Theft Auto 6: An Extended Look finally premiered and offered a deep dive into gameplay, cinematics, and co-protagonists Jason and Lucia.

The footage looks incredible and was confirmed to be running on the base PS5, and knowing what we do now, this means the extended look was also capped at 30fps.

As TechRadar Managing Editor Rob Dwiar puts it, "The amount of technical brilliance and sheer detail that will likely go into GTA 6 will surely translate into the amount of demand on a console’s GPU and CPU," which is why a 40fps mode on PS5 Pro would be perfect balance.

In case you missed it, here are the 16 new GTA 6 details learned from the big Extended Look, including an improved combat system, interactive gameplay mechanics, story hints, and more.

GTA 6 launches on November 19 for PS5, Xbox Series X, and Series S.

• Asobo Studio played A Plague Tale: Requiem's soundtrack while motion-capturing Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy
• The cast would listen to the game's music to get into the right headspace for emotional scenes
• SPEAKER 3 says it helped "get into the sadder moments, the darker moments"

Asobo Studio has revealed that it used A Plague Tale: Requiem's music while motion-capturing Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy, so the cast could get in the mood for the darker scenes.

Speaking in an interview with TechRadar Gaming during Gamescom, developers Valérian Robert (lead level designer) and Carol Ann Bañuls (lead writer), and the actor for the game's protagonist, Sophia, Anna Demetriou, discussed the design process for the game's atmosphere and the music that goes with it.

When asked how the team implemented audio and the game's score for the upcoming sequel, Anna Demetriou explained that Asobo played music tracks from A Plague Tale: Requiem to allow the actors to get into the right headspace for emotional scenes.

"A lot of the time, for emotional scenes, we would be playing the Requiem soundtrack to help us get into the sadder moments, the darker moments," Anna Demetriou said. "So it felt really like the beating [heart] of the [Plague Tale DNA] was still in the mocap room because we were using them and using this reference for some of the hard bits and stuff."

Resonance's score was composed by Olivier Derivière and sounds quite different from any of the prior games, with an emphasis on Greek culture, as the game's setting has moved from Middle Ages France to the Greek island of Crete.

"The incredible Greek soundtrack that has been done by Olivier, I had none of that at all," Demetriou continued, "So hearing it coming out, and the whole thing's on YouTube right now, I was sat on my laptop for the day, just listening to it all, just being like, 'I can't wait to play it because I I haven't connected what we've done with this with the music yet.'"

Bañuls added that Olivier also used choir vocals to give the soundtrack a more "authentic" feel for the time period, withRobert explaining that the music is also woven into the new gameplay systems and combat.

Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy is available today on PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PC.

The Grand Theft Auto 6: An Extended Look is finally live! Those tuning in for the Netflix premiere were treated to 26 minutes' worth of new content about the game ahead of its November 19 launch, including huge amounts of gameplay footage, cinematics, and a deeper look into the lives of Jason and Lucia.

If you don't have Netflix, you'll be able to watch on Rockstar's YouTube channel at 9PM ET / 6PM PDT / 2AM BST / 3AM CEST.

There is so much to unpack, from a revamped combat system, interactive gameplay mechanics, story hints, and more — but to make things easier, we've gone ahead and created a breakdown of the top things we learned in case you missed it.

Cinematics and gameplay blend right into each other

The extended look began with Lucia and Jason walking into an apartment block looking to pick up a package for someone named "Boobie." For this mission, it looks like Jason is the playable character as he guides Lucia through the building and encounters some incredibly detailed NPCs.

Here, and in several other instances, the gameplay appears to instantly shift into a cutscene before the action kicks back in again. Another instance happens later on; Jason and Lucia are fleeing from the police with a client, and Jason must shoot at them out the window while Lucia evades — the scene quickly transitions into something cinematic before going back into gameplay.

At the end of the extended look, Lucia and Jason get separated on a mission; as soon as he finishes shooting some guys under player control, it suddenly cuts to a cinematic scene showing him texting with Lucia, which then transitions to her point of view, and the end of the cutscene leads to you controlling her.

There will be quick time events

During a fight scene between Lucia and an enemy at the end of the extended look, the player is prompted with a quick time event, which is surprisingly old-school for this game. But there seems to be a choice in the matter — there are two options on-screen, and in the video she picks up her heel and nails the guy in the face, making a quip based on your choice of button to mash. We get the sense this will appear throughout the game.

There will be slow-mo with enemy weak zones

Jason can be seen firing his weapon at some enemies and the gameplay suddenly slows down after he uses his his focus meter seen in the top left corner. During this same encounter, an enemy's body becomes highlighted showing red and yellow weak zones for the player — we're assuming red is a killshot and yellow will disarm or disable.

There will be disguises… lots of disguises

There were quite a few moments were we see Jason and Lucia on story missions wearing disguises with new identities when taking on certain clients, such as personal security for a party. The footage showed changing outfits being a mechanic, and we see lots of different hairstyles on Lucia — it seems like it'll be necessary, not just fun.

There's a six-star Wanted system

Unlike GTA 5, which has a five-star Wanted system, GTA 6 will have six stars. What does this mean? Well, it's one higher, isn't it?

The gun handling is better than GTA 5

Picking up and swapping out weapons looks incredibly slick; Jason and Lucia have their own weapons they can pull out on their respective weapon wheels, but they can quickly swipe up downed-enemies' weapons mid combat, too.

You can race cars in an actual track

Driving around Leonida looks amazing, but players will also be able to take part in races on an actual race track, with cars and bikes, if you want a high-speed challenge.

Lots of water activities

Players will be able to drive fanboats, jetskis and canoes, and explore bodies of water across Leonida. Admittedly, the fanboat looks a little less high-octane than some sections of the video…

You can base jump

As shot near the end of the extended look shows the player guiding Lucia to run and jump off a skyscaper before pulling out her parachute and getting an incredible view of Vice City.

Environmental destruction

During police chases, Jason and Lucia can shoot out the tires of their pursuers, which will lead to police cars flipping and crashing, causing dynamic environmental destruction that looks incredibly cinematic.

A wide range of people will hire you for jobs

While we don't know specific story details yet, it seems that Jason and Lucia have their own business going on where they'll work for an assortment of clients. They'll rob banks and stores, protect clients, deliver goods, and more. Standard GTA stuff, but it's the first time we've seen what this will look like.

You can pet the dog

It's the main thing some of us care about.

An improved HUD

The game's HUD looks way cleaner than GTA 5's, and quicker to access; switching between Lucia and Jason is as quick as pressing one button, and the weapon wheel is minimal and fast to use.

Switching between Lucia and Jason is really fast

As I just mentioned, switching between both co-protagonsits is unbelieavably fast. In one moment, you see Lucia base jumping and when the player switches to Jason, it takes just a couple of seconds — there's flash, the camera zooms into the sky, pans across the city, then zooms down into a building and we're with Jason again. And that's running on the base PS5!

You can scuba dive (and regular dive)

Players will be able to dive into bodies of water to swim, but also scuba dive to see all the pretty fish below the surface!

The weapon icon from GTA 4 returns

During combat, the equipped weapon icon from GTA 4, can be seen in the top right corner, under the Wanted stars and ammo. It was missing in 5, but 4 stans will feel a warm, familiar feeling.

• Ubisoft confirms players can't complete Rainbow Six Tactics without killing any enemies
• Game director Martial Potron says, "No, you cannot do the game 100% without killing"
• Some missions require players to kill enemies; however, they're incentivized to do non-lethal takedowns in others for valuable intel

Rainbow Six Tactics game director Martial Potron has confirmed players won't be able to achieve a 100% non-lethal playthrough.

Ubisoft has recently revealed its new Rainbow Six Siege spin-off, Rainbow Six Tactics, a single-player turn-based tactics experience that puts players in the shoes of Six, the leader of the elite Rainbow squad.

Players can choose high-stakes assignments to strategize on the tactical battlefield with 15 Operators, all with unique abilities, specialized gadgets, and distinct skill trees.

The game will also offer distinct mission types, including Hostage Rescue, Bomb Disposal, and Target Elimination, offering a variety of ways to complete each one.

Some missions require players to take down targets non-lethally to collect important intel bonuses that will help the squad in future missions. But can players do a complete non-lethal playthrough?

According to Potron, who discussed the game at length in an interview with TechRadar Gaming at Gamescom, you can't, explaining that some missions will require players to kill enemies who are out of range for non-lethal takedowns.

"Can you?" the game director said. "I'm thinking about it. There is no incentive to kill, but can you? I think you can't."

He continued, "We don't have missions where we force you to kill anyone. Most of the time, in fact, it's valued to arrest people to subdue enemies. But we have a few missions when sometimes you cannot reach enemies."

Porton said the game features a Venice map bisected by a river, with enemies on one side, and so there is no way to take them out non-lethally, as you simply won't be able to reach them.

"No, you cannot do the game 100% without killing," he added, "but you are strongly incentivized, as much as possible, to arrest people without killing because you will be able to really get intel from them, and it's very valuable."

Rainbow Six Tactics launches in 2027 for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S.

• Grand Theft Auto 6 will let you play as both Jason and Lucia, or individually
• The game will also feature interactive systems that affect their weight and appearances
• Rockstar says that while these features will give players a lot of freedom, "these characters aren’t empty avatars that you can do whatever you want with"

New Grand Theft Auto 6 details have been revealed, giving fans a fresh idea of what to expect from the game's narrative and interactive gameplay systems.

In a massive interview with Dazed ahead of the release of Grand Theft Auto 6: An Extended Look, Rockstar Games confirmed a ton of new details, mainly about the game's co-protagonists Jason, revealed to be ex-military, and Lucia, an amateur fighter.

One of the main features discussed was the character-swapping system, an iconic GTA feature that allows players to "choose to either play as a couple, or go off and cause chaos independently," according to Dazed.

One scenario described finds Jason driving around, with Lucia in the passenger seat scrolling on the in-game phone that houses usable social media apps; players can switch between them seamlessly while they're together, or explore and complete missions individually.

"When the job inevitably goes wrong and spirals into a car chase, the fluid system enables players to take the wheel in one moment, then fire on pursuers out of the passenger window the next," Dazed said.

GTA 6 is the first game with a romantic pair as the co-leads, and according to Rupert Humphries, senior vice president of narrative at Rockstar, players can expect "a Bonnie and Clyde-type narrative" at the game's center.

The game will also offer plenty of customization, from clothing, hairstyles, tattoos, makeup, vehicles, and more, and it seems like Rockstar is also implementing features from Red Dead Redemption 2 with life-sim interactive systems that will affect how Lucia and Jason look.

For example, Jason and Lucia's weight can be affected by food, and "exercising visibly builds and tones their muscles." Additionally, if players let them spend a long time away from bed, on the run from police, or "on a multi-day bender," their appearances will take a toll.

While these features will give players a lot of freedom, both characters will still have complex identities within the story, with Rob Nelson, head of development and co-studio head at Rockstar North, explaining, "We want to enable as much self-expression as possible, without losing the essence of the characters."

He added, "The thing we love about this medium is the way these characters aren’t empty avatars that you can do whatever you want with. Their story becomes a journey you share with them."

GTA 6 launches on November 19 for PS5, Xbox Series X, and Series S. If you missed it, Netflix has confirmed the runtime for the upcoming extended look, and all footage shown will be captured on the base PlayStation 5.

• The Grand Theft Auto 6: An Extended Look will be 26-minutes long
• Netflix has released the first details ahead of its premiere later today
• It confirms that all footage shown is captured in-game on the base PS5

Netflix has revealed the first details of the upcoming Grand Theft Auto 6 extended look, including runtime, and confirmed all footage shown will be captured on the base PlayStation 5.

The much-anticipated Grand Theft Auto 6: An Extended Look is scheduled to premiere later today on Netflix at at 3pm ET / 8pm BST / August 28 at 5am AEST, giving fans a deeper look at the most anticipated game of all time.

There's been much speculation leading up to the event about what the extended look will offer, with many fans hoping for the long-awaited look at gameplay and possibly Trailer 3.

Now, Netflix has revealed additional details just hours ahead of the event, confirming that everything showcased will be captured on the base PS5.

"The new iteration in the blockbuster series comes 13 years following the debut of Grand Theft Auto V, the same year that Netflix was beginning its push into original programming," the Netflix Tudum post reads.

"Captured entirely from in-game footage on PlayStation 5, this extended look at the next Grand Theft Auto showcases the biggest, most immersive evolution of the series yet."

What's more, it seems the runtime for the GTA 6 extended look will be 26 minutes, according to The Verge journalist Tom Warren, who shared a screenshot of the updated mobile page on X.

That's much shorter than I expected, but it's still long enough to offer a good amount of gameplay footage for fans to obsess over ahead of the game's launch on November 19.

If you're unable to watch the GTA 6 extended look as it premieres on Netflix, don't worry, because it will be available for free six hours later on YouTube at 9pm ET on August 27 / 2am BST / 11am AEST on August 28.

"Grand Theft Auto reveals have become cultural moments in their own right. The anticipation and fandom around Grand Theft Auto 6 is unprecedented, and we’re honored that Rockstar Games has partnered with us to debut the next part of the Grand Theft Auto story with Netflix members first," Brandon Riegg, VP of Nonfiction Series, said in the Tudum post.

"It’s a reflection of what we hope Netflix is becoming: a place where the most ambitious storytelling, from any medium, can find the biggest possible audience."

• Accessory brand Dbrand has made a rugged Tank Case for the AirPods Pro 3
• It follows the Tank Cases for phones, which users didn't particularly like
• The company has been known to get into trouble, most notably with Sony and the PS5

If you’ve been wondering what Dbrand has been up to following its Sony and PS5 controversy, it’s now ventured into accessories for AirPods.

The Canadian company, which specializes in accessories across devices for Apple, Samsung, Google Pixel, and more, has just unveiled its new Tank Case for the AirPods Pro 3, which even the brand itself agrees is far from the best-looking tech accessory out there — but attractiveness isn’t what it was going for.

At $29.95 (about CA$40), the AirPods Pro 3 Tank Case is bulky to say the very least, because even owners of the best earbuds out there can be clumsy and prone to accidents.

This was intentional; in contrast to Apple’s accessories, which often puts design above protection, the Tank Case puts texture and grip first, designed with deep ridges and grooves so it doesn’t slip from between your fingers. With 10 different textures across its surface, the Tank Case is a piece of architecture, providing immunity to scratches and other damage.

In fact, it has such a tight and secure grip around your AirPods that Dbrand built a removal tool to help you remove the ear buds from the case. That’s how you know it means business, but despite its snug fit it, doesn’t lock you out of using your AirPods altogether.

Impressively, the case’s ruggedness doesn’t get in the way of wireless charging — it "defies compromise", as Dbrand puts it. There’s also an opening to access the touch sensor for uninterrupted passthrough when pairing with devices.

Dbrand's decision to expand the Tank Case range into audio devices is surprising, since the Tank Case for mobile wasn't exactly popular when it launched last year. The original Tank Case was mocked for its bulky design and dull colors, but Dbrand has expressed a blatant disregard to the backlash. The company really said ‘whatever, we’re doing it anyway’, which a bit of a risky choice considering its past.

Dbrand has a history of getting itself into hot water with users and tech companies alike, its legal battle with Sony being one example. In addition to phone cases, Dbrand is a popular third-party gaming accessory retailer, and started selling its own ‘Darkplates’ for the PS5 back in 2021. However, it was forced to pull them from the shelves following a cease-and-desist threat from Sony.

Refusing to listen to and learn from user criticism is a bold move, but it’s pretty much part of Dbrand’s DNA at this point. Its owners must get a thrill from taking their own path with things, but the company often finds itself in the midst of some sort of drama as a result.

It's almost midnight, and I'm still playing Bit Reactor's turn-based tactics (TBT) strategy game, Star Wars Zero Company. I'm nearing the end of a tense battle that's lasted longer than I've realized, but I'm so close to success. Only a few enemies remain, and Hawks is out of med packs; Tricks, Tel, and Luco are all low on health, and I don't want to risk any more injuries that could lead to my favorite Operators' permanent death. One mistake will cause a domino effect that ends in defeat, but I have to make a move.

I have Luco and Trick fire their blasters at a single enemy, taking them down with a lucky critical hit, before positioning them behind cover alongside Hawks. I lay a trap; with Overwatch enabled and monitoring the area where the boss and the final enemy are located, I have Tel rush ahead into position. Using all the Advantage I've accrued through the last few tactical turns, the Jedi Padawan executes her special Force action, knocking back both enemies into the zone of my team's line of sight. Even though they have no Action Points (AP) left, thanks to my planning, Luco, Trick, and Hawks fire off three more shots each, and together, we achieve victory.

Before playing Zero Company, Bit Reactor's debut game made by a studio founded by former Firaxis Games and XCOM veterans, I was concerned my lack of experience with XCOM would hinder my enjoyment of this new Star Wars story. But after just a few hours of taking on mercs and clankers, jumping to various planets via hyperspace, and getting to know my fellow Operators, I quickly fell in love.

Learn from the past, but live for the future

What I love about Star Wars, besides the lightsabers, the expansive lore, and dark side baddies, is the seemingly unlimited opportunity for new stories within the vast galaxy, far, far away.

While Zero Company is set 20BBY during the twilight of the Clone Wars, a frequently revisited era in the franchise, this story chooses to tell a story from the perspective of someone no longer tied directly to the conflict, but has been affected by it. The fact that the player character, Hawks, is a former captain in the Grand Army of the Republic is a unique premise that initially piqued my interest; they commanded the 100th Clone Company and led a campaign that led to a Trooper massacre, Trick being declared unfit for duty due to an injury, and Hawks' dismissal.

Hawks now leads the titular covert squad on a mission to take down the paramilitary cult known as The Infinite Coil and its leader, Kundri Fathom, who are all diseased by the mysterious Shadow Plague and are slowly building their forces across the galaxy.

As Hawks and Zero Company tackle this growing threat against the backdrop of the Clone Wars, the team is also dealing with their own personal issues and the consequences of warfare, whether at the hands of the Republic or the Separatists, with the story exploring themes of justice, revenge, belonging, grief, and guilt.

It's a compelling approach with surprising twists and turns that takes the story in an unexpected direction and had my Star Wars-loving heart pounding thanks to the brilliant way Bit Reactor seamlessly blends cinematic storytelling and a brilliantly formulated combat system.

This is a spoiler-free review, and I won't get into the details, but Hawks' history has interesting implications for the narrative in ways I wasn't anticipating; they're a smart, funny, sarcastic, but decisive individual, navigating being a leader who is, once again, caught up in a galactic threat. And while they're a customizable character, they feel like they belong in this universe as much as any other protagonist we've had before.

Fathom herself, as the primary antagonist, however, separate from Coil members you run into plenty of times, feels a bit underutilized throughout the story, and I was left with a desire to know more about her.

The majority of the campaign finds Zero Company trying to track Fathom down while she continuously eludes them and works from the shadows, which means there aren't many opportunities for the antagonist to shine on screen; it feels like wasted potential as she's a very interesting villain with a unique motivation that compliments the broader narrative, but without that extra character exploration, especially in parallel to Hawks and their development, I was left with some unanswered questions and ultimately unsatisfied.

Wars are not won with superior weapons, but with superior strategy

I stand by what I wrote in my preview: Star Wars fans with no knowledge of TBT games like XCOM can absolutely enjoy this game. Bit Reactor has done an excellent job making a beginner-friendly, not to mention incredibly rewarding, experience when you get accustomed to strategizing on the fly and go on to achieve win after win.

Squad appearances, tailored loudouts, and the numerous specializations on offer, be it Medic, Scoundrel, Heavy, or Scout, present an unbelievable amount of player freedom, which allows for some impressive customization, as well as what seems like an opportunity for limitless playthroughs.

This is especially true when the secondary specializations are unlocked for Zero Company; I gave my Hawks the Medic spec, which allowed an extra sense of security for playing on permadeath mode, and I was amazed by how my second spec, Gunslinger, completely refreshed battles and provided new and imaginative strategies on the battlefield.

My squad for Tactical Missions typically included Tel because of her ranged Force abilities, and Trick, who can withstand getting Downed and can automatically revive during the next turn in battle; their Hero Talents came in handy when the mission was on the verge of failure, and their fully upgraded skill trees made them a must-have, especially for higher difficulty battles that featured a variety of enemies that are tougher than others.

Kabb also has a sick uppercut ability that lets him wollop enemies, while Luco has a sniper skill that guarantees a 100% hit; learning how these talents work, strategizing how best to spend my squad's limited three AP should have been stressful, but the process was just awesome.

Continuously maneuvering across ever-shifting and lovingly crafted isometric maps wrapped in an authentic Star Wars atmosphere, outplaying a contingent of droids, deadly Coil soldiers, and syndicate members with just wit, and mixing and matching team builds to your preference with a ton of options to experiment with; all of this offers an immensely rewarding gameplay experience that continuously delivers.

No Tactical Mission feels the same, and even when they take longer to complete because of their difficulty level—and believe me, they can take a while—it doesn't matter, because the sense of accomplishment I felt after every mission was worth the time.

Courage makes heroes, but trust builds friendship

The campaign is also strengthened by Zero Company's interpersonal relationships, consisting of multiple colorful characters, including a loyal ex-Clone Trooper, a Mandalorian turned bounty hunter, a sharp-tongued Umbaran sniper, a Jedi Padawan without a Master, and more.

The game leans into role-playing game (RPG) systems by melding TBT gameplay and Bonds, a relationship approval system vital for unlocking features like new talents, focus points, and stat bonuses. Similar to Bioware's dynamic relationship system found in Dragon Age and Mass Effect, minus the romance and branching dialogue trees, Bonds are deepened by completing each character's personal questline, how you approach Operations, or how you respond in conversations.

Zero Company's Bond system is great, and I know it's primarily a TBT strategy game; however, I can't help but think it would have benefited even more if it went harder with the RPG mechanics, like additional dialogue choices, to really reinforce and shape those Bonds.

Characters may also have negative opinions of each other, and it's pretty fun, and essentially the key to success, to purposefully pair them together during missions to make them grow closer with the benefit of improving their loadout and unlocking new combat synergies.

Outside of missions, it's pretty neat how Operators, even the ones you can create and recruit yourself, can be found around The Den having conversations and revealing a bit more behind the curtain; the switch to a third-person perspective here also brings a personal touch to these relationships, making them feel alive in their environment.

Alongside other characters like Runa and Bennic, authored Operators have so much personality with their own motivations and perspectives, with stellar performances from the ensemble cast; they're not just soldiers along for the ride, and while some pairings have more fleshed-out Bonds that are more ingrained in the main campaign than others, like Trick and Luco, they're equally memorable.

Whether it's Tel, Jae, Kabb, or particularly Trick, they feel like the backbone of the narrative and are as authentic to the Star Wars world they occupy, which is why when/if a character is killed in permadeath mode, the loss is truly felt.

This feature is a must if you want to up the risk factor during missions and truly heightens the stakes as you build these meaningful relationships, even if it means you'll be locked out of some pretty amazing missions if Operators die.

I had some issues during my preview session, mostly frame rate problems that took me out of the experience, but I'm happy to say performance has been vastly improved with my review copy on PC. With my mid-to-high range build, which consists of an Nvidia RTX 3060Ti graphics card and Ryzen 7 5700X 8-Core processor, the gorgeous cinematics and gameplay frame rates were consistently high, hitting 60fps the majority of the time, with the odd dip to the upper 40fp to lower 50fps range occasionally depending on how visually busy the scene is.

I also didn't encounter any significant performance snags, either. Bugs are almost non-existent, aside from a few encounters during conversations and cinematics where audio didn't sync correctly and tactical turns sometimes took a little longer to load from the enemies' side; otherwise, I had a pretty smooth experience.

Should you play Star Wars Zero Company?

Play it if...

Don't play it if...

Accessibility features

Star Wars Zero Company is a bit short on accessibility features, having only standard vision settings like text size and color blind mode, as well as a motion reduction setting for on-screen action.

How I reviewed Star Wars Zero Company

I spent just over 40 hours playing Star Wars Zero Company on my gaming PC with my Logitech G G715 wireless gaming keyboard and Logitech G703 wireless gaming mouse. I used a Gigabyte M32U gaming monitor and my Sony WH-CH520 wireless headphones for audio.

First reviewed August 2026.

I played an hour of the new Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen expansion and walked away impressed by its gameplay loop and improved performance (on PlayStation 5), and instantly saw what Capcom is aiming for.

In Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen, players must journey through Norgan, an abandoned region in the north, and join forces with a mysterious new character to uncover the secrets of an undying Fallen Dragon.

In that process, you must find and appraise gear, skills, and weapons known as 'spoils' or 'relics' obtained through exploration and by defeating new, formidable foes to stand a chance in the unforgiving region.

If this sounds a lot like the mechanics of Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen, you're on to something because the appraisal system is effectively identical to Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen's purification of cursed items, which provided some of the most powerful gear available in the game.

That same concept is applied in Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen's Norgan region, but with a bigger explorable map instead of a dungeon-only layout and presumably even more spoils to be found.

Better than its predecessor?

It's only natural to compare Capcom's two Dragon's Dogma expansions, considering the similarities. However, after my time with its latest offering, it's hard (and frankly too soon) to conclude which holds the best experience.

Fortunately, some of the pain points from the base game experience in Dragon's Dogma 2 have been addressed, as the major patch (arriving at the end of August) was included in the hour preview I played.

Finally, there's enough time to explore and loot areas without being bombarded by enemies every minute — enemy encounters are still frequent, but during my journey to the first major boss, it felt good not to have hordes of goblins constantly spoiling the fun.

Performance is also significantly improved on the PS5. Bear in mind, I didn't have access to any frame rate overlay and couldn't visit the base game's regions (and I originally played the base game on PC), but it definitely felt like a constant 60fps, even in the most intense battles.

I didn't have plenty of time to explore many of Norgan's points of interest, but from acquiring a pet dire wolf, stumbling upon a frost-breathing giant, and finding level 3 skill spoils for the new Trickster and Magick Archer vocations, it's clear that Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen is the bigger expansion.

For example, Magick Archer now has an enhanced version of Arctic Bolt that becomes available by appraising one of the skill spoils, known as Glacial Bolt. This works wonders against bosses, with increased damage and the ability to freeze them in place for pawns to rally and attack.

Harpies are also heavily present in Norgan, but with new designs and attack patterns, notably a more aggressive attempt to grab the player or their pawns. Some of the enemies I spotted in the preview were essentially reskins of those from the base game, but like the harpies, new maneuvers and attacks set them apart.

Fighting the Fallen Dragon was a surprise too, an epic main boss encounter that I wish didn't end so soon — especially with one surprising moment I didn't see coming (which I won't spoil), but left me wanting more and curious to see just how many formidable foes await the Arisen in the full experience.

It's worth noting that there are also twelve new dungeon challenges to be found across the base game in addition to Norgan's content. Again, I didn't get to see them, but if the caves and smaller explorable areas I found in Norgan are anything to go by, with lootable chests and some new foes to fight, there'll be a lot to look forward to in those dungeons.

While I did have fun exploring Norgan, I'm cautiously optimistic about what the full experience has to offer. Bitterblack Isle's dungeon may have offered little in terms of exploration in a smaller map, but the sole focus on combat allowed vocations (or, in other words, classes) to work best in closed spaces in the first Dark Arisen, particularly Magick Archer and its Ricochet Hunter skill.

My main concern is that neither Norgan nor the additional twelve dungeon challenges will double down on those indoor and closed-space environments from Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen, and the new enemy and boss types may not be diverse enough to keep combat encounters entertaining.

Nonetheless, I'm very much looking forward to getting my hands on the full expansion, especially since Capcom is seemingly fixated on delivering a vastly improved version of Dragon's Dogma 2 with the highly anticipated pre-expansion patch.

We won't have to wait long, as the expansion is set for launch on October 9, 2026, on PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC.

• Metro 2039 will have a speaking protagonist called The Stranger at the center of the game's story
• Executive producer Jon Bloch says players will learn how the character feels about unfolding events
• He adds that a silent protagonist wouldn't have allowed 4A Games to tell the story properly

Unlike the core Metro trilogy, Metro 2039 will feature a new speaking protagonist, The Stranger, which allowed 4A Games to tell a darker, more personal story.

In an interview with TechRadar Gaming about the real-life impact the Russia-Ukraine war has had on the studio's upcoming game, creative director Andriy Shevchenko and executive producer Jon Bloch also touched on the sequel's new protagonist and how his motivations are at the center of the story.

"We've also gone way darker with the story," Bloch said. "It's a lot more personal story. The story is directly about our protagonist, The Stranger, about him, about his history, about the things he struggles with, about his singular motivation for what he's doing."

Artyom is the established main character of the preceding games, Metro 2033, Metro: Last Light, and Metro Exodus, and is a silent protagonist, while Metro 2039's The Stranger is fully voiced, allowing players to hear his thoughts throughout.

According to Bloch, this shift enabled 4A Games to more deeply explore who the character is, how he feels about unfolding events, and "what's inside of him."

"It goes hand in hand with telling a personal story," he added. "If we stuck with the silent protagonist method, we wouldn't be able to tell this story properly."

Metro 2039 will release in February 2027 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PC.

• Metro 2039 will feature the return of the claustrophobic metro tunnels
• Executive producer Jon Bloch says the game "goes back to the roots" of the series
• However, the team didn't want to "ditch everything that we did in Metro Exodus," and the game will still offer open-world zones

Metro 2039 executive producer Jon Bloch has explained how 4A Games has balanced the return of claustrophic metro tunnels and open-world zones.

In an interview with TechRadar Gaming, Bloch explained that it was a priority to bring back the tunnels, which were mostly absent from the previous game, Metro Exodus, since most of the experience takes place above ground.

"Metro 2039 goes back to the roots," he said, "and brings back a lot of that deep, dark, claustrophobic, thick atmosphere tunnels, like the spookiness, all that stuff that we love from those first two games."

Bloch continued, saying, "We didn't want to ditch everything that we did in Metro Exodus that was great and all the things that we learned. So there are different elements throughout the game.

"This game is a story-driven game. It's like we've said before, it's a very personal story. He's [The Stranger] on a singular mission, and in order to tell that kind of story, we're able to actually utilize a lot of the design methodologies from the earlier games. And in order to really make sure that the story is compelling, it's immersive."

Creative director Andriy Shevchenko added that the games are all in the same universe and the team took "the best parts" from each for Metro 2039, explaining that players will feel "freedom" and the danger from the open-world zones.

"Every step forward, the farther away you are from your station or from your safe place, the more dangerous it's supposed to be," Shevchenko said. "But as John mentioned, we are a story-driven game, and to drive story without bottlenecks or our pure metro corridors is almost impossible."

The developer reiterated that it's impossible to translate that sense of danger in just an open world, saying, "That's one of the reasons we're getting back to our dark underground roots."

Metro 2039 arrives in February 2027 for PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PC. The developers have also confirmed that the team has prioritized optimization across all platforms, not just PC.

• Metro 2039 creative director Andriy Shevchenko discusses how the Russia-Ukraine war has impacted the game
• The developer says, "We are not afraid to call evil evil"
• He adds that there are "no gray zones" in the story

Metro 2039 creative director Andriy Shevchenko has shared how the events of the Russia-Ukraine war have manifested in the upcoming first-person shooter.

The next installment in the Metro series was revealed earlier this year and is expected to deliver another dark survival story set in the heart of the Moscow metro, where the last survivors of the nuclear apocalypse struggle to exist.

At the time, Bloch explained that the team at Ukrainian studio 4A Games had everything planned for the next chapter, until it all changed in 2020, and "more significantly in 2022" with Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

As a result, the studio "changed the story to be even more about choices, actions, consequences, and what you have to pay to have a future."

"Now war is our reality, and our message has shifted to be about the circumstance, the cost of silence, the horrors of tyranny, and the price of freedom," Shevchenko said.

Now, in a new interview with TechRadar Gaming alongside executive producer Jon Bloch, the developers explained how the real-life impact of the ongoing war has influenced the game's messaging and the story's moral core.

"We are not afraid to call evil evil," Shevchenko said. "If you see evil, we now have a protagonist [The Stranger] who can talk, who can share his own thoughts. He will call this character, this situation, this story element evil. It is bad. And there are no gray zones."

While neither could delve into the details, the creative director said the game will feature enemies, and the antagonist, Führer Hunter, has enemies as well, and "the enemies must be destroyed from both sides."

"But who is your enemy?" he teased.

Metro 2039 is slated to launch in February 2027 for PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PC.

• Executive producer Jon Bloch reveals Metro 2039's audio system has been rebuilt and "reimagined"
• Bloch says the new system supports the game's "dense atmosphere"
• 4A Games' newest game engine also offers a sense of realism in both visuals and audio

4A Games has confirmed that Metro 2039's audio system has been rebuilt to offer a deeper sense of immersion.

In an interview with TechRadar Gaming, where creative director Andriy Shevchenko and executive producer Jon Bloch discussed Metro 3039 at length, the pair revealed that the newest version of the studio's engine has allowed the team to take things to the next level, whether that's improving the visual density of the game, having full ray-tracing, or an overhauled audio system.

When asked how the audio design is key to bringing the game's post-apocalyptic world to life, Bloch called it "hugely important," and said the audio team will come in after the level designers have completed their work to add in all the effects players will hear.

"They need to see what elements are in there," Bloch explained. "If there's water that needs to be dripping or, you know, if there's a machine in the corner, like that kind of stuff, like they have to wait for level artists to do their thing first.

"But it's hugely important, and it's one of the reasons why we spend so much time and energy overhauling the audio system; the entire audio system has been rebuilt."

Bloch continued, explaining that the audio system hasn't necessarily been built from the ground up, but built upon and "reimagined in a way to really support thick, dense atmosphere" on top of the refined visuals.

"The audio system is more dense," the developer said. "There's a lot more going on. There are a lot more things you can hear. There's a lot more variety when it comes to, you know, even simple things like footsteps on different materials on the ground. Every bush makes a sound when you touch it.

"The dynamics of how the player moves and what you hear in his equipment and his suit, like things that might normally be forgotten as a really important thing in some games, like the level of detail, the granularity that the audio department can get to is more than we've ever been able to do in Metro games, certainly."

Metro 2039 launches in February 2027 for PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PC.

• Metro 2039 creative director Andriy Shevchenko says the new game engine allows for "billions" of objects
• Executive producer Jon Bloch reveals it enables 4A Games to create a realistic and dense world
• Bloch says the team is working to optimize the game for lower-spec, as well as high-spec, systems

Metro 2039 creative director Andriy Shevchenko has revealed that 4A Games' latest game engine allows for "billions" of assets to create a dense, realistic world.

In a new interview with TechRadar Gaming, Shevchenko, alongside executive producer Jon Bloch, discussed how the new engine enabled the team to overhaul the game's audio system, enhance ray-tracing, and improve visual immersion by increasing the density of objects and characters.

"We're able to push so much more into the world to make it that much more realistic, that much more alive feeling, that much more tactile," Bloch said, adding that these improvements also come with challenges of balancing these features and ensuring the game is "performant."

"I would say probably the most striking on the surface thing is going to be the density of what you see in the picture of all the objects," he said.

Shevchenko added that during the development of Metro Exodus, the game engine could support up to 30 million objects, but it supports "billions of objects" for Metro 2039.

"It's all to give freedom for level art, level design, all [the] people working on this level, [to] do whatever you want," the creative director said. "We have almost endless limits. And we are reaching these limits every time."

As Bloch said, these impressive technical leaps also come with challenges, with Shevchenko explaining that there's some "black magic of balancing" and "getting rid of something really unnecessary and focusing on really cool things. But it's a really user-friendly engine," with "limits only in your head."

Metro 2039 will be multiplatform, launching on PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PC, and Bloch explained that it's one of the team's priorities to make sure the game is optimized across all platforms.

"We don't develop on PC and then port later to consoles," he said. "We're developing constantly across everything that we're going to support. So from day one, we're running on console, and so we're keeping all that in mind.

"We're optimising to the low end, to the lowest spec, and then also trying to push things as far as we can with the other platforms that allow us to push, particularly obviously with PC when new kinds of video cards come out; we're like, 'Oh, what can we do with this now?' While still making sure that the lower-spec hardware can still handle things."

Metro 2039 arrives in February 2027.

• The Future Games Show will return with three digital showcases at Gamescom 2026
• It will air on August 26, offering a look at over 40 games
• FGS Live From Gamescom will immediately follow, and the FGS Best Of Gamescom will return on August 30

Opening Night Live has officially wrapped, but there's plenty more to come from Gamescom 2026, as the Future Games Show will return with three digital showcases — here's how you can watch.

Future Games Show at Gamescom is the first of the three broadcasts and will air the same day the industry event kicks off, on August 26 at 10AM PDT / 1PM EDT / 6PM BST / 7PM CEST / 1AM CST.

You can tune in to the digital showcase at Twitch, YouTube, X, TikTok, Facebook, and GamesRadar+.

Hosted by Resident Evil Requiem stars Nick Apostolides and Angela Sant’Albano, fans can expect a guide through more than 40 games, including 13 world premieres, exclusive reveals, and developer deep dives "from some of the industry’s most exciting and creative studios."

Some of those include a behind-the-scenes look at Tides of Annihilation from Eclipse Glow Games, a closer look at samurai swordplay action game Onimusha: Way of the Sword, a new trailer for Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault from Digital Sun Games, and a trailer for Trees Hate You, a comedy adventure, and many more.

FGS Live From Gamescom will immediately follow the main showcase on August 26, hosted by FGS channel presenters Nathan and Jules, and feature more world premieres, trailers, news, and interviews from the Gamescom Koelnmesse convention centre.

This includes Apart, a new third-person adventure horror game from Turnkey Games; Nivalis Nights, a slice-of-life sim set in a cyberpunk city; a cozy coop horror game called Haunted Paws; We Are So Cooked, a 1-4 player co-op physics-stealth game; and the sequel to retro first-person shooter (FPS) Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun.

Finally, FGS Best Of Gamescom will return on August 30 at 10AM PDT / 1PM EDT / 6PM BST / 7PM CEST / 1AM CST, and bring viewers the "best of" the Gamescom show floor, including gameplay demos, booth tours, exclusive developer interviews, and a recap of all the week’s biggest announcements.

• The first trailer for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Songs of the Past has been revealed at Gamescom
• The trailer showcases Geralt, a new region, monsters, and a weapon
• CD Projekt Red level design lead Miles Tost confirms, "This is Geralt's last adventure before we pass the torch on to Ciri" in The Witcher 4

CD Projekt Red has unveiled the first look at The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt's third and final expansion, Songs of the Past, and it looks incredible.

Songs of the Past, which is being co-developed with Fool’s Theory, a studio whose leadership is made up of The Witcher 3 veterans, was revealed during Opening Night Live at Gamescom. While we still don't have a specific release date, the expansion's first trailer gave us a taste of what to look forward to.

We see Geralt of Rivia returning for a brand-new journey as he explores a new region, Letten, takes on creepy monsters, and wields a new chain weapon that can grapple enemies, first showcased in the first Witcher game.

CDPR Level design lead Miles Tost took to the stage during Opening Night Live at Gamescom to share a few more details about the game, including what players can expect.

"We had this idea for one more story with Geralt for a while, but we couldn't quite figure out how to fit it into our busy schedule," Tost said. "Luckily, our friends from Fool's Theory and they hired a bunch of old veteran Witcher three developers, including my mentor, Peter Jennings, and here we are today."

He continued, saying, "This is Geralt's last adventure before we pass the torch on to Ciri, and we wanted to go out with a bang. So this chain is a weapon that is new in the game, but many people, perhaps hardcore Witcher fans, will realize that this is a weapon we first showed in The Witcher 1 intro, and we will talk about that in many more things here at Gamescom."

On Letten, Tost called it "a whole new, unique region that has a unique identity," filled with quests, new monsters, adventures, and exploration.

"Just like the things that Witcher fans love," he said. "But it's an almost uncannily idyllic place that, however, has a dark secret lurking just underneath the surface. And as it is a Witcher game, this kind of secret requires a true professional witcher to solve."

Alongside the expansion trailer, the studio also announced The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered, a free upgrade featuring all-new improvements and revamped gameplay features, arriving on September 29 for all platforms.

The developer also confirmed that all those features will be in Songs of the Past as well.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Songs of the Past is slated to launch in 2027, followed by The Witcher 4, which CDPR has confirmed is targeting a 2028 release window.

• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered has been announced
• The free upgrade arrives on September 29 for all platforms
• This remastered version features up to 40 new visual and gameplay improvements

CD Projekt Red has announced The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered, a free upgrade featuring all-new improvements and revamped gameplay features for its blockbuster RPG game.

Revealed during Opening Night Live at Gamescom 2026, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered will arrive next month on September 29 for all available platforms and is free for current owners of the game. On top of that, players who own only the base game can claim the two included expansions, Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine, at no extra cost.

The news came as a shock to fans, and the gameplay trailer is filled with too many brand-new features to count; even from the footage, you can tell there are some big visual and technical differences, and I can't wait to start another playthrough.

To make everything easier, I've put together a list below of every single new improvement mentioned in the trailer, whether it's upgraded visuals, a revamped combat system, new monster behaviour, or PlayStation 5 Pro support. Seriously, there's a lot!

What's included in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered?

• Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine expansions (at no extra cost if you don't own them)
• Upgraded visuals
• Enhanced combat
• Improved traversal and movement
• New witcher Signs FX
• Revamped mount handling
• Enhanced monster behaviours
• A skill tree revamp
• Transmogrification
• Expanded photo mode
• New finishers
• Cross-platform mod support
• Immersive meditation
• Refined animations
• New quest tracking
• UI improvements
• Looting rework
• Refreshed motion blur
• New accessibility features
• Updated textures
• Foliage shading rework
• Tutorial modernization
• HDR improvements
• GTAO
• Improved menu navigation
• Global lighting rework
• New shading model
• Subsurface scattering
• New tone mapper
• PlayStation 5 Pro support
• Xbox Play Anywhere support
• Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive features
• Nvdia DLSS 4.5
• AMD FSR 4
• Intel XESS 2.0
• Path tracing on PC
• Ray reconstruction on PC
• Raytraced hair
• Native DX12
• Rendering parallelization

The announcement also came right before CDPR showcased the game's third and final major expansion, Songs of the Past, which is due to launch in 2027.

Elsewhere, fans can also look forward to The Witcher 4, which CDPR has confirmed is targeting a 2028 release window.

Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026 has officially concluded, and the two-hour-long show was jam-packed with a deluge of game announcements and reveals.

From an official release date for the upcoming free-to-play open-world action game Ananta to our very first look at the highly anticipated The Witcher 3 Songs of the Past DLC, it offered a solid set of trailers — especially compared to some previous years.

If you weren't able to catch the show live, there's no need to worry about missing out. Here are the major announcements in the order that they happened to get you fully up to date.

Everything announced at Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026

• Nodus Fall — a new co-operative action game from Genshin Impact maker Hoyoverse
• Rainbow Six Tactics — new strategy spinoff launching in 2027
• Gears of War: E-Day — our first look at the villain in new cinematic story trailer
• Ananta — the free-to-play open world RPG is launching January 15, 2027
• Silent Hill Townfall got a new story trailer showing some creepy enemies
• Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy got another gameplay trailer ahead of release this week
• Sea of Remnants got a new gameplay trailer showing cute puppets and naval action
• Crimson Desert Enhanced announced with new content
• Tides of Annihilation trailer revealed new story details and gameplay
• Lofsong — announced for console and PC
• Megaman Dual Overdrive launches in 2027, and a crossover Pragmata skin is on the way
• Rayman Legends Retold launches on October 1
• PUBG Ded Net announced with a new gameplay trailer
• Control Resonant got an awesome new gameplay trailer
• The Blood of the Dawnwalker trailer revealed new story details and third-person action gameplay
• Game of Thrones: War for Westeros got a new gameplay trailer showing Daenerys and Jon Snow — launches in early 2027
• Dust Origins — a new isometric action game from Airship Syndicate
• Exodus got a new gameplay trailer showcasing a new character, a talking octopus named Salt — out April 7, 2027
• Warlock revealed as a new D&D game launching in 2027 for PC and console
• 1001 Threads of Mizan revealed — new narrative game
• Silver Palace: House of Greed got a new gameplay trailer
• Monster Hunter Outlanders — mobile spinoff got a new trailer
• Metro 2039 got a cinematic story trailer ahead of its February 2027 release
• Hitman World of Assassination - The Herbalist ft. rap legend Snoop Dogg DLC launching for free on August 27
• Aion 2 got a new trailer
• Afterworld, a new strategy game from Paradox Interactive, announced
• Petit Planet — life sim got an adorable new trailer

• Mewgenics — comes to consoles on September 8
• Alien Fireteam 2 got a new gameplay trailer
• 1666: Amsterdam got a new trailer ahead of its early access release today
• Showa American Story got a wacky new gameplay trailer, launching on PS5 and PC this year
• Road Kings got a new trailer showing off plenty of trucking action
• Stage Tour — upcoming Guitar-Hero-like music title got a brand new look showcasing setlists and ways to play ahead of December 10 launch
• Crazy Taxi multiplayer reveal trailer
• Turok Origins got a new cinematic trailer
• Gravehounds, furry shooter, got a gameplay trailer ahead of 2026 launch
• Lego Skylines — reveal trailer for bricky city builder game
• Transport Fever 3 got a new trailer, launches September 26
• Exterminauts announced
• Path of Exile full 1.0 release on December 11, will be free-to-play
• Heroes of Might and Magic 3 Remake revealed in cinematic trailer showing the reimagined strategy title

• No Law announced for 2027
• Project Zeta revealed as a new team-based MOBA
• Cinder City announced with a new trailer, available wishlist now
• Ontos announced with a creepy first-person trailer, launching 2027
• Pony Island 2: Panda Circus launches April 27, 2027
• Zoopunk gameplay reveal trailer shown
• There are no Ghosts at the Grand got a new trailer and is launching December 2026
• Roco Kingdom trailer confirmed closed beta test for October 27
• The Defiant announced
• Tarae the Unbound announced with a gameplay trailer
• Like or Die — quirky social media battle royale announced
• Final Fantasy 7 Revelation gets a new cinematic trailer

Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026 final announcement

• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered — announced as free upgrade with loads of new content
• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Songs of the Past new cinematic footage shown

What did you think of this year's Opening Night Live show? Let us know in the comments or by voting in the poll below.

Our favorite games from Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026

Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026 kicked off the annual trade fair event with over 50 premieres and exclusive announcements about some of our most anticipated titles.

We've managed to whittle down the list to 11 favorites, but what do you think? Which game announced at Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026 are you most excited for? Vote in the poll below.

• Grand Theft Auto 6 gameplay leaks have been appearing online since mid-August
• More and more footage is being posted every day by the leaker known as 'Cyberleek'
• Here's a full timeline featuring every gameplay leak so far

Grand Theft Auto 6 is just three months out from launch, and the game is set to get a special extended look premiering on Netflix this week. However, an unknown individual or group known as 'Cyberleek' has put a spanner in Rockstar Games' plan and has been posting leaked gameplay footage for over a week.

Cyberleek has since claimed the leaks stem from a goal to stop the end of physical game discs, which Sony plans to do starting January 2028, and Rockstar, which confirmed that the physical version of GTA 6 won't have a disc, but a digital code in the box instead.

While all alleged gameplay footage being posted shows an advertisement for Cyberleek's cryptocurrency scheme, which brings into question the leaker's true motivation, they've also released a manifesto protesting Rockstar's decision and threatened to "disrupt their operations" by leaking game material until the studio issues a public statement and apologizes.

Well, it's another day, and more alleged gameplay footage has been posted online. A lot has happened over the past week, but if you haven't caught up, here's a summary of everything that's leaked so far.

August 18

The very first GTA 6 leak was posted on August 18 and shows co-protagonist Jason Duval playing basketball outside his house in the southern part of Leonida, in an area called Key Lento.

We've seen this area and Jason's house in past trailers, but Rockstar hadn't shared any gameplay. In the clip, Jason is wandering around before picking up a basketball; it looks like the player can dribble and use an aiming mechanic to shoot the ball into the net. There's also a focus meter that gradually increases, with a level system.

The second clip was posted the same day and gave fans a first look at what it's like driving around in GTA 6. Jason can be seen speeding along the roads before getting into a fight with a non-player character (NPC).

Cyberleek also posted a look at the game's Leonida map, which showed areas like Lummox County, Leonard County, Kelly County, Vice Dale County, and Mariana County.

August 19

More gameplay footage, this time two minutes long, was posted the following day, showing Jason breaking into a gated area, killing security guards, before taking their tasers. He then steals a semitruck and drives off, and you can see vehicle health and fuel gauges on the HUD.

Then there's a short cutscene showing Jason and his friend Cal Hampton on a boat, which some suggest is a scene from the beginning of the game.

Another gameplay clip was posted shortly after, showing Jason stabbing a police officer and stealing his motorcycle, as well as what looks like six "Wanted" stars, which is one more than GTA 5. The footage continues, and Jason can then be seen using what looks like pain medication called "Zombix."

August 20

The next clip features Jason flying a small plane over the map, presumably Vice City, and it looks highly detailed. The render distance looks impressive, and you can see lots of buildings, roads, traffic, and more. The player can also be seen browsing radio stations.

Afterward, a second clip shows the player spelling the word "LEEK" on the side of a building using bullets, leading many fans to believe Cyberleek has at least some sort of playable build and the footage isn't stolen from Rockstar's servers.

August 21

The gameplay leaks continued the following day, with the next showing Jason driving a hypercar, specifically, the Truffade Thrax from GTA Online.

August 22

The GTA 6 leaks continued into this past weekend, with longer footage showing a variety of activities, including Jason driving around, pulling into a gas station, physically refueling his car, and then going inside the shop to rob the clerk. When Jason punches him, you can see the hair tech in action, his hat flying off, and Jason taking money from the register.

The clip cuts after he drives away and crashes his car, then Jason can be seen entering a strip club. However, the footage ends with Cyberleek asking for "3mil marketcap = stripclub" in a message on screen for their cryptocurrency scheme.

Well, the leaker delivered, and the next clip shows a deeper look at the strip club, showing neon lights and dancers, as well as highly detailed NPCs in conversation.

August 23

The following day, another clip was posted showing Jason driving to another gas station, stealing someone's truck, and running down the owner. When he crashes the car, the iconic "Wasted" screen pops up, and shortly after, it cuts to Jason having what appears to be an unscripted conversation with an NPC while they both pee in urinals.

Another notable feature of the clip is the mission marker that reads "Return to Lucia", suggesting the leaker could be in the middle of a mission that requires Jason to meet back up with his girlfriend.

More gameplay was posted later, showing Jason flying over Vice City at night.

August 24

On August 24, new gameplay showed Jason walking around a nudist town in Leonida; he enters a party, where there's a pool and lots of naked people standing around or dancing, or ordering drinks at a bar. The player also zooms in on these NPCs using binoculars, and yeah... the bodies are very realistic.

When Jason focuses on another woman, she attacks him, and he kills her before firing his pistol at the rest of the surrounding NPCs.

August 25

The latest leaks got posted today, and it is the first time we see Rockstar's impressive crowd tech at work, seemingly running in-game. The first clip is similar to a shot from the first GTA 6 trailer, but has Jason cycling along Vice City beach instead.

There are a ton of NPCs packed together, showcasing the density the developer's tech allows, and you can see them lounging around, playing in the water, or walking around; the water physics also look remarkable, as do the sand effects.

The next clip shows Jason visiting a shopping plaza and a used video game store that sells physical games, which is ironic given Rockstar's decision to not release a disc version of GTA 6.

The player zooms in on the shelves using binoculars, and every game and movie is named.

It's a bit blurry, but one game title looks like it reads "We Came Together I, II, & III Remasters of the Remakes" (or "Remixes," it's hard to tell), which seems like a little nod to Naughty Dog's multiple editions of The Last of Us Part 1 and Part 2.

Signs also state that electronics, consoles, and collectibles can be traded in before Jason walks up to the counter and cycles through a selection of purchasable and wearable earbuds.

That's every alleged gameplay leak that Cyberleek has shared as of today, but we'll keep you updated if more details are posted.

Fans can also look forward to the Grand Theft Auto 6: An Extended Look ahead of the game's launch on November 19, which is set to premiere on Netflix on August 27 at 3PM ET / 12PM PT / 8PM BST and later launch on the studio's YouTube channel at 9PM ET / 6PM PT / 2AM BST.

It's speculated that the extended look will finally reveal official gameplay and Trailer 3.

• An unknown individual or group named 'Cyberleek' has been leaking Grand Theft Auto 6 footage online for the past week
• Fans theorize that the leaker could be an ex-Rockstar developer or someone with access to a restricted build
• They suggest the leaker is only able to post prologue footage, as gameplay showing Lucia has yet to be shared

Grand Theft Auto 6 fans are convinced the person behind the ongoing leaks doesn't have access to the full game, but a restricted build, which could be why no Lucia gameplay has been revealed.

If you're out of the loop, for the past week, an anonymous individual or group known as 'Cyberleek' has been leaking GTA 6 footage online, mainly showcasing co-protagonist Jason driving around, flying a small plane, robbing a gas station, encountering a nudist town, and mostly recently, cycling along Vice Beach.

But how did Cyberleek obtain this gameplay footage, and who are they? There are a ton of theories flying around, with some fans suggesting they're a disgruntled ex-Rockstar developer, a QA tester who worked on the project, or just a hacker who somehow secured a playable build ahead of launch.

One leak in particular showed the player writing the word "LEEK" into the side of a building with bullets, suggesting that the leaker didn't find these gameplay clips from an unsecured server, but at least has a playable portion of the game.

Considering the content of the leaks, some are convinced Cyberleek doesn't have a full copy of the game, but a restricted build containing only the prologue; they point to the fact that the only footage we've seen is with Jason, and gameplay with Lucia, the other co-protagonist, has yet to be leaked.

"The leaker most likely has a build restricted to just the beginning of the game before you even encounter Lucia," one user wrote on the GTA 6 subreddit.

They also noted that all the footage shows constant tutorial pop-ups, which typically show up at the beginning of a game, and Jason is wearing the same clothes.

"He’s at his starter house, he has hardly any money, has the starter car, and has very beginner weapons," they continued. "Like the [pictured] comment said, sometimes gaming companies give very restricted builds for QA. This is almost certainly what happened. Which is why there hasn’t been any story leaks or lucia gameplay.

"This also makes it even easier for rockstar to ID the leaker. They know exactly what build this by the context and the placeholders."

Another user said, "I assume it's from the very beginning of the game and Lucia hasn't been introduced yet," as another responded, "The answer is literally so simple they haven't played any damn mission and haven't unlocked Lucia yet. Every clip has the same C mission marker tracked."

Cyberleek hasn't been identified yet, and the leaks continue to be posted online. Bloomberg reports that Rockstar Games employees and managers are angry about the leaks and parent company Take-Two has petitioned a federal court under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, alleging copyright infringement.

The leaks come just days before Rockstar's planned Grand Theft Auto 6: An Extended Look, which is set to premiere on Netflix on August 27 at 3PM ET / 12PM PT / 8PM BST and later launch on the studio's YouTube channel at 9PM ET / 6PM PT / 2AM BST.

With three months until launch, it's speculated that the extended look will finally reveal official gameplay and Trailer 3.

I'm not a gamer. It's not that I've never gamed. In fact, I've frenetically mashed game controller buttons on every conceivable console and platform. It's just that I don't think about it when I'm not gaming and, if you ask my adult children, I am terrible at it.

My youngest, now 28, is an avid gamer, and, in fact, a gaming writer. Having written multiple lengthy features for a wide range of gaming publications and played more hours of more games than I've spent trying to draw or learn guitar, they are a true gaming expert.

"It won't matter," they told me as they examined a PS5 game I handed them, curious if Kena: Bridge of Spirits was any good and if they thought it was worth playing. The comment was not related to the game. They were talking about the PlayStation Blackout.

Starting this week, games preservation site DoesItPlay launched an online grassroots campaign, PlayStation Blackout Week (August 23 to 30), to protest Sony's decision to cease all physical game media production in January 2028. As part of the protest, which is under the hashtag # PlayStationBlackout, DoesItPlay called for "No logins, no play sessions, no purchases on any of Sony’s platforms.”

This X post pretty much captures DoesItPlay's core argument:

'One more time: EVERYONE will be negatively impacted if we let Sony erase physical media. Not just physical buyers. Digital will get more expensive and you will have no form of ownership anymore. Physical going away doesn't mean the rest gains something. Quite the opposite!"

Big Boss potential

The potential economic impact of such a protest is massive. After all, PlayStation Network alone has a reported 125 million monthly active users, paying anywhere from $10.99 to $19.99 a month, not to mention whatever they pay for additional games and in-game purchases.

And yet, my own gaming expert was telling me it won't matter (echoing sentiment I've found across social media). Part of the problem, my expert told me, is that the hardcore gamers, the ones who might rally the pro-physical media troops, are all at Gamescom. That's right — a site deeply enmeshed in gaming culture may have chosen the exact wrong week for its protest.

Still, I think there's something larger at work here. Yes, the outcry when Sony announced the change was loud and lusty, but just because some people with a platform are making noises, that doesn't mean everyone is upset or willing to protest the impending change.

Had Sony proposed this change 20 years ago, I could understand the concern. In 2006, Sony's PlayStation network was brand new. Most people bought games on disc, and for many years after, they also bought pre-owned games at GameStop. Discs were part of gaming culture. Since then, though, we've had the rise of the networks, including PSN, Xbox Live (now Xbox Network), and perhaps more important, Steam, which probably did more than any other platform to move games off physical media.

There's another reason my gaming pro might've said the blackout won't matter: Gamers have moved on. A recent report noted the lowest physical game sales since 1995 (there's also a huge gaming console sales slump).

People's game libraries are mostly in the cloud these days.

Getting owned

Regardless, a vocal minority complains that the loss of physical media means the end of game ownership. Except that's not true, either. We don't own the games we buy, no more than we own any of the software we purchase. It's all nothing but licenses to use the games and software.

Here's how Sony describes the agreement between it and its customers when it comes to the games they buy:

“The Software is licensed to you, not sold. You are granted a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, and personal license to play or use the Software for your private, non-commercial use on the system or device it was intended for.”

It's a license to play, not own.

It's not that I don't understand the frustration or even sadness at the loss of physical media. I have literal shelves of classic software boxes. They're fun to look at, though almost entirely useless, since all the platforms and hardware have moved on. Gamers might be a different breed, holding onto old consoles and the games they bought to play on them for decades, but in my house, that's not the case. Our Nintendo Wii and GameCube are stuffed onto shelves gathering dust. No one has touched them in years.

The most avid gamers, ones who play at near-competitive levels, are most interested in the next big thing. Take, for instance, the upcoming GTA 6 launch. My games expert mentioned that, and how the insane leaks tie to this protest.

Again, they're not interested in the protest, and are instead fixated on the leak and how messed up it is. They've even avoided looking at the GTA 6 clips, so as not to spoil the big game reveal in November.

This plan is broken

Put another way, it seems all the efforts to make Sony relent are having, if not the opposite effect, basically no effect at all. DoesItPlay is talking to a devoted few who still clutch their physical media like water canteens in a desert. The GTA 6 leaker, Cyberleek, who has implored Sony to "do better," is drawing attention mostly to his shenanigans, and I don't think he's inspiring people as much as he's making some think he might be ruining the fun of the most important game launch in 15 years.

There is, in all this, a fundamental truth about physical media: it always has its season, and then that season inevitably passes. Storage media is the perfect analog, because every time we think we have a physical storage medium for the ages, it's supplanted by a new, better, and higher-capacity alternative. I have drawers full of dead media, including Zip Drives, Jaz Drives, 3.5-inch floppies, 5-inch floppies, and more.

Even if Sony was to relent, and continue making physical game media for a few more years — and it won't — the hardware to play it will age out. We'll end up with something better or, more likely, the last physical gaming media holdouts will switch over to the cloud, and that will truly mark the end of physical media.

As my own gaming expert said, #PlayStationBlackout doesn't matter. People's attention is elsewhere, and all true gamers really care about is how quickly the GTA 6 teaser will shift from an exclusive Netflix launch to YouTube. Talking and thinking about anything else is pointless.

• The Witcher 4 is officially targeting a 2028 release window
• CD Projekt Red joint-CEO Michal Nowakowski says the game won't be at Gamescom 2026
• He confirms that the game is the studio's "most ambitious game to date"

As CD Projekt Red prepares to showcase The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt's next major expansion, the studio has confirmed that The Witcher 4 is officially targeting a 2028 release window.

In a video posted to social media ahead of Gamescom Opening Night Live, CD Projekt Red joint-CEO Michal Nowakowski teased Songs of the Past, The Witcher 3's third expansion launching in 2027, saying, "We've got a lot of the expansion to show off, including a taste of its dark story, and the new continent it will bring."

Songs of the Past will get a full reveal at Gamescom and is rumored to be a prelude to The Witcher 4, which will star Ciri as the titular witcher. Fans have been waiting for another glimpse of the sequel since the technical demo was shared last year; however, Nowakowski has confirmed the studio won't be showcasing the game at Gamescom.

He revealed that more than 500 developers are currently working on The Witcher 4, and the game will feature "a huge and immersive open world, intense and action-packed gameplay, and a deep, impactful story that we hope will stay with you for a long time."

"Simply put, this is our biggest, boldest, and most ambitious game to date," Nowakowski said, before confirming that The Witcher 4 is "targeting" a 2028 launch window, which significantly narrows down its expected release date.

"I know it's a bit of a wait and you'd love to play it sooner," he said, "but let the team cook. It will be worth the wait."

The joint-CEO added that fans can expect Gamescom to be in CD Projekt Red's plans "for the coming years," suggesting The Witcher 4 could be featured at next year's or 2028's showcase.

While we finally have a launch window, this means the game could still slip to 2029 depending on its development status. It's also unclear if the sequel will get a PS5 physical edition, as Sony plans to end production of game discs from January 2028.

It took 127 blood-splattered minutes for 2024’s outrageously violent flick Deadpool & Wolverine to reach a kill count of 178. In my two-hour preview of Insomniac’s Marvel’s Wolverine, I’m pretty sure it took even less time to match it.

The game starts with a delirious murder spree against the forces of human supremacist Bolivar Trask on the Asian island of Talenbang, who has taken Team X’s leader Nathaniel Essex captive.

I’m soon slicing arms off in brutal finishing moves and pummeling their insides into paste with barrage attacks. When I get to staggering foes into the blast radius of a nearby grenade, turning them into a mushy pile of goo, it’s abundantly clear this isn’t your friendly neighbourhood Wolverine.

It’s an impressively percussive, weighty combat system. With Wolverine’s adamantium skeleton in mind, I’d describe it as heavy metal combat.

Rip and tear

At first, soldiers are summarily dispatched with a chain of light attacks and a heavy attack finisher. Later, in Canada, shield-bearing Reavers demand an initial kick before a five-knuckled skewer to the sternum. And the Hand, red-gowned ninjas recently spotted in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, come with longer blades of their own, sometimes left lodged in Wolverine’s body to impede him until it either falls out or he rips it out to furiously stab an enemy.

The environment plays an important role too, whether you’re knocking hapless enemies off a rooftop or slamming them into a wall to leave them vulnerable to a barrage attack sure to relieve them of their entrails. Those enemies often come prepared, with mutant power inhibitors locking Logan’s regeneration unless you target the machines first — either by stealth or all-out assault.

Wolverine’s slower speed meant I took a few more hits than I needed when I couldn’t cancel attacks to dodge an incoming blow or use a Hurricane move to clear my vicinity. But once I’d adjusted to the pace (and learned how crucial the leap attack is for staying in combat), I was stringing together brutal extended combos to the point that Devil May Cry’s style meter wouldn’t have gone amiss.

In my one-man blood donation campaign, I’m building up my rage meter. As it ascends through tiers, you first unlock the Last Stand recovery mechanic, next enhanced finishing moves, then, lastly, the ability to trigger all-out carnage.

All of a sudden, environments fade away into monochrome irrelevance. The bodies of enemies pulse bright and ripe for shredding. Instakills become available with one squeeze of the trigger buttons.

It’s a thrill of delirious violence, and delete-on-sight kills comparable to Ninja Gaiden 4’s immensely satisfying Berserk mechanic last year.

(Re)generating action

Jess Reiner-Reed, Senior Project Director, tells me that turning players into frenzied berserkers was always the plan, but balancing that aggression with Wolverine’s rapid healing ability required some mechanics to shapeshift in a manner worthy of Mystique.

“When people think of Wolverine, they say, ‘How are you going to make a video game about a guy that doesn't die?’ We had some versions that didn't work very well — versions where we were incentivizing the player to hide and have their health regenerate, like an FPS mechanic. But then we really landed on this version where we're incentivizing you to be aggressive.”

After years producing family-friendly fare in the Spider-Man series and Ratchet & Clank, the exact degree of this aggression and its gratuitous violence surprised many. Reiner-Reed gleefully reminds me that Insomniac isn’t new to this after the M-rated Resistance series.

“In Spider-Man, we always had to make sure Spider-Man doesn't kill people, because that's not Peter Parker; he webs guys to the side of the building. In Marvel's Wolverine, we get to kill people in the face.”

Focusing up close rather than tearing through Manhattan at 60mph meant Insomniac can lavish attention on details that would pass in a blur for Spider-Man. The game’s richly detailed levels look fantastic, with a focus on satisfyingly physics-driven destructible objects.

One moment in the demo particularly looked like it could have come straight out of Ratchet & Clank, and not for the better. I was pitted against the Proto Sentinel, a giant armoured robot boss rooted in place and limited to pummelling fists, laser-eyes and missile launchers. The somewhat formulaic boss battle was bested by dodge rolls and sprinting from clearly telegraphed blast zones. Despite Team X’s occasional interventions to enliven the fight, it felt like a dated chore compared to more recent similar battles like Clive’s fights against Final Fantasy XVI’s Eikons.

I found the Nightmare Doors sequences similarly deflating. These are portals into Logan’s Canadian wilderness cabin, where he unlocks forgotten memories by navigating a timed obstacle course, scrambling up tree trunks and leaping from eerily suspended shipping containers. The two examples I saw felt like perfunctory diversions compared to the far superior storyline chases.

Wolverine can throw hands with the best of them, but does the unrelenting focus on its excellent close quarters have legs? With no weapon mixups, ranged abilities, or a wide suite of movement abilities evident so far, the variety must come from elsewhere.

Reiner-Reed reassures me that variety will be found through build variations created through the player’s chosen special moves and custom augmentations to shape their build, whether they want to focus on stealth or accelerate into a raging rampage.

Moment to moment, it certainly has the X-Factor you’d expect from the X-Men’s headline act; I catch my pulse racing at the end of my demo, and the Team X team-up attacks with the gigantic Sabertooth and Mystique have me itching to see what punchy combinations await.

But in the space of two hours, I was craving more movement options and could already feel the leap attacks become a crutch.

Downtime in Lowtown

Insomniac has far more to offer than just Deadpool & Wolverine’s glib humour and sadistic mayhem, as much as Reiner-Reed relishes team meetings to discuss blood physics. Off duty in a trademark flannel shirt and a cowboy hat, as Wolverine, I got to visit Lowtown for some R&R in the lawless slums of Madripoor.

The sequence provided ample opportunities for Liam McIntyre to show his range between macho posturing with Sabretooth and self-effacingly confronting his inability to find a suitable gift for Jean Grey (despite the advantages he gets from sniffing out her trail).

But it was a simple yet artfully composed game of Never Have I Ever at the bar with Mystique that impressed me most. Logan confronts his misdeeds and inner demons through the bottom of a glass. As I choose to drink and not drink at some of Mystique’s revealingly probing interrogations, I can safely say this: never have I ever been so struck by just waiting to see if Logan’s hesitant outstretched arm raised the cup to his lips.

“I love Logan as a character and always have because I found him one of the most emotionally complex characters,” says Liam McIntyre, the gravel-voiced Aussie actor who’s demonstrating Logan’s unfettered rage and nuanced regret in even these quieter moments.

“He doesn't want to go and high-five people in New York City; that's not his deal. He wants to stay off and be remote and do what he has to do and not make a big deal out of it [...] He feels the most grounded of the superheroes to me.

McIntyre does such a fine job making Wolverine a character you want to spend time with; I was almost disappointed when The Hand’s intrusion brought this lull to an abrupt close. Although crossing blades with them on an exhilarating rooftop chase that closed out the demo soon banished any momentary disappointment. The single-minded narrative momentum I saw here can remove any fears Spider-Man’s open world would be missed.

Both McIntyre and Reiner-Reed point to the game's ending as the moment they're most looking forward to seeing players’ reactions. If it can top what I saw in the first act’s (unfortunately embargoed) rollercoaster climax, I’m eager to see how Marvel’s Wolverine can top it when it arrives on PlayStation 5 on September 15.

Two schools of thought exist in the Call of Duty community. One praises the high-speed arcade action of Black Ops sub-series, sliding around corners on smaller maps while racking up incredible kill counts. The other craves the more considered pacing of the recent Modern Warfare games, where firefights are grittier and more immersive, in larger and more complex environments that reward tactical play more than speed and aggression.

With Modern Warfare 4, developer Infinity Ward is trying to marry both styles of play. “If you're too strict in one direction or the other, that's where it becomes a problem,” multiplayer creative director Joe Cecot explained in my visit to the studio’s Los Angeles HQ earlier this year. “We want it to feel really good for you, but also balanced.”

Pleasing both audiences is a task I would have thought impossible: surely the enjoyment of one is opposed to that of the other?

But, after nearly ten hours hands-on with the ongoing Modern Warfare 4 beta, I think the team might have really pulled it off. That, combined with cutting-edge graphics and a plethora of new mechanical Innovations, has me confident we’re on track for a generational Call of Duty game — maybe even the best in the series so far.

Pleasing both camps

The first thing any returning Call of Duty player will notice dropping into Modern Warfare 4 is that it’s a very fast and fluid game.

Tactical sprint, the option to double-tap the sprint button to enter a faster stride, is back on by default, and it feels smoother than ever before. Rather than lasting for a fixed duration, your character’s speed gradually decreases as you go to reflect their tiredness — removing that stop-start feeling that made Modern Warfare II’s pacing so bitty.

The overall movement speed is pretty rapid, helping you traverse maps quickly and minimizing downtime between combat encounters. Going long stretches without coming across other players was a real issue in some of the bigger 6v6 maps of previous entries (MWII’s infamously dull Valderas Museum immediately springs to mind) and, while many of the maps available in this beta are quite small, I’m optimistic that it won’t be such a problem this time around.

Overhauled ballistic simulation means the guns in MW4 are more realistic than ever before. Rather than a slapdash bloom calculation, bullet trajectory is authentically calculated based on the actual position of your weapon in the virtual world. It sounds like a minor change, but you can really feel the difference. Hip-firing your guns is genuinely viable now: if your barrel is pointed towards the enemy on your screen, your shot will hit.

Most guns take a fair chunk of time to aim, so this lets you play more aggressively no matter your chosen weapon type.

Try to take an objective hip-firing a slow-to-aim weapon in MWII, and you’ll end up dead with your entire magazine buried in the nearest wall. In MW4, you actually stand a chance, which stops matches from reaching a gridlock where everyone sticks to cover aiming down their own little sightlines.

It balances out the faster movement perfectly as well. I’ve already encountered players sliding around corners to try to gain an advantage as you can in a similarly snappy Black Ops game and dispatched them effortlessly with a hip-fired shot.

The Zip Gun, an all-new item that replaces the grenade in your lethal slot, is specifically geared towards this kind of situation. It’s a 3D-printed pistol that automatically unloads its entire clip in a quick burst when drawn, giving you a vital last-ditch line of defense if you’re caught mid-reload by an enemy player getting in your face.

You can still win plenty of fights by being fast, don’t get me wrong, and it feels great to do so, but it’s not the one-size-fits-all winning strategy that it is in, say,Black Ops 7.

Leaps and bounds

But what about those who still prefer to lock down specific zones or slowly advance towards objectives? They’re well catered to with a range of new tools to try. The razor wire field upgrade, for example, is a little mine that deploys a massive coil of barbed wire that slows enemies while draining their health so you can place it in doorways or at keychoke points for effective area denial.

Given all the ways you can counter fast-movers, taking things slow and playing tactically never puts you at a disadvantage. In fact, it can often work in your favor, as the relatively quick TTK (time to kill) lets you shred anyone you manage to catch off guard by flanking.

Although as a die-hard Black Ops fan, I have to admit that sprinting everywhere with an SMG or shotgun is my personal preference, I’ve been experimenting with both styles of play in my matches so far and struggle to label one definitively superior. It’s a genuinely impressive feat for Infinity Ward to have pulled off this tricky balance — doubly so given this is still just a beta and you would expect at least a few teething issues.

The mechanics are nailed down, then, and everything else about MW4 points to an experience that’s equally polished across the board. The maps available to try are well-designed and include a good mix of global locations, all rendered with a stunning level of detail and elevated by plenty of artistic flair, with special details like animated round intros and floating logos to help them all feel distinct.

The randomized Kill Block, with a layout split into three randomized blocks, is a surprising highlight too. Going in, I thought it would be a bit of a gimmick. It’s now become one of my favorite maps thanks to just how varied it is.

The presentation remains extremely strong even outside the matches themselves. That clunky Netflix-style user interface from recent games is gone, replaced with a much sleeker side-bar design, and that boring lobby animation (the one that had your hero wandering around an almost completely blank void) has finally been binned in favor of operator-specific sequences that convey so much more character.

That’s all without getting into the gritty campaign (one great level is available to sample as part of the beta offering) or the promising DMZ extraction shooter mode that will be available at launch. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 is on track to be a major hit when it launches for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, PC, and Nintendo Switch 2 on October 23.

• FromSoftware president Hidetaka Miyazaki says, "there was never really any big plan" to release Elden Ring: Nightreign and The Duskbloods back-to-back
• Miyazaki still has "a heavy focus on single-player content"
• He suggests the studio will return to making single-player games after The Duskbloods arrives

FromSoftware president Hidetaka Miyazaki has suggested the studio could return to making single-player games after Elden Ring: Nightreign and The Duskbloods.

Many fans were surprised when FromSoftware announced its PvPvE action game, The Duskbloods, so soon after releasing its multiplayer, roguelike Elden Ring spin-off, Nightreign.

However, according to game director Miyazaki, who also helmed Elden Ring, Bloodborne, and Dark Souls, releasing two multiplayer games back-to-back wasn't intentional.

"It's funny because there was never really any big plan that these two games would both release next to each other," Miyazaki told IGN, explaining that since Nightreign was led by a different director, Junya Ishizaki, both 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," Miyazaki continued. "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 then suggested the studio could dive back into making single-player games after The Duskbloods arrives, saying: "But it's like, the more you work on something multiplayer for a long time, if anything, it scratches that itch only to want to make something single-player again."

The studio's last single-player experience was Elden Ring, which launched in 2022, followed by the multiplayer spin-off, Nighreign, in 2025.

Next up for FromSoftware is The Duskbloods, which was announced last year as a PvPvE and Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive. Network tests are underway, but a release date hasn't been set.

It’s been a rough week for Rockstar Games. It appears that a working build of Grand Theft Auto 6 is out in the wild, with a seemingly endless stream of gameplay footage being leaked.

Already everywhere across social media channels, the first I learned of all this was a deluge of clips showing up in my personal Instagram feed.

Leaks of this magnitude are the last thing any developer would want — let alone the team behind one of the most anticipated games of all time. We’re just a week or so away from the official extended look reveal video launching too, and I can’t help but feel that the leakers have stolen Rockstar’s thunder.

So what exactly can we learn from all of this new footage? Well, GTA 6 certainly looks like a GTA game. Key mechanics like the wanted level system return (albeit with an extra star level and the ability for the police to remember your outfit or vehicle), along with various open-world activities ranging from racing challenges to tossing basketballs into hoops.

Beating heart

I’ve also seen speculation that some systems similar to those in Red Dead Redemption 2 will be featured. Namely, the idea that there’s a karma meter to measure the morality of your actions, as well as icons suggesting that the dual protagonists Lucia Caminos and Jason Duval’s abilities will level up as you play.

It all looks about what I would have expected from a new GTA in 2026. If you’d asked me to speculate on what GTA 6 would be like this time last year, I’d have said that it would look like an upgraded version of GTA 5 that incorporates some Red Dead Redemption 2 elements: in short, a classic sequel that builds on the previous release while also bringing in what worked from the developer’s other recent games.

I wasn’t truly blown away until I saw the latest clip.

The minute or so of footage shows the leaker flying a small plane into a city, presumably Vice City, though it is a little hard to tell. All of the other videos I’ve seen take place on the ground, which makes it hard to really tell the scale of the map. Here, it’s plain to see, and let me tell you, GTA 6 looks immense.

The first thing I noticed was the render distance. As the camera pans around, you can see the world stretching off into the horizon. Even the most distant roads are bustling with traffic. Of course, there’s no guarantee that the finished product will look this good (we don’t know how old this build is, or what kind of specs it’s running on), but if Rockstar can achieve anything like what’s shown here on consoles, then it’s going to be a stunner.

Our pilot then turns the view towards the city itself, which is simply breathtaking in its own right.

I’m a bit of a sicko for city design in games, and I pay close attention to how roads are laid out and districts are arranged. I think it’s probably the result of hundreds of hours playing SimCity and Cities: Skylines, not to mention consuming endless content about city design in those games. It’s given me a good eye for scale, particularly when things don’t make sense.

From what I’ve seen of GTA 6’s urban environments in these leaks, I’m beginning to think it could deliver some of the most authentic and grounded ever. There’s a believable level of urban sprawl on the approach, with patches of commercial and residential buildings stretching for miles.

They’re separated from the city center by a busy raised highway that realistically splits off into arteries to direct traffic towards large roads and eventually trickle down into smaller streets. The skyscrapers become denser and more modern as you home in on the city centre, and looking closely reveals countless smaller apartment blocks and department stores nestled in between them.

The city runs along a coast, and there are glimpses of seedier boroughs inland, with low-lying houses and parking lots. Out near the waterfront, in contrast, it is clearly prime real estate and dominated by leafy green streets and a smattering of holiday resorts.

It all just looks so real, and appears so much more intricate than the comparatively sparse Los Santos in GTA 5. It’s certainly taken my excitement up a level, and I now can’t wait to immerse myself in Vice City’s detailed streets. Hopefully the upcoming extended look video highlights the world design and reveals even more.

Grand Theft Auto 6 is set to launch for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and Series S on November 19, 2026.