To answer for Crushed in Time’s clear game production disaster, Freddi Malavasi, Associate Producer and Communication Manager, was brave enough to face our questions.

TSA – Is it tough as a development team to have not failed to ship a finished game yet again? Are you hoping for third time lucky with your next game after Crushed in Time?

Freddi – Huh? What? What game? Are we supposed to be developing a video game? Why doesn’t anyone ever tell me anything?

TSA – How many elastic bands have you had to buy (and presumably break) to research for the elasticity of Crushed in Time? Or was it just messing around with Mario’s face on N64?

Freddi – I think it would be quicker to count the marks I got on my body from snapping rubber bands. And instead of Mario’s head on the Nintendo 64, I loved the little heads made out of flour in a balloon*. I was always trying to make these things into weird shapes, and then one day I popped one in the car, and my parents swore they’d never buy me them again.

*Maybe this is a very French thing. Just in case:

TSA – If you can share it, what’s your favourite use of the elasticity?

Freddi – Fiddling with the scenery while I think. It gives the game a really relaxing, stress-relieving vibe, and clearly, a lot of players felt the same way during our playtests!

TSA – Did you think that you might need to add a hint system for how to use the actual hint system, just in case players couldn’t figure out that you needed to pull and release the menu buttons?

Freddi – Strangely enough, we’ve never seen anyone get stuck before the first puzzle.

However, we’re thinking about a DLC: you buy it, and we come to your house to play the game for you. The idea sounds great, but we still need to figure out the safety protocols—just in case one of us ends up in the trunk of a car.

TSA – How do you feel about the Steam tag “point & click” being applied to the game, when you grab, pull and release everything instead?

Freddi – To be honest, I’m more concerned about the strange use of the tag on Steam. As you can imagine, we’ve been keeping an eye on what other studios are doing, and we’ve discovered that a lot of people use this tag whenever you have to hover your mouse over something and click on it. We’ve reached the point where I wouldn’t be surprised to see an FPS with the “Point & Click” tag. After all, you point your “cursor” at enemies and “click” on them.

TSA – Are your versions of Holmes and Watson so stupid and oblivious because of some patriotic rivalry between France and Great Britain? And is that why you have to slap them around so much?

Freddi – I’d like to tell you yes, because England and France are bound by an ancient treaty: we’re the only ones who have the right to mistreat each other. Attack the English, and you can expect me to immediately take up arms (or to speak very loudly while pointing my finger at people). And there’s no doubt that the English do and will always do the same for us.

It’s a bit like we’ve sworn to grant each other this privilege, and no one will ever be able to take that away from us.

But otherwise, no: Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are known for being a smart and dynamic duo. We wanted to play with those tropes to offer something fresh, by subverting their image. Sherlock Holmes is an idiot, Dr. Watson is a coward… And it works! At least we hope so. 

And if you don’t like it enough to set our houses on fire: ask the English for permission.

TSA – At the same time, are you worried that you’ve made Watson too irresistibly sexy? 

Freddi – Oh my god, thank you! Yes, I thought I was the only one.

TSA – Have you ever run into a bug in the game where you can’t figure out if it’s meant to be there or not? And did any of them get elevated to legitimate “bug as a feature” status?

Freddi – The upside of this kind of game is that bugs often turn into something downright terrifying, which might explain why we don’t do crunch at Draw Me A Pixel: no one wants to see a twisted Sherlock Holmes who seems to be staring right through the screen (and into your soul).

So, no, everything’s fine on that front—the only bugs that make it into the game are “narrative features*” we added ourselves.

*In any case, that is the term we will use in court.

Alright, Freddi, you’ve weathered the storm fairly well, and we do have some more sensible questions about Crushed in Time as well…

TSA – How have you created variety in interactions for the elasticity, not just pull and release, but adding variety?

Freddi – This was something that came up very early on in the game’s design. We wanted to make a point-and-click game, but we quickly realised that we’d find it boring.

Mind you, we’re huge fans of point-and-click games, you know. Sam & Max, Monkey Island, Discworld, Full Throttle, Day of the Tentacle… We grew up with these games, and it’s no coincidence that we decided to make this. However, the world of video games has evolved, and our expectations in 2026 are no longer what they were in 1995: many of us have a wealth of gaming experience that has reshaped our expectations.

So, when we finally decided that making the game elastic was a good idea, we quickly realized: stretching and releasing things is fun for about five minutes. So we needed to bring variety to the interactions, and through repeated iterations, we eventually defined five ways to interact with the world and its characters. But when you look closely, every interaction is based on the principle of elasticity. For example, the ejection mechanic works on the principle that you stretch a light object and it will fly off somewhere when you let go.

TSA – There’s quite a lot of timing-based puzzles that take a bit of getting used to compared to a more traditional point & click game, and that leads to more trial and error, I feel. How do you counteract that?

Freddi – This was something that gave us a real headache during development, and playtesting was very helpful in finding the right balance.

One thing we wanted to avoid was creating a classic point-and-click adventure where you just point and click on things.

No, not like in FPS games—come on, keep up.

Throwing in these kinds of sequences every now and then helps shake the player up a bit, telling them, “Okay, for the next two minutes, you’re going to have to stay alert.” But we don’t want to lose the players who are, above all, puzzle enthusiasts and who might end up throwing their mouse across the room (provided it’s wireless, of course). And I think we’ve struck a good balance with these few sequences: it’s a bit like adding a very light pinch of chili pepper to a dish that might otherwise lack a little zing.

TSA – Was the popularity of Holmes and Watsons from There Is No Game surprising to you?

Freddi – To some extent, because Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, much like Hero and Princess, are sort of just passing through in TING. They stick around for a chapter or two, then bow out to make way for the next characters, while the real stars are Game, GiGi, and Mr. Glitch.

However, we’ve noticed a huge attachment from the community over time to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, as evidenced, for example, by the numerous fan art pieces we’ve received over the past five years.

Nevertheless, the biggest surprise remains Mr. Wilhelm. He was just a completely minor character in TING, and when we announced his return, we received a veritable avalanche of positive comments. Fans were so thrilled to see him back that he ended up inspiring a few memes within our community and from us as well.

TSA – What actually led you down this framing device with the “broken” game?

Freddi – The desire to do something different. At Draw Me A Pixel, we all share this desire to create games that offer a different take on what we’re used to seeing. Pascal (our Writer & Director) often says to us, “Okay, that’s good. But what does it bring to the table?” And that’s something I think is reflected in our games, in how we communicate, and in so many other ways. We don’t just settle for doing what works or what people like—we strive to add a little something extra.

And I won’t hide the fact that sometimes, we’d love to just say, “Come on, let’s make a roguelike with elves and call it original because there are lasers.” But in the end, we always come back to that same question: “Okay, but what does that add?” And we keep reworking our draft until we’re satisfied… Or until we go to bed completely fed up and annoyed, because creative miracles don’t exactly happen every day.

Thanks to Freddi for putting up with our shenanigans… though in fairness, we’re having to put up with Draw Me A Pixel’s shenanigans too. Keep an eye out for our review of Crushed in Time tomorrow!

For those who haven’t been following along, Xbox used to be a single console platform until they got confused about how to lend your friends a game disc. Then, it became a dual threat PC and console hybrid platform, before eventually announcing that pretty much everything was to be considered an Xbox, from your phone to your laptop, and they’d probably have argued that even that PS5 of yours counts if you play their games on it. And a lot of people were, with the bulk of the top-selling games on the PlayStation Store coming out of Microsoft-owned companies. The only problem with all of this? Well, it meant that the only thing that didn’t feel much like an Xbox anymore was Xbox itself.

The last few years have been a major case of identity crisis for Xbox. On the one hand, they were tapping into a new revenue stream  on a new platform, but they were also selling fewer and fewer consoles, the tangible excitement of new game announcements making way for muddled questions over when it would be coming to PS5. Some of that couldn’t be helped – those pesky Activision agreements to keep Call of Duty multiplatform – but, PlayStation owners took a great deal of joy from playing Forza Horizon 5, Sea of Thieves and Indiana Jones and The Great Circle, when nothing was being sent back in return, and the push to make everything be an Xbox was stalling when subscriber counts for Xbox Game Pass weren’t climbing fast enough.

Phil Spencer passes the baton to incoming Xbox CEO Asha Sharma

Change, in retrospect, was needed quite desperately, and Asha Sharma has spent her first half year in the job plucking low hanging, fan-pleasing fruits. Xbox is now XBOX in all-caps, all of the time (except where people don’t want to write it like that), and the renewed logo now has a translucent green look to it. She then found a number of things to do that actually matter to the majority of gamers.

First up, she reduced the cost of Game Pass Ultimate, the monthly fees having ballooned to compensate for the addition of Call of Duty, and a lot of people (myself including) having let long-standing subscriptions lapse. Anything that makes gaming a bit more affordable in the midst of our inflation and cost of living-riddled lives. Behind the scenes, though, Xbox could probably see that COD hadn’t meaningfully moved the needle for subscriber counts in a way that would make up for the lost full sales and the increased subscriber churn. In fact, they lost “millions” after the 50% price hike from last year.

Secondly, and taking us back to this weekend’s Summer Games Fest Xbox showcase, she’s decided, right at the last minute, that exclusive games are a good thing. That means that this year’s Gears of War E-Day and next year’s Clockwork Revolution are console exclusive to Xbox – not timed exclusive, just exclusive – and PS5 owners won’t get a sniff of either of them.

This is probably how PS5 owners looked when E-Day was made Xbox exclusive.

It might be a stretch to say that PS5 owners at large are especially angry about this, but it’s certainly a shift away from their chosen platform being the one console to rule them all. Xbox are leaving money on the table, but you have to imagine that Asha Sharma has wondered just how much of the business will be left if it doesn’t make a serious claim as a console platform of its own.

It was all starting to look and feel a bit Sega, who bowed out of the console race with the Dreamcast to turn to third-party publishing, and with no console exclusives and Project Helix mooted to be closer to a PC than a pure console, the pivot back is a major signal. To be clear, there are still Xbox Game Studios games in the pipeline that are coming to PS5, and quite a lot of them – Halo, Fable, Forza Horizon 6, Senua, State of Decay 3 – but keeping something behind is significant, and the decision will be back to being on a game-by-game basis going forward.

Fable is still locked in for PS5 in 2027

Is this better? For Xbox gamers, it surely has to be, as exclusives are really the only reason to draw players to their platform over Sony’s. For PS5, it’s a blow to lose access to some potentially great games, but then there’s exclusives of their own to enjoy. And if Sony has a slower year? Well maybe a few more eyes will look at greener looking grass over the fence.

For Microsoft and its gaming division, there’s a huge question mark over the entire enterprise. They’ve surely invested well over $100 billion by now between all their acquisitions and ongoing development costs, but there’s been further costs of cancelled games, closed studios and mass layoffs. Whatever upside Game Pass had through the past decade, you have to wonder how financially viable the subscription model truly is.

Clawing back some exclusives seems sensible, but in Gears of War E-Day and Clockwork Revolution they seem to have chosen a franchise that remains indelibly linked to Xbox and one of their more niche titles (as fantastic as it does look). Fable and Forza Horizon 6 definitely have a wider appeal, and while making money is still part of Sharma’s remit, it’s going to take some real console-selling exclusives to get people to choose an Xbox over a PS5, or, indeed a PC. These two don’t feel like the games that will make that happen.

Which takes us back to Marcus Fenix’s jacket. I don’t think any character in the history of gaming has ever looked quite so silly in their civvies, and after shrugging off a few rounds from one of the Locust guns, it seems that his smart casual attire has the same properties as his full suit of COG armour. Gears of War E-Day could be the best Gears game yet, but that jacket had better receive a swift chainsaw to the seams. Console exclusives are a necessary part of the industry, but if you want something to be angry about, join me in rallying against this poor fashion choice. Who’s with me?

It seems there will be a cut scene which will end the story with a very handwavey “It’s all fine now”, but say goodbye properly, some of the voice actors have taken to social media to deliver messages in character.

First up, Nathan Fillion, who played Cayde-6.

Next up, a double act of Glint (Richard Slonker) and Crow (Brandon O’Neill)

Eris Morn (Morla Gorrondona) has one final message

And saving the best till last, Svathun (Debra Wilson has final words and remains a complete bitchy Queen!

“All things must come to an end.. and quite frankly I’m sick of looking at your faces.” – brilliant!

The final update for Destiny 2 drops tonight with at 27gb download and patch notes the size of an encyclopaedia.

The developers have alos been saying goodbye , here’s a message from the Destiny 2 art team.

To the Destiny 2 community,

Thank you.

As artists, our goal has always been to create worlds filled with wonder, mystery, beauty, and adventure. But what brings those worlds to life is you. You take our designs, our napkin sketches, our “wouldn’t it be cool if…” ideas and transform them into something real. Your creativity, your passion, and your love for the game give our work purpose.

We’ve always believed Destiny could be a place where expression is celebrated, where players can see themselves and each other in the worlds we build, where every Guardian can forge their own legend—and you proved it.

Watching your Guardians grow, embrace new allies, take down bigger and badder bosses, solve mind-bending puzzles, dodge death traps, avoid Taken boopers, and overcome every Raid challenge we throw at you—all while looking incredible—has been a constant reminder of why this universe matters.

You shaped it. You made it matter. You are the light of Destiny.

With Monument of Triumph, we set out to create a series of love letters to Guardians, new and old. We shared a preview last week of armor inspired by early designs from the original Destiny but have also sprinkled some winks and nods throughout the rewards releasing tomorrow. We hope they feel like a small thank you for everything you’ve given us.

From all of us on the Destiny 2 art team, thank you for supporting us, inspiring us, and continuing to bring this world to life in ways we could never have imagined. You give our art meaning.

With gratitude,

The Destiny 2 Art Team

And here’s a farewell from the Audio team…

Guardian,

For more than a decade your triumphs have echoed across the Sol system; a resounding chorus of bravery, selflessness, and teamwork. Of running towards danger with enthusiasm. You have faced down invincible foes and solved intractable challenges. You’ve explored countless locales, filled your vaults with all manner of Exotic gear, and even defeated gods at chess. Truly your accomplishments are without equal.

The journey of Destiny 2 has been unforgettable for us, full of moments of joy and awe, as we have watched Guardians overcome the challenges put before them; to come together in the spirit of teamwork and overcome the odds; to rise, and to fall, and to rise once again.

We’re proud to present this collection of music, our largest Destiny 2 soundtrack release ever, featuring a wide range of tones and moods. These songs have accompanied your triumphs throughout the game and continue to reflect one of Destiny’s enduring themes: an unwavering optimism for a brighter future, even in the darkest moments.

We hope you enjoy this collection of music as you continue your journey in Destiny 2 and beyond. For your next Sparrow race, your next quiet moment contemplating an impossible vista, or your next battle to protect those who need it most.

Thank you for being a Guardian. May this music accompany you into the future, wherever in the stars your destiny takes you.

BUNGIE AUDIO TEAM

Speaking at The Game Business Live today (as noted by GameSpot), Xbox’s new chief strategy officer Matthew Ball said, “We shed millions of subscribers over the span of a few months,” following the jump in price from $20 to $30 per month for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.

This was one of the last significant acts under the previous leadership of Xbox, and following Phil Spencer stepping down, one of the first major policy changes that new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma made was to lower the cost of Game Pass Ultimate again, bringing it back down to $23 a month. That’s still a bump, but Ball says “the value has changed.”

The primary reason for that price increase, we can reasonably speculate, was that Xbox had added Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 as a day one game for Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass in late 2024, hoping to spur on a fresh batch of subscribers. That announcement already heralded a price increase and Game Pass Standard losing day one game access. A year later, in advance of the same for Black Ops 7, the price increased by a whopping 50% with the token inclusion of Ubisoft+ and Fortnite Crew subscriptions.

Microsoft has not divulge subscriber counts in a long time, but claimed 34 million subscribers for Game Pass across all tiers in February 2024. This included the base level of Game Pass Core (now Game Pass Essential) which is required for online play in paid games and has a significantly smaller library of games than other higher tiers. The LinkedIn page of an Xbox program manager then leaked a 35 million subscriber figure in mid-2025, but again, we don’t know the breakdown of tiers.

Either way, losing “millions” from those counts would be a significant dent, and many of them would likely have come from that highest priced tier, adding weight to their departure. Is the $23 per month price bringing all those people and more back to the subscription service? We don’t know right now, but it would at least go some way to levelling off the subscriber count.

via GameSpot

Spotted by ResetEra user Jessie.Bristol, the video was quickly taken offline and made private, but not before screenshots were taken.

Microsoft have said the game is only coming to Xbox and PC.   A statement on Xbox Wire read, “As part of our focus on the return of XBOX, we also announced that Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution will be XBOX console exclusives. These are not timed exclusives. Games already announced for multiplatform releases will stick to that plan – we’re committed to investing in and growing XBOX both on console and beyond.”

You can read more about Microsoft’s return to exclusivity here, and for everything about Gears of War E-Day, click here. 

Source: ResetEra

Per GameSpot, Ball said, “The crisis is not yet getting better,” in reference to current hardware supply, but also that “We are very cognizant of the ways in which we need the change as a company to make sure it is affordable, to make sure that it’s flexible. We are working hard to rethinking what that console model can look like, not in an exclusionary way, but in an additive way, so that as we take a look at this crisis, which may have acute effects for 2-2.5 years.”

What this means is a long way from being clear. Under the previous leadership, the next Xbox was rumoured to be targeting a broader more PC-like approach, allowing for rival digital storefronts such as Steam to enter the market. With Xbox now reconsidering their position on game exclusivity, and having reversed course with Xbox Game Pass pricing (after losing “millions” of subscribers, Ball admits) could they also rethink their plan and stick with the current single store position?

Gears of War E-Day is now a full Xbox exclusive

Ball could also be referring to the hardware capabilities and raw specs. The Xbox Series X, for example, has a larger and therefore more expensive chip than the PS5, having opted for a GPU with more compute units at a lower clock speed. It also has 16GB of RAM, 10GB of which runs faster than the PS5. On the other hand, the SSD used in the Series X is slower than that of the PS5. It’s all tradeoffs, but with AI companies putting pressure on RAM and storage in particular, the hardware team could be looking at a smaller, higher-clocked GPU, less RAM, perhaps a sacrifice on some AI processing aspects, and more. This would not be a small change and would take time.

“We are working very hard to figure out the best way to navigate it or a way that works for everyone, that does not ask too much from players, but also does detract from the other investments that we need to make as a company,” he added. “We also have tens of millions of people who we ask to spend $500 which is still an incredible sum of money. Those people that we asked to buy a console years ago, we still have an obligation to them to meet their expectations and to have them feel rewarded for which platform they chose.”

Unfortunately for Ball, he’s committed a classic politician faux pas of not knowing the cost of a loaf of bread. Xbox Series X isn’t $500 anymore and hasn’t been for over a year when Microsoft bumped up prices around the world. The current price of a full-fat Xbox Series X in the US is $650.

Despite the price rises, and in a related point, Ball noted that demand for Xbox consoles is outpacing their supply. “We are producing them as quickly as possible. These is a severe limitation to how quickly we can do that, but it’s not a question of appetite.”

It might be ludicrous to think that Microsoft, of all companies, could be struggling with pricing and demand, but that’s not the reality of modern hardware manufacturing. Companies have to lock in their production capacity in advance, and given how this generation has panned out, Microsoft would have a smaller assignment and smaller contracted supplies of RAM and other components than Sony has for the PS5.

And again, Microsoft has a massive hand in the current situation, investing massively in OpenAI, splashing cash on plans for new server farms, shoving Copilot AI into anything and everything they can in Windows 11 (and now backtracking on that because people don’t like and/or use it).

But Ball is a “strategic optimist”, and after discussions with the senior leadership, “All of that bolstered my confidence from the original disposition of strategic optimism. If we can turn this company around and grow it, do better by our players, and we need to do that, and we are; we languished for several years.”

Source: GameSpot

Valheim 1.0 will have crossplay between all of the platforms so up to 10 players can work together to explore, build settlements, and fight monsters. Valheim originally launched back in February 2021 and quickly went on to become one of the biggest breakout hits of the year. Its lo-fi visuals, Viking theme, and refined survival gameplay created the perfect storm, no doubt fuelled by the increasing boredom of gamers stuck in lockdown. Over ten million copies were sold in the game’s first year.

Valheim Early Access Preview – A survival game with a sense of purpose

In our Valheim Early Access preview, Thomas said, “Valheim, while a bit rough around the edges, has a number of genuinely nice touches to its gameplay. When cooking food, you have to actually stand by it as it cooks and take it off when it’s ready – leave it on for too long and you’ll be left with a piece of coal – but stand by a fire in a cramped space and you’ll start to die due to smoke inhalation. For a game that’s just entered Early Access, Valheim already feels like a mostly complete game. The future feels bright for Valheim. With a solid arrangement of survival systems already in place, an engaging array of boss battles and plenty of extra touches, I can’t wait to see how the community shapes and guides this survival sim’s future development. This is definitely one to watch out for.”

Source: Steam

From the more stealthy survival action of the first two A Plague Tale games, through which Amicia had to avoid head-on confrontations, it’s a surprising change of pace playing Resonance, a game that is much more combat heavy and in the style of a classic blockbuster action-adventure. Sophia has been trained in the fighting pits by her plundering gang, and that sets her in good stead when facing off against the more organised forces that are chasing the same treasures and myths that she is.

With both a sword and dagger in hand, Sophia’s approach to combat would surely be considered dishonourable by some of the soldiers that she fights against. It’s a no-holds-barred approach that leans on parries and dodges, but also allows Sophia to take the front foot. It’s a familiar style of combat gameplay to other melee action adventures, so enemies winding up for attacks are signalled with yellow glints for those you can parry and red for those you need to evade. A simple parry won’t immediately open an enemy up for a counter (unless you get perfect timing) so you need to chain them together to break their guard – a second meter below an enemy’s health bar – to unlock a quick finisher. Then again, for basic enemies you can often just cut them down with a string of rapid strikes of your own.

Tougher enemies will force you to be more considered in your approach, but Sophia’s clearly a bit of a scrapper. I loved being able to kick enemies off the side of bridges and ledges – AC Odyssey’s Spartan Kick is here in spirit – but she can also use her grapple hook to drag enemies towards her. That’s particularly useful when archers try to stay out of the fight on higher ledges, either pulling them down to somewhere you can reach them or, in a moment of devilish level design, having them standing right above some spiked pits.

You see, the chapter of Resonance that we got to play saw Sophia and her partner Leni arriving on the Minotaur’s island and taking their first steps down into the maze of puzzles and trials. Key to this is Sophia’s stolen Minoan ball, a strange device that has multiple purposes and uses. When stood in the light, it can catch it and brightly reflect into Sophia’s surroundings, revealing hidden paint that provides clues and pointers for the puzzle room you’re in.

That’s often the key, whether it’s revealing the runes that you need to select when placing the ball into special pedestals, or showing the path across spike traps. There’s one particular segment that features a huge cavern with the whole floor made of these spike traps, Leni having to control a reflecting dish so that Sophia can reveal the safe path to follow, but with dangling obstructions forcing you to remember certain sections.

It might not be mind-blowingly original in terms of gameplay, but the blend of traversal through this ancient setting, the puzzling and moments of drama and combat were paced really well through this stage.

There’s also plenty of narrative drive and mystery to this segment. Sophia has long had dreams of glittering, golden circles, and she’s clearly afflicted by some kind of curse, given the blackened, stony appearance to her left forearm. There’s moments where visions take over, almost luring her to her demise as you follow an imagined path ahead, or when confronted with a room filled with corpses frozen in running poses, she’s transported back to inhabit Theseus at the heights of the Minoan civilisation.

Suddenly, the ruins are resplendent, the statues lining the passageway lit from flame-filled channels and you run forward to a huge arena filled with thousands of onlookers. As sparks fly around you, Theseus is just one of dozens of competitors heading across a bridge to a central column with a pit in the middle, as an announcer claims that a beast will soon arise. But the minotaur needs sacrifice, it needs blood, and the final stage of this competition is a battle royale, a frenzied bloodbath as everyone turns on each other.

Theseus can carve his way through this with ease. That pit is far too inviting not to kick unsuspecting rivals down, for one thing, but he’s a master swordsman and can unleash a devastating attack after chaining moves together.

It’s a great interlude before switching back to Sophia and Leni just as mirrored dishes emerge and the final challenge of facing the minotaur is about to consume the competitors. Stepping into the same arena, now much the worse for wear, and having to solve that puzzle and reveal the path ahead.

Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy gripped me from the start of my preview to the end. I’m intrigued to learn more about Sophia, and the way that Asobo will explore the myth of the minotaur through her, while embracing that more direct action-adventure approach to gameplay and tone. Whether you’re a fan of A Plague Tale already, or are keen for a new Uncharted or Tomb Raider-like romp, you should keep an eye out for Resonance’s release at the end of August.

With our hands on finished, and thoughts of brutal melee combat, visions of Theseus’ fight to reach the Minotaur, and so much more still swimming in our head, we sat down with Lead Writer Carol Ann Bañuls to chat about this new direction for the game.

TSA – So, where do we begin? There’s far fewer rats in this game. Was that nice to get away from the rats for a while?

Carol Ann – [laughs] Well… I would say there’s still a lot to discover in the game and you only played Chapter 4, so yeah…

TSA –Oh, so Chapter 5 is when all the rats start?

Carol Ann – No, I can’t really say, I can’t spoil anything. But I think it’s different, you know? It’s a part of having a new experience in this series.

TSA – Yeah, I do think it is interesting to take this diversion because like a lot of people already have that attachment to Amicia and Hugo’s story and what to see what the next chapter is from there.

Carol Ann – Actually, you know, we of course, we really talked about doing that, but we felt like Amicia and Hugo’s stories reached a very powerful and emotional conclusion and end point. So I think we wanted to respect that.

I can never say never, but it was time to see things from a different perspective in the universe. So this was a way to expand it and to maybe to bring some new players who are more into action gameplay. We really hope that, because this is a stand along, so you don’t need to apply the two previous game to understand this one.

TSA – Yeah, and I’ll admit that it was a little bit surprising to me how much of a shift the gameplay was taken towards much more direct action adventure. Yeah. And like a lot of people are obviously going to say it uncharted, Tomb Raider… I guess the cheap question to ask is, like, where is obviously inspirations that you were able to draw upon?

Carol Ann – So, Ghost of Tsushima for the combat, for the fighting, definitely. Like you say, Uncharted; we wanted an action-adventure game, third person, and so Uncharted definitely, Tomb Raider, and The Last of Us for the emotional storytelling, because this is in the DNA of A Plague Tale and we really wanted to keep that.

TSA – I had a lot of fun with the combat. It’s very playful (within the brutality of it), and I really enjoyed grappling people, pulling them into spike…

Carol Ann – It’s so satisfying, right?

TSA – And I’ll come back to Theseus for all the kicking in a minute, but having Sophia as the new lead character here, what can you really tell us about her?

Carol Ann – So Sophia is a plunderer who was born and grew up in a gang of plunderers in Venice, led by her father. She learned to fight from a very young age, and I can say without spoiling that she went through some deep and violent experiences when she was young. This is what shaped her as an adult, as we see in Requiem.

She’s cunning, always one step ahead, but I think she’s the kind of character you kind of admire, because she’s’s strong, and you’ll really resonates with her when you see the cracks beneath the armour.

TSA – Yeah, I feel that she’s masking a little bit. There’s also something going on with her hand, which isn’t really talked about in the section we played, and I’m not sure if you can…

Carol Ann – Oh… you noticed that?

TSA – [laughs] Well yeah, I noticed the hand being a completely different colour, and they’re talking about curses a lot!

But OK, we also have Leni as a foil to her, a companion and a friend. It’s always important for these kinds of games to have that second character for the back and forth.

Carol Ann – Definitely, it is really interesting and Leni is a key character in the game because she’s the one pushes Sophia to be vulnerable. She’s definitely important to her and to us in the game.

TSA – Let’s talk a bit about the mythology that you’re exploring here with Theseus and the MInotaur. I’ve literally just been playing another game with this myth, so it’s quite fresh in my mind, and that makes me think about how difficult it is to find legends that haven’t really explored so deeply, and then also put your own spin on things so you can always put this.

Carol Ann – This is what I was going to say, because we definitely puts our own interpretation of the myth. […]

There was one point in the game’s production where we said, OK, we want to talk about the island of the Minotaur, but are we going to show that through runes and frescos? Or are you going to experience it? So it was really cool for us to propose an immersive experience and to be Theseus.

TSA – Was there any thought, as you have these two different periods, about differentiating the level of brutality between the ages? It’s easy to picture ancient history and cultures as being more savage – which isn’t particularly true, from what we see around the world.

Carol Ann – This is an interesting question. We worked with historian on this, so we asked ourselves this question, and I think we like the parallels between the two eras and the violence. The Minotaur actually represents violence, instinct, loss of control, so I think it was interesting to see that Sofia has journey is really resonating, echoing with Theseus. 
So in terms of violence, yeah, you find find it in both sides of the journey.

Thanks to Carol Ann for chatting to us about Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy. We had a great time playing a chapter from the game, which you can read all about here. Resonance will launch for PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC on 27th August.

The Nintendo Direct will kick off at 3PM UK time (7AM PT / 10AM ET / 4PM CEST) and will run for aorund 50 minutes to highlight upcoming Switch 2 and Switch games.

You can watch it here:

Right after the stream is finished, the stream will roll into a Nintendo Treehouse: Live to dig a little deeper into some of the games and announcements from the show.

What will Nintendo show off, though? Well, Star Fox is out in just a couple weeks, and Splatoon Raiders is due in July, but Nintendo tend to look a little further afield than that when revisiting already announced games. We could expect to see an update on Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave, for example, and people would lose their minds for another trailer to FromSoftware’s The Duskbloods. With 50 minutes to fill, though, I would expect there to be a boat load of new announcements from both first and third parties as the Switch 2 kicks on in its second year.

Speaking with Gamertag Radio Xbox Chief Content Officer Matt Booty explained that this is not a hard and fast rule, but much more nuanced.

“We know that exclusives are important, that’s why we’ve got Gears [of War: E-Day] coming in 2026, Clockwork [Revolution] in 2027.” Booty said, but also noted that “If we’ve promised something to players already, we are going to honour that promise.,” Booty stated, adding exclusivity will be determined on a case-by-case basis.

This follows up the statement on Xbox Wire that, “As part of our focus on the return of XBOX, we also announced that Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution will be XBOX console exclusives. These are not timed exclusives. Games already announced for multiplatform releases will stick to that plan – we’re committed to investing in and growing XBOX both on console and beyond.”

We can break this down into three buckets:

• Live service and multiplayer-first games will all be coming to PS5 in addition to Xbox and PC.
• Any game already announced and confirmed for PlayStation 5 will still be coming to PS5.
• Everything else will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Got that? Let’s look at some examples.

Call of Duty will obviously never now be an exclusive – and it’s not clear how this statement relates to Activision anyway – given that it’s heavily multiplayer focussed and has long-standing promises about multi-platform availability.

Halo: Campaign Evolved and Fable were previously announced for PS5, and so they will still come to PlayStation. For the future of Halo, Microsoft will need to decide if it’s a live service or multiplayer-first series, but there’s now precedent for a remake or remaster to then not have a cross-platform sequel – Gears Reloaded and E-Day.

State of Decay 3, which is heavily co-op and online similar to a Grounded 2 makes sense to be cross-platform, but then Senua, which is a single-player action-adventure game would surely have been a prime candidate to be Xbox exclusive. But maybe that gets an exclusion because the first game launched first for PlayStation 4?

And, look, The Elder Scrolls VI will be on PlayStation because they want it to sell bucket loads after the middling reception to Starfield, but now there’s a seed of doubt about it, isn’t there?

In general, I think I’m in favour of Microsoft going back to having exclusives. It does feel odd having Halo and Gears on PlayStation, but there do need to be good reasons for people to stay with Xbox as a platform (or PC) for it to remain viable. So this is a good move for the platform as a whole, but let’s not pretend that it isn’t just like in 2023 when the former executive team struggled to explain what the plan really was.

Source: Xbox, Gamertag Radio via VGC

1666: Amsterdam is both new and familiar. The prologue starts with Noa, the main protagonist, walking through the woods to attend her commencement ceremony that will bind her to her familiar and also confirm her as The Collector. Her role as The Collector is to find The Originals, entities that have lived for centuries using their power to corrupt and twist mankind to their own benefit. The Zaindaris, an ancient group, has raised and trained Noa to claim that power back from The Originals that hide in plain sight within Amsterdam.

Key to her ability to fight back against these forces is the Nux, a latent form of magic that Noa can wield. Through the opening walk through the woods, you’re introduced to using the Nux by picking out points of interest and using it to carry out actions – in this demo, this was limited to lighting torches and picking out a feline familiar.

Record scratch, freeze frame, and I bet that cat is wondering how they got into this mess.

The prologue then switches scene and era by jumping ahead to the modern day where Clio meets Professor Lucas in his library. She has been sent to this meeting by her father, Aaron, along with a coded manuscript which she hopes to have deciphered. What follows is a short gameplay segment where Clio walks around the library to find clues in how to unlock the manuscript to find what her father wanted her discover. It’s straightforward as you find the relevant books on certain topics from their corresponding shelves, eventually following their clues to draw out Clio’s own ability to use the Nux and read the message left to her by her father.

Aaron, it turns out, has led a thoroughly unusual life, telling Clio of a city break to Amsterdam he enjoyed with her mother, Agnes in 1999, right on the cusp of the new millennium. It’s pretty clear that Aaron and Agnes are pretty hot for one another, walking through an especially convoluted hotel ground floor to reach their room, where Agnes has prepared a special time with candles, mirrors and a whole ritual. Aaron talks in the narration about his fascination with the ancient artefacts that Agnes has gathered, but that’s clearly not his only interest.

So, anyway, Aaron’s conjugals with a witch get him turned into a cat, and I think you can tell where this is heading. Now able to wander through the hotel with time frozen, it’s fun to be able to leap around, jumping up onto surfaces and over obstacles before heading down an otherworldly corridor and being transported all the way back to 1666, eventually leaping into Noa’s arms.

Of course, Aaron has a lot of questions, but the answers to that will come in due course as the pair of them explore the streets and buildings of Amsterdam to find The Originals from two very different perspectives.

After playing the 1666: Amsterdam, there is a familiarity to it with the Assassin’s Creed DNA showing through. The story is of a bloodline linked through time with players experiencing both the past and present through characters that are genetically linked, and there is a historic struggle between groups that seek to use ancient powers in different ways. 1666: Amsterdam does have potential and the premise is an intriguing one. I had hoped the demo would have shown a bit more of the powers that Noa wields, but at least you get to try out playing as a cat.

Do you want to try out 1666: Amsterdam’s prologue for yourself? Find it on Steam today.

Developers Cosmic Void have made a name for themselves in the point and click adventure community, especially with their previous horror title, Devil’s Hideout. Their low-fi, retro pixel artstyle and focus on logical puzzle structure and narrative is a breath of fresh air in a genre that can sometimes descend into frantically trying every possible combination of items and locations in the hope of stumbling upon a solution. Throughout the couple of hours I spent with Midnight Saturn there were no real brick walls to batter my head against – instead what I got was a well paced and enjoyable slice of pulp science fiction.

You play as Simms, a grizzled private eye who is well used to getting his hands dirty in search of both the truth and a paycheck. While the world of Midnight Saturn is filled with references to interplanetary travel and colonies in far flung worlds, it feels rooted in a grimy American city, much as Deckard’s work in Blade Runner did. You do interact with elements that do not come from this world but everything takes place in a way that is grounded and logical. All dialogue is voiced effectively too, with good performances that make each character stand out as individuals.

The pixel graphics here are perfect for the genre, clearly offering a nod to classic Lucasarts and Sierra titles, but there is also an interesting focus on a very purple palette that gives everything a feeling of unease. Backdrops are detailed but avoid the overly busy excesses of some point and click games so that interactive items are easy to spot without pixel hunting (and there is a show hotspots button if you need as well). The end result is a game that pushes you through its narrative rather than deliberately frustrating you. This is also evident through the relatively focused number of locations available and each one is removed from the map once you have exhausted all the puzzles and dialogue relating to it.

Simms is a likeable protagonist and clearly a hit with the ladies, as almost every female character seems to want to date him. This is a nice nod to the conventions of the detective genre, where femme fatales and dependable and plucky women abound, and one that also feeds into the development of the well told mystery story. This story revolves around the murder of a seedy lawyer who is renowned for finding ways to get criminals off the hook. As Simms investigates, however, he uncovers a conspiracy that could have far reaching ramifications and a pressing deadline of the titular midnight.

Gameplay here is very much in the traditional vein of point and click adventures. Navigate the screens, talk to everybody, and find objects to solve puzzles. Midnight Saturn also adds several environmental or logical puzzles that mix things up from the conventions of finding and combining items from your inventory, with one actually requiring careful positioning on the screen to avoid Simms being spotted. These were well pitched and fun to solve without being overly taxing.

In keeping with Lucasarts finest titles, there are no hard fail conditions in Midnight Saturn. Simms will gently berate the player for trying illogical or absurd solutions, and the focused locations ensure that there isn’t the scope for aimless wandering. It very much feels like a distillation of the enjoyable gameplay mechanics of the genre without the wrinkles and warts that can appear. It would make for a perfect first game for newcomers to the genre as well as those who like their adventure games to balance the puzzles with the narrative.

Arriving seven years after the original, Frontier are able to make leaps ahead in terms of the underlying game engine, which lends itself to some truly stunning new visuals. This is a new version of Frontier’s own Cobra engine, that goes beyond just enabling higher quality assets for foliage, rocks and the general terrain, but also brings a new global illumination lighting system, proper ambient occlusion and more to the table. There’s still a slightly odd juxtaposition of the cartoony human guests and the realistic environments and now increasingly realistic animals, but it works.

Let’s start with a dip below the water surface, whether it’s crocodiles needing a mixed habitat, able to move from land to water and creating proper physics-based waves, or with the new aquariums with delightful crepuscular rays cast through the water. These are a million miles away from just placing water tanks in a building, and can be sculpted habitats filled with dozen of different types of sea creatures, with side-on viewing windows for guests who, perhaps, pass through adjacent cave systems to witness the majesty. Staff, meanwhile, will have to don wet suits with goofy fishbowl-style headgear, passing in and out of aquariums to clean, perform maintenance and all their other tasks.

There’s two types of sea creature, with ‘hero animals’ like turtles and the derpy looking sunfish, or with the various shoals of smaller fish. The hero creatures have the full welfare requirements, while shoals are dealt with as a group, and all will have their natural desires for depth, creating a layered visual experience. There’s dynamic pathing through the environments – you could created underwater arches and tunnels for fish to pass through, for example – and the brand new creature animation rigging enabled the very different motions that are needed for swimming for the different species.

In that regard, there’s a lot of crossover with birds and flying creatures. Again, Frontier had to handle a completely different style of motion with hopping and flying, full 3D pathing as bird fly between trees, branches and other perching spots, and the task of capturing the look of our fine and feathered friends. Another key aspect is their aviary habitats, because birds would just fly away if they could. Aviaries have roofs that are dynamically generated for you based on the boundary fences and the supporting poles that you place, with various angles and heights. The roof is then automatically generated and adjusted on-the-fly as you make tweaks and changes, whether it’s a mesh (for which you can control the tension and sag), glass or other materials.

It’s not just the new types of creature that have been lavished with love and attention, and Frontier also showed off how they’ve improved their ground game. You can construct large wooden climbing frame structures for monkeys and apes – the Western Chimpanzee in this demo – and beyond great looking fur and more detailed faces, the new animation rigging allows for much better behaviours. There’s better climbing animations and transitions from walking to climbing, and creatures will figure out for themselves if they would rather jump across a corner of the frame instead of walking all along. More ambient behaviours mean they can hang or sleep while dangling limbs off a beam, so this goes beyond simple navigation.

Tigers are another great example of the improved fur shaders, and Frontier can now layer animations together on top of basic movements, so you can read an animal’s demeanour – this particular tiger looked generally lethargic and unhappy, needing water because she was thirsty.

Adding a pool of water was a one-click action for a depression in the terrain, and after a little drink, the tiger was immediately more active, moving a bit quicker and happily starting to rub on the scenery and scratch on a tree. That’s right, scratching and similar happy animal behaviours are no longer restricted to the enrichment items that you place, and they will be able to use trees and other appropriate elements as well.

It’s a pretty comprehensive improvement for the animals, and it gets better for the humans as well. There’s more detail and business to all the staff areas, so you can see people at work, and open plaza areas are now featured, similar to Planet Coaster 2. The Workshop is also now integrated into the building and item browser, so players will be able to draw upon curated and general player creations, quickly grabbing them and dropping them into your own world – great for someone who just wants something that look nice but doesn’t have the desire to dig into the deeper creation tools themselves. The possibilities, though, are delightful, a gift shop with multiple angles roofs, full sized windows, doors or not, and plenty more fine details.

But this isn’t just about your zoo, or even your family of zoos. Planet Zoo 2 is leaning in on the conservationist message of the first game even further, presenting wildlife reserves on the world map, allowing you to invest in and restore these wide open regions and release animals back into the wild to live out their lives. These aren’t structured like zoos, so there’s no cut off habitats, it’s just an open region with some observation spots for staff, allowing herds of giraffes and elephants to roam freely.

It’s a delightful meta-layer to Planet Zoo 2 that shows that Frontier really cares about this angle. It’s all well and good tweaking habitats and watching happiness stats and meters within your zoo, attracting guests to see and appreciate the breadth of what the natural world has to offer, but zoos are about far more than entertainment, and it’s great to see that featured within this game.

Set in Montreal, the typical vampire politicking and back-stabbing is taking place. Waking up after decades of torpor, you’ll have to investigate your own past, navigate an unfamiliar vampire society, and then shape the world through choices and deep roleplaying. It’s a familiar sounding set up – one that is an echo of Bloodlines 2 – though what comes from that beginning can go in very different directions. In particular, failure is absolutely a possibility here, reshaping the continuing narrative in a “fail forward” fashion.

Here’s the synopsis:

Montreal has changed.

The Sabbat is gone. New powers rule from the shadows. Old loyalties have decayed beneath neon lights, abandoned cathedrals and the ruins of forgotten faiths.

You are Gabe, a vampire awakened from decades of torpor with fractured memories and a past buried deeper than the dead. Guided by Sam, a reluctant Thin-Blood, what begins as a hunt for a rogue ghoul spirals into a dangerous conspiracy tied to the Temple of Eternal Whispers, a vast underground cathedral built in devotion to a forbidden faith.

Your return was no accident.

As you investigate the mystery surrounding your forgotten past, you uncover disturbing truths about the Sabbat. Your release sets forgotten forces into motion, while something ancient still lies buried beneath the city, a secret capable of reshaping Montreal’s undead society forever. The deeper you delve into your connection with the Temple of Eternal Whispers, the more you unravel the darkness buried within yourself. Will you embrace the monstrous legacy of your Sabbat origins, or fight to preserve the last remnants of your humanity?

Co-Founder and Creative Director at Flyos, Gary Paitre, said, “I’ve been playing Vampire: The Masquerade TTRPG for more than 25 years. The universe, its themes and the stories it creates have stayed with me for most of my life. That passion eventually pushed me to create Vampire: The Masquerade — Chapters, our narrative board game adaptation of the license, and later became the driving force behind Vampire: The Masquerade — Eternal Whispers.

“With Eternal Whispers, our ambition is to deliver a mature and atmospheric CRPG that sits at the crossroads of classic role-playing games and modern narrative experiences such as Disco Elysium. We want to create a game where personal horror, exploration, and meaningful choices are just as important as atmosphere and storytelling.”

Source: press release

As was recently teased, Armageddon is an early focal point for the game, the planet that is repeatedly the nexus of the war between Orks and the Imperium – And yes, Yarrick and Ghazghkull Thraka will be able to face off. It’s not clear if that’s the latest war for Armageddon, or if the team are choosing one of the earlier wars as a starting point to grow from.

One of the key areas that Creative Assembly is working to capture is the vast scale of the built up planets. Hive worlds, mining worlds and other parts of the Imperium’s galactic industrial complex will be represented, and then beyond that you have different planetary biomes. Heading down to the planet for battle, and vast hive cities can tower over the battlefield.

For the first time, CA is having to represent not just a continent or two, not even just a single planet or world, but entire solar systems and sectors for the first time. Solar systems can have multiple planets that you will fight across for supremacy. Naturally, with such a broad canvas, they’re able to claim that every playthrough will pan out differently.

Four factions will be playable to start with – Space Marines, Orks, Eldar and the Astra Militarum (AKA the Imperial Guard) – and you’ll have the ability to customise your troops, choosing colours, emblazening uniforms and armour with particular iconography and also affecting their gameplay style. Change a combat philogophy, arm them with tactical abilities, signature traits and arcane wargear.

Total War: Warhammer 40,000 is in development for PC, and coming to PS5 and Xbox for the first time in the series’ history.

Coming from the team behind Citizen Sleeper’s acclaimed dice-based RPG, Signet City is a post-punk setting filled with ecological collapse and govenernment overreach, inspired by the 1980s in the UK and how it affected cities of the North.

A distinctive element is the art style, which draws upon black and white photography, screentoned manga and pen and ink drawing for its monochrome visuals.

The experience plays out in the first person, though, as you are both a parasite and host, choosing paths and actions to navigate the world. Once again, you’ll be rolling dice in a tabletop-inspired RPG system, though here the emotions of your host will affect the chances of success.

via Steam

Carcass Clad will put you into a tank, the Sessa, splitting you into the distinct roles of commander, driver and gunner and tasking you with battling your way through a war-torn city of Vhorgorod. Communication will be key to your survival as you navigate devastated streets and survive tank combat battles.

Here’s a handy breakdown of the roles and the characters you’ll inhabit:

COMMANDER / Kanerva

Kanerva wanted above all an easy and glamorous life until the encroaching war forced her to enlist. Now the promise of a return to normalcy pushes her to become a ruthless commander. Visibility in the Yksiö is extremely limited. As Kanerva, you are the eyes and ears of the tank. Use your periscope to identify and range targets. Listen to your radio and chart safe routes through the city, locate useful items and potential threats. Keep a cool head, especially during combat. The tank and your crew survive by your orders.

GUNNER / Erkki

A lackadaisical man more accustomed to survival within dodgy gambling dens than the battlefield, gunner Erkki’s aim is as sharp as his wit. Make every shot count. As Erkki, you’re responsible for the Yksiö’s lumbering 158mm cannon. Use the inventory carousel to process scavenged supplies and refuel the tank. Keep your scanner trained towards potential threats. Load, aim, and at the perfect moment, fire from your scarce ammo supply. The enemy is protected, hit them where it hurts.

DRIVER / Taisto

Content with a simple life in the Savori countryside, the draft forced Taisto to switch from rickety homespun rally cars to the Yksiö’s 70 tons of steel. Powerful but unwieldy, the Yksiö is an extremely easy target when handled carelessly. As Taisto, fire up your V10 engine to manoeuvre over Vhorgorod’s crumbled remains. Closely manage fuel consumption and allocate power across the tank. Know when to hold steady for a perfect shot and when to shift into high gear and out-flank the enemy. They’ll be trying to do the same thing to you.

Source: press release

Cassette Beasts 2002 isn’t the 2002nd entry in the series, it’s more indicative of the setting. Now taking place in London in 2002, there’s a new era of monster-collecting to get up to, recording, battling and fusing over 250 beasts, playing solo or in multiplayer. You’ll be working to unmask a mysterious occultists that threatens the balance of the world around you.

For our Cassette Beasts review, Nic said, “Cassette Beasts is simply one of the best Pokémon-like games I’ve come across, and I’m looking forward to earning a 100% completion. With a massive end-game and modder support built in at release though, I feel like I’m going to get very sidetracked on the way there.”

It’s been a little while since the last original entry in the series, the Ancient China-based Stronghold Warlords, and Stronghold 4 is coming back to a Medieval European style setting.

Stronghold 4 will follow the tale of Penryn of Wethel, who rises from a humble shepherd to a military leader through the story. A cast of new and returning characters will guide his journey, including performances from Ben Starr, Samantha Béart, Walles Hamonde and Harry McEntire.

That story will play out across 22 missions, introducing you to managing your castle economy, battling hostile outlaws, rival laws and even preparing for the elements.

A demo will drop onto Steam on 23rd June, before heading into an Early Access release.

Meet PC Adam Watson, the local copper who’s rather keen to show you around and a bit of a braggard… and someone that will die in 30 days.

Meeting him is just the first part of a trailer that then delves into musical, horror action, redecorating, and hanging out with a talking cat.

I got to check out the game last year following its summer announcement, and thoroughly enjoyed its off-kilter mix of musical, hotel renovation and mild terror. I said, “After the music-filled announcement and the otherworldly twists that tail-ended that trailer, seeing the game in action, with the oh-so-easy to use redecorating tools, the characters and the ways that they’re brought together in inventive ways is a true delight. There Are No Ghosts at the Grand deserves its place on your wishlist for 2026.”

The definitive edition includes the base game, and the Opposing Fronts and Tales of Valor expansion, to make for a huge RTS bundle, but the most important aspects of it are technical improvements and visual sprucing up.

Similar to the Dawn of War remaster last year, Company of Heroes has been upgraded to 64-bit to be more compatible with modern platforms. From that baseline, Relic is then enhancing the visuals with improved lighting, shadows, water and reflections. The goal is to enhance but retain the original art style.

The following quality of life improvements and assurances are also coming:

• Enhanced A.I. delivers a more dynamic and challenging experience, with a new Ruthless difficulty option for the most hardened strategists
• Modernized User Interface and controls, including grid key support and fully customizable hotkeys
• Gameplay improvements such as vehicle reversing and automatic unit reinforcement at HQ
• Widescreen and ultrawide support with an optimized HUD and screen layout
• Full mod compatibility, supporting a 20-year catalogue of community-created content

“Company of Heroes – Definitive Edition celebrates the game that started it all and preserves its legacy for the next generation of players,” says Justin Dowdeswell, CEO at Relic Entertainment. “Company of Heroes is one of the most beloved strategy games ever made, and we want new players to experience it at its best, while giving our long-time fans the definitive way to relive it.”

Source: press release

There’s a lot of behind the scenes details – like how they found the same model of chainsaw as from the original game to recapture the sound – but we’re going to stick to the main gameplay features and information. You can always watch the full E-Day Direct to catch all the info.

Emergence Day in One City

Gears of War E-Day isn’t a globe-trotting adventure across Sera, but will instead see the events of Emergence Day how they unfold in the single city of Kalona across three days.

The game starts with Marcus and Dom reminiscing about Dom’s brother, who died in the Pendulum Wars that had just come to an end, but as news of tremors take over the new channels and then the Locust start to crawl out of the ground, they leap into action. At various points in the game, you’ll be able to take on side mission content from situations that you stumble across, such as COGs needing a bit of help or civilians in need.

While the game is not an open world, The Coalition has approached building it as though it is one. You’ll have a linear level to follow, but it takes place in a fully realised city which morphs and changes with massive destruction events, and the camera can pull back to show the whole vista.

Bravo Squad and a Chainsaw

Bravo Squad is more than just Marcus and Dom, and they’re joined by Mags Carter (played by Elizabeth Ludlow) and Lucas Reyes (played by Jake Ryan Lozano). Mags is a former Gear now working at Kalona’s Imulsion Refinery, while Lucas is a young cadet and comms officer who never saw the front lines.

There’s also some familiar faces returning, like Tai Kaliso from Gears 2. His appearance is the catalyst for the Lancer’s iconic chainsaw attachment – yes, that’s right, Gears of War E-Day will tell the origin story of a chainsaw gun.

The full game can be played in four-player co-op using these four characters, with support for two-player local split-screen retained.

Marcus can jump now

Taking the jump to Unreal Engine 5 as an opportunity for a blank slate for the gameplay. It will naturally retain the same cover shooter action, but cover transitions will be smoother, sprinting can now lead into sliding under objects and around corners, and climbing is now more broadly built into the environments to enable greater vertical spaces.

But also… you can jump now, hopping across gaps within the environment.

Weapons have also been rebuilt around their core principles, so the Gnasher is ultra-close range, the Longshot needs precision at distance. There’s new additions, though, such as the Gut Puncher grenade launcher that can fire with a player-controlled charge.

Multiplayer

The classic 4v4 game modes are back, with levels built throughout Kalona, but there’s also a new Horde Siege mode that takes the PvE experience even further. This is for 12 players, split into three squads, fighting to defend Kalona from huge moments.

The Coalition is planning a seasonal road map, with more details coming soon. An Open Beta weekend will also start on 6th August, with early access to this for Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass subscribers.

via Xbox Wire

Clowntown does have an element of competition too with the Contest Mode, in which players are not working with each other but facing off against each other in the minigames. The minigames themselves evolve from simple to slightly stress inducing. One of those is the Spelling Bee series. It starts with spelling short words, but the second stage is called Spelling Wasp in which a 28 word needs to be spelt. The final stage is called Bees Spelling where you have to grab bees and use them to spell words.

Clowntown is going to be released on PC via Steam, but there is no release date yet.

Source: Press Release

The game is a ” life-sim adventure” in which you explore a world via a non-linear narrative. It was first seen back in 2023, so this is not a new announcement despite what Xbox want you to think.

“You play as 11-year-old Jenny, a bright and energetic resident of the terrarium. But this isn’t just her story. Somewhere, buried deep under the summer days and small-town routines, is another life.”

An interesting twist is that days in Vivarium are synced to the player’s real-world calendar.

The game is coming to Xbox Series X|S, Game Pass, and PC via Steam.

Coming from UK-based studio Milktooth, there’s a little bit of heartbreak to the story of Bad Magpie. Magpie has been abandoned by her flock as she lives with just a single wing. So, she starts to compulsively try to collect trinkets in the hope of winning the affection of a fallen star.

It’s a non-linear open world that you can run around in, pecking, stealing, meddling with things that you find.

Milktooth is an independent games studio founded by artist Catherine Unger (Tangle Tower, Gibbon: Beyond the Trees), designer Daisy Fernandez (Card Shark, As Dusk Falls), and developer George Batchelor (Bird Alone, South of the Circle).

Modern Warfare 4 will see war reignite in the Korean peninsula, as North invades South, no doubt dragging America and maybe even China into the war. Certainly Captain Price has something to say about it with Task Force 141, but it’s not as clear cut as all that.

Traditionally the single player campaign in the game will have the arena multiplayer alongside, and Warzone will remain a free-to-play game alongside. However, DMZ is joining the premium package.

This will let you deploy solo or in a squad to a conflict zone, tasked with recovering military technology in the wake of the war. With changing weather, dynamic objectives and hostile forces you’ll have to get in, get the tech and get back out.

DMZ could be a great take on the extraction shooter, and will certainly bring it to the broadest audience yet, even as Arc Raiders has proven to be a major hit last year, and Marathon proved to be more of a cult hit so far.

Now set for a 2027 release, Microsoft has confirmed that this game will be an Xbox console exclusive, signifying a change in their cross-platform strategy, similar to the newly Xbox exclusive Gears of War E-Day.

The trailer blurb reads:

Change the past. Control the future.

When your gang’s heist goes sideways, you’re thrown back in time and discover your reality has been altered by the ruthless Lady Ironwood. In this first-person steampunk RPG, you’ll wield a powerful device to travel between past and present, rewriting the future of the city you call home—and changing the course of history however you see fit.

The game looks to have some of the tone and feel of BioShock Infinite, though it’s perhaps more deliberately off-kilter with its characters and scenarios that you’ll face.. There’s a somewhat dystopian looking clockwork world that you get to tear apart through the use of some crazy time travel shenanigans. You’ll be able to change the past, leading to a thoroughly different present. It all looks pretty great, if you ask me.

Here’s the trailer’s blurb:

Take flight on a brand-new adventure through a strange and wondrous realm. When Spyro finds himself stranded, his journey to discover a way home is interrupted by the arrival of a vicious invading force known as the Scavs. Spyro must make new allies and rise to protect this realm before it’s changed forever. Feel the freedom of flight as you soar above vibrant landscapes, weave between treetops, dive off massive landmarks and wing your way through this new realm in Spyro ’s boldest evolution yet. Carve your path through the skies and chain together dives, climbs and tight turns as you navigate the world your way.

There had been rumours of a new Spyro being in development at Toys for Bob for a few years now, the studio having confirmed a partnership with Microsoft that Toys for Bob while announcing their newfound independence in early 2024, splitting out following the Activision purchase.

Toys for Bob was founded all the way back in 1989, but had their biggest and most notable success decades later with the toys-to-life Skylanders series – itself a Spyro spin-off – which ran for a few years before the genre quickly peaked and faded into nothingness. They then created the very well received Spyro Reignited Trilogy and Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time in 2018 and 2020 respectively, and last year’s Crash Team Rumble. However, they had also been sucked into the Activision-wide grind to produce supporting content for the Call of Duty franchise. Thankfully, with the studio going independent, they’ve been able to escape that grind and get back reviving classic platformer franchises.

Earlier this week, some images leaked and were quickly taken down by Atlus and Sega. The green logo was shown, as well as some art featuring a female character with black and red hair and a blond male character.

Persona 6 will be coming to PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC, there was no release window.