Blizzard's Diablo series is what most people think of when they hear the term ARPG, but Path of Exile is without a doubt the closest runner-up. Itself directly and explicitly inspired by Diablo 2, Grinding Gear Games' free-to-play ARPG has an extremely dedicated and sizable player base all its own, and it's not hard to find genre enthusiasts who consider it their favorite for all sorts of reasons. The example we're here to talk about is Joe Ziegler, the game director best known for leading Riot's competitive shooter Valorant and later Bungie's extraction shooter Marathon, who says he has a staggering 3,437 logged in Path of Exile because of the unparalleled depth of buildcrafting it offers.

"ARPGs to me are [about the] buildcrafting and the cleverness of putting things together," Ziegler tells PC Gamer. "And I think Path of Exile is the most freeform version of that. The level of experimentation you can get in that game is so wide in terms of thinking about how you can make builds.

I play a variety of builds. I have a fondness for playing Totem builds, and then second to that is, when I'm feeling really lazy, I like one-button builds, like Whirlwind builds … that's the fun part of Path of Exile, to be honest, is that it's just such a Rube Goldberg machine of effects and things that you can make, and you're just trying to figure out how to deal the most damage and kill things the fastest."

You don't have to read a whole lot of my work to know I'm a lifelong Diablo nerd, and while I've tried so, so many times to get into Path of Exile, I always find myself lumbering back to Sanctuary. I don't know if it's just the nostalgia that's baked into my bones from 30 years of familiarity—it's probably that—but frankly, it's silly of me to even think I have the time for another ARPG obsession. Ziegler, meanwhile, can't move past the original Path of Exile even with glowing reviews for Path of Exile 2 Early Access.

"I think I've changed my expectation around ARPGs because of Path of Exile," he says. "It's funny because I've played Path of Exile 2, and it's a little bit more limiting, and it totally makes sense because it's built around more of an action environment. But I definitely feel like Path of Exile 1 was more meant for me."

The reason I've been explaining my own ARPG history is basically to say there are a million different reasons people play these types of games, and they can be extremely specific to each player. For me, I still play the original Diablo and Diablo 2 even more than Diablo 4 because they're extremely comforting worlds for me, and the simplicity makes them great for turning off my brain and idly playing while listening to my favorite podcasts.

When I was a kid, I played Diablo almost exclusively for PvP, but now it's just about returning to a familiar place, soaking in the immaculate vibes, and giving myself something to do when I don't feel like thinking. For those reasons, the complexity and focus on build theory in Path of Exile actually makes me a little less interested in investing the time in another massive game I don't have time for. To each, as they say, their own.

Path of Exile co-creator is "tentatively hopeful" Diablo 5 will stick the landing

Malls, in pop culture at least, are inhabited by three main groups. Zombies, the monster-battling kids from Stranger Things, and teenagers in Avril Lavigne music videos. Stupid Never Dies’ Davy is somehow all three at once: a hoodie-wearing defector from the zombie horde, facing off against other monsters in the hope of saving the life of – and winning the heart of – the cheerleader he’s crushing on. Even though they've never spoken, because she's in a kind of accidental cryostasis, in an ice-cream shop's storage freezer.

So, in short: he was a boy (before he died and rose again), she was a girl (before she gave herself the Walt Disney treatment). Can I make it any more obvious?

This ‘00s pop-punk vibe really does bleed into every part of Stupid Never Dies, from Davy’s baseball-cap-hoodie-&-kicks dress sense through to the game’s theme song (actually kind of a bop), which has a music video you can watch from the start menu. And, most striking of all, its zine collage aesthetic. Every cutscene, collectible, and bit of UI is composed of marker-pen scribbles, stickers, and images apparently torn out of a magazine, like a mixed-media shotgun blast to the eyeballs.

As for the mall? In Stupid Never Dies it’s a House Of Hades-style hub, with a host of friendly-ish faces – who include a were-chihuahua, a gargoyle in a shopping trolley, and the aforementioned icy crush – all waiting for Davy to return from adventures so they can sell him upgrades. Much like in Hades, once you’ve done all your admin it’s off to the underworld to see how deep you can go this time. Unlike Hades, the way you enter it is by flushing Davy down a toilet.

Get stupid

GPTRACK50 was founded by veteran Capcom producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi and Stupid Never Dies, the studio's debut, is basically a greatest-hits mashup of his back catalog. The maximalist punk style and fondness for toilet humor are a reminder that Kobayashi worked with Suda51 on Killer7. And once you’re in the dungeon, the combat mixes the aerial hack-and-slash and combo grading of Devil May Cry with the ridiculous crowds of enemies found in Sengoku Basara.

Not content to be purely a tribute act, though, Stupid Never Dies does throw a few new fresh ideas into the mix. And, in classic Capcom fashion, a whole new vocabulary of terminology to go along with them. There’s Davy Burst, Stupid Parries, Heat Attacks, Instant Skills, Style Eat, Metaphitic Miasma Layers… at this point, I admit, I’m pulling names from the in-game tips guide just to make a point. But let’s translate the important ones.

Stupid Parry, for example. This is an action game made in the 2020s, and so the inclusion of a parry is basically mandatory, but this is an unusual take on the idea. It’s called ‘Stupid’ for a reason: Davy dashes into the attack, and is guaranteed to take damage, even if there’s nothing to be parried. If it does connect, though, you’ll reduce the hurt Davy would have received, and convert it into chip damage that can be recovered later on.

And, if you parry into a gold-flashing Heat Attack, it’ll trigger a ‘Stupid Impact’. This stuns your assailant and exposes their glowing core so that Davy can do what zombies do best: take a big old bite of their innards.

This is how you offset all that damage you’re voluntarily taking, but it’s also how you tap into the game’s defining feature, the Style Eat. Not content with just being a pop-punk teen zombie monster hunter, Davy is also a kind of undead Kirby.

Eaten mess

For every core you chomp down, you’ll steal an ability from your victim. If it’s a rank-and-file monster, like one of the hordes of skeletons and lizardmen, this will be a single-use Instant Skill that shoots out a blast of bones or lizard-claw scratches. Useful enough, if not especially exciting.

But if you’ve just taken a bite of one of the elites – a werewolf, a vampire or, why not, a fairy – then you’ll perform a Style Eat transformation. Davy is able to shapeshift into their form, or at least a version of it topped off with a baseball cap. (The character designs for these transformations are an absolute delight, and maybe the best reason to Style Eat your way through the game.)

So, with a tap of the D-Pad, you can now turn into a werewolf, able to bound through the dungeon on all fours, attack with speedy flurries of claw strikes, and – classic lycanthropy stuff, this – backflip off walls to reach high ledges. Plus you get one random ‘Style Skill’, pulled from a pool of possible powers.

Including your default zombie state, there are 11 Styles on offer, each with its own move set and playstyle, and a choice of five possible special abilities to augment that. The necromantic lich, for example, can summon skeletons to do the fighting on your behalf; its Style Skills include a giant scythe swing, sapping the health of your skellies to boost its damage, and one that turns you and your bony minions into spinning tops that hurt anything they touch.

This is a remarkable amount of variety, but it’s also a lot for any developer to take on, let alone one as small as GPTRACK50. Not every Style here is created equal, and it’s hard not to conclude that the studio might have – ahem – bitten off more than it can chew.

Creature features

While becoming a werewolf makes Davy more agile, this is very much the exception to the rule. Most are really slow and ungainly, something that makes sense for a hulking tank form such as the golem or cyclops, but less so for the floating will-o’-the-wisp or fairy. Meanwhile, the merfolk Style allows you to swim underfoot like one of Splatoon’s Inklings, but just for a couple of seconds at a time. Then you have to waddle around on land like your Speedos are chafing, waiting for the swim bar’s cooldown to complete its agonizingly slow refill.

Traversal isn't a huge part of Stupid Never Dies, however: it's just how you get from one arena fight to the next. So the much bigger problem is how many of these Styles feel ineffective in combat.

Sticking with the merfolk for a moment, you’re intended to stay underground and close in on prey before popping out for a powerful uppercut. Cool in theory, but just not especially practical when you need to chew through enemies by the dozen. It’s a similar story with the snow fairy, which grows more powerful for every enemy you freeze, and the will-o’-the-wisp, which can immolate itself to hurt anyone who touches it. There is no shortage of ambition in the design of these transformations, but that's frequently undermined by their execution.

This problem plagues almost every part of Stupid Never Dies’ combat. It’s not just that hits lack the sense of connection that makes Devil May Cry’s melee sing – that would be an unreasonable standard to hold this game to, even given their shared heritage – but that, often, they don’t connect at all. There’s no lock-on targeting, which makes sense given the quantities of enemies the game throws at you, but that means you can never quite rely on your hit landing where you want.

Your foes seem to be suffering from the very same issues. They’ll often stand around idle for seconds at a time, before charging forward with some powerful attack that misses you by miles. And if this initially sounds like a blessing, remember Stupid Parry’s vital role in the combat loop. There’s an awful lot of chasing after Heat Attacks, trying to throw myself in front of them so I can line up a Style Eat – and hoping that it doesn't simply sail past the intended victim and chomp down on thin air instead.

Meanwhile, there’s always a ticking clock at your back. There's a time limit on how long you can spend in the dungeon before the game… well, it doesn't immediately kill you, but it nerfs Davy so hard that, honestly, you might wish it did.

So, with all that in mind, why bother wrestling with the intricacies of any Style that leaves you waiting on a cooldown for an attack that might just miss, when it’s so much quicker to slash your way through the hordes at werewolf speed?

And so, that’s the way I end up playing Stupid Never Dies. Relying on the same two or three Styles (the werewolf, the lich, the vampire at a push), hammering Stupid Parry for all it’s worth and just kind of hoping for the best. Occasionally, I’ll even turn on the Go Nuts Mode, which makes you – quoting the menu directly – "strong as shit", just to chew through repetitious segments quicker.

I do feel bad for throwing out most of the game’s more interesting ideas but, honestly, they’re necessary for a functional experience. And the more I play, the more I realize that combat finesse isn’t really the deciding factor in success or failure. This is first and foremost a game about leveling up: every run at the dungeon boosts the amount of XP collected, so that by your hundredth attempt you might be able to do 20 level-ups within the first minute.

It’s an RPG on fast-forward, the numbers going up over and over again. And as long as that number is higher than the next layer you enter, it’ll be a cakewalk. Try to reach beyond your assigned level, though, and you’ll find yourself throwing punches at a brick wall.

Leveling up at this ridiculous speed, with visual fireworks that go off every single time, does have a certain dopamine-loop satisfaction to it. That makes it easy enough to pour time into these dungeon runs. But for all the color, and the cool visual flourishes, and the poppy soundtrack, I find myself playing Stupid Never Dies with my brain only ever halfway engaged, not really feeling much of anything. For hours at a time, I’m just as much of a zombie as Davy.

Stupid Never Dies was reviewed on PC, with a code provided by the publisher.

Never die, and never stop playing, with our best ARPGs ranking that bring you even more action. Keep an eye on our new releases list for what's coming next!

You might not have heard of the town of Skövde, Sweden, but if you spend much time staying abreast of Steam's biggest hits, you've probably heard of some of the titles its improbably large game development community has built. The town of roughly 58,000 people has created so many viral hits – particularly in the survival genre – that it's now got its own Hollywood-inspired "Walk of Game" celebrating them all.

Skövde's Walk of Game is open to games that have sold at least 3 million copies (or reached 15 million downloads, for free titles) and had at least 50% of development hours completed in the town. The games enshrined in the city's sidewalks include Goat Simulator and Satisfactory from Coffee Stain Studios, V Rising from Stunlock Studios, Valheim from Iron Gate, and Raft from Redbeet Interactive.

The latest game to be enshrined in the Walk of Game is RV There Yet, a notable hit in the post-friendslop boom where you've got to work together with your buddies to get a massive RV home along an absurdly dangerous road. It was developed in under two months and sold over two million copies in the space of a week – another big win for Skövde's game dev community.

How does the town keep doing it? "The university offers a game dev course and an incubator helps the graduates start companies," the RV There Yet devs offer on Twitter. "That combo creates a mega-dense game dev-per-capita ratio!"

Whatever the reasons why, Skövde has clearly built a game dev hub worthy of celebration, and I'm looking forward to finding out what the next hit from its developers will look like.

These are the best survival games to play in 2026.

In January 2023, one Old School RuneScape player made history by rocketing to 200 million experience in the MMO's laborious Agility skill in under one minute by cashing in eight years worth of collected minigame tickets. It was unprecedented – a 'see it to believe it' moment, like watching someone topple a chain of dominoes as large and complex as the Taj Mahal.

On October 16, 2026, another OSRS player, Vollshtandig, reached 200 million Agility experience at the end of a 3,475-hour grind that is somehow even worse.

A few months ago, Vollshtandig announced his plans to reach 200 million experience in every skill – something that only 73 people have done in the history of OSRS, or just 60 accounting for the new skill Sailing – by training them one at a time. Once he chooses a new skill, he can't gain a level in anything else until he reaches max experience in that chosen skill. Note that to reach the max level in a skill, you only need about 13 million XP. The rest is just for glory.

Vollshtandig started with Agility, which is mostly used to access terrain shortcuts around the game world, and is primarily trained by running courses with simple click-to-pass obstacles. Agility has gotten better over the years and does have its fans, but a lot of players still dislike training it because there's not much material reward to a lot of the most efficient methods, those methods are repetitive even by OSRS standards, and it's a fairly slow skill to train even at max efficiency.

Despite all of this, per the in-game account tracker shown on a recent stream, Vollshtandig spent 3,475 hours clicking on digital obstacle courses and nothing else. This is, to me, orders of magnitude worse than maxing a skill while also enjoying the wider game in between training sessions.

The official high scores from developer Jagex confirm that Vollshtandig's account was the 224th to reach 200 million Agility experience. He's now moved onto Thieving, which is at least faster to train, as his next target skill.

It's like watching someone spend months in a sensory deprivation chamber, walk out, crack his neck and knuckles in the sunlight, and then walk smiling into the next in a line of 24 chambers. When you earn the concern of the OSRS subreddit base, you know you've really gone to an extreme.

One MMO player spent 6,572 hours setting a new world record – which is about 30% of the last 4 waking years.

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners season 2 is almost upon us, and the first episode of the new season is set to debut live on Twitch.

CD Projekt Red announced that the premiere will stream live on its official Twitch channel on October 20 at midnight EST. You can check out the official post below in order to find your specific time zone. For episodes 2-10, however, you're going to need that Netflix subscription.

The studio also announced that selected streamers will be co-streaming the episode on their own separate channels, and that users will be able to win Twitch Chat Badges.

Per the official tagline, the second season "presents a new standalone 10-episode story from the world of Cyberpunk 2077... a raw chronicle of redemption and revenge. In a city that thrives in the spotlight of violence, one question remains: when the world is blinded by spectacle, what extremes do you have to go to make your story matter?"

Hideo Kojima is set to reprise his role as Hideyoshi Oshima, from Cyberpunk 2077. Other new characters include D (voiced by Koki Uchiyama and Nazeeh Tarsha), camera-wielding Roman Carrax (voiced by Momoka Terasawa and Valeria Rodriguez), and Weak Kingsley, a significantly older character who is voiced by the legendary Clancy Brown).

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners season 2 is set to hit Netflix October 20, with all 10 episodes in tow. For more, check out our Cyberpunk: Edgerunners season 2 review, or, check out our list of all the new anime you need to add to your watchlist.

Just when I think I've seen it all, someone goes and turns a chicken into a Lego Millennium Falcon.

More specifically, they've created the galaxy's fastest hunk of junk using a Moana Lego Hehei set (which is adorably google-eyed and often available for less than $30 at Amazon). Fan Switz399 took to reddit with their creation, and it's... pretty good, actually? Yes, it may look a bit more floral than Han Solo's vessel traditionally is due to the flowers on Heihei's base. But even so, it's unmistakeably the scruffy nerf herder's ship. Most impressive of all is the fact that they apparently used every single piece in the box. Waste not, want not, I suppose.

Besides the shape being spot on (including the tricky cockpit which sticks out at an odd angle), this build manages to capture small but easily-missed details like the circular grills at the back and the cones on either side of the craft. There's even a bud standing in for the radar dish, not to mention a spanner for the gun turret in the middle.

As you may be able to tell from the thread title "Will it Falcon," turning the best Lego sets available (the more bizarre, the better) into this Star Wars icon is a long-running trend. As an example, someone proved that you can turn a Lego pumpkin into the Millennium Falcon a couple of months ago. While Heihei is a leftfield choice, it's in good company as a result.

Don't fancy going to all that fuss for your own version? Don't worry, there's an official Lego Millennium Falcon of a similar size that typically sells for a lot less than its asking price on Amazon. It may not be made up of flowers and all the colors of the rainbow, but I'd say it's quite a looker too.

Want to build up your collection for less? Don't miss our guide to this year's Black Friday Lego deals. As for something in time for spooky season, here are my favorite Lego Halloween sets in 2026.

• See all the latest sets at the Lego store

GTA 6 was made by an army of thousands of game developers who had to be coordinated by Rockstar Games, but some of the studio's best work is the result of individuals using the independence afforded to them to enact the kind of chaotic goodness that would make a tabletop dungeon master smirk. Case in point: horse scrotums in Red Dead Redemption 2.

The buried details of GTA 6's mammoth production line are examined in a new video from Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier, who paused to share some information from a recent Rockstar visit that couldn't fit into a prior written report.

Rockstar North art director Aaron Garbut looks at the scope and granularity that Rockstar has to balance. "There's no one person that has this whole thing in their head," he says.

Schreier, seemingly sharing his own thoughts and no longer quoting Garbut, adds, "Grand Theft Auto 6 is a humongous game, like Rockstar's previous games, and I imagine that not even the top developers of this company know every single thing that's in the game."

This is important context because it directly connects to something that Garbut singles out: the kind of unhinged perfectionism and attention to detail that gets you video game horses with testicles that convincingly shrink based on the temperature.

Herein lies the thin but magical boundary between disorganized development and meaningful autonomy. It's not that the studio heads, discipline leads, direct reports, and overarching producers at Rockstar don't know what's in GTA 6, or that designers are regularly going rogue with no oversight. All of those roles exist precisely because no one person can know and be accountable for everything in this game. But under that structured network, there's still space for designers, artists, and others to have agency and make individual contributions in their corner.

"Garbut actually brought this up," Schreier says of the famous Red Dead 2 horses. "That was not something that was on some big list of features to make. It was not something that an art director told an artist. 'All right, we got to get those horse testicles in here. Better put in nights and weekends so you can get these horse testicles in here.' That was something that people or a person, on their own, autonomously, decided, 'I'm going to do this because I think it's a really cool detail and I have enough time to work on it.'"

Games like GTA 6 are partly the result of a lot of little things done well many times over within, and in service of, broader creative frameworks. Allowing space for surprises to manifest is how a lot of the magic happens in some of the most beloved games of all time, and this highlights one way that mismanaged or unhealthy development cycles actively hurt games (on top of, more importantly, people).

Great ideas that might've been found or implemented may never happen because people don't have the space, or the headspace, for them. If simply getting a game shipped is a buzzer-beating nightmare, refining and indulging in it gets that much harder. (Red Dead Redemption 2's development was notoriously filled with crunch periods, though some employees publicly pushed back on crunch accusations in 2018.)

We're still talking about the horses in Red Dead Redemption 2 because they reflect that game's extreme commitment to authenticity, zoology, and wonderfully unnecessary content. If those horse testicles were less realistic, nobody would care. But, demonstrably, the work of whoever is tragically not listed as Testicle Designer in the game's credits did improve the game and people's perception of it. Because after you find one of those little surprises, you start to look for more details, more fingerprints from individual developers making their mark despite being one of hundreds or thousands. The AAA games that actually justify their excess are full of stuff like this, and it sounds like GTA 6 will be too.

"For GTA to stay relevant it had to reinvent itself": Grand Theft Auto 4 got much darker because San Andreas took the "pop energy as far as it could go," says Rockstar's Dan Houser.

You can finally just plug your PS2 and PS3 discs into a PS5 and play your classic games on the modern console – just without Sony's permission. A recent PS5 jailbreak has opened the door for community developers to put robust emulators for classic consoles on the platform, and it's gone to show that we could've had proper backwards compatibility with the old consoles on PS5 all along.

There've been all kinds of wild homebrew developments since the big PS5 jailbreak debuted a few weeks ago, but if you're not interested in piracy, the addition of emulators is certainly the most intriguing. PS5SX2 is a port of the ubiquitous PS2 emulator for PC, PCSX2, and does exactly what it says on the tin. It lets you play PS2 games on your PS5.

You'll want to know this part up front: Claude is listed as the largest contributor to this port of the emulator, so this is – exhaustingly – another example of vibe coding's effect on the retro scene. But, personally, I'm more interested in the mere fact that you can even directly insert your old PS2 discs into your PS5's disc drive, and the emulator will read them. Testing from MVG suggests that there may be some stutters when running the games directly off the disc, but you can also install the game to your hard drive and get a smoother experience.

RPCS3-5 is, similarly, a port of RPCS3 that lets you run PS3 games on PS5 using original discs in the standard console disc drive. Don't expect miracles on this side, as PS3 emulation can be a struggle even on high-end PCs, but the fact that we can have these games running at all on the modern platform is still a minor miracle.

Previous PS5 jailbreaks already allowed PS2 games to be played on the platform, but the earlier solutions required each game to be packaged together using a hacked version of Sony's official emulator. You didn't have the freedom to just insert a PS2 disc into the PS5 drive and play it like a normal backwards compatible game.

And, yes, there are now PS1 emulators for jailbroken PS5s, too. But the laser in a proper PS5 disc drive will only read DVDs and Blu-rays – there's no CD laser to read PS1 discs. This also means that a handful of CD-based PS2 games are also not supported. But even then, there's a solution: just grab one of the plentiful and inexpensive USB disc drives available online and plug that into your PS5. Boom, PS1 support added.

So now comes the obvious question: why didn't Sony let us play PS2 games on PS5 in the first place? The disc drive natively supports these DVDs. The company built its own PS2 emulator to power various games on the PlayStation Store. Have we really been locked out of this feature for all these years purely because Sony would rather have us permanently subscribed to PS Plus and its library of old games?

It's tough to come up with a read on this that's not extremely cynical but, well, Sony's made it pretty easy to assume the worst this generation. With the end of PlayStation discs looming, analysts suggest that Sony's real aim is to gather full control of an all-digital marketplace for games. I suspect that support for PS1, PS2, and PS3 discs – all of which are parts of used markets that Sony sees no profits from – isn't especially compelling for the people making the publisher's business calls.

I'll take any excuse I can get to check out the best PS2 games of all time.

Veteran game artist Kenney Vleugels, known fondly to some as "Asset Jesus" for his enormous library of ready-made game assets, recently joined the chorus of devs standing against AI and the billionaires pushing it – and in doing so, managed to thoroughly piss off AI-first billionaires Tim Sweeney of Epic Games and Elon Musk of SpaceX and xAI.

On October 18, Vleugels chucked a fairly innocuous message into the sea of Twitter. "Don't let billionaires convince you slop is the future," he argues. "They're used to managing [and] directing, not making things themselves. Of course they can't see the difference. They don't understand your love for the craft. Keep making personal, beautiful games."

Vleugels' post followed a vocal pivot to AI-led development and vibe coding from Epic Games, which proudly boasted of using AI to help assemble a new storefront launcher that has not yet solved the problem of categorically losing to Steam. Evidently reading the post as a slight against him or others like him, Sweeney was quick to reply.

"This is bullshit, Kenney," Sweeney counters. "I’m the same tech tree following optimist who moved from C to C++, from 2D to 3D, and from closed source to open source. I run a company. I write code. I contribute to published papers. I’ve upped my expectations of AI. Up yours!"

Vleugels informed Sweeney that Epic Games employees "are liking my post" and "reach out to me all the time," and stressed that the "'adapt or die'" messaging around AI tools is exhausting and unfair. "We want to choose our own paths just like you did yourself," he told Sweeney.

Later that day, Musk responded to Sweeney's initial reply, saying, "Tim Sweeney is right (obviously)."

Sweeney's final counterargument is that "the velocity of development of it is the force to be reckoned with here. It really is becoming a race between cars and rockets, and there’s risk that convincing devs to abstain from the new way leaves them behind."

Vleugels wrapped things up by noting that "we're both trying to offer guidance to the next generation. The thing is, speaking as an artist, we've been force fed NFT's, metaverse, blockchain, and now AI. Let these things naturally take its course, they'll find their place (or not)."

This exchange centers much of the controversy over gen AI in game development. The unprofitable technology cannot survive in its current shape without widespread adoption or untenable subsidies, and it has been praised by some as the second coming of Prometheus. AI has broader support as a coding assist and is more readily embraced in the eastern hemisphere, yet many creators oppose it because they care more about the work than the output; they do not want to outsource their critical or creative thinking, don't care to risk stunting their long-term growth, and do factor in AI's ethical failures and environmental costs.

This has also given Vleugels a rare feather for his cap. After seeing Musks' reply, Vleugels wrote on Bluesky, "Last I'll post about this, but Elon Musk disagrees with me. This means I am onto something, and I feel more valid in my opinion than ever."

The same day, Xbox business strategy manager Brandon Stirrup argued that devs who aren't using AI should not "be in the business of being a business," saying gaming is "the only industry pretending to not use AI."

As we've seen here, many game companies, like Sony and Ubisoft, are vocally pro-AI, but many game devs are also plainly against it, or at least its current forms, for several reasons. We continually see two truths treated as mutually exclusive by AI's biggest proponents, when in reality they can coexist just fine: good and successful games can be made without gen AI, but some games will be made – are being made! – with AI assistance. Why AI supporters are furious that people aren't following them down the rabbit hole isn't always clear.

Nintendo, the biggest first-party game powerhouse in the industry and, to many devs, a North Star creatively, appears neutral at best on AI. Former Nintendo of America boss Doug Bowser said in 2025 that, "If developers choose to use AI, and it is a discussion right now at Nintendo, it's not the only method of developing games." In 2024, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa said the company doesn't need gen AI, both because it knows how to make games and it's wary of the legal risks attached to AI.

Konami president Hideki Hayakawa more recently claimed that gen AI won't have a "significant" effect on game development because "people and creators" are the most important factor.

Palworld studio Pocketpair avoids gen AI for many reasons, a big one being "gamers don't want it," as comms and publishing lead John Buckley told us.

Devs are canceling their demos to stop AI users from stealing their games – creator of one of Steam's most-wishlisted is "concerned" it may be ripped off and beaten to its own launch.

As a huge fan of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, I found Resident Evil 7 appealed to me on a carnal level. The fact that it was a course correction from the glossy, over-the-top theatrics of its predecessor helped too. According to a producer on the sequel, we can thank The Last of Us for the indirect inspiration.

Over on BlueSky, Miguel Corti, a former senior manager of global production at Capcom, went long on the circumstances leading up to the seventh mainline entry of the storied series. "It may surprise you to learn that the originally planned Resident Evil 7 went through a few iterations," he writes.

"Instead of taking cues from Call of Duty, they were all coming from The Last of Us, with even a mandate to focus on narrative, since that seemed like the only rationale to make a single-player game anymore," he adds.

It may surprise you to learn that the originally planned RE7 went through a few iterations. Instead of taking cues from CoD, they were all coming from The Last of Us, with even a mandate to focus on narrative, since that seemed like the only rationale to make a single-player game anymore.

— @miguel-corti.bsky.social (@miguel-corti.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-10-19T16:42:32.632Z

He mentions Call of Duty because the FPS franchise's zombies mode had grown a formidable community by the early 2010s, making it a worthwhile touchstone for what people want from experiences involving the undead. However, Naughty Dog's dystopian parable very much absorbed a lot of that attention once it arrived.

The fact The Last of Us was both a commercial and critical darling was deeply appealing to the team on the ground, even though execs were happy with how Resident Evil 6 performed. "The devs wanted the critical acclaim other games were garnering, especially since many of them were obviously influenced by Resident Evil," Corti says. "So, Resident Evil 7, not only would it be narrative-driven, it would have even more lore connections."

The general approach of 6 was messy - it featured multiple characters, in a confusing story that didn't make clear additions to the mythology. 7 went through many iterations, but, in my view, wound up cleaner, more dialed in, and, to be frank, scarier, making it a win all around.

Sales were lower than The Last of Us, but most games come up short compared to Joel and Ellie's journey across the cordyceps-torn US. Resident Evil 7 re-invigorated the community, leading to 8 and this year's Requiem, and making 6 seem like a distant memory.

Resident Evil 7 dev says a lot of the horror game's flaws were "vividly present" during development – "and roundly ignored"

Anime Galaxies codes are here to give you a head start in the latest anime tower defense experience, as you assemble your dream team from the cast of legendary champions you can summon forth. There are rotating banners to pull from, with units ranging from Secret and Shiny to Mythic rarity for you to seek out.

Using these promos will give you a ready supply of Gems and Trait Crystals, which can be spent on unlocking fresh units to add to your collection, along with Stat Tokens and Stat Locks to modify how they operate in this strategic Roblox experience. If you're ready to start building an anime army, then these are the codes for Anime Galaxies and how to redeem them.

If you're looking for more general promos with rewards that apply across all experiences, then we've got the latest Roblox promo codes covered.

All Anime Galaxies codes

The following Anime Galaxies codes are available to be claimed:

• 100KVIS – 2,000x Gems, 100x Trait Crystals, 20x Stat Tokens
• 1KFAV – 1,500x Gems, 100x Trait Crystals, 20x Stat Locks
• RELEASE – 1,500x Gems, 50x Trait Crystals, 10x Stat Tokens
• 1KCCU – 2,500x Gems, 100x Trait Crystals, 20x Stat Tokens

We already have a handful of codes for Anime Galaxies for you to claim, which so far offer varying amounts of Gems and Trait Crystals plus with Stat Tokens or Stat Locks. Naturally these rewards all stack, so claim everything to build up your balances.

How to redeem Anime Galaxies codes

To redeem Anime Galaxies codes, all you have to do is walk up to the CODES Fountain in the main lobby area, and this will automatically pop up a Codes menu screen. From there, use the Enter a code... text box to type in a promo, then hit Redeem to collect your rewards. Note that codes for Anime Galaxies are case-sensitive, so you need to enter them exactly as written, though you'll get a warning reminding you of this if you forget.

Expired Anime Galaxies codes

• No expired codes

I don't have any expired Anime Galaxies codes to inform you about at the moment, but this isn't surprising given the recent launch. It's likely promos will start moving down here in the future, so make sure you've claimed any active codes while you can.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

PATCH NOTES v19.10.2026 – As the latest Resident Evil film gets turned back into a video game and early Edgerunners 2 reviews suggest great things ahead, video game worlds have become the stars of the best adaptations – and it's a blueprint for the future.

What's going on this week in gaming?

• Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 reviews are in and largely positive.
• Zack Cregger's acclaimed Resident Evil movie has come full circle after a fan turned it into a classic PS1 survival horror game.

Why is this happening now?

• Game adaptations are more successful when they build on the source game's universes instead of delivering exact retellings.

Meta Shift

• Edgerunners 2 and Resident Evil prove that game worlds, not characters, offer the best opportunities for adaptation.

Turning a beloved video game into a film or TV show has always been challenging, but Zach Cregger's Resident Evil and Edgerunners season 2 proves it can be done if the respect is mutual. By taking the respective circumstances or settings of the source material – Cyberpunk 2077's Night City and Resident Evil's Raccoon City – and shaping them around new characters, both adaptations retain the spirit the games while telling a new story.

It's a departure from what we usually see when we think of a game being adapted into a show or film. 2026's Return to Silent Hill beat-for-beat rehashes legendary survival horror game Silent Hill 2, but its 18% score on Rotten Tomatoes proves something was lost in translation. Paul W.S Anderson's slew of Resident Evil spin-off flicks acquired cult status for how famously silly they are, though lined up with more recent adaptations like Return to Raccoon City, are looked back on more kindly these days. The Witcher TV series saw moderate success due to actor Henry Cavill's genuine love of the games and book series, but audiences have been divided since his departure from his role as Geralt of Rivia.

A large part of this is down to audience expectation versus reality. Video games bring us some of the most powerful characters in entertainment, and we get to know them through a specific lens and perspective. Recasting those characters and giving them new faces, voices, or storylines as they cross over to new mediums is tricky because there is already something to compare it to.

The makers of Edgerunners 2 and Resident Evil 2026 understand this. Both feature locations, iconography, and situations that will be familiar to fans of the video games – Edgerunners even features the same HUD players see in Cyberpunk 2077 when calling someone on the holophone – but never to the detriment of new viewers.

Writing new characters into well-defined, preordained worlds also sets firm parameters for the action that can take place there without risking a retcon of canon events as seen in source games. It creates a believable place to tell relevant stories, which has proven a magical combination for Edgerunners and Resident Evil. I hope the directors of the Zelda movie and God of War movie adaptations are taking notes!

Feedback Loop

• The success of Edgerunners and Zack Cregger's Resident Evil reinforces the power of intertextuality.

By writing new stories in familiar worlds, Edgerunners and Resident Evil are adding to a canon universe and have been accepted as a part of it – both by gamers and game developers alike.

To incorporate Edgerunners into the game's own canon, Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red added new items, music, and mission chains that reference characters and events from the anime. Resident Evil was already self-referential, but as a movie about the experience of playing survival horror video games, it now has an extra layer of metatextual irony after being turned back into a PS1-era fixed camera-angled video game. These are just two examples of the different ways games and their adaptations can find confluence with one another when they aren't fighting to breathe the same air. It proves that adapting games into film and TV shows doesn't have to be hard when directors adapt the right things, adding value and layers instead of reshaping what was already there.

Patch Notes summary

Continued hype around the Resident Evil movie and Edgerunners 2's promising reviews are setting a new benchmark for game adaptations in 2026. By understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each medium and avoiding debates around story reinterpretation, these adaptations are proof that game worlds are far more flexible than the characters that inhabit them.

Related stories:

Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis' lead developers say that the moments that elicit the strongest emotional response in the original were non-negotiable to tamper with in the remake.

With Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, the developers are going down the Resident Evil and Final Fantasy 7 school of remaking a game. Rather than a near-1:1 remake like Metal Gear Solid Delta or The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, Legacy of Atlantis uses the setting and story of the 1996 classic and builds something unique from it. While this has garnered some criticism for adding modern AAA mechanics like crafting and skill trees, the developers believe they have gotten the important parts right.

"Imagine you just finished the first Tomb Raider, then you close your eyes and you imagine a playthrough in your head," Michał Kuk, creative director at Flying Wild Hog, tells Edge. "Your brain remembers the things that generated the most emotions for you." He explains, "These moments, locations, vistas, objects that stick in your memory, these are the things that have to be in the [remake] almost untouched."

As for what can be messed with, Jeff Adams, experience director at Crystal Dynamics, explains, "As we bring the level of realism up, there are some things from the original we struggle to justify."

He specifically points to "finding a med pack in a tomb that's been concealed for 10,000 years," as one of these points that don't really make sense in this game where you shoot dinosaurs with guns.

These are the best Tomb Raider games of all time.

Palworld has seen its fair share of new Pals since Pocketpair first launched its Pokemon-like survival game into the wild, with 1.0 adding 72 just over the summer – but that doesn't mean that the developers are in a rush to add loads more.

Speaking in a new interview with MP1st, Pocketpair head of publishing and communications John "Bucky" Buckley explains as much when asked how the studio plans to keep the game's roster "fresh," so to speak.

"We try not to think of new Pals as simply adding another number to the roster," the lead admits. "Rather than saying, 'We need to release 100 new Pals with the next update,' we try to add Pals in a meaningful way."

The devs aren't trying to add new Pals willy-nilly. They want each Pal to be memorable, and that means giving each one's conception a good bit of thought.

"Ideally, every Pal should have something that gives players a reason to remember it," as Buckley says, "whether that is its design, abilities, work suitability, combat role, personality, or sometimes just something strange or funny about it."

Not to mention what more Pals means for the roster. With each new Pal comes an adjustment to the overall game's balance, if you think about it – they all bring new abilities to the table, after all.

As Buckley describes, "Of course, balance becomes more complicated as the roster grows, so we continue to look at player data and feedback every time we release new Pals." In other words, Pocketpair keeps a close eye on fans' thoughts following the addition of any Pals.

The last batch was quite a hefty one as well, and, yes, balance patches followed close behind. An update in early September saw various Pal adjustments, battle changes, item tweaks, and much more.

It's evident that the work for Pocketpair doesn't simply end at the addition of new Pals, and it's a more well-thought-out process, as Buckley details. Will I still wait around hoping for some pastel pink, fairy-themed Pals, though? Yes.

Palworld picks spin-offs over a Fortnite-style metaverse because "maximizing revenue as quickly as possible isn’t what drives our creative decisions," says Pocketpair lead

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake is stealing a very neat feature that Nintendo previously implemented in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom: a no-UI mode. Pro and Master UI modes were available at the recent hands-on preview event, and a few creators managed to get footage of them in action.

There are three options to modify the in-game interface in the menu. Standard is what you've likely seen in pre-release footage and has readouts detailing health, magic, and your currently equipped item, alongside a minimap and relevant situational information. It's in line with the original game, and pretty much what you'd expect from any third-person action-adventure title released since the late '90s.

Pro mode disables pretty much all of it. The screen is completely stripped of informational readouts, including even the health meter. You'll still see notices for when the game's being saved, as demonstrated in this footage from Stephen Totilo, as well as occasional in-world dialog pop-ups. The one piece of gameplay interface that will remain onscreen is the Z-targeting indicator, showing when you've locked onto enemies.

Master mode, then, disables even the target reticule. You can still lock onto monsters, but now the only indication you've done so will be Navi hovering over the enemy in question. You can see this mode briefly demonstrated at the 9:18 mark in this video from Zeltik.

Over the years, 3D Zelda games like Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword became notorious for excessive handholding and incessant guidance on every detail. Nintendo finally loosened the reins on players during the Breath of the Wild era, and I'm glad to see some of that spirit returning in the Ocarina of Time remake.

Sure, the original game might've given us Navi, the poster child for annoying tutorialization, but there's hope that even she'll be a little less annoying this time around. Will wonders never cease?

Zelda Ocarina of Time remake has new sidequests, harder minigames, and subtle dungeon tweaks that suddenly have me a lot more interested.

Dan Houser – former writer and creative director of the Grand Theft Auto series – says GTA 4 was so tonally different from what came before because Rockstar Games felt that doing the same old thing risked obsolescence.

GTA was riding high going into the Xbox 360 and PS3 era, with the trilogy of GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas all releasing to mass acclaim, selling millions, and becoming some of the most influential and beloved games of the era. San Andreas, in particular, felt like the natural culmination of the style established in GTA 3, so the idea of that continuing on more powerful hardware was certainly exciting. However, GTA 4 turned out to be a somber story, with a more realistic world and a far darker tone overall.

Speaking to IGN, Houser explains, "There was a belief that San Andreas had taken that kind of 'pop' energy as far as it could go." Given that San Andreas was so "massive" and "successful," Houser notes "that for GTA to stay relevant it had to reinvent itself."

While GTA 4 isn't quite as popular as the two games that surround it, Houser points out "it felt cohesive. The game, the art direction, the moody lighting, the nature of the missions, they all felt tonally consistent."

He notes that with the darker take on the series "we found a level of tonal consistency that we'd not had in the previous games," even if that could be seen as a risk given the success of the PS2 games.

Houser recalls that with Rockstar, "I think there was more [of] a perception that the risk was the opposite," he explains. "The risk was if you don't reinvent yourselves and don't do something new and fresh, you're going to become obsolete." GTA 5 then did become a bit more lighthearted and silly compared to 4 and proved to be a juggernaut both in sales and popularity, but Rockstar's more somber tone in hindsight feels somewhat like a precursor to the Red Dead Redemption games, so really I think both takes were for the best.

GTA: Vice City's writing was "awful," Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser says, but acting icon Ray Liotta "made it sound good"

Casetify doesn't shy away from a collab, and neither does Hideo Kojima, so it's a wonder it's taken this long for the two to come together. Taking on the iPhone 18 Pro Max (with a few iPhone 18 Pro options mixed in), the new range plasters Death Stranding 2 all over your phone case. Didn't sell your soul for the latest Apple flagship? The series also transfers its designs over to everything from luggage to charging stands and earbud cases.

This is Casetify, though, so none of these gadgets go particularly easy on the wallet. Prices start at $32 for those earbud pouches (a cheaper Ludens Duck keychain would have run you $24 before it ran out of stock), and run all the way up to a whopping $799 for a carry-on suitcase. If you're going all in on the new collection, there's also a series of accessory sets covering you for each product selection in one go (with a few bundled savings up for grabs).

Easily the most impressive piece is this BB Pod AirPods case. The whole thing snaps around your charging case in a particularly satisfying glow of orange, with all the tiny details you'd expect from the Death Stranding art department. This is a headline of the collection, but it's already sold out at its $56 standalone price (it's still available as part of the $170 Dollman Plush Set).

The designs, produced with both Kojima and art director Yoji Shinkawa, span 11 collections:

• Fragile Express
• DHV Magellan
• Ghost Mech
• Ludens Emblem
• Yoji Shinkawa Art Editions
• Drawbridge
• Bridges
• Neon Signs
• Cargo ID
• Damage Sensor
• Design Patch

iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max cases cover the majority of the designs here, with both the brand's Impact and Ultra Impact cases covered by the collection. Prices vary from $64 through to $84 on the iPhone 18 Pro Max front.

At the cheapest end of the spectrum, though, is the KJP Earbuds Pouch. This little AirPods holder is designed to hang onto a belt or bag loop, adding a little extra flair to that charging case. Is it an essential? Hell no, but Death Stranding fans can still gussy it up with some Ludens iconography.

The final accessory before we hit $100 is the 2-in-1 charging stand, available in both Ludens Emblem and Damage Sensor Tape designs. $92 is certainly a lot to spend on a single charging stand when multi-accessory MagSafe chargers are available for far less elsewhere. Still, they don't come with Kojima's design stamped all over them.

Casetify's collection of crossbody bags takes us past the $100 price barrier, jumping up to $169 for one of these limited-edition designs. The Design Patch model is a go-to here, in my humble opinion, with the Bounce model offering up space for your everyday essentials in a hard-shell form factor.

Right at the top of the price bracket, we have the Bounce Suitcase, available with a particularly striking Cargo ID design. This is a big spend, and those looking to drop $800 on new luggage might be better off heading to a more specialist manufacturer with that kind of budget. If you're here for Kojima and find yourself with some megabucks to spend, though, this is the jewel of the collection.

Want something more geared towards playing your games? Check out the best gaming phones and best gaming earbuds on the market right now.

This hasn't been the strongest year for Bungie. On the back of ending updates for Destiny 2, the studio released Marathon to a more muted and mixed response than anyone would've liked. Layoffs followed, and an ex-lead from the FPS has given some insight into what it was like behind the scenes.

In an interview with PCGamer, Joe Zeigler, former game director on Marathon, discussed the challenges in getting the project over the line. "I found this project was - it had some areas where there were definitely some ideas about where we were going, but there were a lot of disagreements across the place," he says.

"So part of where I was advising was trying to bring those all together and be like, 'Hey, what is the cohesive place you want to go to? And how do we get there?'," he continues. "And then when we landed on that, I could help them drive that."

Zeigler initially joined the company in an advisory role before a leadership position at Marathon opened up. Coming from years directing League of Legends, he knows a thing or three about keeping a live-service game on track. As a big fan of the studio, dating back to Myst, he was eager to step into the infrastructure, and he notes that the company operates in two distinct lanes.

"I'll say this about Bungie, which I really like, and it's still very true about Bungie: it lives in two worlds," he states. "One is this world where there's a lot of legacy to live up to, which is a lot of pressure. But there's also this other side of it, which is that it's a very egoless company."

The team "are always looking for some way to improve, and the way they do that is, oftentimes, by bringing in people who are new to help them figure out what they are missing," he adds. Which is how he wound up working there for almost four years, exiting after Marathon came out.

Sadly, things are murky for Bungie at present. Marathon's not doing the expected business and Destiny 2's purely on support. Given the state of Xbox's restructuring right now, it's a case of seeing what happens in the years ahead. For now, Zeigler's working on an unannounced new project.

Bungie admits Marathon "did not reach as many players as we had hoped," shares plans to evolve the game for "a sustainable future" while committing to Destiny

Street Fighter actor Callina Liang wants to star in Blumhouse-Atomic Monster's upcoming Dead by Daylight movie.

"I'm also a huge gamer. I have a PC setup at home... Right now, I'm playing a lot of Dead by Daylight," Liang told Variety. "I put in 100 hours into that game over the last two months. I met with someone at Blumhouse, and when they told me they were making Dead by Daylight into a movie, I screamed and slid off the couch."

Dead by Daylight is a four-versus-one horror game that puts one Killer against four Survivors (and it is genuinely so much fun to play as the Killer). Since its release back in 2016, there have been four video game spin-offs (one of which is a horror dating sim), a pinball machine, a board game, and a comic book series.

A movie adaptation was announced back in 2023, but there wasn't much movement on the project until 2026. In June, Blumhouse shared that Icelandic filmmaker Thordur Palsson is set to direct from a script by Crawl scribe Alexandre Aja and The Conjuring 2 co-writer David Leslie Johnston-McGoldrick.

"Someone on the creative team DM'd me and was like, 'Look at what we're doing; we're playing the game in the office for research,'" Liang continued. "I'm like, 'Guys, just call me. I can tell you everything you need to know about this game. You don't have to play it to find out.'"

Street Fighter is in theaters now. For more, check out our list of all the upcoming video game movies.

While Roblox has been in the headlines plenty due to brainrot, doomscrolling games, and so on – other projects are catching a different kind of attention. Mainly because they don't look much like Roblox at all.

When I think of Roblox, I think of LEGO-shaped people with ridiculous smiles reminiscent of emojis – and children begging their parents for Robux, of course. I don't think of racing games that look closer to AAA titles, but perhaps I should.

Over on X, a Roblox creator is sharing their in-progress project (that, yes, they're making on Roblox itself), and it's downright wild, from the lighting to the textures to the audio design, and you name it.

Dubbed Nightshift, it almost looks like Grand Theft Auto 6 or something – until you look at it more closely, that is.

I've had a quick look around the project's official Discord, too, and the screenshots are just as incredible. It's all stunning supercars, left, right, and center, with folks helping shape the game via playtesting and the like.

I'm not alone in thinking it's very cool, especially for a from-scratch Roblox-created project, either.

Comments show as much, with one person simply asking, "How is this even possible?" Another says they "can't believe this is Roblox," which seems to be the common sentiment here.

As a different reply puts it, "What the fuck, is this Roblox?" Indeed, it is, anon. Indeed, it is. Roblox has grown a good bit over time, evidently transforming into a sufficiently (and then some) capable tool for aspiring developers.

And, for fans questioning whether Nightshift will work on mobile devices seeing as it's, uh, quite ambitious, they don't need to worry.

The poster, who is one of the developers heading the project, writes, "Mobile players will definitely be able to play this game!" Not only that, but "it's been a priority above PC since the very beginning of this game's development." A W for Roblox players using their phones and tablets, I suppose.

After 18 years, GTA 6 might finally fix a graphical bug that's plagued Rockstar's games since Grand Theft Auto 4

As a deathly chill descends outside and everyone gears up for spooky season, it's time to wrench the best Halloween board games loose from their crypts. But because this genre is overflowing with options like an obligatory bubbling cauldron, where do you start?

The GamesRadar+ experts and I have a few ideas. We've been reviewing and playing the best board games for decades between us, and that means plenty of creepy designs have crossed our table over the years. While all set an eerie tone, a few stand out as all-time classics. If you want the best Halloween board games to get your horror on, these should do the trick.

Personally, my go-to is always Betrayal at House on the Hill. I've been playing this series for well over 10 years, and I don't think I've seen a horror board game that strikes a better balance of accessibility with eerie scares. There are spookier alternatives or deeper options, but few are as easy to get into. Meanwhile, longtime contributor Matt Thrower's favorite right now is Unmatched: Cobble & Fog. This pits some of horror's greatest icons against each other in a duel to the death.

Quick list

Best Halloween board games

Have you ever wondered how long you'd last in a horror movie? This long-running series lets you find out. Inspired by fan-favorites and shlocky B-movies alike, it mashes up the best genre cliches into 50 unique scenarios. As the name would suggest, these aren't always you against the supernatural; sometimes, one of your team turns traitor. What follows is a compelling cocktail of tension and desperate last-stands.

Despite all those moving parts, Betrayal at House on the Hill is very accessible. After choosing your character and the reason everyone's visiting this haunted mansion, you begin exploring the house. Because rooms are randomly drawn from a huge pile of board tiles, the layout will always be different. These rooms also have unique powers or make you draw event/item cards, so you never know what will happen once you step across the threshold.

Draw enough cards and a scenario (based on the items you've unlocked and the reason your party came here) will trigger, pitting you against the house or each other. The result is a slowly building ramp of tension that explodes into a frantic race to the finish. While those missions aren't always as well-balanced as they could be, they're never less than a joy to play. As mentioned in our full Betrayal at House on the Hill review, that's what keeps you coming back time and time again; a need to see what happens next.

Love classic monsters and gothic horror, or want a game everyone can sink their fangs into? Horrified is your poison. Combining some of the hobby's most compelling mechanics into one team-based horror board game with old favorites like Dracula, it's deceptively simple yet masterfully done.

Dropping you head-first into a nameless but extremely atmospheric village that wouldn't look out of place in a Hammer horror film, your aim is to defeat roving monsters who would really like to devour the townsfolk… and you. The problem is, each monster requires a different tactic or mini-game to beat – and while you're working toward those objectives, they're trying to chow down on villagers. It's a tough balancing act; you'll often be forced to choose between innocents or getting the items you need to finish your quest. It's a delicious conundrum which we've enjoyed grappling with since it first launched in 2019.

While there are numerous versions (including a D&D-themed spin-off and this year's Ravenloft instalment), I still think the original is best. You can't beat a mashup featuring old favorites like Frankenstein's Monster, after all.

A cruise should be relaxing, right? Not in this case. Playing on our fear of what lurks under the waves, this is a holiday from hell. Set in the 1920s, you play as passengers making a long voyage across the ocean… but then unspeakable monsters start pouring from the ocean, directed by something enormous glimpsed through the dark. That's when traitors on board start wreaking havoc.

You see, this isn't just a co-op battle against creatures of the deep; there are turncoats amongst you, treacherous 'hybrids' that will do everything they can to sabotage your ship. Because you don't know who's who, you'll need to sniff out these traitors while trying to keep your vessel afloat. Oh, and don't forget about those monsters clambering aboard.

Although it's a long game, Unfathomable is one of my favorites due to that blend of adventure and high stakes deception (which helped it earn four-and-a-half-stars in my Unfathomable review).

Many horror games go for minimalism in terms of components, but not Zombicide, which is chock full of ghoul-icious plastic miniatures of both player pieces and different kinds of zombies. And you’re going to need them all, since the game demands you divide up at least six characters between the players who then need to work together to achieve a variety of scenario objectives while an ever-growing army of shambling undead stumble around the board, attracted by noise and blood.

The core gameplay loop in this new edition is pretty simple but weirdly addictive thanks in part to the sheer variety of things that can happen. In addition to picking scenarios, or possibly a campaign, a wide number of different enemies can spawn, each presenting unique challenges. Every character has a choice of upgrade paths and, best of all, the item decks you’ll dig through hold the ever-present possibility of awesome new weaponry to splatter all those undead with. This means that every turn presents new tactical challenges to solve and risks to take while the tension - and the number of foes - mount inexorably. We were certainly fans in our Zombicide 2nd Edition review.

Loosely inspired by 2023 video game Dredge, Deep Regrets challenges players to spend a week out fishing on a very strange sea indeed. Your initial trawls in shallow depths, governed by a push-your-luck dice roll, are likely to net you a variety of familiar species but there’s also a chance you’ll land something considerably more disturbing. And the deeper you fish, the greater that chance becomes, as does the degree of awfulness in what you bring to the surface. Returning to shore allows you to sell your catch to buy improvements for future expeditions or you can mount your favourite specimens for points.

The more horrors you witness, the more regret cards you’ll earn, which range from staining your best trousers to murdering friends for money. Between these and the fishing, you can build a delightful horror-comedy narrative while, mechanically, regrets drive you mad, getting you more value from mutant fish. Accumulate too many, however, and you'll lose your best trophy.

Adorned with fantastically evocative art by the designer, this is a game that, ironically, you’re most unlikely to regret spending time with.

If you're looking for a deeper, more strategic experience, it doesn't get better than the Nemesis series. While the masterful first instalment is harder to get hold of these days, the newer Nemesis: Retaliation is widely available – and as mentioned in our full review, "this might be one of the best horror board games ever made."

Basically, it's Aliens with the serial number scrubbed off; you play as a team of elite marines that drop into hell, facing down a horde of xenomorphs who are ready for an all-they-can-eat buffet. While your primary goal will vary (like killing the bug queen or destroying this facility), everyone has a secret, personal objective to work on as well. These often pit you against your teammates, so you're never sure whether you can trust the soldier who's meant to be watching your back.

Because the board is randomly laid out as you go, there's a real sense of stepping into the unknown as well. When combined with how brutal the aliens are (you'll be lucky to survive your stay), the tension is palpable.

H.P. Lovecraft’s mythos has proved an incredibly fertile inspiration for board games, but Arkham Horror: The Card Game is perhaps the most popular and acclaimed of them all. It’s a cooperative deck construction game; each player takes charge of an investigator delving into the horrid secrets of the mythos, with a unique deck of cards representing their skills and abilities in-game. As you progress, you add and remove cards from this deck, allowing your characters to grow in power and giving you the chance to tailor their playstyle as you see fit.

Initially you’ll throw these characters into the mystery scenario included in the box, a mix of modular map cards and choose-your-own-adventure style text paragraphs that, between them, create an intriguing, dynamic and surprisingly tough adventure. Things can spiral in a variety of different paths that lead to further scenarios, giving you reason to replay this core set. Eventually, you may want to buy expansions to continue the story but usefully, this new "chapter two" box resets the narrative, making this an ideal time to dive into the expanding story.

While most creepy board games pit relatively ordinary folk against otherworldly horrors, this one casts everyone as literary haunts and haunt-hunters from down the ages. Take your pick from Jekyll and Hyde, The Invisible Man, Sherlock Holmes and, of course, Dracula and see how they face off against each other. The Unmatched series is all about battles between titanic figures from myth and pop culture, and the four characters included here can be mixed and matched with other entries in the franchise, should you so desire.

For such an ambitious scope, the rules are very simple. You get two actions per turn from a choice of three: draw a card and move on the point to point board, play a card for its effects, or play a card to attack. The smart design comes in the unique deck each character draws from, giving them their flavour and special powers. Holmes, for example, peeks at and manipulates his opponent’s cards while Jekyll and Hyde chooses a form with different abilities each turn. All four play very evocatively and very differently, ensuring you get tons of replay value trying different match-ups from the same box.

Another game based on Lovecraft’s works, the original Mansions of Madness saw one player running the game’s nightmare monsters against the rest of the players, creating an immediate balance issue since the creatures of the mythos are, by definition, too powerful for humans to handle. The second edition outsourced all that work to an app, leaving the players working together to solve the mystery of each scenario, and the game eminently more solo-friendly.

While app-driven games can be controversial, as you’re left to the mercy of updates, it does an incredibly good job of not only running the game but helping build a creepy atmosphere with vivid descriptions and sound effects. The added dynamism means you can have varied conversations with non-player characters and allows it to present puzzles that would be impossible in a physical game. It also seeds the scenario with random changes each time, making the game replayable even once you’ve revealed its core secrets. At the same time you get the delightful physicality of a board game, with miniature representations of the various horrors you can encounter, and the social aspects of working together, which you’ll be extremely glad of when the terror begins to build.

Want a more roleplay-heavy horror game? This modern-day D&D horror adventure feels like Resident Evil mixed with Control, and it's perfect for Halloween.

Xbox X25 controller stock is holding firm in the lead up to launch day. While we have to wait a few more weeks for that ultra-limited edition console to hit the shelves, Microsoft's 25th Anniversary celebratory gamepad is landing tomorrow, October 20.

Uncharacteristically, these controllers are still in stock across both the US and UK. After selling out particularly quickly when pre-orders first dropped at the end of August, the gamepad has been MIA for a few weeks. That all changed recently, with another wave of Xbox X25 controller stock hitting the shelves a week out from launch.

Here's where we are today. Anyone looking to get their hands on this tasty translucent green design can do so at a number of retailers across the web. Finding a store that will get your new controller through your door on launch day is a slightly tougher task.

We're down to the wire now, but I've scoured through the retailers with X25 controller pre-order stock live on the shelves, hunting down the stores with the fastest (and free-est) deliveries. In the US, you'll want to head to Walmart and Best Buy, both (at the time of writing) still holding the vans for release day shipping. Meanwhile, the UK stock hunters should head to Amazon. Order soon, and you'll get the free shipping that other stores might not be able to match soon.

Xbox X25 controller stock in the US

Xbox X25 controller stock in the UK

We're also rounding up all the best Xbox Series X accessories as well as the best Xbox Series X headsets and best Xbox Series X controllers.

Samsung's official Super Mario microSD Express Card is currently on sale, but I recommend you avoid its alluring, flashy ways. Look, I get it. As someone who adores officially licensed Nintendo tech, I understand that the cute Fire Flower art is hard to ignore. But picking it up right now means spending more than you should.

The official Super Mario SD card is currently $149.99, down from its usual $199.99 at Amazon. However, you can get the same 512GB worth of storage for your Switch 2 by paying just $99.99 at Amazon instead with Samsung's P9 alternative. With it you'd be saving $50 of your hard-earned cash, and all you need to do is set aside your "all my tech must be cute" thought processes. Easy peasy.

There are actually differences besides looks between SanDisk and Samsung's 512GB-sized cards, and that's where their speeds are concerned. The SanDisk card, which sits at $149.99 at Amazon today, boasts it can deliver read speeds of up to 880 MB/s and write speeds up to 650 MB/s. Meanwhile, the official Samsung online store states its 512GB capacity card provides sequential read speeds of 800 MB/s instead. That means the SanDisk option is the faster option, but as someone who tests game storage, I can attest that these differences are going to be extremely minor in practice.

Take the Samsung 256GB microSD Express Card that I reviewed last year, another 800 MB/Ss card, for example. Mario Kart World took 22 seconds on average to load from the card to its title screen during testing. Meanwhile, the 1TB PNY microSD Express Card took 20.39 seconds with its faster 890MB/s read speeds. In practice, the faster card was only a few seconds ahead, and it was barely noticeable.

While the Fire Flower-branded card is faster, there's only going to be a few seconds' worth of difference. I'd much sooner recommend you pick up the cheaper card and save $50, even if it's the technically slower choice.

• View all Switch 2 microSD Express Cards at Amazon

Our best Nintendo Switch 2 controller, best Nintendo Switch headsets, and best Nintendo Switch 2 case guides are full of accessories that will enhance your new Ninty setup.

The predecessor to Arc Raiders is bringing in some dynamic commentary through the power of AI. The Finals, the multiplayer FPS Embark Studios released before its mammoth extraction shooter, is introducing a way to recognize players in real time through in-game play-by-play.

The team revealed the feature in a short video, explaining the idea and how it'll work. Essentially, now Scott and June, the two voices you hear while playing The Finals, will start mentioning people's nicknames whenever they do something cool.

So, instead of just hearing, "And that's a good headshot," you'll get, "[Player] just scored a good headshot." A small, but noticeable change that can help make gameplay feel more exciting.

Initially, the list of ways you'll hear this will be relatively short, to help the devs test the technology in motion. "Keeping it narrow means we can curate what he actually says," Carl Strandberg, audio director on The Finals, explains. "Make sure it sounds good, and like the Scotty we all know and love."

This is all powered through AI, since the voice is essentially performing an automatic text-to-speech function. The commentary already uses this technology, and Embark took some flak when the fanbase learned about that a few years ago.

It appears the team on The Finals weren't deterred. I'm curious about how this goes down. In theory, it could be fun, but it seems likely it'll be switched off because players set up accounts with naughty words to hear them out loud.

It's disappointing to see Embark double down on gen-AI as well. I'm not convinced this is a necessary use of the technology, but I'm open to being proven wrong. It arrives in the Prime Time update on October 20.

Arc Raiders TV and movie adaptations can do what the game doesn't: "We feel like we have created a world that's fertile ground to tell all kinds of different stories"

Ex-Capcom producer Miguel Corti says that Resident Evil 7's flaws were apparent during the game's development but were ignored.

In a thread on Bluesky, Corti says "It's great to see this game still generating critical discussion some 10 years later," and that while its flaws stand out compared to the remakes and sequels that followed over the years, he explains, "I can say a lot of the flaws were vividly present at the time, and roundly ignored."

Kicking off a long thread, he says a lot of Resident Evil 7 can be traced back to the critical and fan reception of Resident Evil 6.

"Capcom higher-ups were more than happy with RE6," Corti explains, "but the devs wanted the critical acclaim other games were garnering, especially since many of them were obviously influenced by RE." Notably, The Last of Us, with "a few iterations" taking inspiration from Naughty Dog's title. Corti notes that despite how convoluted the plot of Resident Evil 6 got, the original plan for its sequel was more convoluted nonsense: "It was so all over the place, I lost track of the versions."

Corti notes that a major reorganization at Capcom is how we got the Resident Evil 7 that released: "A mandate came down to redo RE7 from scratch," and, as such, a new dev team and director were attached. One that Corti describes as "very hands-on with the development" was ultimately the one who gave the team the "bombshell of an idea" to make the game first-person. He adds, "A lot of the crazier ideas in RE are just random things that someone on the dev team cottons onto."

While Resident Evil 7 revived the series in the hearts of many, it initially underperformed – at least compared to the panned duo of Resident Evil 5 and 6. Corti notes, "RE fans were confused by it, and non-fans either didn't want to touch horror or weren't sure what to make of it. Capcom was disappointed." And in fact, it was actually "Village and all the memes it generated" that helped the game earn "an RE4-level of reputation."

This prolonged development is also "One of the reasons I'm against genAI in games," Corti notes, saying "If the art director and EP could've had everything they envisioned out the gate, it would have been a terrible game" and that it was the back and forth around the game that made it what it was in the end.

A Resident Evil fan is remaking Zach Cregger's film as a PS1-style survival horror game with fixed camera angles

The Street Fighter movie included a Justin Wong cameo because director Kitao Sakurai wanted to speak to the fighting game community in an "authentic" way.

Those who have seen Street Fighter may recognize a handful of the prisoners present behind bars during the midway point's Blanka vs. Ryu fight. They include fighting game legends Justin Wong, IFC Yipes, and Maximilian Dood all providing a running commentary on the clash below them.

But it's Wong who gets the most notable moments, including sporting a '37' tattoo referencing the iconic 'Evo Moment 37', a nail-biting parry-fest between Wong and Daigo Umehara. In the battle, Wong clutched defeat from the jaws of victory in agonizing fashion – before going viral worldwide for his luckless loss.

"In the past, video game adaptations maybe didn't speak to the fans or speak to the community in such an authentic way. These days, with Street Fighter and other films of this era, people are doing a better job of really involving the community and saying, 'Hey, we're making this movie for you,'" Sakurai said of embracing the fighting game community with a series of cameos in Street Fighter.

Sakurai adds, "Street Fighter, a movie, needs to work for fans first. Obviously, there's going to be a broader audience beyond that, but that needs to be the entry point for the community."

For more, we have Sakurai giving Capcom's verdict on the Street Fighter movie, plus our spoiler-filled breakdowns of the Street Fighter movie ending and Street Fighter movie post-credits scene.

The Helldivers 2 Scope of Authority Warbond is releasing very soon, letting players unlock a selection of weapons and armor focused on stealthy long-range shooting. The Warbond comes with three different sniper weapons, including the massive Apex belt-fed anti-materiel rifle. There are also two armor sets that come with a passive that makes long-range shooting much easier and comes with a fancy adaptive camouflage system too – the first of its kind in Helldivers 2. I've laid out everything we know about the Scope of Authority Warbond below and when you can buy it.

Helldivers 2 Scope of Authority Warbond release date

The Scope of Authority Warbond releases on October 20, at either 9AM UTC or 12PM UTC – the previous Warbond, Ironclad Democracy, released at 12PM UTC, which works out as 5AM PDT / 8AM EDT / 1PM BST / 2PM CEST, though Arrowhead never seem to provide a precise release time.

When it becomes available at either of the above times, you'll be able to buy it from the Superstore for 1,000 Helldivers 2 Super Credits or one Helldivers 2 Warbond Token if you've got one. Sniper playstyles aren't always the best, so it remains to be seen how Scope of Authority will stack up against the best Helldivers 2 Warbonds.

All Helldivers 2 Scope of Authority Warbond gear

The Scope of Authority Warbond has a nice mix of gear with a focus on sniper playstyles, including a true primary weapon sniper rifle. Though there are also two long-range support weapons, a machine pistol, a grenade, and two armor sets for you to spend your Helldivers 2 Medals on that will also help you battle foes at all sorts of distances and stay camouflaged. Here's a rundown of every item contained within the Warbond:

• Weapons:
  • R-40 Sightliner (Primary): Bolt-action sniper rifle that fires powerful armor-piercing rounds for some serious long-range precision fire. The strength of the armor penetration isn't yet known, but given that it can seemingly kill a Hulk by shooting its head, it appears to be at least Heavy.
  • P-44 Mist (Secondary): A fast-handling machine pistol for close-range shooting, seemingly quite similar to the redeemer.
  • G-11 Caltrops (Throwable): A mine that scatters smaller submunitions when deployed. These submunitions are proximity-detonated and both damage and stun enemies hit by them.
• Stratagems:
  • AMW-20 Apex: A massive backpack-fed anti-materiel rifle made for taking down heavy foes at long-range. If you've got a Helldiver spotter nearby, they can provide a reload assist too. Like the Sightlighter, the penetration power of this support weapon isn't known but it's almost certainly Anti-Tank level, making it very strong.
  • LAS-44 Nova: An energy-based sniper rifle that comes with the usual benefits of most other LAS weapons – theoretically infinite ammo if you manage its heat well enough and very precise shooting. It also needs to briefly charge up before you can fire its non-explosive energy projectile.
• Armor:
  • SS-33 Mimetic Marshal: Light armor ghillie suit with the Stationary Shroud passive and an adaptive camouflage system.
  • SS-15 Focal Point: Medium armor with the Stationary Shroud passive and adaptive camouflage system.
    • Stationary Shroud: Reduces weapon sway and detection range while crouching or prone, making precise aiming easier while also being harder to spot
    • Adaptive camouflage: This is a feature unique to these armor sets which causes your armor color scheme to change based on the biome your current mission takes place in. It looks like there are five colorways: forest green-and-red, jungle green, snow white, desert khaki, and rock grey.
• Cosmetics:
  • Mimetic Mesh Cape
  • Boundary Banner Cape
    • (Both capes also have adaptive camouflage as above!)
  • Mimetic Mesh Player Banner
  • Boundary Banner Player Banner
  • Manual Ballistic Projection Protocol Emote
  • Longshot Player Title

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

After a couple of years riding the optical analog train, Razer has hopped to the Hall effect platform, providing magnet fans with the Razer Huntsman V3 HE. The more widely popular adjustable-switch option is still less reliable, the brand is quick to point out, but keen to get their name among the Hall effect champions, Sneki has yielded its classic approach for this release.

Available in 65% and TKL form factors, the Razer Huntsman V3 HE starts life at a modest (for the best Hall effect keyboards) $119.99, jumping up to $139.99 for those navigation buttons. That puts it in a particularly competitive situation when looking across the rest of the mainstream gaming market. It's undercutting the SteelSeries Apex Pro Gen 3 range by a whole $100 in its smallest form factor, also dropping below the Logitech G512X ($179.99) and at a fraction of Asus's flagship costs.

The wider market has a few contenders under $100 that will save you a few bucks, but at the moment the Corsair Clipper Pro Mini 60 ($99) is the only mainstream Hall effect gaming keyboard I've tested that's cheaper than the Huntsman V3 HE. Whether it can hold its own against the best gaming keyboards on the market is another question.

Design

You wouldn't know this is Razer's first foray into a particular switch tech from looking at the Huntsman V3 HE. From the outside, this is the same all-black slab of brushed metal as any other Razer keyboard available. It's as solidly built as you'd expect from this brand as well, with an unyielding top plate, dense casing, and textured doubleshot PBT keycaps up top.

Underneath that top plate, we've got a pretty standard tray-mounted internal setup. That's a little cheaper than the gasket-mounted design you'll find in more premium decks, though I was relieved to find absolutely no ping, echo, or rattle across the chassis. That was my only gripe with the previous generation Razer Huntsman V3 Pro Mini; it felt great and had a few of its own tricks up its sleeve, but sounded pretty awful. The V3 HE model uses an additional sound-dampening layer to keep those unwanted echoes down.

While the Huntsman V3 HE suffers in uniformity and loses a little textured depth to its keypresses, it's still operating with a satisfying clack.

Two flip feet extend from the rear to provide a more comfortable elevation during longer typing sessions, and while they can pop out when moving or storing while unfolded, they hold everything in place well on the desk.

Features

Approaching the Huntsman V3 HE from the perspective of one searching specifically for a Hall effect keyboard, there are two main features we need to examine; the switches and the software.

Under each roughly textured keycap you'll find a creatively-named Razer Hall Effect Magnetic Switch. These clackers offer adjustment from 0.1mm to 4mm, the typical standard across the market, with a 40G operating force. That keeps them similar to standard linear red mechanical options in general operation, though with a little extra resistance as is usual for a magnetic switch.

Razer's got the full Hall effect menu here as well. Rapid Trigger mode resets each keypress dynamically, automatically preparing for the next input as soon as any upward motion is sensed rather than waiting for a full return on the key. Essentially, it makes for faster repeat presses in particularly competitive scenarios.

We've also got Snap Flex on this roster, an additional functional layer that can program certain moves and actions to the release of each key. That's accompanied by Dynamic Keystroke, a four-command action roster that can be triggered simply by pressing a single key. That doubles your inputs per-key compared to the Corsair Vanguard Pro 96, which only allows for two commands, but it's worth noting this is a particularly niche use-case. After years of testing the latest Hall effect decks, I typically only assign one or two keys to multi-input macros during more competitive endeavors.

Razer's magnetic switches aren't doing anything you won't find elsewhere by themselves, then, though they are doing it at a slightly lower price compared to most of the mainstream competition. Its Synapse software, however, has a nifty trick.

Razer's still not too happy with Hall effect technology, that much is clear from the brand's insistence on its own optical analog switches. Those concerns have made their way into its customization software as well.

Alongside all the usual keybinding, actuation settings, and RGB configurations, Synapse also houses a recalibration tool for the Huntsman V3 HE. Magnetic fields from other devices on your desk can (though I've personally never witnessed it happening) interfere with the actuation of a Hall effect keyboard. Should that happen to you, Synapse will allow you to reset the accuracy of the magnets in your deck.

Say you're not approaching the Huntsman V3 HE from a Hall effect standpoint, though. To make way for those magnetic clackers, the simple design does drop some key features you'll find elsewhere on the market. There's no dedicated media controls here, less common on the TKL model compared to the 60%-er. This is also a fully wired deck, opting not to pump the additional weight (and cost) of the size of battery required to keep those magnetic clackers running. Still, the whole thing polls at 8,000Hz which ticks a box for the ultra-competitive among us, though most of us have little need for this fancy extra.

Performance

The Razer Huntsman V3 HE's biggest success comes in the improvement of its typing feel and, crucially, sound. With no more pings and rattles across the casing, these smooth, light, and bouncy keys hit the ear with a crisp, robust clack. While there's a little inconsistency in this tonality across the deck, Enter and Space keys producing a notably deeper sound, actual keypresses remain steady in actuation and overall feel.

There is, however, a temperamental side to the new line. The first Huntsman V3 HE I had on my desk, a 60% model, exhibited a notable amount of chatter, particularly around certain keys such as Shift. A fresh board removed the problem entirely, so I'm confident it was a manufacturing error - but it's worth highlighting some batches may perform better than others. With everything up and running, the Huntsman V3 HE keeps its cool in both a casual setting and faster arenas.

Typing remains equally comfortable on the Huntsman V3 HE, with the smoothness of those switches coming into their own compared to cheaper Hall effect decks. Many fall down here, with a resistance level set too high to feel truly nippy under the fingertips. Both that robust sound profile and the light feel of these clackers come together to produce an effortless experience through longer typing sessions.

Should you buy the Razer Huntsman V3 HE?

The Razer Huntsman V3 HE is priced competitively when looking across the market at Corsair, SteelSeries, Logitech, and Asus. While it's not quite as cheap as smaller brands in this space, it does well to offer such a wide range of switch adjustment options in a sturdy chassis.

Both the 65% and TKL layouts will sit larger on your desk than the slightly cheaper Corsair Clipper Pro Mini 60, but this is an easy recommendation if you're looking to maintain those separate arrow buttons, while Razer easily wins over SteelSeries thanks to its dramatically reduced cost.

Ultimately, the Huntsman V3 HE comes with the same caveat shared by most magnetic keyboards. By default, they're more expensive than their mechanical counterparts, often with fewer quality of life features. On top of that, it's generally going to be particularly competitive players getting the best bang for their buck here.

If you know you want a compact magnetic keyboard with arrow buttons intact, I'd recommend Razer's over alternatives. If you're just after a new gaming keyboard and aren't scaling ranked leaderboards, you'll either save cash or find more wireless options with mechanical models.

How I tested the Razer Huntsman V3 HE

I spent one month swapping between the Razer Huntsman V3 HE 65% and Razer Huntsman V3 HE TKL models, with an additional week spent on the larger form factor due to a faulty 65% unit. During that time, this keyboard became my daily driver for all work and play, taking center stage in Doom: The Dark Ages, CS2, High on Life 2, and Planet Coaster 2. For more information on how we test gaming keyboards, check out the full GamesRadar+ Hardware Policy.

We're also hunting down the best gaming headsets and the best gaming monitors to fully kit out your setup.

Razer and Pokemon collaborations are everywhere you look. Even in the time since I covered the new Lucario Edition headset, the brand has unveiled two more aimed at fans of Sylveon and Charizard. Now, a new 30th Anniversary Special Edition Pixel Art set has been revealed online, but not through the typical Razer social media channels you'd expect.

Razer's main X (Twitter) page has been silent on the reveal, leaving users like @Pokekalos to share a glimpse of the new collection, which is set to launch in China and encompasses more than one of the best Razer headsets with a new coat of Poke paint. Instead, the set includes a gaming chair, keyboard, mouse, and a mousepad, all draped in pixel art of nothing but the original 151 Pokemon. It's a feast for the eyes if you grew up with the original games, and while pre-orders began on October 15 in China, I'm keeping my fingers crossed we'll one day be able to catch it all too.

The upcoming Razer collection was shared on the Chinese social media platform Weibo, via the site's official Pokemon account on October 15, 2026. Google-aided translation reveals that the "Pokedex collection" exists to celebrate Pokemon's 30th Anniversary, and according to our friends at TechPowerUp, pre-sales have already begun at retailers Bilibili and Tmall.

I'm hoping those of us in the UK and US will be able to order it someday ourselves, as the set is a retro-fueled treat. My favorite piece has to be the chair, which appears to be an Iskur V2 X NewGen judging from the official marketing imagery. The back of it goes all out and features a large pixel art piece showcasing a Pokemon Center with sprites of Mew, Pikachu, Eevee, Charmander, Bulbasaur, and Squirtle standing in front. It's almost like they're having a much-needed discussion of who's the cutest OG pocket monster. (The winner is obviously Squirtle, FYI.)

The same sprites can be found on the backside of the chair, presented around a subtle silver Poke Ball motif, which is as classy as it is understated. Having the bright, colorful sprites sitting atop a silver base seems to be the trend of the entire collection, as the mouse, which looks to be a Viper V4 Pro, shares a similar design. The majority of it is coated in a shiny silver, while there's a yellow Poke Ball sprite on the palm rest and wireless dongle. All the same Pokemon are relegated to the left and right buttons, and the saturated colors of the little guys feel as prominent as ever in contrast to the cool tones of the metallic silver base.

While the chair is my favorite, if I had to grab anything from the set, it'd undoubtedly be the wireless keyboard and the matching mousepad. It appears to be the Black Widow V4 Pro 75% that's been selected, which is a feature-full board boasting third-generation Orange Tactile switches and includes an OLED display. I sincerely hope the latter is programmed to run the Pokemon pixel art by default; otherwise it'd be a missed opportunity.

The board's keys are draped in this lovely forest green coloring, which matches the trees surrounding the Pokemon Center as found on the collection's gaming chair. Meanwhile, I can't help but fawn over the adorable parade of Pokemon across the palm rest. The mousepad is just as cute, featuring all 151 Pokemon in pixel form.

From afar, I thought the mat's green border was plain, but on close inspection it's made up of a series of grass sprites, which is super fitting. The desk mat looks pretty large, so it's likely a Razer Gigantus V2 Pro that's been utilized this time around. Whichever it is, it'd need to be pretty large in order to include the entire original generation of Pokemon that I grew up with.

While you wait to see if this new Pokemon pixel art collection makes it to UK and US shores, be sure to check out the Hori Pokemon Pixel collection. You'll need to have a Switch 2 to make the most of the retro-fueled accessories, but they're at least available on both Amazon US and UK, unlike these pixel-perfect goodies.

• View all Pokemon Razer accessories at Amazon

Want more options for your PC setup? Check out the best gaming chairs, best gaming keyboards, and the best gaming desks we've tested.

Austin Abrams went full method whilst filming new horror thriller Whalefall, so much so that he walked around his neighbourhood in scuba gear to get used to the weight, and even had security called on him at one point.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Abrams was asked about walking around in scuba gear, asking if he got any funny looks while doing so. "I can’t remember if there were any funny looks or not," said Abrams, "But there’s a point where Jay gets visibly more distressed and blown-up looking. I remember walking around the lot during that time and having security called on me just because I looked so fucked up."

Scuba suits aside, Abrams had to undergo physical changes to get into the role of diver Jay Gardiner. The star has had to fluctuate his weight dramatically. While waiting for Zach Cregger's 2025 horror movie Weapons to start filming, Abrams had to keep to a very low weight to play drug addict James.

In fact, Abrams maintained that weight for a long while whilst Cregger had to recast Weapons due to delays. Abrams was the only actor to stick with the project, though, and actively passed up other opportunities at that time. Then the actor had to get into sporty shape to play diver Jay in Whalefall, before putting on weight to play Bryan in Cregger's Resident Evil movie.

"I wanted Bryan to be a dude you look at and think he won’t be able to get out of this," said Abrams. "I didn’t want him to look like someone who runs laps in his free time or something like that. So it was a close period of time, but there wasn’t really any science to it. You just do whatever you can to get where you need to go."

Much like Resident Evil, Whalefall puts Abrams' protagonist in a life-threatening situation. But rather than fighting off zombies like Bryan, Jay is swallowed whole by a massive whale.

Whalefall is out in cinemas now. For more, keep up with upcoming movies and movie release dates.

A higher-up at Xbox is weighing in on the discussion around generative AI in game development, and he believes it's part of an inevitable future. Despite never having made a video game before, he's convinced vibe coding is the way forward for the industry.

In a series of posts on Twitter, Brandon Stirrup, a senior business strategy manager at Microsoft, explained his stance on the technological shifts within video games. "I vibe coded a bad but improvable game in two days and I only spent three hours actively," he starts.

"I’m telling you I tried it and it’s true - anyone can build a game," he adds, before asserting the direction of the headwinds. "There’s no point in a five-ten year plan absent AI in 2026. Everything you plan for will be superseded. You’re planning for a fake future," he writes.

Stirrup feels so strongly about this, he believes studios who aren't incorporating AI in some form are categorically worse off. "If you’re a game developer refusing to believe that AI has a place in your future, you should not be in the business of being a business," he tweets.

Amid his stream of consciousness, he asserts that if he's suddenly let go from his position, it's "because I told you the truth that nobody wants you to know." Included in that remit is the notion gen-AI can make a game from a prompt, and the assertions that "hundreds" of Xbox employees actively use AI, and "gaming is the only industry pretending to not use AI."

There are more tweets, but he goes around in circles on these beliefs, at one point providing a demo of the game he got some sort of chatbot to spit back at him after some prompting. It's a basic soccer sim that looks every bit like the three hours he says he put into it.

We can't verify his statement on how many people at Xbox use AI in their workflow, nor to what extent. Last year, it was reported EA was making chatbots mandatory across the company. Is Xbox operating similarly? What are the mandates and approval rates?

Multiple studios have either been caught out using AI assets or plainly admitted the tech was involved somewhere in the development process. The feedback to such is roundly negative. Of everything Stirrup says here, his claim devs shouldn't be in business if they aren't using AI is among the most flippant and easily untrue. Palworld, Wardogs and Slay the Spire 2 are three massive hits that'd like a word.

"I have never attempted to make a video game," he tweets at one point. He still hasn't, I'd argue, and he probably shouldn't make broad statements about those who actually do, either.

A Halo extraction shooter and battle royale hybrid game was reportedly scrapped during the development of Campaign Evolved

MAPPA CEO Manabu Otsuka won't rule out using AI, but is adamant the "creative process has to come from people."

Otsuka, the head of the animation studio that has brought us the likes of Chainsaw Man, Attack on Titan, and Jujutsu Kaisen, revealed to AnimeCorner that he has a pragmatic outlook on AI as a tool – but little more than that.

"Whether it’s digital tools, 3D, or indeed AI – to me, all of these are ultimately tools, and nothing more than tools," Otsuka said.

"Quality that moves people emotionally can only come from human beings – it has to be people who create it. That is my fundamental belief."

Otsuka then laid out his plans in evaluating which tools to use in the artistic process. For the CEO, it's more about efficiency than robbing creative talent of their agency.

"So the real question is simply: which tools do you use, how, and to what appropriate degree? That’s something we’ll keep exploring continuously," Otsuka said. "Tools can, at most, serve to make workflows more efficient, but the creative process has to come from people."

AI in anime has come under the microscope in the past few years, in line with the emergence and growth of generative AI models and chatbots such as Claude and ChatGPT.

While the likes of Banana Fish came under fire for its use of its later-removed AI dub, there has been a sudden and dramatic sea change in industry leaders speaking out against AI.

Crunchyroll CEO Rahul Purini said earlier this year it was "not that difficult" to avoid using AI in anime, while director Toma Kimura made it clear that "no gen AI" was used in his Ghost in the Shell remake.

MAPPA, meanwhile, has plenty on its plate – Chainsaw Man season 2 and Jujutsu Kaisen season 4 are both in production.

For more, check out the new anime currently in the works elsewhere.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake series producer Naoki Hamaguchi has confirmed details about Revelation's difficulty, including a new enemy strength option.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Rebirth obviously have beloved combat in both entries, but neither game has combat I'd describe as particularly difficult. Obviously, tackling the Summon Materia battles from Chadley earlier than you're meant to is a bit of a nightmare, but for the core story progression, there were only a handful of moments when things felt much more challenging.

And unfortunately, Hard mode was only made available after you beat the game in full, so unless you really want to replay it – which, given how long Rebirth is, I don't blame you for not wanting to – you won't experience it.

Thankfully, Hamaguchi – in an interview with Hardcore Gamer – confirms that "Hard Mode is selectable from the very start of this game." He explained that the hard difficulty "won't function in the exact same way as it did in Remake and Rebirth" and that for Final Fantasy 7 Revelation "we’ve reimagined the high-difficulty experience to align with the new game design."

"Unlike Remake and Rebirth, Revelation offers a wide variety of end-game content even after you’ve beaten the game," Hamaguchi explains, adding, "we aimed to create a game where players can enjoy various new content and challenges even after completing the main story."

On top of that, the balance of hard mode has changed somewhat, with him explaining that player options "have expanded significantly," and, as a result, the team "determined that simply banning items wouldn’t be enough to achieve the ideal high-difficulty experience we envisioned."

Hamaguchi also detailed an option in the difficulty settings, namely 'Enemy Strength,' which lets you choose between the returning Dynamic mode and static enemies. He explains, "we’ve created a challenging environment that will thoroughly satisfy those seeking high difficulty, while also expanding players’ freedom and strategic options."

More options are always a good thing, and after talking all that smack at the start of this, I look forward to bouncing my difficulty back down to normal after the third roadblock.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation boss doesn't want to hear your Rebirth mini-game discourse: "I don't think that discussion really gets to the heart of the matter"

Driven Football codes significantly bump up the number of DF Coins you have available, so that you can purchase new items through the in-game shop. Meanwhile, others can be redeemed for a temporary boost in Rep or a few more Attribute Points, all of which come in useful the more times you set foot on the field.

From fancy banners to show off your team loyalty to colorful touchdown effects, the thousands of DF coins you'll get from redeeming the latest promos will buy you plenty, though some are locked behind the battle pass. While the premium pass can only be purchased with Robux, if you like your freebies, don't forget to claim your free track rewards as you progress through this Roblox game.

If you're after some more general rewards to use in all of your experiences, then we've got the current Roblox promo codes covered too.

All Driven Football codes

These are the Driven Football codes you can redeem right now:

• 2MILLIONVISITS - 100,000x DF Coins, 60x Attribute Points, Double Rep (2 hours) new!
• 1MILLIONVISITS - 100,000x DF Coins, 100x Attribute Points, Double Rep (2 hours) new!
• 500KVISITS - 56,250x DF Coins, 75x Attribute Points
• 400KVISITS - Double Rep (2 hours)

While Driven Football codes provide a range of rewards, you'll usually find they give you a bunch of DF Coins for spending via the in-game store. You'll also get a few Attribute Points from time to time, as well as a boost to your rep earning speed.

How to redeem Driven Football codes

To redeem Driven Football codes, you must first join the Driven Football Co. group on Roblox. The codes redemption box also implies that you should Like the game first, too, but you don't need to do that to redeem codes - only do so if you actually do like the game!

Once you've joined the group, redeem your codes from the main menu by clicking on the Redeem A Code button, entering a valid code into the box, and clicking Redeem.

Expired Driven Football codes

• OPENTESTING - 2,500x DF Coins
• BUILTDIFFERENT - 15x Attribute Points
• SORRY4BUGS - 3,000x DF Coins, 8x Attribute Points
• DOUBLEXP - Double Exp (2 hours)
• 2KCCU - 10,000x DF Coins, 10x Attribute Points
• 100KVISITS - 25,000x DF Coins, 20x Attribute Points, Double Rep (2 hours)
• 200KVISITS - 40x Attribute Points
• 300KVISITS - 50,000x DF Coins, 60x Attribute Points

Plenty of Driven Football codes have been added and then expired since the football game's launch in October 2026. Though that's likely to slow down the further out we get from release, codes will still expire, so redeem new promos as soon as you see them on our list.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Every year the Razzie Awards roll around, honouring the worst acting performances of the season. But although the ceremony is meant to be a bit of fun, DC star Jessie Eisenberg says winning one in 2017 seriously affected his career.

"I couldn't get into movie studio parts anymore because I had won a Raspberry Award from [being in the] Batman movie," said Eisenberg at the BFI London Film Festival (via Variety).

Eisenberg was awarded the Razzie, officially known as The Golden Raspberry, for worst supporting actor for his performance in the 2016 DC movie Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. The star played villain Lex Luthor across from Henry Cavill's Superman and Ben Affleck's Batman. The movie itself took home four Razzies in total, including worst sequel, worst screenplay, and worst screen combo.

However, what was supposedly meant to be a lighthearted joke made Eisenberg change direction in his career. "A lot of it just came from fear," added the star. Eisenberg moved away from acting and began to pursue writing and directing. "The industry tells you what they want from you. The industry did not want me to be in a superhero movie, and if you're smart and self-aware, you learn that quickly."

In fact, Superman v Batman's bad reception made him turn away from the superhero genre altogether. "It's the unsuccessful actor that goes, 'No, I want to be in more of those.' It's not going to happen, and they don't want you there, and they wouldn't have given you a Raspberry Award if they wanted you there. That's an award for bad acting," he explained. "So I was like, 'I've got to direct movies.' That's why I started writing them, just to kind of keep my career afloat, really."

Since the 2016 movie, Eisenberg has written and directed movies When You Finish Saving the World, the Oscar-winning 2024 flick Real Pain, and new release The Debut. But Eisenberg is still acting, starring in movies such as Vivarium, and returning for sequels Zombieland: Double Tap and Now You See Me: Now You Don't.

For more, keep up with upcoming movies and movie release dates.

Frank Grillo isn't listening to criticism of Rick Flag Sr.'s actions in the DCU.

The character – father to Rick Flag Jr., whom Peacemaker killed in The Suicide Squad – deliberately stranded Christopher Smith in Salvation in the Peacemaker season 2 finale. That sounds pretty villainous, but Grillo thinks Flag Sr. is totally justified.

"Right now, I am? I didn't know that!" Grillo said, when MovieWeb asked if he was handling being one of the most hated DCU characters.

When MovieWeb prompted him on what Rick Flag Sr. did to Smith, he replied: "Peacemaker killed my son! Let me help you here. He murdered my son, my child." When the interviewer pointed out Peacemaker feels guilty, Grillo responded: "Whose problem is it, mine or yours? You're crazy." Check out the moment below.

We'll next see Rick Flag Sr. in Man of Tomorrow, though it's currently unclear when – or if – we'll ever see Peacemaker again.

"My character, Rick Flag Sr., is a big part of the sequel's story, so I'm excited about it," Grillo has previously teased of his role.

Man of Tomorrow sees Superman forced to team up with his nemesis Lex Luthor against the villainous Braniac. Aaron Pierre's John Stewart and Milly Alcock's Supergirl will also return, along with Xolo Maridueña's Blue Beetle, Nathan Fillion's Guy Gardner, Isabela Merced's Hawkgirl, and Adria Arjona and Matthew Lillard in mystery roles.

"In the first movie, and rightly so, we learn a lot about who Superman is. In [Man of Tomorrow], I think we'll learn more about who Lex Luthor is, and I think it's equally important," Fillion has previously teased of the film.

Man of Tomorrow arrives on July 9, 2027. Next up for the DCU is Clayface, which hits theaters this October 23.

In the meantime, check out our guide to all the upcoming DC movies and TV shows for everything else the DCU has in store.

Those viral Elden Ring and Minecraft mashups you've likely seen circulating the web over the past couple of weeks are now conveniently available to play via a questionably created launcher – one that might compromise your PC in the process.

You know the ones I'm talking about – the AI-powered crossovers boasting the world of Skyrim with the combat of FromSoftware games or whatever – they're everywhere right now.

And, as if that wasn't enough, somebody's gone and made (or perhaps vibe coded, as would certainly make sense) a special launcher for Windows computers that supposedly lets you play whatever weird mashup you'd like: Melty.

As per its official description, "Melty is a free mashup launcher for Windows that joins two games you own into one hybrid experience. Instead of installing mods by hand, you press Play once: Melty downloads the mashup, sets up everything the combination needs, and launches the merged game."

There's a reason I'm not linking to it here, however. Its terms of service are, uh… Well, they let the launcher do just about everything. They authorize the ability to find games, download new tools, copy files, modify folders, run programs, and execute automatic updates – but that's not all.

A coder who goes by "Wubbity" online alleges that he's "pulled apart" the Melty installer and found that it's "a rebrand of LookLoot, an app that records gameplay video and inputs as AI training data." As he writes, Melty's privacy policy "doesn't mention it."

Although he clarifies it's "not malware, no password stealing," it's "shipping a dormant gameplay-recording pipeline its website can trigger, and users weren't told."

In other words, I'd recommend giving this one a miss. That and the Bloodborne PC port similarly relying on AI, and everything else that relies on the controversial tech as it's popping up left, right, and center, it seems. I mean, seriously… it's everywhere.

It doesn't help that reputable (I know, I know) companies like Epic Games are transforming their own launchers and proudly announcing they've "vibe coded" them – although I suppose we still have Valve's ever-legendary Steam to lean on.

Valve beats Epic to the punch, updates Steam launcher 1 day before its rival claims to be "faster" thanks to AI-powered vibe coding

Over six years after the project entered development, Taika Waititi's long-gestating Star Wars movie written by Tony McNamara has been put on hold.

"I hate to break this to you, but we're going to actually put it on ice, and we're working on a different thing together," said Waititi to Inverse. "It's very iced. I've got about four other movies I'm trying to do."

Waititi didn't reveal which project he and Poor Things screenwriter McNamara are now working on in place of the sci-fi flick, but the filmmaker has a bunch of titles already in the works, including a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie and the What We Do In The Shadows sequel. However, Waititi isn't saying goodbye to Star Wars for good, as he added, "Ice ages do come to an end. Who knows?"

The untitled Star Wars movie was announced way back in 2020 with Waititi and 1917 scribe Krysty Wilson-Cairns attached. In 2022, then Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy told Total Film that the film was headed for a "late 2023" release. But that never came to fruition. Then at Star Wars Celebration 2025, it was announced that McNamara had joined on as the new writer. Waititi never shared an official synopsis, but the filmmaker had hinted that the movie would expand the Star Wars universe.

As of right now, the only Star Wars movie to have a solid release date is Star Wars: Starfighter, directed by Shawn Levy. The Ryan Gosling starrer has finished filming and is heading to cinemas on May 28, 2027. Beyond that, not including Waititi's project, seven other upcoming Star Wars movies have been announced but are all still waiting for release dates and production status updates.

Over on the small screen, there are four shows currently in the works in the Galaxy Far, Far Away. Ahsoka season 2 is next up and is targeting a January 20, 2027 release on Disney Plus. Maul: Shadow Lord has also been reviewed for a second season. Many Star Wars projects have been scrapped over the past few years, including The Hunt for Ben Solo and Marvel boss Kevin Feige's mysterious project.

For more, check out our ranking of the best Star Wars movies and keep up with the Star Wars timeline with our deep dive on how to watch the Star Wars movies in order.

With its exciting announcement of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake, Nintendo also unveiled a stunning 40th Anniversary Edition of its Switch 2 console themed around the beloved series – and it sold out as quickly as it went up.

As fans, it's likely that none of us were surprised to see it sell out so quickly, right? Heck, I secured mine only after sitting through a massive online queue, undergoing various website crashes, and refreshing at the speed of light – an experience I was more than prepared for.

It seems that Nintendo itself, however, wasn't. Bill van Zyll, vice president and general manager of Nintendo in Latin America, tells Coelho no Japão as much during an interview.

"Well, if we expected it, we wouldn't be in that situation, right? At least not to this extent," he admits, referencing how the Zelda 40th Anniversary Edition Switch 2 sold out instantly.

"I will tell you that it's a global phenomenon. We have this issue absolutely everywhere. We apologize for that. That certainly is not the intent. We underestimated how well it would be received – and there's certainly some markets that stand out."

For example, the United States "did extremely well," according to the executive – but it's not alone, of course. "It's a global phenomenon where they're running out of product," he states once again. "The pre-sales are hitting their max, and certainly that's what happened to us in Brazil."

Nintendo is on it now that the company is aware. "We are working on replenishments of the special hardware and the software, but it'll take a little bit of time". Stress on that last bit, though. "Please be patient."

It's hard to be, I suppose, but it's even harder for me to imagine that Nintendo didn't expect the console's popularity. I'm reminded of the original Switch and its own Zelda-themed edition, which similarly flew off the shelf, so to speak. Same with the Animal Crossing: New Horizons one.

But still, "It caught us by surprise. We expected a positive response, but the magnitude… It's amazing."

Anything is possible, I guess. I'd suggest keeping an eye on retailers (and Nintendo's own store itself) over the lead up to the Ocarina of Time remake release on November 5 – and, of course, the special edition console's own October 29 launch.

Nintendo quietly drops new Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake trailers, casually giving us our first-ever look at Dark Link and more

The king of cameos returns: Hideo Kojima will be reprising his Cyberpunk role in Edgerunners season 2.

Kojima will return as Hideyoshi Oshima, the braindance director who cropped up Konpeki Plaza during one of Cyberpunk 2077's earliest, most memorable missions as V attempted to steal a biochip right from under Arasaka's noses.

"You may remember seeing him in Konpeki Plaza during The Heist in 2077. Now, the renowned braindance director is making another appearance in Night City," reads the announcement from the official Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Twitter account.

After the news went public, CD Projekt Red co-CEO Michal Nowakowski tweeted, "Always a pleasure to work with Hideo Kojima."

Perhaps we should have seen this coming. After all, Kojima recently teased he would be making multiple cameos across various mediums.

"Directors and others have asked me to [appear]. One is a big live-action movie and [the other] is a major anime title," Kojima said during an appearance on radio show KOJI10.

Kojima added, perhaps with a knowing nod towards playing 'Oshima' in the Cyberpunk series, "I don't like playing myself. That happens a lot. I'd rather play a detective or something."

If Kojima can pull himself away from his newfound acting career, he will be working on two upcoming titles: new horror game O.D. and Physint, a Metal Gear spiritual successor that has emerged under the Xbox umbrella after being suddenly dropped from PlayStation in September.

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners season 2 is streaming from October 20 on Netflix.

For the verdict on the new Cyberpunk anime, we have the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners season 2 review ready and waiting for you. Then dive into our picks for the best anime on Netflix.

Red Guardian actor David Harbour has denied giving away a major Avengers: Doomsday spoiler – but he's teased a different spoiler instead.

Back in August, Variety asked Harbour to quote a line from the movie. Harbour responded in a Russian accent: "You… are Tony Stark." That's a huge deal, because Robert Downey Jr. is playing Doctor Doom in the movie, and we still don't know the connection between him and Tony Stark.

But, speaking to Screen Rant, Harbour has denied ever saying such a thing. "Did I say that I said that? No, I think you guys make this stuff up," he said. "The guy asked me for a line from Avengers: Doomsday, and my line was, 'Five, four, three, two, [one].' That's my line that I gave him. I don't know about the Tony Stark thing."

The fallout even spread to Harbour's Thunderbolts co-star. "Wyatt Russell sent me an article like, 'David Harbour just ruined the movie.' And I was like, 'Okay.' So, I don't know. I don't think I said that. If I did, I'm sorry. I don't say that in the movie."

Still, he did tease something about the Marvel Phase 6 film. "I do say 'Five, four, three, two, one,' though. That's a big spoiler. I count down from five at one point during the movie, and something very important happens," he joked.

Harbour will appear along with the rest of his Thunderbolts co-stars in Doomsday, and the rest of the massive cast list includes the likes of Anthony Mackie's Captain America, Chris Hemsworth's Thor, Chris Evans's Steve Rogers, the Fantastic Four, the Fox-era X-Men, and more.

"Doom's magic is ancient," co-director Joe Russo shared recently of Downey Jr.'s Doctor Doom. "He is a very powerful character, as you can see in the trailer, and he's a genius. He studies his foes. He understands them, and he's also well-planned. He's not somebody who just does something off the cuff."

Russo added: "Everything is meticulous with him, and he knows that if he's going to step onto a battlefield against somebody, he has to have the tactical advantage or a power advantage against that person. So, he's very difficult to beat."

Avengers: Doomsday arrives this December 18. In the meantime, check out our guide to all the upcoming Marvel movies and TV shows for everything else that's on the way.

The interminable wait for a Cyberpunk 2077 sequel continues, but at least we have Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 to fill the void. A collaboration between digital worldbuilders CD Projekt Red and acclaimed Japanese animation house Studio Trigger, this follow-up to 2022's inaugural season of anime features an entirely new cast of characters navigating the same unforgiving Corpo-ruled world. And though nothing here can quite top the impact of David's tragic arc in season 1, Edgerunners 2 is another nova Night City story.

Four years in the making, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 can't be dinged for a lack of ambition. Orbiting a quartet of interconnected protagonists, at times it can feel like multiple seasons of TV in one. The closest to a lead is D. (Nazeeh Tarsha) – a spiky-haired netrunner who's out for revenge on those responsible for the massacre of his nomad tribe. Early on, he meets Roman (Valeria Rodriguez), a young wannabe filmmaker who champions analogue photography over BDs, and knows a great subject when he sees one.

Then there's Talia (Kimoy Lee), a gravely ill young woman who has progressively replaced each failing body part with chrome, and is now more machine than human. Her story dovetails with that of Weak Kingsley (Clancy Brown), a former Edgerunner who went cyberpsycho and had all his upgrades stripped. King, as he's otherwise known, was once close with Talia's mother, Avida (Cesili Williams), and makes saving the self-destructive Talia his redemptive mission.

Perhaps most intriguing of all, there's Capri (Brittany Lauda) – a mysterious, impossibly powerful digital construct that anyone and everyone wants control over, including Kang Tao corpo Kiril Yang (Daniel Wu), who also happens to be Talia's father. Unlike season 1's speed-enhancing Sandevistan, Capri is more than mere MacGuffin; she is unpredictable, revels in chaos, and has a history waiting to be unearthed that will be of particular interest to 2077 players.

Doom and chooms

For the most part, this more ambitious structure works. While it sometimes lacks the propulsion and greater intimacy that comes with following a single central character's journey across 10 episodes, there is a more diverse variety of story threads being woven here. D.'s revenge mission closely mirrors the escalating stakes of season one, delivering on the requisite spectacle and sense of impending doom, but Roman, King and Talia all offer very different flavors. Talia's thread, in particular, is deeply somber and sad, as she reckons with her failing body after maxing out her cyberware capacity. Likewise, King, once a legend, but with nothing else to live for anymore, ties his fate to Talia's in a way that is tender and caring – a rare glimmer of hope and decency in a cruel world.

Roman is the least successful of the four and more of a storytelling device there to connect the other protagonists, rather than a memorable character in his own right. Though ostensibly a coming-of-age story for the young documentarian, who finds himself in way over his head as D.'s public rampage escalates, more often than not he's simply a witness to proceedings, rather than an active participant.

If there's a downside to this structure, it's that D. and Roman's story is siloed off from Talia and King's for much of the season, with fairly minimal overlap. But as their paths fully converge in the final episodes, the long wait is paid off. It would have been easy for all involved to re-run David's story, perhaps with a different outcome, but Edgerunners 2 deserves credit for not simply rehashing its predecessor's winning formula.

Chrome is where the heart is

Where Edgerunners excels, once again, is its sublime animation. Studio Trigger has outdone itself here; it's an even more impressive and creative rendering of CDPR's world than the first go-round. The ultra-stylized character designs are distinct and full of personality, action is eye-poppingly fluid and dynamic, while fans of the game will revel in its recreation of familiar locales from across Night City. You'll almost certainly want to pick up a controller and (re)visit them yourself after rolling credits (which is exactly what the team at Studio Trigger did).

Netflix and co. have shown impressive restraint keeping Capri out of trailers, as she's an aesthetically stunning creation. Visualized as a piece of neon pink and green abstract art born of The Net, Capri has no limitations, and Trigger doesn't hold back on the chaos that follows in her wake. Indeed, as the season progresses, the scale and spectacle are more reminiscent of Akira than even David's Cyberskeleton-aided rampage. Quite what a figure as powerful as Capri means for the future of this world is a fascinating question.

What you might still be wondering is whether Edgerunners 2 continues the story of Lucy or dearly departed David Martinez from the first season. That is best discovered by watching, but there are connections – some overt (and rather clumsy), others more ambiguous or thematic. But it's important to note that Edgerunners 2 embraces the anthology format, rather than positioning itself as a direct continuation of the first season, and as such you could comfortably watch Edgerunners 2 after skipping the first season or the game. Though why you'd want to is another matter.

Whether you're coming to it completely fresh, or as someone who was in on 2077 from day one (bugs and all), Edgerunners 2 is yet another victory lap following Cyberpunk's extraordinary redemption story. It can't quite top its predecessor and is unlikely to be quite as beloved as a result, but Edgerunners 2 proves there are still plenty of stories worth telling in Night City.

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 releases on Netflix on October 20. Make sure you're there the moment the new episodes drop with our Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 release schedule. Or for more from Night City, check out our exclusive interview with showrunner Bartosz Sztybor.

The CEO of Silent Hill 2 Remake developer Bloober Team has spoken out on his commitment to physical games media as PlayStation pledges to cease disc production by 2028.

"If we are able to produce a [physical] retail version of our games, we would like to make them for as long as possible," Piotr Babieno tells GamesRadar+ in an interview. Joined by Tymon Smektala, Broken Mirror Games' new executive director and former Dying Light franchise director, the duo take a moment to appreciate the roots of their passion for games as the Bloober publishing subsidiary embarks on a journey to discover "the next Kojima" of horror.

"Both me and Piotr, we are from the era where being a gamer meant you are a collector of stuff," Smektala says, gesturing to the room behind him during the video call. "Like, if I could unblur my screen, you would see lots of stuff behind me and I have lots of stuff that's not even in the camera, so this is what gaming is to us. This is the gaming I know, and this is the gaming I expect. And as long as it will be possible, and as long as the big decision makers will allow us to have that, then of course I'll be into that."

The topic came up when asked about Onyx: The Dark Grip, an upcoming horror game developed by Bloober Team and published by its in-house horror subsidiary Broken Mirror Games. It'll be one of the first Switch 2-exclusive third-party horror games ever, and the very first to be built entirely for the console's handheld mode. In the age of DLSS-5 and the worrying encroachment of generative AI in game development, Babieno considers where consoles have left to go.

"We have reached a moment where you can't really do much more in that direction [of visual and auditory fidelity]. Like, okay, the game can have a slightly higher resolution and maybe better lighting and whatever, but will it make it a more engaging game? I don't think so."

Whether players even know or care about these minute changes to the lifelikeness of a game is a question unto itself. "If you even look at the stats, a majority of players are playing on hardware which is five, seven years old, if not older, so they don't even get to experience those high-level settings at all," Babieno muses. "But are they less interested in games because of that? I don't think so.

"I think, especially in the age of AI, it's actually quite interesting to start thinking about other senses." This is one of Onyx's core motivations in being a Switch 2 handheld-only game – it's "putting horror back in your hands" in a physical sense, says Babieno, using the device as a conduit for the game itself as part of the experience. "As humans, we have four other senses, and AI can deliver something for what you see, for what you hear, but why not touch? I think the physical element of gaming will always, always be there."

And what of physical games themselves – discs, cartridges, not just consoles? From a business standpoint, Babieno understands why publishers like Sony are going digital – "we do know how P&L works and that digital distribution is much easier, much cheaper, and will be more profitable for everyone," he says. But, echoing Smektala, there's another side to that coin.

"Collecting games also [made] an emotional connection between the game and me, between the studio which produced the game and me," Babieno says. "This little emotional touch is so important that, I think in some way, we would lose the opportunity of being closer with our fans [without it]. So, if we are able to produce a [physical] retail version of our games, we would like to make them for as long as possible."

Check out the other upcoming Switch 2 game while you wait for Broken Mirror's Onyx: The Dark Grip.

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners creator Bartosz Sztybor has a sizzling hot take about his own work: season 1's finale, which crushed our hearts into a million tiny pieces, is a "happy ending" in his eyes.

"When people are talking about season one and the ending, the sadness, and that it is a 'bad ending' – For me, it is a happy ending," Sztybor says.

As a (painful) reminder, the first season of Edgerunners wraps up in brutal fashion: the vast majority of Maine's crew die, including Maine himself. Fan favorite Rebecca is dispatched by an unflinching Adam Smasher, before protagonist David – who had designs on visiting the moon with Lucy – bought just enough time for the remaining two crew members to flee, before being killed by Arasaka's heavy.

"I mean, in a way, because it could end so much worse," Sztybor explains, perhaps referring to previous comments regarding how an alternate David fate could have seen him become an unwitting tool for Asaka.

"Some of the characters, they are tragic personas. So it was impossible for them to have a different outcome. But in the end, it is somehow a happy ending."

While Night City was never going to be sunshine and roses, Sztybor also warns that, fundamentally, his outlook on the Cyberpunk location hasn't changed when plotting out the second season.

"I don't think my worldview changed significantly before writing season two," Sztybor states.

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners season 2 revolves around an entirely new set of characters, including veteran edgerunner Weak Kingsley, nomad D., chrome-infused Talia, and Roman, a child who wants to film on the streets of Night City. Will they break us all over again too?

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners season 2 is released on October 20.

For more, check out the new anime coming your way for the rest of the year.

Resident Evil: The Movie The Game is a fan-made adaptation of Zach Cregger's most recent big screen flick, which itself adapts the iconic survival horror video game series. An adaptation of an adaptation, if you will.

Developer Julian Zamora (chicanogoth on Instagram) recently posted about their Resident Evil fan game "inspired by the new movie," showing off a recognizable scene from the film, this time in video game form.

An early scene from the movie sees Bryan (played by the ever charismatic Austin Abrams) seek refuge in a middle-of-nowhere barn, as he struggles with both a snowstorm and an infected killer dog. Zamora's gameplay clip recreates that scene, with the barn in the background and a dog chasing the player character, though it's clearly earlier days.

Like the classic PS1 Resident Evil games of yesteryear, Zamora's fan game also has fixed camera angles that carefully control what's in (and out) of view. The Movie The Game is currently being built on Godot, and Zamora says they're excited to share more progress very soon.

"I'm still not sure how to do those pre-rendered flat environments from the PS1 days sadly, so yeah, it's giving more [Resident Evil Code Veronica] and I like it," they explain.

Zach Cregger's latest reboot of the Resident Evil film franchise has been a massive box office draw, outgrossing his big horror hit from last year, Weapons. GamesRadar's Resident Evil movie review called it the "best video game movie full stop" and "a horror-comedy to match the best the genre has to offer." No wonder it's inspiring fan-made remakes.

Hideo Kojima reviews Zach Cregger's Resident Evil: "It reminded me how I felt when I played the first [game]"

Red Dead Redemption and Bully are some of Rockstar Games' most defining hits - outside of the juggernaut Grand Theft Auto series, of course - but those classics almost didn't happen, according to studio co-founder and former lead writer Dan Houser.

Speaking to IGN, the former Rockstar lead explains that all-new and original games have a much tougher time reaching the finish line than sequels.

"I think there were lots of moments where Red Dead nearly didn't happen. I think there were lots of moments when Bully nearly didn't happen, and lots of other moments when games that didn't happen could have," Houser says. "There are lots of happenstance moments, or one good build, or the game suddenly comes together, that save projects that are struggling."

Building any AAA game is a challenge in itself, but new franchises in particular "tend to struggle a lot, so it's almost more impressive when they get made than it is heartbreaking when they don't," Houser adds. 2010's Red Dead Redemption even faced a "lot of difficult periods" - though the cowboy classic made it through thanks to the "core people on the team [who] were really strong, held focus on what they were trying to do, and solved the problems."

Houser recalls that development on Red Dead Redemption was interesting because the team were discovering "what the problems were and figuring out solutions to slowly unpick what was interesting about an open-world cowboy game." In hindsight, what makes Red Dead interesting is "obvious," he says, "but in real-time you were left with nothing but holes you're slowly filling."

Rockstar's Bully never spawned a sequel, sadly. Though the same can't be said of the studio's western epic - Red Dead Redemption 2 is one of the best-selling games of all time. For now, the developer seems to be entirely focused on GTA 6.

Rockstar's figured out the perfect GTA 6 advertisement – a bunch of supercars from Vice City speeding along the streets of Miami

Video games set in a galaxy far, far away are arguably more interesting nowadays than they've been for years. But what's changed? Lucasfilm Games executive Douglas Reilly says the company is now less restrictive with the Star Wars franchise and teases more upcoming games that could surprise fans.

This year alone, we've received two pretty surprising Star Wars games. There's Star Wars: Zero Company, an excellent turn-based tactics game that force pushes the XCOM formula into an entirely different sci-fi world. Then there's Star Wars: Galactic Racer, an arcade racing game from some of the developers behind Burnout. Both courted rave reviews.

Speaking to The Game Business Show, Reilly says those collaborations came from being "more flexible about, like, who we're willing to take pitches from and good ideas can come from a lot of different places."

Disney infamously signed a 10-year deal with EA that granted the publisher exclusive rights to make Star Wars video games. That deal expired in 2023, leaving the door open for smaller studios.

"You don't have to necessarily be a top five publisher to make a great Star Wars game," Reilly adds. "We have a high quality bar and we want to make sure they're excellent experiences and that means typically you work with more experienced teams than, you know, new teams who have no track record of making great things."

From here, the exec says "we're exploring all kinds of things [with] large and small partners that I think are going to continue to surprise folks who are like, 'Oh, they're doing a thing with them. That might be interesting to see how that turns out.'"

Currently, we know EA's Respawn is in development on a third game in the Star Wars Jedi franchise. Quantic Dream is still apparently working on Star Wars Eclipse, though that project hit a big hurdle earlier this summer as developers planned to strike.

Upcoming Star Wars games: Every new Star Wars game announced so far

Xbox's Halo franchise is now under the Activision umbrella, but a new report has shed light on some of the projects that were in development before the major internal shakeup.

Developer Halo Studios was essentially gutted as part of Xbox's sweeping restructure last month - only a small team remains to handle support for ongoing Halo games, events and an upcoming novel. The layoffs came only weeks after the studio shipped Halo: Campaign Evolved, a campaign-only remake of the series' very first game.

A new report from well-connected YouTuber HiddenXperia (below) now claims the studio were once working on a multiplayer game that was part battle royale, part extraction shooter, citing anonymous sources who were caught up in the mass layoffs at Halo Studios.

The game reportedly started life as the mysterious Project Tatanka, a pure battle royale game that was in production sometime during and after Halo Infinite's development. Tatanka was apparently set on a huge playable space that stitched together multiple recognizable Halo multiplayer maps.

It's claimed that Project Tatanka soon turned into Project Ekur, said to have been an extraction shooter where multiple squads would drop down onto Zeta Halo before the map would shrink like in most battle royales. HiddenXperia's sources say players could control either a UNSC Spartan or a Banished Brute (for the first time ever), and fight both player-controlled squads or the computer-controlled Flood (Halo's zombie faction) who would infect parts of the map. The Flood outbreak would also serve as a narrative bridge connecting to an eventual Halo 7. Players could supposedly choose to work together at times to fight a huge map boss - think Gears of War: E-Day's Invasion events.

Sometime during Halo: Campaign Evolved's development, it's claimed the studio wanted to instead build a more traditional Halo multiplayer game in Unreal Engine, which led to that interesting extraction shooter idea to fall by the wayside. Even that project was eventually scrapped, according to the report, as more devs had to move over to help Campaign Evolved's troubled production.

Veteran Halo lead has suggestions for how Activision could actually make "the greatest Halo game ever," and they include hiring "Bungie, Halo Studios, and other laid-off folks"

Cleverly, Invisible Inc is a balance of contrasts, a yin-yang structure of opposing forces that combine in harmony. As a turn-based strategy game, it wants you to take as long as you need to make your decisions, yet also demands precision timing. It wants to retain an element of risk in every act, but removes the genre's characteristic percentages and dice rolls. It wants you to have all the info you need to make your next move, while ensuring every mission is an unknowable challenge. It wants Roguelike replayability, without the brevity or abruptness of most Roguelike campaigns.

The foundation for all this is a focus on stealth. Invisible, a hi-tech private espionage outfit in the late 21st century, finds itself hunted by a group of powerful companies. You control its remaining agents as they infiltrate a series of corporate facilities to acquire info, money, and equipment. Keep surviving and gathering resources long enough, and you get a chance to enter the enemy's HQ and take their systems offline. Until then, you spend your time sneaking around offices, labs, and bank vaults, avoiding guard patrols and hacking security systems to meet various objectives.

The first contrast is between the familiar and the new. You start with two characters (you can rescue further operatives along the way) whose movements around grid-based locations are governed by AP, or action points. Following basic stealth protocols, you stay in cover, look ahead before you advance, and only engage guards as a last resort. But there's already another crucial resource to consider: power. You won't get far unless you remotely disable security cameras, drones, and laser grids, or access locked workstations and safes. And you can't do that if you don't maintain your power supply by activating replenishment programs or leeching from on-site terminals.

When it comes to the rules and flow of play, Invisible Inc revolves around simultaneous extremes of transparency and opacity, or information that is either remarkably abundant or completely absent. First there's what you don't know. When you start one of the procedurally generated missions, the facility's layout is a mystery. You teleport into an empty square room with one or more doors; beyond that, somewhere there's your main objective, and somewhere there's the exit. Guards could be anywhere, either about to walk in on you or patrolling deeper into the complex. You'll have to figure it all out as you move.

As for what you do know, the rule is that once you can see something, intel on it is instant and comprehensive. This is a carryover from Klei Entertainment's previous game, Mark of the Ninja, where line of sight immediately clarifies the status of objects and enemies. Here, in a turn-based world, the concept goes a step further. If a guard is visible, you can read about any armor or special abilities he has, and perceive his exact cone of vision. Use an action point, and you can even check the path of his next move. With this knowledge, your fragile but resourceful characters can assume control. Walk through a guard's peripheral vision on your way to cover, for example, and his attention will turn to that spot, giving you a window to sneak up and rifle through his pockets or escape unseen.

The simple and predictable nature of the AI is part of the game's drive to eliminate ambiguity. Even combat, when it does occur, is strictly binary. Either you have a weapon that can knock out or kill a particular guard, or you don't, and if you attack, the result is guaranteed. You never have to second-guess what the enemy will do and you never have to think about probabilities. You merely have to choose from the many possibilities laid out in front of you. Surprises only occur when you blunder forward blindly, or fail to consider what you've been told.

The bells are ringing

This absolute transparency, coupled with the contemplative nature of turn-based play, suggests cool, methodical advancement. But again that's only the half of it. The other half is urgency, pressure and panic, and it mostly comes from a single cause: the alarm level. The big twist in Invisible Inc is that while you arrive in each facility undetected, the enemy security network becomes more alert to your presence after every turn, and introduces new threats at certain thresholds – extra cameras, increased firewalls, more guards. Also, any time you get spotted, hack a booby-trapped system or use lethal force, the level jumps up even more. The longer you hang around and the more mistakes you make, the harder it is to get anything done.

The most precious commodity thus isn't AP or power, but turns themselves. While you don't have to worry whether or not an action will succeed, you must consider its efficiency. Any decision can have a vital fallout in terms of time that will alter how the mission unfolds. Do you split your team up to cover more ground, or keep them together to gang up on threats? Do you spend valuable turns sneaking around a guard, or knock him out? If you knock him out, do you drag him with you and keep him pinned down, or rush on knowing he'll soon recover and start searching for you? Do you use a large chunk of power to neutralise a camera instantly, or conserve some and do it more gradually? Do you hack a safe or facility map protected by a daemon program that could disrupt your own systems? In each case, your worst enemy might be indecisiveness, but you can't afford to be inflexible either, as conditions are in constant flux.

Choosing when to do something often becomes as important as choosing what to do, especially towards the end of a mission. The only essential requirement to keep the game alive is to reach the exit with at least one character, but if you're going to survive long-term and prepare sufficiently for the challenging endgame, it's best to get everyone out, complete your objective, and steal plenty of loot. The temptation, then, is always to look in every room and empty every safe, risking staying longer than necessary to extract maximum gains from each mission. But as firewalls increase and the guards close in, there's a point where it's smarter to cut and run.

Perhaps you have an agent crouched in a dead end, far from the exit, waiting to loot a well-protected safe. You need your power to recharge a little more to hack the lock, yet every turn you stay put the facility bolsters its defences, and your escape route becomes increasingly deadly. Maybe the rest of your squad is already at the exit, caught between hanging around to help the straggler or getting out now. Having come this far, is it worth another couple of turns to open that safe, or will it ruin everything? Few games make doing nothing feel so daring.

Crucially, the balance in Invisible Inc between stasis and timing, knowledge and ignorance, predictability and risk, is so fine that almost every mission escalates with the suspense of a good heist movie. They all play out differently, due to the random layouts. A large room with a concentration of intersecting patrols is a different proposition to a series of small rooms with stationary guards, for example. Or simple factors such as the position of the exit in relation to the main objective can dramatically change the route you have to navigate. But since you'll try to extract maximum resources regardless, you consistently push to the limit, and invariably end up running for the exit with half-a-dozen enemies homing in on your position.

These hair's-breadth victories reflect the game's final congruent dualism: the combination of Roguelike structure with the feel of a conventional one-and-done adventure. By default it teaches you how to play through its Beginner difficulty, and you could easily finish the six-hour campaign on your first attempt. Klei's gamble is that you'll want to repeat the process again and again, each time ratcheting up the challenge and going deeper into the tactical intricacies. As you do, you'll unlock different starting characters and hacking programs, each of which brings its own unique opportunities and challenges. You won't see anything drastically different in the missions themselves (although a substantial DLC package does change things up), but experimenting with different parameters keeps the experience endlessly fresh.

The game's use of permadeath is also carefully tempered, even when you get to the highly taxing Expert and Expert Plus difficulty levels. Being spotted is a problem, but there's usually a way out. And because you have multiple agents at your disposal, losing one isn't the end of the world. If a character is taken down, you may be able to resuscitate them or drag them to the exit, once the coast clears. Or, if all else fails, there's a limited-use rewind feature that enables you to take whole turns again. Sometimes you lose everyone nonetheless, and it can be hard to take when you're close to the end of a run, but at least permadeath isn't sudden death. You always have time to weigh up your options, experiment with the game's systems, and fashion last-ditch plans.

When you do succeed, perhaps inevitably it's a matter of walking a tightrope between opposites – action and inaction, attack and defence, spending and saving, safety and risk. Every decision is potentially important, and victory is rarely so emphatic that it couldn't have turned to defeat. Somehow this feels like a reflection of the game's design. Invisible Inc never asks anything of you that it hasn't already done itself.

This Invisible Inc article was first published in issue 354 of Edge Magazine. To get more like this delivered straight to your doorstep (or digital device) consider subscribing to Edge.

After 13 years on Dying Light, Tymon Smektala is keen to spot the freshest talent in horror as Broken Mirror Games' new executive director – perhaps even "the next Kojima", he says.

"I will feel satisfied and I will feel fulfilled when we will actually find a creator like that," Smektala tells GamesRadar+ in an interview joined by Piotr Babieno, CEO of Silent Hill 2 Remake developer Bloober Team. "I can easily imagine that we will find a creator that – a game creator working on a smaller project, but we would see the strength of the vision there, and with our help, this developer would get bigger, would get better, would get access to our DNA as well, because we have lots of expertise in making horror games. This creator could become the next Kojima, even. Like, why not?"

Those might sound like big words, but Smektala's done it before. He served as franchise director for three of his 13 years working on Dying Light at developer Techland, where the series rose to the ranks of the best zombie games of all time due to its pioneering of day/night time cycles that posed new challenges to open-world survival horror. Plus, the Bloober Team publishing subsidiary is already hard at work on a number of upcoming horror games.

From Saw: Genesis' more involved approach to the asymmetrical multiplayer to Switch 2-exclusive Onyx's focus on "putting fear back into your hands" (in a literal sense), Smektala is excited to continue the search for novel approaches to the big, bad world of horror.

"What we are trying to do is get the next Obsession, the next Backrooms, the next Weapons," he says, citing some of the biggest horror movies of the year – including one dreamed up by a content creator – that offer "A new take on horror, something that adds to the genre and is unique. That's kind of the top-level ambition: to find the next creators of horror gaming that can complete and add to what we are bringing to the table as Broken Mirror."

"It's not just pure entertainment, and it's not just about uniqueness. It's about something behind it all," says Babieno. "The best horrors are, in some way, answering the questions which are arising in society because we are afraid about something. That's why I believe that there are a lot of content creators who are able to touch [upon] horror from different perspectives, and we would like to be there."

Broken Mirror's Onyx: The Dark Grip is an upcoming Switch 2 game that was made for the handheld experience, and there's many more Nintendo-exclusives besides...