The winter snows are melting, the smell of spring is in the air, and that means it's time for Fanatical's annual Spring Sale event once again. From now through April 1, you can save on over 10,000 PC games, including classics like Age of Empires II, multi-game collections like the Resident Evil Remake Trilogy bundle, and recent releases like Digimon Story: Time Stranger. Along with the regular discounts, each day of the sale will also include multiple limited-time Flash Deals offering even bigger discounts on select titles. To top it all off, if you spend $15 or more on a single order, you'll unlock an additional free game key or coupon code.

If you're looking to save on something new, Fanatical's sale includes plenty of the latest PC releases, inclduing Resident Evil Requiem, the newest entry in Capcom's iconic survival horror series, which is down to $57.39 (was $70). Bungie's new multiplayer extraction shooter reboot of the classic Marathon series is down to a $34.39 (was $40), while the Monster Hunter Wilds - Premium Deluxe Edition is on sale for $51.14 (was $110), and includes dozens of exclusive cosmetics and armor.

Fanatical's Spring Sale offers a ton RPGs on sale, like Atlus' Persona 5 Royal at $16.49 (was $60) or Metaphor: ReFantazio for $31.84 (was $70), which was GameSpot's Game of the Year in 2024. For something with more real-time action, Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is on sale for $19.49 (was $60) as well. Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch Remastered is a gorgeous Studio Ghibli-inspired adventure that any JRPG fan should experience. Pick it up for $9.24 (was $50) during the sale.

Peak was such a breakout hit that Aggro Crab’s Game Developers Conference talk was packed 30 minutes before it was scheduled to begin. Aggro Crab studio head Nick Kaman took that time to answer questions from a crowd eager to learn more about the biggest friendslop game of 2026.

One of the first things brought up was, why BBNO$? The artist behind Lalala and edamame made an unexpected appearance on the base of the mountain for a concert last year.

"We wanted to have a parody of a Fortnite concert, but what if it was bad?" Kaman said jokingly.

Sucker Punch Productions’ Ghost of Yotei is already an ambitious open-world adventure that builds on its predecessor in several ways, but the team had a number of other ideas that never made the final game. At GDC, the studio’s two creative directors discussed both the features that made it into the game and some ambitious concepts that didn’t.

From mechanics that would have let players climb anywhere to dual-timelines and a fully diegetic map system, Ghost of Yotei began as a game full of possibilities. Some ideas proved too large to implement fully, but they still influenced the final experience, leaving traces of that ambition in the game’s narrative and design.

One of the most ambitious features was the ability to switch between young and old Atsu at any point in the game. This would have created two versions of the world simultaneously, meaning the entire map would need to have versions in spring and winter.

2016's The Nice Guys starring Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe, from Iron Man 3 director Shane Black, got solid reviews and was generally enjoyed by fans. People wanted to see a sequel, but it never happened. Why? Gosling said recently that, although The Nice Guys would go on to make more than $71 million worldwide against a reported $50 million budget, it got beaten badly by The Angry Birds Movie in its first weekend, and that matters in Hollywood.

The Nice Guys made $11.2 million in the US over its first weekend, compared to $38.2 million for The Angry Birds Movie. Gosling, whose last name is another word for a baby bird, said during press for Project Hail Mary, "We got killed by Angry Birds."

"[The Nice Guys] came out at the same time as Angry Birds, and Angry Birds just destroyed us," Gosling told Letterboxd, shaking his head. "They're just so angry."

Thirteen years ago, the original Bravely Default made its debut on 3DS, and was recently resurrected with Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster last year. The remastered version was a Switch 2-exclusive launch title, but now, Square Enix has shadow-dropped Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster for PC and Xbox Series X|S. The game is available on both platforms--and if you're a Green Man Gaming XP member, you can grab the PC version right now for $32, or 20% off the standard $40 price. GMG XP is GMG's free rewards membership program, and joining gets you immediate access to this discounted price, as well as other member-exclusive discounts on other games in the retailer's catalog. Note that purchasing the game via GMG gets you an official key redeemable on Steam.

Like the original 3DS version, Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remastered is an homage to classic console RPGs, especially the early Final Fantasy titles--complete with turn-based battles, a deep job system for customizing your party, and an epic high-fantasy storyline. In addition to high-definition graphics, the Flying Fairy HD Remaster features a redesigned user interface, fast-forward cut-scene support, and other networking refinements. Although some of the graphics from the original have been altered for this release, it should still be recognizable to fans of the game.

Elden Ring was initially positioned as one of several big third-party games headed to the Switch 2, but following a Gamescom 2025 demo that showcased several technical issues in From Software's open-world action-RPG--particularly in handheld mode--publisher Bandai Namco delayed its release. After several months of 'performance adjustment," the game has re-emerged at GDC 2026, and so far, it looks to be in a much better shape.

One telling sign here is that Bandai Namco has enough confidence to allow Switch 2 handheld gameplay to be recorded, albeit from an over-the-shoulder perspective. The demo can also be experienced in docked mode, and overall, it looks like the game has been well-optimized. Even with several graphical concessions, Limgrave still looks great, and it looks like the frame rate hovers around the 30-40 FPS range.

One thing to note is that attendees only had 15 minutes to play the game, and that's hardly enough time to see how it performs during more demanding sequences. Still, the current footage looks promising.

With just a week to go before launch, Crimson Desert developer Pearl Abyss has confirmed that it has added Denuvo DRM to the Steam version of the game on PC. The Steam page for Crimson Desert now lists the anti-temper technology, and the software has a poor reputation amongst PC players due to perceptions over how it negatively impacts the performance of a game.

Primarily used to prevent piracy and as an anti-cheat measure, Denuvo essentially operates as an all-in-one solution for developers. The technology has been controversial in almost every game it has been used in, and it's not uncommon to see studios remove it from their titles following a fan outcry. Recent examples include the Sims-like InZoi and Resident Evil 4's remake, with users reporting serious performance hits when it was active. Resident Evil 4 developer Capcom has since replaced Denuvo in the game with the Enigma Protector DRM, but this may have made performance even worse.

This has also led to concern about how well Crimson Desert will run on PC, as its higher settings require some serious PC hardware to reach performance targets. Essentially, if you're aiming to run the game at 1440p and 60fps or above, you'll need to have an AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT or Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 GPU installed at the bare minimum, with Black Abyss recommending a 50-series Nvidia GPU for the best graphics on the ultra setting. In comparison, console users will have three fine-tuned graphical presets--Performance, Balanced, and Quality--with the PS5 Pro offering a native 4K 30 FPS mode with a high level of ray tracing.

There's a mega battle underway about Mega Man: Dual Override before the game even hits the shelves. SAG-AFTRA--the Hollywood acting union that also covers video game voice performers--has issued a "Do Not Work" against the latest Mega Man game.

According to SAG-AFTRA, the order was placed because Capcom "failed to initiate the signatory process." That means Capcom made no steps to go forward with Dual Override under SAG-AFTRA jurisdiction. Consequently, all members of the union have been told that they aren't allowed to lend their voice to the game unless SAG-AFTRA decides to lift the ban. Performers who disregard the ban will face disciplinary action from the union.

This isn't too surprising considering that Mega Man 11 voice actor Ben Diskin previously revealed that Capcom asked him to reprise his role, but only if he agreed to forego union protections. Diskin also indicated that his unwillingness to accept those terms included wariness about the AI protections that Capcom offered.

Nvidia has begun detailing some of the next graphical enhancements you can expect to start seeing in upcoming games, with a particular focus on improving the performance and fidelity of path tracing in large open-world adventures.

Path tracing is the next evolution of traditional ray tracing, introducing better global illumination and lighting to games that support it. It's also incredibly taxing on hardware, and especially so in worlds where there's a lot of fine, densely-packed detail in an environment. In its showcase, Nvidia specifically pointed out large forests or intricate architecture has unique challenges for path tracing, which is where its new Mega Geometry system comes into play.

Project Moorcroft, an initiative related to game demos and Xbox Game Pass previously teased by Microsoft, no longer appears to be happening. This was an initiative first teased by Xbox in June 2022. It was going to allow developers to offer pre-release demos for their titles through Xbox Game Pass for notoriety and other, more analytics-driven, purposes. At the time, Moorcroft was planned to kick off within a year, but it never materialized.

Now, it seems like it never will. ID@Xbox global director Guy Richards revealed as much in a recent interview with The Game Business. He framed it as a way Xbox was experimenting with supporting indie developers before ultimately moving on to other demo-related initiatives and features on the Xbox Store.

Richards called Project Moorcroft "a program where we were experimenting with some ideas for how we can support demos on Xbox" before going on to highlight different ways ID@Xbox has done that recently. That includes game demo festivals and the ability to easily wishlist and be notified about game launches and discounts on the Xbox Store. "Demos is an area we’ve been focusing on, but in a slightly different direction to what Moorcroft was," Richards ultimately admits.

Korean developer Pearl Abyss will launch its action-adventure game Crimson Desert on March 19, but when, exactly, can you start playing? The studio has now announced the official global launch times for the game, along with pre-loading details.

You can find all the key information below, as shared by the studio on its website.

Everyone who has preordered Crimson Desert digitally will be able to pre-load the game starting 48 hours before launch, beginning at 3 PM PT / 6 PM ET. Here are more times:

In an announcement few could have predicted, Universal Pictures has confirmed that it has committed to lengthening--not shortening--the time that many of its movies stay in theaters. This begins with the company's 2026 slate, including the soon-to-release The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.

As part of the new agreement, Universal will give each of its major movies a minimum of five weekends in theaters for 2026 and seven weekends in 2027 before coming to home video. This is a significant change from the past when Universal--and other movie companies--took movies out of theaters much faster--as quickly as 17 days in some cases--in part due to the pandemic.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie arrives in theaters on April 1. With the new five-weekend guarantee, that means The Super Mario Galaxy Movie likely won't come to home video until around early May at the soonest. If it follows the historical model, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie will come to paid video on-demand (PVOD) stores first, before hitting a subscription streaming platform later.

The latest set of changes coming to the Pan-European Games Information (PEGI) rating system will impact how games that feature loot boxes, microtransactions, and NFTs will be rated going forward.

As reported by GamesIndustry.biz, games that have loot boxes or similar random items, like card packs or gacha pulls, will be rated PEGI 16 once these changes take effect in June. If a game has more traditional, yet limited-time microtransactions like a battle pass, it'll usually be rated PEGI 12. That can be dropped to PEGI 7 if there's an in-game option to disable spending. The same rating will be given to games that have daily quests or login rewards.

New games will also now be given a PEGI 18 rating instantly if they feature NFTs, are a social casino game, or have communication features with reporting systems or community standards. These are all sweeping, online-gaming focused changes to the PEGI rating system that are much more intense than the in-game purchases content descriptor that it previously used.

World of Warcraft's factions of the Horde and Alliance are a key part of Blizzard's MMORPG, but it was far from set in stone during development, with the decision to divide the playerbase into two camps coming together "nine months to a year" before WoW shipped in 2004.

That nugget of information comes from former Blizzard veteran Jeff Kaplan in a recent interview with Lex Fridman (via PC Gamer). Kaplan, a devout Everquest player, joined Blizzard during WoW's development as a quest designer. He said the team would argue about whether to force players into joining the Horde or the Alliance, and that the feature's biggest proponent was Blizzard co-founder Allen Adham.

"The Horde/Alliance decision was really controversial," Kaplan said. "Because in Everquest it was mixed…[Rob Pardo] and I came from Everquest, where we felt like this was a horrible decision [Allen Adham] was making. And we argued."

Google has announced several updates to Google Play, including paid games, game trials and what the company describes as "buy once, play anywhere pricing."

"We're actively expanding our library to include more paid games," Google said in a recent blog post. "Over the coming months, some of the most anticipated indie games are coming to Play, including Moonlight Peaks, Sledding Game, and Low-Budget Repairs. You can dive into these worlds across both mobile and PC with Google Play Games, and your Gamer Profile syncs your progress across devices."

The Google Play app is also implementing a new PC section to allow players to more easily find, bookmark, and buy PC games that suit their interests. A new wishlist feature will alert users when a game they've been eyeing goes on sale, and a new Game Trials feature is set to roll out soon, allowing players to try before they buy.

Actor Rosamund Pike has called 2005's video game movie Doom that she appeared in alongside Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson one of the worst films ever made and a project that could have ended her career.

Appearing on How To Fail with Elizabeth Day (via ScreenTime), the Oscar-nominated Pike said she was off to a promising start in the action-movie genre after appearing in the 2002 James Bond movie Die Another Day as Miranda Frost opposite Pierce Brosnan as James Bond. When Pike was offered a part in Doom, it was going to star Ray Winstone as Sgt. Asher "Sarge" Mahonin, but he dropped out and The Rock took over in that role. The "whole thing was reimagined" at this point, Pike said.

The Rock "couldn't be nicer" as a person, Pike said, but he was a "completely different beast" from Pike, who was 24 years old at the time. The Rock had a team of "macho guys" around him, Pike said. They were hyping him up and brought weights to the film set. And when guns came out on set, they were presented like "holy relics for the Doom fans." Before takes, The Rock would get ready with a routine similar to what New Zealand's national rugby teams does before a rugby match, Pike said.

Capcom's Street Fighter franchise is no stranger to live-action adaptations, but there's a good reason why the 1994 film is still talked about to this day. The '90s film is an unabashed tribute to the arcade games, but the one thing it was missing was a gloriously dumb hairstyle for its all-American brawler, Guile. Fortunately, it looks like the new Street Fighter movie is rectifying this issue.

While actor Jean-Claude Van Damme's hairstyle was short and gelled up, the new incarnation of the character being played by WWE superstar Cody Rhodes has him beat in the game-accurate hairstyle department--and we wouldn't have it any other way.

This isn't our first look at the wig that Rhodes donned during the filming of Street Fighter--the recent Game Awards trailer featured a quick scene of Guile somersault-kicking Vega through a wall--a new behind-the-scenes look at the film's production gave us a closer look at the impressive hairpiece. During principal photography, Street Fighter 6 game director Takayuki Nakayama paid a visit to the set, and even had a chance to sit down with Rhodes and school him in the game, leading to a memorable snapshot of the two together. "Nakayama squashed me, no mercy," Rhodes wrote in an X post.

Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks hasn't had the smoothest run since taking over the company in 2022. But the CEO says the toy giant's next act is clear: More video games--and no generative AI in some of its franchises, especially on the video game front.

Speaking on Decoder with Nilay Patel, Cocks discussed a slew of topics, including tariffs and how they're affecting everyone, especially amid layoffs, and how he wants to lean harder on digital games built around its most valuable properties.

Cocks joined Hasbro in 2016 after a stint at Microsoft to run Wizards of the Coast, the division behind Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons. Those brands remain central to Hasbro's gaming push, which includes major investments and new projects like the sci-fi RPG Exodus from Archetype Entertainment.

Phasmophobia developer Kinetic Games is branching out into publishing, and the studio has created a new division--Kinetic Publishing--to spearhead its new venture. In a new interview with GameSpot, Kinect Games CEO Daniel Knight and Director of Marketing and Partnership Asim Tanvir revealed more details on its plans to offer the kind of support that Knight, the original sole developer of Phasmophobia, wanted when work began on the popular multiplayer horror game.

"We're there for full support. Essentially, any service a studio needs, we will be able to offer it," Knight said. "Funding is the main part, but one of the biggest things we can offer is marketing support. And on the development side as well. We have so many different connections in the industry. We've gone through essentially everything any game would ever go through, and then development. We have, yeah, we've been there. We just want to lean on the experience that we've gathered over the past five years to offer all of that to a studio that needs it."

Tanvir added that Kinetic Publishing will be looking at each project and figuring out what type of support is needed so that a partnership can exist between the publisher and the studio. "Some teams might just want that funding, and that's absolutely fine. And some things might want the funding, plus Daniel's advice and support from what he's learned over the five years," Tanvir explained. "Some might want legal advice. They might want financial support outside of the funding as well.

Almost five years after Overwatch co-creator Jeff Kaplan left Activision Blizzard, the developer explained what led to his exit from the company and the hit multiplayer game he led. According to Kaplan, his time at Blizzard soured after being given an egregious ultimatum.

Speaking to podcaster Lex Fridman, Kaplan claimed that Activision Blizzard's financial arm told him in a meeting that Overwatch had to produce a certain amount of revenue in 2020 and a recurring amount of revenue in subsequent years. Kaplan claimed he was told that if Overwatch failed to hit those targets, Blizzard would "'lay off 1,000 people, and that's going to be on you,'" attributing the demand to an unspecified CFO.

Kaplan called this meeting "the biggest f--k you moment I've had in my career--it felt surreal to be in that condition." While Kaplan verbalized Blizzard's revenue figures in the podcast, they were bleeped out due to his confidentiality agreement with the company.