I began playing Slay the Spire 2 shortly after my colleague wrote up a piece on how its phenomenal multiplayer makes it an early game of the year contender. Within an hour of starting it, I, too, was utterly hooked. In the time since, I have poured a whopping 40 hours into Slay the Spire 2, yet even after sinking that much time into the game, I can't get over it. I adore how fast-paced, strategic, and immensely satisfying it is, regardless of if you're playing solo or with friends. And that first time I hit the Spire and became aware of the greater gimmick at play? That's definitely one of my favorite gaming moments of 2026 thus far.

However, my positive experience with the game and my colleague's glowing words fail to reflect how Slay the Spire 2 is being received on Steam right now. Though we (and thousands upon thousands of others) are thrilled with Mega Crit's latest deck-builder, the game's Steam listing states its reviews are "Mostly Negative." So, what's going on here?

For the past month, Slay the Spire 2 has been subject to relentless review-bombing. Whereas the game sat at an "Overwhelming Positive" rating back in mid-March, with 97% of players recommending it to others, it is now listed as "Mostly Negative," with 39% of its roughly 55,000 reviews in the last 30 days being unfavorable. Yet things get more intriguing when you look at where these negative reviews come from.

If you take away the title card from the teaser trailer of Zach Cregger's Resident Evil movie, it's easy to mistake it as an original horror property. There's no RPD Station, Nemesis, or Wesker to be found, with only a single green herb spotted in the background.

Already, some fans are complaining (as they do) about the movie's apparent lack of connection to the games, lamenting that it isn't a more overt adaptation of the adventures of Chris Redfield, Leon Kennedy, et al. What those folks seem to forget is that some popular games in the franchise have occupied that territory before.

In fact, Resident Evil can be at its best when it strays from its own familiar trappings.

Subnautica 2 finally has a release date, and given that it's Steam's No. 1 most-wishlisted game currently, it's expected to command a lot of attention upon release on May 14. One developer, Square Glade Games, is getting out the game's way for its own upcoming release, Outbound.

Outbound was previously set to launch on May 14, but Square Glade Games opted to move up Outbound's release date to May 11 to avoid a clash.

"Even though we are very hyped for their game and big fans of the franchise, we think that it is best to not compete with such an highly anticipated title on that day," the studio said. "We need to dodge the Leviathan, which means that you can start your road trip on earlier."

Darker and Darker can continue development and move forward with "full legal certainty," developer Ironmace announced, following a South Korean Supreme Court ruling that upheld a lower court's copyright-dispute ruling and dismissed appeals from both Ironmace and Nexon in what has been a years-long legal battle.

Ironmace was founded by former Nexon employees, who Nexon accused of stealing trade secrets related to a canceled Nexon project codenamed "P3" in order to make Dark and Darker. Ironmace stated it never used stolen Nexon assets or code to create its game.

As reported by The Korea Times, last year, a court ruled Ironmace did infringe on Nexon trade secrets when Ironmace CEO Choi Ju-hyun stored Nexon data on a personal server before establishing the independent studio. The developer was ordered to pay damages, though, importantly, the court also found Ironmace not guilty of copyright infringement. An appellate court later concurred with the first court's ruling, but lowered the amount to be paid to Nexon to 5.7 billion won, or nearly $4 million dollars. South Korea's Supreme Court has now upheld that ruling, seemingly putting an end to issues stemming from Dark and Darker's copyright status.

Naughty Dog's next game is the new, original game Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, and it will show a "different side" of the developer, according to the game's lead actor.

Tati Gabrielle, who plays the game's protagonist Jordan A. Mun, told IGN that Intergalactic represents "such a different side of Naughty Dog that I think people are going to get really excited for."

Gabrielle did not elaborate further on this, but added, "It seems that they've even challenged themselves in ways of world building. I'm super stoked."

A lot of the news surrounding Subnautica 2 has been focused on the behind-the-scenes drama, but it's now been confirmed that the game will have its early-access release on May 14 for PC and Xbox. But when exactly can you start playing the survival game? Developer Unknown Worlds has now published the official times.

Subnautica 2 unlocks on May 14 at 8 AM PT / 11 AM ET, and you can see more times below. The game has been confirmed for PC and Xbox Series X|S, but not any other platforms.

May 14

Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred and its subsequent 3.0 update have been live for a few days now, and if there is one thing the community can't seem to agree on, it's whether Blizzard's second attempt at class skill trees is a roaring success or a downgrade from what came before.

Blizzard shocked more than a few Diablo 4 players when it announced in the leadup to Lord of Hatred's release that the expansion would herald the arrival of all-new skill trees for each class, and that those trees would no longer feature any passive skills. Prior to Lord of Hatred, a large amount of player power came directly from damage-boosting passive skills, making their removal controversial.

Instead, players would have more options to customize their active skills, as well as the ability to invest more points into key skills in order to make them even more powerful. The idea was to make it so the power of a character largely came from gear and the endgame paragon system, rather than selecting the right passive skills in the skill tree.

Thanks to the ongoing trial pitting billionaires Elon Musk and Sam Altman against each other, it's come to light that Valve founder Gabe Newell--the third billionaire in this story--emailed Musk to ask if Hideo Kojima could get a tour of SpaceX.

In an email from October 2018, Newell wrote to Musk telling him that Kojima really wants to go to space. Newell thought Musk--who runs SpaceX--might be a good person to talk to. "He'd love to get a SpaceX tour," Newell wrote to Musk, according to PC Gamer.

Musk wrote back to Newell, saying, "Sure, it would be great to meet Hideo Kojima and he's welcome to see the rocket factory." Whether or not Kojima actually got this tour is unknown, however.

The first trailer for director Zach Cregger's Resident Evil movie is here, and it gives fans just a taste at what this new adaptation of Capcom's legendary survival-horror series will look like. It's less zombie movie and more monster flick, and includes a creature that looks ripped straight out of the recent Dune films (before you get too excited, no, it's not a sandworm).

About a minute into the trailer, the film's hero Bryan, in true Resident Evil fashion, drops into a sewer. He's then confronted with a massive, pale-looking man sitting directly in his path--one that bears a striking resemblance to Baron Harkonnen, the main villain of author Frank Herbert's early Dune books.

The similarities to Cregger's monster and the Baron, particularly director Denis Villeneuve's interpretation of the character seen in 2021's Dune Part One and 2024's Dune Part 2, are hard to ignore. Both characters are giant, pale, seemingly hairless men. In Baron Harkonnen's case, he's so massive he uses anti-gravity technology to float around. Despite the two looking nearly identical, Cregger in a trailer breakdown with IGN actually revealed a different literary inspiration behind the giant man in the sewer.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is marching toward Doomsday, its upcoming Avengers sequel, and Marvel Rivals is starting the countdown with a new Avengers mode alongside a free skin for Loki.

Subscribers to Disney Plus can claim their free Loki skin by visiting the website and scrolling to their Disney Plus perks, but the skin won't be around forever. Players only have between May 1 and July 30 to add the outfit to their in-game wardrobe. The Loki skin is said to be styled with "Disney Plus colors," or, for the uninitiated, that bluish-green color you see below.

Loki is getting the special attention because he's the star of the game's new limited-time Avengers mode. In it, one player takes on the role of the trickster god himself, while a team of six others works together to try to defeat him. The asymmetrical PvP mode is the first of several updates planned between now and the end of the year. As a roadmap, it's collectively called the Path to Doomsday, as it all leads to the release of Avengers: Doomsday on December 18.

For over 30 years, Mark Rosewater has been leading design teams for some of Magic: the Gathering's biggest sets, and continues to do so with his role as lead designer on the upcoming Marvel Super Heroes expansion. However, while he's been exploring the Magic multiverse, he's been developing his own game on the side, with the hopes of one day sharing that side game with the world. Today, on the official Magic: the Gathering Secret Lair website, Rosewater has finally unveiled that game, Mood Swings, and players will be able to order it soon.

Mood Swings is a game played with a single 45-card deck, though there will be over 100 cards available for the game at launch. Each card is named after a mood--Patience, Hostility, Cheer, Bashfulness, etc.--and comes with a corresponding power and point value. Each player in the two-to-four-player game will play one mood from their hand per turn, and once all of the powers resolve, the player whose board has the most points wins the round, and first to three rounds wins the whole game.

Rosewater released a blog on the MTG website, as well as a tutorial video on the official Wizards of the Coast YouTube, diving deeper into the game's rules and some of the cards players will find in their decks. "About 28 years ago, I came up with an idea for a more accessible trading card game called Mood Swings," Rosewater says in the blog. "The idea behind it is simple. Trading card games are a lot of fun, but Magic, while amazing, can be complicated. Mood Swings is my attempt to make something simpler."

Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick has shared a story about passing on making a sequel to one of the company's legacy franchises because the developer pitching the game wasn't all that jazzed about it. Which franchise was it? Frustratingly, Zelnick didn't say, but he shared the story as a means to speak to why Take-Two doesn't make every game it could and is instead more selective.

"We had a greenlight meeting years ago, and it was about a sequel to one of our franchises. There was something in the room, some vibe in the room I wasn't comfortable with," Zelnick said at the iicon event this week, as reported by Variety. "So I said to the producer, 'Listen, let's pause. How excited are you about working on this title?' And he said, 'Well, I know we're making this sequel and I feel good about making the sequel.' I said, 'You're not answering the question. And how excited are you?' And he said, 'Well, candidly, I'm not all that excited about working on it.' I said, 'Well, let's end the meeting right here. We're just not doing that.'"

He said this amid a wider conversation about making sequels to Take-Two's legacy franchises, including L.A. Noire. On the subject of another L.A. Noire game, Zelnick said Take-Two is looking at making new installments in all of its franchises, but isn't committing to anything unless the people behind those pitches are passionate.

Despite the legal drama playing out between developer Unknown Worlds and publisher Krafton, Subnautica 2 will soon see an early-access release. The game arrives on May 14 for PC and Xbox Series X|S.

The announcement was made alongside a price--$30--though it's not clear if that price will then rise in the future. Those who purchase the game during the early-access period will, of course, maintain access to the game forever, including updates and content released following its 1.0 launch, whenever that happens to be.

"We have plenty more in store for you all as we count down to early access on May 14," the development team said in the announcement.

After almost a decade without a new entry, the Injustice series might be returning from NetherRealm Studios. MP1st reports a Warner Bros. Games artist listed Injustice 3 on their resume, alongside Hogwarts Legacy 2 and two unannounced projects. This comes almost a year after a dataminer strongly hinted that Injustice 3 was in the works.

It's been almost exactly nine years since Injustice 2 launched in May 2017. To put that in perspective, the original Nintendo Switch had only been out two months and Justice League hadn't even been released in theaters yet. In fact, director Zack Snyder hadn't even stepped away from that DC film quite yet--a domino that led to the Snyder Cut movement. Fast forward to today, and James Gunn is now co-leading DC Studios, with Supergirl set to premiere in June.

Last year, Gunn and his co-chief Peter Safran noted that they had met with NetherRealm and Rocksteady about video games in the new incarnation of the DC Universe. NetherRealm has been consistently crafting fight games over the past 15 years. Mortal Kombat 1 was its latest release, coming out in 2023. Before that, the developer launched Mortal Kombat 11 in 2019, with Injustice 2 preceding that in 2017.

Destruction AllStars and Onrush were deeply underappreciated games that deserved way more players than they each got, and I have held fast that the continued lack of the "hero" formula in racing/derby games is a crime. So you can imagine my anguish when Apex Legends Season 29, titled Overclocked, teased its next playable character with a cinematic trailer that reveals her racing origins before reiterating that she's being added to a battle royale, not a battle racer.

Now, I know that Apex Legends has always been and will always be a shooter. Respawn is not going to make a brand-new mode in an entirely different style of game just because of one character's backstory or my wish to see Apex Legends' universe expanded in more gaming genres. But dammit, there's just such a huge narrative and gameplay draw to what's otherwise some throwaway clips in a short cinematic trailer. The glimpse of this battle race is brief, but it is memorable--I want to play as unique racers who speed through obstacles in the Mad Max-looking world of Salvo! Hell, why wasn't that the mobile spin-off?

My selfish dreams aside, Overclocked's new racer-turned-legend, who goes by the codename of Axle, looks like a very cool and awesome addition to the game. As an Octane main, Axle's need for speed is immediately appealing--I haven't been this excited about a new playable legend since Season 9's Valkyrie, who was also all about movement but specifically through the skies. So you're off the hook Respawn (for now), but I'm watching y'all--you can't expect to tease me with the idea of a hero battle racer in the Titanfall/Apex Legends universe and then just expect me to forget about how amazing an idea that is.

James Bond is no stranger to video games, but has only lived up to the prestige of his films once with GoldenEye 64, a game beloved for its pioneering first-person-shooter design, generation-defining multiplayer, and absurdly good soundtrack.

Although the Bond games that followed it never received the same level of acclaim, they still enjoyed some success. In a medium fixated on coming up with new ways to make firing guns and employing gadgets fun, it's no surprise that Bond games sustained interest through multiple eras. The fantasy of being a secret agent--James Bond in particular--is enduring, and the wish-fulfillment opportunities video games present are unmatched.

GoldenEye 64 aside, Bond games haven't been where innovations happen in the spy game genre. However, the effectiveness with which they realize the fantasy of being a globe-trotting, gun-toting, silver-tongued cop in a tuxedo has often offered good markers of how the action genre's design and tastes around it have evolved. After 2004's Everything or Nothing, however, Bond games became mediocre tie-ins, nostalgia bait, or both.

While Take-Two's NBA 2K franchise is known to feature real-world brands--and even Jake from State Farm himself--don't expect the company's biggest franchise, GTA, to follow suit.

Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick said at iicon this week in Las Vegas that fans should not expect product placement or brand integration deals in GTA 6.

"We need to be true to the underlying intellectual property and we need to be true to our consumers," he said, as reported by Variety. "It's a fictional world and everything in it is fictional. So we're not even at risk of doing brand partnerships because all the brands are made up. And I think that keeps us pure."

We're just a little more than five months away from the official launch of Star Wars: Galactic Racer. The game featuring landspeeders and podracers is set to release October 6 on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.

A new Star Wars: Galactic Racer trailer on YouTube (and seen below) revealed the release date, as well as a couple of preorder bonuses for the title. You can grab a player banner for multiplayer and "a bonus Livery for your repulsorcraft, which can be used on landspeeders, speeder bikes, and skim speeders." There are also two premium options to purchase: a Digital Deluxe Edition and Collector's Edition.

Skim speeders are a totally new type of vehicle in a galaxy far, far away. Fuse Games founder and CEO Matt Webster previously stated that Lucasfilm helped them craft the racing machine, while also discussing how the racing genre is "crying out" for new ideas. The team at Fuse Games has veterans who previously worked on the Need for Speed and Burnout franchises.

Fortnite is celebrating the May the 4th Star Wars holiday in a big way, and that includes the game hosting a special screening of the upcoming Star Wars movie The Mandalorian and Grogu.

On May 19, players can visit The Mandalorian and Grogu Watch Party Island to catch a "special message" from director Jon Favreau and see 10 minutes of footage from the film ahead of its theatrical release on May 22. This isn't the first time Fortnite is hosting a movie, and it may not be the last, as Disney's new CEO said Fortnite could play host to more movie showings in the future.

Additionally, players can take on a special Mandalorian-themed mission on Nevarro where they will play as a deputy who collects bounties and defends the city from waves of enemies with the goal of finding Grogu. Players who log at least 20 minutes of time will get the Mandalorian Sanctuary loading screen.

2025's action-survival game Atomfall, known by some as "British Fallout," is getting a TV show. Two Brothers Pictures has announced that it's secured the rights to make a TV adaptation of the Rebellion game, which just won Best British Game at the BAFTAs. Rebellion will be involved, too.

The game is inspired by the real-world Windscale nuclear disaster of 1957, with the action taking place inside a walled-in quarantine zone in the aftermath of the nuclear incident. In the game, players awake in the quarantine zone with no recollection of how they got there, with players seeking to find answers and ultimately a way out.

Atomfall reached more than 3.7 million players globally, a number that was no doubt assisted by the game's inclusion on Xbox Game Pass. The TV show will "expand on the game's mythology while remaining faithful to its tone, themes, and British roots," according to a press release.