After last year's critically acclaimed sleeper Keeper, Double Fine is coming back with a new take on an older game. During the Xbox Developer Direct, Double Fine officially unveiled Kiln, a title where players will be able to make unique pottery warriors and send them into battle against each other.

During the much-longer look at Kiln from the Xbox Developer Direct, it was clear that the vase creation has a lot of options for players to shape their warriors and guide their destructive destinies. However, you won't need to be a pottery master to realize your clay visions in this game.

"Making pots in real life is really difficult," said project lead Derek Brand during an interview with Xbox Wire. "It takes a lot of practice, and you can get good at it over time, but it is not an easy thing to just jump into. We wanted to make the pot-making super easy and accessible--it's just a button and a control stick--and you can make any kind of shape you wanted. We wanted people to immediately feel like they're masters at this craft."

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The new Fable game that Microsoft showed off during the Xbox Developer Direct takes inspiration from an unlikely source: the popular TV show The Office.

Game director Ralph Fulton said in an interview with Xbox that British humor "manifests in lots of different ways throughout the game." The team at Playground, which is based in England, was inspired by the "rich variety of British comedies" of the past two decades, including Ricky Gervais' The Office, as well as Peep Show, The IT Crowd, and others.

"We started with The Office, which again started out as quintessentially British, but also travels really, really well," he said, no doubt referencing the American version that elevated the series to new heights. "Not just that IP, but a lot of the techniques and the devices that it’s popularized, you know. It’s that really grounded, awkward style of humor which really appeals to us."

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Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, Premium, and Essential subscribers can start the weekend a little early, because the next Free Play Days event begins today, January 22 and goes through Sunday, January 25. One of the four games available to players is South Park: Snow Day!, which seems appropriate given the cold weather sweeping much of the US.

South Park: Snow Day!

Snow Day! is a four-player co-op title that casts players as the new kid in town opposite Cartman, Stan, Kyle, and Kenny. A blizzard has blown through South Park, and set the boys off into a fantasy realm of adventure where they get to battle it out to save the world. Or at least some of the world, since they won't be leaving South Park any time soon.

Sherlock Holmes Chapter One

As the name implies, Sherlock Holmes Chapter One is an origin story for the world's greatest non-Batman detective. But he hasn't hit his peak of deduction yet. This game puts players in control of a much younger Sherlock as he attempts to unravel the events surrounding the sudden death of his mother.

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Following the reveal of its release date, Marathon has seen a surge of interest as PC players have begun locking in preorders for Bungie's sci-fi extraction shooter. At the time of writing, Marathon is the fifth-best-selling game on Steam in the US and 10th globally on the Steam Charts. Free-to-play games like Marvel Rivals and Counter-Strike 2 are ahead of it--only natural, given the low price of nothing for those titles--and Arc Raiders is still in the top spot for now.

This is a positive step forward for the game, considering last year's controversy over alleged stolen art assets and the lukewarm reception since its reveal. It's also worth noting that Marathon will be available on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S at launch, but sales data for those platforms isn't currently available to gauge player interest. Marathon was originally aiming to launch in September last year--a release date that would have brought it perilously close to the mega-successful Arc Raiders.

It's now scheduled to launch on March 5, which gives it a fairly comfortable window to make its sales mark. The Steam preorders suggest it'll launch on PC with considerable momentum, but it remains to be seen whether it'll be able to hold onto its players in the highly competitive live-service games market.

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World of Warcraft lead producer Raymond Bartos has left Blizzard to join Riot, where he will work on the League of Legends developer's upcoming MMO.

Bartos said, "I'm deeply grateful for the opportunity to join such an inspiring group of people, and I can't wait to get started." Serving as a senior game producer, Bartos said his job will be to "help deliver an MMO experience players truly enjoy."

Additionally, Bartos said he's excited to join another former WoW developer, Orlando Salvatore, at Riot. "Given our track record on World of Warcraft, I have a feeling we'll be moving fast on day one," Bartos said.

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For the first time in series history, the Halo franchise will be playable on PlayStation this year with the release of Halo: Campaign Evolved. Executive producer Damon Conn said in an interview that Microsoft's goal is to "bring players back together."

"There are people who have never been exposed to Halo. Maybe they've always been on Sony products, switched consoles at a certain point, or just missed it at the time. We want to bring players back together," Conn explained to GamesRadar.

Creative director Max Szlagor added that, "Halo is best played when we have a large, healthy community."

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Marathon Limited Edition DualSense Controller

$85 | Releases March 5

Preorder at PlayStation Direct

Bungie has announced the release date for Marathon, and fans can also preorder a new DualSense controller inspired by the extraction shooter. The $85 Marathon Limited Edition DualSense for PS5 is set to launch on March 5, the same day as the game, and preorders will open on January 29 on the PlayStation Store.

Marathon Limited Edition DualSense Controller $85 | Releases March 5

The Marathon DualSense controller has a very distinctive aesthetic that ties into the game's sci-fi themes and graphic design. Created in close collaboration with the team at Bungie, the studio says it aimed to make the peripheral look like something that could naturally exist alongside other objects in Marathon.

The end result is a DualSense controller full of clean lines, purposeful markings, and vivid accents that has a futuristic look.

Preorder at PlayStation Direct Marathon DualSense controllerGallery

You can also pick up other DualSense Controllers, including Limited Editions, through PlayStation Direct and major retailers. They all feature attention-grabbing designs tied to their respective video games, like Genshin Impact, God of War, and Death Stranding 2: On the Beach.

For something even flashier, you can also check out the upcoming line of HyperPop limited-edition PS5 console covers and DualSense controllers.

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Bungie is best-known for its work on Halo and Destiny, but before it made its mark on those franchises, the studio was building the grand sci-fi saga of Marathon. Decades later, Marathon is making its grand return as a multiplayer-focused extraction shooter that aims to combine Bungie's signature gunplay with a vibrant art direction.

Ahead of its launch in March, we've gathered up all the pertinent information on the game, and you can read up to see how Marathon is shaping up.

Table of Contents [hide]

• When will Marathon be released?

When will Marathon be released?One of the Runners off Marathon

Marathon will launch on March 5, 2026. The game was originally scheduled to be released on September 23, 2025, but was delayed so Bungie could spend more time fine-tuning the game and addressing feedback from players who participated in early alpha versions.

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In the lead up to its release on March 5, Bungie has revealed the full voice cast for Marathon--and it is stacked. Featuring fan-favorites from recent hits like Baldur's Gate 3 and Clair Obscur, TV sci-fi stars, and other notable gaming voices, Bungie is clearly going all-in on Marathon's voice acting.

In a blog post, Bungie revealed the 33 names that make up the English voice cast for Marathon, many of them instantly recognisable for fans of games and sci-fi. The list includes the voices of some of our favorite Baldur's Gate 3 companions including Jennifer English (Shadowheart), Neil Newbon (Astarion), Samantha Béart (Karlach), and Tracy Wiles (Jaheira). Also from the realm of RPGs are Ben Starr and Rich Keeble, who lent their voices to Verso and Monoco respectively in Clair Obscur.

Announcing Marathon's English voice cast. Marathon releases March 5, 2026 and is available for pre-order now. pic.twitter.com/ehBsQbNRMA

— Marathon (@MarathonTheGame) January 19, 2026

Sci-fi fans might recognise Nika Futterman, who voiced Asajj Ventress in the Clone Wars animated series, as well as Elias Toufexis, the voice of Adam Jensen in the Deus Ex series, who later broke into TV sci-fi with roles in The Expanse and Star Trek: Discovery. Some other notable names include Roger Clark who plays Arthur Morgan in Red Dead 2, Morla Gorrondona who plays Eris Morn in Destiny 2, and Erin Yvette, who has appeared in Dispatch, The Wolf Among Us, Hades 2, and more.

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Bungie announced this week that its new extraction shooter Marathon will release on March 5, and also revealed some other important pre-release information--including a set of updated system requirements.

While Bungie released PC specs for Marathon ahead of the game's first closed alpha last year, it only gave the minimum system requirements. Those haven't changed ahead of Marathon's full release, but we now also have a set of recommended specs to size up against.

Marathon PC SpecsMinimum

• Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
• OS: Windows 10 64-bit (latest Service Pack)
• Processor: Intel Core i5-6600 / AMD Ryzen 5 2600
• Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (4 GB) / AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT (4 GB) / Intel Arc A580 (8 GB, with ReBAR on)
• DirectX: Version 12
• Network: Broadband Internet connection

Recommended

• Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
• OS: Windows 10 64-bit (latest Service Pack)
• Processor: Intel Core i5-10400 / AMD Ryzen 5 3500
• Memory: 16 GB RAM
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 2060 (6 GB) / AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT (8 GB) / Intel Arc A770 (16 GB, with ReBAR on)
• DirectX: Version 12
• Network: Broadband Internet connection

While the current set of specs doesn't specify a target frame rate or resolution, it shouldn't be hard for most decent rigs to get a good experience out of Marathon. With reasonable minimum specs, even those with older or less powerful PCs should be able to manage the game on lower settings, too. The specs currently don't say how much system storage will be required to install Marathon, another detail which will likely come closer to release.

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