There's nothing quite like Doom, especially after recent releases saw the series reinvent itself as a fast-paced arcade-shooter that wasn't afraid to paint the town red with demonic blood. A new entry in the series was recently showed off again at the Xbox Developer Direct, and this time, Doom: The Dark Ages will see players create a medieval massacre when they take on the armies of the damned.

A dark fantasy with an over-the-top arsenal and a metal soundtrack, rumors of a Doom prequel began to appear in 2023 after court documents were leaked, with the game having the working title of Doom: Year Zero. Now that it's out in the wild and has been shown off in great detail, here's a closer look at everything we know about Doom: The Dark Ages so far.

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Just over a decade ago, Amplitude Studios released Endless Legend, an inventive 4X fantasy-strategy game. Now, Amplitude Studios is unveiling the sequel, Endless Legend 2, and sharing an early look at Saiadha, the oceanic world that will be featured in the game. The trailer below hints at the ultimate power behind Saiadha and reveals some grim implications about the nature of the world itself.

The male speaker in the trailer is never identified by name, but he does describe himself as a god. More tellingly, the female whispers that accompany the male voice define this "god" in less flattering terms such as "prisoner" and "dust." The god also hints that the planet itself is his prison and the oceans are his chains. Regardless, the speaker is confident that one of the warring factions will eventually find him and potentially set him free.

According to the game's description, players will "face ancient perils and new threats, and unravel the unfathomable secret that lies at the planet's core." If the male voice really is a god, then the core may be where he's been hidden away. As for Saiadha itself, the planet is prone to the whims of the monstrous waves. The entire landscape can be transformed by the impact of the water around it, which threatens any civilizations with cataclysm, death, and potentially starvation.

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Doom: The Dark Ages releases on May 15, Bethesda announced during a segment in today's Xbox Developer Direct showcase. The lengthy look at the upcoming prequel to Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal also showed much more detail about the weaponry, mission structure, and the story.

Calling this entry a "return to form," Bethesda said that it aimed to shift the feeling of Doom again. Whereas Doom Eternal wanted to make you fight like a fighter jet, Dark Ages makes you an iron tank who can stand your ground. That's thanks largely to the versatility of the new Shield Saw. This piece of equipment lets you block, parry, and attack, with each function complementing your array of firearms. And, Bethesda noted, this means strafing is a viable strategy again. There's also a revised Glory Kill that's more contextual and varied based on your weapons and the angle you're facing the enemy demons.

Though you'll be spending most of your time killing demons on foot as the Slayer, you'll also pilot both a giant mech and a cybernetic dragon. The studio noted that each has its own suite of abilities and minibosses to fight. In a deep dive into a mission, we saw the Slayer confronting a large battle taking place outside a medieval castle, with an open sandbox to discover secrets and resources. After breaking through the enemy lines, you can go back to the main castle gates to trigger what appears to be a giant boss battle.

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During the Xbox Developer Direct January 2025, Sandfall Interactive announced that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 will launch on April 24 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S. It'll also be included in Xbox Game Pass on launch day.

As seen previously, the game invokes old-school Japanese turn-based combat sensibilities but with some real-time elements like dodging and parrying. Each character has their own playstyle and skill tree so that they feel unique to one another. There are also modifiers tied to gear, which evolve into passive abilities after fighting in four battles.

The game will also include difficulty settings that will adjust the parry and dodge windows. The party will be able to traverse an overworld map, another sign of Expedition 33's Japanese RPG influences.

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Almost a year after Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth was released for PS5, development on the final chapter of the remake trilogy has taken another big step forward. Series producer Yoshinori Kitase revealed that the story scenario for the third game was completed by the end of 2024 and that he's "very satisfied with it."

Speaking to Famitsu (via Eurogamer), Kitase and game director Naoki Hamaguchi added that development on the third game began right after Rebirth was completed and that there have been no delays yet on its progress.

Kitase also mentioned that creative director Tetsuya Nomura was tasked with making certain that the game's conclusion will be respectful to the original Final Fantasy 7 while also giving the series a satisfying conclusion.

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Neva Deluxe Edition (PS5 and Switch)

$55 | Releases April 18

Preorder at Amazon Preorder at Best Buy

Gris Deluxe Edition (PS5 and Switch)

$50 | Releases April 18

Preorder at Amazon Preorder at Best Buy

Neva Standard Edition (PS5 and Switch)

$35 | Releases April 18

Preorder at Amazon (PS5) Preorder at Amazon (Switch) Preorder at Best Buy

Gris Standard Edition (PS5 and Switch)

$30 | Releases April 18

Preorder at Amazon (PS5) Preorder at Amazon (Switch) Preorder at Best Buy

Devolver Digital has a wonderful catalog of indie games, including Nomada Studio's gorgeous platformer Gris and its follow-up adventure Neva. Both titles were previously only available in digital formats, but physical editions are finally hitting store shelves on April 18, and preorders are now open at Best Buy and Amazon.

Neva Deluxe Edition

$55 | Releases April 18

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A new patch has gone live for Cyberpunk 2077, with the big draw here being DLSS 4 support for PC players. Also available for the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S versions of the game, Patch 2.21 adds Multi Frame Generation for RTX 50-series GPUs, Nvidia's new feature that allows for substantial performance improvements in games that support it.

Compared to traditional brute-force rendering, Multi Frame Generation generates up to three additional frames per traditionally rendered frame, and when combined with DLSS, Nvidia claims that it can multiply frame rates by up to eight times.

If you own an older RTX 40-series Nvidia GPU, developer CD Projekt Red says you can expect faster single-frame generation with reduced memory usage. "All RTX GPU users will still benefit from several other features that can enhance stability, lighting, and other details," the patch notes also read. "You can now choose between the CNN model or the new Transformer model for DLSS Ray Reconstruction, DLSS Super Resolution, and DLAA on all GeForce RTX graphics cards today."

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Sony has pushed out a new PS5 system software update today, but it looks like it doesn't really add much.

According to the PlayStation website, the new Version: 25.01-10.60.00 update only added two things--it improved system software performance and stability, as well as improved the messages and usability on some screens. Sony says the update is rolling out in a phased release, so it may take some time to arrive on your console.

This is a stark contrast to the last PS5 system software update on December 4, which at least improved the process of transferring data from another PS5 and enhanced stability when transferring large amounts of data, such as captures. It's possible that there are other unlisted changes, but this new update might indeed just be a mundane stability-focused one.

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Since its launch in October, Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket has quickly become one of Pokemon's most popular mobile apps, achieving the 60 million download mark in only two months--and at least one player hitting over 50,000 individual cards in their collection. Today, The Pokemon Company confirmed details on the game's first major expansion, Spacetime Smackdown, which is set to launch on January 30.

Spacetime Smackdown places a spotlight on the Diamond and Pearl generation of Pokemon, as it highlights species introduced in the Sinnoh Region--with legendary Pokemon Dialga and Palkia taking center stage on the set's two pack options. All three starter Pokemon from Sinnoh--Turtwig, Chimchar, and Piplup--will make their Pokemon TCG Pocket debut in this new set, along with the fan favorite Fighting-type Lucario.

The Pokemon Company has also confirmed that the previously announced trading feature will be added to Pokemon TCG Pocket on January 29, one day before the launch of Spacetime Smackdown. Players will be able to trade cards with registered friends in the app using two new items--Trade Hourglasses and Trade Tokens.

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Funselektor and Strelka Games have announced Over the Hill, a new stylish driving game that takes the elegant presentation established in Art of Rally and applies it to offroading.

Officially stylized in all lowercase letters as "over the hill," this new indie racing game will hit many of the same notes as 2020's Art of Rally. That previous racer from Funselektor stood out in a sea of indie games because of its stylish presentation that stripped back all the fluff common in rally racing games. Its controls and car handling still felt authentic, like a simulation racing game, but Art of Rally plays from a top-down perspective and lets players drive through vibrant tracks. Over the Hill takes many of those design tenants and applies them to a MudRunner-style offroad exploration game.

In Over the Hill, players explore different offroading locales connected by portals. It supports single-player and co-op with up to four player, and Funselektor populated each area with many challenges to complete and hidden collectibles to find. It won't always be easy to drive from one point to another, as players will have to account for Over the Hill's day-night cycle, dynamic weather, and other environmental obstacles that require tools to overcome. Over the Hill plays quite differently from Art of Rally, but Funselektor founder Dune Casu explained why the studio went this route for a follow-up.

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Dark Horse has announced two new figures in its line of Mass Effect statues, as fans of the sci-fi series will soon be able to add Jack and Legion to their collection. These new poly-vinyl figures will be available in Fall 2025 and are designed to be highly detailed but affordable collectibles. Jack is priced at $60 and is eight inches tall, while Legion is almost ten inches tall and will retail for $70.

Jack--the powerful biotic introduced in Mass Effect 2--is modeled after her appearance in Mass Effect 3 and her statue features all of her signature tattoos, updated hairstyle, and punk-rock jacket. As for Legion, the free-thinking Geth unit looks quite imposing thanks to its mechanical design and weapon.

Jack and Legion from Mass EffectGallery See at Dark Horse Direct

If you're looking for a few more high-end Mass Effect figures, Dark Horse Direct has several more to help you assemble your own desktop Normandy crew--ranging from Garrus Vakarian to Tali'Zorah--or if you really feel like spoiling yourself, the $200 Commander Shepard should be quite adept at turning heads.

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People who are into games today generally know the term "walking sim." It seems to have cropped up around the time of Dear Esther in 2012, a first-person adventure game in which you explore the Scottish countryside on foot, triggering memories of your lost loved one. To be fair, the game does mostly involve walking around, but there was a time when calling a game a "walking sim" was meant by some as a dig against it. That was true of Dear Esther and many games since then. One would use it to say, "This game lacks gameplay." To an extent, that's not the case anymore, as walking sim is now a genre label on Steam so fans of them can easily find more, and many games are built to attract an audience that enjoys this kind of game.

I like them, too, though I've always had something of an asterisk attached to my enjoyment. They didn't work as horror games, despite many attempts. I find this pairing doesn't work because walking sims often exclude mechanics besides things like moving and triggering dialogue. You can tell a good story in a walking-sim horror game, but in my experience, you can't create a frightening game if I can easily peer through the game's code, figuratively speaking, to find that there are no monster encounters to worry about. The game isn't going to present me with any fail states, or at least not any elaborate situations in which I may or may not survive, which is where a horror story's tension originates.

Simply put, if it's clear the mechanics of a horror game won't advance past, more or less, moving around alone, then the setting itself has to effectively sell the scare factor. Typical horror games have not shown an ability to do that effectively or consistently, in my experience. This has ruined countless horror games for me over the years. But one new game, Dreamcore, is helping solve it.

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Microsoft is holding its first showcase of the year, the Xbox Developer Direct 2025. So here's when the showcase will start, how to watch it, and what to expect.

When is the Xbox Developer Direct 2025?

The Xbox Developer Direct 2025 will start at 10AM PT / 1 PM ET on Thursday, January 23.

• 10 AM PT
• 1 PM ET
• 6 PM BST
• 3 AM AET (January 24)

How to watch the Xbox Developer Direct 2025

The showcase will be streamed on several different channels, including Xbox and Bethesda's official YouTube pages.

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In 1985 England, private investigator Miles Windham follows a lead on the mysterious death of his daughter that takes him to Velvet Island. But once he arrives on the island, he soon realizes that the residents are behaving strangely. In fact, there is a growing hostility towards the investigator that feels as though it is becoming stronger by the minute. It doesn't take long until the situation escalates and Miles finds himself in a struggle for his own survival. Dead of Darkness is a survival-horror action-adventure with cosmic horror influences.

Dreamcore is a psychological exploration game that immerses players in the haunting beauty of liminal spaces. Designed for fans of atmospheric, non-linear gameplay, Dreamcore invites you to roam vast, interconnected worlds where every corner holds a mystery, and every path leads to discovery. Each world is an intricate and enigmatic labyrinth, waiting to be explored. Your goal? To uncover the secrets hidden within and find your way to the exit. But beware - the deeper you go, the more the uncanny nature of these spaces will challenge your perception of reality.