Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has once again discussed the new direction for Microsoft's gaming division and how it'll continue to focus heavily on its biggest franchises, while also calling on its studios to create new IP. According to Sharma, relying solely on established franchises can only take Xbox so far, and without an injection of fresh IP blood, Xbox will not survive.

"We're backing our strongest franchises. I want our great games to become great global billion-dollar franchises," Sharma said in a town hall meeting shared with Windows Central. "I would also like to see us continue to create enduring new IP. We will not survive if we only revive on the past. We have to find new ways, and courage, to have invention on new IP that reaches new sets of audiences."

This year has focused primarily on several of Xbox's biggest franchises, like Forza Horizon, Halo, and Gears of War, ahead of the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 later this month. Next year will see the launch of a new Fable and InXile Entertainment's Clockwork Revolution, and Xbox has signed deals with Hideo Kojima to get his next two projects, OD and Physint, over the finish line.

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The irony of this call for more original content is that Xbox has parted ways with several studios known for creating unique games. Compulsion Games, Undead Labs, and Double Fine all have a legacy of producing weird, story-rich games. While some of them may not have been massive commercial hits, they helped position Xbox as a home for unique experiences.

At the same time, AAA games are taking longer to make and costing more to produce. Blizzard's next big games, like StarCraft and Diablo 5, are several years away, and smaller releases sandwiched between them are a solid way to keep users engaged. Call of Duty is the exception, as Activision invested heavily in a multi-studio system to release a new game every year, creating an annual blockbuster franchise.

But right now, the gaming industry faces several more existential threats beyond the need for new IP to draw in audiences. Established live-service games vacuum up player time--and wallets--regularly, making it harder than ever for new games to break through, while the rampant investment in AI has driven up component costs and have thus made owning a console or gaming PC more expensive than ever before. Recently, we've also seen people use AI to recreate games from scratch and make them playable in web browsers, a feat that was unheard of just a few years ago.

Xbox could be facing an uphill battle, especially with its ambitious goal of entertaining 1 billion people every day.

When playing Castlevania: Belmont's Curse, I couldn't stop thinking about Symphony of the Night. Almost 30 years ago, that game reinvented Castlevania as a search-action game, and did it so brilliantly that it earned half of the "metroidvania" portmanteau. Belmont's Curse does not attempt such a dramatic shift. It doesn't change genres or reinvent the series as something entirely new. What it does, however, is achieve a brilliant synthesis, with every component operating at peak performance to deliver a new high for the series. Castlevania is back, and it is fantastic.

Put simply, Belmont's Curse is the total package. A sprawling map bursting with mysteries to uncover, joyous traversal tools that make roaming the map feel great, a story that balances a macabre tone with occasional lightness, a cast of creative and well-drawn characters, and hands-down the best combat of any Castlevania game--in fact, among the best combat of any 2D action game, period.

What makes all of these synergize so well is the addition of the tarot cards, which serve as an elegant way to fuse the game's disparate elements, and makes them all feel like part of one cohesive whole. At different points your tarot deck serves as mission signposting, environmental puzzles, pieces of story lore, characters to serve as dialogue for Rose, boss locations, and ultimately, your pool of spells.

You play as Rose Belmont, daughter of Trevor Belmont, who has trained her whole life as the successor of the Belmont clan. Though silver-maned Trevor is still a capable fighter, Rose volunteers to investigate the otherworldly happenings in Paris, France, eager to prove herself worthy of the family name. But Rose is also afflicted with a cursed red mark on one arm, making her dangerously instrumental to the machinations of Dracula and his armies. 

The tarot deck is a set of magical cards gifted to Rose by her late mother, Sypha, who passed on the curse to her at birth. Each card represents a follower of Dracula, with honorific names like The Fallen, The Warrior, or The Builder. As you explore the castle you find clues that reveal story details and hints about how to find them, often both simultaneously, and they each have their own roles in Dracula's royal court. When Dracula's castle emerges in the heart of Paris--as you obviously knew it would, this is a Castlevania game, after all--the full deck is revealed, putting the complete array of monsters in your sights. Once you've tracked down and defeated one of Dracula's servants, their tarot card becomes an Arcana you can use as a spell, which then opens its own flexible progression system. It may sound complex, but the system is actually an ingenious way to merge different gameplay elements and make them all feel digestible and cohesive.

Castlevania: Belmont's Curse

As an example, take the first boss, The Fallen. Finding him is a relatively simple task, given that it's meant to serve as a basic primer for finding clues and navigating the winding streets of Paris. When you defeat him, you absorb his Arcana, which grants you two important tools: a recognizable boomerang axe spell, and an arcane whip that allows you to grab onto grapple points to reach new locations. But this new traversal tool is also a combat tool, since the same function can grab onto any enemy; a well-timed strike while grappling toward the enemy can then do serious damage. Then on top of that, the combat tool itself can also be used for traversal, as enemies flying midair can help you reach distant platforms, as long as you can grapple onto them. It all harmonizes beautifully, and exemplifies Belmont's Curse as a whole--abundant with mechanics that complement and fold into others in surprising ways.

Dracula's legion of followers also serve another purpose, as being captured forces them into the tarot where they occupy a mindspace for Rose to speak with. This ultimately gives her characters to bounce off of for story purposes, but the characters are also well differentiated from each other. The Fallen is a gruff creature that comes to feel protective of Rose, whereas Medusa, even imprisoned in Rose's deck, is unsubtly rooting for her to fail and constantly trying to trick her into making moves that will further her master's plans. Lots of characters you find throughout have their own agendas and rivalries, and are often at cross-purposes with Rose or each other, adding a compelling dynamic as they all bicker inside of your head. The regular addition of characters in your deck means that any of them could interject in dialogue to offer some commentary--though the core cast, so to speak, remains the first three that you find. 

One drawback of having such a dynamic cast of characters is that the protagonist, Rose, is less interesting by comparison. She's a determined heroine archetype and remains that way throughout. She is a central point of gravity for all of the other characters to orbit around, and works on that level, but I do wish she had more agency herself. She is deadset on her mission from start to finish, and not much more. 

Castlevania: Belmont's Curse

Each Arcana spell also comes with a set of three objectives to complete, called Works of Mercy. These can be as simple as defeating a set number of enemies with the relevant spell, but often are more complex to incentivize exploration or experimentation. One notable objective for The Warrior rewards you for finding a particular location, which works thematically with that character's story. One of Medusa's has you petrify an enemy carrying a shield, a reference to the myth of Perseus. Your reward for completing these is opening a node to choose one of three power-ups for the spell; once you've completed all three, you're rewarded with extra dialogue from the Arcana character. 

And so you explore the streets and undercity of Paris along with Dracula's castle in freeform fashion, an open structure lightly guides you toward critical objectives for unlocking new equipment that you need to reach other corners and layers of the world. If you're ever stuck you can refer to your tarot deck for clues that you may not have thought about for a while. The environmental puzzles add just enough brain-tickling challenge to make you observe carefully and think through the clues, without grinding your progress to a halt. And the ability to track down enemies and steal their powers makes for a compelling loop that reminded me of one of my favorite series: Mega Man. I was always eager to take down the next boss and see how they would augment my combat and traversal abilities. 

Combat is where you can truly see the expertise of developer Evil Empire shine through the most, as its expertise from Dead Cells transfers beautifully to this franchise. Your strikes across the wide variety of weapon types feel forceful and kinetic, and each weapon type has its own advantages and special charged ability. Your basic longsword is well balanced and lets you dash through enemies, while the whip has long reach but only the tip strikes with its full power. I found I favored the lance, with its versatility of long reach as a handheld weapon or the ability to throw it as a projectile, and ultimately stuck with it for a long time even after finding other weapons at higher levels. There are four weapons each across seven type categories, so the seven weapon types offer loads of room for experimentation to dial in on the one you like best, or just swapping situationally.

What makes the combat transcendant, though, is the addition of a parry. This is new ground for a Castlevania game, but it also works differently than the parry I've seen in many other games. As a holy shield gained from your second boss encounter, it works independently of your regular strikes. It doesn't interrupt your attacks, and by default the attack button is mapped to a face button while the parry is mapped to the left trigger. That means you can be attacking while also parrying your opponent's attack, making combat a lightning fast series of choices that puts you on offense and defense simultaneously. As someone who has struggled with many parry systems and never quite got into them in other games, this one made a believer out of me. It just feels so good to wail on an enemy, parry a projectile from behind, and then grapple over to finish them off. Belmont's Curse is full of moments like this, as practically every room you enter is occupied by enemies, and frequent forced combat encounters test your mettle against mixtures of them. 

Castlevania: Belmont's Curse

This is not to say combat is easy. Far from it. The cursed streets of Paris and Dracula's castle are littered with monsters and ghouls familiar to Castlevania fans, reimagined for this combat style, and Rose is very vulnerable. It's easy to die even in regular combat encounters, and boss fights take a good bit of pattern recognition to learn tells before you can successfully fend them off. But the combat is so fine-tuned that you constantly feel in control and recognize what you did wrong. Very occasionally the screen would be so full of enemy attacks I missed a parry window because it was hard to read all the visual information at once, but it was rare enough not to detract from the overall experience. Similarly, navigating extended gauntlets of traps can be trying, but they always feel satisfying to complete, and you're rewarded with items like ability-augmenting Relics or further clues for your tarot deck.

If combat or traps give you trouble, Belmont's Curse adds a few quality-of-life features and options to ease your growth. For one, you keep all the XP earned during your runbacks to bosses, so even if you have to try a boss multiple times, you're still leveling up and gaining power on the way. You can also turn on the Custom Mode to tweak options like setting a checkpoint right in front of boss doors, boosting your damage output, reducing the damage from traps, and more. There doesn't seem to be any cost to using this system, and you can turn it on or off as you'd like. The one element missing, for good reason, are any extra navigational tools to find your way. It's clear that Evil Empire doesn't mind giving you a leg up on reflex-based challenges, but it still wants you to think through puzzles and explore to uncover secrets.

Belmont's Curse also has some of the most inventive bosses I've seen in the series history. One notable boss twice escaped to a different section, introducing a difficult platforming challenge in the middle of the fight to continue it. Another hexes you with a sigil indicating the number of hits you can take before you simply die, forcing you to minimize strikes on you even if you have plenty of healing items to prevent dying outright. Even after 20 hours there are many other bosses in my deck I have yet to find, and I'm eager to see what else Castlevania has to offer. 

Castlevania: Belmont's Curse

Exploring the castle is a visual delight, because Belmont's Curse is gorgeous. Far from a gray-soaked castle, Evil Empire has leaned into its house art style of vivid, saturated hues and unexpected color palettes. The approach to Dracula's castle, in which Rose and all of the enemies are silhouetted against the pink-red color tone of a burning Paris behind them, is one of the most visually arresting moments I've seen in a game lately. The character designs themselves are distinct and creative, like Carmilla, a hemomancer whose slinky red gown is made of dripping blood. I could go on and on, but I'll let you discover them for yourself. Plus as you explore you get treated to new renditions of classic Castlevania music alongside new tunes that fit right into its milieu. 

Every element in Castlevania: Belmont's Curse works so well both independently and as part of the whole: flexible combat, beautifully acrobatic traversal, fine-tuned environmental puzzles, wide cast of interesting characters, and eye-catching visual panache--all wrapped within a smart tarot system that lets these ideas complement each other. Belmont's Curse feels destined to be regarded alongside Symphony of the Night as one of the best Castlevania games, and one of the best metroidvania games, of all time. 

Haunted Chocolatier looks like it could be the perfect, candy-bar blend of sweet and creepy once it launches--but developer ConcernedApe doesn't know when that might be. So I'd like to consider an alternate option for after-funeral desserts and try the upcoming Steam game Tearoom of Terror, whose developer, Sundew Studios, was just featured during the new Cozy After Dark Showcase.

Sundew studios writer and designer Allie Ast shows off the "cozy gothic murder mystery" Tearoom of Terror in all its Edward Gorey detail during the stream, which was presented by the Dames 4 Games nonprofit.

Like Haunted Chocolatier, which will let you melt, swirl, and sell your own fancy chocolates, Tearoom of Terror involves brewing lovely lavender teas and doling out cheesy scones to strange customers, like a seemingly homicidal heiress and an opera singer of no renown. You'll go through the soothing motions of keeping your own Victorian tea parlor running as finely as white lace… but it won't be as lovely as it looks. 

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"You're also the primary suspect in your aunt's murder!" Ast cheerfully reveals. So Tearoom of Terror will also feature moments of deduction like the underrated The Séance of Blake Manor, except you have a stickier relationship with justice than that puzzle game's upright detective. 

"Find the true culprit, or instead of serving scones, you'll be serving time," Ast warns. Desperate times may call for desperate measures--like an excessive lump of poisoned sugar, or a little pinch of worms to keep your "immoral" clientele in line. Ast explains, "Luckily, the officer has a weak constitution." 

I'm already preparing business names for my tearoom that will no doubt fail health inspection standards--Sleepy Marshmallow? The Headless Horseradish? So I'm eager for Tearoom of Terror to launch sometime soon. Its demo is available now on Steam.

My 2012 belonged to Slender Man. I was easily terrified by creepy, early 2010s computer games like Slender: The Eight Pages, but I couldn't resist their special blend of unicorn blood and twee. Recently, I've been missing the pink bittersweetness of the Tim Burton-style horror games made in those years, like Fran Bow and Alice: Madness Returns, so the inaugural Cozy After Dark Showcase has arrived with a new trailer for Hell Is Other People at just the right time. 

The teaser from indie developer Miss Self Destruct describes Hell Is Other People--named for the famous Jean-Paul Sartre quote about being trapped in other people's perceptions of you--as "a psychological horror about social anxiety." 

Its little girl protagonist has onyx eyes and hair that goes nearly down to her fingertips, so she looks a bit overgrown, like she might have washed up on some riverbank. Otherwise, she seems normal, with a thin mattress to curl on top of every night like any other lonely child. But that's not what her mother thinks.

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"See what I have to deal with?" Mother says as our little girl stares politely at a party tray of frosted cupcakes. Hell Is Other People's Steam description explains that you won't collect items in your inventory, but social skills, so the girl responds to her mother's snide comment with Guilt--but it isn't impactful. She becomes paranoid, making lines of dialogue seem to jumble and melt together as the girl explains, "When I feel bad, people become so hard to read."

You'll have to manage these shifting tides of emotion by consulting your notebook for how normal people behave. Initially, I was drawn to the pretty Gothic caricature of Hell Is Other People, black cats with sharp syringe teeth and patterned arsenic wallpaper, but now I'm feeling understood by it as a true social survival game. 

When I myself was a strange girl with long hair that blew around on the swingsets, I was much like the Hell Is Other People protagonist; I was desperate for my parents to understand me, and I couldn't understand why they didn't try. My only solace in those years was Tim Burton's corpse bride and monsters like Slender Man--outcasts. It can be pleasant to give up and call yourself a freak, exist among freaks. So I'm excited for the gloomy nostalgia Hell Is Other People brings me when it's out sometime soon.

The new Street Fighter movie hits theaters in just a few days, and if you're a fan of the Capcom series, you might be tempted to celebrate with some new poster art on your wall. While the official poster for that movie is fine, Mondo's new Street Fighter 2 poster is much better, striking, and it doesn't feature a gallery of floating heads--just one, in fact, being punched off the beefy shoulders of a Shadaloo enforcer. If you're wondering what that piece of fine art looks like, GameSpot can exclusively reveal it for you below. Can you see it? Sure you can!

Designed by artist and painter Gian Galang, this Street Fighter 2 poster captures one of the most iconic moments of the fighting game franchise, highlighting the legendary rivalry between Ryu and Sagat.

The new Street Fighter poster from Mondo Preorder at Mondo

"Street Fighter 2 was the first video game I ever owned, and it reinforced the bond between art and martial arts that I loved as a kid and has defined my career as an adult," Galang said. "I did my best to create an image worthy of the Street Fighter legacy, depicting the Shoryuken between Ryu and Sagat, exploding with lightning, splitting the composition in two."

For this poster, Galang created a unique, multi-layered composition, and Mondo has reprinted it as a nine-color screenprint on high-quality House White paper. The poster will go on sale starting October 16 at 9 AM PT, and it is priced at $90.

While you'd think Ken Masters is Ryu's ultimate rival, a storied history between the globe-trotting fighter and Sagat has been explored over the years in film, manga, and comic books. In the original Street Fighter lore, their first meeting resulted in Sagat receiving his iconic chest scar from Ryu's Shoryuken, which drove the Thai fighter to join Shadaloo so he could get his rematch.

Street Fighter Alpha changed things by showing that Sagat delivered a one-sided beatdown to Ryu, and in a moment of sportsmanship, he reached out to pick the young warrior up. Unfortunately, Ryu's dark side--the Satsui no Hado--manifested at that point, resulting in him launching a Shoryuken uppercut that left Sagat scarred and beaten. The two would eventually cross paths again, with Sagat picking up the victory over Ryu after his brainwashing at the hands of M. Bison, and since then, they've developed a mutual respect for each other.

In more Street Fighter news, the developers behind the popular fighting game series recently remarked that it was on life support 10 years ago, and the Street Fighter movie is out on October 16. Helmed by Bad Trip director Kitao Sakurai, it features a stacked roster of actors, Easter eggs, and a version of Guile's theme music that goes with everything.

Street Fighter Movie Cast Revealed, Including An Unexpected Eric Andre Role View Images

Unlike Sony, which has decided to move toward a digital-only game marketplace starting in 2028, Nintendo is sticking to an "agnostic" approach for the Switch 2 console. In a new interview, Nintendo's VP and general manager for Latin America, Bill van Zyll, said the company will still offer both physical and digital versions of games to meet consumer demand.

"Historically, we’ve been very agnostic," van Zyll said to YouTuber Coelho no Japão. "We go off what the consumer prefers, and take that into account very heavily. We also have a platform that was just launched. We're barely just over a year into NS2 (Nintendo Switch 2), and it's got both digital and also physical--that capability. There are no plans to ditch physical. We know how much the fans like it as well, so our position has been to be agnostic."

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Like its predecessor, the Switch 2 lets you run games by using either foul-tasting physical cartridges or downloads from the Nintendo eShop onto the console. One big difference in this generation is the introduction of Game-Key Cards as a low-cost solution for developers, which act as authentication keys for games.

These will require you to both insert the cart and download the game to the Switch 2, but since the cartridges aren't tied to your account, you can still sell them off at a later date if you choose to. Some Switch 2 games--like first-party Nintendo games and the upcoming Stellar Blade: Complete Edition--do contain the full game on the cartridge.

While not everyone is a fan of Nintendo's Game-Key Cards, the middleground between digital and physical games is still more well-received than Sony's push for an all-digital future. The company is still cautiously pushing ahead with its plans, but as critics have argued, there are several big risks attached to this drive to transition away from physical media.

Bandai Namco has dropped a new trailer for Tekken 8, and while this one is mostly focused on everyone's favorite Kangaroo, Roger, it also included a brief tease of one of the most ridiculous characters in anime: Yujiro Hanma. The sneak peek at the Gigachad of fighting anime is quick, but it does show off the character's infamously toothy grin and morning-splits flexibility that would make Jean-Claude Van Damme jealous.

While there's no release date yet for when Hanma will be added to the game, the trailer still lists him for the winter season, and Bandai Namco says he'll get his own Tekken 8 trailer at the Tekken World Tour Finals on January 17, 2017. That suggests Hanma will be added to the game soon after, if previous Tekken 8 trailers are any indication.

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If you're unfamiliar with the source material, Hanma is essentially the apex predator of strength within the Baki universe. While most characters in the manga are somewhat limited by the rules of physics, Hanma is an anomaly: an undefeatable collection of muscles that can do the impossible. Why? Because he's Yujiro Hanma.

While his son, Baki, is the protagonist of the manga and anime, Hanma is arguably the breakout star thanks to the sheer absurdity of his feats. US presidents have to regularly swear their loyalty to him, he once stopped an earthquake by punching it, and even being struck by lightning doesn't bother him. Because he's Yujiro Hanma.

If there's one thing his Tekken 8 character model accurately captures, it's the ridiculous amount of muscle mass he has. Tekken 8 was built in Unreal Engine 5 and designed to showcase hyper-realistic human anatomy in real time. To pull this off, the developers doubled the digital bone structure from Tekken 7 to 8 for each character and implemented a system that automatically triggers auxiliary bones to drive realistic muscle bulging, twisting, and tightening based on character positioning and movement.

On top of that, dynamic muscle striations, bulging veins, and sweat effects are also baked into each character, while a special dual-mesh system prevents clothing clipping. All of this is a lot of fancy tech for a split-second glimpse of muscles bulging before they land a knockout blow, but it feels custom-made to show off Hanma's physics-defying physique.

Since launch, Tekken 8 has expanded its roster with several new and familiar characters, including a reborn Heihachi Mishima, Anna, and Final Fantasy 16's Clive Rosfield. It hasn't been smooth sailing recently, as several controversial balance updates, gameplay systems that stripped away defensive options, and aggressive monetization choices have led to community backlash.

Longtime Tekken development chief Katsuhiro Harada also left Bandai Namco late last year, and he has since set up a new studio at SNK.

The soulslike genre has been around long enough now that it's easy to pick out its most recognizable traits. Whether it's managing stamina in combat, the risk of losing progression with each death, health items and enemies that respawn when you reach a bonfire, lantern, or some other recognizable checkpoint; all of the best in the genre adapt these in their own distinct ways. 

Valor Mortis is no different, but attempts to stand out through its shift in perspective. By moving the action to a first-person view, Valor Mortis affords itself novelty, which works well with snappy and satisfying combat that rewards deft parries and patience in equal measure. But it's also marred by a weak story and sluggishly paced opening hours that betray the more captivating moments in its second half, where Valor Mortis' most interesting narrative beats and combat encounters finally deliver on some of the potential you can see being established in the hours prior.

You play as William Dowsett, a very British-sounding member of Napoleon's army who returns from the dead only to find former allies taken over by corruption sweeping across Europe. The corruption has twisted people; large red boils replace the heads of riflemen, infantrymen have their spines snapped as they are transformed into grotesque and rabid attack dogs, and piles of bodies have become living masses of flesh that slowly crawl toward you when you least expect it. It's a familiar world that has been transformed into a nightmare for William as he attempts to reconnect with missing comrades and understand how the war has found itself in this state, leading him to answers that will likely be far less surprising for you as a player.

Valor Mortis' story is frustratingly straightforward, and wastes a setting so rarely used in action games. William's slow realization that the war he's been waging on behalf of the bloodthirsty Napoleon Bonaparte might not be as noble as he assumed is annoyingly drawn out for how predictable it is. It's hard to get invested with a main character who has little more going for him than verbalizing his disgust over the consequences of a war he so recently was proud to be a part of, blissfully ignorant to the horrors he was unleashing on innocent citizens along the way. Conversations with the game's supporting cast don't help either, with none making a lasting impression. 

Once Valor Mortis starts exploring the villages and cities besieged by Bonaparte and his corrupted forces, there are more compelling stories to discover. You'll come across brief echoes that capture fleeting conversations from the past, distilling short but often heartbreaking stories. They effectively convey the desperation some civilians endured when faced with a foreign, oppressive force taking over their day-to-day lives. There's an entire city filled with orphans who scurry around underground tunnels, and another nearly entirely underwater after a heinous war crime extinguished a rebellion without care for civilian casualties. They're effective at contextualizing why so much of the world around you is desolate and broken without having to see those events play out, and they do a great job of making you hate an antagonist you'll hardly ever see.

It's frustrating that it takes a while to get here, however, with many of Valor Mortis' opening hours taking place across battlefields that, while twisted by the corruption around them, ultimately blend together in forgettable ways. These areas are almost strictly linear, with clear paths from beginning to end and only slight detours to explore. Around the halfway mark, this monotonous world design flips around entirely--you move from abandoned villages to burning cities and down into labyrinthine catacombs beneath an eerily empty university. These spaces feel more like small hubs, with smart shortcuts back to resting points (represented here as lanterns, which restock your healing vials and respawn enemies as you might expect) that make them feel more carefully considered in comparison to the opening hours.

Valor Mortis' combat is where it takes its biggest swings. Its shift to a first-person perspective is the most immediate and distinct change from typical soulslikes, but its split between melee and ranged combat and multiple weapon options are equally impactful. It is still all about crowd and stamina control, as well as a familiar reliance on parries, too. The tighter field of view makes it important to intelligently choose which enemies to engage and when, though off-screen markers  help alleviate potential frustrations the perspective change would otherwise introduce. Melee combat is fast and responsive, with parries being especially satisfying to pull off given the tight windows that make many duels, especially those against bosses, exhilarating. I rarely tired of hearing the sound cues of a critical attack, be it from a stealth attack or through breaking their posture, accompanied by violent, contextual executions that varied based on the weapons I had equipped. Ranged combat is given a greater emphasis than most other soulslike games too, and you'll routinely be challenged to pick off enemies from afar while juggling those within striking distance. 

"By moving the action to a first-person view, Valor Mortis affords itself novelty, which works well with snappy and satisfying combat that rewards deft parries and patience in equal measure"

There is a range of offensive weapons and abilities on offer, each of which is introduced as you progress through the story. Included are three types of swords: a rapier that excels at parries and building posture damage, a two-handed claymore that forgoes parries entirely in favor of slow, powerful, and magically imbued attacks, and a well-rounded saber that balances damage and posture damage. Firearms are similarly varied, with a quick-firing pistol, a slow but powerful blunderbuss that's devastating at close range, and a two-handed musket that's great for picking off enemies from afar. You're also granted three transmutations, or magical abilities, which allow you to hurl fire at enemies, freeze them with stasis, or absorb and reflect their damage back at them, as well as the ability to wall-run (which feels just as good as it did in developer One More Level's Ghostrunner series).

Each of these weapons and abilities feature its own upgrade trees, with specific materials required to unlock each sequential node. I ended up finding enough materials to nearly max out each upgrade tree without specifically hunting for them, which allowed me the freedom to experiment with each one without having to commit to specific configurations. This seems by design, given that you'll always have one sword equipped in your main hand and either a firearm or spell in your off hand, similar to Dishonored or BioShock 2, as well as the ability to swap either one at any time.

Despite the freedom of choice, I was surprised by how little I swapped between the various options, especially when it came to both swords and magical abilities. The saber, which is the first weapon you're given, fulfilled my needs so perfectly that I only briefly dabbled with both the rapier and claymore before changing back. The rapier's slightly additional posture damage never made up for its inability to block attacks without perfect parries, and the claymore is introduced so late and is incapable of performing parries entirely, stripping out one of the most satisfying elements of the entire combat loop. 

The same goes for the three transmutations, as I found myself mostly sticking to fire given its effectiveness against most enemies. Building up enough stasis on enemies consumed more nephtoglobin, or mana, than it seemed worthwhile, and the act of absorbing and returning damage with the third ability always felt more clunky in practice and less effective than just sticking to the far more satisfying parrying mechanic. These two other abilities are utilized more often in environmental puzzles, though these are predominantly used to initially explain how the abilities work. They go mostly ignored afterward, annoyingly not building on the gameplay design introduced early on.

Enemy variety is partly to blame. Valor Mortis features a relatively shallow pool of foes and takes a long time to start combining them in ways that make you consider how to approach a fight in specific ways. You'll be fighting the same slow-moving and weak infantryman in your first and last hours of the game, which saps some of the satisfaction out of the combat when you're pulling off the same parries against the same attacks for hours on end. In a similar fashion to the level design, this starts resolving itself when you have the full complement of weapons and abilities at your disposal, at which point enemy combinations and slight variations start becoming more abundant. With the added benefit of more open spaces to explore and more opportunities to deliver surprises with enemy placements, Valor Mortis' combat eventually starts to shine. It's just a pity that it takes some time to get there.

That might be a blessing or a curse depending on what you're coming to Valor Mortis for, but it has a noticeable knock-on effect that's difficult to ignore. Runbacks after death were far less tense because of how familiar and, in many cases, sparse enemies were. Character progression, which is governed by an upgrade tree with no branching paths to commit to, didn't drastically change the way I played, instead just giving me a means to buff my attributes to keep up with the escalating damage and health pools of enemies. I was rarely seeking out a specific upgrade to help deal with new foes because I had become accustomed to fighting the same ones over and over again. Thankfully boss fights offered some reprieve to this, as they tend to feature a good variety of enemies, large and lumbering to small and nimble, that inject the combat with a sense of challenge and tension. 

There are many other elements outside of combat, too, that only start to really click closer to the game's climax. Early stages are so preoccupied with introducing you to new weapons and abilities and providing you with spaces to learn each one of them that they feel disjointed and unfocused. At one point you're taking out distant groups of enemies conveniently placed next to explosive barrels to showcase the effectiveness of your new musket, and at another you're engaging in a long platforming sequence where you need to string together wall runs and grapples while maintaining pace with a moving cart through a mine shaft. Ultimately, all these issues stem from a lack of restraint; There are too many disparate ideas that feel at odds with the best aspect of Valor Mortis, making it feel directionless at times.

Valor Mortis betrays the heights it reaches in its second half. Its first-person combat is snappy and satisfying, but the limited enemy pool, underutilized weapons and abilities, and lack of consistent challenge ultimately prevent it from shining. And while this historical period is novel to explore with a dark, supernatural twist, it doesn't play host to a wider, captivating story, and is only salvaged by smaller, emotionally charged vignettes that effectively convey the consequences of a war that its protagonist so naively comes to terms with. There are the bones of a great game here--one that would benefit from a tighter focus on its engaging first-person combat and a trimming of the superfluous mechanics that detract from the ones that work. Instead, it's an uneven experience that delights as much as it disappoints.

Star Citizen's single-player mode, Squadron 42, has made a reappearance with a new trailer showing off the mode's impressive cast and interstellar warfare. In development for 12 years, the ambitious mode blends outer space dogfighting and first-person action, set during an era when hostile alien forces have pushed humanity to the brink of defeat. As a rising star in the United Empire of Earth Navy, players must push back the invaders and save the day.

The new trailer is the best look yet at the mode and the many, many actors who play various characters in the story mode. From Mark Hamill (who knows a thing or two about space combat) to Gary Oldman, the rest of the cast also includes Gillian Anderson, Ben Mendelsohn, Henry Cavill, Andy Serkis, John Rhys-Davies, Rhona Mitra, and more famous faces in the mix. For the player characters, Ian Duncan (Broken News) plays the male player character, while Alix Wilton Regan (the new face and voice of Tomb Raider games) portrays the female player character.

https://youtu.be/i4rVtLAenmk

With development being led by Wing Commander creator Chris Roberts at Cloud Imperium Games, the trailer includes a healthy mix of cinematics and gameplay, showing off on-foot sections, life aboard the capital ship that players will be stationed on, minigames, and the space combat that fans of the genre have shown up for. There's no solid release date yet for the mode, but a Q2 2027 release window is listed instead, and you can wishlist it now on the CIG website and Steam. As of 2023, CIG described the standalone campaign as feature-complete, and the team said it was working on "dialing in" the gameplay so it would feel as "immersive as possible."

Squadron 42 has been brewing in the background ever since Star Citizen was first announced, with the mode seemingly being close to release earlier this year and then getting a delay to 2027 so that it could escape being overshadowed by GTA 6--which to be fair, is a strategy that many games have opted for recently.

"Much like the rest of the industry there is no way I want to launch my spiritual successor to Wing Commander, a game that has had 12 years of blood, sweat and tears invested into it, launching into the attention buzz saw of GTA 6," Roberts wrote in a blog post earlier this year. "While GTA 6 isn’t launching on PC this November, pretty much all outlets and most content creators will be all over it, not leaving a lot of room for other coverage."

Development on Star Citizen is still ongoing, and the game has raised over $1 billion in funding since it was first announced. A large chunk of that cash comes from CIG selling spaceships that can cost as much as $5,000 each, money that the game's devoted fanbase is happy to spend on the project. Worryingly, Star Citizen was in the spotlight after a recent developer livestream intended to show the game off in a positive light. 

But instead of seeing what Star Citizen could be, the gameplay shown off was littered with bugs, glitches, and palpable tension between the developers as they attempted to salvage the broadcast.

Haunted Chocolatier, the second game from Stardew Valley creator, Eric Barone, has been in development for more than five years, having been announced in October 2021. While there's no official word on the Haunted Chocolatier release date, Barone has been discussing the development of the game, including who it's for and more about the playstyle. In a recent interview with GQ, Barone said that Haunted Chocolatier is "more of an action RPG," although it is still what he'd call "a town game."

"The main focus is more about adventuring, finding equipment and getting more powerful. There are monsters, there are boss fights. It's for the people in Stardew Valley that go into the mines," he explained.

https://youtu.be/kJy7LF789lo

Writing on the Haunted Chocolatier website, Barone regularly apologizes for the game "taking so long," but reassures fans that he's making good progress on the game. "I won't compromise on the quality of the game by rushing it or releasing it too early," he adds.

Still, now that we have more information on what the game might entail, the wait feels like it will be worth it. According to GQ, Barone has "returned to isolation" to focus on finishing Haunted Chocolatier. "I really want to recapture that feeling that I had when I was making Stardew Valley," Barone said. "Everyone's watching me, and if I don't do things a certain way, it might disappoint millions of people."

Haunted Chocolatier is also shaping up to be bigger, and creepier, than Stardew Valley. In 2025, Barone said he "hoped" the game would release within the next five years, so we should get our hands on it before 2030, all being well. Fingers crossed.

Today at New York Comic Con, Wizards of the Coast announced the first 2027 Universes Beyond expansion set for Magic: The Gathering. Marvel’s Darkhold Destiny will pit Doctor Strange, Thor, Ghost Rider, and more against cosmic villains like Hela and Dormammu in 2027.

The set will include normal and Collector booster packs, and four pre-constructed commander decks themed around Marvel heroes and villains, including the Midnight Sons. Multiple cards were shown during the hour-long panel, including Magic, who transforms into Darkchild, Gargantos, and the titular Darkhold. 

Darkhold Destiny tells an original story co-created by designers at Marvel and Wizards of the Coast. Along with that story, a brand-new character created for this set will be introduced in a Marvel Infinity comic series starting in February. 

Mechanics include Vengeance, an Adventure-like gameplay feature that lets you cast spells from your graveyard and return the permanent it's attached to back to the battlefield, and the return of the Arcane subtype for spells.

Darkhold Destiny launches April 9 in big-box retailers and local game stores.

Minesweeper has been around for decades and it's probably overdue for some modern flourishes. Now there's a Triple-A Minesweeper parody that offers a hilarious look at what a Minesweeper update might look like.

The Triple-A Minesweeper was created by writer and programmer Mike Lacher, and it's fully playable as a browser game on his site. Aside from the intentionally pretentious title cards touting the involvement of Unreal Engine, Nvidia, Bink Video, and Wwise, Triple A Minesweeper looks and plays almost exactly like the regular Minesweeper.

However, the best way to enjoy this parody is by simply not doing anything at all. The main character, "Sweeper," will sit around and repeat things like, "I gotta sweep these mines," while receiving calls from newly created characters in the game. Lacher seems to have taken his inspiration from Grand Theft Auto 5, Metal Gear Solid, and even Cyberpunk 2077.

Among the callers are Nora, a potential love interest for Sweeper. Additionally, an underworld figure called The Don repeatedly calls for Sweeper to head down to his club while hinting at the latter's sinister past in Singapore. Meanwhile, the chipper DJ Dan celebrates Sweeper's efforts on behalf of New Dawn City.

In another amusing touch, Sweeper never acknowledges any of the other characters and keeps repeating the same lines over and over. It is possible to complete the game, which triggers a twist ending that probably wasn't that difficult to predict.

Although Lacher leaves the parody on that note, it would have been even funnier if the game's coda mentioned that Triple-A Minesweeper flopped and cost Microsoft hundreds of millions of dollars.

Microsoft hasn't done too much with Minesweeper in the past few years, although it was added to Microsoft Teams as a playable game. The company has also previously created a Minesweeper-themed ugly Christmas sweater.

Capcom choosing the exact same subtitle for two separate expansions in two different games makes a lot of sense. Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen is not only a thematically relevant title, but thanks to the first game's expansion of the same name, it also conveys to longtime fans what to expect: namely, a new gameplay cycle focused on reworked loot and plenty of dungeon crawling. The key difference this time around is that instead of heading into the labyrinthine depths of a cursed island, you've got an entirely new region to explore.  

As someone who loved Dragon's Dogma 2, I couldn't really ask for much more. Yet changes to some of the game's core systems also dilute what made it so unique when it launched back in 2024. I know it's always been a fairly divisive game, and these changes are intended to make the experience more approachable, but they also strip away some of its magic in an effort to appeal to more people. Dark Arisen is still a great expansion, transporting you to a fascinating new region with more loot to earn, fantastical beasts to slay, and stories to behold, but it also shifts Dragon's Dogma 2 in a slightly different direction. 

To start with, Dark Arisen alleviates some of the game's intentional friction by reducing how often you need to travel on foot. The Eternal Ferrystone was already added to the game a few months ago, letting you freely fast travel to any portcrystal without expending a scarce resource. Those same portcrystals are located at every key location in Dark Arisen's new Norgan region. You still have to reach them on foot first to activate them, but once you do, you can simply teleport from one side of the map to the other. 

Using the Eternal Ferrystone is entirely optional; you can still traverse almost all of Norgan on foot if you desire, so the friction is still there if you want it. However, Dark Arisen also feels designed with unlimited fast travel in mind. The first settlement you come across, for instance, acts as a hub of sorts, letting you manage your gear, rest at the inn, and pick up a fair few side quests, so you're intended to return here often. 

Meanwhile, many quests require you to visit the same locations over and over again to speak with specific characters. Heading off on foot might be an option, but it's never incentivized and feels antithetical to how it wants you to play. 

I'm not a fan of this change. I can acknowledge that giving players more choice is a positive, but the back-and-forth quest design and reliance on fast travel means you never really feel like you have options when traversing Norgan. This has a fairly significant knock-on effect, too: Without embarking on foot more often, I rarely stumbled into the emergent moments that made the base game so thrilling. And without that palpable sense of adventure, Dark Arisen feels less like Dragon's Dogma and more like any number of action-RPGs, rendering this a fundamental change to its identity, rather than an improvement.

When Dragon's Dogma 2 launched, traveling the regions of Vermund and Battahl felt treacherous, especially in the black of night. The world was as hazardous as the enemies you encountered, and campsites provided a welcome respite on your weary travels. Now, those feelings of everpresent danger and welcome safety are mostly gone. There's no risk when you can freely fast travel out of danger or skip a journey entirely. The game's uncompromising design has been softened to broaden its appeal.  

The same goes for changes to its save system. By letting you roll back to a manual "Interim Save" at any time, there's no longer any risk involved in your decision-making. You won't have to live with the consequences of accidentally angering a bunch of guards in Battahl's jail or fret over when to use the Unmaking Arrow. This one-hit-kill item still triggers an autosave as soon as it's fired, creating tension the moment you decide to draw back the bowstring, but the ability to select an earlier save robs it of its finality. If these changes were strictly tied to Dark Arisen, they wouldn't be quite as detrimental. Yet this sanding down of its intentional friction affects the base game, too.

By changing these systems, Capcom has fundamentally altered what made Dragon's Dogma 2 so fantastic. The emergent moments that happened on the road, the interplay between its systems and physics engine, and the need to deal with the consequences of your actions--all of this combined to make the base game an unpredictable and powerful adventure that stood apart from other similar games. I enjoyed its resolute design because it forced me to tackle the world on its own terms, providing a challenge that captured a rousing sense of adventure. I still thoroughly enjoyed Dark Arisen, despite these changes, but there's also this nagging feeling that something's missing.  

Norgan, for its part, has moments where that classic Dragon's Dogma abrasiveness returns. The frigid region offers a nice change of pace from the verdant forests and arid deserts explored previously, with jagged, snow-capped cliffs; frozen rivers; icy tundras; and dilapidated, long-abandoned castles. 

The hyperboreal climate doesn't just provide a visual shift, either; the weather can be both an ally and a foe. Sudden blizzards blanket the screen in heavy snowfall, obscuring your view within a few feet and taking the mini-map out of action. You also can't fast travel during these intense whiteouts, which restores the feeling that you're battling the elements just as much as the ghouls and monsters waiting to ambush you.

On the flip side, you can also use the environment to your advantage, knocking down giant overhead icicles to crush your foes, throwing and skewering them on pointy shards of ice, and rolling boulders downhill that grow larger as they pick up more and more snow. You'll appreciate the extra help when facing down demonic goatmen and abominable snowman-esque monstrosities with gnarly mouths that cover their entire torsos.   

At first glance, Norgan's map might seem fairly small, but there's a sprawling verticality both above and below the surface that hides its true density. New climbing hooks and grapple points have been introduced to help you tackle the elevation changes, while interconnected dungeons and caves reveal shortcuts amid expansive ancient ruins and the piles of loot therein. 

Speaking of which, Dark Arisen entirely reworks the game's loot system with the addition of Relics. You'll unearth this generic gear in chests and on the bodies of defeated enemies, and can then take it to one of the new vendor characters for appraisal, revealing what kind of equipment you've found, its raw stats, and, on occasion, whether it has any special attributes that enhance weapon skills or grant passive abilities. 

This creates a Monster Hunter-esque loop as you explore and defeat powerful foes to gather more Relics, before returning to the appraiser to reveal what you've found and upgrade your character. An unseen dice roll determines the type and quality, and no single piece of gear will remain in use for too long before you'll invariably find something better, but this is still a marked improvement over the base game's uninspired loot system--where I think I purchased more usable weapons and armor than I actually found. 

The base game's map has also received a similar gameplay loop of its own, with the addition of 12 repeatable dungeons known as the Lost Rite Trials. While you can easily travel back and forth between Norgan and Vermund/Battahl, these new dungeons are designed to be tackled before venturing into the snowy north, setting you up with more powerful gear to make the transition easier, with repeat visits netting more and more loot. 

Some of these dungeons are fairly straightforward (reach the end and kill everything along the way), while others rely on different mechanics or require prerequisites before you can enter. One such trial, which asks you to enter as either an Archer or Magick Archer, features rooms filled with support pillars you can shoot down to topple the terrain and wipe out groups of enemies. 

Aside from better gear, completing each Lost Rite Trial nets you an Offering Flame. These can be used at various Obelisks scattered across the frigid Norgan landscape to unlock new vocation skills and stat buffs that boost health, damage, and so on. 

The new skills are welcome, though bumping up the amount of skills you can equip at one time from four to six is a more notable improvement. Having more options at your disposal opens up the game's combat a tad more, and somewhat makes up for the lack of new vocations. As someone who's already maxed out most of the game's classes, though, I realize I might notice the dearth of new ones more than most.

One of the more surprising things about Dark Arisen is how much I enjoyed its self-contained story. Okay, maybe "enjoyed" is the wrong word, but I was definitely more invested in seeing how things would unfold than I was in the base game. It's a solid-enough vehicle for getting you from point A to B, even if it's still just remixing themes from the first game. More characters are involved, and you spend significant time with them, so there's at least something to latch onto. The writing still has little time for subtlety or nuance, but it's appropriately broody, and the story eventually leads you to some fantastic set pieces and locations. 

At over 20 hours long, Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen is the kind of hefty expansion we don't see very often. I might like this softened version of the game a little less than I did before, but even if some of its prickly nature has been smoothed over, Dark Arisen still offers a whole bunch more of what I loved about Dragon's Dogma 2 in the first place. For first-time players, and those returning with new hopes, it's a more approachable game, and I hope this helps it reach a broader audience. Whichever side of the divide you fall on, there's something here for both. That might sound blasphemous to some, and its vision isn't as unflinching as it was once before, but Dark Arisen--and Dragon's Dogma 2 on the whole--are still well worth your time and attention.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4's campaign is playable a week early for people who preorder, and now we know the DMZ mode will be as well.

Activision has announced that MW4's extraction-based DMZ mode will be playable starting Tuesday, October 20, which is three days before the game launches. Campaign early access, meanwhile, starts on October 16.

How to get in

To access DMZ mode before everyone else, you need to preorder any edition of MW4, including the standard or Vault versions. The perk applies to all platforms: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch 2, and PC.

What is DMZ?

Described as the "definitive extraction shooter experience," DMZ in MW4 is an open-world game mode featuring other human players and AI combatants. Players will search the map for loot, craft gear, and complete objectives. Like in other extraction-based games, you need to reach the exfil point to make it out with all your rewards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SV5vKAAkQkQ

DMZ originally debuted with 2022's MW3 as a free-to-play beta inside Warzone, but this version left a lot to be desired. The new version of DMZ for MW4 seems like a big step up, and it includes a new social space this time as well.

For lots more, be sure to read up on GameSpot's previous coverage of the new version of DMZ.

Microsoft's latest console exclusive, Gears of War: E-Day, launched this week, and now we've gotten the first glimpse at how the game is performing commercially. Multiple analysts have weighed in, and there are numerous factors at play beyond pure sales, due to Game Pass and other factors. So let's break things down.

Rhys Elliott of Alinea Analytics released a report that said the game has sold about 230,000 copies so far, with Steam sales accounting for 168,000 and Xbox (across console and PC) making up the other 62,000.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teClq4qYyzQ

Straight sales do not tell the whole story, though, because E-Day is available on Game Pass, which Elliott said "cannibalized" the majority of sales. He said Alinea's data showed than 1.7 million people acquired E-Day through their Game Pass subscription as opposed to buying a copy outright.

There is more nuance there, too, as Elliott said that 722,000 of the 1.7 million people who played E-Day through Game Pass bought the $30 Premium upgrade, which got them in early and awarded them with extra content.

"So despite selling far fewer copies on Steam, Xbox accounts for almost three-quarters of the revenue (roughly $26 million of the $37 million, versus about $11 million on Steam). So '230,000 copies' undersells the paying audience. Including the 722,000 upgrades, nearly 950,000 people actually paid something for E-Day."

Elliott concluded that these are "soft numbers" at a time "when Xbox badly needs revenue wins." In this environment, Elliott said E-Day's $70 edition is "functionally dead on Xbox."

"In a world without day-one Game Pass, many of these folks would have bought E-Day at $70. They paid $30 for five days early access to something they don’t own. Xbox is, in effect, charging its most valuable customers the least, based on a hangover from a tried-and-exhausted strategy from a previous administration," he said.

More to the story

Game Pass creates recurring revenue for Xbox, and it's big business. For the latest fiscal year, Game Pass brought in nearly $5 billion in revenue. E-Day's inclusion on Game Pass adds value to the service for Game Pass members.

However, Elliott said Game Pass is no longer growing, putting Xbox "at a crossroads." Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has alluded to this as well, saying Game Pass was one of Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond's big bets that did not pay off.

“Our core business weakened, and we added more teams, more investment, and more time, hoping for a better outcome,” she said.

Microsoft spent many billions of dollars acquiring numerous developers with the aim of funneling content to Game Pass. The strategy did not work, and now Xbox has made major changes to Game Pass, including removing the biggest day-one new release it ever had in the Call of Duty franchise. New releases are no longer included at launch, so players have to buy them outright or wait a year until they come to Game Pass.

"When a game this bloody awesome and well-reviewed [Gears of War: E-Day] does this softly on its home platform, the model--not the game--gets brought into question," Elliott said.

Mat Piscatella of Circana reminded people that E-Day's revenue was not totally cannibalized in practice through its inclusion on Game Pass because a person had to pay $23/month for Game Pass in the first place. Beyond that, Piscatella pointed out that that not everyone who played E-Day through Game Pass would buy the game outright if that was the only way.

What about a PS5 version?

Many people expected Microsoft to release E-Day on PS5, in part because Microsoft's own documents showed that a PS5 version was in the works and because Gears of War Reloaded came to PS5 a year ago.

A PS5 edition of E-Day was reportedly canceled at the last minute; Microsoft denied this, but no one believes that. Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg has said E-Day is not a timed exclusive for Xbox, meaning it may never come to PS5. However, he said the same thing about Starfield, and then it came to PS5, so people are understandably hesitant to believe what the company says.

Elliott previously said Gears of War: E-Day (along with Clockwork Revolution) are being sent out to die due to their exclusivity to Xbox. They are also coming to PC, but not PS5.

Elliott told GameSpot that Microsoft will never succeed in the console space and promising fans exclusive games to help drive console sales is not going to make a difference.

“Console as we know it is over for Xbox–and has been for a while. There’s no turning that ship. But they still need to pretend to care until they’ve transitioned to pastures where they can return to growth (if they succeed),” he said.

“A Gears console exclusive does not shift meaningful numbers of Series X units. Exclusivity as a hardware-driver is over for them, because the install base it would drive simply isn’t responsive enough to justify the cost of building hardware at a 5x component premium. And those games are on Steam anyway,” he added.

Elliott went on to say that Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution are “sacrificial lambs for hearts-and-minds, not economics.”

E-Day sequel possibilities

Will there be a sequel to E-Day? That remains to be seen, but The Coalition's Mike Crump said E-Day creates a "great foundation" for the franchise to grow. Crump also stated that a potential sequel could be made much faster. The studio has no other games in development that have been announced publicly.

Microsoft bought the Gears of War series from Epic in 2014 for an undisclosed sum.

There have been big changes at Xbox lately as part of Sharma's effort to "reset" the Xbox business and help it grow. This has included mass layoffs, studio closures, and game cancellations. Recently, Sharma said Xbox was at an "all time low" but is now growing again, though she didn't provide any data to support her claims.

EA and Battlefield Studios have unveiled more details on Battlefield 6's upcoming Season 5, and it includes a new feature that fans have wanted since day one: a proper server browser.

Battlefield did indeed launch with a server browser, but--considering how it only supported Portal mode--it wasn't the one fans wanted. One of the game's producers asked why players even want a full server browser. Now, in response to the feedback, Battlefield Studios is adding a proper server browser with the Season 5 update this December, allowing people to create their own servers and set rules like map rotation and other particulars. Classic-era Battlefield games had server browsers, and fans flocked to them because they could pick and choose exactly the maps and modes they wanted to play.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5ufBOI6Dto&feature=youtu.be

Season 5 rolls out in waves, beginning with Siege of Las Vegas on October 13, which adds two new maps: Vegas Strip and Area 51. For Battlefield 6's battle royale RedSec, Siege of Las Vegas adds a new version of the mode called Rapid Royale, which promises faster rounds with smaller player populations.

Battlefield 6's Season 5 will also include a Halloween event running October 20 through November 7, featuring a "limited-time scenario" that has players hunting down "secret tech" beneath Area 51. This scenario, which Battlefield Studios stressed is non-canon, includes a celebration of aliens and the Dead Space series, taking players to environments based on the 2023 remake. There will also be Dead Space-themed cosmetics to unlock.

Phase 2 of Season 5, called Casino Heist, begins November 10, adding a new map called European Casino. Finally, Phase 3, known as Frozen Aces, arrives on December 8, and as its name suggests, it will bring cold weather to Las Vegas, along with a new operation across the Vegas Strip and Area 51. The Battlefield 6 server browser also arrives during the Phase 3 of Season 5.

Battlefield 6 was 2025's best-selling game in the US, even outperforming Call of Duty: Black Ops 7.

Street Fighter 5 launched in 2016 in rough shape, and if things hadn't changed, the classic fighting game franchise might have been dead and buried by 2026. That's according to Street Fighter 6 producer Shuhei Matsumoto and game director Takayuki Nakayama, who recently spoke about how Capcom's signature fighting game franchise was knocking on death's door at one point, before a turnaround strategy reenergized it for a new generation of digital fisticuffs.

Following Capcom veteran Yoshinoro Ono's exit from the company in 2020, Matsumoto and Nakayama started work on a new Street Fighter game that could appeal to both the existing--and aging--player base while attracting new blood to the series. "When the two of us were talking during Street Fighter 5, we realized that if we didn't do something about Street Fighter, the Street Fighter IP would probably die in 10 years. It was critical. So, we had to make it a game where people would get to know it all over again and play it again," Matsumoto said in an interview with Karin Ohira (via IGN). "At that time, the player base for Street Fighter 5 was roughly 35 to 45 years old. In 10 years, these people will be 60. It’s difficult to sustain the franchise if we only rely on that group."

Matsumoto added that while Street Fighter was still recognizable as a franchise, that didn't mean people were engaging with it. If things didn't change, Matsumoto predicted that the IP "would likely die in 10 years."

https://youtu.be/y2DSNf_1TDw

The turning point came with Street Fighter 6, as the team approached its development as if it were a brand-new fighting game. By not relying on the legacy of Street Fighter, designing the Modern Control scheme to level the playing field, adding World Tour mode, and incorporating the fighting game community more closely into the project, Street Fighter 6 proved to be a hit when it was released in 2023.

Street Fighter 6 is also arguably the fighting game of the current decade. It still has a healthy audience, has expanded with post-launch content, and its modernized control schemes have attracted new players. It would have been a strange twist of fate if Street Fighter did fade into obscurity, as back in the late-2000s, Street Fighter 4 was credited with reinvigorating the fighting game scene, following several years of the genre being overshadowed by new game IP on the rise.

You could also point to Street Fighter 6 as another example of Capcom's golden touch: after the release of Resident Evil 7 almost a decade ago, the company has turned out hit after hit, with only a few misses along the way. This year alone has seen Capcom release four games, with each one being critically acclaimed--Resident Evil: Requiem, Pragmata, Monster Hunter Stories 3, and Onimusha: Way of the Sword.

Beyond that, Zach Cregger's Resident Evil movie adaptation has also been a big hit--and is one of the most commercially successful in the franchise--and it'll be followed by a new live-action Street Fighter movie later this month.

Rockstar's GTA 6 is the biggest game of 2026 and possibly ever, but it's not coming to Switch 2 ... or is it? Nintendo of America's new president, Devon Pritchard, was recently asked if GTA 6 is coming to Switch 2, and she didn't say yes or no. Instead, she said people should ask Rockstar and its owner, Take-Two.

“That’s going to be a conversation for Take-Two and Rockstar, but nothing to announce on my end at this time,” Pritchard told Variety.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klc0fQmAL6k

In May of 2025, a report from NateTheHate said Rockstar was conducting tests to see about bringing GTA 6 to Switch 2. He clarified that this doesn't mean GTA 6 was planned for Switch 2, going on to say developers regularly conduct tests to see if their games are technically feasible on different platforms.

For now, GTA 6 is confirmed only for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S when it launches on November 19. History suggests that a PC edition will follow later, but this is not confirmed.

CEO Strauss Zelnick said the company could bring more games to Switch 2, but it's unknown if GTA 6 may be among them. He said Take-Two “would not necessarily bring every title to the platform,” but he noted there is a “great” opportunity to bring some of its older titles to Switch 2. He also said he is a “big believer” in the Switch 2.

While GTA 6 may not be coming to Switch 2, Rockstar released GTA: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition on Switch in 2021, and it's playable on Switch 2 as well. Before this, Rockstar released GTA: Chinatown Wars for Nintendo DS. GTA 1 and GTA 2 also came to the Game Boy back in the day.

A movie adaptation of the popular game series BioShock has been in the works for a long time, and like a lot of film projects, it appears to be trapped in Development Hell. It remains to be seen how things will shake out with BioShock, but now its director has provided a positive-sounding update.

Francise Lawrence told GamesRadar that the team is "still working on a script," but he believes, "We're pretty close." He added: "I'm feeling really good about it."

Hollywood is littered with stories of filmmakers who are excited about projects, only to see them never materialize for countless reasons. That could happen for BioShock, too, but Lawrence is hopeful.

"Yeah, I would love to make it. I've been like dying to. I've been working at it. I've been trying," he said.

A BioShock movie has been in development for more than a decade now, with Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski originally tapped to direct for a theatrical release. He pushed for a big-budget, R-rated version, and the studio reportedly balked after Zach Snyder's expensive Watchmen adaptation flopped.

Netflix announced in 2022 that it had taken over the BioShock movie project, but things didn't go to plan. There was a regime change at Netflix, and producer Roy Lee said this resulted in the BioShock movie getting scaled back to become a more “personal” film.

The BioShock movie was supposed to happen years ago, but Lawrence had a full plate with 2025's The Long Walk and this December's The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping. With that movie finished up, Lee said he thinks Lawrence could begin work on BioShock in 2027, though he acknowledged that anything can happen in Hollywood and plans may change.

Blade Runner 2049’s Michael Green and Terminator: Dark Fate’s Justin Rhodes are working on the script. There is no word yet on a cast.

Intriguingly, Lee said BioShock rights-owner Take-Two is “very anxious to see the movie come out” because the plan is for it to “coincide with some of the potential new incarnations of the game.”

Lee did not name any specific games outright, but Take-Two recently reiterated that the long-in-development BioShock 4 will see the light of day … some day. A remake of the original BioShock was reportedly in development, but was canceled in 2025.

As for the in-development BioShock 4, Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick recently said the game is not dead and will come out “without question.” He offered this assurance to fans in the wake of BioShock 4 undergoing a partial overhaul to improve on key areas. Developer Cloud Chamber also suffered layoffs, with studio head Kelley Gilmore departing and former Diablo boss Rod Fergusson taking over. Some may recall how Ferguson was called in years ago to be a “closer” for BioShock Infinite to help get the game out the door.

European consumer protection authorities have announced a series of "coordinated actions" aimed at 10 video companies, accusing several of the biggest names in the industry--like Activision Blizzard and Ubisoft--of "dark patterns" that are designed to put minors and individuals at risk of gaming addiction.

If you've ever purchased in-game currency, then you're probably aware of how one of these tactics works. For example, Destiny 2's in-game currency, Silver, comes in bundles of 500, 1,000, and 1,500 units, but buying a fancy new skin for a set of armor ornaments costs between 600 and 1,500 Silver. That way, you're forced to purchase extra Silver that you don't need, and you can exchange any remaining Silver back for cash, creating what is essentially a one-way exchange rate conversion. Destiny 2 isn't an outlier in this space, as multiple big games like Fortnite and Call of Duty all have their own currencies, available through exploitative bundle deals. The key takeaway is that the setup of these bundles ensures that you'll always be short a few digital bucks on the one item you really want.

One of the few games that is changing its approach to in-game currency is Fortnite, as starting October 14, players can purchase the exact amount of V-Bucks they need. This change will also roll out to Rocket League and Fall Guys across Xbox, Nintendo, PC, Android, iPhone, and the Fortnite web Item Shop, but for now, it won't be supported on PlayStation.

The European-wide enforcement says that it's focused on practices that obscure real-world spending in video games, such as the use of premium in-game currencies, selling virtual currencies in set quantities that rarely align with item prices and thus force players to overspend, and insufficient parental control mechanisms. Under the coordination of the European Commission, the goal is to promote transparency and fairness, as well as protect the rights of consumers and minors when playing video games.

Minecraft Minecoins are just one of many premium in-game currencies out there.

So far, the following companies have been targeted by the Italian Competition Authority-led actions:

• Activision Blizzard
• Crytek
• InnoGames GmbH
• King
• Mojang
• Plarium Europe S.à.r.l.
• PLR Worldwide Sales Limited
• Riot Games
• Supercell
• Ubisoft

Activision Blizzard remains the primary point of focus, with games like Diablo Immortal and Call of Duty being singled out, expanding on previous investigations carried out on those titles. Manipulative user interface design tactics and poor customer support have also been cited as areas of concern. "These practices make it difficult for gamers, particularly vulnerable consumers, such as minors and individuals at risk of gaming addiction, to understand and keep track of how much money they are spending," the EC press statement reads.

If successful, this action could set a new regulatory precedent with stricter oversight of monetization strategies in free-to-play and live-service games across all European markets. This follows a recent trend across the world, where consumer protection, UI design, and contract transparency has come under the spotlight. Several years ago, the Federal Trade Commission began an investigation into "roach motel" subscriptions in live-service games that only required a single click to sign up for season passes or recurring subscriptions, but canceling them required the digital equivalent of jumping through multiple hoops. 

Meanwhile, Sony has claimed that it doesn’t mislead customers into purchasing digital licenses for games (instead of actual ownership of the product) as it moves closer towards its all-digital future, and it is also set to pay out nearly $8 million to PlayStation customers as part of a settlement regarding digital game prices.