Death Stranding 2: On the Beach - The Official Novelization (Paperback)

$19 | Releases October 20, 2026

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After launching on the PlayStation 5 last summer, Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is receiving a novel adaptation. Like the novelization for the original Death Stranding, the Death Stranding 2: On The Beach story is getting two prose volumes, and you can preorder your copy of the first 336-page paperback book at Amazon and Barnes and Noble for $19 (or for $11 as an eBook) before it releases later this year on October 13.

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach - The Official Novelization (Paperback) $19 | Releases October 20, 2026

Like the first novelization, On the Beach is penned by Hitori Nojima and translated by Carley Radford. And also like the previous, this is a retelling of the events of the game, picking up where Sam Porter Bridges left off after restoring America and vanishing from the public eye. Now joined by Fragile and other allies, Sam's new mission is take rescue humanity from extinction, and will travel from Mexico to Australia to do so.

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The Death Stranding 2: On the Beach novelization is being advertised as Volume 1, so it's safe to say that we'll get at least another volume to follow the trend of the first game's novelization, which was divided into two volumes as well. At 332 pages, On the Beach is already significantly longer than the first adaptation's first volume so it'll be interesting to see how far into the game's story this book goes. Luckily, at that page count, it shouldn't take up much space on your bookshelf, and it'll fit nicely next to your physical copies of the games if you prefer to display that way. The cover uses the game's iconic theatrical poster art, which features a collage of Death Stranding 2's cast, and is reminiscent of work by Drew Struzan vibe, who famously did the poster art for the original Star Wars and Indiana Jones films.

While we don't know when the next book in the Death Stranding 2: On The Beach novelization is launching, you can fill the wait by catching up on the 600-page, two-volume novelization of the first game, which is currently available in physical and audiobook editions via Amazon. Of course, if you're looking to play the game itself, you can also grab Death Stranding 2 on PS5 for $59 (was $70) via Amazon.

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The debate over Love and Deepspace's age rating is almost as hot as the game's five love interests. Though Love and Deepspace's official website states the game is not intended for players under the age of 13, select countries have opted to raise that number in recent months. In developer Infold Games's home country of China, the game is currently listed as intended for audiences 18 and older. After seeing the game's next event, Lingering Lust, I'm left wondering if more countries might soon follow suit.

Running from April 30 to May 15, Lingering Lust looks to be one of the steamiest events in LADS history, perhaps even giving Nightly Rendezvous a run for its money. During the two-week-long event, players will be able to earn five 5-Star memories--one for each love interest--as well as five corresponding outfits that are unlocked once players get a memory to Rank One.

All five of Lingering Lust's memories take place in a hot bath, in which one of the game's love interests--Xavier, Zayne, Rafayel, Sylus, and Caleb--awaits you, drenched and eager to know you a bit more intimately. Each memory--[Xavier: Sunken Glow], [Zayne: Silent Underflow], [Rafayel: Rippling Blossoms], [Sylus: Darkbound Souls], and [Caleb: Vinesurge Instinct]--has its own steamy teaser trailer, which can be viewed on the official Love and Deepspace Instagram account.

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Double Fine's pottery-throwing party brawler is finally here, and even the studio itself has been hard at work embracing just how cheeky its creation tools let players be.

With Kiln, Double Fine continues its tradition of creating slightly out-there games for slightly out-there people--this time going so far as placing greater importance on player creativity than content moderation. But with changes to parent company Microsoft's leadership, a growing trend of creative censorship in games, and a plethora of other friendslop games also vying for players' attention, I've been left wondering how the studio's approach to making games--games like Kiln, for example--has been impacted. Will Double Fine keep getting to make weird games forever? Does a new CEO--one with a history of supporting AI, no less--pose a threat to developer creativity?

Fortunately, Kiln director Derek Brand offered to meet with GameSpot to discuss these topics and share even more insight on Kiln's development. From group pottery lessons to the team first meeting Asha Sharma, Brand offered a closer look at how the studio is remaining true to its creative agenda amidst changes, challenges, and internal debates.

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A new quirk--whether it's a bug or a feature remains unclear--has begun affecting PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 owners with digital game purchases. It appears the systems' latest updates have introduced a 30-day online license check for digital games, leaving those who have extended internet outages without access to certain games.

Several users, including the game-accessibility Twitter account Does it play?, have reported that all new PlayStation Store purchases--those made before March 2026 appear to be unaffected--feature a 30-day timer that shows when you will need to connect to the internet again before losing access. This timer doesn't appear to be visible on the PS5, but according to Does it play?, it is still being tracked in the background.

Potential major DRM issue rolled out by PlayStation (and Xbox as well, allegedly). All new PSN purchases now have a 30 day validation countdown. Already investigating to find out more details. pic.twitter.com/4hqMdWfJ2T

— Does it play? (@DoesItPlay1) April 25, 2026

While unlikely to be a tangible issue for most players, there are definitely use-cases that could see a PS4 or PS5 disconnected from the internet for extended periods of time. It's unclear as of now if this was rolled out as an intentional feature or was a bug included with the recent firmware updates. The online-support bot on the official PlayStation website implies it was done on purpose, but AI has certainly given us false information in the past. GameSpot has reached out to Sony and will update this post if and when we receive a response.

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Tides of Tomorrow is the first single-player game I've played that desperately wanted me to stalk other human-controlled characters, and that sentiment alone was a compelling enough gimmick for me to jump into its consequence-driven story. While that story stumbles in a few places, and the gameplay never quite rises to anything beyond serviceable, Tides of Tomorrow does a great job of incentivizing you to participate in its "we're all in this together" apocalyptic fantasy and care about the ramifications of your choices and actions beyond how they impact you. If you're looking for a game that makes you feel good about helping others and being helped by others, there aren't many options that hit that sense of community like Tides of Tomorrow.

In Tides of Tomorrow, you play as a Tidewalker, an individual who can see glimpses of the past. These visions always involve the actions of other Tidewalkers, creating a network of individuals who can all learn from each other. Fished from the ocean, you find yourself in a world that's been flooded, restricting civilization to makeshift island towns and repurposed oil rigs. A sickness is also worming its way through the population, slowly causing people to transform into plastic. You count yourself among the infected, quickly learning that only the regular consumption of a medicine known as ozen keeps you from turning completely into plastic and dying.

You play through the game in first-person as a largely silent individual who only speaks when prompted to with a dialogue option. Other than your supernatural sight, you move through the world simply--running, crouching, jumping. In certain locations, you can open your sight to see what a Tidewalker--who, like your Tidewalker, is also controlled by another human player--did there, allowing you to lean on the knowledge you glean to better move through the world. A bouncer who welcomed in a Tidewalker the previous day will allow you inside the club if you also offer up to them the same alias, for example, and seeing a Tidewalker hide some ozen in a grate lets you then nab it for yourself.

These Tidewalkers that you see are always players who went through the level that you're currently on prior to you. Between each level, you're always asked which path you want to go to next, which puts you on the path behind a specific player. You can choose to follow that player all the way through to the end (assuming they have beaten the game), or choose to go in a different direction between levels to follow in the footsteps of another player. Whenever you make this choice to follow a player, you get a brief description of how they acted in that particular level. One player may have prioritized animals and nature in this increasingly plastic-filled world, while another could have opted to prioritize their own survival. Following a player who embodies your playstyle is obviously ideal, but sometimes you don't have that choice and simply must take the best option of those available to you.

Another player's choices can inform how the world reacts to you as well. A Tidewalker who was kind to citizens will create a welcoming atmosphere for you, while a more self-serving Tidewalker will cause NPCs to not want to help you without a bribe or favor on your part.

Community is the main throughline of Tides of Tomorrow. The game's story entices you to care about the community of characters you meet through character-driven storylines and relationship trackers, while its main feature invites you to care about your fellow Tidewalkers by bombarding you with messaging of how other players are affecting your playthrough and how your choices are subsequently impacting the playthroughs of players who follow you.

Between those two communities, the game better accomplishes making you care about the players both ahead and behind you on your journey, and it's better for it, as that's the aspect that differentiates Tides of Tomorrow from other single-player role-playing games. Bonding with an internet stranger through gameplay isn't novel--Dark Souls lets players help or hinder others with cryptic messages and invasions, for example, and Pokemon Go seemingly created world peace for one magical summer of pocket-monster catching--but that does nothing to diminish the emotional draw of Tides of Tomorrow.

I feel genuine appreciation when I'm scouring for enough scrap to pay for something, and NPCs around me help me out because the player I'm following made sure to treat them with respect. I'm shocked when I discover the body of a character I'll never get to meet because the player I'm following stole from them, leaving the character too poor to afford the medicine they needed to survive. And I'm frustrated when a stealth mission is filled with extra guards and more security because the player I'm following angered the kingpin in charge of the area, and so he's put his entire fortress on high alert for future Tidewalkers.

These emotional responses are driven by the knowledge that my lucky breaks and ill fortunes are primarily driven by real people out there. The kindness I've been shown came from someone out there being selfless when they didn't have to be, and the moments of irritation and struggle have primarily been the byproduct of another person's selfishness, desperation, or mistake. Given the desperate struggle your character is thrown into from the jump, it would be so easy to be a self-serving asshole, but the generosity of other players is a strong incentive to pay that kindness forward to any players that may be following in your footsteps.

Tides of Tomorrow doesn't tell you whether your actions have directly helped anyone--it's entirely possible that no one will follow your trail, and the consideration you've shown will ultimately be for nothing--but the encouragement to just be kind is there all the same. It felt good just doing all I could to help. Depending on the type of person you are, this might also add quite a bit of tension to each choice--if you're like me, the idea of making a mistake and royally screwing over another player might inject a level of pressure into every dialogue choice that you're not used to.

This same emotional draw doesn't quite come through with the main NPC characters. While I felt pity for the cute, trouble-making platinum-blonde rebel suffering from an illness slowly transforming her into plastic, and disgust for the tyrant keeping valuable resources from the populace, these characters felt largely like archetype tropes solely there to move me along through a by-the-numbers story of survivors in an apocalypse banding together to rise up against the cartoonishly evil villain. Tides of Tomorrow's story isn't bad, and its characters aren't awful, but it's not the strongest narrative backdrop.

The story and characters are also weakened by how Tides of Tomorrow works. Pretty much every part of the story is dependent on the actions and choices of the players who went through that particular chapter before you. A town loves you because another Tidewalker was kind, for instance, not because you've been kind to other characters leading up to that point. This can create bizarre fluctuations in an NPC's treatment of you, where you may have sided against them in an earlier argument or failed to do what they asked in an early mission, but they can still think you're amazing when you speak to them later because you choose to be on the path of a player who helped them out.

It's a bizarre disconnect that lessens the sense of agency that you have in your own choices. If anything, Tides of Tomorrow's story feels less like something that you're affecting and more like a linear tale that others have dictated for you, and then your responses to that story have a major impact on anyone who might be following your path.

Even if I wasn't always the biggest fan of the characters, I did love Tides of Tomorrow's world. The game has a charming, yet striking aesthetic. Visually, it has an almost cartoony vibe that's bright and vibrant, creating these sharp contrasts between the natural and manufactured, whether that's piles of trash floating in ocean water or plastic veins permeating human skin. That's accompanied by a soundtrack that leans into this almost beat-heavy funk during especially tense or action-heavy scenes. Developer Digixart's previous title, Road 96, was one of my favorite adventure games of 2021 primarily because of its stellar atmosphere, and it's awesome to see the studio devote that same level of care again, but for a very different game.

While I don't think Tides of Tomorrow rises to the same narrative highs as Road 96, its primary incentive is a great draw. It's a little weird to want to stalk other players through a digital world, watching and listening to their every move in order to better your own lot in life, but it's a compelling enough gameplay loop that I overlooked the shortcomings in the game's story and non-player characters. And even if I don't plan on playing the game again, it warms my heart to know that my digital ghost is now out there, potentially guiding other Tidewalkers that may need a little help.

Tides of Tomorrow is the first single-player game I've played that desperately wanted me to stalk other human-controlled characters, and that sentiment alone was a compelling enough gimmick for me to jump into its consequence-driven story. While that story stumbles in a few places, and the gameplay never quite rises to anything beyond serviceable, Tides of Tomorrow does a great job of incentivizing you to participate in its "we're all in this together" apocalyptic fantasy and care about the ramifications of your choices and actions beyond how they impact you. If you're looking for a game that makes you feel good about helping others and being helped by others, there aren't many options that hit that sense of community like Tides of Tomorrow.

In Tides of Tomorrow, you play as a Tidewalker, an individual who can see glimpses of the past. These visions always involve the actions of other Tidewalkers, creating a network of individuals who can all learn from each other. Fished from the ocean, you find yourself in a world that's been flooded, restricting civilization to makeshift island towns and repurposed oil rigs. A sickness is also worming its way through the population, slowly causing people to transform into plastic. You count yourself among the infected, quickly learning that only the regular consumption of a medicine known as ozen keeps you from turning completely into plastic and dying.

You play through the game in first-person as a largely silent individual who only speaks when prompted to with a dialogue option. Other than your supernatural sight, you move through the world simply--running, crouching, jumping. In certain locations, you can open your sight to see what a Tidewalker--who, like your Tidewalker, is also controlled by another human player--did there, allowing you to lean on the knowledge you glean to better move through the world. A bouncer who welcomed in a Tidewalker the previous day will allow you inside the club if you also offer up to them the same alias, for example, and seeing a Tidewalker hide some ozen in a grate lets you then nab it for yourself.

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The namesake of Resident Evil's Leon S. Kennedy has been revealed, and, as many fans suspected, he's named after director Luc Besson's 1994 French action film Leon: The Professional.

Resident Evil 2 director Kideki Kamiya recently took to X and casually confirmed the long-held fan theory in response to a fan pointing out the apparent references to the film in Resident Evil. He said Leon's name came about after talking with Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami, who shot down several name ideas before Kamiya offered up another suggestion.

"Well, why don't we just take it from that movie I watched the other day," Kamiya said (via Google Translate), that movie being Leon: The Professional, starring Jean Reno, Gary Oldman, and a young Natalie Portman. Kamiya said Mikami said "Yeah, that works," and the rest is history.

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Last Flag, the multiplayer PvP game from Imagine Dragons singer Dan Reynolds and developer Night Street Games, will host free weekends every weekend for the foreseeable future.

Players can try the demo version of Last Flag each Friday through Monday until the game's summer patch arrives, though we don't know when that will be.

The demo version of Last Flag is the full game, and players will match up against other demo and non-demo players on Steam and the Epic Games Store. The demo version contains all nine characters and the game's two maps, Copper Falls and Snowfield. Players on the demo version can level up and earn free cosmetics, too.

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Twitch can be a wonderfully diverse place. My morning routine goes coffee, emails, then find a Twitch stream to have on my fourth monitor while I work. That can be anything from a standard game playthrough, to a live podcast, to someone just chatting about their life. Often, I will check out creators I'm less familiar with. Sometimes that can give me some unexpected results.

In the Just Chatting category recently, Twitch streamer Morgpie appears to be in full conversational flow before she presses a clicker twice and yells, "Place!" A PVC-clad person crawls from beneath her desk and on to what appears to be a pet bed, before Morgpie throws some treats in their direction. It's sparked conversation across social media, with many complaining that "fetishized" content like this shouldn't be shown on the streaming platform.

Further, a post on X, which was widely shared, claimed that Twitch CEO Dan Clancy said, “It doesn’t violate our TOS, and she wasn’t viewbotting. As far as I’m concerned, this also appears to be consensual. I admire the innovation streamers bring to the platform.” However, that post was unsourced and Clancy never made the statement.

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Peter Berg is signed on to direct the upcoming Call of Duty movie from writer Taylor Sheridan. It's now come to light that Berg said in 2013 that video games are "pathetic" and people should go outside and do something instead of playing games for hours on end.

He also shared some words for Call of Duty specifically, saying the only people who play the game that he gives a pass to around soldiers who play the game for entertainment while deployed.

GamesRadar did the digging and found that these quotes from an Esquire interview in 2013 when Berg promoting his war movie Lone Survivor. Berg, being a public advocate for "American manhood," as the interview put it, was asked for his take on video games.

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UFC 6 (PS5)

$70 | Releases June 19

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UFC 6 (Xbox Series X)

$70 | Releases June 19

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EA and Frostbite's UFC 6 is set to launch for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S on June 19, and you can preorder your copy now. $70 physical editions are available for PS5 and Xbox Series X, or if you prefer digital games instead, you can preorder the digital standard and Ultimate Editions on all platforms. All preorders include a bundle of in-game fighter skins as a bonus, and those who grab the Ultimate Edition will also get plenty of exclusive DLC and early access to the full game. Let's go over all the UFC 6 preorder information, including full breakdowns of each edition, preorder bonuses, and where to buy.

UFC 6 Preorder Bonuses

All UFC 6 preorders include a digital download voucher for the Iconic Moments Bundle, which comes with three exclusive Fighter Skins from across UFC's storied history.

Additionally, those who preorder the Ultimate Edition will also get early access to the game starting June 12.

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Although there is ambiguity around the launch timing of the Steam Machine, Valve is preparing to release one piece of new hardware soon: the Steam Controller. It officially launches on May 4.

Previously, Valve released a rather experimental take on a gaming controller. Now, the company has taken a big stride forward in the world of hardware through the Steam Deck, arguably the most popular PC-grade gaming handheld. The Steam Deck also further established the design principles for Valve's products--values that have carried through to its second crack at a controller.

We got some hands-on time with the new Steam Controller and put it through its paces. It may not surprise you to learn that, in many ways, it maintains continuity with the Steam Deck in terms of how it feels, alongside how it looks. The controller comes with a "puck" that both serves as a wireless transmitter and acts as a charger, with battery life lasting up to 35 hours or more.

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Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred will introduce a number of new features to Blizzard's ARPG when it officially launches globally April 28, and one of them just might be a secret players have been hunting for since 2023--the cow level.

Blizzard blew the doors off Lord of Hatred with a livestream last week, revealing all the new details players need to know going into the expansion. During that livestream, Blizzard explicitly stated there were new secrets to be uncovered in Lord of Hatred. In an interview with Diablo content creator Rhykker, associate game director Zaven Haroutunian said there is a new secret to be found specifically in the Pit, one of Diablo 4's endgame activities.

That alone doesn't mean the cow level is a certainty, but a few other details that have emerged do make for a compelling case. As spotlighted by another content creator, Raxxanterax, those who received early press copies of Lord of Hatred found two cow-related items in the expansion. One of them is an old cowbell that can be acquired through fishing, a new activity being added in the expansion. Another new item, the Crown of the Cow King, can also be seen in the game's transmog list.

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The Super Mario Galaxy Movie has finally been dethroned at the box office after finishing every weekend No. 1 since its release on April 1.

The hugely popular animated movie that has earned more than $830 million globally so far was finally beaten in the US this past weekend by the Michael Jackson biopic Michael. Jaafar Jackson, the nephew of Michael Jackson, plays the lead in the movie.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie made another $21.2 million in the US for the April 24-26 weekend, its fourth in theaters. Michael, meanwhile, banked $97 million in the US for its opening weekend to land at No. 1, according to data from Hollywood news site Deadline.

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