Humanity is approaching its end. In a world steeped in despair and chaos, a strange religious organization called Shuten Order emerges, yearning for the end of humanity. The group rapidly gains followers, eventually forming a small nation state called Shuten. Tragedy strikes during the grand festival celebrating their nation’s founding - the leader of the Shuten Order is murdered. Soon after, the protagonist awakens with no memory, greeted by two self-proclaimed "angels". They reveal a shocking truth: the protagonist is the murdered Founder, revived by divine power. However, the resurrection is incomplete - their memories are gone, and their life limited to a mere four days. To survive, the protagonist must overcome "God's trial": identify and kill their murderer. With the clock ticking, the protagonist, given the alias Rei, dives into the tumultuous city as a detective. The suspects? Five ministers of the Shuten Order. There's no time to investigate them all. Choices must be made, and the pursuit of truth demands sacrifice. Who killed the Founder? For what reason? Can the mission be fulfilled before time runs out?

Hollow Knight: Silksong isn't a linear adventure by any stretch of the imagination. It expects you to explore thoroughly as you chart your path through its perilous maps. Doing so will sometimes lead you to some unique NPCs who ask you to complete quests known as Wishes, such as the Seamstress you'll encounter in the Far Fields. This character will assign you the Flexile Spine Wish, tasking you with finding 25 Spine Cores. Luckily, you won't have to make too long a journey to collect these items.

Where to find Spine Cores in Hollow Knight: Silksong

To collect Spine Cores, you must find enemies known as Hokers, which look like floating white balls with a green beard and spikes. If you leave the Seamstress's home and head to the right, you can move through some rooms filled with plenty of these enemies, so you won't have to travel far to get what you need.

These enemies are called Hokers.

However, instead of focusing on killing these enemies, your goal is to harvest their spikes. Each time you hit them, they'll fire off spikes that will stick to nearby surfaces. You can then strike these spikes to make them drop an orb containing a Spine Core. Do this 25 times, and you'll have everything you need.

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Hollow Knight: Silksong is the GTA6 of the indie games world. It's the megaton game that every other game wants to dodge. But sometimes publishers just can't change their release dates. We put together a list of some of the other games releasing today to check out if Silksong isn't your jam (or you just like being contrarian), as well as a few of the anticipated games that scooted out of the way of Hornet and her deadly needle.

Games Releasing September 4, 2025

Adventure of Samsara - Notably, Adventure of Samsara is a search-action (colloquially known as a Metroidvania) game, just like Hollow Knight, and you're also a little guy with a sword. This game features some great-looking pixel art.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle "The Order of the Giants" DLC - This expansion delves deeper into the "Order of Giants" hinted at in the base game.

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In 1994, Capcom's Street Fighter franchise hit the big screen with Jean-Claude Van Damme in the lead as Guile. While the team behind that film made the curious choice to emulate G.I. Joe instead of the arcade games it was based upon, the new Street Fighter movie is going back to the source material and taking fans back to the '90s.

Legendary Entertainment has shared the first details about the Street Fighter reboot, which will be set in 1993. Unlike the previous live-action Street Fighter movies--including Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li--the focus will fall on Ryu (Andrew Koji) and Ken Masters (Noah Centineo), two fighters who have become estranged from each other. However, Chun-Li (Callina Liang) reunites the pair when she recruits them for the World Warrior Tournament. The synopsis also teases the "deadly conspiracy" behind the battle royale, which will almost certainly lead back to the franchise's primary villain, M. Bison.

As part of the announcement, Legendary revealed that Street Fighter will hit theaters on October 16, 2026. It's the first film in a three-year distribution deal with Paramount Pictures. But it doesn't affect Legendary's Minecraft and Godzilla x Kong sequels, both of which remain with Warner Bros. under the terms of previously signed deals.

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Last month, the long-awaited Titan Quest 2 arrived in early access on PC, and according to THQ Nordic, it sold 300,000 copies in just its first three days. While reacting to that news, former THQ vice president of studio operations Richard Browne shared a few of the reasons why Titan Quest 2 wasn't released almost two decades ago.

On LinkedIn (via Game World Observer), Browne noted that THQ had given the greenlight for the sequel in 2006. However, the development team at Iron Lore Entertainment couldn't get past THQ's marketing department, which rejected the proof-of-concept demo.

"[Titan Quest] was one of those games that just sold and sold; but our marketing department didn't see it," wrote Browne. "We had a great 360 demo with the camera lower and controlled--they nixed it using 'Emsense' to show that the demo (three months work) didn't resonate."

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The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship Board Game

$80

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A new Lord of the Rings board game is available now at Amazon. Revealed earlier this year, The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship certainly isn't the first game based on J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy novel, but it is the only one that uses one of the best modern board games as its foundation. Fate of the Fellowship is based on Pandemic, the wildly popular cooperative strategy game that debuted in 2008. Pandemic creator Matt Leacock spent three years designing The Lord of the Rings version. Fate of the Fellowship is up for grabs for $80 at Amazon.

The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship Board Game $80

As the name suggests, Fate of the Fellowship is based on the plot of Tolkien's novel. Each round takes anywhere from 60 to 150 minutes, but no need to worry about getting multiple people to play a board game with you for two-plus hours:

Designed by Pandemic creator Matt Leacock, Fate of the Fellowship emphasizes that Fate of the Fellowship is fully playable solo--it's explicitly called out on the back of the box.

The Fellowship's job is to protect Frodo on his quest to Mount Doom to destroy the One Ring. Each player picks two characters to control from a pool of 13. You'll have to contend with Shadow Troops and the spectral beings known as Nazgul--represented as miniature figures--while being mindful of the searching Eye. Just like in the books and movies, Sauron's Eye is perched atop Barad-dur. The constructible tower is 11 inches tall and serves as a thematically appropriate dice roller.

Designed as a replayable experience that introduces a few wrinkles to the Pandemic System loop, Fate of the Fellowship has 24 core objectives and 14 unique event cards. Each playable character has distinct abilities, too. Here's a list of everything included in the box:

• 1 Game Board
• 1 Barad-dur Dice Tower
• 13 Character Figures
• 9 Nazgul Miniatures
• 48 Shadow Troops
• 35 Friendly Troops
• 48 Region Cards
• 14 Event Cards
• 12 Skies Darken Cards
• 24 Objective Cards
• 10 Reference Cards
• 13 Character Cards
• 50 Shadow Cards
• 3 Battle Dice
• 7 Search Dice
• 6 Haven Tokens
• 6 Stronghold Tokens
• 1 Eye of Sauron Token
• 1 Solo Token
• 1 Hope Marker
• 36 Symbol Tokens
• 1 Threat Rate Marker

Interestingly, Leacock has said his initial ideas for Pandemic were inspired by playing the The Lord of the Rings board game released in 2000 by prolific game designer Reiner Knizia.

See at Amazon The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship (Z-Man Games, Middle-earth Enterprises)Gallery

Z-Man Games has collaborated with multiple other big media franchises on Pandemic System games, including World of Warcraft and Star Wars. There's also a popular variant based on H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. Fate of the Fellowship is pricier than those games, but it's also the most elaborate from a design perspective. The other Pandemic System titles more closely resemble Pandemic's $50 base game, all the way down to box size.

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Roblox has become a hub for crossovers and a growing metaverse of IP, and its next collaboration will see one of the most popular anime series of all time, My Hero Academia, land on its shores starting September 6. My Hero Academia: Ultimate launches that day and is billed as a PvP-focused MMORPG that will allow players to go on quests to unlock new abilities, level up their characters to get stronger, and use their powerful "Quirks" to climb up the in-game leaderboards.

Set in the world of My Hero Academia, the main goal is to become a Pro Hero while attending the superhero academy known as UA. The game looks fairly accurate to the My Hero Academia manga and anime source material, and the trailer briefly showed off characters like Izuku "Deku" Midoriya, Katsuki "Dynamight" Bakugo, Ochaco "Uravity" Uraraka, and the strongest hero of his generation, All Might.

According to anime streaming platform Crunchyroll, players can expect to battle in the PvP arena of UA Stadium, socialize in the All Might lobby, and visit other locations like the Musutafu Suburbs, Takoba Municipal Beach Park, and more. Exploration will allow you to unlock abilities and level up your characters when you take on various enemies. This tie-in comes just in time for the final season of the anime series, which kicks off on October 4, 2025, on Crunchyroll.

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One of the most-anticipated upcoming features for the soccer game Rematch, cross-play support, has been delayed. Developer Sloclap announced today that the update has been pushed to an unspecified point in the future after the team discovered an issue. The patch was set to be released this week, so the last-minute delay is frustrating some fans.

In a statement, Sloclap said its "final tests" found a "major matchmaking issue" related to cross-play, and that's why it's delaying the update.

"Since cross-play is the heart of Patch 3, we've decided to delay the release while we fix it. We know this is disappointing and we're truly sorry for the repeated delays. Thank you for your patience and support. We'll share a new update as soon as we have more news," the developer said.

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You'll come across a variety of NPCs throughout Hollow Knight: Silksong, and some of them will make requests--known as Wishes--that you can complete to earn rewards. The one you're likely to complete first is given to you by the Druid of Mosshome, who you'll encounter in--you guessed it--the Mosshome region. This Wish is called Berry Picking, and it tasks you with finding three Mossberries and returning them to this NPC. Here's what you need to know.

How to complete the Berry Picking Wish in Hollow Knight: Silksong - all Mossberries and locations

To start the Berry Picking Wish, you can find the Druid of Mosshome in the upper regions of Mosshome. He's inside a small cave right past a bench.

Druid of Mosshome location

After you've accepted the Berry Picking Wish quest, you can begin your search for the three Mossberries. You may have already discovered at least one or two of them during your journey through Moss Grotto, but one of these glowing green berries is fairly well hidden in Mosshome. Here's where to get all three.

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As a game that's constantly evolving, Helldivers 2 is no stranger to hotfixes and patches. In fact, a new update has just gone live, and it is designed to quickly address several issues that have cropped up in the game since the start of the Into the Unjust event in the game. This new patch focuses primarily on game-breaking issues causing hard crashes, as well as buffs to the new gear introduced in the Dust Devils warbond.

For general fixes, players can expect several problems to be addressed. Developer Arrowhead says that the crashes related to there being too many particle effects, Automaton missions, and a bug with a seeking missile have been resolved with this patch. Other tweaks include the extraction shuttle landing more safely for players, hive world tunnels should no longer be darker than intended if you're using lower graphics settings, and the excessive light emitted by the Hellpad has also been toned down.

When it comes to weapons and stratagems, there have also been a few issues here. The LIFT-182 Warp Pack tended to make players get stuck midair, and there were also instances of the game crashing when a player aborted a mission while wielding a turret or driving a vehicle. These should all be fixed here, and it should also be safe to equip the Halo ODST MA5C assault rifle when you're on the bridge of your flagship.

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Players can finally get their hands on the long-awaited Hollow Knight: Silksong, and with its launch also comes the release of the game's soundtrack.

Composer Christopher Larkin shared the link to the soundtrack, which is available to purchase on Bandcamp for $11.99. The Silksong soundtrack is also for sale on Steam at the same price, but users can buy both the game (normally $20) and the soundtrack at a discounted $25.58.

The Silksong soundtrack contains 53 tracks, compared to the original Hollow Knight soundtrack, which included 26 tracks. Another music release titled "Hollow Knight: Gods & Nightmares" had 15 tracks from the original game's DLC. That's all to say that Silksong has a larger soundtrack than both the original game and its DLC combined.

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Amazon has revealed the PC games that'll be coming to Prime Gaming in September, and this month, you can grab one of the best strategy games ever made, a story-driven dungeon-crawler, and a cute puzzle-platformer.

This is a small month overall, but if there's one game that can easily consume dozens of hours, it's Into the Breach. Best described as Pacific Rim meets chess--and also one of the rare games to get a 10/10 score on GameSpot--the turn-based tactics adventure sees you command several mechs in battle against massive monsters. You'll have to carefully measure every action you take as you aim to prevent the extinction of humanity, while also being forced to make hard choices along the way. There's a time-travel element as well, so if things get too tough, you can always rewind time and start from the beginning in a new timeline.

For a grander tactical experience, Sid Meier's Civilization 4 will scratch your itch for 4X strategy as you take your chosen nation from rags to riches, Afterimage is a hand-drawn 2D action adventure that emphasizes fast-paced combat, and Residual will see you explore a procedurally generated alien world.

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Hansel and Gretel by Stephen King and Maurice Sendak

$21.53 (was $27) | Available Now

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If you're looking for new bedtime stories to read to your kids, you may want to check out Stephen King's latest book. Yes, normally that would be a pretty terrible recommendation, but the horror novelist's new book is for children--and anyone who loves classic fairy tales. On Tuesday, HarperCollins published reimagined version of the classic Brothers Grimm fairy tale Hansel and Gretel. It's available in hardcover for $21.53 (was $27) at Walmart and Amazon. Alternatively, you can have Stephen King read this bedtime story, as he narrated the audiobook edition.

Previously unpublished illustrations by the late Maurice Sendak accompany King's words. Sendak, who died in 2012, wrote and illustrated many bestselling children's books throughout his lengthy career. He's best known for creating Where the Wild Things Are, which is widely considered one of the best picture books of all time. The new version of Hansel and Gretel was created in partnership with The Maurice Sendak Foundation.

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Netflix's animated Tomb Raider TV series, The Legend of Lara Croft, is coming to an end. That's according to a report from Variety, which said the show's upcoming second season will be its last.

The show premiered in October 2024, scoring a Season 2 renewal shortly thereafter. Season 2 premieres on December 11.

Hayley Atwell (Mission: Impossible, Agent Carter) voices Lara Croft in the show, which also features Karen Fukuhara (The Boys) as the voice of Croft's friend, Sam. Like the game series, The Legend of Lara Croft follows Croft on a globe-trotting adventure where she seeks out mysteries relics.

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There might not be a new EA Sports college basketball game after all. A new report states that the company is notifying universities and conferences that it won't be moving forward with plans for the sports title, as apparently some schools have accepted offers for a 2K Sports College Hoops proposal.

Extra Points reports that EA Sports vice president of commercial partnerships and licensing Sean O'Brien has sent out a letter stating that the company "is disappointed that we all couldn't find an acceptable path forward." In June, EA announced the return of NCAA Basketball, 16 years after the previous entry in the series. O'Brien noted 2K Sports as a reason why the revival isn't happening.

"Given there are some schools choosing to accept the 2K Sports proposal for inclusion in NBA 2K, the offer to be included in a college basketball video game will unfortunately have to be rescinded," O'Brien wrote. The Athletic reported that EA's offer required exclusive rights and was recommended by the Collegiate Licensing Company because it encompassed 730 teams (for men and women).

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