These days, it's hard to imagine a world without Stardew Valley. Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone's pixel perfect village escape is the modern standard bearer by which all other cozy and retro-styled games are measured against. Explicitly inspired by the early Harvest Moon games, Stardew Valley has ballooned in popularity beyond anyone's expectations since its release in 2016, taking on its own identity and inspiring countless other indie games of the cute and cuddly variety. None of this would be true, however, if Barone hadn't been able to salvage the game data from a computer crash that happened about a year into development.

PC Gamer recently republished a 2016 interview with Barone in which the solo developer brushed with the idea that his ragtag Harvest Moon-like could become a phenomenon. Barone couldn't have had any idea just how revolutionary Stardew Valley would one day become, but he had the foresight to know he was very lucky to recover from a PC crash that almost put Stardew Valley in a pixelated grave before it was ever born.

Barone told PC Gamer that the project was almost canceled when the PC he was using to develop the game unexpectedly crashed. Since he had no backups, Barone thought it was over for Stardew Valley, but was ultimately able to restore the project from the old hard drive and build a new rig.

"In retrospect, it feels crazy that it all worked out," he said. "The whole development was so sloppy. It was the most indie development you could imagine: no professional style at all, figuring it all out as I go, and just the scrappiest code you could imagine. I'm almost embarrassed to have other people look at my code!"

Barone's next game, Haunted Chocolatier, very much seems to be being built using the foundation laid down by Stardew Valley, and with Barone having all of that experience under his belt, not to mention a small team helping him put everything together, fans can expect a much smoother development process while they wait for the darker, sweeter follow-up.

Haunted Chocolatier is "taking a long time," admits Stardew Valley creator ConcernedApe – but going "over every last detail" is just what it takes "to make a game I'm satisfied with"

Last week, analyst Daniel Ahmad compared the end of physical PlayStation games to the end of disc drives in Apple laptops, noting that nobody these days really seems to care about PC games having gone all-digital. The full post was lengthy and nuanced, but the internet tends not to read that far (congrats on making it over 50 words into this article, by the way), so now he's further clarifying what he meant on social media.

"When I compared Sony stopping disc production to CD drives being removed from computers, I'm talking in the context of games shipping on disc," Ahmad says on Bluesky. "Obviously you can buy an external drive for a PC, but virtually no modern PC game. This isn't me saying 'Wow I love Sony and they are great for doing this', it's to say that PC is essentially 100% digital and you'll be hard pressed to find anyone pining for the days of physical PC games."

Look, I like old-school, big box PC games and collect them here and there, but even as I cling to physical console games I'm willing to admit that the ship has long since sailed for physical computer games. There are all kinds of things making physical versions of modern PC games impractical, from the lack of disc drives on most retail computers to the inordinate amount of discs a modern PC install would require.

Ahmad reiterates the central point from his original post: "Regardless of whether it's bringing physical back, or embracing digital, the conversation needs to shift to consumer rights and what a license should enable. Stop Killing Games was one part of it, but gifting, family sharing, refunds, and other aspects are just as important."

That gets to the key difference separating digital games on console from those on PC. Steam dominates computer game distribution, with easy ways to gift games, solid refund policies, and built-in family sharing options. Valve is pressed into offering those kinds of features because it faces competition from other digital storefronts and the convenience of pirated games, but it would be a lot better for consumers if those kinds of features were required on digital stores by law.

We don't know what the PlayStation Store will look like when physical disc production ends, but none of the three console manufacturers have offered digital storefronts on par with those on PC, never mind something in line with what groups like Stop Killing Games are dreaming of. While I'd love for physical games to exist forever, I'm not confident they will. That's why, as Ahmad suggests, we need to be pushing for stronger ownership rights for our digital goods.

These are the best physical games to grab while you still can.

Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced, the long-awaited remake of Ubisoft's open-world pirate game, is finally here, and with a slew of positive reviews and guides on ship upgrades and loot chests making the rounds, it's easy to forget there isn't a whole lot on the company's release slate in the immediate future. We've got Rayman Legends Retold coming in October, and there's a bunch of upcoming Ubisoft games without firm release dates, but Ubisoft diehards looking for their next fix might want to drop anchor and soak in the vibes for a while.

In Ubisoft's latest financial report, the company itself admits it's going into a relative period of quiet after Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced, saying a "lighter new release slate" will be followed by "stronger releases in fiscal year 2027-2028," which runs April 1, 2027 to March 31, 2028.

"Beyond fiscal year 2026-27 the Group expects a significantly bigger content pipeline over fiscal year 2027-28 and fiscal year 2028-29 across its major brands including Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry and Ghost Recon," reads Ubisoft's report.

Ubisoft also says its live service operations will see an "acceleration" which, combined with "this stronger release schedule," a "refocused portfolio" and "continued reduction of its fixed cost base," there will be "an important rebound with a return to positive free cash flow."

While Ubisoft clarifies that it has "premium games based on established Ubisoft brands that will be announced at a later date," we're not entirely going off guess work here. We know the next mainline game in the Assassin's Creed series is codenamed Hexe, and it's a "darker," witchy adventure set "during a pivotal moment in history." We also know about the mobile-exclusive Assassin's Creed Jade, and then of course there's Beyond Good and Evil 2 and, presumably, Far Cry 7 at some point... hopefully.

Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced was briefly unplayable over the weekend on PC despite being a single-player "offline" game

Ubisoft has disclosed a valuable trade secret in its latest annual financial report. It appears that, if a developer takes a really long time to make a video game that isn't as bulletproof as GTA 6, fans might stop caring.

The Far Cry creator identifies in its report, spotted by Game File, that "an inappropriate release schedule" can be grave for a video game business. Releasing slipshod games too early will never work, but "conversely, releasing a game too late – when market anticipation has waned and it no longer meets market standards in a highly competitive environment – can also hinder its success."

Ubisoft addresses the issue in only vague terms, but it still sounds like the company is making a quiet self-admonishment here. Ubisoft, which has disposed of over 2,000 workers in the past two years alongside a few passionate swears of loyalty to generative AI, is working with a clogged tank.

Fans of Ubisoft's big FPS series have been waiting on Far Cry 7 since 2021. We can apparently expect to get more Ghost Recon at some point in the next three years, though it's been seven years since Breakpoint, and Ubisoft recently killed its developer Red Storm, laying off 105. Beyond Good and Evil 2 is now a legal adult – the sequel was first announced in 2008.

To that last point, Beyond Good and Evil 2 creative director Fawzi Mesmar said earlier this year that the action-adventure game's team is still committed to "delivering a remarkable game for our players to enjoy." When? That's classified.

Though, Ubisoft provides a sort of answer in its annual report, admitting that issues like an overly long release cycle can cause "damage to the game's reputation and brand image, loss of players (disappointment of players who would turn to the competition)." So the real reply to "When?" is actually, "It doesn't matter anymore."

After laying off thousands, Ubisoft says losing "key talents and skills" is a big danger for the company.

Solo developer Mateo Covic, best known for co-op rage game Paddle Paddle Paddle, received a lot of attention online following his arguments against Valve's Steam refund policy, which he called exploitable after seeing players refund his game even after beating it and, sometimes, leaving a positive review (in some cases, bragging in their review about pulling off the refund). Covic told us that he's staunchly "100% pro refund" and is very happy with how his game's performed overall, and we also discussed the unique pressures that may face short games purely as a function of how Steam works.

If your game can be beaten in under two hours, which is Steam's default refund window, it's at much greater risk of this sort of refund abuse (which is, to be clear, banned under Valve's own rules, though those won't stop everyone). Many people told Covic that he should simply make a longer or more replayable game to dodge the two-hour window. While he's open to massaging other parts of Steam refunds, agrees that Valve's policy is good for players, and acknowledges that a pretty small percentage of players actually abuse refunds this way, he rejects this stance on game development outright.

"A game is ready when it's ready, and I don't even think about the playtime during development," he explains. "I want to develop small, fun and affordable games and so far no one had a problem with that. Paddle Paddle Paddle had fantastic reviews, streamers loved it, and I was super happy how the game turned out.

"I will never stretch out a game with more content just to avoid refunds. I will shut up and take the refunds in the future and this tweet showed me that Steam is a hard market but I'm not willing to change my development approach!"

Covic says he actually tried expanding one of his earlier games, Makis Adventure, with extra content. He ultimately found that, even with positive Steam reviews, those extra sections were the weakest link in the chain. Makis Adventure did see longer average playtimes, but Paddle Paddle Paddle performed incomparably better.

Short games absolutely have an audience. Covic highlights A Short Hike, which he beat in about an hour and a half and calls "probably one of the best evenings I had with a game," as one example. He also likes the Fears to Fathom series. Covic says this is the type of game he most enjoys making right now, and won't allow whatever nebulous market pressure to dissuade him.

These are some of the best short games you can spend an afternoon on.

Sony's decision to end production of disks for new PlayStation games in 2028 has met with extensive backlash from players online, and that backlash is starting to expand into larger consumer rights campaigns around the world. Lawmakers in Mexico and a consumer rights nonprofit in the Netherlands both say that effectively ending the physical games market will give Sony full control over how players buy games on its platforms.

"The end of physical discs removes the last place where a PlayStation game could still be bought and sold at a competitive price," according to a statement from Stichting Massaschade & Consument provided to Wccftech. "No discs means no second-hand market and no alternative to the PlayStation Store, so from 2028, Sony alone decides what a game costs and even how long you are allowed to use it. That is exactly the harm our Fair PlayStation claim is about: a price can never be fair when the buyer is left with no ownership and no alternative."

Stichting Massaschade & Consument is a Dutch consumer rights organization that's already taking Sony to task as part of its Fair PlayStation campaign. That campaign, which has already been ongoing for years, argues that Sony's digital marketplace can charge artificially high prices because there's nowhere else to get your digital games. If physical games go away, too, consumers will have no alternative to paying whatever price Sony and its third-party partners choose to charge.

This argument is a big part of why I'm so concerned over the end of physical PlayStation games, but for all intents and purposes, it's perfectly legal – which is why groups like Stichting Massaschade & Consument and Stop Killing Games have been pushing for changes regarding how digital purchases are regarded in the law.

Separate from those movements, federal representative Iraís Reyes and senator Luis Donaldo Colosio are set to file a complaint about Sony's move with Mexico’s National Antitrust Commission, according to a statement provided to LevelUp. This is a purely civilian process – the two lawmakers aren't yet advancing legislation to try and stop the end of PlayStation discs, but they are raising their concerns before the country's regulators.

"Sony would become both the referee and the player within its own ecosystem, and we know what can happen when a single company controls every part of the market," Reyes argues, echoing the concerns of the Dutch regulators. But this complaint covers several additional concerns about the end of physical media.

"Consumers would stop truly owning their video games," Colosio adds. "With digital distribution, you’re no longer buying a game in the traditional sense – you’re purchasing a license, which means access to the content depends entirely on the conditions established by the company." He also notes that access to reliable, high-speed internet – a requirement for using a digital game – isn't consistent across Mexico.

These are all arguments we've heard before, and both these efforts are local to their respective regions. But the backlash is expanding beyond the gaming community, and even if Sony has no intention on backpedalling its all-digital plans, changes to the law around digital ownership could solve most of the problems around the big pivot anyway.

After Sony announces its sunsetting PlayStation discs, Hideo Kojima shares a warning about physical media: "What is happening to video games in 2028 might also happen to movies."

Years into a restructuring that's seen it shed thousands of jobs and multiple high-profile creative veterans, Ubisoft leadership considers losing key staff and failing to attract new talent to be significant risks for the company.

Ubisoft's latest annual report contains an updated assessment of "risk factors that could affect its performance, its reputation, the achievement of its strategic and financial goals, and its share price."

One subsection singles out "risks related to talent," with "loss of key talent and skills" listed as high risk and "lack of attractiveness to key talent" as moderate risk.

These points are explored in more depth later in the report, and the verbiage is fascinating not just in the context of Ubisoft's own overhaul, but amid the broader brain drain afflicting the games industry after devastating layoffs and studio closures which have forced many people out of games altogether, temporarily or permanently.

Xbox just added 1,600 people – soon to be 3,200 – to the growing list of games layoffs. Ubisoft itself is down to a much leaner 16,590 staff according to the report – a dramatic cut from 18,666 in late 2024, and that was after more than 2,000 layoffs already. Ubisoft's pace has averaged roughly 1,000 people cut per year over the past four years. Even as it makes these cuts, Ubisoft says it has to be careful about staff retention.

"The sudden departure of members of the games core teams could be damaging to the Group's development and could have a significant impact on its editorial policy," Ubisoft observes.

"The Group's success also depends on its teams' know-how and skills in a highly competitive international market. Indeed, the video game industry requires a certain number of innovative skills at the cutting edge of their respective fields. The Group is therefore exposed to a situation of dependence on certain key talents whose creativity or technical expertise is rare and highly valued in the market (artificial intelligence, cloud gaming, data, etc)."

To help mitigate these risks, Ubisoft says it's established a succession plan for executive officers and is working toward "the gradual implementation" of a similar plan for key roles like creative director, producer, and studio general manager. Various corporate muscles have also been flexed – including "the monitoring of commitment levels" and "the development of a differentiated compensation policy" – to help promote leadership skills, knowledge sharing, and training.

Ubisoft's report notes high turnover, "particularly for senior talented individuals in key roles," as a relevant factor here, alongside inadequate training, the need for new skills, and a working environment that "does not meet the aspirations of talented individuals."

This connects nicely to the report's discussion of bringing in new talent. "Ubisoft faces increasing pressure from not only its direct competitors in the video game sector, but also from competitors in other sectors/industries in search of the same talents (engineers, etc.)," the report continues.

In this space, Ubisoft targets an evolved and "selective recruitment, development and retention policy" as a way to bring in and hold onto people, promote career advancement, build a "welcoming and inclusive" workplace, and engender "continuous learning."

In one of the most interesting lines in the whole 356-page report, Ubisoft directly acknowledges the conflict between its actions (laying people off) and these aspirations (finding and keeping people), describing the "development of a deep-rooted corporate culture, promoting well-being at work, allowing talented team members to reach their full potential, despite a transformation plan that is necessary to return to the expected level of performance."

The company's report underscores a growing problem in the industry: great games cannot just be made by anyone, and, in this consolidation-heavy time, that may mean that a company gaining an IP but losing the people who defined it doesn't really get it much in the end. In fact, everyone loses out.

I'm reminded of a quote from New Blood head Dave Oshry, who I spoke to as part of a larger 2025 report about what people get wrong about game development.

"With the exception of solo devs, games are an artistic endeavor that require the cooperation of handfuls, dozens, hundreds or even thousands of people at once working together to create interactive art," Oshry said. "You can put all the great programmers, artists, animators and sound designers you want in the same building but that doesn't mean they can make a great game. Great games are made by great teams that work great together. It helps when they're all friends, too."

"This is not how I imagined it would end": Ubisoft to lay off Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced devs at its Barcelona studio, with one calling the remake's release "bittersweet."

id Software producer Andrew Willis can only see one way through the Microsoft mess as the company begins executing its plans to bulldoze 3,200 jobs at Xbox: studios owned by workers, rather than executives who don't mind setting fire to, say, 3,200 jobs.

Willis mourned the layoffs – which already impacted 136 of id Software's total 185 staff members – in a LinkedIn post earlier this week, calling the layoffs an "incomprehensible decision," and remarking that "the game industry is being run by people who do not fundamentally understand anything about it, not even how it generates value or profit." He's decided in a new post, then, that "the only way to fix the video game industry at this point is for developer owned studios to start rising from these studio closures and layoffs."

Doom studio id Software, of course, was originally created by Doom's developers in 1991, but Willis also seems in favor of true worker cooperatives where all of a business' employees double as owners who can guide direction. A co-op is not impervious to problems – worker-owned Dead Cells developer Motion Twin had a public falling out with the game's lead dev after a disagreement in 2024, for example – but I think many people would prefer interpersonal drama to receiving an email from a CEO you've never met informing you that something like 3,531,840 more people in your field have just been laid off.

So, Willis, who also helped lead id Software's unionization efforts in 2025, says, "We've got to learn from the past, be fiscally responsibly, and create an environment of sustainable growth (though growth should be a byproduct of success, not a goal in and of itself)."

"Its the only path forward I can see," he reiterates. "These large publishers and monopolies have proven themselves terrible stewards and somehow even worse financial managers." To his point, although Microsoft Gaming had already eliminated 2,500 jobs in 2024, and Microsoft killed about 15,000 more jobs in 2025, Xbox began 2026 with its overall revenue 9% down in a hole.

"If the people who create the value own that value, good things will follow," Willis concludes. Makes sense to me.

Microsoft lays off Bethesda vet behind Todd Howard's "crazy" Fallout 4 idea, "too many Skyrim weapons to count," the Dwemer, and Mudcrabs – and he may leave games altogether.

Rockstar veteran John Ricchio is perfectly content not being part of GTA 6's development team, having previously worked on open world behemoths like GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption and experiencing burnout at the studio.

Talking to Reece "Kiwi Talkz" Reilly on YouTube (below), Ricchio – who was with the studio from 2003 and 2014 – speaks at length about crunch culture and related burnout. Although he contends that the level of crunch he experienced at Rockstar never reached a level of, "'I don't care about the people'," he says, "it's just not something that [Rockstar leaders think] about as high a priority as other things."

Ricchio says Rockstar can afford to ask a lot from its developers because there will always be talent ready and willing to work exorbitant hours or, as he puts it, "pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and make it happen," even if it's at the cost of their mental and physical wellbeing.

"If you're Rockstar you can always hire more people, if you're Naughty Dog you can always hire more people, Bethesda, you can always hire more people. That's the problem," he says. "And I don't begrudge those people for taking those jobs, but it does make it harder for the business to care because they can always replace people."

When asked point-blank if there's a "bittersweet" feeling to not being with Rockstar during GTA 6's development, Ricchio doesn't hesitate. "I think I'm pretty happy that I'm not on GTA 6, I'll just say that (laughs). Not that it wouldn't be cool to work with those people. It is really difficult and it's a hard period of your career when you're working that hard on something."

Ricchio admits that there's a "magic" to seeing such hard work pay off in glowing reviews and commercial success, and that he "wouldn't hate being part of that," but says he's at a point in his career where he isn't "quite as amenable to some of the ways that things are done, and I think that would probably lead to an exit for me.

"I've learned a lot about different ways that you can do things and different ways to build successful art projects and it doesn't require to do it on the backs of burning people out."

Ricchio adds that if you're a developer who finds professional fulfillment in unprecedented sales and universal acclaim, "you can't do much better" than working at Rockstar. "They always perform well," he says. "As crazy as the leadership is at Rockstar, they know how to make cool stuff. They just do.

"I used to interview people and I would say that, 'This place is run by crazy people, but you get to work on the best games in the world. So make sure you're OK with that, because that's the exchange that you get.'"

Referring to Red Dead Redemption as an example, Ricchio says scores of analysts approached Rockstar to proclaim, "Westerns were dead," and that "this is foolish," "they shouldn't be spending money on it." Of course, Red Dead Redemption is now widely considered one of the best games of its generation. "I think we won like 167 Game of the Year awards," says Ricchio.

"There is a magic to what Rockstar does, I just wish they would do it at a lower human cost."

Ultimately, Ricchio predicts "GTA 6 is gonna be great" and that anyone who even remotely considers themselves a fan of the series shouldn't hesitate to buy it, even at $80. "I think save up your money and play it, you will get way more than that money's worth in value, as far as time, like you will put hours and hours and hours into it."

GTA 6 isn't coming to PC at launch, but not because Rockstar doesn't "care about PC," says GTA 5 producer: "If you're working on that, you're not working on something else."

Square Enix has announced Nintendo Switch 2 Edition versions of two of its beloved RPGs, and it still refuses to offer upgrade paths or cross save.

Square Enix has been one of the best supporters of the Switch 2 so far, with ports of the likes of Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Rebirth – not to mention Final Fantasy 7 Revelation will be the first mainline title to release on a Nintendo platform on day one since the original Final Fantasy 7 jumped ship to PlayStation. But unfortunately, when it comes to the games that were already on Nintendo Switch, Square Enix really hasn't been the best at treating original users to the cross-generation benefits that have mostly become commonplace in the industry.

Octopath Traveller 1 and 2 are next to receive the upgrade, with Square Enix announcing the titles' new editions to celebrate the eighth anniversary of the eight-protagonist RPG series. The Nintendo Switch 2 Editions of Octopath Traveller 1 and 2 release on October 1 – unless you're in Japan that is, where both have released today – with Square Enix promising improved resolution and frame rates.

Unfortunately however, just like with the announcement of Dragon Quest 11's Nintendo Switch 2 Edition, Square Enix isn't offering an upgrade path for existing Switch 2 owners, and on top of that, there won't be save transfer available for anyone who wants to continue their playthrough on Switch 2. The games will cost the same as their Switch 1 counterparts at $60 (making the eight-year-old game more expensive at launch on Switch 2 than Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Rebirth are).

Naturally, the comments on the announcement trailer are unhappy with this, with one user saying "thanks for telling your consumers that buying a game early isn't a good thing after all, very disappointing," while another adds, "If your goal for this announcement was to make your most dedicated fans – the fans who are the reason HD2D thrives in the first place – feel like they’ve been spat on the face. Then congratulations. You’ve succeeded!" Meanwhile, someone else puts it pretty simply: "no upgrade path, no save data transfer, no buy."

Dragon Quest 12 Beyond Dreams announced, replacing the previous version of the JRPG as Square Enix hits the reset button.

It's all go for Palworld right now. The monster-hunting survival game just went 1.0, to absolutely incredible results, and a dating sim spin-off is currently in the works. According to developer Pocketpair, more is coming, including some surprises you may want to watch out for.

"We're thinking carefully about what we might do next," John 'Bucky' Buckley, the head of publishing and communications at Pocketpair, tells Game8. "We've got some spin-offs we're experimenting with, and hopefully we'll be able to figure out how to keep expanding the Palworld universe."

One of these is More Than Just Pals, the romantic social adventure wherein you play a new transfer student at Private Palpagos Academy, which looks obscenely fun. I mean, there's apparently the option to eat your fellow students, and what could be more appealing?

There are no hints about what these other side games could be, but a Pokémon Stadium-esque release seems like an easy win. Of course, Pocketpair will never beat the comparisons if this does happen, but at the same time, why not?

Buckley is clear that Palworld as a property is going to get bigger and bigger. Pocketpair has "a few other little secret things in development," he adds. "The IP is gonna keep growing."

When you consider the game managed to draw in over 885,000 concurrent players on the back of the update 1.0, there's room for a lot of confidence in the existing release and where the property could go. Pocketpair's sense of humor and creativity are such that I believe the devs would approach things with the right attitude and expectations, too.

Where this all leads is an open prospect, as Buckley acts coy about committing to what Palworld may look like in five years. If the first two are anything to go by, whatever it is will be big.

Palworld 1.0 redesigns multiple Pals and makes them look less like Pokemon

Palworld 1.0 is finally here, over two years on from its monumental early-access launch, but once upon a time, Pocketpair's creature-collecting survival game could have fallen into a very different genre – albeit still with all the cute Pals that fans have grown to love.

While often compared to Pokemon when it comes to its creature collecting aspects, and the likes of Ark with its survival gameplay, speaking in a recent interview with Game8, head of communications and publishing at Pocketpair John "Bucky" Buckley explains that Palworld was originally supposed to be a factory game like Satisfactory.

"It started life as, 'Wouldn't it be fun to have a factory game like Satisfactory, but instead of machines, it was little creatures? Wouldn't it be fun if those little creatures were each their own individual, rather than just miscellaneous creatures that were working? Wouldn't it be fun if [there was] creature collecting?'" he begins. "And then it turned into open world and survival crafting naturally. The game has changed a lot from the original concept, but I think the core idea of Factory Sim with your Pals is still there."

Of course, we can still see some elements of Palworld's factory sim inspirations in the game today. Your Pals are capable of using workbenches to craft things for you, for example, or farm things for you.

It makes me wonder if Pocketpair could ever release a spin-off that leans even more into the factory sim genre in the future. After all, the devs are already making Palfarm – you guessed it, a farming game – as well as, uh, Palworld ~ More than Just Pals, a dating sim which (for better or worse) isn't an elaborate April Fool's Day joke.

Palworld devs "had high expectations for 1.0," but with over 855,000 concurrent Steam players, lead says "this is staggering."

You can add the UK retail organization The Entertainment Retailer's Association (ERA) to the bloated shelf of enemies PlayStation has collected since announcing it would stop producing physical game discs by 2028. The association representing major UK game retailers like Amazon and Sainsbury's can't believe PlayStation wants to leave so much money still swaying on the tree.

"ERA consumer data shows that 25% of under 25s use discs for gaming and the total [UK] disc-based games market was valued at over £300 million" – about $402 million – "in 2025," says Retailer's Association CEO Kim Bayley, as reported by The Game Business. "The industry should be embracing every legitimate way consumers want to buy games, not narrowing their choices."

I think it's rare that moneymakers, like the people who represent Sainsbury's, and mere mortal video game players, who are tired of everything in the industry getting worse and more expensive, agree. But it seems that PlayStation's plan to, in its own words, "remain committed to delivering a world-class gaming experience" by exploding an important facet of game preservation, ownership, artistry, dignity, and indeed, sales, can bring together uneasy allies.

It appears, then, that Bayley shares an opinion with GamesRadar+ staff writer Dustin Bailey, who recently (and correctly) observed, "The secondhand NES that I got as a kid in the '90s still works, albeit with a bit of repair work. The same goes for all of my old games, with many hundreds of other titles still available to buy secondhand. When I spent $700 on a PS5 Pro, my expectation was that it, too, would continue to work for another 30 or 40 years [...]. But what good is the promise of that investment when the PS6 comes around and every single game I purchase is tied to a server that Sony could choose to shut down at any time?"

Similarly, Bayley argues, "A disc can be shared with family, traded in, collected, preserved and, crucially, still played years from now. A download licence often offers none of those freedoms."

It seems that many people who like buying and selling video games don't want another reason for the industry to fail, who knew?

"Removing discs doesn't represent progress," says Bayley. "It simply removes choice. That's bad for gamers, bad for retailers, and ultimately bad for the long-term health and preservation of our games industry."

Former PlayStation boss thinks "we've lost a lot of the variety in games," and we can thank the "rising cost" of new titles for that: "We had so many crazy games on PS1."

Meccha Chameleon, the latest "friendslop" hit on Steam to take over our social media feeds, is officially so popular that it's spurring shameless clones.

It's no secret that Meccha Chameleon has absolutely dominated the web for the past month or so, with its unique Prop Hunt-esque hide-and-seek gameplay. Flying by seven million sales in under two weeks on Valve's PC platform, it was only a matter of time before the new indie gem would spur copies from other developers – and that it has.

Scribble Hunt is one such copy, sitting on Steam with screenshots that look straight out of Meccha Chameleon.

Developed by mysterious studio "Scribble Bunny," Scribble Hunt sounds a whole lot like the smash-hit game from lemorion_1224, too. "Paint the bunny man and blend into the scene like a chameleon," reads its description. "2–10 player online hide-and-seek. Sample colors, match the lighting, tune your materials – disguise yourself to perfection and slip away right under the Hunters' gaze."

And, erm, yes… there is an AI-generated content disclosure declaring that "some store page images and promotional art of this game are made with generative AI."

Interestingly, as pointed out by South Korean outlet INVEN, the game's name is perhaps the most egregious "rip-off" of all here. In Korean, it translates to – you guessed it – Meccha Chameleon. This feels far too close for comfort, perhaps paving the way to potential legal issues.

I'm instantly reminded of other recent supposed game "clones," like Monster Fantasy and, of course, Pickmos, which made headlines for similar reasons.

The maps showcased in Scribble Hunt look like fan-created Meccha Chameleon maps as well (I mean, that is the Art Museum map redone, is it not?), but we can't see too much of the game yet. As for its release date, it isn't out yet – and Scribble Bunny doesn't disclose when it'll launch, either, simply stating that it's coming sometime this month.

If I'm honest, though, I'm not certain it'll last… at least not in its current state.

I suppose only time will tell what ends up happening to Scribble Hunt – it might make a comeback with a different name and design, if nothing else.

Searching for more to look forward to? Browse our quick roundup of the best upcoming indie games to anticipate, or our rundown of the coolest new games underway.

Nintendo Switch 2 grip cases are big business. After all, Ninty released its handheld into the wild with the same flat, uncomfortable Joy-Con backs that we've come to cramp over for the last nine years. Adding something to hold onto isn't just a luxury, it's a necessity if you're going to be running this thing for a full battery depletion.

That means there's no shortage of competition for the SupCase Unicorn Beetle Pro, a shell-style grip that nestles itself around the back and sides of your device, adding two slightly taller nubbins to cling onto while drop-proofing the chassis itself. Slightly more expensive than our current top shell, the Fastsnail Switch 2 Protective Case, and with a few features left on the cutting room floor, SupCase isn't going to steal the throne here. However, its design and weight could sway some away from the current leader. I've had the red and black version slapped on my handheld for the last few weeks to see exactly how it slots in among the best Nintendo Switch 2 cases on the market.

What I loved about the SupCase Unicorn Beetle Pro Nintendo Switch 2 case

Slick industrial design

There's no denying the SupCase Unicorn Beetle Pro looks a lot better than the bulbous, plasticky design of Fastsnail's competitor. This is a sturdy industrial build, starting from the plated red backing (in a gorgeous metallic finish) and ending up at the chunky rubberised top and side bumpers.

It's an angular aesthetic that won't necessarily satisfy the needs of those after a cute 'n' cosy Switch experience, but it certainly stands out against the rest of the black and gray market, especially as you get into the cheaper seats. I opted for the red version, but the Unicorn Beetle Pro is also available in a range of different metallic finishes and judging by the model in front of me, each one paints just as vibrant a picture as listing images suggest.

That design isn't just for show, though. It feels solid, buffered, and plenty bouncy in the hands, without bulking out a clamshell case. That's a big deal for travel. I love adding extra depth to my controls, but hate having to remove them every time I'm storing my Switch 2 in its PowerA Slim Case. Unlike chunkier models, the slimline form factor of the SupCase Unicorn Beetle Pro allows it to sit (albeit a little tightly) inside this fairly skinny clamshell case.

A smaller shape means the SupCase is also lighter than the Fastsnail in the hands. While still adding a little extra heft to your handheld, the numbers fall in this Unicorn's favor, important considering that extra weight was one of its competitors' only shortcomings in testing.

Sturdy Joy-Con handling

I've been through a number of cheaper grip options from various brands in the year I've had the Switch 2 in my roster. Each one has made me fear for the magnetic pins inside my Joy-Con 2. SupCase's iteration uses a complete unibody design, keeping the Joy-Con firmly connected to the system rather than having them bend to the sides under the weight of separate grips.

That's something you'll find on many grip cases, including our Fastsnail competitor, but it's a design I'd wholeheartedly recommend over a three-part system.

The Joy-Con themselves are still easily removable though. Each chunky grip section folds out away from the handheld itself, so that the controllers can be easily unlatched from their magnetic pins normally. Yes, it means you won't have the grips still attached when using the device in tabletop mode (though as we'll see later, that's not really an option here anyway), but it means swapping to mouse controls is particularly simple.

Nicely textured grips

SupCase's grips aren't the chunky, smooth, rounded designs you'll see on Fastsnail and other competitors' cases. Instead, they're boxy, angular, and raised only by about a centimetre off the back plating. That keeps the whole design slim enough to fit into a clamshell case, yes, but it also manages to stay comfortable for longer sessions as well.

There's just enough for the fingers to grip around, with a heavily dappled texture running across the flat back panel of each one. It means the weight of the handheld is no longer forced upon the fingertips, instead sitting far more comfortably in the base of the palm.

That texture means the grip itself never feels too hot in the hand, with little change of slipping during longer sessions (helped in part by the rubber panels on each side).

What to consider about the SupCase Unicorn Beetle Pro Nintendo Switch 2 case

Lose kickstand ability

Unlike many of its competitors, the SupCase Unicorn Beetle Pro drops your access to the Nintendo Switch 2's kickstand. That means tabletop mode is out the window here, which will be a pretty big turn-off you happen to stand your device in place for play.

The level to which this is going to hurt your experience entirely depends on how you use your handheld. I almost never set up my Switch 2 in the tabletop position (generally only ever to take photos of it with various accessories), so I wasn't too put out by this sacrifice. It's worth noting, though, that the Fastsnail model still keeps its own kickstand in play.

Docking is a little tight

The SupCase Unicorn Beetle Pro is dockable, which means you won't need to remove the shell itself to slide your handheld into its TV house. That didn't stop me being a little nervous the first time I tried it, though. There is extra depth added to the device here, and I can feel it sliding against the walls of the dock.

You're going to find that in any dockable Nintendo Switch 2 shell you come across, but it's worth reiterating the need for a screen protector if you're squeamish about it.

No storage

While not a slight against the SupCase Unicorn Beetle Pro itself, and more of a praise of its competitor, it's worth clocking that lack of game storage. Again, this is a sacrifice you're likely used to making if you prefer a grip case over a clamshell, but if you're between the two it's worth reiterating the Fastsnail's excellent integration of cart holders into its design.

Less screen protection

If you don't already have a screen protector slapped on your handheld, you're probably going to regret it fairly soon. The SupCase Unicorn Beetle Pro can help you stave off the need with a small lip over the top edge that acts as a bumper, but if this thing falls flat on its face there's still going to be problems.

The lip underneath the system isn't as reinforced as the one on top, swapping the bouncier rubber for a skinny plastic casing instead. It's a strange step away from the sturdy shock-proofing of the rest of the device, though you'd expect the device to fall on one of its corners before the lower edge made any contact with the ground.

Still, it means the screen is a little less protected than I'd like and, unfortunately for our Beetle, there's a snail with a solution. Fastsnail's grip case comes with a detachable front cover that keeps the screen scratch-safe during transport.

Should you buy the SupCase Unicorn Beetle Pro Nintendo Switch 2 case?

The SupCase Unicorn Beetle Pro has a number of cards to play in its fight against our top contender, and they're all centered around that sleeker build. Ultimately, whether it's right for you will come down to how you use your handheld and where your priorities lay. While the Fastsnail Nintendo Switch 2 Protective Case offers more features for less cash, SupCase wins in overall aesthetic, grip texture, and versatility in its slimmer design.

However, the Fastsnail doesn't necessarily need to slim down its design to still accommodate a sturdy transport experience. After all, the extra screen cover and game storage have you sorted for the additional security of a clamshell case by themselves, with the added benefit of chunkier grips as well. Plus, if you're a tabletop power-user, your decision has already been made. The lack of kickstand here is going to prove too bothersome to sacrifice for that sleek form factor.

All that, and I'll probably keep my SupCase Unicorn Beetle Pro firmly in place. After all, I prefer a textured grip over a larger one, I don't need that kickstand, I opt for a clamshell for its additional layer of bumper security, and I'd certainly prioritize the swankier look of this Unicorn. If that's you, it's still an easy recommendation.

How I tested the SupCase Unicorn Beetle Pro Nintendo Switch 2 case

I've had the SupCase Unicorn Beetle Pro attached to my Nintendo Switch 2 for two weeks, playing in both handheld and docked mode. It has also been trusted with two cross-country trips in that time, transported both inside and out of a PowerA Slim clamshell carry case. For more information on how we make our recommendations, check out the full GamesRadar+ Hardware Policy.

We're rounding up plenty more of the best Nintendo Switch 2 accessories, including the best Nintendo Switch 2 controllers and best Nintendo Switch 2 MicroSD Express cards.

Gerard Way, the frontman of My Chemical Romance and known multi-hyphenate, made a detrimental confession to his street cred during one of his band's shows at Wembley Stadium. Apparently, he hasn't yet played Baldur's Gate 3, a crime Larian Studios is eager to remedy as soon as is humanly possible.

There are less conspicuous places to announce the gaps in your video game knowledge than to around 90,000 fans in a sold-out concert, but Way has never been one to do things by half. A question emerged from the crowd in between songs asking whether the singer had ever played Baldur's Gate 3.

"No, I only played Baldur's Gate 1," he said in response. "Not that I probably wouldn't have liked two and three. I did play the Icewind Dale expansion; I just ran out of time, y'know?"

I'll give him that - all three Baldur's Gate games are the dictionary definition of timesinks. You can spend hundreds of hours in them, and completing any when you have other responsibilities is an accomplishment.

Way turns his attention to the fan and asks for their opinion on 3. "Is it good?" he says. "I would assume so, the first one was a lot of fun, it was the closest thing at the time to playing Dungeons and Dragons."

This is a quality echoed by the sequels, each one capturing different aspects of what exploring the Forgotten Realms in tabletop form feels like. Naturally, once Larian caught wind of this, it immediately offered Way a copy of the threequel on the house.

"Gerard, there's a Baldur's Gate 3 code with your name on it if you fancy trying it, lots of love, Larian," the studio tweeted. It tagged Way's old Twitter account, but it's been disused since 2016. I can tell you Frank Iero, the band's rhythm guitarist, is quite active on Instagram, and might be more easily grabbed for attention on the matter.

Outside of that, you may need to contact their PR and hope the request gets through. I interviewed Way once upon a time, through DC Comics, so getting him on the line isn't impossible. Roll for it, Larian, and see what happens.

Baldur's Gate 4 could've been headed by a Baldur's Gate 2 veteran, but the RPG legend "wouldn't want to compete" against Larian: "That would be insanity"

Uh, excuse me, but who gave permission for Amazon to slash the price of new Lego Pokemon sets? I mean, I'm not complaining, but still. Seeing as everyone's gone nuts for the newly-revealed kits and they're not even out yet, I wasn't expecting a discount so soon.

You can currently get a small but respectable saving on both Lego Arcanine and Munchlax in the UK, bringing them down to a record low (which isn't hard, seeing as these Lego Pokemon sets were only announced last week). Seeing as both take cues from Lego Eevee, AKA one of the best Lego sets, that's even more noteworthy.

Unfortunately, none of the other newly-announced Lego sets (the Polly Pocket-style Poke Ball diorama, Rayquaza set, or Red Up-Scaled Minifigure) are on offer. This abrupt discount does mean I'll keep a much closer eye on them going forward, though.

Plus, I suspect most fans will be happier with these being given an early price cut anyway. They started out at a much more affordable level to begin with, and because one of the most consistent criticisms of Lego Pokemon thus far has been high costs, that's gonna turn heads.

• Join GamesRadar+ Deals on WhatsApp for our top daily discounts

I'd hoped for a discount on these kits at some point (perhaps in the autumn, around Black Friday time), but this soon? Phew.

What do you think? Will you be grabbing either of these new kits? What with the leaked Lego Donkey Kong set, Nintendo fans are eating good this week...

For more Poke-goodness, don't miss our guide to the best Pokemon merch.

• See the entire Lego Pokemon range at Lego

Another day, another leak, as it seems as though the new Lego Donkey Kong has been shown off early.

After new Pokemon kits leaked last week (followed by their subsequent reveal), the Lego community is at it again with a sneak peek of yet another Nintendo-themed model via Reddit. This takes us back to the beginning with an arcade version of Jump Man, and by the looks of it, this Lego Donkey Kong set could be playable.

To be precise, the leak (which shows off supposed box art for this model) shows what looks to be rolling Lego barrels and a pixel Mario icon that has a pole at its back… suggesting you can move the plumber around obstacles. I could be wrong, of course, but if you zoom in, it's possible to spot 'motion' circles behind the brown wooden barrels. This, to me, implies movement.

Provided the leak is real, of course. While it's worth taking anything like this with a pinch of salt, I'm convinced. Besides matching Lego's standards for box design, it also uses the same barrel design we saw in a Lego Mario teaser from a few months back. That in itself suggested a Jump Man-inspired kit, so this just makes good on the promise.

legoleak from r/Legoleak/comments/1usqc4r/mario_72051_donkey_kong_arcade_set_image_via

If this Lego Donkey Kong set is playable (to a degree, anyway), it takes after this month's working Lego Arcade Cabinet. While you won't be earning points like a real machine, it's not just a display piece.

Comments under the leak seem in favor of it, but one feature seems to have disappointed fans – it isn't a true arcade shape, a la the Lego Pac-Man Arcade. "Cute, though I guess I was kind of hoping it would be a model of the actual arcade cabinet," says ComradeKits24. I agree; I think it's a neat design that really captures the original look, and the 3D text along the top is a cool addition, but a full cabinet would have sealed the deal.

What do you think? Will you be picking the kit up if it ends up being real? If it's legit, we won't have long to wait; it'll apparently cost $200 and drops in August.

For other cool Nintendo-themed collectibles, here's the best Donkey Kong merch fans will go bananas for.

The Super Mario Wonder amiibo line-up was a big deal when they launched alongside the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition of the game earlier this year. The set marked Captain Toad's debut in amiibo debut, and now the adorable adventurer just got another first- its first-ever discount.

The amiibo trio launched for $24.99 on March 26, 2026, but the entire lineup is now a little over $5 off each at Walmart today. That includes not just Captain Toad and the Talking Flower by his side, but the Poplin & Prince Florian and Elephant Mario figures, the latter of which is currently sitting amongst my ever-growing collection. Out of my 150+ figures, Elephant Mario is one of the most detailed yet, and if Toad and Poplin are anything like him, this set is well worth adding to your collection, discount or not.

I know a little over $5 off might not seem like a big deal, but it should be if you're an amiibo collector and want to add more of the best Nintendo Switch 2 accessories to your setup. These figures are currently sitting on the digital Nintendo online store shelves for their full $24.99 MSRP, which makes these discounts a bit of a rarity.

Typically, it's the Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom and Street Fighter 6 figures that are prone to discounts, not these 2026 releases. With that in mind, it's nice to see other characters drop down in price, especially when these are some of the most detailed amiibo I've seen so far.

When the Elephant Mario arrived at my door shortly after launch, I was hugely impressed. Not only is he a bit larger than what I'm used to, but the quality control is exquisite. There are no visible sculpt or mould lines, and every drop of paint is exactly where it should be. Better yet, Mario's overalls include a denim-like texture, and he's even got a unique base that perfectly ties into the floral world of Super Mario Bros Wonder, which makes it stand out amongst the rest of my collection.

If you're eager to add Elephant Mario to your gaming shelf, I recommend grabbing him along with the rest of the Super Mario Bros Wonder amiibo line-up while these discounts last. They're even worthwhile at full price, but there's a collective $15 saving to be found here, which you could put towards even more amiibo. What sounds more elephantastic than that?

• View all Nintendo Switch amiibo deals at Walmart

Our merch expert Benjamin Abbott has rounded up the best Nintendo gifts and the best Lego sets if you're looking for more Ninty toys and collectibles.

Black Flag Resynced codes are in high demand, as they can be used to claim free rewards in this updated swashbuckling adventure. Some are cosmetic, such as fresh sails to adorn your ship, but you can also redeem them to get Animus keys – and there's enough on offer to unlock one of three new swords for Edward Kenway to wield. To find out more, here are all of the Black Flag codes and how to redeem them for rewards.

All Black Flag Resynced codes

The following Black Flag Resynced codes can be redeemed for rewards:

• ACBF-PHGN-SYBJ-RTRF – 1,500 Animus keys, Crimson Storm Sails
• ASC-BFR-PMK-000 – Shipmate Monkey Pet

Neither of these Black Flag codes have an official expiry date, although when the first one was announced producer Justin Ng said it "will remain available for a limited redemption period" – so make sure you claim it as soon as you can.

There are also some other routes to claim rewards for Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced, such as:

• Watch 2 hours of Twitch streaming – Rustborne Swords (expires August 2, 2026)
• Watch 4 hours of Twitch streaming – Cheetah Claw Cat Pet (expires August 2, 2026)
• Complete Red Bull Quiz – Wings of the Tempest Sails (expires September 30, 2026)

For the Twitch Drops you simply need to watch participating streams for the length of time stated, which is cumulative so you don't need to do it in one sitting. If you need any help with linking your accounts then this Ubisoft Support article has you covered.

To complete the Red Bull quiz, scroll down the page until you find the 'Spin' button and hit that to start the questions. There are six in total and you only need to answer one of them correctly, then provide your name and email at the end to receive a unique code. When you redeem that code a message which pops up suggests this reward may not be available yet, and you'll receive a further email from Red Bull once it's in the game, so don't stress if you can't immediately find it.

How to redeem Black Flag Resynced codes

The most direct way to redeem Black Flag Resynced codes is to activate them in-game, by entering the pause menu then following the Store prompt in the top right corner of the screen, before hitting the Redeem Code option to the bottom left of the screen.

However, some players (especially on consoles) have reported issues with this process, so you can also redeem Black Flag codes though the Ubisoft Connect app by tapping your profile icon then choosing the Key Activation option, or going through the official Redeem codes site and following the steps there. You'll need a Ubisoft Connect account for either of those routes, so if you don't have one already then complete the process to set one up.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Before The Witcher 3 came two predecessors from CD Projekt Red: The Witcher 2 and the series original RPG – an RPG that features one heck of a, erm, unique romance system.

In case you've never played the first Witcher game, the 2007 gem boasts a certain set of cards you can collect that act as… well, sex trophies, basically.

While more modern genre giants like Baldur's Gate 3 have elaborate romantic cutscenes (many of which are indeed NSFW), The Witcher had these romance cards instead – little pieces of art that, much to many fans' dismay, arguably felt a bit shallow in substance.

According to lead story designer Artur Ganszyniec, however, CD Projekt Red opted for the cards because the developers knew they needed romance – The Witcher books do feature romance, after all – but didn't have the resources or ability to create full-blown, lengthy love arcs or animated cutscenes.

He recalls as much in an interview with CHIP (as translated by GameObserver), admitting he's not 100% sure how it all went down.

"Sometimes a feature appears as a result of someone going: in the books, there's lots of romance, so we'll probably need romance, too. Someone creates a list of characters; someone else looks at it productively and says: 'There's no way we're making so many cutscenes.' Then comes the question: 'if the cutscenes are a problem, what do we do? Maybe 2D drawings?'"

That might just be the origin story of the infamous "sex cards," as they're widely known.

"I don't know if that's the exact way it happened," Ganszyniec continues, "but that's how it could have happened. Everyone's responsible for finding solutions to their own problems, and suddenly something's in the game. When something's already made it into a version, it's difficult to remove it."

And, yep – "sometimes it worked as a shortcut." When you have cards instead of scenes, you "understand that it's meant to represent just part of a longer story."

Plus, as the dev puts it, "thanks to the fact that The Witcher was indeterminate and full of shortcuts, the player accepted it." That makes sense, I suppose – and, well, for the most part, folks did.

That's not to say the cards are popular, but it's not as though they soiled The Witcher's reputation. CD Projekt Red worked with the resources it had at the time, and Ganszyniec isn't "ashamed" of the romance cards despite their reception.

"Some of these moments ended up being absurd," though, and he's not afraid to admit as much. "It's just that sometimes you fail to write something good enough – then, you play the game, you read the dialogue, and you see: this did not work." Hey, it happens… right?

Here's hoping The Witcher 4 features a more, uh, immersive romance system, as CD Projekt Red has said it'll "absolutely" be a part of the RPG.

Excited to see more upcoming CD Projekt Red games come to fruition? Browse through our roundup for other great new games arriving this year and beyond, too.

The Black Flag Resynced Antocha Wreck is one of the many shipwrecks you can plunder for long lost loot, with one chest in the wreck itself being quite tricky to find. Grabbing all eight loot chests in this wreck is really useful as well, since you'll gather both a load of Reales and the Mortar Ultimate Plan, which is arguably one of the best in all of Black Flag Resynced. With that, I've detailed the locations for all seven chests in the Antocha Wreck below.

All Antocha Wreck chest locations in Black Flag Resynced

As mentioned, there are eight chests to rip open in the wreck of the Antocha – seven containing Reales and one secret chest containing the Black Flag Resynced Ultimate Plan for the Mortar – with four of them stuck within the two halves of the destroyed ship.

Starting with those since they're the hardest to reach, here's how you can find every chest in the Antocha diving spot:

1. At the very bottom of the south edge of the northern half of the wreck (the stern of the ship).
2. In a small room on the middle deck of the stern wreckage. Swim into the deck, take the second left, then turn left again to reach it.
3. Deep within the stern wreckage on the upper deck. From chest 2, turn around and go straight ahead, then up to the next deck to find the chest straight ahead.
4. At the end of a corridor accessed via an opening on the east corner of the stern wreckage. The opening is roughly halfway down the ship and there is a shoal of fish plus some coral and plants surrounding it.

5. On the top deck of the southern bow half of the shipwreck, near the bowsprit.
6. In the small shipwreck part closest to the diving bell.
7. In the small shipwreck part directly south of the diving bell.
8. Secret: In the small shipwreck piece furthest from the diving bell. This contains the Mortar Ultimate Plan.

When looking for these chests and secrets in the Antocha, or any shipwreck accessed via the diving bell for that matter, remember to scan the area by holding L2/LT to look for white dots as these are the chests, then check your map often to see where to go. Obviously, you also need to watch out for sharks and ensure Edward doesn’t drown, so make sure you return to the diving bell and use the barrels to refill the oxygen meter – barrels can only be used to replenish Edward's air once each!

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Valve's new Steam Controller is unsurprisingly a PC gamepad, but not if you swap out its puck. Yes, the dongle included in the box is designed to pair the pad specifically to ordinary rigs or the Steam Machine, but OpenPuck project aims to break down platform walls and enable compatibility with the PS5, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch.

Serving as a bridge between Valve's Steam Controller and other platforms, the OpenPuck uses a Pro Micro NRF52840 board to emulate the default receiver's abilities. (cheers, Hackaday!) Custom firmware by Safijari then enables the PC controller to connect just like it would with the included dongle, only this accessory can also then mimic other gamepads and pretend to be an official wired set of buttons.

In a short clip, the puck's creator demonstrates how to install the Openpuck microcontroller and get it working with the Steam Controller. The process comes down to getting the board into DFU mode (Device Firmware Update), allowing it to show as a flash drive so you can upload the software. That should be the case for fresh boards, but the modder includes instructions on which pins to bridge if not.

I am blown away by how easy the process of making your own Steam Controller puck appears to be. Even if you're not looking to turn Valve's accessory into a makeshift PS5 or Switch pad, the fact that the microcontroller is available for $8 should save you some pennies should you lose the real deal. You won't even need to mess around with anything complicated should you make use of the Openpuck's abilities, as there's a web interface for switching USB mode or customizing inputs. Not to mention there's a 3D printable shell just to help it feel a bit more like a real accessory.

The retro console collecting goblin is now curious whether there's a way to get the puck working with old systems. Naturally, you'd need specific gameport connectors to turn it into a best retro controller contender, but perhaps there is a way to make a dongle with even wider compatibility.

If I can perhaps persuade someone to let me kindly borrow their Steam Controller, I'll maybe grab one of these boards and try making an OpenPuck. If you beat me to it, feel free to let me know how you get on and whether Valve's buttons make for a great PS5 or Switch pad.

Check out the best gaming handhelds if you're looking to take your backlog with you.

For six months after the March 2024 launch of Dragon's Dogma 2, Capcom had all hands on deck, mostly responding to issues and complaints via patches. Ever since, the RPG's dev team has been working on Dark Arisen, a major expansion meant to answer the fans who wanted to keep playing.

Dragon's Dogma Online head and original Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen director Kento Kinoshita joined the sequel's team around the middle of the project, and toward the later stages, he began to wonder what an expansion might look like for Dragon's Dogma 2, which proved to be a divisive RPG. About half a year after launch, work on Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen began in earnest, and now we're headed toward an October 8, 2026 launch for the long-awaited expansion.

"Sorry to keep everyone waiting," Capcom producer Naoto Oyama tells GamesRadar+ in an interview (via interpreter). "We started the project during the period where, after the release of the base game, we received incredibly passionate feedback from our players who expressed a desire to play more and continue exploring. They wanted to enjoy more combat in this game, so we really worked hard on answering these requests. We launched the project with the concept of providing a highly accessible brand-new adventure, more combat, and we're happy we were able to announce this and come back to the game again."

Kinoshita's return was a godsend to Dragon's Dogma 2 players who'd given up hope that the game would ever receive the same treatment as the original. Dark Arisen made Dragon's Dogma a noticeably better game, and there were hopes that the sequel would get at least the same style of expansion – in addition to the major title updates due this year, with one already released and another coming in August.

Kinoshita says, "I'm really happy to be back here as director for the new Dark Arisen. The motivation behind kicking off this project was the passionate feedback we received from players, so we really appreciate people's support and feedback received so far."

For the new Dark Arisen, Kinoshita explains, "I was thinking, if we can make an expansion for this game, how can we make it? What will be enjoyable? What will be fun? So I'm really positive that, finally, this is taking shape and we'll be able to deliver this soon to players."

This expansion is also called Dark Arisen for a few reasons, Kinoshita says. "We decided on the title after finalizing the content we were creating. It wasn't title first. We named it after consolidating the ideas of what we want to include in the expansion.

"There are three main reasons for the naming. One is a strong affinity with the story that will unfold in the new area. The second is the presence of a loot-based gameplay cycle similar to the original Dark Arisen. And for the third one, we chose a familiar name which we think is the easiest way to convey to everyone what kind of elements will be added. Some people have already experienced the Dark Arisen expansion in the first title and we're building something similar and more expanded in Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen."

Compared to the original game's expansion, this new Dark Arisen is less of a dungeon-crawler experience, instead bringing players to a new area of the open world in the Norgan region (with some dungeon challenges along the way, for good measure). "Also, an appeal compared to the original is that the story that unfolds in the Norgan area is really deep, and there is kind of a mystery you will chase and you have to solve, and there will be supporting characters around you," Kinoshita adds. "Compared to that title's dungeon-crawler experience, that will be pretty different."

To my delight, there will be a similar rhythm of uncovering relic-type equipment and essentially decrypting it back at your base, uncorking a whole crate of random end-game gear at once to see what will make it into your build. In the best way, this feels similar to Capcom's Monster Hunter games adding G-Rank or Master Rank gear in their expansions.

"For both existing players and new players, I hope people will enjoy Dragon's Dogma 2 more, that it will lead to the perfect shape of Dragon's Dogma 2," Kinoshita concludes.

Capcom returns to its divisive RPG with Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen, and the dev leading the expansion says its friction will be preserved – "That is something that we offer so that players can make a decision on how to play."

GameSir may have some of the best PC controllers under its belt, but it's taking square aim at Xbox fans with its latest T7 Pro drop. The Retro Green colorway has just dropped on the brand's site, yet another callback to that OG Xbox aesthetic we've all been yearning for amongst... well... everything that's happened this year.

The $49.99 / £55.99 Hall effect controller blasts that translucent aesthetic with its primary-colored face buttons and a whole bunch of ambient LEDs. That gives it a slightly livelier aesthetic than Retro Fighter's take on the classic design, with the Hunter's translucent chassis simply letting its screws do the talking.

That means the effect seems to wear off by the time we get to the grips, but that RGB lighting looks like it'll be doing most of the talking anyway.

Translucent yearning aside, the T7 Pro has a sturdy lineup of features at its disposal. While those after one of the best Xbox Series X controllers for more competitive pursuits might begrudge those membrane ABXY buttons, the wired connection keeps things zippy and fuss-free, while Hall effect analog triggers still make use of two-stage trigger stops for twitch-reflex movement as well.

That all comes packaged up with four rumble motors and the obligatory back buttons - configurable in the GameSir Nexus software.

If you weren't a child of the transparent Xbox era, though, that's not a feature set that's going to be setting the world alight. For $50, you can also pick up the GameSir Cyclone 2 (now $49.99 at Amazon), the gamepad we rate as the best value on the market. This is a TMR controller (an upgraded version of Hall effect tech), with a wireless 1,000Hz polling rate, a charging dock included, and larger back buttons.

That would be my recommendation if you'd called me as the fun police, anyway. I'm always down to jig with some translucent tech, and the Retro Green T7 Pro manages is certainly calling to a heritage with all the style and vibes of the best retro controllers.

• See all controller deals at Amazon

On the other side of the console wars back in the day? We're also rounding up the best PS5 controllers and the best Nintendo Switch 2 controllers for more options across the market.

As we get closer to GTA 6's launch with no PC port in sight, it'd be understandable if you were wondering why Rockstar Games is choosing to ignore such a massive chunk of fans at release, especially when it seems very likely to bring the game to the platform eventually. Well, according to one Rockstar veteran, the studio isn't opposed to releasing games on PC – it just might not be worth the time or effort when it could be focusing on something else first.

Speaking in a new interview with Reece 'Kiwi Talkz' Reilly on YouTube (below), former Rockstar Games producer John Ricchio – who worked at the company between 2003 and 2014, and is credited on GTA 5, Red Dead Redemption, and Max Payne 3 – discusses the GTA developer's approach to PC ports. He notes that, although it's "less fashionable" in the games industry now than it once was, it causes many "problems" to start development on PC and then move to consoles afterward. "You're much better off starting with the constraints," he adds, because "shrinking is a lot harder than extending."

While this certainly influences Rockstar's approach to PC ports, Ricchio explains that it's also often about prioritizing the devs' efforts. When it came to Red Dead Redemption, for example, Ricchio says "we actually got a PC build running very early" to see how long it'd take – something that might come as a surprise given that the game's eventual PC port arrived a whopping 14 years after its initial console release. But, as the ex-production dev says, "It's not even that we don't care about PC. It was just like, is it worth spending time getting a PC port going versus working on GTA 5?"

According to Ricchio, it's "always those conversations" that drive the PC plan at Rockstar – the studio isn't "anti any platform." Regardless of the platform, it's about whether it's "worth spending the time and effort to get something running."

In the past, there have been "a lot of cases" of "legitimate hardware limitations" – something Ricchio admits is less of an issue now that consoles like the PS5 and Xbox Series X are "definitely closer" in power. But, the point remains – "if you're working on that, you're not working on something else usually. Are you spending money on that? You're not spending money on something else."

Ultimately, then, Ricchio says, there either "has to be enough of a business reason to do some of those ports," or the port has to be "super easy to do," which it "rarely" is because "there's always something that you gotta do."

So, I guess if we're not getting a GTA 6 PC port at launch, maybe it's because the devs could be busy working on Red Dead Redemption 3, or – wild as it is to even imagine at this point – GTA 7? Regardless, hopefully PC fans won't have to wait too long for the game to make its way to Steam – it took GTA 5 over a year and a half.

GTA 6 faces potential $35 million fine if Rockstar doesn't comply with online safety laws that mean Australians would need ID to play.

The Odyssey's Matt Damon has revealed how a scene 'inside' the iconic Trojan Horse was brought to life in surprising fashion on set.

So, how do you film such a suffocating sequence with bodies stacked on top of bodies? As it turns out, we aren't the only ones who wanted to know.

"It was the question I had the day before we shot," Matt Damon, who plays Odysseus, recalls to GamesRadar+. "I said, 'We're doing the Trojan Horse tomorrow. How are you going to do that?' And Chris [Nolan] just goes, 'I don't know.'"

Damon continues, "It was a real lesson: he goes, 'We're just going to cram in there and figure it out."

For a director with such an eye for detail, Damon makes the surprise admission that Nolan can wing it with the best of them – and hundreds of millions of dollars in budget doesn't dampen the director's indie filmmaking spirit.

"There's this thing that he does that is so incredible, which is he understands all of these elements that he's going to need, but he's not prescriptive about it," Damon says. "You still feel like you're shooting on an independent movie."

As for the sequence itself – we won't get into spoilers here, only to say the scene is among The Odyssey's most striking and unique depictions of the mythological trick that has been handed down across millennia. The day itself proved just as challenging to its actors, too.

Damon explains, "We literally got in there, me and the guys jammed in, and Chris jammed in with [cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema] – Hoyt had the camera – and we figured it out. That feeling of claustrophobia, that was all just developing organically… Hoyte was looking through the lens, and Chris was right next to him. They just built that in real time. It was so cool to see. If we had planned it out, I don't think it would have had that same energy."

For more, check out 2026's other remaining significant movie release dates. Then, dive into our current, pre-Odyssey ranking of the best Christopher Nolan movies and our extensive The Odyssey beginner's guide.

Even after several updates adjusting features like fast travel, Dragon's Dogma 2 remains a pretty exacting game. Capcom's modern RPG series is known for an eclectic mix of ideas that results in a texture that some players find irresistible, while others outright hate it. Director Hideaki Itsuno previously called the sequel a game that wasn't designed for everyone, and Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen director Kento Kinoshita seems to be of a similar mind as the long-awaited expansion approaches an October 8 launch.

Speaking with GamesRadar+ via interpreter, Kinoshita reflects on the friction in Dragon's Dogma 2's design. "That is something that we offer so that players can make a decision on how to play," he says. "If they have multiple options and decide what's the best way, that's giving players [choices]. This is the core essence of how we design the friction in the game."

I ask how the Dark Arisen expansion – which will add a new area, storyline, dungeon challenges, and many enemies and items – adjusts or preserves that friction. "We believe we're developing the game so that people can enjoy that kind of friction, having multiple options and making decisions," Kinoshita affirms. "We believe that's preserved in the expansion content as well."

To give players true choices in games, devs have to accept that some content will be ignored or unnoticed. They also have to make more content to flesh out whatever path is chosen, at least compared to a linear game in principle. How do you balance giving players more without making the whole thing too big? And for an expansion like this, explicitly made to answer requests for additional stuff to do, is it a good thing or a stressful thing to hear that players want more?

"That's a really good question," responds Kinoshita. "As [producer Naoto Oyama] answered earlier, my first impression was, sorry to keep everyone waiting. In terms of the balance, we have to consider how long we can take to develop the game and how much volume we can include in the expansion. If we have to put more content into the expansion, it means it will take more time to develop. But also, we were aware of the passionate feedback from players, especially that they want to enjoy the combat more. But we have to set a certain limit to the amount of content."

Capcom had a few goals with Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen: more content, a more accessible game, and "great value," per Kinoshita. The question was how to align these goals with what players had demanded – more combat, more areas to explore, and more reasons to play in general after a pretty abrupt ending. The result is a more ambitious expansion designed "more like an adventure full of freedom" and, compared to the original Dark Arisen, less like a big dungeon full of loot (though I'm told there will also be smaller dungeons full of loot).

"The main focus in terms of the amount of content we decided to put in the expansion was answering that feedback, more combat, focusing on the amount of new enemies, how wide the new area is, how the story unfolds," Kinoshita adds. "That's how we balance volume and try to answer those requests from players ... So when balancing what we want to include in the expansion and how to answer the requests, that was also something we considered. So we hope that more and more people will enjoy the game."

After Monster Hunter Wilds, Capcom wants to redeem Dragon's Dogma 2: "performance improvements," Dragonsplague changes, and more in free updates 2 years after launch.

Pokemon Pokopia developers created the game hoping it would eventually become the best-selling spin-off title in the now 30-year-old series, and it seems pretty inevitable it will be.

Speaking to Famitsu (with translation provided by Simon Griffin and SatsumaFS on behalf of Nintendo Everything) Koei Tecmo president and CEO Hisashi Koinuma was asked about Pokemon Pokopia – developed by Koei Tecmo studio and Dynasty Warriors developer Omega Force.

"From among our spin-off titles I do feel a strong sense of accomplishment," Koinuma explains, "We did work with the aim to make it the best selling spin-off game, but before launch there weren't any real expectations." And while Pokemon Pokopia was pretty highly anticipated – at least anecdotally, around me – I definitely wasn't expecting it'd be as huge as it is.

Koinuma adds, "directly ahead of launch, lots of overseas media played it and rated it very highly, and then I felt it spread from there."

Back in May, Nintendo confirmed that within the first five weeks of Pokemon Pokopia's release, the spin-off title had sold over four million copies. For context, that immediately placed it within the top five best-selling Pokemon spin-offs ever, behind Pokemon Stadium, Pinball, and both Mystery Dungeon Red/Blue Rescue Team and Explorers of Time and Darkness.

Red/Blue Rescue Team currently sits up top at 5.85 million copies sold, which means that Pokopia really doesn't have that long to go to be the top-selling spin-off in the series. And, aside from Mario Kart World which is by far the best-selling Switch 2 game by the virtue of a generous bundle at launch, Pokopia only sits behind Donkey Kong Bananza, which – unfortunately, since Bananza is the best Switch 2 game – it seems like it will have passed by the next time Nintendo reports sales. Especially when Nintendo is releasing a Pokemon Pokopia Switch 2 bundle in some regions.

Leaked Lego Pokemon sets look so much better than the old ones, and it's a step in the right direction.

All good things must come to an end, and that's certainly the case with Lego sets retiring in 2026. Well over 100 kits are being taken to the farm this month, so it's your last chance to pick them up.

While models get shelved all the time (it's a necessity, because there's no way Lego could keep its cripplingly enormous back-catalog running at once), this month's cuts hurt; the Lego sets retiring in July feature modern classics like the Great Deku Tree, Optimus Prime, and the Talking Sorting Hat. More than a few of these are included on our list of the best Lego sets, so I'd definitely recommend grabbing them while you still can.

You can see the most recent cuts over at Lego's "retiring soon" page, but if you want the complete picture, keep on scrolling - I've listed every single Lego set retiring in July 2026 right here, and will update this guide with the next batch (due to get the axe in December) shortly.

Editor's choice

Want the quick version of what to prioritize? These are the three main sets I'd look out for this month.

Retiring Lego sets: Animal Crossing

Retiring Lego sets: Architecture

Retiring Lego sets: Art

Retiring Lego sets: City

Retiring Lego sets: Classic

Retiring Lego sets: Creator

Retiring Lego sets: DC

Retiring Lego sets: Disney

Retiring Lego sets: Dreamzzz

Retiring Lego sets: Friends

Retiring Lego sets: Gabby's Dollhouse

Retiring Lego sets: Harry Potter

Retiring Lego sets: Icons

Retiring Lego sets: Ideas

Retiring Lego sets: Jurassic World

Retiring Lego sets: Legend of Zelda

July 31, 2026

Retiring Lego sets: Minecraft

Retiring Lego sets: Ninjago

Retiring Lego sets: One Piece

Retiring Lego sets: Sonic the Hedgehog

Retiring Lego sets: Speed Champions

Retiring Lego sets: Star Wars

Retiring Lego sets: Super Mario

Retiring Lego sets: Technic

Retiring Lego sets: Wednesday

Retiring Lego sets: Wicked

Retiring Lego sets FAQ

Wondering why Lego sets retire in the first place? And which kits have been put out to pasture so far in 2026? Not to worry, I've got the lowdown for you here.

Want more cool collectibles? Don't miss our guide to the best toys, including the best Nerf blasters!

Hopes were high that the latest Diablo 4 patch would address the problems around Mythics introduced in Season 14. Alas, this isn't the case, as the update, coming tomorrow, July 14, only addresses a sliver of the issues, leaving players hoping for more systemic change in the weeks to come.

Essentially, the new season, Death Awakening, made Mythic Uniques a general pain in the backside. Crafting them is trickier; the drop rate for the items as loot is staggeringly low, and even using them isn't as effective as it once was.

Blizzard made a small mess here, and despite allusions to fixing things in this patch, the most glaring problems remain unaddressed, per the patch notes. That said, the process of acquiring and using Fragments for crafting Mythics is becoming easier, which is a welcome alteration.

Prior to now, it took five Fragments to make a Mythic Unique in the Horadic Cube. That turned out to be a pretty high number for how rarely they actually appeared after an encounter. Now, Corrupted Reaper will drop two of them per Hoard Chest, and you can get four if you utilize the Lair of Plenty War Plan.

On top of this, you'll only need four Fragments to craft a Mythic Unique. These aren't the total systemic changes many players were hoping for, but they should relieve some of the tension while the devs look into fixing other aspects. Drop rates are rarely simple to fix, since an overcorrection in the other direction won't help the game.

The patch notes state a bug where some Lair Bosses weren't dropping Uniques like they should has been fixed too, which may help you find some if you've been trying and failing to build up your collection. The usual smattering of fixes and tweaks across various aspects is included otherwise.

Diablo 4 streamer spends "20 hours non-stop" farming bosses for the ARPG's rarest items, doesn't get a single one: "Don't try this at home"

Calmness washes over me as I place a brig on the shelf, nestled lovingly between a schooner and a fishing boat. There's something deeply satisfying about building out my collection of ship models in Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced, each awarded to me after defeating a vessel of its likeness in the clear blue oceans connecting the West Indies, and it keeps me coming back to Great Inagua for more.

The magpie-like thrill doesn't stop there. In fact, one of my favorite things about the Black Flag remake is its curated approach to base building. I love wafting about my splendid mansion between missions, admiring all my trinkets like a wistful, somewhat inebriated old widow looking back on her life with pride. What good is all that pirate booty if Edward can't put it somewhere special?

Warning: spoilers for major character deaths ahead!

Home and hearth

I didn't expect the mansion on Great Inagua to become such a warm, inviting space when I liberated it from a Templar in the game's early hours. Yet here I am, rushing back to the island hideaway with a backpack full of paintings, vases, and even an intricately-designed wardrobe to adorn its halls with.

What started out as a lengthy side quest – restoring the late lady-of-the-house's art collection by request of her devoted butler, whom I seem to have inherited along with the mansion itself – has become a pronounced obsession. It's a different approach to the base building elements seen in some of the best Assassin's Creed games of late. With its grid placement system and massive library of structures, landscaping, and design tools at the ready, Assassin's Creed Shadows leaned heavier on the sandbox elements of life sim games like The Sims. It made sense for Shadows as a dense open world RPG, fleshing out the system as seen in Assassin's Creed Valhalla's Ravensthorpe base camp.

But Black Flag Resynced's mansion of trinkets sits a little closer to the likes of Assassin's Creed Syndicate's procedurally-decorated steam train hideout, which sees new items and mementos unlocked after completing mission sequences.

There's no grid system in Edward’s mansion, but individual gaps in its art collection. Tasteful portraits have their own ascribed wall hanging spots and cannot be displayed elsewhere, as do furniture items, while tabletop decorations and miscellaneous paintings can go on any suitable surface. There also seems to be a finite number of artworks, art pieces, and furniture items to collect, which does make narrative sense. Edward is supposed to be restoring a curated suite of items that have been doled out to various Templars across the West Indies, each with their own pride of place in the mansion – not redecorating the house as he pleases.

That in itself adds a rich bit of texture to Black Flag's overall world building. Edward might be the current occupier of the mansion, but he is not its owner. He did not purchase it; much like the Templar Du Casse before him, Edward had to kill to take what wasn't his. I've mentioned before that I think he's a huge bastard, and, well.. Put like that, can you really disagree with me?

Know your place's place

To my utter surprise, though, Edward does not meet the butler's request for him to restore the art collection with a sneer. Nor does he threaten to sell the items off for profit, as would befit a pirate.

Edward agrees to this strangely sentimental side project, setting out in earnest to get the mansion back to the state it was in before its rightful owner died. He accepts that this house is not truly his, and that there's no point trying to wrest it from the long-dead Lady's hands when her butler is still here laying claim to it in her stead. Edward shows the butler deference instead of derision, and after all his mouthy blustering, I love seeing him humbled.

There are still inflections of Edward's own personality shining through as he restores the place. He starts collecting ship models, for a start, displaying them in his large office space, and can display his armor and weaponry in one of the parlors. There’s even a basement passage leading out into Great Inagua’s village center with extra painting spaces, each waiting to commemorate one of Edward’s lost comrades. They become little vigils once a portrait is placed, creating a space where Edward can stop and take a moment to remember friends and adventures past.

It's become one of my little rituals. I always make time to stop by the house to reflect on Edward's journey so far after a particularly grueling main mission, having a little cuddle with pet monkey Albert on the way to Blackbeard's portrait, perhaps sneering "prick" at the likeness of a slain Templar and plantation owner en route to his miniature collection.

All it takes is a mild word from the butler ("there's still more art to be found, Mr. Kenway") I'm off again, hunting down my next mission marker in hopes of securing another fine painting. But first, I collect my protection money. He might have a disarming respect for culture and art, but Edward Kenway is still a pirate after all.

Check out our Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced review for our Games Editor's thoughts on Ubisoft's latest.

The latest episode of House of the Dragon season 3 addresses one of George R.R. Martin's complaints about the show.

Spoilers for season 3, episode 4 follow. Turn back now if you're not up to date!

In the episode, Alicent discovers that Helaena is pregnant. This is quite a big problem for both green women, considering they're currently (very well treated) prisoners in the Red Keep, which is now under the control of Rhaenyra and Team Black.

In Martin's Fire and Blood, Helaena has three children – Jaehaerys, Jaehaera, and Maelor. Jaehaerys was killed during Blood and Cheese, and Jaehaera is still alive, so it would seem Helaena's pregnancy is introducing Maelor.

Maelor is present during Blood and Cheese in Martin's book, but the show cut him entirely. This was one of Martin's major complaints in his now notorious blog post railing against changes the show made to his source material.

"Will any of that appear on the show? Maybe… but I don't see how," Martin said of Maelor's story in the book, and the butterfly effect of removing him. "The butterflies would seem to prohibit it … From what I know, that seems to be what Ryan [Condal, showrunner] is doing here. It's simplest, yes, and may make sense in terms of budgets and shooting schedules. But simpler is not better … Maelor by himself means little. He is a small child, does not have a line of dialogue, does nothing of consequence but die… but where and when and how, that does matter."

While it's unlikely that Maelor will have much of a storyline, considering he hasn't even been born yet, Helaena's pregnancy does make it seem as if the child will factor into the story in some way. However, Maelor will be a threat to Rhaenyra's reign as a potential rival claimant to the throne, so the new queen might find herself in the middle of another moral quandary – like the question of what to do with young Prince Daeron, who turned out to be a fake anyway.

The show seemed to poke fun at Martin's post with a reference to poisonous butterflies earlier in the season, while another change to the source material might have accidentally erased Daenerys Targaryen from canon.

House of the Dragon continues weekly on HBO in the US and HBO Max, Sky, and NOW in the UK. Keep up to date with our House of the Dragon season 3 release schedule.

For even more, check out our House of the Dragon season 3 review or our guide to all the upcoming Game of Thrones movies and TV shows.

Hori has been the brand to watch as far as it comes to pumping out the best Nintendo Switch 2 accessories for Pokemon fans, but these upcoming Pixel Art designs are more fabulous than I could have imagined.

The upcoming line-up has yet to be officially announced by Hori, yet two brand new Switch 2 cases, Game Card cases, and two matching wireless controllers have appeared in the wild, just like the Pokemon they're covered in. What makes these special is that they aren't just coated in boring repurposed Pokemon art, but this line is going for a retro appeal, sporting pixel sprite designs that have won me over with their nostalgia alone.

For you fire-type fans, there's a trio of Pokemon Pixel Red goodies listed on Amazon right now, including a Hori Pokemon Pixel Red Adventure Pack. The case itself isn't new, as I took a look at the Gengar and Mimikyu Adventure Pack previously, which is the same model but for Ghost-type fanatics.

Just like other incarnations of the case, you've got space for the handheld, up to 6 games, and smaller accessories. There's also a set of two straps and clasps that allow you to wear the case around your waist, or across your chest if you're so inclined.

What separates this from other versions is that it carries a red and brown color palette and adorable sprite art depictions of Charmander, Charmeleon, and Charizard on the front.

This isn't all Hori wrote for fire fans either, as you can find the same bunch of nostalgia-inducing pixels on the matching Pokemon Fire Red Game Card case, which even carries a glittery chassis for that extra bit of pizazz.

I have a burning inclination that fire-type fans may appreciate the Pokemon Pixel Red Wireless HORIPAD Turbo controller even more than the case that can store up to 24 games. The wireless pad has a transparent black and red chassis, which features sprites of not just Charizard, but Aerodactyl, Arcanine, and Marowak too - despite not being fire types at all.

As a Horipad Turbo, the specs of the pad are a little lacklustre (it only has a 10-hour battery life), but the red-coloured mechanics that shine through the faceplate remind me of the cracked earth of Cinnabar Island, which feels perfectly on brand for a Gen I inspired Switch 2 accessory. For those that need a reminder, that's the town where you fight gym leader Blaine and his fiery team of Pokemon in the original games.

Grass-type fans will be happy to know that there also appears to be a Pokemon Pixel Green Wireless HORIPAD Turbo controller on its way too, where Bulbasaur is the star of the show. It matches perfectly with the Hori Pokemon Pixel Green Puff Pouch, which I also discovered listed at Amazon US, alongside a matching Game Card Case that is just as glittery as its fire-type counterpart.

While these accessories appear to inspired by Kanto and Generation I, some of the pixel art actually alludes to a different set of Pokemon games entirely. Eagle-eyed (or should I say, Braviary-eyed) fans might spot that the Pokemon Center as found printed on the Pixel Green controller has a rounded roof. This design more closely resembles the one you use in the Hoenn generation (Generation III), rather than the flat-roof version found in the original games and the Fire Red and Leaf Green remakes.

Before you get too excited, I don't think this alludes to an unannounced port of Pokemon Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald popping onto Nintendo Switch Online any time soon. Rather, it's likely an indication that these accessories are based on the older era of Pokemon as a whole, rather than any specific releases.

Whatever their inspirations, I can't wait until the pre-orders officially drop for these nostalgia-inducing Switch 2 accessories. So far they're listed as "currently unavailable" but I'll be sure to update this page with all the pricing and availability details as soon as they officially launch.

• View all Hori Switch 2 accessories at Amazon

Our team has also rounded up the best Nintendo Switch 2 controllers, the best Nintendo Switch headsets, and the best Nintendo Switch 2 cameras if you're on the hunt for more Ninty accessories.

The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i has always been an absolute unit of a machine, so it makes sense for the brand to pump as much power as it can into this 16-inch chassis. The mid-2026 refresh that hit the shelves this week only makes a minor change to its specs under the hood. Rather than the Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX that previously headlined the best gaming laptops on the market, the 2026 iteration has opted for an Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus.

For the hefty MSRP of $5,478.99 (currently $4,463.99 at Lenovo). The two processors share the same core and thread count, aim to operate within the same power limits, and split the work of those cores the same way (8x Performance and 16x Efficient). That's a problem with the RTX 5080 equivalent from last year is currently down to $2,649 (was $3,499) at B&H.

Gaming laptop prices have been soaring all year, but things have stepped up in the last few weeks. New 2026 releases were always going to lag behind their previous iterations from a value standpoint - components like RAM and storage are far more expensive than they were during the last release cycle. However, those older rigs have started to see their prices shift north as demand for cheaper rigs squeezes retailers' remaining inventory, making finding even an RTX 5060 for under $1,400 a feat.

• Join GamesRadar+ Deals on WhatsApp for our top daily discounts

Still, there's a difference between knowing why an RTX 5080 gaming laptop costs $5,000 and actually being willing to pay that amount for a similar performance to last year. The Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus and Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX (found in the 2025 iteration above) both offer a 24-core, 24-thread setup, with the newer chip edging slightly ahead in its max 5.5GHz boost rate (vs. the 275HX's 5.4GHz). By all accounts, though, real-world performance is enhanced by around 6-7%. The price difference between these two builds? 68.5%.

You're getting the same QHD+ OLED display running at the full 240Hz refresh rate, with both models offering 32GB DDR5 RAM and the older version actually doubling your storage to 2TB.

• See all gaming laptop deals at B&H

I'm also hunting down the best Asus gaming laptops as well the best Razer laptops and best Alienware laptops.

The Elder Scrolls Online team is unfortunately part of Microsoft's ongoing plan to cut 3,200 employees at Xbox, leaving the developers behind the Bethesda MMO far fewer in number than before.

In fact, the team is apparently as small as it was about a decade ago, when the game only really began to take off after its shaky launch – or, at least, that's what prominent community figure Baratron, who helps run the Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages and its Discord, reports.

He reveals as much in a new message, explaining that he learned the news from associate design director Jason Barnes and associate director of community management Jessica Folsom.

It came during the past weekend's Elder Scrolls Online Tavern event in Hesse, Germany, where fans and developers gathered to celebrate the MMO.

"This is important," writes Baratron. "According to both Jason Barnes (Associate Design Director) and Jessica Folsom (Associate Director of Community Management), Zenimax Online Studios is now at the same size as it was when they made both Wrothgar and Summerset."

That's shocking, to say the least – but he doesn't seem to think it's a bad thing. After all, "both are highly acclaimed DLCs," as the UESP admin puts it. "So while the layoffs are extremely upsetting for everyone involved (of course including players), this is not necessarily the end of new content or the game going into maintenance mode."

Baratron assures that there's more reason to think the end of Elder Scrolls Online isn't near, too.

"Also Nick Giacomini (Game Director) and Susan Kath (Studio Executive Producer) are specifically not at the ESO Tavern because they're working on the new Roadmap of when content will be released," he states. "It really is not the end yet."

It's a bit of bittersweet, good-and-bad news, all things considered – the layoffs, obviously, are not nice to hear about… but it's reassuring that they don't spell the demise of the MMO.

Here's hoping any and all affected developers are able to land on their feet, and The Elder Scrolls Online proves to have a brighter future than fans expect following the upsetting news circulating recently.

"There's really no one left": Former Elder Scrolls Online dev says the MMO "basically funded other failing projects" as Microsoft guts the studio

The first trailer for Digger, Alejandro G. Iñárritu and Tom Cruise's next film, is here, and it's a seriously odd tease for the black comedy film.

In the footage, which you can watch above, Tom Cruise (transformed as his character Digger Rockwell) spends his time in a luxurious mansion taking care of his strange-looking cat. However, disaster strikes when he ignores a warning from an employee about an iceberg, which kickstarts a chain reaction that looks likely to destroy the planet.

Along with Cruise, the rest of the cast includes Sandra Hüller, Emma D'Arcy, Jesse Plemons, John Goodman, Michael Stuhlbarg, Riz Ahmed, and Sophie Wilde.

The film's official logline reads: "The most powerful man in the world embarks on a frantic mission to prove he is humanity’s savior before the disaster he’s unleashed destroys everything."

"Honestly, there's nothing like that experience I've ever had before, just because of how motivated, focused, hardworking, and inspiring Tom Cruise is on set. The energy he has and the positivity is crazy. It's like nothing I've ever seen before," Ahmed has said of the film. "Then Alejandro, the attention to detail, the vision, the ambition of it, as well, every day is just like, 'Wow, this is kind of nuts.'"

Cruise was last seen in last summer's Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, while Iñárritu hasn't made an English-language film since 2015's The Revenant, which starred Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy.

The film arrives this October 2. In the meantime, check out our guide to all the other most exciting upcoming movies.

The Future Games Show is coming back next month for not one, not two, but three exciting shows serving up the best of what Gamescom 2026 has to offer.

The Future Games Show at Gamescom will see the return of the main event. That means world premieres, exclusive trailers, developer deep-dives and possibly even a few demo drops. Back in June, the Future Games Show Summer Showcase featured more than 40 games, so you know you're in for something good.

The fun doesn't end with the conclusion of the main event, either. Immediately after the first show concludes, the team will return with FGS Live from Gamescom. Directly following the show, the FGS editorial team will be reporting live from Gamescom itself in Cologne, Germany. Expect even more world premieres, as well as news and interviews straight from the show floor.

Finally, there'll be an even closer look at the action inside Gamescom itself. For the first time, FGS Best of Gamescom will take viewers into the show, with exclusive booth tours, developer interviews, and a look back at the most exciting announcements of the week.

Future Games Show at Gamescom and FGS Live from Gamescom will both take place on Wednesday, August 26, and they'll be followed by FGS Best of Gamescom as the action in Cologne winds down on Sunday, August 30. You'll be able to watch all three digital shows on Twitch, YouTube, X , Facebook, TikTok, and right here on GamesRadar+, so keep your eyes peeled for more announcements as the show draws closer.

It's easy to see why the Casio Loopy, a Japanese console with a built-in sticker printer, didn't get an official port of DOOM. That hasn't stopped enthusiasts in the past, though, and the '90s 32-bit system that once targeted girl gamers with its lilac getup and library of "cosy" and romantic cartridges now runs id's ultra-violent boomer shooter.

I'm well used to seeing absurd DOOM ports, but the 1995 Casio Loopy wasn't on my bingo card (cheers for highlighting, Hackaday). You've got developer Throaty Mumbo to thank, as they took it upon themselves to acquire the retro console (something I've yet to do), and get the MS-DOS shooter running using a "Floopy Drive".

Yes, I snorted at the name too, but the Floopy Drive is effectively an open-source flash cart for the Casio Loopy. After trying out some other homebrews, like "Floopy Bird" and the DOOM/Wolvenstein 3D-inspired "Anarch", the dev decided to take a crack at making an actual DOOM port inspired by the SNES version of the shooter.

Throaty Mumbo sadly doesn't document the actual Casio Loopy DOOM port development, but they do show off the results. The developer started off by making a version for an emulator before trying to run it using the Floopy Drive, and while the first attempt was a bit slow and lacked MIDI audio, two days' extra work seemed to do the trick.

Of course, getting DOOM running on something like the Loopy isn't child's play. Notably, Throaty Mumbo says while the game and Casio's retro console both use MIDI, the shooter uses a different sound font (Roland SC-55), meaning drums and other layers are out of sync. To combat this, the dev seemingly went through each instrument, then narrowed things down (sadly with help from Claude AI) to pick out more appropriate tones.

The result is naturally far blockier looking than if you used an actual MS-DOS PC, but it's pretty much on par with the SNES version. That's a mean feat given the Loopy doesn't have access to a co-processor like the Super FX chip built into Nintendo's cart. What I'm more impressed with is the approach to audio, as Throaty Mumbo ends up modding the Floopy Drive to also support PCM sound effects on top of the MIDI tracks.

That in itself involves using a Raspberry Pi RP2040 board in conjunction with a PCM5102 for analogue conversion to the cartridge pins. Having previously even wrestled with my custom Windows 98 PC and Soundblaster 16 sound card regarding running both MIDI and sound effects without conflicts, I am pretty shooketh that a Casio Loopy can pull it off with a bit of modding.

As a finishing touch, the developer whips up a custom label for the DOOM cart, which really brings out the pastels of the console's shell and buttons. The ultimate cherry on top, though, is using that integrated sticker printer to make a cursed screenshot, which is then added to a scrapbook with the other more fitting girly pop shots.

I've never been more tempted to grab a Casio Loopy, especially since it's one of the only consoles I don't already own. I reckon I may have to swing past by friend Alan at Forgotten Worlds in Stewarton, Scotland to see if he's got the oddball machine in stock, and if that happens, I'll absolutely be looking at playing DOOM and printing kawaii pictures of every Cacodemon I encounter.

Swing by the best retro handhelds for ways to play classic capers on the go.

Thanks to the Thunderbolts post-credits scene and the major cast announcement, we already know that Florence Pugh's Yelena is set to play a major role in Avengers: Doomsday. However, before she returns to the big screen in December, it sounds as though the anti-hero may dip into the MCU a little sooner than expected.

"If you're a fan of Yelena, wait until Avengers: Doomsday, Yelena plays a big part in that. But if you don't want to wait until then, you might see Yelena a little bit sooner in the movies,” said Marvel head Kevin Feige at Shanghai Expo in China, after a fan dressed as the hero joined him on stage. The clip has since been posted on Twitter.

However, the only other Marvel movie due to be released before Doomsday is Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which will hit the big screen at the end of July, 2026. So, that means that in addition to Jon Bernthal's Punisher, Mark Ruffalo's Bruce Banner aka Hulk, and Sadie Sink's mystery character, Pugh's former spy may also be in the mix.

It is important to note that Marvel Studios has yet to confirm whether Pugh will appear in Brand New Day. But, considering the Marvel timeline, Brand New Day may lead directly into Doomsday, meaning Yelena could appear in a post-credits teaser that sets up the new Avengers movie. The only other Marvel Phase 6 title set to release before Doomsday is TV show VisionQuest.

Feige's comment adds yet another layer of mystery to the upcoming Spidey movie. Despite the film hitting cinemas in just over two weeks, we still don't know who the movie's main big bad is. The first Spider-Man Brand New Day trailer gave us our first look at baddies Scorpion, Boomerang, and The Hand, but the new synopsis teased a villain that no one can see. Who could that be? Plus, we still don't know who Sadie Sink is playing, despite fans being convinced that the star will suit up as Jean Grey.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day arrives this July 31, and Avengers: Doomsday hits screens on December 18. For more, check out our guide to all the upcoming Marvel movies and shows.

Former PlayStation head Shawn Layden has urged Asha Sharma at Xbox to decide whether it wants to be a publisher or a platform holder.

Speaking to Eurogamer, Layden says, "There's two roads," when it comes to what Microsoft can do, that is "be a competitive platform rival in the marketplace with PlayStation, or the biggest game publisher in the world, which based on all their acquisitions, they're either there or they're very close to it."

However, Microsoft's inconsistent decision making has seen the Xbox brand try to be both, as it went all-in on releasing its games on PS5, before running it back with the likes of Gears of War E-Day,

"Those two roads do not converge," Layden says, adding, "to be a platform and to be a very well-supported, well-accepted, well-selling platform, you need exclusive content." He explains, "Nintendo needs its Mario and its Zelda, and PlayStation needs Crash Bandicoot and Astro Bot and Kratos and Horizon, all of that." Granted, Crash Bandicoot is now owned by Xbox, but he was the de facto PlayStation mascot for its early years.

He adds, "If you're going to be the biggest publisher in the world, which is not a bad ambition - I'm sure there's gold on them there hills - you have to bring your stuff on every platform. Multi-platform is almost a prerequisite."

Layden explains, "When I was running PlayStation Studios, even in our biggest year, we never got over maybe 22 percent market share," and that the remainder was made up primarily by the biggest third-party publishers.

"As a first-party platform, our job was almost not to be the biggest game publisher in the world." Layden adds, "I wasn't making games so I could steal market share from EA or steal market share from Activision. My job was to make games that made the pie bigger, and my opportunity was in growing it out."

Unfortunately, right now the only consistent thing from Xbox is that people will be laid off in droves on a pretty much yearly basis, if the five rounds of layoffs since the Activision Blizzard purchase are anything to go by. And while Microsoft is bound to release Call of Duty on other platforms for a while yet, the idea of spending disgusting amounts of money to own the biggest franchises in the world and then still releasing them for your rivals is somewhat confusing.

id Software co-founder says "my 'Microsoft will probably be a good steward of the brand' statement isn't aging well" after the Doom maker lost 136 of its 185 staff to layoffs

Razer announced its brand new Cinnamoroll Edition Razer Kraken Kitty V2 BT wireless headset on July 9, and it's one of the most adorable pairs of cups the brand has unveiled so far.

The Kraken Kitty V2 BT, which is set to launch on July 20, 2026, has swapped its usual pointy, RGB Chroma-powered cat-ears for Cinnamoroll's adorable puppy dog ones instead. While other Razer collabs result in headsets that are simply covered in officially licensed art, this partnership with Sanrio has resulted in a pair that looks so recognisable for the iconic Sanrio mascot that you could use it for cosplay. As someone who hasn't officially made an outfit in several years, I am seriously considering doing just that with this upcoming $139.99 (Razer) pair.

I cover plenty of the cutest and best gaming headsets released by brands like Razer, but so often these collabs result in designs that are a little more understated. Take the recently announced upcoming Razer Espeon & Umbreon Collection for an example. It includes an Espeon and Umbreon Edition Razer Kraken V4 X headset, but it's essentially just a purple version of the existing pair, with some images of the two Pokemon on the headband.

As officially licensed tech typically comes at a higher price (this Cinnamoroll Edition is $40 more than the typical Kraken Kitty V2 BT at $99.99 at Amazon), I much prefer when the designs are more in your face about their inspirations. Fortunately, that's exactly what's happened for this new Cinnamoroll Edition model. Cinnamoroll is known for his down-turned floppy ears, and they're right there on the headband, as is the iconic white and pastel blue color palette that I associate with the Sanrio puppy.

If you were to create a gijinka cosplay (which means to create a human design inspired by an animal/creature), this pair would be perfect. I can already imagine the little ears peeking through a matching white wig. The only problem that would arise would be disguising the Chroma-powered RGB Razer logos on each cup, but the rest of the Cinnamoroll iconography is fortunately reserved for the interior of the headset, which is ideal for cosplay. The real Cinnamoroll doesn't wear images of himself, so why would you in cosplay form?

Of course, I'm not going to recommend that you grab this upcoming $139.99 pair if you purely if you want to dress up as your favorite Sanrio character. It should really be on your radar if you want to look cute and if you're after a new gaming headset. It's rocking the brand's TriForce 40 mm audio drivers, which are found throughout the best Razer headsets available today and still sound fantastic.

Begrudgingly, this is a Bluetooth model, and so there's no 2.4GHz wireless to take advantage of. With that in mind, I'd mainly recommend it to PC players, rather than anyone rocking a PS5. While that might be disappointing to some, this headset is part of a wider PC Cinnamoroll Edition lineup, which also includes a Razer Iskur V2 X NewGen gaming chair available for $449.99 at Amazon, so there's plenty of opportunity to give your desktop a freshly baked Cinnamoroll look.

• View all Razer wireless gaming headsets at Amazon

If you aren't a Sanrio fan, I've also rounded up the best PC headsets for gaming, the best PS5 headsets, and the best Xbox Series X headsets to check out.

Much like Marvel's tactic with Spider-Man: Brand New Day, DC Studios is keeping its cards close to its chest when it comes to The Batman: Part 2's villain, but an old post from writer Mattson Tomlin could hint at who it could be.

Although it's only a little over a year before Robert Pattinson's caped crusader returns to our screens in The Batman 2, we still don't really know what the highly anticipated sequel will entail, or who Gotham's new big bad is. However, rumors of Scarlett Johansson's mystery role have started to swirl online, with multiple unofficial DC news pages stating that the star could be playing a grounded take on Poison Ivy.

Now, even though we must take this rumour with a grain of salt, co-writer Tomlin may have hinted at the role almost one year earlier. Back in July 2025, Tomlin shared the first Batman comic he ever read over on Twitter, Batman #181, published in June 1966. The comic marks Poison Ivy's DC Comics debut as she sparks trouble between Batman and Robin. Many DC fans think this could have been a sly hint at the upcoming installment, which makes a lot of sense now.

So, could Poison Ivy make an appearance? We haven't seen the villain on the big screen since Uma Thurman brought her to life in the 1997 movie Batman and Robin. The character has since appeared in multiple animated DC films and TV shows, and notably in the Batman Arkham games. However, if the villain were to enter Matt Reeves' moody Batman universe, we have a feeling she would look a lot different from Thurman's electric and eccentric villain.

The sequel may feature a string of DC baddies, as in addition to Poison Ivy rumours, Sebastian Stan and Brian Tyree Henry have also been cast in mystery roles, with many believing Stan will play sadistic serial killer Victor Zsasz and Henry will suit up as politician turned Two-Face, Harvey Dent. Behind-the-scenes snaps posted by Reeves also suggest that the criminal organisation known as the Court of Owls may play a major part in the new film.

Alongside Pattinson's Batman, the only confirmed characters for now are Andy Serkis's Alfred Pennyworth, Colin Farrell's Oz Cobb, Jeffrey Wright's Jim Gordon, Jayme Lawson as Bella Real, and Gil Perez-Abraham as Officer Martinez.

The Batman 2 is set to hit theaters on October 1, 2027. For more, check out our guide on how to watch the DC movies in order, and keep up with other upcoming DC movies and shows.

Christopher Nolan's next epic, The Odyssey, follows the journey of a Greek warrior trying to make his way home across the ocean after the Trojan War – so, naturally, it involves a lot of sailing.

However, as you might expect from a film of this scale, nothing was done by halves, meaning the cast had to actually learn to sail for real.

"When I was writing the script, every time I’d write something on a boat, I thought, 'Ugh, do we have to be on boats?' Because I know what it takes to film on the open water," Nolan told The Independent. "They're like, 'Well, it's The Odyssey, so yes.' Having an ancient vessel, and a boat built according to those ancient specifications – where everything's wooden – and being out on the open water with the cast and crew, it was a tall order."

This involved assistance from "the best in the business" marine coordinator Neil Andrews, whom Nolan also worked with on Dunkirk, as the cast "bedded in with the crew of the ship we were using."

"These guys – Odysseus' crew – learned how to row the thing," Nolan added. "They learned how to raise the yard, raise the sails. And so by the time we got there with our camera, you know, Hoyte [van Hoytema, cinematographer] and I are on our own deck. We were shooting it kind of like a documentary. It was really thrilling to do. But boy, it was tough. It was tough on everybody."

Though the film still hasn't been released, it has been subject to plenty of criticism online already. But, Nolan has already shared that he's not bothered by it.

"Comes with the territory," the director has said. "But look," he added, "these conversations that happen before people see the film – they're always irrelevant, because no one having them knows what the film actually is yet."

The Odyssey is in theaters this July 17. It's an adaptation of Homer's epic poem of the same name, and you can find out everything you need to know about the source material in our The Odyssey beginner's guide.

For even more, check out our current ranking of the best Christopher Nolan movies, or our roundup of the most exciting upcoming movies.

Well, this isn't welcome news for Disney. The live-action Moana remake, starring Catherine Laga'aia and Dwayne Johnson, has sunk to new depths at the box office.

Moana has taken $95 million worldwide, with Deadline reporting that it's now on track to lose over $100 million – if it reaches $250 million total.

Whichever way you spin it, 2026's Moana is a near-historic low for Disney's band of live-action remakes.

Its $43 million takings at the US domestic box office pales in comparison to The Lion King ($191 million), Beauty and the Beast ($174 million), and Aladdin ($91 million).

In fact, Moana only 'stacks up' to the much-maligned remake of Snow White, which also accrued $43 million on opening weekend. It's doing slightly better on the global front, however.

Whether audiences are tiring of remakes or not is unclear. After all, we're just a year removed from the Lilo and Stitch remake grossing over a billion dollars. Perhaps its proximity to Moana 2 – which audiences were far cooler on than the animated original – may not have helped matters.

The live action remake's trailers , too, lacked some of the color and charm that fans would come to expect from the franchise.

Maybe we should have seen it coming. Early responses to Dwayne Johnson's Maui wig weren't pretty, neither were the tepid first Moana reactions – which were far from shiny.

Disney isn't stopping live-action remakes anytime soon, though. While the Hercules remake hasn't moved in some time, a Tangled remake is in the works. A live-action Lilo and Stitch sequel has also been greenlit.

For more, check out the new Disney movies currently in various states of production.

Obsidian Entertainment is one of several prolific studios affected by Xbox's layoffs, with job losses and reportedly substantial changes to its release slate. After taking some time to consider his response, the co-director of The Outer Worlds 2 has publicly commented on what's going on and has some choice words for anyone spreading unsubstantiated rumors.

"This has been an extremely difficult week at Obsidian," Brandon Adler, who's now directing an unannounced project at Obsidian, writes on LinkedIn. "Not only have I had to say goodbye to some amazing game developers, but I've had to say goodbye to some of my best friends. I truly feel for every one of them. Know that if you are looking to hire one of these former Obsidian devs, you are hiring some of the best people around - both professionally and personally."

He then takes aim at the "cold take artists" who've been commenting and speculating about the current landscape and atmosphere at Obsidian. "The number of times I've seen people, with no understanding of who has worked on our previous games or what they contributed, talk about how Obsidian isn't who they used to be... is staggering. Most of the time they are not just wrong, but spreading an enormous amount of misinformation."

He goes on to mention that current higher-ups are people who worked on major Obsidian releases such as Fallout: New Vegas, Pillars of Eternity and The Outer Worlds. "The through line from Knights of the Old Republic 2 to our current games is pretty clear," he adds.

"Is Obsidian the same as it was 20 years ago? No, of course not. Nothing stays the same," Adler says. "But the DNA at Obsidian is the same as it always was. The same DNA that created Knights of the Old Republic, New Vegas, Neverwinter Nights 2, and South Park: The Stick of Truth."

Two things can be true at once: Obsidian's lost a considerable amount of talent due to changes imposed by Microsoft, and there are still plenty of seasoned devs working away at the studio. The future is uncertain, even with the prospect of a new Fallout, and I believe it's important to acknowledge the real and true difficulties of the current climate for the company and Xbox's development teams as a whole.

"I'm extremely proud of our history and I am also excited for who we have become," Adler says to finish. "Just remember, when you are seeing people spouting off about Obsidian, running their mouths about who we are now vs. what we were then, you are listening to someone crow about something with zero insight into how a game is made and who contributed to our previous games."

Obsidian reportedly safe from Xbox studio closures despite fears the RPG powerhouse was in negotiations to avoid shutdown

Palworld developers are reacting to the game's massive resurgence in player count thanks to the launch of 1.0.

Over on Twitter, the Palworld Twitter account celebrated hitting 850,000 concurrent players on Steam (with the game's 24 hour peak on Sunday, July 12 hitting 855,525, per SteamDB). The post reads, "We can't believe it! Following the official release, Palpagos is once again bustling with Pal Tamers! A huge, heartfelt thank you to everyone playing Palworld. We hope you're enjoying Palworld 1.0!"

Meanwhile, head of publishing and communications at Pocketpair, John 'Bucky' Buckley, reacted on his own account, giving his thanks to the players who have dropped in for the game's 1.0 launch. "Obviously, we had high expectations for 1.0 internally, but this is staggering. We really hope you are enjoying your time in Palworld again!"

The 855,525 concurrent player count lands Palworld within the top 15 biggest games ever on Steam when it comes to concurrent players, just below Baldur's Gate 3 (875,343) and above Battlefield 6 (747,440). Or rather, it would land Palworld there, except it's not even Palworld's biggest.

When Palworld launched into early access in 2024, the game reached 2,101,867 players. That number – at the time – gave it the second-highest number of concurrent players on Steam ever, just behind PUBG: Battlegrounds. However, it's since slipped into third following the release of Black Myth: Wukong.

Even so, this new number is still a hell of a resurgence, given that the highest the game ever reached post-launch was 273,204 the following month, and since last August, the game's monthly peaks have generally stayed below 100k.

Palworld 1.0 redesigns multiple Pals and makes them look less like Pokemon.

Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced might be a single-player game – which Ubisoft says is "playable offline" – but that didn't stop the revamped pirate adventure from being temporarily unplayable on PC for many during its launch weekend thanks to issues with Ubisoft Connect.

On July 11, many Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced players on PC reported being unable to load the game at all, experiencing an "insta crash" when Ubisoft Connect popped up. "Even 'Play offline' doesn't work. What a disaster," one affected user wrote, as another said: "Can't start a single player game offline.. ggs ubisoft."

This problem seemingly didn't affect everyone – some on Reddit noted that "it didn't log me out or make me not able to play it," and that "I've played offline just fine. I was playing offline when this happened."

It seems likely that many of those running into issues may not have launched the game at all up until that point – in a frequently asked questions section on its website (specifically, the part that asks if Resynced is playable offline), Ubisoft says: "Yes. A one-time internet connection is required to download the game. Once downloaded, the full main campaign of Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced is fully playable offline. However, an online connection will be needed to play live content linked to the Animus Hub (Store, Anomalies, Projects, Vault)."

With that said, that doesn't appear to have been the case for everyone. Looking at the game's Steam reviews – which have taken a hit since Ubisoft Connect went down – many players had multiple hours on record by the time they left their negative ratings. "Can't play game in offline mode because I can't reach servers. 0/10," one reads, with over nine hours played at the time of submitting it.

Because this was a Ubisoft Connect issue, it wasn't just Black Flag Resynced that was affected, mind you. One Reddit user stated: "Tried to play Fenyx Rising on GeForceNOW, and couldn't because of it."

Regardless, the timing of this happening couldn't have been much worse given that it was on Black Flag Resynced's launch weekend, when many fans would have been starting it for the very first time.

Thankfully, everything appears to be back to normal now, and the game's reviews on Steam are still Mostly Positive, but it seems that console players definitely had a better experience on Saturday than many of those on PC.

Be sure to take a look at our Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced review if you're yet to play, or our roundup of the best Assassin's Creed games if you're looking to revisit an older adventure.

It still feels unreal, but Alien: Isolation 2 exists and is coming out sooner rather than later. Creative Assembly is back to take another big swing – or at least that's what we got from the first preview. But of course, everyone's wondering about Alien: Isolation star Amanda Ripley. Where is she? What is her potential role in this new story?

Shockingly, it seems we'll be strictly following a new protagonist, Blake, on a colony planet haunted by the Xenomorph. We've yet to learn much about the story and where Blake's journey might go, but Alien: Isolation 2 is trying not to retread too much of the 2014 original. That said, longtime fans remember the first game ended on a cliffhanger that was quite divisive, so surely Ellen Ripley's daughter has to be involved somehow, right?

Well, not really. While it seems Alien: Isolation 2 happens shortly after the events that destroyed the Sevastopol Station, Amanda Ripley has already continued her adventures elsewhere. More specifically, she was at the center of a comic book run by Dark Horse. It remains to be seen whether the leads at Creative Assembly will ignore them or play along by focusing on a different character and storyline, but here's the rundown on what happened and how it all could be tied together.

Spoilers ahead. If you'd like to keep Amanda Ripley's fate a mystery and stick to the games' narrative, turn around now.

The Corporation always wins

Alien: Isolation's final cutscene shows Amanda floating adrift in space until she's seemingly found by a ship. Three days had passed, but she survives and is taken to the Mendel Station... where another Xenomorph outbreak awaits. The immediate sequel to the original game was Alien: Blackout, a mobile-only game that has more in common with off-beat horror titles like Five Nights at Freddy's. It wasn't very good or inspired, and the plot was mostly a retread of Isolation's ideas through different mechanics and systems. You only need to know Amanda managed to escape alongside other survivors and set course to Earth.

Past this point, you should read Brian Wood's Aliens: Resistance and Rescue, two limited four-issue comic book series that directly follow Amanda Ripley as she tries to expose the Weyland-Yutani Corporation after returning to Earth and being silenced by the powers that be. Tonally, they're more in line with James Cameron's Aliens, so we get to see Amanda gunning down plenty of Xenomorphs as opposed to playing things smart with almost no resources.

Without getting into specifics, these stories also introduce the ex-Colonial Marine Zula Hendricks, who was introduced in Aliens: Defiance, also written by Brian Wood. They make for a fun duo of protagonists even if Resistance and Rescue mostly boil down to uncovering and putting an end to more of Weyland-Yutani's experiments. As Alien: Romulus (which also happens between Alien and Aliens) revealed, the Company was busy while Ellen Ripley slept for decades. We know Amanda could've kept fighting the good fight after Rescue's ending, but ultimately, she settles down years later and lives a normal life as revealed by Aliens. The sad thing is she never saw her mother again.

The fight against Weyland-Yutani might be far from over though. Another overlooked fact is Alien: Rogue Incursion – a VR game later adapted for regular screens – briefly mentions Amanda's post-Rescue exploits as Zula Hendricks continues her war against corporate evil in deep space. With developer Survios gutted earlier this year, however, the game's planned second part might never happen.

Ripley's legacy

Alien: Isolation 2 might orbit the Romulus timeline – though we don't know specifics yet – and both Ripley and Hendricks are still active, so there's a solid chance the game won't be as standalone as it looked at first. 20th Century Studios, Creative Assembly, and Sega are keeping their cards close to their chests (as they should), so it's smart to expect the unexpected.

LV-921 provides a new playground for the developers that should keep veteran players on their toes – especially if the Xenomorph's AI has evolved as much as the graphics – but I have no doubt that it's only the first step of a bigger and more terrifying journey. Who could've expected the original game to shake things up past a certain point with several Xenomorphs after just one had already made survival almost impossible? It's why I'm prepared for a wilder, more brutal ride. Sorry, Blake, it's looking bad for you.

In any case, both Ellen and Amanda Ripley's legacy is this huge shadow that seems to cover the entire Alien franchise after the Nostromo incident. One way or another, they changed Weyland-Yutani's course and gave it something it desperately wanted. So it makes sense it's up to them to make sure toying with the universe's deadliest species doesn't end humanity. As we know, they manage to at least hold the horrors at bay if you're okay with keeping Alien 3 and Resurrection in the canon. What about unsung heroes like Hendricks, Blake, or Rain Carradine though? Well, it's their turn to shine.

Alien: Isolation is still one of the best horror games ever made - but if its sequel's setup is still confusing you, here's how to watch all of the Alien films in order.

After months of secrecy surrounding Avengers: Doomsday, Marvel Studios has revealed the first full look at the movie's lineup in costume – but we can't help but focus on those who aren't included in the debut artwork.

As revealed at Shanghai Expo, the illustration shows a masked Doctor Doom front and center, flanked by Chris Evans' Steve Rogers and Pedro Pascal's Reed Richards. Below, are the legacy X-Men characters set to appear in Avengers: Doomsday, while the rest is segmented into various groups – including the Fantastic Four, the New Avengers, Wakandans, as well as a scattering of OG Avengers like Thor and Ant-Man. You can see it for yourself below.

Former Marvel Studios director of visual development Andy Park – who left in April after a round of Disney layoffs – tweeted, "AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY - the final full film I had the honor of leading as Director of Visual Development at Marvel Studios. This illustration commemorates that journey & reveals the characters & their looks for the first time."

Despite that, there are several notable absentees. Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, Captain Marvel, Deadpool, and Wolverine have each been major parts of the MCU, but seemingly won't factor into Avengers: Doomsday if this art is any indication.

The actors behind those heroes also weren't part of the Doomsday cast reveal last March, so we have to hope Kevin Feige is hiding more secrets and spoilers under his baseball cap before December.

Confusion reigned last year with Doctor Strange actor Benedict Cumberbatch spoiling his presence in Doomsday. Just days later, he walked it back. Instead, he "got it wrong" and would be in the 2027 follow-up Avengers: Secret Wars.

Despite that, Nightcrawler actor Alan Cumming, also returning for Avengers: Doomsday, told Deadline, there are "secret names" in each script "because they didn't want to let out that a certain character was coming back." The plot thickens…

Avengers: Doomsday opens in cinemas on December 18.

For more, we have complete guides to the upcoming Marvel movies on the way and the Marvel timeline. If you're still binging your way through the MCU, you'll need to look at how to watch the Marvel movies in order.