Of course, in the days of Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered and The Last of Us Part 1, reworks of games that aren't even a decade old aren't anything terribly new. That said, compounding the confusion in this case is the fact that there are many, much older games in the Tales series than Berseria. That said, Tales series producer Yusuke Tomizawa recently admitted that remastering old games can be tricky because tracking down the source code isn't always straightforward.

Still, this doesn't even really make sense within the context of publisher Bandai Namco's "Tales Remaster Project," which is designed to bring more older Tales games to modern platforms. Berseria is already playable on PS5 and PC via their respective storefronts, and although Xbox and Switch are nice additions, ironically the remaster isn't compatible with the Switch 2 due to "problems with game progression," according to Nintendo's website. That seemingly leaves Xbox as the only new platform being supported.

"I feel like i just beat this game," said Zenimax Media QA manager Erik Mabry on Bluesky in response to the announcement.

"For some consoles it makes sense but you can literally play this on the PS5 and PC as well," said another Bluesky user.

"So, like, Destiny and Eternity just don't exist anymore, huh?" said good ol' Uncle Silver on Bluesky.

"Well at least now we are absolutely sure Namco will do everything BUT remaster/remake/port Abyss like fans want," said MightyK.

"Phantasia, Destiny 1 and 2, Eternia, Rebirth, Legendia, Abyss, Innocence, Hearts, Xilllia 2, and Zestiria all found dead in a ditch," reads another despondent response.

This response needs a visual, so I'll just embed the post:

Xillia 2 fans be like

— @hsojlightfoot.bsky.social (@hsojlightfoot.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2025-11-20T00:53:11.311Z

You get the idea. My initial response was more of an existential realization that Tales of Berseria came out in 2016 and not in, like, 2020-2022, and also that 2016 is almost 10 years ago now. Regardless, those are the facts, and Bandai says the remaster "levels up a memorable entry in the TALES series for current platforms, letting players experience an epic tale with new game play and quality-of-life features." It comes out February 27.

These are the best JRPGs you can play today.

"It was absolutely not the plan… We really felt, not only did it step on Ezra’s story, but it was a retread. Like we already did this," Gilroy told Pod of Rebellion. "The idea of Sabine training as a Jedi when she is already this fantastic warrior of her own type, we felt like this is overkill."

Sabine is a Mandalorian warrior when we meet her in the animated series Star Wars Rebels. In Disney's live-action Ahsoka series, which continues the Rebels storyline, she receives Jedi training from the titular ex-Jedi herself, but isn't Force-sensitive in the traditional sense. However, the Force is technically present in all living things so with training Sabine would be able to harness it eventually.

"I had nothing to do with the Ahsoka series, so I was shocked," Gilroy continued. "What I love about the story with the Darksaber is that you don’t have to be a Jedi to have Jedi ideals… I think that’s what’s really the more important thing, rather than Force pushing Ezra a hundred feet when she’s never used the Force before."

Despite receiving Jedi training, Sabine technically remains a Force-sensitive Mandalorian warrior...and isn't a Jedi. Though we did see her do those Force pushes and Force pulls throughout Ahsoka.

Star Wars Rebels and Ahsoka are streaming now on Disney Plus. For more, check out our guide to all the upcoming Star Wars movies and shows for everything else the galaxy far, far away has in store.

The meticulous study (spotted by PC Gamer) sought to settle a cross-play lobby issue with the blade of hard science: the friendliness of PC players when compared to console players. And, challenging everything you know about middle schoolers farting into their gamer headsets while shooting people online, Reddit user Monstras-Patrick seems to have determined PC users are the kindest.

That said, their methodology isn't exactly flawless. Monstras-Patrick and their brother based their findings on PS5 lobbies and PC lobbies over the course of just one week – so, their population excludes Xbox players. Then, their sample size is small; they played a total of 84 rounds on PS5, discovering a total of seven players they deemed "nice," and they played only 51 rounds on PC, reaping 17 "nice" players. In any case, Monstras-Patrick declares, "I am never playing the game on cross-play against console players ever again."

In the seven days of their experiment, Monstras-Patrick and their brother played Arc Raiders solo, with the plan of eventually lowering their weapons and revealing to other players that they wouldn't attack, they were just innocent travelers looking to "relax, maybe even team up."

But the fierce guardians of the PS5 weren't having it. Monstras-Patrick's brother found that the Arc Raiders players there do "a lot less talking, and a whole lot more shooting on sight." Ultimately, the two decided "PC players seem to be way more relaxed, helpful, and friendlier than those on PS5."

Look inward, Arc Raiders players on PS5. Look inward.

I tried an Arc Raiders community tip for hunting blueprints after 40 hours of next to nothing, and I found my most-wanted blueprint almost immediately.

The honor I'm speaking of is God of War's apparent influence on the new Bollywood Netflix film, Mahavatar Narsimha. Clips from a battle scene in the movie are circulating around social media for the simple fact that some of the animations appear to be one-to-one replications of animations from God of War's epic battle scenes.

Before I angle your eyes toward the below video, I feel a responsibility to let you know similar videos are being shared in spaces that are propagating some deeply and overtly racist views. The GamesRadar+ team, which includes someone of South Asian descent, helped me locate a video whose sharer didn't express any of those views, but I'd probably avoid comments sections on this topic generally. Just a heads up.

Anyway, in case it wasn't obvious, the scenes in the above video are chopped up and spliced together to put the God of War resemblances on clear display, but there's no denying the similarities.

However, when I watched the full battle scene on Netflix, which I strongly suggest you do, I saw clear inspirations from a bunch of different iconic media. I only watched the scene once, but I immediately saw clear homages to Mortal Kombat's brutal fatalities, old Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee movies, and even the Marvel Cinematic Universe's signature large-scale battles. It's really quite the spectacle, and frankly, sick as hell.

It's also very much worth noting that this sort of thing isn't uncommon at all in Bollywood movies, which are often heavily inspired, and in some cases frame-by-frame, by Hollywood movies. What's unique in this case are the apparent tributes to popular video games like God of War, Mortal Kombat, and Lord knows what else is hidden in there that I missed. Cool stuff!

God of War Ragnarok ranks pretty darn high on our list of the best PS5 games

"We're doing something that, tonally, feels much different than really any other Marvel show, or any other films. We're doing something that's fresh, and a bit tongue-in-cheek, a bit self-aware," Mateen explains.

"The show is self-aware, without looking directly into the camera. There'll be commentary about superhero fatigue and things like that, but to me, it's just dressing. That's not really the aim of the show. The focus of the show is about an actor's journey. It's about a journey of friendship."

The friendship in question will be between Mateen's Simon Williams and his fellow actor Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley), who first appeared in Iron Man 3 as an actor hired to embody the fictional role of the terrorist known as the Mandarin, Tony Stark's comic book arch-enemy.

Slattery was last seen in 2021's Shang-Chi and the Legend of the 10 Rings bonding with the eponymous hero.

In comics, Wonder Man is powered by ionic energy which gives him super strength, nigh invulnerability, and the power to transform into a being of pure energy. It also has the side effect of making him just about immortal, as he's died and come back to life more than almost any other superhero.

Wonder Man will run for eight episodes, premiering on Disney Plus on January 27, 2026. In the meantime, stay up to date on all the upcoming Marvel movies and shows that are in the works.

I didn't see this statistic mentioned in the Xbox Wire blog post sharing the report or in its front-facing infographic. Instead, I found it in a folder of assets offering more details from the report. I've reached out to Microsoft for comment on how "help from AI" was defined and presented in the survey.

Are we talking about a normal, video game-y AI companion offering helpful tips that spoil puzzles approximately four seconds after you find them? Presumably not.

Are we talking about integrated AI companion apps like Microsoft Copilot and Gaming Copilot, which are said to offer handy tips and recommendations but which I've found to be a more reliable source of needless disruptions?

Or are we talking about the idea of letting integrated AI play a game for you – something Sony actually pondered in an old patent?

Update: A Microsoft spokesperson clarified that, "‘Open to help from AI’ refers to the 79% of players surveyed who selected at least one AI feature they’d find helpful in gaming. Only 21% said AI wouldn’t be helpful to them.”

One thing we do know is that this survey was served to 1,500 adult gamers in the US, which is a relatively small sample size all things considered. 79% of that gives us just 1,185 gamers who are apparently open to AI assistance, whatever that means. Personally, I would only like AI companions to help me find a way to uninstall them.

I'll give Microsoft one thing, it's unquestionably right about this bit from its blog post: "We spend more time than ever scrolling, swiping, and streaming. Most of it passes by in a blur, and habits like doom-scrolling fill the time but leave us feeling empty."

Games, then, can be more meaningful. Three in four survey respondents said they "feel they are doing something meaningful" when gaming, 6 in 10 "say they've made lifelong friends through gaming," and 71% hope to "pass their love of gaming to the next generation." If you're bothered by inconsistencies in how percentages are being used, please come join me in the angry dome.

This was apparently a 20-minute online survey conducted between June 25 and July 2, 2025. "The audiences analyzed in this report include three distinct segments: Core Players (who spend most of their entertainment time gaming and following gaming news closely), Enthusiastic Players (who spend a quarter to half their entertainment time gaming and casually follow trends), and Casual Players (who primarily play on mobile or tablet and rarely follow gaming news)," Microsoft explains.

Interestingly, 87% of surveyed Xbox owners "say gaming is one of their main hobbies – it's part of who they are." I'm assuming the other 13% are more casual fans, or maybe folks who've come to treat one of their consoles as a glorified streaming machine. We've all been there.

Here are a few other interesting findings:

• 54% of respondents "want games that help them relax"
• 52% "say gaming helps them stay connected to friends"
• 49% "want games that are challenging"
• 46% "want a sense of accomplishment"
• 44% "want a good story"
• Finally, 65% "say gaming is more fun today than when they first started"

Microsoft reports Xbox hardware revenue down 29%, and 1% growth in content and services like Game Pass blunted by "a decline in first-party content."

"She represents 'sexy demon lady,'" Dispatch art director Derek Stratton tells IGN about Malevola – if you were wondering whether her blood-red lipstick and itsy bitsy cutoffs might have some more metaphorical meaning. She's supermodel Cindy Crawford meets fitness influencer LeanBeefPatty.

"Out comes Cindy Crawford in a white bodysuit and cut-off jean shorts, and high heels," Stratton continues, recalling the notorious 1992 ad where Crawford patronizes a vending machine with undeniable sex. "Everybody lost their mind. And that's what Malevola was based off of." The down-to-earth demon wears Crawford's same outfit, just with her bodysuit hiked a bit higher to better suit her razor blade hips...

Which brings us to fitness Instagram. Because, yes, Malevola "is Cindy Crawford from that commercial," says Stratton, but she's also a "'hot rod demon lady.'" This naturally requires Dispatch developers at AdHoc Studio transplant "the body type of LeanBeefPatty, who is, like, an influencer, who is, like, ripped." I think LeanBeefPatty's "body type" is best characterized as that of a woman who could break your fingers like celery sticks. So, yeah, in that sense, Stratton's right – AdHoc has figured out a good formula for "sexy demon lady."

I'm sure its ungodly magic certainly has helped AdHoc's episodic superhero game Dispatch in achieving 2 million players, too. But I do have one problem with the developer's idea of Malevola. There's no way she wouldn't drink Diet Pepsi over regular, right?

As Arc Raiders faces backlash for its AI voices, Dispatch leads call the tech "a production solution, not a creative one," saying it can only offer "something you've heard before."

"There are themes that come to mind, but it's less rich to say, 'Oh, this is a show about fill-in-the-blank.' If I said that it's a metaphor about not using your phone, you don't need to watch the show," Smith told The Hollywood Reporter. "The show becomes useless. The show becomes meaningless. There are AI proponents that are going to watch the show, and they might feel attacked or they might feel supported. But for us to say, "No, it should just be this one-to-one correspondence," it limits both the storytelling and the availability of the show to ask questions that people are going to be interested in. This is such a conceptual show, and my hope is that it makes people think about and feel different things in different ways."

The series, set in New Mexico, follows a romantasy author named Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn) who is one of the only people in the world immune to the effects of a mysterious virus that has turned everyone else into members of an eerily calm hive mind known as 'the Others.' And if you still don't know what it's about, neither do I...and neither does Seehorn, actually.

The end credits of each episode contain the sentence, "This show was made by humans," prompting some viewers to theorize that the show is a metaphor for society's slow descent into a reliance on AI. We're not quite yet halfway through the first season (and the show was already greenlit for a second before the first even premiered), so there's a long way to go before we find out Smith and creator Vince Gilligan are trying to tell us...and we're in no rush to find out.

Pluribus is available to stream on Apple TV, with new episodes dropping weekly. See our Pluribus release schedule for exact timings. For more, see our list of the best shows on Apple TV Plus, and keep up with new shows heading your way.

Desperate for new blueprints, I turned to the greatest vault of totally-true information on the internet: Reddit. It's fun – and, I'm told, part of my job – to keep tabs on the communities of games that explode the way Arc Raiders has. Enough monkeys will produce Shakespeare, and enough gamers in a competitive multiplayer environment will produce some of the best improv you'll ever read. In my monitoring, between stealth kills and jolly cooperation and people complaining about PvP in their PvP game, a curious pattern began to emerge. Once, then twice, then too many times for me to in good conscience ignore, somebody claimed to have bagged a boatload of blueprints in the exact same way.

The golden ticket, these whisperers whispered, was to load up a night raid and hit up a residential area – the apartments in Dam Battlegrounds, for example, or the village in Blue Gate. By luck or by obscured game logic, these places were said – with the enthusiasm of an old wives' tale – to hold more blueprints than normal. My normal has been next to nothing, so any blueprints would be a step up. (This is one of the Arc Raiders economy's biggest problems, in my opinion, especially since you lose your blueprints on the Expedition prestige.)

Surely this will work

In particular, I'd seen multiple players claim that they'd found a Wolfpack blueprint hidden in a cupboard in a Blue Gate night raid. I would really like to unlock Wolfpack grenades to have a more reliable way to down high-level Arc, so it's probably my most-wanted blueprint. So, in the bold name of science, I grabbed a level 3 Stitcher, strapped on a basic green-tier loadout, and went to investigate Blue Gate at night. I considered bringing a free loadout, because why not, but I knew that if I did find a blueprint and ended up losing it because I didn't bring a backpack with a safety pocket, I'd never forgive myself.

I'm happy to say this panned out in the end. Through what is almost certainly a freakish coincidence, I found a Wolfpack blueprint in the Blue Gate village after barely an hour of night raid hunting. Following the raid event rotation, I started my search in a Buried City night raid, but all I found there was another player trying the exact same strategy but with much stronger gear than what I'd brought to bear. Ask me how I know. But for once, following Reddit's advice led me to an oasis and not a mirage.

Now, I'm not ready to declare this the go-to, never-fail method for finding blueprints. I'm pretty sure that I, like the players whose anecdotes I was emulating, just got lucky. Night raids have improved loot across the board, so it makes sense for rare items like blueprints to drop more commonly during them. On top of that, residential areas are both chock-full of loot instances and relatively uncontested compared to hotter, red-tier loot zones, so it also makes sense for them to have a higher perceived hit rate. All I know for sure is that I will try this again, and I now have a pile of Wolfpack grenades. I have that, plus three high-rarity guns that were graciously donated by another Blue Gate scavenger who I kindly escorted into the afterlife.

Among millions of Arc Raiders, Embark says 117 legendary players "somehow downed themselves" with rocks in the Breaking New Ground community event.

In a new YouTube video shared to his official channel, Cain answers a simple yet provocative question: can new games learn anything from old games? The answer is very much yes, according to Cain, and particularly from '80s games, which he says were "very, very focused, because they had to be."

That right there is crucial to Cain's point. I don't get the impression that he's turning his nose up at modern game development; instead, he's making the argument that older games did some things better by necessity, not by design. The gulf in capability between '80s hardware and today's machines is so vast that even the bare principles of game design are entirely different.

Cain makes the point that his smartphone is more powerful than the PCs he was working with in the '80s, and I would say that's an understatement. Estimates suggest your average modern phone is thousands of times faster than the most advanced supercomputers of the '80s, opening up entire realms of possibility in game design that didn't exist back then. However, to Cain's point, that isn't always a benefit to the player.

"You can learn a lot from games that were required to be focused, because I think that's kind of an overriding possible issue with today's games, is they don't really know what they want to be. They try to be everything to everyone," he says.

"Old games couldn't do very much, so they avoided a problem of modern games that I see is becoming indulgent," adds Cain. "They add too many things thinking more of those things make the game better, when really what they do is dilute the game."

One of Cain's main arguments is that, again, due to hardware limitations, those old games focused mainly on a single gameplay loop, which had to be really well-designed because there was nothing else on offer.

"In '80s games, that game loop was tight," Cain says. "It was, 'Here's the gameplay, you're doing it now, you're immediately dropped in, you're doing it, have fun', and these game loops were small and tight because they had to be.

"We couldn't make giant sprawling games with tons of different things, like, 'I think I'll go craft now, I think I'll go explore now, I'll go do this puzzle now, I'll go do combat now, I'll go talk to all these NPCs now.' You couldn't do all that. You had to pick, what section, what segment of all that gameplay do I want to represent, and then you did that. The idea that you could have a core game loop that was a huge variety of actions pretty much did not exist."

This tightness Cain refers to is a common refrain throughout the video, in his view extending to storytelling and world-building in '80s games as well. In that context, and in conclusion, he cites two examples I didn't see coming: The Lord of the Rings, and a dinner of sea bass at a fancy restaurant.

The Lord of the Rings, at its center, is a simple story about an evil ring that must be destroyed before evil people can do evil things with it. "That's it. That's the entire thing," says Cain. "There's a lot of complexity that you can dive down into if you want, but you don't need it."

As for the food analogy, Cain points to "really high-end restaurants" that prepare "the most delicious dinners you've ever had" with just "a very small set of ingredients." Take sea bass, for example, which if done right is seasoned with "a little bit of salt, maybe one or two seasonings, and some butter," which indeed is one of the world's great, uncomplicated luxuries.

"Those early games are kind of like fancy restaurants," Cain says. "You kinda had to do it right, or you really couldn't do it."

Now I'm hungry. Thanks, Tim.

Cain's early work laid the foundation for some of the best RPGs ever made.

Stargate has managed to hold onto a fairly sizable cult following in the years since the franchise last bowed. Launching with a modestly successful 1994 film before spinning off into a TV series titled Stargate: SG-1 which ran from 1997-2007. This ran alongside Stargate: Atlantis, which aired 100 episodes between 2004-2009, and finally Stargate Universe which ran for just two seasons from 2009-2011.

The mythos of Stargate is expansive, focusing on a series of eponymous "stargates" which allow instantaneous travel across almost any distance, provided the user has the right coordinates to find the place they're looking for. Built by a race of ancient aliens who once ruled ancient Egypt as god-kings, the stargates allow their builders to traverse their vast, intergalactic empire.

Stargate: SG-1 featured a team of elite scientists and soldiers exploring different worlds connected to the Stargate system.

Having worked on all three original Stargate series, new showrunner Martin Gero seems like the perfect fit to bring a new version of the show to life that can split the difference between appealing to classic fans and newcomers to the franchise alike.

"Twenty years ago, my first real job in television was as a story editor on Stargate: Atlantis. I spent five years at the franchise working across all three series, Stargate taught me everything about making television – it's written into my DNA," Gero said. "I'm beyond thrilled that Amazon MGM Studios has entrusted me with guiding this incredible franchise into its next phase. For those who've kept the gate active through conventions, rewatches, and unwavering faith – this one's for you. And for those that are new to our world – I promise you're in for something extraordinary."

No projected premiere date for the new Stargate series has been announced. In the meantime, stay up to date on all the news you need to know about upcoming sci-fi movies and shows.

"Steam Machine basically turns Microsoft's worst nightmare into a shipping product," explains Joost van Dreunen, NYU Stern School of Business professor and games industry analyst. "It pushes Microsoft further down the path it's already walking, where Game Pass and cloud access matter more than plastic boxes."

To its credit, Microsoft seems to know this. Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer recently implied the importance of games over hardware while praising the Steam Machine, saying, "Expanding access across PC, console, and handheld devices reflects a future built on choice, core values that have guided Xbox's vision from the start."

"As one of the largest publishers on Steam," Spencer continued, "we welcome new options for players to access games everywhere."

Former Blizzard president Mike Ybarra echoed the sentiment, saying in reaction to the Steam Machine, "Xbox should simply make great games. Cost model, focus, morale – all will go in the right direction."

"Xbox console sales have really struggled," says David Cole, DFC Intelligence founder and industry analyst, to GamesRadar+. "Steam Machine is just another sign that there may not be room in the market for a dedicated Xbox console system."

But van Dreunen suggests there's something more anxious under Microsoft's peace, love, and smiles. "The strategic risk," he says, "is that Valve becomes the preferred PC-console hybrid, meaning Xbox games strengthen Steam's ecosystem more than Microsoft's own."

Steam Machine is "a console that refuses to admit it's a console," analyst says, but "Valve isn't trying to beat Sony or Microsoft at their own game so much as rewrite the rules."

On X/Twitter, he posted a small rant about people thinking they're creative by throwing prompts at these algorithmic bots. "AI artists are insufferable," he starts. "They think they're punk post-modernists but every intellectual point they make on Twitter was made by a man with a toilet in the 1910s. Yet to see a new idea that wasn't just LinkedIn copypasta."

He goes on to add that anyone who "evangelised a spanner" with similar energy would be approached with extreme skepticism and get "put in a home." Nobody can accuse him of being coy about his views, that's for sure.

His particularly staunch viewpoint is relatively rare compared to more tempered perspectives. Shams Jorjani, the CEO of Arrowhead Studios, the company behind Helldivers 2, believes there's a "middle ground" in using aspects of the technology, while Brendan Greene, the creator of PUBG, is glad the industry has a broad distaste for the tolls, but claims to actively use it "the right way" for some parts of the pipeline in his current project.

Metal Gear Solid and Death Stranding mastermind Hideo Kojima views AI as a "friend" to which he'd offload the "tedious tasks." There have been reports of EA making chatbots and other tech mandatory company-wide, not only for creative processes but in management as well. Meanwhile, Arc Raiders and Black Ops 7 have suffered backlash for allegedly utilizing AI in different capacities.

Though it can be appealing to have something automate smaller or more time-consuming jobs in making a game, it's always important to remember the assets often come from systems trained on artwork that was used without the consent of their creators. The value of a human's work lies at the core of any debate around the subject, and it seems as though Larian is one team that isn't going to be persuaded any which way.

Baldur's Gate 3 boss says Game Awards 2025 nominees like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 are "proof" the industry still recognizes "passion," regardless of the "budget or who is making it"

The Sims 4 Adventure Awaits literally only just launched in October, with massive updates to the base game following close behind. Shortly before Adventure Awaits, we also saw fairies finally come to the 2014 life sim in Enchanted by Nature. There are also (likely countless) other DLC drops planned for The Sims 4, as EA said in the past that it has no plans for a Sims 5 – with the fourth entry acting as a sort of "forever" game that developers improve over time.

It comes as no surprise, then, that fans aren't sure what to think regarding rumors of a Sims 4 remaster. Although there's no solid source on these, and they're very much still just rumors, discussions have been popping off since Sims Community reported on them a couple of days ago. As one Reddit thread highlights, Simmers aren't sure why a Sims 4 remaster would be coming about now, when not only is EA actively updating the game, but older titles exist.

RUMOR: EA is working on The Sims 4 Remastered 💥 from r/LifeSimulators

"It should've been The Sims 3," comments one such player. A valid assertion, if you ask me – especially as The Sims and The Sims 2 both got their own re-releases recently. Another fan amusingly chimes in, "Sims 3 is the forgotten child at this point." Elsewhere in the replies, someone argues, "Making the base game free, then releasing a remastered version of a game still in active development would be a new low, even for EA."

A separate post on the remaster rumors shows similar thoughts from other Simmers. "I'm just baffled, honestly," somebody writes. "Unless they are remaking the game from the bottom up, what will they be remastering exactly? The graphics are great – the style has helped it stay timeless, and they're still releasing DLCs. Sims 3, I could understand. But you don't remaster a game that is still actively ongoing." They're not wrong.

There's no telling what EA actually has in store for The Sims 4, but as a longtime fan of the life sim series myself, I hope it's not a remaster – unless that remaster is of The Sims 3, that is. Then we'd be talking, and it seems other fans would agree.

Hoping to spice your game up with some free content? Here are the best Sims 4 mods around to explore right now.

Outside of criticism of AI being used for some voices and the price of cosmetic items (which has since been tweaked), Arc Raiders has been killing it since it was released at the end of last month. Not only is it massively popular – and only getting bigger if the Steam numbers are anything to go by – but it's received critical acclaim despite only nabbing one nomination at The Game Awards 2025. While Embark's previous game, The Finals, is decently popular, Arc Raiders has blown up on another level.

The Finals launched in December 2023, with a PS4 version releasing just over a year later in December 2024. But now, less than a year removed from that, Embark has announced that support for the PS4 version is going away on March 18, 2026, when Season 10 launches.

In a Twitter post, the company confirms this change is in service of "focusing our support on current generation hardware." The post explains: "From that point on you'll need to play there to keep enjoying the game. Your progress and purchases will be stored in your Embark ID and will transfer to anywhere you choose to play."

Although Embark is "incredibly grateful" for the PS4 players, it does make some sense, given we're talking about hardware that is 12 years old this month. While this generation has seen developers support previous-gen consoles well into the lifetime of the new ones, it feels like going forward that's going to be something developers have to abandon.

"Gen Z loves AI slop," says former Square Enix exec, which means that Arc Raiders' controversial AI usage is just "the tip of the spear."

Half-Life 3 hype has been reaching fever pitch lately – not only is today the 27th anniversary of the series, but Valve recently announced new hardware, and in its reveal, showed off stickers that some thought could hint at a Half-Life tease. That, and The Game Awards host Geoff Keighley has also been acting rather suspiciously about his one wishlisted Steam game. Certainly, none of this is irrefutable evidence that something is actually happening, but we reached out to a number of analysts to ask if the Steam Machine needs a game like Half-Life 3 to help sell it in the first place, and if exclusive games for the hardware could be a possibility.

"Valve doesn't need a Half-Life-sized spectacle to sell hardware," says Joost van Dreunen, an NYU Stern School of Business professor and former CEO of games market research firm SuperData Research. But if it did release it with the Steam Machine? Oh boy. "In fact, if Valve does decide to suddenly release Half-Life 3 alongside the new device, its impact would register on a GDP level," he adds.

"Seriously though, exclusives run against Valve's apparent thesis," he continues. "The point of the Steam Machine is to make Steam the default place to play, not to create another walled garden. A true exclusive would contradict the distribution strategy that makes the product interesting in the first place, and so I don't see HL3 as a necessary strategic component."

Veteran games industry analyst and Circana's senior director and video game industry thought leader, Mat Piscatella, also agrees that exclusive games for the console are incredibly unlikely. "Steam Machine exclusives would be antithetical to everything Valve has ever done around Steam, so there is no chance there [in my opinion]," he tells us. "And no, I don't think Steam Machine would require Half-Life 3 to succeed, nor would HL3 need Steam Machines. Would it be an attention grabber? Absolutely. Would it be a nice, synergistic type of thing? Also, yes. Would be pretty cool, but who knows."

This sentiment is echoed by Dr. Serkan Toto, CEO of Japan games industry consultancy Kantan games. "In theory, Half-Life 3 exclusive on Steam Machine could move the needle for Valve indeed," he begins, noting that "in theory, a bundle deal with the game to be flexible on hardware pricing is possible."

Could we truly see Half-Life 3 as an exclusive, though? He doesn't think so. "I don't think you will need to buy the Steam Machine to be able to play Half-Life 3. Such a move would be just too radical," he says.

CEO of research firm DFC Intelligence, David Cole, agrees, saying that "we do not think Steam Machine will have exclusives," and that "Valve does not need a single big title to drive sales." He adds: "The Steam library is huge and the Steam Machine is all about giving living room plug and play access to that huge library."

None of this is to say that Half-Life 3 is happening in the first place, of course, as much as fans are pleading for it to be the case. But if by some miracle it does get announced, it sounds like it'd be very unlikely that anyone reluctant to take the plunge and buy a Steam Machine will be missing out on the sequel people have been begging for.

Steam Machine is "a console that refuses to admit it's a console," analyst says, but "Valve isn't trying to beat Sony or Microsoft at their own game so much as rewrite the rules."

While pricing can fluctuate all the way from $18 to $33, it’s most commonly found at around $26 - even at the top of its price range, though, the value for money on offer is excellent. Right now, it's on sale for $21.99 at Amazon. This is a fully hot-swappable keyboard with sturdy-feeling ABS keycaps, surprisingly satisfying switches, and even a dedicated volume control dial. Alternatives from budget brands like Redragon often come in at $65 for a similar feature set.

Should you buy the Newmen GM326?

I've just landed the Newmen GM326 in second position on my guide to the top gaming keyboards of the year. It's a budget pick for those looking to spend as little as possible while still getting that super satisfying mechanical feel.

It's difficult not to compare it to another budget-friendly gaming keyboard I've been testing recently. The Glorious GMBK 75% is double the price at $59.99, but swaps those mechanical switches for a membrane set. That means heavy, clunky typing, even if you're saving a few gaming-specific features like bolder RGBs and more dedicated controls.

I said it in my review then, and I'll say it again now. The era of cheap membrane keyboards has come to an end. Now that mechanical options are hitting these kinds of price lows (and still feeling like more premium options did only a few years ago), I can't see myself recommending another rubber dome deck instead.

Of course, if you're after one of the best wireless gaming keyboards to keep that desk space clear or travel easier, you'll need to move further up the price scale. This is still a fully hot-swappable deck, though, with plenty that punches well above its price.

• See today's Black Friday gaming keyboard deals at Amazon
• Newmen GM326 | $25.99 $21.99 at Amazon
• Glorious GMBK 75% | $59.99 at Amazon

There are plenty more Black Friday gaming deals to prepare for this year, but if you're after something console-shaped check out the Black Friday PS5 deals and Black Friday Nintendo Switch deals we've found so far.

SteelSeries nails the feel of these clickers, providing more tactility and awareness of how far down the actuation range you are with any given press. When it comes to dual-step commands and overall comfort, that's a big deal in HE options.

Of course, these adjustable switches aren't for everyone, so SteelSeries is leaving quite a few gaps for competitors to hop into. If you're after a wireless deck, the Azoth still reigns supreme, while those hunting down a low profile option will do better with the fully mechanical Asus ROG Falchion RX.

I've had my fingertips on all the best gaming keyboards of 2025, and years before that. You'll find all my favorites just below.

The quick list

The best gaming keyboard overall

The latest SteelSeries Apex Pro TKL Gen 3 doubles down on what made the original so impressive. With a set of Hall effect optical switches underneath (most of) the keycaps and a fantastic typing feel, it's the best gaming keyboard on the market.

You'll be paying just over $200 for this Hall effect / mechanical hybrid (only the alpha keys are fully adjustable, others use a red Gateron switch), but that's far from the top end of the market. The Asus ROG Falcata below comes in at well over $400 and you can easily spend more on some Corsair and Glorious configurations. While the Falcata's switches are more natural under the fingertips, hence it's position as the best overall Hall effect keyboard, the Apex Pro has a much more comfortable, cost-effective form factor, and uses its additional onboard controls much better as well.

It's buttery smooth, with just enough thocc to feel satisfyingly mechanical in nature but with the speed and customization options of those optical clickers. Actuation points can be set to a super lightweight 0.1mm, which I found to be supremely speedy for competitive endeavors, or all the way down to 4mm for full travel.

Ultimately, though, it's the way the SteelSeries combines these best-of-2025 features into a jack of all trades chassis. The Glorious GMMK 3 Pro HE, for example, allows for another two actuation triggers as well as a wireless connection, but is considerably more expensive. The Razer Huntsman V3 Pro introduces a joystick mode for its WASD keys that turns your buttons into more of a thumbstick experience, at the expense of typing feel and dedicated directional pad.

If you're after a gaming keyboard that can keep up with competitive endeavours just as much as it can single-player immersion, the SteelSeries Apex Pro TKL Gen 3 offers a fantastic slice down the middle of the market.

Read more: SteelSeries Apex Pro TKL Gen 3 review

SteelSeries Apex Pro TKL Gen 3 vs. The Competition

The best budget gaming keyboard

For a long time, those seeking the best budget gaming keyboards had to settle for membrane switches. Nowadays, mechanical clackers are within reach of all. Well that was the idea, anyway. In reality a lot of budget mechanical keyboards are riddled with echo, ping, dodgy switches, and cheap-feeling keycaps. Not the Newmen GM326.

This is one of the cheapest gaming keyboards on the shelves right now, rarely jumping above $30 / £30 and more often found at between $20 and $25 / £20 - £25. It surprised me in testing, though.

This is a solid deck, yes it's a cheaper plastic case that's much lighter than more premium options, but it's still put together well and with enough density that there's no rattle to any of the switches under the hood. That's surprising considering options from Corsair and Razer that can sit at three times this price still suffer from loud echoes.

You've got a full 75% deck of hot-swappable switches here, with a clean PCB and an easy removal process. That's not to mention the dedicated volume dial in the top right corner - an additional rarity compared to options from Redragon and more.

The RGB lighting isn't as vibrant or customizable as a more expensive deck, and you'll be relying on a cheaper rubber cable to stay connected, but this is all still excellent value for money. Software is also nowhere to be found (well, it is, but my Chrome refuses to download it or even open the website). I would prefer to sacrifice all that, though, to get a keyboard that feels this good to use at this price.

The Glorious GMBK 75% is your next alternative for a budget deck and, while it comes from a more well-known brand, offers better RGB lighting, and a slightly thicker chassis design, its membrane switches are a serious step backwards compared to the smooth, speedy response of these clackers.

Read more: Newmen GM326 review

The best wireless gaming keyboard

The Asus ROG Azoth is the best wireless gaming keyboard I've had on the GamesRadar desk so far. Between a silky smooth typing experience, hot-swappable switches, speedy response times, and plenty of premium extras, you're covered for both gaming and everyday productivity in style here.

In fact, this deck used to be the best gaming keyboard overall, until Hall effect switches started sweeping the market. If you're not interested in the extra customization options included in the SteelSeries Apex Pro TKL Gen 3, this is absolutely where I'd be looking.

There is a newer kid on the block, but after running the Asus ROG Azoth X I'd still stick with the OG. The new model is very similar, though swaps your aesthetics for a new space-age design. It's also considerably more expensive, without doing much to further the Azoth's core experience.

Asus has taken its inspiration from the custom keyboard market, building an off-the-shelf 75% deck with three layers of sound dampening foam in its gasket mounted chassis. This is a path more recently taken by Corsair. The difference here is Asus isn't selling you a 'DIY' kit that you actually have to configure all in one go and pay nearly $400 for. The ROG Azoth gives you the luxury typing feel and hot-swappability of the Corsair MAKR 75 for far less cash.

Hot-swappable switches, a sturdy wireless connection, OLED panel with multi-functional clicker, and grippy PBT keys? There's little the ROG Azoth doesn't pack into its smaller form factor. This is an impressive spec sheet for those willing to invest in a keyboard with both form and functionality - though there are no dedicated macro keys. Its battery is also best-in-class, offering up to 2,000 hours with RGB lighting off.

All of that means every keystroke has a soft landing with no reverb around the main body (thanks to the pre-lubed stabilizers), but the NX switches under the hood also offer a satisfying clack to each silky smooth press. Pair that with a speedy debounce and nippy response times and you've got yourself a fast deck with all the comfort of an enthusiast level set of keys.

Read more: Asus ROG Azoth review

The best Hall effect gaming keyboard

Hold onto something, because the Asus ROG Falcata costs a whopping $419.99. That was nearly enough for me to discount it completely from this list, especially considering its main features are geared towards more competitive players. I can't get away from those Hall effect switches, though - they're far and away the best I've used so far.

There are some impressive specs in here, with a super sensitive starting point and the ability to map up to four different inputs to a single keystroke (most will only offer two triggers). They also feel far smoother than the likes of the SteelSeries Apex Pro TKL Gen 3 and Logitech G Pro X TKL Rapid. There's no woolly resistance underneath each keypress here, instead the Asus ROG Falcata feels a lot more mechanical in both typing and gaming.

There's a real, tangible, improvement to gameplay with the ROG Falcata under my fingertips. That's not something I see too often even among the best gaming keyboards on the market. However, with those super speedy switches, multiple actuation triggers, and detachable left side, the experience of playing my favorite games really did feel different. No, the results aren't going to scale down to more casual titles - and the whole keyboard is overkill for a lot of players, but in a competitive scenario it's a must-see.

Separately, you've also got full 8,000Hz wireless polling, dedicated media controls, and the ability to set everything from switch actuation points to RGB strength via a multi-functional roller on the left side. That dial is a little stiff at the start of each use, though, which makes precision tricky.

The Asus ROG Falcata is the best Hall effect keyboard I've used so far. Not only is it wireless (a rarity when it comes to magnetic switches) but it offers the most natural clickers I've tested so far. Not only that, but there are plenty of extra features baked into the design and functionality that make it an easy recommendation for competitive players with cash to burn. Unfortunately, the high price point means it's not worthwhile for the vast majority of gamers.

Read more: Asus ROG Falcata review

The best low-profile gaming keyboard

The Asus ROG Falchion RX Low Profile is a fantastic gaming keyboard in its own right, but its super satisfying typing experience and unique media control scheme make it a standout in today's market.

Let's compare it to the more recently released low profile gaming keyboards. The Logitech G515 Rapid TKL does introduce adjustable switch actuation points, but on this shorter form factor they're not quite as potent in real world use. You also sacrifice the buttery smooth typing experience (seriously the Falchion is like writing on snow) and dedicated media controls.

The Razer BlackWidow V4 Low Profile is another 2025 release that fails to live up to the Falchion's standards. It's considerably more expensive and does win on battery life overall, but has a heavier typing experience with more echo under the keys.

I've had my hands on several other low profile gaming keyboards over the course of the years, and the Asus ROG Falchion RX Low Profile beats them all. It's a compact 65% deck that still manages to keep dedicated media controls intact. The Falchion packs a small touch-sensitive slider along its top panel that can be configured for anything from scrolling to playback.

That's a solid feature in itself, but combine it with Mac OS support (and associated printed legends), two layers of sound dampening foam under the main chassis, and on the fly macro recording and you've got a full house.

The typing experience here is absolutely fantastic, with those softer keycaps playing into the lightweight switches particularly well. Those layers of foam create a nicely muted soundscape to each keypress, avoiding the clack of traditional gaming keyboards while still providing a satisfying auditory response. The size of the shift key did get in the way of accuracy a little here. It's a considerably stubby implementation and, in combination with the sensitive switches and low profile keycaps, we were regularly hitting caps lock instead. That's only going to be a problem if you rely on these keys for more complex bindings, though.

Read more: Asus ROG Falchion RX Low Profile review

The best 60% gaming keyboard

The Razer Huntsman V3 Pro Mini has beaten the Corsair K70 Pro Mini Wireless to become the best 60% gaming keyboard I've tested so far. Put simply, it comes in at the same price, offers far more flexibility in its features, and feels much nicer under the fingertips. It's not without its setbacks, with an echoey chassis and some whining LEDs, but if you're going for speed, customization, and versatility it's a must-see.

I tested the newer white version of the Razer Huntsman V3 Pro Mini, but there's a more standard black model available as well. Razer has also abandoned the chunky form factor of previous Huntsman entries, instead opting for a slim chassis and low bezels.

Of course, there's a downside to that sleek design. In gaming and everyday use, it sounds like there's no padding inside whatsoever. That means keys can rattle and echo across the deck, feeling slightly harsh in their bottom-out and making a hell of a racket.

However, it does benefit from Razer's Analog switches. That means you're still getting adjustable actuation points, rapid trigger, and dual-step actuation (which the brand ingeniously uses to still keep your arrow buttons a tap away). It also opens you up to a feature that I've only seen on this line of gaming keyboards.

With the tap of a button in Synapse, the WASD keys can be instantly transformed into more of a thumbstick-level of control. Rather than simply turning on and off, the pressure you apply to these keys will determine the speed you move in any direction. That makes creeping up on unsuspecting guards or finessing your racing lines far easier. Corsair does keep one card in its pocket, though only the top 1% of competitive players will notice, the Huntsman can only poll at 1,000Hz, whereas the K70 Pro Mini Wireless can go up to 8,000Hz.

While a little noisy, the Razer Huntsman V3 Pro Mini feels fantastic in both single-player and competitive endeavors. These analog switches don't feel like Hall effect clickers, which often carry a little more tension underneath, but they're slightly more restrictive than a simple mechanical bottom-out. Overall, the typing experience isn't comparable to that of the Asus ROG Azoth or SteelSeries Apex Pro TKL featured further up this list, but the extra features certainly keep gameplay performance fresh.

Read more: Razer Huntsman V3 Pro Mini review

The best full-sized gaming keyboard

I'll get it out of the way first, this is not a cheap device. The Razer Blackwidow V4 Pro comes in at $229 / £229, but if you're looking for this kind of pedigree power it's an investment well worth making.

The build materials are high quality, the aesthetic is on point, and the typing feel is satisfying - but that's not what makes the BlackWidow V4 Pro the best full-sized gaming keyboard. It's the extra buttons and controls that handle that.

That control-panel style suite of dials and buttons will be the downfall of this latest release in certain eyes - it's certainly not fit for a small setup - but if you're after a full command centre and the macro support to back it up this is where you need to be looking.

The top of the deck sports your standard dedicated media playback controls with a volume roller to boot, but there's also the Command Dial. While underutilized, this is a handy piece of kit if you regularly switch programs. In-game it takes a little tinkering to really be useful (and it's placed a little too far away from the main deck to be considered easily grabbable), however, with 30 steps per revolution and up to eight functions there's plenty of potential hidden up here.

On top of that, you've got five dedicated macro keys running along the left and three additional buttons to the side of the deck itself. That's an incredible suite of controls sure to satisfy even the most impatient combo artists.

In general, gaming keyboards tend to focus their efforts on either speed or customization. The BlackWidow V4 Pro manages to nail both. I didn't necessarily notice the benefit of 8K hyper-polling in everyday play, but competitors are going to feel the benefits. Each key remained snappy and responsive across a wide range of genres, though, even if the larger size meant precision was a little reduced.

Read more: Razer BlackWidow V4 Pro review

How I test gaming keyboards

Every keyboard that takes up residency on my desk goes through a series of tests to see exactly how it ranks among the best decks on the market. I check everything from the n-key rollover to the keyboard's scan rate to make sure all features are as described, but I also put each set of keys through their paces through a series of genres and titles. I test response times, debounce, switch speeds, ease of macro use, travel, weight of switches, and polling rate using faster first person shooter and action titles as well as strategy, simulation, platformer, and racing genres as well.

I also pay close attention to how well the form factor lends itself to the useability and speed of each device. That means I'm always judging whether the build materials are solid and watching out for flex, keycap wobble, and inconsistent or unreliable switches. I use each model for a minimum of two weeks at a time, bringing them into my daily life for work and play - so I can gather an early idea of whether any scuffs or scratches will appear from standard everyday use.

Crucially, I keep these keyboards in my rotation far beyond the publication of my final review - which means I can watch out for longer-term durability concerns and update my findings as well.

My testing also covers those all-important switches. I check how well the actuation feel, travel distance, and speed comply with the overall design and intended use-case of the keyboard itself. I also fully strip and rebuild any hot-swappable keyboards that I review as well.

At the end of my testing, I make an assessment not just on performance, but also concerning the overall value of the product itself. That means I measure all of my findings against the price point and competing models within that bracket as well.

For more information on how we make our recommendations, take a look at the full GamesRadar+ Hardware Policy. You'll also find more details on how we test gaming keyboards specifically as well.

Also tested

How to choose a gaming keyboard

The gaming keyboard market is massive, and there are plenty of different models out there all offering a slightly different experience. Finding the right one for you can be tricky - especially if this is your first deck. However, there are a few key features that you can narrow down to in order to make sure you're getting the best experience for your playstyle. From size to switches, connections to caps, gaming keyboards are made up of a number of different elements - and each one has an impact on how you interact with your games.

Connection

The first thing you'll likely want to decide on is your connection. A wireless gaming keyboard is better for travel and keeps your desk clutter-free. But you can save a considerable amount of cash if you just attach that little cable. Unlike the world of gaming mice, the presence of that wire doesn't impact the actual experience of using a keyboard. However, if you plan on using your deck with multiple devices in your setup it's well worth investing in a 2.4GHz and Bluetooth connection.

Size

Once you've landed on one side of the wired vs wireless debate, it's time to take a look at your desk top. Keyboards have evolved beyond the full-sized decks we came to accept back in the day - you can now get tiny 60% models and even larger command centers.

Each comes with its own benefits. While many initially struggle with the finger gymnastics required by the smallest keyboards (most commands are assigned to a secondary functional layer), a 65% model is perfect for those looking for a little more room to swing their mouse while still keeping a good amount of controls on board. 75% bumps you up to some extra navigational keys, and is preferable if you're using your keyboard for work as well as play but still want to keep things slim.

A full-sized model is going to limit your mouse movements a little, but provides more options for extra keybindings and macros.

Typing feel

If you're going to be using your keyboard for heavier typing sessions, it's well worth investing in a model that borrows from the world of custom decks. Features like gasket mounting, tape modding, and foam dampeners have all made their way from the enthusiast space to gaming keyboards in the last year, and make for a fantastic feel when hammering through the keys. If, however, you're only really going to be running the WASD this kind of investment might be misplaced (these design features can drive up the price a little).

Switches

The vast majority of keyboards come with a range of different switch options to choose from. However, once you've narrowed your selection down to a few candidates it's worth taking a look at the clickers you have available. More and more of the best gaming keyboards are actually hot-swappable (meaning you can easily replace the switches down the road), but picking up the kind of actuation speed and feel that suits you from day one is still important.

A linear switch is a smooth sweep down through the keypress, without any bumps underneath. This is best for faster gameplay with repeat presses.

A tactile switch will present a small bump to the actuation halfway down the keypress - it's more satisfying and controlled, but not as fast when it comes to repeat presses.

Clicky switches are similar, keeping that tactile bump, but making a louder sound while doing so. For more information, check out our guide to mechanical keyboard switches.

Gaming keyboard glossary

So as not to run this glossary section for ten pages, this guide focuses on key terms applied to gaming keyboards themselves, rather than the switches employed in them.

• Anti-Ghosting - A gaming keyboard with anti-ghosting features will allow multiple keys to be pressed at the same time and still recognize all of the inputs separately.
• Chatter - Chatter describes a fault in keyboard switches that appears with age. Multiple inputs are registered from a single keypress.
• Doubleshot - Doubleshot is a process of adding legends to keycaps that increases durability by combining two layers of plastic.
• Flex - Flex is a term used to describe the slight bending of the main keyboard chassis when pressure is applied or with typing force.
• Gasket Mount - A gasket mount is a mounting style making its way to gaming keyboards. Rubber sheets are placed between the frames of the keyboard and the main plate for a softer typing feel and reduced unwanted sound.
• Hotswap - Hotswapping a switch involves easily removing it from the casing of the keyboard and plugging another in. A hot-swappable keyboard will allow you to change the switches without having to solder anything.
• Keycap - The plastic cover on top of a keyboard switch.
• Macro - A macro is a keybinding or series of inputs programmed to a single keypress. A dedicated macro key is a set of keys set aside for this purpose.
• N-Key Rollover - A keyboard advertized as having N-Key Rollover can detect and register simultaneous key presses of any number of keys.
• Numpad - The array of number and navigational keys often found on the right hand side of a full-sized keyboard.
• Optical (Switch) - An alternative to mechanical keys where light is used to trigger a keypress response rather than individually moving parts. An optical keyboard is faster than a mechanical one, but doesn't feature the same feedback.
• PBT - A keycap material known for its superior durability and more textured feel compared to cheaper ABS.
• PCB - The printed circuit board of the keyboard.
• Ping - A reverberation of unfavorable high-pitched sound when a key is pressed.
• Polling Rate - The speed at which the keyboard communicates with a PC.
• Scan Rate - The speed at which the keyboard itself checks for new inputs.
• Stabilizer - A set of two small bars used to hold larger keys in place and reduce wobble.
• Switch - The component underneath a keycap that registers an input.

Gaming Keyboard FAQ

I'm also hunting down all the best membrane gaming keyboards and the best hot-swappable keyboards available right now. Or, take a look at the best Razer keyboards for full Chroma action.

This is maybe the most important line of the video: "I hate all of this bullshit," Wilson summarizes. "When I was growing up, games were designed to be fun, not manipulative. They didn't have literal behavioral scientists and psychologists on staff trying to rewrite my brain."

If that sounds harsh, that's because it is, but if you've played virtually any live service game in the past 10 years, you'll know that it's also pretty deserved. Games have undeniably grown smarter and more aggressive about player retention, and it can feel like fun takes a back seat to ensuring internal metrics go up (because it does).

Wilson does unpack these dark patterns in more detail, and acknowledges that some tricks can be harmless and even fun if handled properly. But a lot of them just suck.

Like many others, he defines dark patterns as "a design that deliberately manipulates user behavior, usually to get those users to spend more money or engage more than they intended." This goes much deeper than artificial scarcity, cash shops that sell currency in lopsided increments to in-game prices that require players to buy multiple or larger bundles, or mobile game review links that only open if you indicate you're going to drop a 5-star rating but refer you to feedback forms otherwise.

Wilson also points to UI traps, offering an example of a buyable upgrade that unlocks more buyable upgrades of the same type, potentially leading players to spend more money than they thought they'd need to in order to max something out. If all of those upgrades were visible at the start, making that first purchase would be a taller order, and getting players to spend even once makes it much more likely they'll spend again.

"This moving of the goalposts could potentially manipulate players into thinking that they were going to complete their character for one price, when it actually costs a lot more," Wilson hypothesizes.

Daily rewards and login bonuses are another classic example. Wilson calls out a friend who apparently hiked six kilometers through the woods with a laptop in order to preserve a login streak in a game. "Players who are conditioned to logging in every day do it not because they're excited to play, but because it feels like brushing their teeth – just something they have to do," he says.

Login streaks, which offer escalating rewards that punish you for missing a single day, are the ultimate example of this. Normal, easy daily tasks with minimal rewards are less intrusive, Wilson reckons, but even then "players feel obliged to complete these so that the easy rewards don't go to waste." As someone who's played Genshin Impact since launch, I feel this in my bones. (Gacha games even get a special callout from Wilson for their rotating, limited-time character banners, which are just the tip of a predatory iceberg.)

Some games encourage you to invite friends to download the game, or incentivize group contributions via guild tasks, leveraging social pressure to promote further play. Then there are time-gated tasks, which Wilson calls "playing by appointment," where "a game tells you that you have to come back at a specific time or face consequences" like missing limited rewards or bonuses. FOMO, or fear of missing out, basically.

"When you're not the one deciding when you play a game, but instead having the game decide for you, it's worth questioning your entire relationship with that game," Wilson says.

That doesn't mean you desperately need to abandon any game employing this sort of trickery, obviously (and good luck finding a live service game that doesn't have its hand in at least a few of these cookie jars, frankly). Even Wilson, with his "cynical" heart, reckons some events, like Diablo 3's 20-year Diablo anniversary throwback, can be fun and may inspire regular, fan-favorite activities.

The problem is that these tactics can optimize the fun out of a game and program players so hard that they stop responding to the gameplay itself. "Some of them are moderately harmless if used in a way that also provides a lot of value for players," Wilson agrees, but he still calls on developers to, in so many words, do better, especially for games aimed at or highly open to kids.

"I deeply know all about these tricks and still find them affecting me far more than I am comfortable with," he says. "Imagine what it's doing to kids, who are incredibly vulnerable to the constant bombardment of gambling, compulsion, addiction, loss aversion, and anxiety-inducing dark patterns that these games contain."

Applying psychology to work out fun gameplay mechanics is one thing – "make people want to play them, and want to return to them for their own merits" – but Wilson says he'll "draw the line" at meta-progression, monetization, and obvious retention ploys.

"It's a matter of transparency, fairness, and respect for your players," he concludes. And those players should also "push back" by voting not just with their wallets, Wilson says, but also with their time and attention.

"We have an obligation to think very carefully before we employ strategies like these," Wilson says to developers. "Push back, and make sure that the reason you're adding something is because it's actually adding more fun, rather than because it'll artificially create more retention or juice some other metric."

For no particular reason, here are the best single-player games to play right now.

The musical sequel currently holds a score of 71% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 118 reviews ahead of its release later this week. By comparison, 2024's Wicked: Part One has a score of 88% – a drop of 19% in the reception of the two films.

Our own Wicked: For Good review gave the movie four stars, with our reviewer noting that "a darker and sadder Part 2 brings the story of Oz's witches to a moving close and cements Jon M. Chu's adaptation of Wicked as an absolute triumph," although "For Good suffers slightly from thinner source material and weak new songs."

Not everyone was as positive, though. "Ultimately director Jon M. Chu’s more-is-more approach has a numbing effect, the endless spectacle leaving little room for nuance, depth or genuine feeling," reads Screen Daily's review, while The Independent says the movie "has little sense of movement, literally or emotionally – no profound revelations, no wonder or spectacle. All that's to be done now is for each character to process, via standardised ballad, what they've learned."

However, RogerEbert.com writes, "The songs may not be as catchy this time around, but Wicked: For Good really sings where it counts: with the emotional ache of the fractured friendship at the story's core."

Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande return to star as Elphaba and Glinda, two unlikely best friends who are forced apart after Elphaba defies the Wizard of Oz's regime and is condemned as the Wicked Witch of the West. The movie adapts the second act of the hit Broadway show and incorporates the events of The Wizard of Oz, too – although Elphaba and Glinda remain the focus of the film.

Wicked: For Good flies into theaters on November 21. In the meantime, refresh your memory with our guide to the Wicked: Part One ending explained, or look ahead to the rest of this year's biggest movie release dates.

The situation unfolded when Scottish artist Fern Hook revealed that Bungie's new game was "covered with assets lifted from poster designs" of hers from years back – a claim that prompted a "personal apology" to Hook from the studio. Although the entire discussion properly unfolded months back when she spotted her work in alpha footage, it's resurfacing now as Academy Award winner Alberto Mielgo calls it all a "mistake."

Speaking in a new post on Instagram, the artist first assures fans that Bungie's cinematic short for Marathon that dropped in April – one he himself directed – "is not AI" and instead took "155 incredible people and hell of [a lot of] hours, days, months" to create. He then responds to readers curious about Hook's stolen designs, quickly commenting that they're "wrong and misinformed" about there having been any wrongfully copied assets.

"As far as I know, Bungie accidentally used a texture, mostly typos and fonts, all lost in a wonderful, massive creative pipeline," Mielgo explains. "He then exclaims, "ALL this ass it was genuinely a mistake, blown out of proportion by people like you and hungry sphincter press." I'm not sure what the last bit means… but I'm also not sure I want to. The artist takes time to conclude with praise for Bungie and the studio's work so far.

"The Bungie team is fantastic, and the work they did before us was f***ing outstanding," he states. "I loved working with them." It's all certainly interesting to read, especially when considering Bungie's own response to Hook revealing that her designs were taken without her permission or any pay. The company did, after all, admit to its oversight at the time and issue an apology to the indie artist for it, too.

Here's hoping the future looks brighter for Marathon than it has been in recent months – and, you know, that the shooter actually releases sometime soon at all, following its delay and the other setbacks that Bungie has faced with it.

Former Bungie director spent their time on Marathon "dying to create a new genre name" because an extraction shooter is "the only genre where its name is a mechanic"

Hey, it's late 2025, and GTA 6 is set to be out by now! At least it was before a delay that shifted the open-world game to May 26, 2026… and then a second delay that pushed it another six months to November 19, 2026. But we're now on November 19, 2026, so barring another delay, we'll be playing it in a year. For what it's worth, Take-Two's CEO says, "I'm highly confident on the new date", but he was also confident about the last one, so (plus there weren't massive protests about firings before).

Users on the GTA 6 Subreddit have posted about just that, and it's a shocking reminder for some, with one user saying, "The fact that the game would've originally released around this time…" Meanwhile, others aren't very confident about this upcoming date, with another saying, "1 year from now we will be waiting for it to come out in a year." While someone else would rather we ignore the fact in the first place, so as not to tempt fate, saying, "Every time y'all make a countdown, it's gonna get delayed again."

Of course, some aren't as worried: "Why the Doom in the Comments? We already seen it with RDR2 two Delays same with GTA6 why is everybody expecting yet another delay?" mentioning the fact that Rockstar's previous game went through two delays before finally releasing to universal acclaim. The jury is still out on GTA 6, but one thing is for sure: we won't know for at least a year.

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick says the industry is "moving towards PC" even if consoles are "never going away," but still hasn't confirmed if GTA 6 is coming to PC

As director Andrew Stanton sees it, there's always space for more stories. "So 3 was the end... of the Andy years," he told Empire. "Nobody's being robbed of their trilogy. They can have that and never watch another if they don't want to. But I've always loved how this world allows us to embrace time and change. There's no promise that it stays in amber."

Toy Story 3 ended with Andy passing his toys over to youngster Bonnie and heading off to college, meaning the toys were parted from their beloved kid for good. Then, Toy Story 4 saw Woody go his separate ways from the others to live as a lost toy with Bo Peep.

The first trailer for Toy Story 5, however, makes it clear that Woody has reunited with his old pals, which has confused some fans who are wondering just how the cowboy found his way home.

The fivequel will see the toys go up against Lilypad, a tablet voiced by Greta Lee. "Lilypad, a high-tech frog-shaped smart tablet that makes Buzz, Woody, Jessie, and the rest of the gang’s jobs exponentially harder when they have to go head to head with the all-new threat to playtime," reads the logline.

According to Buzz actor Tim Allen, the movie will also focus on our favorite cowgirl, Jessie. "It's such a great story. I can only tell a little bit of it," Allen said recently. "It's a Jessie story, Tom [Hanks] and I have to reunite, and there's just the funniest thing, because there's a whole bunch of Buzzes involved. And there's a reason why there's a whole bunch of me, so there's 100 of me in a separate story, and I'm having so much fun."

Toy Story 5 arrives on June 19, 2026. In the meantime, check out our guide to all the upcoming Disney movies for everything else that's on the way.

Volcanic Rocks are items that occasionally spawn in Arc Raiders, and players can throw them to deal damage. However, they can also bounce back or land on players when thrown directly upwards. This naturally means that you can end up downed by your own rock.

As soon as the stat was released, players took to social media to figure out how anyone could down themselves with a rock, let alone 117 people. However, soon people started admitting to their own in-game failures.

People soon took to Reddit to tell their stories. "So I'm one of the 117 raiders," one user writes. "I'm not sure what happened." They blame a "collision glitch" for the accident saying, "It sent me flying straight up."

Unfortunately, they didn't have video evidence, and apparently, "could not duplicate it again."

how. actually how have you done this. from r/ArcRaiders

Another user doubts that all of the deaths were due to self-thrown rocks, but rather errors in the stats. "The game has some problems with damage attribution," they claim. "Before the servers went down two nights ago, I had three rounds where player damage and Arc damage all showed that I downed myself, no grenades used, no splash explosions."

However, another user admits that their accidental knockout by rock was all their fault. "My mate got a call," they explain. "I was looking around to protect while no one showed up, my brain got an idea out of curiosity."

They say that they threw a rock at their friend who was no longer playing before "it bounced two times and knocked me." To make it worse, they bled out before their friend got back. Don't worry, though, the other character got out unscathed.

Arc Raiders sets another Steam record for a third weekend in a row, surpassing 481,000 concurrent players despite competition from Call of Duty and Escape from Tarkov

How to get granite in Winter Burrow

To get granite , you need to ignore the goal to repair the stairs and keep playing until you meet Bufo the frog. Which means visiting Aunty several times with her giving you something to do each time, specifically make some wooden furniture, fix the stove and make a shovel.

To explain, once you've settled in your new home you'll get a mission to Find Aunty by repairing and crossing the bridge. Once you meet her you'll get the objective to Open The Basement using a key she gives you. This will be the your first brush with granite as one of the three things you need to fix the basement stairs - 20 Pebbles, 15 Granite and 2 Beachnut Biscuits.

At this point the need for granite can feel like a softlock because it's not clear you don't need to repair the stairs yet and there's no way to get granite at this point. You can plant the mushrooms in the initial top area and that's all you need to do for now. The actual need for granite comes much later and, when it does, you will be able to get some easily.

When you've done all that and visit Aunty again you'll be attacked by an owl and she'll be carried away. Which is sub-optimal.

However, once Aunty is gone you'll find a bridge open ahead of her now ruined house, which will access a new area. Keep pressing north east through this new location and you'll eventually find Bufo the Frog. He'll first ask you to get 5 pebbles and two twigs, which you can gather if you back track into the previous area, or look around your house. You should have collected a few already but these are what you're looking for:

Winter Burrow Granite locations

Once you give Bufo the pebbles and twigs he wants, you'll get a basic pickaxe and he'll send of to get three pieces of granite. If you head back into the previous area you'll find what you need in the following locations:

That will get you the granite you need for now and start a new quest with Bufo to find some pebbles and flint. If you're still wondering about the granite you need for fixing the basement stairs then just keep playing on. You won't be able to do much about until you finish with Bufo (for now) and rescue Aunty, which involves some missions for a squirrel called Gnawtusk. Only once you've completed all that, will you get the crafting recipe for a Granite Pick Axe from Bufu after completing his 'An Axe for Bufo' mission. Then all the Granite you can eat will be yours of the taking.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

An ominously empty abandoned base burrowed deep in a mountain, Stella Montis condenses rounds of Arc Raiders into frenzied scurrying through hallways to find loot and get to extraction. Reddit user luvast0 decided to play around with the anxious energy by barricading all the doors they encountered, locking their various opponents in or out of other rooms and escape routes.

"I wanted to see if Arc Raiders' barricade system could be weaponized for pure psychological warfare, and oh my God, it can," they state in a Reddit post (thanks, PCGamer). "People spawning late were trapped in a maze I built, screaming, complaining, and actively looking for me."

Reactions tend to follow two steps: first, players start treating them like a "raid boss," seeking them out personally; and second, teams would find each other and find common ground over their impromptu captor. I mean, this player is certainly bringing people together, at least. They used a combined total of 65 barricades, in case you were wondering.

They've now dubbed themselves the "engineer of chaos," before describing their final act of mutually assured tomfoolery. "After 20 minutes I was caught stuck in a room with no exit, and I came prepared," they write. "After all three solos entered the room I threw a smoke grenade, shut the door, BARRICADED IT, then I placed a Deadline mine killing all of us. No one leaves the maze."

"Gen Z loves AI slop," says former Square Enix exec, which means that Arc Raiders' controversial AI usage is just "the tip of the spear."

This spiritual successor is Returnal 2 in all but name (Re2urnal? Oh, God no). It's another intense particle-effect showcase of a shooter, trading Returnal's icy blues for blazing golds. But Saros is more than just a pretty reskin. Housemarque is evolving their winning formula.

Never stop moving

The active reload, wherein you can reload faster if you nail a QTE, is such an inspired mechanic that one day I'll have every shooter contain it by law. Returnal knew how to make nailing its active reload feel like getting a high-five from Christ. They even renamed it 'overload', which is typical of the game's obsession with giving everything the most metal name possible (its poison-shooting gun is called the 'rotland gobber').

I loved this feature, and Housemarque has responded to my love by apparently removing active reloading from Saros entirely. Wait, what? Housemarque, why would you do my beloved active reload dirty like this? Well, if you messed up overloading in Returnal, you had to frantically run around swearing for a few crucial defenceless seconds. Desperately trying to hide from about nine million deadly projectiles until your gun finally bothered to start working again. Games shouldn't be afraid of punishing mistakes but this still interrupted Returnal's sense of flow.

I think that's why Saros instead opts for a new shielding system. Holding R1 creates a bubble shield around you that both defends you and absorbs enemy projectiles. Those absorbed projectiles power up your weapon's devastating alt-fire attack, another Returnal feature that used to require waiting impatiently for it to reload. Clearly Housemarque has looked at anything that slowed the frantic pace of Returnal and torn it out in favour of pure adrenaline. Potentially exhausting? Oh, no doubt, but I can't wait to see if they've pulled it off.

Classic ideas reborn

Let's talk more about that shield. Because on first glance, it looks like it's made Saros a far easier game. Dodging projectiles surely takes more skill than just standing still and holding R1, maybe using your free hand to check your phone or post 'omfg they've ruined it' on r/returnalwasperfect.

Possibly. But I don't think Housemarque is ashamed of Returnal's high difficulty. Plus it's not like a shooter hasn't done something similar before and still proven to be controller-smashingly difficult. This week I played Ikaruga, the legendary shmup from Treasure. In Ikaruga your little spaceship can switch between black and white. Bullets of the opposite color to your ship are lethal, but bullets of the same color can be absorbed, charging up devastating special attacks (sound familiar?)

After about 10 minutes of Ikaruga my housemate had to beg me not to start smoking again. Ikaruga is evil. A non-stop barrage of bullets with you helplessly trying to color-switch, dodge, and fire back while your brain turns to mush. If Saros has really taken inspiration from this then I'll be lucky to get past its title screen.

Will later areas of Saros add quirks to your shield like Ikaruga's color-switching? Switch it off entirely just when you're getting comfortable? Only let you use it if you can successfully explain the plot of Returnal (gulp, good luck)? Clearly there's tons of defensive potential here.

Let There Be Light

Lonely astronaut Serene was the perfect protagonist for the cold, gloomy story Returnal wanted to tell. The casting of Rahul Kohli in Saros is a good sign that Housemarque might have decided to lighten up a little. He's great comedy relief in iZombie, proved he has dramatic chops in the excellent Midnight Mass, and was delightfully boo-hissable in The Fall of the House of Usher as an immoral videogame publisher (where does Hollywood get its ideas?).

Plus, after Returnal was a one man show, Saros introduces the groundbreaking idea of having multiple characters in a story. Wow! Having a hero who banters with someone throughout is a smart way of making Saros distinctive from their last game, and it'll be interesting to see how far they take it.

One way Saros definitely has lightened up is in the roguelike structure. There was permanent progression in Returnal, but so subtly you could easily miss it, and having to restart runs from scratch could become a slog. In Saros we're promised that after each failed run, you'll be able to choose from a loadout of weapons and suit parts that can also be permanently upgraded for your next go. Getting to start over with a nasty new gun should take the sting off failure.

The only permanent upgrade we've seen so far looks like an essential one, particularly for fans of Sekiro. 'Second Chance' is exactly what it sounds like, an extra life that'll let you jump right back into the action. In Returnal I'd have to attach some horrible health-sucking parasite to myself to get anything as generous as that.

I would have been happy with a straight Returnal sequel, let alone a spiritual successor that truly innovates. Even Rockstar delayed their little underdog GTA 6 just to get further away from Returnal's March 20 release date (not the official reason from Rockstar, but come on now). I can't wait for next year to see if Housemarque has delivered my new favorite game on PS5.

Check out our best PS5 games ranking for what to play next!

"He's such a gentleman," O'Connor, who follows in the footsteps of Ana de Armas and Janelle Monáe as the unwitting sidekick of Craig's Benoit Blanc this time around, tells GamesRadar+. "You know, one of the things that was most surprising about making this movie – and I imagine it's the same on the other two – you really go on a journey as an audience member, but it was the same for the actors, too.

"One moment, you're doing a sort of double act with Daniel and real comedy set-pieces, and then in the next, there's a real opening of your heart," he continues, attempting to explain how he and the James Bond star established their super-fun onscreen chemistry. "And watching Daniel, I really learned from him, in the way that he can be light and playful when he needs to be, then he's got his earphones on and walking around, getting into a headspace where he can attack a scene that needs more thought or feeling.

"The way he operated at work was really inspiring to me. In terms of our double act, it was all there on the page, but [writer-director] Rian [Johnson] definitely allowed us to play around with things. There's this one particular moment, which I won't divulge, that we didn't think would ever make the movie but it did, so…"

It wouldn't be a Knives Out movie without a star-studded cast surrounding O'Connor and Craig, and Wake Up Dead Man is no different. When O'Connor's boxer-turned-priest Jud Duplenticy gets transferred to a parish in upstate New York, he immediately clashes with its congregation leader Monsignor Wicks (Josh Brolin). Despite his brutish ways, his followers are devoted; his right-hand woman Martha (Glenn Close), sardonic sci-fi author Lee (Andrew Scott), tightly-wound lawyer Vera (Kerry Washington), shallow influencer Cy (Daryl McCormack), newly-divorced town doctor Nat (Jeremy Renner), and disabled ex-cellist Simone (Simone). But when Wicks gets killed in the middle of an on-stage sermon, Blanc is quick to deduce that any one of them could've done it.

"To a certain extent, these movies are kind of mouse traps. So it's not like you can just go off and riff. But I also think that if you get a group of actors like this together, it would be stupid to not let them play," says Johnson. "I love to get together with the actors before we start shooting, and go through the scenes. 'Are any of these lines bumping?' If any actor feels like something doesn't feel right, or there's a better way of saying it, I'm always encouraging and open to that."

"Rian's very, very good at casting. I think that's really important with a film like this. So everybody was well suited to their characters," adds Andrew Scott, who plays misanthropic, moated house-owning Ross. "It's just the power of the imagination; we didn't have any rehearsal time beforehand. If it's well-cast and the script is good, that ease and chemistry just happens. [Rian] creates an atmosphere where you're all together a lot of the time; there's no retreat to our trailers and all that kind of jazz. We just hung out, all the time for months. It's lucky that we're here, still getting on with each other now that we know a lot of each other's deep, dark secrets."

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery releases in cinemas on November 26, arriving on Netflix worldwide on December 12. For more, check out our guide to all the other upcoming movies heading our way.

When is Ghost of Yotei New Game Plus available?

Ghost of Yotei New Game Plus will be available from November 24, 2025, following a free patch to update the game to version v. 1.100.000. This will add a New Game+ option to the main menu, which will become accessible one you've completed the main story.

What's included in the New Game Plus update?

The main feature of New Game Plus in Ghost of Yotei is that you can restart the campaign from the beginning while retaining everything you've earned previously, including all of the Ghost of Yotei skills and abilities you've unlocked and the Ghost of Yotei weapons gathered on your travels. To add balance to this obvious advantage, there will be several harder difficulty options added along with two additional Trophies to earn.

New Game Plus will also add a fresh currency called Ghost Flowers to collect, which can be spent with a new vendor named Masujiro The Melodious. This mysterious merchant will sell you over 30 new cosmetics including armor sets and weapon dyes, plus more than 10 new charms to equip. An extra tier of upgrades for armor sets and weapons will be available, so you can increase their effects further and become even more powerful.

Other improvements with this update beyond New Game Plus include the ability to replay post-game challenges with stat tracking and displays, fresh accessibility options such a directional button remapping, and a big refresh of Photo Mode features adding shutter speed and a composition grid alongside a selection of new filters. All in all, there's plenty to keep players busy until the Ghost of Yotei Legends DLC drops in 2026.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Sadly, I do not have a say in how much the latest and greatest gamepads cost, and I can't deny that some of the best controllers I've tested in the last year have launched to the tune of $200. As good as some of them are, it's hard for me to recommend them at full price. That's why Black Friday season is so great, because right now, you can sneak into the Christmas period with the Razer Wolverine V3 Pro in your stocking, having only spent $169.99 at Amazon.

I don't think any controller should cost $200, but the Razer Wolverine V3 Pro is one of few I think comes closest to justifying that cost. It does, despite my protests, have amazing build quality, it has six extra buttons for you to map and use in high-level gameplay, and it has some clever design perks that other controllers can't match.

If you've been shopping for a new pro controller for a while, the Wolverine V3 Pro, or its cheaper alternative, the Razer Wolverine V3 TE, might have been on your shortlist already. This has been one of the breakout gamepads of the last few years, and it's absolutely sent Razer's controller division on a tear with some of its latest models. Having just reviewed the PS5 equivalent, the Razer Raiju V3 Pro, I can definitely trace its design lineage back to the Wolverine V3.

What separates this controller from the rest, in my opinion, are two things. Firstly, the massive improvements it makes over previous Wolverine controllers. A lot of the time, the biggest brands can fail to listen to feedback and prefer to stick to their guns on a product design. It's not often we see the biggest brands course correct on a product that's been around for more than five years.

Previous Wolverine controllers were received well, but they had some massive flaws, like unusable back buttons and really mushy-feeling microswitch buttons (see my review of the Razer Wolverine V2 Pro, for instance). I think the V3 Pro is actually worth buying because it makes the improvements that were needed to modernize this gamepad against its current market - and the end result is all the better for it.

Secondly, I think Razer's signature design flourish with this controller makes it insanely speedy, which is a huge win for competitive players. Thanks to the use of Razer's Esports mice switches in all of the Wolverine V3's buttons, every press clicks in at lightning speed. You've no sooner twitched your finger than you're seeing your in-game avatar perform the split-section reaction you've just had, and with six extra buttons at your disposal, you really do feel as though the V3 Pro is giving you an advantage.

Given Razer is at the premium end of the high-end controller pricing spectrum, I'd be totally shocked if we saw the V3 Pro come down any lower over the next few weeks. We may be nine days out from Black Friday at the time of writing, but this is an early deal I wouldn't wait on.

• Razer Wolverine V3 Pro: $169.99 at Amazon
• Razer Wolverine V3 TE: $75.25 at Amazon
• EasySMX X10: $35.99 at Amazon

Keep up with more discounts over the next few weeks by reading up on Black Friday gaming PC deals, Black Friday Secretlab deals, and Black Friday Meta Quest deals.

Mysterium takes cues from classic games like Dixit or Clue, and massages them into a highly thematic, cooperative challenge for up to seven players, making it worthy of even the most crowded board game night. It's a game of getting into each other's heads to decipher the indecipherable before the link to the other side withers, and the ghost is left to wander limbo for eternity.

Mysterium features & design

• Decipher cryptic, dreamlike clues from a ghost to learn about their murder
• Work toward individual goals, before deciphering the final clues through a secret vote
• Simple, repetitive gameplay loop that's easy enough to teach

Players in Mysterium take on the role of Psychics, tasked with solving a murder. One player – usually the most experienced – assumes the role of the murdered Ghost who draws a hand of vision cards. Their challenge lies in presenting these surreal visions to the Psychics, so they might narrow down a list of suspects, locations, and murder weapons. The catch being this: the Ghost can neither comment, nor gesture to give hints. Thanks to the Ghost's inability to communicate in any meaningful way, and a sorry case of post-unalive amnesia, the details of their death are hazy at best, making an accurate portrayal of events rather difficult.

As such, they'll end up leading each Psychic through a bespoke set of suspects, locations and weapons that make up their personal goal. Each player's individual set is hidden behind the Ghost's D&D-esque screen, while the Psychics will have to make their guesses from a collection of face up cards on the table, among a host of red herrings.

The game is split into seven rounds, tracked using the included clock. Throughout, players shift along a central progress track, as well as the clairvoyancy track that comes into play during the endgame. Having ordered each player's individual goals behind their screen, the Ghost issues at least one vision card to each player hinting at the Character they must guess to progress.

Psychics have two minutes, tracked with an hourglass timer, to make sense of their visions together. They then guess their suspect by placing their intuition pawn on it. At this point, Psychics may also place clairvoyancy tokens beside their compatriot's guesses, indicating whether they believe a guess to be right or wrong.

To conclude the first round, anyone who placed a clairvoyancy token tick-side up beside a correct guess, or cross-side up by an incorrect guess, moves up the clairvoyancy track. For those who guessed their suspect correctly, you'll discard the clues for that stage and shift your intuition pawn along the progress track so you can enter the next stage. An incorrect guess just means you're stuck on the current stage, though you're allowed to keep hold of any current clues.

For each round, the process simply repeats as you move at your own pace through the character, location, and object stages (in that order). Players are encouraged to help one another out since lagging players will lose the game for everyone once the connection to the spirit realm is severed.

Should all players have guessed correctly by the 7th hour, a bonus round plays out in order to suss out the true culprit. Here the Ghost issues just three clues face down, each one relating to either the character, location or object. The most clairvoyant players gain access to more clues, which they check privately and vote secretly on. The most clairvoyant of the lot then considers the votes, as well as their own intuition, and makes the final decision, either winning or losing the game for everyone. So, no pressure.

Gameplay

• Surreal clues & mulligans level the playing field
• Players are rewarded for predicting wins/fails, but only if the endgame actually happens
• Superb pacing as everyone pools their brainpower in timed challenges over limited rounds

Mysterium hinges almost entirely on the Ghost's ability to form a coherent clue from the often incredibly nebulous – but utterly gorgeous – vision cards, along with the minimal chance that the Psychics just happen to be on the same wavelength. Like any guessing game, familiar parties may form their own background strategy over multiple games (always hinting at shapes first then colour, for example). But coming at it as a newbie can leave you just as dumbfounded as someone who has been playing for years. And we love a level playing field.

Taking the Ghost role can feel a little lonely, particularly when the other players all start blaming you for their occult ineptitudes. Thankfully, when the Ghost's hand of cards has thrown up an array of indeterminable tripe, the crow mechanic lets them discard their hand for a mulligan, so they can feel a little less helpless and a little more "Nevermore."

Clairvoyancy tokens add another layer to the proceedings, giving you multiple opportunities to pull out the old "I told you so" per round, so you're never short of an endorphin hit. The designers cleverly avoid the trappings of players hoarding these with a full replenish at round four, though their use can feel superfluous if the bonus round they contribute to is never actually reached. Similarly, in a two player game clairvoyancy is overlooked completely, watering the game down substantially along with the lack of a discussion element – which is frankly the most entertaining part.

Since the game is so intensely cryptic there's a definite sense of frustration when a wrong hunch holds you back. At the same time, it can be incredibly satisfying when you finally make a correct guess. Plus, wrong answers don't actively reduce scores and the number of players concentrating on helping you decipher your clues usually increases as the game goes on, which all add to the sense of lingering hope as the tension rises for those left behind. Which is what this game is all about, really.

Should you buy Mysterium?

Mysterium is a well-paced dive into the unknown that's sure to challenge even the most surreal thinkers among you and your game night pals. Mostly as it relies heavily on your actual real-life psychic abilities. Which, let's face it, is a rare skill.

That is not to say the game isn't exceptionally fun, with every failure revealing something new. The challenge of interpreting abstract images isn't going to be for everyone, though. It's a game with heaps of replay value for anyone who gets a kick out of analyzing the indefinite world of surrealist visuals. With multiple difficulty settings, and a higher player count than my entire game library combined, it's a great one for large groups of varying cognitive synchronicity.

Ratings

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

How we tested Mysterium

This review was conducted using a copy the writer bought themselves.

Our reviewer played the game multiple times with differing player counts and difficulty levels, and watched several playthroughs, to get a feel for how the game plays.

For a more in-depth look at our process, check out how we test board games or the GamesRadar+ reviews policy.

Looking for something else to play? Don't miss the best family board games or the best card games.

"I didn't expect it to be this big," says Starr, whose breakout role as Final Fantasy 16 protagonist Clive made him a certified video games spokesperson, on a recent episode of the Kit & Krysta podcast. "So [Charlie Cox is] not going to expect it to be this big."

According to Cox, he only worked on Clair Obscur for a total of four hours, "maybe." When was the last time something you tinkered on for four hours received a record-breaking number of The Game Awards nominations?

"I do sympathize with Charlie a lot, actually," says Starr. "It can't be underestimated the speed and efficiency with which Expedition 33 was made."

"I think it's so funny now," he continues, "him just constantly being asked about this video game that he's going, 'I-I-I don't know.' I don't think he needs to play the game; I hope that he does. I hope that, maybe, someone just shows him how good he is in this game."

Starr knows that "Charlie's unbelievable in this game. I think he brings such a humility to Gustave." But humility can be a lonely quality to have when unaccompanied by love. It's a good thing, then, that "Gustave is rightly loved by the fanbase, and I have been very vocal about how much I love the Verstave fanfiction."

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 lead says "cult classic" Xbox 360 JRPG from Final Fantasy creator is "one of the best games of its kind" and "the last game that made me cry."

On November 24, New Game Plus will become available on Ghost of Yotei, a new PlayStation Blog post reveals. As you might expect, it requires completing the main story first, but once you do, you can go straight back to the start of the narrative, but with all the equipment you unlocked for Atsu in your inventory and all your abilities.

On top of that, there will be higher difficulties to test all the weapons, armor and skills you've acquired, and a couple of trophies to unlock. The achievement hunting doesn't end there, since there's another currency coming with the update, Ghost Flowers, with its own set of items and collectibles to be gradually bought up.

Likewise, all the current equipment is getting another layer of upgrades, you'll be able to replay encounters from the post-game with additional stat tracking, and new accessibility options such as remapping are being added, too. This is quite a substantial upgrade from developer Sucker Punch, giving the perfect reason to dive back into Mount Yotei and go through Atsu's quest for revenge once again.

The studio ends the announcement blog with tease that it "can't wait to introduce you to Ghost of Yotei Legends in 2026." This is referring to another big update, the co-op multiplayer mode due next year.

The highly anticipated sequel to Ghost of Tsushima arrived in early October to critical acclaim and strong sales. Our own Ghost of Yotei review hailed it as "one of the first PS5 games to feel truly boundary pushing."

Be sure to check out our roundup of Ghost of Yotei tips to help get you started in Sucker Punch's latest.

"From the start, our studio wanted to make a lot of things," Moonlighter 2 co-director Victor Ribera tells me. That's certainly a goal the team has lived up to. After the original Moonlighter's acclaim came The Mageseeker, an entry in Riot Games' unfortunately short-lived era of League of Legends spin-offs. Like Moonlighter, The Mageseeker was combat-driven, sharing a top-down, pixel-based art-style that made it "a given" for the studio. Still, Ribera says it only came about because the right opportunity arose at the right time.

Shoot for the moon

Digital Sun's first two games might have shared plenty of development DNA - The Mageseeker came about because the team could leverage its expertise with pixel art and top-down combat - but it was less than two years before the studio was back, and with a very different game. "With Cataclismo, we had an idea, and we wanted to explore that," Ribera says. That idea was a real-time strategy game, a huge departure from the roguelikes and hack-and-slashes that the team had made before, not just in terms of genre, but also in terms of appearance.

A move from top-down art to a fully 3D strategy game that allowed players to build their own physics-driven fortresses brick by brick was a substantial one, especially with several members of the Digital Sun team still working between Moonlighter and Moonlighter 2 while Cataclismo was in development. But that's all part of the strategy. "We have a lot of team members that are working on a lot of different things," Ribera says, and those different disciplines help complement development across the studio. "Some things in Moonlighter 2 will impact other projects, and other projects have impacted Moonlighter 2." Sometimes that's in terms of programming, or art, but sometimes it's in overall game design.

Digital Sun carried some major changes into Moonlighter 2. No longer the 2D offering that had made the first game's name, it was now an isometric, 3D affair, with massive changes to combat. But the changes were far from skin-deep. Ribera says that while there was a roguelike structure in place, "the first Moonlighter was an RPG," with ideas that "remembered" more traditional roguelike experiences like The Binding of Isaac. "When you analyze it at shop or dungeon level," he explains, "you realize that it's an older RPG. You repeat the cycle, but you're not repeating the same structure. We just made the fantasy of repeating, but didn't actually make the game structure about repeating itself."

When it came to Moonlighter 2, the studio knew that it had to keep some of those RPG elements, while also boosting the replayability of the roguelike structure found elsewhere in the game. Doing so, Ribera says, has been "exhausting," and Digital Sun knows even that as it enters its early access launch, the answers that it's found are still not perfect. Player feedback - through demos, playtests, and now early access itself - is invaluable in refining those ideas further, but the lessons learned through the creation of multiple different kinds of games is just as important. In our own Moonlighter 2 review, we found its systems could use tightening up, even though its dungeoneering, looting, and shopkeeping is still "a compelling loop".

While Digital Sun's impressively broad catalogue is helping shape its games, Ribera suggests it's also a key part of the studio's survival. "We don't want to spend all the money we've earned on one game," he says when I ask him about the team's output, "because we know that in the current industry, if you don't sell, you just close. We've seen a lot of Spanish studios that have closed because of that. So we wanted, from the start, to make a lot of games."

Those projects vary in size, scope, and the expertise required to make them - "some are expensive, some are cheaper. We wanted experience in 3D, 2D, different genres." Some will be looping roguelikes, others will be narrative-focused, like The Mageseeker. But all of them contribute to a broader studio philosophy: "As a company, we think that it's actually quite safe to make a lot of things and keep bringing players different experiences." Perhaps, for a studio who got its start amid the constantly-repeating structure of a roguelike, that's a little ironic. But as Digital Sun proffers up yet another potential cult hit, it's certainly a strategy that seems to be working.

Check out our best roguelikes ranking for more adventures you can enjoy again and again!

In the picture, which you can see below, the main cast are reunited. That's Dwayne Johnson's Dr. Xander 'Smolder' Bravestone, Karen Gillan's Ruby Roundhouse, Kevin Hart's Franklin 'Mouse' Finbar, and Jack Black's Professor Sheldon 'Shelly' Oberon.

But, you'll notice that the four of them aren't in the video game world, but are instead in our own, real world. In fact, they're in Boston at Christmas time, as revealed by a banner behind them.

In the previous two films, the characters got dragged into the video game, so it seems the third film is flipping the script. Just how that plays out remains to be seen.

What we do know, though, is that this will be the final film in the franchise. "What a massive, fun, heartfelt adventure," Johnson said of the third film on Instagram. "Feels emotionally appropriate for our beloved JUMANJI franchise to end on this beautiful grace note of our final film."

It will also pay homage to the original movie, which starred Robin Williams and was released in 1995. "The significance of the dice in the last picture is a little Easter egg that my character, Dr. Smolder Bravestone, wears on a necklace in our final film," said Johnson. "It’s the dice from the original 1995 JUMANJI and a way of paying homage, love, and respect to the great Robin Williams."

Jumanji 3 is currently in production and will be released on December 11, 2026. In the meantime, check out our guide to all the most exciting upcoming movies for everything else that's on the way.

Sena Bryer, the talented voice behind Wuk Lamat, was the target of online hate following her role in the Final Fantasy 14 DLC. It got so bad, in fact, that director Naoki "Yoshi-P" Yoshida had to address the "personal attack" on the actor from community members. He instructed fans at the time, "Any sort of criticism, bring it to me, I'm the one approving this material." It turns out that Yoshi-P didn't just discuss the issue with players – he approached Bryer, too.

The actor reveals as much in a new interview with The Gamer, explaining that she actually brought the abuse to developers' attention when it initially started post-Dawntrail's release in 2024. She warned Square Enix, "There's a narrative they're trying to push, and they're saying things about you, as well." The studio let Bryer know devs were "on the case," but it wasn't until a short while after that she spoke to Yoshi-P himself about the backlash.

During this year's Anime Expo in Los Angeles, Bryer met the director. "I did meet Yoshi-P for the first time," she recalls. "We arranged a meeting, and he was like, 'I want to apologize on behalf of the team for what happened to you.' He was very kind, and we had a very kind little talk about it." In a wholesome turn of events, then, Bryer solidified her new friendship with Yoshi-P with a little gift: a handmade necklace.

"I gave him a bead necklace someone made for me that is eight feet long and says the entire, 'Have you heard of the critically acclaimed MMO Final Fantasy 14?' [meme]," Bryer says, amusingly adding that the director "really didn't know what to do with it." I don't know about you guys, but I'm having the time of my life imagining this moment unfold myself – and I'm so here for such silly, heartfelt exchanges between the cast and devs.

Even though playing Wuk Lamat proved difficult after Dawntrail launched – the abuse and all things Bryer endured considered – she doesn't regret taking the role. "The bad things that have happened have been outnumbered 200 to one," she admits. There are "100 positive Twitter DMs for every bad one" in her inbox, after all. She is, however, concerned about the impact the hatred she lived through could have on any other aspiring actors.

"I've heard people say things like, 'I don't know if I want to do voice acting because of what happened to Sena,'" Bryer concludes. "That is the last thing I want to hear an up-and-coming voice actress say."

Final Fantasy 14 lead Yoshi-P reportedly teases another "rebirth" for the MMO as Dawntrail continues to suffer "Mostly Negative" Steam reviews over 1 year on

As I write this, countless OSRS streamers – many done up in pirate garb – are rushing to level Sailing as fast as possible, and unseen hordes of diehard grinders are also quietly gunning to be the first to reach the max level of 99 in Sailing. A chunk of them got a head start thanks to an early XP boost that let them skip painful early levels.

As Jagex flagged in its Sailing catch-all, "Daddy's Special Water's special water was more generous than intended, and will now give an appropriate level of XP." Player reports and stream clips indicate this item was dishing out upwards of 10,000 XP in relatively short order, which seems to be several times greater than comparable methods of the same skill level.

The update reining in this special water arrived just a few hours after Sailing's release – enough time for early sailors to get in on the ground floor, but not enough for every player to make the most of it.

Many skills in OSRS take a while to get going, making the earliest levels some of the most arduous. This is especially true of new skills – 2006's Hunter was notoriously slow, though some more recent updates have helped the skill out – now including Sailing, as your training methods are limited and you won't really know what's most effective. This is why many players use quest rewards and other flat XP payouts to skip over low-level grinds where possible.

Instead, with a little help from Daddy's Special Water, a group of lucky players were able to catapult their Sailing grind forward, unlocking more advanced training methods and skipping the slowest parts of a new skill.

New skills are so rare, and the races to max them are so competitive, that this Sailing XP trick has left a sour taste in some players' mouths. Bagging thousands of XP early – versus hundreds post-nerf – offers a non-trivial advantage if you are in the race to 99.

It doesn't help that one of the biggest points of early feedback around Sailing has, unsurprisingly, been its slow start. Jagex accidentally offering, and then hastily removing, a way to get some extra wind in your sails can make that sting just a little more. (I do think some folks are just unaccustomed to what leveling an all-new skill actually feels like, but there are valid points to be made regarding pacing.)

All that being said, maxing a skill in OSRS requires more than 13 million XP, so getting a few thousand extra is just a drop in the bucket – even if it may save you a bit of time and tedium. More than anything, this little hurdle just reinforces my belief that MMO players will always find the optimal way to farm, come hell or (literally) high water.

Meet the hungriest MMO player, an Old School RuneScape legend who's been eating 500,000 trout for the past week, impressing even the devs with their achievement: "What an absolute unit."

The Golden Joystick Awards 2025 kicks off on Thursday, November 20 at 8am PST / 11am EST / 4pm GMT / 5pm CEST, and you can watch the showcase on YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, Steam, TikTok and Twitter.

You can also watch The Golden Joystick Awards 2025 right here.

Watch the Golden Joystick Awards LIVE below

This year, there are 26 categories including a new award celebrating the Best Remake/Remaster. The show will be hosted by Maggie Robertson, best known for her role as Lady Dimitrescu in Resident Evil Village, and will feature various other guest presenters from across the gaming industry.

Prolific voice actor Alix Wilton Regan, Adriyan Rae who plays Hazel in South of Midnight, Ben Starr (voice of Verso in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33), Samantha Béart, who's best known as the voice of Karlach in Baldur's Gate 3, and the actor who plays Geralt in The Witcher games, Doug Cockle – among many others – will all be present and presenting awards during the show.

Much like The Game Awards, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is leading the pack in terms of nominations with seven, including Studio of the Year for Sandfall Interactive. It's followed closely by Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, Ghost of Yōtei, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 with five nominations each. Hollow Knight: Silksong, Sword of the Sea, and Peak are among the indie games with multiple nominations.

Don't worry if you miss out on watching the show live as VODs will be available afterwards, and we'll also round up all of the winners for you.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 leads the Golden Joystick Award 2025 charge for most nominations, nudging out Death Stranding 2, Ghost of Yotei, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2.

You can pick up the ROG Phone 8 for $699.99 in Newegg's early Black Friday deals, which represents a $400 or 36% saving off the mobile's original asking price. That's a great saving, however it won't last forever, as Newegg's timer shows that the deal will end at midnight of November 19 (today). So if you're interested in the phone, you're going to have to act fast to buy it.

Just to be clear, this deal is for the standard model of 8th-gen Asus phone, and not for the premium model which we gave 4.5 stars in our Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro review. It's also not for the more recent Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro, and neither of those phones currently has a discount. So at the time of writing, the Phone 8's closest sibling is twice its price.

The ROG Phone 8 comes with a 6.78-inch AMOLED screen which supports up to 165Hz refresh rate, and keeps the light on with a 5,500mAh battery that charges at 65W wired or 30W wireless. The brains of the operation is a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset from Qualcomm, the most powerful mobile processor of last year (which is only slightly weaker than the current-gen versions), and there's also 16GB RAM and 256GB storage. Features to add to the ROG's gaming credentials are side triggers, RGB decorations and a gaming mode that silences non-gaming operations around the phone to focus the RAM.

Should you buy the ASUS Rog Phone 8?

I've used countless gaming phones from all the major brands over several years, and I've never really liked the ROG Phones; they seem to fumble the bag on key gaming features while costing an astronomical amount. I'm not sure I'm in the consensus with this stance, but my expectations were sadly ruined by stellar offerings from Lenovo Legion and Xiaomi Black Shark, both of which no longer make gaming phones. Most of my favorite alternatives don't actually sell in the US, and I can definitely recommend buying a discounted ROG Phone 8 over importing an alternative.

I'd recommend looking to one of the Pro models over Black Friday, as they come with better specs and select improvements across the board, however at the time of writing they're not reduced.

To people who want a gaming-focus phone, this could end up being one of the better deals over Black Friday, as it's a hearty discount on an older mobile. Even if the 8 Pro and 9 Pro get reduced by $400, they'll still end up being a fair amount more expensive.

But if you're preparing for general cell phone deals over Black Friday, and want a phone for gaming but not just gaming, I'd advise in avoiding Asus. That's because its mobiles are designed with a strong focus on gaming, and this bumps up the price quite a way.

You'll almost definitely find other options for under $700, perhaps for a lot less; bear in mind that you don't need all the trappings of a gaming phone to make the most out of your chosen title, as mainstream mobile titles are optimized to run on anything.

I've personally liked gaming on Motorola's Edge phones, as they have decent processors and lots of RAM but also svelte builds, and I'm currently testing the top-spec Nothing Phone (3) which only costs $799 before sales. I've also just found a Samsung Galaxy S25 FE reduction which you can find below that won't be as good for gaming as the ROG Phone 8, but is better-rounded for everyday use and costs less.

• See all Black Friday deals at Newegg
• Samsung Galaxy S25 FE (128GB) | $649.99 $474.99 at Amazon
• Asus ROG Tessen mobile controller | $129.99 $97.50 at Amazon

Check out our full ranking of the best gaming phones, or prepare for Black Friday gaming deals which could see more smartphones reduced. We've also got a round-up of Black Friday iPad deals, if you prefer to game on a big screen.

So long as you're quick, you can snatch up many of the Warhammer 40K Battleforces (not to mention those lovely Age of Sigmar equivalents) for around 20% less than normal via indie retailers like Miniature Market in the US and Wayland Games in the UK. Considering how many of these have already sold out in both regions, I have a suspicion they won't last until next week's Black Friday Warhammer deals. The Space Marine version is long gone, for example, as is the very gothic Soulblight Gravelords pack with Prince Vhordrai on an undead dragon.

As mentioned above, I think I'd probably go for the Chaos Space Marines Battleforce because my heart belongs to 40K's Ruinous Powers but I've yet to build an army for it in the current edition. The heroes included aren't just your bog-standard Chaos champions, either; they're eminently creepy riding that spider-like mech.

As for Age of Sigmar, I'm actually quite keen on those trolls. There's something wonderfully whimsical about the Warhammer versions, and they'd be a blast to paint with wild and whacky colors.

Anyway, I wouldn't wait long no matter what you like the look of. Loads of these boxes have already sold out in both the US and UK, so I doubt the rest will last long.

• Save $10 on the new Deathwatch Kill Team at Miniature Market
• Warhammer 40K: Savings up to $30 at Amazon
• UK Warhammer 40K: Get up to £15 off at Amazon

For recommendations on what you should play next, check out the best board games, the best tabletop RPGs, and the best card games.

Dragon Quest 7 is a strange game in the canon of the series. It does have its fans, but it's very likely that it's the game in the series that most players have abandoned before finishing, because it's simply so long. HowLongToBeat reckons it'll take someone 78 hours to simply mainline the 3DS version, which is already longer than the "Main + Extra" for the second-longest to mainline: Dragon Quest 8. The original PS1 version is even longer, with an estimated 108-hour main story, and those figures don't scratch the surface for anyone who wants to complete everything the JRPG has to offer.

This is partly due to the game being a collection of storylines that take the party all over the world. Square Enix has already confirmed that the game will be getting new scenarios on top of that in the upcoming remake Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined, with the recent State of Play showing off new content starring Kiefer.

However it's also been confirmed that the game will be streamlined somewhat, with it being confirmed that "the amount of time it takes to get to the first battle in the game is much shorter." Speaking to GamesRadar+ in a new interview, producer Takeshi Ichikawa explains: "Some of the [stories] have now been made optional, so you can play them in any order you want." And while this cuts down on the critical path, making the average playthrough somewhat shorter.

But even with the choice to make some optional, that wasn't enough for the team, as Ichikawa explains "a few of the stories which weren't 100% relevant to the main storyline have just been cut entirely."

Obviously, the "Reimagined" subtitle gives away that this was never really intended to be a faithful remake to the original 2000 PS1 game, something which 2016's 3DS remake did provide. Ichikawa explains that back in 2000, "people were looking for one single game that they could spend a huge amount of time in… Now, people are looking for something a bit more compact."

Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined makes the original JRPG's choices actually matter with a brand new possible ending "that's never been seen before in previous iterations"

"Back in the year 2000 when the game was first made, there really wasn't as much entertainment around," explains producer Takeshi Ichikawa, "people were looking for one single game that they could spend a huge amount of time in… Now, people are looking for something a bit more compact."

Short story collection

Originally released in 2000, Dragon Quest 7 dropped the series' classic linear narrative to deliver an intriguing omnibus of short stories. Taking your party on a globe-spanning adventure, DQ7 tied together the story of multiple towns across the land of Estard with a collection of deceptively dark tales. "A lot of these short stories are about unfairness…" says Ichikawa, "The darkness of society is reflected in those stories in a way that I think is really quite unique amongst the dragon quest games."

If you're also a Brit, it's pretty likely that you won't have played Dragon Quest 7 at all. With the PS1 release skipping Europe entirely, DQ7 didn't arrive on the continent until 2016's Dragon Quest 7: Fragments of the Forgotten Past, on 3DS. Yet, even on 3DS, Ichikawa believes that very few players saw the story through to its conclusion.

"At 100 hours, even the 3DS game was still a very large game," says Ichikawa. So, for Reimagined, Square is doing a reverse Snyder and cutting all but the most impactful storylines. "Some of the [stories] have now been made optional, so you can play them in any order you want," explains Ichikawa, "and a few of the stories which weren't 100% relevant to the main storyline have just been cut entirely."

While long-time fans may have mixed feelings on some of the nixed stories, for our hour preview session, it's the handsome visuals that make the strongest impression. Almost ten years after the 3DS remake, Square Enix has opted to imbue their lengthy RPG classic with a hefty layer of spit and polish. Swapping the publisher's signature 2D-HD aesthetic for a quasi 3D remake, as adventurers roam the beaches and plains of the island of Estard, they do so from a top down perspective. Part The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening on Switch, part PS1-era Final Fantasy, there's a chibi-esque charm oozing throughout Reimagined.

"Even though [every Dragon Quest] uses Mr. Toriyama's unique style, the proportions of the characters for [Dragon Quest] 7 are that much shorter," says Ichikawa. "So, when we started looking for the right art style to fit that slightly more adorable, cute aesthetic we settled on the idea of using these doll-like characters."

As I dive into battle, I immediately see what he means. As the diorama-like town exploration fades, during combat, players command their puppet-styled party of adventurers from a tight-knit over the shoulder perspective. It's an effectively claustrophobic, up close and personal approach to battling, feeling closer to Kratos' recent God Of War entries and Resident Evil 4 than a traditional turn-based RPG.

As your troupe grimace upon receiving damage, their foes are equally wonderfully-animated, with DQ7's beautifully expressive monsters stealing the show. From the little wobbles of the adorably angry hammerhoods to the menacing mouth twitches of the nightmarish mouse/wasp hybrids called, well, mouseflaps – whenever your puppet-esque party dives into battle the eerie world of Dragon Quest comes vividly to life.

"I think the main thing that we really tried to push in the monster design and the visual presentation is that sense of texture," explains Ichikawa, of the battles' toy-like charm. In fact, there's more than a hint of Pixar to these Toy Story-style character models. "The main characters in the game were all made using real dolls, models with real textures on them that were scanned in."

While the characters look cuter than ever, it's during each tense encounter that Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined's darker undercurrent bubbles to the surface. Ichikawa tells me that the team wanted to offer a newly hallucinogenic and unsettling interpretation on Toriyama's creature designs, truly bringing out the twisted facts of each nightmarish creation.

There's a new-found level of dynamism to turn-based battles, too, with Ichikawa explaining that the team were partly inspired by one 2025 GOTY candidate. "I had a lot of fun with [Clair Obscur]," smiles Ichikawa, "it really keeps what makes turn-based games great, but also does it in such a stylish, visually appealing way."

Finding your vocation

Unlike the more purist approach to combat in the recent NES era Dragon Quest remakes, Reimagined adds a few more features in order to keep combat feeling exciting. The biggest change is the new "Moonlighting" system. Characters can now make use of two separate job classes simultaneously, allowing players to get creative by mixing and matching vocations to make exciting combinations of spells and passive abilities.

"I [played Clair Obscur] while we were in the middle of development," Ichikawa continues, "and I felt that the direction that they've gone with Clair Obscur, in terms of the tempo, the pacing of the battles, was very similar to the way that I'd approached trying to improve Dragon Quest 7."

As each battle unfolds, your party builds up energy and they become 'worked up.' When this state is reached, players can select the 'Let Loose' command, activating a unique vocational perk. These perks function as handy mid-battle buffs, ranging from powerful, temporary stat boosts for the entire party to emergency heals when things start looking tough.

In another nod to Mr Toriyama's beloved past, there's also the pleasingly anime-style new "Burst Mechanic." At GamesRadar+, we're big fans of a bit of the ol' razzle dazzle, and burst attacks add plenty of that via screen-filling spectacle. These stunning super attacks allow the new art style to really shine, making merking nearby monsters immensely satisfying as your characters power up in a cathartic collision of carnage and colour.

Still, it's not all something old and something culled with Reimagined. Alongside the cut content, Ichikawa tells me that there will be a smattering of new story content awaiting returning fans, too. All new episodes have been added in a bid to expand certain characters' backstories. While he won't be drawn on which characters will be getting new arcs, the Dragon Quest team hopes that these bonus episodes will help make the key story moments feel even more impactful.

As anyone who's completed its 100 plus hour opus will attest, DQ7 is an immensely text heavy affair, making it a game that cries out for voice acting. In Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined, this is only partly implemented, with key story cutscenes brought to life with a myriad of grin-inducing regional UK accents. From a Yorkshire witch in the Northern region of Emberdale groaning about going up 'tut volcano, to the radio 4-worthy southern drawl of the more well to do inhabitants of Wetlock, these cutscenes are a delight, but it's a shame that the NPCs you encounter in the game world only natter away to you in silence.

In an age of infinite distractions, Square Enix is hoping that by trimming down the fat, modern players will finally be compelled to see DQ7's beloved tale through to its dramatic conclusion. If each standalone story arc receives the polish to make it shine – and the new character backstories impress – Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined may well serve as a canny director's cut to a much beloved RPG classic.

Can't wait for adventure? Check out our best JRPGs list for more!

Ichikawa revealed as much to us during an interview about putting together Reimagined. "I had a lot of fun with [Clair Obscur], it really keeps what makes turn-based games great, but also does it in such a stylish, visually appealing way," he tells GamesRadar+.

As Ichikawa made his way through the expansive French game, he noticed similar lines of thinking, particularly in regards to combat. Clair Obscur may have a turn-based fight system, but it manages to be snappy as well as strategic, putting a modern spin on old school ideas, and this redux of Dragon Quest 7 aims to do similar.

"I [played Clair Obscur] while we were in the middle of development, and I felt that the direction that they've gone with Clair Obscur, in terms of the tempo, the pacing of the battles, was very similar to the way that I'd approached trying to improve Dragon Quest 7," he says.

Living up to the moniker, Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined is a top-to-bottom rebuild of the original game. Missions have been cut and streamlined, mechanics tinkered with, and the visuals re-done for contemporary standards. This entry is lesser-known within the series, since the original PlayStation game never made it to Europe, and a re-release on the Nintendo 3DS in 2013 found more of a cult audience.

The success of Clair Obscur: Expedition has made it clear there are a lot of JRPG fans out there. After two missed opportunities to truly leave a mark, Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined is here to teach players a little more about a long-running franchise, and how it's never too late to learn a thing or two from your contemporaries.

Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined aims to fix one of the only things I don't like about the original JRPG: "The amount of time it takes to get to the first battle in the game is much shorter"

The storage brand behind some of the best SSDs for gaming has already slashed up to 45% off a range of storage options, including its new T705 2TB NVMe M.2 Gen 5 SSD, which is down to just $159.99 at Amazon, a return to its lowest ever price so far. That price alone is fantastic for one of the latest Gen 5 drives out there (assuring you have a compatible motherboard that can actually use it), but there's also only $5 separating it from the 1TB version.

If your gaming PC, or even your PS5, is in dire need of some extra storage this November, I've gathered all the best SSD Black Friday gaming deals I've spotted from Crucial down below. While they're active now, be sure to check back on Black Friday and Cyber Monday to take a look at the full wealth of storage deals, including price drops on more of the best external hard drives when the deals are officially underway on November 28.

• View all Crucial SSD Black Friday deals at Amazon
• View all SSD and storage deals at Amazon
• Crucial T705 2TB PCIe Gen5 NVMe M.2 SSD | $198.95 $159.99 at Amazon

If you're after some extra storage for your Sony console, check out our Black Friday PS5 deals hub for savings on console bundles, PS5 games, and accessories too. There's also our Black Friday Xbox deals hub and Black Friday gaming laptop deals hub, which are full of big early bargains.

All Playground Basketball codes

The following Playground Basketball codes are currently active:

• UPDATE3 – 7,500 Coins
• 12MVISITS – 7,500 Coins
• THANKSFOR2500LIKES – 1,500 Coins

At the time of writing there are a few codes for Playground Basketball available, which will grant you a decent amount of Coins towards unlocking new items. Fresh promos are added for each update and significant milestone in the game, so keep checking back regularly to see if new codes have dropped.

How to redeem Playground Basketball codes

To redeem Playground Basketball codes, you first need to join the Playground Basketball | Community group by tapping on the developer's name from the main hub screen and then hitting the Join Community button. With that done, go into the experience itself and activate the Gift icon on the top bar to bring up the REDEEM CODES window, then use the ENTER CODE... text box to type in a promo before hitting the REDEEM button to claim it. Note that codes for Playground Basketball are case-sensitive, so you need to enter them in the exact way they're listed or you'll receive an error message.

Expired Playground Basketball codes

• 7MVISITS - 4,500 Coins
• PLAYGROUND - 50 Treats
• UPDATE2 - 4,500 Coins
• HOOPORTREAT - 50 Treats
• UPDATE1 - 4,500 Coins
• SORRYFORBUGS - 10,000 Coins

There are currently a handful of expired Playground Basketball codes, which mainly related to previous game updates, concluded in-game events, or milestones reached. As always, check back often for new promos and redeem them as soon as possible, so you don't miss out on any potential rewards.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

So why is its remaster one of the defining games of PS5? Well, that PS4 victory lap never really ended. We've had slightly conservative sequels to Horizon, Spider-Man, God of War, and Ghost of Tsushima. Some good, some great, but none of them as brave a roll of the dice as The Last of Us 2.

Head to the next paragraph if you don't want spoilers – seriously, off you go – but this game kills its co-lead in the opening hours. It's easy to forget just how ridiculously audacious that move was. Imagine if Donkey Kong Bananza explained you had to play as DK because Diddy Kong had succumbed to bronchitis. I hope whoever opens the feedback mail at Naughty Dog got a steep raise that month.

After that merry opening, the stage is set for a violent stealth adventure that makes the first game look about as grisly as an episode of Bluey. A grimdark indictment of human nature where horses get shot in the head, supporting characters get picked off more ruthlessly than in a Game of Thrones finale, and someone can't even enjoy a spot of Hotline Miami on PS Vita without getting their throat slit. It's a lot.

Naughty Dog… You OK, hun?

At least The Last of Us Part 2 doesn't shy away from the horrors of what you're doing. I've racked up psychotic kill counts in hundreds of games, but this is one of the few where every character has a name. Plenty mocked the feature where surviving NPCs will sometimes yell one of your victims' names out when you kill them. I think it's brilliant. An upsettingly effective way of reminding you that, oh yeah, that was a person you just slaughtered. Naughty Dog are still one of the few AAA studios interested in humanizing the 'enemy' at all.

But the game isn't just good for giving you more reasons to hate yourself for perpetuating cycles of violence. This revenge quest simply feels great to play as a game. It's the best stealth adventure since Metal Gear Solid 5. Except all your lovely toys from Metal Gear haven't bothered showing up, forcing you to think on your feet in a game where simply trying to wait the enemy out is suicide. They're far too smart for such tired stealth tricks. Instead of sticking to rigid patrol routes like clockwork automatrons, the people you're up against actually communicate with each other, make smart decisions, flank you, and – oh boy – occasionally drop to their knees and beg for mercy. Sorry, bud. Not in this game.

Slowly creeping up on someone who could suddenly turn around at any moment never stops getting the pulse racing, especially with several of their friends in the wings ready to shout "Kevin!" if they witness you shanking poor Kev. It never lets you get comfortable, constantly escalating and adding nasty new complications, or a swarm of clickers just for kicks.

I'll never forget the moment where my opponents stopped loudly shouting their plans and started communicating through whistling. A sinister secret code that you can't crack, so you don't know if that whistle means 'no sign of her, let's all go home and play Uncharted instead' or 'there she is – kill, kill, kill!'

The Last of Us Part 2 throws massive set pieces at you relentlessly, moments that would be the climax to other games. A horseback chase through what's essentially a war zone might be Naughty Dog's greatest set piece ever. But my favorite thing about the game is actually something that's missing.

There's none of the tiresome yellow paint plastered everywhere to hold your hand and tell you exactly where to go. Instead the artists subtly guide you, encouraging exploration and paying attention, making for much more organic-feeling traversal. And because you have to constantly engage with it properly to progress, it sucks you in brilliantly. They've somehow made a game that's more downbeat than a kitten morgue near-impossible to put down.

Bloody, beautiful

This remaster is undoubtedly the way to play The Last of Us Part 2. A mere PS4 upscale? Please, most PS5 games wish they looked half as good as this. But it's the haptic feedback where the update truly sings. No one gets more out of Sony's machines than Naughty Dog, who gleefully ask the Astro Bot devs to hold their beer so they can get every bell and whistle out of the DualSense.

The resistance in the left trigger when you aim a gun just feels right. As does the way the rumbling adjusts whether on horseback, fleeing on foot, or walking into another one of those bloody explosive traps. And the bit where you have to shake the controller to get your torch working again is… OK, that bit's still stupid. But otherwise, this is easily one of the best games for showing off what PS5's all-timer of a pad can truly do.

There's a generous amount of extra features, too. Three 'lost levels' that were cut from the campaign give a fascinating look at the still far too murky world of game development. Hang on, they cut a party scene where Ellie could get her face painted? Christ, Naughty Dog, can't you cut her even the tiniest of breaks?

There's also a new mode, No Return, which asks the question 'what if our very serious examination of the futility of violence… was a fun roguelike!'. Decent if you just want to enjoy the excellent stealth systems, even if it does successfully kill off all the nuances of the main story. Yes, yes, violence is horrible, but if you use a molotov in this level to kill someone, we'll give you a bonus reward! I doubt we'll see that idea adapted in the TV show, but if you're reading this, Craig Mazin, I'd love to be proven wrong.

The Last of Us Part 2 is far from perfect. While it's great to see a queer relationship in such a big budget mainstream game, I still think Dina and Ellie's relationship has no spark whatsoever. They have about as much romantic chemistry as Joel does with a certain golf club. It's far too long and indulgent in places, and the overwhelmingly dour tone sometimes had me taking breaks to play something more upbeat, like Spec Ops: The Line.

But this is still the best stealth game on PS5 and almost nobody in the AAA space is taking swings as bold as what you'll find here. If this is what Naughty Dog can achieve with a mere remaster, then their upcoming first bespoke PS5 game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, might beam us to actual space.

Check out our best PS5 games ranking for what to play next!

It's not hard to play through the Gears franchise, whether through Xbox Game Pass, or physical copies (still easily found). I'm hanging onto the hope that the recently remastered Gears of War: Reloaded will lead to a full series of remasters. For now though, if you're new to the series, Gears 5 is the best place to start. It's a direct sequel to Gears of War 4 – I'm assuming the 'of War' moniker was lost in battle – but does a good job of helping newbies catch up with the story. Crucially, its game design is a ton more fun than the originals.

War machine

The original Gears of War games were very focused on tight areas where a wave of enemies would come at you, you'd kill them, run down a corridor, and move onto the next sequence. There are some notable exceptions but the basic structure remains the same throughout. Wrapped up in good-looking graphics for the time, satisfying gunplay, and none of us knowing any better, it didn't matter back then. It's noticeable now though. Times have changed and open-world games are a big deal.

Gears 5 doesn't go full open-world but it knows how to combine the original concept of set pieces with a wider sense of autonomy and openness. Growth is good. When it comes to finding collectibles, there's more variety in terms of where to look rather than being stuck poking around a narrow corridor. You can wander more and check out the surroundings. Some moments even provide a little more lore of what's going on. This isn't immediately apparent as the first act eases you in but it soon becomes a nice tweak to the usual format. Never fully open-world, it's just enough independence to ensure that Gears 5 is a lot of fun.

Besides that gentle tweak to the format, Gears 5 gets that women can be muscle-bound heroes too. Take a look at your favorite action movies. Remember how Arnie was the sole hero back in the day, or Sly? Gears 5 remembers that Ripley in Alien could be as much of a badass and this time, she's been working on those gains and consuming at least a cow's worth of protein a day. Enter Kait Diaz. She features in Gears of War 4 but in 5, she's the central character and it's refreshing to see. She's still as much of a gym bro turned gun bro, but with a modern take of 'shock horror, women can be like that as well'.

None of this would matter if it wasn't that Gears 5 is fun – but boy, is it fun. I replayed it recently following a 'first' playthrough of Gears of War: Reloaded and loved every second. It's 'switch your brain off' fun, just like those '80s action movies of days gone by. The first act eases you into the storyline and keeps fairly rigidly linear, but it gives you the chance to get into the groove. Each weapon is satisfying. There's seemingly no obvious weak point in your arsenal. Kill something with a headshot and their head explodes with a far too satisfyingly bleak squelch noise.

These creatures aren't human and are solely focused on your destruction so there's no moral dilemma here. It's just a good feeling to commit such potential atrocities. Similarly, fling a grenade and gore goes everywhere. Even your own character can end up covered in blood and gore. So, predictably, this isn't for the faint hearted but it does tap into that unrealistic and excessive vibe that action movies of old – think Robocop – did so well back in the day. Remember how fast things could escalate in The Expendables? This is what you get here, but without the iffy connotations of realizing other humans are dying because of such escalation.

It's somehow even more fun with a friend or two in tow. Everything is better with a friend, after all. You can team up against the Locust Horde and other enemies (no spoilers here!), and watch the blood fly. With the more open-world sequences, you can cover more ground together and come up with more strategies. Then team up again to slice, dice, and chainsaw your enemies (did I forget the chainsawing? Yes, you can chainsaw foes. Yes it feels horrifically awesome), before moving onto the next area of destruction and gore.

It's a curious mixture of old and new. Some games go too open-world and forget to fill that world up with stuff worth looking at, while others are far too tightly woven so you feel like you're on a fixed rollercoaster. Gears 5 juggles those ideas well – never going too far in one direction or the other. If a game makes you smile gleefully just thinking of a memorable moment then surely it's succeeded in everything you could want from such a game? That's Gears 5 all over. Well designed over the top machismo with a hint of a heart as needed.

Looking forward, here are all of the upcoming Xbox series X games we're looking forward to

After a short theatrical release, the new gothic horror movie landed on Netflix on November 7 and has since been watched 62.9 million times, as reported by Deadline. Frankenstein still has a ways to go before placing in Netflix's top 10 most-watched movies of all time list, but it is certainly on track.

In first place sits KPop Demon Hunters with 325.1 million views, followed by Red Notice, Carry-On, Don't Look Up, The Adam Project, Bird Box, Back in Action, Leave the World Behind, and The Gray Man. Stranger Things star Millie Bobbie Brown's 2024 fantasy movie Damsel sits in tenth place, as listed on Tudum.

However, the ranking is based on how many views a movie receives globally in its first 91 days on the streamer. Damsel racked up 138 million views in its first 91 days, but Frankenstein already has 62.9 million in just 12 days (at the time of writing). With 79 days left, the new movie will surely break into the list.

Starring Marvel star Oscar Isaac as Doctor Victor Frankenstein, and Saltburn's Jacob Elordi as his monster, del Toro's emotional take on Mary Shelley's classic novel follows an egotistical scientist who brings a creature to life in a monstrous experiment that ultimately leads to both his and his creation's undoing. The movie was met with positive reviews and holds a respectable 86% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

The movie also stars Mia Goth, Felix Kammerer, and Christoph Waltz.

Frankenstein is available to stream on Netflix now. For more, check out our list of the best Netflix shows and the best Netflix movies to stream right now.

Half-Life 3 copium has been at an all-time high recently following the Steam Machine announcement, with every 'insider' and their mother coming out of the woodwork to be like, "big things coming ;) look at me I know things you don't" in the vaguest way possible. And while I won't believe Half-Life 3 – or Valve making a new video game that isn't a MOBA – exists until I see it with my own eyes, everyone seems convinced that this week will mark the historic day that Half-Life 3 is revealed, and me and everyone else in the retirement home (or as they're known, Half-Life fans) will finally see the day.

While Game Awards host Geoff Keighley was promoting The Game Awards 2025's nominees getting their own section on Steam this week, Twitter legend Wario64 noticed that Keighley only has one game wishlisted and asked about it. And after Keighley replied with a shifty eyes emoji, fans' minds went to Half-Life 3 somehow having a wishlistable page that Keighley has access to. The replies are full of Half-Life-hopium images, while one writes: "DONT PLAY WITH MY HEART LIKE THIS GEOFF."

Keighley then responded again 18 hours later, showing that the one game he has on his wishlist is none other than Dadlympics – a physics-based brawler game about dads. However, in a Phoenix Wright-esque moment, everyone then noticed that Keighley added Dadlympics to his wishlist on November 18, 2025, while the original Tweet was on November 17.

This new wrinkle has once again sent the Half-Life fans into a frenzy. "WHAT IS HE HIDING FROM US!" one questions. "Bro I can't breathe man like surely not man I'm almost shaking," says another.

Why would Keighley try to hide what he wishlisted? Was it Half-Life 3? Could it finally be happening? Or maybe it was just one of Steam's endless deluge of weird games like Genital Jousting, and he didn't want people knowing he wishlisted it, and this Half-Life thing is a coincidence? The world may never know.

Roguelike superstar drops out of The Game Awards because Megabonk "is not my debut game," but fans beg solo dev to reconsider.

"Mad Men continues to show truly remarkable staying power with audiences a full decade after concluding its network run, and we couldn't imagine a better home for it than HBO Max," said Jim Packer, Lionsgate's president of worldwide television distribution. "HBO sets the bar for premium entertainment, making it the perfect place to celebrate one of television's defining series while introducing Mad Men to new viewers and reintroducing it to longtime fans in 4K."

Mad Men was created by showrunner Matthew Weiner and ran for seven seasons between 2007 and 2015, making stars of several members of its cast, including Jon Hamm, Elisabeth Moss, and Christina Hendricks. The show follows a team of advertising executives on New York's Madison Avenue – hence the show's name – in the 1960s.

Chief amongst these is Don Draper (Hamm), a veteran of the Korean War turned genius ad man. His knack for a clever slogan and insights into the lives of everyday people make him exactly what ad agency Sterling Cooper needs to become one of the most successful in the business. He has problems, though... While he seems professional at work, Don's personal life is a disaster and he's carrying a dark secret about his past.

Don isn't the only fascinating character in the show. Arguably the real protagonist is Peggy Olson (Moss), a young and ambitious secretary at Sterling Cooper who aims to rise through the ranks and become a fully-fledged creative.

Through Peggy, and several of the other female characters, including Christina Hendricks' formidable office manager Joan Holloway, the show charts the changing societal attitudes to women at work in that era. Peggy begins the show as the butt of every sexist quip imaginable and while we won't spoil the journey that she goes on, it's a story of empowerment that sees her outshine her male colleagues.

Despite its reputation, Mad Men isn't just a series about whisky-drinking, cigarette-smoking ad executives. It's a powerful depiction of post-war America moving into the swinging '60s – a very different era that brought huge societal changes to the United States, saw the shocking death of a President, and put men on the moon. It's also funny, frequently surprising, and a very human story with sublime performances and some of the best writing for TV ever.

Don't believe us? The show won four consecutive Best Drama Emmy awards, and notched up a staggering 116 nominations in its seven year run, making it one of the most acclaimed TV shows of all time. If you've not seen it before then now is your chance – and in 4K it will look better than ever.

For more TV, check out our list of the best HBO Max shows and the best HBO Max movies.