Amid all the chatter about when Star Citizen will launch and how much money it has raised in player funding, what you can actually do in Cloud Imperium Games' space MMO often gets lost. Star Citizen may not be finished, but it is playable in an alpha that gets updated relatively regularly. Only last month, patch 4.8 added a massive new mission type that involved players embarking on a combined space and ground assault on a heavily fortified asteroid.

Alpha 4.8.1 continues with the asteroid theme, as a fleet of mysterious raiders besiege mining stations through the systems of Stanton and Pyro. As such, the law-abiding security group Foxwell Enforcement, alongside the criminal organisation Headhunters, are both enlisting pilots to help defend the beleaguered mining operations.

According to the patch notes, there are 385 missions in total. These missions will see players "defend asteroid bases throughout the systems, prevent the attackers from destroying key resources, and escort escaping workers to safety as needed". Successful completion of missions will earn participating pilots "credits, reputation gains, and unique blueprints available here for the first time"—though CIG doesn't specify what these new blueprints might be.

They sound fun enough, although players over on the Star Citizen subreddit are reporting some slight teething problems with the missions. "Failed every one so far because the pilot you're supposed to escort flies into the hangar and the doors never open so he just explodes," writes Zealousideal-Ad2695. Poordutchguy points out that this is not a new issue: "That happened when these missions were active in the past. I did 13 missions. 1 succeeded."

Obviously, Star Citizen is still heavily in alpha. But after 14 years and $1 billion in funding, I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to expect a mission type that has apparently been in the game before to be playable when re-added to the experience.

Then again, if reports are accurate, the bulk of CIG's attention may currently be on the single-player campaign Squadron 42. Chris Roberts recently said that CIG's solo space adventure was in the "closing stages" of development, and there's rumours that Squadron 42 may show up at Summer Games Fest, albeit with the possible announcement of yet another delay.

Games and tech products can leak in all manner of strange ways. But the curious case of the Pixel Watch 5 is by far the weirdest I've heard about. The accidental unveiling of what appears to be Google's next smartwatch involves scuba diving, Caribbean idylls, and Gearbox CEO/walking headline generator Randy Pitchford.

For once, Pitchford isn't the main character of the story. Instead, he's the narrator. Earlier this week, Pitchford posted on X that "a friend" of his had inadvertently stumbled upon what appears to be a Pixel Watch 5, which Google has yet to announce. The twist? The watch was underwater when it was found by Pitchford's pal, who was scuba diving at the time.

"A friend of mine found this watch a few days ago ~underwater~ when he was scuba diving near the island of St. Martin," Pitchford wrote. "He noted that the reverse of the watch indicates that it is a Google Pixel 5, which has not yet been released."

Continuing, Pitchford wrote that the watch "seems to be fine" aside from having an empty battery, and that he was sharing the information because his friend "seems to believe I am connected in the tech industry." The post also includes images of both the front and reverse of the watch, which does appear to have "Google Pixel Watch 5" written around the underside.

I hope it doesn't need to be pointed out that finding an unannounced smartwatch in the ocean off a Caribbean island is an extremely unlikely event. Inevitably, some people have accused Pitchford of making the whole thing up. But if he is, it's a pretty elaborate prank.

As noted by GSMArena (via Kotaku), the image of the watch reveals numerous specs consistent with a Pixel Watch, such as IP68 ingress protection, a heart rate sensor, UWB chip, pulse sensor, spO2 and skin temperature tracking.

My instinct is that the watch is real and that whoever dropped it was either a Google employee on vacation or someone testing out the water-resistant capabilities of the watch. Why you'd fly all the way out to Saint Martin to do that is a mystery to me, but Google isn't exactly short on funds to do so.

Pitchford followed up his initial post with an update saying he is "now in touch with the owner" and he and his friend have "arranged for its return." He signs off by saying "If you find something that isn't yours, pay it forward and try to return it to its rightful owner." Thanks for the advice, Randy!

One concept was continually repeated by Nvidia at Computex 2026, and it's this idea of "reinventing the PC." The phrase has been used in reference to the company's RTX Spark SoC—powering "the world’s first Windows PCs purpose-built for personal agents"—and from a hardware perspective, it's an interesting bit of kit.

However, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang went further into the "reinvention" of the PC at a Q&A session later in the show. "Your personal computer is really the world's largest edge device, and it's 40 years old," said the Nvidia chief. "And [it] has to be reinvented for agentic systems…. just like we have to reinvent the car."

Huang then used an example of modern autonomous cars as edge devices, while satellites "put intelligence in the sky." Later, the Nvidia chief had this to say about the future of the PC platform as a whole:

"Our computer sits at our desk waiting for us to use it. In the future, when we leave it… we're talking with it all the time," said Huang.

"I'll be chatting in WhatsApp with my agent, and it's doing stuff... and my agents are going to have names, and they're on my WhatsApp, and we're just chatting all the time. I'll be talking to it, and it's going to be talking back. It'll call me."

"That is the personal computer future. Tell me that's not R2-D2. Tell me that's not robotics. Tell me that's not cool," Huang continued. "I believe that many, many people will have this at home, just like they have a car at home. Soon, the agent is going to be so valuable to you, you want it to be sitting in a nice box, sitting in a nice computer, secure, performant, something you could carry with you, something you would use for a long period of time."

That's a nice sci-fi-style piece of imagery. Who among us hasn't imagined the idea of the ever-present "computer" (summoned with a cut-glass British accent, of course), working away in the background to not just respond to our commands, but to intelligently work with us to satisfy our needs, even at great distances?

The problem, however, is when that thinking runs into the cold, hard wall of reality—and all the extra consequences that entails. As things stand, our PCs are enablers of our own intelligence in a relatively direct way. We input commands, the computer responds. We control the machine, to a considerable degree. We are the agent.

But transforming our PCs into something with more agency, more AI-handled tasks, strikes me as risky business. It's putting the user further away from the machine, and letting AI do much of the heavy lifting instead. And in a world where concerns around the wider scope of the tech are well-publicised, this sort of AI-first thinking seems like a misread of the public perception surrounding it.

It reminds me of a joke/meme I read a long time ago, which I'll reprint here:

"Tech enthusiasts: Everything in my house is wired to the Internet of Things! I control it all from my smartphone! My smart house is Bluetooth-enabled, and I can give it voice commands via Alexa! I love the future!

Programmers/Engineers: The most recent piece of technology I own is a printer from 2004, and I keep a loaded gun ready to shoot it if it ever makes an unexpected noise."

AI is far from perfect. And while it continually improves, the level of public trust around it seems shaky at best. We continually read stories of AI deleting work, breaking existing systems, and hallucinating. It can also be manipulated, sometimes with surprising ease. In this upcoming agentic AI PC world, can we really trust it to integrate itself so smoothly into our digital lives? And more crucially, do we want it to?

Looking at the wider picture of public perspective around AI, the temperature seems to be rising. Students are actively booing speakers who tell them about the wonderful AI future they're walking into.

Microsoft's head of AI, meanwhile, has expressed puzzlement around negative reactions towards the tech, while the company itself is in the process of scaling back AI integration into Windows 11 features, after complaints that the operating system wasn't focusing on the fundamentals. Which are, of course, the traditional functions of your PC.

Personally, I like the fact that my PC is a box that I control directly, not an AI agent platform I work with from afar. It makes me feel empowered. And while there are already lots of unseen processes running under the hood to make that happen for me, I'm not sure a swarm of AI agents will improve the experience.

"We're now reinventing the computer. It's an agentic computer. It's an agent now, it's an assistant, not a tool. And that's the big idea," says Huang. That's a shame. I like tools. They enable me, a human being, to directly express myself. Agentic AI assistants handling many tasks for me, reducing my primary role to some sort of bizarre conductor, though? Is this really what we, the end users, want?

Nevertheless, the artificial intelligence beast continues to spread its tentacles into our daily lives, and we're often told that if we don't get on board with the tech, we're going to be left behind. Don't worry, though. It's a good thing. Agentic AI will make our lives better, and soon we'll all… I don't know. Have more time to go to the beach, or something.

I guess I'll believe it when I see it. But it's difficult not to feel that, as end consumers, we don't really have much of a choice as to how our technological future develops. Our brave new AI-dominated world looks to be coming for us whether we like it or not, and we'd better hope it's everything that was promised. Will I be writing about how awesome my new agentic AI PC is in future? Will I even, thanks to AI, be writing about anything at all?

I've no idea, but it doesn't feel great. How about you?

After nearly 10 years, Vampire: The Masquerade—Bloodlines 2's long and convoluted development is finally approaching its end. Its second and final DLC—The Flower and the Flame, releases next week, concluding one of the more dramatic industry sagas witnessed in the last few years.

Announced in 2019 after several years of development, Bloodlines 2 promised to be a full-blooded sequel to Troika's beautiful, if broken 2004 RPG. But a challenging initial development led to original developers Hardsuit Labs being booted off the project in 2021. The baton was picked up by The Chinese Room, which rebuilt the game from the ground up and released it last year.

The result offered an enjoyable enough slice of gothic detective fiction, as Fraser Brown explained in his Vampire: The Masquerade—Bloodlines 2 review. But it didn't really deliver on the whole 'RPG' of it all, lacking many of the systems and ideas featured in Troika's original.

The subsequent expansions have been adding some of that stuff back in—sort of. April's Loose Cannon DLC reintroduced the ability for players to wield guns and melee weapons by hand, albeit only for the DLC and within the constraints of playing as a specific character—the base game's rogue sheriff Benny.

The Flower and the Flame adopts a similar approach, only this time you play as Ysabella, the glamorous Toreador who runs the Atrium nightclub. The DLC's story is difficult to summarise without spoiling it, but the four quests it adds explore Ysabella's relationships with some other key characters in the base game, while revealing the reasons why she, uh, does the things she does in the main story.

As for how it plays, Ysabella's combat is based around the Toreador abilities in vanilla Bloodlines 2, but with a few DLC-specific flourishes. For starters, Ysabella gets a new gizmo called Razor Wire. This is a hook attack a-la Scorpion from Mortal Kombat, with Ysabella lassoing enemies with barbed wire before yanking them toward her, stunning them in the process. She also fights with a rapier in melee combat rather than using her fists, and can dual-wield any guns she picks up in a fight, from pistols to sniper rifles.

It certainly sounds more involved than the base game. It is worth pointing out, however, that the first DLC didn't go down all that well. Loose Cannon has a 'Mixed' rating on Steam with just 43% positive reviews. It certainly sounds more involved than the base game. It is worth pointing out, however, that the first DLC didn't go down all that well. Loose Cannon has a Mixed rating on Steam with just 43% positive reviews. I haven't played the DLC myself, but PC Gamer's news editor Andy Chalk has, and as someone who enjoyed the base game, he described the DLC to me as "pure garbola", elaborating thusly:

Half of it is just a replay of the boring endgame level, there's no real insight into the character or why he went nuts, the implementation of guns is extremely clumsy to the point that they're not worth the effort, the awful crossover from Bloodlines 1 is back and somehow even more pointless and annoying, and wow, it turns out that Bloodlines 2 was actually heavily dependent on its characters and when you strip them out there's not a hell of a lot left.

It doesn't exactly sound riveting. I'll also say that, while I didn't particularly like Benny as a character, he was more interesting than Ysabella, and I'm not especially convinced by Paradox's summary of the latest DLC's plot.

Bloodlines 2: The Flower and The Flame launches on June 10. There's no price listed for it yet, but since Loose Cannon cost $15 (£13), I imagine you'll pay the same for Bloodlines 2's swansong.

A possible social media ban for children in the UK could be expanded to games, the government's online safety minister has suggested.

Speaking to The Sunday Times (via Game Developer) Kanishka Narayan said that a ban on social media for teenagers—which is being considered by the UK following a social media ban being implemented in Australia—could include restrictions for online video game platforms like Roblox and Fortnite, an area that Australia's social media ban does not extend to.

Narayan didn't cite any specific games in his conversation with The Sunday Times, but he said that, following a recent visit to Australia, his primary concern regarding children's use of the Internet was over "stranger pairing", between children and adults they don't know.

Apparently, this issue was discussed, "mostly in the context of gaming platforms" rather than conventional social media like Tiktok, Instagram etc. "That will weigh quite significantly in my mind as we think about how we stop some of the most egregious harms for young people," Narayan added.

Narayan's statements were recently echoed on Sky News by Rachel De Souza, the Children's Commissioner for England. Speaking on Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, De Souza said that young boys in particular are vulnerable to being exploited on gaming platforms.

"Boys often aren't on social media," De Souza said. "They're often spending three or four hours a day gaming. And these games often have features that allow a 55-year-old in Arizona to come in and speak to a nine-year-old."

Roblox in particular has been repeatedly called out for its failures to adequately protect its player-base—which is largely composed of children. The platform has been subject to numerous lawsuits over child safety concerns, while there have been "at least two dozen" people arrested in the US and accused of "abducting or abusing victims" they'd met on Roblox.

Roblox's responses to these lawsuits and allegations have varied in quality, but this month, the company will introduce new age-based account categories as it strives to "more closely align content access, communication settings and parental controls with a user's age." These are much-needed and long overdue features, though it's worth noting that this is only one reason why Roblox has been accused of putting its audience at risk of exploitation.

But is a wider social media ban that incorporates games the answer? Well, in March, the BBC reported that the effectiveness of Australia's social media ban had been questioned, with the country's Internet regulator saying that social media companies were not doing enough to comply with it. In response, a spokesperson for Meta said that the company was "committed to complying" with the ban, while claiming that accurate age determination was "a challenge for the whole industry."

Personally, I think a social media ban wrongly implies that children accessing social media is the problem, rather than vastly profitable tech giants failing to dedicate adequate resources to get their houses in order—an issue that affects adults as much as it does children in various ways. Whether or not a UK social media ban will actually come into force, and what form it will ultimately take, remains to be seen.

At today's Summer Game Fest showcase, we learned that a pair of new Cuphead games are in development. One is a "hand-animated" successor to the original 2017 sidescroller, which emulates golden age cartoons. The other is retro in a different way: "an 8-bit action platformer named Mighty Cuphead Adventure."

The really notable thing about Mighty Cuphead Adventure is that it's being developed in assembly—a low-level programming language—to the specifications of the Sega Master System, an 8-bit console released in the mid-'80s.

"While the game will absolutely be compatible with modern consoles and PC," developer Studio MDHR said in a press release, "players who want a true blast from the past will be able to experience it on a physical cartridge on the Sega Master System home gaming console."

The commitment to developing Mighty Cuphead Adventure with techniques from the '80s mirrors the commitment to using hand-drawn, 1930s-style animations in the main Cuphead series. The developer will share more details about the game "in the months ahead."

The Wolf Among Us was one of Telltale's most loved games, and when the studio returned to life under new management in 2019, one of the first things it did was announce that The Wolf Among Us 2 is happening.

And then we waited, and waited, and waited some more: A 2024 promise that yes, the game is still in development, was the most recent update on the situation—until now.

A new trailer for The Wolf Among Us 2 appeared at today's Summer Game Fest showcase, giving us a slight but pleasantly fresh look at Bigby's upcoming adventure, and some of the characters (and headaches) he'll face as he investigates a new mystery: "Homicide. Six total so far. Each case husband and wife found shredded. People are dying. Some monster is out there. Word around the precinct is you're the guy to call."

The wait for The Wolf Among Us 2 has been unexpectedly long. and occasionally peppered with rumors that the whole thing had been cancelled. As PC Gamer's Harvey Randall noted in 2024, "to say that The Wolf Among Us 2 has had a troubled development would be like saying that a highway pile up has had a mild impact on traffic." It was actually meant to be out in 2018, a full eight years ago, but Telltale's closure later that same year obviously had an impact on that.

Telltale has also finally committed to a release target, albeit one that's not very specific: 2027! Yeah, that's it. The good news for fans is that there's something closer to the moment: The Wolf Among Us Remastered is also in the pipe, and it's set to come out for the 2026 holiday season.

One of the most puzzling trailers from today's Summer Game Fest was the one for Haex, the debut game from developer Dead Astronauts. It opens with some pretty normal-looking guns pointed at some pretty normal-looking sci-fi monsters, but my mind keeps coming back to that cube. That damn cube.

It looks like a Rubik's cube adorned with glowing alien sigils, and in the trailer it's used to trigger sweeping changes in the environment—the player jams it into a socket on the forest floor, a huge wall of rectangular spikes swallows up all the surrounding nature, and then it disappears to reveal a strange, featureless structure.

I don't know how this makes the game meaningfully different from other shooters, but I do know most of 'em don't have cubes! The Steam page piqued my interest further by revealing that the cube is sentient, and that it can teach me how to double-jump.

As for the game itself, it's a 1-4 player co-op survival shooter that'll have you tracking temperature and starvation as you explore an open world. "Alien seeds" will let you open access to new areas and uncover new gadgets and crafting recipes, which you can then take into your friends' saves. It seems more narrative-driven than other survival games, but the Steam page teases some procedural generation and an emphasis on hopping from game to game: "Every world keeps its own story. Every character keeps its own progression."

No release date was announced and the trailer was light on raw gameplay footage, but the concept is intriguing. Abiotic Factor certainly proved that survival games with rich sci-fi mysteries have a ravenous audience, and while this game looks to be more shooter than survival-craft, it might be going for a similar vibe sans the Half-Life homage. I'm interested! Mostly because of that cube.

Cubes: they're really in right now.

N Plus Infinity Times Two is the newly announced follow-up to Metanet's beloved N++. The latter had a killer soundtrack, especially for those among us who scour Hardwax and Boomkat daily for blink-and-you'll-miss-it vinyl pressings of austere techno. In a medium where many studios opt for chiptune or generic filmic string orchestras, it was a welcome deviation from the norm: N++ both looked and sounded like the future.

The soundtrack for N Plus Infinity Times Two will shift gears a tad. "Instead of Berlin techno," Metanet's Raigan Burns said during a presentation last week, "this time our main reference was UK Garage, and all the sub genres that it birthed, which [are] generally melodic, colorful, and mostly broken beat, rather than the claustrophobic, tension-laden 4/4 techno of N++".

UK garage is an antecedent to British dubstep, whose most famous example is probably Burial or Kode9 (the later US manifestation of dubstep, i.e. stuff that sounds like Skrillex, is a whole different beast). Countless other genres have sprouted from UK garage including grime, bassline house, and future garage. To summarise: without having seen the tracklist, the soundtrack to N Plus Infinity Times Two promises to be much more sonically diverse than its predecessor.

Metanet has spent a lot of time getting it right too, especially because they've refused to lean on recommendation algorithms to connect stylistic dots. "Another big change is that with N++, we used recommendation algorithms on SoundCloud and YouTube to help us find new music," Burns said. "But after 10 years of living in an increasingly algorithmically driven society, we can't stand it anymore. So for this game we kind of went full organic, free range, and just kind of brute forced it by hand."

He goes on: "So in the end, we spent almost 1,500 hours curating the soundtrack, which is basically two hours every evening for two entire years, listening to a few seconds each of almost half a million different songs, exploring like every back alley and sub-genre that we could find on Bandcamp to find the perfect music. The end product is something that we think is going to be truly unique in video games, with about 60 different songs from half a dozen completely different styles of modern electronic music, and it's all exclusively from the 2020s."

Burns promises the soundtrack will range from "flowy dreamscapes" to "intense bangers". Representing the latter is Zorza, a producer from Metanet's hometown of Toronto.

While we wait for N Plus Infinity Times Two's 2027 release date, here's the N++ playlist to provide some shelter from the foul post-Suno slopscape:

GOG has apologized for a "Slavic adventure" newsletter sent out today that featured a number of very distinct Nazi runes in its subject line.

To be clear, this is not a misunderstanding, or images that look kind of alike, or a misinterpretation of an ambiguous situation: That's a Sonnenrad, a kolovrat, and the extremely unmistakable double Siegrune of the SS—quite possibly second only to the swastika as the most distinctive emblem of the Nazi regime. From my own email:

This is not a small mistake. As PC Gamer's Kara Philips put it, "There's messing up, and then there's whatever this is." So, the obvious question: how the hell did this happen?

"We are sorry for today's newsletter," GOG wrote in an apology on X. "We made a series of mistakes: We created an unfortunate visual association by placing the runes incorrectly, we used the wrong logo for The End of the Sun, we did not check the display of the newsletter on mobile devices—which came out worse—and we didn't port the feedback from our German QA to other languages."

The apology doesn't substantially address how the symbols wound up in the email in the first place. The problem with the runes isn't their placement, it's that they are explicitly and indelibly associated with Nazis and white supremacists. Just as with the swastika, their meaning prior to the Third Reich is irrelevant: The Nazi links are too clear and prevalent to pretend that any other connection is equally meaningful.

GOG said it stopped the mailout when it noticed the error, and is "revising our review process to enforce more checks and catch these mistakes earlier."

As a fan of fishing in games, my ears perked up at the sound of a rod and reel during Summer Games Fest. It was the trailer for Last Harbor, where the fishing quickly turned from a peaceful pastime to a struggle for survival.

That's because this isn't just a fishing game, it's a co-op and PvP zombie shooter, and to make things even more interesting: according to developer and publisher tinyBuild, it's based on a true story.

No, obviously, there weren't actually zombies running around attacking people. Last Harbor is "inspired by true events of spending the lockdown of 2020 on a boat stuck in the beautiful San Juan Islands of Washington state," says tinyBuild.

"Fishing, exploration, the feeling of dread while surrounded by beauty, and walking around quaint, seemingly abandoned town centers while trying to avoid other people. We aspire to replicate this feeling of isolation as you navigate the abandoned remains of a cluster of islands off the US coast, teeming with the undead."

Not a bad origin story for a game, really. And it sounds like an interesting concept, too, because there's a lot at stake as you pilot your boat around hunting for resources.

"The undead roam the land and the few remaining survivors have taken to the sea in search of refuge. To survive, they must maintain and upgrade their boats, venturing back to the land they once called home in search of resources, loot and sustenance. But every expedition could be their last and it’s not just the zombies that are out for blood," says tinyBuild.

"Anchor next to an unexplored island, launch your dinghy and venture ashore. Stay alert of your surroundings, as other players won’t hesitate to part you with your hard earned loot if they stumble upon an unmanned boat."

You aren't in constant peril, however:

"Find safe harbors where guards keep the peace and the people safe. Socialize with other players and rent anchorage to keep your boat safe," tinyBuild says.

Sort of Sea of Thieves-y, but with safe harbors and zombies? Plus, fishing? I could be into that. There's no release date announced for Last Harbor, but we'll keep our eyes peeled for more information.

At today's Summer Game Fest, one reveal in particular had me leaning forward with great interest: a follow-up to Guild Wars 2, a game I have well over a thousand hours in.

It's where I experienced one of my most treasured MMO thrills ever: completing the mapwide boss encounter Dragon's Stand for the first time. It's also where I sat through an equally unforgettable disappointment: the conclusion to the Icebrood Saga, which sped through a lore event that had been hyped up for years beforehand only to deliver a notoriously flat anticlimax.

Being a Guild Wars 2 player has always meant putting up with inconsistency only occasionally matched by the MMO's contemporaries. This is best embodied by its update and expansion schedule, which has seen overhaul after overhaul from year to year.

Developer ArenaNet switched focus frequently between seasonal "living world" updates, big expansions like Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire, and most recently, an annual schedule for smaller, more focused expansions. Even the endgame setup never quite sat still: the game originally did away with traditional raid instances entirely, until they showed up anyway, and then those got replaced with smaller-scale "strikes," until the two merged and became the same thing.

At any given moment, it was hard to know what to expect for the future—even the reveal of a new game arguably continues this trend of constantly switching gears. Compare that to a game like World of Warcraft, which has such a predictable patch cadence that it went and announced three expansions in advance just a few years ago.

PC Gamer Editor-in-Chief Phil Savage wrote at length last year about how ArenaNet struggled to deliver satisfying conclusions with its current annual expansion strategy, saying that both Secrets of the Obscure and Janthir Wilds "[limped] towards their finish." While I have fuzzy memories of the game's biggest expansions from back in the day, that model had its problems too: long waits between updates, and living world follow-ups that varied in quality.

I don't think MMOs, or any live service games for that matter, bear the responsibility to go on forever. It's okay for games to wind down or move on to sequels. But Guild Wars 2, despite its casual-friendly flat progression and lack of subscription fee, encouraged the player to invest countless hours into Tyria. It's easier to feel like that's worth the time with a surefire future ahead, especially if you're in it for the game's story—which, as is typical for MMOs, moved from beat to beat at a glacial pace.

Guild Wars 3 is a fresh start for the aging fantasy series, and while we don't know all the ways it will be different from the games that came before it just yet, I hope I can rope in my friends using the same ease with which I'm able to recommend MMOs like Final Fantasy 14, WoW, and even Final Fantasy 11.

A sequel to horny action game Stellar Blade was announced at Summer Game Fest, and my first reaction upon seeing it was that I'm not sure GPU is up to the task. That futuristic city looks cool, but phew, even the trailer seems to struggle in moments. I don't know if I'd be able to hear the game over my fans.

The footage is, of course, "from a game currently in development and is subject to change," developer Shift Up says. The action looks pretty smooth in interiors, as does the new protagonist's vacuum-sealed bodysuit.

Blood Rain will take us "beyond the events of the first game, introducing new protagonist Evie and expanding the world in a bold new direction," the studio says.

We weren't the biggest of fans of the original Stellar Blade—it's "Nier: Automata on horny steroids," we joked in our review—but it delivered something a lot of people want, and I have a feeling Blood Rain will, too. (I'm gonna have a hard time not thinking of BloodRayne whenever I read the title, though—remember the Uwe Boll movie?)

The original Stellar Blade was published by Sony, and didn't come to PC right away. Blood Rain will be self published, and given that the trailer was captured on PC, I expect it'll launch on Steam.

No release date or platforms have been announced yet, though.

"While the project is still in early development, Shift Up has made incredible progress and is looking forward to sharing more details when ready," the studio said in a press release. "The team is hard focused on building upon the stylish action, world-building, and core elements that fans have adored from Stellar Blade, while evolving the universe in ambitious new ways."

More than a decade after the release of one of the best action platformers ever made, N Plus Infinity Times Two is the next ninja parkour movement sim from Canada's Metanet Software.

If you love N++ I know what you're probably thinking: decade old or not, that game has over 4,000 levels, and it got a massive free expansion just last year. Why does N Plus Infinity Times Two need to exist? Well, because the Metanet duo of Raigan Burns and Mare Sheppard have kinda turned N into Smash Brothers. And also, kinda, Rocket League. Other games mentioned during a presentation last week include Counter-Strike, Towerfall, and It Takes Two.

"We don't think we can substantially improve upon [N++] in terms of being a hardcore single player platformer," Burns said. "So for this new project we're trying to go a bit perpendicular, and we're trying to apply the same basic process [we did] to N+."

To recap: N released in 2004 as browser-based freeware. In 2008, N+ released as an Xbox Live Arcade exclusive, and like all XBLA games it needed to have an online component. Thus, N+ added some neat multiplayer modes to a format that had previously been entirely singleplayer focused.

In other words, N Plus Infinity Times Two is to N++ what N+ was to N.

"For N Plus Infinity Times Two, we're kind of setting out to make the ultimate version of that initial foray into multiplayer platforming," Burns said, "this time bringing to bear two decades of learning and knowledge and development of our craft to help us make a significantly better experience for everyone."

Enthusiasts and pedants will point out that N++ did have multiplayer, but it only supported local play. N Plus Infinity Times Two will support both online and local multiplayer for up to four players, and it'll boast five main game modes across cooperative and competitive. You can play it by yourself, but multiplayer is very much baked into N Plus Infinity Times Two's design.

Of the five modes, Metanet showed two: Racing is, as the name implies, a race to the exit, with each character collecting as much gold as possible on the way and setting off traps to hinder opponents. Whoever reaches the exit is automatically equipped with a rocket launcher, all the better to slay dawdling opponents. One nice visual touch here is that each player leaves behind a color-coded trail, making it much easier—in theory—to follow the movement of your stick thin avatar on a busy screen.

Tag Team was also shown: Sheppard said "It plays kinda like if you turned Counter-Strike surfing into melee only deathmatch", though here is where Rocket League was a major inspiration too. It pits two ninjas against two hunters:the former must survive while the latter hunts them with traps and contact damage. Oh, and the hunters can turn into rockets. Anyone who knows N games knows how dangerous rockets are.

Other modes include co-op, one-up, and trials.

Burns said that part of the motive for making N Plus Infinity Times Two was to try to explore possibilities in the 2D platformer that aren't done (to death) elsewhere. "A big source of inspiration for N Plus Infinity Times Two was to go back to the source," he said. "[Shigeru] Miyamoto himself never referred to the original Mario games as platformers, he used the term athletic games.

"We've always thought that that's a very inspiring way to think about platforming as a sort of virtual athletics," he went on. "So the concept for the new game is basically just that soccer is more fun than track and field, and in the context of platforming, there's an entire world of new possibilities once you change the core conversation from the single-player context of, like, it's a level designer and a player conversing, to a multiplayer context where it's players conversing together, and the level design becomes more of a conversation starter rather than the focus."

But, for those who are averse to the concept of a multiplayer focused N game and have also finished the thousands of levels in N++, there will be a full singleplayer campaign, and the multiplayer modes will each have a solo practice component.

"We recognize [singleplayer] is what people love and what they will be expecting," Sheppard said. "And we love it too, even if we are maybe ever so slightly bored of that. We think we've done it really well up to this point and there are still lots of ideas to explore."

N Plus Infinity Times Two will release in 2027.

The Final Fantasy 7 remake trilogy will soon come to an end with next year's third and final entry, Final Fantasy 7 Revelation. The Square Enix RPG was the last big announcement for today's Summer Game Fest live show, and one you can play on PC when it launches next year.

Director Naoki Hamaguchi joined Geoff Keighley on stage for the reveal, which included a trailer packed with FF7 iconography you'll recognize in a heartbeat, like the Highwind, monstrous Weapons, and footage of Vincent and Cid in battle. You can check it all out for yourself in the not one, but two trailers that debuted during the show.

Shortly after the first cinematic aired, Hamaguchi invited Matt Mercer—the voice of Vincent Valentine—to the stage to talk us through an even longer gameplay reveal. The battle system is the same real-time tactical hybrid from the first two, but now you have the additional party members that weren't playable in Rebirth along for the ride.

Both Final Fantasy 7 Revelation trailers throw a lot at you, so here's what stood out to me at a glance:

• Ability to fly around the open world in the Highwind
• You'll also jump out of the Highwind and parachute to your destination
• Brief looks around the Wutai and Mideel regions
• Playable Vincent Valentine, your gunslinging ally that also transforms into a beast
• Playable Cid Highwind, the party's resident Dragoon
• New FITS system for playing dress up and learning new movesets, very classic Final Fantasy (and X-2) of them
• A showdown against the Weapons, FF7's kaiju-like monstrosities, and some of the hardest fights in the original

Square Enix didn't provide a specific date just yet, but Final Fantasy 7 Revelation launches in spring 2027 and will be available through the Epic Games Store and Steam.

In February 2026, Monster Hunter series producer Ryozo Tsujimoto confirmed that a "large scale expansion similar to Monster Hunter World: Iceborne and Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak" was in the works for Wilds. In a reveal at tonight's SGF showcase, Capcom pinned a name on its next hunting expedition: It's called Ascendance, and it's coming to Wilds in 2027.

Based on what was shown in the trailer, Ascendance—a "massive" expansion, in Capcom's words—will have hunters leaving the now-familiar regions of the Forbidden Lands and heading skyward into the floating ruins of the Wyverian civilization. That journey will seemingly entail a notable risk of aerial lizard bombardment. You've been warned.

As is typical for Monster Hunter expansions, we can expect new creatures to clash with, new zones for questing, and expanded weapon movesets for facing the elevated challenge of Master Rank hunts. Based on the gameplay footage shown, hunters will be able to bolster their weapon movesets with jet-propelled mechanisms embedded in their forearm-mounted slingers: A great sword hunter was able to launch themselves into a string of strikes that—for the heavy weapon—were surprisingly nimble.

Most exciting for veteran MonHun sickos is the glimpse of a long-absent silhouette at the end of the teaser. Lao-Shan Lung? Now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time.

Ascension will be Wilds' best chance at securing a salvaged reputation, as Capcom only managed to substantially alleviate the PC release's dire performance issues in a January 2026 update—almost a year after its February 2025 launch. Ascension has the potential to be a crowning conclusion to the Wilds redemption arc, or a backslide into dysfunction.

Looking at Iceborne and Sunbreak as a track record, however, there's plenty of reason to hope.

Monster Hunter Wilds: Ascension launches in 2027.

Well now look at what the cat dragged in—1666: Amsterdam is still happening. During today's Summer Game Fest livestream, Assassin's Creed creator Patrice Désilets took to the stage to reveal the debut trailer for his long-awaited adventure game starring a witchy lady I can't help but root for.

The dark, third-person action game launches in early access this year, but you can play a short 30-minute demo now on both Steam and the Epic Games Store. It's not very often I get a game about the kind of broody, intimidating cat lady I aspire to be, so of course I'm mid-download as I write this.

It serves as a standalone narrative teaser, introducing us to the world and leading lady, the witch Noa Brooklyn. We saw some of that in the SGF reveal trailer, which also included plenty of ominous black cats, dark cuts to Noa in witch garb, and very brief clips of her swinging a staff around. No shots of anyone trying to toss her on a pyre. I'm assuming they all know better than to try.

This isn't the first we've heard of 1666: Amsterdam, but it's taken a lot to get it to the SGF stage. The game originally started as a project Désilets worked on while at THQ Montreal, which was later bought out by Ubisoft in 2013. He was fired shortly after, and then sued Ubisoft for the rights to 1666. That's obviously all worked out now, and Désilets was finally able to share those results today.

Everything in the trailer looks cool as hell, though I'm hoping Noa's intimidating presence hits in all the same ways when there's actual gameplay involved. As for how that shapes up, the team at Panache Digital says your journey as Noa will take place across multiple timelines. The first unfolds in 1666, then it moves into 1999, and then the present day. You'll piece together the world's mysteries across timelines and eventually reveal "fragments of a larger truth."

No word on an exact date just yet, but you'll be able to play 1666: Amsterdam in early access sometime this year.

At the 2026 Summer Game Fest, we got a new trailer for Star Wars: Zero Company, the Star Wars squad tactics game from the XCOM veterans at new studio Bit Reactor. The trailer revealed that Zero Company will launch on August 27, and Anakin Skywalker himself will feature in the story.

This new trailer had a similar balance of gameplay to cinematics as Zero Company's reveal last year, with an emphasis on juicy Star Wars aesthetics and fan service. Nothing wrong with that—Bit Reactor has a great handle on Star Wars art.

One new thing I clocked from the trailer is a wider degree of options for custom characters than I had gleaned at my hands on with the game in February: The trailer included custom-built clone troopers alongside the alien mercenaries we already knew were coming.

The trailer ends with, what else, a surprise cameo from Star Wars' #1 problematic fav, the infamous youngling-hater, Anakin Skywalker. It's unclear as yet how much of a presence Skywalker will have in the game overall, but hey, always nice to see the guy.

I had the opportunity to try Zero Company for myself at Bit Reactor HQ in February, and it immediately shot to the top of my personal most wanted list. As you can see from the trailer, it is basically Star Wars XCOM, but it's not just Star Wars XCOM.

Zero Company has a large number of RPG elements, like Mass Effect-style story squad mates with loyalty missions, conversations, and the like, alongside some punishing permadeath. It also has a commitment to cinematic storytelling that really has to be seen firsthand, with console-style cinematic exploration in-between crunchy tactics battles.

Based on my hands-on, Zero Company is well-positioned to hit that August 27 release date. You can wishlist Star Wars Zero Company on Steam.

The first story trailer for Star Wars: Galactic Racer sped onto Summer Game Fest today, giving us a glimpse of characters like Sebulba, that four-armed alien that looks vaguely familiar, a human with a moustache that's probably from one of the cartoons or comics or something, and a whole bunch of other Glup Shittos.

As you can probably tell, I'm a bit of a lapsed Star Wars fan so I don't have any idea who most of those characters are, and the story trailer mainly left me with one reaction: Oh, there's a story? I was hoping it would just be racing.

Lest you come away from those two paragraphs thinking I'm not excited for Star Wars: Galactic Racer: I actually am! I loved Star Wars Episode I: Racer (I had it for the N64) and whenever I fast-forward through the first Star Wars prequel I always watch the podracing segment (that and the Duel of the Fates battle are about the only reasons to watch the movie at all.)

So yes, I am pumped to see the racing gameplay, and decidedly less pumped to see a bunch of aliens talking about whatever the heck the story is about. But no matter. I will happily sit through all the dialogue (or smash the "Skip" button) in order to get behind the controls of a racer again.

The release date leaked a couple of months ago, but it's now definitely official: Star Wars: Galactic Racer launches on October 6. I'll see all you Glup Shittos at the starting line.

I've got a serious case of Gundam disease. It's bad enough that I willingly spend my time playing Gundam: Battle Operation 2—a game that most of the world rightfully thinks is irredeemable. I'm starved enough for new Gundam stuff to play, that at this point I'll take whatever Bandai Namco is willing to put in front of me.

I didn't expect "whatever" to entail Gundams battling giant monsters, however, but I'm willing to be proven wrong. At tonight's Summer Game Fest, Bandai Namco revealed Gundam Rogue Orbit, an action game where mobile suits are fighting a meatier class of enemy than they usually face.

Still, even in the brief announcement trailer embedded above, there's plenty of recognizable Gundam material: A hapless grunt suit gets hopelessly outmatched by a superior tier of foe. There's a white robot with a V-fin. There's the profound sorrow that comes with the dashed hopes of a lasting peace for the space colonies.

I'll admit that I'm a little skeptical about how much it'll feel like Gundam when so much of what makes Gundam work is rooted in the emotional, psychological, and political tensions that emerge from human conflict. But Gundams facing kaiju isn't entirely unprecedented: That's the premise of the Mobile Suit Gundam Eight manga that kicked off in 2025.

And hey, when a beam sword looks as respectable as it does in that gameplay footage, I'm willing to give it a chance.

Gundam Rogue Orbit launches on Steam in 2027.

ArenaNet teased earlier this week that something Guild Wars related would be at the Summer Game Fest showcase. Naturally, we wondered if it could be Guild Wars 3, but fans of the MMO series tried not to get their hopes up.

Turns out high hopes were justified: It is Guild Wars 3! There's even a Steam page up now.

"The MMORPG genre has millions of players worldwide eager for new, modern experiences, and the opportunity to harness that excitement is immense," Guild Wars 3 game director and ArenaNet studio head Colin Johanson said in a press release. "Our approach with Guild Wars 3 is to push MMORPGs forward, to create an online game world that feels believable, rewarding, responsive, and innovative while at the same time respecting players’ time and providing a positive, supportive space to build community and enjoy new stories in our universe."

ArenaNet tells us that Guild Wars 3 is set over a thousand years before the events of Guild Wars, and takes place in the Tyrian region of Orr, "a vast wilderness frontier imbued with the world's magic."

Speaking on-stage at Summer Game Fest for Guild Wars 3's reveal, Johanson said the prequel-threequel will offer "usher in an entirely new type of MMO experience."

The trailer doesn't show much that you could call gameplay, but it does illustrate a core aspect of the MMO: Each player will have a Seeker, a spirit which serves "as a connection to the spirits of Orr and a mount that will carry them on their journeys through the game's open world."

In other words, it's—you know—a cool horse. A really cool horse.

Guild Wars 3's movement system is particularly emphasized on the Steam page: "Run, slide, leap, and bound across Orr with a one-of-a-kind movement system that transfers your momentum between modes of travel, providing a free-form joy of movement through a world alive with adventure."

And that sounds great and all, but both Johanson and the Steam description overlook the most promising thing shown in the teaser: There's a bear guy sitting there. Barely any MMOs let you make a bear guy. That's the kind of innovation I'm looking for.

In all seriousness, while ArenaNet is making some pretty massive promises, it's tempting to hear that a studio is investing some serious thought into experimenting with the MMO form in 2026, years after most of the industry has left the genre behind. We take it for granted now, but in their heyday, MMOs celebrated the magic of a exploring and coexisting in a shared, online world. If ArenaNet can find a way to recapture that magic, I'll eagerly give it my attention.

No release date for Guild Wars 3 has been announced, but a beta is planned for fall 2027.

Paramount Skydance unveiled a new game studio earlier today, creatively called Paramount Games Studio, and promised to reveal its first game during tonight's Summer Game Fest showcase. And now we know—it's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin.

The Last Ronin is set in a future New York City, ruled by the grandson of the infamous villain Shredder, where a lone turtle fights to avenge the deaths of his brothers. The limited series is grim stuff, of course, but also critically and commercially acclaimed, and a game based on the property being developed by Embracer-owned Black Forest Games was announced in 2023.

I'm not sure about the status of that game, although I'd assume it's fallen by the wayside—there's no mention of it on the Black Forest website—but this one is being developed by PlatinumGames, known for Bayonetta, Nier: Automata, Ninja Gaiden 4, and—since we're on the topic—Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan.

The Last Ronin will be published by Paramount Games Studio, a new Paramount division that's essentially a combination of the company's two existing studios, Skydance Interactive and Skydance New Media, according to a Variety report. The previously announced games in development at Skydance Interactive—Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra and an untitled Star Wars game headed up by Amy Hennig—are still in development at the newly-formed outfit. Paramount Games Studio will be headed up by Tony Driscoll, the head of corporate strategy and development at Paramount.

"This isn't just about creating a new gaming division," Driscoll posted on LinkedIn. "It's about recognizing that games have become one of the most powerful forms of storytelling and community-building in the world.

"At Paramount, we're building games as a core content pillar alongside film, television, and streaming. That means investing in original worlds, deepening fan relationships, and creating experiences that can grow into the next generation of franchises."

The Last Ronin doesn't have a release target yet or a Steam page, but Paramount confirmed that it will be released on PC as well as console. For now, you can find ever so slightly more—and, naturally, throw money at some merchandise—at thelastronin.com.

There's a good chance you haven't heard of That's No Moon. The Los Angeles-based studio is one of many that cropped up amidst the Covid-fueled videogames gold rush of the early 2020s, and up until now it's been working in total silence. The South Korean publisher backing the startup, Smilegate, is known for free-to-play shooters and MMOs, but much of the top brass at That's No Moon cut their teeth at Naughty Dog making Uncharted and The Last of Us.

It's an odd pairing, but it has produced a genuinely intriguing debut game. What if I told you:

1. It's called Crossfire, the same name as Smilegate's long-running FPS colloquially known as "Korean Counter-Strike"
2. But it's not an FPS, or competitive, or even multiplayer at all. This Crossfire is a singleplayer, third-person, "stealth-forward" tactical shooter
3. The main character is voiced and performed by Claudia Doumit, known for her roles in The Boys TV show and the Modern Warfare 2019 reboot
4. It's mashing the cinematic stylings of a prestige console game with the systemic friction of a milsim—high lethality, limited healing, manual magazine reloading, etc.

Weird! But also: Cool!

That's No Moon is drawing from the world of the competitive FPS—particularly its factions—but this is an original story with new characters. CCO Taylor Kurosaki is well aware that most of the West doesn't know the first thing about Crossfire, let alone its fiction, and you don't have to. During a visit to the That's No Moon studio in Los Angeles, Kurosaki called Crossfire a canvas.

The world had lore, but not much in the way of stories, until now.

This Crossfire takes place in a militaristic theatre, but its story won't take the shape of a Call of Duty-style global conflict. The game centers on the relationship between protagonist Layla Qassem, an idealistic gun-for-hire, and Delroy Cross, a mercenary who "fights for institutions." Kurosaki danced around the specifics of their meeting and the conflict that brings them together, but in an interview with PC Gamer he compared Layla and Delroy's relationship to classic "unlikely duo" cinema like Midnight Run.

As I watched Crossfire played live by game director Jacob Minkoff, my eyes widened with surprise. The behind-the-back camera angle, cinematic cutscenes, and believable exchanges between Layla and Delroy had all the markings of The Last of Us (on which Minkoff was lead designer), but when action broke out, we quickly left PlayStation prestige behind.

Firefights were loud, scrappy, and brief. Minkoff fired in controlled bursts, as full-auto recoil seemed difficult to control at distance. Tanking just a few shots would tear through Layla's ceramic plates, triggering a bleed that he had to mend within seconds or pass out. There was no first-person view as far as I saw, but in its place was one of the coolest on-screen reticles I've ever seen: a projection of what your current gun's sights would look like in first-person, instead of a traditional cross or dot. What a neat way to convey an experiential difference in FPS guns (preferring one gun's iron sights over another's) that third-person shooters are usually left out of.

That's just one of the ways Crossfire is pulling from milsims like Escape From Tarkov, Arma, Squad, or what have you. After stealth-killing a soldier, Minkoff looted the body and revealed an elaborate, Tarkov-style modular inventory with slots for backpacks, vests, and ammo belts. At one point he replaced Layla's busted helmet with a fresh one, then looted ammo from a pack, which required the extra steps of loading bullets individually into magazines.

Covered

None of these mechanics are wholly unique on their own, but it's the context they exist within that excites me. This isn't a battle royale, an extraction shooter, or an Arma scenario—it's a linear, authored campaign. We just don't get singleplayer shooters with characters and stories that you (ideally) care about and this level of simulation. The closest analog is Ubisoft's recent run of Ghost Recon, though to call those sims is a long stretch.

Minkoff's vision for Crossfire is to bridge the gap between a milsim and an accessible action game. The third-person camera certainly helps in that way, but so does one feature that Kurosaki and Minkoff were endlessly excited to show off: adaptive cover.

Essentially, Crossfire's cover system isn't a binary state of standing or crouching. Cover comes in all shapes and sizes (not just waist-high boxes), and so Crossfire's cover system automatically adjusts Layla's stance to obscure her behind whatever cover is available. Minkoff said the system is based on how real-life soldiers use cover—ducking and lurking behind shallow rock croppings at whatever height and stance is necessary to break line-of-sight.

"I love milsim, but I recognize that the experience is somewhat niche," Minkoff told PC Gamer. "When I play those games for my own enjoyment, I'm always thinking about how I can make this more accessible to a wider audience, so that was the vision for adaptive cover from the start."

Stance management is, again, not a new concept for the Arma crowd, but it will be for most people, and the way Crossfire automates a stance through the blending of hundreds of animations is impressive. That doesn't mean the game will always automatically hide you—it's still up to the player to survey the area for adequate cover and avoid patrols. After watching Minkoff fail twice in an encounter he's likely played a hundred times, I was reminded of how I like to play stealth action games: taking risks in the pursuit of doing something cool, getting curbstomped, then trying a new route the next time. Crossfire will be hard by default, but the full game will have a range of difficulty settings.

"If I can give somebody an experience where they can learn the controls in just a few minutes, but they have all the challenge and tactical freedom that would get from a lighter milsim, then they get to unlock this flavor of game that I love so much," said Minkoff.

Minkoff also talked about how this one-of-a-kind system allowed the team to make more fluid and organic levels that were "completely illegal" in this type of game 20 years ago, sharing screenshots of his own "rectilinear cover" in Uncharted 4 with the same grimace of someone looking back at their questionable hairstyle from high school. Minkoff seemed genuinely giddy to leave behind rooms full of waist-high walls and boxes that prompted players to snidely ask "I wonder if a fight is about to break out in here?"

Throughout my day at That's No Moon touring its pleasant West Hollywood studio and visiting its on-site performance capture volume, I kept looking for a catch. It's rare enough these days to get a narrative-focused action game with a significant budget at all, let alone one that isn't pressured to have a live-service plan to extract money for years to come. Why the heck is Smilegate placing a bet like this?

To hear Kurosaki recount how the studio formed back in 2021, it's pretty simple.

"When we met the folks from Smilegate, they were very clear. They said 'Smilegate wants to be associated with high-quality games, so the only goal for you guys is to make the game of your careers.' That's it." Kurosaki told PC Gamer. "They did not micromanage us."

I had assumed that part of the offer included working within the Crossfire franchise, but Kurosaki says there was no such mandate. It was actually That's No Moon that pushed to use the name.

"We did a deep dive into the Crossfire lore and said hey, we can actually tell the story that we want to tell in the Crossfire IP. We asked them if that'd be OK. I actually loved that name, Crossfire, because it's what Delroy and Layla are going through."

Nothing but surprises from these guys. Crossfire was the first of a dozen-plus new games I'll see in Los Angeles throughout June, but even on the other side of that gauntlet I expect it'll be the one I can't stop thinking about. As a fan of both extremes that Crossfire is harnessing, That's No Moon has identified a bullseye I didn't know I had.

As up and down as I can be with Remedy games, I maintain that it's a studio to be treasured. Nobody is taking creative swings at its scale outside of Kojima, and Control Resonant may be its hardest swing ever. It takes guts to ditch the one throughline that all Remedy games shared—prominet primary pistols—and telekinetically chuck it out the window.

Resonant is, indeed, a character action game. It's got hot-swappable weapons, combos, air juggles, and a dizzying collection of skill trees. Dylan Faden's melee moveset—powered by a shapeshifting weapon called the Abberant—falls somewhere on the Devil May Cry or Platinum spectrum. It plays nothing like the first Control, a fact that somewhat worried me going into a hands-on demo in Los Angeles earlier this week. The new direction is fun, but will it still feel like Control?

For a while, not so much.

The 2-hour demo opened in the first act, with Dylan waking up to an unmitigated disaster—the Oldest House lockdown has broken and chaos has spilled onto the streets of Manhattan. He meets an FBC contact, Zoe, who initially wants to put him in cuffs and haul him back to his cell. But he proves his worth, and soon Zoe is directing Dylan to problems that need solving. There's a nice symmetry to Dylan's point of view compared to his sister Jesse (who is a larger part of this game than I anticipated): The first Control is all about Jesse leaving our world behind to accept her place in the Oldest House, while Dylan is venturing out into a world he hasn't seen since childhood. To him, the FBC is his captor—one that he's willing to form an alliance with if it means saving New York.

It's a great setup, but that first hour is bland to actually play. It's a lot of slicing through basic Hiss grunts, dead simple platforming, and getting acquainted with upgrade currencies, but not a lot of intrigue. It's a tutorial, so that's to be expected, but Resonant picks up a pulse once its larger, actually dangerous enemies show up. Encounters are set up almost like Doom 2016—grunts won't ever stop spawning until the big guys are gone, so it's about prioritizing the biggest threats and avoiding the little guys until you need an HP piñata to smash.

Dylan's weapon forms are excellent. I started with a combo of:

• A scythe that can cleave through everything in a 90-degree radius
• And drill that deals pointed, single-target damage in bursts

The Aberrant is Remedy tech indulgence reaching new heights—with every attack, the staff transforms and extends into the chosen weapon before snapping off at the hilt and flinging a dozen physics objects in every direction. There's a Sekiro-like stagger mechanic that plays a huge role in weapon choice, too. Some weapons, like the drill, put up weak damage but high stagger.

I wandered around an open Manhattan area checking off little side tasks. Getting around is cool—Dylan's double jump, air lift, and generous glide reminded me a bit of Infamous—but the activities present in the demo were mostly grindy combat arenas. Remedy emphasized that this won't be the case in the final game, as it removed most of the stuff that fills these open areas for the demo.

Still, it gave me an impression that Resonant's focus on larger areas and busier action might leave less room for aspects of the first game I loved, like combing over the notes of FBC scientists or learning new skills from a fiberglass merry-go-round horse recovered from an amusement park in 1998.

I finally got what I asked for with the Sinkhole, a story mission from later in the game that filled the last 40 minutes of my demo. We weren't given much context for why Dylan had to jump down a hole into a dimension of endless bedrooms not unlike the ending of Interstellar, but I think I was there to scan some weird stuff at the bottom. This whole episode was fantastic—I rode down a research probe approximately one billion miles underground, fighting off waves of Hiss while gaining the ability to shift gravity to any plane.

At the bottom was the second boss fight of the demo—a flying, spectral Hiss bastard with chest lasers that killed me twice. The difficulty jumped pretty dramatically here, though I think my weapon choice of axe and hammer were just a bad fit for fighting something airborne. Still, I eventually figured out a simple game plan: meet it in the air, blast it with my fire ability to boost stagger damage, then hit it with a heavy hammer slam.

Notably, Resonant doesn't have a deep combo or scoring system that I noticed. It's more about chaining abilities and cooldowns into stagger opportunities than memorizing dextrous button sequences. For that reason, I have a hunch that Resonant's combat will feel pedestrian to those who actually know ball with this genre, but I'm not one of them, so I appreciate the approachability.

The mission concluded with a sequence that gave me hope that Control's quieter moments will have a place in Resonant. With the beast slain and Dylan stranded at the bottom of the Sinkhole, he began a futile climb through a dizzying maze of living rooms, kitchens, and bedrooms. Dylan was presumed dead by the FBC, but Zoe hadn't given up yet. She began playing music, lighting a trail of TVs for Dylan to follow. Remedy's mastery of seamless geometry loading became the main character of the moment as the new rooms appeared and disappeared impossibility fast between camera pans.

As the distant music got further away, the gravity shift ability returned, allowing Dylan to turn walls into platforms and finally climb high enough to reach Zoe on the radio. "Let's never do that again," she said.

It was the longest stretch of the demo where I didn't kill anything, and it turned out to be the highlight. Control Resonant is out September 24.

A new trailer for Yakuza prequel game Stranger Than Heaven premiered at Geoff Keighley's Summer Game Fest. It ended with a perplexing announcement: Tupac is in it.

That's Tupac, as in Shakur, as in the legendary rapper who has been dead since 1996. His likeness is the last thing we see in the trailer with zero explanation. The character doesn't speak, but his actor is simply credited as Tupac.

Game director Masayoshi Yokoyama took the stage alongside rapper Snoop Dogg, an actual living and breathing person also appearing in Stranger Than Heaven, to talk about the creative...uh...choice.

Snoop's elaboration was not illuminating.

"The Tupac estate and my son and myself, we work very closely together. It just made sense to put him in this game because his likeness and his spirit still lives on, and I feel like it was so connected to what we're doing. What do y'all think?"

Snoop then gestured to the crowed, which responded with medium applause. In a follow-up press release, Sega expanded on how the character will be used and depicted.

"Tupac’s portrayal of the character Amaru in STRANGER THAN HEAVEN is made possible with the permission and ongoing supervision of his estate, Amaru Entertainment. RGG Studio is treating this integration with the utmost respect for his legacy, crafting every aspect in the close collaboration and without the use of AI, including his character design based on archival footage and photographs. More details regarding his role will be shared at a later date."

Sega also announced the release date for Stranger Than Heaven: January 15, 2027.

It's somehow been 12 years since we first got the pants scared off us in the excellent survival horror adventure Alien: Isolation, but we're finally getting another go-round with the powerful, unkillable xenomorph.

At Summer Game Fest, we got our first teaser for Alien: Isolation 2—and even though it doesn't show us much, what it does show looks great.

We're leaving the space stations behind, as the sequel is set on a planet this time, though that doesn't mean we're going to be completely free of the atmosphere and chills of the original game.

"This time we're unleashing the alien on an unsuspecting colony world," said Ana Sopikova, art director at Creative Assembly. "From the claustrophobic confines of the colony itself to the exposed and storm ravaged landscapes surrounding it, Kurosaki Station is a new hunting ground for the ultimate apex predator.

"Players will face a desperate struggle to survive and escape, and we cannot wait to show you more in the future."

Unfortunately, the new Steam store page for Alien: Isolation 2 doesn't give us a whole lot more information, or even an idea of a release window beyond "Coming soon." The screenshots are all labeled "Pre-alpha capture," which doesn't suggest a release is right around the corner.

This year's Summer Game Fest stream opened with a good amount of applause for Resident Evil Veronica, a remake of Dreamcast game Resident Evil — Code: Veronica.

Code Veronica is especially ripe remake material since it's notoriously easy to inadvertently softlock yourself in the original. The series hadn't quite undergone its mid-aughts action-movie reinvention (though this is arguably where that direction started to emerge, what with the John Woo-inspired CG opening), so you were still grappling with awkward tank controls and at the mercy of brutal encounters that really stung if you hadn't conserved your ammo and ink ribbons—the only way to save your game.

Despite the quirks, it's a standout horror game on the Dreamcast, and even though it eventually made its way to other consoles with the Code: Veronica X remaster, it never made it to PC.

Given how past REmakes have gone, I wouldn't be surprised if this cut all the funny business and reimagined Veronica with less finicky controls, amped up by modern Capcom's snazzy visual tech and the original's puzzle-heavy exploration.

No gameplay footage came with the creepy cinematic, but we know the remake is planned to release in 2027. With rumors of a Resident Evil 0 remake also on the way, I'm hopeful that future REmakes will focus on games that shine despite some rough qualities, and therefore benefit most from reinvention, rather than the all-time greats that play perfectly fine even now.

At the 2026 Summer Game Fest, we got another, closer look at the next game by Ico and Shadow of the Colossus creator, Fumito Ueda. The first game from Ueda's studio, genDesign, has been revealed as gen Atlas.

We're in comfortable territory for Ueda fans, with gen Atlas set a desolate, strange world defined by colossal megastructures and mysterious robots—but it also has even more of a hard sci-fi edge than I'd anticipated.

The new trailer is immediately much more colorful than gen Atlas' first showing, or really anything Ueda has ever made, with a disembodied head robot flying around this strange world and attaching itself to different mech bodies, seemingly a core feature of the new game.

You also control one of Ueda's patented weird little guys with a poncho, capable of platforming around abandoned megastructures, even riding the main mech friend with the disembodied head powers.

“The team and I are grateful to all the fans who’ve been eager to learn more about our game,” Ueda said of the new game. “Their passion and enthusiasm has always motivated and inspired us. We hope to share an experience that inspires moments of quiet wonder and discovery.”

We got our first look at gen Atlas in the 2024 Game Awards, but it was very much a mood piece more than a formal reveal. Gen Atlas is set to release on PC day and date with its console versions, but as an Epic Store exclusive.

The free-to-play shooter The Division Resurgence has taken another step on its strange journey, as Ubisoft announced today that it's set to launch on Steam later this year.

The Division Resurgence was announced in 2022, with a release target of 2024, but in typical Ubisoft fashion there were delays, and it didn't actually go live until March 2026. Just a month later, with pretty much zero warning, it quietly dropped onto PC as well, in early access, to enable "technical testing ahead of its official launch in August."

It was something of a surprise: As PC Gamer's Shaun Prescott noted at the time, there was no hint that Ubisoft had any plans for it beyond mobile platforms, and had in fact emphasized its mobile-focused nature: "Our objective in bringing the Division universe to mobile, is to enable more people worldwide to enjoy this open world experience whenever and wherever they want. We feel very lucky that the mobile market has evolved to the point where we can develop such an ambitious game."

But just as Blizzard opted to bring Diablo Immortal to PC, Ubisoft decided to broaden The Division Resurgence's base as well. And after a little over a month of being available on Ubisoft's own storefront, it's now up for wishlisting on Steam.

"Over the next few weeks we will be hard at work polishing the last elements of the game for a truly seamless experience, whatever your preferred platform may be," The Division dev team wrote. "The game is fully cross-platform and cross-play, meaning you can continue your journey in The Division at any time."

The announcement doesn't get into why Ubisoft decided to make the move to Steam just a month after dropping it on its own storefront, but we can make a pretty good guess: Despite everyone's best effort, Steam is where it's at. Just like everyone else, Ubisoft came crawlin' back in 2024, and whether it wanted to take one last kick at the flying solo can with Resurgence, or just needed a little more time to get its ducks in order, it's not really surprising that if it wants the game on PC, it wants to do it on Steam.

James Bond is a man of luxury. He wears the finest suits, drives the fastest cars, and his skin is Egyptian cotton. He smells like sandalwood and his pockets jingle with exotic foreign money. Every morning he wakes up next to a new porcelain starlet and washes down designer drugs with Nolet's Reserve. The National Health Service disconnects 400 grandparents from life support every year so that the British government can afford to maintain him.

In Bond films, the outward sign of this inner luxury is products. Brands, my boy: The Rolex Submariner in Dr No, Brosnan's BMWs, an undammable tide of Astons. It makes sense: the 20th century's most iconic cold warrior wore capital's symbols like his enemies might wear their Orders of Lenin—they symbolised all that he fought for. In Casino Royale, Daniel Craig's Bond fought for Sony Vaio laptops, symbolising western post-Cold War degradation better than any academic text.

007 First Light's Bond fights for, well, a lot of things. He fights for a gleaming lineup of Omega watches, he fights for a Leica camera, he fights for glasses that I confess I only know are branded because my inbox was filled with very excited glasses company PR about it ahead of the game's release. For most of the game? It didn't bother me. It's gaudy, but Bond is gaudy. It would possibly have been more bothersome if he wasn't drenched in brands.

And then I got to Aleph, First Light's location for its fourth and fifth chapters, and every character became inhabited by the spirit of Laura Linney in The Truman Show, dementedly singing hosannahs to the day's sponsors even while bullets ping off the walls. The sponsor in this instance: Land Rover.

Bond and his mentor/nemesis Greenway arrive in Mauritania in a Land Rover. They explore in a Land Rover. They move around a beached ship in a Land Rover. And they always, always call it by its government name; it is 'the Land Rover,' never 'the car'.

When Bond and Greenway charm their way into the good graces of the local pirate king, Bawma (that'd be Lenny Kravitz), the first thing they chat about is their Land Rover. "My men brought your Land Rover around for you," Bawma tells them. "I assumed you'd be chow by now, so I gifted that Land Rover of yours to my bodyguard, Neenee." Bawma might be a murderous pirate king, but he respects brands.

This is already an entirely deranged conversation, but it moves up a notch when Bawma—having taken the car Land Rover back from Neenee and returned it to Bond—warns our heroes to examine it for traps. "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned for Land Rover," says Greenway in response. He says that normally. He says that in a normal human voice, like it's a thing literally anyone in history would ever say in any situation or that makes any sense at all.

I would now like to copy and paste, verbatim, my messages to the PC Gamer company Slack as I played the next part.

Joshua Wolens (14:41): "There's a bit in this game where everyone keeps insistently referring to the car as 'the Land Rover'."

Joshua Wolens (14:42): "In the middle of a firefight, being implored to 'Go and get the Land Rover!' Not the car, the Land Rover. I love branding deals."

Joshua Wolens (14:46): "Oh shit."

Joshua Wolens (14:46) [Note—here I am quoting the game directly]: "'They took out the Land Rover'."

Joshua Wolens (14:52): "They found a new car."

Joshua Wolens (14:52): "It's a Land Rover."

It is not long before even this new (actually, old: the replacement Land Rover is a vintage model, in order to better capture the vast world of Land Rover) vehicle is destroyed. Bond and Greenway are in a pickle—hunched by the corpse of their car and out of ammo. Things look bleak. Could this be the end?

Just then, over the horizon comes Lenny Kravitz. In a Land Rover.

It is cheap. It is a cheap and tawdry thing to turn your game's characters (who I genuinely quite liked, my well-documented opinions on Bond himself being annoying notwithstanding) into advertising mouthpieces in the middle of your story, not to mention the fact that it drives me, personally, slightly insane to attain full semantic satiation on the words 'Land Rover' over the course of a single level of your videogame.

It makes me feel like I have been hoodwinked. First, (if I were a real human being player and not a critic who got code) into spending $70 on an ad. Second, into getting invested in these characters who might, at any moment, undergo some kind of Thing-like transformation and reveal themselves as spokespeople for the Jaguar corporation. It's one thing to put Bond in an Omega watch, it would be quite another if he turned to the camera after equipping it and said "Exact time for life."

It puts me in mind of recent comments from ex-BioWare producer Mark Darrah, who floated movie-style product placement deals as a potential route out of our current microtransaction-stuffed videogame landscape. Replace MTX revenues with ad revenues, goes the logic, and you might sate the beast of capital long enough that it lets you make some interesting games again. Well, First Light gave me a glimpse into that alternate reality. I can't say it's one I want.

There are a ton of King's Field-inspired first person dungeon crawlers coming out of the indie scene these days, and I try to keep my finger on the pulse of which ones have the juice. Going off its demo, Hark the Ghoul is among that number.

The vibes are very reminiscent of 2023's killer Lunacid, but with a freaky Bloodborne gothic city instead of the older game's stately underground kingdom. Hark begins with a classic Fucked Up Little Man soulslike scenario. In life, you were some kind of anthropomorphic bug person with a bug job in a bug kingdom. In death, you have been deputized to explore, sword fight, and level up your way into setting right what has gone all freaky-deaky in bugburg.

Right away, I love how Hark the Ghoul handles character creation: You don't choose a class with mechanical differences, but one of nine backgrounds that change how NPCs react to you. For example, in my second run through, I went with the "Militiaman" background, and Hark's first merchant immediately assumed I was some kind of narc.

It seems largely aesthetic, but that's part of why I love it: A ton of work put into incidental details meant to further immerse me in the world. One bit I love: This is a game where your weapon viewmodel floats instead of having your hands visible, but your kick attack shows a little leggy whipping out. The pants and foot are unique for each character background, and that's what I'm talkin' about right there.

Speaking of that quick melee kick, Hark the Choul cribbed from the best: Arkane's Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. The kick itself doesn't do damage, but it pushes enemies back and can send Hark's many physics objects flying.

You can use this to kick enemies into pits, or kick crates into enemies for direct damage. I love that the first spell you get, rather than being a magic missile of some extraction, instead summons a rock you can then kick into your foes.

The actual sword fighting didn't light my world on fire, but the kick and spells are enough for me already, and Hark the Ghoul's trailers showcase an enticing variety of weapons, like a harpoon you can throw, stick in walls, and then use for platforming.

One other note: Hark's devs made no promises about Steam Deck support, but I decided to try it out. I was nearly at a locked 60 fps in the starting dungeon, but that plummeted to 20 fps out in the city proper. This is definitely a desktop-only experience, at least for the time being.

Hark the Ghoul is scheduled to release some time this year. You can wishlist it and check out the demo for yourself on Steam.

Beloved actor Anthony Stewart Head, best known for his role as surrogate father Rupert Giles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, died this week from complications with pneumonia. He was 72.

"It is with heavy hearts that we announce the death of our extraordinary father," Giles' daughters Daisy and Emily Head said in a statement to the BBC. "It has been, and forever will be, an honour and a privilege to be his daughters, and to have witnessed firsthand the impact both he and his work have had on so many."

Head's seven season role as Rupert Giles on Buffy placed him firmly in the canon of all-time TV dads, while occasionally giving him a chance to highlight his talents beyond the screen.

Head was an accomplished singer and theater performer, early in his career landing a role in the musical Godspell. In the early '90s he starred as Dr. Frank-N-Furter in a stage production of Rocky Horror; he reprised the role in another production in the early 2000s.

Head also starred in the 2008 film Repo! The Genetic Opera and released a pair of albums, as well as a single of his rendition of Rocky Horror's Sweet Transvestite.

Head more recently starred as another Rupert—evil ex-husband and former owner of A.F.C. Richmond, Rupert Mannion, on the Apple TV series Ted Lasso.

While he was not a frequent performer in games, Head did join much of the Buffy cast in reprising his television role in 2002's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, released on the Xbox. His narration is the first thing you hear upon booting up the game. He again played Giles in the 2003 sequel, Chaos Bleeds.

Head's most prominent game role was another villain turn: Destroy All Humans! 2's Reginald Ponsonbny-Smythe, in which he's delightfully and snivelingly posh.

He is survived by his daughters, Emily, 37, and Daisy, 35, who both followed their father into acting.

The fated day arrives: Summer Game Fest is back, back again, with one world premiere after another to give 2026 a double-barrel of new games.

Here's a roundup of everything announced during the stream (with the exception of a few ads and small trailers for games we already knew about.)

For more of what's ahead this weekend, check out our full summer showcase schedule. And don't forget to watch the PC Gaming Show on Sunday!

Which rumors will come true for SGF 2026?

So far a few hints, leaks and rumors have us anticipating some big announcements:

• A Persona 6 announcement may be incoming
• Guild Wars teaser has fans hyped up about a potential Guild Wars 3
• Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 3 set to appear at Summer Game Fest, according to leaker

RIP Highguard

Summer Game Fest won’t be ending on a live service game after the poor reaction to Highguard at The Game Awards.

"Not every game has to be for everyone"

"Some games become global blockbusters, but others find smaller passionate communities that love them deeply," Keighley says. "I hope you find your next favorite game today.

SGF 2026's first announcement: Resident Evil Veronica remake!

It's a very shiny first-person game set in Paris. An older woman beckons our camera-person into their brother's apartment. It's quite a mess. There's a creepy aura, but nothing outright sinister, at least at first.

Then... yeah, it gets sinister.

And it's... Resident Evil!

"Oh my god," someone shouts in the crowd.

It's out in 2027.

As that Napster/Facebook guy would've said: "Drop the 'Code.' It's cleaner."

There's a new hand-animated Cuphead coming, and also an 8-bit throwback

Keighley loves any opportunity to get Muppets into his show, which is one thing we have in common.

This snippet from what will presumably be "Cuphead 2" doesn't show us any gameplay, but it lets us know that Studio MDHR is working on both that new Cuphead, and a spin-off 8-bit style platformer, Mighty Cuphead Adventure. We do get a little gameplay of that.

A quick look at the sequel to one of the best PC games of all time

Alien Isolation 2's creative leads take the stage to talk about the sequel. "This time we're unleashing the alien on an unsuspecting colony world... Kurosaki Station is a new hunting ground for the ultimate apex predator."

Shadow of the Colossus creator Fumito Ueda is on-hand for the showing of his new game

genDesign's Project Robot was teased last year, but we're getting more now. It's very nice looking, with lots of desolate landscapes, giant robots and, yep, climbing.

And third-person shooting? That's unexpected!

We've also got a name: genAtlas.

This SGF is rolling out the heavy hitters early.

Blood Message gets a dramatic trailer, but no release date

The Chinese action RPG will be at this year's SGF Play Days demo sessions over the weekend, so we'll have more to say on it soon!

Tupac is in Stranger Than Heaven?

Stranger Than Heaven is out in January 2027.

Uhhh. I guess the Tupac estate is farming out the late rapper's likeness.

Snoop Dogg is on stage to talk about his role in the game, as well as Tupac's. "It just made sense to put him in the game because his likeness and his spirit lives on," Snoop said.

HAEX is coming in 2027

Next up is an extended look at HAEX, from developer Dead Astronauts. It's a first-person shooter with a heavy dose of sci-fi. Big obelisks, lots of cubes, some magical-looking movement abilities. I'm getting Annihilation vibes.

Pronounced "Hex" by the way.

Our first montage: Mortal Shell 2 and Sand: Raiders of Sophie playtests

The Mortal Shell 2 beta is on Steam now, while Sand: Raiders of Sophie is advertising its server slam. Something to play this weekend in between presentations.

PlatinumGames is making a Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronan game

Well that's a pretty good pairing, eh?

This is the teased announcement from the newly formed Paramount Game Studios. The TMNT action game from Platinum should have tons of potential, though many of Platinum's key creatives have left over the last few years.

Here's the official tagline: "In a future, battle-ravaged New York City, a lone surviving Turtle embarks on a seemingly hopeless mission seeking justice for the family he lost."

It's got a website, too!

Fortnite's "Shatter" event kicks off after Summer Game Fest at 7 pm Eastern

Fan-favorite Ben Starr took the stage to talk about a big moment in Fortnite's story, and you can play through it tonight.

Bandai Namco's new mech game is Gundam, but not your usual Gundam

Is this the first Gundam with aliens in it? Because those sure look like aliens.

The tagline: "Suit up for humanity. Pilot your mobile suit and fight for survival in 2027."

Former Naughty Dog devs are making a military shooter for players who 'love high agency singleplayer, story-driven games'

Dev studio That's No Moon unveils the game it's been working on for several years now. An elite military duo are on a mission of some kind, with the trailer emphasizing the character banter as much as the surprisingly technical-looking shooting and sneaking.

There's a sci-fi horror twist at play here too, though.

"We've completely rethought how cover and traversal work together and created a system that rewards tactical thinking, stealth, and repositioning. It's called adaptive cover. With adaptive cover, our player character Layla dynamically adjusts her stance to react to the complex terrain and the enemy's line of sight," say the developers.

We'll have more to read on CrossFire on PC Gamer soon.

Control Resonant shows off a new trailer, still looks fire

Still coming out this September.

"A modern evolution of the MMO:" It really is Guild Wars 3!

Guild Wars 3 confirmed. Beta playable in fall 2027.

"If you yearn for horizons unexplored, for fellowship and purpose, for a cause worth dying for, to you, we can promise: Magic."

Pretty good voiceover for an MMO announcement a decade+ in the making.

"The time is right for the next evolution of the MMORPG" says ArenaNet studiohead

"And that game is Guild Wars 3."

The new MMO will be launching on PC and PlayStation 5.

"Guild Wars 3 is an epic world that's both beautiful and fun to explore, where the joy of movement is powered by your character's momentum, and combat will usher in an entirely new type of MMO experience."

Now this is podracing... with a story

Hope you were looking for a campaign in your podracer, because it looks to be a significant portion of the new Star Wars Galactic Racer, which is out on October 6.

Spooky comes in 2 forms: Sci-fi and fishing

The next pair of trailers offer two flavors of horror with End of Abyss, out October 1, and Last Harbor, which looked like a fishing game at first, but is actually a lot more sinister.

"You’re stranded on a boat during a zombie outbreak in the beautiful San Juan islands of Washington State. How will you survive an open-world archipelago, where the living are just as much of a threat as the dead?" asks the description.

Virtua Fighter: Crossroads is "surprising in scale and scope"

The Virtua Fighter revival isn't just a traditional arcade fighting game!? Crossroads looks to be taking a page out of Street Fighter 6's story mode book, which is fitting since that campaign had a lot in common with the Like a Dragon series.

And guess who's making Virtua Fighter? Yep, it's Like a Dragon studio RGG.

It's out next year, in 2027.

Mafia: The Old Country is getting a story expansion on August 14: Man of Honor

"That was indeed a young Don Salieri from the original Mafia," says Keighley. "Man of Honor expands Enzo's journey in The Old Country this August."

Assassin's Creed creator Patrice Désilets reveals new game: 1666 Amsterdam

Well if that isn't Assassin's Creed Hexe, it sure looks hexed.

"1666 has been a monumental and emotional journey," Desilets says.

"Instead of explaining features, I'll simply say this. As of right now, the prologue is free to download on Steam and Epic Games Store. It's a 30 minute story experience. I'll leave you with a glimpse of what's to come when we leaunch on early access later this year."

Bloober Team is making a Saw 3v1 multiplayer horror game

Saw Genesis—finally, we get to find out why the Saw guy does Saw stuff.

Here's the rundown:

"Step into a brutal 3v1 multiplayer experience where one player becomes the Judge, a precursor to Jigsaw, and three others fight to survive as the Accused. Manipulate the trial from the shadows or work together to escape a deadly maze of traps, pressure, and impossible choices.

"Set in the grim aftermath of World War I, SAW: Genesis delivers short, intense matches, oppressive atmosphere, and a twisted vision of redemption through pain and sacrifice. The game is co-developed by Anshar Studios and Broken Mirror Games and published by Bloober Team."

Star Wars Zero Company gets a release date: August 27

There's a good bit of story and gameplay in this trailer. Plus, surprise! Anakin Skywalker is in it.

Read our in-depth Star Wars Zero Company cover story for much more on the game

The Blood of Dawnwalker continues to look good

The vampire RPG from former Witcher devs is already dead center on our radar. Like Zero Company, we also have an in-depth feature you can read here.

It's out in September.

There's a new Among Us, and an Among Us TV show?

Everything is sus.

There's now an Among Us animated series starring some funny people: Yvette Nicole Brown, Patton Oswalt, Elijah Woods, Debra Wilson, Randall Park and more. It's on Paramount Plus.

Also a new game, called Among us Story: On Guard.

A tease of a new "story mission" coming to 007 First Light this year

Cyberpunk Edgerunners characters star in a new Wuthering Waves crossover

Not the most exciting place to see Lucy and Rebecca show back up, I have to say.

Monster Hunter Wilds expands into the sky with Ascendance

We knew an expansion was inevitable, and here it is. Wilds is doing a floating islands thing, adding a whole new sky region, it looks like.

Capcom calls it a "massive" expansion. It's out in 2027.

Chinese action game Swords of Legends shows off a boss fight

This one already has a Steam page. The list of impressive Chinese action RPGs with intricately choreographed martial arts is not short.

Hot Wheels Infinite Rush revealed, out September 24

It's another Hot Wheels racer, and it looks nice!

Attack on Titan 3 is out in July

When Geoff said this next game would cover "the entire story of a famous anime," I was hoping for, I don't know, a great Trigun game or something? But here's another Attack on Titan game.

Man I wish those things had skin.

Clutch, from ex-Forza Horizon devs, leans into story

The new racer looks to be distinguishing itself from Forza Horizon with a story-driven racing campaign.

"A cinematic, open-world, action-driving game from the team at Maverick Games - lead by former Forza Horizon Creative Director, Mike Brown, and other senior leads on the franchise," reads the official line. It's still a ways away, scheduled for a spring 2027 release.

PalWorld 1.0 is coming on July 10, 2026

PalWorld continues to look extremely Pokemon at Summer Game Fest, and it's got not just an update coming, but the update.

A surprise cinematic trailer for a new PalWorld update looked so Pokemon I wasn't sure it wasn't until the not-a-Pokeball appeared on screen. More of a Pal Orb?

The Wolf Among us 2 is actually coming out

We got a new trailer for The Wolf Among Us 2, with sees the return of protagonist Bigby investigating some grisly murders.

The revived Telltale series has a date. Er, year: 2027.

There's also a remaster of the original episodic adventure coming out near the end of this year.

Cyberpunk and body horror combine in the next game from Stellar Blade's developers

The flashy beat 'em up started with quite a subdued narrative sequence before going full-blown action. The giveaway that Shift Up was involved came when our heroine threw off her cowl to display a skin-tight sci-fi body suit.

Stellar Blade Blood Rain is "early in development" from the same team, continuing the story of the first game with a new protagonist, says Keighley.

Tifa joins Street Fighter 6

Final Fantasy 7's brawler joins Arjun and Bosch and Yasmine in Street Fighter 6 year 4.

The big SGF 2026 finale is a first look at Final Fantasy 7: Revelation, out day 1 on PC spring 2027

The end of the trilogy is officially titled Revelation. Did anyone have their money on that name? (I thought it'd be pretty funny if they came out and announced it was called "Final Fantasy Seven...teen" instead. Alas!)

FF7 remake trilogy producer Hamaguchi took to the stage to talk a bit about Revelation, and say it's launching simultaneously across platforms. That's great news for us on PC, considering the delays on the first two entries in the trilogy.

Here's Hamaguchi:

"The central theme of this title is resolve. Cloud and his companions each confront their own destinies and find the resolve to march toward the final battle. I, too, have carried a promise in my heart throughout this journey. The resolve to see this series through to its very end. We're committed to delivering this experience in its ultimate form. Please stay with us and witness what lies beyond that resolve."

Airship exploration is confirmed. You can go everywhere, and you can parachute off the deck to pop down to the open world seamlessly.

Vincent and Cid are combat buddies

Vincent's gunplay in battle gets shown off, as well as his ability to transform into beast mode and team up with Cid Highwind.

Characters now get custom armor with the "FIT" system, adding on to the existing gear systems.

The Weapons are back

Yep, the FF7 megabosses return.

That's a wrap on Summer Game Fest!

The stream's still going, though: Keighley's presentation has switched over to Day of the Devs, which will showcase a whole bunch of cool new indies.

New Blood Interactive has brought a retro survival horror game to the show that combines 2D pixel art and live action cutscenes.

One last SGF announcement: Sonic's CrossWorlds crossovers with Evangelion, Godzilla and more

Here's one segment I had to skip over for time during the livestream: Sega's crossover announcements for Sonic Racing CrossWorlds.

The blue blur's basically going full metaverse here with crossover characters and tracks from:

• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (July)
• Avatar Legends (October)
• Godzilla
• Evangelion

"Well, I guess we won the console war," PC Gamer's Evan Lahti declared back in 2020. It was a time of clear skies and hope: Microsoft had embraced Steam, Sony was bringing first-party games to PC, and we were all waving flags and pounding vodka shots atop silent tanks in Red Square. Metaphorically, anyway.

But now it looks like the fight is back on. Sony is backing away from its strategy of releasing PlayStation exclusives on PC, and now Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has hinted that Xbox is reconsidering its own approach to exclusives.

"We're the number two publisher in the world and in order to be a great publisher, you must have your games reach large audiences to play," Sharma said during a recent Bloomberg interview. "At the same time, we're increasingly becoming a platform. In order to be a platform, you must have exclusive content and services. And so, we're looking at that very closely. I think that we have to be very thoughtful about each title on how we want to think about it and learn from similar cases in the industry, and that's what we're doing."

Like the unceremonious axing of the 'This is an Xbox' marketing campaign, Sharma's statement is a clear repudiation of former Xbox president Sarah Bond, who said flat-out in October 2025 that "the idea of locking [games] to one store or one device is antiquated for most people."

A potential refocus on exclusives is also obviously more about Xbox's dealings with PlayStation than PC. Shortly after Bond's comment, Microsoft announced its Halo remake for PlayStation, and man, it was over: As PC Gamer's Morgan Park put it at the time, "Though he shared joint custody with PC gaming in moments, Master Chief was Xbox ... His olive green armor practically was the console's logo in superhuman form. Now he's just the guy from Halo."

But now it sounds like maybe it's not as over as we thought. The direct impact on PC gamers may not be all that great, especially given Sharma's April acknowledgement that "our presence on PC isn't strong enough."

But we've all heard that one before—maybe more than twice, depending on how long you've been on this ride. If Microsoft really is "recommitting" to Xbox as a console, I don't think that, for instance, a future shift back toward more timed-exclusivity windows for big releases is beyond the question. Rockstar is holding back on a PC release of Grand Theft Auto 6 because PC players aren't GTA's "core" audience, which is baffling but also reflects the ongoing console-centric viewpoint of many game industry decision-makers.

It sounds like the situation at Xbox is still very fluid, as they say in polite circles when nobody really knows what's going on, and what actually comes of it is anybody's guess. But those heady days of inter-platform peace and prosperity, with the PC as gaming's great unifier, sure do look to be over, and one way or another, some of that fallout is going to land on us.

Wander around Gothic Remake's iconic Old Camp and you'll soon run into Snaf, the town cook. He'll give you the quest Snaf's Recipe, which requires you to track down meatbugs and hellcap mushrooms for his ragout. He promises it's tastier than it sounds, but I'm not convinced.

Even though Snaf gives you an idea of where to look—which is included in your journal—finding these ingredients is far from straightforward when you barely know your way around. That said, having a map to both the Colony and the Old Camp is helpful.

How to complete Snaf's Recipe in Gothic Remake

Snaf asks you to find three bugmeat and five hellcaps for his ragout recipe, and here's where I recommend you look:

• You can find several meatbugs (like large maggots) by the eastern wall of the Old Camp, past your shack and the arena. However, you might already have some bugmeat if you killed some near the abandoned mine at the start of the game.
• Hellcaps grow inside caves and open fields. You can find five inside the cave where you find Nek in The Vanished Warder quest, just outside the south gate of the Old Camp. You can also find two in the small molerat cave by the bridge at the north gate, and three in the molerat cave to the west of town, by the guarded path to the orcs. These caves also contain Solanaceae, which are required for The Forgotten Recipe quest, so collect these while you're here.

Return to Snaf with the ingredients and he'll cook you a portion of his meatbug ragout—delicious, apparently. More importantly, you'll also get 100 XP, the recipe to cook it yourself, and you can speak to Snaf each day to claim free food. Unfortunately this quest doesn't count towards the main Casting Shadows quest though, so you'll still need to do more busywork in the Old Camp.

I'm not sure I've come across a lockpicking minigame that feels quite as brutal as the one in Gothic Remake, especially when you're untrained. I guess it's probably quite similar to how it would feel if I gave you a lockpick and asked you to open a locked chest in real life (assuming you're not some kind of master thief on the sly).

Luckily, like most things in Gothic, it becomes significantly easier if you invest in training and gather plenty of lockpicks to use when you're intent on cracking open a container and filching some items. So, here are the fundamentals of lockpicking, how to make it easier, and where to get more picks.

How to lockpick in Gothic Remake

Gothic has some of the hardest lockpicking I've encountered in an RPG, especially when tackling complex locks with six sliders. You can see me lockpicking a chest during The Cult's Recipe quest above. Otherwise, here's a brief rundown of how it works:

• Your goal is to align all of the sliders: Each slider has seven holes and your job is to align them all (by selecting and moving each) so the copper-coloured pin is in the middle hole for each of them. When a slider is correctly aligned, the pin will stick out of the hole.
• Sliders move other sliders: The tricky part is that moving a slider will either:
  • Move just that slider
  • Move other sliders in the same direction
  • Move other sliders in the opposite direction
• Lockpicks have durability: If a slider hits either side of the lock (which you'll know because it will be unable to move and will rattle), it will cost one durability. By default, lockpicks have two durability. When a pick breaks, the lock will reset, though you can also reset it at any time by pressing R. Though, if you exit lockpicking and your pick has any strain on it already, it will break.
• Training improves lockpick durability and adds break bonuses: If you're Trained, a pick will take four strains and the lock won't reset on a break. If you're a Master, it takes six strains, but a break will also remove a connection within the lock, simplifying the relationship between the sliders so it's easier to solve.

So, if you're serious about lockpicking, you'll want to get some training as soon as possible. If you pursue the Casting Shadows quest for Diego, you can ask him about teachers, and he will recommend you speak to Fingers in the Old Camp.

If you head left from the castle entrance, past Snaf and his cauldron, you'll find Fingers' shack up the slope to your right. He can train you in lockpicking, provided you have the ore nuggets and learning points from levelling up.

How to get lockpicks in Gothic Remake

Your best bet for acquiring lockpicks is either by keeping an eye out for them while exploring the world, particularly in prisoner-inhabited areas, or by buying them from Mordrag in the Old Camp. This New Camp representative is sitting on a bench outside a shack on the east side of the cloth-covered market area, in the south of the camp.

He sells them for 13 ore a piece, which is fairly expensive, so you're better off finding them and save-scumming to preserve your picks when you actually do some lockpicking. You can also buy them from Dexter in the same market area, the merchant who gives you The Cult's Recipe quest.

Trying to join the Old Camp in Gothic Remake is a surprisingly long process, requiring you to earn the trust of important members of the faction through a bucketload of quests and tasks. It's nothing like joining the Fighter's Guild in an Elder Scrolls game, where you can just rock up and start killing rats.

There are two quests involved in joining the Old Camp, Admission to the Old Camp and Casting Shadows, the latter of which is the most important, as you convince the shadows to support your candidacy in joining the faction. So, here's everything you need to do to complete that quest and become a member of the Old Camp.

How to complete Casting Shadows in Gothic Remake

After you arrive in the Old Camp and speak to Thorus at the castle gate, he'll explain that if you want to get inside and join the faction, you need someone to vouch for you, namely, Diego, who you met at the start of the game.

Diego's shack is right by the castle gate, and upon speaking to him, he'll give you the Casting Shadows quest, which is all about making a good impression on the Shadows—the various NPCs inhabiting the Old Camp.

Here are the steps you need to complete. First off, the tasks:

• Speak to Scatty by the bottom of the arena and defeat a fighter: I recommend challenging Kirgo, since he's the easiest. If you want an easy way to do this, acquire fire bolt through The Price of Magic quest, buy a mana potion from Torrez, then hit-and-run him with magic during the fight.
• Get to Level 5 and learn a skill from a teacher: Even after you complete all the necessary quests and tasks, Diego will still say you are too green and need more experience. I wasn't able to determine whether this requires you to reach Level 5 or to learn a skill, because I did both and it worked. Try learning a skill first (I recommend a hunting skill from Drax) and if Diego still says you're too green, then you need to get to Level 5.

And now the necessary quests:

• The Vanished Warder: If you head right when entering the Old Camp via the north gate (where you first entered), you'll find Sly, who will ask you to track down his missing pal, Nek. All the details you need are in that linked guide.
• The Cult's Recipe: You get this quest from Dexter in the market area with the cloth hangings on the south side of the Old Camp. He asks you to go to the Swamp Camp and steal a recipe—again, full details in the linked guide.
• Whistler's Sword: This task is easy. Head right from the castle entrance and follow the path past Gravo's shack to find Whistler sitting on a bench outside a shack to your right. He gives you 100 ore nuggets to buy his sword back from Fisk in the market a little further down the path. Fisk will ask for 110, but actually I suggest you just keep the money. Diego will be impressed that you swindled Whistler, and you'll get 100 ore, which is a lot early on.
• Test of Faith: This quest comes from Diego if you ask him for a task. Simply head to the old mine in the northwest of the map—the location with the two little watchtowers on the Colony map. Descend to the bottom of the mine to find Ian, say the code phrase Diego gave you, then deliver the list back to Diego.
• Out of Sight: This final task is from Thorus if you keep bugging him to give you a job once you've done everything else. He asks you to get rid of the New Camp merchant, Mordrag, who hangs out on a bench outside a shack to the east of the market area, in the south of the Old Camp. Mordrag offers to take you to the New Camp, which will get rid of him and complete the quest. However, you can also fight him. If you have fire bolt from The Price of Magic quest, plus some way to regen mana like a potion or swamp weed, it's fairly easy. Make sure to rob him when he's down to get a Spike Mace and a Longbow, before telling him to leave, and then heading back to Thorus.

Speak to Diego once all this is done and he'll give you his approval, which means you can now enter the castle for your audience with Gomez.

How to convince Gomez and join the Old Camp

When you meet Gomez in the main hall of the castle, you'll have to convince him to let you join the faction. First off, don't choose "Do I need to chop your head off to prove I'm a good fighter?" no matter what, as this will make him kill you.

Also, when you're telling him about the people you know in the other camps, don't choose "To Y'Berion" as this will make him kill you, too, since he realises it's a lie. All the other options were safe for me and by the end, you'll have convinced him to let you join the Old Camp.

Joining the New Camp is a very long-winded process in Gothic Remake. Alongside handing out a bunch of swampweed for cash, you also need to help the Rice Lord. And after completing the A Few Drops Too Much quest, this so-called lord of rice will set you the task of finding Bran in the Up to His Neck quest.

Take note that while this quest will earn you the trust of the Rice Lord, a major step in joining the New Camp, you'll make that decision with Lares later. In other words, it won't lock you out of joining the other camp factions. Before you start this quest, I also recommend grabbing some armour, especially the free Digger's Dress.

How to complete Up to His Neck in Gothic Remake

The Rice Lord needs you to find Bran, his missing foreman, and tells you to speak to the farmers to find out more. Only the named farmers will comment on Bran, but, at least for me, Malon told me where he saw him disappear to. You need to speak to Malon kindly.

Malon explains that Bran went to a cave near the pond where Jacko and his crew hang around. To save you from running around the camp for ages like I did (there's a pond and lake in there, after all), to find the correct cave:

1. Exit the New Camp through the main gates
2. Go towards the pond and the small settlement ahead of you.
3. Turn right, where you'll see a bandit guarding a cave entrance. I recommend saving your game here so you have a convenient point to load back to.
4. Go inside the cave and up the stairs, where you'll find Jacko. Speak to Jacko, and he'll threaten you, starting a one-on-one fight.
5. Beat Jacko in combat (you can use weapons, don't worry), and he'll explain that he sent Bran to rob the tavern's basement in order to repay his debts.

Jacko is a strong opponent early on, and if he beats you, he'll steal your gear and you won't be able to find out more. If you're struggling to beat him, I recommend getting a better weapon (such as buying one from Fisk in the Old Camp marketplace) and some armour, like the free Digger's Dress from the Free Mine. You could also unlock the fire bolt rune for more offensive power in The Price of Magic quest.

You can also speak to Cord by the training dummies overlooking the lake tavern in the New Camp to level up your one-handed weapons. However, if you really can't beat him, you can likely skip this step, but you'll miss out on the powerful Bloodfly Sting mace that he drops.

Next, you need to go to the tavern by the lake up the hill in the New Camp, near the entrance to the main cave, to find out how to get into the basement. You have two options: lockpick the door behind Silas, or, my preferred method, swim underneath the tavern. You can discover this secret entrance by persuading Rayk, but you can likely skip this step—if you beat him up in the previous quest, then it'll save you from bribing him with ore.

Here's where you need to go to find Bran:

1. Go behind the tavern, close to the fishing rod on the pier and the chimney stack.
2. Dive into the water, where you'll see a cave entrance with a strong current.
3. Swim inside the basement and continue through the flooded cellar. You can actually surface here if you need more air.
4. Walk up the stairs, where you'll see Bran's body ahead of you, left of the door. It's very dark, so it's easy to miss.
5. Loot Bran's body and read the note. You can also lockpick the chests in this room to find out more, if you can be bothered to struggle with the lockpicking minigame.
6. Swim back out the way you came and return to Silas to confront him about what happened to Bran.

Once you've spoken to Silas, return to the Rice Lord to finish the Up to His Neck quest. Your most important reward for completing this quest is that you'll get the Rice Lord's backing in terms of joining the camp. You'll also get 300 XP, which is a pretty hefty amount early on.

Acquiring ore nuggets in the Gothic Remake can be a taxing process, quite literally as it happens, as warders squeeze you for protection money and you have to shell out for even the most basic gear to keep yourself alive. Protective armor, decent weaponry, and even magic are all luxuries in the Valley of the Mines and will cost you a pretty penny to gather.

Thankfully, there are some ways to make money, though many of them require a little investment to begin with, specifically in learning skills. You can even mine ore if you want a basic way to accrue currency early on, but it's worth investing in more lucrative methods as you progress further into the game.

Best ways to earn ore in Gothic Remake

It's advisable early on to grab basically everything you find in order to sell it, especially herbs and mushrooms, which can be surprisingly valuable. You'll need all the ore you can get to buy a map and equip yourself with gear that isn't total trash.

Thankfully, before long you should start to steamroll in ore terms, especially if you follow the main quest and clear the dungeons in it like the goblin cave and orc cemetery. All of these humanoid enemies have weapons that are valuable to sell, so it can be lucrative.

That said, there are some good ways to earn ore in Gothic.

1. Hunting

You'll find yourself killing lots of molerats, scavengers, wolves, lizards, and other monstrous beasties as you explore the colony. You can learn hunting skills from Drax, a bald hunter on the right side of the road after you descend from the mine into the central valley at the start of the game.

He asks you to get him a beer first, but you should've already found a few in the chests in the mine and at the goods exchange. If you acquire hunting skills, you can extract more materials from the monsters you kill, making it more lucrative.

You can also learn special hunting skills from Cavalorn in his house to the west of the Old Camp if you bring him the Beasts of Khorinis II book from the Old Mine, and then the Minecrawler Queen's gland. There are more Beasts of Khorinis books scattered about the map, so keep your eyes peeled if you want to earn more money hunting.

2. Thievery

You're a criminal, after all, so why not steal stuff? You can either lockpick or pickpocket (though I'd suggest acquiring some training first), but you can also just straight up mug people. If someone picks a fight with you, beat them up, steal everything—they would've done the same to you. If you see an opportunity to draw wild animals to attack someone so you can down them and steal their equipment, do it. That's how I got my first really good sword.

If you really want to mug others, then head to the lawless New Camp in the west of the map. The trader Mordrag will even escort you there—you can find him on the east side of the cloth-covered market area in the south of the Old Camp, sitting on a bench on the left side of the path outside a shack.

3. Smithing

Once you arrive in the Old Camp, provided you've got 10 learning points from gaining a level and 50 ore, you can learn one-handed smithing from Huno, whose forge is just to the south of the upper level of the arena, right by where your shack and bed are. Once you have this skill, you craft weapons with materials you either steal or find, and then sell said weapons.

If you're looking for an easy blueprint to acquire, you can find the Light Club (Mace) very close to the start of the game, if you climb up the rocks on the left side of the area above where the locked mine entrance is. Kill the goblin and enemies up there, then grab this blueprint from his den.

You can also get the Sword of Judgement blueprint from the mine in the northwest of the colony, specifically, on the desk by Ian at the bottom of the mine, where you have to go during Diego's Test of Faith quest, which is part of joining the Old Camp. This is handy, since the mine is also our next stop in terms of money-making methods.

You'll quickly realise when you start exploring goblin caves and orc areas later, that selling weapons is quite lucrative, so killing any large number of humanoid enemies in an area can earn you lots of ore as you loot and sell off all their weapons.

4. Mining

Now, this can be very slow, but if you're determined, you can make a lot of ore. Provided you have a pickaxe, you can mine the blue ore deposits in the mine in the northwest of the colony. Simply walk up to an ore node and interact with it. You'll get three ore for the first few animations, then only one as the deposit's lustre fades.

You can also grab wayward ore nuggets from around other miners or the big ore nugget piles in the lower areas of the mine. It's slow going and boring and hell, but it'll get you a little nest egg of ore you can use to invest in other money-making skills.

One of the first things you're likely to realise in Gothic Remake is how utterly annoying its torch system feels. When you activate a torch in your hotbar, you'll light it up, which is helpful in such an often gloomy game, but there's no way to put it back in your inventory while it's still burning.

If you select a sword, for example, you'll stab the torch into the ground where it'll stay burning for a good while. You can either pick it up and continue, or wait for it to burn out. Admittedly, it feels quite cool stabbing a torch into the ground in some cave so you can draw your sword and fight a bunch of goblins, but for exploration it's a pain.

There is simply no key or input that puts your torch away once it's lit. In fact, the only way your character will stow a torch is if you walk into water and start swimming to snuff the flame. Otherwise, your only option is waiting for it to burn out and collecting it later. There are a couple of handy exceptions though:

• If you rest in a bed, your character will stab the torch into the ground, and it will have gone out by the time you wake up
• If you stab a torch into a puddle or shallow pool of water, it will instantly go out

Thankfully, torches are plentiful, especially in areas where you actually need them, so I wouldn't worry too much about using them. I generally just make sure to stab a torch into the ground on a path or route I know I'll take multiple times, such as the trail to the Swamp Camp, which means I'll spot it later when it's gone out and can always pick it up again.

I also recommend that you set your torch to 0 in the hotbar since this will mean you're far less likely to accidentally take one out and be unable to stow it, which definitely happened to me early on.

Hopefully Alkimia Interactive realises how annoying it is, even as an aspect of realism, and adds in a way to stow torches later on, or at least an option to snuff them out on the ground so we can pick them up without waiting.

Completing The Cult's Recipe in Gothic Remake is one of the necessary steps in impressing Diego enough to get you a recommendation to join the Old Camp. In this quest, Dexter asks you to head all the way to the Swamp Camp and steal Cor Kalom's recipe for creating mystical hallucinogens.

The trickiest part of this quest is actually getting to the Swamp Camp, since it's a dangerous route filled with enemies who'll kill you in one hit thanks to your lack of armor. So, here's how to get there safely, find the recipe, and even lockpick the chest containing it.

How to get to the Swamp Camp in Gothic Remake

After Dexter tasks you with stealing Cor Kalom's recipe, you'll have to find a way to the Swamp Camp. Before you do, though, make sure you have a couple of lockpicks—you can buy these from Mordrag in the same market area as Dexter if you head east past the fire pit towards the arena and look for him to your left, sitting on a bench in front of a shack. I'd also recommend grabbing a map of the Colony.

Now, you'll want to speak to Baal Parvez, the cultist with the face tattoos in the market area by Dexter, since he'll offer to escort you to the Swamp Camp and it's a dangerous journey. Follow and let him fight the harder enemies, though make sure you're close enough to get some XP. When you arrive in the camp, tell the Templars at the entrance you want to join, then head inside and ask Lester to show you to "Cor Kalom's Laboratory".

How to lockpick Cor Kalom's chest in Gothic Remake

The video above picks up where Lester drops you off. Head up the spiral staircase to the top to find the laboratory and Cor Kalom. His recipe is in the locked chest in the same room as the lab. The video shows how to pick the lock, and for some reason, Cor Kalom and his assistant don't really seem to mind. It doesn't matter too much if you're planning to join the Old Camp anyway, which if you're doing this quest, you are.

Grab the Old Recipe, then follow the route that you and Baal Parvez took to get back to the Old Camp—if you can't remember, use your colony map by pressing M. Make sure to stick to the path and keep running to avoid enemies. Give Dexter the recipe and he'll agree to put in a good word with Diego.

The New Camp is one of the three factions you can join in the Gothic Remake. Like joining the Old Camp, it's a very long-winded process. In fact, I'd say it's even more arduous, given all the running back and forth and busywork you have to do.

Be warned that you can only join one camp. But if you've got your heart set on this band of thieves and mercs who rule over farmers and miners, touting freedom, then this is what you need to do to join them.

How to join the New Camp in Gothic Remake

The first step in joining this thieves' guild is to locate them. You can find the New Camp in the hills on the west side of The Colony. Head out the south gate of the Old Camp and go west towards the large body of water you can see on the upper left side of the map—the New Camp is right by this.

However, the journey over there is dangerous, so I recommend completing a few of the Casting Shadows quests and then bugging Thorus in the Old Camp for work. Eventually, he'll give you the Out of Sight quest, in which he asks you to get rid of Mordrag. Ask Mordrag about his job as a messenger for the New Camp, and he'll offer to take you there, which starts the Admission to the New Camp quest.

Follow him to the New Camp and he'll kill all the enemies on the way, giving you a quest item—a ring—that'll let you speak to Lares, the leader of the camp. Once you arrive in the New Camp:

1. Head up the hill past the farm, across the dam/bridge, and into the large cave on your left.
2. Hug the left side of the cave and go up the hill to find Lares' house.

You'll need to convince the guards to let you in by mentioning the ring Mordrag gave you. Speak to Lares, and he'll explain what you need to do to join the New Camp, specifically mentioning Swamp Camper Baal Isidro and his swampweed supply. Basically, you need to get the favour of Lares and the Rice Lord, so complete the following sub-quests:

1. A Piece of the Pie

Lares wants 400 ore nuggets and suggests you speak to Baal Isidro in the lake tavern to get them. I recommend speaking to Baal Kagan by the camp at the base of the hill to Lares' house to get the Canvassing Customers quest, and sell ten Green Novice to any bandits in the camp, giving you ten ore each. You can then use this money to bribe the guards at the tavern.

Once inside, speak to Baal Isidro and suggest helping him sell the swampweed. He'll refuse, so buy him some rice schnapps (his favourite drink) from bartender Silas, at which point he'll give in, starting The Herb Merchant quest. Sell the Green Novice, Northern Dark, and Dreamcall he gives you to mercenaries and bandits, or to merchants like Sharky, Cronos, Malon, and Silas in bulk. Give the 400 nuggs earned to Lares, instead of returning to Isidro.

2. A Few Drops Too Much

Acquired by speaking to the Rice Lord by the gates, he'll ask you to go to the lake tavern to help Silas. All you need to do is speak to Silas, and then either beat up Rayk or convince him to simmer down.

3. Up to His Neck

After completing A Few Drops Too Much, the Rice Lord will give you a quest to find Bran, his missing foreman. Speak to farmer Malon nicely (that's important), and you'll discover he headed out of the camp towards a cave by a pond used by Jacko and Renyu:

1. Exit the New Camp and head towards the large pond settlement ahead of you.
2. To your right, you'll find a cave entrance guarded by Renyu.

Go inside to find Jacko and beat him up. He'll tell you he sent Bran to rob the New Camp tavern's basement. If you're struggling to beat Jacko, then you can likely skip this step, though he did drop the strong Bloodfly Sting mace that I used for a while. Getting the free Digger's Dress armour nearby helped me.

From here, go to Silas' lake tavern at the centre of the New Camp. You need to get into the basement, which is the area behind where Silas is standing, and you have two options: lockpick the door behind Silas, or, my preferred method, swim underneath the tavern. The quest will prompt you to speak to a regular customer to find this alternate entrance (it's the drunkard Rayk, who you likely beat up in the previous quest), though you can likely skip this step and go straight to diving.

1. Go outside and behind the tavern, near the fishing rod on the pier and the chimney stack.
2. Dive into the water, and you'll see a cave entrance with a strong current.
3. Swim inside and continue through the flooded cellar until you reach Silas' alchemy stations and dry land.
4. Walk up the stairs, where you'll see Bran's body ahead of you, left of the door.
5. Loot Bran's body and read the note.
6. Swim back out the way you came and return to Silas to confront him.

After you've confronted Silas, all you need to do is return to the Rice Lord to finish the Up to His Neck quest and earn his favour.

4. Something the Matter?

If you've got the Test of Faith quest from Diego in the Old Camp, go to the Old Mine in the northwest of The Colony, which is around the hill to your left when you leave the New Camp. Go almost all the way down to find Ian and speak to him to get the supply list.

Instead of returning to Diego, go to Lares, who will tamper with the list. This will start the Something the Matter? quest, where you just need to give the falsified supply list to Diego, then return to Lares.

5. The Raid

After you've completed all of the above quests, earning both Lares' and the Rice Lord's trust, speak to the former to ask if you've got what it takes to become a bandit. He'll mention a "special assignment", which you can then ask him about. This gives you The Raid quest, your final test.

All you need to do is:

1. Speak to Gorn, located on your right near the entrance to the cave, to get a free sword.
2. Walk to the road between the Old Mine and the Old Camp, where you'll find a carriage stuck in the mud.
3. Sneak up the mound overlooking the carriage to find Wedge and the other raiders, who'll explain the plan.
4. You're the distraction, so speak to the guards. I told them I was new to the Colony, and suggested we find some wood to help get the carriage out.
5. Ambush the guards—you can use your weapons (like your new sword), despite being told not to kill the guards.
6. Speak to Wedge afterwards, then return to Lares at the New Camp.

Once you've done all this, Lares will officially invite you to the crew, completing the Admission to the New Camp quest. You'll receive the Bandit's Dress armour and 1,500 XP. Be warned that you can only join one of the three camps, so accepting Lares' offer will prevent you from joining either the Old Camp or the Swamp Camp, and you will forfeit some quests. You can still visit them, though, so long as you follow the rules.

Shortly after arriving in the Old Camp in Gothic 1 Remake, you're bound to run into the one and only Mud. He's a lowly villager near the castle gate who'll ambush you for a chat when you walk past his shack. All he wants to do is join you for a while to keep you company, so you've likely said 'why not' out of curiosity. The other option was immediately telling a stranger to piss off, which is a bit rude, don't you think?

However, if you've spent more than a minute with Mud, you'll realise just how annoying he is. He'll interrupt you constantly with his comments and follow you around, but when you speak to him, you'll only have the option of telling him to piss off again. So what's Mud's business? Well, I spent hours suffering by his side to figure it out so that you don't have to put up with him.

Gothic Remake Mud explained

Simply put, Mud is a joke character intended to be a pest and annoy you. The only way to stop Mud from following you is to tell him to go away and beat him up, or have him get killed in combat, though he generally runs away from a fight. However, if the remake follows the original story to a tee, you won't have to worry about Mud past chapter four, if you don't want to be mean to him.

If you put up with Mud's incessant chatter for long enough (roughly three hours, in my case), you then have the option to ask him to be quiet, which he'll happily agree to, for a few minutes at least.

While Mud's interruptions hint at him being a bigger character—he mentions using you against his bullies, putting in a good word for you with the Old Camp, and being hungry—none of these come to fruition, at least in my five hours of exploring with him. In fact, he'll say these voicelines repeatedly and at random locations, too, so it's not based on where you are currently in the world or story.

There is a chance, like in the original game, that Mud can bug out and get stuck while you're exploring. If this happens, he will eventually reset and reappear at his house in the Old Camp. He'll chat to you like normal when you stroll past but won't follow you around. When this accidentally happened to me while heading over to the Swamp Camp, prematurely ending my scientific experiment, I wasn't all too annoyed.

Gothic Remake's resident nice guy, Guy, will give you a free hut once you arrive in the Old Camp. Upon entering your humble abode and looting the chest, you'll find a scrap of paper that gives you The Forgotten Recipe quest.

Speak to Snaf, the town's chef, standing by the cauldron near the castle gate, and he'll give you a laundry list of ingredients to find in order to cook this secret stew recipe. Below, I'll explain where to look to get all six ingredients, and how to cook the stew, so you're not aimlessly wandering around like I was.

Gothic Remake The Forgotten Recipe ingredient locations

Once you speak to Snaf, you will need to find two of each of the following ingredients:

• Scavenger breast (Raw White Meat)
• Onions
• Carrots
• Potatoes
• Solanaceae herb
• Water

You can get Scavenger breast by killing the weird chicken-like dinosaurs of the same name, found just about everywhere, including in the fields and forests to the east and west of the Old Camp (near the north gate, where you first enter the town). They drop Raw White Meat, which is the Scavenger breast you need.

Solanaceae herbs spawn in and around caves. I recommend grabbing the two Solanaceae inside the cave where you find Nek in The Vanished Warder quest, just outside the south gate of the Old Camp. However, you can also find two in the small molerat cave by the bridge at the north gate, and in the larger molerat cave to the west of town, by the guarded path to the orcs.

The best way to get onions, carrots, potatoes, and water is to buy them from Dexter in the market area with the hanging cloth covers on the southern side of the Old Camp. You can buy two of each ingredient you need for a total of 24 ore, which is pretty easy to earn—sell any spare weapons, materials, and trophies if you need some extra cash.

Once you've gathered all the materials you need, return to Snaf. He'll cook one batch of the recipe and explain the complicated process. Then, you need to cook it yourself—thankfully you can actually ignore all the steps Snaf told you, which is rare in Gothic.

To cook the stew recipe, you need to use a cauldron. You can find an unoccupied one near Kharim at the entrance to the arena on the left side of the Old Camp, or just use Snaf's when he goes to bed for the night. Select the Brock's Stew recipe and it'll consume the remaining ingredients you gathered earlier. Then just return to Snaff so he can taste test your attempt, finishing The Forgotten Recipe quest and giving you 100 XP in return.

Once you arrive in the Old Camp in the Gothic Remake, you'll need to beat a handful of quests to complete the Casting Shadows quest for Diego. One such task is The Vanished Warder quest, which you can pick up from Sly near the gate. He'll ask you to find his missing friend Nek, which involves speaking to a bunch of people and eventually tracking down the lost warder.

I'll explain all of the major steps below so you don't have to waste time searching for Nek in the wrong places—very easily done if you haven't immediately purchased a map.

How to complete The Vanished Warder in Gothic Remake

Once you speak to Sly to start The Vanished Warder quest, he'll suggest you speak to Fletcher, a warder by the arena and your shack on the left side of the Old Camp. Fletcher sends you to talk to Guy, a miner in the same area, who passes you on to Snaf, the chef to the left of the gates. Eventually, you'll learn that Snaf sent Nek out to find hellcap mushrooms.

You don't need to speak to these characters in order to find Nek, but it is a good excuse to learn more about the Old Camp and its inhabitants. In fact, my quest bugged and I couldn't speak to Guy or Snaf about Nek, but it didn't prevent me from completing it—no need to roll back your save if you run into this issue too.

As I demonstrate in the video above, to find Nek, you need to:

1. Head out the south gate of the Old Camp, which is past the market area on the right side where you'll find Dexter, Torrez, and Baal Parvez. You first enter the Old Camp through the north gate.
2. From the south gate, continue directly ahead where you'll find a molerat cave, though watch out for the molerats wandering the area.
3. After you've killed them, go inside the cave, where you'll find Nek's corpse on the ground (along with various other loot, including an axe, hellcaps, and solanaceae).
4. Loot Nek's body to collect his amulet.
5. Return to Sly near the north gate and speak to him to finish the quest.

When you speak to Sly, he will ask you for evidence of Nek's death. You can either hand him the amulet or lie and keep it to yourself. I recommend giving Sly Nek's amulet so that he'll put in a good word for you with Diego.

Since Snaf sent Nek to find various ingredients, this is also the perfect opportunity to complete both The Forgotten Recipe and Snaf's Recipe quests. Just pick up the nearby hellcap mushrooms and solanaceae, since they are two of the ingredients you'll need.

Playing Gothic Remake for the first time might be a bit surprising for fans of recent sicko RPGs like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 or Dragon's Dogma 2. Gothic doesn't have any hunger mechanics or convoluted save systems, but it does like to kick your ass in combat constantly when you first arrive in The Colony.

Enemies do a lot of damage, your weapons suck, and you have no armor, so fighting a pack of hungry molerats or giant birds is not the 'baby's first quest' difficulty it would be in another game. This isn't the Elder Scrolls, where you can just walk into a cave and come out clad in full plate—armor is rare and valuable, so it requires quest progression and lots of money to acquire and upgrade.

And frankly, you're a good-for-nothing convict who doesn't know shit, so you've got to pay just to learn basic skills. It can feel a little grindy at first, but ultimately I found my 25 hours with the game a satisfying experience as I scraped and fought for everything I had.

Gothic 1 Remake tips

I've come to the edge of the swamp to collect hallucinogenic swampweed from a harvester on behalf of a cult who smoke it to commune with a sleeping god. I find the harvester up a rickety tower after fighting through the monster-infested bog, but he won't hand over the wacky baccy until I clear out the nearby bloodflies.

I can see some of those giant wasp jerks clustered on a beach near the magical barrier that prevents us from leaving this hellhole. I trudge over and laboriously kill them. If I lure them into attacking one at a time it's easy enough, but if a second comes along, parrying their stingers is much harder. Three at once? I'm probably fucked.

Eventually, I kill them all and climb the two ladders back up the harvester's fort to tell him it's done. But no. He says I need my eyes checked, because I haven't killed all the bloodflies within 20 paces. Looking out from the tower I can't see any, but there's a lot of thick swamp nearby. I head back into it, being eaten by a surprise swampshark and then reloading before I find another swarm. I kill them and return to the tower, climbing both ladders again. You must need your eyes checked, the swampweed harvester tells me. You haven't killed all the bloodflies within 20 paces.

Knee-deep in swampwater, hunting for what I hope are the last bloodflies, I find myself thinking a blasphemous thought: "I sure do wish this quest had a compass arrow pointing me in the right direction like in Skyrim."

Over the wall

The original Gothic came out in 2001 and found an audience among people who, when Morrowind arrived a year later, thought it made too many concessions to modern players—what with the silt strider fast-travel and free map. Gothic did not have either of these things, and neither does the remake. It's a fantasy RPG committed to grim-and-gritty realism.

The aforementioned magical barrier was supposed to enclose a prison colony where convicts mine magical ore. Something went wrong and the barrier isolated an entire valley, including the wizards who cast it. The prisoners turned on their guards, cut a deal with the wizards, and now have a workable little carceral state of their own.

Ore goes out and criminals go in, alongside a tithe of outside-world luxuries to keep the miners happy, like cheese and beer. On the shipment in the opening cutscene, among the sacks and barrels, there's also a bound woman in a corset. Gothic wants you to know it's a grim and awful setting from the off, and it begins as it means to go on.

A nameless criminal with an undefined past, you also go through the barrier in that opening cutscene. The colony you find isn't as united as the system they've got going makes it seem. While the Old Camp continues mining and dealing with the outside world, there's also a New Camp stockpiling ore to blow a hole in the barrier and escape, and a Swamp Camp where cultists live, believing a god called the Sleeper will free them when awakened.

What follows is an open-world RPG where you choose between three factions, and which is deeply indebted to the era the original was made. To get a map you have to buy it, and while it shows where you are and lets you drop markers for locations of interest, there's no compass or quest markers. When a questgiver says you need to go to the cave near the pond, you just have to figure out which body of water they mean. Occasionally an NPC will walk you to a destination, which is great because when they kill all the animals along the way you get XP for it.

There are a lot of wild animals in the colony, and they all want you dead. At the lower end, molerats and the younger scavengers—a kind of chickeny dinosaur—can be defeated when all you've got is a pickaxe and some rags, but otherwise you'll do a lot of running away and reloading saves when wolves or the bigger varieties of lizard monsters catch you.

Getting in fights with people is often better, not because you're any more likely to win in those opening hours, but because there's a chance when you lose you won't be dead. Those humans who don't have a reason to add murder to their list of crimes will knock you down, take some of your stuff, and then walk away, leaving you to recover and nurse a grudge so you can come back later for revenge.

Losing money and weapons can be so dispiriting you'll be tempted to just reload a save, though. The grind to get anywhere in Gothic is wilfully exhausting. Every faction wants you to prove yourself by performing multiple quests and several of those quests demand skills you don't have—combat or otherwise. Training costs money and "learning points" that you get at level-up, and you'll probably run out of quests you can safely complete and just end up jogging through the wilderness trying to find molerats and juvenile scavengers to kill for XP.

While earning those points can be a grind, going from a doofus who holds his sword wrong to a master of the blade feels great, as does tanking attacks that would previously have floored you once you finally get decent armor. Earning that armor is gated behind joining a faction, a choice that makes the opening chapter compelling. It's not that you're tempted by what the camps offer, but that they're nasty in such different ways. Rather than feeling like the belle of the ball being wooed by every organization in town, you're choosing the one that seems least awful.

Hack and dash

While the setting and story remain familiar from the original, combat's one of the remake's key changes. Enemies have a greater variety of attacks, molerats burrowing down to leap out of the ground at you and wolves pouncing from a distance. As in the original, your attack animations improve as you buy skills, and those initial clumsy swings get faster and easier to chain into combos. The remake's controls are better all round, with a lot of things that used to take two key presses now only needing one. You can even use the mouse to aim ranged attacks instead of relying on a clunky auto-aim.

The other obvious change is how it looks. The last 25 years of progress in haggard man-face technology are on full display in Gothic 1 Remake, with an endless parade of men who look like they once brought home a puppy they bought in the pub for their kid, and then had a hell of a time explaining it to the missus. They look like Black Sabbath roadies teleported in from the '70s. They look like the one uncle you only see at Christmas.

All the gnarled trees, muddy paths, and falldown huts look super detailed too and you get to see them in a variety of weather, from torrential rain to sunny days that actually seem quite nice. (They don't last.) The cost of all that detail is less clarity than the rudimentary-looking original had, and it takes a while to learn which herbs and other items are actual interactable objects rather than clutter.

Unreal Engine reflections and whatnot don't come cheap in terms of performance either, and you might have to turn things down from Very High to High to get a decent framerate. Those of a sensitive disposition might have a fainting attack at this, but you may even consider turning on frame-generation.

Meatbug Ragout

The reason I didn't stick with the original back in the day is how buggy it was, and while the remake's less buggy that's a bar so low it's subterranean. The NPCs are the worst, sometimes appearing and disappearing at random—two orcs sprang into existence right in front of me while I was carefully using arrows to lure their friend over, and that was that, time for another reload. An NPC I needed to talk to occupied the same space as a different guy, and I couldn't interact with either until they finally split up and moved away. One companion who was supposed to help me fight an earth elemental decided to attack me instead before I'd even drawn my mace.

Other NPCs sit in midair, have conversations with their necks tilted at a broken angle, wave a fan at an empty throne, repeat barks on a constant loop, and react to being saved by telling me to get lost. I haven't had any crashes, but two of my coworkers have. So yeah, it's less of a mess than the 2001 game, but you'll still encounter plenty of jank. I even got stuck in a rock and had to reload a save, which made me feel downright nostalgic.

I did not feel nostalgic about the lockpicking minigame, a new addition, but one that harks back to the era when minigames tried to make you feel like you really were doing the thing. You shift sliders left and right until the pins in them all come up red, but some of those sliders are connected and will shift other sliders when moved. If you push one when it's at the end of its pins your pick might break, though my patience usually ran out before my lockpicks did.

It may be new to the remake, but it fits perfectly with the original's German dedication to misery simulation. This is the kind of game where it gets so dark at night you can barely see even with a torch, and you have to put the torch down when you want to do basically anything. I mod newer RPGs to get rid of minimaps and add survival mechanics, but even I draw the line at having to drop a torch to draw a one-handed sword in the name of realism.

Hardcore to the mega

I thought I was getting an open world RPG that had a bit more grit than usual and instead Gothic is all sand. I crossed through the magical barrier and now I'm stuck in here with people who think the first Witcher was where the series peaked.

If that's you, if you have made hating Skyrim a cornerstone of your personality, you will love Gothic 1 Remake. Turn the 6 in the score upside-down and pretend it's a 9, because this is a whole-throated recommendation for you, my friend. For anyone else, Gothic remains what it always was—an admirable edifice, a reminder it takes all types, and a thing you would probably be better off enjoying in the form of a bugs-and-jank compilation video than actually wading through yourself.

Unlocking fast travel in Gothic Remake will likely be a priority as soon as you start getting tired of traipsing up and down the same road to the Swamp Camp over and over. There are other ways to move quickly in Gothic—the Scavenger mount you can ride, for one—but if you want actual instantaneous fast travel, it's going to take a little work to acquire it.

Thankfully, though, the Gothic Remake at least has proper fast travel; there's none of that Dragon's Dogma 2 riding in a cart for 12 hours and seemingly being attacked by every cyclops on the map during your journey.

How to unlock fast travel in Gothic Remake

First off, unlocking fast travel is tied to your main story quest progress. You won't get the Swamp Camp fast travel rune (the first item you acquire to teleport) until the start of Chapter 3, which requires a fair bit of quest progress with the main story Swamp Camp quests. To clarify, this doesn't mean you need to join the Swamp Camp, since you'll be sent there by the other factions to complete these quests no matter what.

Complete Chapter 2 and its final quest to explore the Orc Cemetery, then as soon as Chapter 3 begins, Cor Angar will give you the Swamp Camp teleport rune. Is it a bit annoying that Swamp Camp fast travel only unlocks after you've completed a bunch of Swamp Camp quests already? Yes. Yes, it is.

During Chapter 3 you'll also unlock the New Camp teleport rune from Saturas when you visit the Water Mages. For me, I had to return to the Old Camp (where I was a member), speak to Raven, who pointed me to Diego, who asked me to go visit the Water Mages as part of the Water Mages' Plan quest. I haven't unlocked the Old Camp teleport rune yet, but considering Torrez doesn't sell it, I'm pretty sure it will also come from main quest progress.

You can use a teleport rune the same way as any other spell rune. Simply put it in your hotbar, select it, and then spend mana to teleport.

The month of gaming showcases has already begun, and that means the usual Summer Game Fest 2026 livestream with Geoff Keighley is just around the corner. Outside of major publisher streams from the likes of Sony and Microsoft, the SGF showcase is often where we'll see some of June's biggest announcements.

When is the SGF 2026 livestream?

The Summer Game Fest 2026 livestream airs Friday, June 5, at 2 pm Pacific and is expected to be about two hours long. You can check this full list of timezone conversions, but here are a few for quick reference:

• 2 pm PDT, June 5 (Los Angeles)
• 5 pm EDT (New York)
• 6 pm ART (Buenos Aires)
• 10 pm BST (London)
• 11 pm CEST (Berlin)
• 7 am AEST, June 6 (Sydney)

How to watch the SGF 2026 livestream

You can watch the Summer Game Fest livestream using the embedded video above, or head over to one of its official channels on YouTube or Twitch.

Those same channels often host other partnered livestreams, but you can check out our full Summer Game Fest 2026 schedule for more showcase timings and available platforms.

What to expect from SGF announcements this year

The Sony State of Play already kicked off the week of summer game announcements for more singleplayer story-driven games that likely won't be available on PC, like Until Dawn 2 and God of War Laufey. That's a bit of a bummer note to start on, so what else is there to look forward to?

We know Star Wars: Zero Company is confirmed for an appearance during the Summer Game Fest livestream, along with whatever sus business Among Us is up to. There's also some alleged Persona 6 leaks making the rounds, and Arena Net is teasing something that fans suspect could be Guild Wars 3.

Even if your favorite doesn't make an appearance during Keighley's big kickoff event, there's always another stream. We've also put together a longer list of Summer Game Fest predictions to take you through the rest of the show, so maybe you'll find something to look forward to there.

The best part of Gothic Remake's opening chapter is juggling the three factions: the Old Camp, New Camp, and Swamp Camp. Each of the three camps dislikes the others, but they're forced to work together somewhat to survive in The Colony. And then there's you, the Nameless Hero and a fresh face, who must pick a side. But which camp is right for you?

Which camp should you choose in Gothic Remake?

You can only join one faction, and there are some consequences to your actions. The good news is that you will still be able to visit and even complete some quests in the other camps, so it's not the end of the world. In fact, you'll even continue to receive the free daily items, like the ragout from the Old Camp or swampweed from the Swamp Camp. There's no bad blood if you're following the rules.

All factions are, frankly, kind of assholes, so it's more about picking the least nasty team and whichever one's theme is the coolest to you: hierarchical soldiers, a band of thieves and mercs, or cultists.

The main impacts of your faction choice include:

• Your quests are based on which faction you choose, mainly in the first chapter. You need to deliver a message to the fire mages, but you can do this in multiple ways. For example, you could move up the ranks of the Old Camp to get access to the castle, or by becoming a messenger for the water mages at the New Camp, or an envoy for the Swamp Camp. You'll automatically forfeit some quests when you join a camp too. When I signed up with the New Camp, I 'failed' Casting Shadows, Out of Sight, and a few other quests relating to the other camps. It's worth noting that Gothic's main quest is pretty similar no matter which camp you choose.
• You get camp-specific armour, which you can improve by climbing through the ranks of your chosen faction, or simply by paying money to an armourer like Fisk. Old Campers get the Shadow Armour to start with before graduating onto the slightly better Warder Armour, the New Camp gives you the Bandit's Dress, and Swampers get the Novice Armour. The Novice cult robes have less physical protection, but you can quickly upgrade all the sets anyhow.
• You get different faction promotions as you progress. If you pick the Old Camp, you can become a Warder or a Fire Mage. The New Camp offers Mercenary or Water Mage. Lastly, the Swamp Camp leads into Templar.

The Old Camp

The Old Camp is the first faction you'll interact with, thanks to Diego helping you out when you're first thrown into the penal colony. As such, it's very tempting to stick with this faction, especially as the fire mages you need to speak to for the main quest are inside the castle anyhow.

It's also the best camp for acquiring spells early with The Price of Magic quest. If you're looking to rock a pure mage build, then the easy access to fire magic makes this the faction to go for. The Warder gear you get, being plate armour, is obviously also very strong. The Old Camp is also the most convenient, centrally located, and has all sorts of vendors and teachers.

The New Camp

This group of bandits and mercenaries hiding out in the hills (it's the coolest base, if you ask me) are experts in all things thievery. The introductory quests to join the New Camp can be a bit of a pain, but it's a great opportunity to make some money (known as ore).

You can become a Water Mage through the New Camp, which presents a fun opportunity for mages. However, it'll likely take you a bit longer to reach than the Old Camp's fire magic.

There are a lot of handy trainers in the New Camp—including lockpicking, one-handed combat, and archery—though you don't need to join the faction to access these. Likewise, you can get a free armour set by heading to the Free Mine behind their base.

The Swamp Camp

This cult devoted to 'the Sleeper' lives out in the marshes to the northeast, and they love their swampweed. Unlike the other two factions, they don't really have a plan for leaving the penal colony, besides hoping their Sleeper god will help them out. Unfortunately, despite being expanded upon in the remake, the Swamp Camp is still the most underbaked of the three factions.

There are some good trainers here, including a cultist who can teach you how to climb—no need to join the camp, though, just bribe him with drugs.

It's also not the best choice if you want to become a pure mage, due to not having access to the same level spells as the other camps, though they do have a magic vendor. But if you're angling for a spellsword-type character, then it's got you covered.