Nvidia’s relationship with PC gaming doesn’t always feel like a loving one. Sometimes they’re gifting us a useful new version of DLSS, sometimes they’re helping drive RAM prices up to £300 a stick. Even so, it’s hard not to look at G-Sync Pulsar – a new bit of monitor cleverness that seeks to remove unwanted motion blur from its LCD panels – and see some goodness still inside that big, green eye. After trying it out at a demo event this week, I’m hopeful that Pulsar can clean up how games look in motion as well as anything since the original G-Sync.
I’m especially pleased to see MGS4 finally freed from its PS3 shackles. As the concluding chapter in the chronology (Snake’s chapter, specifically – yes, I see you waving there, Raiden), Guns of the Patriots is an indulgent mess of a game; one that attempts to tie up an overwhelming amount of loose threads. It’s gotten a pretty bad rap as a result, largely thanks to its lengthy cutscenes and numerous scripted gameplay segments.
Welcome to Next Week on Xbox! In this weekly feature we cover all the games coming soon to Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Xbox on PC, and Game Pass! Get more details on these upcoming games below and click their profiles for further info (release dates subject to change). Let’s jump in!
Star Trek: Voyager – Across the Unknown Deluxe Edition
Star Trek: Voyager – Across the Unknown is a story-driven survival strategy game in which the fate of the iconic starship is in your hands. Take the helm, manage the ship and resources, and make difficult decisions. Will you be able to bring home the ship and its crew?
You play as Styx, a cunning goblin with a caustic sense of humour who has mastered the art of infiltration. Your goal? To get your hands on Quartz, the most precious – and dangerous – resource in a world on the brink of a war between elves, humans, and orcs. Styx: Blades of Greed takes the proven formula of the first two games and perfects it by putting freedom and creativity at the heart of the experience. Explore vast vertical environments and master new tools and skills. Whether you’re discovering Styx for the first time or you’ve been a fan from the beginning, greed has never been so much fun!
Aerial_Knight’s Dropshot is a fast, stylish action shooter that throws you straight out of a plane and into the chaos. Take out enemies, dodge wild traps, and make it to the ground first. Filled with finger blasting, Dragons, Powerups, and a bunch of stuff trying to take you down midair. Don’t let anything get in your way of becoming a legend! Just try to look cool and land in one piece!
Welcome to Hex Park—a colorful playground of brainteasers where every move matters. Rotate and align arrow tiles to guide directions, pop obstacles, and clear the board in as few moves as possible. It’s easy to pick up, delightfully tricky to master, and impossible to put down.
HeadHunters is a chaotic platform fighter for up to 4 players, online or on the couch. Blast, bash, and body-swap your way through explosive arenas in fast-paced, no-rules mayhem. It’s all about dodging, blasting, and making your mates scream “no way!”. Heads will definitely roll!
In a place in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA, a strange accident occurred on October 27, 1986. Everything was recorded on a VHS tape. Enter the eerie world of Backrooms Level X, a first-person horror game that immerses you in an endless labyrinth of desolate and surreal spaces. After a freak accident, you find yourself trapped in the Backrooms, a place where logic and reality vanish. Explore endless corridors of yellow carpet, empty rooms and areas of flickering light as you try to find a way out. But beware: you are not alone. Mysterious entities lurk in the shadows, and every sound may be the last you hear.
Death Match Love Comedy!
KEMCO in Japan & Asia, PQube in North America & Europe
Heartfelt confessions – explosive consequences! From the creators of Raging Loop comes a wild ride of a visual novel, full of slapstick comedy, occult experiences, and romance! First year Kei Yagi is about to receive a love confession from not one, but two classmates, when he suddenly explodes! Although this initial incident was an illusion, he discovers that due to a mysterious curse put upon him, the next time he receives a confession of love he will truly explode and die!
Harvest Cafe gives players the opportunity to manage and farm their own farms. Players grow their farms by growing vegetables, fruits and other crops. They feed and care for animals to produce food such as milk, eggs and meat. They can also use the materials they gather from the environment to create new farmland and improve their farm. Players sell the produce grown on their farms in their own restaurant in the village center. In the restaurant, players cook delicious food and serve it to customers. Players can diversify their menu by trying different recipes and prepare special dishes to increase customer satisfaction.
The most dangerous criminals are convicted and sent to Kletka. Your sentence is to descend into the depths of the Gigastructure while maintaining a living and hungry elevator. Never forget to feed it if you don’t want to end up being eaten alive. Kletka is omnivorous, be ready to feed it both fuel and flesh. The Gigastructure is an endlessly expanding building. Traps and anomalies fill the corridors. Any stop you make could be your last.
Taking Satisfactory, Forager and the gratifying gameplay loop of clicker/idle games as references, Outpath would be just that. Exploit your environment, craft, build and automate your base in this 3D first-person platformer! Gather. Craft. Build. Explore. Relax. No time limits, no pressure, play at your own pace and style.
In a dystopian future where corporations rule, a brutal reality show is the hottest entertainment property in town! You play as Scarlett Martillo, a contestant out for revenge. To win, you must navigate dangerous urban arenas packed with lethal traps and face off against hordes of heavily-armed psychopaths.
Become an Envoy of Death, able to unleash the incredible powers that will make you the most dangerous soul in Limbo. Upgrade your character’s abilities to become the ultimate Soulslinger and take on thrilling challenges in a bloody war against the criminal cartel of the afterlife!
Start a scary adventure and be the first to solve all the mysteries of this horror game! You’ll have to immerse yourself in a thrilling and exciting adventure together with the main characters! Children have been missing for a long time in Lakewitch, and you are destined to solve this creepy mystery. Who is the kidnapper, and why is he doing it? Where are the children disappearing to, and how to save them? You can solve all the puzzles and find out the answers…if you don’t get scared!
Liquor Store Simulator is a simulation game about developing your own store. You start your business in a small shop that you bought on credit. Buy goods, manage your store, hire staff. Who knows, maybe you will be able to make a real alcohol empire out of a small store. At first, it won’t be easy—you’ll have to work at the checkout yourself, accept deliveries, keep records, and maintain order in the sales area. But hard work and smart decisions will help you turn a modest retail outlet into a thriving store with a wide selection and satisfied customers.
Last night’s Sony State of Play broadcast ended with an announcement and shadow drop for God of War Sons of Sparta, a side-scrolling spin-off listed as having 1-2 player support via the PlayStation Store. The only problem? Fans can’t find its two-player option.
Early reports from those who’ve paid the game’s $29.99 asking price and revisited Kratos’ origins say that his sibling Deimos only appears at certain points, there’s no two-player option in the game’s menus, and plugging in a second PS5 controller doesn’t provide extra options.
It’s an odd situation that’s led some to suspect the PlayStation Store listing is simply incorrect — as it appears to be the only firm evidence a two-player mode exists — and seek help from others online also searching for its multiplayer.
Writing on reddit and social media, fans say the store’s listing didn’t initially seem odd — since the game’s title is “Sons of Sparta” plural, in-game footage shows the two brothers killing bosses together, and its cover artwork focuses on them fighting side-by-side.
The game’s store description could also be ready ambiguously, referencing the exploits of both brothers:
“Experience an untold chapter in Kratos’ journey set during the harsh years of Spartan training alongside his brother Deimos,” Sons of Sparta’s official blurb reads. “Through endless trials, their minds, bodies, and hearts have been molded to become Spartan soldiers for whom duty and honor mean everything. After a fellow cadet goes missing, Kratos and Deimos vow to find him and embark on an adventure that will put their training and Spartan spirit to the test.”
“Just got it installed and running,” wrote God of War fan Mephistocheles on reddit, in a lengthy thread with much discussion on the game’s lack of co-op play. “So far it’s not allowing drop in play on 2nd controller and there were no two-player options on start menu. Will update if I find it does allow co-op, but it doesn’t look like it.”
“I’m so sad,” wrote bob_th4_build3r. “I bought it instantly because i thought it would be co-op… maybe they will add it in the future?”
Other comments say they are now escalating the matter to PlayStation’s customer support, while several fans say they have tried to request refunds. IGN has contacted PlayStation and Sons of Sparta developer Mega Cat Studios for clarification on the game’s two-player capabilities, or lack thereof.
There’s an unpredictable “Necropolis” event in Darkhaven that will slowly turn the entire world undead. It generates a Lich sarcophagus that spills a sickly wave of gloom, rolling across the procedural map to clog player waypoints and fill the alcoves with bony minions. Let the gloom thicken for long enough, and in theory, there will be nowhere safe for your character to spawn. A true apocalypse. You can transfer your character to a freshly generated world, but you might encounter something even hard to dispel: a volcanic eruption, rising floodwaters that breed Lovecraftian fish creatures, a sweeping ice age. Worse, you might encounter several apocalypses at once.
It’s 1996. The weather’s crap. You’re wandering the streets of a Scottish village that looks deserted aside from some lumbering horrors who seem intent on sticking weird needles into you. No, this isn’t the blurb of iconic film Trainspotting, it’s the setup for Silent Hill: Townfall.
A goose with your skillset must be able to honk freely, unconstricted. They must be versatile, capable, adaptable. They must be grounded, stable, constant. I believe you are ready, goose. Honk.
That isn’t quite what Keanu Reeves’ talkative tailor says in the reveal trailer for Space Marine 2 devs Saber’s Untitled John Wick Game, but it’s what I heard. The stubbled and suited hitman’s latest journey into videogamedom is touted as an uber-faithful putting of Wick’s cinematic martial arts brawling and gunfighting into your hands, but until Saber prove otherwise, I’m treating it as a spiritual twin to House House’s Untitled Goose Game.
The lovely, heartfelt 2D adventure Neva is getting a paid DLC expansion, and it’ll cost you less than the vast majority of Starbucks’ menu.
Launching on 19th February, Neva: Prologue will set you back a mere £2.49 in the UK and will reveal how the game’s key protagonists, Alba and Neva, first became involved with one another.
Sega has written off $200 million of its $776 million acquisition of Angry Birds maker, Rovio, stating the “profitability of [the mobile] business had fallen below the initial forecast” — corporate speak for, ‘this hasn’t made us as much money as we thought it would.’
Sega confirmed back in April 2023 plans to purchase Angry Birds developer Rovio for $776 million, with Rovio’s mobile game expertise intended to help boost Sega’s own position in the mobile market. The acquisition completed in September that same year.
Now, in its most recent financial report, Sega Sammy said that while Rovio was “a company with strong development and operational capabilities in the mobile game area, a sector with major growth potential,” the “business environment in the global mobile game market [has] rapidly changed, with multiple major titles emerging within a short period, and competition for customer acquisition [is] intensifying.” Which is why it’s now alerting shareholders of “extraordinarily losses and revision of operating results forecast.”
“Rovio found it difficult to advance its initially planned business development, and the profitability of this business has fallen below the initial forecast,” Sega admitted.
Because the “recoverable amount” related to the buyout fell “significantly” short, the company has written off $198 million (¥30.4 billion), essentially downgrading the value of Rovio to around $578 million — $200m less than it paid for it.
Rovio is just one of the companies Sega owns. It is also home to Company of Heroes developer Relic Entertainment, Two Point Campus developer Two Point Studios, and perhaps most notably, Persona developer Atlus.
And on the plus side, Sega’s tentpole Sonic series continues to impress. IGN’s Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds review returned an Amazing 9/10 when it released in September 2025. “Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds fires on all cylinders with a fantastic roster, excellent courses, and lengthy list of customization options,” we wrote at the time.
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
A developer who worked on Highguard has discussed the “hate” he received after the free-to-play shooter debuted at December’s The Game Awards, saying the game, and by extension its team, “turned into a joke from minute one, largely due to false assumptions about a million-dollar ad placement.”
Just two weeks after the free-to-play game’s January 26 launch, yesterday Wildlight let go all but a “core group of developers” despite the newly unveiled Episode 2, and despite debuting in the top 10 in weekly active users on US Steam, and the top 20 on both US PlayStation and Xbox.
Now, in a candid statement posted to X/Twitter, tech artist and rigger Josh Sobel — who was one of those let go — talked about the impact of the launch on himself and the wellbeing of the entire team.
“The day leading to The Game Awards 2025 was amongst the most exciting of my life. After 2.5yrs of passionately working on Highguard, we were ready to reveal it to the world. The future seemed bright. Everyone I knew who had any connection to the team or project had the same [positive] sentiments,” he wrote, adding that “unbiased” internal pre-reveal feedback was “quite positive,” and when it was negative, “it was constructive, and often actionable.”
“But then the trailer came out, and it was all downhill from there,” Sobel added. “Content creators love to point out the bias in folks who give positive previews after being flown out for an event, but ignore the fact that when their negative-leaning content gets 10x the engagement of the positive, they’ve got just as much incentive to lean into a disingenuous direction, whether consciously or not.
“The hate started immediately. In addition to dogpiling on the trailer, I personally came under fire due to my naïveté on Twitter, which almost all of my now-former coworkers had learned to avoid during their previous game launches,” he explained. “After setting my Twitter account to private to protect my sanity, many content creators made videos and posts about me and my cowardice, amassing millions of views and inadvertently sending hundreds of angry gamers into my replies. They laughed at me for being proud of the game, told me to get out the McDonald’s applications, and mocked me for listing having autism in my bio, which they seemed to think was evidence the game would be ‘woke trash.’ All of this was very emotionally taxing.”
Sobel acknowledged that there’s “much constructive criticism” about Highguard’s trailer, marketing, and launch, but also isn’t sure if things would’ve been any better had the game not been announced at The Game Awards.
“We were turned into a joke from minute one, largely due to false assumptions about a million-dollar ad placement, which even prominent journalists soon began to state as fact,” Sobel said. “Within minutes, it was decided: this game was dead on arrival, and creators now had free ragebait content for a month. Every one of our videos on social media got downvoted to hell. Comments sections were flooded with copy/paste meme phrases such as ‘Concord 2’ and ‘Titanfall 3 died for this.’ At launch, we received over 14k review bombs from users with less than an hour of playtime. Many didn’t even finish the required tutorial.
“In discussions online about Highguard, [Sony’s troubled live-service shooter] Concord, [Riot’s recently launched] 2XKO, and such, it is often pointed out by gamers that devs like to blame gamers for their failures, and that that’s silly. As if gamers have no power. But they do. A lot of it. I’m not saying our failure is purely the fault of gamer culture and that the game would have thrived without the negative discourse, but it absolutely played a role. All products are at the whims of the consumers, and the consumers put absurd amounts of effort into slandering Highguard. And it worked.”
As a consequence of this, Sobel said many of Highguard’s hitherto independent team will “now be forced” to return to the corporate industry “many gamers accused Wildlight of being a part of.”
“If this pattern continues, all that will be left are corporations, at least in the multiplayer space. Innovation is on life support,” he added. “Even if Highguard had a rocky launch, our independent, self-published, dev-led studio full of passionate people just trying to make a fun game, with zero AI, and zero corporate oversight…deserved better than this. We deserved the bare minimum of not having our downfall be gleefully manifested.”
Sobel finished on wishing the colleagues that remain at Wildlight “the best of luck,” and thanked a slew of “incredibly supportive journalists and creators” for their “empathy, intuition, and integrity.”
“Some of the best times of my life were spent with [the techart team],” he concluded.
A number of high-profile video game developers defended Highguard following the online backlash during the game’s launch. Developers from the likes of Baldur’s Gate 3 studio Larian, as well as Fortnite maker Epic, have hit out at the discourse surrounding Highguard, and the internet’s capacity to “hate” on video games at launch. Developers like Cliff Bleszinski of Gears of War fame, Epic executive Mark Rein, and Larian boss Swen Vincke spoke up against, in particular, negativity from critics.
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
