Author: Zach Barbieri

Helldivers 2, The Sony-published PVE title from developer Arrowhead, will be dropping on Xbox Series X/S next month, on August 26, 2025, a live stream from the developer has confirmed. Ironically, this will be the same date Gears of War: Reloaded release, which will see the classic Xbox title release on PlayStation for the first time. In a post via Xbox wire, Helldicver 2 Game Director Mikael Eriksson talked about what this release meant to the studio. He said: We know gamers have been asking for this for some time and we are so excited to bring more Helldivers into…

Perfect Dark, a reboot being developed by the Initiative, is one of the many casualties of a new round of layoffs at Microsoft that includes 4% of their global workforce across all of their global divisions. These layoffs are greatly impacting Xbox, with the developer behind Perfect Dark being closed, and several other games, such as Rare’s Everwild, which has spent 11 years in development up to this point, also being canceled. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofUi9DR9sc4 Perfect Dark was set to be a revival of the long-dormant franchise, which last saw release as an Xbox 360 launch title in 2005 with Perfect Dark…

Fans of the Halo franchise will be getting a tease at what’s next later this year at the Halo World Championship 2025, which will be held on October 24. This news was stated via a blog post from Esports Lead for the Halo franchise, Tahir “Tash” Hasandjekic, suggesting that fans in attendance will find out what Halo Studios has been working on. This venue was used previously by the developer, appearing last year to announce that the formerly named 343 Studios had changed their name to Halo Studios, after the series they had been working on for over a decade.…

11bit Studio, the developers behind the recently released survival/management sci-fi hybrid The Alters, has admitted to using generative AI in their game. This comes after several players took to social media over the weekend to say that several elements featured in the game were AI, with several of the scientific scrawls featured on computers in-game being created that way, with the prompt from the AI still being left in for the final product of the game. https://bsky.app/profile/11bitstudios.bsky.social/post/3lstiwaoxcc2i The studio confirmed on Monday with their own posts to social media that they did indeed include several elements created this way. They,…

Bandai Namco has confirmed that they will be holding a Summer Showcase on July 2, at 12 PM PT/3 PM ET/ 9 PM CEST/ and 4 AM JST. While there is a lot to showcase during this event, the publisher and developer have released a teaser trailer showcasing just some of what players can expect to see when they hold the event. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNFuG1BpViI The biggest announcement during the trailer is that My Hero Academia, the popular anime series, will be receiving a new game. The last title released based on the series was My Hero Ultimate Rumble in 2023, a…

Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma is a drastic departure from everything that came before in the series. Obviously, this was expected, given the teaser for this game, alongside the Rune Factory 3 remaster announcement, promised that the next Rune Factory would be a new breed of the game. Despite this, there is no way you can anticipate that the series that became a Nintendo Handheld was going to offer such a masterful evolution of the formula. There has never been a Rune Factory that didn’t resonate with me, growing up on Harvest Moon, so this pretty much is my genre,…

Ruffy and the Riverside can take a moment to start getting good. A slow intro that appears to start in the middle of a story, rather than start with the character relaxing before everything goes wrong and they have to spring into action, like the classic Rare titles, the game feels so aptly pays homage to. Even then, you still need to commit to a slight wade through the world before the game sinks its hook into you. If you commit your time, though, it becomes a great example of what Indie titles bring to the party. Ruffy is a…

Developer Don’t Nod Montreal, who recently released Lost Record: Bloom & Rage earlier this year, has reportedly laid off an undisclosed number of employees across multiple departments. This news broke via a round of departure announcements on LinkedIn, in what was referred to as a “wave of layoffs.” People affected include QA Lead Sandra Comier, Principal Cinematic Artist Mary Pouliot, and Technical Artist Laurent Dufresne, as well as Senior Game and Level Designer Mathieu Trembly. Mary Pouliet wrote via LinkedIn: Although I was anticipating this dreadly fatality that is now a habit in the industry, it came to me as…

Max Payne once said, “If you had done something differently, it wouldn’t be you, it would be someone else looking back, asking a different set of questions.” The idea of the butterfly effect drastically changing your reality, and leaving a different reality unexplored, and a different person that looks like you, behind that door. This isn’t you, though, and central to the story of The Alters, developed by 11bit Studio, is the exploration of this, and just how drastically one life change can alter your trajectory. The narrative of the game begins with Jan Dolski becoming the sole survivor of…

Nintendo has announced that the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 Exclusive title Drag X Drive will be releasing on August 14, 2025 as a digital title for the price of $19.99. This news was announced via the Today! app, which was previously used to announce the upcoming Splatoon Raiders, a spin-off of the popular Nintendo series of the same name. It is currently available for pre-order on the Nintendo eShop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hku89o38-hQ Announced during the Nintendo Switch 2 reveal Direct held in April, Drag X Drive is intended as a feature-driven game, similar to that of Welcome Tour, which was released alongside…