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SpiderWare's pixel-art roguelite MMO hits early access on 21 July with bullet-heaven dungeons, three-player co-op and a genuinely wild backstory: it used to be a blockchain game, and it walked away.
Ryan Hurst tore a bicep doing stunt work and needs surgery, so Amazon is recasting Kratos rather than waiting: four finished episodes will be reshot, with cameras rolling again in October.
RedOctane, reformed 15 years after Activision shut it down, is bringing plastic instruments back with Stage Tour: Gibson-backed guitar controllers, drums, mics and a 16-song setlist, out late 2026.
A twin-stick roguelike where you play the infection, tear organelles out of the cells you kill and bolt them onto your own body. The build system is the most inventive thing I have played all year, and I lost a week of evenings to it. The basic movement rules are the weak link.
Melbourne's Gameclaw Studio built a side-scrolling RPG about rebuilding a dwarven home one rescued kinsman at a time, and I lost a string of evenings to it. Gorgeous pixel art, a compulsive settlement loop and honest jank in the combat. Recommended.
I bounced off Palworld hard in early access. Version 1.0 fixed the jank, killed the worst of the grind and bolted a real endgame onto the catch-shoot-build loop. Two and a half years later, the meme game became one of the best survival crafters on PC.
Season 2 kept my Friday-night tea ritual alive for ten weeks, and I loved being back on the road with Frieren, Fern and Stark. But this season is a bridge, not a destination: gentle, lovely, and clearly saving its biggest feelings for what comes next.
Ubisoft's Black Flag remake is a genuinely lovely rebuild of the best pirate game the series ever made, and a case study in souring your own launch with nine day-one DLC packs. The ship is great. The gift shop can walk the plank.
MAPPA returns to the well with Culling Game: Part 1, and the action animation might be the best the series has produced. The trade-off is a season top-loaded with rule explanations that test even seasoned shonen viewers.
