The Monday letters page wishes Astro’s Playroom had been a Switch 2 launch title, as one reader worries that a Tomb Raidr reboot is doomed to failure.

Games Inbox is a collection of our readers’ letters, comments, and opinions. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk

Epic showdown
There’s always lots of talk about The Elder Scrolls 6, which I understand because everyone loves Skyrim and Bethesda are such a mess it’s just interesting following them. But I’m surprised there’s not been any discussion of The Witcher 4 lately.

We at least know a little bit about that, in that Ciri is the main character, but it seems likely that both are going to come out at almost exactly the same time. CD Projekt said no earlier than 2027 for The Witcher 4, which probably means at least 2028, and that’s exactly when The Elder Scrolls 6 is due.

Based on their recent track record I have to say I’m much more interested in The Witcher 4, and much more confident that it will be good. But both games have sold almost the same, at around 60 million (Bethesda seem to have Sony-itis when making up sales figures but let’s just assume they’re both more or less the same).

So, what would you bet on being more successful and more loved? Which are not the same thing. Personally, I think The Witcher 4 has got to be the early favourite.
Johnson

Prior reading
As someone that’s never played the series, I’m very curious to see if there is going to be a Half-Life 3 and if it will be on consoles. Steam Machine can’t have exclusives, but they can keep games PC-only and it seems likely they’ll do that here, which would be a shame I think.

As far as I understand nobody knows for sure that Half-Life 3 is coming, so could the game actually be a remake? I know there’s been some fan ones, on PC, but I would like to see a big remake of the first two for all formats, so I can get a good look at it and have a chance with the backstory and the lore and everything.

It’s weird to me that one of the most talked about games ever doesn’t have a decent console version and most casual gamers have never heard of it.
Bootles

Gradual influence
The Reader’s Feature about Microsoft’s reverse Midas touch made me laugh, because I’ve been thinking something similar myself recently. The funny thing is I don’t there’s been enough time for Microsoft to have had any effect on Call Of Duty yet, given how long games take to make.

Being on Game Pass is obviously a difference, but that isn’t what made the game a big pile of you know what. So Microsoft couldn’t really have changed anything for Black Ops 7, I don’t think.

It’s actually more likely that Activision knew, or had a good idea, this was going to be a disaster when Microsoft bought them and just carried on anyway. They would’ve had their money by that point, so what do they care?
Bruno

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The one and only
So I had a look at my friends list, as was trying Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7 on Game Pass, terrible game on every level and about 80 were online. I was the only one playing Black Ops 7 and on top of that no one was playing EA Sports FC… a massive change from few years ago when everyone would of been playing those games

Those were games my son would get every year with his mates, now they won’t even try them as they’re rubbish. So the golden goose is well and truly cooked for both, too many similar reincarnations every year with nothing new. I also note my son’s generation are actually falling out of love with gaming, which is worrying for the future.

Microsoft buying Activision for $70+ billion looking like the worst buy in history. They saw Call Of Duty as easy money every year but now that’s backfired big time… worrying times. Thanks for everything over the last year, seasons greeting and all the best.
TWO MACKS

Becoming a relic
Very much agree with the weekend feature about Tomb Raider. I think the biggest problem, at this point, is it’s just too late. The reboot trilogy wasn’t that big, so you’re talking 20-odd years since Tomb Raider was number one in pop culture.

I think most people think of the films first, and Angelina Jolie, before they do the games. I definitely think younger gamers will probably be pretty ignorant of the series, and that wouldn’t really be their fault.

I hope the new game is good, and comes out sometime soon, but if they say it’s cancelled and they’ve sold the franchise on to someone else I wouldn’t be surprised. If it does come out then it’s going to have to be amazing to reverse years of increasing irrelevance.
Focus

It’s the children who are wrong
You’re the most reliable review site bar none, such that I frequently make decisions based on your detailed and informed analysis (your passion for the form coursing through the beautifully crafted prose). After reading your review, I’ll definitely be downloading Sektori, as it’s a genre I love.

But the Kirby Air Riders review has me slightly baffled as it’s a total outlier and I can’t think of a comparable example in the 20 or so years I’ve followed your reviews. Despite very positive reviews by Eurogamer and IGN, yours is enough to put me off buying it.

Have you ever considered writing a feature on your most controversial reviews and reflections on whether you stand by them (and whether vindicated over the passage of time)? GTA 5 comes to mind as, if memory serves well, you gave it (a very generous in my opinion) 8 out 10.

Secondly, when, as with Kirby, your appraisal is such an outlier, does it give you cause to reconsider and even give the game in question another try? I’d love to see a reflection piece on that particular review and the contrasting takes on the game.

People like to say it’s all subjective and ‘just your opinion’, but you’re experts and your views are not the equivalent of a casual gamer or biased towards a particular company, IP or genre, they actually matter and materially affect what people purchase and play – they do me at least!
Ciara

GC: Thanks, but we’ve already spent more than enough time with Kirby Air Riders. Perhaps we will do a feature on other times we’ve disagreed with the consensus, if anyone else has any ‘favourites’.

Nintendo by Sony
Bought a PlayStation 5 on the Black Friday sale and I have to say Astro’s Playroom is amazing. It has to be the best pack-in game ever.

This is what Welcome Tour for Switch 2 should have been.
goldbricks23

GC: If only.

Face of the franchise
I’ve been following your ongoing coverage of the new IO Interactive James Bond game, primarily because I’m a fan of the developer but I do have nagging doubts about the face that they’ve chosen for James Bond.

I was trying to think, throughout the movies does Bond smile at all? Certainly not a lot. I’d cross the street to avoid 007 First Light’s smirking cheeky chappie interpretation of Bond, if that is indeed the face that IO Interactive are going with. He looks like the kind of bloke who’d find his own rubbish jokes hilariously funny or go on and on about the fortune that he’s just made buying and selling crypto currency, which is going to enable him to retire 30 years early and so he’ll have plenty of time to enter and win another around the world yacht race and tinker with his vintage sports car which he bought on a whim but has actually turned out to be a terrific investment.

007 First Light Bond would also own at least one pair of driving gloves. You know he would.

It’s possible that I’m overreacting or being oversensitive, but that smirking reinvention of Bond really winds me up every time I see it. I know the game is based more on the books but isn’t Bond meant to be emotionally cold and ruthless and, above all, dangerous? First Light James Bond simply looks annoying.

I wonder if any game has been financially scuppered by the appearance of its main character? Surely video game avatars have to appeal to the people who control them to some extent because they are the player’s core connection to the game. There was a big fuss over being forced to play as Raiden in Metal Gear Solid 2 but didn’t the game sell well anyway?

Maybe it doesn’t matter what a game’s playable character looks like if the actual game plays well.
Michael Veal (@msv858)

GC: We would hope so. Although we don’t disagree with some of your descriptions.

Inbox also-rans
As someone that’s never really played much Battlefield before I am surprised at how well the new one is doing. Is it really so completely different to Battlefield 2042, which was a complete flop?
Toasty

Am I the only one that played Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 with French voiceovers? If you played silent Hill f and Ghost Of Yōtei in Japanese I really don’t see why this would be any different. It’s the langue the game was made in and they’re all clearly French.
Label

GC: We did, at least for part of it.

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The small print
New Inbox updates appear every weekday morning, with special Hot Topic Inboxes at the weekend. Readers’ letters are used on merit and may be edited for length and content.

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Xbox has hosted a surprisingly worthwhile third party showcase, with a release date for Reanimal but surprisingly no mention of Silent Hill 2.

There have been so many lamentable trends in gaming this year that some of the more minor issues have been pushed to the sidelines. But it sure is a shame that Nintendo Direct style online showcases are no longer the exciting preview events they used to be.

The ones from Sony and Nintendo this year have been largely uninteresting, whether the games featured are good or not, and while Xbox has probably had the best of it, you always have to put up with the increasingly unpalatable execs and their disingenuous promises.

Announced out of the blue just a few days ago, no one was expecting much from Thursday evening’s Xbox Partner Preview, but it was actually pretty good and debuted an unexpected new spin-off to Vampire Survivors.

The secret to the showcase’s success was very simple: not only were there no Xbox execs but there was hardly any talking at all, and what little there was featured a British voiceover. That also meant that the show was able to zip along at a fair pace, even if a few of the segments did seem to go on a bit long.

Everything kicked off with Armatus, which for some reason we initially took to be a Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 spin-off. It’s not and is instead a roguelite set in Paris, with what seem to be Soulslike undertones. It features procedurally-spawned rooms and enemies and is due out sometime next year.

Like all the games showcased, Armatus is multiformat and has nothing specifically to do with Microsoft. Although a number of the titles featured will be available on Game Pass day one, as you can see listed below.

The showcase was almost exactly 30 minutes long, so we’d advise watching the whole thing, but the highlight was arguably Vampire Crawlers, a deck-building role-playing game (specifically a dungeon crawler influenced by Dungeon Keeper and the ancient Wizardry series) that is the first major spin-off from Vampire Survivors.

Vampire Crawlers is apparently the first of many planned spin-offs but, as you can see, this shares a similar pixel art visual style, while also paying homage to old school gameplay mechanics. Although the deck-building and card customisation might not be to everyone’s taste developer poncle insists that you can play the game at any speed you like, including ‘as fast as you humanly can’, so it does still have strong links back to the original game.

The majority of games featured were indie titles, but IO Interactive were also there to promote 007: First Light (including a new collaboration with Aston Martin) and Hitman: World Of Association (with the next elusive target revealed as Eminem/Slim Shady). We had an interview with IO’s CEO a few hours before the event, so we’ll reveal what was discussed then shortly.

THQ Nordic’s Reanimal, from the makers of Little Nightmares 1 and 2 (but not 3) were also on hand to announce a release date for the game, of February 13 next year.

The games with the longest amount of screentime were Chinese action adventure Tides Of Annihilation, which is very loosely based on Arthurian legend, and third person actioner Zoopunk. They both looked fine but, if anything, having much longer segments than any of the other games worked against them, as their previews did seem to go on a bit.

A number of brand new games were announced, including Echo Generation 2, one of several voxel-based games featured, with the ambitious looking Erosion having a very intriguing trailer. Alien invasion/petrol station simulator Roadside Research also looked like it could be amusing.

If you’re wondering who Sam Preeble is, when he was promoted as the creator of Total Chaos, he’s a prominent Doom modder. Total Chaos started life as a total conversion of Doom 2, which is not something you’d guess simply by watching the trailer.

There was no real mic drop at the end of showcase, although Raji: An Ancient Epic sequel Raji: Kaliyuga did seem interesting and, like many of the other games, is coming to Game Pass Ultimate from day one.

The final surprise of the night was the Silent Hill 2 remake was not mentioned, despite it having been leaked to hell and back. It’s apparently available right now in Australia, although at time of writing it’s not on the UK store.

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A reader muses on the current state of the video games industry and how people’s indifference for the well-being of developers is causing real harm.

Having been a devoted gamer since I was a little boy in the mid-to-late 90s, I have played all manner of games and enjoyed a lot of what the industry has to offer. However, I have started to see that while the games industry continues to delight us with new and exciting games, it is also distracting us from the destruction it continues to wreak on the livelihoods of the developers and studios responsible for the games we love.

Like many people, I am prone to the nostalgic banality of thinking that video games were way better 20 to 30 years ago, but there are more and more reasons why this is becoming the case. Yes, games today are technically more impressive and larger than they have ever been, but they are also chore-like and teeming with risk averse stories, characters, and gameplay features. I don’t blame the developers nor the publishers though, I blame our culture.

It is our culture that dictates the direction video games are going and steers the mindsets of publishers who prioritise getting the games they publish into the hands of as many gamers as possible. The stories that are told, the ideas that are forged and the auras are all linked to our culture, and this is why gaming today is the way it is, as well as why I personally find it to be overbearing and harder to enjoy than ever.

It’s not that the quality of games isn’t great, but there are simply too many, which means we choose our favourites and stick with those instead of playing everything. So, for me personally, I love playing all kinds of games, but the industry is making it immensely hard for me to keep up.

Remember the 2022 Saints Row reboot? How we absolutely hated it with a passion! You know why we did? Because it wasn’t the Saints Row we used to know. The way I see it is we got the Saints Row we deserve because of the culture we cultivated. Volition et al. just wanted to make money by capitalising on a changing audience, yet we rejected it due to our nostalgia for the way things used to be.

I’m not defending Saints Row 2022, but it is clear it is a game of our times, as they are now. Dragon Age: The Veilguard is another example. Love it or hate it, The Veilguard exists because EA are on the pulse of what our culture is becoming. Yes, many of us hate it, but we’re responsible for it.

As wild and ludicrous as this may seem, I can’t help but see an industry paving the way for its own extinction, along with the collapse of this culture of ours. Again, it is easy to believe that all I am spouting is a load of nostalgic rhetoric and nonsense theories, but looking at how straightforward, easy and accessible things were then, to how choice-riddled, overbearing, and excessive things are now there has to be a change of course or this bubble will burst.

We are responsible for the state of things now, and we are the change that can turn things around. I posit that it is really difficult to crusade for the justice and wellbeing of game creators because we continue to think if the games are great, the developers are doing well.

However, once they underperform and fail to reach the ridiculous sales demands of the publishers, they’re in danger of getting axed, and that is truly dreadful for an industry we love so much. I still want Bizarre Creations and Evolution Studios to still exist, as well as Volition, but sales numbers continue to matter more than anything else to publishers, and that dilutes and restricts the industry.

By reader James Davie

The reader’s features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.

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A veteran Call Of Duty fan considers the current antipathy over Black Ops 7 and argues that Activision is not listening properly to its fans.

This is a response to Jonesy and their comments on Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7 in the weekly Inbox. First, I just want to talk Call of Duty only, and I agree there is a bit of franchise bashing going on at the moment. I’ve certainly done that with my friends I play with, but will admit that when Activision listen, Call Of Duty is great. However, the last few entries, while not necessarily stale, they haven’t been listening to a wider community, only very select people it seems.

In terms of people criticising them for being stale, I feel that is more of the (likely larger) Warzone playerbase and that, frankly, needs a bit of an overhaul (and potentially splitting from the main game, as many commentators have suggested over the last two years). Looking at maps alone, Caldera and Al Mazrah were not particularly good in reality, and Urzikstan felt like it was more a return in a better direction, but having that for nearly 18 months before Verdansk 2.0 came back was too long a time.

Off the back of that, everyone had a blast on Verdansk, myself included, but the changes made the following season broke a lot of things, and the changes they were trying to make weren’t addressing any of the core issues the game had. The next big map is following in early 2026, which is the same tag line used for Verdansk, so I’d expect another April release – which gives us a full year on a map a lot of us fans likely played to death during the pandemic.

Comparing Black Ops 7 to Modern Warfare 3, I feel is reasonable. I would disagree with the lack of complaints about Modern Warfare 3 though. Pretty much every outlet called it glorified DLC, and that was what the rumourmill was suggesting, amid the chaos around the time of the Microsoft takeover.

Herein lies another strand of discontent with how Black Ops 7 looks. But talking about other Call Of Duty games I wanted to look at a slightly wider picture. As a long-time gamer, it very much feels like we are circling around the times post-Ghosts, which was Advance Warfare through Black Ops 4. It’s there it felt they had lost their way, and were trying anything to captivate new audiences with new gimmicks, and that saw core mechanics changing every new game.

I really struggled through that period, and to me, after this last year, and all the new features being shown in the Black Ops 7 trailer, event and press releases, it feels like we’ve come full circle to that moment once more, and it’s why I won’t be getting this year’s. But I will come back once they realise they have gone too far the gimmick route and return to form, much like they did with Modern Warfare 2019.

But I want to move more into a conversation about shooter games in general. The success of Battlefield 6 is a big moment in the genre this year, but we should really be asking why those games are getting that kind of negative sentiment.

In my opinion, there’s so much choice, that games in the genre absolutely have to find and nail their identity. Call Of Duty, over the last few titles, has deviated away from what its core once was. Whether by accident or design, I wouldn’t be able to say, but it feels like they have been trying to dip their hands into as many pots as possible, be it gameplay changes, battle passes, skins, and crossovers etc., that it has genuinely eroded what was once great about Call Of Duty (and also introduced a lot of issue in core gameplay along the way).

Other big games have seen the same issue. Look at Destiny 2, the former darling of space shooters, now at an all-time low. No real new content, lacklustre campaigns and an oversaturation and reliance on microtransactions have eroded its once stellar reputation. Now, clutching at straws, their next expansion is ‘Star Wars inspired’ which I don’t see doing well. There are so many lapsed players, and an ongoing cost of living crisis, I can’t see a mini-campaign (Edge Of Fate being 10 to 12 hours) selling for £35. Only the still current enthusiast will be interested and that I feel is where Black Ops 7 has landed.

Looking at the likes of Arc Raiders, Escape From Tarkov, Battlefield 6, Borderlands 4, Overwatch 2, Fortnite and the like, they have their core DNA and stuck to it, resulting in success. Yes, the last entries of Battlefield, Borderlands, and the end of Overwatch 1/start of Overwatch 2 all had their issues (and in fairness the first week of an Overwatch 2 season always does have additional issues), but they still manage to listen and learn from communities, and kick on.

Borderlands 4 is a big return to form after a mediocre third instalment (even with the PC issues that are being worked on). Battlefield 6 I don’t need to be talked about, but 2042 took a good 12 to 18 months to get to where it should have been on release and nearly killed that franchise. The end of Overwatch 1 was a struggle, and so was the start of Overwatch 2, but they have really invested in listening to people and it’s in one of the best places it’s been in years.
    
This brings me back to my point, games need to find their identity, their core DNA, and stick to it. If it’s a franchise like Call Of Duty, then chopping and changing that DNA every entry makes it struggle for players to stay with you. Then compounding that with more novel gimmicks from other games, too many microtransactions, pay to win elements, battle passes… it is all slowly putting a lot of players off in a world of finite disposable income.

The more these big developers listen to their communities, and not just select individuals in a small focus group, the absolute better the genre will be. Having a lot of great games come out over the last 12 months, that have all returned to their core roots, has cemented their DNA, which has massively benefitted them.

Not only does it give players a sense of familiarity and expectation, it also allows the developers to build on that core in interesting ways, as long as they do not deviate away from that core too much. The likes of Black Ops 7 may well struggle, and while I hope I am wrong, the last few years have been a substantial miss because they don’t know where to go with them.

Fingers crossed over the coming years, developers will take note of releases this year and realise that having that core identity is a valuable asset and not something you need to ignore. After all, you don’t need to try and reinvent the wheel for the sake of it!

By reader NewAgeM3ssiah

The reader’s features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.

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We went hands-on with another Kirby Air Riders preview this week, but you can try out the game for yourself over the next couple of weekends.

We’re still not entirely sure why Nintendo has chosen Kirby Air Riders, of all things, to be one of its first Nintendo Switch 2 exclusives, especially after we came away from the Gamescom demo less than impressed.

Even ignoring the original’s status as one of Nintendo’s worst reviewed games, the original Kirby Air Ride from 2005 only found itself a niche audience. And with the sequel charging £58.99 digitally and £66.99 physically, it may be a hard sell for anyone outside of the hardcore Kirby fan base.

In order to convince people that it’s worth the money, Nintendo is running an online playtest this weekend for all Switch 2 owners, so you can try the game out before committing to a pre-order ahead of its November 20 launch.

What is the Kirby Air Riders global test ride?

The Kirby Air Riders global test ride is essentially a limited time demo that you can download from the Switch 2 eShop right now.

At the time of writing, you’ll only be able to play the lessons mode, which contains various tutorials about Kirby Air Riders’ controls and techniques.

Once the playtest goes live, you can play against each other online across two modes: the standard Air Ride mode for traditional races and City Trial, where up to 16 players roam across a map to collect stat upgrades within a time limit, before competing in a random challenge.

When is the Kirby Air Riders global test ride available?

The Kirby Air Riders global test ride is made up of three six hour sessions spread across Saturday, November 8 and Sunday, November 9, so you have ample opportunities to take part.

The exact times are listed below:

• Session 1 – Saturday, November 8 at 8am GMT – 2pm GMT
• Session 2 – Sunday, November 9 at midnight GMT – 6am GMT
• Session 3 – Sunday, November 9 at 3pm GMT – 9pm GMT

In case you’re unable to take part in any of these, there will be a second batch of sessions the following weekend. Those times are:

• Session 4 – Saturday, November 15 at 8am GMT – 2pm GMT
• Session 5 – Sunday, November 16 at midnight GMT – 6am GMT
• Session 6 – Sunday, November 16 at 3pm GMT – 9pm GMT

Kirby Air Riders hands-on preview

Before you hop into the demo, we recently attended another hands-on session with an updated version of Kirby Air Riders. We still weren’t exactly blown away, though, and the whole City Trial concept, which is supposed to be one of the key draws, continues to seem utterly misconceived.

You’re literally just collecting icons to increase your vehicle stats (for speed, manoeuvrability, etc.) and while there are other players in there with you we managed to win a match without ever coming anywhere near them.

The race for stats ends after a set amount of time, at which point you take part in a mini-game so simple it would make Mario Party blanch, with the whole thing over so quickly it just seems utterly pointless.

However, we do now have more optimism for the normal races, aka Air Ride mode. These are essentially PvPvE matches, with lots of cannon fodder enemies driving around (primarily so you swallow them and steal their abilities) as well as actual rivals.

Since you accelerate automatically, the game heavily emphasises drifting, which is fun, and the course design is very good. For those that resent the more open-ended tracks in Mario Kart World these are the complete opposite, with a particularly cool one themed around waterfalls.

Whether Air Ride will be enough to justify the whole package we don’t know, but at least now you can check out the game for yourself.

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This month’s new wave of smartphone games includes a new Hitman port, two interesting new tower defence titles, and an excellent new photography game.

The sad news that Netflix is continuing to gut its games division, which had previously supplied a steady stream of mobile classics, now includes the closure of Boss Fight Entertainment, whose most recent release was Squid Game: Unleashed.

The problems of triple-A console publishers may seem to have little relevance to mobile gaming but the smartphone market has its own problems, especially in terms of oversaturation.

Thankfully, there’s still plenty of interesting games this month though, including a touchscreen port of melancholy puzzle platformer Inmost, Rift Riff’s refreshingly different tower defence action, and the mobile port of the delightful Toem: A Photo Adventure.

Rift Riff

iOS & Android, Free – £5.99 full game unlock (Adriaan De Jongh)

Rift Riff has a fascinatingly original take on tower defence. Rather than building towers from a godlike remove, you control a small, hooded figure who has to sprint to each tower to build and upgrade it, firing at mobs as he goes.

Between levels you unlock new tower varieties, choosing a subset of them for each level you visit, a process that in later engagements may take a couple of attempts as you get the lay of the land.

It has minor technical issues, its explicatory text boxes sometimes appearing behind other objects, but it’s not a serious problem and wholly forgivable when battles are so unusual, overcoming the genre’s usual complaint of having to spend much of your time passively watching as your plan either plays out or fails.

Score: 7/10

Inmost

iOS & Android, £3.99 (Chuklefish)

With its delightfully downbeat, almost monochrome pixel art style, and three separate heroes who manage to be incredibly expressive despite being small and purposely blocky, Inmost’s side-scrolling adventure requires exploration, puzzle solving, and combat.

Its themes are as desolate as its atmosphere, taking in depression, familial neglect and suicide, but puzzles are well designed despite the simplicity of its scenery, and the soundtrack superb on headphones.

Its eerie ambience and moments of existentialist angst will stay with you long after you’ve finished its five or so hours of lugubrious adventuring, its few buttons and straightforward controls translating neatly to touchscreen.

Score: 8/10

Parabellum: Siege Of Legends

iOS & Android, £2.99 (Plug-in Digital)

Using a 2D side-scrolling format similar to Kingdom: Two Crowns, Parabellum has you building resource and troop generating villages, then commanding squads of soldiers in battle, in a tale that spans different commanders and their lands.

Its hand drawn art style looks great, even if its subtitled dialogue often coincides with action that makes it hard to follow. Sadly, it falters due to difficulties with its interface: village construction is hampered by troops standing in front of buildings, making it tricky to select them. Battles are an even bigger problem.

Even fully zoomed out you can only see a small chunk of the battlefield, leaving you frantically scrolling back and forth, using swipes that also often accidentally select troops or buildings you didn’t intend to. Despite an interesting setting, Parabellum suffers from too many issues to be enjoyable.

Score: 5/10

All Who Wander – Roguelike RPG

iOS and Android, free – £6.99 full game unlock (Frumpydoodle Games)

With its 10 character classes spanning the expected axis of barbarian, magician, thief, ranger, and others, All Who Wander is a miniature turn-based role-player, its hex maps taking in half a dozen biomes and a mix of above and below ground exploration.

Tap to move and attack any enemies you stumble across, although since battles offer no experience points or loot, they’re best avoided when possible. You’re better off seeking out treasure and buildings, where you can get hired help and additional skills to bolster the ability tree that comes with each character class.

Because it’s quick to play and effectively paused until you make a move, it’s perfect for those minutes-long interstices of life, even if its procedurally generated levels, with inherently random loot and encounters, can feel a little hollow during protracted sessions.

Score: 7/10

Kingdom Rush Battles: TD Game

iOS & Android, free (Ironhide Games)

Player vs. player games are a tempting gamble. If they work you can end up with an addictive game that has infinitely scalable difficulty through matchmaking, but if they don’t attract enough players it can create a rapid death spiral. Fighting bots is nobody’s idea of a good time.

Kingdom Rush Battles is off to a somewhat wobbly start. On one hand it marries Ironside’s polish and artistic flare with solid tower defence mechanics, each player guarding a mini-map while adding mobs and handicaps to their opponent’s. On the other, battles tend either to be tense and protracted or laughably brief, a sign that you may not in fact be battling a human.

Unfortunately, it has regular connection issues that are especially annoying near the end of a lengthy round, and while it gets a lot of the basics right it will need more players and better technical implementation to compete with incumbent PvP behemoths like Clash Royale.

Score: 6/10

Toem: A Photo Adventure

iOS & Android, free – £6.99 full game unlock (Snapbreak)

Toem gives you a camera and then unleashes you on its charmingly drawn black and white isometric world, on a mission to help its denizens by taking pictures for them. Tap on the camera and you’re taken to the viewfinder’s fully three-dimensional view, letting you zoom in and compose shots.

Completing jobs for characters involves looking around all the buildings and areas in each level, trying to spot the very thing they need, and while you’re at it completing overarching photographic tasks to fill your growing album.

It’s unexpectedly great, with a warm sense of humour, elegantly designed mini-challenges, and new photographic equipment to unlock. Its engaging, time pressure free interactions work brilliantly on a touchscreen.

Score: 8/10

Hitman: Absolution

iOS & Android, £9.99 (Feral Interactive)

Hitman: Absolution was originally released in 2012, when the Olympics came to London and the Queen celebrated her Diamond Jubilee. It feels like an eternity ago, but despite its superannuation Absolution still looks and plays like a triple-A game, although not much like more recent Hitman outings.

Relying noticeably more on action, an automatic bullet time kicking in as you take aim with your silenced silver baller pistols, its colourful good looks and globetrotting look good on touchscreen, although its profusion of buttons are only really suitable for iPad. As ever with games that feature occasional frenzied action, a controller is your best bet.

Its Achilles’ heel though, is that it doesn’t permanently save checkpoint data, so if you have to close the app and reopen it, you’ll need to restart the whole chapter from scratch, an egregious oversight for a mobile port with such long and involved missions.

Score: 6/10

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Everyone knew there was a good chance GTA 6 wouldn’t make its May release date and now Rockstar Games has confirmed it won’t be out until the end of 2026.

One day GTA 6 will be released, and you’ll be able to play the most anticipated video game of all time, but that day is no longer going to be May 26, 2026.

The May date was also a delay, but now Rockstar Games has confirmed that the new release date is November 19, 2026. Although, of course, there’s no guarantee it will make that date either, since GTA 5 is still raking in money for both Rockstar and parent company Take-Two.

This time there was even less explanation than usual for the delay, with a short tweet that said simply: ‘We are sorry for adding additional time to what we realise has been a long wait, but these extra months will allow us to finish the game with the level of polish you have come to expect and deserve.’

While the previous delay had been widely expected, given the long gap from one trailer to another, there’d been no prominent rumours of any recent troubles. In fact, there’s been very little gossip at all over the last few months, so this all comes as a big surprise.

What is the new release date of GTA 6?

The news initially broke via Take-Two’s latest fiscal report, which quietly announced the new November 19, 2026 date just before the tweet was posted.

As before, and as is common for Rockstar Games, it will initially only be released for consoles, in this case PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. There will be a PC version, but it’s not been confirmed yet and won’t now happen until at least 2027.

Since the news was part of Take-Two’s financial report there was an immediate, negative effect on the publisher’s stock price, which is down over 9% at time of writing and still falling.

It will probably recover but if there’s anything that’s going to make Rockstar stick to its latest release date it’s Take-Two insisting they don’t tank their stock price again.

You can imagine exactly how well fans have taken the news, with the primary emotions being surprise and anger – and a need to express both via the medium of memes.

‘I just smashed my TV in front of 30 guests at my party because of these constant delays. My wife just took our crying kids and said they’re all spending the week at a hotel. This delay has ruined my life and my expectations. I can’t handle this anymore. Goodbye Rockstar. I am no longer a fan,’ said PrimitiveAK on X – he’s almost certainly joking, but everyone seemed to appreciate the sentiment.

We’re not sure if it’s a new thing or not but several comments made reference to the chances of the second coming of Christ happening before GTA 6, while someone called FERAS complained ‘Damn it! I became a father, and I might even become a grandfather, and your game still isn’t out yet!’

Several company accounts also got involved, with indie publisher Devolver Digital asking if Rockstar wanted a new publisher, and Domino’s pizza suggesting that they could help with delivering the game.

Nevertheless, a fair amount of fans were accepting, and even welcoming, of the delay. ‘I speak for everyone when we say take your good time, we want a finished game and game of the century so you can take an additional 10 years if you need to,’ said Woody.

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