Guitar Hero may be be dead but a new studio, founded by some of the original creators, is launching a lookalike game this year.

Back when Xbox was first courting Activision Blizzard, it was clearly implied that the acquisition would lead to the revival of the Guitar Hero series, which has been seemingly dead since 2015.

So far, nothing of the sort has come out of the arrangement. If anything, Epic Games has done more to revive the concept by enlisting Guitar Hero’s original developer Harmonix to make Fortnite Festival, a rhythm action game that’s compatible with the same plastic guitar peripherals that used to clutter peoples’ living rooms.

Now, another Guitar Hero clone has been announced, alongside a brand new guitar controller – one that’s also being created by veterans of the series.

Named simply the Sound System, the game is in development at a new studio called Echo Foundry Interactive, which was founded by Marcus Henderson and Lennon Lange.

Henderson is a musician who served as the lead guitarist on the Guitar Hero games, while Lange worked as a producer on not just that series but related spin-offs like Band Hero and DJ Hero.

The game’s already scheduled to launch on PC via Steam this summer, with plans for PlayStation 5, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch versions as well.

One look at the trailer and it’s very apparent it’s just Guitar Hero again (not that that’s a bad thing), with a promise of a curated setlist of songs, frequent content updates, and the ability to create and share your own music.

The announcement coincides with a new guitar peripheral called the InfinaKore Telecaster Edition Guitar Controller, from hardware company Drakong, which will be compatible with both Sound System and Fortnite Festival.

However, the Sound System trailer also mentions ‘classic peripherals,’ which hopefully means that some of your old Guitar Hero controllers will work just fine and you won’t need to go and buy a new one.

The likes of Guitar Hero and Rock Band popularised bespoke controllers shaped like instruments, which were extremely popular in the late 2000s, before Activision oversaturated the market.

The concept fell out of favour in the 2010s, alongside rhythm action games in general, and there’s never really been a comeback since then.

There’s clearly still a market for it though, if other companies are making such peripherals, even if it’s hard to imagine it once again becoming a mass market phenomenon.

Although Guitar Hero, and successor Rock Band, are now dead franchises Ubisoft’s Rocksmith is still going. Although that’s more of a teching tool than a normal game, not least because it uses a real electric guitar.

It was eventually succeeded by a subscription service called Rocksmith+ in 2022. Surprisingly, that’s still going and seeing updates, having since added piano and keyboard learning.

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The first major games showcase of the year comes from Xbox and as well as Fable and Forza Horizon 6 it’s said to feature a secret new game reveal.

It should come as no surprise that Xbox is airing a new Developer Direct showcase this month. It’s been an annual occasion since 2023 and Microsoft confirmed one was coming last month – even if they never said exactly when.

However, they did promise that that Fable and Forza Horizon 6 developer Playground Games would be featured and that, because Xbox has so many games planned for 2026, it can’t fit them all into one show.

Despite that claim, this year’s showcase is looking awfully thin. But while only three games have been officially announced, rumours suggest there is actually a secret fourth game as well.

When is the January 2026 Xbox Developer Direct?

As confirmed by an Xbox Wire blog post, the Developer Direct is scheduled for Thursday, January 22 at 6pm GMT.

Most of it will be spent on updates from British developer Playground Games, which means in-depth looks at both Fable (which was meant to launch last year but was delayed to 2026) and Forza Horizon 6.

While this will be the first proper gameplay debut for Forza Horizon 6, Fable’s past trailers did offer glimpses of its combat, but there’s never been any extended gameplay demonstrations.

Detailed information about Fable in general has been incredibly vague ever since its 2020 announcement. There have been rumours of it drawing influence from CD Projekt’s The Witcher series of action role-players for its combat, but that’s never been substantiated.

The only other game that will be shown is Beast Of Reincarnation, another action role-player that was announced at last year’s Xbox summer showcase and comes from Pokémon developer Game Freak.

Forza Horizon 6 and Beast Of Reincarnation are both slated for PlayStation 5 releases, although the former may come out on Xbox first. Fable has never been confirmed as a multiformat title, but given Microsoft’s current policies it seems impossible that it won’t be.

Perhaps Microsoft has a secret announcement planned for the showcase, but nothing in the blog post hints at there being more than just these three games – and Xbox has rarely been able to keep a secret.

It’s possible Microsoft is saving the bigger reveals for a summer showcase. Not only is there a Halo 1 remake out this year (one that will also launch for PlayStation 5), but we’re also supposed to be getting Gears Of War prequel E-Day as welll.

2026 also marks not only the 25th anniversary of the Xbox brand, but the 40th anniversary of Bethesda as well.

Recently, it was suggested that a new Wolfenstein could be announced as part of the celebrations, as well as possibly a new Quake, but it seems neither will feature in the Developer Direct.

Update: Two separate sources have claimed that there is actually a secret fourth game due to be shown, described by VGC as a ‘smaller scale original game from one of Xbox Game Studios’ first party developers.’

The first to mention a fourth game was respected insider shinobi602 on ResetEra, although he admitted it was not a title he was excited about and refused to provide any more information.

That’s not much to go on but The Outer Worlds 2 developer Obsidian is said to be working on at least two unannounced titles, some of which are believed to be more indie like projects, similar to Pentiment.

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Despite the last game being a sales flop for Square Enix, another Life Is Strange is apparently not only in the works but out this year.

When developer Deck Nine took over Life Is Strange from original creator Don’t Nod, it seemed the series was in safe hands, given the critically acclaimedBefore The Storm prequel and Life Is Strange: True Colors.

Unfortunately, after 2024’s Life Is Strange: Double Exposure, it was hard to feel optimistic about the future of both the series and the studio. Not only was the game a messy disappointment, it was also a financial flop for Square Enix.

At that point it wouldn’t have been surprising if Square Enix put the series on ice, and they certainly haven’t announced anything since, but there’s suddenly clear evidence that a new game is coming and will be out surprisingly soon.

Recently, a new listing on the Pan European Game Information (PEGI) website, which provides age ratings for all games released in Europe, was spotted for something called Life Is Strange: Reunion.

It was listed only as a PlayStation 5 release, with a release date of March 27, 2025 – which obviously can’t be accurate.

Even more interesting, is that it includes a story synopsis; one that not only mentions Max Caulfield (the protagonist of the first game and Double Exposure) but her best friend and love interest Chloe Price.

‘Chloe Price was Max Caulfield’s partner in time… Losing her is Max’s greatest regret. Now Chloe has come to Caledon University,’ it reads (Caledon University being the setting of Double Exposure).

‘Haunted by nightmares and impossible memories, Chloe needs Max’s help. But Max is already in crisis: in three days, a deadly inferno will destroy the campus.’

The listing has since been removed (no doubt because it was published early and contains an incorrect release date), but not before VGC managed to grab a screenshot for posterity. The same thing happened with the still unannounced Assassin’s Creed 4 remake, which popped up on the PEGI website last month.

Age rating boards across the word regularly leak video game information before they’re supposed to and what’s useful about that is that not only do they have no reason to lie but a game has to be fairly close to release in order for them to give it a rating.

What seems almost certain to have happened in this case is that the game’s release date is March 27, 2026. But the doofus who was entering the information got the year wrong – a common enough mistake at this time of year.

The more perplexing element of the leak is that Square Enix has never hinted at any such game and it’s very odd to be planning to launch it so soon, without any pre-publicity. Even if the March date is wrong, a release any time this year seems surprising if the game hasn’t even been annouced yet.

If the product description is accurate, and it would be bizarre if somewhere like PEGI just made it up, the concept feels like a direct response to one of the most notable criticisms Double Exposure received: the lack of Chloe. Both the character and her relationship with Max (which can turn romantic depending on player choices) are beloved by fans and one of the highlights of the first game.

Since that story ends with you needing to choose whether to sacrifice Chloe to save the town of Arcadia Bay or vice versa, Double Exposure omits Chloe entirely. Depending on your choice, she’s either dead or alive but no longer in contact with Max.

Bringing Max back without Chloe did not go down well with fans, especially as there’s a comic book sequel all about their relationship in the ‘save Chloe’ timeline.

Double Exposure’s ending did tease a sequel, complete with a James Bond-esque ‘Max Caulfield will return.’ But considering Double Exposure was less than two years ago, it seems too soon for a sequel to release.

However, last year, there were rumours and speculation that Deck Nine had been contracted by Square Enix to release two Life Is Strange games, with an ex-employee of Deck Nine alleging that the Double Exposure sequel was aiming for a 2026 launch, suggesting both projects were in development simultaneously.

They also added that Deck Nine was ‘laying off every department one at a time after they finish their last work.’ When combined with Double Exposure’s financial failure, none of this bodes well for both the studio and Life Is Strange itself.

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More sources have corroborated the rumoured new Witcher 3 DLC, with new leaks suggesting it will feature an entirely new region.

There’s been chatter of The Witcher 3 receiving a new DLC expansion as long ago as last June, but talk has recently ratcheted up thanks to comments made last month by Polish analyst Mateusz Chrzanowski.

On one hand, it’d be weird for The Witcher 3, or indeed any game, to see new DLC almost a decade after the last expansion, but it’s supposedly meant to serve as a bridge that leads into The Witcher 4, which is expected to launch as early as 2027.

The initial rumours made it sound like this DLC will be smaller in scale than the previous expansions, but a new leak suggests otherwise, claiming that the new content will include an entirely new region not seen in the original game.

This is according to IGN Poland, which says it has known about the DLC for a long time, thanks to a tip from a reliable insider. However, it chose not to report on the rumour since it was still only one source.

In the wake of Chrzanowski’s claims, though, IGN Poland has opted to share what it has heard about the DLC, stating that CD Projekt was interested in exploring the desert region of Zerrikania.

IGN Poland adds that there are enough references to Zerrikania in The Witcher 3 to hint that Geralt’s journey could take him there, but it also admits that’s been years since it heard this info, so plans could very well have changed.

It’s certainly possible, since The Witcher 4 is already confirmed to feature the Kovir region, which has snow-topped mountains and is a far cry from a desert.

That said, in a 2024 Easy Allies interview, CD Projekt did say The Witcher 4 will feature multiple regions, suggesting Kovir won’t be the only location you’ll explore in the game.

Whatever the case, it sounds like the DLC will be meatier than first thought. Polish website PPE has also corroborated its existence, saying it was told The Witcher 3 is getting a major content update. However, it hadn’t heard anything about it involving Zerrikania.

As for why this DLC is being made to begin with, Chrzanowski has said it’s essentially so CD Projekt’s upper management can net themselves an extra bonus.

Speaking with Eurogamer, Chrzanowski mentioned an ‘incentive programme’ that grants key employees additional shares so long as certain financial targets are met. And currently, the programme is 700 million złoty short (about £144 million).

‘700 million złoty is needed to meet the first threshold, with only five quarters remaining,’ explained Chrzanowski. ‘This implies the need for something significantly larger than just another update or a version for a niche platform.’

This only lends further credence to the DLC being far more substantial than a free update, which obviously wouldn’t push the needle any further or help the higher-ups make some extra money.

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MachineGames is rumoured to be working on two new games, including a Rainbow Six Siege style multiplayer title.

Way back in 2018, Bethesda’s then vice president of PR and marketing, Pete Hines, all but confirmed that a Wolfenstein 3 would happen, despite 2017’s Wolfenstein 2 not performing as well as hoped – in large part because of an unwisely chosen Christmas release date.

We did get the Wolfenstein: Youngblood and Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot spin-offs in 2019 but they weren’t big hits either and since then Hines has left the company, Bethesda was acquired by Microsoft, and series developer MachineGames has been occupied with the Quake remasters and its Indiana Jones game.

However, it seems Wolfenstein 3 could finally see a formal announcement later this year, with new rumours alleging that the game is in development; something that was previously hinted at by various job listings.

In a recent report about Xbox’s plans for 2026, Windows Central claimed that MachineGames is currently working on both Wolfenstein 3 and a separate multiplayer project, something in the vein of Rainbow Six Siege.

The existence of Wolfenstein 3 was later verified by Kotaku, although there were no further details. Apparently, the plan is for it to coincide with the Wolfenstein TV show that’s in the works at Amazon, which makes sense since the Fallout games saw a massive boost in popularity thanks to the success of Amazon’s Fallout show.

What is Wolfenstein?

The original Wolfenstein 3D, from 1992, was the first widely successful first person shooter and paved the way for Doom, also from id Software. It received various sequels and reboots over the years but the last two games, from MachineGames, were set in an alternate history where the Nazis won the Second World War.

Although they’re technically reboots you still control protagonist B. J. Blazkowicz, as you join a resistance movement in the US. While purposefully absurd at times, the series’ refreshingly blunt social commentary has only become more relevant over time.

Frankly, it’s hard to imagine a TV show that would be anywhere near as forthright (or purposefully weird) and even a new game is likely to cause considerable controversy – which is perhaps what Bethesda, and ultimately Microsoft, is banking on.

MachineGames has kept up its tradition of fighting Nazis with Indiana Jones And The Great Circle, but Wolfenstein makes a point of dissecting how monstrous their ideology is and has you deal with them far more violently than Indy does. So, it will be interesting to see how such an aggressively anti-Nazi game fares in the current political climate.

Curiously, the rumours make no mention of anything Quake related. After contributing new expansions to the remasters, there have been clear signs MachineGames is working on a new entry in the series.

Old job listings from 2021 specifically mentioned multiplayer and a teaser for Indiana Jones had a clear reference to Quake. So it certainly seems that, up until quite recently, the plan was to make a Quake reboot. Perhaps those plans have been cancelled though or the Rainbow Six-esque game is secretly Quake related.

Alternatively, the same Windows Central report suggests that id Software could return to make a new Quake game. After last year’s Doom: The Dark Ages it’s not clear what they’re working on now but whatever it is, it’s likely to be a way off.

Whatever the case, there’s a very good chance MachineGames’ next project will be announced this year, since 2026 marks Bethesda’s 40th anniversary. No doubt the company will want to have at least one big reveal for that occasion.

As for when such a reveal could be made, there is an Xbox showcase taking place this month, though an exact date hasn’t been specified. There’s also QuakeCon, Bethesda’s own annual event, in August.

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Any studio looking to release a new live service game in 2026 needs to take a long hard look at what the most played games in the US were last year.

The start of a new year should instil everyone with a sense of anticipation and the thought of new possibilities. But for the games industry at least, the last few years have brought more worries than excitement.

As we laid out in our end of year review, 2025 belonged to indie studios, thanks to successes like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Hollow Knight: Silksong. And in an ideal world, larger publishers would learn a thing or two from these smaller developers.

At the very least, it’d be nice to see publishers stop pinning all their hopes on live service games and becoming the next Fortnite, because it’s simply not going to happen. If you need further evidence of that, just take a look at what most people in the US were playing last year.

Circana analyst Mat Piscatella took to Bluesky to share the top five most played video games in the US, on both PlayStation and Xbox consoles, according to a survey of ‘active’ gamers.

On PlayStation, the top five were Fortnite, Call Of Duty, GTA 5, Minecraft, and Roblox. And on Xbox, it’s the exact same list, with the only difference being Roblox and Minecraft’s positions are swapped.

These are all long-running games with a heavy emphasis on multiplayer and have been consistently updated over the years – with only Call Of Duty being a traditional yearly release.

What’s especially telling is that, according to Piscatella, these lists are unchanged compared to 2024. The order’s slightly different for Xbox, but it’s still the same five games.

2025's top 5 most played games on US Xbox ranked by % of active panel that played:1 – Fortnite2 – Call of Duty3 – GTAV4 – Minecraft5 – RobloxSame list for 2024:1 – Call of Duty2 – Fortnite3 – Minecraft4 – GTAV5 – RobloxSource: Circana Player Engagement Tracker

— Mat Piscatella (@matpiscatella.bsky.social) 2026-01-06T15:20:42.099Z

Fortnite is the youngest of the bunch, having launched in 2017, which means no other games, live service ones or otherwise, have managed to come close to this list’s level of popularity in the last eight years.

Knowing this, it’s hard to imagine things being any different this time next year. Call Of Duty may drop a couple of places thanks to Black Ops 7, which only launched two months ago and has been a relative flop, at least by the series’ standards.

While there are no public figures on console, SteamDB’s data shows Call Of Duty has been bleeding players for years on PC, with even 2024’s well received Black Ops 6 bucking the trend.

Battlefield 6 and Arc Raiders may be the go-to multiplayer shooters for the moment but Call Of Duty clearly has a tight stranglehold on the gaming community when it’s still among the most played games in the US despite its online reputation.

This knowledge should be a turn-off for any studio hoping to break into the live service games market, but comments from Ubisoft suggest it’s unperturbed (even after multiple failures) and the big closure of The Game Awards 2025 was a new live service shooter from the Apex Legends creators called Highguard, that’s set to launch later this month.

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After it was suggested that Escape From Tarkov could make campaign co-op runs easier, an update to the game has done the exact opposite.

If you’ve heard of Escape From Tarkov, you’re no doubt aware that the extraction shooter has a reputation for being a notoriously difficult video game. That’s why it was such a big deal when someone actually managed to complete the story campaign and escape from Tarkov last month.

The game’s difficulty has been a talking point ever since Escape From Tarkov’s early access launch on PC, several years ago, with long-time players often warning newbies about how unforgiving it is.

As such, there are some requests for the difficulty to be toned down, particularly when trying to escape as a group. In what can only be described as a premium case of trolling, though, a recent update to the game has purposefully made it harder.

For context, when you reach the end of Escape From Tarkov’s last map – Terminal – there is a boat you must board in order to flee the city. If more than one person makes it to the end at the same time, though, there’s never enough room for all of them to escape.

As highlighted by Twitch streamer Velion on X, if two or three players work together, there’s still only one seat available on the boat. If there are four players, there are only two seats and then three seats for five players. Basically, anyone who’s playing with friends could still be stranded even after making it all the way to the end.

In their post, Velion directly tagged Escape From Tarkov’s director, Nikita Buyanov, to suggest this be changed with an update: ‘Imagine being able to go into Terminal and meeting two other players who you work together on a hard map and you survive and make it out. You could potentially make some dope friends.’

Surprisingly, just a couple of hours later, Buyanov replied to say, ‘It’s changed already,’ which means either the development team made a very quick turnaround or this change was already planned beforehand.

Players have since learned the hard way, though, that this change isn’t what Velion asked for. Instead of adding more seats, now there’s only ever one seat available, no matter how many of you there are.

Another Twitch streamer, Pestily, has drawn attention to this on X, saying, ‘I watched multiple runs of Terminal yesterday and even with five people getting to the end it’s always one seat now? I understand ‘changed’ can mean multiple things but only one?’

Other players have chimed in to verify this, with one saying, ‘We went six to seven times helping chat (five mans) yesterday and every single time one spot.’

‘Did a run the other day with me and two other randoms and thankfully I won the coin flip (the one guy said he won’t take it) and I got out but we only had one seat,’ adds another.

So far, Buyanov hasn’t offered any reasoning behind this change, nor are there any official patch notes or statements from the Escape From Tarkov X account. But as you can guess, some players are not happy with it.

‘If this s*** isn’t fixed soon (more seats on the boat, allowing groups to Transit into Terminal together) I’m done with this game, plenty of other games out there,’ writes one disgruntled player.

Another one argues, ‘This is actually the biggest L I’ve seen by Nikita yet.  It’s the biggest challenge in the game, the big climax at the very end, and we’re forcing PvP in the worst way. Either let everyone escape who gets put into the map or make it a fully solo experience.’

Naturally, there are some who just find the change hilarious or even prefer there only ever being one seat. Some players who aren’t as bothered still reckon it might be too harsh a change though: ‘Maybe two to three seats max could be a good middle ground? Keeps the pressure without killing group play entirely.’

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Microsoft is already testing with AI as a video game guide, and it looks like Sony is at least interested in trying something similar.

It’s no secret that Sony is experimenting with AI technology for video games in more ways than one. Footage of an AI replica of Aloy from Horizon Forbidden West, that you could theoretically talk to, leaked last year and though details are purposefully vague, AI tech will be a key part of the PlayStation 6.

As such, it’s probably only a matter of time before we see some form of AI integration in PlayStation games, such as AI generated assets, which have cropped up in the likes of Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7 and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

Recently, a new patent filed by Sony was spotted and it talks about using generative AI to create a ‘ghost player’ that can essentially play video games for you.

The patent can be found on the World Intellectual Property Organization website and while it was initially filed in 2024, it was only published and discovered recently.

Rather than have developers program the solutions for tricky levels or puzzles into it, the AI model will be trained on not just your own gameplay, but also footage posted to social media and streaming sites like YouTube and Twitch.

From that, the AI ghost supposedly learns how the game is played and can determine an optimal solution. The patent mentions two distinct modes: a guide mode, where the ghost shows the solution for you to copy, and a complete mode which does as the name suggests.

There’s even mention of allowing you to talk with the ghost and have them explain what you need to do, as well as having their appearance be customisable.

The patent goes as far as to suggest the ghost could take the form of characters from other games or movies, which just sounds like a legal nightmare.

While there’s certainly well-meaning intent behind the idea, this patent is ultimately offering a solution to a long since answered question. A lot of games nowadays have their own means of assisting players and not just through different difficulty options.

Some games will let you skip sections if you fail one too many times (which Insomniac does with the puzzles in its Spider-Man game) or have characters provide hints, like in God Of War: Ragnarök.

Not to mention the PlayStation 5 has a Game Help system already in place, that lets you watch videos of how other players bypassed any challenges you’re stuck on.

The act of having the game play itself isn’t even new, since Nintendo dabbled with the same idea with its Super Guide feature. For a while, Mario platformers like Super Mario Galaxy 2 and the New Super Mario Bros. games had an option where if you died enough times, you’d unlock the option for the game to autoplay itself and beat a level for you.

It was only ever used in five games, though, before quietly vanishing, which suggests Nintendo figured out it wasn’t very popular or useful.

Considering this is only a patent, it’s entirely possible that Sony may not go through with this idea, as opposed to Microsoft which is still testing its Copilot AI as a video game guide.

A study last year showed that AI is actually quite useless for assisting players with games and often spreads misinformation – and it’s easy to see how that’s going to happen if it’s watching videos on TikTok to ‘learn’ how to play a game.

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After celebrating the likes of Hades 2 and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Metacritic has shared its 10 worst reviewed video games of 2025.

If you’re going purely by Metacritic scores, 2025’s best game was The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom on Nintendo Switch 2. But since that wasn’t an entirely new release, the honour really goes to Hades 2, which scored an average of 95, the same as Tears Of The Kingdom.

You already know that our pick for Game of the Year is Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (which has a Metacritic score of 92), but that’s not why you’re here. You want to know about the lowest of the low – the worst games of 2025.

In reality, the literal worst games are likely to be ones no one has ever heard of; utter dreck buried somewhere in the recesses of the Steam store. But as for games people have actually played, the top (or rather bottom) pick should come as no surprise.

What is the worst video game of 2025?

With a paltry average score of just 28, MindsEye is safely the ‘winner’ of Metacritic’s worst games of 2025. And unlike the Hades 2 situation, we’re on the same page with this one.

It was very much a shoo-in considering this was already being labelled the worst game of the year when it launched in June. No doubt developer Build A Rocket Boy and publisher IO Interactive quietly prayed a bigger embarrassment would drop in the following months, but unfortunately for them it didn’t.

For what it’s worth, if MindsEye had received more reviews than the 12 it got, its score may have averaged a bit higher if some people ended up liking it. But that’s the creators’ fault for refusing to send out review copies – which tells its own story.

For as few reviews as it got, MindsEye was a fairly prominent launch since it was directed by former GTA producer Leslie Benzies and promoted as an introduction to a new Roblox-esque platform called Everywhere, which is still in development)

Every other game on the list was far less noteworthy and was never going to be as closely scrutinised. But it’s not like regular players were any kinder to MindsEye, with its user score standing at an even worse 2.5 out of 10.

The second worst game is fairly shocking though as it’s a first party Nintendo game… the risible mobile app Fire Emblem Shadows, an awful hybrid of tactics gameplay and social deduction that was randomly dropped in the middle of the night with zero warning.

Not even the most ardent of Fire Emblem fans showed up to defend it, as it has a user score of 4.1 based on only 12 ratings.

The only other noteworthy additions on the list are Ambulance Life: A Paramedic Simulator, which was our original pick for worst game of the year until MindsEye dethroned it, and Tamagotchi Plaza for Switch 2, which at first glance seems like a harmless kids game but was harshly criticised for its barebones content and boring minigames.

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A good Samaritan looking to save someone from peril instead found a very loud Arc Raiders player.

We’ve all been guilty of getting too heated while playing video games, especially multiplayer ones like Fortnite and Call Of Duty, which might lead to the odd scream of panic or regret – which can be a bit of a shock to anyone within hearing distance.

Worst case scenario, neighbours could come round knocking at your door, to complain about the noise. Although in the case of one Arc Raiders player, their neighbour went so far as to kick the door in.

However, this wasn’t out of anger. The player was screaming so loud that the neighbour assumed they were in legitimate danger and needed help.

Arc Raiders is an extraction shooter where you explore a post-apocalyptic Earth for materials and resources, while contending with enemy robots as well as other players.

According to dreamthorp on Reddit, he was in the middle of an extraction when he was attacked by an enemy, prompting him to instinctively yell for help over voice chat.

He was so loud that a neighbour heard and as can be seen in footage from a doorbell camera, knocked on the door to see if he was okay. Clearly, dreamthorp didn’t hear them, as he kept screaming, and the neighbour, assuming the worst, forcefully broke in.

Neighbor heard me yelling ‘help’ in Arc Raiders. Playback damaged because of kick.
byu/dreamthorp inARC_Raiders

The footage cuts out before the impact of their kick but according to dreamthorp, that’s because the kick damaged the playback. The neighbour happens to be a professional firefighter, so they have experience in this sort of thing.

‘My heart just about jumped out of my chest when I saw the door bulge like an explosion was behind it,’ said dreamthorp, admitting that he was far too loud. ‘I’m used to playing at my office after hours where I can be as loud as I want. After that I practically had the mic on my lap.’

From the sound of things, dreamthorp and the neighbour took the situation in stride, with the former buying the latter some beer as an apology. Although considering dreamthorp was housesitting for someone else, that conversation is bound to be more awkward.

Regardless, other Redditors have praised the neighbour for their quick action considering he thought someone was legitimately in need of help, calling him a ‘real one’ and a ‘good man.’

One Redditor said that they tend to get so loud when playing video games, they made a point to inform their neighbours to avoid similar scenarios: ‘Every once in a while, they’ll hear me yell at Arc [Raiders] or Rocket League or something. They know I’m having fun and are chill with it.’

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It’s the two-year anniversary of GTA 6’s announcement so let’s reflect on the game’s journey and how much Rockstar has actually shared about it.

Technically, Rockstar Games announced GTA 6 in early 2022, but that was a simple blog post, with no proper info about the game or even a single screenshot.

GTA 6’s first substantial announcement came precisely two years ago today, with a short cinematic trailer confirming gorgeous looking graphics, the setting of Vice City, and criminal couple Lucia and Jason as dual protagonists.

Since then, the trailer has garnered over 269 million views on YouTube, making it the most popular trailer on the platform, overtaking the previous record holder for Avengers: Infinity War.

And yet for what’s widely considered the most anticipated video game of all time, Rockstar has been very reticent about GTA 6. So much so that after two years, it still feels like we barely know anything about the game.

What was confirmed in GTA 6 Trailer 1?

As we said, the initial trailer was our first real look at GTA 6, but it’s comprised entirely of cinematics. It’s not impossible that some gameplay has been snuck in there, but there are no obvious examples and certainly no demonstrations of someone actually playing it themselves.

The incredibly good graphics were even better than expected, which is all most people wanted to know at first. Not only has GTA 6 reportedly been in development since 2018 (per Bloomberg), but it’s the first entry to be made specifically for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, although as usual for Rockstar there’s no sign of a PC version yet.

While the trailer introduced us to GTA 6’s two main characters – a Bonnie and Clyde-esque pair of robbers – that was one of the few details to have leaked ahead of time, initially from a 2022 insider report on the game’s development.

The Vice City setting (which returns from 2002 game GTA: Vice City) wasn’t surprising either, as it had been leaked as part of the infamous 2022 hacking incident, which further corroborated Lucia and Jason’s roles as protagonists.

And while the trailer does set the tone of what to expect from GTA 6’s plot and the ways it will satirise current American culture (with plenty of references to Florida related memes), as well as confirming Lucia being in prison at the start of the game, it provides no concrete story details beyond her and Jason being petty thieves.

For as big a deal as that announcement trailer was, it was ultimately Rockstar officially confirming things most fans already knew, which only contributed to the intense demand for a second trailer.

 What was confirmed in GTA 6 Trailer 2?

The second GTA 6 trailer dropped in May, 17 months after the first one, to coincide with the unfortunate news that the game wouldn’t launch this year, and is instead aiming for a May 2026 window.

This trailer is longer than the first one and aside from explicitly confirming Jason’s name (it had leaked long beforehand), it introduced an extended cast of characters and included some scenes that could be actual gameplay.

Unfortunately, there is still no uncut, unambiguous gameplay, but the fact that you struggle to tell the difference between what’s in-engine gameplay and what’s a story cut scene is a testament to how good the graphics are.

And yet, once again, there are no explicit story details, with the video description only offering a very general synopsis of the plot.

‘Jason and Lucia have always known the deck is stacked against them,’ it reads. ‘But when an easy score goes wrong, they find themselves on the darkest side of the sunniest place in America, in the middle of a criminal conspiracy stretching across the state of Leonida – forced to rely on each other more than ever if they want to make it out alive.’

Rockstar’s website does share character biographies explaining their personalities and their relationships with one another. For instance, Jason is described as ex-army, now working for local drug runners, while Lucia is said to have been jailed for ‘fighting for her family’ and was only released thanks to ‘sheer luck,’ but it all remains awfully vague.

Instead, fans have been left to try and piece things together by combing every frame of the trailer. There are theories of a reputation system, the ability to buy property, a fishing minigame, and the return of GTA 5’s heists, but that’s all guess work and nothing’s been outright confirmed.

What else do we know about GTA 6?

Since the launch of that second trailer, there have only been two new bits of info and one of them was another delay. Last month, Rockstar admitted it would need to push GTA 6 back to November 6, 2026.

No reason was given aside from it simply needing extra time, although Rockstar can afford to take as long as it needs to. Not just because GTA 6 is a very important release it can’t risk messing up, but the company is still comfortably making loads of money off GTA 5 and GTA Online.

It has been claimed that GTA 6 is actually finished in terms of content and Rockstar is taking its time to optimise it, so as not to have a Cyperpunk 2077 scenario, which had such a disastrous launch that developer CD Projekt had to offer refunds.

The only new information comes, inadvertently, from a former Rockstar animator, who revealed the game will have a bike rental system. Although that’s hardly the most exciting piece of information you could hope to learn about the game.

Why is Rockstar being so secretive about GTA 6?

Secrecy of this level is nothing new in the games industry, but given how high expectations are for GTA 6, the simplest explanation for Rockstar’s lack of communication is that it doesn’t want to share any details until it’s 100% certain they’re ready to be shown.

Plus, considering how much info has already leaked online, Rockstar must be feeling extra protective about what gets shared and when. Perhaps simply, though, it doesn’t need to say anything, because it knows you’ll buy it anyway.

When is the next GTA 6 trailer?

So far, there’s nothing to indicate when a new GTA 6 trailer will drop. Perhaps something will be shown at The Game Awards 2025 next week, but considering Rockstar skipped both the 2023 and 2024 shows, it’s far more likely it will release the next trailer on its own time.

At the very least, there shouldn’t be another 17-month gap between trailers 2 and 3. If there were, then the third trailer wouldn’t come out till October 2026, which is just a month before GTA 6’s launch.

Then again, a third delay isn’t out of the question either. In May, Strauss Zelnick, CEO of publisher Take-Two Interactive, expressed confidence GTA 6 would launch by May 2026, but refused to rule out another delay, which of course wound up happening.

Some fans have gone to great lengths to try and predict when GTA 6 trailers would drop, but they’ve never been accurate. So, all you can do is be patient and wait for Rockstar to say something.

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Square Enix’s retro-inspired role-playing game series gets a prequel but does this new HD-2D title justify its lengthy running time?

Octopath Traveler 0 is an odd contradiction as a video game. On one hand, it’s intriguingly novel as, in Square Enix’s own words, it ‘is inspired by story elements and gameplay ideas’ from ongoing mobile prequel Champions Of The Continent, with all the free-to-play elements stripped out in favour of a more traditional, premium experience.

On the other hand, though, it is a disappointingly safe follow-up to the original Octopath Traveler from 2018 and its 2023 sequel, seemingly intent to stick to what it knows, with very few new ideas or innovations to make it truly stand out.

This highlights a problem when it comes to critiquing video game sequels that rigidly adhere to the formula of their predecessor. If it’s more or less the exact same game, but that previous game was good to begin with, is it fair to condemn it for its lack of originality when by all accounts it’s still fun to play?

As we explored in our preview, Octopath Traveler 0 will feel like returning home for established fans; where everything’s exactly as you remember it, except there’s a new air fryer and some of the sofa cushions have been replaced.

The turn-based battles work identically, as you break enemies’ shields by targeting their weaknesses and spend boost points to increase the damage of your attacks. We’ve always praised the battle system for how tactical it is, and the amount of freedom offered in how you build your party, which is only accentuated by the fact that you now have up to eight characters at once in a fight.

They’re divided between a front and back row, with only those in the front able to perform actions, but they can be swapped with whoever’s placed behind them where they’re safe from enemy attacks. This means positioning is just as important as who’s in the party and when combined with the more than 30 characters available to recruit, there’s a lot of room for experimentation.

We wondered if eight-man parties would make battles too overwhelming, but since each party member has their own distinct role, it’s easy to memorise who can do what. Even those that share job classes are built in different ways. For example, Phenn and Delitia are both hunters, but whereas Phenn is a tank who draws enemy aggro, Delitia focuses on attacks that lower the target’s stats.

There’s no multiclassing this time, but the game makes up for that by letting you acquire extra equippable skills, allowing party members to use attacks or passive abilities they can’t learn otherwise, to cover blind spots in your strategy.

It is immensely satisfying seeing your efforts pay off during boss battles. The random enemy encounters should rarely give you trouble as long as you’re sufficiently levelled, but boss fights are consistently tough, with each having their own strategies to contend with, like changing their weaknesses or inflicting status ailments that can only be removed by breaking their defences. They also hit like a stampeding rhino, so having eight party members instead of four doesn’t give you the advantage you might imagine.

However, this is all par for the course for this series. Even the story structure is the same, with multiple story routes to pursue that are all seemingly unrelated but start to come together by the end. Instead of playing as one of eight protagonists with their own storylines, though, you control only a single, customisable character.

The pixel art graphics mean character customisation isn’t super deep visually, when compared to something like Elden Ring, but it’s a neat novelty all the same, that almost makes us yearn for a dedicated Octopath tabletop game. No options are gender locked and you get to give them a little backstory that determines their starting skills and even their favourite food. And while you can go the whole adventure with only one of the available eight job classes, you can eventually unlock the remaining seven.

Unfortunately, in cut scenes, your character is completely mute, which means they’re devoid of personality and require other characters to explain how they’re feeling in any given situation. Ironically, despite being the fabled chosen one, they often feel like a glorified extra in other peoples’ stories, even when chasing after the villains responsible for their hometown’s destruction.

Speaking of, Octopath Traveler 0’s most distinguishing gimmick is getting to rebuild the town from scratch, which serves as its own storyline. You’re initially very limited in what you can build and where, but it’s quite layered since you can add plenty of cosmetic flourishes and even alter the terrain.

It’s well worth spending time on, since not only do your options drastically open up over time, you can invite villagers from other towns who, when housed, will regularly supply items or money. Plus, you can build facilities such as a ranch for gathering ingredients to cook stat boosting meals and a training ground to keep your benched party members levelled up. The game is also kind enough to tell you where you can gather the specific resources needed when you want to build something, which is quite the time saver.

That said, Octopath Traveler 0 is still a huge time sink. Between the different storylines, rebuilding the village, and multiple side quests, it will take hours (over 100 according to Square Enix) to see everything. This is a double-edged sword, since even after 60 hours we were growing exhausted, as so much of the story follows the exact same structure.

Nearly every chapter involves simply going through a small dungeon and fighting a boss at the end, with a visit to a new town thrown in occasionally, which is precisely what the last two games did as well. Twice we thought we had approached the end, only for the game to throw another story quest at us.

It doesn’t help that none of the storylines are particularly compelling. They have their moments, but we struggled to be invested in any of them when they’re filled to the brim with age old cliches, overwrought voice-acting, and nuance-free villains. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with one-note bad guys who are fun to hate, but the game goes to such extreme lengths to highlight how evil they are, it becomes more comical than horrific.

Anyone who just wants more Octopath Traveler will be plenty satisfied with Octopath Traveler 0 since, at its core, its functionally identical to what came before. But after three games with barely any innovation or meaningful changes to the formula, the series already feels like it’s running on fumes and is either incapable of evolving beyond one-game gimmicks or stubbornly refuses to step out of its comfort zone.

Even the HD-2D graphics, while still pretty (the sprite work for bosses is a highlight), have long lost their novelty now that Square Enix has made so many other games with the same engine. What was once a delightful nostalgic throwback has ironically become old hat.

It wouldn’t be a bad thing if Octopath Traveler 0 led to more mobile games being reimagined as traditional console/PC releases, devoid of microtransactions and gacha mechanics, particularly ones that have since shut down like NieR: Reincarnation. However, it’s just as likely that any success Octopath Traveler 0 sees will only encourage Square Enix to pump out another safe sequel.

Octopath Traveler 0 is by no means a bad game, and retains everything we like about the series, but apart from the lack of innovation it’s very repetitive and unnecessarily bloated. If the series is committed to staying in the past then we fear it’s only a matter of time before even the most avid fans start to tire of playing the same game over and over again.

Formats: Nintendo Switch 2 (reviewed), PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC
Price: £49.99
Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: Square Enix and DokiDoki Groove Works
Release Date: 4th December 2025
Age Rating: 12

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With no release date yet for Hitman’s planned co-op mode, it may be a long time until IO Interactive announces Hitman 4.

IO Interactive is keeping itself very busy at the moment. While its main priority is getting its James Bond game, 007: First Light, ready for launch on March 27, it’s still making updates for Hitman: World Of Assassination.

Considering the game has continued to see support since 2021, even getting a VR version and a Nintendo Switch 2 port earlier this year, you have to wonder if IO will ever move onto a full sequel or if World Of Assassination will remain a platform for all future Hitman content.

Fortunately, for any of you eager for a Hitman 4, IO has stated that it has every intention of continuing the series, but it won’t be for a while yet.

This comes from a recent Variety interview with IO Interactive CEO Hakan Abrak, who has promised that World Of Assassination won’t be the last Hitman game.

As a reminder, World Of Assassination was originally just Hitman 3, the third entry in IO’s modern Hitman trilogy. However, it was rebranded and updated to include all the content from the first two games and has seen subsequent additions like a roguelike mode.

‘So of course there will be more Hitman. But right now, I think we need to get to the other side of this year,’ explained Abrak, adding that next year will see more news on a planned co-op mode for Hitman.

IOI announces Hitman COOP mode
byu/Impossible_Spend_787 inHiTMAN

We’re not entirely sure a game like Hitman would benefit from co-op, as it’s always been a solitary affair, with you trying to stealthily kill targets in all manner of creative ways within confined sandboxes.

Abrak would beg to differ, though, saying, ‘I think co-op is a really, really good extension to the universe, and will introduce very interesting mechanics and combinations in World Of Assassination.’

He added: ‘We will, after that, be talking about the next Hitman — because, of course, there’s going to be a next Hitman.’

Hitman’s co-op mode was announced this past June, but there’s little indication of when it’ll arrive. While news is promised for 2026, that doesn’t guarantee it will be out that year.

Even assuming the mode launches before the end of 2026, Hitman 4 may not necessarily be IO’s next priority. Aside from Bond, it’s also working on a multiplayer game titled Project Fantasy, which the studio has only described as ‘extremely ambitious and really cool and is something else than a gun in a suit.’

As for World Of Assassination, it’s currently running another of its limited time missions that involve a celebrity guest star. In this case, it’s rapper Eminem, who hires Agent 47 to assassinate… himself, or rather his alter ego Slim Shady. The mission is only available until the end of December.

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The newly launched Red Dead Redemption upgrade is free for existing players on PlayStation and Switch, but not Xbox, for some reason.

While there’s still no sign of the long-rumoured current-gen ports of Red Dead Redemption 2, the original Red Dead Redemption is available for PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, and Xbox Series X/S as of today (as well as iOS, Android, and Netflix).

Even better, it’s a free upgrade for anyone who already owns the game on last-gen hardware. So, PlayStation 4 owners can get the game free on PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch owners can get it for free on Switch 2.

The situation’s a little more complicated for Xbox owners, though. In fact, it’s so complicated that despite its promise, developer Rockstar Games is telling some people that the free Xbox upgrade isn’t free at all.

Over on the Red Dead Redemption subreddit, there are multiple threads of people expressing confusion that, for whatever reason, they can’t claim their free upgrade of the game on Xbox Series X/S.

One Redditor, Frequent_Health_8113, contacted Rockstar Support for an explanation and shared their response. According to Rockstar, this is because people are trying to upgrade their Xbox 360 versions of the game.

‘Please note that the next-gen upgrade is not free for owners of the Xbox 360 version,’ reads the support message. ‘Rockstar released a new version optimised for Xbox Series X/S, which is considered a separate purchase.’

Red Dead Redemption Free upgrade doesn't apply to xbox 360 version.
byu/Frequent_Health_8113 inreddeadredemption

We initially thought this made sense, since, of course, people wouldn’t be able to upgrade the Xbox 360 version. They’d need the Xbox One version… except Red Dead Redemption was never ported to Xbox One. Not even in 2023 when it came to PlayStation 4 and Switch.

The only way to play Red Dead Redemption on Xbox One is digitally through the original Xbox 360 version via backwards compatibility. Ergo, it’s the only version that can be upgraded to the Xbox Series X/S version.

What’s even stranger is that the support message directly contradicts Rockstar’s original announcement. The message states that ‘Backward compatible titles do not automatically upgrade to next gen versions unless the publisher offers a free upgrade programme.’

That is precisely what Rockstar promised: ‘Current owners on PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, or the digital backward compatible version on Xbox One will be able to upgrade digitally for free.’

So, is Rockstar welching on its promise or is it a bug that needs fixing? At the time of writing, there’s no clear answer from Rockstar, but one prevailing theory is that the support message was written with AI, which would explain the contradictor info.

In a separate thread, keyblaster52 shared their own response from Rockstar Support, which lends credence to the theory that a person didn’t write it.

It starts off by saying that, yes, anyone who owns the digital backwards compatible version of Red Dead Redemption is entitled to a free Xbox Series X/S upgrade.

However, it later backtracks on this, saying, ‘This entitlement does not extend to the Xbox 360 digital version.’

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After eight years, Escape From Tarkov players can finally do what the title says in the new story campaign, but only one has managed to pull it off so far.

Arc Raiders may be the hot new multiplayer extraction shooter video game at the moment, but last month was a big deal for long-time players of Escape From Tarkov as it finally saw a full launch on November 15, after eight years in open beta on PC.

Not only is the game now available on Steam (you used to have to use its own launcher), but the 1.0 update has added a non-linear story campaign that tasks you with escaping from the fictional Russian city of Tarkov. Given that the game had long since cultivated a reputation of being extremely difficult, it’s not surprising that the same applies to the campaign.

That’s why, after all these years, fans have been popping off over somebody becoming the first person in the world to clear the campaign and thus the first player to escape from Tarkov; a feat that even the game’s director has acknowledged… although not without a caveat.

What is Escape From Tarkov?

While it’s not the first of its kind, Escape From Tarkov helped popularise the extraction shooter genre, which is currently more popular than ever. The game sees you play as a member of a private military company, and in its core multiplayer modes, you go into the city to scavenge as much loot as possible and then exit via an extraction area within a time limit.

If you fail to extract, or are killed by another player or computer-controlled enemy, you lose all your loot. Since it aims to be as realistic as possible, even getting shot once can be fatal. The game’s difficulty remains a common talking point, with veteran players warning newcomers that it has a very steep learning curve.

This is why seeing someone manage to unambiguously escape from Tarkov in the game’s story campaign is such a big deal for the player base, especially since the final mission takes place on a deviously designed new map called Terminal.

Aside from being very tricky to reach in the campaign, it has only one extraction zone, is filled to the brim with aggressive computer-controlled enemies, there are no human players to back you up, and you have no equipment.

Fortunately, the whole thing was streamed live on Twitch for everyone to see, and you can watch the ending below from the 7:55 mark. So it definitely did happen.

The player in question is Escape From Tarkov streamer Tigz, and you can see how even he can hardly believe he did it, as he remains on edge throughout the ending cut scenes, as his character gets on a boat and flees the city before a nuke drops on it.

Fans watching were unanimously ecstatic, with many typing ‘Cinema’ in all caps and expressing sincere congratulations. Members of the Escape From Tarkov subreddit were equally amazed, with the top comment saying, ‘What a madlad! Now he never has to play this again and can start enjoying life.’

Tigz’s accomplishment, as the first player to escape from Tarkov, has been recognised by the official Escape From Tarkov X account, as well as game director Nikita Buyanov.

However, Buyanov has made it clear that Tigz only managed to get one of four endings (the second worst one, in fact) and has promised that the first player to find the best ending will ‘definitely have something special from me’.

Back in September, during a Q&A session at Tokyo Game Show (per Insider Gaming) , Buyanov went as far to claim that the best ending is so difficult to reach that only 20% of players will ever likely see it.

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For the Xbox 360’s 20th anniversary, GameCentral reflects on the console’s most influential games and how their impact is still felt today.

Today marks the Xbox 360’s 20th anniversary here in the UK (in the US, it was November 22) and it remains the odd duck in the Xbox line-up, as unlike Microsoft’s other consoles it was the most influential of its generation.

Ask anyone who was gaming during the mid-2000s and early 2010s and they’ll tell you that that despite the PlayStation 3, and Wii, managing to outsell it in the long run, that era belonged to Xbox and cemented the brand as a genuine competitor to Sony.

Since then, Microsoft has thoroughly squandered all the goodwill it accrued, with subsequent consoles enjoying much sourer reputations. The Xbox One failed to reach the same level of sales success and the Xbox Series X/S has done even worse.

Surprisingly (or perhaps unsurprisingly), Microsoft hasn’t acknowledged the 25th anniversary at all, but we wanted to look back at the games that defined not just the console, but that entire era of gaming… for better and worse.

Halo 3

The problem with modern day Xbox is that not only have console sales dried up but most of its biggest game franchises have been run into the ground. Halo’s Master Chief was once the closest thing Xbox had to a mascot, and the release of Halo 3 was such a cultural event that even non-gamers knew about it.

Aside from concluding the storyline that began with the original Halo from 2001, technological advancements meant more people could enjoy online multiplayer, at a time when the whole concept of online play was still relatively new.

After Bungie moved on from the series, Halo’s never managed to reach that level of superstardom again, but it may earn itself some new fans thanks to the upcoming Halo 1 remake and its PlayStation 5 release.

Gears Of War

The Xbox 360 era is often remembered for its oversaturation of dirty browns and greys, with so many games utterly devoid of colour, in what the developers imagined was a more mature and grounded art style. Gears Of War is perhaps the poster child for those types of games.

It’s an approach that paid dividends, though. Gears Of War’s premise of big, snarling soldiers wielding bigger guns, and fighting a gritty war against hordes of grotesque monsters, made it a smash hit and a key Xbox franchise.

Inspired by Resident Evil 4, it popularised the idea of third party shooters in general, while virtually inventing the concept of cover shooters, with even modern titles still taking influence from it.

Just like Halo, Gears Of War has never returned to the highs of the original Xbox 360 trilogy by Epic Games, but it’s hoping to make a comeback with prequel game E-Day in 2026.

Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

A lot of Call Of Duty games released on the Xbox 360 during its lifetime but Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is easily the most important one as it’s what turned the franchise into a household name, selling more than twice the number of copies of any of the previous entries.

Aside from ditching the series’ Second World War setting for a modern day conflict, Modern Warfare kickstarted the series’ propensity for rollercoaster campaign modes full of incredible set pieces, while also perfecting the multiplayer formula that has served as the foundation for the series ever since.

It’s perhaps fitting that Call Of Duty now falls under Microsoft’s umbrella, although it isn’t exactly flourishing nowadays. Modern Warfare developer Infinity Ward’s next game is supposedly due next year, but the newest entry – Black Ops 7 – is off to a terrible start, critically and commercially.

Left 4 Dead

We’re sorry to list nothing but shooters so far, but it wasn’t for nothing that the Xbox 360 was nicknamed the ShooterBox, with Left 4 Dead in particular thriving thanks to the rise in online multiplayer – letting friends shoot zombies together without needing to be in the same room.

Between the co-op campaign, competitive multiplayer, and survival mode, there was little reason to play Left 4 Dead solo. That was also influenced by Valve’s PC focus for its titles, which naturally favoured the Xbox 360 and ensured that both the original game and its sequel never came to PlayStation 3.

Left 4 Dead also best encapsulates the era’s zombie obsession. In those days, it felt like every other game needed zombies for mass market appeal. You not only had dedicated zombie games like Dead Island, but other franchises began incorporating the undead, with Call Of Duty’s Zombies mode becoming a series mainstay.

Bomberman: Act Zero

Let us stress that we’re not just highlighting good games with this list. This is about games that best exemplify the Xbox 360 generation and Bomberman: Act Zero encapsulates some of the industry’s worst traits at the time.

We don’t know what possessed Konami to reboot Bomberman into a gritty, armoured super soldier, fighting to the death in a futuristic dystopia, but this sort of extreme edgy attitude dominated games of the time. As with Gears Of War, Act Zero seems allergic to colour, with the colourful cartoon stylings of all the other games transformed into a blur of greys and browns.

Even if Act Zero had played as well as the regular Bomberman games, which it didn’t, the try-hard approach was so off-putting it was a complete flop. Although developer, and series creator, Hudson Soft were later subsumed into Konami as a whole, the series continues today and in full Technicolor.

Kinect Star Wars

Kinect may have been commercially successful but it seems fair to say that it was never actually popular. Despite being the fastest selling consumer electronics device ever, at the time, the Kinect is, perhaps more than any other single thing, directly responsible for the downfall of Xbox.

A motion sensing camera, that sat under your TV, it was Microsoft’s answer to the success of the Wii. The device was ambitious in how it offered games that could be played with just your body, with no controller required, but it never worked as well as the adverts pretended and almost all the games were awful.

Kinect Star Wars – a glorified minigame collection featuring Jedi power fantasies, pod-racing, Rancor destruction, and, of course, dancing – was particularly infamous, not only for its poor quality but the faked live demonstration that Microsoft used to promote it.

Unfortunately, Microsoft was so enamoured with Kinect in general it took its eye off the ball in terms of normal games, just as Sony was finally getting its act together with the PlayStation 3. Microsoft learned nothing from that and their insistence on bundling Kinect with the Xbox One, thereby increasingly the price and lowering the power of the console, sealed their doom as a console manufacturer.

Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved

The indie game scene as we know it today owes a great debt to the Xbox Live Arcade service. It gave smaller studios and games a place to stand on their own, so as not to be overshadowed by the usual triple-A fare, and was an instant success.

One of the first big hits was Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved, which revitalised dual-stick shooters and made them a mainstay of that era of indie gaming, thanks to its old school vibes and colourful visuals.

Other early hits include Limbo and Braid, which were not only great games in their own right but things that would never be released physically by traditional publishers. Indie gaming was already a thing on PC at the time but with Xbox Live Arcade it suddenly became a mass market business.

Dark Void/Quantum Theory

The Xbox 360 era was a disaster for the Japanese side of the games industry. Almost all Japanese companies struggled with the technical leap from the previous generation and suddenly found they had no experience with the dominant genres of the time, particular first person shooters and online titles in general.

There were generally two different responses to the problem: either employan (invariably low rent) American studio to make games for them or try to mimic Western made games themselves.

In Dark Void’s case, Capcom partnered with American studio Airtight Games, to try its hand at a sci-fi cover shooter. It wasn’t very good, resembling almost every other third person shooter on the market, with only a jetpack as a unique hook.

Koei Tecmo, meanwhile, had a go with a Gears Of War knock-off called Quantum Theory. This one was made by a Japanese team but you wouldn’t know to look at it. Even ignoring how it was a pale imitator, it was an amalgamation of every gritty shooter cliché you can think of, without any sense of charm or novelty.

Lost Planet

Sticking with Capcom, the fate of Lost Planet encapsulates the whole story of the Xbox 360 generation, from a Japanese perspective at least. The original was a third person shooter desperate to ape the success of Halo, albeit with giant mech suits you could pilot.

It was a mild success, so Capcom tried to follow that up with a multiplayer-focused sequel, trying to take advantage of the popularity of Gears Of War and Call Of Duty. It was less successful though and so their third attempt was to hire Californian studio Spark Unlimited – infamous for a string of cheap, poor quality games during the era – to make a more story driven sequel.

When that didn’t work out Capcom just gave up on the series altogether and, in the next generation, went back to making games themselves, as they, and the rest of the Japanese industry, found their feet again.

Resident Evil 5 & 6

Resident Evil had already shed most of its survival horror elements to become more action orientated with Resident Evil 4, but after that series creator Shinji Mikami left. You could tell immediately too, as the next two games became listless copies, devoid of the previous games’ innovation.

The fifth game wasn’t too bad, although it’s co-op mode was another obvious attempt by Japanese companies to copy trends initiated by Western developers.

Resident Evil 6 was when the series came off the rails, with Capcom publicly proclaiming they were looking for Call Of Duty levels of success. The game that resulted was a bloated mess, that wasn’t in the least bit scary, with almost no redeeming qualities.

Both games were commercially successful, but Capcom rejected the trivialisation of the franchise by taking it back to its survival horror roots with the soft reboot that was Resident Evil 7. And they’ve been on a roll ever since.

Fable 2

Although Microsoft certainly seem to think so, given how long they’ve been working on the reboot, it’s arguable as to whether Fable counts as a key Xbox franchise or not. It’s only had one really good entry and it’s indicative of Microsoft’s mistakes that they failed to follow-up properly on the successes of Fable 2.

Fable could’ve been Xbox’s answer to The Legend Of Zelda, with its morality system that allowed you to play as a good or amoral character, but instead the immediate follow-up squandered all its good ideas on more restrictive gameplay and an obsession with attracting casual gamers.

Things only got worse from there, with a typically shonky Kinect spin-off, which led to founder Peter Molyneux leaving developer Lionhead and then Microsoft shutting the entire studio down. Which was not a good lead in to the next generation.

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The PlayStation 2 celebrates its 25th anniversary in the UK this week, as we pay tribute to its best and most persistent video games.

This week marks the 25th anniversary of the PlayStation 2, at least here in the UK. While we didn’t have to wait over a year for it, like the original PlayStation, there was still an eight month gap following its initial Japanese launch, and we still had to wait an extra month after the US got it in October.

Surprisingly, Sony hasn’t done anything to celebrate the occasion, much to some fans’ annoyance, so you’ll probably need to wait for the 30th anniversary in 2030 for the company to do something truly special.

After all, the PlayStation 2 is the most successful console ever, being so popular that Sony kept supporting it until 2013 (far longer than most consoles last), which helped cement it as the best-selling console of all time, at over 160 million units sold.

To honour its history, we’ve put together a list of the PlayStation 2’s best franchises that originated on the console and have persisted till today… as well as those that sadly haven’t.

1. Devil May Cry

Originally conceived as a prototype for Resident Evil 4, Capcom’s Devil May Cry invented an entirely new style of action game, that emphasised complex, fighting game style moves in a fully 3D space.

The series has proven so successful that its deeply unpopular second entry was quickly forgiven, with the third entry going on to become a modern classic and fishing out the initial PlayStation 2 trilogy.

Perhaps because of competition from the Bayonetta series, which was also created by director Hideki Kamiya, the franchise has seen long gaps between new entries in recent years. 2019’s Devil May Cry 5 is still selling extremely well, thanks to the recent Netflix show, but strangely Devil May Cry 6 still hasn’t been announced.

2. God Of War

Anyone who was introduced to Kratos through the 2018 God Of War is in for some tonal whiplash should they ever check out the original PlayStation 2 games, even with all the context the modern entries provide.

Aside from the fact that its gameplay is very different, with a greater emphasis on combo-based hack ‘n’ slash action, the original God Of War games portrayed Kratos as a deeply unlikeable and immoral protagonist. A lot of it seemed very try-hard even at the time, but the modern games create a redemption arc that is made all the better by how reprehensible Kratos is in the early titles.

Despite being one of Sony’s biggest PlayStation franchises, there’s no sign of a new entry following 2022’s God Of War Ragnarök. One is undoubtedly in the works (and commonly rumoured to be set in Ancient Egypt), but there have also been claims of the series returning to its Greek roots with remasters and/or a prequel game.

3. Katamari Damacy

The original Katamari Damacy (which was never originally released in Europe) is one of our favourite gems of the PlayStation 2; a delightfully bizarre puzzle game, all about using a sticky ball to roll up and everything and anything at the behest of the camply dressed King of All Cosmos.

It’s the sort of quirky idea you’d expect to be a cult classic and nothing more, but publisher Bandai Namco has turned it into a full franchise, for better or worse. As much as we love the original, each subsequent sequel has had increasing trouble justifying its existence, given how few new features are introduced each time.

The newest entry, Once Upon A Katamari, launched just last month and while it’s still a fun time, we’d recommend newcomers start with the first game, which is widely available via the REROLL remaster.

4. Kingdom Hearts

For as bizarre as its premise of Final Fantasy meets Disney is, something about this mishmash of disparate franchises clicked with a lot of people in 2002, enshrining Kingdom Hearts as one of the most iconic PlayStation 2 era games.

Whether it be for the copious amounts of Disney fanservice or the action role-playing gameplay, enough people have stuck with the series long enough for it to remain a core Square Enix franchise, as it finally completed its 17 year long story arc in 2019’s Kingdom Hearts 3.

Of course, Square Enix and Disney aren’t willing to let a cash cow like this die, as they announced Kingdom Hearts 4 in 2022, with what seemed to be a hint at a Star Wars world. Since then, though, Square Enix has only shared some vague screenshots to make up for cancelling a Kingdom Hearts mobile spin-off.

5. Lego Star Wars

There were already plenty of Lego games before Traveller’s Tales got involved, but the original Lego Star Wars cemented what would become a new template for future Lego games based on existing properties.

The formula Lego Star Wars established has been re-used and refined for Indiana Jones, Batman, The Lord Of The Rings, and many more. The quality varies, but we’ve always welcomed them for being stacked with content, having a good sense of humour, and being one of the only examples of family co-op games that adults can enjoy with their younger relatives.

2022’s Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga was particularly good, but we’re very interested to see how Traveller’s Tales’ next release, Lego Batman: Legacy Of The Dark Knight, turns out next year, as it has more in common with Rocksteady’s Batman Arkham games than just the protagonist.

6. Monster Hunter

Long before Monster Hunter: World elevated the franchise to worldwide success in 2018, Capcom’s online action role-player was only popular Japan. Not just popular, but a social phenomenon that was almost single-handedly responsible for the success of the PSP handheld.

Everything started on the PlayStation 2 though, where the game began as a fairly obvious clone of Phantasy Star Online, before forging its own identity… and a bewildering number of sequels and spin-offs.

Monster Hunter: World is still Capcom’s best selling game ever, with 2021’s Monster Hunter Rise in second place. This year’s entry, Monster Hunter Wilds, was a big hit at launch, although sales have slowed faster than expected due to, amongst other things, the poor state of the PC version.

7. Ōkami

While we’re on the subject of Capcom, we never would have imagined these next two picks would become relevant again in time for the PlayStation 2’s 25th anniversary. But it’s thanks to the successes of games like Monster Hunter that Capcom can take chances on its less commercially successful properties like Ōkami.

It may not have been much of a hit, but many a ‘best PlayStation 2 games’ list makes note of Ōkami, and for good reason. While it draws influence from Nintendo’s Legend Of Zelda series, Ōkami successfully forges its own identity thanks to the Celestial Paintbrush, which lets you interact with the world around you in myriad ways.

Some elements, like the combat, do feel dated, but the watercolour graphics certainly don’t, ensuring Ōkami will remain one of the most beautiful looking games ever made.

While there was a crack at a revival in 2011, with Ōkamiden for the DS, we’re far more excited for the sequel Capcom announced last year, especially since Hideki Kamiya, the first game’s director, has been enlisted for it.

8. Onimusha

What’s better than one cult classic Capcom revival? Two of them, of course. That sounds like fan wishful thinking but is exactly what happened last year, with announcements for the aforementioned Ōkami and samurai action series Onimusha.

Initially designed as a Resident Evil sequel, Onimusha saw several entries on the PlayStation 2, featuring samurai fighting demonic oni to save Japan (and Paris). They’re schlocky and showing their age, but the original game’s 2019 remaster still showed a lot of potential for a modern glow-up.

After nearly two decades of no new games (barring a Japan-only mobile spin-off), Onimusha: Way Of The Sword is slated to launch next year, boasting superb graphics, that are clearly influenced by the Resident Evil remakes, and easily the best combat the series has ever had.

9. Ratchet & Clank

Depending on who you ask, the role of PlayStation 2 mascot was shared between Ratchet & Clank, Jak & Daxter, and Sly Cooper, who all offered their own brand of action platforming and multiple entries across the console’s lifetime.

Of those three, though, it was obvious that Insomniac’s Ratchet & Clank, which blended platforming with third person shooting and wacky weapons, had the most staying power. Whereas Jak and Sly fell to the wayside, Ratchet & Clank has enjoyed multiple PlayStation 3 games, a handful of spin-offs, their own movie, and was picked to help debut the PlayStation 5 with Rift Apart.

Fours year later, though, and the only new game on the horizon is a mobile spin-off called Ratchet & Clank: Rumble that Insomniac isn’t involved with. Although that’s because the studio’s currently busy with its next Marvel project, Wolverine.

The infamous Insomniac hack from 2023 mentioned a new Ratchet & Clank that’s aiming for an autumn 2029 release, but those plans may have changed since then.

10. Yakuza

Sega’s Yakuza series (or Like A Dragon as it’s officially called nowadays) has come a long way since its 2005 origins. While the first two games for the PlayStation 2 were big hits in Japan, they struggled to find much of an audience in the West.

It was a shame since both games were solid 3D brawlers wrapped in gripping crime drama storylines and were favourably described as more refined takes on Dreamcast cult classic Shenmue. The originals aren’t easy to come by, but they live on via their Kiwami remakes.

Thanks to the blow out success of 2017’s Yakuza 0 the series now stands as one of Sega’s core franchises, enjoying simultaneous worldwide releases and full English dubs. The next mainline game has yet to be announced, but 2026 will see a remake of Yakuza 3.

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