The Monday letters page continues to celebrate the 40th anniversary of The Legend Of Zelda, as one reader wonders if Far Cry has fans.

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

Turn and face the strain
Just seen the news about Phil Spencer leaving Xbox and I don’t know what to say really. He should’ve left at least five years ago, as far as I’m concerned, but the person coming in sounds much worse. If it was some boring accountant type I wouldn’t worry so much, but someone whose last big thing was AI? And they’re at Microsoft? It’s going to be slop around the clock.

The best case scenario is that she admits she doesn’t know anything about games, just business, and gets in a bunch of new people to handle the details. But the fact that she promoted Matt Booty sounds like the worst possible first move, as I’d say he was even worse than Spencer.

We’ll see what happens – it’s not like any of us can influence any of this – but this is long overdue and I really don’t know if the Xbox brand can be saved now.
Gaston

Welcome competition
Somehow I doubt Sony is going to be quaking in its boots right now, at the news of Xbox’s new boss. Sounds like Microsoft decided that they’d gone with a gamer as the boss before so now let’s go with the exact opposite. I can kind of see the logic but at the same time… that’s not going to work out is it?

How’s someone that knows nothing about gaming going to make sensible decisions about Halo or funding some new game or whatever? I don’t know, maybe it is better they know nothing, since they could hardly have done worse than Spencer in recent years, but it doesn’t seem a good starting point.

I’ll admit I haven’t played an Xbox game since the Xbox 360 so I don’t really have any skin in this game but I don’t think anyone would argue that PlayStation 5 couldn’t do with some more serious competition, to wake them up too.
Focus

Touring circuit
So Phil Spencer has finally left Xbox and, of course, the news comes out in the most skeevy way possible, at the weekend when most people will miss it and the guy is leaving on Monday? That doesn’t sound like a respected veteran finally hanging up his spurs. That sounds like someone getting frogmarched out the building by security, the second the boss reads him his rights.

Normally I’d say we’ll never find out what actually happened but maybe we will with Microsoft, since most everything else usually leaks out from them. My guess is that the head of Microsoft had had enough and Spencer had too.

The guy must be a multi-millionaire by now. If I was him I’d leave it all behind me too and buy a brewery somewhere. Can’t wait for him to start doing the interview rounds in a few years, where everyone has to treat him like some business genius and not the guy that killed Xbox.
Wotan

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No rush
I played Red Dead Redemption 2 this weekend. It’s a game I go back to every so often but not because I love it more than the rest of my games. Not because I’ve beaten it and love the story and gameplay. It’s due to the fact I’ve been playing it since 2018 and still haven’t got round to finishing it. I did manage to complete a new mission and have reached 36% on the story.

I just think this game is like a mood. It’s so chilled out when not in gunfights. The hunting and fishing keeps me occupied. I don’t feel pushed to finish it. There is no urgency. Red Dead Redemption 2 might be the game I’ve owned the longest and not finished. I’ve beaten Minecraft and not Red Redemption 2?

Anyone else have a long-term project like this?
Bobwallett

GC: If it took you this long to get a third of a way through it then you should finish it sometime around 2042.

Far Cry fan club
Far Cry 6 feels like such a long time ago now, I was bit surprised to find out it wasn’t much more than four years. I think that was when Ubisoft lost their way, when that flopped they seemed to give up on everything except Assassin’s Creed… and live service games, of course.

I don’t know what they’re going to do for the next game, to try and make it special, but I don’t think being away for a while is going to be a big enough draw. Games like Far Cry are popular but they’re not the sort of thing people are fans of, I wouldn’t have thought. I mean, we’re not talking Zelda or Resident Evil here.

Or maybe I’m wrong and there’s a big following for Far Cry 6 and… whatever it was about and whoever the characters were. (It was set in Cuba, wasn’t it?)
Cuit

GC: It was a fictional country inspired by Cuba.

Seeing red
I bought the cardboard Virtual Boy ‘headset’ and I’ve been playing the games over the weekend and all I can say is… why is it all red?

That sounds a bad idea before you even try it and when you do it’s just as bad as you think. Like you said in your review, it’s like it’s been raining blood or everything is set on Mars or something.

Even so, I did enjoy trying out all these weird games I’d never heard of before and would certainly never have played any other way. I can’t say I particularly liked any of them, but Wario Land was okay, even though it was a bit slow. It was fun to see the ‘other platforms in the background’ gimmick though, which Nintendo has used in a bunch of games since.

I look forward to playing the other games, especially the cancelled F-Zero one, in the future and even if they’re terrible, I like that it feels that you’re getting this glimpse into a secret world.

Star Fox 2 was good like that too. You could absolutely see why they canned it, but it was interesting getting to play it all the same.
Austin

GC: Red LEDs are cheaper than other colours is the simplest answer.

Marketing decision
I’ve just seen the banned ad for Call Of Duty and I can’t believe anyone would of thought that was a good idea.

I’d like to know if Activision or Xbox gave the greenlight and said, ‘Yes, that’s a good ad, let’s show it.’ I never thought either of them would of made an ad like that and I’m not surprised it got banned.’
David

GC: It would’ve been someone at Activision.

Lucky accident
That was a great Reader’s Feature at the weekend about Zelda’s 40th anniversary, kudos to Rhion for writing it.

My journey with the Zelda franchise is a little odd. I was about 14 years old and ordered The Legend Of Zelda 2: The Adventure Of Link from my mum’s catalogue, on the promise I would pay her back £2 a week from my paper round money until it was paid off.

After all, number 2 is always going to be better than number 1 right? At least that’s what my 14-year-old brain was telling me.

The game arrived.

I got home from school only to find that the catalogue had sent me a substitute game. The original Legend Of Zelda.

I was a little bit gutted and went on my paper round mulling over whether to send it back and wait another two weeks or not at all?

I got home and, as kids do, I had no capacity to wait for another game so I fired it up in my trusty old NES and the rest was history.

On the future of the Zelda games… I’m not completely enamoured by the open world template of Breath Of The Wild and Tears Of A Kingdom, yeah I said it.

I prefer the much more linear titles but if they do go open world again and it’s probably a dead certainty due to the money it brings in.

I would like to see them leave from the skies and head for the sea.

Sailing vast open oceans while learning to plunge new depths and discover new islands. Yes, I know very The Wind Waker-ish but it’s not really been done in a 3D Zelda title since then and that’s been a good 25 years now.

If they used the original Zelda as inspiration for Breath Of The Wild then there is no reason not to use another title as a platform to push off.
freeway 77

Inbox also-rans
In response to Biter and Mario Kart Arcade, where is he playing it for only £1? The arcades near me in Merry Hill and Birmingham are charging 3 quid a turn!
LeeDappa

So are we really expecting the next mainline Pokémon games to be announced this week? I guess that gets that out of the way, but it seems an awful lot of Pokémon games are already on Switch 2 and we still don’t have a Mario or Zelda. Priorities!
Ned

GC: It does seem quite possible.

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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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Phil Spencer has retired from Microsoft and Sarah Bond has resigned, as Xbox starts its biggest shake-up in 25 years – but the future seems more uncertain than ever.

The Xbox brand will be 25 years old this Christmas and for the entirety of that time Phil Spencer has been a major figure at Microsoft’s gaming division, influencing policy and then shaping it directly when he was put in charge in 2014, following the disastrous reveal of the Xbox One.

He’s credited with inventing the idea of Game Pass and for pushing for the acquisition of a swathe of developers and publishers, culminating in Bethesda and Activision Blizzard. We’ve interviewed him several times and consider his claims of being a passionate gamer to be genuine. But as has become obvious in recent years, his various plans and machinations have not worked out.

Xbox hardware sales have flatlined and while first party output has improved recently, in terms of both quantity and quality, the only major commerical success has been Forza Horizon 5 on PlayStation 5. Clearly change was needed but exactly what kind of change remains to be seen.

Who is in charge of Xbox now?

The news broke on Friday evening, but it’s now confirmed that Spencer will be replaced by Asha Sharma, who only joined Microsoft in 2024 but has made a named for herself as president of its CoreAI product.

She has no experience with video games, but on the Microsoft website she insisted that, ‘We will not chase short-term efficiency or flood our ecosystem with soulless AI slop. Games are and always will be art, crafted by humans, and created with the most innovative technology provided by us.’

‘We have done this before, and I am here to help us do it again. I want to return to the renegade spirit that built Xbox in the first place. It will require us to relentlessly question everything, revisit processes, protect what works, and be brave enough to change what does not.’

The question of how much hands-on experiences those in charge of video game firms need is an open issue, as there’s little consistency within any company. Former Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, for example, started out as a programmer, but the next two incumbents were both finance executives.

Former PlayStation boss Jim Ryan had, like Spencer, worked at Sony since the brand’s inception, before leaving under a cloud, while the current boss worked at a consulting firm, before co-founding developer Guerrilla Games – but not as a developer.

Although there have been whispers that Spencer may retire in the next few years it was assumed that Xbox president Sarah Bond was being groomed to take over his role when he left. It seems likely she was assuming that too, as she announced on the same day that she is resigning from the company. Not only that but no one has been announced as replacing her, implying her role may be phased out.

Matt Booty, the other prominent exec for modern day Xbox, isn’t leaving but is instead being promoted to chief content officer. Previously, Booty has been criticised for problems with Microsoft’s first party output, that has led to many delays and the closure of several studios, as well as projects such as the Perfect Dark reboot.

Spencer is 58, so it’s unclear whether he’ll take another role in the industry, but he will make himself available to Microsoft, in an advisory role, until the end of the summer.

‘I’ve made the decision to retire and begin the next chapter of my life. It’s a milestone that’s given me a chance to reflect on the incredible journey I’ve been fortunate enough to share with so many of you,’ he wrote on X.

How will Microsoft turn things around for Xbox?

What happens from here on is a mystery – probably for the execs themselves as much as anyone else – but Sharma has stated that she’s sticking to ‘three commitments’, starting with the promise of ‘great games’. According to her, ‘We will take risks. We will enter new categories and markets where we can add real value, grounded in what players care about most.’

Second on her list is the ‘return of Xbox’, which she says will, ‘Celebrate our roots with a renewed commitment to Xbox starting with console which has shaped who we are.’

That seems to be intended as assurance that she will not abandon console hardware, but she immediately followed that up by saying: ‘Gaming now lives across devices, not within the limits of any single piece of hardware. As we expand across PC, mobile, and cloud, Xbox should feel seamless, instant, and worthy of the communities we serve.’

The third, and vaguest, of the commitments is the ‘future of play’, which will apparently involve Microsoft inventing ‘new business models and new ways to play by leaning into what we already have: iconic teams, characters, and worlds that people love. But we will not treat those worlds as static IP to milk and monetise. We will build a shared platform and tools that empower developers and players to create and share their own stories.’

All of that is fine in theory but what it all means is very much open to interpretation, which is no doubt exactly as intended.

It certainly seems fitting that Microsoft made the announcements late on Friday, at a time that was only convenient for America. One of the key problems with the brand – and one that it has been loath to admit over the years – is its lack of appeal outside the US.

The Xbox has never been popular in continental Europe or Japan, and it’s rarely ever tried to appeal to those markets directly. In recent years local offices have complained at decreasing marketing budgets, as the failure of the Xbox Series X/S became obvious.

One of the many questions now, is whether Microsoft is prepared to increase its investment in gaming, to the point where it can compete as a console manufacturer and not just a third party publisher.

Microsoft is an incredibly wealthy company but the only time that’s ever really been obvious, when it comes to Xbox, is in the purchase of Activision Blizzard and other companies. The former was such a huge outlay – amounting to $75.4 billion by the end – that it was directly responsible for policy changes such as going multiformat, and put an uncomfortable spotlight on gaming in terms of senior Microsoft execs.

While the exit of Spencer does seem overdue it’d be wrong to say that things can only get better with new people in charge. Things can always get worse and given how much of the industry Microsoft currently controls, everyone should hope that the new boss can turn things around and that the Xbox brand can flourish again. Not least so it can once again provide meaningful competition to PlayStation.

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A reader puts the blame for Xbox’s current problems squarely on Microsoft, blaming management failures, a lack of vision, and unwillingness to take risks.

It was November 2001 when Microsoft entered the gaming console arena. The green, cyberpunk style dashboard was dazzling, and it had one true game-changer: Halo: Combat Evolved. Players could battle grunting aliens across vast landscapes and drive amazing vehicles. Not only did this elevate the game to new heights, but it also drew huge crowds to the console.

In 2004, Microsoft dropped the price of the Xbox to an affordable £149. Sales increased, and Microsoft had established itself as a major player in the industry.

The Xbox 360 followed and held a firm grip on the market, even with the infamous Red Ring of Death incidents. It seemed Microsoft was poised to do for gaming what it had done for operating systems and office software – but that changed. You could blame Nintendo or PlayStation for focusing solely on consoles, rather than trying to turn them into all-singing, all-dancing media hubs.

In 2017, Microsoft launched Game Pass, positioning it as the ‘Netflix of gaming’. But Netflix does not release brand new, unproven films on the platform immediately after production. How can a studio make real profit that way?

Instead, Microsoft thought it clever to release major games like Starfield on Game Pass on day one, rather than waiting at least eight months to a year. With over 10 million players engaging with these titles but only an estimated 1 to 2 million Xbox users purchasing the actual product, out of a 34 million strong userbase, this represents a major shortfall.

Microsoft is not destroying its Xbox base through a lack of games, but through a lack of foresight. Day one releases should not exist on any gaming streaming service. Xbox titles should launch traditionally, for at least eight months to a year before being added to Game Pass.

Xbox is being suffocated by Microsoft, kept afloat only by PlayStation and PC purchases – and perhaps soon by the Nintendo Switch 2 platform. It is sad to see. Within five years, I believe the Xbox platform may cease to exist – not because of its fanbase, but because its owner has never truly learned how to compete in the gaming space.

Look at Sony and Nintendo: gaming consoles are not PCs. Streaming should give players choice, but it should not starve production studios of the glory – and profitability – of successful launches. You may disagree with this article, but you will likely agree that Microsoft is losing with Xbox; not because of the fanbase, but because Microsoft itself is no longer a fan of the Xbox.

Maybe I sound harsh, but I remember the original Xbox. Microsoft promised a multiplayer experience. One example was a game called Brute Force, a brilliant title where you control four characters on a mission. It had four-player local support, but everyone was waiting for the Xbox Live add-on. Microsoft again underdelivered, not realising that adding this component would have boosted sales and expanded its catalogue of exclusive titles. Instead, they prioritised the Halo explosion.

Look at Nintendo and Sony: they protect exclusives because good products sell consoles. Consider No Man’s Sky – not exclusive to any platform – but the studio persisted despite a rough launch. Their belief in the project created growth in a small but talented production team. I mention this because Microsoft has repeatedly given up on gaming projects, stifling the growth of Xbox exclusives.

Perfect Dark was cancelled – a perfect example of Microsoft destroying its own platform. With over a million units sold on the original Xbox, cancelling a sequel makes little sense. A return on DLC and season passes could have bolstered profits and helped sell the Xbox Series X in solid numbers.

Microsoft owns Activision, which promised exclusive games for Xbox, but instead the company cancelled titles as the new owner. Did you know Microsoft lost $300 million putting Call of Duty on Game Pass? Someone should have been held accountable for that decision.

Microsoft is destroying the Xbox – not because it can, but because it lacks vision. Leaders like Steve Jobs, Tim Cook, Elon Musk (yes, I said it), and Bill Gates understood customer needs and delivered great products that were also profitable. Xbox, unfortunately, will fade because no one at Microsoft is taking bold enough risks.

Goodbye, Xbox. It’s sad to see the Chief Master lose the fight.

By reader S.D.E Wilson

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

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Upset at the news that Demon’s Souls remake developer Bluepoint Games is being shut down, a reader is adamant that Sony has crossed a line.

After a pretty good State of Play the other week Sony must’ve felt uncomfortable with so much praise and positive press, so they immediately decided to go back to form and shut down Bluepoint Games. I couldn’t believe the news when I read it but then I realised it wasn’t surprising at all. People have been trying to convince themselves for month, that Sony has seen sense about live service games, and is throttling back, but they’re not. I don’t think they’ve learned a thing since this generation started.

I do put the blame here squarely on Sony. When they were losing in the Xbox 360 generation, they kept insisting they were still the market leader, and always would be, but when they actually needed to show some leadership they’ve got nothing. They’re running all their developers into the ground and producing almost no new games.

Bluepoint were only 70 people, how were they supposed to produce a hit live service game when Rockstar and Epic Games have thousands of people working on GTA and Fortnite? So Sony gave them an impossible task and then shut them down when they failed, instead of getting them to make a game they were actually set up to do.

Despite what we want to believe Sony isn’t interested in anything but live service games. They’ll keep still doing the very biggest games, because the profit margins on them are good enough – things like Spider-Man and Naughty Dog’s stuff – but everything else is being phased out.

Looking at their list of recent acquisitions, I wouldn’t bet on any of the studios surviving, except for Insomniac Games. Haven will be shut down the minute Fairgame$ is a flop, if it even comes out, and Housemarque are probably dead as soon as Saros doesn’t do well. As for Bungie… they’ve been a dead developer walking for at least a year now, it’s just a question of when Sony pull the plug.

Sony has no interest whatsoever in going back to the way they used to work before the PlayStation 5, or even in its first year or so. That time is over and even though their games are the thing people used to love them for they don’t care. All they want is the absolute biggest hits and nothing else matters. They don’t care about being experimental, about taking a risk, or doing anything for the simple art of it.

It sounds naïve to say it like that – they’re a business, of course they’re not interested in art – but Sony got where they are today by pushing the art of gaming. The PS1 changed what people thought a video game console and its games could be. They changed the perception, amongst the general public, forever and for years afterwards they pushed the boundaries and produced some of the best games ever made.

But then they let costs get away with them, without doing anything to reduce them, and instead of trying to figure out a new way of doing things just gave up. It was live service games, and the occasionally quadruple-A game, and nothing. It’s a dumb, cowardly way of thinking about things but because Xbox is no longer any competition they’ve been able to get away with it, because what other console are people going to buy?

Well, I can tell you that I’ll be sticking to my Switch 2 and PC from now on and that will do me fine. This might not be the final betrayal but I’m not waiting around for that. I’m selling my PlayStation 5 and I’ll buy Saros on PC, when it comes out on that. Assuming Sony don’t shut them down before they have a chance to make it.

By reader Grackle

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It was one of the most influential games of the PlayStation 1 era but how does Metal Gear Solid stand up almost three decades later? A reader is surprised to find out.

Alaska – Bering Sea. A submarine cuts through the murky ocean depths. Tonally and in terms of production values the score that plays infers that you’re watching a scene from a Hollywood action movie. But this isn’t a movie, although in many respects you get the impression that it wants to be. What I’ve described is the opening cut scene of Metal Gear Solid, a game that I adored many years ago. Since I still have my original twin disc copy of the game I thought I’d replay it from start to finish on a PlayStation 2 [presumably via The Essential Collection – GC]. Would this much revered classic be as good as I remembered?

You are Solid Snake. Your mission: infiltrate a terrorist stronghold, free a couple of hostages and investigate a possible nuclear threat. Do this with the clothes on your back, a CODEC receiver/transmitter, a scope, and a packet of cigarettes. For this mission weapons and equipment are OSP – on-site procurement. In terms of real-world logic our hero’s initial loadout is ludicrous. However, starting out with close to no items in your inventory does turn the game into a big treasure hunt. And in this case that treasure is military hardware: thermal goggles, chaff grenades, C4 explosive, Stinger missiles…

Replaying Metal Gear Solid it took me a while to adjust to the top-down view that it uses, which when compared to the presentation of modern big budget games seems basic and regressive, but provided that you make use of the radar in the top right corner of the screen the gameplay of Metal Gear Solid still works perfectly. Nearly three decades have passed and yet Shadow Moses Island prevails as a wonderous gaming world to immerse yourself in. Who cares about blocky graphics when the interactive picture those graphics paint is so atmospheric and nuanced?

While you sneak around the overrun military base, patrolling enemies yawn, stretch, fall asleep, and follow any footprints in the snow that Snake makes. The warmth of an enemy’s breath shows up as mist. Make a guard suspicious and a question mark appears above their head. Alert a guard and their heightened awareness is indicated by the now iconic exclamation mark.

On this playthrough I surprised some mice in an air vent. Little exclamation marks appeared above the rodents’ heads when they saw me and scurried off. Half the fun of Metal Gear Solid, and the franchise overall, is discovering these quirky and innovative details.

This time around I had problems defeating each and every boss in this game, I expect due to a substantial lack of practise. But the rogue elements of Foxhound are so atypical and entertaining that even when they kill you it’s hard to resent them. The game certainly wouldn’t be the same without their presence.

For instance, Cyborg Ninja still made an impression on me, or rather his introduction did. Walking down a corridor littered with bleeding corpses flung this way and that you feel like you’ve mistakenly strayed into a survival horror game. This part of Snake’s mission flags up another recognisable trait of the Metal Gear franchise, for better or for worse: tonal inconsistency.

Those melodramatic cries on the cool-looking Game Over screen. SNAAAAKE! Are those outbursts meant to be funny? They made me laugh every time I heard them.

Then you’ll get characters that appear to fall in love over the space of an hour or so, having never met. Otacon and Sniper Wolf. This entirely one-sided romance is so phoney, and yet the game tries to tug on our emotional heart strings when one of them dies.

Snake himself seems like a decent bloke. A moral, modest underdog and so it’s easy to side with him. And then the expert operative tells Meryl that she’s got a great butt. Wow. With chat up lines like that Snake how can any woman resist you?

Predictably, since I haven’t attempted this sneaking mission for at least a couple of decades, I had trouble beating Metal Gear Rex near the end of the game. This boss battle has two phases. In-between the first phase and the second phase there’s a cut scene that you’re forced to watch again and again if you keep losing the fight. I couldn’t skip this moment, which made it seem like a sadistic punishment for dying.

After finishing Metal Gear Solid I wanted to play through the game again. To me that’s clear evidence of its quality. The good parts of Solid Snake’s PlayStation debut certainly outweigh what’s bad. But what’s bad about the game is bad with a capital B or rather misjudged to an extent that these flaws clearly stand out.

Saying that, even after recently experiencing them I can tolerate Metal Gear Solid’s annoyances because they’re counteracted with flashes of genius. The location of Meryl’s CODEC frequency. Homing in on your target in first person view with a Nikita remote-controlled missile. Psycho Mantis breaking down the fourth wall and messing with your game console. Cooling down and heating up the PAL card. What other game allows you to sneak around and fast travel inside a cardboard box?

All of that gaming gold is probably worth having to read your way through line after line of CODEC exposition. And sweet as she is, I wish Mei Ling would learn the value of concise verbal exchanges during an active mission. Yes, Mei Ling, I want to save. That’s kind of why I called you. No, please don’t tell me another Chinese proverb, unless it’s one about the benefits of radio silence.

By reader Michael Veal (@msv858)

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

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As The Legend Of Zelda celebrates four decades of thwarting the forces of evil a reader looks back at his time with the games and hopes for another 40 years of Hyrulean entertainment.

If this gets shown on Saturday it will be the 40th anniversary of The Legend Of Zelda – my favourite video game series of all-time. I wasn’t old enough to play the original when it first came out, and apparently it took nearly two extra years to get released in the UK anyway, but ever since A Link To The Past on the SNES I’ve loved the games.

People often comment on how there aren’t many Zelda clones and I think that speaks to how magical and unique they are. You don’t put together a Zelda game in a few months, like you would a racing game or shooter, these aren’t simulations, these are interactive fantasies like no other.

I guess I must’ve played A Link To The Past around about 1993, so that game has been with me for a long time. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve replayed it and yet I never get bored with its perfect mix of puzzle and exploration and how it manages to have so many memorable characters, despite the simple storytelling and a main character that doesn’t speak.

I think it’s because the other games have kept this same formula over the years that they’ve remained so high quality and popular. A lot of them are very different, especially Breath Of The Wild and Tears Of The Kingdom, but it’s still the exploration, the freedom, and the charm that’s the most important thing. It doesn’t matter what the game’s gimmick is or what the story is, what’s important is how it leaves you to live your own adventure as Link.

Writing this down I realise that it’s not just the games I remember but what I was doing at the time. A Link To The Past was a Christmas present and I remember unwrapping it. Ocarina Of Time I was older and I remember a friend mocking me because the N64 was for ‘kids’ and then having to admit that, actually, Zelda was really good.

By the time of The Wind Waker I had a girlfriend and she actually liked the game, which made me realise games weren’t just for loveless nerds. For Twilight Princess I remember I was only a few months into my first decent job and by the time I was playing Skyward Sword I was married!

So Zelda really is something that’s followed me through for my whole life, so it’s great that all the memories are happy. Breath Of The Wild was a bit garbled though, because we had our first kid at the time, but they were already interested in watching Tears Of The Kingdom (they really like the horses).

I don’t know anymore than anyone else where the series is going in the future, but it’s never let me down before so I will absolutely be there to experience it. Especially as it’s one of the few games my wife likes to watch and even my daughter seems interested in.

Much as I love them, that’s not something I can say about other favourites like Resident Evil and Elden Ring, so I think there’s a lot to be said about a set of games that are not only very highly quality but can be appreciated by just about anyone, no matter what they think about video games in general.

So I just want to thank Shigeru Miyamoto, Eiji Aonuma, Koji Kondo, and everyone else that has helped to make the series what it is and who gave me, and millions of other fans, so many happy memories. I’m sure Zelda will be around in another 40 years and with a bit of luck so will I, so I can get to appreciate the continued evolution of the best video game franchise in the world!

By reader Rhion

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

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The Friday letters page has some choice words to say about Sony’s handling of the PS5 generation, as one reader thinks Mario Kart Arcade is a bad game.

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

Wasted generation
Just seen the news that Sony is shutting down Bluepoint Games and I’m appalled. That team put out nothing but top quality games and were specialists in remakes, which we’ve had more and more of recently, so you would’ve thought they’d be extra valuable to Sony right now.

Instead, we just see continued short-sighted, bone-headed decision making from Sony, who have been awful this whole generation. The PlayStation 5 has been a disaster and I’m not confident that Sony has any kind of plan to avoid permeant decline, all the while shutting down more and more developers. I definitely would be polishing up my CV if I worked at Bungie or Bend Studio.

The obsession with live service games, which clearly hasn’t ended at all, has been such a disaster. Not just in terms of failed games (remember, Concord cost $400 million!) but a whole wasted generation, where developers have had no time to make anything else, and are now being shut down before they have the chance anyway.

I detest Sony for how they’re handling all this, and I say that as someone that’s owned an original PlayStation console and everything else since. They shut down one of their best developers just so they could look good to their investors for five minutes and it’s obvious they’ll happily sacrifice more for the same reason.
Cranston

Pity the poor exec
Thank goodness that Hermen Hulst, Head of Worldwide Studios at PlayStation from 2019-2024, is here to protect the company from ‘changing player behaviours’ and ‘rising development costs’ by shuttering one of their most renowned studios.

Absolutely nothing else he could’ve done since 2019, to give players the type of games they expect from PlayStation. Nope, we all wanted 12 live service games, from studios who specialise in single-player games, so it’s our fault for changing our minds…

PlayStation has been on the slide since they consolidated and moved their headquarters to the USA. They’ve lost almost all of the riskiness and playfulness that made them successful in the first place. Hope the Bluepoint employees bounce back quickly.
Magnumstache

Never-ending Kratos
I was really hoping that Santa Monica Studio would be working on a new IP or sci-fi game but it really doesn’t sound like that’s what’s going on. I loved the last two God Of War games but the story’s over and I have very little confidence that there’s a good plan for what happens next.

Cory Barlog said he didn’t make the Norse games a trilogy because he didn’t want to work on the same story for 15 years but here we are and it’s looking very much like he’s just going straight back to God Of War.

I know the next game is meant to be a spin-off but how different is it going to be really? Unless it’s a flight sim or something it’s just going to be more of the same and that’s a shame.
Coolsbane

Email your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk

Experimental reasoning
It does make me laugh that Todd Howard has now publicly admitted that people find Starfield boring, but I’m sure he doesn’t really understand why. How someone of his supposed experience could have put out such a dull, badly made game I don’t know. He’s just lucky the Fallout TV show was a hit, as otherwise I think he would’ve fond himself out the door.

No one would love The Elder Scrolls 6 to be great more than me, but Bethesda is too high on its own supply nowadays and I really have much less confidence in them than I used to. He tries to paint Starfield as some big, risky experiment but all they do was take all the best bits out of Skyrim and replace it with nothing.

I’m not really sure what he’s on about with Fallout 76 either. It’s just a bog standard MMO cobbled together with left over bits from Fallout 4. It’s those two games that made me start to think less of Bethesda, not because they were risky ventures but because they were lazy cash grabs.
Shortround

Kart it off
I always wondered why Nintendo bothered with the Mario Kart arcade games. They weren’t very good, because they let Bandai Namco make them, and it hardly seems like Mario Kart is a series they have to get people interested in or promote. It’s not exactly an unknown brand, is it?

Putting Pac-Man in was extra weird too, as even though he’s a cartoon character he still looks out of place. Anyway, I still gave it a go. But paying £1 to play one race of the worst Mario Kart ever isn’t something I’d want to do again.
Biter

Bad business
The gaming world can truly change on a dime. Bluepoint Games has been shut down by Sony. After giving us fans a brilliant remake of Demon’s Souls and Shadow Of The Colossus, Sony has closed down the studio. One of their most revered, to say the least. It’s out of nowhere and quite a baffling decision. From what I understand, the studio was to create a video game based on an original IP and not another remake. So why Sony have chosen to erase that prospective idea is beyond my understanding.

Then again, we hadn’t heard any news, updates or any information from them in a long time, so perhaps it was inevitable. I suppose the silence was a reckoning or rather an ill omen in the shadows. I really would have liked to see what Bluepoint were making or what was cooking behind the scenes. To see the creativity floating around, but it either happens with a new studio that is formed, or it remains a what if?

It worked for Sandfall Games. After they broke away from Ubisoft, we were presented with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and the rest is history. So maybe the developers still have a semblance of a future. What that will be is unclear at this moment, so who knows what is next?

On another note, it’s a week from tomorrow that Resident Evil Requiem releases. A funny anecdote is that I pre-ordered it for £47.99, on Amazon. I take another look and it’s suddenly £59.95. Talk about a lucky move. It looks absolutely fantastic and since Leon Kennedy is my favourite male gaming character, I hope it reviews well.
Shahzaib Sadiq

Two for two
I want to recommend Pure Pool Pro on PlayStation 5. It’s a really fun game with excellent physics. It looks great and has an enjoyable career mode and trophies.

It’s only the second game I’ve bought for the PlayStation 5 after Everybody’s Golf Hot Shots. Keep up the good work.
EricBIG777 (PSN ID)

GC: Thank you.

Actually final
RE: Ochreblue. I find it hard to imagine, after the Final Fantasy 7 remakes have been completed, that another remake of a fan favourite would be made anytime soon, at least on the scale of Final Fantasy 7’s budget.

I think that so much money has backed these three massive games that it would seem nonsensical to risk another big venture so soon, due to what the actual returns were from a financial point of view. I can imagine that it would have needed a lot more sales to accommodate a reason to make, let’s say the sixth or ninth Final Fantasy games in the series, even if they definitely do deserve one.

Possibly a remastered version of Chrono Trigger would be interesting, with a fresh lick of paint and a new up-to-date remake of the original soundtrack would be a great winner for me and other fans. No need to go and rebuild everything like the FFVII Remake, but way simpler using artwork that is skilfully applied to the cute looking world whilst keeping the atmosphere peak.

But we definitely have to get into our minds that the Final Fantasy 7 remakes could be the ultimate Final Fantasies, encapsulating everything from the original and introducing so much more.

This asks the question of how powerful do the next generation of consoles really need to be and have graphical qualities reached their zenith yet? GTA 6 will probably be that zenith but it’ll be pretty obvious that GTA 6 will be earning a hefty profit when the sale figures start coming in.

But definitely it will be an exception compared to other big releases, who will be relatively successful but with way less titles being sold. Let’s see what happens over this year and the next.
Alucard

Inbox also-rans
Sony shut down Bluepoint Games? Make it make sense! Surely they should be remaking Bloodborne?
Zombiekicker

One positive thing about all these console delays is that parents could be saved the £400 to £1,000 yearly scramble to get a new toy for their spoiled kids.
Bobwallett

GC: Who is spending £1,000 on new consoles every year?

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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.

You can also submit your own 500 to 600-word Reader’s Feature at any time via email or our Submit Stuff page, which if used will be shown in the next available weekend slot.

You can also leave your comments below and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.

MORE: Games Inbox: Could memory shortages destroy the console industry?

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Nintendo’s most embarrassing failure is now available to play via the Switch and Switch 2, but are these obscure, stereoscopic oddities worth your time and money?

The Nintendo Switch Online service is becoming an increasingly comprehensive collection of Nintendo’s retro history, with all their major consoles, from the NES to the GameCube now covered. Some formats have more titles than others but the only absence, unless you count the Pokémon Mini, has been the Virtual Boy.

You may well never have heard of it but that’s no surprise as it was such a complete flop it was never released in Europe. It launched in 1995 and was discontinued that same year, after Nintendo realised that nobody wanted to play stereoscopic 3D games by peering awkwardly into what looked like a VR helmet and putting up with solely red and black graphics.

Nevertheless, we’ve been playing the initial batch of games all this week and while some of them are interesting, and the 3D effect is very good, sitting with your head pushed inside the headset is a deeply uncomfortable way to spend your time. At the time there was a lot of talk of the console causing nausea when you played it; we didn’t experience any of that but unless you have it at exactly the right height it kills your neck.

Nintendo did return to the concept of stereoscopic 3D with the 3DS, but while that involved finding and keeping to a ‘sweet spot’ on the screen, the Virtual Boy works perfectly all the time. Although the console can push a small amount of polygons, most of them are purely wireframe and the majority of games use only 2D sprites. The effect still works great though, from the enemies leaping into the screen at you in Wario Land to the quasi-realistic courses of the unadventurously named Golf.

There were only ever 22 games, from Nintendo and various third parties, but currently there are only plans to release 16 (17 in Japan) on the original Switch and Switch 2. The seven below were made available at launch, with Nintendo confirming another nine for some time after: Mario’s Tennis, Jack Bros., Vertical Force, Mario Clash, Virtual Bowling, Space Invaders Virtual Collection, V-Tetris, D-Hopper, and Zero Racers.

The inclusion of D-Hopper (aka Dragon Hopper), by Fire Emblem developer Intelligent Systems, and F-Zero spin-off Zero Racers is particularly interesting because while the games were finished they were never released commercially, because by that point the Virtual Boy was already dead at retail.

Virtual Boy Wario Land

Developer: Nintendo R&D1

This is the crown jewel in the Virtual Boy library, made by what was at the time one of Nintendo’s key studios (now merged with Nintendo EAD) and the closest thing to a Mario platformer on the system. This was only the second Wario Land game, after Super Mario Land 3 in 1994, but works in the same general manner as the rest of the series, with Wario able to pick and up throw stunned enemies but also barge into them with a dash attack, if he’s powered up by eating a garlic bulb (his equivalent of a mushroom).

In most respects it’s a standard 2D platformer but where objects and enemies regularly move from the background to the foreground, which always looks impressive. There’s also a lot of sections where there’s a whole separate platform layout in the background, which you have to use pipes or jump pads to access – a concept that Nintendo has reused for many modern 2D platformers.

It’s all a bit slow-paced, and losing your power-up drastically reduces the options available, but there’s a good variety in terms of the range of different power-up imbuing hats and things like swimming levels. It is very short though, which was no doubt an irritation upon its original release, and the 3D effect doesn’t really come across as much more than a gimmick.

Score: 4/5

Galactic Pinball

Developer: Intelligent Systems

We’re scoring these games on a one time only five-point scale, to make it clear they’re not compatible with our regular reviews, but in some cases there’s really not much to say. Galactic Pinball is exactly what it says on the tin, with four tables that benefit from the pin sharp 3D, in that you can fit the whole thing on screen at once, with no scrolling.

The tables are reasonably well designed, and there’s a Metroid reference in one of them, but they do feel a bit empty a lot of the time, with little in the way of interesting gimmicks. Pinball games live and die on their ball physics and in that regard Galactic Pinball is… okay. It’s not actually a ball though, but a puck, which we suspect is intended as a built-in excuse for it not always moving exactly as you’d expect.

Score: 3/5

Red Alarm

Developer: T&E Soft

We have played a real Virtual Boy before this time but only a smaller selection of its games and never before this fascinating 3D on-rails shooter, that could easily have been repurposed as a Star Fox game. It’s rendered entirely with wireframe graphics, which makes it seem like something from the mid-80s, but if you can cope with that it’s a fun little shooter, with good pacing and plenty of enemy variety.

Not only is there an optional first person view, and an isometric one that makes it look like Zaxxon, but there are some very interesting effects, like the contoured faces that pop out of the screen towards you. Although level progression is on-rails you have a fair amount of freedom of movement within that space, including speeding up and down, and unlike most wireframe games the frame rate is pretty smooth.

Score: 4/5

Teleroboxer

Developer: Nintendo R&D1

If Red Alarm is Star Fox by any other name, then Teleroboxer is clearly just Punch-Out!! with a different hat on. The 3D effect here is excellent, as your fists, your opponents, and their head and body are all on different planes that give a great sense of depth. The problem is, though, that the game is very easy and once you’ve figured out the trick to beating each of the eight opponents the charm quickly disappears.

It’s a quintessential example of a tech demo masquerading as a launch title, which is a problem as old as gaming itself. The benefit of being on Nintendo Switch Online is that you can try it out at no extra cost, be impressed by the visuals, and then never touch it again when you get bored of the gameplay.

Score: 2/5

Golf

Developer: T&E Soft

Nintendo put out a lot of golf games before getting the idea to turn them into Mario themed party games and this is one of the last examples of that more staid strain of sports sim. This is a very sober recreation of the sport but with some very impressive 3D graphics. Even if it does look like it’s been raining blood the whole time.

It’s essentially flip screen, when it needs to change the camera angle, but it’s above the technical standards of SNES games of the era (the Virtual Boy was considered a 32-bit console). The control system is a minor variation on the norm, as you not only have to set the power on a meter but also try and stop a cursor moving about on an image of a golf ball at the exact place you want to hit it.

It’s fine but there’s little in the way of ancillary options, with no multiplayer, too few courses, and it doesn’t even save your score when you turn it off (most Virtual Boy games still relied on passwords instead of saving).

Score: 2/5

The Mansion Of Innsmouth

Developer: Be Top

There are many problems with the Virtual Boy as a concept but the main issue with the games is that they all feel so old-fashioned. The original PlayStation had already come out the previous year and yet The Mansion Of Innsmouth is an old school dungeon crawler, with no polygonal graphics and where you instead move around the grid-based maps in discreet steps, like Dungeon Master.

There’s plenty of retro charm to that concept but if you’re trying to sell your new console as a cutting edge piece of hardware then the games do not help. The Mansion Of Innsmouth is interesting though, as it’s based very squarely on Lovecraftian mythos, and is essentially a survival horror – complete with the same, cheap, jump scare technique as Alan Wake 2, where demonic faces suddenly appear on screen with no warning.

Unfortunately, the game isn’t much fun, as the level layout is very basic and it’s extremely difficult, with death coming quickly and if ammo runs out there’s literally nothing you can do but die or run out of time.

Score: 1/5

3-D Tetris

Developer: T&E Soft

An argument could be made that this is the most technically advanced of the initial line-up of games, even though most of it is wireframe. It’s similar to Welltris but not the same, as you drop tetriminos down a rectangular hole and try to match them up at the bottom as solid 3D objects, rather than flat 2D shapes. The controls take a few moments to get used to, and the way the camera moves around on its own is initially disconcerting, but it’s actually quite a fun variant of the grandfather of puzzle games.

There’s another Tetris game on the system, called V-Tetris, but that’s just the original flat version of the game. 3D-Tetris is more interesting because it actually tries to use the idea of a 3D effect to make something new, with a couple of additional game modes where you’re arranging tetriminos around a central square or trying to make a specific shape in puzzle mode.
3D-Tetris is not so good that we’re dying for a modern remake but it’s an engaging novelty and one of the few Virtual Boy games with a modicum of lastability.

Score: 4/5

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The developer responsible for remakes of Shadow Of The Colossus and Demon’s Souls has suddenly been closed, with the loss of over 70 jobs.

You’d never know at a glance, but the video games industry is in dire trouble at the moment. Just this week we’ve had suggestions that the memory crisis, which could make it impossible to manufacture gaming hardware in bulk, could last up to a decade, while at the same time gaming is increasingly losing out to things like gambling and porn in terms of how people spend their time and money.

As if to underline the issue, it’s been revealed that Sony is to shut down Bluepoint Games, the studio they bought five years ago and which specialises in remasters and remakes.

Bluepoint has been around for 20 years but after the remake of Demon’s Souls, for the launch of the PlayStation 5, they’ve haven’t announced any new games.

Behind the scenes, it’s been rumoured that they, like most of Sony’s other first party studios, were put to work on a live service game – thought to be part of the God Of War franchise – but it was later believed to be one of two projects cancelled by Sony last year.

Whether they were about to realise their dream of working on a big budget new IP, as they originally intended to do after Demon’s Souls, is unknown, but in recent months they were hiring for people to work on some sort of third person action game.

Sony has made no public annoucement about the closure, but it was first reported by Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, with the text of an email from PlayStation CEO Hermen Hulst later appearing on ResetEra.

‘We’re operating in an increasingly challenging industry environment. Rising development costs, slowed industry growth, changing player behaviour, and broader economic headwinds are making it harder to build games sustainably,’ wrote Hulst.

‘To navigate this reality, we need to continue adapting and evolving. We’ve taken a close look at our business to ensure we’re delivering today while still well-positioned for the future. As a result, we will be closing Bluepoint Games in March.

‘This decision was not made lightly. Bluepoint is an incredibly talented team and their technical expertise has delivered exceptional experiences for the PlayStation community. I want to thank everyone at Bluepoint for their creativity, craftsmanship, and commitment to quality. Where possible, we will work to find opportunities for some impacted employees within our global network of studios.’

In addition to various remasters, remakes, and ports Bluepoint also worked as a support studio for God of War Ragnarök, which is presumably why their live service game was based on the franchise.

As awful as the news is, it may only be the tip of the iceberg as far as Sony closures go, with many already worrying about the future of Destiny maker Bungie and Days Gone developer Bend Studio, who haven’t released a single new game this generation.

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The Thursday letters page is unsurprised God Of War: Sons Of Sparta was unremarkable, as one reader is enamoured by fan remakes of Pokémon Red/Blue.

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

Console apocalypse
So, um… all this stuff about memory and electronic components getting bought up by AI companies seems pretty bad, right? Like, really, really, bad? This guy talking about potentially a decade of problems presumably knows what he’s talking about, given his position, and that is going to be a nightmare for gaming. Never mind smartphones and everything else.

Do we even know if Sony and Nintendo are safe? They’re not gigantic companies like Microsoft and electronics is pretty much all they do beyond games. Maybe all three will go third party at the same time! I’m not really sure what companies he’s hinting at that could go under, as I’m not sure who counts as a smaller business, but it’s clearly not good news, no matter what happens.

There’s so much going wrong with the games industry, and the world in general, at the moment and yet it seems like it could still get much worse and very quickly. In the worse case scenario you’re talking about consoles, and gaming PCs, being impossible to manufacture for several years.

Whether that would last for a whole decade I don’t know but that’s an industry ending problem. I hope you’re all into retro games, because that might be all we have soon!
Oz

Monkey paw
So I guess one of the big victims of these memory shortage problems is going to be all those PC handheld gaming devices from companies I’ve never heard of. If even Steam Deck has only sold a few million I hate to think what some of these others are pushing. Even the Xbox Ally one, which I have literally not heard mentioned again even once since it came out.

That’s going to affect the rumoured Xbox portable and the PlayStation one too, to the point where they might just cancel them completely, because I imagine they involve a lot of custom chips – even more than if it was just a home console.

I’m sure no one but them knows the full details but this is all very bad news and yet… if you didn’t want there to be a next generation so soon your prayers have been answered. But you know the problem with being careful what you wish for, since now the PlayStation 6 might not arrive until 2036!
Korbie

Next in line
Like a lot of readers I’m looking forward to hearing abut the third Final Fantasy 7 remake game but I’m also wondering what might get the remake treatment after that is all finished up with. Do they even consider Final Fantasy 7 Remake to be a success is the first big question and I’m not sure what the answer is, other than there’s a good chance it might be ‘not really’.

They definitely seemed to have cooled on the idea of a Final Fantasy 9 remake, as there were rumours like crazy around that for a while. That was only meant to be a lower budget remake too, so that might be an indication they’ve already had it with triple-A remakes.

For me the obvious choices for Final Fantasy are 6 or 10, although personally I’d prefer 12. Final Fantasy 6 would require a completely new game, so I don’t think that will get the treatment. 10 is going to be a big job too, so I’m not honestly sure any of them will get remakes.

I’d love Chrono Trigger, but I think that’s the same problem as Final Fantasy 6, and so I think maybe the most likely is Kingdom Hearts, especially with a new game coming up to promote. Or maybe the answer is none of them. If a big budget Final Fantasy 7 remake only sells okay, what chance does anything else have?
Ochreblue

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Fan suggestion
I agree that this year is Game Freak’s big chance to turn around Pokémon in terms of the quality of the games and the technology behind them. I don’t know how likely it is, but if they don’t try this time I’m not sure they ever will.

Although most people imagine some kind of amazing high-tech open world I prefer the idea of something closer to the HD-2D style, that’s a mix between modern and retro graphics. There have been a lot of fan mock-ups with this idea over the years and while I don’t think any of them are perfect I’d rather go with something like this but keep it more of a top-down view.

Unless Nintendo is going to spend GTA 6 style money on it I don’t think there’s any point making Pokémon 3D. It’s got to be stylised and it’s got to be more like the wonder of the original Game Boy games. We might get that for a future remake but I’m afraid the next mainline game will just be another low-tech, janky knock-off.
Taylor Moon

You can dig it
Great Reader’s Feature about A Game About Digging a Hole at the weekend. I instinctively knew I would get some form of enjoyment out of it. Digging, collecting ore, selling it, upgrading equipment, and digging deeper? Absolutely all over it for £3.64.

Spaced out on Tramadol for a back issue last night, played for over two hours and it was an almost religious experience. Well not quite, but highly recommended to all other readers, especially for the price.
Whiskeyjack11

Fighting multiverse
RE: Lee Dappa. The closest you’ll get to playing all versions of Street Fighter 2 in one place, as one game, is not on the 30th anniversary collection of Street Fighter 2 but actually on the 35th anniversary collection labelled as Capcom Fighting Collection.

This release features Hyper Street Fighter 2: The Anniversary Edition. You can choose fighters from all versions of the Street Fighter 2 editions in one package.

Choosing World Warrior Ken from the original will give him extra strength, no super move, and he will be a palette swap of Ryu. Choosing Ken from Street Fighter 2 Turbo: Hyper Fighting will give him his longer range dragon uppercut and air whirlwind kick and still no super move.

Choosing Street Fighter 2 Turbo’s Ken will give him his flaming dragon punch but less damage, and thus more reliant on combos. But he will have his super move to use and the power bar for it at the bottom of the screen. This would apply to all characters across the games so you can have World Warrior E. Honda vs. Street Fighter 2 Turbo’s version of Blanka, for instance.
Nick The Greek

Online ban
I always wondered why companies don’t just lock a game out until the day it’s released, to avoid all these leaks you always get. It’s literally every game but they never seem to care. But surely it could just work like pre-loading, where you have the game but you’re not allowed to start playing it until the right time.

I guess you could buy the disc and then purposefully keep the console offline, and get around it that way, but who wants that much trouble? And besides, most games don’t seem to work without a day one patch anyway. At the very least a timer would cut the problem down, but the companies don’t even seem to try.
Flint

What it looks like
I know they say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover but God Of War: Sons Of Sparta was an out of the blue shadow drop, it had what looked like terrible graphics, and it immediately looked inferior to about a 100 other Metroidvanias you could get instead. And as a bonus it was by some developer I’d never heard of, who’s biggest game was a Five Nights At Freddy’s spin-off.

I feel you have to be very optimistic given all that, to the point where I could probably sell you some magic beans. It’s not a question of whether it’s rubbish or not but if you want to spend a fair amount of money and a lot of time beating it, and I definitely don’t want to. Talk is cheap but time is not and at the moment I haven’t time for 10/10 blockbusters, let alone deeply average Metroidvanias.

I feel there’s plenty of interesting things an indie dev could’ve done with a low budget God Of War game and a 2D Metroidvania with Young Kratos seems like the absolute least exciting option. You could’ve had a game where you played as one of the Valkyries, you could have had a literal god game where you’re populating Midgar with humans, you could’ve had an archery thing with Arteus, heck you could’ve had a sledding simulator and it still would’ve been more interesting that what we got.

I know it was the safe option, but when the best option was probably not making a spin-off at all there’s no point going for the boring and obvious choice.
Campbell

Inbox also-rans
So Highguard has outlasted Concord, but by the sound of it it’ll be lucky see the weekend, so it’s really only going to beat it by a matter of days.
Goops

I really hate that Microsoft switched the buttons round on their controller compared to Nintendo’s. Why do so silly a thing and make it so difficult to switch (no pun intended) between the two consoles. I can never remember which is which way round.
Mobert

GC: They were copying Sega, who they were very cosy with in the initial years of the Xbox.

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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.

You can also submit your own 500 to 600-word Reader’s Feature at any time via email or our Submit Stuff page, which if used will be shown in the next available weekend slot.

You can also leave your comments below and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.

MORE: Games Inbox: Will Resident Evil Requiem be worth getting?

MORE: Games Inbox: When will the PS6 be out?

MORE: Games Inbox: When will Super Smash Bros. be on Nintendo Switch 2?

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Kratos returns to Ancient Greece with a tale from his youth, in this new Metroidvania that tries to make the God Of War formula work in 2D.

Given what a huge critical and commerical success 2022’s God of War Ragnarök was, the franchise now stands in surprisingly murky waters. There’s still no sign of a direct follow-up, with developer Santa Monica Studio rumoured to be working on a new title that is not God Of War related. Unless, that is, they’re also doing the recently announced remake of the first three games, but that still hasn’t been confirmed.

It’s all very unclear and into that miasma of uncertainty comes Sons Of Sparta, a 2D Metroidvania by the virtually unknown Mega Cat Studios. Although a spin-off had been rumoured for some time the game was shadow-dropped during the last State of Play, ensuring there were no reviews before launch – just a worryingly large price tag.

At first glance, Sons Of Sparta does not seem encouraging, with low tech visuals that look no better, and in some cases notably worse, than a dozen other indie Metroidvanias. Those first impressions remain unchanged for the first several hours, but while the game does get better with time it’s not wholly satisfying to either God Of War fans or those that just want to play a good Metroidvania.

It’s been 13 years since the last God Of War game was set in Ancient Greece. Given the breakout success of 2018’s soft reboot, there will be many people that never even realised that’s how the series started off, with only a few minor references to it in the two recent games (although there was a bit more of it in Ragnarök’s DLC). Given the upcoming TV series is also set in the continuity of the Norse adventures it’s a surprise for Sony to suddenly change tack and start digging up the past.

In story terms, Sons Of Sparta is a fairly straightforward prequel, as a pre-deification Kratos narrates to his daughter a story from his teenage years. At this point he still gets on well with his brother Deimos, as the two set off on a rescue mission across Sparta. There is a co-op mode, but weirdly it can only be unlocked after beating the story campaign on your own, by which point you are likely to have had more than enough of the game.

That’s not quite the barb it might seem, as Sons Of Sparta is a long game and the first several hours are by far its weakest, until it starts offering up more substantial challenges and boss encounters. Even the visuals are at their worst at the start, so while the game’s 50 shades of brown colour scheme seems off-putting it’s not always as drab and ugly as it first seems. Although the animation never gets any better and remains stiff and unconvincing throughout.

As a Metroidvania, Sons Of Sparta is perfectly capable, with lots of areas being inaccessible at the start, all sitting there waiting for you to get the appropriate item or ability to circumvent them, from a sling that can activate distant switches to various magic totems. The central hub in the main city is unusually large and unwieldy but otherwise traversal and progression works largely as you would expect, with fairly clear signposting.

Metroidvania is not much of a stretch for God Of War, which has always had elements of the genre, but the obvious problem with making it a 2D game is that the combat is made considerably more simplistic, especially as Kratos doesn’t have the Blades of Chaos or any of his other more famous gear. Instead, he primarily uses a spear and shield, but even with a dash move and parry that starts to get old very quickly.

Kratos does learn to use magic quite early on, but it doesn’t stop most fights being overly long and lacking the physicality of the mainline titles. No matter how good you get at poking monsters with your spear it’s physically impossible to make short work of anything, because even the cannon fodder enemies act like damage sponges and always seem to take longer to defeat than you’d like, regardless of how much you’ve upgraded yourself.

The game tries to adopt elements of recent Soulslikes (although it’s not particularly hard), with a bewildering array of colour-code warnings that mean you have to block blue attacks, dodge red ones, parry yellow ones, and just get out of the way of purple ones. Enemies also have coloured outlines that work along the same logic, but it all seems very artificial, more like a rhythm action game than a nuanced combat system.

In terms of role-playing elements, the game mimics the Norse games as closely as possible, which is a shame as their overwrought system is easily the worst part of those games. You always have far too many options, and yet almost none of the gear and skill tree upgrades makes any appreciable difference, so you just stop paying attention. The 3D games never acknowledged this as an issue, so it’s not a surprise that this doesn’t either, but it still boils down to a lot of unwanted menu screen busywork.

Although the script is able to contrast the authoritarian Kratos with the more humanistic approach of Deimos the story is not particularly gripping and the stakes surprisingly small. Santa Monica Studio provided the dialogue to the game but while the script is fine, the story itself doesn’t feel like one that needed to be told.

Needless to say, the world also did not need another 2D Metroidvania and while this is mostly competent it’s nothing more than that and there are dozens of better alternatives available – from Animal Well to Hollow Knight: Silksong – most of which are also cheaper than this. If the God Of War name is enough to tempt then you won’t be entirely disappointed but if that’s not a draw for you, Sons Of Sparta has little else to offer beyond the Metroidvania average.

Formats: PlayStation 5
Price: £24.99
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Developer: Mega Cat Studios
Release Date: 12th February 2026
Age Rating: 16

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A reader offers his list of the top 10 games he’s most looking forward to this year, including those he intends to pre-order without any further information.

It’s 2026 now, which means many stellar and upcoming titles will grace us with their presence in the coming few months. I’ll be honest, I’m actually hoping to purchase a new phone in August, for my birthday.

But that doesn’t take away from some amazing games, that I will definitely be playing, so I’d like to take this time to list my 10 most anticipated games as, more than anything, these are the names that have intrigued me.

I will be leaving out sports games, battle royale titles, racing games, and live service debacles. Those don’t really interest me and I don’t play them. Just not my cup of tea. So here they are.

10. Resident Evil Requiem

The first major title of 2026, this is dependant on the reviews and if Capcom stick to the horror aspect. I’m exceptionally tired of action set pieces and I’m worried it will turn into what Village became during the second half. Capcom better nail this hard. If it reviews well, I will be buying.

9. Pragmata

A very curious beginning and a new IP. Also from Capcom, this is another title I will be waiting for reviews. It’s a new project and I am interested, but it could flop and it’s quite risky to pre-order. It looks great and the demo has reviewed well. So I’ll keep an eye on the reviews and hopefully I end up buying Pragmata.

8. Saros

Underrated is the word of choice for Returnal and this is dependant on the difficulty for me, personally. I don’t expect it to be easier, or a cakewalk of sorts, but I’m hoping Housemarque take it easy this time around and if it is more difficult I’ll gladly skip this experience. If it reviews well and it’s easier I’ll buy.

7. 007 First Light

Quite an appropriate number. I’m not the biggest fan of James Bond in general, but this game looks promising. I except espionage, stealth, and chilled champagne. Reviews will decide this one for me.

6. Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly Remake

I wish it was the first game, but I understand the choice to remake the second game is the correct decision. I’m beyond stoked for this and I hope it sells well, so the first and third titles are also remade. I’ll say that I am strongly considering pre-ordering this, but I’ll wait for reviews. Hopefully it does as well as Silent Hill 2 did.

5. Marvel’s Wolverine

From a web slinger to the adamantium slasher. I will be absolutely pre-ordering this, since I hope dearly that this is an improvement, from the rushed and disappointing Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. It looks fantastic and I can safely say it will be a banger of a game.

4. Crimson Desert

Ambition is the word for what Crimson Desert has showcased thus far. I won’t lie, I am very impressed by what I’ve seen so far and worried a slight bit. It seems too ambitious and it could be too good to be true. The risk is heavy and that’s why I will be buying. Because risks are meant to be taken.

3. Control: Resonant

As a player who managed to complete the first title, I’m very excited for the sequel and judging by my high love for Alan Wake 2, and the narrative, I’m absolutely stoked for what the folks at Remedy will be cooking up for the sequel. Another buy for me.

2. Phantom Blade 0

I would haven’t had this so high on a list at the start of this year, but I have been absolutely blown away by what I’ve seen so far of this game and I can’t praise it enough. It looks absolutely insane and I’m hoping this lives up to its expectations. It has the same hype as Black Myth: Wukong did, but I can see this performing extremely well. As soon as pre-orders open, I’m there.

1. Grand Theft Auto 6

What else could it possibly be? If Half-Life 3 is somehow released, that may well step up as a contender, but I can’t justify my absolute excitement and hype for the most anticipated video game of all time. Barring another possible delay, we may well be there for something special and I can’t wait to begin a new narrative and a new journey with Grand Theft Auto 6 in 2026.

Thank you so much for reading and here’s to a blessed 2026.

By reader Shahzaib Sadiq

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

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With news that Switch 2 sales have started to slow, a reader is worried that complacency and poor planning is spoiling the prospects for Nintendo’s new console.

Last year, the big story was that the Switch 2 had become the fastest selling console of all time. I think a lot of people found this a little odd, because there didn’t seem to be that kind of excitement behind it, but then Nintendo’s main audience isn’t necessarily hardcore gamers, so I think some of the appeal was lost even on long-term fans.

After launch, Donkey Kong Bananza was great and… the rest wasn’t. I didn’t get Pokémon Legends: Z-A but it seems to have got only mildly positive reviews. I did get Metroid Prime 4 though and that was a crushing disappointment, even though I thought I’d still appreciate it despite the flaws.

We’re now in 2026 and the only games that have a release date are Mario Tennis Fever next month and Pokémon Pokopia in March, not the most existing of games, I don’t think anyone would pretend. Beyond that you’ve got Yoshi And The Mysterious Book and a new Fire Emblem, which I’d also venture are not the most widely popular of Nintendo franchises.

They’re niche games, basically, and so was Kirby Air Riders, Hyrule Warriors, and Metroid Prime 4. I can see the logic in that that meant you had a Zelda and Kirby game for the launch year, but I think these games are only likely to put people off the main franchises, more than anything else.

I read with interest the report this week, about how Switch 2 sales have slowed, particularly in the US, and that Nintendo thinks that because it didn’t have any big Western games. I’m pretty sure that’s not the problem, so I can’t wait for that overreaction to make things worse. It wasn’t because the line-up was too Japanese it’s because it was niche games that aren’t popular in the West. I’d say that was a distinct difference.

And now that we are out of the launch year can we just admit that having no Zelda or Mario, or even the slightest hint of one, was a massive mistake. Given how well orchestrated the Switch 1 was I would’ve thought that repeating the same tricks would’ve been easy, but Nintendo seems to have ignored every lesson of their very long history.

We’ve got the 40th anniversary of Zelda, 30th anniversary of Pokémon, and a new Super Mario movie coming up soon and, as far as we know at the moment, no major games to tie in with any of them. Missing one anniversary is a mistake, missing three super obvious opportunities like this reeks of incompetence or being complacent.

I don’t know which it is but the more you look back at the Switch 2 with hindsight the more it seems like it was all rushed, with very little planning… which makes no sense, as Nintendo had all the time they needed to get ready and were not working under any kind of time limit.

I hate to say it, but they’re exhibiting Sony style arrogance, where they seem to think a minimum effort will be enough and that because their last console did well they don’t have to try so hard with the next one. I would never have guessed that’s how they’d be with the Switch 2, but I don’t know how else to explain it.

If there is a Nintendo Direct in February it needs to unveil a new Mario, some kind of Zelda game, and ideally a new IP. I do not want to sit through a 50 minute showcase telling me that they still don’t understand what was good about Mario Tennis 64 or that they the budget for the next Fire Emblem has been increased to £10 and a packet of crisps.

Unfortunately, I would be willing to bet that the second description is a lot closer to what eventually happens and that people are going to feel even more worried about the Switch 2’s future after the Direct is done.

By reader Gordo

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Despite constant frustration and badly dated gameplay, a reader can’t bring himself to completely hate the PlayStation 2 version of God Of War.

God Of War came out in 2005. I love the film Jason and the Argonauts and since gaming’s introduction to Kratos focused on similar themes and reviewed well, 20 years ago, the landmark title developed by Santa Monica Studio was a compulsory purchase for me.

Kicking off with a spot of giant Hydra trouble in the Aegean sea, the high level of polish and artistry in this game is immediately apparent. Ancient Greek exteriors and interiors are consistently atmospheric and handsomely realised. God Of War’s core mechanic is hacking and slashing, so it’s a relief that the combat here is beyond satisfying.

This is one of those games in which you look forward to a scrap, to unleash your many moves. As well as the iconic Blades of Chaos, and the lesser known Blade of Artemis, Kratos collects various magic attacks on his journey through the game’s levels. For me the highlight in this enchanted arsenal is the Army of Hades, obtained fairly late in the day, after defeating one of the game’s bosses. Activate the Army of Hades and a fiery demonic swarm materialises around Kratos and homes in, like a salvo of guided projectiles, on any local enemies.

Everything’s upgradable by gathering red orbs, which fly out of opened chests, vanquished enemies, and smashed objects. While you run around solving simple puzzles and slaying monsters you collect green orbs to replenish your health meter and blue orbs to fill up your magic meter. These meters can be extended by finding Gorgon’s eyes and phoenix feathers.

So there’s plenty to do while Kratos embarks on an epic quest which takes him and you to Athens, to the Temple of the Oracle, through the desert of Lost Souls, and on to Pandora’s Temple. The end goal here is to quell the bad dreams that haunt Kratos. In some sort of thematic duality, Pandora’s Temple is where the game starts to turn into a waking nightmare.

I’m fairly certain that 20 years ago I did finish this game. Tackling God Of War again now, I wonder how I managed. Reading other players’ comments on the internet the following hurdles are repeatedly mentioned:

That notorious jump over a certain second lava pit. The stingy amount of time allocated in the spike room. The desperate dash past spinning saw blades to access the Architect’s Tomb, before his door shuts in your face. And what about that bit in The Challenge of Hades, when you try not to fall to your death on narrow suspended planks, while at the same time double jumping over rotating blades that you can only see when they’re seconds away from hitting you?

Climbing those rotating spike towers in the Path of Hades often gets remarked upon as a place where one’s patience is tested to breaking point, but on this playthrough I found that fighting the Pandora Guardian was worse.

How could I complete those quick time events if the developers gave me insufficient time to do so? By doing a bit of research online it turned out that controlling the thumb stick with just my thumb was probably where I was going wrong. If I pinched the left stick around its edge with my thumb and finger I could match the lightning fast QTE prompts.

The final battle with Ares also uses QTE prompts, that appear and then cruelly disappear in a blink. I could only react fast enough to these prompts by holding down every face button on the DualShock 2. A messy and botched solution. Was it deliberate?

I have more issues with God Of War other than it started to make me hate gaming. Medusa was entirely wasted. Here the snake-haired Gorgon is sold short as a mid-level boss and a way of obtaining an, albeit interesting, magic attack.

Perhaps the best scene in the rather hit and miss 1981 movie Clash of the Titans is Perseus’s fight with Medusa. The sequence almost invites a direct video game conversation. Fight a terrifying foe by relying on your wits and the reflections in your shield. Try not to be put off by those lifelike statues that stand, crouch, and cower nearby.

And the advent of Pandora’s Temple is disappointing. Instead of leaping onto the summoned titan, that carries the temple on its back Shadow of the Colossus style, a potentially epic part of your quest is handled by a cut scene.

But it seems picky to complain. There’s much to enjoy here. An ancient city under siege. A fearsome bestial roll call, straight out of Greek mythology. You’ll swim through underwater domains that are eerie and peaceful. A dramatic sense of scale is used to great effect in one sequence.

Due to a representation of perspective, Kratos shrinks down to the size of an ant and yet you’re still able to control him. And the game’s epic score suits the onscreen mayhem perfectly. Although the sound that you might learn to love is the angelic call of the save points.

I cannot wholeheartedly recommend God Of War 2005. Parts of it are the gaming equivalent of deliberately slamming a door on your hand. However, if you have a penchant for classic monsters, swordplay and high adventure then you should definitely check out a certain Spartan’s debut because it is, for the most part, a brilliantly realised classic.

By reader Michael Veal (@msv858)

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

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It might be a new year, but most gamers still have a large backlog of games to play before they get to any new ones, as one reader reveals his priorities – from Baldur’s Gate 3 to Spider-Man 2.

By the time you read this it will either be the new year or new year will be around the corner. Either way, happy 2026!

I thought I’d list the games I’m interested in that I haven’t yet played from the previous year and the games I intend to clear from my backlog also.

I dread to think how many games I’ve yet to finish or play. Most, thankfully, were either stupidly cheap or free. Here are six that I intend to dedicate some time to giving a good go at.

The backlog

6. Baldur’s Gate 3

I think this might be one of the worst purchases I’ve made. I was taken over by the hype at the time and bought this for pretty much full price, for the Steam Deck initially, and now have it for the Legion Go. It’s not a bad game but I just struggle, having never played any similar titles previously, and the combat confuses me. I might need to watch some instructional videos to learn the basics. However, I just don’t know when I’ll have the time, given it’s a big game.

5. Cyberpunk 2077

I’ve tried this a few times and never got far this time on Switch 2 was the furthest I’ve got into the game but got distracted by other games. I really want to like it but haven’t been gripped so far. I need to either commit and finish it or accept I’m just not that invested in it.

4. The Plucky Squire

When I first saw the trailer for this game I was sold and bought it almost as soon as it released. However, it’s kind of just fine. It looks very pretty and the gameplay is fine, although I find the stealth elements very annoying. If this was a long game I’d probably cut my losses, but I’ve heard it’s only a few hours long, so I’ll try and finish.

3. Resident Evil 7 and Village

I’ve played through these previously and in the case of Village I’ve played it twice. I have been meaning to replay Resident Evil 7 again at some point and wouldn’t mind playing both before Resident Evil Requiem comes out. Although I think Resident Evil 2, and in particular the remake, is the benchmark for the series, both 7 and Village are worthy sequels.

2. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2

Spider-Man and Miles Morales were both games that I’ve enjoyed immensely and even have the Platinum for Spider-Man, which is a big deal for me. However, I’ve only played a few hours of the game on my Legion Go, after buying the PC version earlier this year. I don’t know why but I think perhaps I played the previous too much. I need to play it consistently over a few nights and then I’m sure I’ll get into it.

1. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

I played this very briefly on my Legion Go via Game Pass. However, performance either natively or via cloud was inconsistent. Therefore, I got it for cheap at Black Friday for the PlayStation 5, as streaming it from the living room to my Legion Go via the PXPlay app works a treat. I think this will be the next game I play. My very brief first impressions are that the production, in terms of art design and soundtrack, seems very polished and the premise of the story seems intriguing but I’ve never really played turn-based games before, so worry that I won’t get through the reasonably long runtime.

My 2025 wishlist

5. Metroid Prime 4: Beyond

I’ve never played any of the mainline Metroid games but did enjoy Metroid Dread. [Metroid Dread is a mainline entry; it’s the Prime games that’re spin-offs – GC] I was initially planning to get Metroid Prime 4 as I’m a bit of sucker for platform exclusives when I first get a new console. However, I’m slightly put off by some of the lukewarm reviews. I don’t know that I’ll get it for full price, but have seen it for £30 on Amazon Marketplace.

4. Assassin’s Creed Shadows

Again, I’ve never really played any in the series previously but did fancy giving this a try, especially now it’s on Switch 2. I did plan to get this with some money I’ll be getting for Xmas. However, I think I might wait. No doubt it’ll be heavily reduced in the near future and since it’s likely a hefty game I might wait until later in the year.

3. Dispatch

Although I do vaguely recall Metro’s review, this was a game that passed me by. However, after I saw it crop up on some best games of 2025 lists I watched the trailer. I haven’t played many point ‘n’ click type games but have enjoyed them when I do and I really like the look of Dispatch’s art style.

2. Ghost Of Yōtei

I played a bit of Ghost Of Tsushima earlier in the year via PS Plus and did plan on finishing it, but I had other games to play first and now my subscription to PS Plus has run out I might just splurge for the sequel instead. I haven’t played a Sony exclusive third person action game in a while and they used to be right up my street. If I’m honest though, I got a new TV free with my internet/TV package and I want a graphically impressive new game to test it out with.

1. Blue Prince

This game seems to be well regarded and I do like puzzle games and a good puzzle game isn’t always easy to come by. I might have to give this a try before my Game Pass runs out. My only slight issue is that I’ve heard you need to make notes and frankly I don’t know how feasible that is to do when playing in bed.

By reader matc7884

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

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The same company that once taunted Nintendo lawyers has created an alternative to the newly announced Joy-Con 2 controller colours.

We are shocked that peripheral maker dbrand is still going as a company, considering they’ve repeatedly gone out of their way to upset Sony and Nintendo, with their unofficial accessories and antagonistic comments.

From rude messages aimed at Nintendo’s lawyers to PlayStation faceplates that already got them sued once by Sony, they don’t seem to fear other companies at all, and so far they’ve not been given any real reason to.

This time they’re back to annoy Nintendo, who yesterday announced two new colours of Joy-Con for the Switch 2. That’s the first time they’ve been available in anything but the default colours but fans were upset that the colour changes are only minor and barely noticeable when the console is in handheld mode.

The colour scheme is exactly the same as the default Joy-Cons, so it’s hard to understand what anyone expected, but dbrand has gone ahead and announced an alternative that is a different colour for the whole Joy-Con.

Nintendo’s Joy-Con’s aren’t available as a colour pair, but instead a ‘light purple’ left controller and a ‘light green’ right one. There’ll be out on February 12 and cost £74.99, the same as the standard colours.

It all seems a very harmless new option, especially as it’s not any more expensive than the originals, and is no doubt the vanguard of a new range of colours and variants that we’ll begin to see over the coming months and years.

To dbrand though, the whole situation has been like a red rag to a bull and just a day later they’ve announced new controller skins that are the exact same colour but go across the whole Joy-Con.

‘Nintendo decided to release new Switch 2 Joy-Con colorways, but once again opted to only show hints of colour beneath the thumbsticks,’ reads dbrands’ description.

‘Naturally, we’ve painstakingly colour-matched those purple and green accents and applied them to the entire surface of the Joy-Con. As per usual, dbrand does what Nintendon’t.’

The other text on their site is even more weirdly aggressive, mocking potential customers over their weight and potential baldness. You’d think there’d be a better outlet for such anarchic passion but apparently making unofficial console peripherals is their everything.

For what it’s worth, they also have a number of other skins, some of which are actually quite nice, like the fake transparent one.

Differently coloured Joy-Cons are likely to be a prelude to limited edition consoles of various types, which Nintendo generally starts to introduce in the second year of a new console, so don’t be surprised if each new big name game from now on gets one.

What big name games Nintendo has planned for 2026 is a bit of a mystery though, as even those we do know about, like FromSoftware’s The Duskbloods, don’t have a date and are likely prone to delays.

There’s speculation there might be a Nintendo Direct in February, as there was during most of the Switch 1’s lifetime, but so far they’ve not announced anything. Instead, the first showcase of the year will be Xbox’s Developer Direct at the end of January.

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By insisting that it hasn’t been sacking developers for joining a union, Rockstar has inadvertently given clues as to which GTA 6 leaks are real.

It may be the most anticipated title in video game history but there has been precious little information, either official or unofficial, about Grand Theft Auto 6 ever since it was announced.

In the last few months, it’s mostly been in the news over allegations of union-busting at Rockstar Games, where the developer claim they sacked people for leaking secrets and not for trying to unionise.

The issue was serious enough that questions were asked in Parliament, but the very obvious flaw in Rockstar’s argument is that there have been no leaks of any note in the last year or so. Or at least that’s what everyone thought at first…

According to Rockstar, they fired over 30 employees in 2025 for leaking information on GTA 6 in an external channel, whose users included a games journalist and a developer from a rival company.

In a new statement to IGN, Rockstar insists that, ‘we took necessary action against a group of individuals across the UK and Canada who discussed highly confidential information, including relating to game features from upcoming and unannounced titles, in an insecure and public social channel.’

While there’s no way to verify any of Rockstar’s claims (whoever that games journalist is supposed to be, they haven’t spoken up) they also mention a number of other specific incidents, in an attempt to prove that sacking people for leaking information is something they’ve always done.

Rockstar claims that they sacked someone in the US in November 2023 for leaking information, as well as some in Lincoln in April 2025, and an employee in India in November 2025.

“Rockstar has pointed to its well-established zero tolerance approach to leaks, highlighting that it dismissed a Rockstar employee in Lincoln, UK in April 2025, who it alleged disclosed confidential information about GTA 6 to a third party who published the information to social…

— ben (@videotechuk_) January 8, 2026

Based on those specific dates, fans have gone back through internet chatter at the time and tried to work out what that information was – information which is now technically confirmed by Rockstar to be true, or at least true at the time that they fired the employee.

The 2023 firing seems to relate to a leak posted on Reddit, which was largely ignored at the time. You can find the details here but it’s very minor stuff about the story and gameplay mechanics and it’s no wonder little attention was paid to it.

The most substantial piece of new information is that there’s apparently a new mechanic somewhat similar to the dead eye targeting system from Red Dead Redemption 2.

Rockstar is perfectly within their rights to sack people for leaking information but, as ever, you have to question why anyone would risk their job over such trivial details. Especially as most of the leaked information wasn’t widely disseminated.

It’s less clear what the other rumours were but fans have connected one or more to leaks from a source called GameRoll, who revealed the surnames of the main characters before they were officially announced.

Again, you’ve got to wonder why someone felt it was so important to leak that information to the world, but they did reveal a number of other pieces of information.

We’ll leave it up to you as to whether you want to read them, as technically some are spoilers – although none of it is especially mind-blowing and some of it is as simple as ‘driving is best it’s ever been’.

However, the most interesting detail is another mention of a mechanic similar to the dead eye system, with both sources indicating that GTA 6 takes quite a bit of inspiration from Red Dead Redemption 2 in how it plays.

There is no guarantee that these are the leaks that the employees were sacked for but there have been so few over the years that the chances are good.

That said, not all leaks always get noticed. If a leaker doesn’t have much of a following their information can end up being completely ignored, even if it’s true.

The most famous example of this, is footage of a Prince Of Persia reboot, which was leaked onto YouTube in 2012 but which nobody noticed until 2020.

So perhaps there’s also GTA 6 leaks floating around that have been similarly ignored, or dismissed as fakes. Rockstar insists that the truth is out there, but sorting the facts from the fiction is not going to be easy.

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Nintendo had a good year in the UK, but the Switch 2 had a weaker than expected Christmas in the US and Europe, as consumer preferences shift across the world.

Despite last year seeing the launch of a new console, in the form of the Nintendo Switch 2, and PlayStation 5 sales benefiting from less competition from Xbox, last November was the worst on record for hardware sales in the US.

There are a lot of contributing factors to explain that, from rising prices – brought on by everything from tariffs to AI using up all the RAM needed to make new consoles – but the overall picture for the traditional games industry is a grim one.

We already know that Xbox had its worst year ever in the UK, in 2025, and now new figures suggest that, despite being the fastest-selling console ever, Switch 2 sales have now fallen behind that of the Switch 1 during its first Christmas – at least in the US.

The Switch 1 arrived in early March, whereas the Switch 2 came out in June, so this isn’t comparing like with like, but according to The Game Business US sales over November and December were down around 35% compared to 2017, when the Switch launched.

Apart from the release times, the Switch 1 had a very different launch line-up to the Switch 2, whose two best games (Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza) came out in the summer.

Over the course of its first year, the Switch 1 enjoyed a steady stream of critically acclaimed releases, culminating in Super Mario Odyssey as its big Christmas title. By comparison, the biggest Switch 2 first party release before Christmas was the controversial Metroid Prime 4.

It’s important to emphasise that console sales are down across the board in the US, for every format, as that’s where rising prices are hitting hardest, but the picture is more positive elsewhere.

In the UK, Switch 2 sales for the last two months were 16% lower than the Switch 1 during the same period but if you add in Switch 1 purchases then overall Nintendo hardware sales were up 7% compared to 2017. Importantly, Switch 2 sales are overall 6% higher than the Switch 1 in 2017, despite the original hardware having 14 extra weeks.

The UK is traditionally Nintendo’s weakest major international market, while its strongest in Europe is usually France. And yet apparently French Switch 2 sales were more than 30% lower compared to the first year of the Switch 1.

That means the UK sold more Nintendo hardware than France over Christmas, which is highly unusual and a sign that previously accepted norms may no longer be relevant, especially if the US market does not recover.

There are no figures for the rest of Europe but The Games Business’ Chris Dring suggests that they were closer to the French results than those in the UK, with Nintendo supposedly bemoaning the lack of a major Western game launch during the period and a ‘complicated economic landscape’. Which is putting things mildly.

Japan was the only market that performed as expected, even though sales over the last two months were down 5.5% on the Switch 1’s first year. Overall, though, Switch 2 sales were 11% higher than Switch 1 for the year – again, despite the Switch 2 having less time on shop shelves.

As Dring points out, the Switch 2 first year line-up was more attuned to Japanese tastes, especially in terms of titles like the Dynasty Warriors derived Hyrule Warriors and Kirby Air Riders, which sold well in Japan but was a flop in the UK.

How much of that is on purpose, and how much just an accident of the release schedules, is unclear but so far there are no major titles with a confirmed 2026 release date that seem likely to change the narrative, especially in terms of major Western releases.

Some of these issues are out of Nintendo’s control but if the US market continues to disappoint they, and other major publishers, may reassess their output and priorities, especially in favour of newer markets such as China and India.

However, the biggest problem for all console manufacturers at the moment is simply the rising cost of RAM and other components, which may lead to continued increases in console prices or alternatively continued decreases in profit.

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Xbox studio Obsidian Entertainment may finally be in the position to make a Fallout: New Vegas remaster or even a sequel, as rumours mount about their current plans.

Although it’s now taken as read that all Xbox games will also be released on PlayStation 5, Microsoft has never clarified that that’s their policy and prominent titles such as Fable are still technically Xbox exclusives.

It’s very probable that Fable will be announced as coming to PlayStation 5 in the Developer Direct this month, but Microsoft has implied that Forza Horizon 6 won’t arrive on Sony’s console until after the Xbox version.

However, that’s likely to be simply because the game wasn’t initially planned to be on PlayStation 5, so it’ll take a bit longer to make that version. That’s what happened with Indiana Jones And The Great Circle and Obsidian’s Avowed… which has now been confirmed to be coming to PlayStation 5 on February 17.

Action role-player Avowed was originally released on Xbox Series X/S and PC on February 18, 2025 but didn’t make much of an impact at the time. We didn’t think much of it but to accompany the PlayStation 5 launch all versions will be getting new content, including a New Game+ mode, new character races, new weapon types, and a photo mode.

Rather than wait for the Developer Direct at the end of the month, the news was announced at the New Game Plus showcase, where Obsidian described the so-called anniversary update as a ‘more rounded experience’ than the original game.

Apart from Grounded 2, which is still in early access, it’s currently unknown what else Obsidian is working on at the moment, and although there’ve been recent rumours of a Fallout: New Vegas remaster, there’s been nothing to suggest Obsidian themselves are making it – although presumably they’ll be involved to some degree.

Windows Central’s Jez Corden has suggested that Obsidian currently has four new projects on the go right now, although he claims not know if any of them are Fallout related.

Assuming one of them is Grounded 2 that still leaves three that are currently unknown (or possibly two, if the PlayStation 5 version of Avowed also counts). Obsidian has talked about wanting to do both a New Vegas remaster and a full sequel but have previously said that they just don’t have the time.

If their schedules have now cleared this would seem the obvious time to get back into the franchise, especially as the ongoing success of the Fallout TV show has not been supported by any new game releases. It’s been over a decade now since Fallout 4 and there seems little hope of a new mainline entry this decade.

What the other games could be is a complete mystery, but Corden suggests that some of the projects are quite small scale. Unlike most Microsoft first party studios, Obsidian has been allowed to experiment with smaller projects, such as Grounded and Pentiment, and while they’re not big sellers they have been critically acclaimed.

It seems very likely that Obsidian is working on at least one new title of a similar scale but with four new projects in development it would be surprising if at least one of them wasn’t a triple-A title.

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The Friday letters page laments the death of Guitar Hero and rhythm action games, as one reader claims Final Fantasy 8 is his favourite entry.

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

Perfect timing
It’s hard not to read the report on GTA 6’s progress and not be worried about another delay. My gut tells me they will hit the November release date, just because it’s a good time of the year and people are beginning to lose patience but just imagine what would happen if they released GTA 6 and it was a buggy mess or not that great.

Cyberpunk 2077 proves you can come back from anything, but the press will have a field day with GTA 6 if it doesn’t live up to expectations. And it took a long time for Cyberpunk to recover, during which there was talk of CD Projekt being sold off, so I’m going to guess that’s not the sort of reaction Rockstar and Take-Two want.

The idea that they’ve not yet started polishing does worry me though. It’s easy to assume from that, that either the game’s going to be delayed until 2027 or it will be buggy. The GTA 3 remasters show Rockstar can put out janky rubbish if they think they can get away with it, but I just hope that they have contingencies for all this and realise that not only does GTA 6 need to be perfect but it also has to actually come out at some point.
Zeiss

One or done
I really hope that Fable turns out to be good. It seems so long since the idea of a reboot was first talked about and we’ve seen so little of it in the meantime. Playground Games do good work with Forza Horizon, so I’m hopeful it’ll work, but those are two very different kinds of games.

I imagine that was part of the problem, in it taking so long, but if this doesn’t impress then that’s going to be the end of the franchise, and whatever team was making it (they’ll keep the Forza Horizon people).

It’s really terrible how so often nowadays the failure of a single game can mean the end of a whole franchise and hundreds of job losses. Here’s hoping that the Developer Direct goes well and isn’t a Suicide Squad style disaster.
Wotan

Turbo milking
Maybe I’m just slow but for me Guitar Hero was the point that I realised that the companies in charge of gaming really haven’t got a clue what they’re doing. Activision could’ve kept that franchise running forever – it was super popular when it came out and non-gamers loved it – but instead they ran it into the ground at warp speed and the whole thing was over in just a few years.

I doubt that this new game will do that well because nowadays plastic guitars are just associated with a weird fad that quickly became uncool, but that didn’t have to happen. If they’d taken their time and tried to innovate, they would be more than a one franchise company and music games might not have been killed off before their time.
Focus

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Seasonal gaming
I know it’s unusual, and there is the problem of whether you can get back the same voice actors, but I really like the idea of coming back to a game after a decade or so and giving it new DLC. A new sequel is a good excuse but I’m happy for it at any time, especially when it’s a game as good as The Witcher 3.

I’d love to see new expansions for Skyrim or anything from FromSoftware. Or definitely the story DLC that games like GTA 5 and God Of War never got. If companies are so keen on live service titles then they could create something like it just by constantly giving single-player games new content. I’d much rather that than watch them waste millions on another identikit online shooter.

I never liked the idea of episodic gaming but if they can make them more like TV seasons, where you get a new expansion every year or two, I think that would be a lot more appealing to most people. If the new Witcher 3 expansion is successful then maybe we’ll see it set a trend.
Brammo

Good publicity
I am fascinated to see what MachineGames will be allowed to get away with when it comes to Wolfenstein 3. Things are a lot different now than they used to be and for me the big question is are Bethesda going to sanitise the new game or are they going to push for it to be as anti-Nazi as possible, in order to get as much publicity as possible. We won’t know until there’s an annoucement, but it could go either way.

Speaking of MachineGames, I hope they get to make a Quake game too. It seems like they were training for that for years and I was really looking forward to a single-player game in their usual style, with optional multiplayer, just like the original game. A Rainbow Six Siega knock-off is absolutely not what I want to see from them next.
Limpton
PS: Also, where’s that second bit of Indiana Jones And The Great Circle DLC?

Power paradox
I also think there’s a reasonable (let’s say 50/50) chance of seeing a new mainline Zelda trailer this year. Something less than a minute long and not really showing much, just like they usually do. But show a new Link and a glimpse at a bit of new landscape and you’ll have fans talking for years (including me).

I do think it’s weird that the 40th anniversary is in barely more than a month, though, and there’s no new game. Come to that, Pokémon’s 30th anniversary is also next month, and they don’t seem to have announced anything for that either. Missing one anniversary is no big deal but Nintendo seem to be doing it more than not now, to the point where it just seems completely random when they do acknowledge one.

I think we have to accept that we are in a new era where Nintendo is suffering all the same problems as everyone else and they can’t put out new games as often as they used to. Things take too long now, for everyone, and presumable they’re more expensive for Nintendo too.

That’s not the end of the world, except I worry it’s going to make them more worried about experimenting. We’ve had not a hint of a new IP yet for the Switch 2 (no, Drag x Drive does not count) and I’m not sure who’d bet on when the next one will arrive.

I get that they have to pay the bills, like any other company, but I’m beginning to wish the Switch 2 hadn’t been that much more powerful after all.
Keef

Hateful eight
In all these years I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone talk about remastering Final Fantasy 8, which confuses me as I thought it was generally pretty well liked. Was that just me and the game is secretly hated or something?

I imagine the game’s not easy to remaster, because of the pre-rendered backdrops, but 9 had them as well and there’s been lots of rumours of that getting a glow-up. Admittedly that doesn’t seem to have happened yet, but I’d rather have had 8 anyway.

Am I the only person who thinks it’s their favourite Final Fantasy? I won’t say it’s the best, because it’s probably nostalgia talking, but it is the one I think of first when I think of older games.
Molb

Unknown presents
A little late to the party when it comes to what I got for Christmas, but I wanted to share my experience of opening gaming presents in front of family who don’t game at all.

My wonderful wife got me two gaming presents this year that I had asked for. On the day, when it was my turn to open a present, I first happily opened Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, the title of which alone made many eyes glaze over. I briefly explained that it was 2025’s Game of the Year and allowed the present opening to continue.

My turn came again and I open NiGHTS Into Dreams for the Sega Saturn ‘with the special controller you need to get the most out of the game’. Cue the bemused smiles and lack of follow-up questions.

Needless to say, I’m very excited to play both of my gifts. However, when the other side of the family came on Boxing Day and asked what I’d got for Christmas, I showed them the lovely dressing gown and slipper combo I’d received instead.
Ed

GC: NiGHTS Into Dreams is definitely a nice present, it’s worth quite a bit now.

Inbox also-rans
I wish I could be optimistic about the new Life Is Strange game but the last one was such a disaster I’m not sure I’ll even bother trying it. One of the worst sequels I’ve ever played.
Gibson

I’m not going to argue over Mortal Kombat Mythologies being a terrible game but I will say that the Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection was really good. I appreciate the amount of work they put into it and that even the bad games were included. Completeness matters!
Lang440bell

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