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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Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

The annual inventory dump (until 8th of January 2026) on the Epic Games Store is less about holiday cheer and more about the cold mathematics of moving digital units. For those of us tracking the daily Mystery Games, which recently tossed out heavy-hitters like Hogwarts Legacy and Disco Elysium, the current sale is the final mathematical correction of the year. The mystery continues, but the storefront has effectively become a high-stakes clearance rack where the raw percentages finally favor the consumer.

The AAA Market Correction

High-profile releases from the 2024 and 2025 cycles are seeing early price collapses as publishers scramble to meet end-of-year targets. We see titles like Alan Wake 2 and Dying Light 2 Stay Human – Reloaded Edition sitting at 70%, a significant drop for software that still carries a high level of technical polish. Even the much-discussed Star Wars Outlaws and Assassin’s Creed Mirage have hit that same 70% floor, signaling a desperate need to inflate player numbers before the next fiscal quarter begins.

Meanwhile, the latest entries in perennial franchises like EA SPORTS FC 26 and EA SPORTS Madden NFL 26 have already reached a 60% discount, proving that the annual sports cycle is a race to the bottom once the initial launch window closes. For those looking at the newest bets, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, ARC Raiders, and Borderlands 4 are holding steady at 20%, offering a minor reprieve for early adopters who missed the initial window.

The Liquidation Ledger: 2025 Holiday Discounts

Discount	Featured Games
95% Off	Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League
90% Off	Riders Republic, Ghost Recon Breakpoint, Civ VI, Borderlands 3, AC Origins, AC Valhalla, WRC 9, Watch Dogs 2
85% Off	Alan Wake Remastered, GR Wildlands, Jedi: Survivor, RIDE 5, Mafia: Definitive Edition, AC Odyssey, AC Unity, Far Cry 5, Far Cry 4, Dying Light Essentials
80% Off	The Witcher 3 CE, Mortal Kombat 1, The Crew Motorfest, Dead Island 2, Batman Arkham Knight, Batman Arkham City GOTY, It Takes Two, Mafia II & III DE
75% Off	Red Dead Redemption 2, Overcooked! 2, Hell Let Loose, Anno 1800, Jurassic World Evo 2, Slime Rancher, 3DMark
70% Off	Alan Wake 2, Dying Light 2, Outlast Trials, Star Wars Outlaws, AC Mirage, Cities: Skylines, Remnant II
60-67% Off	Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves (67%), GTA Trilogy (67%), Cyberpunk 2077 (65%), Spider-Man Remastered (60%), God of War (60%), Death Stranding DC (60%)
50% Off	GTA V Enhanced, F1 25, AC Shadows, The Last of Us Part I, Silent Hill 2, Red Dead Redemption, Planet Coaster 2
30-40% Off	Ghost of Tsushima DC (40%), Frostpunk 2 (40%), Civilization VII (35%), Manor Lords (35%), Battlefield 6 (30%)
10-25% Off	Cronos: The New Dawn (25%), Expedition 33 (20%), Stellar Blade (20%), Borderlands 4 (20%), Football Manager 26 (10%)

Seeing software like Suicide Squad hit a 95% discount is a grim autopsy of a failed project, essentially offering the title for the price of a coffee. However, the real value for a cautious buyer lies in the 60-80% brackets where polished experiences like Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3 are sitting at price points that actually respect your bank account. Take the 20% rewards and run, but don’t expect the industry to stay this vulnerable forever.

The post The Epic Games 2025 Holiday Purge is Now appeared first on Game Reviews, News, Videos & More for Every Gamer – PC, PlayStation, Xbox in 2026.

A new mystery has been discovered in Red Dead Redemption 2, that’s been in the game ever since it launched, and it might have connections to GTA 5.

Rockstar is known for creating highly detailed open worlds, and teasing fans with Easter eggs, but a new discovery in Red Dead Redemption 2 has sent players into a tizzy.

It’s been over seven years since Red Dead Redemption 2 came out, in 2018, and the western epic has continued to be popular ever since – mostly thanks to Red Dead Online mode and the breadth of its open world landscape.

While you’d think the game had long ago given up all its secrets, a newly discovered mystery involving spider webs and telegraph poles has sparked a feverish hunt within the game’s community.

This all began with a Reddit post from FL4VA-01 last month, who highlighted a spider web pattern on a telephone pole on the edge of Saint Denis. Weirdly, the pattern only appears at 3am in-game time and disappears at 4am.

Since then, and as encapsulated in a video by YouTuber Strange Man, players have discovered the same web on several other telegraph poles across the map. All these poles have a spider symbol on them and when placed over the game’s map, the end of each of the symbol’s legs correlates with where each webbed telegraph pole appears.

When you head to the centre of where this symbol sits on the map, players found another web on a tree with an ‘N’ written on it. This led players to head north where they found another pole which, when shot, has instructions to head five poles west.

After heading west, players found another pole with a ‘NW’ symbol and a guitar icon, which many took as a hint to head towards a guitar in Fort Wallace. However, players are now stuck trying to find the next clue – with some believing it relates to two bird symbols etched into a roof tile.

It’s thoroughly bonkers stuff, yet the evidence is pretty convincing. Players have verified this has been in the game from the start too, so it’s not something that’s been added recently, but whether it leads to anything of significance remains to be seen.

If you’re not convinced, there are actually spider webs in GTA 5 which similarly only appear at specific hours at two different locations, but they don’t appear to be connected to anything – or at least they haven’t sparked any treasure hunt comparable to this one in Red Dead Redemption 2.

For now, we’ll have to see if players can solve this mystery before the arrival of GTA 6, which is set to launch on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on November 19, 2026.

Red Dead Redemption 3 would presumably be their next game after that but if these clues have been in the game from the start they can’t be a hint about that.

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Red Dead Redemption’s Nintendo Switch port, released on August 17, 2023, included the 2010 game and its Undead Nightmare zombie expansion. It was a solid port developed by Double Eleven, running at 30fps with 720p docked and 540p handheld resolutions, featuring minor pop-in but sharp textures and smooth horseback riding. For a portable console, it […]

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The definitive version of one of the greatest open-world games of all time has just ridden into a new generation of hardware. Red Dead Redemption, the critically acclaimed predecessor to Red Dead Redemption 2, has launched in a massive multi-platform release.

The post Your Favourite Outlaw is Back – Red Dead Redemption is on Xbox Series X|S, PS5, Mobile & More! appeared first on TheXboxHub.

While the 2010 Red Dead Redemption is finally available on Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and the Nintendo Switch 2 with the option for owners of the game on Xbox One, PS4 or the original Switch to upgrade to the current-gen edition, Xbox players have seemingly been facing an issue doing so. Players who upgraded the original Xbox 360 release of the title to its Xbox One version have seemingly been unable to further upgrade it to the Xbox Series X/S versions.

It is worth noting that those who only had the Xbox One version have seemingly avoided the bug. Developer Rockstar Games has taken to social media to acknowledge the existence of this issue, and has said that it is working with Microsoft to try and get it resolved as soon as possible.

“We are aware of an issue where Xbox players are unable to upgrade their digital Xbox 360 version of Red Dead Redemption to the Xbox Series X/S version and are working with Microsoft to resolve it. Thank you for your patience,” wrote the developer on its support-oriented social media account.

According to PureXbox, Rockstar’s efforts have already begun to bear fruit for players affected with this issue. An update to the publication’s report about the matter notes that some users have started to see the roll out for a free upgrade for the Xbox 360 version of Red Dead Redemption. The upgrade is listed as being “Free” with a “-100%” discount applied to it, and also has a banner on its store page that this free upgrade will expire in 13 days. However, it is believed that this upgrade will be made free for all Xbox 360 version owners down the line.

The current-gen upgrade for Red Dead Redemption is priced at $49.99 for those that don’t already own the game. Subscribers to PlayStation Plus Extra/Deluxe and GTA+ can get it for free, however. The upgrade brings with it the ability for the title to run at 4K and 60 FPS, along with overall improvements to the visuals. The Nintendo Switch 2 version also gets its own benefits, including 60 FPS and support for DLSS and mouse controls.

Interestingly, PS4 and Nintendo Switch owners who already had Red Dead Redemption for their respective consoles can carry over their save data to the current-gen version. It is currently unknown whether Xbox One version owners will get similar cross-progression with the Xbox Series X/S version once they’ve completed the upgrade.

Red Dead Redemption, despite being the first game in the duology, has a story taking place after the events of Red Dead Redemption 2. The title puts players in the shoes of John Marston who has been tasked by federal agents to take down the remnants of Dutch Van der Linde’s gang. Along with the base game, the recent re-release also includes the Undead Nightmare expansion that tells a weird west-styled horror story where Marston gets to take on zombies and other spooky creatures.

For more details about Red Dead Redemption, check out our review of the PC release.

We are aware of an issue where Xbox players are unable to upgrade their digital Xbox 360 version of Red Dead Redemption to the Xbox Series X|S version and are working with Microsoft to resolve it. Thank you for your patience.

— Rockstar Support (@RockstarSupport) December 2, 2025

Red Dead fans are in for a treat as the Nintendo Switch version has received the promised free update which brings plenty bells and whistles on the Nintendo Switch 2. Gone are the rather muddy visuals, which have now been replaced by much cleaner visuals along with HDR support. You can check out what’s new… Read More »Here’s a look at Red Dead Redemption on Nintendo Switch 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The first-ever mobile version of Rockstar Games’ “Red Dead Redemption” launched Tuesday on Netflix. Per the streamer’s announcement revealing the game’s mobile debut, “In 2010, the legendary developers of The Grand Theft Auto Series surprised everyone — going from metropolitan criminal syndicates to the Wild West with Red Dead Redemption. If you’ve ever wanted to […]

Players with a Netflix subscription can now download the game, which features mobile-friendly controls, including touch-screen shooting and navigation. It's important to note that the game does not feature a multiplayer mode and players must be connected to the internet to play; offline gameplay is not available.

Rockstar Games has announced that it will be releasing Red Dead Redemption for PS5, Xbox Series XS, Switch 2, iOS, Android, and Netflix, with this version being available on December 2nd. Those who own the PS4, Switch and digital Xbox One versions will get a free upgrade to the the new version of Red Dead Redemption.

The PS5 and Xbox Series XS versions will have 60 fps, up to 4K resolution, HDR support, and enhanced image quality. The Switch 2 version will support mouse controls, DLSS, HDR, and 60 fps. PS4 and Switch players will also be able to carry over save data so they can continue where they left off. The mobile version will have touch controls, and it will be this version on Netflix too. The updated version will also be part of the PS Plus Game Catalog and the GTA+Games Library.

Review: Red Dead Redemption

Way back in 2010, we said in our review of Red Dead Redemption, “Rockstar San Diego’s latest title is an unmissable game for any fan of the genre or great action adventures in general.  We don’t often get masterpieces around here, but this is certainly one of those moments in time when gamers will look back more fondly on a dusty old six shooter than anything that involves jacking cars.  The Wild West, then, is the new New York, and Rockstar have got their work cut out for them if they want Grand Theft Auto V to come anywhere near close to the majesty of Red Dead Redemption.  A job we don’t envy.”

Source: Rockstar Games

Red Read Redemption will next month receive a free update for current gen consoles, as well as a release across mobile devices and Netflix.

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