EA has stressed to its community that "the values of The Sims are unchanged" as we head into 2026.

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The top five games played on the PlayStation in 2025 by US players were exactly the same as in 2024, according to Circana's Player Engagement Tracker.

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It's been another strange, difficult, and yet somehow also brilliant year for video games in 2025. Triple-A releases have been sparse again, compared to the boom times of old, with a great big GTA 6-shaped hole left in the final few months of the year. And yet once again, every gap left by the established order has been filled twice over with something brilliantly new.

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If we're plotting out the year based on unexpected obsessions, mine were (in no particular order) weird Italian genre cinema of the 60s and 70s, an unhealthy appetite for unnecessarily elaborate physical media collector's editions, folk horror in literally any form I could consume, and, apparently, No Man's Sky. According to Steam's usual end-of-year thing, the exploratory space sim is by far my most played game of 2025, accounting for - somewhat incredibly - nearly 20 percent of my total playtime.

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Just in Crime is a puzzle game where you play both a detective dog and a wizard cat using time travel to solve a few mysteries. I am a huge fan of...

The post ‘Just in Crime’ Travels Time to Solve Adorable Crimes appeared first on Indie Games Plus.

The White Cat’s Dark Affair is a cyberpunk hitman thriller where you play as an assassin making lethal decisions in a point and click style. The main character is looking to take...

The post ‘White Cat’s Dark Affair’ is a Puzzle Game for a Hitman appeared first on Indie Games Plus.

We’re not usually in the business of promoting cash shop anything – if you spend in an MMORPG, that’s your call – but we also would be remiss if we didn’t call attention to an opportunity to get free cash shop currency for simply logging in to a game too. That’s just what’s being offered […]

I think as long as you make a new year's update post before the incredibly arbitrary date of January 13th, you're still able to do so without me thinking "come on, it's almost February", which is exactly what EA did with their new years Sims update post. Perhaps reassuringly, after word came last year of EA's concerning acquisition, the post opens by doubling down on what the team has previously said regarding staying committed to their values (those values including inclusivity is welcome though I wish they'd be more explicit about who is being included). But the post also, sort of, goes into what's next for the series.

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You know what South Park feels like to me? It feels like randomly waking up in the middle of the night, looking around your bedroom as you think "cripes, it's still not morning yet?" A feeling of waiting for the inevitable, the end, or the beginning. Not so much the contents of the show, none of that needs all that much thought, more so its very existence, which is now apparently transplanting itself into Fortnite.

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Back in September, studio game director Rich Lambert told GamesIndustry.biz that the Elder Scrolls Online team were exploring a move from big expansions to smaller, more frequent updates. Jump ahead four months and, well, that's exactly what they're doing.

Wait, stop running away from me, I'm not bringing you old news reheated like the last of the (now decidedly whiffy) Christmas turkey leftovers, I come bearing fresh details like… a freshly cooked turkey that is seasoned with patch notes and battlepass infographics.

Yum.

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I found the opening 15 minutes of EvoCreo’s demo to be a laugh riot, mostly because I accidentally named my character “Help”, not “Helen”. This lent a certain urgency to all the routine scene-setting and tutorial dialogue. Help, Farmer Whatshisname is looking for you! Help, I’m adding a map feature to your tablet! Help, there are over 170 Creos to discover! Given that RPGs can be sluggish at first, I think I’m going to adopt this as standard practice going forward. Nothing gets you over the opening hump like the impression that everybody you speak to has just escaped from a burning house.

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Around May last year, the one and only Ron Gilbert of Monkey Island fame announced an RPG that was meant to be some kind of mix between classic Zelda, and Diablo, and Thimbleweed Park, that last one being another of the game designer's notable works. It never got a full reveal, or even a name, and unfortunately it seems it never will, as it's essentially been canned.

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Fortnite's latest skin-shedding has seen the battle royale take on a more Hollywood-ish guise, with the new Pacific Break map parodying the American west coast. Epic have also taken the chance to add in self-revive items you can use to bring yourself back from the brink and an option which makes building simpler.

Meanwhile, the update's rollout has seen one of the artists who created some graffiti of Back to the Future protagonist Marty McFly have to produce video evidence that their art wasn't generated by flinging a prompt at AI amid allegations from fans, which follow Epic CEO Tim Sweeney calling for game storefronts to do away with AI disclosures.

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Crikey, it's been a long time coming, but it looks like The Long Dark is finally coming to a close… next year. Up until earlier this week, the fifth and final episode of The Long Dark's Wintermute DLC was due to be released by the end of the year. As you've probably gathered, the end of the year is very close now, so as a result, episode five has been delayed, but it is a delay that at least comes with a concrete release date.

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Right now, Team Cherry's future is pretty unclear. There is some kind of Hollow Knight: Silksong DLC that'll be coming somewhere along the line, but understandably the developer is keeping their cards close to their chest in terms of what's actually next. They certainly do have some ideas on how they would expand Hollow Knight, i.e. by not making any direct sequels, much like how Silksong isn't one. But in a recent interview, Team Cherry spoke (ever so slightly) more openly about their own future and how the thing that might get in their way most is, well, death.

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World of Warcraft's Midnight expansion finally has a full release date. It'll arrive on March 2nd, 2026, setting in stone the new player housing that's debuting in early access this December and bringing forth the bunch of other changes planned alongside its main invasion storyline.

That list of changes includes the introduction of a new premium currency call Hearthsteel, which you'll need top use to buy a "small fraction" of the house-related bits and bobs being added in with Midnight. Why? Reasons, Blizzard have said.

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The original Outward was well received by players with its offering of an RPG with survival elements, where the world was dangerous and you had to use your wits to survive and make progress. Outward 2 looks to continue on and build on those foundations, making for a more densely packed and more dangerous experience as a result, and still without the compromises of fast travel or quest markers. We sat down with Guillaume Boucher-Vidal, the CEO and creative director of Nine Dots Studio, and producer Natasha Collin to play the alpha build of Outward 2, and find out what is in store for players.

“One of the four pillars of what we wanted to improve in Outward 2 was character creation, increase the the role play opportunities and like being who you wanted. And part of it is that we have three starting areas and they all come with a very different Quest that explains how a regular person ends up living a life of an adventurer.”, said Guillaume as we checked out the creation screen.

Players of Outward will be happy to know there are a lot more options available when designing your character to allow you to make them more personal, from body shape, skin colour, hair colour, styles, and various body markings. Once you have crafted how your character looks you then pick their base skill set and attributes. For those of you who really want a challenge, Deadbeat will provide you with the weakest and most vulnerable character build. While it is Guillaume’s favourite, he steered me away from that, so I settled on a book loving brute instead. Your choices will impact the dialogue options open to you and how some quests may play out, as well as your general survival skills in the world. When it comes to factions, you can only join one out and that is your faction for life. You can also not become an expert in every ability, so the decisions you make on which skills to learn need to be carefully thought through so you focus on a particular playstyle.

For this playthrough of Outward 2, we started in the new location of Haboob, a city which was cut off from the world for centuries surrounded by large flora and a persistent sandstorm. Only those who are exiled seem to leave the walls of the city, and for good reason. There is danger pretty much everywhere outside the walls for anyone unprepared. What you notice about Haboob is its distinct style of interesting architecture pierced with a purple lighting interspersed around, and a perpetual sandstorm above the vast cave system in which the city is located. This is one of three starting areas and depending on your choices you may not see Haboob until much later in the game.

You have your own apartment in Haboob, a market nearby where you can purchase items and weapons, and an opportunity to make a name for yourself, except that all comes crashing down after your first night because of Sebastian. In this story, you wake up to find a guard in your chambers looking for something only for Sebastian to kill him and place the smoking gun in your hands before disappearing. This is where the clock starts ticking as you only have 18 in-game days to track Sebastian down and prove your innocence or lose everything. Each day lasts an hour, so 18 hours seems like plenty of time to save your home, except Outward 2 is not forgiving when it comes to time. If you sleep, which you will need to, you will lose those hours. If you lose a fight and get knocked unconscious, you will lose time and have to deal with whatever situation you have woken up in.

There is no death in Outward 2, unless you play the Hardcore mode, where losing consciousness comes with a 20% chance of your save being permanently deleted. But for a regular playthrough, just because there’s no death doesn’t mean there’s no challenge. Depending on where you fall and your luck you may wake up in a friendly situation or in a dangerous one. In one situation I was found by the Menders, a group of helpers and healers that travel Auriel. They are also one of the factions you can join. They mended me up and even gave me information about Sebastian that I could use.

This was actually the first time Guillaume and Rebecca had seen this scenario play out, which was exciting for them too. I asked about how many different defeat scenarios would be in Outward 2. Guillaume responds, saying, “Hey, it’s a tough question. Like a lot, really? A lot. We need them because we die often and so if you keep seeing the same things it eventually gets frustrating. And we need different defeat scenarios for every dungeon as well. So like, that’s why it’s not a cutscene or something. It’s just a little bit of text.”

Two of the criticisms that were levied at Outward included combat being stiff and the world itself be relatively sparse leading to prolonged sections of nothing happening. Guillaume and the team took those comments to heart, and the world in Outward will be more exciting to explore while retaining a similar size to the original’s map. On map Guillaume says, “The emptiness is one of those four pillars. The first one was character creation. The second one is making a world which is more alive. And so to do that, it has to be a bit more filled. You need to have a bit more random events, to have encounters that are not hostile, to populate visually the world a bit more. It will never be as packed as, say, one of those Ubisoft type worlds where you’ve got, like, every 30 seconds you got something coming at you. We’re not trying to do that. But even as you walk around in the city, I feel like it’s luscious. It has lot of places to visit, and when you’re outside, it is more dense than the first. We’ve got it similar in scope, but because it is more packed, it feels significantly bigger.

“[There are] four regions, four cities, lots of dungeons spread across regions. Normally, we calculated we have a budget of about six to eight dungeons, like major dungeons per area, and then we have many, what we call micro dungeons, so interesting destinations that might not take you an hour to just go through.”

Combat in Outward 2 has been improved with weapons have a wider variety of moves depending on direction inputs, and you can carry different combinations of weapons to inflict damage on enemies. For my playthrough I had a small axe in one hand and an ice pick in another, allowing for quicker attacks. Later, I equipped a trident that allowed slower but more powerful attacks, while also providing ways to evade incoming attacks. Locking on to enemies and moving around them gives a fluid feel to fights, but for some fights you do need to prep.

At one point, we came across a ghost in a cave, which could not be defeated with conventional methods. Guillaume took old clothing, tore it into linen, attached it to a stick, doused it in oil, and set it on fire, as the ghost was susceptible to fire magic. Outward 2 is a game where you have to think logically to come up with solutions or suffer the consequences. I drank straight from a stream which gave my character indigestion, but had I boiled the water, I would have been fine. Magic is another viable combat route in Outward 2 with various spells to equip and learn, but is not something that I saw in the alpha build.

Outward 2 has had its development challenges with Guillaume saying that one of the biggest was switching engines from Unity to Unreal 5 partway through development – a decision made when Unity pitched the idea of the Runtime Fee which would have seen a charge applied to developers for game installs after a certain revenue point. “We were a specialist studio with 10 years of experience in Unity. Starting with Unreal was even worse, having to migrate the work that we had already done. So there is something that is lost in the process because the structure, the architecture of the game has to be thought of in terms of what are the strengths of the engine. So now we are kind of trying to massage it back into a shape that fits these strengths and weaknesses of Unreal Engine.”

Outward 2 is a project that clearly means a lot to Guillaume and the team at Nine Dots Studio, so I asked what kind of legacy do they want Outward 2 to have? Guillaume takes a moment to think before saying, “I want Outward 2 to prove that Outward was not a fluke and I want this game to be a complete expression of architecture. We’re not trying to be more accessible, but we want to attain a level of execution where the people who were not receptive to the first one. Now, we’ll know is it because we didn’t execute it well? Or was it because the vision is not for them?

“For Outward 1 I understand that some people like it was too rough for me – that’s valid. I want Outward 2 to be very tight. It’s the first game in a very long time that we are self-publishing. So it is a game that is about the emancipation of Nine Dots, and taking having more control over how we sell the game, how we communicate with players, how do we collaborate with other developers because we are acting as publishers as well.

“We were very successful with Outward, so we used some of that money to fund another studio called Ever Curious Entertainment and their game called Witherbloom. And we can just keep doing more of that if Outward 2 is successful, even a fraction of the success of Outward. Because we are self-publishing, we would keep so much of that success for ourselves and we would share that success.”

Outward 2 is a game that will appeal to those that want an RPG with survival elements, where no quest log tells you what to do, no markers to pinpoint exactly where you are, and where you deal with cold, heat, hunger, and thirst as well as the dangers around you. It is a tough experience but Outward 2 comes across as a game that will reward those who persevere. If it is successful it could also see more studios benefit as Nine Dots expands into publishing, allowing for a more varied game industry at a time when it is needed.

The name Creative means a great deal in gaming and audio circles. Known as the creator of the Soundblaster range of PC audio cards, their range has expanded to include audio products of all kinds, from the excellent Creative Pebble series of speakers through to gaming headphones with SXFI technology. The Creative Aurvana Ace 3 is the newest edition of their ANC-equipped true wireless earbuds, offering a cost-effective alternative to Apple’s AirPods Pro 3 and the Galaxy Buds Pro 3.

The Aurvana Ace 3 are stem-style true wireless earbuds, available in an eye-catching translucent purple colourway, that’s matched through the charging case and each earbud. There is something quite retro about their look, with a mid-noughties vibe that brings an unexpected wave of nostalgia with it. When it’s paired with the silver band running down each stem, they’re certainly unique-looking, but if you’re hoping for a more understated option, this isn’t it.

They feel light in the hand, which diminishes that premium sensation, but it does mean that you can easily wear them for hours without any fatigue. The earbuds are rated for 7 hours, which is an hour less than the AirPods Pro 3 but an hour more than the AirPods Pro 2, with a total of 26 hours of playback with the charging case, all of which played out pretty effectively in our testing.

The charging case lid hinge is a little flimsy, but the body of the case itself feels solid and is the perfect size for chucking in your pocket. It also includes wireless charging, which is a very welcome inclusion. At half the price of their top-end rivals, it’s a good start for the Aurvana Ace 3.

The audio pairing and setup is a little more convoluted than its core competitors, though, as there’s a suite of features to set up to make the most of the Ace 3. The Creative app handles nearly everything here, but you also need the separate SXFi app, which seems unnecessary.

First, and perhaps most importantly, you use Mimi sound personalisation to create a listening profile. This involves a short hearing test – best done in a quiet space – and the results then tailor the output to your own ears. It’s a stark difference, particularly factoring in my 40+ year old hearing, and the years of damage I’ve done to them by, well, listening to headphones that I’ve turned up too loud.

After that, you can choose your EQ presets to tailor the audio to your personal taste, or delve deeper into a custom EQ setup. Even if you’re not clued up about audio, frequencies and kHz, it’s all easy enough to mess around with in search of the roght sound.

The Aurvana Ace sound very good indeed, even without any tuning. Part of that is the ability to utilise the best audio codecs out there, translating LDAC, AptX Lossless and AptX Adaptive into a seamless listening experience. The Ace 3 are equipped with Snapdragon Sound, so if your Android device meets the right specification, not only will you benefit from the high resolution audio, you’ll experience fewer connection issues, and benefit from exceptionally low latency, making your mobile gaming just that bit more enjoyable.

Putting them to the test with some of my favourite tracks, I was immediately surprised by just how detailed the audio was from the Ace 3. Billy Eilish’s No Time To Die sounded suitably epic, with her vocals sounding so precise that it felt as though she was singing directly to me.

Changing tack, the brutal cacaphony of Pupil Slicer’s Heather was delivered in spades, losing none of its venom on its way into your ears. It’s always incredibly satisfying to hear new elements in songs, and the Ace 3s combined technologies make that a certainty. The dual xMEMS drivers here certainly help with audio separation, and bass response in particular is fantastic, being rounded and full, without becoming overwhelming.

The hybrid ANC proved moderately effective at blocking out background noise, though it is a clear step behind the Airpods Pro 3 and Bose Quietcomfort Ultra, and on a windy walk to work, they struggled against the wind quite a bit. Still, at this price point, it’s effective enough, and with the quality of the audio itself being so high, I don’t think anyone will be too disappointed with their performance.

As with many less expensive earbuds, the touch controls aren’t quite as reliable as their more expensive brethren. The Aurvana Ace 3 does keep things pretty simple, and there’s only one touch point on the main body of each earbud, rather than a panel or squeezable section. That does make changing the volume less efficient, requiring a long press on each earbud to move the volume up and down, and if you’re running that’s a real pain, but it does work, once you’ve adapted to it.

Phone call quality is good, possibly helped by the ability to use Snapdragon Sound via the connection to my Honor Magic V5, and family members confirmed that my voice was clear and easy to hear during calls. It helps to wrap up a compelling package from Creative, and if you’re looking for an excellent-sounding pair of earbuds at a mid-range pricepoint, you’d be hard pressed to find better.

The Aurvana Ace 3 are amongst the easiest earbuds to live with in this price bracket, and though their RRP is £140, you can currently snag them for a slightly bonkers £90 via the Creative website. The Nothing Ear (3) are also worth considering, currently coming in at £139.99, though they have worse battery life than the Ace 3 and are noticeably heavier too.

Blizzard has promised players of World of Warcraft that player housing, which launches in a limited form today (tomorrow across Europe), is going to be expanded in every patch and in future expansions released for the online game.

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Fortnite fans are saying "no to AI slop" after some believe they've discovered AI-generated images in Epic's tentpole battle royale game.

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