Troy Baker, one of the most well known actors working in video games, believes generative AI could have a positive effect overall on performing arts. Baker thinks it'll cause a reaction whereby people will seek out "authentic" experiences more - live shows, live theatre - and turn away from "gruel that gets distilled to me through a black mirror".
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.
2025 has gone by in a flash, hasn't it? Well, apart from the days I've spent tabulating all your Game of the Year votes and presenting the results here - that has felt like an eternity and I think has given me permanent neck pain. But, let's not worry about that. I'm sure you'll agree it was worth the sacrifice.
The high-fantasy strategy of Total War: THREE KINGDOMS and the sci-fi extraction of Wildgate have officially rotated out as of today, January 8. In their place, Epic has launched today Bloons TD 6 as the free title available to claim until January 15 at 11:00 AM ET. Following this window, the store will shift into a stealth-focused week by giving away Styx: Master of Shadows from January 15 through January 22. While the giveaway is the most resourceful way to build your library, those who prefer other platforms can find Bloons TD 6 on the Steam Store for $13.99. For a significantly cheaper alternative, G2A (affiliate link) currently lists global keys for roughly $2.45, which is a 76% discount compared to official retail.
Bloon TD 6 – Free on Epic in January 2026
Tactical Depth Beneath a Colorful Exterior
Bloons TD 6 is far more complex than its bright art style suggests. It is a massive tower defense title featuring 24 distinct “Monkey Towers,” each with three separate upgrade paths and unique 5th-tier abilities. The game also introduces powerful “Heroes” that level up automatically during a match, providing specialized buffs or massive screen-clearing attacks. Since its release, the developer has added a steady stream of content including weekly Boss Events, four-player co-op, and “Paragon” towers that fuse multiple tier-5 upgrades into a single ultimate unit. It is a resourceful pickup for anyone looking for a strategy loop that supports both quick ten-minute sessions and long-term completionist goals across nearly 90 different maps.
Bloon TD 6 – Gameplay
Upcoming Shadow Work in the Tower of Akenash
Starting next Thursday, January 15, the mood shifts significantly with the arrival of Styx: Master of Shadows. This is a dedicated stealth-RPG where you play as a two-century-old goblin navigating a massive, vertically-designed fortress. Unlike many modern “stealth” games that allow you to fight your way out of a mistake, Styx disincentivizes direct combat, forcing you to rely on cloning yourself for diversions, using invisibility, and manipulating the environment to stay alive. If you want to jump in early or grab it on Valve’s platform, Styx: Master of Shadows is priced at $19.99 on Steam. However, you can find keys on G2A (affiliate link) for approximately $2.60, representing a 92% discount for those who miss the upcoming free period.
Styx Master of Shadows – Stealth game
Managing Your January Claims
You have exactly seven days to claim Bloons TD 6 before it is replaced by the Styx giveaway. Both of these titles represent a solid start to the year for gamers who value mechanical variety over raw graphical power. While Bloons provides a social, co-op experience for up to four people, Styx offers a challenging, single-player dive into traditional stealth mechanics. Make sure to hit the “Get” button on Epic before the refresh next Thursday to ensure these remain in your library permanently, or use the Steam and G2A links to secure them for your preferred secondary launcher at record-low prices.
The Epic Games holiday marathon continues, and if you were expecting another flashy, neon-soaked adventure like yesterday, think again. Today, December 20, Epic is taking us into the dirt, the dark, and the downright cursed with stealth FPS Blood West.
This is the fourth game in the lineup, and it further cements the fact that the “mainstream blockbuster” leaks were way off the mark. Instead, we’re getting a gritty, low-poly masterpiece that feels like a lost artifact from the late 90s.
Blood West – Retro graphics
What is Blood West?
Imagine if the original Thief games had a baby with S.T.A.L.K.E.R., and then that baby was raised in a haunted version of the Wild West.
You play as an undead gunslinger—literally brought back from the dead by mysterious spirits—to “clean up” the frontier. But this isn’t a power fantasy. In the Barren Lands, everything wants you back in the grave, and usually, it only takes a couple of hits to put you there.
Blood West – Killing spree
Why It Stands Out:
Methodical Stealth: This isn’t a “run and gun” game. If you try to play it like Call of Duty, you’ll die in seconds. You have to scout environments, crouch through the brush, and pick your shots carefully.
The Voice of a Legend: Fun fact for stealth fans—the protagonist is voiced by Stephen Russell, the same legendary voice behind Garrett from the original Thief series. It adds a massive layer of “immersive sim” credibility to the atmosphere.
Eldritch Horror: You aren’t just fighting outlaws. You’re up against wendigos, bird-men, and Lovecraftian abominations. The “Weird West” vibe is thick, dark, and genuinely unsettling.
RPG Depth: It features a deep perk system and inventory management. You’ll spend just as much time weighing the benefits of a cursed artifact vs. a silver-plated revolver as you will actually pulling the trigger.
The “Ugly-Beautiful” Aesthetic
Don’t let the “retro” graphics fool you. The low-poly, pixelated look is a deliberate choice that makes the lighting and shadows feel much more oppressive. It’s “boomer shooter” tech used to create a survival horror experience that feels massive, with three huge open-ended maps to explore.
Blood West – Naked Zombiewoman
How To Get It
Blood West (usually $24.99) is free on the Epic Games Store right now. You have until December 21 at 11:00 AM ET to add it to your library.
If you’re tired of modern games holding your hand with quest markers and regenerating health, this is the challenge you’ve been looking for. Just remember: in these lands, ammo is more precious than gold.
PUBG: Blindspot, the PUBG spin-off previously dubbed Project Arc, is set to take the early access plunge on February 5th, 2026. In case you've understadably started wondering if this is the extraction shooter which prompted my last bit of newsing about a PUBG spin-off, it isn't. That's PUBG: Black Budget, PUBG: Blindspot's all about fights in which you're staring at the tops of folks' heads.
A nice, juicy nine-minute-long Styx: Blades of Greed gameplay trailer has been plucked from the tree of stealth games today. Juicy in the sense that nine minutes is plenty of time to help ascertain whether a game looks like it could be fun, yet if we're sticking with this metaphor this is one of those apples that's really good but has a nasty bruise on it you have to avoid.
It Reaches is a stealth horror FPS captured through the lens of a police officer’s body cam as what should have been a routine operation quickly escalates into a nightmare.
In It Reaches you play as officer Jason Thompson, trapped inside an abandoned hospital’s underground facilities. You explore murky hallways, examine surroundings for helpful clues, and solve puzzles to find your way out. You’ll need … Read More
In case you missed it, Hitman's latest celebrity elusive target mission is all about Eminem. The rapper has Agent 47 take down his blonde alter-ego Slim Shady, it's all very meta and a tad less appealing to me than the cameos previously made by the likes of Bruce Lee and Mads Mikkelsen as Bond villain Le Chiffre.
That said, a new interview some IO Interactive folks have given to Variety, in which boss Hakan Abrak makes clear there will be a new Hitman coming once the studio have gotten some stuff off their plate, has caught my attention by contrasting Mr Nem with murderbald handler Diana.
"Where the hell did that goblin go?" asks a mean knight of some sort whose English accent is of questionable authenticity at the beginning of the latest trailer for Styx: Blades of Greed. This is a reasonable question! When the goblin stealth game was revealed earlier this year, it was slated for a 2025 release, except the rest of the year is in very short supply. So, this trailer acts as a double way: a confirmation of a delay, and the announcement of a proper release date.
Xplorite is a hand-drawn 2D metroidvania where you explore an alien planet while fighting rogue robots and uncovering the fate of a missing research team.
In Xplorite you play as Sy, an agent sent by the G.S.O. to investigate the mysterious disappearance of scientists on planet Nargal. The game primarily features robotic enemies controlled by a malevolent AI, which you’ll battle using an expanding arsenal … Read More
Styx: Blades of Greed - the next entry in Cyanide Studio's infiltration series, which plops players into the shoes of a caustic goblin - will now release next year.
The developers of Metal Gear Solid Delta are yet to decide what their next project will be, be it another remake or something entirely new. A remake of Metal Gear Solid 4, though, would be "pretty hard".
WTF “Little guys for big jobs” is a profoundly weird way to describe bullets.
There’s nothing slick about Blood West. It’s a slow, lumbering thing – an exercise in patience, demanding to be taken on its own terms.
My first forays into this stealth focused, first-person shooter were mired in frustration, while my seemingly interminable failures put the main character’s immortality to the test. However, once I was willing to abandon my preconceived heuristics and fully lean into Blood West’s loop, I loved every second of it.
Recently resurrected by a talking cow skull of dubious origins, the player takes control of an unnamed, undead gunslinger tasked with defeating a great evil corrupting the land. Structured as small open-worlds, players will explore haunted canyons, swamps, and mountain ranges across the American old west. Light RPG elements allow for some character customization, but make no mistake, spirits, mutants, and gaggles of gun-toting birdmen offer stiff resistance to incautious players, and maintaining a low profile is crucial.
Impulse and quick reflexes find no purchase in Blood West – every action must be carefully considered, with a solid contingency plan in place should things go awry. Stand-up fights netted poor results for this spooky cowpoke, and each encounter turned into a tactical calculus.
Take the simple act of equipping weapons – players are only able to swap between two at a time, one large and one small. Is it more prudent to take the bow, able to stealthily dispatch weaker enemies from afar? Or is it better to knife them in the back, relying on the close quarters fury of a double-barreled shotgun should that colossal wendigo stomping in the background take notice? These questions become existential as health is fleeting, and death is severely punished on the plains of Blood West.
Each defeat (and subsequent resurrection) results in a “soul flaw” — a semi-permanent status effect that negatively impacts a core stat such as health, stamina, or sneaking ability. These compound with each death, worsening up to three times. While they can eventually be remedied, these flaws do nothing to make the hostile world of Blood West any easier.
While Blood West is punishing when approached as a typical first-person shooter, it is immensely rewarding as a tactical stealth experience. Its open-ended structure offers players abundant freedom in tackling objectives, and most areas can be approached from any direction. I came to organize my play into discreet sorties, probing further into the wilderness and systematically clearing areas of enemies before returning to base camp to trade treasure with the merchant and heal up. Defeated enemies stay dead until the player rests or resurrects, and I began to feel a measure of control over my environment when I realized I could stay alive much longer with the most important tactic of all – knowing when to cut bait.
Eventually, I came to realize the majority of my deaths in Blood West were a result of my own hubris – deciding to take a snap headshot without properly scouting the area, accidentally alerting a horde of monsters in the process, or pressing into uncharted territory despite a depleted health bar. Individual enemies are generally not difficult on their own, and most can be outrun should they become overwhelming. That’s not to say that every death is the player’s fault, but I rarely felt Blood West was unfair and often found my own stubbornness and inattention to be the source of any frustration.
Careful attention is not only important for combat but also exploration. Whether it’s a moored steamboat off the beaten track or a lonely cabin on a hilltop, there is sure to be loot worth finding. As I began to explore the more far-flung corners of the map, I found powerful, unique items that literally changed the way I approached Blood West – a rifle that heals forty health with every headshot, or a trinket that offered a twenty percent boost to health, stamina, and experience points. Some of these items shaped my play for hours to come, and it’s not an exaggeration to say that I might not have rolled credits in Blood West without them.
There is one area where Blood West falls short, however – the boss fights. Each act is structured around tracking and exterminating an evil entity, and the narrative revolves around the buildup to these encounters. Unfortunately, these battles are uniformly disappointing and rely on mechanics that stray from Blood West’s strengths. Whether it’s dexterity-based dodging or battles of attrition, gone is the emphasis on thoughtful, strategic play that forms Blood West’s foundation. While certainly a letdown, these criticisms amount to little more than quibbles in the wake of all that Blood West does right.
Blood West won’t be for everyone, but those willing to go along with its demanding play and deliberate pacing will find an engaging experience that celebrates the player’s wits as much as reflexes. I won’t soon forget the feeling of being low on ammo, even lower on health and deep behind enemy lines, knowing I should turn back, but forging ahead anyway, intoxicated by what treasure could be around the next corner – because more than likely, it’s worth it.
Disclosures: This game is developed by Hyperstrange and published by New Blood Interactive LLC. It is currently available on PC, PS5, and XBX/S.This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS5. Approximately 30 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the primary campaign was completed, but the DLC campaign was not completed. There are no multiplayer modes.
Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood, Use of Alcoholand Tobacco, Violence. This game is definitely not aimed at children. While the visuals are generally low fidelity and rendered in a cartoony, non-realistic fashion, there is plenty of blood and gore. Enemies can be killed with various firearms, knives, and swords. When killed, enemies will spray blood out and can be partially dismembered with certain weapons. Alcohol and tobacco can be consumed as power-ups.
Colorblind Modes: There are nocolorblind modes available.
Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game only offers subtitles in certain instances. Primary dialogue between characters is fully subtitled, but the player’s character makes many comments throughout gameplay that are not subtitled at all. While this game offers two options for text size, this only applies to certain menus and did not impact the text in subtitled dialogue. This game relies heavily on stealth, and when playing without sound I found it more difficult to remain unseen and, consequently, died more frequently due to enemy noises that are not represented visually. The missing in-game subtitles combined with the lack of visual indicators for key contextual noises means this game is not fully accessible.
Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls.
Hoomanz flips the script on alien invasions by putting you in the paws of the local wildlife, scaring off clueless humans who’ve invaded your planet. It’s cute, quirky, and built on a fun premise — but after a couple of levels, the charm starts to wear thin, and you’ll be glad it wraps up before the novelty fades.
