Among Us201811 factsInnerSlothGame page →Among Us launched quietly on iOS and Android on 15 June 2018 to little attention, often with only 30-50 concurrent players in its early days.en.wikipedia.orgIt exploded in popularity in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic via Twitch and YouTube; streamer Sodapoppin is credited with first popularizing it on Twitch in July 2020.en.wikipedia.orgIt peaked at around 3.8 million concurrent players in late September 2020 and surpassed 100 million downloads that month.en.wikipedia.orgIt was built by a tiny three-person InnerSloth team: Marcus Bromander, Forest Willard and Amy Liu.en.wikipedia.orgIts maps include The Skeld (a spaceship), MIRA HQ, Polus, The Airship (drawn from InnerSloth's Henry Stickmin series) and The Fungle.en.wikipedia.orgA planned sequel, 'Among Us 2', was announced in August 2020 but cancelled that September so the team could rework the wildly popular original instead.en.wikipedia.orgU.S. Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar streamed it in October 2020, drawing nearly 700,000 concurrent Twitch viewers.en.wikipedia.orgThe slang 'sus', popularized by the game, was added to Merriam-Webster in September 2022.en.wikipedia.orgIt runs on the Unity engine; the Nintendo Switch version was the highest-earning version in December 2020 with 3.2 million digital units.en.wikipedia.orgIt spawned Among Us VR (10 November 2022) and a Paramount+ animated series.en.wikipedia.orgInnerSloth used Among Us profits to launch the indie-publishing label 'Outersloth' in 2024.en.wikipedia.orgRead 9 more facts
Hellblade II: Senua's Saga202411 factsNinja Theory · Xbox Game StudiosGame page →Ninja Theory used over 370 individual photogrammetry captures for the environments — against just one in the first game — scanning 21 real Icelandic locations by drone across 11 days.windowscentral.comMelina Juergens was the studio's video editor, asked to stand in for performance-capture tests on the first Hellblade after an actress dropped out — and ended up cast as Senua essentially by accident. She returned to play the role again here.theguardian.comEvery voice inside Senua's head was recorded with a binaural Neumann dummy head microphone to produce the series' signature 3D voices effect.asoundeffect.comNordic folk group Heilung worked with the team from early development, creating songs and experiments that fed into both the music and the sound design, and travelled to Iceland with the audio team for location recording.asoundeffect.comThe locked 30fps and permanent 21:9 letterboxing drew real player pushback at launch, spawning complaint threads and a "No Black Bars" mod — though a 60fps performance mode arrived later with the 2025 Enhanced update.nexusmods.comCombat choreography was partly inspired by Game of Thrones' "Battle of the Bastards," with 75 days of motion capture and military-style training for the cast.en.wikipedia.orgMelina Juergens won Best Performance at The Game Awards 2024, becoming the first person to win that award twice for the same role — she also won in 2017 for the original Hellblade. The game also took Best Audio Design at TGA 2024 and Technical Achievement at the 2025 BAFTAs.en.wikipedia.orgIt served as a flagship real-time showcase for Unreal Engine 5, demoed by Epic Games at State of Unreal presentations.polygon.comA native PS5 version, Hellblade II – Enhanced, arrived on 12 August 2025, with a Deluxe Edition bundling a native PS5 port of the 2017 original and a 60fps performance mode added across platforms.en.wikipedia.orgIn July 2026 Microsoft divested Ninja Theory as part of roughly 3,200 Xbox layoffs and the sale of four studios; reporting indicates the studio's next Senua project continues under new ownership, targeting 2027.variety.comReviews landed at Metacritic 81 on both PC and Xbox Series X, but split hard at the extremes — five out of five from Eurogamer and GamesRadar+, against a 6/10 from GameSpot.metacritic.comRead 9 more facts
Madden NFL 27202611 factsEA Orlando · EA SportsGame page →Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams is the cover athlete — the first Bears player ever on a Madden cover.nfl.comThe cover pays homage to Michael Jordan's 1985 Air Jordan "Jumpman" poster, with the Chicago skyline added at Williams' request; it was revealed at an EA event at Chicago's Navy Pier.espn.comEA calls it the first console Madden to run above 60 FPS, with the PS5 Pro performance mode targeting 100–120 FPS; the Switch 2 version runs at 60 FPS docked and 40 FPS handheld.ea.comThe "Tush Push" quarterback sneak is officially in the game through a new QB Sneak Meter.ea.comIts new Persona Engine gives players more than 65 "Persona DNA" types.ea.comNFL RedZone host Scott Hanson provides weekly recaps, halftime reports and breaking-news audio in Franchise mode.ea.comSuperstar mode adds three new playable positions (tight end, edge rusher and free safety), and a Hall of Fame career ends with an induction speech in Canton.ea.comBall carriers use "ML Ball Carrier Pathing", a machine-learning technique called behavior cloning.ea.comA separate Madden NFL 27 Arcade Edition on Apple Arcade is the series' first release on that service.ea.comIts 80-song licensed soundtrack, curated by EA's president of music Steve Schnur, is led by Ozzy Osbourne and Metallica.americansongwriter.comA closed beta ran from June 11 to 14, 2026, open only to players in the US and Canada.ea.comRead 9 more facts
RuneScape: Dragonwilds202511 factsJagexGame page →Dragonwilds is the first standalone game in the RuneScape universe and the franchise's first release on consoles.jagex.comIt was announced on March 31, 2025 — barely two weeks before it launched into Steam Early Access on April 15, 2025.dragonwilds.runescape.wikiDuring its closed alpha tests in 2024 the game ran under the placeholder name "Aqua Coyote".dragonwilds.runescape.wikiAn early concept would have set the entire game in the Abyss before the team moved it to the new continent of Ashenfall.dragonwilds.runescape.wikiMore than 12,000 players took part in four to five rounds of alpha testing before Early Access.gamerant.comJagex expected to sell around 200,000 copies in Early Access; it sold 1.3 million.gamingbolt.comIn its first week it was the No. 1 premium seller on Steam and the second highest-grossing Steam game behind Counter-Strike 2.pcgamesinsider.bizDuring its China launch week, Chinese buyers accounted for 41% of weekly sales — far more than Jagex expected for a game it saw as mainly Western-facing.allkeyshop.comJagex says it found, logged and fixed 2,665 bugs in the run-up to the 1.0 release on September 15, 2026.secure.runescape.comThe 1.0 launch landed in RuneScape's 25th anniversary year and came day-one to Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus Extra/Premium.jagex.comThe soundtrack uses period instruments such as the nyckelharpa, citole, dulcimer and viola da gamba, drawing on traditional music of the British Isles and Northern Europe.runescape-ost.bandcamp.comRead 9 more facts
Wardogs202611 factsBulkhead · Team17Game page →WARDOGS sold 1.25 million copies in its first 24 hours and two million within five days of its Steam Early Access launch, peaking above 428,000 concurrent players.aroged.comBulkhead had laid off roughly 20% of its staff every year for six years; CEO Joe Brammer said WARDOGS' success meant 2026 would be the first year without layoffs.aroged.comThe studio said 400,000 copies would secure its survival and 600,000 would have been an ordinary result.thegamebusiness.comBulkhead originally pitched the game to its then-owner Tencent; after disagreements the studio split from Tencent and the game found a publisher in Team17.thegamebusiness.comBefore launch, Bulkhead released a tongue-in-cheek "10 Reasons Why" video listing reasons not to buy the game.thegamebusiness.comThe core mode is built on the Arma 3 "King of the Hill" mod, and its creators Sa-Matra and Roid Rage worked with Bulkhead from the start.us.gamesplanet.comThe design of the Control Zone maps was informed by research trips to the country of Georgia.gamingbolt.comThe game's low-end "Potato Mode" graphics preset sits alongside a high-end "Overkill Mode".gamingbolt.comBulkhead checks applicants' Steam playtime when hiring, wanting developers who genuinely play shooters.fandomwire.comThe developers said there would be no microtransactions during Early Access, with monetization planned only from the 1.0 release.insider-gaming.comBulkhead, based in Derby, UK, is also known for the World War II shooter Battalion 1944.en.wikipedia.orgRead 9 more facts
Arma 4202710 factsBohemia InteractiveGame page →Arma 4's development was officially confirmed on May 17, 2022 during a Bohemia Interactive Twitch livestream titled "The Future of Arma," alongside the "Road to Arma 4" retrospective trailer.thexboxhub.comThe 2027 release window was revealed almost by accident — briefly flashed on screen at the end of Bohemia's 25th Anniversary Concert in Prague on October 16, 2024 as a low-key easter egg rather than a formal announcement.gamespot.comThe game runs on Enfusion, Bohemia's proprietary in-house engine built by a roughly 30-person team since 2017, replacing the Real Virtuality engine the studio had used since the original Operation Flashpoint.bohemia.netArma Reforger (2022) was explicitly positioned by Bohemia as a stepping stone for Arma 4 — a live testbed used to trial the Enfusion engine, netcode and modding tools years before the mainline release.en.wikipedia.orgArma 4 will be the mainline series' first console release, launching on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S alongside PC — a first for a franchise built around PC mod culture.comicbook.comIn a July 2025 studio-tour video, Bohemia executive producer Natalia Agafonova was filmed beside an office mural showing a fictional Cold War island north of Poland and south-east of Sweden; asked if it was Arma 4's map, she said she could "neither confirm nor deny."opencritic.comBohemia's chief game developer Filip Doksanský said third-party engines such as Unreal cannot handle the terrain, physics and ballistics scale Arma needs — explaining the in-house Enfusion effort — and reported the new map at roughly 900 km² against Arma Reforger's ~160 km².dualshockers.comEnfusion's Workbench toolkit hands modders the exact same tools Bohemia's own developers use, continuing a modding-first philosophy that dates to Operation Flashpoint in 2001 — the culture that produced DayZ as an Arma 2 mod.thexboxhub.comBohemia Interactive was founded on May 19, 1999 in Prague by Marek Španěl, Ondřej Španěl and Slavomír Pavlíček; its debut game Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis (2001) established the realistic Cold War military-sim identity Arma 4 explicitly returns to.en.wikipedia.orgThe first piece of Arma 4 music made public, "The Last Man" by Dominik Svoboda, premiered live at Bohemia's 25th Anniversary Concert performed by the Czech National Symphony Orchestra — the same night the 2027 window leaked out.bohemia.netRead 8 more facts
Clockwork Revolution202710 factsinXile Entertainment · Xbox Game StudiosGame page →Clockwork Revolution was announced at the Xbox Games Showcase on June 11, 2023 with a time-bending reveal trailer.news.xbox.comIt is set in Avalon, a Victorian steampunk metropolis with districts including the working-class slum "The Tangle" and the wealthy "Midward," featuring flying steam trains, automaton servants and clockwork prosthetics worn by the elite.news.xbox.comThe central device is the "Chronometer": players travel to pivotal moments in Avalon's past, and choices made there ripple forward via a butterfly effect that visibly transforms the present-day city.news.xbox.comAntagonist Lady Ironwood uses time travel herself — to entrench Avalon's class hierarchy in her favour — making time manipulation a tool of both the player and the villain.en.wikipedia.orgThe character-creation system, which lets players fully customise protagonist Morgan Vanette and has NPCs react to her traits, was called "the single most expensive asset that the studio has ever made."news.xbox.comBy August 2025 the script had reached at least 750,000 words of dialogue.en.wikipedia.orginXile partnered with Shapeshifter Games — a studio founded by former Volition developers — in January 2024 to help co-develop the game, and recruited additional staff from Rockstar Games for cinematics, Bungie for combat design and Blizzard for encounter design.en.wikipedia.orgThe five-minute gameplay deep-dive finally arrived at the June 2025 Xbox Games Showcase — two years after announcement — showing time powers "Slow" and "Reverse," the latter letting players rewind objects and retrieve fired bullets.news.xbox.comAt the June 2026 Xbox Games Showcase, Microsoft confirmed it as an Xbox console exclusive rather than a timed one — notable amid Xbox's broader shift toward multiplatform releases, since press had widely expected a PS5 version.gamerant.cominXile Entertainment was founded in 2002 by Interplay co-founder Brian Fargo; the studio name reflects the founders feeling "in exile" after leaving Interplay. Microsoft acquired it in November 2018, and Clockwork Revolution is inXile's first full AAA title made under Xbox Game Studios.en.wikipedia.orgRead 8 more facts
Dragon's Dogma II202410 factsCapcom Development Division 1 · CapcomGame page →At launch the game was review-bombed on Steam over microtransactions selling items — the character editor, fast-travel Portcrystals, Rift Crystals, Wakestones — that were "easily acquired just by playing the game," dragging its Steam rating to Mostly Negative despite strong critic scores.cgmagonline.comPC players also hit heavy performance problems in crowded areas like Vernworth; Capcom publicly apologised on Steam and committed to reducing CPU and GPU load, with players later reporting jumps from around 40-45fps to 55-60fps after patches.cgmagonline.comThe game deliberately ships with a single save slot. Itsuno explained the choice as discouraging save-scumming and forcing players to live with the consequences of their decisions — continuing a controversial design from the 2012 original.thegamer.comThe Pawn system returns and expands: players travel with a customisable main Pawn plus two more recruited from other players' worlds, making other people's characters a core part of exploration and combat.en.wikipedia.orgHideaki Itsuno left Capcom on 31 August 2024, about five months after launch, ending a 30-year tenure that also included directing the Devil May Cry series — saying he would start developing a new game "in a new environment."thegamer.comIt runs on Capcom's RE Engine — the same technology behind Resident Evil and Monster Hunter — with a seamless open world reported to be roughly four times the size of the original's.en.wikipedia.orgCapcom released a free standalone Character Creator and Storage tool on 7 March 2024, two weeks before launch, letting players build their Arisen and main Pawn in advance — down to adjusting individual teeth — and carry the data straight into the full game.tryhardguides.comIn June 2026 Capcom reversed its launch monetisation entirely, delisting most of the paid DLC and microtransactions and permanently discounting the base game — making previously purchasable content earnable instead, timed to the "Dark Arisen" expansion and a Switch 2 release.gamerant.comIt was Capcom's first $69.99 title, matching that price across PS5, Xbox Series X|S and Steam.en.wikipedia.orgCapcom's official platinum-titles list records 4.20 million units sold as of 31 March 2026, up from 2.5 million within a fortnight of launch.capcom.co.jpRead 8 more facts
Escape the Backrooms202510 factsFancy Games · Secret ModeGame page →The whole genre traces to a single anonymous 4chan reply posted on 12 May 2019, describing "noclipping out of reality" into an endless yellow-wallpapered office — the room that became Level 0.en.wikipedia.orgThe developer, known only as "Fancy", built the first version as a one-week personal challenge to scare his friends; it only became a commercial project after his YouTube devlogs took off.en.wikipedia.orgIt spent more than three years in Early Access — from 11 August 2022 to the 1.0 release on 23 October 2025 — an unusually long run for a small-team horror game.wearesecretmode.comLevels are reached from The Hub, an underground tunnel area with ten doors and an abandoned M.E.G. base — a nod to the "Multiversal Exploration Group" from the wider community-written Backrooms lore.escapethebackrooms.fandom.comLevel 37, The Poolrooms — one of the game's most recognisable areas — comes from a separate creepypasta by Jared Pike rather than the original 4chan post.en.wikipedia.orgThe 1.0 launch added over twenty new levels, pushing the total past fifty environments, and drove the game to a new all-time concurrent-player record roughly double its Early Access peak.en.wikipedia.orgAlmost all of the sound design and the entire eleven-track official soundtrack are the work of one person, Oliver Kauzlaric, who releases music as insOmic — the only exceptions are the novelty songs heard on the "Level Fun" level.soundcloud.comCritics were far cooler than players: GameSpot scored it 6/10 and called the core loop sparse, while the Steam user rating sat around 88% positive across more than 44,000 reviews.en.wikipedia.orgBecause the Backrooms is collectively authored internet folklore with no single rights holder, dozens of unrelated commercial games use the same setting — and A24 announced a live-action Backrooms film directed by Kane Parsons, entirely separate from this game.en.wikipedia.orgAfter the Early Access success, Blackbird Interactive joined as co-developer to handle technical scaling and the console ports, which reached PS5 and Xbox Series X|S in May 2026 and Nintendo Switch 2 in July 2026.gematsu.comRead 8 more facts
Everwild10 factsRare · Xbox Game StudiosGame page →Everwild was cancelled on 2 July 2025 as part of sweeping Microsoft and Xbox layoffs that cut roughly 9,000 jobs globally — it never received a store listing, a playable public demo or a release date.eurogamer.netIt was revealed on 14 November 2019 at Xbox's X019 event in London as a brand-new IP from Rare, introduced with a cinematic trailer built around beings called the "Eternals."ign.comA second trailer at the July 2020 Xbox Games Showcase expanded on the Eternals concept, but Rare studio head Craig Duncan admitted the team was "still playing around with gameplay ideas."polygon.comIn June 2021 the project was reported to have been "completely rebooted" after a leadership reshuffle; Alien: Isolation lead designer Gary Napper joined as design director that November.videogameschronicle.comGregg Mayles — director of Banjo-Kazooie and Sea of Thieves — took over as lead after the 2021 restructuring; he left Rare after 35 years following the cancellation.videogameschronicle.comBy 2023 sources described the design as having drifted toward life simulation — "a bit more Viva Piñata than a survival game."gamingbolt.comIn October 2024 Xbox's Phil Spencer visited Rare and played Everwild hands-on, with reports saying parts of it were in playable form — the last substantive public sign of life before cancellation.xboxera.comBetween the July 2020 trailer and the 2025 cancellation, Xbox gave almost no public updates for roughly five years.windowscentral.comIt was cancelled alongside The Initiative's Perfect Dark reboot and other unannounced ZeniMax projects, with The Initiative shut down entirely.polygon.comComposer Robin Beanland — Rare's long-time music director, behind Killer Instinct, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Jet Force Gemini and Sea of Thieves — was scoring Everwild alongside Sea of Thieves; no soundtrack was ever released.instagram.comRead 8 more facts
Football Manager 27202610 factsSports Interactive · SEGAGame page →Sports Interactive announced the November 10, 2026 global launch on September 29, 2026, with a PS5 physical edition following on November 20.footballmanager.comA playable Launch Preview, available one to two weeks before release, replaces the series' old Beta / Advanced Access period.footballmanager.comIt follows Football Manager 26, whose new interface was poorly received; FM27 reworks the UI with a six-section main menu, full-screen cards and ultrawide/4K support.invenglobal.comThe mobile version, FM27 Mobile, is available exclusively through Netflix, and the PC version launches day one on PC Game Pass.footballmanager.comAn expanded DFB licence made Germany's men's national team officially licensed for the first time in the series' history.footballmanager.comBrighton & Hove Albion renewed their partnership with the series for an eighth consecutive season.footballmanager.comNew skill moves were created from Hawk-Eye tracking clips and bespoke motion capture, and managers can make "Tactical Tweaks" from the touchline.footballmanager.comMatch days add time-of-day lighting, pitches that wear down in bad weather, emotional crowds and tifos.footballmanager.comCup draws and Transfer Deadline Day return alongside a redesigned news feed.footballmanager.comTraining was overhauled with a new Tactical Effectiveness and Tactical Complexity system.footballmanager.comRead 8 more facts
Grim Fandango199810 factsLucasArtsGame page →It was LucasArts' first adventure with 3D characters over pre-rendered backgrounds, running on a new engine called GrimE — the studio's first adventure since Labyrinth not built on SCUMM.en.wikipedia.orgGrimE was scripted in Lua, one of the earliest major uses of the language in a commercial game.en.wikipedia.orgThe story runs across four acts, each set on a consecutive Day of the Dead, one year apart.en.wikipedia.orgTim Schafer found the Day of the Dead through an academic route — a Berkeley folklore class taught by Alan Dundes — and deliberately researched the tradition's real history to avoid what he called "a really crass cultural appropriation".killscreen.comPeter McConnell's score was recorded with live musicians from San Francisco's Mission District, including a mariachi band, and blends big band, bebop and swing with orchestral and Latin American folk music.discogs.comIts tank controls were the game's most divisive feature. Schafer later conceded "a lot of people did not think so and they thought it was really hard to control Manny" — the 2015 remaster added point-and-click controls built on a fan mod by Tobias Pfaff.eurogamer.netFans kept the game alive with the open-source ResidualVM engine, and Double Fine consulted that community when building the official remaster — which also meant recovering original assets from decade-old Digital Linear Tape backups.en.wikipedia.orgSchafer has put the budget at $3 million against roughly 500,000 lifetime copies — the acclaimed flop whose modest sales are routinely cited in LucasArts' retreat from the adventure genre. Several of its staff went on to found Telltale Games.en.wikipedia.orgThe Guardian called it "the last genuine classic to come from LucasArts", and Eurogamer argued its film-noir-meets-adventure fusion was the first of its kind, later echoed in Ace Attorney and L.A. Noire.en.wikipedia.orgIt has been treated as a museum piece as well as a game: a candidate for the Smithsonian's "The Art of Video Games" exhibit in 2012, sought by MoMA for its permanent Architecture and Design collection, and featured in ACMI's "Game Masters" exhibition.en.wikipedia.orgRead 8 more facts
Grounded 2202510 factsObsidian Entertainment · Xbox Game StudiosGame page →Grounded 2 is set in Brookhollow Park, a new and much larger location than the original game's suburban back garden.en.wikipedia.orgRideable insect mounts — "Buggies" — were one of the most requested additions after the first game and became a core reason Obsidian built a sequel rather than patching them in; creative director Justin Vazquez said the mounts and the new map "had to be developed together."en.wikipedia.orgIGN reported the sequel exists partly because Obsidian was "running out of room" inside the original game's back garden.en.wikipedia.orgThe sequel switched to Unreal Engine 5 and was revealed at the Xbox Games Showcase on June 8, 2025.en.wikipedia.orgIt launched via a dual early-access model — Steam Early Access and Xbox Game Preview simultaneously — on July 29, 2025, explicitly to gather player feedback before full release; a PS5 early-access launch followed on August 11, 2026.en.wikipedia.orgThe post-launch roadmap so far: "Hairy and Scary" (September 2025, tarantula boss AXL), "Toxic Tangle" (January 2026, the Garden area and Ladybug Buggy) and "Beat the Heat" (April 2026, the Sinkhole Anthill and King Dozer boss).en.wikipedia.orgWithin two weeks of the early-access launch the game had surpassed 3 million players; for context the original Grounded went on to exceed 20 million.en.wikipedia.orgThough commonly attributed to Obsidian alone, Grounded 2 is officially credited as co-developed by Obsidian Entertainment and Eidos-Montréal.xbox.comIt was nominated for Best Early Access Game at the Golden Joystick Awards 2025.en.wikipedia.orgGrounded 2 was one of three games Obsidian shipped in 2025, alongside Avowed in February and The Outer Worlds 2 in October.en.wikipedia.orgRead 8 more facts
Kirby Air Riders202510 factsSora · NintendoGame page →Masahiro Sakurai returned to direct a true sequel to his own 22-year-old GameCube cult game — his first Kirby directing credit since Kirby Air Ride in 2003.en.wikipedia.orgSakurai personally hosted two dedicated "Kirby Air Riders Direct" presentations — a 45-minute reveal on 19 August 2025 and a full hour-long deep dive on 23 October 2025.en.wikipedia.orgCity Trial returns on a single large map called Skyah supporting up to 16 simultaneous players; Sakurai chose one map over porting the original's several to control costs and keep machine stats balanced.en.wikipedia.org"Road Trip" is an all-new single-player story mode built from challenges and minigames tied to the other modes — critics compared its structure to Super Smash Bros. Brawl's Subspace Emissary.en.wikipedia.orgSakurai first teased the then-secret project in October 2024 on his YouTube channel "Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games," describing it as a top-secret game made after that series and Smash Ultimate's DLC wrapped.en.wikipedia.orgIt was co-developed by Bandai Namco Studios and Sakurai's own Sora Ltd., and is the first game built on Bandai Namco's proprietary SOL-AVES engine, in development since 2019.en.wikipedia.orgSakurai insisted on orchestral composers rather than the Eurobeat and fusion typical of racing games, and required that every melody be singable by children; two live orchestra sessions captured over fifty songs.en.wikipedia.orgAt the close of the October 2025 Direct, Sakurai confirmed there would be no DLC and no sequel, saying he had "thrown everything I have into this game from the start."en.wikipedia.orgOn 11 December 2025, about three weeks after launch, Sakurai announced the development team would disband after one final balance update — a patch that mainly reworked the character Rick's stats.en.wikipedia.orgIt debuted at number one in Japan with 195,594 physical copies in its first week and reached 1.87 million worldwide by March 2026, the fifth best-selling Switch 2 game.en.wikipedia.orgRead 8 more facts
Mario Kart World202510 factsNintendo EPD Production Group No. 9 · NintendoGame page →It launched at $79.99 — $20 above the standard Switch-era price — drawing heavy pre-launch criticism for costing more than most AAA games.en.wikipedia.org"Free Roam" is the first true open world in Mario Kart history, letting players drive anywhere across the interconnected map — Rainbow Road being the sole area you cannot reach freely.en.wikipedia.orgRaces support up to 24 players, double the count of any previous Mario Kart.en.wikipedia.orgThe new "Knockout Tour" mode runs one long cross-world race in which four of the 24 racers are eliminated at each of six checkpoints.en.wikipedia.orgThe soundtrack involved genuine live band recording sessions — the first time the series worked with outside musicians, bringing in jazz-fusion band Dezolve and T-Square's Satoshi Bandoh and Masato Honda.nintendo.comNintendo explicitly rejected the name "Mario Kart 9": producer Kosuke Yabuki said that is what they would have called a game that merely added courses.theverge.comIt shipped as a Switch 2 launch bundle on 5 June 2025; despite US tariff turmoil delaying pre-orders, Nintendo held both the console and the console-plus-game bundle at their originally announced prices.theverge.comNintendo gave it a dedicated 15-minute "Mario Kart World Direct" on 17 April 2025, devoted entirely to this one game.gamerant.comA new "Rewind" feature lets players reverse their own kart's recent movement to redo a failed jump — while everyone else keeps racing, making it a genuine risk/reward trade rather than a free undo.mariowiki.comUpdate 1.1.2 added 202 "intermission" route segments to the random online pool, which then dominated matchmaking and triggered a player backlash and Metacritic review-bombing; update 1.3.0 in September 2025 partially reverted it and eased character unlocking.en.wikipedia.orgRead 8 more facts
Persona 610 factsP Studio · SegaGame page →Persona 6 was formally revealed on June 7–8, 2026 at the Xbox Games Showcase with a teaser trailer only — confirming PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC (day-one Game Pass) but no release date.gematsu.comIt is the first numbered mainline Persona game since Persona 2: Eternal Punishment (2000) not directed by Katsura Hashino, who left P-Studio's leadership after Persona 5 to found Studio Zero, the team behind Metaphor: ReFantazio.en.wikipedia.orgSega's own announcement describes it as "an all-new tale set in a never-before-seen locale" with a completely fresh, standalone story and new cast — explicitly requiring no prior knowledge of the series.sega.co.jpThe reveal was timed to the Persona franchise's 30th anniversary — the original Revelations: Persona shipped in 1996 — with Atlus and Sega noting the series has sold over 30 million copies worldwide.gematsu.comThe teaser is a slow, rain-soaked monochrome pan across a graveyard ending on a headless statue — a sharp tonal break from Persona 5's vivid idol-pop styling that commentators read as a return to the moodier tone of the earliest Persona games.engadget.comAtlus effectively confirmed the game long before announcing it: recruitment postings for the Persona team — including a "Producer, Persona Team" listing and an Assistant Technical Artist role referencing Unreal Engine — were treated by the press as proof the next mainline entry was in production.thegamer.comConcept art and other assets leaked online days before the official unveiling; Sega issued takedowns, and after the reveal outlets reported that the leaked material had been genuine.vice.comShortly after the reveal, Australia's Classification Board briefly listed Persona 6 with an unrestricted M rating citing coarse language, violence and nudity; the listing was pulled offline soon afterwards. Australia's M is roughly equivalent to ESRB Teen, not ESRB Mature.gamerant.comP-Studio is now led by producer Kazuhisa Wada, who said while announcing Persona 4 Revival in June 2025 that the team was "actively preparing" future Persona titles and that work was progressing well.gamesradar.comSeries composer Shoji Meguro, who scored every mainline Persona from the first game onward, left Atlus's internal staff in September 2021 to go freelance — saying he would still work on Atlus games — and Atlus has not announced who is scoring Persona 6.en.wikipedia.orgRead 8 more facts
State of Decay 3202710 factsUndead Labs · Xbox Game StudiosGame page →The 2020 reveal trailer's famous shot of a zombie deer eating a wolf's remains was purely conceptual — studio head Philip Holt confirmed in April 2026 that zombie animals will not appear in the finished game, and the cinematic was pre-rendered by outside studio Blur.toptech.newsAt the time of that 2020 trailer the game barely existed — Holt said "the entirety of the game was in a Word document," with only four or five people involved, and Undead Labs revealed it then only at Microsoft's urging.en.wikipedia.orgAfter nearly six years of silence, the first actual gameplay footage appeared at the Xbox Games Showcase on June 7, 2026; creative director Kevin Patzelt stressed it was real in-game footage rather than CGI.news.xbox.comThe map is planned to be roughly four times the size of a single State of Decay 2 map, and unlike SoD2's episodic map-hopping the entire world will be accessible from the start.news.xbox.comThe game moved to Unreal Engine 5, and in September 2022 Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty revealed The Coalition — the Gears of War studio — was helping Undead Labs with UE5 technology.gamingbolt.comIn June 2024 a second wave of cross-studio help was confirmed: The Coalition assisting with co-op combat and Obsidian Entertainment with UE5 graphics — the first time Undead Labs had drawn on other Xbox studios since the 2018 acquisition.gamerant.comIn July 2026 Undead Labs separated from Microsoft to a new parent company; reporting indicates the exit agreement means State of Decay 3 is no longer contractually required to launch day one on Xbox Game Pass, despite years of being marketed that way.en.wikipedia.orgA 2022 Kotaku investigation into Undead Labs reported allegations of sexism, bullying and burnout plus high turnover among experienced developers, tying a resulting "lack of design vision" to the game's prolonged delay.en.wikipedia.orgStudio founder Jeff Strain left by October 2021 to found Possibility Space and was succeeded as studio head by Philip Holt during development.en.wikipedia.orgThe franchise had already proven itself before the gameplay reveal — State of Decay 2 alone passed 10 million cumulative players by August 2021.en.wikipedia.orgRead 8 more facts
The Duskbloods202610 factsFromSoftwareGame page →The Duskbloods was revealed on April 2, 2025 during the Nintendo Direct: Nintendo Switch 2 broadcast, as a brand-new IP exclusive to the console.en.wikipedia.orgIt is FromSoftware's first game exclusive to a Nintendo home console since Lost Kingdoms II in 2003.en.wikipedia.orgThe project began as a smaller-scale title for the original Nintendo Switch; Nintendo then approached FromSoftware about the unannounced Switch 2, prompting a redesign around the new hardware's expanded online capabilities.techradar.comHidetaka Miyazaki personally confirmed he is directing the project, and stressed that its multiplayer-first design does not signal a company-wide shift away from FromSoftware's single-player games.nintendo.comMatches use an eight-player PvPvE "Bloodsworn" structure in which players fight each other and AI enemies simultaneously, earning Victory Points rather than needing outright elimination — and receiving rewards regardless of the result.noisypixel.netDynamic per-match role assignments such as "Destined Rivals" and "Destined Companion" change individual player objectives and relationships mid-match.en.wikipedia.orgPublishing is shared regionally between Nintendo and FromSoftware — a notable arrangement, since it means Nintendo directly publishes a FromSoftware title in some territories.en.wikipedia.orgA Closed Network Test was scheduled for August 21-23, 2026, with applications running through July, confirming the game was still on track for a 2026 release.nintendolife.comEven after a June 2026 Nintendo Direct appearance the game still had no date beyond "2026"; FromSoftware owner KADOKAWA has continued to reaffirm the 2026 target in its financial reporting with no official delay announced.videogameschronicle.comPress previews describe it visually and thematically as a cross between Bloodborne and Elden Ring, blending Victorian Gothic style with dark fantasy.gamespot.comRead 8 more facts
The Elder Scrolls VI10 factsBethesda Game Studios · Bethesda SoftworksGame page →The Elder Scrolls VI was announced on 10 June 2018 at Bethesda's E3 conference with a 36-second teaser — and Todd Howard said at the time it was still only in pre-production.bethesda.netDevelopment was deliberately queued behind Starfield; Bethesda confirmed in August 2023 that the game had only moved into active development after Starfield shipped, with Pete Hines warning it would be "years" before more news.pcgamer.comMicrosoft's $7.5 billion acquisition of ZeniMax Media, announced in September 2020 and completed in March 2021, brought Bethesda Game Studios into Xbox Game Studios — later shaping the game's platform exclusivity.news.xbox.comInternal Microsoft documents leaked during the 2023 FTC antitrust hearing over the Activision Blizzard deal projected a 2026-at-the-earliest launch, as a Windows and Xbox exclusive.theverge.comIn a February 2026 interview Todd Howard confirmed the game runs on a newly built Creation Engine 3 and said development had passed a major internal milestone — while still declining to give a release window.kotaku.comBethesda said in March 2024, on the series' 30th anniversary, that early builds of the game were already being played internally.ign.comThe team reached internal consensus on the game's setting as far back as the Fallout 4 era — revealed in a January 2026 interview with Bethesda's former Elder Scrolls loremaster Kurt Kuhlmann, who still would not say which province it is.pcgamer.comA fan petition led Bethesda to confirm in March 2019 that YouTuber Shirley Curry — the "Skyrim Grandma" — will appear in the game as an NPC modelled on her likeness.pcgamer.comIn July 2026, Xbox layoffs that cut more than 50 jobs at Bethesda Game Studios were reported to touch the project directly, with staff telling press they feared delays, crunch and senior talent being replaced by contractors.ign.comTodd Howard has suggested the game could arrive some fifteen to seventeen years after Skyrim, and says he expects people to still be playing it a decade after launch — the same long tail Skyrim enjoyed.theverge.comRead 8 more facts
The Outer Worlds 2202510 factsObsidian Entertainment · Xbox Game StudiosGame page →The 2021 Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase announcement trailer broke the fourth wall, openly joking that Obsidian had no gameplay or materials ready to show.en.wikipedia.orgIt was set to be the first Xbox Game Studios title priced at $79.99, but Microsoft reversed course on July 23, 2025, cutting it to $69.99 and refunding buyers who had already paid the higher price.windowscentral.comThe original 2019 game ran on Unreal Engine 4; the sequel moved to Unreal Engine 5.en.wikipedia.orgFallout co-creator Tim Cain — who directed the first Outer Worlds and left Obsidian in 2020 — stayed on as a creative consultant; the team solved a design problem he said he had wrestled with since writing Fallout's original 1997 production notes.en.wikipedia.orgObsidian shipped three separate games in 2025: Avowed in February, Grounded 2's early access in July and The Outer Worlds 2 in October.en.wikipedia.orgReception was strong — Metacritic 83 on Xbox Series X|S, 81 on PC and 79 on PS5, with 88% of critics recommending it on OpenCritic.opencritic.comThe flaw system rewards habits with trade-offs — one flaw grants a larger magazine on all weapons for players who reload compulsively, at the cost of a damage penalty if a clip is ever fully emptied.gameinformer.comPlayer agency extends to skipping combat outright: dialogue can bypass entire boss fights, and a story mode essentially disables enemy damage.destructoid.comDespite the reviews, Xbox Game Studios revealed in February 2026 that the game had failed to meet sales expectations and that a third entry is not currently planned.pushsquare.comIt launched day one on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass, which complicates any read of its commercial performance from unit sales alone.en.wikipedia.orgRead 8 more facts
Earthblade9 factsExtremely OK Games · Extremely OK Games, Ltd.Game page →Earthblade was cancelled and never released. The decision was taken internally in December 2024 and announced publicly on 22 January 2025 by co-founder Maddy Thorson on the studio's own blog, after roughly five years of development.exok.comIt was announced on 19 April 2021 with a deliberately vague "vibe reveal" post that withheld gameplay and story; Thorson wrote it had taken four prototypes to find Earthblade.exok.comAt its Game Awards reveal in December 2022 the studio described it not as a Metroidvania but as a seamless, free-roaming, dynamically loading "explor-action" game — a term they coined to distance it from room-based design.exok.comThe cancellation stemmed from an internal rift over the Celeste IP rights between Maddy Thorson and Noel Berry on one side and founding pixel artist Pedro Medeiros on the other; Medeiros left to found his own studio, Neverway.gamedeveloper.comThe full original Celeste team had still been collaborating as recently as the week-long game jam that produced the free spin-off Celeste 64: Fragments of the Mountain in January 2024 — shortly before the fracture formed.en.wikipedia.orgThorson took public responsibility, saying the decision "rests entirely with me and Noel," explicitly asking the community not to blame or harass Medeiros, and calling the split "heartbreaking, and yet relieving."exok.comBeyond the IP dispute, Thorson cited plain development struggle: the project "was also not as far along as one would expect after such a protracted development process," and the pressure of following Celeste made daily work exhausting.exok.comIn March 2024, before cancellation, veteran indie developer and TowerFall world champion Kyle Pulver joined as a designer; the same update disclosed that the lead developer had undergone major transition-related surgery, contributing to the delays.exok.comAfter cancelling it the studio said it would take the lessons learned, wipe the slate clean and refocus on smaller-scale projects — and Earthblade no longer appears anywhere on the Extremely OK Games site.exok.comRead 7 more facts
Everhood Hunters20279 factsForeign GnomesGame page →Everhood Hunters was announced in March 2026 for PC (Steam) and Nintendo Switch, targeting a 2027 release.gematsu.comIt is the first co-op title in the Everhood series — a two-player online co-op roguelite, a deliberate shift from the single-player mainline games.co-optimus.comIt features four playable characters, each with a distinct playstyle.everhoodgame.comRuns are structured like a roguelite, with shops, rest points, elite encounters, mysterious events and weekly leaderboards.bleedingcool.comThe soundtrack features 70+ original songs plus fan-favorite tracks carried over from Everhood and Everhood 2.nichegamer.comIt is made by Foreign Gnomes, the two-person studio (Chris Nordgren and Jordi Roca) behind the original Everhood.bleedingcool.comCo-creator Chris Nordgren called it "in so many ways... the game we always wanted to make," saying all their mechanical ideas "formed into something bigger than either of us could imagine."nintendoeverything.comThe studio name "Foreign Gnomes" references both the importance of gnomes in the games and the duo's different nationalities — Nordgren is Swedish, Roca is Spanish.en.wikipedia.orgBefore Everhood, Chris Nordgren worked at Mojang on Minecraft Dungeons as a VFX artist, while Jordi Roca had founded LittleStone Games.en.wikipedia.orgRead 7 more facts
Icarus20219 factsRocketWerkzGame page →It is Dean Hall's game — the designer behind DayZ, whose studio RocketWerkz he founded in New Zealand in December 2014.en.wikipedia.orgUnlike most survival games it is session-based. Up to eight co-op players drop from an orbiting space station onto the planet, take a timed contract, and have to make it back to the dropship before the clock runs out — miss it and the run is over.en.wikipedia.orgThat structure is a deliberate argument. Hall has said open-ended survival games face limits in how they can keep challenging players and introduce new content and concepts.en.wikipedia.orgIts recommended specification asked for 32 GB of RAM — an unusually heavy ask for a 2021 release, and enough to make headlines on its own.pcgamer.comThe game's architecture was built so the team could add new items, missions, biomes, talents and balance changes for each beta weekend.gamespress.comIcarus: Console Edition arrived on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on 26 March 2026, adapted by Grip Studios and bundling the base game with the New Frontiers expansion.en.wikipedia.orgThe console version has no crossplay whatsoever — PC and console players cannot play together, and Xbox Series X/S players cannot join PlayStation 5 players either.en.wikipedia.orgThe console port was pushed back from a planned February 2026 launch to March for extra polishing.en.wikipedia.orgOn Steam the game holds 66,606 user reviews at a 'Mostly Positive' rating, 49,615 of them positive.store.steampowered.comRead 7 more facts
Kane & Lynch: Dead Men20079 factsIO Interactive · Eidos InteractiveGame page →Its review coverage produced one of the ugliest episodes in games journalism: GameSpot's Jeff Gerstmann scored it 6/10 in November 2007 and was fired soon after. CNET denied a connection at the time; when his NDA lapsed in 2012 Gerstmann confirmed he was let go because he "couldn't be trusted", citing pressure from advertiser Eidos over the score among other friction.kotaku.comJesper Kyd, best known for the Hitman series, arranged the soundtrack and wrote the main theme; Danish musicians Peter Peter and Peter Kyed — collaborators of film director Nicolas Winding Refn on the Pusher trilogy and Valhalla Rising — wrote the mission-specific cues.en.wikipedia.org"Fragile Alliance" is the mode people remember: up to four players rob a bank together against AI security, and any of them can turn on the others and run off with the money.en.wikipedia.orgA film adaptation was optioned by Lionsgate with Bruce Willis and Jamie Foxx attached and F. Gary Gray directing; it cycled through scripts and casting for years — later reportedly involving Gerard Butler and Vin Diesel — and was never made.en.wikipedia.orgIt went gold on 31 October 2007 and shipped over a million copies within about two months.en.wikipedia.orgIO partnered with WildStorm and DC Comics in 2010 on a Kane & Lynch graphic novel about the pair's criminal backstory, written by Ian Edginton and drawn by Chris Mitten.en.wikipedia.orgDanish studio Kiloo built a separate mobile phone version with 38 levels across five scenarios and its own cover-partner AI.en.wikipedia.orgThe sequel, Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days (2010), threw out conventional polish for a deliberately ugly handheld-camcorder look with VHS tracking artefacts and washed-out colour — and reviewed better than the original.en.wikipedia.orgSquare Enix pulled the game from Steam in February 2021 alongside Battlestations: Pacific and Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, calling it a temporary removal "to work on some important updates". It is still delisted years later.store.steampowered.comRead 7 more facts
Kong: Survivor Instinct20249 facts7LevelsGame page →It is an official Monsterverse game made in collaboration with Legendary Entertainment, narratively set shortly after Godzilla vs. Kong (2021) rather than the 2024 film.7lvls.comYou do not play as Kong: you play David, an ordinary oil-rig worker searching a Titan-ravaged city for his daughter Stacy, while Kong and other Titans loom as environmental threats.store.steampowered.comThe game is a cinematic 2.5D action-adventure with Metroidvania exploration, likened by reviewers to Flashback and Prince of Persia.opencritic.comIt brings back Monsterverse villain Alan Jonah, the eco-terrorist from Godzilla: King of the Monsters, leading a mercenary group called the Hyenas, and introduces a new superspecies named Abaddon.store.steampowered.comPlayers can manipulate Titan behavior with the ORCA Sigma, a prototype based on Monarch's ORCA technology from the films.store.steampowered.comIt was announced at Gamescom 2024 and launched about two months later, on October 22, 2024.bleedingcool.comDeveloper 7Levels released a standalone 18-track soundtrack by Krzysztof Kus on December 8, 2024.store.steampowered.comReception was mixed (OpenCritic "Weak," 45% recommended), a step up from the poorly received Skull Island: Rise of Kong but far from acclaimed.opencritic.comA Nintendo Switch port, digital and physical, was announced for September 30, 2026, extending the game to a fourth platform about two years after launch.nintendoeverything.comRead 7 more facts
Physint9 factsKojima Productions · Sony Interactive EntertainmentGame page →Physint was revealed on January 31, 2024 during a PlayStation State of Play, presented by Hideo Kojima himself.en.wikipedia.orgKojima has said a serious 2020 illness requiring surgery was severe enough that he wrote a will, and that confronting mortality pushed him to commit to a new espionage game rather than retire.insider-gaming.comHe directly credited years of fan requests for "another Metal Gear" with sparking the concept: "A lot of people wanted me to make something like Metal Gear. That's when I had the idea for a new espionage game."gamingbolt.comThe project is co-developed with Sony Interactive Entertainment and involves Sony's Columbia Pictures on an accompanying film, with the same cast intended to appear in both.gamewatcher.comThree film actors were announced as cast at Kojima Productions' "Beyond the Strand" 10th-anniversary showcase on September 23, 2025: Charlee Fraser (Furiosa), Ma Dong-seok (Train to Busan, Eternals) and Minami Hamabe (Godzilla Minus One) — with the lead still uncast at the time.gameinformer.comKojima noted at the reveal that 2026 marks the 40th anniversary of his game-production career, and called Physint the planned culmination of that career.hypebeast.comMultiple outlets report the game runs on an advanced, customised version of Guerrilla Games' Decima engine, based on an in-engine facial scan of actress Minami Hamabe shown at the September 2025 showcase.noobfeed.comFull development only begins after Death Stranding 2 and OD are finished; in 2025 Kojima said the game was still "at least another five to six years" away.pcgamesn.comIt is explicitly not a Metal Gear Solid game — Konami retained those rights after Kojima's 2015 split — but a new action-espionage IP of his own, the second original IP from the Kojima Productions and Sony partnership after Death Stranding.pcgamesn.comRead 7 more facts
Silent Hill: Book of Memories20129 factsWayForward · KonamiGame page →Book of Memories is the first Silent Hill with online or local multiplayer for up to four players (not counting the light-gun Silent Hill: The Arcade).en.wikipedia.orgDevelopment began in summer 2010 under three guidelines: "Vita-centric Silent Hill", "Not traditional" and "Different every time you play".en.wikipedia.orgMultiplayer had previously been considered — and rejected — for Silent Hill: Downpour.en.wikipedia.orgThe title started as a working name taken from the lore's "Book of Lost Memories" and stuck.en.wikipedia.orgDialogue was recorded in eight languages, and it was the series' first entry with a Japanese voice dub.en.wikipedia.orgThe game has five alignment-based endings plus a joke comic-book ending about a spring-break trip to Silent Hill.en.wikipedia.orgThe main story ends at Zone 21, but more than 100 randomly generated extra zones follow, and a trophy requires clearing Zone 100.ja.wikipedia.orgIt runs on Terminal Reality's Infernal Engine.en.wikipedia.orgIn February 2019 it was a free PS Plus title in Japan — the last Vita-exclusive game offered there.ja.wikipedia.orgRead 7 more facts
South of Midnight20259 factsCompulsion Games · Xbox Game StudiosGame page →The game deliberately emulates a stop-motion "animation stutter," built with reference to physical clay maquettes made by Clyde Henry Productions — and players can switch the effect off in the settings menu if they prefer smooth animation.siliconera.comIt is set in a Gothic-fantasy Mississippi Delta, following Hazel Flood after a hurricane devastates her hometown of Prospero; she fights "Haints" — folklore-derived monsters including Two-Toed Tom, Rougarou, Altamaha-ha, Huggin' Molly and Kooshma.en.wikipedia.orgComposer Olivier Deriviere wrote not just the score but a whole companion album of original blues and folk songs, recorded in Nashville with named vocalists — a major point of critical praise.olivierderiviere.bandcamp.comIt was revealed at the Xbox Games Showcase during Summer Game Fest on 11 June 2023, with the first gameplay trailer following a year later on 9 June 2024.en.wikipedia.orgAt The Game Awards 2025 it was nominated for Games for Impact and Innovation in Accessibility — and won Games for Impact.en.wikipedia.orgIt won Outstanding Achievement in Animation at the 29th D.I.C.E. Awards and Best Character Animation – Video Game at the 53rd Annie Awards, both recognising the stop-motion technique.en.wikipedia.orgIt also won Best New Intellectual Property at the 22nd British Academy Games Awards.en.wikipedia.orgIt was developed under the internal codename "Project Midnight," and concept art leaked under that name in 2021 before the real title was confirmed.en.wikipedia.orgCompulsion Games previously made We Happy Few and Contrast; South of Midnight was its first release after being acquired by Xbox Game Studios in 2018.en.wikipedia.orgRead 7 more facts
Wanderstop20259 factsIvy Road · Annapurna InteractiveGame page →Ivy Road was founded in 2021 by Davey Wreden with Karla Zimonja — the writer behind Gone Home and Tacoma — and C418 (Daniel Rosenfeld), Wreden's first studio since Galactic Cafe.en.wikipedia.orgThe game is explicitly about burnout: Alta, a champion warrior, is forced to run a tea shop, and the story interrogates whether stillness itself can actually heal anyone.pcgamer.comThe central mechanic is a deliberately "stupidly complex" tea-brewing system — growing and harvesting ingredients on a hex-grid garden, then combining them in an unusual brewing contraption for each visiting customer.wanderstopgame.comBoth critics and the developers frame it as a deliberate subversion of cosy-game conventions — rather than pure escapism, it questions idle and cosy tropes and forces the player to confront Alta's resistance to change.en.wikipedia.orgIt was first revealed at the Annapurna Interactive Showcase in June 2021, unveiling Ivy Road as a new studio with tea as its central theme.wanderstopgame.comReception was strong — Metacritic 80 on PC and Xbox Series X, 79 on PS5, with roughly 84% recommending on OpenCritic, a 9/10 from IGN and a full five stars from The Guardian.metacritic.comIt was nominated for Games for Impact at The Game Awards 2025, losing to South of Midnight, and for Best Indie Game at the Golden Joystick Awards 2025, losing to Blue Prince.thegameawards.comIn September 2024, Annapurna Interactive's entire staff resigned en masse amid a dispute with owner Megan Ellison. Wreden and C418 publicly reassured fans that "nothing's gonna stop us from getting Wanderstop out the door" — and it shipped on schedule the following March.gamesradar.comWith a bitter symmetry to the game's own subject matter, Ivy Road announced it was shutting down on 31 March 2026 due to insufficient funding, unable to finish its planned next title, "Engine Angel."en.wikipedia.orgRead 7 more facts
Funko Fusion20248 facts10:10 GamesGame page →10:10 Games was co-founded in July 2021 by Jon Burton — the former Traveller's Tales creative director who created the LEGO video games — and Arthur Parsons.en.wikipedia.orgThe game is a licensing feat before it is anything else: it pulls in more than 30 separate franchises across the base game and DLC, including Back to the Future, Jurassic World, Five Nights at Freddy's, Team Fortress 2, Masters of the Universe, The Umbrella Academy, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and The Office.en.wikipedia.orgClancy Brown voices Eddy Funko, and Kellen Goff reprises both Freddy Fazbear and Foxy from Five Nights at Freddy's.behindthevoiceactors.comJon Burton's stated reason for the partnership was simply that the space was empty: "we worked on a partnership with Funko, which hadn't done any video games before, but they were keen to enter that space."en.wikipedia.orgReception was among 2024's worst for a major licensed release — Metacritic 50 on PC, 54 on PS5 and 56 on Xbox Series X, and an OpenCritic average of 53 with only 14% of critics recommending it, placing it in the bottom 8% of rated games.metacritic.comIGN's 4/10 review closed with the line that "just like your Funko Pop collection, it's probably best left on the shelf."metacritic.comFour months after launch, 10:10 Games laid off 19 employees. Trade reporting said studio heads Paul Flanagan and Arthur Parsons wanted to take public responsibility but the studio engaged an external PR firm and issued no statement.insider-gaming.comIt launched in two waves — PS5, Xbox Series and PC in September 2024, then PS4 and Switch that December.en.wikipedia.orgRead 6 more facts
Gundam Breaker 420248 factsCrafts & Meister · Bandai Namco EntertainmentGame page →It is set six years after Gundam Breaker 3, and ships with over 250 base Gunpla kits across HG, MG and PG scales — every one of them mixable part by part.en.bandainamcoent.euProducer Masanori Tanaka says the numbered sequel happened because of sustained fan pressure: "We've received numerous comments from fans asking for a new installment." Development began around 2019.icon-era.comIt was the first game in the series to include Gunpla from Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury.en.gundam-official.comDiorama Mode lets players stage and photograph their own scenes, and online lobbies hold up to 24 players at once.en.bandainamcoent.euThe Collector's Edition came with a physical Entry Grade Gun Barrel Strike Gundam model kit — a real Gunpla box for a game about building Gunpla.en.bandainamcoent.euPost-launch content included a PAC-MAN collaboration and a season pass with five additional story missions.en.bandainamcoent.euThe Japanese cast is heavyweight for a customisation game — Tomoyo Kurosawa as the AI navigator Reco, Katsuyuki Konishi as the commentator Mister Gunpla, and Yuka Iguchi returning as Misa from Gundam Breaker 3.rpgsite.netCritics praised the depth of the customisation while calling the mission structure repetitive — Metacritic 80 on PC and 76 on PS5.metacritic.comRead 6 more facts
Light No Fire8 factsHello GamesGame page →Light No Fire was revealed at The Game Awards 2023, with Hello Games announcing it on 12 December 2023 as "a game about adventure, building, survival and exploration together."hellogames.orgThe core pitch is a single shared fantasy world the size of Earth — not a No Man's Sky-style universe of many planets — with climbable mountains and real oceans that need boats and crews.lightnofire.comIn November 2025 Sean Murray gave a rare update: "In the background, another tiny team at Hello is continuing at pace on our next Labor of Love, Light No Fire... I am really pleased with the progress we are making."thegamer.comThe team working on it has stayed deliberately small — Hello Games calls it "tiny" — even years into development, while the rest of the studio keeps supporting No Man's Sky.thegamer.comMurray said back in 2022 that the ambition was such that "even if we had a thousand people working on it, it'd still seem impossible."en.wikipedia.orgIt supports multiplayer — players share the single Earth-sized planet, including crewed ship voyages across its oceans.pcgamesn.comThe game was absent from both Summer Game Fest 2025 and The Game Awards 2025; by April 2026 press coverage was pegging a realistic release window at 2027 or later.gamewatcher.comCoverage frames Hello Games' unusually quiet, sparse-announcement approach as a deliberate contrast to No Man's Sky's overpromising 2016 launch — though some fans still worry the studio is repeating the pattern.gamepressure.comRead 6 more facts
Loco Motive20248 factsRobust Games · Chucklefish GamesGame page →It began as a free two-week entry to AdvXJam in November 2020, built to the theme "A Good Time." Press coverage of the jam build — including PC Gamer — convinced the team to turn it into a commercial game.locomotivewiki.comIt is the work of brothers Adam and Joseph Riches, who co-founded Robust Games and share the director and writer credits.en.wikipedia.orgThe full commercial version was announced during Nintendo's Indie World Showcase in December 2021, roughly three years before it actually shipped.locomotivewiki.comGOG's investment in the game was its first-ever direct funding of indie development, a departure from its usual game-preservation business.gog.comIt is fully voice acted with a large ensemble cast, including Sean Chiplock as Arthur Ackerman and Samantha Béart — Karlach in Baldur's Gate 3 — as April Benelli.imdb.comFor a comedy murder mystery it is unusually accommodating about tone: there is a no-blood "confetti" mode for players who want the violence defused, and a darker "Noir" mode for players who want the opposite.store.steampowered.comIt won Adventure Game of the Year 2024 from Adventure Game Hotspot, and took three AGOTY Awards — Best Adventure Game, Best Adventure (International Jury) and Best Puzzles — from six nominations.en.wikipedia.orgReception landed at Metacritic 77 with 78% recommending on OpenCritic, with Adventure Gamers giving it 4.5/5.en.wikipedia.orgRead 6 more facts
Lushfoil Photography Sim20258 factsMatt Newell · Annapurna InteractiveGame page →It is the work of one person — Matt Newell built it solo in Unreal Engine 5 and is credited as director, designer and producer.en.wikipedia.orgEvery location is a recreation of a real place Newell personally visited and photographed: South Tyrol in Italy, Castle Rock in Western Australia, Le Prarion in the French Alps and Yamadera in Yamagata, Japan.en.wikipedia.orgOne of those environments was previously its own standalone Steam game — "Castle Rock Beach, West Australia" — which Newell later delisted and folded into Lushfoil.store.steampowered.comThere is no dialogue, no voice acting and no plot — the entire game is about framing and taking photographs.en.wikipedia.orgAnnapurna Interactive signed on as publisher in June 2023, almost two years before the April 2025 release.petapixel.comIts ESRB rating summary is unusually blunt: "This is a simulation game in which players assume the role of a photographer taking pictures of various environments" — rated E with no content descriptors at all.esrb.orgA free VR version followed in December 2025.store.steampowered.comReception was warm — Metacritic 79 on PC and 73 on PS5, with 92% of around 1,500 Steam user reviews positive.en.wikipedia.orgRead 6 more facts
Lust Goddess20248 factsPochemu LTDGame page →It openly declares AI-generated art. The itch.io listing carries the self-applied tags "AI Assisted" and "AI Graphics" - unusual transparency, and consistent with the complete absence of any credited artist.hooligapps-games.itch.ioIt ships under two corporate identities: "Pochemu LTD" is the Steam developer and publisher, with support routed to pochemultd.com, while the itch.io and browser versions are branded Hooligapps.store.steampowered.comDespite being marketed as a single-player card game, its Steam listing is tagged Multi-player, PvP and Massively Multiplayer, and it carries 72 achievements.store.steampowered.comIts Steam reception is Mixed - roughly 55% positive across 12,489 reviews. That is unusual for a free-to-play title, where zero-cost entry normally inflates review scores.store.steampowered.comIt is localised into 13 languages with full English audio - a localisation budget far beyond typical adult indie output.store.steampowered.comThere is no Google Play release. Android distribution is by direct APK sideload from the publisher's own site and iOS is browser-only, because both mobile stores prohibit this content class.hooligapps-games.itch.ioIt sits inside a large adult-games portfolio: Hooligapps also operates Passion Industry, Lust Age, Booty Heroes, Kinky Cats, Dirty League, Town of Sins, SmutStone and Fap Titans.store.steampowered.comExactly one paid add-on exists - "Lust Goddess - Mascot LoLa", released 23 July 2024, five months after launch.store.steampowered.comRead 6 more facts
Mecha Break20258 factsAmazing Seasun GameGame page →The February 2025 open beta peaked at over 300,000 concurrent Steam players, briefly overtaking Marvel Rivals — more than double the game's own launch-day peak of 132,816 five months later.ign.comProducer Kris Kwok publicly promised months before launch that the free-to-play game would "not be pay-to-win."automaton-media.comShortly after launch, monetisation backlash — cosmetic bundles priced near $48, a cosmetics auction house critics called pay-to-win-adjacent, and customisation options that had been free in the beta — dragged Steam user reviews down to "Mixed."gamerblurb.comAhead of the February 2025 open beta a manufactured controversy spread online over the game's character creator and its sexualised female pilot models; TheGamer argued the outrage on both sides was largely performative and distracted from real monetisation concerns.thegamer.comDeveloper Amazing Seasun Games is the international brand of Xishanju, a studio founded in 1995 and now a subsidiary of Chinese tech giant Kingsoft, previously best known for the long-running JX3 MMO franchise — which Kris Kwok also produced.zh.wikipedia.orgThe game launched simultaneously on Windows and Xbox Series X|S on 1 July 2025 with cross-play between them, with a PlayStation 5 version planned for mid-2026.en.wikipedia.orgAmazing Seasun ran a "Global Invitational" esports tournament in March 2025 — inviting teams including Team Liquid and Disguised from North America, Japan and China — months before the game had even fully launched.esports.ggThe developers say the July 2025 release is "only the start" of the franchise, with an animated series and collectible mech models reportedly in development.automaton-media.comRead 6 more facts
Silent Hill: Play Novel20018 factsWill · KonamiGame page →Play Novel is a text-based visual-novel retelling of the first Silent Hill, released only in Japan as a Game Boy Advance launch title on March 21, 2001.en.wikipedia.orgFamitsu announced it in August 2000 under the working title "Silent Hill AGB".en.wikipedia.orgAfter Harry's scenario, players unlock a scenario starring Cybil; a third scenario about a boy named Andy was distributed by download.en.wikipedia.orgThe Andy scenario was only available through the Mobile Adapter GB service, which ended in December 2002, leaving it largely inaccessible today.ja.wikipedia.orgHarry's and Cybil's scenarios have 28 endings between them.en.wikipedia.orgSome backgrounds are taken directly from the original game's FMV cutscenes, while others were rendered new for the GBA.en.wikipedia.orgAt Nintendo Space World 2000 it ran on 60 of the 140 Game Boy Advance units on display.en.wikipedia.orgFans later produced English fan translations and even a Mega Drive/Genesis fan port.en.wikipedia.orgRead 6 more facts
SpeedRunners 2: King of Speed20268 factsFair Play Labs · tinyBuildGame page →The original SpeedRunners was developed by DoubleDutch Games and was tinyBuild's founding publishing title; the sequel is made by a new studio, Fair Play Labs, with DoubleDutch consulting.noisypixel.nettinyBuild CEO Alex Nichiporchik said SpeedRunners "kickstarted tinyBuild's publishing journey 12 years ago," and the sequel is a chance to "breathe new life into this timeless franchise."noisypixel.netThe sequel doubles the original's player count to eight online, adds a story campaign, and introduces a 64-player elimination tournament mode.store.steampowered.comIt launched day one on Xbox Game Pass across PC and console.techtimes.comCross-play works between PC, PS5 and Xbox at launch, with Nintendo Switch cross-play promised in a later patch.icrewplay.comThe sequel leans into a 1960s retrofuture superhero aesthetic in New Rush City, with 12 playable characters and 16 map layouts.store.steampowered.comThe original SpeedRunners passed one million copies sold by its 2016 full release, and tinyBuild famously gave away about $2 million worth of copies during its Early Access as a growth experiment.tinybuild.comAt launch on September 3, 2026 the sequel drew a "Mixed" Steam reception: the core racing was praised while some of the new additions divided long-time fans.techtimes.comRead 6 more facts
Tactical Breach Wizards20248 factsSuspicious DevelopmentsGame page →Tom Francis was a PC Gamer UK section editor who built his debut game Gunpoint in his spare time — the magazine declined to review it to avoid a conflict of interest.en.wikipedia.orgDevelopment took roughly 6.8 years by Francis's own count, closing out what he calls the "Defenestration Trilogy" after Gunpoint and Heat Signature — three games unified by throwing enemies out of windows.pentadact.comUnlimited free rewinds let players retry any turn with no fail-state penalty at all — an explicit design pillar aimed at removing frustration from tactics play.store.steampowered.comThe writing drew the loudest praise: The Guardian gave five stars and called it the best strategy game since XCOM 2, Eurogamer also gave five, and it holds 87 on Metacritic with a 100% recommend rate on OpenCritic.en.wikipedia.orgThe studio has a running joke about its "proud tradition" of being nominated for awards and losing them — noting that at IGF 2024 they "weren't able to lose" the Excellence in Design award, while proudly reporting losses at the Golden Joysticks, two BAFTAs, a DICE award and a Hugo.ingamenews.comOne of the game's 61 Steam achievements is simply named "Gunpoint" — a wink at Francis's 2013 debut.store.steampowered.comDespite Steam flagging English as "Full Audio," the dialogue is not voice-acted at all — that flag covers the Special Edition's developer-commentary tracks. The game continues Gunpoint and Heat Signature's text-first tradition.steamcommunity.comFrancis is unusually transparent for an indie developer, routinely publishing review counts, positivity rates and profit multiples for all three of his games instead of raw sales figures.pentadact.comRead 6 more facts
Tempest Rising20258 factsSlipgate Ironworks · 3D RealmsGame page →It is an explicit Command & Conquer homage, with Frank Klepacki — composer of C&C and Red Alert — joining the soundtrack team, bringing the genre "full circle into the modern era."frankklepacki.comThe setting is alternate history: the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis escalates into nuclear world war, leaving an irradiated 1997 Earth where a mysterious resource called Tempest sparks fresh global conflict.en.wikipedia.orgTwo human factions shipped at launch — the Western Global Defense Force and the Eastern Tempest Dynasty — with a third, the alien Veti, initially confined to the single-player campaign.en.wikipedia.orgIt was revealed on 12 August 2022 at THQ Nordic's digital showcase with a cinematic trailer.gamespot.comThe game had an unusually long public demo history before launch: a 2023 playable preview, an expanded Steam Strategy Fest demo, a multiplayer-only demo during Steam RTS Fest in early 2025 and a single-player demo during Steam Next Fest, all before the April 2025 release.store.steampowered.comReception was strong — Metacritic 80 across 38 critic reviews and "Very Positive" on Steam — and it was nominated for Best Sim/Strategy Game at The Game Awards 2025.metacritic.comThe December 2025 "Superior Firepower" update added superweapons, a global production queue and the first Veti multiplayer test; a public Veti multiplayer beta followed in mid-2026, and Veti access in multiplayer and skirmish was made free for all base-game owners alongside the paid campaign expansion "The Veti's Wrath."steamstore-a.akamaihd.netAlthough a new IP, it is narratively set in the same shared universe as 3D Realms' Bombshell and Ion Fury.en.wikipedia.orgRead 6 more facts
Titan Quest II20258 factsGrimlore Games · THQ NordicGame page →Titan Quest II was announced on 11 August 2023 during the THQ Nordic Digital Showcase — 17 years after the original game.titanquest2.wiki.fextralife.comOriginal studio Iron Lore Entertainment tried to fund a sequel itself but folded in 2008; THQ Nordic picked up the dormant IP in 2013 and eventually handed the sequel to Grimlore Games, the SpellForce III studio.en.wikipedia.orgIt sold over 300,000 copies within 72 hours of its Early Access launch and peaked at 27,099 concurrent Steam players — THQ Nordic's second-highest concurrent peak ever.notebookcheck.netThe Early Access launch was pushed from a late-2024/early-2025 target to August 2025 specifically to avoid clashing with other new action-RPG releases, with quarterly content updates planned through a 1.0 release by the end of 2026.en.wikipedia.orgThe sequel runs on Unreal Engine 5 — a major departure from the original's custom in-house engine.en.wikipedia.orgThe score features Greek soprano Aphrodite Patoulidou singing lyrics in ancient Greek over traditional Greek instrumentation.store.steampowered.comThe original 2006 Titan Quest had a famously long tail — passing a million combined units with its Immortal Throne expansion by late 2008 despite a slow start — and got a free 10th-anniversary Anniversary Edition for existing Steam owners in 2016.en.wikipedia.orgThe Early Access build offers roughly 4-6 hours of main "Fated quests" with Steam citing about 15 hours of total content — so no stable completion time exists yet, since the game grows with each quarterly update.gamerant.comRead 6 more facts
Touhou Koumakyou: New Classic - the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil20268 factsShanghai Alice Reprise · Alliance ArtsGame page →It is an official remake/remaster of the 2002 classic The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil (Touhou 6), announced on June 9, 2026 via a Nintendo Direct.siliconera.comZUN calls it "New Classic" because, while a remake, it preserves the original by a large margin — and he personally re-arranged every music track for it.en.touhougarakuta.comIt ships with two modes: a "New Classic" version (high-res visuals, new systems, re-arranged music) and a "Classic" version that recreates the original 2002 gameplay as faithfully as possible.touhou-project.newsThe original 2002 source code was lost, so the remake was rebuilt from surviving past development data — even reverting some previously-fixed bugs to their original state.en.touhougarakuta.comUnlike the one-man 2002 original (ZUN as Team Shanghai Alice), the remake is a collaborative effort by the newly-formed "Shanghai Alice Reprise" circle (ZUN and JYUNYA of AQUA STYLE), and is the first official Touhou shooting game on home consoles with a ZUN-approved international localization.touhou-project.newsThe original Embodiment of Scarlet Devil debuted at Comiket 62 on August 11, 2002 — sold for a single day at a single booth, to positive reviews but low initial sales.en.wikipedia.orgTouhou 6 was the first Touhou game on Windows (the previous five ran on the PC-98) and served as a soft reboot of the entire series.en.wikipedia.orgExtra-stage boss Flandre Scarlet became a franchise-defining icon, and her theme "U.N. Owen Was Her?" grew into one of the internet's most remixed video-game tracks.knowyourmeme.comRead 6 more facts
33 Immortals20267 factsThunder LotusGame page →The "33" in the title mirrors Dante's Divine Comedy, where each canticle contains 33 cantos — and up to 33 players raid together in a single run.en.wikipedia.orgIt is Thunder Lotus's fourth game and its first-ever online multiplayer title, following Jotun, Sundered and Spiritfarer.en.wikipedia.orgDante, Beatrice, Virgil and Charon all appear as reimagined supporting characters.en.wikipedia.orgThe 33-player synchronization runs on Unity with Photon Quantum deterministic netcode — the studio spent years learning online development and split into two parallel teams.blog.photonengine.comRuns are raid-style ~25-minute sessions with instant matchmaking and no lobbies; player counts scale down by realm as the ascent progresses.thunderlotusgames.comNearly 600,000 players joined in the first month of Early Access, over 500,000 of them within two weeks on Xbox Game Preview.massivelyop.comThe 1.0 update (June 10, 2026) finally completed the ascent — adding the Paradiso realm and the final boss that Early Access lacked.techtimes.comRead 5 more facts
Alien Swarm20107 factsValveGame page →Alien Swarm began as a free multiplayer mod for Unreal Tournament 2004, released in 2004 by the team Black Cat Games, which won GameSpy's Mod of the Year 2004.en.wikipedia.orgValve hired the original mod team, who finished Alien Swarm between work on other Valve titles such as Left 4 Dead and Portal 2.en.wikipedia.orgIt was released completely free on Steam on July 19, 2010, alongside its full Source-engine codebase and SDK — letting anyone build free total-conversion mods without owning another Valve game.gamedeveloper.comIt is a four-player top-down co-op shooter whose setting and bug-hunt gameplay are heavily reminiscent of the 1986 film Aliens.en.wikipedia.orgA Source-engine version was first announced in 2005 as 'Alien Swarm: Infested' but stalled around 2007 before Valve revived and released it in 2010.en.wikipedia.orgAn expanded standalone successor, Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop, launched on April 20, 2017, adding single-player bots and up to eight-player support.en.wikipedia.orgThe original score was written by Valve composer Mike Morasky and consists of only five tracks.maybemattis.deRead 5 more facts
Ananta7 factsNaked Rain · NetEase Games MontréalGame page →The game was first revealed on 24 August 2023 at Gamescom under the working title "Project Mugen," with IGN describing the reveal trailer as "Cyberpunk meets Genshin Impact."en.wikipedia.orgIt was renamed from Project Mugen to Ananta on 29 November 2024 — "Ananta" is Sanskrit for "without end," while the Chinese title 无限大 translates as "Infinity."en.wikipedia.orgA late-2025 gameplay trailer showing protagonists Captain and Taffy exploring Nova City drew direct press comparisons to GTA, Spider-Man and Watch Dogs for its traversal and vehicle systems.in.ign.comDeveloper Naked Rain is a Hangzhou-based NetEase studio, with cross-studio contribution from NetEase's Montreal branch.en.wikipedia.orgIn 2025 NetEase confirmed it had scrapped its original plans for a character gacha system — players obtain all playable partners through progression rather than paid pulls, a notable break from the studio's usual monetisation.gameranx.comCommentators nicknamed it "GTA 6 at home," with analysts openly questioning whether a free-to-play title can compete with Rockstar — while creators called the gameplay trailer stunning.gameranx.comThe game received Chinese regulatory approval around December 2024, roughly a month after the rename.en.wikipedia.orgRead 5 more facts
Before Your Eyes20217 factsGoodbyeWorld Games · NetflixGame page →The game watches your real eyes through your webcam — every physical blink advances time to the next memory, so you literally miss moments of the story by blinking.gamedeveloper.comIt took a 'seven-year blink of an eye' to make: the game began as a 2014 USC game-class project called 'Close Your', where Will Hellwarth demoed webcam eye-tracking, and was shown at IndieCade that year before finally shipping in 2021.gamedeveloper.comIt won the BAFTA Games Award for 'Game Beyond Entertainment' in 2022, beating out much larger productions — a result that reportedly stunned the small GoodbyeWorld team.gamespew.comYou play someone who has already died: the story is your life replayed for a Ferryman who must judge whether it was well lived.destructoid.comNetflix brought it to phones on July 26, 2022, using the front camera to detect blinks — with a tap-to-blink accessibility option for players who can't or don't want to use eye tracking.netflix.comThe signature hard-cut editing between memories was directly inspired by Brendon Chung's Thirty Flights of Loving.destructoid.comThe original Kickstarter (2016, under the prototype name 'Close Your — life one blink at a time') raised $35,992 from 1,515 backers against a $25,000 goal.kickstarter.comRead 5 more facts
Cat Quest III20247 factsThe Gentlebros · Kepler InteractiveGame page →The Gentlebros is a Singapore studio founded by Desmond Wong, a former Koei Tecmo character artist who worked on Fatal Frame and Dead or Alive.heypoorplayer.comIt is the first Cat Quest built around a pirate and high-seas setting, introducing ship sailing and naval cannon combat as new mechanics.heypoorplayer.comEvery game in the series has a theme: Love for the first, Unity for the second, and Family for this one — chosen because Wong had recently become a father.heypoorplayer.comThe Gentlebros conceived the franchise as potentially running to nine games — a deliberate nod to cats having nine lives.heypoorplayer.comThe writing is relentlessly pun-soaked — the setting is the "Purribean," players become a "purrivateer," and rat enemies are "pi-rats."rockpapershotgun.comReviews were strong across the board — Metacritic 86 on Switch, 84 on Xbox Series X, 83 on PC and 80 on PS5, with 85% recommending on OpenCritic and a 9/10 from Nintendo Life calling it one of the best indie games of 2024.en.wikipedia.orgThe publisher changed for this entry — PQube handled the first two Cat Quest games, while Cat Quest III moved to Kepler Interactive.en.wikipedia.orgRead 5 more facts
Caves of Qud20247 factsFreehold GamesGame page →It spent roughly 17 years in development — begun in 2007, on Steam Early Access from July 2015, and finally 1.0 on 5 December 2024 — one of the longest Early Access runs in the medium's history.pcgamer.comThe game simulates centuries of world history before a run even begins — generating events, dynasties and lineages — so every playthrough carries a unique historical backstory.en.wikipedia.orgIts body-part and mutation simulation is famously granular: creatures and player characters can have arbitrary limb configurations, with over 70 mutations and cybernetics mixable across 24 playable castes and lineages.store.steampowered.comThe 1.0 release added four distinct play modes — Classic permadeath, Roleplay with checkpoint saves, low-danger Wander, and a single-run Daily challenge — letting players choose their own risk level.store.steampowered.comIt won the 2025 Hugo Award for Best Game or Interactive Work and the 2025 IGF Award for Excellence in Narrative, and holds a 91 on Metacritic — PC Gamer's 94% review called it "the best [roguelike] I've ever played."thehugoawards.orgDespite the scope, Freehold Games stayed tiny — essentially co-creators Brian Bucklew and Jason Grinblat plus a handful of contributors across the entire multi-decade project.freeholdgames.comThe developers said they deliberately chose a sustainable "positive lifestyle and great game" over maximising profit through the long Early Access stretch, only signing publisher Kitfox Games in July 2023 to help ship 1.0.gamesradar.comRead 5 more facts
