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Sony has announced global price rises for its PlayStation 5 consoles from April 2, 2026, due to "continued pressures in the global economic landscape." Read more View the full article

Sony has announced it is raising the price of its PlayStation 5 consoles and the PlayStation Portal. The changes will take effect starting next week on April 2, marking the second price increase for the PlayStation 5 in less than a year. In a PlayStation Blog post, Sony states that “with continued pressures in the global economic landscape, we’ve made the decision to increase the prices of PS5, PS5 Pro, and PlayStation Portal remote player globally. We know that price changes impact our community, and after careful evaluation, we found this was a necessary step to ensure we can continue delivering innovative, high-quality gaming experiences to players worldwide.” These changes will affect the US, UK, Europe, and Japan (though Sony recommends players living in other regions check with their local retailers for any pricing change). Below are the updated prices for each region. For the US, we’ve also included the current price of each console for comparison. U.S. PS5 – $649.99 (up from $549.99)PS5 Digital Edition – $599.99 (up from $499.99)PS5 Pro – $899.99 (up from $749.99)U.K. PS5 – £569.99PS5 Digital Edition – £519.99PS5 Pro – £789.99 Europe PS5 – €649.99PS5 Digital Edition – €599.99PS5 Pro – €899.99 Japan PS5 – ¥97,980PS5 Digital Edition – ¥89,980PS5 Pro – ¥137,980Here is the new price for the PlayStation Portal, Sony’s handheld game streaming platform. U.S. – $249.99 (up from $199.99) U.K. – £219.99 Europe – €249.99 Japan – ¥39,980 If you’re doing the math, this means, in the US, the PS5 will soon cost $100-$150 more, depending on the model. Sony last raised prices for the PS5 less than a year ago, first in Europe and other territories in April, then in the US last August. When you factor in that the original PS5 launched at $499.99 in 2020, the console will soon become roughly $250 more expensive, less than six years later. The PS5 Pro launched in September 2024 at $699, so it will now become $200 more expensive in less than two years. Sony is far from alone, as 2025 saw each platform maker raise its hardware prices due to the economic conditions (caused in no small part by the US government’s global tariffs). Microsoft raised the price of Xbox Series X/S consoles twice last year (in May and October), along with price hikes to Xbox Game Pass and certain first-party games. Nintendo famously delayed pre-orders for the Switch 2 due to the US tariffs and raised the price of the console's accessories before launch. Nintendo is among hundreds of companies suing the Trump Administration to demand a refund from the tariffs after the Supreme Court ruled them to be unlawful earlier this month. The company also raised the price of the original Switch models in the US last October, citing a similar economic reasons. View the full article

Meta has reportedly cut around 700 roles across several divisions, including its Reality Labs unit. Read more View the full article

The German games market grew 4% in 2025 to €9.4 billion, driven by higher console hardware sales, particularly the launch of the Nintendo Switch 2. Read more View the full article

Lucky Goal is free on Epic Games Store until Mar 29. Lucky Goal is a unique soccer game with multiple modes ... View the full article

Ghost of Yōtei was both Game Informer and one of my own favorite games of last year. The single player campaign is dense and often solitary by design. Atsu spends a lot of time alone, pushing even those who want to get close to her away. The new Legends mode, which released March 10, is not a lonely experience. Like Tsushima’s similarly titled Legends mode, it is a full campaign of levels that can be played with others. The amount of additional game on offer is impressive, even more so when you consider that it is all free for Ghost of Yōtei owners. I played through the Legends mode (though more content will be added as soon as April) and spoke with the mode’s lead designer Darren Bridges about the process of developing a multiplayer mode alongside a huge single-player campaign and asked the important questions: why does this mode exist and is there financial incentive to adding such a big, free campaign? Game Informer: I know your title at Sucker Punch – lead designer on Legends – but how does that work? Did you work on the single-player game and eventually move over to Legends? Or has Legends been your focus for a while? Darren Bridges: I've been almost exclusively working on multiplayer for all the development of Ghost of Yōtei. We had a small team that initially started working on multiplayer as the single-player campaign and systems were in development. And then as content wrapped on the core game, more team members moved over to help finish Legends and prepare it for launch. Did you have to wait for mechanics to be solidified? Like how countering works, for example? It’s an interesting process. So, there's some things that we can build independently that are multiplayer-exclusive. But if you played the game, you recognize a lot of the systems are adapted and moved. Pulled into co-op multiplayer online context. We want it to be familiar for players who have played the core game who know Atsu’s story. You want to feel like they can use their skills and apply them in new ways and multiplayer. It was a kind of a give and take as we moved along through development, as new systems would get developed, we pull them in and figure out how they fit. Some things worked great adapted to multiplayer. Some systems are more about, either single player story or narrative or don't fit as well in a multiplayer context. And so we try and adapt things that would be a good fit for multiplayer. Zeni Hajiki is one. When Ghost of Yōtei came out, players were like, “I want to play this against my friends.” And so that's in the lobby. You can play Zeni Hajiki, the coin-flicking game against your friends. You can even do couch, local play. You can pass and play with somebody on the couch. So adding that was directly in response to people playing Zeni Hajiki in the single-player game? Yeah, that was a big part of it. It’s obviously a head-to-head game, so we were interested. The lobby was a feature that we added in Ghost of Yōtei Legends. And our goal for the content there is to give players something to do while they're waiting, because if you play co-op with other people, often there ends up being times of waiting. And you can obviously tweak your loadout or your build, but we wanted to give players other things to do, like the Bamboo Strike Challenge with leaderboards or PvP Zeni Hajiki. There's trainers in there. There's things you can do to test your loadout. It’s a, “what do you do while you're waiting for your friends?” space. I hope this doesn’t come off as rude. My big question about the mode – this extends to Tsushima Legends, as well – and I don't mean for this to sound dismissive because I like the mode and played it a lot, is… why do this? What is the purpose and goal of this mode? Why add it? I will say, when we were working on Legends for Ghost of Tsushima as a studio, we hadn't done multiplayer… I mean, really ever. There was a little bit of same-screen multiplayer in Sly 2 back in the day, but we'd never done anything online or networked. I think for a samurai game, like a combat samurai game, it's such a natural thing for players to be excited about, or be interested in it being a thing I want to do with my friends. I think it's part of the fantasy. In the beginning of Ghost of Tsushima, you're running down a hill with other samurai near you. We knew that we wanted to do co-op from the beginning. We just were trying to figure out how this fit with what we want to deliver in the single-player campaign, which is a grounded, narrative-driven experience. And so we felt like the best way to marry those two was to create a built for co-op experience that took those same systems and themes and put them in a more action-focused, co-op-focused experience. Is there a business purpose to Legends’ inclusion? Is there financial value to adding a co-op mode like this, which doesn't have micro-transactions, right? The entire experience is fully free, right? I didn’t miss a storefront hidden in a menu, did I? No microtransactions, yeah. It’s free for all players of the game. All owners of Ghost of Yōtei. We view it as a complementary experience. So, you have a single-player campaign story, and then, this multiplayer add-on feels like it's providing good value to players. If there's a strategy thing, I think what it comes down to is, staying true or delivering the fantasy that we want. Which is, like I said, a samurai fantasy is often side-to-side with your allies, and it feels like a natural fit. And just providing good value to players. That's a good strategy. So, it's not like Sony says, “You guys have to add multiplayer!” It’s not some command from on high? No. When we started ten years ago, the original pitch for Ghost of Tsushima, we knew we wanted to do multiplayer as part of it. It was an experiment. We didn't know how it would land. But the player response was really strong. There's a lot of enjoyment, and people really engage with it. And so, we were like, “We should do it again for Ghost of Yōtei.” Beyond, I assume, the desire and potential necessity of having more time to develop the Legends mode, what is the reasoning for it not being available alongside the launch of Ghost of Yōtei? Was there ever a discussion of, “We should have this full package available on day one.” Definitely. There's logistic challenges. It felt like a natural fit for the development of the content. But, I think – and you played it – so the Legends framing is that this is the story, or pieces of the story, that happened in Atsu’s experience in the single-player campaign, kind of retold years later by a narrator. We kind of imagine this as being maybe 50 or 100 years later. Someone telling a fantastical story about what happened, but some of the details have been lost. Atsu’s not talked about, and some of the characters have been exaggerated. So, the bosses you find are not human-sized. They're giants with supernatural powers. And I think that – obviously, even if someone has no context for the core game, the core story, it should be accessible and enjoyable by them – but I think, there's a cool appeal to players being able to experience the single-player story; live through it; face all the Yōtei Six in human form, and then get to see it revisualized and recontextualized in this fantastical story. I think that'll enhance their appreciation and excitement. Can you tell me about the art direction? I love how, after spending so much time in Atsu’s life in a grounded and realistic setting, it’s exciting to visit such a strange and abstract version of this world and also not really be beholden to the physics of the world. Like being able to teleport. When we built co-op initially, we wanted to give ourselves every opportunity to build it specifically in ways that enabled it to be easy to make, fun co-op experiences for players. And when you have fantasy elements or supernatural elements, it's easier to make content or mechanics or rules that enable that and facilitate that co-op play. And there's tons of interesting fantasy ideas in Japanese culture that we tap into and bring in The Oni, or Yuki Onna, the snow woman, or of course, the giant bosses themselves. I think it's a fresh experience for players and on the development side, too. We love building these grounded, open-world experiences, but it's fun to take a break and do something kind of crazy. The artists always enjoy just spreading their wings a little bit. I mentioned the teleporting mechanic, which is something that feels like a product of Ghost of Yōtei’s borderline magical, non-existent fast-travel load times. Is that something that would have been fun to have in the single-player campaign, but simply wouldn’t have made sense in Atsu’s grounded story? Were there discussions about building mechanics like that that wouldn’t make narrative sense in the main game? When we're brainstorming ideas for what to incorporate, we're looking for anything that opens up new gameplay opportunities, whether it's navigation or cooperative elements or enemies or hero abilities. And that one seemed like a fun fun idea to have, especially as one of the most fun things in stealth gameplay is being able to climb up on a building and jump down on someone. And so being able to teleport across the world, above someone's head and immediately drop down and assassinate them and then start finding all the people that are nearby just seemed like a fun experience. What are the plans for adding additional content to Legends? You don’t fight all six of the Yōtei Six. Yeah, it wouldn't be the Yōtei Six without the last two. The raid is going to be launching in April, so it's coming soon. The raid will be the most co-op-focused content. A lot of the content in the existing game is built to be enhanced if you're playing with other players and easier and there should be opportunities to work together. But there's no point where we say, “Oh, you can't continue unless you have another person by your side doing this.” But with the raid, you really want to have other people that you're comfortable with that ideally you'd be on mics with. We’re really forcing you to rely on your teammates when you play and coordinate. It’s the most co-op, co-op. You'll need high-level gear, high-level cooperation. It should really be a good teamwork experience. This, admittedly, would have been a better first question, but how long have you been with Sucker Punch? Sly 2 was the first game I worked on. You, know… now that I’ve said it, I think Sly 3 had multiplayer, but anyways – yeah, Sly 2. I started in 2003 at the studio, so it’s been awhile. I came in halfway through development on that one. So, that was my first experience in game dev. For more on Ghost of Yōtei you can read our review here, or watch the video review below. You can also read our interviews with co-directors Nate Fox and Jason Connell, and lead writer Ian Ryan. View the full article

Claim Static Voice for free on Itch.io! Static Voice is a first-person survival game where you play as a ... View the full article

The latest edition of the Xbox Partner Preview brought a number of reveals and updates for third-party titles coming to the Xbox ecosystem. If you didn’t catch the broadcast, we’ve rounded up a summary for every game featured, listed in alphabetical order. Alien Deathstorm (World Premiere)Release Date: TBA The next game by Atomfall and Sniper Elite developer Rebellion is an atmospheric first-person adventure centered on combating aliens attacking a storm-battered off-world colony. Alien Deathstorm is coming to Xbox Series X/S and PC and will be available on Game Pass. Artificial Detective (World Premiere)Release Date: 2027 The Showcase concluded with the reveal of this stylish, post-apocalyptic adventure. The game stars a robotic, wisecracking detective who must solve the mystery of why humanity disappeared. Well, save for a single human child that was somehow left behind. The robot detective and this child team up to crack the case in this third-person action-adventure title coming next year to Xbox Series X/S and PC. Ascend to ZeroRelease Date: July 13 We’ve been impressed with this action roguelike for a while after playing its demo, and we finally have a release date. Ascend to Zero is a cyberpunk-inspired isometric action romp where players can freeze time to overcome enemies in battle. The fast-paced action, combined with the slick voxel presentation, looks great, and we learned it’s coming to Xbox Series X/S and Game Pass in addition to PC. Bluey’s Happy Snaps (World Premiere)Release Date: Fall 2026 Look, we’re not afraid to admit that although we may be adults (and, in some cases, parents), many of us really like Bluey. The charming kids’ cartoon has a new game where Bluey and her sister Bingo embark on a photography-focused adventure, snapping pictures of Australian wildlife with their father Bandit’s camera. The game features new locations never seen on the show, and every picture is recorded in a cute scrapbook along with tons of collectibles. Look for Bluey’s Happy Snaps on Xbox Series X/S, PC, and Game Pass. DispatchRelease Date: Summer 2026 All five episodes of the hit superhero workplace comedy are finally flying to Xbox Series X/S. The narrative choice-driven adventure stars Robert Robinson III, a former superhero who is forced into a desk job as a dispatcher leading a team of reformed supervillains. Dispatching gameplay centers on answering emergency calls by determining the right team member for the job, and the story branches in several directions based on how you interact with your superpowered co-workers. Read more about the news here. The Eternal Life of GoldmanRelease Date: 2026 This beautiful hand-animated 2D platformer has a new trailer and a release window. The whimsical story centers on Goldman, an elderly adventurer who travels to mystical islands to kill a mysterious entity called the Deity. The DuckTales-inspired precision platforming sees Goldman navigate platforming challenges and defeat enemies by bouncing on his cane, which can be customized with various parts to change its capabilities. We look forward to seeing how Goldman’s adventure plays out this year on Xbox and PC, as well as PS5 and Switch. Read more about the news here. The Expanse: Osiris RebornRelease Date: Spring 2027 A new trailer revealed a fresh look at this latest video game adaptation of the hit sci-fi series, which, appropriately, draws a lot of influence from Mass Effect. The third-person action-RPG sees players controlling a customizable Captain who assembles a crew to confront a solar system plagued with conflict. The Expanse: Osiris Reborn is coming next year on Xbox Series X/S and PC, and will be available on Game Pass. Forever AgoRelease Date: Fall 2026 If you enjoy emotionally heavy road trips, this narrative adventure is for you. It stars Alfred, a man in his mid-70s who brings his camera to various locations from his past to capture memories that explore loss and regret, as well as hope and friendship. Look for it this fall on Xbox Series X/S, PC, and Game Pass. Frog SqwadRelease Date: June 2026 As editor Charles Harte said so eloquently in his preview of Frog Sqwad, indie developers love frogs. And if you do too, this comedic puzzle-platformer may be up your alley. Either alone or alongside friends (up to eight players total), you’ll use your sticky frog tongue to explore levels and retrieve snacks to fill a food quota for a king. Failing this may result in you being on the menu instead. Frog Sqwad is coming this June to Xbox Series X/S, PC, and Game Pass. Grave SeasonsRelease Date: August 14 If you’re looking for a fun thematic twist on the farming sim, Grave Seasons is just that. Payers control an escaped convict who begins a new life in a small, quiet town. All goes well until a serial killer begins running amok, and it’s up to you to find out who’s behind a series of murders. Along the way, you’ll farm crops, sell goods, and help the town become more prosperous. You’ll also interact with villagers, all of whom are suspects in the murders. Grave Seasons seems tailor-made for those who find true crime programs cozy viewing, and a public demo is also coming soon. Hades IIRelease Date: April 14 Supergiant Games’ fantastic roguelike sequel is making its way to Xbox after previously launching on PC and Switch platforms. Players control Melinoë, princess of the Underworld and sister of Hades protagonist Zagreus, who embarks on a revenge mission against the Titan of Time that usurped her family’s kingdom. We scored Hades II a very rare 10/10 review score last year, so needless to say, we think it’s worth checking out if you haven’t done so yet. Hades II is coming to Xbox Series X/S, Xbox on PC, and Game Pass. Read more about the news here. Hunter: The Reconing - Deathwish (World Premiere) Release Date: 2027 Set in the World of Darkness universe, which includes properties like Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse, this cinematic trailer follows a team of hunters trying to eliminate a dangerous vampire masquerading (eh?) as a cop. Whether that’s merely a small tease of a grander plot or if this vampire is central to the story remains unclear. Players will have to wait until next year to find out. Read more about the game here. Moosa: Dirty Fate (World Premiere) Release Date: 2027 This upcoming third-person action game takes place in Feudal Korea and boasts a painterly Korean-inspired art direction. After a powerful and mysterious force sweeps the land, causing crops and fields to wither to dust, players must track the source of this threat to save their people. Look for Moosa: Dirty Fate on Xbox Series X/S, PC, and Game Pass. Serious Sam: Shatterverse (World Premiere)Release Date: 2026 One of the most enduring first-person shooters returns with a brand-new entry that tackles the multiverse. The game stars five Sams from alternate realities who band together to save the Shatterverse from a god-like villain called Mental. Each Sam sports unique abilities and, of course, an arsenal of powerful weapons to mow down hordes of threats. The game is coming this year to Xbox Series X/S and PC. Read more about the news here. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Cost of Hope DLCRelease Date: Summer 2026 S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is getting its first major story expansion this year that throws players in the middle of a big conflict between two familiar factions: Duty and Freedom. Cost of Hope takes players to locations such as the Chornobyl Nuclear Power plant, the Iron Forest region, and more in an expansion that developer GSC Game World says will take up to 20 hours to complete. Read more about the news here. Stranger Than HeavenRelease Date: TBA RGG Studio unveiled a new trailer for its enigmatic new action game about a mysterious and seemingly immortal character living through multiple eras of Japanese history. We know the game will unfold across five different eras of history, but we still don’t know much about what this tantalizing game has in store. Thankfully, a dedicated broadcast focused on Stranger Than Heaven will air on May 6, which will explore the game’s characters, settings, and story. Read more about the news here. Super Meat Boy 3DRelease Date: March 31 Meat Boy’s delightful-looking foray into the third dimension has a release date, and it’s much closer than we expected: March 31, or next Tuesday. Like the original, which helped define the old era of Xbox Live Arcade, Super Meat Boy is a steeply challenging precision platformer, but now you can watch Meat Boy explode into meaty chunks in fully 3D environments. Super Meat Boy 3D is coming to PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, and PC. Read more about the game here. Read more about the news here. Vaunted (World Premiere)Release Date: 2026 This new third-person strategy game comes from a team consisting of former StarCraft and Guild Wars developers. Part space western, part Valkyria Chronicles, players control a band of dysfunctional treasure hunters who battle rival mercenaries to pilfer ancient loot in tactical combat that blends real-time shooting with turn-based action. Vaunted is coming to PC later this year. Read more about the news here. Wuthering WavesRelease Date: July 2026 This popular free-to-play action RPG is making its way to Xbox this summer. Players control an amnesia warrior named Rover who must uncover their past. Wuthering Waves boasts an anime-inspired look and an open world for players to explore, preferably atop the cool motorcycle you get. Wuthering Waves is coming to Xbox Series X/S, PC, and Game Pass. 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The final game shown during the Xbox Partner Preview was another new announcement. Artificial Detective puts you in the shoes of a wise-cracking robot detective in the post-apocalypse. Humanity has vanished, and it's up to you to figure out what happened and, eventually, save humanity. However, things become complicated when you discover a single human child that has been left behind. Together with this child, you must work to solve the case of the missing species, figure out why the child has been left behind, and ultimately save the human race from extinction. The game plays out as a third-person action game, but we'll need to wait to learn more about this promising title. Artificial Detective is set to arrive in 2027 on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. For more on the game, you can head to an interview with the developers on Xbox Wire. View the full article

The most exciting parts of any gaming showcase are the new game reveals, and today's Xbox Partner Preview gave us exactly that with Moosa: Dirty Fate. Set in Feudal Korea, the game showcases intense third-person combat set against a bleak backdrop. Check out the reveal trailer below. When a crop-killing famine spreads across Korea, its people are driven to cannibalism, while bandits raid and burn villages in the chaos. You play as the hero tasked with freeing the land, and given that the trailer's narrator refers to you as "your majesty," it sounds like you're also a ruler of some kind. The trailer shows off fast-paced, bloody combat, complete with terrifying monsters, crowds of foes, and and lots of parrying. According to the trailer's YouTube description, the word "Moosa" refers to a master of martial arts. Based on the skills on display in the trailer, it seems like that refers to the protagonist, and if they play well enough, it ideally refers to the player, too. Moosa: Dirty Fate is coming to PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC in 2027, and will also be available on Game Pass. View the full article

Vaunted is one of the world premieres from today’s Xbox Partner Preview and comes from upstart studio Lost Lake Games. This team consists of former developers behind strategy hits like StarCraft and Guild Wars, and is channeling that expertise into its debut strategy title. The game takes place in a galaxy ruled by chaos, following the collapse of a galactic empire a millennium ago. Mercenaries and treasure hunters dominate the cosmos and regularly clash over the pursuit of priceless imperial relics. This includes the dysfunctional team treasure hunters Dyse, Gendril, and Kyvaath, who players will control in their quest to find the ultimate treasure. Vaunted is described as a tactical RPG that blends real-time third-person shooting with turn-based combat; imagine an amalgamation of space westerns and the Valkyria Chronicles series, a combination Lost Lake Games cites and leans into. Vaunted has no initiative-based turn order, so players control when characters perform actions while alternating turns with enemies. In addition to the three main heroes, you control companions, and each unit boasts skill trees, randomized upgrades, unique loadouts, and diverse build options. Lost Lake Games promises “rich RPG mechanics” and that players will experience fleshed-out motivations for the main protagonists. The team also promises an element of unreliable narration, as the death of one hero will give players a chance to rewrite the current chapter from the skewed perspective of a surviving hero, opening new conversations, loot, and skills. We're especially curious to see the narrative implications of this approach. The studio is led by James Phinney, formerly of Blizzard and Arena Net. Vaunted is coming later this year to PC via Steam, the Epic Games Store, and the Microsoft Store. It will also be available on PC Game Pass. View the full article

Last year, Hades II and Dispatch were among the most critically acclaimed games. Hades II landed at number 2 on Game Informer's list of the best games of 2025, while Dispatch was one of the final titles cut from that top 10 list. However, they also have another thing in common: Neither came to Xbox last year. That is changing very soon, as both Supergiant Games and AdHoc Studio announced their critical and fan-favorite games are coming to Microsoft's gaming platform in the next few months. In Hades II, you take control of Melinoë as you journey through the underworld to take on Chronos, the Titan of Time. As the follow-up to one of the most acclaimed indie games and roguelites ever, Hades II had a high bar set for it, but it somehow managed to break through those expectations to deliver a genre-leading experience. Dispatch, which is a superhero workplace comedy, signaled a return of sorts for the episodic adventure game style that Telltale Games thrust into the mainstream consciousness. But Dispatch elevates the genre from simply telling compelling stories to matching the storytelling and cast quality to something you might spot on a high-end streaming service, while adding fun gameplay sequences throughout the chapters. Dispatch When it released on Switch 2, Switch, and PC on September 25, 2025, Hades II earned an extremely rare 10 out of 10 score from Game Informer, with Game Informer's Charles Harte saying, "Hades II is the pinnacle of the roguelike genre, a position I previously granted its predecessor, but one that its sequel has handily earned." When Dispatch arrived on PS5 and PC on October 22, 2025, freelancer and former Game Informer editor Ben Reeves awarded it a 9 out of 10, saying, "Instead of imitating movies, it borrows liberally from prestige television, showcasing character-driven storytelling, slow-burn drama, and high emotional stakes that tighten with every episode." Hades II arrives on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, including on Xbox Game Pass, on April 14. Dispatch swoops onto the Xbox ecosystem this summer. View the full article

Today’s Xbox Partner Showcase revealed a new trailer for The Eternal Life of Goldman, a beautiful 2D platformer by Weappy Studio, developer of This is the Police and Rebel Cops. Additionally, we learned the anticipated game will launch day one on Game Pass. The Eternal Life of Goldman centers on the titular Goldman, a cane-bearing elderly adventurer who travels to a mystical set of islands called the Archipelago to kill an entity known as the Deity. Featuring hand-drawn, hand-animated art evocative of ‘70s-’90s animation and inspired by European folklore, the game channels classic platformers such as Ducktales in its gameplay. Goldman can bounce on his cane to defeat enemies and overcome platforming challenges, and his cane can be customized to perform various tasks and change its platforming properties. Check out the new trailer below. Unfortunately, we still don’t have a release window for the game, but we’re hoping it arrives sooner rather than later. The Eternal Life of Goldman is coming to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, and PC. View the full article

Developer GSC Game World has revealed Cost of Hope, the first major expansion for its open-world survival shooter, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl, which originally launched on Xbox and PC in 2024 before coming to PlayStation 5 last year. The team describes Cost of Hope as a massive nonlinear expansion packed with dozens of hours of gameplay in the Zone, and it launches sometime this Summer simultaneously for all versions of the game. Revealed during today's Xbox Partner Preview with a new trailer, Cost of Hope puts players in control of Skif, the base game's protagonist, once more to navigate events that unfold alongside that base game's narrative. After installing the DLC, a signal on the PDA will trigger the new storyline as the game unfolds. GSC Game World says that your choices will shape what happens next and could affect not just the Zone, but far beyond it. Check it out in the Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl – Cost of Hope Expansion reveal trailer below: "Duty, one of the oldest factions, sees the Zone as a threat that must be contained and destroyed," a press release reads. "On the other side, Freedom believes it's a gift – something to explore and harness for the greater good. For a time, this tension was held together by a fragile peace. But deals like that rarely last." Cost of Hope introduces two new regions to explore: the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant and the Iron Forest. Each region features its own hub, quests, and activities, alongside new weapons and gear for Skif to use in his fight against mutants, anomalies, and more. Curiously, despite dubbing Cost of Hope the "first major expansion" for Stalker 2, GSC Game World says Cost of Hope serves as a "middle chapter of the 'second trilogy,'" of the Stalker series, noting that Stalker 2 expansions will be released in installments. "Together with a future story DLC – details of which will be revealed later – it will form a new, expansive narrative arc within the Stalker saga," the studio writes. Here are some screenshots from the Cost of Hope expansion: The studio will share more about the Summer 2026 release window "soon," it writes in the press release. Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl is available now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC, and the Cost of Hope expansion will launch on all three platforms this Summer. What do you hope to see in this Stalker 2 expansion? Let us know in the comments below! View the full article

During today's Xbox Partner Preview stream, Rebellion, the studio behind Sniper Elite and Atomfall, revealed an all-new game. Alien Deathstorm is an atmospheric first-person shooter set on an alien world blasted by a storm. The gameplay looks intense and constant, with waves of grotesque aliens swarming you around every corner. This first look at the game shows the settlement, which has been decimated by unstable weather conditions and monstrous alien creatures, making the name of the game extremely apt. You arrive to help figure out what caused the destruction, but that mission quickly turns from a mission of investigation to a fight for survival. Alien Deathstorm arrives on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC in 2027, but when it does arrive, will be on Xbox Game Pass, and will be an Xbox Play Anywhere title. View the full article

Like a Dragon/Yakuza developer RGG Studio has released a new trailer for its upcoming game, Stranger Than Heaven, which reveals that its narrative will unfold across five different time periods. Plus, RGG has announced that a deep-dive presentation for the game is coming in May. Stranger Than Heaven was first announced under the working title Project Century at The Game Awards 2024, revealing a jazz-infused action game set across different historical periods. A year later, at The Game Awards 2025, RGG released a new trailer for the game, revealing the official "Stranger Than Heaven" name in the process. We still don't know when to expect Stranger Than Heaven, but today's new trailer, which aired during an Xbox Partner Preview showcase, reveals that its story spans different eras of history: 1915, 1929, 1943, 1951, and 1965. Check it out for yourself in the latest Stranger Than Heaven trailer below: Alongside this new trailer, Xbox and RGG have revealed they will hold an "Xbox Presents: A Special Look At Stranger Than Heaven" presentation on May 6, promising a deep-dive "into the setting, story, characters, and much more." For more details about the game, head to this Xbox Wire blog post. Are you excited by Stranger Than Heaven's latest showing? Let us know in the comments below! View the full article

Super Meat Boy 3D is set to bring the classic 2D series into the 3D realm, and it looks extremely promising. While we've gotten our hands on the title, we haven't known when we'd finally get to play the full game outside of a nebulous "early 2026." Thanks to today's Xbox Partner Preview stream, we now know when the actual release date is, and it's right around the corner: March 31. Originally announced in 2025, Super Meat Boy 3D is the third mainline entry in the series, but the first to deliver a 3D adventure. The core concept is the same: Run, jump, and wall-slide from point A to point B in increasingly challenging obstacle courses. And, true to the series, when you finally succeed, you get to watch a replay featuring all your failures running along your success. With the new 3D plane, Team Meat has numerous new ways to design their levels, something I saw firsthand when I played through the first world a couple of weeks ago. Super Meat Boy 3D arrives on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, and PC on March 31. It will be available on Xbox Game Pass. View the full article

Serious Sam is making his return, and this time, he's not alone. Revealed during today's Xbox Partner Preview, Serious Sam: Shatterverse is a Spiderverse-inspired take on the first-person shooter, bringing Sams from several dimensions into the same adventure. You can check out the reveal trailer below. Shatterverse features five playable Sams, each with distinct art styles. Since the game is multiplayer, you and up to four friends can play at once, each assuming the role of a different Sam. Classic weapons will return, but they'll exist alongside new "all-new toys" from the Shatterverse. While previous games in the series were helmed by Croatian studio Croteam, Shatterverse is being developed by Dead by Daylight developer Behaviour Interactive, with Devolver Digital returning to publish. “Our main goal was to respect Serious Sam's rich legacy while presenting it in a fresh, contemporary way unlike anything seen before in the series,” Behaviour Interactive’s Nic Duchesne wrote in a press release. “Working with Devolver has been an incredible, enriching experience for our team. The folks there are real renegades of the video game publishing world: they always put the game first and aren’t afraid to carve their own path.” While the game was announced during the Xbox Partner Preview, it's not exclusive to the platform – Serious Sam: Shatterverse launches on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC later this year. View the full article

Hunter: The Reckoning – Deathwish is a first-person action game set in the World of Darkness universe, which also includes franchises like Vampire: The Masquerade. Microsoft opened today's Xbox Partner Preview with this announcement, revealing Deathwish will hit Xbox Series X/S, Xbox on PC, and Xbox Cloud in the Summer of 2027. This first trailer follows a team of hunters out to take down a dangerous vampire masquerading (wink wink) as a police officer while also teasing some of the other locations you'll explore in the game. If you've been gaming for a minute, you might recognize Hunter: The Reckoning, as it was a hack-and-slash/third-person shooter that launched on the original Xbox in 2002 and the Nintendo GameCube the following year. Check out the Hunter: The Reckoning – Deathwish reveal trailer for yourself below: You can read more about the game at the Xbox Wire blog post here. Deathwish follows last year's Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2, the most recent game in the World of Darkness universe, and though they occupy the same world, it remains unclear if they're connected at all. You can read Game Informer's Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 review here, and then check out our Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 hub for more behind-the-scenes information about the World of Darkness from our cover story last year. Did you play the original Hunter: The Reckoning? Let us know in the comments below! View the full article

Saros is one of the most promising games of the year, especially for fans of Housemarque's previous release, Returnal. Senior associate editor Wesley LeBlanc falls squarely in that camp, so we're glad he was able to visit the studio's headquarters to get his hands on Saros, and even more glad that he was able to bring some footage home to show off to Charles and Marcus. Check out the video below to see two of the game's biomes, a boss fight, and Wes's hands-on impressions. For more of Wes's thoughts on Saros, check out his written preview and the pieces he wrote about the game's orange-heavy color scheme, Housemarque's thoughts on arcade-style games, and whether Saros is coming to PC. View the full article

Skip the spring sale, grab Havendock for free on the Epic Games Store! Havendock is a very cozy colony sim ... View the full article

Missing the old arcade classics? Grab Hyper Echelon for free on the Epic Games Store! Hyper Echelon is a cool ... View the full article

Platform: PlayStation 5 Publisher: PlayStation Studios Developer: Housemarque Release: April 30, 2026 There is a progression of perspective in the best-designed roguelites. The exciting confusion of the opening moments, when everything is foreign to you; when your hands feel broken as you hold the controller while reading a UI that may as well have been written by aliens. And the elation of completing a run, when a once indecipherable language of on-screen notifications and gameplay becomes native, and you have become an expert. Good roguelites understand this – the great ones use this, creating a consonance within the cacophony. Returnal’s Selene struggles as much as you in your first run. Zagreus is as emphatically excited as you when he first escapes Hades. And now, Arjun, the player-controlled protagonist of Saros, joins this echelon… at least, I think he will after playing developer Housemarque’s upcoming roguelite for three hours earlier this month. Arjun awakens on the ancient, but high-tech planet of Carcosa, confused but determined. He straps a necklace weighed down by an amulet bearing a foreign sun, picks up his pistol, and ardently charges toward a voice begging for him. I want to know who she is – Arjun already knows, but he wants to find her, and so we both begin a journey through this burnt planet. As Arjun struggles to piece together where he is and what these destructive machines are (and why they’re firing at him), so, too, do I. It’s one of the best moments of my time playing Saros. Together, we try to learn a new language: the language of survival, of movement, of oil-ridden murder. The action is brand new for Arjun, and actor-gamer Rahul Kohli sells an excellent blend of disbelief and impassioned determination for this character I control. However, it’s not entirely new to me, as I speak a similar language. I played Returnal. In Returnal, Selene dashed through lines of explosive orbs, jumping when she must, and shooting through it all. In Saros, Arjun does the same, though it’s a dance here. Arjun wants to kill; he wants to reach the end to find her, whoever she is. Selene just wanted to survive. The most exciting difference in Saros is that dance, and I’m not surprised to hear Housemarque rebuke calling this game a “bullet hell,” opting instead for “bullet ballet.” Based on my playtime, the difference between hell and ballet is hegemony. Selene was constantly on the back foot throughout Returnal. Arjun is the opposite, and Housemarque’s kit for him demonstrates that. Arjun jumps, long jumps, dashes, long dashes, and most importantly, uses a special shield that not only deflects damage but absorbs it, morphing it into Power that he can use to deal devastating damage to anyone in his way. This drastically changes the relationship between our protagonist this time around and the returning arcade-style cascade of bullets. I’m not interested in dodging them – I want to go straight through them, and Arjun’s shield is the vehicle for that. It’s a familiar defensive mechanic (arguably the most familiar in all of games), but this small change flips this studio’s excellent roguelite formula on its head. I now crave those blue orbs and orange lasers. I die a few times while attempting to learn the language of Saros, but I soon find the confidence/cockiness I took three times longer to discover in Returnal. I save up my Power Weapon, a special move that requires the Power (i.e., energy) only your shield can gather to defeat the boss known as Bastion, a massive mechanical hive-mind in the game’s second biome, itself a sprawling network of pipes, wires, and metal. Right on cue, this is the other best moment of my time playing Saros. But trust that everything between the opening moment and this victory isn’t throwaway. I witness other ways Housemarque has learned and evolved from Returnal. You can suspend a run (the biggest boon for parents like me); your progression between runs is more apparent and more immediate, with bountiful upgrades to work through by spending the Lucenite you collect on Carcosa; there’s an ensemble cast, adding some warmth to this otherwise alien planet; and there’s teleportation and shortcuts, making it easy to get to exactly where you want to go, though I suspect the most hardcore of roguelite enjoyers will loudly admonish these locomotive efforts. In other words, every issue I wanted changed in Returnal seems to have been addressed in Saros. With little time to go before Saros is out, I find myself anxious to return to Carcosa, where harmonies of metals, technology, and extraterrestrial melodies drone over the action Arjun orchestrates with gun in hand. His desperation to find the woman whispering in his ear matches mine. Though we have different reasons, we both intend to reach an end, and I can’t wait to see what awaits us there. While waiting for Saros to launch exclusively on PlayStation 5 on April 30, read Game Informer's Returnal review, and then check out this Saros gameplay trailer. After that, read about how Saros will let you teleport straight to unlocked biomes. Are you excited for Saros? Ask me any questions you might have about it in the comments below and I'll answer what I can! View the full article

Don´t miss this adventure! Grab SYMMETRY for free via Epic Games Store! SYMMETRY is a 2d Sci-fi survival management ... View the full article

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie hits theaters next week on Thursday, April 1, and what better way to get people excited for it than by spoiling what would have been a really cool in-movie reveal... with a poster that does that instead? I'm not sure why Nintendo did this today, but on the official Super Mario Galaxy Movie X account, the company revealed that Fox McCloud, of Star Fox and Super Smash Bros. fame, will be in the movie. It did so by releasing a new poster for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie that features Fox front and center, seemingly ready for action or some cooperative fun alongside Mario. I'm not quite sure how Fox will fit into a movie based on Super Mario Galaxy (though trailers have indicated this movie is pulling from a lot more than just that series of Mario games), but fans have long predicted that Nintendo and Universal's ultimate aim with these movies is to have an Avengers moment with a Super Smash Bros. movie. With Fox confirmed for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, that possibility is seeming more and more likely. Check out the Fox McCloud poster for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie for yourself below: As you can see, there's no mystery here – that is Fox McCloud, and that's his Arwing spaceship in the background. What this means for the rest of the movie, or who else might appear, that's anybody's guess! The Super Mario Galaxy Movie hits theaters next week on April 1. In the meantime, check out the final trailer for the movie. Who else do you hope to see in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie? Let us know in the comments below! View the full article