President Trump hit a 90-day pause on a whole raft of “reciprocal” tariffs aimed at U.S. trading partners around the world. While many seem skeptical that the heavily criticized and widely unpopular import taxes could come back, what if Trump decided to do just that? A new report models what would happen under that…

Read more...

I think this Doom and Wolfenstein Mayhem Bundle from Humble is an easy win if you’re even remotely interested in first-person shooters. For $28 / £21.16, you get fifteen titles spanning decades of FPS history. From the original DOOM to the more recent Wolfenstein reboots, this is a complete collection of mayhem. It’s also the lowest price I’ve seen for a bundle with this much legacy and content in one place.

Read more

What do people that play Frostpunk call themselves, frostpunks? Feels too obvious, but I'm going to do it anyway. Breaking news frostpunks! There's a new big Frostpunk 2 update that's just arrived in the game, adding some pretty big additions and changes,so let's jump into them. First up, The Pit! No, it's not just some hole to chuck things in, it's a large new map with a "distinctive 'proto-crater' pit counted as mountain terrain," to be found within.

Read more

I was gonna play Grand Theft Auto 6 regardless of who I got to be, but I gotta give a shoutout to Rockstar for giving everyone some eye candy with its protagonist duo, Jason and Lucia. While Jason is in a loving relationship with Lucia and seemingly straight (to be determined), that hasn’t stopped gay men from…

Read more...

Mafia: The Old Country will release on August 8th, developers Hangar 13 and publishers 2K Games have confirmed, and look, here’s a trailer featuring much headlong bloodshed in the villas, citrus groves and *squints* mysterious firelit dungeons of early 20th century Sicily.

With GTA 6 now releasing in 2026, the new Mafia is the criminal enterprise to beat this year. Rather than trying to fill the hole left by the Rockstar colossus, it’s playing things small with “a focused, linear experience that combines quality storytelling, authentic era immersion and a refined take on the familiar Mafia gameplay,” according to Hangar 13 president Nick Baynes.

Read more

The horizon glows red. Europa Universalis 5 is posturing itself as the next grandaddy of grand strategy. It follows 12 years of updates and expansions to Europa Universalis 4, so it has some catching up to do. But much of the historical simulation is in place, along with new features and a fresh focus on the rowdy populations you'll be lording it over. Like its predecessors, Europa Universalis 5 will be a deeply complex game. I'm going to do my best to explain it.

Read more

Paradox have announced grand strategy game Europa Universalis 5, following some teasers last week. It's the next big entry in the series of complex globe-spanning historical simulations, and having played a little as the hapless ruler of Korea in the 14th century, I can confirm that it is so far as chunky, complicated, and deep as usual. The changes in this sequel won't look wild or revolutionary to a dabbler, but seasoned tyrants might find a lot to pique their interest. Come see a trailer below.

Read more

Read more...

We all know that Palworld developer Pocketpair are currently dealing with a lawsuit from Mario maker Nintendo. Specifically, it's over patent rights, rather than something like copyright infringement which everyone was expecting given the liberties that Palword takes with its Pal designs. In November it was confirmed what those patents are, partially relating to the fact you could throw out your Pals from a ball and they'd appear, similar to Pokemon Legends Arceus. That feature was patched out from Palworld though, and in a new post Pocketpair has confirmed that this is because of the ongoing lawsuit.

Read more

Recent indie darling Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is more polished on PC than you might expect from the size of its core development team, but it still has some presentation issues that conflict with its narrative focus and some PC-specific problems that make the PC release arguably the least polished version of the game.

Read more

Mafia: The Old Country, the next entry in the Mafia franchise, is officially arriving on consoles and PC this August. And interestingly, despite nearly every publisher charging more for new games, the Mafia prequel will only cost $50 across all platforms.

Read more...

3D platformer Paperklay has perhaps the least appealing protagonists I've seen in a game recently. I hate avian buddy duo "Chick & Nugget" and all their works, beginning with the ghastly 3am pun that appears to have spawned them.

Look at that ampersand, dangling in the middle like a chunk of gristle. What an absolute crime against typography. And chickens. And platform game levels made of paper and card - you'd never put an actual chicken nugget on dioramas like these, the grease would ruin it. I also mistrust Chick's beady black eyes, and I can't abide the fact that Nugget is wearing a fragment of eggshell for pants. That's like a human child using a placenta as a necktie! Argh!

Read more

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has been hailed as a GOTY-contender and a refreshingly modern take on the beloved turn-based fantasy RPGs of yore. So it’s fitting that players have discovered a strategy so broken it lets a single character do over 2 billion damage, enough to kill the hardest boss dozens of times over.

Read more...

FromSoftware owner Kadokawa hopes the release of Elden Ring spin-off Nightreign, as well as the Elden Ring Tarnished Edition on Switch 2, will offset a projected decline in gaming profits this fiscal year.

Read more

Mafia: The Old Country will launch for PC via Steam, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on 8th August, publisher 2K has now officially confirmed.

Read more

A Minecraft Movie hit big in theaters, reminding everyone how deep and far the legacy of the second best-selling game ever extends. But if you didn’t want to brave the IRL chaos of loud kids and viral TikTok memes, you’re in luck. The Jack Black green screen fever dream is hitting streaming services in mid-May.

Read more...

On a recent episode of the TigerBelly podcast, hosted by Stardew Valley superfan, Bobby Lee (Borderlands, Mad TV) Stardew Valley creator Eric Barone said that a sequel is a possibility. "I might eventually make a Stardew Valley 2, to be honest," Barone said during his extended discussion about the game with Lee. He followed up that statement talking about how money is not the driving force behind creating Stardew Valley (or, by extension, Haunted Chocolatier), which is why the game's updates have all been free.

A wondrous dreamlike world to explore in or out of VR, but a story that doesn't always hit as hard as you might want.

Read more

Reviewed on: PlayStation 5
Platform: PlayStation 5, PlayStation VR2, PC
Publisher: Fast Travel Games
Developer: MoonHood
Release: May 8, 2025

"Cozy" and "horror" seem like words with opposing definitions, but developer MoonHood Studio has repeatedly marketed its debut game, The Midnight Walk, as a cozy horror game. I understand where the studio is coming from; despite jump scares and chase sequences, the Tim Burton-esque art style is nostalgic, reminding me of watching Corpse Bride or The Nightmare Before Christmas as a kid. That said, cozy and horror are both genres that describe a game's aesthetics rather than its mechanics, and while The Midnight Walk's visuals, story, and soundtrack are compelling, its mechanics are less exciting. Still, that core paradox of "cozy horror" and its accompanying style was plenty to motivate me to see the game's satisfying end.

In case you hadn't heard, Rockstar released a second trailer for GTA 6 earlier this week. It offered a good look at the game, and was packed full of impressive moments which set the internet abuzz, such as bubbly beer and very reflective mirrors.

Read more

Nintendo boss Shuntaro Furukawa has said the company will consider raising the cost of Switch 2 after the console launches, should tariffs change "significantly".

Read more

Earlier today there was a mighty eruption of Death Stranding 2: On The Beach previews, featuring commentary on the new game's themes and social relevance from erstwhile Metal Gear Solidifier and Kojima Productions boss Hideo Kojima. Themes and social relevance, eh! Kojima is one of the few bigwigs who will engage openly with such things, which is perhaps less praise of Kojima than a judgement upon the hesitant and anodyne way other blockbuster game creators discuss the impact of their work.

In this case, Kojima has talked at some length about how Death Stranding 2 builds on and, at times, resists the first game's theme of connection, based on his experiences of the Covid pandemic and his dislike of the "metaverse" - that ageing umbrella term for a newly monetisable "web 3.0" fauxtopia of networked technologies, ranging from VR to cryptocurrency, which many large video game publishers have sought to normalise in their hunger for profit growth.

Read more

Doom: The Dark Ages releases next week, and with it the realisation that Doom Guy has come a long way since the murder of his beloved rabbit Daisy at the hands of hell. While FPS Pigface is naturally a genre descendant of Doom, I cannot say for certain if the evil rabbit that commands you to go do sledgehammer murder in its Itch.io combat demo is a descendant of Daisy. Either way, it's an ominous critter. "You know what you did to deserve this," says the rabbit. A free sledgehammer? Thanks rabbit! I knew I was good this week.

Read more

Grand Theft Auto 6 may not be coming out until May 2026, but Rockstar salved our disappointment with the release of Trailer 2, an action-packed mixture of cutscenes and gameplay. Despite being less than three minutes long, the trailer is packed with a huge amount of clues to the game's current technical make-up, including its resolution and frame-rate figures, as well as a look at some of the graphical techniques that will define its overall look.

Read more

Following its record-breaking and rather chaotic run at the cinema, Warner Bros has announced a streaming release date for A Minecraft Movie.

Read more

The developer of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 will soon nerf the RPG's best move, making it more difficult to break combat.

Read more

Fortnite is currently in the midst of its dedicated Star Wars mini-season, Galactic Battle, but fans are already looking to the future.

Read more

"Attacking is the most consistent element of Elden Ring Nightreign’s gameplay," says director Junya Ishizaki in a new PlayStation blog, explaining the choice to have players revive each other by hitting wounded mates with swords - a famously crucial tenet of the hippocratic oath. "We tested to see if it would work for resuscitation, and we discovered a wide variety of tactics depending on range, frequency, and probability, so we formally implemented it. We also found it quite amusing (laughs)."

Read more

A Death Stranding 2: On the Beach themed PS5 controller will launch alongside Kojima's forthcoming sequel.

Read more

Nintendo Switch games Pokémon Scarlet and Violet now rank among the series' best-selling games of all time, despite fan complaints over technical issues, bugs and lack of visual polish.

Read more

Valve has released a new update for Counter-Strike 2, adding weekly missions along with a number of other changes.

Read more

Today, 8th May, is a day of compound darkness, for it sees the release of (at least) two games with "midnight" in the title: Midnight Special from Scared Stupid Inc, and The Midnight Walk from Moonhood. A coincidence? Absolutely not. This is clearly an occult configuration of daunting power. It's also an opportunity to briefly compare two video game aesthetics, each comparably dense, tasty and insidious.

Read more

Necromancy is a dark art, forbidden by the mages guild in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered. At least, that's what characters in the open world RPG will tell you, before selling you a spell that lets you raise skellingtons from the dirt. You can be promoted to the head of the Mages Guild, in spite of all those corpses you keep bringing back to life. Necromancy banned? Seems like no one cares.

Well, one modder has fixed that. The mod, simply titled "Necromancy Is Actually Banned", will see you expelled from the Mages Guild if you perform any necrotic abracadabras in sight of a fellow member. You can also get fined by the guards.

Read more

Nintendo expects to sell another 4.5m units of its aging original Switch this year, despite the impending launch of Switch 2.

Read more

Palworld developer Pocketpair has released a statement regarding changes to its monster catching survival game which were made due to its ongoing Pokémon lawsuit.

Read more

Rockstar may have nudged the release date of GTA 6 back into 2026, but that doesn't mean interest has faded in any way, shape or form.

Read more

Sharpen your stake and pack some silver bullets because Humble Choice just dropped a May lineup packed with blood, brains, and pure gaming mayhem. For just $11.99 / £8.99 a month, you’re getting eight standout games plus a bonus month of IGN Plus thrown in at no extra cost. That’s over $280 in value, all for the price of a decent lunch.

Read more

Nintendo has forecast 15m sales of its Switch 2 console over the remainder of this financial year.

Read more

Hideo Kojima already has a concept in mind for Death Stranding 3, but doesn't plan to make it himself.

Read more