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Fanatical has launched a new Summer Superstars Collection Bundle, giving you the chance to grab up to 22 PC games for as little as $6.60 each. The curated list has some pretty good titles in the mix, ranging from an acclaimed Hideo Kojima game to a colorful Zelda-like set in the Austrian Alps. Pricing starts at two games for $15 ($7.50 per key), and the price will drop the more games you choose from the list. If you choose three or more games, you’ll pay $7.15 per key, and if you choose five or more games, the price drops further to $6.60 per key. There’s no limit to how many games you can select, and if you grab all 22 games, you’ll pay $145–a pretty big discount from the full bundle’s $519 value.

Kicking things off is Death Stranding: Director’s Cut. Hideo Kojima’s first game after his departure from Konami, Death Stranding is a strange but engaging game about getting cargo from point A to B while being mindful of the terrain, rain that steals time, and invisible dead creatures known as BTs. It has a slow start, but once things pick up, the game quickly evolves into a breathtaking tour of the US. This is the Director’s Cut as well, so you’re getting numerous enhancements and gameplay refinements. Since the sequel has just come out on PS5–and has been critically acclaimed–this is a great way to jump into the world of Death Stranding before Death Stranding 2: On the Beach makes its way to PC eventually.

Our other big recommendation is Dungeons of Hinterberg. Imagine The Legend of Zelda if it were a European comic book, and you’ll have a good idea of what you can expect from the game’s visuals and vibe. The game features a robust system of socializing, as you’ll need to brave dungeons and the nightlife of a scenic Austrian village, building bonds with your fellow adventurers.

Fanatical’s Build your own Summer Superstars Collection

Another notable pick is the action-adventure game Creatures of Ava. As Vic, a researcher who arrives on the planet Ava to help rescue animals before the world is rendered uninhabitable by a mysterious plague, you’ll have to explore diverse biomes to save all of the critters.

There are many more games to pick from in Fanatical’s Build Your Own Summer Super Stars Collection, including the dungeon-crawling typing game Cryptmaster, post-apocalyptic colony survival sim Endzone 2, and the puzzle-RPG hybrid Arranger, which melds slide puzzles and bumb combat with art by David Hellman of Braid fame. Check the list below for all the games you can pick in the deal, or head over to Fanatical to start customizing your own bundle. As a reminder, each game purchased is delivered as an official Steam key.

Fanatical’s Build Your Own Summer Superstars Collection

• Achilles: Legends Untold (Steam Deck Verified)
• Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure (Steam Deck Verified)
• Bear’s Restaurant (Steam Deck Verified)
• The Coin Game
• Creatures of Ava (Steam Deck Verified)
• Cryptmaster (Steam Deck Playable)
• Dark Envoy (Steam Deck Verified)
• Deathbound (Steam Deck Playable)
• Death Stranding: Director’s Cut (Steam Deck Verified)
• Diesel Legacy: The Brazen Age (Steam Deck Verified)
• Dungeons of Hinterberg (Steam Deck Verified)
• Endzone 2
• House Party (Steam Deck Playable)
• Knights Within 2 (Steam Deck Playable)
• Let’s School: Super Headmaster Edition (Steam Deck Verified)
• Meg’s Monster (Steam Deck Verified)
• Paleo Pines (Steam Deck Verified)
• Shogun Showdown (Steam Deck Verified)
• Sovereign Syndicate (Steam Deck Playable)
• Sucker for Love Double-Pack (Steam Deck Playable)
• Ultimate Zombie Defense Bundle
• Wildmender (Steam Deck Verified)

There are also several other bundle deals from Fanatical that you can explore right now. The Build Your Own Blazing Bundle offers a variety of exciting genres to check out and the August Platinum Bundle is full of interesting games like Choo-Choo Charles and Fallout 76. If you’d like to grab RoboCop: Rogue City for just $5–and a few other games–then don’t miss out on the Killer Bundle, or for a selection of action-packed games, there’s also the Build Your Own Slayer Bundle.

Disclosure: GameSpot and Fanatical are both owned by Fandom.

At long last, Hollow Knight: Silksong finally has some new footage and a release date–just two weeks away–but any official ratings from critics might take a bit longer.

Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier posted on his Bluesky account that developer Team Cherry has opted not to send out preview codes to media outlets before launch. That’s at least in part due to wanting to ensure reviewers aren’t playing before those who backed the original game on Kickstarter.

“In case you’re wondering: Team Cherry told me they don’t plan on sending out early codes for Silksong (they felt like it’d be unfair for critics to be playing before Kickstarter backers and other players), so don’t expect to see reviews until after the game comes out,” Schreier wrote.

Schreier also speculated that due to Team Cherry’s small size, it could be a logistical challenge to distribute codes widely.

Silksong, originally announced as DLC, quickly evolved into a full standalone sequel. This time, players take on the role of Hornet, a fierce and agile warrior who played a major part in the original game’s story. Silksong promises more than 150 new enemies, new combat tools and crafting mechanics, and an even faster-paced, acrobatic style of combat.

While you won’t be able to read any reviews ahead of launch, you can check out our hands-on preview from Gamescom.

The game will be released on September 4 on all major platforms, as well as Game Pass.

Delta Force is a free-to-play tactical FPS, and it’s now available across PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and mobile platforms. The game includes large-scale battles across various multiplayer game modes, and features a variety of different operators you can use, each with unique abilities.

The current roster of 11 operators each fall under one of four class-based roles: Assault, Engineer, Recon, or Support. They all offer unique abilities, and it helps to know how to best use them and how they can work together as a team.

You’ll only have four options by default, with one operator from each class, but the others can all be unlocked for free via the battle pass or in-game challenges.

Here we’ll guide you through each operator, their specific abilities, how to unlock them, and explain their best uses.

D-Wolf (Kai Silva) – Assault

D-Wolf

D-Wolf is a base operator who is available for you on day one.

D-Wolf’s abilities and gear

• Tactical ability: Motorized Exoskeleton
• Passive trait: Tactical Slide
• Gadget 1: Triple Blaster
• Gadget 2: Tactical Smoke Grenade

This assault-based operator is great for aggressive players. D-Wolf’s Motorized Exoskeleton gives him a dramatic speed boost, great for rushing enemies or objectives. He’s also the only operator who can slide, which is thanks to his Tactical Sprint trait.

His Triple Blaster fires three high-explosive grenades. These can be used on vehicles, but the damage seems more impactful against other operators. Tactical Smoke grenades help him push past enemy defenses and continue his aggression.

Vyron (Wang Yuhao) – Assault

Vyron

How to unlock Vyron

Locked operator – Vyron is part of Delta Force’s Sign-In event for new players. All you need to do is log into the game for three different days and claim him as a reward in the Roll Call event tab.

Vyron’s abilities and gear

• Tactical ability: QLL32 Crouching Tiger
• Passive trait: Dynamic Auxiliary System
• Gadget 1: Dynamic Propulsion
• Gadget 2: Magnetic Bomb

Vyron doesn’t have the speed or aggression of D-Wolf, but he’s geared toward maneuverability on the battlefield. The Dynamic Auxiliary System lets him take reduced fall damage and move faster while using gadgets, and the Dynamic Propulsion lets him dash in any direction.

Additionally, the QLL32 Crouching Tiger is a grenade launcher that lets him knock opponents down with compressed air rounds.

He’s an operator who could be good for clearing small buildings or objective areas, and he can more easily reposition himself on the battlefield with his advanced mobility.

Nox (Helie de Montbel) – Assault

Nox

How to unlock Nox

Locked operator – Nox was an operator introduced in a previous battle pass. You can still unlock this operator, but you’ll first need to select and complete his recruitment challenge. Select him in the operator menu, activate his challenge, and complete two of the three missions available for his challenge.

• Mission one: Complete 30 matches
• Mission two: Kill 100 enemies using melee weapons in Hazard Operations
• Mission three: Kill 300 enemy operators using light machine guns or assault rifles

The operator can also be purchased with in-game currency. This costs 500 Delta Coins ($10) to purchase outright.

Note: You can only have one operator recruitment challenge active at once.

Nox’s abilities and gear

• Tactical ability: Silent Assault
• Passive trait: Deep Trauma
• Gadget 1: Whirlwind Disc
• Gadget 2: Tactical Flashbang

Nox is an assault player geared towards stealth and disrupting the enemy. His Silent Assault gear allows him to use jammers to block nearby enemies from intel, while also reducing his footstep audio and enhancing his mobility. This operator is great for players who want to be both stealthy and aggressive.

With Nox, you can catch enemies off guard, and then use his gadgets to help you take them down. He comes equipped with Tactical Flashbangs, and the Whirlwind Disc can lock on to an enemy, track them, and detonate to unleash shrapnel that slows and bleeds an opponent. His Deep Trauma trait also slows the healing of enemies he damages, and it causes them to have a slower revive time.

Tempest (Claire Ann Beyers) – Assault

Tempest

How to unlock Tempest

Locked operator – Tempest is the latest operator. She’s unlocked for free in the battle pass at tier 15, and after the season ends, she’ll gain recruitment challenges for players who still need to unlock her.

Tempest’s abilities and gear

• Tactical ability: Emergency Evasion Device
• Passive trait: Auxiliary Surge Spine
• Gadget 1: Combat Roll
• Gadget 2: Drill Charge

Tempest is an assault class operator geared towards crowd control, mobility, and evasive maneuvers. Using her Emergency Evasion Device lets you deploy and anchor a safety rope, and when she’s taking fatal damage, the device will pull her to safety. This basically allows the operator to cheat death once per life.

Her Combat Roll lets her roll in any direction to evade enemies, and her Auxiliary Surge Spine activates when she’s near bullet fire or explosions, which is a trait that increases her swimming and sprint speeds. Her Drill Charge throwable is designed to penetrate enemy cover and temporarily shock and disarm.

Stinger (Roy Smee) – Support

Stinger

Stinger is a base support operator who is available for you on day one.

Stinger’s abilities and gear

• Tactical ability: High-Tech Pistol
• Passive trait: Expertly Rescue
• Gadget 1: Smokescreen
• Gadget 2: Hive-Tech Smoke Grenade

Stinger is fully geared towards being a medic. His Hive-Tech Pistol can send homing bullets to slowly heal multiple allies, or it can even be used to self-heal. His Expertly Rescue trait allows for easier revives that heal more HP. It can also remove any reduced Max HP debuffs in Operations mode. He can guide mini drones to cover a small area in smoke or deploy smoke grenades, making revives even easier to pull off.

Stinger is a great operator choice in general, but especially if you’re just starting out, as this allows you to play support and earn XP from revives. You can still level up in the medic role without needing to rack up a bunch of kills. You’ll also look like a good teammate.

Toxik (Zoya Pomchenkova) – Support

Toxik

How to unlock Toxik

Locked operator – Toxik was an operator introduced in a previous battle pass. You can still unlock this operator, but you’ll first need to select and complete her recruitment challenge. Select Toxik in the operator menu, activate her challenge, and complete two of the three missions available for the challenge:

• Mission one: Complete 30 matches
• Mission two: Kill 100 enemies with headshots in Hazard Operations
• Mission three: Kill 300 enemy operators using submachine guns or assault rifles

The operator can also be purchased with in-game currency. This costs 500 Delta Coins ($10) to purchase outright.

Note: You can only have one operator recruitment challenge active at once.

Toxik’s abilities and gear

• Tactical ability: Dragonfly Swarm System
• Passive trait: Swift Healing
• Gadget 1: Adreno-Boost
• Gadget 2: Blinding Gas

Where Stinger is your straightforward medic, Toxik is geared more towards buffs and debuffs than just simple revives. Her Dragonfly Swarm System sends out mini UAVs to buff nearby allies with an adrenaline boost, while also debuffing enemies with a distortion to hearing, vision, and a reduction to their Max HP.

The Adreno-Boost buffs nearby allies to enhance their handling and reduce hit flinch, while the Blinding Gas temporarily blinds enemies in its range. Lastly, her Swift Healing will allow nearby allies to use their consumables faster.

While Toxik can be a great support operator to help keep friendlies alive, some squads will still want to have Stinger to help perform faster revives.

Shepherd (Terry Musa) – Engineer

Shepherd

Shepherd is a base Engineer operator who is available for you on day one.

Shepherd’s abilities and gear

• Tactical ability: Sonic Paralysis
• Passive trait: Sonic Defense
• Gadget 1: Sonic Trap
• Gadget 2: GE2 Frag Grenade

Shepherd is a defensive operator who is great for holding down areas with his sonic devices. His Sonic Paralysis deploys a drone to suppress enemies and reduce both their fire rate and movement, while the Sonic Trap sticks to walls and triggers when enemies get close, damaging and slowing them down. This is great for trying to attack or hold certain locations. He also comes equipped with frag grenades that can be effective against ballistic armor.

Uluru (David Fletcher) – Engineer

Uluru

How to unlock Uluru

Locked operator- Uluru was previously an event operator. You can still unlock this operator, but you’ll first need to select and complete his recruitment challenge. Select him in the operator menu, activate his challenge, and complete two of the three missions available for his challenge.

• Mission one: Complete 30 matches
• Mission two: Deal 15,000 damage in Hazard Operations
• Mission three: Kill 300 enemy operators using shotguns or assault rifles

The operator can also be purchased with in-game currency. This costs 500 Delta Coins ($10) to purchase outright.

Note: You can only have one operator recruitment challenge active at once.

Uluru’s abilities and gear

• Tactical ability: Loitering Munition
• Passive trait: Battle Hardened
• Gadget 1: Quickset Cover
• Gadget 2: Composite Incendiary

While Shepard is a defensive engineer, Uluru is an engineer geared towards offensive plays. His Loitering Munition is a guided missile that splits into four smaller explosives on impact. He can deploy Quickset Cover to help protect teammates, while also using his Composite Incendiary to destroy enemy Quickset Cover. His Battle Hardened trait makes him greater resistance to slowing effects.

Sineva (Alexei Petrov) – Engineer

Sineva

How to unlock Sineva

Locked operator – Sienva was an operator introduced in a previous battle pass. You can still unlock this operator, but you’ll first need to select and complete his recruitment challenge. Select him in the operator menu, activate his challenge, and complete two of the three missions available for his challenge.

• Mission one: Kill 200 enemy operators within 10m in Warfare.
• Mission two: Complete 30 matches
• Mission three: Kill 100 enemies using pistols

The operator can also be purchased with in-game currency. This costs 500 Delta Coins ($10) to purchase outright.

Note: You can only have one operator recruitment challenge active at once.

Sineva’s abilities and gear

• Tactical ability: EOD Set
• Passive trait: Rear Guard
• Gadget 1: Grapple Gun
• Gadget 2: Razor Wire Grenade

Sineva is an Engineer operator who is geared for close-quarters combat and defense. His EOD Set includes heavy armor and a ballistic shield. The shield can block projectiles as well as attack enemies. His Rear Guard trait allows him to place the shield on his back when not in use, so it can block his back from bullets. He’s also armed with a Grapple Gun to pull enemies toward him, and Razor Wire can be deployed on the ground for defense.

Luna (Luna Kim) – Recon

Luna

Luna is a base Recon operator who is available for you on day one.

Luna’s abilities and gear

• Tactical ability: Detection Arrow
• Passive trait: Volt Arrow
• Gadget 1: GE2 Frag Grenade
• Gadget 2: Enemy Analysis

Luna is a Recon operator and professional archer. If you select her without understanding her ability, you might end up using her tactical bow in the wrong way. Her bow isn’t meant as a lethal weapon, but instead it’s used as a tool for information with her Detection Arrow. This arrow drops micro-sensors along its trajectory in order to detect enemy movement, highlighting the moving opponents in red for you and your teammates.

Enemies damaged by Luna will also briefly be marked with a red highlight, allowing her to better keep track of them. She also has Volt Arrows to shock opponents and frag grenades designed to damage ballistic vests.

Hackclaw (Mai Xiaowen) – Recon

Hackclaw

Locked operator – Hackclaw was previously an event operator. You can still unlock this operator, but you’ll first need to select and complete her recruitment challenge. Select her in the operator menu, activate her challenge, and complete two of the three missions.

• Mission one: Complete 30 matches
• Mission two: Kill 150 enemies in Hazard Operations
• Mission three: Kill 300 enemy operators using marksman rifles or assault rifles

The operator can also be purchased with in-game currency. This costs 500 Delta Coins ($10) to purchase outright.

Hackclaw’s abilities and gear

• Tactical ability: Signal Decoder
• Passive trait: Silent Step
• Gadget 1: Flash Drone
• Gadget 2: Data Knife

While Luna gets intel from afar, Hackclaw is geared towards getting close with stealth recon. Her Silent Step trait allows her to make less footstep noise, and her crouching movement speed is increased. This lets her skulk around with her Signal Decoder to scan and track enemies, and she also has a Flash Drone to flashbang enemies at range, and a Data Knife lets her hack nearby electronic devices.

Goddess of Victory: Nikke–the sci-fi-RPG gallery shooter on mobile and PC from the developer of Stellar Blade–is adding one of the most famous heroines in video game history to its roster. As teased during Gamescom, the Goddess of Victory: Nikke × Resident Evil collaboration will feature Jill Valentine, one of the original RE game’s main characters.

The initial teaser features a cult as it prepares to take part in a gruesome ritual. Poli–one of the characters from Goddess of Victory–is briefly seen when she is grabbed by someone with a bloodstained hand. The initial trailer hid Jill’s debut, but developer Shift Up subsequently confirmed it was her.

Jill Valentine in Goddess of Victory: Nikke x Resident Evil.

Shift Up also hinted that Jill may not be the only RE character to appear during this crossover. Further details about the collaboration’s story and launch date are being withheld for now. But this isn’t the first time that Goddess of Victory has been given a prominent crossover. Previous collaborations have included characters from Evangelion and Nier: Automata. There was even a collaboration between Stellar Blade and Goddess of Victory earlier this summer.

As for Resident Evil, Capcom is gearing up for the 30th anniversary of the original game next year. Although Jill doesn’t appear to be featured in the next game, Resident Evil: Requiem, Capcom’s latest trailer for the sequel offers a more complete introduction to the new heroine, Grace Ashcroft. That game will be released February 27, 2026. Additionally, a new Resident Evil movie by Weapons director Zach Cregger will hit theaters on September 18, 2026.

Look: Like many of you, I have suffered from Lego fatigue. No matter how much I might care about Avengers or Lord of the Rings or Indiana Jones or any of the other properties Lego has adapted over the years, there have been so many Lego games, each of them with so much to do. It was impossible to keep up or sustain my interest.

But Lego franchise games seem to have turned a corner now, as Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga was a nicely refreshed take on the entire series, even as it retained the core Lego game collectathon loop. Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight looks to be an even greater departure, standing firmly on a love of Batman across all his media incarnations.

At first, Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight looks to be an anthology of various Lego-ized Batman movies similar to Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, but even that isn’t quite right. It would be more accurate to call it a fusion of Batman movies, alongside other influences and stories, to build something new and original from all of its various parts. In that way, it’s perfectly Lego.

For example, the story mission I played at Gamescom took place in Axis Chemicals, which fans of the 1989 Michael Keaton movie will immediately recognize as the birthplace of the Joker. But instead of gangster sociopath Jack Napier being dispatched to destroy incriminating evidence in the chemical plant (but with the situation becoming a setup to kill him for sleeping with the boss’ moll), it’s Red Hood #1, leader of the Red Hood Gang, as we’ve seen serve as the Joker origin story in some comic iterations. Red Hood is using the factory to manufacture a strange new compound that makes its victims laugh uncontrollably until they die. Under the hood is an unmistakable (and very passable) Jack Nicholson impression, so the character is not not the Batman ’89 Joker, but he’s been blended with other stories.

Likewise, the Batman who confronts him, at least in this demo, was the Robert Pattinson iteration of the character, accompanied by a Jim Gordon who looks very much like a Lego Jeffrey Wright, each of them from the 2022 film The Batman.

This mixing and matching of various great moments from Batman cinematic history is core to the spirit of Legacy of the Dark Knight, which sets the ambitious target of weaving elements of all of the Batman movies with other media into a single coherent story. When asked what that means for recurring characters played by different actors like the Joker, TT Games’ Jonathan Smith told GameSpot that perhaps some terrible things will happen to the Joker that will make him even more sinister and–presumably, but left unsaid–more like Heath Ledger’s incarnation in The Dark Knight.

That same sense of playfulness extends to the Easter eggs, which have always been a Lego staple but feel more focused here. Rather than collecting a hundred doodads to unlock 200 different but mechanically identical characters, you’re unlocking deep-cut styles for Batman and Commissioner Gordon. Those include some you’d expect, like iconic movie appearances, alongside some you might not. Batman looked especially great in his Brave and the Bold costume modeled after the 2008 cartoon show.

Both Batman and Gordon have looks based on their very first comic appearances, including Bats’ dopey big cowl ears and Gordon’s white suit and wispy mustache. The most surprising was Batman’s Rainbow Suit, a fully rendered Lego version of a classic and extremely goofy Silver Age comic book that has received iconic camp status.

But not content to borrow solely from great Batman movies, Legacy of the Dark Knight also borrows from great Batman games. The combat is clearly inspired by the Arkham series, as Batman can perform stealth takedowns of unsuspecting Lego enemies or jump into the middle of a brawl with timing-based combat. This is simplified in some ways–the timing windows are wider and the visual indicators are bigger than in the Arkham games, and you only have two gadgets to use in fights. But it feels like an affectionate homage to mechanics that have become as central to the character as any movie, in the minds of Arkham fans. Legacy of the Dark Knight also introduces difficulty levels, letting younger or less-experienced players THWACK and POW like Batman, while giving more experienced Arkham fans more and tougher enemies to fight and, for the first time I remember, a limited pool of lives to spend on encounters.

And like the later Arkham games, the hub world is a wide-open Gotham City that can be explored freely. You can stop crimes, find Bat caches, smash collectibles like Penguin rubber duckies, and skulk along the rooftops or gracefully glide between them. You can zip-line your way up to gain speed and then float, and if you’ve built up enough energy from beating down thugs, you can launch even higher into the air to get a birds-eye view of the city. If going ground-level is more your style, you can summon a Batmobile anywhere in the open world. I only saw the Robert Pattinson muscle car iteration from The Batman in my demo, but TT Games has already teased many more Batmobiles to come, and they can be freely equipped like Batman and Gordon’s costumes.

I didn’t really know what to expect next out of TT Games after The Skywalker Saga, but Legacy of the Dark Knight is such a pleasant surprise. When you’re finished building a Lego set, you might take it apart and see what else you can make from all the pieces. TT Games looks to be doing that with the Batman mythos, and I can’t wait to see what they build out of it.

Xbox’s Design Head posted on LinkedIn about the current generation of Xbox wrapping up. That could mean a lot of things, so we can’t read much into it. Given the timing though, it makes sense that Microsoft is thinking about what’s next. Here’s what was said, and what’s happening with Microsoft’s gaming division these days, to help us make sense of the situation.

“As we wrap up this journey with the Xbox Series X and Series S, the mission behind these consoles echoes everything I’ve learned over 30 years–to create technology that’s powerful, purposeful, and beautifully integrated into people’s lives,” wrote Carl Ledbetter, Partner Head of Design at Xbox.

“Xbox is about fun and playing games,” he continued. “The console, the controller, the headset, all of the devices become a reflection of the people who make them, but more importantly, of the people who choose to purchase and use them. These products matter to people.”

This isn’t exactly big news if you’ve been paying attention to the clues Microsoft has been sprinkling around, but it’s the first time someone from Xbox has specifically spoken about sunsetting the consoles. Microsoft has spent the better part of the last year insistently telling us that “This is an Xbox,” while holding up various household appliances and electronics to show us how broad–or meaningless–the definition of the word Xbox is.

Microsoft also talked in June about how it’s partnering with AMD to “co-engineer silicon across a portfolio of devices, including future first-party consoles and cloud.”

For a good 25 years or so, there was a pretty steady cadence of consoles releases every five-or-so years. When a new one came along, it felt like a big deal, especially during the days when a new released doubled gaming’s available bits, or unlocked a then-unexplored third dimension. But console generations have been getting longer and longer since the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. That generation and the next both lasted about seven years each.

And indeed, it feels like console makers have barely tapped the power of their consoles. Games take longer to make, and are increasingly made using similar development tools, so innovations don’t come as quickly as they used to. But Microsoft has also been at a significant disadvantage this generation, the same way it was with the Xbox One; information pieced together from Sony’s advertised sales numbers and analyst estimates of sold systems suggest Sony has moved twice as many PlayStation 5s as Microsoft has sold Xbox Series X and S consoles.

With Microsoft lagging in sales and broadening the definition of what it wants players to consider an Xbox portal, it seems like the company is downplaying the importance of a core first-party console moving forward. Even its announced partnership with AMD, which mentions first-party consoles, also mentions a “portfolio of devices.” Former PlayStation exec Shawn Layden said just last week that Microsoft “is in that same sort of fork in the road” that Sega reached toward the end of the short life of the Sega Dreamcast.

With all that said, “wrap up” is a pretty difficult phrase to define here. Microsoft has made an effort to make its software cross-generational since the Xbox One. Announced games will still be compatible with the Xbox Series consoles, and future, unannounced ones likely will, too.

Wrapping up a console generation is also a thing that takes years. From the perspective of a Head of Design like Ledbetter, there’s probably not much to do with the Xbox Series consoles at this point. After all, they’re already designed. New chips and consoles, on the other hand, take years to design, and Ledbetter, who wrote his “journey is far from over,” probably has a lot more to do with that unannounced hardware right now.

Path of Exile 2 won’t be leaving early access and launching in full this year, according to game director Jonathan Rogers.

In an interview with GameSpot ahead of the reveal of Path of Exile 2’s huge The Third Edict update, which adds the ARPG’s fourth campaign act, new temporary interlude acts, its first seasonal league, and more, Rogers said that despite his hopes earlier in the year, Path of Exile 2 won’t fully release in 2025. That also means the game won’t be going free-to-play anytime soon.

“I definitely don’t believe that’s possible anymore,” Rogers said. “Things have taken a bit longer than we’d hoped. Ultimately, there’s two things that need to happen before we can leave early access. One of them is that we obviously need to finish the campaign. I don’t think that will take too much longer. But the other one is we have to get to the point of balance where everyone is actually happy with how things are. The general opinion needs to be that we’ve actually got it locked in. Obviously we can’t go into full release until we’ve sorted that out. Once those two things are true, then we’ll release.”

While The Third Edict update adds Act IV of Path of Exile 2’s campaign, developer Grinding Gear Games still needs to release Acts V and VI. Rogers said that while Act V will definitely come as part of early access, it’s possible Act VI’s arrival would coincide with the game’s full launch.

There are still five classes yet to be added to Path of Exile 2 as well–the Templar, Druid, Shadow, Marauder, and Duelist. One nearly made it into The Third Edict, Rogers said, but ultimately didn’t make the cut.

“We still intended to get a class out for this one, we just didn’t quite finish it in time,” Rogers said. “There will definitely be a class in the next update, I’d say. I say definitely even though I probably shouldn’t, but the classes unfortunately have a bit of unbounded amount of time. You can go into them thinking you know what they are and then by the time you’re actually done, you’ve refactored a bunch of things a bunch of times and it’s way harder than you expect. We had a class in mind, we did a lot of work on it. We realized, ‘You know what, if we’re going to finish off all these bosses and things, we can’t quite finish the class,’ so it ended up not happening, but we’ll get there.”

GGG has previously said it expected Path of Exile 2 to be in early access for “at least” six months. Towards the beginning of this year, GGG announced it was putting a major update on hold for the original Path of Exile in order to work on updates for Path of Exile 2. At the time, Rogers said the studio “still had a lot to learn about how to run two games simultaneously.”

For those who want to dive into Path of Exile 2 but don’t want to pay for early access, the game will be holding a free weekend August 29-September 1 to coincide with the launch of The Third Edict update.

A cursory Google search of the term “job simulator” would show the 2016 VR game Job Simulator as the top result. But it is not representative of the plethora of simulation games answering the question: Can a job be fun?

From Microsoft Flight Simulator to Overcooked, the workplace has been a subject by game developers for a long time. Yet in the last few years, there has been a considerable explosion in their exposure. Likely in part from marketing strategies using Tiktok or Twitch, it has become common to find content creators role-playing as cashiers or managers, further drawing intrigue as to how these non-traditional games have garnered such popularity.

PowerWash Simulator surprised many (myself included) when its zen-focused cleaning mechanics soared in sales and popularity. Lead designer Nick McCarthy told me via email, though, that while satisfying cleaning is central to the game’s identity as a type of “anti-first person shooter,” the team did consider adding business-focused elements.

“Early on during development, we had explored more in-depth business management mechanics. But as the washing mechanics came together, we realised just how satisfying it was to clean stuff,” McCarthy said. “It became clear that PowerWash Simulator was best expressed as a zen, satisfying, no-frills experience that allowed players to just remain focused on the washing, without any of the stress and obligations accompanied with keeping a business running.”

To McCarthy’s point, finding the fun is in analyzing the workload and figuring out how to efficiently complete the job. This comes as a slight relief for those wanting to unwind and gradually work towards a completion state. With no concerns about logistics–such as buying or maintaining equipment, finding clients, and expanding your business–nor needing to earn a profit, the primary incentive of play is to finish a job as efficiently as possible.

“I’ve seen some hilarious examples of streamers/YouTubers playing together–some engaging in the chaos of blasting each other with the pressure washers, and/or leaving messages and artworks in the dirt and waiting for others to find [them],” McCarthy said. “Others use it as a wholesome means to just connect, chat, and chill out together. It’s also been great to see our community engage with each other to help finish jobs. Some of our jobs are quite large and can take many hours to finish, so understandably, a player will occasionally put the call out on Reddit or the PWS Discord, asking for someone to come help. It’s both heartwarming and amusing to imagine that a shared desire to destroy all visible dirt and grime could help to forge some friendships out there.”

Though it might not be surprising, a recent survey from the Pew Research Center found that about half of Americans find their jobs satisfying. A job for most is a means to an end, so long as they make enough to have a life for themselves, satisfaction is a secondary priority. However, just over 67% say they are extremely satisfied with their co-workers. What that 67% tells us is to make a job bearable is whatever camaraderie that can be mustered despite work’s soul-crushing element. Thus one explanation as to why simulation games are so appealing; you don’t have to work, you can play this for your discrete satisfaction.

PowerWash Simulator falls in the distinguished section of comfortable games that don’t cause too much stress. However, Drug Dealer Simulator 2 (yes, they made two) is as much a game about selling narcotics as it is managing time and expanding a business. When I asked lead developer Rafal Pęcherzewski how he feels about job simulators, he wrote back to me with pragmatism.

“If we boil down what makes them stand out as a medium, video games are basically different types of puzzles and challenges,” Pęcherzewski said. “Some are intellectually challenging; some are skill-based, challenging our reflexes and ability to adapt, learn, and react. Most jobs in the real world could be characterized in a similar manner–tasks, challenges, solving problems, and providing different kinds of activities. Job simulation games are only the area where we draw the arbitrary line to separate them from the rest [of games].”

Simulation games are in the unique position to tailor player experiences to whatever job or scenario they are interested in simulating. There are as many games that can be made as there are real-life occupations that can be adapted into a game: airplane pilot, drug dealer, chef, cashier, document inspector, mortician, zookeeper… the list is endless. Furthermore, there are the different levels of complexity a developer can work with.

For example, farming as an occupation requires dozens of hands, so games have taken to adapting farming through a range of styles. Where Farmville is primarily concerned with agriculture management and social media interactions, Farming Simulator strives to depict a vivid representation of farming, from equipment procedures to simulating a fluctuating economy. Ranch Simulator simplifies farming techniques but requires active care of animals and vegetation. Even in games that aren’t simulators, such as Stardew Valley and Harvest Moon, players can live out a cozy farming lifestyle apropos to Animal Crossing.

A growing number of publishers have started specializing in simulation games, like Astragon Entertainment, Excalibur Games, Movie Games, and PlayWay. Their catalogs are wide and highly specific in what they simulate, but they are evidence of a demand for niche job simulators and the effect they have on those who play them.

After exchanging emails with Yvonne Lukanowski of Astragon, it began to dawn on me the certain escapism found when diving into the simulation. Yet, I was surprised to learn that many who play simulation games gravitate towards the ones that simulate their real-life jobs.

“People are drawn to simulation games for several reasons,” Lukanowski said. “Many of our players work in the professions we simulate, such as firefighters, bus drivers, construction workers, and police officers. They enjoy performing familiar tasks and exploring aspects of their jobs that they might not experience daily, like using different vehicles or handling varied scenarios. Fans of action, competitive, or RPG games occasionally play simulation games to relax and clear their minds. The slower pace and methodical gameplay provide a refreshing break from more intense genres, making simulation games appealing to a broad audience.”

Some of the most fascinating games, however, are the ones that don’t seem exciting in nature. Though Grocery Store Simulator and Police Simulator might seem vastly different from one another, they are tangentially related in that they can be as thrilling as one would like. The former could be a roleplay experiment in which players can test how expensive a can of soup can be before NPCs will refuse to buy it, while the latter can mimic mundane work’s ability to drive an obsession over counting down minutes until a shift’s end.

But just because these are monotonous activities doesn’t mean they aren’t fun. “From my experience, ‘boring’ is a very subjective thing to define,” Pęcherzewski continues. “I know people who call Tarantino movies boring, dull, and ‘talked through,’ which I strongly disagree with, but I understand where they’re coming from. People find very different kinds of tasks engaging and others frustrating or boring. We have people who love to spend 12 hours straight fishing on a peaceful lake, others parachute jumping, and [others] all the way in between. Additionally, some people have lives filled with thrilling, problem-solving, [and] complex or challenging tasks, and chilling around a garden, doing some satisfying but repetitive tasks and earning a few points, it’s what they are looking for as a refuge after a hard and stressful day. Games are simply a simulated way of spending time and people will seek all sorts of emotions and experiences in their realm.”

Having a job, as the name implies, is work, and sometimes that work scratches a perfect itch to be organized and demonstrate power. And yet, various socioeconomic realities can impede any fun factors or meaningful personal expression. The surging middle market for job simulation games makes sense when contextualized against the anxious fixation people have regarding labor. Developers, publishers, players, and even critics are worrying if a viable future is still in reach on the route we are headed. Job simulation games are proof of that.

There Are No Ghosts at the Grand is a first-person, narrative-driven mystery game developed by Friday Sundae. This is the studio’s debut game, and a hands-on demo is available for those at Gamescom this week. I watched the demo ahead of its release at a preview event, and the game is an alluring combination of part-ghost story, part-musical, and part-renovation game. The heart of the game is the ghost story, though, and the developer works to make this spooky seaside tale approachable for everyone.

In There Are No Ghosts at the Grand, you play as Chris David, a character who has inherited The Grand, a dilapidated hotel located along the English coast. Chris is initially only tasked with restoration of the hotel, but he is ultimately drawn into rooting out a deeper mystery that surrounds the town and the people who live there.

The Grand hotel

The first part of the demo showcased the game’s unique hotel renovation mechanics, which uses a quirky set of talking power tools built into one handheld device. Robert C. MacBrushy is a Scottish AI assistant integrated into this tool, and he gives a bit of humorous commentary to keep you company as you renovate the hotel. This sounds like it will come in handy to balance the tense elements of the game, as There Are No Ghosts at the Grand turns spooky at nighttime.

In the daytime, the game focuses on renovation work, with the handheld device hosting a selection of tools, including a sandblaster, power sprayer, turbo vacuum, and a furnisher. Anil Glendinning, Friday Sundae’s creative director and co-founder who presented the demo, also confirmed each power-tool type has three different modes that are unlocked as you progress. We saw debris get sucked up in the device’s turbo vacuum, and the demo also showed how intuitive the sprayer mechanic could be when painting walls. Glendinning said the game was designed to allow players to have fun renovating without requiring precision. With simple swipes of the sprayer, the game knew to paint only the wall surface and ignore the surrounding furniture and paintings that were still decorating the area.

At nighttime, the town gets a bit weird and spooky. A good example of this is when Chris’s efforts to help the mayor leaves him stranded on an island. This seems to be the first moment of the game where he learns about the spooky dangers of the town, as he steps outside during a nighttime portion of the demo to find a bunch of red chairs scattered all around him. The chairs quickly evolved into some sort of spider-chair-monsters. This scare culminated in a chase scene and first-person-shooter moment, where the renovation multi-tool turned into a weapon that let Chris fire back at the creepy chair-monsters.

“We describe the game as being spooky. But there’s no gore in the game or horror-distressing elements,” Glendinning said. “It doesn’t need it in order to tell the story we want to tell. And that story is about people and family, and it’s about how some of that stuff can manifest itself in life.”

The spider-chair-monsters

There Are No Ghosts at the Grand is also a musical of sorts. Our preview introduced us to the town’s mayor, who shared her feelings toward Chris and his hotel renovation plans through a musical number. During these scenes, you’re given the option to choose how you want to respond to the characters, and Chris will sing his reply. These musical moments will happen with other characters you meet in the story as well.

The game wasn’t always planned to be a musical, Glendinning said, but the element was added fairly early on.

“From the very start, we wanted to create a ghost story,” he said, explaining how the story was inspired by some of the dilapidated seaside towns and boarded-up shops found in the United Kingdom. “We were hearing this internal soundtrack in our heads as we were creating this ghost story, and as we were writing dialogue and setting it to music, the [musical] dialogue evolved from that.”

These musical interactions are just some of the opportunities for branching narratives in the game. There are also multiple endings you can experience based on your non-musical interactions with the town folk, as well as how much information you learn about the town and your neighbors by exploring and uncovering clues.

There Are No Ghosts at the Grand extends beyond the hotel itself, as you get access to explore various parts of the seaside village. We saw part of a mission that began with a moped ride through town, and eventually, Chris was tasked with repairing a boat for a trip to a haunted island with a World War II bunker.

Mr. Bones and Robert C. MacBrushy

We weren’t introduced to many characters, but we did meet Mr. Bones, a cat who lurks around the hotel and follows Chris on some adventures. Mr. Bones appears to be just a normal cat during the daylight hours, but at night he gains the ability to talk to Chris and speaks with an Australian accent. It’s possible his story will be part of the mystery you’ll need to uncover. Regardless, don’t worry: The preview confirmed you can pet the cat.

Glendinning also confirmed various parts of the game can be skipped.

“We’re believers in allowing players to move through the story,” he said. “If a puzzle is too difficult, you can definitely skip it.”

That also factors into the game’s replayability, as you can skip scenes and puzzles you’ve already experienced to more quickly advance through additional playthroughs.

Overall, the early preview piqued my interest, as someone who loves musicals and a good mystery. The town looks cozy yet mysterious, and characters like Mr. Bones and Robert C. MacBrushy lend a great deal of personality to the game, leaving me eager to play and uncover the secrets of There Are No Ghosts at the Grand.

Players can renovate and work through the mystery next year, as There Are No Ghosts at the Grand is headed to Xbox Series X|S and PC in 2026, and will be available on day one with Xbox Game Pass.

Nintendo has revealed the release date and price for the upcoming Switch 2 exclusive Kirby Air Riders. The sequel to the 2003 GameCube hit Kirby Air Ride warps onto Nintendo’s new console November 20. Kirby Air Riders is available to preorder for $70 in physical and digital formats.

No bonuses have been announced for Kirby Air Riders, but if any become available, they will likely be retailer-exclusive collectibles similar to the goodies being offered for preordering Pokemon Legends: Z-A. Kirby Air Riders costs $10 less than the soon-to-be-released Nintendo Switch 2 Edition of Kirby and the Forgotten Land.

If you’re worried about storage space for the digital version of Air Riders, you can double your Switch 2 storage for $35.77 with the Walmart-exclusive Onn 256GB microSD Express Card. The officially licensed Samsung 256GB microSD Express is in stock for $59 at Walmart.

Kirby Air Riders is developed by Bandai Namco and Sora Ltd, the independent studio helmed by Masahiro Sakurai. These days, Sakurai is best known as the director of the Super Smash Bros. series, but he’s also the creator of the Kirby franchise. Kirby Air Riders is the first game in the series directed by Sakurai since Kirby Air Ride. Since Kirby is in every Smash Bros. game, Sakurai has never truly left the character behind, but he hasn’t worked on a dedicated Kirby game since supervising the 2004 Game Boy Advance metroidvania Kirby & the Amazing Mirror.

The Mario Kart-esque racing game expands marquee modes from Kirby Air Ride and adds new ones. The controversial single-button control scheme from the original has been replaced by a two-button layout where B is for boosting and Y activates special moves, perform tricks, and switch machines. New abilities and characters have been added to the roster. Along with Kirby, you’ll be able to play as King Dedede, Bandana Waddle Dee, Meta Knight, Cappy, Starman, Chef Kawasaki, Magolor, Gooey, Susie, and Knuckle Joe.

Skyah, the floating island setting of Kirby Air Riders City Trial mode

The main game mode from the original, City Trial, is back with a bevy of new features. This time around, you’ll be tasked with finding machine upgrades scattered across a large floating island. You only have five minutes to secure your upgrades before heading to the Stadium to compete against computer players or friends in races and battles.

Kirby Air Riders supports local multiplayer for up to four players on one console and eight players wirelessly. Switch Online members can compete in online events for up to 16 players. Need extra Joy-Con Controllers for multiplayer? Amazon has Switch 2 Joy-Con 2-Packs for $95 (was $100).

Kirby Air Riders’ $70 price point matches other recent and upcoming Switch 2 titles, including Donkey Kong Bananza and Pokemon Legends: Z-A, which is scheduled to launch in October. Outside of Mario Kart World, the only $80 Switch 2 games so far are updated versions of original Switch exclusives with new content. Notably, this includes Kirby and the Forgotten Land + Star-Crossed World, the Switch 2-exclusive version of the superb 3D platformer. Along with overhauled graphics, the Switch 2 Edition has the new Star-Crossed World story campaign. You’re essentially paying for the $60 base game and the new $20 DLC as a bundle, so the comparison to Kirby Air Riders isn’t exactly 1:1.

Nintendo Switch 2 Exclusives

• Kirby and the Forgotten Land + Star-Crossed World — $79 ($80) | August 28
• Pokemon Legends: Z-A — $70 | October 16
• Kirby Air Riders — $70 | November 20
• Donkey Kong Bananza — $69 ($70)
• Super Mario Party Jamboree + Jamboree TV — $79 ($80)
• Mario Kart World — $79 ($80)
• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild — $69 ($70)
• The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom — $79 ($80)

Kirby games for Nintendo Switch 1/2

Kirby and the Forgotten Land

If you’re looking forward to Kirby Air Riders and want to spend some time with the series before its November release, there are plenty of options on Nintendo Switch. In addition to Forgotten Land–the first 3D platformer for the franchise–there are two traditional side-scrolling-platformers with physical editions: Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe and Kirby Star Allies. Kirby has also starred in multiple digital-only Switch games and numerous classic titles are on Nintendo Switch Online. One of the best Kirby spin-offs in recent years is Kirby’s Dream Buffet ($15), which also happened to inspire a couple of the cutest Club Mocchi-Mocchi Kirby plushies around.

If you’re interested in the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition of Forgotten Land, existing owners can buy the DLC and upgrade for $20. Newcomers can also save $15 by picking up the Switch edition and Star-Crossed World separately. Multiple of the best Kirby game deals right now are for UK editions at Amazon-owned retailer Woot. Switch consoles can play games from any region, so the only difference with these Kirby games is the ratings board logo on the cover is PEGI instead of ESRB.

Kirby Game Deals

• Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe — $49 ($60)
  • Walmart — $49 ($60)
  • Woot (UK Edition) — $40
• Kirby Star Allies — $40 ($60)
  • Walmart (Digital) — $41.88
  • Woot (UK Edition) — $40
• Kirby and the Forgotten Land — $45 ($60)
  • Walmart — $49
  • Amazon — $52
• Kirby and the Forgotten Land + Star-Crossed World — $79 ($80) | August 28
• Star-Crossed World Nintendo Switch 2 Upgrade Pack — $20
• Kirby’s Dream Buffet (Digital) — $15