spent an entire weekend going hands-on with almost everything we could get our hands on over there you might have already seen my coverage of the ROG Xbox Ally go up yesterday link below the like button a really interesting device to be honest far more interesting than I would have expected and if performance testing delivers as we hope it will it looks like Valve will have some real competition on their hands do recall that the last time this show aired was about the same time that the Sony State of Play showcase went up we went live a day early so we could clear the decks ahead of a mad week of announcements and this show is going up a day late since we’re all traveling back from LA and had to wrap our heads around how we could cover all this stuff so here’s where we landed this show is going to take a look at all the biggest announcements from the Sony State of Play the Summer Games Showcase and the Xbox Showcase plus we’re going to dip our toes into the myriad other smaller showcases that happened in the background ones you probably never even heard of but trust me they exist in fact according to analysis done by Games Recap 770 games were either revealed or shown during the Summer Games period now I am no mathematician but I did run the numbers and I can confirm that is a lot of video games so we’ll do our best to cover the big ticket items and unearth a few little gems that you might have missed this is this week in video games summer games edition let’s get to it [Music] i know it feels like 3 months ago now but just 7 days ago Sony aired their 2025 State of Play showcase the postair chatter around it was surprisingly muted given that I think the showcase was a bit of a banger but because it was absent any big first party AAA announcements many people were left feeling a little welmed not me though from the first moment that luminous arise appeared on screen I knew we were in for a good show [Music] from studio enhance Luminous Arise continues the studio’s rich tradition of sensory puzzle experiences i feel like if you asked a person back in the 1980s what video games would one day look like they wouldn’t describe Grand Theft Auto or Call of Duty they describe something like this a block puzzle game that looks and sounds really sick sadly no date for this one yet but it is head to PS5 and PSVR 2 i do imagine that a PC port will follow at some point in the future pragmata was one that was re-revealed here and this is one I actually went hands-on with in LA i’m not sure how to cover this one to be honest since the demo I played was really short and didn’t give away too much but this is kind of like a puzzle game action game hybrid where you need to do grid-based puzzles on the fly to decode the armor of your enemies before shooting them with a gun it was interesting but very much a case of like how is this going to feel after 10 hours of play since the puzzle solving thing is a real sinkle swing play for Capcom so yeah a cool unique spin but I’m very much in that wait and see camp for this one all righty see if you can guess who made this next game this is Romeo is a dead man and from the moment this trailer started rolling I was like “Oh look suda 51 made a new game sure enough when the trailer was nearing its end it was revealed that this is indeed his work and that it’s out sometime next year for all platforms bar switch absolute insanity as only Suda can produce god bless him we’ve seen Silent Hill F a few times now but this was by far and away our best look at it this is a really big swing for Konami setting the game somewhere other than Silent Hill for the first time while betting on the talent of Riokes 07 a horror writer with a big rep in the visual novel scene honestly it’s looking fantastic konami is slowly but surely rebuilding their cred with releases like Silent Hill 2 remake Metal Gear Solid 3 Delta and now this they got a lot to make up for but it seems like they’re doing it bloodstained: The Scarlet Engagement is the follow-up to the excellent Bloodstained: Ritual: The Night from Fame castlevania creator Koji Igarishi takes the series’s art design to a whole new level and is looking absolutely superb it’s out sometime next year this next one may be my favorite trailer of the entire show just toilet toilet yeah I just Sorry I just need to pee how badly just normal bad just go behind this bush i’ll wait i can run away he shy no yeah no you don’t want me watching i You can watch this is Baby Steps the next thing from Bennett FOD of Getting Over It and Quap Fame as well as the people behind the excellent Ape Out it’s basically like openw world quap starring a Seth Rogan coded dude and honestly it looks like peak cinema i don’t actually plan to play this as much as I plan to watch other people suffer through it but I think the feeds are going to be serving up some choice reaction clips when this thing goes live it’s now locked for a September 8th release date for PlayStation and PC one sort of related title I’d like to put on everyone’s radar is Can which also got a release date during Sony Showcase this is a rock climbing game but it’s very physics based where you control each individual limb and as a result the whole thing feels very tactile it comes from the studio that made the excellent Fury and I played it at Gamescom last year i really loved it it’s now locked in for a November 5th release date there is a demo available right now if you want to check it out the Mortal Kombat Legacy Collection is the next thing from Digital Eclipse the Outfit who have been honing the art of combining game preservation with museum curation each of their releases contains tons of archival and behindthe-scenes content sort of like DVD extras if anyone remembers those rest in peace this package contains Mortal Kombat 1 through 4 and looks pretty essential if you’ve ever been a fan of this series which let’s be honest most of us have been at some point here’s one I was very happy to see neo 3 this is a series that I have a bit of a soft spot for but I wasn’t sure how much more life it had left in it after Team Ninja has been pumping out Neo 1 and 2 and Wolong and all of its DLC and also Rise of the Ronin but they’re doing it they’re returning to where their modern resurgence began and I’m into it because where so many Souls likes follow the FromSoft rule book with a frustrating lack of innovation Team Ninja really do ignore a lot of that rule book to arrive at their own thing biggest change here is that the series is going open world which is nice because the level design of older Neo games is definitely a bit dated this one is due out in 2026 but believe it or not there’s actually a PS5 exclusive demo for this available right now i will be checking it out just as soon as I’m done playing through Death Stranding 2 subtle flex thief is back in VR form and yeah I don’t know most VR titles these days are a little more missed than hit so hopefully this one bucks the trend tides of Tomorrow is a very promising looking multiplayer narrative adventure game not exactly sure how this one works but there’s some cool ideas in the mix speaking of tides we got two water related games coming up sort of the first is Sea of Remnants which seems to be an openw world turn-based pirate themed RPG and yeah absolutely hook that [ __ ] up to my veins the last pirate game we got was Skull and Bones so here’s hoping this one is better than that no release date but it’s arriving in 2026 next up is Sword of the Sea and this one comes from the art director behind Journey who then went on to form his own studio and delivered both Abzu and The Pathless i played this at the Summer Games Fest i absolutely loved it it is fantastic and I will speak more about it in the future time for the two biggest reveals of the showcase now and this first one we all saw coming but that didn’t make it any less cool do you have an appointment the name’s Bond james Bond he’s with me and you are don’t think we’ve had the pleasure now let’s not get ahead of ourselves James so you shouldn’t have io Interactive makers of Hitman teased that we will get our first look at the upcoming Bond game very soon and sure enough here it is 007 First Light is the name and it’s fitting because this isn’t the story of a seasoned grizzled Bond who has already stacked a sky-high body count in every sense of the term it’s the story of a young 23-year-old Bond fresh out of the Navy and without his double O designation yet Bond has a chip on his shoulder and plenty to prove reminds me of my early days only I was driving a Nissen Pentara instead of an Aston Martin other than that we’re basically the same i think the direction of this is absolutely perfect we’ve seen a seasoned Bond so many times before but to step into his shoes at the beginning of his career is a stroke of genius on the part of IO i think they really nailed it here and given their extensive experience in making and refining the Hitman formula I really can’t see how this can go wrong no date yet but it’s expected sometime in 2026 if you’re wondering where Ghost of Yate is then I’m sorry to leave you in suspense but Sony kept it under wraps in this showcase promising a dedicated deep dive sometime in July so stay tuned for that instead they finished their show with this and I got to say in advance Xbox when you say just one more thing this is how you do it say a big brash colorful hello to Marvel Tokon Fighting Souls coming to PS5 and PC sometime next year i am not even a fighter games fan but I [ __ ] you not i am day one on this thing it looks so [ __ ] cool it is a 4v4 tag fighter from Ark Systems Works makers of the Guilty Gear franchise and they are bringing their absolutely S tier unmatched art direction to Marvel’s iconic heroes marvel Rivals did a really great job of bringing some Asian inspired flare to the art design but Toon is going full anime complete with a Gundam inspired Iron Man have you ever seen anything cooler in your entire life this partnership comes as a massive surprise to the fighting games community since Marvel and Capcom have been in bed since the ’90s and we were due for another Marvel vs capcom game pretty soon guess that’s not happening since Marvel and Sony chose to go with Axis and boy does it look like the right call a really incredible reveal and a great way to cap off a great showcase and that’s what I think actually i really do think this was a great showing from Sony obviously no first party haymakers but the depth and breadth of their second and third party partnerships delivered a showcase full of stuff that I really wanted to play and you know what barely a live service in sight hopefully that ruinous era is over for Sony and they can recommit themselves to the sorts of games that got them to where they are today all right so that’s Sony done what do you got for us Jeff [Music] this year’s Summer Games Fest Live was one of Jeff’s slickest shows yet very light on the paid ad spots that often disrupt proceedings and with plenty of surprises in store similar to Sony Showcase it too was light on big haymakers but it was still fairly packed with games that felt like they deserve to be there except for Mind’s Eye of course but hey you can’t bat a thousand every time the show kicked off with a very surprising reveal mortal Shell is getting a sequel i really wouldn’t have bet big money on this series getting a follow-up since the first one didn’t do big numbers and the reviews for it were pretty middling even on Steam right now it’s sitting at a mixed 69% with only 8,000 reviews counted still I guess the studio has faith in the license so they’re going back for a second bite of the cherry it’ll be out sometime next year we got our first full CG trailer of the night in Chronicles Medieval it’s a medieval sandbox game but that could mean a lot of things given the range of that genre it’s also out sometime next year sonic Crossworlds Racing now let me tell you this was one of the low-key darlings of Summer Games Fest this year the trailer showcased everything you’d expect to see in a Sonic Le cart racer but things got pretty wild at the end when it was revealed that Hatsune Miku Ichiban Kassuga from Like a Dragon Joker from Persona 5 and Steve from that Jack Black movie will also be joining the lineup pretty huge to be honest but not as huge as the hands-on impressions coming out of Summer Games Fest all of which were really glowing i spoke to a bunch of people who played this thing and they all came away with huge smiles on their faces some of them even said that it was doing for them what Mario Kart World wasn’t namely surprising them and showing them something new if the new Mario Kart is feeling a touch familiar to you then this may be one to put on your radar it’s dropping September 25th for all platforms it was really nice to see Code Vain get a sequel this was basically anime Dark Souls but it had its own twist on the subg genre and the art design and setting also felt distinct amid the sea of grim dark fantasy settings we’re so used to no release date for this one yet but it’s arriving in 2026 from a bunch of people who made the original Little Nightmares games comes End of Abyss i actually got to go hands-on with this while I was in LA and I really enjoyed it just imagine Little Nightmares with guns and you’re most the way there being made by a small team of around nine people that they’re super experienced which definitely shows as you play through this thing do keep it on your radar it’s definitely one to watch got our second CG trailer of the night in Game of Thrones: War for Westeros you wouldn’t know it from seeing the trailer but this is actually an RTS game at a time when no one makes RTS games so God bless they did upload a separate dev diary which did show off some gameplay though not too much of it it’s coming from an Australianbased team called Playside who are also publishing that Mouse PI game which now contains the voice of Troy Baker because why not anyway War for Westeros is out sometime next year no date yet some really interesting things happening with Munfish that’s the studio that put out Atomic Heart a little while ago now that game had its problems but it was also really successful it’s now reached a total of 10 million players across box sales and subscription services and so the developer is funneling all of that success into three new projects the first one is Atomic Heart 2 now revealed and looking just as batshit insane as the first one there was a lot that could be fixed with that original Atomic Heart formula namely the open world design and the writing and if the team can actually fix those things and this could be pretty great not even a 2026 release window for this one yet so don’t expect it anytime soon the second thing they showed off was a lot more mysterious it’s called The Cube and it’s actually an MMO RPG set in the Atomic Heart universe you play on a giant floating cube where the sides keep rotating like a Rubik’s cube no idea how they made up with this but it also kind of makes sense given the endlessly respawning open world of Atomic Heart would be perfect for an MMO because it certainly didn’t fit a single player experience the final thing they showed off is being developed by a different studio but Munfish are publishing it and it’s called Ill it looks properly messed up to the point where I hope I have stomach enough to play this apparently the team behind it have a background in horror films and it really shows it’s disgusting but it also looks kind of fantastic and it has some really cool body horror physics stuff going on too no release window for this one either oni Musha Way of the Sword was shown off here and I actually got to attend a behind closed doors theater presentation for this thing let me tell you this trailer does not do it justice it looks amazing when you actually see the gameplay it’s actually hard to describe why it looks so good because a lot of it is down to the combat animations it’s not the slow and still to Dark Souls but nor is it the stylized action of a team ninja or character action game it’s somewhere in the middle it achieves this kind of brutal grace that is just so transfixing to watch plus the enemy designs are fantastic and the boss we got to see was awesome honestly I think this is yet another big hit for Capcom because what I saw was just so promising i really can’t see how this doesn’t land no release date for this one yet but do expect it sometime next year okay this next one in the same way that Baby St was my reveal of the PlayStation show this was probably my favorite reveal from this show [Music] and a boy this is Felt That Boxing and it’s basically foul-mouthed Muppets crossed with Mike Tyson’s Punch Out what you’re seeing here is actual gameplay believe it or not i’m not exactly sure how they pulled this off but yeah they really are using Unreal Engine 5 to make gameplay that looks like live action this feels like it’s going to be 4 hours long and laughs all the way through sign me up no release date for this one yet arc Raiders got a release date of October 30th which came as a big surprise to that growing community since there were plenty of reasons to suspect a shadow drop now Marathon will launch ahead of Ark Raiders or will it i think we all know the answer to that question if you liked It Takes Two or Split Fiction then I implore you please put this one on your radar this is out of words it’s a co-op action puzzle game that uses stop motion animation in its cut scenes and in parts of its gameplay it was one of the best things I went hands-on with at the Summer Games Fest absolutely no lie it was just brilliant and I’ll definitely be talking more about it in future so stay tuned some rapid fire stuff now the team that makes those really nice looking Lego games is making another one and it looks really nice again the team that makes those Jurassic Park park management games is making another one and it looks like another one lies of PE’s overure DLC was shadow dropped and the reviews are absolutely glowing for it so go out and grab that now mina the hollower is now locked in for an October 31st release date and there’s a demo available right now on Steam there’s a Deadpool VR game on the way and honestly I don’t think I can handle 5 to 10 hours of Deadpool quips in my years while also trying to fight off motion sickness so I think I’ll pass on this one thank you very much dying Light 2: The Beast is now confirmed for August 22nd i played this one at Summon Games Fair so I’ll talk more about it in the future but I had a good time with it despite how familiar it felt ax of Blood is a very promising looking brawler that started out as a solo dev project definitely turned a few heads that one they’re making a new Scott Pilgrim game and everyone in the crowd who was old enough to know what that was went wild wildgate is now locked for a July 24th release and it’s looking super solid plenty of that old school Blizzard Magic there and Mecca Break launches July 1st plenty of hype for that one given its absolutely huge concurrent player counts on Steam during its open beta tests slowing down a bit now and the new game from Drinkbox Studios was revealed here it’s called Blighted and it’s an isometric action RPG it’s co-op i did play it during the Play Days event and I’m going to say that I wasn’t feeling this one right out the gate but I think that I felt the same way about Nobody Saves the World when I first played that that was a game that took some time to reveal itself as the various game systems kind of built up on top of each other to create something truly excellent so I’m hoping the same thing happens here with Blood because like I said the demo didn’t exactly grab me infinite decimals is yet another game where you’re shrunken down and stuck in someone’s backyard and it’s excellent i also played this one and had nothing but positive things to say about it i do think this is going to pleasantly surprise people when they get a closer look at it it’s out sometime next year time to hear from Capcom who delivered the bad news that while they were working on the next Resident Evil game we wouldn’t be seeing it during this showcase or would we more on that soon in the meantime we learned that they were making a new Wuang game it’s called Rise of the Deceiver and it’s an RPG where you need to track down the missing clan members only a quick snippet of gameplay here but looks like a stylized thirdp person brawler almost like that recent Hyperllight Breaker game no release date for this one just yet second to last big reveal was a proper look at the next thing from Like a Dragon Studio RG take a look at Stranger Than Heaven [Music] so this one was revealed last year and it was called Project Century back then when we first saw it it was set in the early 20th century but now it’s jumped forward to 1943 i do wonder if that plus the Project Code name hints that we’re in for some sort of timehopping adventure either way it looks sick as hell and is yet another entry point into the RGG verse without having to play 500 hours of preceding storylines no date for this one just yet and to cap things off Capcom concluded with one of the most successful trolls in video game history please know that you are my hope everyone’s gone [Applause] stay away from [Music] [Applause] I was there in the crowd when it became clear what we were looking at you should have heard the straight up joy and excitement in the air people are going absolutely nuts resident Evil 9 Reququum is on the way and it’s starring an all new protagonist Grace Ashcraftoft who is meer and milder than what the series is used to though to be fair Ethan Winters wasn’t exactly the last action hero having said that there is plenty of chatter that other characters will also be playable throughout this next chapter in the saga with big money that Leon S kennedy will be roundhouse kicking his way back into the action the embargo for this has now listed so I can talk about the fact that yes it is true for the first time in the mainline series’s history you were going to be able to toggle between first and third person perspectives which would actually make a lot of sense if there were multiple characters since Leyon kind of needs to be in third person but you get much more immersed in the horror if you were looking through the eyes of Grace so yeah a lot of interesting stuff packed into this package and unlike most of the other stuff shown here it actually has a release date February 27th next year the stacking of February has already begun okay so that was the Summer Games Fest live we got one more show to do so Phil show us what you got [Music] xbox’s annual showcase was rather in keeping with the other showcases this year it was light on the big first party AAA announcements but a focus on quality double A and third party reveals really gave the impression that Xbox were focused on the right stuff as they curated their run of show the showcase began with a look at Outer Worlds 2 so let’s take a look at that now do you think I care that the colonies in disarray we didn’t come to Arcadia to get bogged down in pointless warfare we came to spread freedom and liberate resources for profit but this pesky Earth Directorate agent is mocking things up this is what I actually got to go hands-on with while I was there and I’ll be honest and say that the slice we played made it really hard to assess whether or not this sequel had actually solved any of the issues that held back the first game namely world design and the whole choice and consequence thing i enjoyed it but I definitely need to play a bunch more of it before reaching any conclusions do note that Microsoft confirmed that Outerorlds 2 will be selling for $80 US which seems like a bit of a self-owned given the entire premise of this game is skewering greedy corporations don’t have time to get into that right now but we’ll definitely be talking about it more in the future squanch Games is pressing on despite the departure of founder Justin Roland and they’re making a sequel to High on Life it’s more talking guns and sci-fi weirdness only this time it’s got a skateboard and while I can’t explain why it just feels like a match made in heaven for this IP this one’s dropping before the end of the year so not too long to wait this next one I certainly didn’t have on my bingo card resonance: A Plagueetel Legacy is a sharp departure from the previous two games where they were set in a plageridden Paris and start a combat averse little girl and her even littleer brother this one seems to be set in ancient Rome and the woman here definitely looks like she can handle herself in a fight i would not have guessed that this is where the series was headed next but if you played Reququum then you’d know that a new story arc was probably going to happen no date for this one yet but it is arriving sometime in 2026 it was at this moment that Xbox revealed the handheld we all knew was coming the ROG Xbox Ally a handheld PC built by Asus but designed in collaboration with Xbox i won’t go into it in too much detail since I did a dedicated video on it which went up last night link below the like button but TLDDR it’s a very promising device one that might even give the Steam Deck a run for its money and more interestingly it’s almost certainly a hint at what the next generation of Xbox hardware will look like since Xbox’s Play Anywhere strategy doesn’t really align with them releasing another console that only plays Xbox console games tacked onto this announcement was some Silkong news but if you were hoping for a release date announcement then I’m sorry to disappoint all that was said was that Silkong would be available at launch and in Game Pass when the ROG Xbox Ally launches later this year hey at least they’re still aiming for 2025 okay so I’m going to play a trailer now it’s from a new studio see if you can guess which game the people involved worked on before this the vampires didn’t come to kill us no they came to rule to turn us into mindless dosile cattle not me though so this is blood of the Dawn Walker and if you guess that the people who made this also made The Witcher 3 then you get zero points because that is just too obvious but yes this is a newly established studio led by the game director of The Witcher 3 and a bunch of City Project Red Vets they’re doing it again only this time it’s with vampires and it looks [ __ ] awesome and it’s about time we got a vampire game that wasn’t mired in development hell aka Masquerade or just straight up bad aka Redfall this one is due out in 2026 and if you’re interested we actually interviewed the game’s narrative lead a little while ago on the Friends per Meat Boy is going 3D and it looks way too tricky for me that one’s out next year ninja Gaiden 4 is now locked in for an October 21st release date still a little nervous about the current state of Platinum games so it’ll be interesting to see how this one lands indiana Jones is getting some DLC in the form of The Order of Giants that arrives on September 4th and I will be there day one because the first game was superb grounded 2 was announced and after having played it at Summer Games Fest I can confirm that it’s definitely more Grounded i enjoyed it but I need to play a bunch more of it to get a sense of why this needed to be a sequel rather than just adding content to the existing game kronos: The New Dawn is the next thing out of Blubert Team an original IP that has a really high benchmark to hit given how well the Silent Hill 2 remake landed got a good look at gameplay here for the first time and it sure does look creepy no date yet but it’s due out sometime this year ailion is the new thing from Don’t Nod who have had a pretty rough run of it these past few years hopefully this one lands strongly so they can write the ship planet of Lana was a lovely narrative sidescroller and it’s now getting a sequel the Persona 4 remake was confirmed earlier by Yuri Loenthal when he blurted out that he won’t be reprising his role but here we got official confirmation that it exists in a puzzlingly brief reveal trailer and finally one game that really caught my attention was At Fate’s End which is the latest thing from the team that delivered the excellent Spirit Farer this one has some fantastic art design and animations is the way the character is framed and their poses it just looks so heroic and cool i love it some of the best art design of the entire showcase I think and this one went straight onto my wish list it’s out in 2026 all right back to the big hitters now and would you believe it Game Freak are making a game that actually looks like it came out after the year 2007 this is Beast of Reincarnation and while we don’t exactly know what it is we do know that it’s Game Freak’s first major non-Pokémon release in a hot minute kind of looks like if Princess Monoke was a Soulslike and yeah that’s actually a pretty cool hook much like everything else in the showcase no date yet but it’s out next year this next one really caught a lot of people by surprise take a look at There are no ghosts in the Grand Hotel i’m in they don’t suspect a thing just make sure the locals don’t get wind of what you’re really up to because if they find out they will wicker man your ass what starts off as a cozy game looking thing where you need to restore a hotel you’ve inherited quickly spraws into something much more interesting you’re trying to solve a mystery only the town’s folk don’t want you to solve it really intriguing premise some cool looking gameplay and I don’t know how reggae ended up in the mix but I’m not complaining no date yet out next year all right take a look at this one so this is Mudang Two Hearts and it really came out of nowhere because the studio behind this doesn’t seem to have released a game before or at least certainly not a game like this and now this comes along and it’s looking like some seriously cuttingedge AAA production the developers describe it as a stealth action thriller set in modern-day Korea and the story centers on a group of terrorists intent on disrupting the reunification of the Korean Peninsula some extremely strong vibes here but honestly some big question marks too since this looks almost too good to be true i’m keeping my hype in check for this one until I see more of it it’s out sometime next year surprise they’re making an invincible fighting game and it’s meant to be excellent kind of makes sense though since the people making it are a new studio largely comprised of people who worked on the original Killer Instinct games spoke to a bunch of people who played this at Summer Games Fest and all of them loved it including Ed who is currently working on a write-up that should hit our Patreon soon so stay tuned for that so I’m going to jump forward now because while Phil Spencer may have put us through the worst one more thing in history I’m not going to do you so dirty two big games left I want to talk about before we finish but before that yes there is a new Call of Duty game coming yes it looked extremely exciting and cool until the moment that the Call of Duty logo flashed up on screen and shattered all of our dreams microsoft please understand that when you say one more thing it has to be something that’s surprising and that we’re actually interested to see not the thing we all absolutely knew was coming at some point and that no one watching this show had any interest in anyway back to some cool games and it doesn’t get any cooler or weirder than Double Fine [Music] say hello to Keeper a video game about a lighthouse that walks around because I guess Tim Schaefer has moved on to some stronger stuff and the results are [ __ ] genius i think there’s a reason that Phil Spencer chose this trailer reveal as the moment when he’d make his appearance because Double Fine represents the absolute best of what Xbox publishing could be wholly original innovative willing to put money into projects that aren’t going to sell bajillions of copies but that are going to leave an impression on the people who play them and the industry as a whole double Fine is a very special studio and they appear to be making yet another very special game and best of all we won’t have to wait too long for it since Keeper arrives on October 17th for Xbox and Steam okay now to finish off here’s what Xbox should have concluded their showcase with because for my money this was the single best game shown during the entire Summer Games period this was our first proper look at Clockwork Revolution life here ain’t for the soft-hearted you will be paying me back until you [ __ ] rush it ain’t for the spineless and keep your filthy pickers off me and it sure as [ __ ] ain’t for the decent that’s a clean sweep for what [Music] there has been a crime in Exile have long been overlooked but if you played Wasteland 3 you would know that these people are master RPG makers prior to Bouldersgate 3 the CRPG genre didn’t get as much attention as it does now so Inexile pivoted away from it and towards something with a lot more mass market appeal i kind of expected this to be sort of like a Bethesda game but this seems to be that but also a big healthy serving of like Dishonored and Bioshock thrown in there as well this is so funny its characters are already so memorable its setting is so interesting its RPG flourishers are so rich and that time manipulation gameplay that they teased at the back end of the trailer was the real cherry on top hinting at a game that’s just as strong in its action as it is everything else an absolutely stunning trailer that basically put this game at the very top of my wish list instantly in Exile were one of Microsoft’s earliest acquisitions and they certainly made a smart bet back then no date for this one yet not even a 2026 window so the wait for this one might be quite long indeed and that was the Xbox 2025 showcase like I said it didn’t have your Fable or your Gears of War Eday or your next Halo or whatever but I do think it had a bunch of stuff that was compelling in its own way it was a general theme of all three showcases and the hands-on play days event that I attended it was less of the big stuff and that left room for smaller releases to shine and I personally quite enjoyed that since most of the best stuff I play these days comes from smaller teams working on smaller budgets all right so other than everything in the big showcases what else got announced or delayed this week well let’s start small with the fact that off the back of the Cyberpunk release on Switch 2 City Project Red announced on a live stream that they were working on another patch for Cyberpunk 2077 against all expectations no details yet about what this update contains other than the fact that it’s coming out on the 26th of June but associate game director Paul Saskco says that quote “We have been cooking for you in secret for a bit as usual I’m taking care of the update personally and we will communicate more when it’s ready.” End quote color me intrigued while we’re on the topic of City Project Red the creator of Gwent and the showrunner for Cyberpunk Edge Runners Raffle Yaki announced his new game last week as well it’s a roglike deck builder called Dice Legends which is not exactly the most exciting name but when it’s coming from the Gwent dude that definitely raises interest a little bit the stick here is the interaction between your cards and dice since you need to use your rolls to activate card abilities and each character class rolls a different kind of die could be a really good one for those deck building sickos it’s due out on PC during the third quarter of the year there’s a demo out right now during Steam Nextfest should we stick with the Europeans for a bit sure let’s do that i’m keeping a very close eye on this next one which was announced the future game show alcat Games are working on a video game based on the Expanse TV show called Osiris Reborn it’s coming to PC PS5 and Xbox Series consoles i love The Expanse and this is just like what if we made a Mass Effect game in that universe which is just about as good a pitch as you can get since the Expanse was basically Mass Effect anyway alcat are known for their CRPGs like Pathfinder and Rogue Trader so hopefully some deep choices and consequence in this one you play a mercenary caught in a wide-reaching space conspiracy while gathering a crew to adapt and survive no release date for this one yet sadly over at the PC gaming show they hosted a reveal for a new game from another European icon Mu Troll Winter’s Warmth this is a top-own adventure about surviving the cold all alone based on the Mumen series of books and comics from Finland the developer released another game based on Muin last year called Snuffkin Melody of Mumin Valley which was very well regarded so no surprise that they’ve gone back for another bite did you know that Sam Lake from Remedy actually said a couple of months ago that making a Muin game was actually one of his dreams let’s hope he can make it happen one of these days over to Asia now and Blackmith Wukong was finally announced for Xbox Series consoles last week and it’s coming on August 20th exactly 1 year after it launched on PC and PS5 now Games Science denied any marketing or exclusivity deal with PlayStation at the time and if they did have one it would have been weird that they kept it secret since these things happen all the time they said that Wukong not arriving on Xbox earlier was due to technical issues which kind of makes sense given the Series S limitations but now given the exact one-year gap maybe all those conspiracy theorists were on to something here’s a game that closed out the Southeast Asian Games Showcase no Straight Roads 2 a sequel to the action game from 2021 that was set in a world where rock and roll folks fought against a giant EDM corporation did this game walk so Hi-Fi Rush could run a little bit I think anyway the sequel expands on the scope of the game and takes the action to several new locations shaped by different musical cultures and it’s due out in 2026 in what is now true Nintendo fashion they announced a new Splatoon game via that mobile Nintendo Direct app it’s called Splatoon Raiders and it appears to be a singleplayer action adventure game slated for Switch 2 but they were really light on details and there’s no date yet and if I’m sounding confused it’s because they announced it via an app so you know that’s what you get Nintendo here’s a new one from Surgeent Studios the developers of Tales of Kenzer Zhao we knew this outfit was making a horror game and it’s been revealed as Dead Take a horror game themed around quote power and corruption in the entertainment industry end quote ish sounds pretty dark based on some of the stories we already know to be true you don’t even need to imagine the horror for this one the studio is of course headed up by Abu Bakar Salim an accomplished actor himself so he’ll no doubt have some interesting stories to tell this one’s being published by Pocket Pair the folks behind Palorld nice to see they’ve still got the capacity to do some interesting stuff while Nintendo tries to take them to the cleaners couple of release dates now kaizen A Factory Story is one for all you automation and programming fans this is the new one from folks who used to make up Zacttronics the developer behind genre heavyweights like Infinifactory Space Cam and Opus Magnum kaizen is set in 1980s Japan so he’d be putting together production lines to make consumer electronics and mecha toys while trying to maintain a failing business it’s got a release date of July 14th and a demo is out right now during Steam Nextfest pc only for this one obviously here’s one that’s been on our radar for a little while now eric’s Homeless Stolen Dream is that top-own stealth narrative game set in early 1900 Scandinavia this one felt really promising when we played a preview of it and now it has a release date and a demo for you to try out it comes out on July 15th for PC PS5 and Xbox and finally we couldn’t finish up this segment without mentioning the biggest and most important announcement of the past week move over Mario Kart move over Sonic Racing because Garfield Kart 2 All You Can Drift was announced last week and it is absolutely going to claim arcade racing superiority when it releases for all platforms on September 10th this year microids is clearly living it up on the ironic popularity of the last one and man to be honest with you I can’t blame them so what came out last week well obviously the Switch 2 launched last week just before Summer Games Fest and now that feels like a year ago in the world of games media but some of the critics and outlets out there still managed to turn around reviews despite juggling everything else going on right now let’s check in with Mario Kart World which has been received much more divisively than I would have imagined since some people really don’t seem to vibe with the whole open world thing the numbers are still solid though over on Open Critic is still sitting at a mighty 86 and is the best rated game on the Switch 2 so far which is probably what you’d expect given that there’s literally only three other exclusives and none of them are particularly great gamespot gave this one 9 out of 10 and said that yeah the Free Roam stuff felt pretty insubstantial but quote “Neely nothing else does mario Kart World is a massive sprawling sequel that playfully expands and iterates on the qualities that made Mario Kart a deluxe such an enduring success it’s an incredibly fun and rewarding cart racing experience that’s easy to understand with enough mechanical nuance to reward veteran cart racers all presented beautifully as a Switch 2 showpiece it will be shocking if this game doesn’t enjoy the same long-term success of its predecessor because it’s among the best in the series and a worthy marquee title for the launch of a new Nintendo console end quote now Mario Kart has a lot of those question mark blocks but probably the biggest question mark around the Switch 2 launch was the Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour the big question being whether or not it was worth the $10 and whether there was some deeper hidden miniame thing within it that kind of really made it awesome and everyone would love it turns out not so much here’s Digital Trans who apparently marathoned this one on the flight to Summer Games Fest and they landed on a three out of five saying quote on a moral level it feels slimy $10 isn’t a lot of money for the hours of play you get here but it feels like paying to watch a commercial nintendo even uses the platform to pepper in some revisionist history proclaiming that it has always been a pioneer of features like voice chat on a console one of the most paddly absurd things I have heard but then there’s the other side of me which can’t deny how much I got out of this launch day oddity i’m much more knowledgeable about gaming tech i have a greater appreciation of technical engineering and I’m filled with genuine curiosity when I look at my JoyCons end quote that’s basically the gist around at the moment with welcome tour currently sitting at a week 62 on open critic making it one of the lowest rated firstp party Nintendo releases of all time a real headscratching own goal from a company that should and could have made something better and charge less for it let’s move over to June Awakening how’s June doing man pretty damn well it’s concurrent player counts were looking very healthy in its early access period on Steam and have continued to do so peing at over 142,000 people at the time of writing over on Open Critic it’s also sitting comfortably on a mighty 84 though it’s worth flagging that’s with six reviews at the time of writing on Metacritic it’s more like a 79 with 15 reviews here’s Game Ret 8 out of 10 saying quote “June Awakening gets a lot right when it comes to capturing the harshness and atmosphere of June’s Arachus the survival systems are demanding the world is immersive and the overall presentation does a good job of honoring the source material without getting too lost in it even with its grindier moments there’s still a clear sense of progress that keeps things moving especially when you lean into exploration crafting and faction play it’s the kind of game that knows what it is and sticks to it even if that means some players may bounce off its slower pace or the loreheavy storytelling end quote should we cover Mind’s Eye hell yeah we should so this one came out on Tuesday of this week once everyone was coming back from Summer Games Fest and while we were there there was a lot of chatter within media circles about the fact that no one had received a review code for this thing yet fast forward to getting home and I spoke to three other major outlets who were all flatout denied a review code as was I so I just knew this thing was going to be an absolute [ __ ] storm and boy oh boy Mind’s Eye did not disappoint right now on Steam reviews for this one are mixed with only 40% of them positive and most of the reviews call out the game’s abysmal technical performance as the reason why take one look at social media and you’ll find some hilarious but concerning clips what it’s worth a lot of reviews do say nice things about the story and it’s a key reason why people keep sticking with it until the end but it sounds like a lot of other people are regretting that decision here’s Steam user lose is improve who had this to say after 11 hours played quote “This game is clearly launched too early although the story and core gameplay show promise it’s overshadowed by technical issues and a lack of content i’m currently at the end of the story but can’t finish it due to consistent crashes each time forcing me to rewatch an unskipable cut scene which becomes incredibly frustrating end quote man that is a much more polite review than I would have pinned in that circumstance me personally I am very curious to check out this car wreck of a game it is absolutely crazy that one of the key folks behind GTA was happy to ship this in this state with his name on it let alone IO Interactive publish it i got a lot on my plate right now but I’m definitely going to make some time for this one when everything calms down a bit all right let’s leave the car crash behind now what’s coming out this week let’s kick things off with The Altters which comes out on Friday June 13th for PC PS5 and Xbox Series consoles as well as Day One on Game Pass this is the new one from 11bit Studios who are of course the folks behind Frost Punk and this War of Mine deep strategy games with some emotionally messed up twist that makes you think about the human aspect of war and survival the Altter sees you manage a space station as its sole survivor utilizing a key piece of sci-fi tech to ensure your survival namely cloning yourself heard a lot of really great things about this one while I was over at Summer Games Fest from people already reviewing it so I feel like this is definitely one to keep an eye on plus we actually have the star of the game Alex Jordan joining us in person for this does this exist it’s Gex Trilogy a remastered re-release of the Crystal Dynamics made 3D platformer from 1995 hope you’re ready for some very dated pop culture references this one’s coming out on all platforms on Tuesday June 17th we have Lost in Random: The Eternal Die which comes out on all platforms as well as Game Pass this is a really nice looking isometric action rogike follow-up to the narrative adventure game published by EA Originals a little while back reviews for this one actually went out a week ahead of time which is a great mark of confidence for the developers it’s sitting at a strong 82 on Open Critic at the moment we’ll come back to those reviews next week but do be sure to check this one out if it tickles your fancy if you really want your fancy tickle though you may want to check out Date Everything which comes out on June 17th for all platforms this is a sandbox dating game where you have the ability to romance a house full of everyday household objects the whole bizarre idea is that you have special glasses that turn everything into a hot datable human when you put them on the developers who are made up of a bunch of voice actors promise that the game has 100 fully voiced datable characters/objects along with branching narratives and the promise that you won’t be arrested for playing this video game we’ll see about that given the bonkers natures of that house it’s sad that there’s no crossover with this game FBC Fire Break which is the co-op shooter from Remedy set in the control universe as you play a cleanup crew in the oldest house very excited to play this one if only because Remedy are trying to make a multiplayer game that you can play at your own pace and not you know suck up all of your time with battle passes and FOMO and whatever else we spoke to the game director at Summer Games First and it sounds like the Control Universe fans are going to be rewarded for giving this one a try apparently there’s a lot of lore and story tidbits that only come out as you spend time with the game this one’s coming out on PC PS5 and Xbox Series consoles and notably it’s landing on Game Pass and PS+ cataloges day one and finally for Tuesday next week we’ve got Tron Catalyst from Mike Bithl and his team which is coming out on all platforms and it’s published by Devolver under their big fan label this is a story-driven isometric action game based on the criminally underserved Disney property and it’s actually the second bite of the Tron universe for Bithl the first was a visual novel called Tron Identity this one looks cool though and if you want to try it before you buy it there’s a demo available on Steam right now now we covered a lot of stuff from all the Summer Games Fest showcases but it wouldn’t be fair if we didn’t throw some spotlight on the Frosty Fest Showcase full of games from Australia and New Zealand get it because it’s winter down here while it’s summer up there hence Frosty Fest Showcase anyway one of the standouts for us is this one that’s been kicking around on the local circuit for a while now put this on your radar terror stalks the galaxy the chronospheres leave nothing in their wake only one rag tag crew stands in their way enter the chronosphere this is Enter the Chronosphere and at first you might be like “All right this just looks like Hades with a psychedelic art style but you would be wrong this is actually a turnbased bullet hell game.” So imagine Super Hot cross with Enter the Dungeon and you’ve got a good idea of what to expect lots of near misses and ability chaining to set up some impossibly cool kills and escapes but yeah the psychedelic art style definitely makes it really cool and also one of the classes is just a huge bear no release date for this one just yet but there is a demo on Steam right now and a play test you can join so do check it out if you’re keen we’ve left a link to it over on our Steam cur page which also has links to all of the other Put this on a radar stuff we’ve recently being Death Loop which is either one of the greatest arcane games ever made or the worst arcane game ever no that’s a lie that was Redfall but you know you might not like this one i I personally didn’t either way you should download it to decide for yourself it’s joined by OU and the Secret Forest which is a very cute titty puzzle adventure game on Friday they make way for Twooint Hospital which was the first comedy management game from the folks at Twooint all of them are really really great so do pick this one up if you haven’t had the pleasure over on PlayStation Plus they added a few new games to the PlayStation Plus catalog for the tiers above essential they include FBC Fire Break as mentioned along with Battlefield 2042 EU and Chronicles 100 Heroes Endless Dungeon and the Katamari Damasi remasters and on Game Pass they’ve also got some good stuff for June the Altters Lost in Random and FBC Firebreak as mentioned the Space Marine 1 remaster Bouldersgate 1 and 2 Crash Bandicoot 4 and EA Sports FC2 oh and we can’t forget Barbie project friendship please enjoy responsibly we covered a huge amount this episode but I think my favorite story was the launch of Mind’s Eye the publisher IO Interactive went out of their way to avoid giving review code out in order to mitigate the damage but you know what they weren’t holding back on sponsored streams but it seems like they lost their nerf or even that in the end here’s Co-C Carnage learning in real time that the sponsored stream he’d agreed to had suddenly been cancelled i changed my title for a sponsored stream i put in the profile button i put in the command i opened up Mind’s Eye and as it was loading my management contacted me and said “The sponsor does not want to do this right now they would like to reschedu.” And I said “Oh that’s a first.” That is not a great look for the publisher but you know what’s an even worse look when the streamer you’ve paid to promote your game cannot even promote it with a straight face which is exactly what happened to GTA streamer and fellow Australian Dark Viper AU this game was sponsored by if you want to check out Minds Eye now on PlayStation 5 Xbox Series X and S and PC Epic Game Store and Steam uh feel free and type exclamation mark spawn in chat and I give you a link i’m pretty sure that this game is going to win game of the year this year ah mind’s eye god bless i feel like we need a release like this at least once or twice a year just to keep things interesting but that is it that concludes what I think is maybe the longest this week in video games ever we usually break the showcases up into separate videos but we thought we’d cover them all in one fell swoop here back over the weekend with the podcast that we recorded in LA so until then a big thanks for sticking right through to the end and a big thanks to this video