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Why the Chiefs have embraced international games

by admin September 5, 2025

SAO PAULO — Late Wednesday night, the scene of the Kansas City Chiefs’ arrival at São Paulo’s international airport was reminiscent of rock stars on a world tour.

Hundreds of fans from Brazil and throughout South America — many of whom had never seen an NFL game in person — arrived hours before the Chiefs walked through the terminal to be in position to greet and touch several members of their favorite team. The large crowd cheered, recorded videos and chanted the last names of quarterback Patrick Mahomes and tight end Travis Kelce. Many screamed when Kelce surprised a group of women by high-fiving each of them. He even applauded the warm welcome.

Chiefs coach Andy Reid, one of the first people off the plane, was mesmerized by how many children wore a red, white and yellow Chiefs jersey. A number of fans held signs for star players and rookies alike: “[Isiah] Pacheco notice me, please,” “Travis, I’ve been a fan for 10 years,” and “Welcome our favorite rookie, Ashton Gillotte.” It was a scene the franchise had been hoping to witness when the NFL scheduled the Chiefs to play in yet another international game, their fourth in 11 years, this time on Friday against the Los Angeles Chargers (8 p.m. ET, YouTube) for both teams’ season opener.

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“Getting off the plane yesterday was amazing,” Mahomes said Thursday after the team’s quick walk-through. “The [fans] were loud. We landed late, so it’s really cool to see that the Chiefs are known here in Brazil and known well.

“We want to take American football worldwide. I’m super excited to get out there and play in front of the fans. It’s going to be a great environment.”

Since 2015, when they beat the Detroit Lions in London, the Chiefs have grown to love playing abroad. They see it as an opportunity to exhibit their winning style to as many fans in the world as they can. The Chiefs’ success overseas (3-0) led club owner Clark Hunt to express in late March that his desire is for his team to play in an international game every year, whether as a home team — giving them one fewer game at Arrowhead Stadium — or away team. And Friday’s game — a stand-alone matchup, and the only one of the day, broadcast globally — presents the latest opportunity to further a goal for a franchise that has won three Super Bowls since the 2019 season and participated in five of the past six.

“We’ve been very transparent in our desire to become the world’s team,” Hunt said Thursday night at a Chiefs event. “A big part of that is growing the Chiefs Kingdom all over the globe. We’ve made a lot of progress in Western Europe over the last decade and now we get to come to South America, to the most important country in South America.”

Midway through last season, the Chiefs became the NFL’s top TV draw and the league’s most-watched team. By Thanksgiving, the franchise was involved in four of the league’s five most-watched games. Later, the league also selected the Chiefs for stand-alone games for Amazon’s Black Friday game (a win over the Las Vegas Raiders) and one of Netflix’s Christmas games (a victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers). The Chiefs’ win against the Houston Texans in the AFC divisional round in January produced record viewership for ESPN; the 32.7 million viewers made it the most-watched NFL game in the network’s history.

Speaking to local fans Thursday night at the Chiefs’ event, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell shared two reasons why the team was selected to face the Chargers at Corinthians Arena: Hunt’s passion for sharing the sport worldwide, and the Chiefs being winners.

“He understands, just like his father [team founder Lamar Hunt] did, the importance of doing what’s right for the game and the NFL overall — and that lifts all boats,” Goodell said. “Their success is why, I think, they have so many fans around the world. People watch the Super Bowl and they see the Chiefs in the Super Bowl and dominating the playoffs.

“That’s really something our fans appreciate. Having a team that wants to come, and we can show off our best teams, that’s a great thing for us.”

The Chiefs’ last international game was at Deutsche Bank Park in Frankfurt, Germany, in 2023. Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports

OVER THE PAST decade, the Chiefs’ brand — and the recognition of its star players, such as Mahomes, Kelce and pass rusher Chris Jones — has grown exponentially overseas. The Chiefs have been featured in a Hallmark film, they have the NFL’s largest following on TikTok (5.2 million), and the team’s history and its 2024 season were chronicled in a six-part ESPN documentary series titled “The Kingdom.”

“The NFL tracks [every team’s] fan base,” Chiefs team president Mark Donovan said in late July. “You can imagine in 2009 and 2010, we were looking up a long way to get into the top 10.

“As great as our fans are, you have the challenge of a smaller market, the challenge of not being really successful on the field. We’ve been able to do things off the field, innovative-wise, marketing-wise, the movies. Things like that have created a much bigger fan base. The cool thing about it for us and our strategy is that one of the reasons we’re No. 1 is because we have a worldwide fan base.”

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Part of such growth is because the Chiefs, following Friday’s game, will have played a game in London (2015), Mexico City (2019), Frankfurt, Germany (2023) and São Paulo, becoming the first NFL team to play a regular-season game in four different countries.

“We know it’s going to be wild,” Reid said of the game’s anticipated atmosphere. “We appreciate all the interest. It’s so exciting to be able to come down here and have an opportunity to play in this game.

“We feel privileged to be an [NFL] ambassador of sorts. We know [American football] is growing here. We respect soccer. Both can exist at the same time and have a lot of success.”

Some of that recognition can be traced to Taylor Swift, who could, according to team president Mark Donovan, make an appearance Friday night at Corinthians Arena.

“She is an authentic member of Chiefs Kingdom,” Donovan said last month. “From the early information I have, she plans on being [at Chiefs games] a lot more. It’s an incredible opportunity for us, but we try to look at it as she’s a member of our family, so we try to treat her that way.”

TRAVIS KELCE: UM FOFO 🥰🇧🇷@NFL | @Chiefs pic.twitter.com/218fDmbNXL

— NFL Brasil (@NFLBrasil) September 4, 2025

One of the most memorable moments from Thursday’s news conference was a reporter telling Kelce that he is the NFL’s most famous player. A few minutes later, Kelce shared his perspective — that much of his fame has been elevated because of his relationship with the pop megastar.

“I got one more ring from it,” a smiling Kelce said, referring to his recent engagement with Swift. “Ever since I’ve been dating Taylor, life has been fun, it’s been exciting. Obviously, a lot more eyes — and I accept that. I’m living life, living on a high.”

With a victory over the Chargers, the Chiefs would match the Minnesota Vikings for the most international wins (four) without a loss. And they are hoping to win over new fans, in Brazil and throughout South America, in the process.

“It’s an exciting time,” Kelce said, smiling. “You get to hang out with all the guys and this is something we’ll all remember.”

Kelce said, noting the 12-hour flight the team made to Brazil, it has been “a unique and a different experience. But at the same time, it’s something that’s going to make us feel that much more proud about what we’re doing over here if we can come out with a win.”

QB Patrick Mahomes is a great brand ambassador for the Kansas City Chiefs. Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports

THE CHIEFS UNDERSTAND that a win over their AFC West division rival will be a perfect pairing with the efforts they’ve made to market their team and brand to Brazilian fans — fans they hope will still be rooting for the team long after Reid, Mahomes, Kelce and Jones retire.

Before Friday’s game, the Chiefs released several videos on their social media accounts to demonstrate how many fans in Brazil have watched their previous games, such as the past Super Bowls. At the Chiefs’ event Thursday night, the team put photographs and artifacts on display to further familiarize fans with the team’s prominent players and the franchise’s history. Even Goodell and Hunt, as a thank you, served as bartenders for 45 minutes, pouring local beers for fans, taking photos and chatting with them about the NFL.

“The exposure, from our standpoint, I think is going to be great because more fans can now enjoy it,” Goodell said.

Because of their familiarity traveling abroad, the Chiefs had a set routine ahead of the matchup with the Chargers. Like for their previous international trips, Reid and his players went through their usual practice schedule — on-field sessions Sunday, Monday and Tuesday at the team’s training facility — then boarded their charter for São Paulo on Wednesday morning.

Patrick Mahomes throws a pass at Deutsche Bank Park in Frankfurt, Germany, against the Dolphins. Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports

Once in Brazil, the Chiefs kept their walk-through on Thursday morning at São Paulo Athletic Club to less than 45 minutes.

“For me, I’m kind of almost used to it; I’ve been traveling back and forth from Greece since I was a kid,” defensive end George Karlaftis, who grew up in Athens until the eighth grade. “Being an international guy, I’m all for more international games. That’s the next step in getting this game to grow.”

With such a light practice load, much of the Chiefs’ goal Thursday was to showcase the personality of the team to a new audience.

Within minutes of their news conference together, Kelce perfectly executed a joke at Mahomes’ expense by doing an impression of the quarterback’s voice, which sounds similar to Kermit the Frog of The Muppets.

Travis did a Mahomes impression after he called him out 😭

KCvsLAC- Friday 8pm ET on YouTube pic.twitter.com/EH5EPdOWFD

— NFL (@NFL) September 4, 2025

Jones crashed the news conference by walking onto the stage with a camera from one of the team’s videographers to capture his teammate’s initial reactions. When it was Jones’ turn to chat with reporters, he shared that he met with Brazil president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva — known in Brazil simply as “Lula” — and guaranteed that he would return to São Paulo.

On Friday night, the Chiefs’ plan is to showcase a joyful playing style — one featuring plenty of deep passes from Mahomes, improvisation and chemistry between Mahomes and Kelce, speed from receiver Xavier Worthy and Pacheco, tenacity from Jones and tactical blitzes from longtime defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo.

“You’re coming here to play football, a game,” Mahomes said. “We’re getting to play in front of a great fan base, and we’re playing against one of our divisional opponents. It’ll be a great test for us.

“But if you’re going to be here, you might as well try to win.”

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September 5, 2025 0 comments

A composite image shows the protagonists of Metal Eden, Silksong, and a No Man's Sky character arranged in a row.

Game Updates

Silksong And 3 Other Cool Games We’re Digging

by admin September 5, 2025

Welcome to September! It may not officially be fall yet, but temperatures are finally getting tolerable and soon enough there’ll be pumpkin spice everything (which I unironically love).

I also love video games (contrary to popular belief), and so my comrades and I here at Kotaku are once again poised to offer up some great suggestions if you’re on the lookout for something to play this weekend. Naturally, we’re gonna talk about Silksong, but there’s also some killer science fiction in this edition of the Weekend Guide. Let’s get to it.

Star Wars Outlaws

Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, Windows PCs (Steam Deck: “Unsupported”)
Current goal: Get Kay Vess to say “Dank farrik!” about 17 more times

I played Outlaws when it first launched a little over a year ago, and I liked it well enough even then. Sure, I sometimes got frustrated with its insta-fail stealth missions, but I also loved the chance to just soak up the vibes in a backwater cantina, or crush my opponents in a game of sabacc. In the time since, the gameplay has seen many refinements and the story has been expanded with a few new chapters, and I’ve been curious to see just how much of an impact these changes would have on my experience. But to get the full effect of these revisions, I decided it would be best to start the game over from the beginning, and if I was going to do that anyway, I figured I might as well wait for the Switch 2 version for maximum comfort and convenience.

You may have seen the reports that emerged last week from PAX West indicating that Outlaws on Switch 2 might be very compromised, but now it’s here and I’m happy to echo many others in saying that it actually runs totally fine and is, if anything, a technical marvel of a port! With this, Cyberpunk 2077, and Street Fighter 6 all wowing me on Nintendo’s handheld, I’m starting to wonder why we’re not seeing way more ports of big games from recent years make the leap. But I’m getting ahead of myself, since I still have plenty of Outlaws left to play before I have to worry about what to play next. I’m too early yet to really say just how much the changes to combat and other aspects of gameplay may have impacted the game overall, but I’m already enjoying nonchalantly leaning on walls in cantinas again and taking in all that grimy Star Wars atmosphere. – Carolyn Petit

Hollow Knight: Silksong

Play it on: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Switch 2, Switch, Windows PCs (Steam Deck: “Verified”)
Current goal: Beat Fourth Chorus

Stop me if you’ve already heard about this game before. It’s a Metroidvania Soulslike about constantly backtracking like you forgot to turn the stove off or lock the door, only the second you leave the house again you get killed and have to go back and collect all your shit a second time. Rinse and repeat for 30-40 hours, overcome some cool boss fights, get introspective about some random aside from a mysterious NPC, and you have the Hollow Knight experience in a nutshell. Based on my first few hours with Silksong, I expect it to be more of the same, but like you’re doing it all for the first time again.

And what could be better than that? How many amazing games are out there that we always wished could have gotten sequels that were the same but different? Chrono Trigger? Earthbound? Bloodborne? There’s something so satisfyingly straightforward about Silksong: here’s more of that thing you loved, without the tedium of replaying what you already know. How fitting for a Metroidvania. The very act of playing Silksong in the first place feels like backtracking! The biggest difference by far is that Hornet can only attack downwards while in the air at a 45 degree angle. I kind of hate it but that’s probably the point. The best games get us out of our comfort zones, even when a big part of their appeal is in returning to the familiar. – Ethan Gach

No Man’s Sky

Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, Windows PCs (Steam Deck: “Verified”)
Current goal: Get me one of those Corvettes

There’s an alternate reality where the only game I play is No Man’s Sky. But this realm of existence, sadly, saddles me with too many competing interests to dedicate all of my time to this wonderful space sim Hello Games has continued to expand over the years. Still, this weekend I will yet again reality-shift to that state of bliss NMS takes me too, as I’m really eager to see how much the recent Voyagers update changes the game.

Read More: No Man’s Sky Fans Are Doing Wild Stuff As The Game Hits A New Peak On Steam

Previous updates have certainly expanded NMS, but having your own ship from which you can skydive or teleport down to the surface changes a core mechanic that’s been at the heart of the game since 2016: managing fuel for your launch thrusters. Being able to just jump down to a planet to gather resources not only changes how you interact with these voxel-based worlds, but no doubt really impacts the entire resource economy in ways I’m eager to discover as well. And of course, I’m very into the ability to build some impressive and creative ships too, like this neat-looking thing that caught my eye on Reddit recently. The VR mode for the game has been tweaked a bit for the better it seems, too, and it’s been a bit too long since I’ve gamed with a headset on, so I’m likely to give that a spin as well. – Claire Jackson

Metal Eden

Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Windows PCs (Steam Deck: Unsupported)
Current goal: Escape the Sand Trap

You might remember Ruiner as the gory top-down cyberpunk shooter about blasting people in the head to bring down a corrupt system. Well, eight years later(!) Reikon Games is back with a first-person cyberpunk shooter about blasting people in the head to bring down a corrupt system. Metal Eden is Ghostrunner meets Doom; a fast-paced, style-over-substance FPS about using spatial reasoning to decode the most efficient way to traverse a level, kill everything in it, and survive a wave-based showdown in a locked arena at the end.

I played and enjoyed the demo earlier this year and recently dipped into the finished game. It’s gotten surprisingly decent reviews that left me excited to see what the back half of the exceedingly brief campaign has to offer. The first couple of chapters feel like waking up into a hyper-violent dream at the end of the universe, light on details but heavy on vibes, more Equilibrium than The Matrix. I hope it can stick the landing, though even if it doesn’t it’s one of 2025’s prettier and more tightly calibrated Doom clones. – Ethan Gach

And that wraps our picks for the weekend! What are you playing?

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September 5, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Reddit Erupts After Epic Games Belatedly Claws Back “Fraudulent” Fortnite Purchases

by admin September 5, 2025

The Fortnite Battle Royale subreddit caught fire Thursday night as many people reported that they were greeted with a pretty upsetting prompt when they logged into Fortnite, with the game telling them they’d had cosmetic items and/or V-Bucks revoked from their accounts. It was an unusual situation because it happened to so many different people at once, and in some cases removed items that the player had for months. When Epic Games finally commented about the situation on Friday morning, it said the revocations were correct and that there was a bug on Xbox specifically that prevented them from making this fix before now.

We’ve fixed a delay where items that were refunded on Xbox or previously gifted from fraudulent accounts were not immediately removed.
As a result, some players may now see a message that their payment was reversed or refunded and see recent items have been removed, even from…

— Fortnite Status (@FortniteStatus) September 5, 2025

The situation sparked dozens of Reddit threads on Thursday night and Friday morning before Epic publicly acknowledged what was going on. There are still others in these threads and in the replies to that tweet claiming innocence, or that they lost items and currency that they purchased legitimately on other platforms like PlayStation or PC. So it’s possible that this enforcement sweep has caught more players than it should have.

There are a few different scenarios in which Epic will claw back purchased items or V-Bucks, the most obvious being when a person buys V-Bucks and then refunds the purchase either through their credit card company or the platform holder–items they may have bought with those V-Bucks should be removed when the money is charged back, along with the V-Bucks themselves. Apparently, a bug caused some players to keep those V-Bucks even after they refunded them, and that’s one thing Epic is correcting now.

Other things that folks have reported doing to earn Epic’s ire include buying an account loaded with V-Bucks in order to gift items to their main account, changing their Xbox region to take advantage of lower prices in other parts of the world, and buying V-Bucks cards from grey market sellers. With Epic seemingly taking enforcement action against a lot of different people at once over months of infractions, there are many different explanations involved.

Fortnite’s FOMO-based item shop makes this situation even more awkward, because it may not possible for someone who lost some cosmetics to simply re-purchase them legitimately, since most items only appear in the shop for a few weeks per year.

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September 5, 2025 0 comments

Esports

Playnist aims to be the Goodreads for games

by admin September 4, 2025

For many, tracking the media they consume has become an intrinsic ritual.

Goodreads was founded in 2007 to provide a platform for bibliophiles to catalogue their libraries and discuss their favourite titles, which in turn inspired the creation of Letterboxd in 2011 for film lovers.

While there are game tracking sites like Backloggd and Infinite Backlog for players to catalogue their never-ending piles of played/unplayed titles, it’s hard to find a platform that unites the community-first approach to tracking like Goodreads.

This was something content creator Emma Nicole noticed as she was tracking her reading milestones, realising there was a major gap in the market.

“Goodreads and Letterboxd gave us the format, but we’ve tailored it to fit the experience of how gamers play, connect, and discover”

“As a Goodreads user, I felt like my gaming experiences were not being celebrated in the same way my reading ones were,” Nicole tells GamesIndustry.biz. “There are a few existing tools out there, but nothing that personally enticed me to use them or felt like it represented me. That’s when I realised there was a clear gap, and Playnist was born.”

The core tools of Playnist are familiar. Like Goodreads does for books, Playnist enables users to discover, track, organise, and share their experiences and thoughts on the games they play.

Nicole notes that while the foundation of Playnist isn’t new, she and the team have “adapted [the tools] for how gamers actually share experiences today”.

“For example, reviews on Playnist aren’t just ratings. As a content creator for the last four years, I noticed that viewers really appreciate the unique perspective that a creator offers. Creators can provide direct comparisons, context, or their personal journey with a game, and that kind of perspective is way more valuable than a single rating. Playnist is designed to amplify those voices.”

Nicole also wants users to be able to curate their own aesthetically pleasing place to house their favourite games.

“Creating a digital archive of your games will be very visual and exciting,” she enthuses. “Our first focus is nailing the core offering, then expanding into features the community is looking for. Platforms like Goodreads and Letterboxd gave us the format, but we’ve tailored it to fit the experience of how gamers play, connect, and discover.”

A safe space for underrepresented gamers

Aside from filling a gap in the market for players wanting to track their games, Nicole emphasises that the main focus of Playnist is establishing a space for underrepresented gamers and genres.

“Playnist comes from my own experience in the industry, both as a creator and as a player, where I’ve witnessed how communities have been neglected,” says Nicole.

“Too many mainstream platforms treat moderation as an afterthought, and some players end up avoiding entire games or spaces because of it.

“In our communities, games are such a meaningful part of our lives, and everyone deserves to feel represented and comfortable sharing those experiences. One of our core goals is to make Playnist a space to celebrate gaming experiences, so it’s essential that players can feel safe while doing that.”

Image credit: Playnist

While Playnist is for everyone, there is a specific focus on keeping margnalised gamers safe, as well as fostering a community-first platform.

“Playnist is built for gamers who want a more meaningful and community-driven way to track and share their gaming experiences,” says Nicole. “Game discovery is powered by people – where you can connect with friends, other gamers and creators, whose opinion you trust.”

The platform is working with “a group of trusted voices in the gaming community” known as Playnist Ambassadors, which is comprised of content creators, community leaders, and moderators.

They will have first access to the platform prior to the launch of the public beta in December.

Focused approach to moderation

Between now and its beta launch, Playnist is prioritising how it will moderate the platform to ensure safety and visibility remain its top priority. “That’s a key difference from most existing platforms,” Nicole emphasises.

“Moderation won’t be an afterthought on Playnist, and it’s something we’ve built into our foundation from the start. We see platforms only deal with it once a problem spirals, but for us it’s a top priority.”

Nicole says there are “several layers” to the platform’s moderation, with three clear goals for it to follow from launch:

Clear community guidelines from day one
Proactive tools and a reporting system that make it easy for users to flag issues
Dedicated moderation as Playnist scales

“Most importantly, our design decisions also support a safe space, as content and reviews are encouraged to be thoughtful and intentional, rather than designed for shock or virality,” Nicole notes. “As the community grows, our moderation will grow with it, but it will always remain central to how we build Playnist.”

“Moderation is something we’ve built into our foundation from the start. We see platforms only deal with it once a problem spirals, but for us it’s a top priority”

As a community-driven platform, connection is encouraged. But Nicole stresses that she and the team were “really deliberate” about how users could communicate with each other on Playnist.

“We do not seek to be a social platform that feeds into endless scrolling, virality moments, or current trends,” she says.

“Instead, we are a platform that favours value. Content is produced with intention: where discovery and game recommendations come from people you trust, and game reviews are encouraged to be meaningful. We want every experience on Playnist to provide value to users.”

Nicole explains that Playnist wanted to take a more bare bones approach to integrating familiar aspects of social media, such as being able to follow friends and creators, upvoting, and reacting to comments.

“All of this is to provide users with the best experience, personalising their feeds and showcasing the most inspiring content on the platform [instead of] doomscrolling.”

Spotlight on neglected genres

By fostering a safe environment for users to engage with one another, Nicole is hopeful that the connections forged on the platform will help shine a light on neglected genres that are often overshadowed by mainstream games.

“Playnist is built for gamers who want a more meaningful and community-driven way to track and share their gaming experiences, and a big part of that is providing a space for genres like cosy and casual games,” Nicole explains. “[These genres] are often neglected and buried under generic categories and poor discoverability on other platforms.

“By giving those genres visibility, we naturally create a home for likeminded gamers who share those passions – gamers who are creative, passionate, and share similar interests.”

She continues: “Game discovery on Playnist is powered by people – where you can connect with friends, other gamers and creators, whose opinion you trust. We’re working closely with a group of trusted voices in the gaming community [known as Playnist Ambassadors] who are already known and trusted for their perspectives.

“Creator-led discovery is hugely valuable and we recognise how influencers and creators can inspire their communities.”

Future of Playnist

It’s early days for Playnist, but that hasn’t stopped Nicole from envisioning a solid roadmap for the platform well into the new year.

Nicole explains that as the platform grows, new features will be implemented including profile customisation and custom collections, as well as a mobile app.

“[Playnist aims to] give gamers one central, intentional place to track, share, and connect, without all the noise”

“The community will be an integral part in learning the wants and needs of the platform, so we’re excited to see how Playnist evolves with them,” she says.

As Playnist establishes itself as a central hub for users to track, share, and analyse the games they play, Nicole hopes the platform will provide players with “a sense of pride and celebration around their gaming”.

“The feeling of looking back at your library and remembering when you played a certain game, or seeing what your friends are into right now. Those are powerful moments,” she says.

“I’d love to see communities that are formed on social media find a home here, but I’m just as excited for new ones to form directly from Playnist. It’s not about replacing those other spaces, but giving gamers one central, intentional place to track, share, and connect, without all the noise.”

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September 4, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Hitman Maker Breaks Silence On Publishing One Of 2025’s Worst Games

by admin September 4, 2025

MindsEye is one of the worst-reviewed games of the year, and IO Interactive published it. In fact, it was the Hitman maker’s first outside publishing deal ever. How did things go so wrong? The studio’s CEO was finally asked to weigh in on the topic and he makes it sound like he doesn’t know either.

“The initial talks we had with those guys were to support them,” Hakan Abrak, who’s been in charge of IO for nearly a decade, told IGN recently. “We thought they had some great ideas and a great world in the background that they were building, and hopefully they’ll get the opportunity to show more of that in the future. And we just wanted to help them distribute the game.”

MindsEye had a sound pitch. Developer Build A Rocket Boy, led by ex-Grand Theft Auto producer Leslie Benzies, was making a user-generated-content-based metaverse called Everything, but pivoted to getting a smaller, single-player shooter out the door first. Following an ex-black ops guy with a brain implant that’s turning his world upside down, MindsEye sounded like an old-school action-adventure campaign with some modern AAA gloss.

What it ended up being instead was a confusing and boring mess. It’s one of the lowest-rated games of 2025 on Metacritic and has only 2,000 user reviews on Steam, around 70 percent of which are negative. As far as first-time publishing experiences go, it probably couldn’t have been any worse.

“Well, that was definitely tough, right?” Abrak told IGN. “It was a tough reception. It wasn’t what they hoped for, and also what we didn’t hope for at IOI Partners. They’re working hard on turning that around to regain the trust of the gamers out there, and they have tons of potential and content they’re working on. So hopefully they’ll succeed with that in the future.”

While Build A Rocket Boy has made promises, it’s also been undergoing post-launch layoffs and playing weird blame games. IGN reported that Benzies took the opportunity on a rare video call with staff in July to accuse internal and outside actors of trying to sabotage MindsEye. The studio announced an updated roadmap later that month that includes more fixes to the game and its upcoming Hitman crossover mission.

Worth noting is that at no point does Abrak talk about the partnership like it’s still ongoing. He talks about “we” at IO Interactive and “those guys” and “them” at Build A Rocket Boy. Even with the upcoming content you get the distinct feeling the Hitman team is ready to wash its hands of the entire thing and focus exclusively on its upcoming 007 James Bond game moving forward.

Does IO plan to publish any other outside games after this? Abrak said, “That remains to be seen.”

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September 4, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Is Hollow Knight Silksong’s ‘cheap’ price a problem for other indie games? Devs and publishers weigh up its impact

by admin September 4, 2025

Here’s a complaint I never thought I’d hear: Hollow Knight Silksong is too cheap.

Team Cherry announced the $19.99/€19.99/¥2300 price alongside Silksong’s 4th September release date (that’s today!) only a couple of weeks ago. No other regional pricing was announced, such as how much it’ll cost in the UK, but I expect we’re looking at £19.99 because that’s how these things usually settle here. That price makes Silksong more expensive than Hollow Knight, which cost around £11-13 across various platforms, but not much more expensive, and it’s nowhere near the £50-70 price associated with triple-A games. So, what’s the problem?

Apparently it’s too little – too cheap. Scores of comments on Bluesky and X, in reaction to Silksong’s date and price announcement, say as much. “Actually underpriced,” said one user on Bluesky. “You guys are nuts for this at $20,” said another. And, “You’re going to spawn a week of discourse with that price announcement, you know that?” said another. Oops, ignore that last one.

Broadly it’s lighthearted – most people are pleased Silksong is €20 and not more. Some people are threatening to buy multiple copies, even, which probably defeats the point. But underneath the giddy excitement there is a more serious discussion happening. Comments from worried indie developers show there is concern about the knock-on effects a price like this could have.

“Silksong honestly should cost 40 bucks and I’m not even joking,” posted developer RJ Lake, who worked as a composer on I Am Your Beast and is directing rhythm adventure Unbeatable. “I won’t go as far as to say it’s bad but it will have effects, and not all of those effects are good.”

Who will play Silksong first – Zoe or you? Watch on YouTube

RJ believes Silksong’s price will distort players’ views about what a €20/$20 indie game can and perhaps should offer. Which other indie teams can afford to take several years to make a game, after all? Similarly, if they did take that long, which teams could afford to ask only $20/€20 upon release? Would it cover all that work? Not everyone has the diamond-encrusted safety net that Hollow Knight provides.

Theoretical concerns turned into real concerns not long after, when an indie developer who had been planning to charge $20 for their game took to X to ask people what they should charge now – now that Silksong was doing the same. “I can’t afford to give it away for free,” they – BastiArtGames, developer of Lone Fungus – said. Hearteningly, most of the replies I read – there are more than 1000 – encouraged BastiArtGames to stick to their original price. But as with the games hurriedly moving their releases away from Silksong, Lone Fungus seemed to be far from the only indie game affected.

Toukana, the developer of successful and wonderful tile-laying puzzle game Dorfromantik, delayed the release of new game Star Birds because of Silksong, moving from 4th September to 10th September. And co-founder Zwi Zausch now tells me the game’s as yet unannounced price has been affected too.

“Yes, Silksong’s price has influenced our decision,” Zausch says. “We’re trying not to compete too directly with Silksong, both in terms of release date and pricing. Of course, these are two very different games with potentially different player bases, but there’s definitely some overlap. That makes things tricky, especially since Star Birds is a joint project between two studios, together employing more people than Team Cherry.”

Team Cherry has four core team members, incidentally, which includes the two co-founders, and it uses some contracted help.

But even companies as robust as Devolver have felt the presence of Silksong. The publisher was one of the first to move the release of its game Baby Steps out of the way (from 8th September to 23rd September). “We felt that the same media and influencers who would be drawn to Baby Steps would inevitably (and understandably) prioritise Silksong, and we felt that would overshadow the glory of Nate falling down the side of a mountain,” Devolver CEO and co-founder Graeme Struthers explains to me.

Tellingly, perhaps, the price of Baby Steps hasn’t been announced yet. Struthers didn’t say this was because of Silksong, but he did suggest Silksong was causing questions to be asked. “My general take is that indie games tend to err on the side of value for the gamer,” he says. “I think the triple-A world has had much more to say about price-points and value, but maybe Team Cherry has brought that conversation over this way.”

Mike Rose, founder of indie publisher No More Robots, says pricing is a fascinating and tricky thing to manage. He’d long been an advocate for higher prices, he tells me, because it leaves room for discounts and down-pricing as a game ages. “But recently,” he adds, “I think the economy of games has been shifting, and people who aren’t actually releasing games don’t see it [or] realise.

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“People have less money now and are buying fewer games,” Rose says, “so you have to set yourself up to hopefully be that one game they buy when they do have money. And if you are a higher price, it’s now actually a bit offputting.” Budget co-op climbing sensation Peak is a great example of things going the other way, he says. “Part of the reason that game did so well was the crazy low price. It’s definitely making us rethink the pricing for our upcoming games.”

One game which shares a lot of similarities with Silksong is Citizen Sleeper 2. It’s not because of the game’s content – Citizen Sleeper 2 is a sci-fi role-playing game – but because both games were built on the extraordinary success of a predecessor, both are made by very small teams (Citizen Sleeper is just Gareth Damian Martin, with contracted art and soundtrack help), and both have very similar prices. In fact, the jump from the original game to the sequel is also almost identical.

Damian Martin tells me there were “extensive” discussions about Citizen Sleeper 2’s price, and it jumped from around £16.50 to £21 to reflect it being a bigger game, to account for inflation, and because of how other games were currently priced. All things I’m sure Team Cherry has taken into account when pricing Silksong 2. But there wasn’t any negativity around Citizen Sleeper 2’s price when it launched earlier this year – not that Damian Martin noticed.

“I don’t think most people notice the price unless it is really out of step with the market,” Damian Martin tells me. “That doesn’t mean people don’t make buying decisions based on price, they obviously do, but I think they do that without judgment or comment. They just decide to buy or not, they don’t complain unless there’s a big disparity.

“No matter how big Silksong is,” they added, “I don’t think it can really affect the going rate for indies. It’s just one data point, you’d need hundreds of indies to offer massive amounts of content for a low price to shift the market. It especially feels like conjecture when we don’t even know how big the game is anyway!”

Unprecedented. So much about Silksong feels unprecedented to me. Has there ever been an indie game this anticipated? Has an indie game ever disrupted release schedules in this way, or upended pricing plans? Here’s a game being treated like the biggest of triple-A blockbusters, except it’s not, and I think that’s where some of the pricing confusion arises from. “That’s why people think the price is low compared to the triple-A games that sell for 80 bucks,” says Bram van Lith, co-founder of Game Drive.nl, a company which helps indie devs price and sell their games. Hype has warped perceptions of what Silksong actually is.

But the question remains: is Silksong too cheap? Perhaps a keener question to ask is how much the people I speak to would charge for it, were it their game. Van Lith’s colleague Alisa Jefimova, a market analyst and expert in pricing, would charge €25, she tells me, to give room for a launch discount. Not that they need the attention of a discount, she adds. “It’s gonna be popular no matter what,” she says.

“They definitely could have gone $25,” No More Robots’ Mike Rose agrees, “but this way they are essentially cementing Silksong as being a gigantic success before it even launches, by making it a steal. So I don’t think Team Cherry is wrong to go $20. If I had been pricing it personally, I would have been on the fence between $20 and $25. But given the state of the industry right now, it’s very possible I would have also fallen on $20.”

“The more interesting question,” Bram van Lith chimes in, “is would the game be more successful asking $20 or $30?” What he means is would Silksong make more money if it sold at a higher price-point, or will the extra quantity it sells at a lower price-point more than make up for it? It’s an interesting question, but it’s not something I think Team Cherry is primarily concerned about.

Again, Team Cherry doesn’t depend solely, wholly and entirely upon Silksong’s success. Far from it. Hollow Knight has sold an astronomical 15 million copies already, and the overwhelming majority since Silksong was announced in 2019, curiously enough. Financially, Team Cherry is fine even without Silksong. Financially, Team Cherry is made.

A far more important consideration for Team Cherry is audience reaction. To wheel out an old cliché, this is the Australian studio’s difficult second album, the game that follows the phenomenal success of Hollow Knight. The intense spotlight beam of expectation and hype can be withering. And the elongated wait for Silksong hasn’t helped. Dipping the price slightly below expectations is a powerful way to prime people towards positivity.

Will it work? As Damian Martin noted: so much remains conjecture until the game itself arrives, which it is now agonisingly close to doing – Silksong unlocks at 3pm UK time today. How big will it be? How historic a gaming moment are we about to witness? And will it be worth the wait? Time will tell. We’ll have to wait and see.

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September 4, 2025 0 comments

GameFi Guides

You Can Earn Bitcoin By Playing These Free Games

by admin September 3, 2025

In brief

There are many free-to-play games that pay players real Bitcoin rewards.
You’ll typically earn amounts in satoshis, or the smallest denomination of Bitcoin (1/100,000,000 BTC).
Such games are often loaded with video ads, but that’s the trade-off for earning Bitcoin.

Bitcoin pushed to yet another all-time high price mark in August, maintaining recent momentum as analysts project another record surge in the near future.

If you’re keen on stacking satoshis however you can, then here’s one way that won’t cost you anything but time: You can earn Bitcoin by playing a bunch of free games. Decrypt’s GG has been covering the rising trend of free-to-play mobile games and apps that offer up small bounties of Bitcoin for playing levels and seeing ads all the while.

While the amounts given are historically tiny, in our experience, the rising price of Bitcoin means that they are becoming… well, less tiny. And if your goal is amassing Bitcoin in any way that you can, then these are certainly among the most enjoyable ways to earn a bit of free BTC. Here’s a look at some of the games you can play, with links to our coverage on each.

Learn Botanix, earn Bitcoin

Here’s the latest addition: Bitcoin layer-2 network Botanix launched its mainnet on July 1, and alongside the rollout was a browser-based game, Bitcoin 2100, that lets you earn real Bitcoin on the scaling network.

According to Botanix, Bitcoin 2100 is an educational game that lets you earn satoshis for completing quests. They’ll teach you about Bitcoin and Botanix, plus there will be partner quests over the next couple months that explain more of the Botanix ecosystem while handing out more BTC. It’s real Bitcoin that you can cash out to your wallet, so give it a whirl.

Bitcoin 2100 is an immersive experience where you can explore a city built on Bitcoin.

Play games, Complete weekly quests via Intract (Soon), discover ecosystem partners, and earn rewards.

Connect your wallet, bridge to Botanix, and start the journey. pic.twitter.com/w4xA3WM20A

— Botanix | Mainnet LIVE 🟢 (@BotanixLabs) July 3, 2025

Mine fake Bitcoin, earn real BTC

Here’s a fun riff on the concept of crypto mining: Bitcoin Miner for iOS and Android tasks you with building an elaborate mining operation across all sorts of cryptocurrencies, including Dogecoin and those that don’t even have mining capabilities in real life, like Solana. And the reward? Real Bitcoin, in the form of satoshis that you can stack up while playing.

Screenshots from Bitcoin Miner. Image: Decrypt

This idle game is simple and colorful, with an appealing pixel aesthetic and a fun sense of humor. It’s a game you can play for a couple minutes here and there, but you’ll also keep earning in-game coins and potential rewards all the while.

Granted, Bitcoin Miner does turn repetitive after a while and the full-screen video ads are obnoxious, yet this is one of the rare play-to-earn games that we keep coming back to time and again. And with a new mid-week limited-time event added in addition to the usual weekend one, it is implementing more variety over time.

Mining asteroids for Bitcoin

Here’s an amusing iOS and Android game that you can pop into for a few minutes at a time to stack sats. SpaceY is an idle asteroid-mining game for phones and tablets, and it’s decidedly straightforward in approach: You tap asteroids to scan them, tap again to mine them, upgrade your ship and tech over time, and then repeat as you hop across the galaxy.

What’s refreshing about SpaceY is that it doesn’t force you to watch obtrusive, full-screen video ads. Instead, it rewards you for watching them in the form of free bonuses or resource boosters. It actually makes you want to watch them to get ahead faster, and all the while you’ll earn satoshis that you can cash out to a ZBD wallet.

Into the Bitcoin mines

Launched in fall 2024, Idle Mine! Earn Real Bitcoin is one of the latest iOS and Android titles from Fumb Games. And while it certainly sounds similar to Bitcoin Miner, it takes a different approach to a similar theme.

Here, you won’t mine (fake) digital coins. Instead, you’ll mine physical gems and resources, like ruby and sapphire, continuously upgrading your mine and workers while earning real Bitcoin along the way. It’s packed with video ads, but they’re all optional—and pretty beneficial too.

Screenshots from Idle Mine. Image: Decrypt

We’ve earned thousands of satoshis from playing this game, and while it’s not as exciting or whimsical as Bitcoin Miner, it’s an easy game to fire up and half-play while working, making dinner, or watching TV.

Bitcoin Sudoku

If you dig sudoku and want to earn a little bit of crypto while playing, then Bling Financial’s Bitcoin Sudoku will do the trick. It’s a solid mobile recreation of the number plotting puzzler, and because each puzzle takes longer than in many of the other Bitcoin-infused games on this list, there are fewer annoying ads that pop up along the way.

Bitcoin solitaire games

There are a couple iOS and Android solitaire games that let you stack sats as you stack digital cards. Club Bitcoin: Solitaire and Bitcoin Solitaire basically do some variation of the same thing, but vary in presentation, tolerability of ads, and amount of Bitcoin you might actually earn. Click here to read a comparison of the mobile games and find links to download each.

Bitcoin bubble shooters

There are plenty of bubble-matching puzzle games like Puzzle Bobble/Bust-a-Move on iOS and Android, but Bitcoin Pop and Bitcoin Bay are unique in that they let you earn Bitcoin while you play. Which game offers the best balance of fun and earning funds? Read our head-to-head review to see which bubble popper we liked best.

Bitcoin puzzle games

We also reviewed a pair of mobile puzzle games that both pack in Bitcoin earnings: Sweet Bitcoin and Ethereum Blast. Sweet Bitcoin is a pretty straightforward Candy Crush Saga clone, but among mobile puzzlers in this category, it’s solidly entertaining. And despite the name, the block-clearing puzzle game Ethereum Blast actually does give you the option to cash out your rewards in Bitcoin.

Another fun mobile puzzle game that pays out Bitcoin rewards is Word Breeze, which serves up a familiar premise—part anagram solver, part crossword filler—and doles out points that you can exchange for satoshis. It’s hardly mind-blowing and the ads are a bit overwhelming, but it’s one of the most fun play-to-earn Bitcoin games we’ve played to date.

Bitcoin mobile games

Thanks to a collaboration between ZBD and advertising platform Adjoe, you can earn Bitcoin by playing more than 100 different Android games—including hits like Match Masters and Dragon City. You’ll have to play them through the ZBD Android app to earn satoshis as you watch ads between games, however.

Bitcoin walking app

sMiles is a mobile app that lets you earn Bitcoin for being active, and its Bitcoinverse feature is a location-based game that rewards you with BTC for walking to various preset destinations on the map. Powered by Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, sMiles aims to motivate users to get out and explore via BTC incentives.

Need more?

While we’ve played and covered numerous games that let you earn Bitcoin, there are even more out there that might be worth checking out. For example, Bling Financial has games like Bitcoin Food Fight and Bitcoin Blocks, while the Android version of Fumb’s Merge Monsters offers Bitcoin rewards; the iOS version does not, as of this writing.

ZBD is also continuously adding new games to its Bitcoin rewards app too. Stay tuned as we’ll continue to cover Bitcoin play-to-earn games as they emerge.

Editor’s note: This story was originally published on November 10, 2023 and was last updated with new content on September 3, 2025.

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September 3, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Resident Evil Movie Director Says It “Lives In The World” Of These Specific Games

by admin September 3, 2025

After making the successful horror movies Barbarian and Weapons, writer-director Zach Cregger is directing a Resident Evil movie next. He’s now shared more details about it, including why he decided to adapt a story instead of making another original film.

Speaking to Double Toasted, Cregger said he believes his Resident Evil movie is, in fact, “original,” and viewers will understand that when they see it. He didn’t elaborate on this point, however.

Cregger also said he has never seen any of the half-dozen live-action Resident Evil movies from Paul W.S. Anderson that came before his. “I’ve never seen a Resident Evil movie. If there are people out there who are rabid fans of the movie franchise, they are probably not really prepared for what I am going to be doing. But I think fans of the games are going to be stoked,” he said.

Also in the interview, Cregger said his Resident Evil movie will be “true to the experience” of the video games, and probably “lives in the world” of Resident Evil 2 and 3, but that it adheres more to the tone of Resident Evil 4. The game is not a direct adaptation of any Resident Evil game, however.

Cregger said the video games, too, don’t have a set lore and aren’t rigid with timelines or settings. “I don’t think I am taking any more liberties with this [movie] than the game franchise does. I think I am coloring within the lines,” he said.

“I’ve never seen a movie like it,” he added. “I am beyond excited making this.”

The director added that his sense of tone and his general filmmaking sensibilities honed with Barbarian and Weapons will come through in Resident Evil, albeit on a bigger scale and with a bigger budget.

“It takes place in the world of the games, but most importantly, the journey you’ll have as a viewer watching this movie is going to be similar to the journey you have as a player when you play these games. What that means is it follows one protagonist from point A to point B as they descend deeper and deeper and deeper into hell,” he said. “As someone who has played I don’t know how many thousands and thousands of hours of Resident Evil, I just feel like I know how that pacing can go, and it’s inherently cinematic. I feel like there is a great movie that can live inside this world and inside that sort of pacing. I am really, really pumped about the story that we get to tell here.”

Finally, Cregger confirmed the shooting schedule for Resident Evil, saying cameras are due to begin rolling this October in Prague and continue through the end of January 2026. Why Prague? Cregger cited the city’s generous tax rebates and other factors. “It’s the right place,” he said.

The Resident Evil movie is slated for release in September 2026. Official casting announcements have not been made, but Weapons actor Austin Abrams may appear in it.

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September 3, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

The Sonic Rush games on Nintendo DS are getting a “definitive” PC release care of boisterous fangamers

by admin September 2, 2025

A group of fangame developers have taken it upon themselves to make a new Sonic Rush game for PC, combining the previous Sonic Rush games for Nintendo DS into one “definitive” remastering, with extra stuff and some apparently overdue fixes. Seems bold! I missed the Rush games back in the noughties, but I do like me a Sonic. Here’s a trailer for Sonic Rush Rerun.

Watch on YouTube

“The idea behind this remaster is to take the greatest strengths of the Sonic Rush trilogy, crank them up to 11, and combine them together to bring this game formula to its PEAK,” explain the developers in the blurb. “We want to make a definitive version of Sonic Rush for PC with additional content and to fix the problems with the original game.” I assume they’re calling it a “trilogy” in light of the general conviction that Sonic Colors is an unofficial third Rush game.

I like the energy here, but I fear I must break off this report to deliver an agonising Old Man appraisal of something that has been bugging me for years. PSA game developers: the “up to 11” line is not supposed to be repeated sincerely. It comes from 1984 rock band mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap, in which there’s a scene where lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel shows off his custom amp, which has a volume setting with 11 levels, but isn’t actually any louder than an amp with 10 levels.

It’s supposed to be a joke about meaningless exaggeration. But because humans are forgetful, perishable sacks of meat, and perhaps because videogame-adjacent humans especially tend to venerate numbers like gods, I keep hearing the phrase “turn it up to 11” uttered with what sounds like full seriousness.

I don’t know if there’s some kind of central marketing authority I can appeal to, here, but please can you all knock it off, because whenever I read these words in press releases, I feel like I am taking crazy pills. If nothing else, game developers, the nature of the joke means that you don’t have to stop at 11. You can turn it up to 12! You can turn it up to 13, even! First one to turn it up to 13 in a press release gets their game an automatic 13/10. Or would do, if we had a scoring system. See, I always give myself an out.

Anyway, back to Sonic Rush Rerun. The project lead is MelohRush, who got into fan animations because he played Sonic Frontiers and thought it needed “an extra punch of style”. These youngsters! So impetuous. According to his portfolio, he’s worked on *grits teeth* 11 Sonic projects to date.

He’s joined by lead programmer Crimznraze, lead modeller Ozark and a small village of modellers, programmers, level designers, animators, sprite artists, composers, sound designers, voice actors, writers and graphic designers. It’s a tidy production. You can find some music for the game’s soundtrack on the Youtube page.

Sonic Rush Rerun has no release date. Thanks to Jeremy for spotting it and lobbing it into the friendly sausage machine that is our news Slack. As ever with fangames, its eventual launch rests on Sega’s willingness not to sue the pants off the creators for breach of copyright. Sega have proven pretty relaxed on this front, as large corporations go, and have reaped the fruits in the form of a lively community of Sonicmakers, busily engineering forms of hedgehog-based entertainment poor Yuji Naka never dreamed of in 1991. Some have gone onto work for the Blue Blur directly.

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September 2, 2025 0 comments

Game Reviews

Here are our first Xbox Game Pass games for September

by admin September 2, 2025

Microsoft has announced the first batch of games coming to its Xbox Game Pass subscription service this September.

Below are all the new games coming to Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass, and Game Pass Standard in the coming weeks – including an unmissable bug-filled Metroidvania.

Ultimate:

Hollow Knight: Silksong (available 4th September)

Standard:

I Am Your Beast (available today)
Nine Sols (available 3rd September)
Paw Patrol World (available 10th September)
RoadCraft (available 16th September)

PC:

Cataclismo (available 4th September)

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As with every month, with the arrival of new games, other titles will be leaving Xbox Game Pass. As we reported earlier, the following games will be leaving Game Pass on 15th September:

All You Need is Help (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Wargroove 2 (Cloud, Console, and PC)
We Love Katamari Reroll+ Royal Reverie (Cloud, Console, and PC)

If you want to keep playing these games after they leave Game Pass, you’ll need to purchase them. On the plus side, Game Pass subscribers get a 20 percent discount. Further details can be found via Microsoft.

For everything else in Microsoft’s subscription service, you can check out our handy Xbox Game Pass guide detailing the many titles available.

Image credit: Microsoft

This is a news-in-brief story. This is part of our vision to bring you all the big news as part of a daily live report.

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September 2, 2025 0 comments