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Here are our PS Plus games for July
Game Reviews

Here are our PS Plus games for July

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Sony has revealed the line-up for PlayStation Plus this July. These games land during the 15th anniversary of PlayStation Plus, a big milestone for the service.

Sony has a series of celebratory activities planned for later this summer as part of the 15th anniversary, but first they’ve revealed the following selection of games, available to patrons of PS Plus.

The PlayStation Plus games for July are:

  • Diablo 4 (PS5, PS4) – available 1st July
  • Jusant (PS5) – available 1st July
  • King of Fighters 15 (PS5, PS4) – available 1st July

Why not check out one of our videos on Diablo 4!Watch on YouTube

In addition, the following activities will be available throughout July, until early August:

  • A trial version of WWE 2K25 will be available to PS Plus Premium members (available 25th June)
  • A trial version of Monster Hunter: Wilds (available 30th June)
  • Discounts on select games like Sniper Elite: Resistance, Sid Meier’s Civilization 7 and Star Wars Outlaws (running during the weekend starting 27th June)
  • Free Valorant pack for all PlayStation Plus members, including: two Prelude to Chaos Gun Buddies, a Kohaku and Matsuba Player Card, an Imperium Spray, a Chronovoid Spray, and ten Radianite Points.
  • Special PlayStation Plus PlayStation tournaments for EA Sports FC, NBA 2K, UFC, Madden NFL, College Football, Tekken 8, and more (available 28th June)
  • A 15 percent discount on Sony Pictures Core for all PlayStation Plus subscribers (available 25th June until 12th August)
  • A free multiplayer weekend, where those without PlayStation Plus memberships can play online for free (available 28th June)

It’s wild to think PlayStation Plus is 15-years-old! The service, alongside Xbox Game Pass, has absolutely changed the game development marketplace. Not only has it shifted the perceived value of games (arguably for the worse), but it’s also offered another way for developers to survive in what has been a damn awful few years in the industry.

As for this line-up, Diablo 4 is clearly the star of the show. A massive, ambitious sequel to a gaming giant, the game went back to its violent horror roots in a powerful and moreish way.

That’s not to say the other two games are stinkers! Jusant is by all accounts a lovely game to spend your evenings playing, while King of Fighters 15 is a superb fighter filled with equal parts style and quality design.

Those 15th anniversary events are a nice touch too! Monster Hunter: Wilds has been in a better place sure, but if you were ever curious to see what all the noise was about now is as good a time as any to try it out. Those PlayStation tournaments are rad too, a good chance to battle it out online in your favourite competitive game.

Full details on this month’s PS Plus offerings can be found on the PlayStation Blog.

All in all, a solid offering this month! Meanwhile, you’ll find more details on what else is on offer via the service in our full PlayStation Plus guide here.



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Netflix Is Delisting Over 20 Games From Its Mobile Library Next Month, Including Hades And Death’s Door
Game Updates

Netflix Is Delisting Over 20 Games From Its Mobile Library Next Month, Including Hades And Death’s Door

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As spotted by Engadget, Netflix is removing over 20 games from its mobile library next month. The list of titles on the chopping block includes heavy hitters like Hades, the Monument Valley series, and Death’s Door.

On July 15, 22 titles, which require a Netflix subscription to play, will exit the service. Some games, such as Hades, were only available on mobile devices through Netflix, so it’s unclear if they’ll become available on other mobile storefronts. Although July 15 is the removal date, some titles will disappear before then (such as Hades, exiting on July 1). Here’s the full list of games making their exit:

  • Battleship
  • Braid, Anniversary Edition
  • Carmen Sandiego
  • CoComelon: Play with JJ
  • Death’s Door
  • Diner Out: Merge Cafe
  • Dumb Ways to Die
  • Ghost Detective
  • Hades (available only on iOS)
  • Katana Zero
  • LEGO Legacy: Heroes Unboxed
  • Ludo King
  • Monument Valley
  • Monument Valley 2
  • Monument Valley 3
  • Rainbow Six: SMOL
  • Raji: An Ancient Epic
  • SpongeBob: Bubble Pop F.U.N.
  • TED Tumblewords
  • The Case of the Golden Idol
  • The Rise of the Golden Idol
  • Vineyard Valley

Netflix’s entire mobile library consists of 114 games, which means roughly 20 percent of its library is disappearing. While this isn’t the first time games have been delisted from the mobile library, these removals come as some question Netflix Games’ long-term future.

Last October, Netflix shut down its triple-A game development studio in Southern California, leading to the departures of several high-profile talents only a few months after the company expressed optimism about its games division. In January, the company canceled plans to bring previously announced titles to the service, including Thirsty Suitors, Tales of the Shire: A Lord of the Rings Game, and Don’t Starve Together. In February,  Netflix laid off staff at Oxenfree developer Night School Studio, which it acquired in 2021. The streaming giant has even scaled back on interactive programming, removing shows such as Black Mirror: Bandersnatch.  



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Sony really won't be putting new first party games on PlayStation Plus day one any time soon
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Sony really won’t be putting new first party games on PlayStation Plus day one any time soon

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Sony is sticking to its guns, and won’t be releasing its first party games day one on its PlayStation Plus subscription service.

Speaking with GameFile, vice president of global services at PlayStation Nick Maguire said the company was “not looking to put games in day and date” on PS Plus, and will instead stick with its current way of doing things.

This is, of course, very different from Xbox, which often puts big first party releases such as Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and many more on Game Pass from the get go.

FBC: Firebreak Preview – How Does It Play And Is It Good? Watch on YouTube

Sony, meanwhile, has added some third party games like the excellent Blue Prince and Stray to PS Plus on the same day as their initial launch. But the likes of God of War Ragnarök and Horizon Forbidden West – both from Sony’s first party studios – weren’t added to the service until around a year after their initial release.

“Our strategy of finding four or five independent day-and-date titles – and using that to complement our strategy of bringing games in when they’re 12, 18 months old or older – that balance for us is working really well across the platform,” Maguire continued, before adding:

“If there were six or seven great opportunities, then we would go for them as well.”

When asked if the company had considered the benefit of putting its own first party live-service titles on PS Plus, with Concord – the debut game from Sony’s FireWalk Studios, which was taken offline just two weeks after its PS5 and PC debut – being used as an example, Maguire declined to give a specific comment. The Sony exec did say, however, that PS Plus has “proven itself to be a great way to introduce new players to franchises” when they arrive on the service.

“There’s always going to be a moment for any game where there’s the right time for it to go into Plus, when it’s ready to reach a wider audience or… to find new fans or new parts of our platform that it hasn’t already reached,” Maguire said.

This month, Remedy’s multiplayer Control spin-off FBC: Firebreak was available to all those on PlayStation Plus’ Extra and Premium tiers day one. However, even when included on a subscription service, some live-service games still flop. Square Enix’s Foamstars, for example, failed to set the world alight despite being part of the PS Plus catalogue.

Would Concord have faired better if it had released on PS Plus? | Image credit: Sony Interactive Entertainment

Today’s comments echo what the exec stated back in 2023, when Maguire said putting games on to Sony’s subscription service “a bit later in the life cycle” is working for the company. Therefore, this will “continue to be [its] strategy moving forward,” Maguire said at the time.

Earlier this month, meanwhile, Sony president Hideaki Nishino stated the company is open to adjusting the price of PlayStation Plus in the future, as it aims to “maximise profitability”.



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UKIE on what the government's Creative Industries Sector Plan means for the UK games industry
Esports

UKIE on what the government’s Creative Industries Sector Plan means for the UK games industry

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“We’re all pretty happy,” beams Logie MacDonald, communications manager at UKIE.

The trade association has welcomed with open arms the publication of the UK government’s Creative Industries Sector Plan this week – a plan that MacDonald says satisfies many of UKIE’s proposals. “We’ve never seen this level of support before,” he says. “It’s a really big moment.”

He thinks the plan indicates a change of tone from the UK government. “In the past, video games have never really been front and centre of these things,” he says. “But they’re slowly gaining respect, and I think now they’re put on an equal footing with the other creative industries.”

Indeed, the games sector is given due prominence in the report, placed as it is just behind the section on film and TV. MacDonald also notes that Lisa Nandy, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, has been mentioning games more often. “Keir Starmer, I think, mentioned games one or two times as well.”

It’s a welcome change of tack from typical government rhetoric, he thinks. “The fishing industry gets mentioned a lot on government election campaigns, and it’s actually things like games that are really driving growth,” he points out.

(As a whole, the UK fishing industry landed sea fish with a value of £1.1 billion in 2023. In the same year, the UK video game market was worth £7.82 billion.)

The header image for the video games section of the report

Behind the scenes, UKIE has been busy. “The process for the whole industrial strategy started mid-last year, and the creative industries were asked to contribute,” says MacDonald. “So we contributed to various different aspects of it.”

UKIE is also the secretariat for the Video Games and Esports APPG (All-Party Parliamentary Group), which is chaired by Charlotte Nichols MP. “I think there’s nearly 40 MPs that sit on that group,” says MacDonald. “So that’s kind of like our main channel into government.”

Funding boost

In terms of video games, the headline announcement of the Creative Industries Sector Plan is a £30 million ‘Games Growth Package’, with this government funding spread over three years between 2026 and 2029.

Part of that £30 million (it’s currently not clear exactly how much) will go to the UK Games Fund (UKGF), which was established in 2015 chiefly as a way to provide funding for prototypes. The total amount pumped into the fund up until now by the UK government has been around £16.2 million, so the new funding announcement potentially represents a hefty increase.

“This is fantastic news for any small company looking to scale up,” enthuses MacDonald, adding that it’s also good for “students who are looking to start their first games company.”

“It’s really positive that [UKGF funding has] been renewed for not just next year with more money, but over a three year period,” he adds, noting that a boost to the UKGF was part of UKIE’s manifesto. “We’re not quite on the same level as Germany and other places, but it’s a big step forward.”

The section on interventions in the video games sector from the report

Another, unspecified portion of that £30 million will go to Games London, which runs the London Games Festival.

“I think the idea is that they’re looking at what’s the best way to put UK games on the global map,” says MacDonald. “And I think Games London is a really good way of doing that. If you look at the equivalents in other countries, in [Japan], in the US, in China, those kinds of big game festivals are a fantastic way of attracting inward investment.”

Games London has said that the “investment and revenue generation” from the London Games Festival will double as a result of this additional funding, potentially up to £30 million per year.

Skills and training

The problem of a skills shortage in the UK games sector has been widely discussed, with TIGA reporting that half of games businesses in the UK found it difficult to fill vacancies in 2024 as a result of shortages in certain skills.

The Creative Industries Sector Plan goes some way towards addressing this by announcing the formation of a strategy developed by the “sector-convened UK Games Skills Network, which will build on findings from the upcoming Creative Industries Council Skills Audit”. An industry-led body focused on solving the skills crisis is something that Skillful’s Gina Jackson called for last year.

Logie MacDonald, UKIE

MacDonald says that part of the strategy will probably involve “looking at how we can change visa regimes to get the right skills from abroad”.

In addition, the Creative Industries plan highlights the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology’s TechFirst programme, which aims to help “7.5 million UK workers to gain essential AI skills by 2030”.

“The government’s quite keen to identify what’s the best place to spend money when it comes to skills,” says MacDonald. “So we’re doing a separate piece of work on skills. And UKIE’s put together a bit of a group with the leading figures in the industry who are interested in this area. We’re working with some companies who are doing really good stuff with apprenticeships and entry-level roles.”

UK Video Game Council

Another eye-catching announcement in the report is the formation of the UK Video Games Council, which will “work with the government and the Creative Industries Council to support growth of the video games sector”.

“It’s something that a lot of industries have and something that games doesn’t have,” says MacDonald, adding that the council will be made up of around 15 to 20 industry leaders.

He explains that the council will be the government’s first port of call when it comes to discussing issues like skills, AI, or funding. “The idea is that they are a representative group of people from publishing to development to service providers,” he says.

He adds that further details on the UK Video Games Council, and an announcement of who will make up its members, will be provided in the next couple of weeks.

Tax breaks

In terms of tax breaks for the UK games sector, the big news is that… nothing has changed.

The report states that the current Video Game Expenditure Credit (VGEC) will be maintained. Announced in the 2023 Spring Budget, VGEC is the replacement for the old Video Games Tax Relief (VGTR) scheme, which is slowly being phased out.

Tax relief claims in the UK leapt by 10% in 2022–23, reaching a total payout of £282 million.

MacDonald says that UKIE was campaigning for the VGEC rate to go up for both small and large studios. UKIE has proposed a 53% tax relief rate for projects with budgets of £10 million or lower, and a 39% rate for larger projects. “That hasn’t come through, and obviously that’s something we’re going to continue to push for,” he says.

“It wasn’t something we were expecting to see, to be honest,” he adds, noting that it’s hard to defend tax breaks when “money’s tight in government and they’re looking for areas to slash”.

“When games cost so much to make these days, you need every little bit of help you can find”

Logie MacDonald, UKIE

But he points to UKIE’s research indicating that this extra tax relief would more than pay for itself. In terms of return on investment, UKIE estimates that higher rate would generate an additional £1.87 for every £1 in VGEC disbursements.

“And if we’re looking forward to the next 10, 20 years, we want both big and small companies to start to create a game here rather than in France or North America,” adds MacDonald.

“When games cost so much to make these days, you need every little bit of help you can find. And we know that when publishers are deciding where to develop a game, [tax relief is] one of the main things they look at. If our rate is lower than somewhere else, then it’s an easy decision.”

So, even though UKIE broadly welcomes the changes in the Creative Industries Sector Plan, there’s clearly still room for improvement.

“There’s always more to be done,” MacDonald concludes.



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Deus Ex, One Of The Best Games Ever, Just Turned 25 Years Old
Game Updates

Deus Ex, One Of The Best Games Ever, Just Turned 25 Years Old

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Yesterday, June 23, marked the 25th anniversary of what can convincingly be described as one of the best games of all time. Deus Ex, created by the distinct Austin branch of John Romero’s controversial studio Ion Storm, was a first-person RPG that would change how an entire generation of players and developers thought about video games. It was a game that was built from depths: depths of skill, knowledge, intelligence and narrative. It remains exactly as brilliant today as it was a quarter of a century ago.

The Week In Games: A Rebirth, A Remake, And A Remaster

In fact, it works better today than it did ten years back. Picking up a copy of the game on GOG today, I was able to launch it (only switching the rendering to OpenGL) and have it run out of the digital box. A decade ago, doing this required installing a handful of different mods, and there was no way to actually play it in its vanilla version. And right away, I was pulled back in, crazy clip-cloppy footstep sound effects and everything. I feel ready to yet again dive back into this world of overlapping conspiracies, deep philosophy, and juggled morality.

Screenshot: Eidos / Kotaku

So what makes Deus Ex so special? I feel like I could spend a dozen articles answering that question. In fact, ten years back, I wrote six in a row when revisiting the game. It’s a combination of so many factors coming together so superbly, with a dream team of developers, financial backing, an exquisitely good story, and a complete lack of expectation from its future audience.

In 1996, when the economy was booming in preparation for the colossal bursting of the dot-com bubble, John Romero and Tom Hall, flush with success from id Software and its massive gaming series Doom and Quake, set out to create a new Texan developer: Ion Storm. Together, they spent lavishly, fought explosively, and created two compellingly dreadful games. First was Dominion: Storm Over Gift 3, and then the infamously disastrous FPS Daikatana. However, alongside all this, former Looking Glass (Thief, System Shock) developer Warren Spector had been asked to create a parallel studio, Ion Storm Austin.

Distinct from Romero’s Dallas studio, Spector had creative freedom and a pool of money, and quickly hired talent he knew from his days at Looking Glass, including Harvey Smith (Dishonored). In just 28 months, a tiny team of 20 pulled together (albeit with production troubles, serious frustrations, and “knock-down drag-out fights”) one of the most immersive, intricate games the world has ever known.

Screenshot: Eidos / Kotaku

In the original Deus Ex, before its unfairly maligned Xbox-led sequel and its goth-eyed post-2010 prequels, you play as JC Denton, a cybernetically augmented human who works for a government agency called UNATCO. He discovers his brother Paul is working for a terrorist organization, the NSF, all amidst a global pandemic called the Grey Death. Very quickly, your assumptions about good and bad, right and wrong, are questioned, and you’re drawn into an intricate web of conspiracies and conflicting alliances.

This plays out…kinda how you want it to! There’s obviously a core, unavoidable plot, but how you approach it will dramatically affect the story you allow yourself to be told. It can be an ultra-violent FPS, where you blast through enemies with rockets and explosives, or a super-spy sim as you assassinate opponents, or you can be an unseen stealth pacifist, determined to kill no one, relying entirely on tranquilizers and stun guns. Every mission can be approached in multiple fashions, from spectacularly smashing through the roof of a building for an all-out gun fight, to slipping in through the vents such that no one ever knew you were there.

Screenshot: Eidos / Kotaku

I’ve told this anecdote too many times before, so apologies, but it captures the essence of what makes Deus Ex quite so extraordinary: At the time of its 2000 release, I was writing for the UK version of PC Gamer, where the reviews editor was one Kieron Gillen (now best known for his comics work, but once my colleague at RPS). Gillen had played the game for his world-class review (I’d link to it, but Future Publishing treats people’s efforts to archive its magazines with hostility—instead I’m copying out of my physical edition), which contained the words:

Games—like most other forms of entertainment—have a terrible habit of making you less than you are normally, simplifying you into a stripped-down cartoon…Deus Ex is one of the few games that succeeds in making you more than you are. Because Deus Ex’s universe is, obviously, reduced, you feel as if you have more freedom than you do in reality, which, like Fight Club for example, reminds you of your own freedom in reality. It’s a slap in the face, it reminds us how good videoart can be. And this is art. It’s beautiful. And I’m going to stop now before I start to cry…

I was playing it soon after, and occasionally calling Kieron to chat about what was happening. On one call I said to him, “I couldn’t believe it when my brother died.”

“My brother didn’t die!” Kieron responded in bemusement. And then we both had a moment in silence, realizing that this game was offering even more than we’d already thought.

Deus Ex was a game in which the finest details rung with intelligence, in which every book you found contained provocative ideas or conflicting philosophies, in which characters responded to you in subtly different ways depending upon how you were playing the game; on this micro level it felt malleable and responsive to you and how you reacted to it. But to discover that it was also offering the same flexibility to massive story beats was just mindblowing.

Screenshot: Eidos / Kotaku

The game’s influence on the industry is impossible to overstate. While the circumstances and relative creative freedom afforded to its development are extremely hard to come by twenty-five years on, you can see the game’s DNA in so many of the games we love today. Even beyond the more obvious, all the immersive sims born in its shadow (BioShock, Dishonored, Prey…), so many developers cite Deus Ex as a major source. Cyberpunk 2077‘s quest director Mateusz Tomaskiewicz named Deus Ex when asked for his main inspirations. Speaking to GamesRadar he said,

This one had a great impact on me as a developer and player back when I played it for the first time many years ago. And what I really liked about that game was completing the missions in many ways. It was not only based on dialogue decisions, since you also had the things that were on the map and its different points of entry that allowed you to get into buildings, as well as elements that opened different paths in history.

But most importantly, it’s still a hell of a game to play today. Sure, its art is a bit crummy—it was criticized for this when it was released! God, those wall textures. But it matters so very, very little once you’re deep in its story, learning what it has to teach, reacting against what you find abhorrent, embracing what draws you in. (I’ll never forget my moment of pure horror when, working as a youth worker as I also was during the game’s release, one of the teenagers told me how furious he was about being forced to leave UNATCO, as to him they were clearly the good guys. Uh-oh.)

It’s currently just $3.49 on GOG (although it often comes down to a lot less than that on both GOG and Steam), and if you’ve never played it, then prepare to have your life properly, actually changed.

Happy birthday, Deus Ex! Thanks for changing my life too.

Correction: 06/24/2025, 17:14 p.m. ET: The article has been updated to correct Warren Spector’s last name, which I got wrong twice, which is so rude, so apologies for that.

.



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Sony remembers PSVR2 exists, announces four new games coming soon
Game Updates

Sony remembers PSVR2 exists, announces four new games coming soon

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Sony has announced four new games on the way to its PSVR2 headset, three of which are coming this year.

One of those is Dreams of Another, the next game from Q-Games – the studio behind the PixelJunk games. Dreams of Another is from multimedia artist Baiyon, the director of PixelJunk Eden.

The game sees players control “The Man in Pajamas”, but has the philosophy of “No Creation Without Destruction”. As such, shooting in this game creates the world around you from circular particles.

Dreams of Another – PS VR2 Gameplay Reveal Trailer | PS5 & PS VR2 GamesWatch on YouTube

I was able to play the game (though not in VR) at the Game Developer Conference earlier this year, and found its use of “point cloud rendering” to be particularly mesmerising. I can only imagine how it’ll look in VR, in both third and first person. Dreams of Another is due for release later this year.

Before that, though, there’s Grit and Valor – 1949. A tactics rogue-lite, players take the role of a commander in an alternate timeline World War 2 to win battles by moving pieces chess-style on a tactical grid. It’s due out on 21st August.

Grit and Valor -1949 – Announce Trailer | PS VR2 GamesWatch on YouTube

Also coming later this year is Hotel Infinity, a follow-up to Manifold Garden from Studio Chyr. This surreal puzzle game has players exploring an abstract hotel to solve riddles. Manifold Garden received a rare Essential from Eurogamer, so expect good things from this one.

Hotel Infinity – Announce Trailer | PS VR2 GamesWatch on YouTube

Last up is Meteora, a “cosmic survival racer” coming to PSVR2 next year. Players will navigate “explosive asteroid belts, electrically charged debris, and icy barriers” as a meteor racing across space. Energy Crystal can increase your mass and Stardust boosts your velocity, but should you focus on survivability or speed?

You can read more about all four games on the PlayStation Blog.

Sony has been criticised for not supporting its PSVR2 headset. In its latest State of Play showcase, only one VR game was included – Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow – though this will also be released on other VR platforms.

The Meta-owned Beat Games also recently ended support for Beat Saber on PS4 and PS5, what many consider to be VR’s killer app.

Earlier today, Microsoft announced it has collaborated with Meta on a limited edition Xbox-themed Quest 3S headset, as the company dips its toes into the world of VR.



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The Xbox app on the ROG Xbox Ally X, in front of a gradient
Product Reviews

You will soon be able to open non-Xbox games from the Xbox app, which could be a great way to further avoid the Epic Games Store

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With the ROG Xbox Ally X and Xbox Meta Quest 3S on the horizon, Microsoft is going some way to upgrade its software on non-Xbox-made hardware. Perhaps the biggest and most useful push so far is the upcoming ability to play non-Xbox games straight from the Xbox app. Unlike the former hardware collaborations, this, I might actually use.

Announced via Xbox Wire, Xbox Insiders will be able to boot up games from “Xbox, Game Pass, Battle.net and other leading PC storefronts” all directly from the Xbox app. Xbox Insiders get the ability to do so starting this week, though I haven’t yet got access.

This could be a software change to set the groundwork for the ROG Xbox Ally X, a Windows handheld gaming PC with some Xbox-branded flourishes. As well as having the Xbox buttons, it comes with software from Microsoft intended to make it all feel a bit more like a console. The Xbox Ally X is set to launch later this year.


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This new Xbox App change is rather intuitive in concept, though we will have to get hands-on to see for ourselves. Effectively, you should just be able to install a game and find it in your library.

Steam and the Epic Games Store aren’t cited by name in Xbox’s announcement, but it would be rather misleading to announce support for ‘other leading PC storefronts’ without including arguably the two most important.

(Image credit: Heroic)

Unfortunately, though, the Xbox App won’t let you install games from other storefronts; it effectively just cuts out the middleman that opening up launchers can be. Given that the Epic Games Store is very tough to navigate, awkward to update, and a pain to boot up, the idea of entirely working around it appeals to me.

This could be especially useful for handheld gaming PCs—devices that are ostensibly designed to be a tad more console-like than a full-blown desktop setup.

The Xbox app won’t replace the likes of Heroic, which can install and update straight from your Epic Games library, but it can replace day-to-day Epic use, should you regularly play the likes of Fortnite or Genshin Impact.

If you’re looking to test out the new library function for yourself, you will have to join the Xbox Insider program, sign up for the PC Gaming preview, and then wait until you get access. If you don’t fancy signing up to be an Insider, normal Xbox app users will likely get this update later this year.

Best handheld PC 2025

All our current recommendations



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Cronos: The New Dawn looks like it's made for those of us who loved looking at Bloober Team games but never played them
Game Updates

Cronos: The New Dawn looks like it’s made for those of us who loved looking at Bloober Team games but never played them

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Bloober Team is no stranger to visually-stunning, intriguing horror games. But if you wanted something with more action, nothing the studio has made before – save for maybe the recent Silent Hill 2 Remake – has quite delivered in that area.

This is part of what makes Cronos: The New Dawn a very special title, especially for those of us who want to get into a Bloober Team game but don’t enjoy running and hiding from scary things as much as we do taking them on in combat.

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Cronos has been on the radar of action-horror fans everywhere practically since it was unveiled. Much of that has to do with its unique take on combat, which initially looked like something out of Dead Space, but was later revealed to be a lot more interesting.

The core mechanic in combat is the ability for enemies to merge with each other, effectively evolving in real-time. This not only has the potential to turn up the difficulty of an encounter right as you’re in the middle of it, it also means you’re going to have to be a lot more mindful of where you take on each fight.

As seen in the latest gameplay deep dive, dead bodies can be absorbed by enemies you’re currently trying to fight, which adds to their health, and even unlocks new attacks. You’re seemingly required to lure enemies away from dead bodies they can potentially use against you.

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It’s quite an unusual – but very tactical – approach to combat in a survival horror game. Speaking of which, Bloober Team explained that Cronos does feature some elements of resource scarcity, so you won’t be running around gung ho.

Earlier this year, we spoke to the game’s directors about a range of topics, including why the team decided to take its next project in more action-y route, and how it wants to blend the horror elements of its past games with that more interactive approach.

Cronos: The New Dawn still doesn’t have a release date, but it will be released at some point this fall on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.



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The four most important leaks you need to know about Battlefield 6 as we edge closer to the game's reveal
Game Reviews

The four most important leaks you need to know about Battlefield 6 as we edge closer to the game’s reveal

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If you’re eager to devour any piece of Battlefield 6 news you can get your hands on, you’re likely feeling down now that Summer Game Fest season has come and gone without a single mention of the highly-anticipated shooter.

Following the conclusion of a fairly controversial Battlefield Labs playtest that look place at the end of May, players had theorised that we’re close to getting some sort of major news, initially suspecting 17th June as a significant date.

We’re a week past that, now, and developer DICE showed nothing to whet our appetites. All we’ve had are leaks.

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Players invited to previous Battlefield Labs playtests were recently surprised to see more tests scheduled, when most players keeping up with the in-development title believed tests would be suspended until a major update had been released.

These June playtests introduced an updated version of the Domination game mode, which had some very Call of Duty-like ideas, such as the ability to respawn immediately without having to wait for a revive. This is unusual for a Battlefield game.

Beyond that, there are some pretty big changes to the Battlefield norm afoot in the Labs playtests, to date. Here are some of the most interesting changes and ideas we’ve seen in Battlefield 6 so far, based on what we know from the in-development tests.

Weapons

One of the most celebrated aspects of these fresh leaks relates to the number of weapons dug up in the playtest’s files. Respected dataminer, temporyal, recently posted a collection of all weapons referenced in the game’s files – a total of 52, split across eight categories.

Only a handful of those weapons were included in past Labs playtests, so there’s a chance we may not end up seeing everything on that list in the launch build of Battlefield 6, but considering Battlefield 2042’s anemic arsenal at launch, things are looking much better for the next game so far.

Just how different is Battlefield 6 going to be compared to 2042? We shouldn’t have too much longer to wait to find out. | Image credit: EA

Battle Royale

Battle royale findings have been persistent across all recent builds – and reports suggesting there’ll be a BR mode in the game have certainly helped – even if hard information is rare at this time. We do know that some of the studios behind Battlefield 6 are each working on separate modes, one of which is strongly believed to be a modern iteration of Firestorm: Battlefield’s forgotten battle royale mode.

Firestorm debuted with Battlefield 5, but a big reason it never caught onis because it was locked behind a purchase of the full game, and not free-to-play like Call of Duty: Warzone or, indeed, most battle royale games. Rectifying this is something EA is supposedly keen to correct with Battlefield 6’s take on the mode, and recent leaks appear to suggest the mode will operate separately from the core game, and that it won’t require a copy of the full release to access. Meaning, one can assume, it will be free-to-play.

A Battlefield Labs June patch included some new art and various bits of text that reference Firestorm, which supposedly takes place following an explosion in a place called Fort Lyndon (likely the map’s name, in the same way Warzone has become synonymous with Verdansk). The size of the recent patch might also indicate that DICE is keen on testing the BR mode soon, so we’ll have to see if that ends up happening with the next few Labs playtests.

How different will BF6’s implementation of the battle royale Firestorm mode be? | Image credit: EA

Campaign

One of the next game’s much less-discussed aspects is its narrative campaign, which we know practically nothing about. The recent patch, however, included a video from one of the game’s campaign missions, which supposedly shows the end of a narrative segment in which a squad of soldiers destroy a dam in Tajikistan.

The video has multiple unfinished assets, and is very much work-in-progress. But it’s something, at least, offering hope to the players that want a return to classic Battlefield campaigns.

Many are hoping for a different approach to the campaign, this time around.

The official title of Battlefield 6

Most of the discoveries we covered so far are part of the fairly large updates BF Labs has recently received. One of the most interesting, however, points to the official title of the game – and that does appear to be, simply, Battlefield 6.

It’s worth noting that EA Play and all official/player-facing areas of the Battlefield Labs tests do not show Battlefield 6 as the title, but the June updates have added strings of code across several areas of the game that all use that moniker when referring to the game, strongly indicating that DICE and EA have finally settled on an official name for the first-person shooter.

Those updates also coincided with tweaks to some of the Labs language to indicate that the game had moved from pre-alpha into alpha, which players believe paves the road for a more public test soon – though that’s not a new theory.

At least it’s not going to be called just ‘Battlefield’ (…in theory). | Image credit: EA

It’s clear we’re inching closer to the game’s proper reveal. EA confirmed in May that the next Battlefield will be unveiled in the summer. Seeing as June is almost over, a July reveal is the next best bet, (unless the game’s reveal party is instead planned for gamescom in August).

Until then, more Battlefield playtests will only result in more datamining and more leaks, so we’ll have to use those for sustenance while we wait for official channels to start waking up.



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This week in PC games: System Shock 2 remastered, multiple Warhammer 40,000 dogs, and an unexpected continuation of toilet theming
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This week in PC games: System Shock 2 remastered, multiple Warhammer 40,000 dogs, and an unexpected continuation of toilet theming

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“Experts urge UK households follow tips to beat heatwave, Dread Spider Tide” screech the inter-tabloids. Sparkling pig-grade hogwash, I say. I’ve recently discovered that the only things you need to defeat the sun are a cheap space heater set to fan mode and a PC overworked to boiling point, the combination of which creates some sort of mysteriously blissful temperature vacuum. Also, I refuse to open my curtains. For those also working on their attractive monitor-glow sallow tan, here are this week’s new PC game releases.

Monday 23rd June

  • Today sees the release of real estate roguelike and Balatro for landlords (Bastardlatro? Fix your own latrino?) Rentlord. “Maximize rent, while avoiding taxes!”, it urges. I’m reverting to default leftist fist shaking here but the one landlord I’ve ever had was actually a really nice bloke who once took it upon himself to unblock a sink I’d clogged up with rice. Also, he reminded me strongly of Ian Holm’s Bilbo Baggins. Darktide’s Arbites class is also out. Ah, Games Workshop. The company who only take time off from plagiarising Judge Dredd (and Dune, and Moorcock) to sue individual Etsy users for selling dice with ork faces on them.

Tuesday 24th June

  • Tuesday brings tactical RPG Shuffle Tactics, which features both nicely minimal pixel sprites and very good fantasy mammals. It’s got deckbuilding too, listing both Final Fantasy Tactics and Slay The Spire as inspirations. There’s also more Warty Thou in the form of the Lex Imperialis story expansion for Owlcat’s Rogue Trader. It’s also got Arbites in it. Nanomon Virtual Pet looks cute, if you’re bored of all the grimdark cyberdogs.

Wednesday 25th June

  • Free walking sim Condo is about exploring an apartment complex in a bout of insomnia and meeting its inhabitants. It’s got a slightly noirish, slightly windowless whiskey bar from Yakuza vibe I’m fond of. Dungeon Mori is a fetching crawler, although perhaps not fetching enough to overcome my inherent racism against fantasy catgirls.

Thursday 26th June

Friday 27th June

  • Friday has Antro inside of it – a rhythmic 2.5d platformer from Barcelona where you’re a courier who’s also out to overthrow a totalitarian regime. There’s also “Untitled Shoes Game” Bambas. Good one, Edwin.

This week the Treehouse is mostly melting. Not me though. I am a very good temperature. Let me know if I’ve missed any good’uns.



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