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Digimon Time Stranger reminds me of the best (and worst) of PS2 era RPGs, and that's why I can't put it down
Game Updates

Digimon Time Stranger reminds me of the best (and worst) of PS2 era RPGs, and that’s why I can’t put it down

by admin


I think Digimon Story: Time Stranger is secretly a PS2 era Shin Megami Tensei game. That’s very much my taste in RPGs. Given this is sort-of a kid’s game (OK, it’s got a PEGI 12 rating because of ‘bad language’, ‘in-game purchases’, and – bafflingly – ‘sex’), that is a pretty big surprise. I’ve come to this conclusion after sinking a good 50 hours into the game, and being taken on a surprisingly volatile journey as a result. The story is pretty guff, with a lot of shōnen-style anime filler injected into the meat to make it appear more succulent, but most of my emotive response has been to its design philosophy, its approach to dungeons, and some unbelievable pacing choices. I can close this game either loving it, or hating it. But, for the past two weeks, I’ve not been able to stop going back to it.

I adore Atlus’ Shin Megami Tensei (or MegaTen) games, for all their flaws. I have a particular soft spot for the PS2 era of games – Nocturne, Digital Devil Saga and its sequel, and Persona 3 are highlights. You can see the thumbprints of the parent series even in games as late as Metaphor Refantazio: between demons, a doomed Tokyo, cerebral reflections on the nature of humanity, and impossible philosophical choices about the fate of the universe, it’s all pretty standard RPG fodder at this point. But just as instrumental to the series are lengthy and often-unwieldy dungeons, difficulty spikes and plateaus, boss fights that feel like masochistic puzzles, and combat systems as infuriating as they are spellbinding.

Digimon Story: Time Stranger has all of this. Even down to the doomed Tokyo. But instead of demons and creatures from the pantheon of human mythology, the game is populated with the eponymous Digimon – fascinating and varied creatures that range from cute little guys made out of bubbles to leather coat-wearing dominatrixes with G-cups and a pair of desert eagles. Instead of negotiating with demons to try and get them to join your cause, you’re defeating Digimon and converting their data into living beings that can join your team.

About half the game is set in the real world, real Tokyo. | Image credit: Bandai Namco

From here, you can either train them up and add them to your ranks, or have your other allies cannibalise them to gain their power. It’s not quite the sacrificial/fusion mechanic of MegaTen, but it’s not far off. And the weird complexity in how you get your pals to evolve and grow is just as abstruse as Persona or MegaTen’s fusion systems, too. ‘What do you mean I need to Digivolve then de-Digivolve my allies in order to get the result I want?’, I’d ask my TV screen, as entertained as I am flummoxed. ‘What do you mean I need to socially engineer their personalities to get the most iconic ‘mon?’, I’d shout. ‘What do you mean my only Virus-type is now another Vaccine-type?’, I’d despair, as I get soft-locked into a battle I now have very little chance of winning.

The game is often galling, always surprising, and constantly caught me off guard. I would sleepwalk through one of the many, many beautiful biomes, dispatching Digimon like some teleplay sheriff, gobbling up their data to empower my team of devils, angels and rocket launcher-wielding werewolves. But then I’d come to a boss that would have an absurd health bar, moves that are dirty and cheap, and AI companions that were as useless as the sentient poops that I’d been grinding my team against for the past half hour.

There’s a constant level of surprising tension to Time Stranger that just kept on reminding me of the ‘too-edgy-for-you’ MegaTen games that I am enamoured with. I can imagine Young Dom (who picked up Nocturne as a teenager just because they saw Dante from the Devil May Cry Series on its cover in a games rental shop) would love this game, too: the disarming and lurching difficulty spikes and gated progression puts me in mind of the most arrhythmic PS2 RPGs. This is praise, I think. Digimon speaks to my inner child – who’d have thought?

Lots of Digimon are weirdly human, many overly sexualised. | Image credit: Bandai Namco

But every time I’d start falling in love with this peculiar, high-budget realistation of the Digital World, it would do something to aggravate me. The general pattern for progression looks like this: go to a hub, speak to loads of Digimon, figure out there’s a realm that needs saving, go to the realm. The core conceit in the game is time: maybe you’ll go somewhere, and it’s all messed up and apocalyptic. Story beats send you back in time to where it’s a bit nicer, and you figure out where the timeline schism is, then you go to fix it up. Zone complete. The next area might be the same, or it might start in a better state of repair, then you need to figure out how to stop it getting messed up. It’s linear, it’s braindead, it’s a popcorn RPG. I’m happy with that.

But whilst the earlier biomes (forests made of gears, oceans teeming with data, endless real-world sewers) are fairly straightforward RPG dungeons, the later-game zones are appalling. One area – which looks like something from anime Dark Souls – needs you to convince a frog to teleport you towards a Transylvania-esque castle. Pick the wrong dialogue option and you’re back to the beginning. D’oh! Not too bad on its own, but the dialogue takes an age to complete, the animations are atrocious and slow, and there’s no real indication of what the right answer is. Immediately after this, you’re in a zone caught between heaven and hell (read: ice and fire) that requires an unbelievable amount of backtracking, and seems to be populated exclusively with elevators that take 15 whole years to complete their animation cycle. It absolutely destroys any sense of momentum you have as you approach some story-critical climax markers.

Why? Why? I thought we left this kind of game design back in the 00s. But, for all my adult impatience, there’s something in it that reminds me of the final dungeons of my favourite MegaTen games – areas littered with atrocious teleportation devices, riddled with sadistic traps that reduce your party’s HP to practically nothing, bosses that gain sudden immunity to moves you’ve been using without pause for the past 60 hours. Digimon Story Time Stranger is the same. After breezing through most fights (even if they took a while, in some cases), later bosses suddenly ambush you with baffling modifiers: you can’t heal in this fight, you can’t use items in this one.

I play these games as a completionist: wrapping up every side mission and bonus quest as they become available. If the game had given me any indication that I might not be able to heal or use items in the later fights, I’d have baked strategies acknowledging that into my playstyle. Instead, I often found myself in situations where the only way to proceed was to de-evolve, re-evolve, and retrain all my best ‘mon just to dispatch one boss. Just as I had to, say, fuse and level a whole team of Physical Repellant demons in Nocturne, some 20 years ago, to overcome one unavoidable fight. Go figure.

I’m glad I’m not scoring Time Stranger. My experience with the game ranged from a two-star to a five-star, and it could flip on a dime. Yet, I can’t put it down. There’s something compelling about these egregious ‘gotchas’ that makes me despair as much as it galvanises me. ‘You’re not gonna beat me that easily, you cheap bastard’, I mutter to myself as I begrudgingly DNA Digivolve two of my best ‘mon into one superbeast (that proves just as ineffective as my last setup). Back to the drawing board.

I’ll defeat you with the power of friendship and this gun I found. | Image credit: Bandai Namco

In combat, in level design, in its seemingly utter disrespect for your time, Time Stranger feels like a relic of the PS2 era. Yet I know that there are a lot of people, myself included, that get a cheap thrill from this kind of anachronistic game design. When I first saw Time Stranger announced earlier this year, I assumed it’d be an easy romp, a nice, warm hug from times gone by that would remind me of playing Digimon World and puzzling how to further improve my meat farm back on the PS One. I didn’t expect it to throw up half-buried trauma memories from getting soft-locked by one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse in Nocturne on the PS2.

I got what I asked for, I suppose, even if it is a bit of a Faustian pact. I think I’m also going to go for the Platinum trophy on this absurd, unpredictable, and unexpectedly huge game. I might not be the same person at the end of it, but there’s a stubborn 13-year-old inside me that refuses to let go. And I really wasn’t expecting to have that strong a reaction to a Digimon game after the half-baked experiences in Next Order, Survive, and even the slightly (slightly) better runs through Hacker’s Memory and Cyber Sleuth.

Whatever illicit catnip developer Media Vision has laced Time Stranger with, it’s got its hooks in me, and I just pray that it lets go in time for Pokémon Legends Z-A. But, honestly, I doubt it will.



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Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow is a valiant attempt to put the stealthy series back on track
Game Updates

Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow is a valiant attempt to put the stealthy series back on track

by admin


It’s been 11 long years since its underwhelming reboot, but finally the Thief series is back with Thief VR: Legacy Of Shadow, and this time wannabe burglars will be using virtual reality to make their trinket yoinking even more immersive than it was before. Legacy Of Shadow is fifth entry in the series and, according to its developers, it’s set 200 years after the third game in the series, Thief: Deadly Shadows, and 200 years before the events of the 2014 reboot.

Thief VR

  • Developer: Maze Theory
  • Publisher: Vertigo Games
  • Platform: Played on PSVR 2
  • Availability: Out 2025 on PC VR (Valve Index, Meta Rift, Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest 3 Family via Steam) and PSVR 2

Legacy of Shadow features a player character called Magpie, a newcomer to the series who, at some point in the game, gets her hands (or I guess maybe that should be eye sockets) on Garrett’s legendary mechanical eye that he received after the climax of the very first game. This eye not only allows Magpie to activate something called Glyph Vision which highlights nearby enemies and points of interest, but also has the added bonus of allowing series fans the rejoice in the dulcet tones of Stephen Russell, making a welcome return here as the voice of the original Garrett, who Magpie begins to hear in her head after gaining the eye.

Recently, I played two levels from the game on PSVR 2, starting with the tutorial level Stonemarket. There, players get introduced to the game’s new protagonist Magpie, and reintroduced to The City and its eagle-eyed guards. After completion of that I was skipped forward a few levels to Ravencourt Manor, a much more traditional Thief-style heist level in which I had to infiltrate said Manor to pinch a mysterious treasure known as the Glyph Stone.

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Visually, Legacy of Shadow looks really nice, in a gloomy, oppressive, probably smells real bad, Steampunk kind of way. The PSVR2’s HDR works great with the dark environments and there’s a high level of detail to not only the exteriors, with some lovely views across the City, but also in regards to the interiors and props too. There is a sort of semi-realism to the visuals – detailed but with a cel shaded vibe to them – but this suits the setting and it makes the game look comparable to the modern Thief reboot rather than the early noughties originals.

The lighting was great too, especially the way roaring fires in the street cast the shadows of guards against nearby walls so I could tell which way they were moving without having to leave the cover of darkness. Just like the rest of the world, Magpie’s hands and gloves have that highly detailed comic book styling to them too, but lovers of full body rigs will be disappointed to hear that you’re limited to controlling a couple of floaty hands only here.

Oh eye, what do we have ‘ere then? | Image credit: Maze Theory/Vertigo Games

On the subject of hands, how do the all-important virtual interactions fair? The amount of things you can pick up, play with and touch can either make or break a VR game in my opinion – thankfully there’s plenty of things to interact with here. There are drawers to slide open, foods to eat, candle flames to pinch out, vents to open and of course loads of props to pocket, smash or throw for handy distractions. Alongside all of this you’ve also got a physical inventory pouch which you pull out to access things like keys and quest items, and there’s a fairly satisfying lockpick mechanic which utilises gentle twists of the wrists in order to find the sweet spots of the lock.

The illusion of having a solid world wrapped around you isn’t pulled off quite as well though as, say, Batman Arkham Shadow. That was a similarly stealthy game but one with extra attention paid to the littlest details. In it, for instance, your virtual fingers would react to the rough surfaces you ran them across, following the contours and edges of ledges or walls. In Legacy of Shadows, when I tried something similar Magpie’s hands barely registered a difference which, while hardly game-breaking in any way, did reduce my immersion a tad.

I’m not sure how good the dark environments will look on headsets without HDR capabilities, but they looked lovely on the PSVR2. | Image credit: Maze Theory/Vertigo Games

The Thief reboot is almost unanimously regarded as the weakest game in the series and a lot of that has to do with its level design that focussed more on linear, parkour action and less on tightly designed playgrounds for pilfering. Series fans wanted to spend time casing joints and stealthing around looping interiors rather than pelting it from A to B across wooden beams and up climbable walls. But how does Legacy of Shadow compare? Well, there’s both good and bad news here. The first tutorial level wasn’t just visually reminiscent of the fourth game, but its level design was also very similar. Sure, there was no parkouring, there weren’t as many walls to climb and there were a couple of small looping areas and a sewer to waddle through, but it still felt fairly linear in its design.

To give the game the benefit of the doubt, this level was probably simplified in order to better ease people into the experience as the later level that I played, Ravencourt Manor, was much more intricate in its level design, echoing those of the classic Thief games. There were multiple routes of entry into the Manor, various paths to take both inside and out and the building itself was a multi-floored structure that encouraged stealthy exploration and careful planning. I will say that this level felt smaller than the classic Lord Bafford’s Manor level from the first game but as a counter to that, the modern day visuals meant that Ravencourt felt like a much more realistic location to inhabit.

Image credit: Maze Theory/Vertigo Games

A Thief game isn’t really a Thief game if the stealth is done wrong, which is yet another reason why the reboot didn’t land too well with fans. Thankfully, Legacy of Shadow looks to be going in the right direction, mainly thanks to the inclusion of VR, which makes the feeling of crouching behind boxes and popping your head up from sewer grates feel so much more immersive. Sure, the Thief reboot had a ‘Peek’ button, but in Legacy of Shadows, your neck is the peek button and that makes every moment of sneaking and spying feel way more true to life – you’re actually there after all!

Staying in the shadows is once again the order of the day if you want to sneak past guards successfully. There’s a light meter on the back of Magpie’s glove which will tell you if you’re illuminated, and there’s a few nifty tools at your disposal that will help you extinguish light sources, like water arrows and the ability to pinch out candle flames. One of the coolest little additions to the game is that you can also physically blow out the candles using your headset’s microphone, a feature that also doubles up as a potential distraction tool. Turn this setting on and the microphone will pick up your voice, meaning you can shout at guards to cause distractions or lure them towards you, but it’s probably best to leave this one off if you’re a streamer and want to commentate on your playthrough, given the constant babbling will broadcast your location at all times.

It’s a good job you cant feel pain in VR because you’ll be doing a lot of this in game. | Image credit: Maze Theory/Vertigo Games

There were a couple of very cool moments of stealth that stood out during my playthrough. One involved sneaking around a room with a sleeping guard in it, quietly opening drawers and reading notes until I worked out how to unlock a cell door to gain the loot inside, and the other was when I accidentally alerted a pair of soldiers who were guarding the level exit as I tried to climb out of the sewers. This drew them to my location, so I jumped back into the sewers, climbed out of another manhole, and legged it through the now-unguarded exit.

Other stealthy mechanics in the game include pickpocketting, a bow-and-arrow for long range kills or takedowns and, if you’re feeling cheeky, there are plenty of objects lying around that you can throw at sleeping guards if you want to troll them just before you escape.

Time for this guard to bow out. | Image credit: Maze Theory/Vertigo Games

If you’re trying to leg it to the exit of a level after some top notch shop lifting, it’s important that you can get around accurately, and the movement schemes for Legacy of Shadow were all pretty responsive. There’s no teleport to move here, only smooth movement, but you can choose between click turning and smooth turning if you’ve got a slightly wobbly tummy. That was the only movement option in the menus of the demo I played, so crouching had to be done with a button press rather than physically crouching which, to be fair, is probably a wise choice – playing this game without click to crouch would be murder on the knees. I had no issues with wandering around the environments, but there’s also a fair amount of places to climb, be it ladders to reach vantage points or handily placed bricks which inevitably lead to a lovely little loot stash. Whenever I did have to climb anything, my grip felt accurate and I had no problem pulling myself up from things or vaulting through windows.

Of course, just because the movement works well doesn’t mean you won’t accidentally bumble around a corner and into the full view of a patrolling guard, and that’s where combat comes in. Although, I actually didn’t get to try much combat because I was told that it’s best to avoid being spotted altogether, seeing as death comes at you fast once you are. You do have a blackjack weapon, which will be familiar to series fans, and you can use this to knock enemies out from behind, but it’s useless in face-to-face combat. The only lethal weapon I tried was the bow which, to me at least, felt a bit clunky to aim with. It’s definitely not useful at super long range, and it doesn’t seem to do a huge amount of damage, so it might be best to limit its use to a tool that aids your stealth, because it seems like a fairly unreliable murder weapon.

All in all, Thief VR looks like a worthy addition to the series, combining the gameplay stylings of both the originals and the remake into a meaty VR stealth game that should please the hardcore, whilst also giving the series a modern spin for newcomers. The return of Garrett is also going to be music to fans’ ears, and I can already envisage non-VR-owning Thief fans lamenting the fact that they won’t be able to get their mechanical eyes on this one without shelling out for a headset first. In terms of the absolute level of execution, it’s definitely behind Batman Arkham Shadow, which really is the gold standard of VR immersion for me – especially considering that was a Quest 3 exclusive – but it’s still looking like it’ll be a well-assembled, challenging Thiefy experience. And, in my opinion, the stealth game genre is way more enjoyable and exciting in VR than it is in standard flatscreen anyway. If you, like me, want to put your face inside a Thief then, you’ll be able to do so on PlayStation VR2, PC VR, Meta Quest 2, 3 and 3S sometime this year.



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Call of Duty says its anti-cheat for Black Ops 7 has ‘one of the strongest detection systems we have ever built,’ and this week’s beta will help put it to the test
Game Reviews

Call of Duty says its anti-cheat for Black Ops 7 has ‘one of the strongest detection systems we have ever built,’ and this week’s beta will help put it to the test

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Ahead of this weekend’s beta test for Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, Activision is reiterating its focus on anti-cheat to maintain the integrity of the game on PC.

Along with requiring Secure Boot and TPM 2.0 to even launch the game on PC, Activision says its RICOCHET Anti-Cheat system has evolved over the past year in Black Ops 6 to try and stay ahead of cheat-makers worldwide.

Image via Activision

“Over the last year, Team RICOCHET has trained advanced machine learning systems on millions of hours of gameplay,” Activision said in a new blog post. “These upgrades are smarter, faster, and more reliable than ever; built not just to catch cheaters, but to set the new standard for fair play and evolve with the game itself.”

With these changes, the company says RICOCHET now has “one of the strongest detection systems we have ever built, designed to separate natural aim from the precision patterns of an aimbot,” faster wall-hack detection, and a layered defense that “with constant and independent updates, makes it tougher for cheaters to adapt and easier for us to stay ahead.”

Call of Duty players have heard this all before in recent years as the hacking epidemic has grown with crossplay and free-to-play Warzone accounts, but the fact is anti-cheat is a never-ending battle against cheat providers who are always trying to stay one step ahead to make a quick buck by selling cheats. And Activision says it’s working to fight on that front, too.

“We’re striking cheat makers and sellers from every angle: in-game detections that stop them cold, and legal action that dismantles their operations,” Activision said. “And we’re not stopping there. Significant continued improvements to our systems are coming, including those that detect external hardware.”

The BO7 beta, which begins this Thursday, Oct. 2, is part of the process of ensuring that the anti-cheat systems are at work, Activision said, calling it “a critical test for the systems we have online under real player conditions” as players will inevitably try hacking in the beta test.

Image via Activision

“We are actively monitoring matches, gathering data across thousands of unique hardware setups, and removing cheaters in real time,” the company said. “The beta allows us to measure how our detection tools perform when faced with live attempts to cheat, and to fine-tune how quickly and effectively we strike back. Every report, every flag, and every removal during the beta feeds directly into stronger responses tomorrow.”

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Bitcoin price data. Image: Tradingview
Crypto Trends

Rate Cuts, Options Expiry Put Bitcoin at a Crossroads

by admin



In brief

  • About $17 billion in Bitcoin options are set to expire Friday, one of the largest on record.
  • Experts warn a break below $108,000 could trigger forced selling and a drop toward $96,000.
  • Softer inflation could ease pressure and open room for a rebound into year-end.

Crypto faces a critical test this week as the quarterly options expiry collides with a key U.S. inflation reading, a convergence that could determine whether the rally gains momentum or falters.

Roughly, $22.3 billion in crypto options will expire as the third quarter comes to a close on Friday, according to options exchange Deribit. Out of which, Bitcoin options with a notional value of $17.06 billion are set to expire.

Greg Magadini, director of derivatives at options analytics platform Amberdata, told Decrypt that the current Bitcoin expiration cycle is “the largest on the board.”



Dealer positioning shows “a lot of short gamma at $109,000 and $108,000,” he said, pointing to a situation that requires those price levels to hold to prevent a sharp move downward.

Bitcoin’s short-term moves depend heavily on options dealers and large institutions that hedge their positions in real-time. Their exposure to “gamma,” a measure of how quickly hedges must adjust, can either amplify price swings or help steady them.

A short gamma position means dealers could be forced to sell into a declining market, exacerbating a drop.

Data shows that $108,000 has become critical for Bitcoin traders. A failure to hold above this level could trigger an automated selling cascade, independent of the August Core PCE release, Decrypt was told.

Considering the dealer’s short gamma positioning and volatility around 35%, Magadini expects a drop below $108,000 to trigger a “two standard deviation move to $96,000,” especially if the markets are weak.

Bitcoin is currently trading at $109,100, having clocked a 3.8% loss on Thursday. In total, the top crypto has shed 6.50% over the past week, CoinGecko data shows.

All eyes are now on the Core PCE release, scheduled for 8:30 a.m. ET today, which remains sticky around 3%. The month-over-month forecasts sit around 0.2%, slightly lower than last month’s 0.3%.

A hotter-than-expected release could strengthen the dollar’s recent bounce and exacerbate Bitcoin’s ongoing correction, experts previously told Decrypt.  

However, a softer Core PCE could form a “pin from options expiry” that could “loosen and allow a sharp upside move,” Maja Vujinovic, CEO and Co-Founder of Digital Assets at FG Nexus, a Nasdaq-listed company focused on accumulating and generating yield on Ethereum, told Decrypt.

Despite the short-term, jumpy reaction around inflation report releases, she expects a constructive fourth quarter for crypto markets, driven by demand for spot exchange-traded funds and improving liquidity. 

Magadini echoed Vujinovic’s outlook, noting that there is downside risk in the short term, driven by uncertainty over the Fed’s path and weakness in risk assets. 

“Long-term, I expect prices to be drastically higher…should Fed inflation fighting stop…I could easily see Bitcoin start to trade above $250,000.”

Options data also support Bitcoin’s long-term bullish sentiment, evidenced by heavy buying of year-end call options with $120,000 and $140,000 strikes.

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Leon from Resident Evil 4 doing the smoulder among a run-down village.
Gaming Gear

Weapons director says his Resident Evil movie will leave everything ‘intact’ from the games: ‘I’m not gonna steal Leon and put him in an original story’

by admin



Zach Cregger is on a roll. The writer and director of 2022’s Barbarian and this year’s Weapons now has two solid horror hits under his belt, and is in pre-production on his next one: a Resident Evil movie planned for 2026.

That’s good news for Resident Evil fans who might otherwise be a bit wary about yet another new Resi movie—the film franchise was already rebooted once, just four years ago, with the thoroughly mid Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City. Cregger’s track record, though based on a small sample size (at least when it comes to feature films) is a good reason to be optimistic.

And for those wondering which game and characters this new Resi movie will be based on, it looks like the answer is: none of them.


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Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Cregger confirmed that while the 2026 film will take place in the Resident Evil universe, “It’s an entirely original story,” instead of being based on any one specific game. Cregger is also steering away from major Resident Evil characters like Leon S. Kennedy.

“I’m not gonna steal Leon and put him in an original story. I think that would be presumptuous,” Cregger told EW. “But I respect the games enough where I’m gonna tell a Resident Evil story in the Resident Evil canon that still leaves everything they love intact from the games, you know what I mean?”

I think I know what he means. When using a character people are already familiar with, like say Master Chief in the recent Halo TV series, you run the risk of disappointing people who have expectations of that character, like when you show his naked butt, or when he has sex. A safer and more creative approach is to handle it like the Fallout series, which creates mostly original characters and sets them loose in a familiar world.

Both Barbarian and Weapons are effective not just because they’re scary, but because they’re intriguing. By presenting the story of both films from the perspective of different characters and jumping around in time, we don’t get all the information in a linear fashion, which gives both movies a fun sense of mystery. At other times we get information before certain characters do, too, and then we’re left dreading the horrible things we know are coming their way.

I’m curious if and how Cregger will use similar methods in his Resident Evil movie.

“I think that when you see it, you’ll understand how I can be obsessed with original ideas and still make a movie that is an IP-based thing,” Cregger said. “I know that doesn’t make a lot of sense now, but I hope that it will later.”

Cregger’s Resident Evil movie is scheduled to be released, wow, exactly one year from today, on September 18, 2026. Confirmed in the cast is Austin Abrams, who played the role of James, the drug-addict, in Weapons, and Paul Walter Hauser, who played Ed in this year’s The Naked Gun and Mole Man in The Fantastic Four: First Steps.



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An argonian walks down an empty street in one of Morrowind's towns
Product Reviews

‘Because no one was paying attention we could just put anything into the game,’ says the writer responsible for sneaking The Lusty Argonian Maid into Morrowind

by admin



The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind – An Oral History from the Game Developers – YouTube

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Filmdeg Miniatures is a YouTube channel run by Tom Evans that is full of interviews with gaming luminaries. I know it mainly for unearthing Warhammer history on topics like the early editions of Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Evans also covers videogames, most recently in an eight-hour oral history of Morrowind in which he lets a host of the classic weird-fantasy RPG’s creators meander up and down memory lane as they discuss how it was made.

One enlightening subject is writer and quest designer Mark Nelson, who was responsible for a chunk of Morrowind’s expansions, Tribunal and Bloodmoon, as well as fleshing out the starter village of Seyda Neen. He’s the guy responsible for Tarhiel, the wizard who memorably falls out of the sky in front of you the moment you leave, for instance.

And he’s also the one to blame for The Lusty Argonian Maid, a tiny joke text that’s become a core part of the Elder Scrolls’ identity. In a game full of serious books about history and theology and philosophy, it’s delightful to stumble across one that’s a silly sex comedy. “I don’t even remember why I wrote it,” Nelson admits in the interview. “It may have been after like a happy hour or something, quite honestly.”


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It may not even have made it to the finished product if Morrowind’s project leader Todd Howard had noticed. “Because no one was paying attention we could just put anything into the game,” Nelson says. “Todd’s rule was always ‘humor has no place in games.’ That’s Todd’s rule. So of course that became ‘humor has no place in games, if Todd doesn’t catch it…’ And that’s where things like The Lusty Argonian Maid came in. I probably was like, I need a break, I’ve been scripting or creating something kind of boring. I’m gonna write a stupid little story.”

While I don’t expect everyone to have eight hours free to watch the entire video, it’s handily timestamped in the description if you want to skip to a specific interview. The picture that emerges from seeing them all side by side is that Morrowind’s existence is even more miraculous than you might already think, especially given how inexperienced the small team was.

“For probably half the people it was their first game,” as Nelson says. “It was insane. That was a passion project. It shouldn’t have gotten made. Like, it’s stupid. It should never have gotten made, it shouldn’t have been a success, but it was a really amazing combination of having the right people at the right time who were just willing to kill themselves to make this game.”



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Who'd Put Out A Metroidvania The Same Day As Silksong? Atari
Game Updates

Who’d Put Out A Metroidvania The Same Day As Silksong? Atari

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When Hollow Knight: Silksong announced its September 4 release date, other games ran for the hills. Indie titles like Demonschool, Baby Steps, and Little Witch in the Woods all picked up their skirts and dashed away into the depths of September to avoid trying to compete with the massive attention Team Cherry’s sequel was certain to receive. But not Atari. No, those brave folks decided to stick to their guns and plans, and released tough-as-nails 2D Metroidvania Adventure of Samsara on the very same day. Silksong saw over half a million simultaneous players within a few hours of launch. Take a guess how Samsara fared.

Twelve. Adventure of Samsara, the Castlevania-inspired hardcore platformer from Brazilian indie studio Ilex Games, has seen a peak player count of 12.

This, to be clear, is absolutely unfair. I’ve had a play of the game, and it sports splendid pixel graphics, a really pleasingly weighty sense of movement, and proper heft to its sword-swinging combat. It’s also just how everyone seems to want these games to be: easy-peasy in general, and then ludicrously difficult in specific moments. I don’t get it, but that’s what people seem to love. My only real criticism is that the player character is perhaps too small on the screen, but on another day, perhaps in a different month, Adventure of Samsara could have been the darling of the Soulslike lovers.

12 people showed up. That’s concurrent players, of course, meaning Samsara could have sold anywhere up to, maybe, 50 copies? Perhaps in fact it’s sold many more, and everyone who bought a copy also picked up Silksong, deciding to play that first? I’m trying to be optimistic. But it really looks like a worthy Metroidvania might have been completely drowned by making the inexplicable decision to release against such an obviously dominating competitor.

I’ve reached out to both developers Ilex and publishers Atari to ask what the thinking was here. However, I’ve noticed that Atari really doesn’t seem to have put a great deal of effort into promoting the game. The game appears on the official site, but I’m unable to find even a press release for the game. It was announced only three months ago, then released across consoles and PC without any fanfare at all, on the worst day possible for a game like this.

Which seems a big shame. The scant 12 reviews (that number again) on Steam skew very positive, with words like “wonderful” and “awesome” being used with merry abandon. And the game has received a grand total of two professional reviews, an 8 from Video Chums, and a 7 from Nintendo Life. Fair play to both sites for putting in the effort.

We’ll update you if we hear answers on why this was allowed to happen to the poor little game.



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Put your neighbours under surveillance in automation horror game Beyond The Doors
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Put your neighbours under surveillance in automation horror game Beyond The Doors

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“Horror” and “automation” are concepts I’m used to seeing together in fiery/weepy essays about late capitalism. I’m less used to seeing them together in videogame marketing blurbs. Horror, in an automation-based game? Why, games with automation are supposed to deliver the finest and most methodical of chemical highs. They are supposed to feel like building yourself a better brain out of candy-coloured conveyor belts and smelters. They are not supposed to make you afraid.

The game that inspires these ruminations is Beyond the Doors, out this year, which has an alpha demo on Steam. It casts you as a lonely greasemonkey working in the basement of a dour, weed-hung apartment building. Your job is to bug your neighbours, in the sense of placing them under surveillance. Every night, somebody emails you to request that you set up a listening device near somebody else’s door, then send them a recording of any activity within.

Watch on YouTube

Gathering these recordings is a ponderous challenge, partly thanks to cumbersome, MicroProsaic interface design, but also because Beyond The Doors wants to be ponderous. You have to daisy-chain devices, copying and pasting codes to synch them together. Then you have to select and save the file using DOS commands on your server computer, before wiring it to your desktop for analysis.

The fiddliness of all this is intensified, of course, by the nape-tickling awareness that Something Is Wrong. The apartment block is all greyspace and neglect, built around a central chasm with a webbed glass ceiling. You fear to turn your back on any particular door, any particular corner.

There are boulders of trash that sort of multiply like amoeba when you pick them up, but may have useful objects beneath them. The worst part, possibly, is that I can’t find a way to listen to the files I’m recording. I have no idea whether this is deliberate, or a limitation of the demo, but I think Beyond The Doors is more powerful for refusing to satisfy the very voyeurism it kindles.

I didn’t get far enough to experience this in the demo, but going by the above header image and the trailer, it all gets a bit freaky later on. I’m intrigued to see how that freakiness gels with the absorbed tinkering that defines most automation-based games. In this case, you’ll be overhauling your surveillance network with cash from each job – merging chains and installing upgrades.

“This alpha version includes the core gameplay loop: placing recorders, building receiver networks, collecting sounds, and sending reports,” write developers Dream Error on Steam. “There’s much more to come, this is just the beginning.” There’s a development roadmap, if you’re into that kind of thing, but Beyond The Doors is probably more fun if you preserve your ignorance before taking the plunge.



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DOGE Put Everyone’s Social Security Data at Risk, Whistleblower Claims
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DOGE Put Everyone’s Social Security Data at Risk, Whistleblower Claims

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As students returned to school this week, WIRED spoke to a self-proclaimed leader of a violent online group known as “Purgatory” about a rash of swattings at universities across the US in recent days. The group claims to have ties to the loose cybercriminal network known as The Com, and the alleged Purgatory leader claimed responsibility for calling in hoax active-shooter alerts.

Researchers from multiple organizations warned this week that cybercriminals are increasingly using generative AI tools to fuel ransomware attacks, including real situations where cybercriminals without technical expertise are using AI to develop the malware. And a popular, yet enigmatic, shortwave Russian radio station known as UVB-76 seems to have turned into a tool for Kremlin propaganda after decades of mystery and intrigue.

But wait, there’s more! Each week, we round up the security and privacy news we didn’t cover in depth ourselves. Click the headlines to read the full stories. And stay safe out there.

Since it was first created, critics have warned that the young and inexperienced engineers in Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) were trampling over security and privacy rules in their seemingly reckless handling of US government data. Now a whistleblower claims that DOGE staff put one massive dataset at risk of hacking or leaking: a database containing troves of personal data about US residents, including virtually every American’s Social Security number.

The complaint from Social Security Administration chief data officer Charles Borges, filed with the Office of the Special Counsel and reviewed by The New York Times, states that DOGE affiliates explicitly overruled security and privacy concerns to upload the SSA database to a cloud server that lacked sufficient security monitoring, “potentially violating multiple federal statutes” in its allegedly reckless handling of the data. Internal DOGE and SSA communications reviewed by the Times shows officials waving off concerns about the data’s lack of sanitization or anonymization before it was uploaded to the server, despite concerns from SSA officials about the lack of security of that data transfer.

Borges didn’t allege that the data was actually breached or leaked, but Borges emphasized the vulnerability of the data and the immense cost if it were compromised. “Should bad actors gain access to this cloud environment, Americans may be susceptible to widespread identity theft, may lose vital health care and food benefits, and the government may be responsible for reissuing every American a new Social Security number at great cost,” Borges wrote.

Nearly 10 months have passed since the revelation that China’s cyberespionage group known as Salt Typhoon had penetrated US telecoms, spying on Americans’ calls and texts. Now the FBI is warning that the net cast by those hackers may have been far broader than even previously thought, encompassing potential victims in 80 countries. The bureau’s top cyber official, Brett Leatherman, told The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post that the hackers had shown interest in at least 600 companies, which the FBI notified, though it’s not clear how many of those possible targets the hackers breached or what level of access they achieved. “That global indiscriminate targeting really is something that is outside the norms of cyberspace operations,” Leatherman told the Journal. The FBI says that Salt Typhoon’s telecom hacking alone resulted in the spies gaining access to at least a million call records and targeted the calls and texts of more than a hundred Americans.

Days after Donald Trump’s Alaska summit with Vladimir Putin, the White House moved to gut its own intelligence ranks. A senior CIA Russia analyst—29 years in service and slated for a coveted overseas post—was abruptly stripped of her clearance, The Washington Post reported. She was one of 37 officials forced out under an August 19 memo from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. The order listed no infractions. To colleagues, it looked like a loyalty purge. The firings have reportedly unsettled the CIA’s rank and file, sending a message that survival depends on hewing intelligence to fit the president’s views.

On Monday, Gabbard unveiled what she calls “ODNI 2.0,” a restructuring that cuts more than 500 positions and shutters or folds whole offices she deems redundant. The Foreign Malign Influence Center and the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center are being pared back, while the National Intelligence University will be absorbed into the Pentagon’s defense school. Gabbard says the plan will save $700 million a year and depoliticize intelligence. Critics noted, however, a fact sheet published by Gabbard on Monday itemized only a fraction of those savings, and tjeu warned that the overhaul could hollow out the very coordination ODNI was created post-9/11 to provide—discarding expertise and leaving the intelligence fragmented at a time of escalating threats.



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Crypto Trends

Morning Minute: The US Just Put GDP On-Chain

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Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.

GM!

Today’s top news:

  • Crypto majors deep red down 3-6% ahead of PCE; BTC at $110,000
  • U.S. Commerce Dept begins publishing GDP data to blockchain with ChainLink and Pyth support
  • CTFC clears way for offshore crypto protocols to embrace U.S. users
  • Trump family’s American Bitcoin plans for September IPO
  • COPE runs 100x in just over a day, leading on-chain meme runners

🇺🇸📊 The U.S. Just Put GDP On-chain

A major U.S. agency has pushed core macro data on-chain.

And it opens a brand-new lane for crypto markets.

📌 What Happened

The Commerce Department began publishing official economic stats on blockchains and tapped oracle providers Chainlink and Pyth to distribute the data for smart contract use.

The initial rollout includes multiple networks, with Chainlink feeds already live.

For a quick overview of the details:

  • Data types going on-chain: Real GDP (level and QoQ annualized %), PCE Price Index (level and QoQ annualized %), and Real Final Sales to Private Domestic Purchasers (level and QoQ annualized %)
  • Frequency: Updates arrive monthly or quarterly as applicable
  • Where it’s publishing first (Chainlink feeds): Arbitrum, Avalanche, Base, Botanix, Ethereum, Linea, Mantle, Optimism, Sonic, ZKsync, with support expanding based on demand
  • Pyth’s role: Verify and distribute GDP releases, initially providing quarterly series with historical backfill

The market loved the news with PYTH ripping roughly 100% on the announcement, and LINK popping 5-8% (before retracing).

PYTH absolutely soars on the news it will help power on-chain GDP data

🗣️ What They’re Saying

“The Department of Commerce is going to start issuing its statistics on the blockchain… and we’re going to put out GDP on the blockchain, so people can use the blockchain for data distribution.” – Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

this is the most aggressive bullish barrage of news in one short time period that ive seen for crypto markets in the past ten years

— Ansem (@blknoiz06) August 28, 2025

🧠 Why It Matters

There is a whole lot to unpack here, but it’s all incredibly bullish.

From a government perspective, posting official numbers on public chains makes them tamper-evident and instantly checkable by anyone. That boosts confidence in the data (and trust).

From a data integration perspective, smart contracts can now react to GDP or PCE in real time. Think GDP-linked payouts, on-chain hedges, auto-rebalancing funds, and cleaner prediction markets that settle on official, immutable feeds.

From a crypto perspective, we now have a federal agency using crypto oracles to publish official numbers – signaling crypto infrastructure is crossing into mainstream.

This is a watershed moment for crypto.

The biggest players in the world are beginning to use blockchains for one of their native intended purposes (transparency & decentralization).

The U.S. government is a winner here (efficiency gains), the U.S. people are a winner here (more transparency), LINK and PYTH are direct winners here (showing their utility) and so is the broader crypto space (more adoption and credibility).

Are you tired of winning yet?



🌎 Macro Crypto and Memes

A few Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

  • Crypto majors were deep red ahead of PCE data; BTC -2.5% at $110,000, ETH -6% at $4,340, XRP -4% at $2.87, SOL -3% at $208
  • PYTH (+98%) and PUMP led top movers
  • ETH ETFs continued their green streak with $39.1M in net inflows (lowest in 6 sessions), while BTC saw $178.9M in net inflows
  • The U.S. Commerce Dept has begun publishing GDP data on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and more, with oracle feeds via Chainlink and Pyth (+98%)
  • The CFTC clarified a path for offshore crypto venues to serve U.S. users, paving the way for use of protocols like Binance
  • JPMorgan said BTC is undervalued vs gold as volatility hits record lows
  • USDT is coming to Bitcoin via RGB layer-2, enabling native USD-stable transactions on BTC

In Corporate Treasuries

In Memes

  • Memecoin leaders are red on the day; DOGE -4%, Shiba -3%, PEPE -4%, PENGU -5%, BONK -4%, TRUMP -2%, SPX -11%, and FARTCOIN -5%
  • COPE was the top on-chain SOL runner of the day, running to 800% to $15M at peak (now $10M)

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Here’s a rundown of major token, protocol and airdrop news from the day:

  • Solana validators commenced a vote on Alpenglow consensus upgrade targeting near-instant finality
  • CyberKongz announced that 2% of their upcoming KONG airdrop will go to OpenSea users with $10k+ volume since 2023
  • Rabby Wallet teased a Hyperliquid integration
  • XPL jumped 24% to $0.92 ($9.2B FDV) just 2 days after the short liquidation
  • In raise news, Portal to Bitcoin raised $50M to expand “Bitcoin-grade” cross-chain trading stack; M0 closed a $40M Series B to scale stablecoin platform; Rain raised $58M for Visa-linked stablecoin cards

🤖 AI x Crypto

Section dedicated to headlines in the AI sector of crypto:

  • Overall market cap even at $13.2B, leaders were red
  • FARTCOIN (-5%), VIRTUAL (-4%), TIBBIR (-2%), aixbt (-2) & ai16z (-3%)
  • GAMBLE (+70%), YOUSIM (+40%) and ANON (+21%) led top movers

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:

  • ETH NFT leaders were mixed; Punks +2% at 46.5 ETH, Pudgy -2% at 10.1, BAYC even at 9.7 ETH
  • Sappy Seals (+28%) and VeeFriends (+14) were notable top movers
  • Bitcoin NFTs were mostly green again, led by Adderrels (+16%)
  • Abstract NFTs were mixed, led by Bearish (+15%)

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