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Crypto Trends

Crypto Market Battles Sea of Red and Growing Fear, But HYPE Floats

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In brief

  • Hyperliquid surges 9.26% to $44.11 as the only top 10 crypto in green while the rest of the market tanks 1.8%.
  • BNB drops 0.14% to $947.55, as the worst performer in top 10 after the Aster-driven spike fades.
  • The Crypto Fear and Greed Index marks the most bearish reading since April. Here’s what the charts say traders can expect.

The crypto market is nursing a nasty hangover after a major panic episode earlier this week, with the total market cap of crypto sliding 1.8% to $3.75 trillion as the infamous Red September curse threatens to claim another victim.

Yet in this sea of red, there’s at least one token staying afloat: Hyperliquid’s HYPE is up a defiant 9.26% and standing as the only cryptocurrency in the top 11 showing green on the day.

Meanwhile, traditional markets are playing a different tune entirely—the S&P 500 edged up 0.22% to 6,619 points while gold climbed 0.33% to $3,762 per ounce, showing investors still have appetite for some risk assets, just not crypto risk—at least not right now. What’s more, President Donald Trump announced a package of tariffs set to take effect October 1, which has the potential to send risk assets scrambling for cover.

The Crypto Fear and Greed Index has plunged to 28, firmly in “fear” territory and the most pessimistic reading since April, when Trump’s previous tariff announcements sent markets into a tailspin.



Even still, there’s a fascinating subplot unfolding in the perpetual futures DEX wars that’s turning conventional wisdom on its head.

Hyperliquid price: The HYPE is back?

While its rival Aster has been stealing headlines with a jaw-dropping surge since its launch last week, Hyperliquid is quietly mounting its own comeback.

Hyperliquid is both its layer-1 blockchain network and a decentralized exchange that specializes in perpetual futures—derivatives contracts that never expire and allow crypto traders to both hedge risk and essentially bet on the future price of digital assets, such as Bitcoin.

The exchange is powered by a token of the same name, which trades as HYPE, and both the exchange and the token have experienced a rush of interest over the last several months. For context, despite the recent ups and downs, HYPE is up more than 20% in the last three months and up close to 600% in the last year, currently commanding an impressive $12.2 billion market cap.

The Hyperliquid token surged today from a low of $40.376 to its current price of $44.114, representing a 9.26% gain in a market where everything else is bleeding.

Hyperliquid (HYPE) price. Image: Tradingview

Looking at the technical breakdown, HYPE is displaying the sort of behavior that traders would interpret as potentially the end of a major correction. The price of the coin, after all, is down close to 10% in the last 30 days.

The Relative Strength Index, or RSI, is one such technical indicator that traders rely on. RSI measures price momentum on a scale from 0 to 100, where readings above 70 signal overbought conditions and below 30 suggesting oversold.

Hyperliquid sits at 41—technically bearish territory, but here’s what traders need to understand: After a token corrects from $56 to $40, an RSI at 41 actually signals healthy consolidation rather than weakness. This is like a reload zone where smart money accumulates before the next leg up. Traders typically see RSI readings between 30-45 after major corrections—notice the chart is still on an upwards trajectory—as buying opportunities rather than sell signals.

The Average Directional Index, or ADX, for HYPE is at 29, which shows strengthening trend momentum. ADX measures how strong a price trend is regardless of direction—readings above 25 confirm an established trend, and at 29, we’re seeing HYPE break out of its consolidation phase. The major dip cooled the ADX a lot, but still wasn’t enough to wipe out the upward trend in place.

Exponential moving averages, or EMAs, give traders a sense of price resistances and supports by taking the average price of an asset over the short, medium, and long term. Hyperliquid is still a young coin, without the trading history of an asset like Bitcoin, but the EMA picture appears bullish.

At the moment, HYPE’s 50-day EMA is sitting above its 200-day EMA, meaning the average price over the short term is still higher than the average price over the long term. This configuration typically signals that short-term momentum is overpowering long-term pessimism, suggesting the path of least resistance is higher.

But as a warning sign, the gap between both EMAs is closing, which could potentially lead to a death cross formation (when the EMA50 moves below the EMA200). In this scenario, some traders may opt to set up buy orders near the EMA200 for those thinking the token may continue its bearish correction before bouncing.

On Myriad, a prediction market developed by Decrypt’s parent company Dastan, sentiment on HYPE hasn’t yet reached the bullishness exhibited in the charts. At the moment, Myriad traders don’t expect the price of HYPE to rise to $69 any time soon, placing those odds at just 30% when measured against the odds of it dropping below the $40 mark.

Key Levels:

  • Immediate support: $36.00 (EMA200)
  • Strong support: $28.00 (visible on the chart as previous resistance)
  • Immediate resistance: $48.00 (EMA50)
  • Strong resistance: $$56.00 (previous high zone)

BNB price: Paying the price for Aster’s success

The story of BNB today is a classic “sell the news” scenario, as the Binance-issued token drops 4.23% to $947.55 in the last 24 hours, making it the worst performer among the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap.

As discussed earlier this week on Decrypt, BNB had been on fire lately, and was on Tuesday the only coin in the top 10 by market cap in the green. Much of the price movement could be attributed to an increase in activity on the BNB network as a result of the explosive growth of Aster, a Hyperliquid competitor on the BNB Chain.

But, as we’ve seen so many times in markets: what goes up, must eventually come down. And at the moment, the, er, hype around Aster has slowed. And BNB now appears to be taking a hit as a result.

BNB price. Image: Tradingview

BNB’s RSI is at 51, which sits right at neutral and typically indicates a market in equilibrium waiting for the next catalyst. For traders, this dead-center reading often precedes sharp moves in either direction as the market breaks out of indecision.

The ADX at 36 confirms a strong established trend, but the Squeeze Momentum Indicator shows a bearish impulse in underway.

When ADX is high but momentum is bearish, it typically means sellers are in control and dip buyers should be cautious. This combination often results in continued pressure until ADX drops below 25, signaling trend exhaustion.

Looking at the price action on the chart, BNB opened the day around $946, reached a high near $959, but has since retreated to $947.55. Today’s doji (a candlestick with no body, basically showing that the opening and closing prices are almost the same)shows significant volatility and selling pressure at round number resistance. The 50-day EMA sits well above the 200-day EMA, maintaining a bullish longer-term structure, but the immediate price action below both the opening price and the psychological $960 level suggests near-term weakness.

The catalyst for BNB’s initial surge was clear: BNB Chain’s 24-hour perpetual volume stands at $36 billion, overtaking Hyperliquid’s $10.8 billion, driven primarily by the meteoric rise of Aster. However, today’s correction suggests traders are taking profits on the Aster-driven rally.

Image: Dune

Key Levels:

  • Immediate support: $920 (visible support on chart)
  • Strong support: $880-$900 (EMA50l)
  • Immediate resistance: $1,000-$1,080 (psychological round number and all-time high)

Disclaimer

The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice.

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How Sony saved Sword of the Sea
Esports

How Sony saved Sword of the Sea

by admin


Giant Squid released its third game, Sword of the Sea, in August this year, following on from Abzû in 2016 and The Pathless in 2020.

The game, which sees the player surf-gliding across rolling dunes and icy mountains, has been met with a warm critical reception. Eurogamer awarded it five stars, while GamesRadar called it “simultaneously exhilarating and meditative”, and the PlayStation 5 version of Sword of the Sea currently boasts a ‘generally favorable’ score of 88 on Metacritic.

While the connection with the company’s previous games is all over Sword of the Sea, for creative director Matt Nava – who co-founded Giant Squid in 2013 – this release also marked an important homage to Thatgamecompany’s Journey, on which he served as an art director.

“What I’m really happy about is that the messaging has been clear and people have understood how it’s connected, and that they’ve reacted in a way that is positive about that. That’s very satisfying,” Nava says, smiling over our video call.

Similarities between Journey and Sword of the Sea, however, extend beyond their shared love for hyper-smooth movement and ambiguous storytelling.

“It’s fantastic that Sony has a dedicated group of people that really care about the artistic aspect of the medium”

While the development costs of Sword of the Sea never pushed the studio to bankruptcy, like Journey did with Thatgamecompany, both projects were ultimately saved by Sony’s trust in the process (along with some self-funding in the latter case).

“We wouldn’t be here without them, even before this game,” Nava remarks. “But on Sword of the Sea specifically, we were able to work with [Sony] directly. Halfway through development – as it usually goes – you need a little more cash to get it out the door; things take longer than you think [they will] and you need that extra funding.”

The much-needed financial lifeline emerged in the form of PlayStation Indies, one of Sony’s many initiatives dedicated to “spotlight and support the best of the best indie games.”

Since the program’s launch in 2020, more than a dozen indie titles, including Pacific Drive, Recompile, and Maquette, have received support and funding from Sony.

“It’s just fantastic that Sony has a program like that. [That] this big, powerful company has a dedicated group of people inside that really care about the artistic aspect of the medium,” says Nava.

Becoming a PlayStation Indie

This belief in the artistic vision of Giant Squid “by a couple of individuals” over at PlayStation Indies, then, was the push that helped Sword of the Sea to see the light of day.

“They were able to help us by collaborating with the PlayStation Plus team. They’re different parts of Sony, but they communicated with each other, and they were able to say, ‘Okay, we’ll pitch in. We’ll cover this.’,” Nava explains.

Getting backing from the PlayStation Plus department, which requires a lot “of planning and shifting around [in order to] make sure it works with the other” titles, Nava adds, doesn’t come without certain obligations.

As part of Giant Squid’s deal with PlayStation, Sword of the Sea was to become a PlayStation Plus day-one title, instead of being published independently.

According to the creative director, trading a measure of independence for that critical polish time can be a double-edged sword.

Image credit: Giant Squid

“On the one hand, you’re giving away the game for free to all these people who are already subscribed. But at the same time, way more people are playing it – you’re getting more eyes on the game. And that’s tremendously valuable as well,” he says. “You never know how that balance is going to play out for you and your specific game. It can help you, [or] it can hurt you.”

Although there’s little information on whether all PlayStation Plus day-one games get the same deal, Sword of the Sea was still self-published with additional publishing on Sony’s end. “It’s kind of hard to explain,” Nava begins.

“Technically, we self-published this game. That let us directly control the storefronts and have a lot of control in the marketing in a way that we hadn’t done before.”

While he didn’t specify exactly how much time this deal afforded Giant Squid’s roughly 20-person team, Nava calls the partnership with PlayStation Plus a “learning process.”

“It was really wonderful for us because that extra control helped us in the final moments of getting this game out the door. We were able to do some crazy tricks and get some fixes at the last second. And, man, it saved the game.”

Working against the clock

There’s perhaps no saying in the game development biz possibly erroneously attributed to Shigeru Miyamoto’s famous, “A delayed game is eventually good, but a bad game is bad forever.”

And while exceptions like No Man’s Sky and Cyberpunk 2077 prove that years of post-launch work can work as a redemption arc, most smaller studios – Giant Squid included – don’t have that kind of luxury. They have to make every second count, even when time works against you.

For Nava, this rings true even after a decade-plus experience leading a studio and three successfully published titles.

“Every game I’ve worked on, it’s been an act of faith from everybody involved to believe that it will become great. At the beginning, it’s so simple: you don’t have all the parts, and you’re kind of saying, ‘Okay, you have to imagine [how] to fill in the blanks.’ And then at the very last second, you get the whole thing for the first time – you get to see it all together.

“Now [that] you can see the whole experience, that lets you tune it up holistically. And [during] that final period, you can [make] big changes. You can manipulate the broader experience with the knowledge of how the game feels altogether.”

Nava continues: “You’re also at the peak of your ability to build the game. You know how to build this game because you figured that out. You’re completely empowered. But then the only thing you don’t have is any time. You have to fight to get time at the end, so that when you have that knowledge and holistic understanding, you can make those sweeping changes.”

One of those changes, Nava recalls, was fixing Sword of the Sea’s cutscenes that were always put off because of more immediate polish work on the game’s mechanics.

“For a very long time, the fog in these scenes [were] all the wrong colour,” he remembers. “There’s a scary scene, and it’s supposed to be misty and spooky-looking. But for a long time, it was very clear. It looked like a gorgeous sunset.”

Naturally, Nava likens the final push to reach “the level of polish [they] all dreamed of” to Journey, whose final, long-overdue version left three of 25 play testers crying, according to ThatGameCompany’s Jenova Chen (who recently spoke with GamesIndustry.biz about company’s transmedia goals).

“With Journey, we were able to do that. But that game was rough until we did that. It was a chore. And then it finally came together in a really nice way. Sword of the Sea got the time like that, too, [but] just barely,” Nava remembers. “Just coordinating that last push… it was a lot that we got it.”

Rolling with the punches

Navigating ‘co-publishing’ with PlayStation after bringing the studio and the project back from the financial brink was an important lesson for Nava. But so was adapting to a post-COVID industry, which completely reshaped how both AAA and indie studios around the world approached making games.

“We had a little bit of experience working remotely,” he says, referencing the final stretch of The Pathless’ development.

“But starting a project is very different than finishing one. When you’re finishing it, everybody knows exactly what they’re trying to do, and they have a very clear deadline. The beginning… I don’t know what this is yet. That was where we had to learn just how we kind of ideate and come up with new ideas together if we’re not in the same room.”

While Nava and the team were able to complete Sword of the Sea under one roof, for many Giant Squid employees, starting a new project in the midst of the pandemic was just as unfamiliar and terrifying as it was for the game’s creative director.

Image credit: Giant Squid

It wasn’t simply a matter of adapting to new tools or adding Zoom meetings to make up for the lack of in-person brainstorming sessions – it came down to Giant Squid adjusting to the new reality of remote work.

“It took us a while to figure that out. It came down to [the] way we thought about the work. How we made sure everybody had something to do and they would, even without having to talk to anybody, know where to go next. [We] made sure everybody has the game plan,” says Nava.

In many ways, the current situation in the games industry is more terrifying than it was at the start of Sword of the Sea’s development in 2020, in the midst of a pandemic. According to video game artist Farhan Noor’s layoff tracker, there have been an estimated 38,000 layoffs in the industry since the start of 2022: so how is this industry turbulence affecting Giant Squid’s next steps?”

“It’s something that we’re always thinking about,” Nava admits. “The process that you have at these kinds of studios is that you get that funding, you spend it all as you make the game. And now, at the end, the game hasn’t made enough sales yet to bring in cash because all of the funding people have to recoup first.

“So there’s this little gap where you’re like, ‘How do we keep this show on the road?’ Is there another way to approach this so that we can achieve this thing that we’re doing more sustainably?”

He concludes: “What’s important to me is this core team that we’ve managed to keep together. I’ve just got to keep those people together. So I’m trying to figure out how to make it work. And every time we do it, I think about what was really tough about that.”



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NFT Gaming

OpenSea Reveals ‘Flagship’ NFT Treasury Stockpile as SEA Token Drop Nears

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In brief

  • OpenSea is creating an NFT reserve, starting with a CryptoPunk on Ethereum.
  • The firm is preparing for the final phase of pre-token rewards, starting with a prize vault filled with $1 million in ARB and OP tokens.
  • The OpenSea Foundation is expected to announce SEA tokenomics in early October.

Prominent NFT marketplace OpenSea said Monday that it has committed more than $1 million to acquiring culturally relevant NFTs as it charges towards the launch of its native ecosystem token, SEA.

The marketplace’s reserve, called the Flagship Collection, will begin with CryptoPunk #5273, which was last purchased for $282,000 on August 25 before being transferred to a new address on Monday. After acquiring “essential pieces,” the firm aims to acquire and elevate pieces from emerging artists. 

“We’ve always said NFTs are culture. The Flagship Collection is about picking the pieces we believe will stand the test of time,” OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer told Decrypt.

Today we’re introducing:

– OS Mobile: a beautiful trading experience powered by AI
– Flagship Collection: honoring web3’s cultural heritage
– Final Rewards Phase: 50% of platform fees funding millions in token & NFT prizes
– $SEA Update: details in early October

Learn more ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/EfsjucUeSR

— OpenSea (@opensea) September 8, 2025

The firm will choose pieces for the collection using a committee of OpenSea employees and a group of external advisors with strict internal procedures in place to prevent the leak of information prior to acquisitions. 

In 2023, a former OpenSea employee was convicted in the first-ever NFT insider trading case, as the executive had purchased and profited from assets that were to be featured on the popular marketplace. The conviction was ultimately overturned this July. 

“There are a variety of elements that factor into our buying criteria, ranging from cultural significance, impact on Web3 as a whole, unique expressions of creativity and more,” OpenSea CMO Adam Hollander told Decrypt. 



“Some of the selections for the Flagship Collection will seem obvious, while others much less so,” he added. “The goal is to spotlight well-deserving artists and creators, even new and emerging ones, placing their works shoulder-to-shoulder with historical pieces that represent digital culture.” 

Beyond the Flagship Collection, OpenSea is gearing up for a final push before the official launch of the SEA token, the native ecosystem token announced by the OpenSea Foundation in February. 

Starting on September 15, the firm will begin using 50% of its platform fees to create a prize vault for the final phase of pre-token generation rewards. Additionally, it is kickstarting the vault with $1 million worth of the native tokens from Ethereum layer-2 networks Optimism (OP) and Arbitrum (ARB).

Based on activity on the platform, such as NFT and token trading and completing daily tasks, users can level-up their portion of the prize vault, which will also play a “meaningful role” at the time of the SEA token generation.

Full tokenomics details are expected to be shared by the OpenSea Foundation in early October. 

The Miami-based firm—which hit a valuation of $13.3 billion in 2022 amid the NFT boom—announced a complete overhaul earlier this year with the launch of “OS2,” a renewed vision for NFT and fungible token trading.

In July, OpenSea acquired crypto portfolio application, Rally, to level up its mobile experience. Waitlists for a revamped mobile application and an AI-focused trading experience are expected to launch in the coming weeks, the firm said Monday.

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Gaming Gear

Microsoft’s cloud service restored after reports of cut cables in the Red Sea

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Microsoft said its Azure cloud platform has returned to normal service after an incident of cut underwater cables that played out over Saturday. The tech giant reported “undersea fiber cuts” in the Red Sea on Saturday morning, which disrupted Azure service throughout the Middle East and led to potential “increased latency” for users. Microsoft said that the latency issue was resolved by Saturday evening and was able to reroute the Azure traffic through other paths.

Microsoft didn’t provide a reason for why the undersea cables were cut. These cables sit on the ocean floor and play the crucial role of delivering massive amounts of data across the world. While ships dropping anchors can sometimes damage undersea cables, there have been more intentional circumstances in the past. In 2024, the internationally recognized government of Yemen claimed that the country’s Houthi movement was responsible for cutting cables in the Red Sea. While Microsoft managed to restore service for its latest episode the same day, it also noted that undersea cable cuts “can take time to repair” and that it “will continuously monitor, rebalance, and optimize routing to reduce customer impact in the meantime.”



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Drowning in the sea of Opening Night Live game announcements? Here are the under-the-radar gems we're most excited about
Game Reviews

Drowning in the sea of Opening Night Live game announcements? Here are the under-the-radar gems we’re most excited about

by admin



At this point, it’s almost tradition that Gamescom Opening Night Live draws to a close with a collective sigh. Again I send my prayers to the stars that the OmniGeoff may one day concede – and this goes for the equally interminable likes of Summer Game Fest and The Game Awards – that shorter, more focused is always better. Imagine the sustained enthusiasm you could generate without all that flaccid, glassy eyed filler! And so in that spirit of relative brevity, here’s a quick list of some of the slighty under-the-radar announcements from this year’s show (and pre-show) that managed to get us quite excited.

Denshattack!

Denshattack! reveal trailer.Watch on YouTube


One of a couple of Opening Night Live standouts relegated to the pre-show warm-up, Denshattack! is the work of developer Undercoders. And it’s easy to imagine the studio’s pitch for this one as ‘what if Jet Set Radio but runaway trains?’, given its cell-shaded aesthetic and tricking, grinding action would be pretty familiar if it wasn’t for the fact it switches out skateboards for graffiti-strewn, gravity defying locomotives.


Story wise, it sees players rail-riding across Japan, traversing vibrant countryside and urban city sprawls, all in a quest to defeat the sinister Miraidō corporation. You’ll ollie and kickflip in a bid to win over rivals and rack up points, with everything from magical mecha girls to moving castles making an appearance too. It looks an absolute blast and it’s coming to PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC next year.

Valor Mortis

Valor Mortis trailer.Watch on YouTube


I’ve fond memories of developer One More Level’s cyberpunk action-parkour adventure Ghostrunner. Or at least, I’ve fond memories of its first couple of hours, after which everything is lost in a bright red haze of pure fury. The point, though, is it was Pretty Good (Eurogamer’s Bertie Purchese said it more eloquently in his review), so there’s every reason to be curious about what One More Level is doing next now the Less Good Ghostrunner 2 is behind it.


And that, it transpires, is Valor Mortis – a gory “first-person action Soulslike” that’s arriving next year. I appreciate there’s a general air of Soulslike fatigue about these days, but Valor Mortis does at least attempt to carve its own niche with, firstly, that shift in perspective, and also a pretty distinctive set-up. It’s the 19th century and the Napoleonic Wars are raging; you’re a soldier in Bonaparte’s Grande Armée and also, regrettably, dead. Until, that is, you awaken on a battlefield ravaged by a mysterious supernatural plague, former friends and foe now twisted into awful abominations. Expect a combat-focused adventure incorporating the likes of parries, dashes, and some pretty brutal finishers when Valor Mortis comes to PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC next year.

Death by Scrolling

Death by Scrolling announcement trailer.Watch on YouTube


For readers of a certain age, Ron Gilbert needs no introduction: he’s the writer and designer best known for his point-and-click adventures, including Maniac Mansion, Thimbleweed Park, and, of course, the legendary Monkey Island series. Every now and then, though, Gilbert strays outside of those genre bounds; there’s 2013’s puzzle-platform adventure The Cave, for instance – made in conjunction with Double Fine – and now there’s Death by Scrolling.


Developed by Gilbert’s Terrible Toybox studio, Death by Scrolling has the air of a top-down 16-bit RPG, but there’s seemingly a lot more to it – it is, after all, described as a “rogue-like vertically scrolling RPG”. Your ultimate goal – playing as one of several characters, each with their own unique perks and abilities – is to race upward through endless levels in order amass enough money to pay the Ferryman and escape Purgatory. That involves battling enemies, swiping gems, grabbing power-ups, completing side quests, and a spot of shopping, all while outsmarting the ever-pursuing Grim Reaper. There’s no release date for Death by Scrolling yet, but it’s coming to PC.

Outlaws + Handful of Missions: Remaster

Outlaws + Handful of Missions: Remaster announcement trailer.Watch on YouTube


Sorry to keep calling you out, people of a certain age (and I include myself in this increasingly withered demographic), but here’s another name that’s likely to get old-timers a-flutter. Outlaws, developer LucasArts’ fondly remembered – if, perhaps, oft-overlooked – Wild West FPS is making a return, courtesy of remaster specialists Nightdive Studios.


First released in 1997 – around the time LucasArts was dipping its toes in new genres after dominating the point-and-click scene for so long – Outlaws aimed to build on the success of the studio’s beloved Star Wars: Dark Forces by taking the FPS to hitherto unseen frontiers. Namely, the cowboy ones. According to Wikipedia, it was perhaps the first shooter to introduce a sniper zoom and one of the first to feature a gun reloading mechanic, but my own memories – which don’t extend much further than a well-worn cover disc demo – remain positive but decidedly hazy. Nightdive’s remaster, which also includes 1998’s Handful of Missions expansion, promises the likes of high-resolution textures, redrawn art, crossplay multiplayer, and gamepad support, and it’s coming to PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch this year.

Unbeatable

Unbeatable final trailer.Watch on YouTube


If you had a vague sense of déjà vu when Unbeatable popped up during Opening Night Live, you’re not the only one. A quick trip down memory lane (Google) confirms Unbeatable was first announced back in 2021, when it got a whole bunch of people, including me, excited for the very first time. It had a fantastic demo, released to promote what would go on to be a successful Kickstarter, after which it was time for developer D-Cell to knuckle down.


Four years later, and the rhythm adventure where “music is illegal and you do crimes” is back. Unbeatable promises “big emotions” and “arcade-flawless rhythm gameplay” as the story of Beat and her band unfolds, charting their efforts to gig and stay one step ahead of the cops. “Half the game is walking around and taking things at your own pace,” D-Cell says of Unbeatable’s story mode. “The other half is trying to keep up with ours.” It’s also got an “unlimited” arcade mode featuring a “entire double album” of music, alongside acoustic versions, and remixes. Unbeatable looks and sounds like a winner, and it’s coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S, on 6th November.

Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes

Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes trailer.Watch on YouTube


The only thing I can remember about Battlestar Galactica, apart from that cool swishy visor thing the robots did in the original series, is that woman in red spending bloody ages pretending she wasn’t real. Which is to say I’m not exactly an leading expert. And yet there’s something about Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes that’s caught my eye. For starters, it’s by Alt Shift, the team behind well-received tactical rogue-lite Crying Suns, and it’s promising an interesting mix of turn-based and real-time action too.


Officially a “story-rich tactical roguelite”, Scattered Hopes plays out in two distinct halves. On one side, you – a Gunstar Captain attempting to rendezvous with the Battlestar Galactica – have a galaxy to traverse, navigating planets and points of interest turn-by-turn, all while dealing with tough dilemmas. You’ll need to juggle the sometimes opposing interests of different factions, perhaps, or manage dwindling resources, or try and identify impostors onboard. With every decision, the Cylons draw nearer, your choices impacting your chances of success when battle inevitably comes. At which point, real-time space combat (with tactical pause available) takes over, players deploying squadrons, missiles, and more in an attempt to last long enough to engage their FTL and scarper. It all sounds pretty neat and Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes is aiming for a Q1 launch on PC next year.

Bubsy 4D

Bubsy 4D trailer.Watch on YouTube


Okay, look, Bubsy might not exactly – or even remotely – be a byword for quality as far as video game platform mascots go, but credit where credit’s due; his name has managed to linger far longer (like a bad smell perhaps), compared to the largely forgotten likes of Socket, Rocky Rodent, Awesome Possum, and Vexx. After two so-so 2D platformers in the 90s and the absolute nadir that was Bubsy 3D in 1996, most would assume the titular bobcat would have hung up his jumping boots for good (pedants, please note I am aware Bubsy doesn’t wear shoes). Instead, he inexplicably returned two decades later for two more middling side-scrolling platformers. The legacy of Bubsy, to reiterate, is not great.


And yet! I’m absolutely fascinated by the prospect of Bubsy 4D, and not just because of the bobcat’s almost admirable refusal to bow out gracefully. Rather, this latest entry in the mascot’s dubious back catalogue is the work of indie studio Fabraz, which, if you’re unfamiliar, has made some pretty enjoyable games – including Demon Turf and Slime-San. Plus, it’s upcoming Demon Tides looks good too. So it’s an enticing pairing. As for Bubsy 4D, it’s got rolling, jumping, gliding, a bunch of evil sheep, a bunch of evil robot sheep, vibrant 3D worlds with a sort of old-school air to their design, and I really like the music in the trailer. Bubsy 4D doesn’t have a release date yet, but it’s coming “soon”, and I am cautiously optimistic.

And those are our Gamescom Opening Night Live picks that might have got a little lost. Do feel free to add your own favourites in the comments below.



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Sword of the Sea Review - Beauty For The Sake Of Beauty
Game Reviews

Sword of the Sea Review – Beauty For The Sake Of Beauty

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Developer Giant Squid was born from members of the team that created 2012’s Journey. Giant Squid founder and Sword of the Sea’s director, Matt Nava, is credited as Journey’s art director, but frankly, you could have guessed that just from looking at the screenshots at the top of this page. This is Giant Squid’s third game, but it is arguably the one that feels the most indebted to Journey – and that’s a compliment. It certainly has its own distinct vibe, story, and, as you progress deeper in the game, art style, but in some ways, it feels like it picks up where that landmark 2012 video game left off.

 

Sword of the Sea is not a wordless story. Occasionally, you come across stone tablets that offer cryptic prose about what may or may not be happening in this world, but for the most part, your appreciation of the narrative comes strictly from the visuals. You are a swordsperson who prefers to ride your sword like a hoverboard rather than swing it on an adventure to bring aquatic life back to dried out world covered with rolling sand.

The star of the show is the feeling of riding your sword. Gaining speed and leaping from giant sand dunes is fluid and fast. New abilities unlocked over the course of the game only make movement feel better, and different surface types lead to slightly different approaches in how to gain speed and height to hit that next destination. Finding those rhythms on the hills is where Sword of the Sea sings, and the excellent pace of the experience means you are rarely slowing down. I finished my first playthrough in under three hours but immediately started its new game plus mode in order to unlock the final few abilities and see how quickly I could get to the game’s thrilling finale again.

While the ease and speed of movement is Sword of the Sea’s primary highlight, its visuals are a close second. I loved the loop of seeing what’s next and pausing to take in the gorgeous sights. Periodically, the game takes camera control from the player as they are careening down a hill to focus on the landscape in the distance, and I was always eager to hand it over just to make sure I could pay attention to what I was seeing without having to worry about jumping at the right time.

The ocean-themed art direction also leads to unexpected moments that are weird in just the right way. Sword of the Sea likes to play with your expectations, and I was frequently surprised by what I was doing and what was happening.

 

Perhaps the only shortcoming is that I didn’t find the narrative particularly emotional. It is difficult to create moving moments between characters who don’t speak and exist in an abstract world, and Sword of the Sea doesn’t quite stick the landing. I wouldn’t define my experience with that part of the game as disappointing, but rather that the implications of the narrative didn’t quite keep up with how good the game looks, feels, and sounds. I wanted more.

I appreciate Sword of the Sea’s brevity and visual goals. It never gets close to dragging or overstaying its welcome. It moves at the pace of a magical swordsperson speeding across sand dunes on a floating blade at 170 miles per hour (a speedometer unlocks after you beat the game), and it never gives you a reason to look away. I wanted to feel more from the story, perhaps only because every other element of the experience elevated it so high that my expectations were right up there with them.



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Sword of the Sea review - heaven really is a half-pipe
Game Reviews

Sword of the Sea review – heaven really is a half-pipe

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Movement, meaning and mindfulness combine in Giant Squid’s latest, a game of free-form expression and flow.

What do we actually mean, when we call a game rewarding? I reckon typically it’s one of two things. First you have games that reward you for playing them well: rewards are given in return for achievement or superlative skill – a new outfit, a Legendary Cuirass, a skill point or two. Then you have the ones where you’re awarded simply for playing the game at all, that kind of external stimulus for engagement. The Skinner box method, basically, where you get daily bonuses for everything from simply logging in to maxing out your battle pass. What Sword of the Sea reminded me, as I lanced my way through desert dunes, 720’d my way across cliff edges, nosedived off a mountain face, or just awkwardly bunny hopped my way along a ledge I wasn’t sure I was actually meant to climb, is that there’s a third way. A game that rewards you neither for just playing nor for playing well, but for playing it right.

Sword of the Sea review

  • Developer: Giant Squid
  • Publisher: Giant Squid
  • Platform: Played on PS5
  • Availability: Out 19th August on PC (Steam, Epic), PS5

In reality this is really a bit of good old Game Design 101 – and Sword of the Sea feels like such a game designer’s game. What I mean is it’s instructional. Sword of the Sea uses rewards to teach, elegantly and (almost) wordlessly. But before I give you an example I should probably take a beat to explain exactly what it is.

Sword of the Sea is a skateboarding game. It’s also a surfing game. And a snowboarding game. It’s also not really like any of those kinds of games, at least not in the way you might have them in your head. And it’s also, kind of, just Zelda.

In the beginning, like in all good games of exploration and beautiful worlds, you start in a cave. A few quick lessons later – jump, skate a half-pipe, pay the mysterious vendor their toll – and you’re out. Rolling dunes – really waves of sand – invite you onwards, to the archetypal opening-credits cliff edge and a view over all there is to be conquered. And then, yes, a big old ramp. Your goal in Sword of the Sea is to return water to this dried out, ruined world. You carve through it looking for simple clues and following them to logical conclusion, and between those two points, the time between A and B, is all the magic. You jump, flip, grind, skid, spin, and trick your way across the world, a needle with a searing blue thread, weaving life back into the seams of nature.

Here’s a Sword of the Sea trailer to show it in motion.Watch on YouTube

Where Sword of the Sea differs from so many skate-surf-board games before it is in its forgivingness. Typically these kinds of games are hard. Or if not hard, at least a challenge, often with that sense of challenge baked right into it, in fact, delivered via imperative. Get a high score. Chase a combo. Survive. Extreme sports like these are extreme, after all, much of their thrill coming from the closeness with which you can get yourself to death. So it goes in, say, Lonely Mountains: Downhill, a game that tangles mindfulness with downhill sports with supreme skill, but which places great big emphasis on the crunch of failure (which if you’re anything like me happens quite often). With Tony Hawk there’s always a stumble waiting for you if your timing’s off, a trip hazard lurking either side of the beat. SSX Tricky pits you against others as well as yourself, always at the edge of chaos, and where the timer is god.

None of these are complaints! It’s just that Sword of the Sea opts for a different route. What’ll strike you, as you glide across that opening desert, is how forgiving it is. Miss a jump and there’s always a way back, a minor detour to make at most. Fail to land a trick and, well, so what? You keep riding, rhythm effectively unbroken. And those jumps are pretty hard to miss anyway: the sense with Sword of the Sea is that it doesn’t want you to fail. And so jellyfish, which might awaken as makeshift floating jump pads after you release water over a certain area, will actually just slightly drift towards you as you fling yourself towards them. Certain ledges feel almost a little magnetised. Little golden prisms, your only currency for spending with the mysterious vendor, hoover themselves up as you get nearby. The clusters of lamps that you light by surfing over them will trigger when you light up most of them. Imprecision, ultimately, is fine. There’s a minor challenge in just plotting a path and pulling it off, but Sword of the Sea is never truly exacting. It’s about feeling good more than being good. Good vibes and serenity triumph over all.

The simple premise: complete fairly simple platforming puzzles in a given area to restore it to life. | Image credit: Giant Squid / Eurogamer

Where does Zelda come in? Well, there’s the lone, wandering hero, the ruined land, the prophesied sword. There’s pots to be smashed, chests to be opened, a world to be healed, with only a series of vast pseudo dungeons filled with gentle environmental puzzles in the way. The question’s not so much where you find Zelda in Sword of the Sea, as it is where Sword of the Sea would be without it. And from Zelda flows so much of the other inspiration here, of course. There’s a faint whiff of Shadow of the Colossus, for instance, with the game’s wordlessness and its vast, mysterious antagonist.

I want to say there’s a smidge of Sayonara Wild Hearts in here too – nothing to do with Zelda now – if only in the way your occasionally tunnelled movement is carried on a bit of signature score from Austin Wintory, developer Giant Squid’s long-time collaborator on Abzû, The Pathless, and before that with studio head Matt Nava on Journey. It’s tempting to say the whimsy and wonder of a soaring choir and twinkling piano in this type of deeply pretty, makes-you-feel-things indie is a little played out. But it isn’t. Wintory is rarely in the way here; the music lifts and floats, and also subtly drives you on. (As an aside, Sword of the Sea also makes maybe the best use of the DualSense’s speaker and rumble combo that I can remember, at least since Returnal, as it plays the role of dedicated sword-board microphone, playing out all the shimmers, flicks and carves – I’d actually recommend playing without headphones so you can enjoy it.)

Image credit: Giant Squid / Eurogamer

Now, where’s all this instruction-and-reward business, then? Well, imagine you’re approaching a big door, the point very much being that you need to walk through it now to get to the next area. But what if you’re one of those people who, maybe a little compulsively, likes to check they haven’t missed anything, that some ledge way over there, which has just a little more light on it, seems just a little more prominent than the rest of the background wall, might be something you could hop on? What if, next to that big door in the otherwise solid, semi-unremarkable mountainside, there was a miniscule bit of path off to one side – the amount that might seem totally innocuous, accidental even. And what if that path actually went somewhere?

This is the lesson Sword of the Sea has for you, and it almost feels wrong to spoil it: every time you think something might be somewhere, or something might be worth just quickly checking out, quickly trying, the answer is a resounding yes. Sword of the Sea loves hiding things – often these things are very small, borderline pointless beyond the fact they’re hidden, and you’ve found them – and it hides them exactly where you want them to be hidden. And that’s where the lesson comes in. The first time your curiosity strikes, inevitably you’re rewarded, just with a little hat tip, a kind of silent designer’s nod. And so therefore every single time it strikes again, you know it’s worth a look. If you’ve ever had that urge, when you were a kid, to try and leap over the edge of a map, to break the confines of the game, to get on top of the unscalable wall, round the back of the walled-off castle, Sword of the Sea quietly, subtly encourages you to do it.

Image credit: Giant Squid / Eurogamer

There’s a minor snag or two, albeit only minor. A couple of moments where you change what you’re riding, which I won’t spoil, are maybe the only times where Sword of the Sea’s controls feel a tad skew-whiff, an attempt at temporary hyper-responsiveness actually coming back a little too responsive. And its final moments, while stunning and necessary to conclude its story of ageless conflict, maybe don’t hit quite as hard as the sheer joy of open-world movement itself.

But then, ta-da! A final flourish. If you’re wondering if you can just free-roam around this game, go express yourself, play out with a little flair, the answer is yes. The answer to so many questions you might have in Sword of the Sea – will I get to…? Will this eventually…? Is this detour worth it? – is yes, in fact. Where once the world was a place to explore with a bit of pazzazz, sure, it eventually becomes sheer playground, a domain with which you have new means to master, your perspective shifted through a neat mechanical tweak.

Sword of the Sea accessibility options

Remappable controller and controller presets. Invert vertical/horizontal options. Separate Audio toggles for general, music, sound effects, and controller sounds. Settings for camera follow, sensitivity, shake, motion blur and persistent dot.

And gosh is it pretty. As well as that ocean of desert you’ll float through nautical, abandoned city rooftops; scorch a line through ice; xylophone your way up giant, skeletal spines; scream across mountainsides. Sword of the Sea knows the power of putting you at the top of a steep hill and showing you the world. As it does the power of cause and effect. Of the instructional nature of play and the expressive, free-form nature of it too. It’s a game, like all of those others, about the deep, personal connection we’re able to form with the natural world by using it, being in perpetual contact with it, or simply flying through it at speed. The mindfulness of giving over a bit of control to the waves, the powder, the half-pipe’s immaculate curve and letting the world move you for once, instead of you fighting to move it. “It’s really about how movement is a way for you to connect with the world,” as Nava put it to me earlier this year. “You’re going fast down the mountain; you get to see all of the mountain very quickly. It’s the closest you can be to being everywhere at once.” Just how good do you reckon that feels?

A copy of Sword of the Sea was provided for this review by Giant Squid.



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Borderlands 3, Sea of Stars, and more to leave Xbox Game Pass at the end of August
Game Updates

Borderlands 3, Sea of Stars, and more to leave Xbox Game Pass at the end of August

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Every month Xbox gives and and it takes. While we get new games added to Xbox Game Pass throughout each month, in the middle and the end of the month we also see a bunch of games leave the service.

At the end of August the following games will leave Game Pass according to the recently updated Xbox App:

  • Borderlands 3 Ultimate Edition
  • Sea of Stars
  • Paw Patrol Mighty Pups Save Adventure Bay
  • This War of Mine: Final Cut
  • Ben 10: Power Trip

Of those games, there are a couple of standouts that you should try to play before they leave Game Pass.

Sea of Stars is a three-player co-op turn-based RPG that Eurogamer awarded 4 stars in our Sea of Stars review. This War of Mine: Final Cut is the game 11 bit made before going on to create Frostpunk and The Alters.

In This War Of Mine you do not play as an elite soldier, rather a group of civilians trying to survive in a besieged city; struggling with lack of food, medicine and constant danger from snipers and hostile scavengers. The game provides an experience of war seen from an entirely new angle.

Borderlands 3 Ultimate Edition has its fans (not everyone enjoyed what Gearbox did with the third game in the series), and you might want to give it a whirl ahead of Borderlands 4 releasing in September.

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



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