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Get a sneak peek at the most anticipated games of the year. From action-packed adventures to mind-bending puzzles, we've got something for everyone. Stay ahead of the game with our exclusive previews!

Swirling in toilet humour, but brimming with depth and heart, I was distraught when my Mewgenics preview access was taken away It takes approximately two minutes before Mewgenics shows you two cats, somewhat ironically, raw-dogging it. Within seconds, an oozing kitten is shot skidding onto the carpet, a car crash of various traits from its poorly-groomed parents. It will, in a matter of days, become a mage that can cast fireballs. It will also develop feline AIDS. Read more

Eurogamer.net Previews FeedDec 8

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora – From the Ashes Preview — Meet So’lekAvatar: Frontiers of Pandora - From the Ashes stars a new Na’vi protagonist, So’lek, the “Dog Tag Warrior.”

Previews – CGMagazineDec 5

Gods, Death & Reapers Preview: I Spent Some Time In The PitAfter spending some more time with Gods, Death & Reapers, CGM thinks it could be something special when all is said and done.

Previews – CGMagazineDec 4

SOL Shogunate Preview – A Deep Dive Of This Musically Inspired 'Samurai Space Opera' Platform: PC Publisher: Chaos Manufacturing Developer: Chaos Manufacturing Developer Chaos Manufacturing curiously describes its debut action RPG, SOL Shogunate, as a “samurai space opera.” When I ask CEO Guy Costantini and game director Leszek Szczepanski what inspired this theme, they cite a plethora of intriguing influences. The pair rattles off video games such as Metal Gear Rising and Final Fantasy XVI, film and TV series like Dune and The Man in the High Castle , and even anime like Attack on Titan and Knights of Sidonia . But the biggest inspiration for this upcoming sci-fi adventure, surprisingly, is music.   Revealed during today's PC Gaming Show: Most Wanted, SOL Shogunate takes place in a future where humanity colonized the solar system and has culturally adopted the Japanese feudal system and culture. Like the best samurai tales, the game is a revenge quest centering on Yuzuki, the once-heir to a powerful Tennoji samurai clan that was wiped out by the rival Karasuma Clan. Yuzuki will enact her vengeance as an outlaw ronin across a sprawling metropolis on Earth’s moon; players will battle within its glass-domed cities, each inspired by different eras of Japanese history, as well as on the lunar surface itself. “It's what we would call a Moon that has been essentially developed,” Costantini explains. “It's the gateway to the solar system. It's been developed for around 150 years. So we have these large, rotating cities called lunar glasses that are built inside of a lunar crater. And essentially, these cities allow people to have simulated gravity, allow them to have biomes that are fully explorable.” These domed cities feature architecture and other elements inspired by eras. For example, one city called Shin Edo is inspired by Feudal-era Japan, while another city, Tenkyo, draws inspiration from the late Showa-era of the 1980s. Of course, each city is heavily futuristic Szczepanski and Costantini are industry veterans; Szczepanski has worked for Konami on series like Metal Gear and Castlevania, as well as with Guerrilla Games on the Horizon franchise; Costantini has tenure at Riot Games, CD Projekt Red, and Skydance. Both are massive action game fans from opposite spectrums of the genre, with Szczepanski professing his love of Platinum Games, the studio behind Bayonetta and Metal Gear Rising, while Costantini is an enthusiast of Elden Ring and Dark Souls masterminds From Software. Despite being the yin to the other’s yang, SOL Shogunate is a visceral yet rhythmic, stylish action experience. “‘Samurai Space Opera’ is both figurative, because this is an epic adventure in space, but also is very literal,” Szczepanski says. “This is a musical adventure in space.” While not actually a rhythm game, Szczepanski says music is intimately woven into the experience; the soundtrack is being carefully curated – so far, we know Japanese rock act AliA is involved with the project – to provide a soundscape that emphasizes the thrills of gameplay to the highest degree so that every major battle or setpiece feels like an adrenaline-pumping, sensory-overloading music video. “In many ways, my process of trying to figure out what this game is supposed to be, it was spending embarrassing amounts of time just browsing through YouTube and Spotify and other places, and just jumping from band to band and band and seeing what makes me feel the strongest, and finding a way to convey these like plethora of different feelings of these songs managed to make me feel to the players was the driving force behind all this,” Szczepanski tells me. Combat is a slick and fast-paced affair, with players using a katana (one of several weapons the team will reveal later) to slice apart foes, while parrying incoming attacks. Strategy revolves around exploiting opponents’ elemental weaknesses players must discover during combat, a system dubbed the Vulnerability Matrix. Weapons can be equipped with various elemental properties, such as electricity, and other active abilities to create optimal loadouts against certain threats. Although you can’t be prepared for everything, SOL Shogunate will challenge players to study adversaries and learn how to adjust during the dynamic, ever-changing battles. Costantini also teases a gene-splicing mechanic for gaining and even combining powers, but is keeping details under wraps for now. Chaos Manufacturing is also considering the setting by always posing the question: how would a samurai fight on the Moon? For one, Yuzuki wears a bio-ceramic skin that acts as the sci-fi evolution of traditional samurai armor, allowing her to survive exposure to space and augmenting her natural talents to superhuman levels. This armor is not only practical, but it also represents another piece of world-building, as it’s a symbol of Yuzuki’s ascension to the top of her clan. Yuzuki is also equipped with Gravity Assist Gear, which, among other tools such as back thrusters, includes grappling hooks used to navigate areas, like pulling herself up platforms. This tool is also crucial to combat. Hooking onto enemies can either yank them towards Yuzuki or vice versa, and you can also use this tool to send enemies into environmental hazards. You can even weave electricity into your grapple attacks. “[There are] a lot of combinations that will effectively be a rabbit hole for people to explore so they can decide, 'hey, I'm this kind of space samurai,’” says Costantini. “‘I like this kind of weapon, I like this kind of augmentation, I like this way of moving around the battlefield.’” And the reason we did it that way is because we can't wait to see what players will surprise us with as they mix these genes together and discover some of the stuff we hid there.” SOL Shogunate is not an open-world game, but players can veer off the beaten path to complete optional tasks designed to add additional context to the world’s lore. But the adventure is very much centered on the primary story. Yuzuki can even mount a robotic horse, which draws from Szczepanski’s previous work on Sony’s Horizon series, but it’s unclear what else this mechanical steed can do. However, it helps reinforce this culture's romanticization of its past and how it cherry-picks the most desirable aspects to bring into the future, regardless of practicality. “If you were in power, and you were idolizing a specific time period, and you had access to all the technology possible, you would give yourself the fantasy that you and your peers want. And that is why we felt that the samurai would totally create a mechanical horse,” says Costantini. We won’t be playing SOL Shogunate until 2027 at the earliest, but it currently has no release window as the game is very early in development. Additionally, PC is the only confirmed platform for now. Still, Chaos Manufacturing has created a fascinating world and a mouth-watering gameplay premise. Hopefully, it lives up to its astronomical potential, and by channeling the studios’ love of the action genre, Japanese culture, and music, it has a real shot of making a big splash. “SOL Shogunate is very much a product of all our individual passions,” says Szczepanski. “We are all in love with Japan and its culture, and we wanted to kind of share some of that love with the world. And we also wanted to embed this game with other things we are deeply passionate about.”

Game Informer PreviewsDec 4

Going Hands-On With Outward 2—True Grit RPGCGM took a hands-on look at Outward 2, the upcoming sequel to Nine Dot's ambitious open-world survival RPG.

Previews – CGMagazineDec 2

The Last Case of John Morley review: Rough around the edges but eerily compellingThe post The Last Case of John Morley review: Rough around the edges but eerily compelling appeared first on The Escapist .

Reviews Archives - The EscapistNov 27

Dragon Quest Reimagined Producer On Remaking A Classic: 'We Rebuilt Everything From The Ground Up' Dragon Quest VII Reimagined is the latest game to grace the cover of Game Informer , and to learn more about this game for the cover story, I traveled to Tokyo, Japan, to play two hours of the game and interview the team behind it, too. With this being the second remake of Dragon Quest VII, following the 2016 Nintendo 3DS remake, I was curious about where you even start with a project like this. So I asked producer Takeshi Ichikawa and director Masato Yagi about their thought processes behind developing the game, which elements are sacred ground in Dragon Quest VII, if there's any pressure involved, and more. Here's what I learned. "To be honest, I did feel some pressure, but for the most part, I felt the same as Ichikawa here," Yagi tells me. "I was excited with the idea of bringing these new changes." Ichikawa, on the other hand, didn't feel much pressure. “I was certainly excited with the prospect of bringing these changes,” he tells me. “When we first kicked off the project, we had in mind three main components that we really wanted to reimagine for this version; the first one being the visuals, the second one being the scenario or the story, and the third one being the battle. [...] It is one of the most popular installments in the series, but our goal was to offer a reimagined experience to players all around the world. But again, I didn’t really necessarily feel pressure.” When I ask where the team started with Reimagined, Ichikawa explains it's a remake focused on showcasing what makes Dragon Quest VII so great to modern audiences. That means keeping the story intact, although lead scenario writer Sayaka Takagi explained to me in a different interview how the team streamlined the main scenario; you can read about that here . "I really thought that the story of the original was essential to keep," Ichikawa says. "When you look at [all of the] mainline installments, Dragon Quest VII's story is quite unique and not really like the others. These characters [...] go through a lot of struggles, and it is, overall, kind of a bit darker. That [darkness] is the one thing that I wanted to retain for sure in the remake." Yagi agrees with Ichikawa, telling me in a series full of lighthearted stories with a more loving tone, Dragon Quest VII is darker. He remembers asking, "Is this actually a Dragon Quest story?" while playing the original game on PlayStation. Retaining this tone was important for Reimagined, he adds, lightly dipping into spoiler territory to discuss Prince Kiefer, a party member of the game. I won't spoil anything here, but if you're familiar with the game, Kiefer makes a crucial decision in the story, and though in the initial stages of development the team pondered keeping it (and other narrative moments) in the game, it remained. "That's definitely one thing that we were debating if we should keep or not, but in the end, we decided it's just too essential for the story," Yagi says. "There are a lot of areas where we debated to keep or not keep, but in the end, for the most part, we decided to keep [things in place]. But it's not keeping them as is. We did end up making some little adjustments and arrangements here and there." Speaking more broadly, Yagi says the team behind Reimagined "really wanted to make the overall game experience more immersive for our players [and that's why we streamlined the story. It's also why we made some adjustments to the combat." Closing out our conversation on the philosophy behind this remake, Ichikawa tells me, "Reimagined" implies everything is new. He says, "We really built everything from the ground up. We rebuilt everything, aside from the scenario, from scratch. In order to convey that sentiment, we felt that 'Reimagined' would be the most adequate title instead of 'Remake.'" Dragon Quest VII Reimagined launches February 5 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, Switch, and PC. In the meantime, check out this article breaking down everything in the Dragon Quest VII Reimagined issue of Game Informer , and be sure to subscribe here if you haven't yet so you can access the Dragon Quest VII Reimagined cover story , our deep dive into Dragon Quest history with creator Yuji Horii, and so much more.

Game Informer PreviewsNov 27

Let's Compare All Three Versions Of Dragon Quest VII, Including Reimagined Dragon Quest VII Reimagined is the latest game to grace the cover of Game Informer , and you can read all about that here. If you're familiar with the history of this specific Dragon Quest entry, then you likely already know Reimagined is the second time Square Enix has remade Dragon Quest VII. It released the original Dragon Quest VII in 2000 on PlayStation in Japan and a year later as Dragon Warrior VII in the U.S. Square Enix remade it for the Nintendo 3DS, launching Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past in 2013 in Japan before releasing it in the West in 2016. Now, Square Enix is remaking it a second time, with Reimagined launching next year on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, Switch, and PC. It's rare to see a single entry get this many remakes, so we've created two galleries to show you the differences between the original Dragon Quest VII, the 3DS remake, and Reimagined, using the same spot across the years. Gallery 1: Original vs. 3DS Remake vs. Reimagined Gallery 2: Original vs. 3DS Remake vs. Reimagined As you can see, the differences are pretty stark due to hardware limitations and varying visual styles and aesthetics. We're excited for Reimagined, though, and you can read about why in the Game Informer cover story here , and if you aren't already a subscriber, be sure to subscribe here . Which visual style for Dragon Quest VII do you like best? Let us know in the comments below!

Game Informer PreviewsNov 26

Bungie Shares Deep Dive On Star Wars-Inspired Destiny 2: Renegades Bungie today offered a deep dive look at the new Destiny 2: Renegades release, which is scheduled to arrive for players next week, on December 2. The new major release for the game is an unusual one, as it’s rooted in a partnership with Star Wars. A quick look through the early visuals of the game don’t leave much room for doubt on that, as there are lots of things that look like lightsabers, stormtroopers, and villainous Sith. But as today’s vidoc makes clear, Bungie is trying to thread a more nuanced line with this release that it first appears. While plenty of features may look like Star Wars, the team is going to great pains to make sure it remains a true and canon Destiny experience. Those aren’t lightsabers but rather Praxic Blades. Those aren’t stormtroopers but instead members of the surging Barant Imperium. And that’s not a Sith – it’s a dangerous new big bad named Dredgen Bael. Whether the developer can pull off keeping those distinctions or not will be a matter to decide once we can play the game, but the early descriptions and footage offer good reason to be excited. The storyline appears to focus strongly on Drifter as a central character, acting as a conduit into some of the criminal underworld of the solar system. With his scoundrel demeanor, Drifter pretty clearly nods a bit toward characters like Han Solo in the Star Wars fiction. We also get to know a character that has been mentioned in the past in written lore entries for Destiny. Aunor Mahal is about as close as the game is likely to have to a Jedi, with her Praxic Blade that she is using to fight against Dredgen Bael. Players will pledge to a faction and build up reputation as they fight across the Lawless Frontier, an explorable space with a dedicated social hub in the form of Tharsis Outpost. Factions include the anarchist Eliksni biker gang called The Pikers, the group of sentient Vex call the Tharsis Reformation, and the rogue Cabal called Totality Division. You’ll run jobs for these factions like smuggling, bounty hunts, and sabotage-focused missions. While Aunor is shown in some pretty slick lightsaber-esque battles, NPCs aren’t the only people getting fun new Star Wars-themed toys to play with. Players will also be able to wield Praxic Blades, and will even be able to try out different fighting styles, very much like a Jedi. With the exotic primary, kinetic Praxic Blade, you can deflect attacks, melee attack enemies, and even throw. And, just to set clear expectations, Bungie has shared that the Praxic Blade won’t be unique to this content drop; it will continue to be a relevant weapon in future expansions to the game. Renegades also introduces new Blasters inspired by Star Wars, including several distinct variants, from dynamic blasters that hit harder with brute force, to more fast-firing balanced blasters. Blasters overheat and must cool down, rather than have a traditional magazine reload. We also learned about a special solar exotic crossbow called Heirloom, inspired by Chewbacca’s weapon in the movies. Players will also be able to pick up different “renegade abilities,” that seem in some way to tie together with the faction you work for. Across all the new content Bungie showed off today, one of the features that stood out the most was the music. By drawing direct inspiration from the Star Wars scores, arguably some of the most extensively varied and beloved of all film music, the new Destiny themes that were part of this preview presentation were, quite simply, riveting. The Renegades experience may be worth returning to play if only to hear more of that great music in action. There's plenty more to learn in the complete rundown. Check out the full vidoc below to get a comprehensive look at what Bungie is cooking up. Destiny 2 continues its march into the future with Renegades on December 2.  

Game Informer PreviewsNov 25

Yuji Horii On The Secret Sauce That's Kept Dragon Quest Going For Nearly 40 Years Dragon Quest will celebrate its 40th anniversary next year in 2026, and with Dragon Quest VII Reimagined launching in February, the occasion is off to a good start. I visited Square Enix's Tokyo, Japan, offices to play two hours of Reimagined , interview the team behind it, and speak to Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii about the series' long-running history, and more. There's plenty of Reimagined content to read here, but I also took this opportunity to ask Horii about the secret sauce behind Dragon Quest. According to Horii, it's two things: warmth and ease of access. "The key concept that I really try to prioritize, or keep important to me, for Dragon Quest is that, you know, older computer games didn't really have a sense of warmth," Horii says on the games he played preceding his work creating Dragon Quest. "But [warmth] was something that I really wanted to bring for the Dragon Quest titles. That, and accessibility for the players." Horii tells me that when developing Dragon Quest, he specifically wanted to launch it on the Nintendo Famicom, recognizing its ease of access for players compared to home computers, which still carried a hefty price tag comparatively. "I think [warmth and accessibility] are pretty important in terms of what makes Dragon Quest, Dragon Quest," he continues. "But one thing that I also have in mind, one potential reason why it's been beloved for so long, for almost 40 years, is that the Dragon Quest series also serves as a sort of communication tool for players. A lot of people might have memories of playing the Dragon Quest games with friends; they might have a memory of playing the game with their older brother [...] who they might ask to play the game on their behalf so that they can grind and skip the [leveling process challenges]. "So I think that for a lot of people, Dragon Quest games just have a special place in their heart, and that's why it's been so successful for so long." An image from the Dragon Quest re-release on Nintendo Switch Seated beside Horii during this interview was Reimagined producer Takeshi Ichikawa . In my time playing it so far, Reimagined retains the warmth of the original island-hopping Dragon Quest VII adventure, and the new visual aesthetic lends itself well to those feelings. That's one of the bigger takeaways from my preview: it's cozy, warm, and invites adventure. I asked Ichikawa the same question I posed to Horii, curious about his takeaway. "I think all the RPG elements the series has to offer are the biggest strength of the Dragon Quest series, and I like to call it part of the Horii-esque elements," he says. "All the humor, the jokes in the narrative, the dialogue, and the expressions and the portrayals; It's just so adorable at times, and when you look at the story, it's an epic story but also somehow feels relevant to you at the time." Dragon Quest VII Reimagined launches on February 5 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, Switch, and PC. In the meantime, check out this article breaking down everything in the Dragon Quest VII Reimagined issue of Game Informer , and be sure to subscribe here if you haven't yet to access the Dragon Quest VII Reimagined cover story , our deep dive into Dragon Quest history with creator Yuji Horii, and so much more. What do you think the secret sauce of Dragon Quest is? Let us know in the comments below!

Game Informer PreviewsNov 24