New Game Preview

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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!

Soulframe: Digital Extremes CEO Says Putting 'Soul' In The Title Was An 'Idiot Decision' Love it or hate it, the word “soul” is quite synonymous with From Software, whether that’s Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls, its other challenging action games like Bloodborne or Elden Ring, or the Soulslike genre the studio inspired. So it’s no surprise that some players expected “Soulframe” to feature gameplay reminiscent of a Soulslike. After playing the game for several hours myself – and if you’re a Game Informer subscriber, you will be receiving a Soulframe Preludes code to check it out for yourself, too – I can confidently say that while there is a slight tinge of that Soulslike feel, I wouldn’t place it in the Soulslike subgenre of action games. Digital Extremes doesn’t admonish anybody who sees its slower, more deliberate fantasy RPG action game with “Soul” in the title and assumes it’s in the ilk of From Software games, though.   “We made the idiot decision to put ‘Soul’ in the title, right?” Digital Extremes CEO Steve Sinclair tells me in the studio’s DevStream recording space during my visit for the Soulframe cover story in the May issue of Game Informer . “Yeah, it’s stupid. We invited that criticism, absolutely, but the ‘Soul’ is supposed to be more about the literal soul [of these characters and the world].” That criticism Sinclair is referencing is the initial response to Soulframe’s combat when players first jumped into Preludes. He says the team used too much of the Warframe system for Soulframe’s combat, a smart and iterative idea in theory, but one that doesn’t work as well because the latter is a much slower system than the former. “[So] when an enemy is lasting 15 to 20 seconds on screen, instead of one [like in Warframe], you see everything,” Sinclair says. “‘That foot slid there, the character doesn’t have a good hit reaction, when he falls, his head clips through the geometry,’ and all this stuff.” The team responded by reworking combat and believes the community would agree it’s in a much better place today. “People definitely love the vibes [...] and the stories we were telling, but yes, mechanically, we just missed the mark, and I think it was a lesson learned and a failure in our messaging because we probably didn’t elaborate enough on the title of the game,” Soulframe creative director and former Warframe art and animation director Geoff Crookes says.   Today, Soulframe is more responsive to your real-time inputs, in stark contrast to the typical animation frame-based combat of Soulslikes. “All this stuff, which From Software has been working on for two decades, we were trying to do in two years [...] and it didn’t work,” Sinclair adds. Speaking to Soulframe lead designer Scott McGregor in a different interview, he tells me the first iteration of early access combat for the game “wasn’t good enough,” but notes the Preludes and Founders programs are about finding out what works and what doesn’t, and addressing it alongside the community actually playing the game. “Warframe’s combat, from where it started to where it is today, is radically different, and I think Soulframe will be a continuing evolution of that core loop,” McGregor says. “We’ll be continually refining it and making it tighter, and I think you can already see that almost on the daily.” Soulframe level designer Penny Shannon, seated beside McGregor, says, “I think it’s really down to being okay with the fact that you’re going to have to change something that you’ve done and are really proud of and be okay with that.” With Soulframe Preludes continuing today, the game will continue to evolve based on the intersection of Digital Extremes’ vision and the desires of its active playerbase. And, if you’re a subscriber to Game Informer before April 22 , you can be a part of that because you will receive a Soulframe Preludes code to check out the game. More information about codes can be found here . For more exclusive Soulframe insight, head to our hub here .

Game Informer PreviewsApr 15

Windrose Early Access Preview: Pirate’s Life For MeWindrose is an ambitious pirate-themed action survival game that offers players a lot of intricate building options, but is somewhat held back by imbalanced combat.

Previews – CGMagazineApr 13

Soulframe Is A 'Response To The Cynicism Of The World,' According To Digital Extremes Warframe developer Digital Extremes is hard at work making its first game in nearly a decade, Soulframe , alongside the community in its early access “Preludes” form. To write the Soulframe cover story in the May issue of Game Informer , I traveled to Digital Extremes in Ontario, Canada, to learn more about the game, and it’s there that I learned this fantasy MMO is a response to the cynicism of the world. “To appeal to the sort of aesthetic or emotional reason for why we would make [Soulframe] is kind of a response to the cynicism of the world we are finding ourselves within today,” Digital Extremes CEO Steve Sinclair tells me. “And I think that is sharper than it even was when we started it.”   He recalls reading a 2021 New York Times article about the appeal of The Lord of the Rings . It posits that the movie trilogy resonates with audiences so much because it shows men in touch with their emotions, and that people can be redeemed. “In this genre, generally speaking, it tends to be dark and sweaty and bleak and gross, and I love Game of Thrones as much as the next guy, but I think we wanted to put a little Disney Princess spin on this whole thing.” That’s why Soulframe, despite all of its video game-isms, doesn’t celebrate all of the killing you will have to do; instead, it saves that elation for the moments when you end corruption in the wilderness and restore various Omen Beast animals to their former harmonious states. Soulframe is ultimately about a hero who wants to stop an extraterrestrial enemy race from mining the world of Alca of is precious natural resources. If you hop into Soulframe Preludes today (reminder: Game Informer subscribers will receive a free code to do this as part of the issue rollout), you’ll find that your main quests revolve around saving those Omen Beasts and stopping Alca from polluting the natural wonder of this world with its machinery and industrialization. “We’re not going to celebrate the destruction of human bodies and celebrate decapitations and other things you might see in the genre, but instead, try to bring a sense of touching grass,” Sinclair says, noting the irony in using that phrase, which typically means stop playing video games and go outside. “That’s kind of the big emotional push for why we think it’s worth making this game, even though Warframe is doing so well.” Soulframe creative director and former Warframe art and animation director Geoff Crookes says he believes the themes of this fantasy MMO are “a reflection of our age.” “It’s a reflection of how fractured we are,” Crookes adds. “There’s not a shared community anymore; there’s not a shared truth anymore. We’re not trying to heal the world, but if there are things that we can do in the game to encourage community-driven gameplay [...] that’s when we start to get excited about how the game can reinforce that.” Soulframe community lead Sarah Asselin says she sees comments all the time in Discord, on streams, and elsewhere that some players love to do “nothing” in Soulframe. “Even to just run around the forest and be immersed in this beautiful world we’re slowly building – it feels like this cozy and optimistic escape.” Sinclair says the strength of the early access Soulframe Preludes program is that Digital Extremes gets to put out various gameplay and content additions to test the waters of these themes and determine, with the help of its player base, whether the harmony the studio is looking for is present. Because Soulframe is the latest game to grace the cover of Game Informer , we’ll be posting behind-the-scenes stories like this alongside exclusive videos and more for the next few weeks. If you aren’t subscribed to Game Informer , you have until April 22 to do so and ensure a copy of this issue reaches your mailbox. Plus, anyone who subscribes will receive a Soulframe Preludes code to check out the game early. You can find more information about codes here . For more exclusive Soulframe insight, head to our hub here .

Game Informer PreviewsApr 13

Saros Preview – King In YellowThe post Saros Preview – King In Yellow appeared first on WellPlayed .

Preview – WellPlayedApr 13

Going Hands-On With Neverway—Calm Before The Static StormCGM went hands-on with Neverway—the upcoming surreal horror farming sim from indie studio Coldblood Inc.

Previews – CGMagazineApr 9

With Soulframe, Digital Extremes Didn't Ask For Permission But Instead, Begged For Forgiveness Last month, I visited Warframe developer Digital Extremes’ office in London, Ontario, of Canada, to hang out with the team behind Soulframe for a couple of days, interview its various discipline leads, and learn about this studio’s first game in nearly a decade. It was during those initial interviews that I learned Soulframe was a game Digital Extremes committed to making before asking its “corporate overlords,” which is Tencent, the Chinese-based megagiant publisher that acquired Leyou, the company that owned a majority stake in the developer. In the words of Digital Extremes CEO Steve Sinclair, the team begged for forgiveness (instead of asking for permission). During my first interview with Sinclair and Co., he showed Game Informer senior video editor Alex Van Aken and I the slide deck he used two years prior to pitching Soulframe to Tencent. Now, anyone familiar with Soulframe, the fantasy MMO that’s available to play in an alpha state today, will know it was revealed at TennoCon in 2022… four years ago. You do the math.   “This is the slide deck I used two years ago for Tencent,” Sinclair tells me. “Because yeah, you’re supposed to – what do you call this, ‘Ask for permission or beg forgiveness?’ Yeah, this was the beg forgiveness. We already kind of said, ‘Here it is! Sign up!’ [And they were like,] ‘Hey guys, do you want to tell us what this is about?’” Sinclair says Tencent was “cool” about it, though, as you might infer from the game’s continued early access program and success. He tells me the reason Soulframe exists is because in 2016, a person in Digital Extremes’ statistics department [ Editor’s Note: Sinclair says they are no longer with the studio, adding they chose to leave] said “Warframe was declining and sunsetting, and it was time to face that fact that it would be over soon and that we needed something new, otherwise we’d be doomed.” “And of course, as we have seen, somehow impossibly, that was not true at all,” he continues. “Two years later, we hit an all-time high with [ the Plains of Eidolon expansion ] release, and then last year, we beat that. So Covid ups and downs, and with [Warframe creative director Rebecca Ford] leading the Warframe ship, it has achieved new, new highs.” Soulframe creative director and former Warframe art and animation director Geoff Crookes says this line of thinking among the aforementioned statistics department employees was common wisdom back then – in 2016 – and that trends have changed, meaning live-service games can last much longer than anticipated with proper support. Because Soulframe is the latest game to grace the cover of Game Informer , we’ll be posting behind-the-scenes stories like this alongside exclusive videos and more for the next few weeks. If you aren’t subscribed to Game Informer , you have until April 22 to do so and ensure a copy of this issue reaches your mailbox. Plus, anyone subscribed will be receiving a Soulframe Preludes code to check out the game early. More information about codes can be found here . For more exclusive Soulframe insight, head to our hub here .

Game Informer PreviewsApr 9

I am in love with Forza Horizon 6's Nissan Silvia Forza Horizon 6 has learned at least one neat trick from Ridge Racer. It's learned that for a certain kind of racing game, something that's dreamy yet exactingly arcadey by turn, it's quite nice to ghost around a corner every now and then and find something dramatic happening overhead. In Ridge Racer this something was often a jumbo taking off. In Horizon 6, it could be one of those chunky helicopters with two sets of propellors, or even a group of jet fighters flying in formation. But games are as prone to inflation as everything else. At one point, I crested a hill and a huge space rocket launched. Not bad, Horizon. Not bad. Read more

Eurogamer.net Previews FeedApr 8

Super Alloy Crush Early Access Review: Mega MenSuper fighting robots(?).

Previews – KakuchopureiApr 8

Forza Horizon 6 Preview - Hands-On In The Land Of The Rising Sun Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC Publisher: Xbox Game Studios Developer: Playground Games Release: May 19, 2026 ( Xbox Series X/S , PC ), 2026 ( PlayStation 5 ) Rating: Everyone Ever since I played Forza Horizon 5 back in 2021, it's been my favorite racing game of all time. The over-the-top action, the tight controls, the expansive garage of vehicles, and, of course, the beautiful representation of Mexico all made me fall in love with Forza Horizon 5 – so much so that it's tied for the highest review score I've awarded in my nearly 11 and a half years at Game Informer . So it stands to reason that I was thrilled to hear that Forza Horizon 6 was heading to my favorite real-world travel destination: Japan. I had the chance to speed around Japan across a few events in the first hour of the main campaign, as well as participate in some free exploration, and came away extremely ready to slide into the driver's seat once again. As is expected in the Forza Horizon series at this point, racing around feels fantastic. The physics, surface simulation, and sense of speed all feel in line with the best-in-class prior entries. And with Japan as the backdrop, I cherished every moment in this short, fun preview experience. And it all starts with the introductory Initial Drive. The Initial Drive sequence in Forza Horizon 5 left an indelible mark on me, as cars dropped out of the sky, sped down highways, and stormed through deserts en route to Horizon Festival Mexico. In Forza Horizon 6, the player's entry point into Japan is a bit more understated. You still jump around to different cars to drive different routes, serving as a high-level preview of the sights as you blaze through the Horizon Festival over what is likely to be the next dozens of hours to come, but the cars aren't dropping out of the sky. Still, the Horizon Festival is at the center of both this sequence and the events I was able to play. "The Festival has been a core element in all Horizon games, and for the most recent one, we kind of wanted to step back and approach the Festival a bit differently," art director Don Arceta says. "Primarily, we wanted to treat it as a global event – something as big as the World Cup or the Olympics, but obviously centered around car culture and music. And when we put the lens on that, we started thinking how this could exist in Japan. And it's a little bit different; it's a little more what you'd expect from a big, organized event. You have barriers guarding off city roads, you have, obviously, the big festival site. There are sponsors. We have marshals, we have volunteers... everything that would make up a festival. We wanted to capture that and help sell a little bit of that world-building and narrative in our Initial Drive, and that was just one part that helped shape that. In terms of world-building and storytelling, there's a little bit more of that in our Initial Drive, which helps carry some of that cinematic nature." The team dialed back the fantastical elements in that Initial Drive, instead emphasizing the notion of what it would be like to visit Japan and find yourself a part of the Horizon Festival. I see that play out in the early hours as my character is informed their friend entered them into the qualifier races. This also means you'll see, in addition to the official festival events, a lot more Grassroots Circuits, which allow you to tackle real-world time attacks run by local groups. "When we were researching all these Grassroots Circuits, there's a wide variety of them, and it really helped us when thinking about our biomes and where things are located," Arceta says. "Those were one of the grounding elements that helped us decide, 'Yeah, we should get this biome because it offers us this type of time attack circuit, or this one.' So, there was a little big of ebb and flow between the two elements. Obviously, when we're choosing our biomes, a big part of it is what roads exist there. [...] There is a lot of gameplay and road types that are informed by the areas we choose." Speaking of areas, at least in the preview build, the only major metropolitan area appears to be Tokyo. I was hoping to at least get either Osaka or Kyoto in addition to Tokyo, but that does not appear to be the case; the map in my build cut off around Kawazu Nanadaru and the famous Hakone Nanamagari drifting course, which is a few hours south of Tokyo in real-world drive time. However, despite the extremely contracted nature of Tokyo itself – it would be really difficult to truly capture the forever-sprawling nature of the real-world city – the recreation of the city is as stunning as you'd expect, with beautiful versions of Shibuya, Minato, and other notable areas. But extending outside of Tokyo, I loved seeing the Touge roads and the infamous Tateyama Snow Corridor in the Japanese Alps. Playground Games has clearly captured the beauty of Japan's many biomes. The premise of visiting Japan and suddenly being entered into the Horizon Festival extends to the types of cars I drove during my hands-on time, as my preview build started me with three vehicles of varying specialties, two of which are Japanese icons. The 1989 Nissan Silvia K's is a solid choice for street racing, while the 1994 Toyota Celica GT-Four ST205 helped me conquer the rally event in the preview build. Finally, the Japanese market isn't typically renowned for its off-road vehicles, so Playground provided me with a 1970 GMC Jimmy to tackle that Horizon Festival qualifier event. But don't worry if those starting vehicles don't excite you; as the box art of Forza Horizon 6, which features the 2025 Toyota GR GT prototype, clearly tells you, you'll find yourself behind the wheel of a ton of incredible speed machines throughout your time in this Japanese playground. But my time was spent with these three vehicles, participating in the qualifiers ahead of the main campaign progression in the full game, as well as various PR stunts, including Speed Traps, Drift Zones, and Danger Sign ramps. There are, of course, various collectibles scattered throughout the map, too, including XP bonus boards and cute mascots you can smash through. When stacked with the avalanche of events once you're actually a part of the festival in the main game, it does not seem as though there will be any shortage of activities to take part in. "The preview build is what we call the Qualifier Phase, which leads you up to the Festival," design director Torben Ellert says. "There's just this huge swath of content in that element of the campaign, which includes all of the street races and the Touge races and Touge battles that are in the game. We thought about it as that split: If you traveled to Japan today and you knew the right people, you could probably get in a car and race on the C1 Loop, and aligning that with longstanding street racing in the Horizon Festival, that made a lot of sense for us as a way to split it out. So, in the festival element of the campaign, things are quite structured, right? Events lock in, in a sequence, they have car restrictions, the cars start slow and get faster as you build up. But in the full version of the game, when you explore the map, and you find a street race, for example, you can take any car into that, and the grid will adapt to match that. It was a way for us to have the freedom of exploration and freedom of certain kinds of racing, while having other kinds that were more structured and more progression-oriented. I think the authenticity of that kind of racing culture in Japan made it just a really natural way to split that content out." I close out my conversation with the Forza Horizon 6 developers by asking if I can park my car on the Shinkansen tracks and get annihilated by the bullet train, which can reach up to 200mph. "Uh, y-yes," Ellert says with a laugh. "I'm certain that you're aware of the Speed Trap benefits that that can have." Even though I spent a couple of hours speeding around the map, there are still so many areas I haven't even come close to visiting, and I'm okay with that. I want the final game to hit me the way Forza Horizon 5 did back in 2021, and the best way to experience Forza Horizon maps is when they're full of activities. These early hours I played are promising, but I won't know for sure what the ceiling is on Forza Horizon 6 until it launches on May 19.

Game Informer PreviewsApr 8

Here's When Game Informer Subscribers Will Get Their Early Access Soulframe Preludes Code Soulframe, the fantasy MMO from Warframe developer Digital Extremes, is the latest game to grace the cover of Game Informer ! The digital issue is now live, meaning you can pore through all 14 pages of our Soulframe cover story and dive into previews, reviews, and features about The Legend of Zelda's 40th Anniversary, the failures before the success of the Nintendo 3DS, and more... but only if you're a Game Informer subscriber. Now, while our amazing and beautiful magazines that we ship to your mailbox 10 times a year is absolutely worth the price of a subscription in our humble opinion, your subscription includes something extra special for Soulframe: We teamed up with Digital Extremes to ensure every Game Informer subscriber (current and new subscribers who subscribe by April 22) will receive a code to check out Soulframe early, as part of its Preludes program. There is a lot to play through in Soulframe and there will be even more as the team adds more content to the MMO – and your code is all you need to check it out as the game heads towards its 1.0 launch in the future. How To Get Your Soulframe Preludes Code If you are already a Game Informer magazine subscriber, or you plan to become one by April 22, you're set – when your physical issue arrives in your mailbox (the first wave of issues are expected to arrive in the first week of May), your polybagged issue will feature a postcard-like pack-in with a unique Soulframe Preludes code printed on it alongside instructions on how to use it to play the game. There is also a support email line on that card to get in touch with Digital Extremes should you run into any issues accessing the game. If you are already a Game Informer digital-only subscriber, or plan to become one by April 22, Game Informer will send you an email in the first week of May 8 (by May 8 at the latest) with your unique Soulframe Preludes code and instructions on how to access the game with it. For more information about Soulframe, including what's available in Preludes, whether there will be progress wipes in the future, update schedules, bugs, and more, head to the Soulframe FAQ here . For more exclusive Soulframe insight, head to the Game Informer Soulframe hub here .

Game Informer PreviewsApr 7