Coliseum

This week on The Game Informer Show, it’s time for costumes, tricks, and treats! Marcus, Charles, and Wesley don their Halloween apparel to talk about Phantom Blade Zero’s stellar debut, as well as some interesting indies in Virtue and a Sledgehammer and Tom the Postgirl.

Then, Kyle and Charles sit down with folks from The Onion to talk about their new game, The Onion Voting Simulator 3D! Guaranteed to simulate the voting experience, or at least something like it. Check it out, make sure to vote, grab a cold drink, and settle in for a new episode of The Game Informer Show!

The Game Informer Show is a weekly podcast covering the video game industry. Join us every Friday for chats about video game reviews, news, and exclusive reveals alongside Game Informer staff and special guests from around the industry. Support the show by subscribing to our physical video game magazine!

Watch or listen here:

Listen to “Phantom Blade Zero Is A Must-Play Action Game” on Spreaker.

Follow our hosts and guests here:

• Marcus Stewart (@marcusstewart7)
• Wesley LeBlanc (@wesleyleblanc)
• Charles Harte (@chuckduck365)
• Kyle Hilliard (@kylehilliard)
• Check out The Onion Voting Simulator 3D here

Jump around using these timestamps:

• 00:00 – Intro
• 06:10 – Phantom Blade Zero
• 45:44 – Virtue and a Sledgehammer
• 1:02:50 – Tom the Postgirl
• 1:09:39 – The Onion Voting Simulator 3D

Welcome to Devil’s Night, the night before Halloween, where video games are best served scary. After tomorrow night – Halloween proper – no more scary video games allowed. At least not until mid-September, 2027. I’m sorry, I don’t make the rules. Below you will find our weekend gaming recommendations (which is actually surprisingly light on scary games – apologies), but before that, here are some of the biggest stories of the week.

• EA Reportedly Closed BioWare To Invest In Developing Star Wars Battlefront III Instead Of The Next Mass Effect
• Assassin’s Creed Franchise Update Reveals Codename Hexe News Coming Next Year, New Game Plus for Valhalla, And Confirms No New Remakes
• The Top 10 Best Horror Games To Play This Halloween
• Phantom Blade Tips And Tricks For New Players We Wish We Knew Before Starting
• Here’s The Best Graphics And Performance Mode For Phantom Blade Zero On PlayStation 5
• Phantom Blade Zero Review – Wuxian Wonder Abounds

Phantom Blade Zero

Wesley LeBlanc

Phantom Blade Zero is one of the best action games I’ve ever played, and it’s certainly one of the most impressive to watch. Beijing-based developer S-Game uses China’s Wuxia brand of action (which was actually banned for some time during the 20th Century by the country’s government) to create a stylish, fluid, and hyper-engaging combat system. It will constantly leave you in awe that action combat can look this good. But looks aren’t everything. Fortunately, Phantom Blade Zero delivers on all fronts, with weapon mechanics so detailed that picking up a new blade can feel like unlocking a new character in a fighting game. The story won’t blow your socks off, but it’s certainly engaging and enticing enough to bring you through Phantom Blade Zero’s 40 or so hours of content. If you’re not interested in the “perfect ending,” which is the only satisfactory one in my opinion, you can complete the game in less than 30 hours. S-Game mixes high-octane combat with sprawling and rewarding exploration to create a must-play during this already busy season of games. You can read more of my thoughts in the Game Informer Phantom Blade Zero review, and if you are hopping in this weekend, be sure to check out my list of Phantom Blade Zero tips and tricks I wish I knew before starting it.

Halloween: The Game

Wesley LeBlanc

If you have any fond memories of IllFonic’s ill-fated Friday the 13th: The Game as I do, you simply must play the studio’s latest, Halloween: The Game. It is essentially Friday the 13th with Michael Myers instead of Jason, but with a decade of lessons learned from the team’s teeth carving in other horror properties and games. You’re either Michael or a citizen; the former wants to kill you and all the NPCs in various suburban maps, while the latter must rescue as many NPCs as possible while staying alive themselves. It’s that classic cat-and-mouse formula IllFonic is the master of, but with all the style, substance, and synths of John Carpenter’s Halloween masterpiece. Plus, Halloween: The Game features IllFonic’s first crack at a single-player campaign, and while it’s largely a tutorial for playing as Michael, if you’re a Halloween mega-fan like me, it’s worth checking out if only to take part in some of the film’s most iconic kills. You can read more of my thoughts in the Game Informer Halloween: The Game review here, and if you’re hopping in this weekend, there’s a new map, additional Halloween-themed cosmetics to unlock, and more waiting for you.

Overwatch Halloween Event

Kyle Hilliard

Overwatch is in the midst of its Halloween event, which have always historically been pretty interesting. This year it’s Mystery Madness: Graveyard Games. In it, you begin by picking one of three characters in a random role. And then, as the game progresses, you choose perks that upgrade, alter, or completely change what your character can do. It can get really chaotic where by round three characters like Orisa might be three times her normal size or Torbjorn might have placed a giant turret on Mercy’s making her a flying death machine. There are also Halloween skins, as well.

Tom The Postgirl

Charles Harte

Tom the Postgirl is an odd little adventure that I’d recommend to fans of Untitled Goose Game. You play as Tom, a creepy girl who’s tasked with delivering packages to the people of her wacky town, which is depicted with storybook-style illustrations and a color palette limited to black, white, and red. On the surface, you’re delivering packages, but the game’s real story is based on Tom’s tendency to peep where she shouldn’t, peering into townsfolks’ windows to watch their odd lives. On house is full of kids who live like dogs; another has a couple with a bizarre obsession with tickling. You never know what each window might reveal, and I quickly sympathized with (and enabled) Tom’s compulsion. You also have the capacity to cause quite a bit of trouble by stomping on flowers, haphazardly snipping strings and cords, or even stealing packages and using them for your own mischievous purposes. It’s a pretty short experience, completable in just a few hours, making it a nice palate cleanser between the massive releases at the end of the year.

Virtue And A Sledgehammer

Marcus Stewart

This Devolver Digital-published game has a simple but head-turning premise. You’re a profoundly angry woman who returns to her small hometown armed with nothing but a sledgehammer, which she uses to smash everything in sight. The town is also inhabited by robots possessing human consciousnesses. Swinging the hammer can either punch holes through walls or, with enough force, reduce entire buildings to rubble. But why is she doing this? Why is she so mad? A big part of Virtue and a Sledgehammer’s allure is its fascinating and well-written tale about the protagonist’s strained relationships with her sister and mother. Learning more about their lives requires you to keep smashing, but the more you learn, the more you begin to question whether smashing everything is actually a good idea.

Titanium Court On Switch 2

Marcus Stewart

This bizarre indie blends fun match-3 puzzle-solving with tower defense gameplay wrapped around a funny but surreal story. The match-3 gameplay involves sliding tiles to match geographic elements like castles, trees, and rivers to collect resources that feed into the tower defense portion. Depending on how the board looks when the puzzle portion ends, you send troops (sustained by the resources you collected) to attack/defend against rival castles and gather more items; board positioning determines how well this can go. The two mechanics feed into each other to create a fun loop that grows in complexity as new mechanics are introduced. Did I mention the game is also very weird? The silly tale centers on a medieval court designating you the chosen savior to rescue their lost queen (and many other tasks), and the dumb tone adds personality to a sometimes dry genre. Titanium Court charmed and impressed us when it launched on PC earlier this year, and now console and mobile players get their chance to hold court.

Sword Of The Sea On Switch 2

Kyle Hilliard

Sword of the Sea is a beautiful, 2025 game about surfing through the sand atop a floating sword. It recalls Journey, the emotional 2012 PlayStation game, which makes sense as it comes from the artists and developers that worked on that game, developer Giant Squid. Giant Squid also made 2016’s Abzû and 2020’s The Pathless. It’s a talented team and Sword of the Sea maintains that reputation. And now you can play it on Switch 2. You can read my full review of the game (though this review pertains to the PlayStation 5 version) right here.

Cities: Skylines On Switch 2

Brian Shea

Cities: Skylines arrived on PC more than a decade ago, but is still revered as one of the greatest modern city-builders. Even now, three years after the sequel’s release, Paradox continues supporting and porting the original game. A couple years after its initial release, Cities: Skylines received a strong console port, which did an admirable job of adapting the controls to gamepads, but the Switch version was always the weakest of the bunch. As of this week, Switch 2 owners can play a less compromised version, expanding the Switch’s 9-tile limit to a much larger 25-tile limit, as well as better performance and textures, better control panels, and a ton of DLC and added content. And on top of that, if you own the Switch 1 version, you get a deep discount on the Switch 2 version.

While not specifically about this new Switch 2 version, you can read our original reviews of the base PC version here, and the base console version here. 

Minecraft On Switch 2

Charles Harte

Minecraft has held its dominant spot in pop culture for so long that it’s easy to forget a simple fact about it: the game is awesome. This week, it’s coming to Switch 2, giving potential miners another platform to explore procedurally-generated caves in. You’ve certainly heard of it, and you’ve probably played it, but I still feel it often doesn’t get the flowers it deserves in high-level critical discussions about games, despite its regular cadence of major updates. The opening gameplay loop is so satisfying that for many of my peers, whether they regularly play video games or not, it’s only a matter of time before they boot up a new world again. While you can never play the game for the first time again, if you haven’t checked it out in a couple years, you might be surprised by the amount of new blocks, materials, and mobs they’ve added in recent updates. And if you’ve never played before, the Switch 2 launch is as good a time as any to see what all the fuss is about.

Tabletop Pick – Arkham Horror: The Card Game

Matt Miller

The card game incarnation of Arkham Horror remains one of the best narrative-driven and horror-themed tabletop games around, and it’s an easy recommendation if you’re looking for something engaging to dive into on Halloween night. Rooted in the monsters and mysteries of the Cthulhu Mythos, this living card game is built on major core sets and expansions. But unlike a TCG, each new installment has the same cards included, fueling the cooperative adventures you’ll undertake together with your fellow players. Last year Arkham Horror: The Card Game did something of a soft relaunch for a chapter 2 of its narrative, and that new core set is an ideal place to jump on  play. Players each control an individual investigator as they explore arcane and weird mysteries, confront monsters, and unfold plots of cultists, ancient entities, and forbidden lore. For fans of cosmic horror storytelling, it’s an easy pick.

Humans are drawn to horror in all forms, real life and fiction. Perhaps it’s the desire to get as close to death as possible without actually dying; perhaps it’s the morality of life and knowing death comes for all of us; perhaps all our heads are just a little miswired. Whatever the reason, we flock to movies where supernatural entities and puppets on tricycles upend otherwise lovely lives, TV shows where murderous cults kill and stump local detectives, and books where the words on the page seem to follow you to bed. Games, however, go a step further, letting you enter the horror and control it (or become its victim), and you could argue that, as a result, they’re the most immersive form of fiction. 

We at Game Informer love a healthy dose of horror from time to time, and we often review games like this. Some terrify us. Others… don’t. And the best ones stick with us for years and years after the credits. Below is a list of 10 of the best horror games we’ve played recently. This isn’t an all-time list, so don’t fret if your personal favorite isn’t here. Instead, this is a collection of 10 horror games ordered by release date that we think are great for spooky season and beyond. Let us know in the comments what you would add to the list!

Village In The Shade

PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Switch, PC

The cozy corner of the horror genre seems to have exploded overnight, and now tons of new slice-of-life horror games are in various stages of development. That said, the team behind newcomer The Village in the Shade is no stranger to the form; they made the Yomawari series, a cute-and-terrifying collection of creepy virtual tales. The Village in the Shade takes things back to the homestead, giving you (a child who emerged from a hole in the ground and was immediately given the responsibility of running an entire farm by yourself) the freedom to plant, sow, reap, ranch, and more. Just follow the important rules: don’t go out at night, don’t share secrets, and don’t leave the village among others. You wouldn’t want to break the rules, right? You could, theoretically, go about your idyllic rural living. But as you unravel the threads of what this village is, who you are, and why you’re here, it’s hard not to get drawn into the strange, mysterious, delightfully disturbing truths hiding in its shadows. Just don’t forget to water your turnips before you go sneaking out again.

Tenebris Somnia

PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, PC

Fans of survival horror and old-school FMV adventure games will find plenty to love (and fear) in Tenebris Somnia. When a young woman visits her ex-boyfriend’s apartment and discovers he’s trapped in a hellish dream world, it kicks off a well-executed survival-horror trek of inventive puzzles and resource management to overcome dangerous monsters. High-production, live-action cutscenes help tell the story of a deteriorating relationship and the toll an indie horror film took on its creators, and they play an important role in gameplay. Tenebris Somnia may not look like much due to its classic pixelated presentation, but its scares and story captivate. – Our Review

Resident Evil Requiem

PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, PC

Resident Evil Requiem is not just one of the best Resident Evil games, but it’s also one of the best horror games ever made. It features a unique dual-protagonist structure. Grace Ashcroft is timid, new to the whole “shooting zombies in the head while dealing with Umbrella viruses” thing, and is generally just trying to do her job. Leon S. Kennedy, however, is a veteran of all that and more. Requiem splits its runtime between the two characters, letting you experience both sides of Capcom’s marquee survival-horror style. Grace’s sections leave your hands clammy and your blood pressure high as you desperately try to survive. Leon’s sections leave your hands shaking with adrenaline and your blood pumping with excitement as he mows down zombies (sometimes literally, courtesy of those pesky chainsaws). The result is a Resident Evil game that blends two typical RE experiences – terrifying and tough or exhilarating over-the-top action – into one cohesive package. It’s perfect for someone who wants to feel scared and then soon after receive the catharsis of being the one in control, like being the tragic victim who dies in Act One of the horror movie and the last one standing who lives to tell the tale. – Our Review

Reanimal

PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, PC

Little Nightmares developer Tarsier Studios has a knack for delivering creepy side-scrolling adventures, but Reanimal eschews any whimsy to become its scariest game yet. While mechanically it is similar to Little Nightmares and still puts small children in unimaginable peril, Reanimal is capital-H horror thanks largely to its terrifying threats and disturbing animal-themed imagery (this probably isn’t the game for animal lovers; some messed-up stuff happens to these critters). Escaping the game’s island setting is thrilling and chilling whether you’re playing alone or with a friend in co-op. Months after release, we’re still thinking about Reanimal’s memorable final sequence, which is worth the price of admission on its own. – Our Review

Silent Hill 2 (2024 Remake)

PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC

2001’s Silent Hill 2 is considered one of the best horror video games of all time for good reason. At release, it was a graphical powerhouse, using the PlayStation 2’s horsepower to create a setting that begged to be explored, even though every bone in your body said you shouldn’t. The remake from developer Bloober Team took on a big task in modernizing the game without losing the original’s soul, and it did a great job. Among all the recent Silent Hill releases (Silent Hill f, Silent Hill: Townfall), the remake is our favorite. The story of James Sunderland and his troubling relationship with his departed wife is complex, emotional, and – important for the purposes of this list – unsettling and scary. – Our Review

Alan Wake 2

PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC

Alan Wake 2 is an excellent pick for some spooky madness, in the vein of David Lynch’s seminal Twin Peaks mystery-surrealist series. Don’t worry too much about the “2” part of the game’s title. You just need to know that the titular Alan Wake character is a not-great writer who acts like he’s really great, his wife is missing, and he got trapped in the ambiguous Dark Place. He’s only one half of the Alan Wake 2 equation, with his segments set in a dream-like version of New York City. Playing as him feels the most Twin Peaks-y. The other half is Saga, a police officer who arrives in the Pacific Northwest town of Bright Falls to investigate a murder that might be linked to a cult. You can expect more traditional survival-horror gameplay from her. But this is still a Remedy Entertainment game, and without spoiling anything, it goes places. And along the way, you can expect plenty of scares. Turn the lights down low (or off), light a candle, and sit back and enjoy one of Remedy’s best games. – Our Review 

Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo

Switch, PC, iOS, Android

Square Enix has gone two-for-two with its Paranormasight series, an anthology of stories about the strange and occult. And while the more recent Mermaid’s Curse is a brilliant tale all its own, the first entry – The Seven Mysteries of Honjo – brings significantly more scares. A group of people in the city of Honjo find themselves caught in a spectral battle royale, using powerful objects and conditions to curse one another, with the allure of a prize at the end. Its magic isn’t just in the flowchart timeline, where you can hop between different perspectives and protagonists to see how events play out from every angle, but also in the gorgeous stereoscopic environments and narrative puzzles. Adventure games are a classic genre, and Paranormasight will remind you of what the genre is capable of the moment you slowly spin your camera around, your eyes peeking out from behind your fingers. 

Signalis

PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, PC

Survival horror can contain multitudes, and as the years have worn on, the genre has grown to encompass a wide range of action-combat mechanics. Signalis feels like a re-centering in that respect. It’s an isometric survival-horror indie project from developer rose-engine, filled with clever puzzles, scarce resources, limited inventory slots, and looming, oppressive dread. As the Replika unit Elster, you delve deep into a remote complex filled with horrors and monsters, searching for something, or someone, waiting down below. While love for classic horror games and other hallmarks of genre fiction will certainly draw you in, the stylish presentation and devastatingly human core will keep you forging ahead to the finale. Once you’ve breached the surface of Signalis’ retro-future super-structures, you won’t be able to turn back.

Immortality

PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC, iOS, Android

In horror movies, audiences often groan at a protagonist for putting themselves in seemingly grave danger just to learn more about a cursed amulet or bloodthirsty killer. But in Immortality, you are the protagonist, and despite a lingering sense that you shouldn’t be digging into the archives of these abandoned films, each eerie new scene makes you want to dive deeper. It’s a game about Marisa Marcel, an actress who almost starred in three movies in the late 20th century, but has since disappeared. None of the movies were ever released due to mysterious circumstances, but you have access to the archived, unedited live-action footage, including behind-the-scenes conversations. By scrubbing through footage, you can select people or items in each scene and jump to random footage from any other movie that includes the same person or item. The approach to puzzle-solving is unique and keeps you appropriately disoriented. The mystery at the center is an unsettling treat to unravel, and scary in new and unexpected ways. Immortality is one of a kind and an easy recommendation for horror fans who want to try something a little different.

Dead By Daylight

PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, PC, iOS, Android

In the decade since launch, Dead by Daylight has continued to succeed, thanks to a dedicated (and newcomer-friendly) fanbase and its towering roster of original and licensed personas from across pop culture horror. The asymmetrical multiplayer title has become an anthology of horror’s biggest faces, including Freddy Krueger, Ghostface, Pyramid Head, and even the Xenomorph. Whether you play as a Survivor, trying to escape all manner of nightmare locations through stealth and cunning, or as a Killer, whose experience feels more like a hunting club, you’ll understand why Dead by Daylight has become a recurring destination for fans of the gruesome and bizarre. 

Read about the making of Dead by Daylight and how it sunk its teeth into millions of players in our six-page exclusive feature in Issue 368 (p. 42), available in our magazine archive to anyone with a free Game Informer account.

Electronic Arts shut down the legendary RPG studio BioWare last week, ending development on an untitled fifth Mass Effect game. Since then, we’ve seen what appears to be a leaked trailer for the game, which suggests it might have been called Mass Effect Universe, and heard a sneak peek at what Grammy-winning composer Austin Wintory was cooking up for the beloved sci-fi RPG series. Over the past week, fans across the internet have tried to piece together how a publisher could decide to shut down a studio as prolific as BioWare, but according to a new Bloomberg report, the answer is Star Wars. 

More specifically, Bloomberg writes that, presented with the opportunity to develop Star Wars Battlefront III with Disney, the publisher, which went private last year after a $55 billion acquisition,  chose to invest its money into that instead of BioWare’s in-development Mass Effect sequel. The publication writes that EA looked at its portfolio for the coming years and had two massive sci-fi investments it could continue: Star Wars Battlefront III or BioWare’s next Mass Effect. Even though Mass Effect was well into development, and even though the Battlefront threequel hasn’t even entered development, EA chose to continue with the latter. And so BioWare was shut down, and Mass Effect development ended, though Bloomberg’s sources say there are other, less significant reasons the studio was shuttered, too. 

Those other factors include the poor reception to 2017’s Mass Effect: Andromeda, the failure of Anthem in 2019, and 2024’s Dragon Age: The Veilguard, which, despite garnering positive critical reception, apparently missed EA’s sales expectations by 50%. 

There’s also the uncomfortable reality that BioWare made progressive LGBTQIA+ positive games but was a studio within a publisher house now partially owned by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, a government fund from a country where same-sex activity, including marriage, is criminalized, sometimes punishable by death; these harsh laws extend to other facets of the LGBTQIA+ community. Another investment partner in this acquisition of EA is Affinity Partners, a Miami-based investment firm founded and run by former White House senior advisor Jared Kushner, who is the son-in-law of President Donald Trump, a political figure who imposes laws that discriminate against the LGBTQIA+ community, especially the 1% of Americans who are transgender; Trump has also been known to mock this community in various ways. No official statements say BioWare shut down because of its progressive leanings, but one has to wonder if that was a factor, especially after reports that BioWare scrubbed diversity from demos to avoid negative feedback from EA (thanks, Kotaku).

When BioWare closed last week, only 50 employees remained, all working on the next Mass Effect, after years of layoffs at the studio. 

A Mass Effect TV series is still in the works at Amazon, even though EA seems to have hung up Commander Shepard’s video game suit for good. 

[Source: Bloomberg]

A new teaser trailer for Death Stranding Isolations, an upcoming animated series coming exclusively to Disney+ and Hulu next year, premiered during Kojima Productions’ 10th Anniversary Exhibition Beyond the Strand. The series was first announced last year.

Death Stranding Isolations tells an original story in the Death Stranding universe set immediately after the events of the first game. Isolations is created by Japanese animation studio E&H Production (Ninja Kamui, Bullet/Bullet, Magic Knight Rayerath) and directed by Takayuki Sano.  Death Stranding creator Hideo Kojima serves as executive producer. 

Today’s teaser video provides the following story synopsis:

“My mom became a crater.”

The Death Stranding—a catastrophic series of explosions caused when the dead crept into our world and collided with the living.

In the wake of this cataclysm, many were forced to live in absolute isolation—among them, a young girl. Although this lonely existence was forced upon her, she soon grows to prefer solitude, eschewing all opportunities for real human connection and allowing herself to be strung along by fate.

In Death Stranding, legendary game creator Hideo Kojima brought you a haunting vision of a shattered world. Now, that world expands into new frontiers with a brand-new animation series.

Under the guidance of director Takayuki Sano, world-class hand-drawn animations have been brought to life by renowned studio “E&H production” (NINJA KAMUI, BULLET/BULLET, the Magic Knight Rayearth television series).

The story is set in North America immediately after Sam—the protagonist of the game—reconnects the continent by means of the Chiral Network. However, as America is reborn from the ashes, the renewed connections that bind it together bring about new and unforeseen consequences.

In this tumultuous new landscape, there are some who walk a different path to the one chosen by Sam and his Bridges comrades: a wise old man who connects people through a method that defies all reckoning; a female soldier ensnared in a cycle of war and destruction; a boy who seethes with rage at the absurdity of his life…and of course, the girl who chose to sever all ties with the outside world…Fate has other plans for her, however, and chance encounters see her launched headfirst into a world she does not recognize.

Death Stranding Isolations is coming to Disney+ and Hulu in 2027. It’s one of the three planned big-screen adaptations of the series. An animated movie called Death Stranding: Mosquito (working title) is also in the works alongside a live-action Death Stranding film by A24. 

For more on Death Stranding, check out our reviews for the first game and its 2025 sequel. You can also read the latest update on Kojima Productions’ upcoming stealth-espionage game, Physint. 

According to a report from The Hollywood Reporter, actor Sir Patrick Stewart has passed away at the age of 86. Stewart spokesperson, Kelly Bush Novak, shared that he died after “a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia.”

Stewart was best known for his roles as Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation (and its various spinoffs) and Charles Xavier in the X-Men films, but he did plenty of video game performing, too. Stewart played Emperor Uriel Septim VII in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, one of the first characters you meet in the game, and Zobek in Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. He also played Jean-Luc Picard in about 10 different Star Trek games and Charles Xavier in five different X-Men games.

Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard in the 1994 Super Nintendo game, Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Stewart will always be a crucial voice and face in the legacy of sci-fi entertainment. Jean-Luc Picard will undoubtedly be an enduring and important character in the Star Trek franchise, and that’s thanks to Stewart’s portrayal of the starship captain. His portrayal of Charles Xavier also helped to legitimize the comic book movie, and he will appear again as the character in this year’s upcoming Avengers: Doomsday.

Our thoughts are with his friends and family, and the millions of fans (of which I include myself) who are mourning his loss. Let’s all drink some Earl Grey tea in his honor today.

Ubisoft has released a fall update on the Assassin’s Creed franchise, providing news big and small on its flagship series. The news includes updates for existing games and smaller but significant insights on the various upcoming Assassin’s Creed games previously announced.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

In terms of current games, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is getting a long-requested New Game Plus thanks to a new update coming on November 5. This means you can start a fresh game while bringing over your progression items/level from your previous playthrough. This update will also introduce the following features:

• An optional progression mode where Gear, Runes, and Masteries all contribute to Eivor’s overall Power
• New runes, achievements, a stash system, and new rewards, including a Master Assassin outfit inspired by Naoe’s look in Assassin’s Creed Shadows
• Mithril, a new resource to upgrade Divine Gear and strengthen runes
• Divine Gear quality for all items

This news comes a few days after New Game Plus arrived in Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced. 

Assassin’s Creed Codename Invictis

Codname Invictis, a PvP multiplayer game, remains in development as Ubisoft shares it has incorporated feedback from players who, according to Ubisoft, “saw great potential in the foundations but wanted more of the pillars that define Assassin’s Creed.” To this end, Ubisoft has spent months reworking Invictis to reflect this vague feedback and say the game is “now evolving in an exciting direction that better reflects those pillars while staying true to its multiplayer ambitions.”

Assassin’s Creed Codename Hexe

As for the next single-player Assassin’s Creed, Codename Hexe, Ubisoft says it will share the next major update on this game in 2027. First announced in 2022, Codename Hexe is set during the 17th-century reign of the Holy Roman Empire, and the era’s witch hunts will play a significant role.

Future Assassin’s Creed Remakes 

With the release of Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced earlier this year, Ubisoft has given fans what they’ll likely see as a disappointing update on potential future remakes: “One thing we want to be transparent about today is that we currently have no other Assassin’s Creed remake actively in development. Our teams are already focused on the next chapter of Assassin’s Creed titles, including projects you haven’t heard about yet, featuring new settings and stories.”

However, Ubisoft adds that this door isn’t closed for good. “Like many of you, we love the idea of revisiting our classic titles, and we’ll keep exploring opportunities to bring older titles back,” says Ubisoft.

Assassin’s Creed Netflix Series

Ubisoft’s next update concerns the live-action Assassin’s Creed series in production for Netflix. They say the show is “nearing completion” in Rome and that award-winning composer Hannah Peel (Insomnia, Rogue Agent, Game of Thrones: The Last Watch) is composing the score. 

Lastly, Ubisoft teases big celebrations are planned for 2027, which marks the 20th anniversary of the Assassin’s Creed franchise. It’s keeping details to itself for now, but states it’s “preparing a year of reveals, updates, rewards, and community moments. “

For more on Assassin’s Creed, check out our review of Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced. 

While the 2025 reveal of the Switch 2 came with many surprises, none were as unexpected as The Duskbloods. It’s a Switch 2 exclusive, multiplayer-only title from FromSoftware, the developer behind games like Dark Souls and Elden Ring; in other words, not your typical Nintendo game. While The Duskbloods was originally scheduled to launch sometime this year, today the developer announced it’s pushing the game’s launch to 2027.

According to a post on The Duskbloods’ X account, the main reason for the delay was balance-related. Here’s the full statement:

While development of “The Duskbloods” is at the final adjustment stage, we have made the decision to move the launch window to 2027. We apologize to players who have been kindly awaiting the release of this title and thank you for your patience and support. During the network test, we saw active interest in the core concepts of the game, including combat, strategic depth, and player expression. To further enhance these aspects, we have decided to move the launch, allowing time for final adjustments to game rules and balancing.

We attended a hands-on preview session earlier this year and came away very positive, and sentiment was similar following the game’s closed network test (that is, when the servers were working properly). It’s not surprising that the devs have changes in mind following so much public feedback, though it is a little surprising that it will take until sometime next year for those adjustments to be complete.

To tide you over until the game’s launch, check out our in-depth preview impressions or watch the video above to hear our live commentary over gameplay footage. You can also hear us discuss the game on our podcast, The Game Informer Show.

Rockstar Games has released a new original song in Grand Theft Auto VI called “Pusher” by the game’s composer duo, Justice. You can listen to it now on all major streaming services, including Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube. Alongside this sneak peek at the game’s original score, Rockstar says the GTA VI original score album, aptly titled Grand Theft Auto VI: Original Score, will be released on all major streaming services, as well as on double CD and triple vinyl, on December 11. 

The original score will feature 30 tracks from the band’s full suite of songs composed for GTA VI, including the previously released “Flower in a Hurricane” by Justice, featuring Tame Impala, SZA, and King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, plus a number of digital bonus tracks included across all formats. 

You can listen to the new original song, Pusher, below: 

GTA VI launches on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X on November 19.

In the meantime, check out the game’s final salacious launch trailer, then enjoy this preview of six in-game radio stations. Then check out this Game Informer Show podcast, where we break down the coolest GTA VI details from our GTA VI cover story. 

What do you think of Pusher? Let us know in the comments below!

Phantom Blade Zero is out now for everyone as a console exclusive on PlayStation 5 and on PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store as well. If you missed it, it’s my favorite action game of the year so far, and you can read why in Game Informer’s Phantom Blade Zero review. That explains why I think you should check the game out; Game Informer’s list of Phantom Blade Zero tips and tricks will get you some key information I wish I had when I started the game; and this guide I wrote up about the requirements you need to get the best ending in Phantom Blade Zero will help you find all story-critical content in the game. 

However, you’re looking for advice on which of the three visual modes Phantom Blade Zero offers you should use on your PS5. This here piece is for you. 

Breaking Down Phantom Blade Zero’s Graphics Options

Phantom Blade Zero has three visual modes on PS5 Pro: Quality, Balanced, and Performance. I tested all three. My personal favorite was Balanced, which gives you an upscaled (checkerboarded) 4K resolution at 40 FPS, as long as you have a 120Hz TV with VRR. If you have a 120Hz TV, it likely has VRR because most major manufacturers include it with 120Hz. I like this mode because the upscaled 4K looks beautiful, just a hair less than native 4K, and if you aren’t someone super trained on those details, I’d wager you won’t notice the difference. The best part is that this mode offers 40 FPS gameplay, which, contrary to how math works, is halfway between 30 FPS and 60 FPS; I’m not kidding, look it up. As such, 40 FPS feels much smoother than 30 FPS, and you’re still getting crisp 4K resolution. It’s a win-win for me and my go-to mode when a game offers it. 

That said, if you don’t have a PS5 Pro, you won’t see this Balanced mode. 

The Performance mode offers an upscaled 2K resolution with a pretty locked 60 FPS. Phantom Blade Zero is an extremely fast, fluid action game, so I think many people will want the buttery smoothness of 60 FPS gameplay. If that’s you, pick the Performance mode. Sure, its resolution is lower, and it will look blurrier and less crisp than the other two modes, but if you aren’t switching back and forth often or looking at side-by-side images, you likely won’t notice. 

Quality mode is native 4K resolution (absolutely beautiful, the best visual image you can get playing Phantom Blade Zero), but at 30 FPS… and for a game like this, I don’t think 30 FPS does it justice. I don’t really recommend this mode for combat, but if you’re just waltzing around Wulin, grabbing screenshots and such, turn it on and bask in the wonders of developer S-Game’s art team. 

Note: There is an option for ray tracing on PS5 Pro. I tested all three graphics modes with it on and off and noticed zero performance changes or issues. So, use ray tracing – it’s nice! 

So, to recap: 

• Quality Mode: Native 4K resolution at 30 FPS
• Balanced Mode: Upscaled 4K resolution at 40 FPS
• Performance Mode: Upscaled 2K resolution at 60 FPS

And, in case you missed it, below is an image of the PC system requirements and specs needed to play Phantom Blade Zero on Steam and the Epic Games Store: 

In the meantime, read Game Informer’s Phantom Blade Zero review, then check out our list of Phantom Blade Zero tips and tricks we wish we knew before starting the game. Then check out our breakdown of the requirements to see the best ending in the game.