Deadzone: Rogue was a game that slipped past our collective radars, but once we finally played it upon its Switch 2 release, we absolutely loved it, awarding it a 9 out of 10. Now, quicker than most expected, developer Prophecy Games has announced a sequel to its roguelite FPS, Deadzone Rogue 2.
In Deadzone Rogue 2, you fight as Talon 13-10 on a fallen Earth. While the core gameplay sounds familiar to anyone who played the first game – you work through runs of each area, forging your loadout as you blast through hordes of enemies – it iterates in seemingly important ways. In addition to extended play progression with new abilities, weapons, and run modifiers, players can expect new biomes, layouts, enemies, and bosses to deal with. On top of that, drop-in co-op joins the formula, allowing for more flexible cooperative play for up to three players.
While we don’t know too much more about this sequel, we know we can’t wait to see how Prophecy Games is improving on the already-excellent foundation of the franchise. And with details on a pre-release demo promised in June, we hope we’ll have that chance sooner rather than later. For more on why we loved Deadzone: Rogue so much, check out our review.
In 2015, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt set the bar for immersive storytelling and choice-driven narrative within the action/RPG space. Now, the director of that game is back with his new studio, Rebel Wolves, to deliver another ambitious, narrative-driven role-playing game with The Blood of Dawnwalker. That very game graces the cover of the latest issue of Game Informer, and it’s available to read digitally right now!
To get the most comprehensive look at The Blood of Dawnwalker yet, we flew out to Rebel Wolves’ studio in Warsaw, Poland, where we spent a full day with a wide range of developers, learning all about how the young studio is aiming to deliver a genre-defining RPG. On top of hours of conversations with the developers, we also sat through two distinct hands-off gameplay demos, one of which nobody else outside of the studio has seen. In our huge 16-page cover story, you’ll learn all about how this team took the lessons learned developing some of the greatest games of all time and applied them to this new, extremely exciting vampire story. We also get into topics like the game’s overarching structure (hint, it’s very player-choice driven), the map, the engaging combat, the fun time mechanic, just how far you can influence the narrative, and how relationships can play out.
Not only that, but we have a special poster for The Blood of Dawnwalker bundled with print subscriber copies! The poster features the key art, with protagonist Coen front and center. While that is a special perk for our print subscribers, regardless of what kind of subscription you have, you can read the full magazine in its digital form right this very moment!
But this issue is so much more than just our deep dive into The Blood of Dawnwalker. Within the pages of issue 378 of Game Informer, you’ll find features with in-depth looks at Hell Let Loose: Vietnam, Grave Seasons, End of Abyss, and Gothic 1 Remake. Plus, we spoke with the developers behind Stardew Valley, Donkey Kong Bananza, and Paranormasight: The Mermaid’s Curse to get some post-release retrospection from them. Meanwhle, Hayes Madsen talked with the teams behind series like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Persona, and Sea of Stars to dissect the revival of the turn-based RPG genre. That’s on top of our previews section, which includes new looks at Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced, Metro 2039, Final Fantasy XIV: Evercold, Neverway, and more!
Subscribers can read the digital edition right now! Physical versions will begin arriving in the mail in mid-to-late June, and you can expect to find the magazine in bookstores and newsstands around the same timeframe. Be sure to subscribe today to receive 10 Game Informer magazines a year (physical and digital) and get The Blood of Dawnwalker as your first issue!
SNK Corporation, the company behind franchises such as Fatal Fury, The King of Fighters, and Metal Slug, has announced a new game development subsidiary called VS Studio helmed by former Bandai Namco veteran Katsuhiro Harada. The news comes six months after Harada departed Bandai last December after serving as the longtime director and producer of the Tekken franchise.
Harada will serve as Representative Director/CEO of VS Studio. The veteran fighting game director explains in a press release that the philosophy behind the Tokyo-based VS Studio is “Beyond tradition, crafted to perfection.” Harada describes VS Studio as a “free, open, and spacious environment” to “generate new ideas and create memorable games,” and that they are recruiting talent. The studio’s website is set to launch in June.
Here is Harada’s full statement:
“We are pleased to announce the launch of our new game development studio, “VS Studio.” VS Studio’s philosophy is “Beyond tradition, crafted to perfection.”
We will combine technology, sensibility, and world-class expertise to pursue the ultimate.
From a free, open, and spacious environment, we will generate new ideas and create memorable games.
We established this studio to bring this vision to life.
The “VS” in VS Studio holds various meanings. It represents our roots in “Video game Soft (VS Development Division),” the spirit of “Versus” challenging tradition, and many other meanings symbolizing innovation and challenge, such as “Visionary Standard,” “Volition Shift,” and “Vanguard Spirit.”
Having been involved in game development for many years, I’ve constantly considered how I want to spend my time as a developer and what kind of environment allows developers to perform at their best. VS Studio is one answer to that question.
By bringing together technology and knowledge, and working with passionate colleagues, we aim to deliver the best gaming experiences to users worldwide. VS Studio aspires to be a studio that continues to take on such challenges, and we are looking for new team members who share our vision.
Please look forward to the future of VS Studio.
We’ll likely have quite a long wait before we learn about VS Studio’s first project, but it will be interesting to see if Harada gets right back on the fighting game saddle or leads a completely different type of game.
Sega has canceled its Super Game, which was originally revealed as in development in 2021 with a budget of $882 million. When it was announced, all signs pointed to the Super Game being a single game, but we later learned “Super Game” was a title Sega used to describe various games with large budgets.
In the five years since the Super Game announcement, we never did learn exactly what these games were – there was no formal announcement or titles associated with the descriptor. But now, thanks to Sega’s latest financial earnings report, it’s clear we’ll likely never know. On the “Review of the GaaS [games as a service]” page, Sega has a short line that reads, “Decided to cancel Super Game,” noting that the company did not incur additional costs as a result of the cancellation for Quarter 3 of its 2026 Fiscal Year. And that’s all she/Sega wrote.
Elsewhere in the report, Sega lists the following games as part of its “Upcoming Plans” slide, giving us a birds-eye view of games the company plans to release in the coming years:
Stranger Than Heaven: Winter
Persona 4 Revival: Release Date TBD
Total War: Warhammer 40,000: Release Date TBD
Total War: Medieval III: Release Date TBD
New Virtua Fighter Project: Title/Release Date TBD
Crazy Taxi: Title/Release Date TBD
Golden Axe: Title/Release Date TBD
Jet Set Radio: Title/Release Date TBD
Streets of Rage: Title/Release Date TBD
Alien: Isolation Sequel: Title/Release Date TBD
Though Sega doesn’t name any games specifically, it says that in its Quarter 3 2027 Fiscal Year forecast, it expects to “launch four new titles based on mainstay IPs,” suggesting it might be planning to launch four of the aforementioned games within the next fiscal year.
Brothers Mattias and Marcus Ottvall and Gustaf Heinerwall worked on Little Nightmares and its sequel for Tarsier Studios, but recently branched off to create an original game with their original studio, Section 9 Interactive.
End of Abyss is Section 9’s first game and it combines an impressive collection of inspirations from games like classic Zelda, Metroid, and even Metal Gear Solid. Below, Charlest Harte and I play and gush about the game ahead of its release later this year and show off a brand new boss.
End of Abyss – Exclusive Boss Fight Gameplay:
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Aaron Paul, an actor known for his roles in Breaking Bad, Bojack Horseman, and Westworld, is officially joining the next season of the Fallout series on Prime Video. His role remains undisclosed. The actor recently garnered praise his performance as the lead in the video game Dispatch, a choice-driven superhero workplace comedy.
Paul’s casting is notable for two reasons. First, it reunites him with Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan, who have been executive producers on both Fallout and Westworld. Second, it marks the Breaking Bad star’s return to the world of live-action video game adaptations; he starred in 2014’s Need For Speed, a film based on the game franchise of the same name.
The press release announcing Paul’s casting also notes that Annabel O’Hagan and Dave Register, who play Stephanie Harper and Chet, respectively, will be bumped up to series regulars in season 3. Additionally, Frances Turner (who plays Barb Howard) became a regular in season 2, and will remain a regular for the next season.
Finally, it appears Fallout has hit some significant milestones. According to Prime Video, the show has had over 100 million viewers, and in the first 13 weeks of season 2’s launch, both seasons ranked among the top four most-watched on Prime Video.
Discord launched its Nitro subscription almost 10 years ago, and it’s changed a lot over the years. While its current tiers mainly offer users more emojis, higher quality streaming, and generally more customization options, it used to include complementary games, but that perk was discontinued in 2019. Today, the company announced plans to revive that idea and partner with Xbox and provide Game Pass for Nitro users – kind of.
According to a blog post on Discord’s website, the new program is called Nitro Rewards, and it’s exactly what it sounds like – perks for Discord’s paid subscribers. Discord describes today’s announcement as the “first wave,” with more benefits to come at a later date.
The first perk is access to Xbox Game Pass. Discord describes the level of access as “a starter version” of the service, which seems to line up with Game Pass Essential, as it includes “a library of 50+ PC and console games.” This tier includes a fraction of the titles available on Game Pass’ higher tiers (which have 200+ and 500+, respectively), but as a benefit to Nitro subscribers at no extra cost, it’s a pretty good deal.
Nitro Rewards also includes discounts on certain Logitech products, with subscribers getting “up to 30% off at Logitech G, 15% off SteelSeries, and 20% off KontrolFreek, with new offers rotating regularly.” Finally, Nitro subscribers will also get bonus Orbs each month and an Orbs multiplier, meaning they’ll get more Orbs for completing quests. The blog closes with a disclaimer that features will be rolling out gradually “over the coming weeks,” so you might not see them right away, but they’ll probably be showing up soon.
On the flipside, an Xbox Wire post about the same subject announced an inverted version of the deal; Game Pass subscribers will soon get certain Discord Nitro benefits. More specifically, they’ll get 250 Discord Orbs each month, 1.2x extra Orbs when completing quests, and automatically applied Discord Shop discounts, which sounds like the new Nitro Rewards Orb upgrades.
When Until Dawn was released in 2015, it felt novel. Telltale had popularized a specific formula of interactive narrative, but Supermassive’s teen-slasher horror game took its ideas and applied an impressive layer of creativity and production value on top of it alongside casting choices that only look more brilliant with time. Successive entries in the The Dark Pictures Anthology series, however, have increasingly failed to live up to the promise of Until Dawn, and Directive 8020 is the latest result of that downward trend.
Directive 8020 looks great. Close-up shots of character faces show an incredible level of detail, and the overall art direction stands above the severe shortcomings of the narrative. The attractive, if uninspired, general design of the spaceship Cassiopeia and its computer systems feel like they’re from the future, and the monstrous alien menaces you must contend with are impressively grotesque. The visuals of this peek into a potential science-fiction future are Directive 8020’s strongest element. But much like the mission the Cassiopeia crew is on, it all falls apart once you start.
The stakes are high in Directive 8020 with a small crew of astronauts scouting a potentially habitable planet as Earth’s long-term viability wanes. A strong licensed soundtrack backgrounds an enticing opening as the only conscious members of the crew kill time until the rest can be woken from hypersleep. Once the astronauts start talking, characterizations and mysteries are established with the subtlety of a giant flashing red arrow, and I began to immediately question the credentials of every crew member chosen for this historic mission.
In the horror genre, playing armchair expert while scared people make stupid decisions is part of the fun. But that joy gets sucked out of the airlock when the story has painstakingly and repeatedly established that the cast is the smartest of the smartest, hand-picked and trained to be humanity’s last hope for a mission that literally could not be more important. Instead of revelling in the outcomes of their poor decisions, stupid mistakes become frustrating and feel preventable, which they aren’t even when you’re trying valiantly to push everyone toward the right calls.
The larger story beats are all achingly cliched. The references to science-fiction horror like Alien and The Thing are so transparent that they feel like rip-offs that don’t understand the source material as opposed to fun homage. I absolutely don’t mind taking a dip in the warm bath of genre storytelling, but Directive 8020 struggles to establish its own identity while citing its sources. I also just generally felt like I was being talked down to as its “mysteries” were being unfurled. I shouldn’t always be three steps ahead of, as is repeatedly established, the smartest people on planet Earth – supposedly the only ones capable of completing this mission.
But even in the individual moments, Directive 8020 struggles. A fire in one area of the ship that forces a decision between saving the lives of two crew members results in the unfortunate victim sitting down amidst the flames and calling it a day, as they basically make no attempt to reach a nearby door. In times like this, you can immediately rewind a story moment to try a different outcome, which raises the question: What are we even doing here? If I can change every element of the story as I am making my way through it, then why does any wrong decision or missed quicktime event matter? I like seeing the story permutations eventually, but if the choices in the moment don’t matter, then my feelings about the characters and the story don’t matter either.
Gameplay, which is admittedly not Directive 8020’s focus, mainly involves avoiding the eyeline of bad guys in the dark. Moving the characters is functional, but waiting for backs to be turned so you can sneak by is not particularly thrilling or scary. The door-unlocking minigame is enjoyable, and I liked being able to text other characters between cutscenes for additional conversations, but it did little to endear me to anyone in the forgettable cast.
I took more notes while playing Directive 8020 than I normally do while reviewing a game, and they’re almost all character complaints or story frustrations. The primary purpose of this experience is to engage and draw me into a narrative filled with characters whose fates I am invested in. Instead, I was too busy questioning decisions (theirs, not mine), rolling my eyes, and grappling with an overwhelming feeling of déjà vu to ever lock in.
In this week’s episode of The Game Informer Show, Alex returns from MagicCon: Las Vegas to share his experience spending the weekend playing and learning about upcoming Magic: The Gathering card sets, Charles dives into his Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight preview, and Marcus finally gets the chance to talk about the black-and-white boomer shooter, Mouse: P.I. For Hire! 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!Sponsored: Logitech G just changed the game againwith the new PRO X2 Superstrike.This isn’t just an upgrade; it’s a total reimagining of the mouse click. Stop playing fair and start playing faster. Go to LogitechG.com and enter code GAMEINFORMER25 at checkout to save 25% off Logitech G products.
00:00 – Introduction00:45 – MagicCon: Las Vegas Recap11:19 – Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight22:30 – “GI Oughta Know” Trivia: Lego Batman Edition41:53 – SPONSOR AD: Logitech G PRO X2 Superstrike43:44 – Mixtape Review56:13 – Mouse: P.I. For Hire
Call of the Elder Gods, like its predecessor Call of the Sea, is a Lovecraft-inspired narrative puzzle adventure. The game features dual protagonists, Evangeline Drayton and Professor Harry Everhart, as they embark on a globetrotting journey to get to the bottom of their horrific, supernatural visions. Ahead of the game’s launch next week, editors Marcus Stewart and Kyle Hilliard took an exclusive look at the game’s second chapter to see how this puzzling adventure is shaping up.
