Coliseum

Reviewed on:
PlayStation 5

Platform:
PlayStation 5, PC

Publisher:
S-Game

Developer:
S-Game

Release:
October 29, 2026

Rooted in Wuxian storytelling and scale, built on an impressively detailed combat system, and wrapped in a bloody Chinese martial underground that’s a genuine joy to play in, Phantom Blade Zero is a feat. It joins an echelon of action pedigree that includes Sekiro, Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, and just about any other action game you hold in high regard. It hails from developer S-Game, which has dabbled in mobile and smaller-scale games, and I’m shocked by what it’s pulled off with its triple-A action inauguration. But make no mistake: though Phantom Blade Zero is this team’s first crack at a game like this, it is an incredibly confident, strong debut. 

Protagonist Soul is a stoic martial arts master betrayed by the Order he’s sworn his life to; he dies and returns to life with only 66 days to live. That’s enough time to settle his debts, repay his betrayers, and end a villainous conspiracy to seize full power of the Wulin realm. This narrative is Phantom Blade Zero’s weakest link, but its premise adds enough mystery and tension to keep this Wuxian journey exciting through to its final, realm-shattering moments. Narrative bombshells drop not just through the game’s general fantasy-realism art direction, but also through anime scenes, opera puppet shows, animated brushstroke sequences, and more, highlighting Chinese culture and its integral place in Phantom Blade Zero.

The game features a staggering number of unique enemy types, and though the final hours get a bit repetitive, it’s admirable how long S-Game maintains such a high level of combat-oriented ecstasy. Soul’s access to weapons drives that exhilaration. Every weapon is wholly unique. Because the combat is combo-based, picking up a new weapon feels like unlocking a new character in a fighting game. Each has its own moveset and abilities, with later-game weapons featuring combo lists that look more at home in a Street Fighter menu. Add in the special, tide-turning weapons known as Phantom Edges, with limited charge-based uses, and there’s no shortage of permutations to delightfully experiment with.

Drawing on Chinese cinema, Phantom Blade Zero’s setpiece bosses boast a sense of awe and scale only the genre’s best typically offer. With virtually no repeat bosses, save for a few in separate trials, it’s impressive how many powerful figures I flayed, and how many delivered a unique fight. I also appreciate the checkpoints between boss phases, as they remove the frustrating repetition of replaying phase one again and again just to take another stab at the second phase I’m struggling with. 

You’d be forgiven for assuming Phantom Blade Zero is a Soulslike, given its challenging bosses, interconnected world, and Phantom Bell checkpoints, this game’s equivalent of bonfires. It definitively isn’t, though. The challenge is much more surmountable; the game isn’t interested in making you die over and over, there are difficulty options, and you can equip accessories to make parries and dodges easier. World progression is materially different, too, as enemies don’t respawn after you kill them. It’s an interesting, perhaps blasphemous, choice for the genre, but it’s surprisingly effective, adding a sense of worldbuilding and tangible progression I didn’t know I wanted from my action games. Soul is on a mission to remove evil, and mechanically, I’m doing just that. Enemies don’t respawn incoherently just because I heal and save. 

Environmental features weave in and out of each other, and the architectural design and layout of these regions lead to many subsequent “aha” moments. S-Game infuses search-action elements into this exploration through the aforementioned Phantom Edges, some of which double as tools to unlock surprising new areas in both new and previously visited biomes. As a result, backtracking and exploration remain fresh. A lot of it is optional, as are some of Phantom Blade Zero’s most rewarding elements, including its demanding “perfect” ending. Sadly, this renders other endings unsatisfying, with clear chunks intentionally missing.

Despite forays into the Uncanny Valley, Phantom Blade Zero is visually striking, and the action is brilliantly animated. It’s all set to genre-breaking music, too, with original metalcore songs, operatic choirs, 808s, and traditional Chinese instrumentation, creating a score as illustrious as the action it enhances. 

Phantom Blade Zero is an astounding action achievement, almost unbelievably so for a game that is essentially a studio’s genre debut. It is one of the best action games I’ve ever played, one that recognizes the genre’s strengths and weaknesses and addresses both with fantastical Wuxian style. Though the action genre is always jam-packed with new releases, few are as special as Phantom Blade Zero. 

Score:
9.5

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Nintendo has announced that a new Indie World presentation will air tomorrow, October 28. The event will run for roughly 15 minutes.

Kicking off at 7 a.m. PT/10 a.m. ET on Nintendo’s YouTube channel, the presentation will spotlight upcoming indie games and related updates coming to Switch 2 and Switch. The announcement does not specify any updates. In terms of games showcased in the previous Indie World from March that have yet to release, we could get updates on Drinkbox Studios’ Blighted and the murder mystery farming sim Grave Seasons, both of which were recently delayed to 2027.  Other notable indies coming to Switch platforms that could appear include The Eternal Life of Goldman, Witchbrook, Hoa 2, Human Fall Flat 2, and SacriFire.

However, in a presentation once defined by cries for Hollow Knight: Silksong, which launched last year, fans are now waiting for the game’s previously announced free expansion, Sea of Sorrow, which is slated to arrive this year. So, for old times’ sake, fans can politely demand that game’s appearance in the live chat. 

What do you hope to see at Nintendo Indie World tomorrow? Let us know in the comments. 

The free-to-play MOBA Pokémon Unite will shut down in March, over five years after its 2021 launch. Although a gradual suspension of services begins today, fans will enjoy one last hurrah thanks to a big in-game event running for the remainder of the game’s lifecycle.

Launched in July 2021 for Switch before migrating to iOS and Android later that year, Pokémon Unite was billed as a friendlier take on the MOBA genre popularized by Dota 2 and League of Legends, thanks to its short matches (10 minutes) and simplified mechanics. Despite its initial popularity, the game is winding down and will go offline for good on March 23, 2027. 

An End of Service notice on the game’s website reads, 

“We offer our sincerest gratitude to the many Trainers who have played since service started for the Nintendo Switch version on July 21, 2021. We would like to express our thanks to everyone by holding a special event until service ends. The Pokémon Unite Aeos Crown 2027 Tokyo competitive tournament (an event for Pokémon Unite only) will also be held as previously announced. We hope you continue to enjoy Pokémon Unite until the final day of service. After service ends, the ‘Pokémon Unite Game Content Guidelines for Online Platforms’ will no longer be published or maintained, and we will no longer provide support regarding use of Pokémon Unite videos and images.”

As of today, in-game sales of Aeos gems and Unite Club memberships/renewals have been suspended. Existing Unite Club members will continue to use their benefits until the end of the membership period. 

On November 12, an update will kick off the aforementioned final special event, where players can obtain items such as all Unite licenses and Holoware that have appeared in the game up to that point. A library feature will also be added, letting players view certain records and in-game content even after the game shuts down on March 23. Those who don’t download the library feature before the shutdown date will not be able to get it afterward. 

Qualifiers for the Aeos Crown 2027 Tokyo Competitive tournament will take place as planned on December 5. After the game shuts down on March 23, players won’t be able to log in to Pokémon Unite or play any battles. Only the library feature will remain accessible. 

We enjoyed Pokémon Unite when it launched, with executive video editor Alex Van Aken scoring it an 8 out of 10 in his review, writing, “The game eats away the hours of my day as I reassuringly say to myself, ‘Just one more match.’ Battles play out with the spectacle that the Pokémon series is known for, and with so many abilities to choose from, no match feels the same as the last. The game’s simple mechanics and recognizable characters make for an approachable MOBA experience, and with a potential catalog of nearly 900 Pokémon to pick from, my hopes are high for the future of Pokémon Unite.”

Last week, EA shut down Mass Effect and Dragon Age developer BioWare, which resulted in the cancellation of the fifth Mass Effect game that was announced in 2020. As the fallout from this closure settles, famed video game composer Austin Wintory has shared that he’d been working on a potential soundtrack for the now-canceled game and has publicly released early versions of this score.

In a Bluesky thread, Wintory, who has composed soundtracks for games such as Journey, Sword of the Sea, Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate, and The Banner Saga trilogy, writes, “Mass Effect was my ultimate white whale, my all-time dream project. For the last couple years I’d been in discussion w/ BioWare & EA to take on the project & as part of that I wrote close to 20 minutes of music to explore where the franchise can go next, may as well share it!”

Wintory uploaded a 20-minute video consisting of eight tracks to his YouTube channel. The video begins with a message further elaborating on the partnership between BioWare, EA, and him. “For the past several years, I’d been in dialogue with people both at BioWare and EA to potentially jump into Mass Effect 5. As part of these conversations, I decided to surprise the team by writing/recording a gigantic love letter to the franchise, with my idea of where it can go next.”

Wintory adds that he composed the music in 2025 and that he “knew nothing” about what Mass Effect 5’s story entailed when he did. As such, he describes the music as “narratively speculative.” He adds that this conceptual soundtrack was a direct homage to Jack Wall and Sam Hulick’s soundtrack on the first Mass Effect “while leaning even harder on true analog synths, and a more complex integration of the orchestra (almost akin to the hybrid nature of The Matrix),” he writes. Each music track features a message by Wintory explaining his inspiration for its production. 

“Receiving the news alongside everyone else that EA had decided to not only cancel the project but shutdown BioWare entirely was a deeply felt loss,” Wintory writes in the video’s description. “It’s been hard to see dear friends lose their jobs, and this beloved franchise seemingly vanish forever. Thank you nonetheless to everyone at BioWare and EA’s music department for gifting me the chance to dream in your sandbox. It was a privilege to do even that much.”

Wintory’s music is the latest piece of potential Mass Effect 5 content to emerge since BioWare’s closure. A day after the shutdown announcement, an unreleased but reportedly legitimate cinematic trailer for the canceled Mass Effect leaked online. 

Sucker Punch, the team behind Ghost of Yōtei, Ghost of Tsushima, Infamous, and Sly Cooper, has been hit with layoffs, according to a report by Aftermath. The outlet states that 26 roles have been affected as the studio prepares its next project. 

Aftermath cites a former Sucker Punch employee who confirmed the number of layoffs. The outlet also obtained a company email announcing the staff cuts.

“After carefully observing the challenges in the market and reviewing the team needs for our next project, we’ve decided to make some staffing reductions. Several positions across Sucker Punch will be eliminated as a result,” reads a section of the email. Sucker Punch then says it will work to support affected staff in their transition and will share more details next week about what comes next. The studio has not yet publicly commented on the layoffs.

This news comes a few weeks after the release of the Complete Edition of Ghost of Yōtei, which originally launched in 2025 to critical and commercial success. The release coincided with the arrival of two substantial DLCs: the story expansion Echoes of Sekigahara and a roguelike mode called Most Wanted that reintroduces Ghost of Tsushima hero Jin Sakai as a playable character.

[Source: Aftermath]

Phantom Blade Zero is an astounding achievement for the action genre. So astounding that I feel pulled to experience everything it has to offer… and that means instead of rolling credits, I’ve been busy completing story-critical side quests and more to get the most complete ending. That’s another way of saying I am enjoying this game very, very much but still need more time to render a final verdict, which is why you’re reading a review-in-progress of Phantom Blade Zero rather than a scored piece. 

Though I’m not interested in guesstimating a score right now, I know it will be high because Phantom Blade Zero impresses and then some. It is one of the best action games I’ve ever played, and I’m shocked to be writing that. This is a debut of sorts for developer S-Game, which has dabbled in mobile games and smaller-scale titles; it’s the team’s first triple-A release, and its first game of this kind. This studio is so clearly a dedicated student of the genre, analyzing what works here and what works there in other action greats to create something of its own. It looks forward at what action games can do, can play like, can look like, while looking back at the games before it and understanding why those games – games like Devil May Cry, Elden Ring, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Bayonetta, and just about every other quality action game you can think of – continue to be ones we hold so highly. Should it stick the landing, Phantom Blade Zero will join that echelon of action pedigree. 

Protagonist Soul is a quiet, mostly stoic martial arts master who prefers to let his blades (of which there are so, so many) do the talking. The Order he’s sworn his life to betrays him, and, in an effort to right wrongs, he discovers a villainous conspiracy to seize full power of the blood-soaked Chinese martial underground known as Wulin. As a result, puppets, secret sects, powerful god-like creatures, monstrous beasts, and much more prowl Wulin’s various biomes. I haven’t kept count, but there are a massive number of enemies to take down, both standard mob variants and bosses, and the game stays fresh throughout. It’s even fresher when you consider how many weapons you can acquire on Soul’s journey. 

Every weapon is wholly unique, like picking up a new character in a fighting game, each with its own moveset and abilities. Upgrading these weapons through various tiers unlocks additional abilities, and you can even Soul Temper weapons to add one final, game-changing ability or perk. A fully upgraded weapon can have a moveset that uses the majority of buttons on your controller. You can do the same with Phantom Edges, special tide-turning weapons with limited uses (before you build up additional charges). Combined with different accessories and medicine types, Phantom Blade Zero offers hundreds, perhaps thousands, of combat kit permutations. You can play as a drunken fighter who switches between sober, tipsy, and drunken states, with his range and damage output changing as a result; you can focus on a bleed build, ripping enemies to shreds with charged attacks that utilize Soul’s own HP to deal extra damage (that can then be earned back with bleed); you can use lightning, wind, fire, and ice to create elemental storms against enemies, and you can use a sword that switches between different elemental states on command as well. You can also just pound enemies to pulp with Phantom Edge fists, too. I’ve struggled to stop using these fists since acquiring them because they’re so satisfying. 

Forty-plus hours into Phantom Blade Zero, it feels like I’ve played as dozens of different Souls because I’ve discovered so many build types. S-Game smartly pushes you to try new builds and weapons as you get them, doling out generous upgrade materials and currency; it encourages you to try everything, and the next weapon might just become your new favorite. 

Finding these materials (and additional fights) is great fun, too, because Phantom Blade Zero’s various open-area biomes are a genuine joy to explore. You are always rewarded for taking the optional path, and those rewards are always worthwhile. You might find a healthy pile of upgrade materials, or a boss with a weapon you’ll fall in love with. The way buildings, alleys, caves, cliffsides, and other environmental features weave in and out of each other evokes FromSoftware’s architectural design and the subsequent shortcut “aha!” moments. 

That said, Phantom Blade Zero is definitively not a Soulslike, though you’d be forgiven for assuming as much given its challenging suite of bosses, interconnected world, and Phantom Bell checkpoints, which are this game’s equivalent of bonfires. However, its challenge is much more surmountable (with various difficulties and accessories to ease parry and dodge timing), and its world progression is materially different. Kill an enemy and it’s dead for good, which to my surprise, adds a sense of worldbuilding I didn’t know I wanted. Progression through this journey feels tangible because I’m actually removing traces of evil with my weapons, traces that don’t respawn when I interact with checkpoints. It’s a nice change of pace that narratively speaks to Soul’s efforts. 

Phantom Blade Zero In-Game Screenshots:

Along the way, countless reading materials shed light on Phantom Blade Zero’s intertwining stories, and tracking down the next memory, scroll, or book entry rewards you if you’re interested in the full picture of this Wuxia story. I’d argue the game’s story is its weakest element, but only when compared to the rest of the package. It doesn’t break any new ground narratively, but it provides enough mystery and thrill to keep things moving. And while performances are great, talking to characters is still mostly just two people standing across from each other talking through a new quest. Fortunately, cutscenes pick up the slack with dramatic villains, heartfelt revelations, raw tension, and more. 

Production value is high across the board, thanks to incredibly impressive animation and a beautiful rendering of this dark fantasy China. Faces are lifelike, nudging up just shy of the uncanny valley as close-ups reveal porous details, lip quivers, and more, bringing an excellent cast of Chinese performances to life. The English voice acting has its standouts, but Soul’s voice is boring, so I highly recommend the Chinese vocals. 

Boss fights draw clear inspiration from Chinese cinema and boast a wondrous sense of awe and scale that only the best in the genre typically offer. There are a ton of bosses, too, with very few repeats (repeats do happen in segmented challenge trials), and it’s impressive to think back on just how many I defeated, and just how many of them delivered a unique fight. I appreciate the checkpoints between boss phases as well. There are so many bosses – nearing 100 or more if I had to guess – and having my progression saved through phases removes some of the repetition I often feel when, say, phase two of a boss continues to kill me and I have to blitz through phase one again and again before taking another stab at it. 

That scale and on-screen excitement carry through almost every fight in the game, down to even the simplest mob fights, though these are starting to feel a touch repetitive as I’m barreling toward the game’s end. Soul moves like the world’s greatest martial artist, but your controller inputs make it happen. If you mash the attack button, it looks nice… but if you use each weapon’s prescribed inputs and abilities, Phantom Blade Zero delivers a level of detailed action I’ve seen in few other games. You direct the game’s action, and this lets you turn what might otherwise be just another group of fodder enemies into an electric bout of spectacle.

To say I greatly enjoy this game greatly undersells my feelings – writing this review-in-progress is frustrating because I want to get back to Phantom Blade Zero. I expect to reach credits in the coming days, so please be on the lookout for my final verdict this week. 

This week has been home to some disheartening news. BioWare, the creators of games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age, is being shut down amid a flurry of layoffs. It’s another frustrating story from a struggling video game industry. Below you will find some of our stories about the legendary developer, including our massive 2016 oral history. And then after that, you can read about our recommendations of what to play this weekend.

• EA Is Shutting Down Legendary RPG Studio BioWare Amid New Round Of Layoffs
• The Oral History Of BioWare
• A Mass Effect 5 Trailer Featuring Liara Appears To Have Leaked Following BioWare’s Closure
• Amazon’s Mass Effect TV Series Is Reportedly Still In Production Despite BioWare Closure
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 Review – Silver Bullet
• Remedy Explains Control Resonant’s Most Memorable, Unexpected Sequence And Its [REDACTED] Inspirations
   

Final Fantasy Resonance

Matt Miller

I spent the early hours playing Final Fantasy Resonance trying to figure out precisely why I couldn’t put it down. I eventually realized that the game manages in a very purposeful way to answer that quiet need I’ve so frequently had: “I wish I could experience a game just like Final Fantasy IV or VI again, for the first time, but with a new cast and story.” That’s pretty much what you can expect here; Resonance is a very purposeful throwback experience that harkens to the early days of FF pixel adventures, but with several modern conveniences, graphical flourishes, and depth added into the mix. It’s a big and refreshingly wholesome journey of entertaining party members, summoning giant creatures, flying an airship across the world, and fighting turn-based battles that include absurd spell effects. It’s one of my favorite games of the year, and well worth the time it will take to explore. Read our full review for more.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4

Matt Miller

Expect to hear a lot of people proclaiming this as “one of the good ones,” as Modern Warfare came out swinging this week with a strong campaign, compelling additions to competitive multiplayer, and an impressive extraction shooter mode in the form of DMZ. I’ve already been impressed by the first few hours of the campaign, which offers a tense, harrowing, and often disturbingly brutal story that bounces between a number of character perspectives. The gunplay feels tuned in, the traversal and melee is satisfying, and the narrative beats grounded in excellent actin performances. Our reviewer has spent even more time with the full game, and can share their full perspective to help inform whether you want to take a dive into this year’s installment.

Nintendo Switch Sports Resort

Brian Shea

The Nintendo Sports franchise, which began with Wii Sports in 2006, has never been about the single-player experience. That remains true 20 years later in Nintendo Switch Sports Resort. But this time around, Nintendo has boosted the amount of content beyond what the series has typically provided, appealing to all player counts, all while retaining its trademark approachability. Whether you’re joining together with three friends for some friendly competition across the package’s 12 sports or you’re trying to climb the Island Crown ladder by beating increasingly difficult single-player opponents, Switch Sports Resort is a great motion-controlled collection.

Tenebris Somnia

Marcus Stewart

Halloween is around the corner. As you’re buying overpriced candy, deciding which version of the Joker to dress up as, and debating between watching Obsession and Backrooms over a cup of cider, it’s the perfect time to replay old horror games or dive into new ones. 2026 has a solid roster of choices for the latter thanks to releases like Resident Evil Requiem, Paranormasight: The Mermaid’s Curse, and Silent Hill: Townfall, but Tenebris Somnia shouldn’t be overlooked if you’re looking for a cool indie throwback.

Part retro-inspired adventure game, part live-action indie horror film, you’ll uncover the mystery of a nightmare-induced apartment building and battle horrors to rescue your trapped ex. The gameplay is survival horror 101, but it’s executed well, with consistently clever and inventive puzzle-solving as a highlight. It may not be a graphical powerhouse, but Tenebris Somnia still maintains a creepy atmosphere thanks to solid scares partly delivered by effective and well-made live-action cinematics. If you’re going to binge horror films, you may as well play one too. You can read my full review here.

One Piece: Grand Gourmet

Kyle Hilliard

Full disclosure: I have not played One Piece: Grand Gourmet. I was trying to finish up Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse when a review game landed in my lap that I’ve had to give my full attention. That said, I have watched a lot of the One Piece anime, have a cat named Nami, and dog named Luffy. 

Pictured: Luffy having a bad day because he ate one of Nami’s toys when he wasn’t supposed to.

I don’t know if One Piece: Grand Gourmet is any good, but I like the premise and pixel graphics. One Piece is a very malleable franchise (which is why its live action adaptation is pretty good), so the idea of managing a restaurant as Sanji feels like it could be a very good fit. I plan on climbing aboard with all my hopes and dreams soon. And it is out now, which is good to know.

Stupid Never Dies

Kyle Hilliard

Similar to the entry above, I have not yet played Stupid Never Dies yet (there are too many video games!), but we like to use this weekly article to call out the new video games of the week. I am eager to check out Stupid Never Dies primarily because of its pop-punk soundtrack and 2000s aesthetic. I think it has the potential to be a fun, nostalgic throwback to my youth when I was learning Blink-182’s “Dammit” on guitar and playing Devil May Cry.

The Blood Of Dawnwalker Update

Charles Harte

The Blood of Dawnwalker has been out for just over seven weeks now, but I wouldn’t blame you if you haven’t finished it – or even started it – yet. A lot has come out! But if you need a reason to jump back in, this week’s 1.1 update is a great excuse – the devs have added hundreds of bug fixes and other minor improvements, so it should run better than it ever did before. There’s also an even easier difficulty mode if you want to cruise through without worrying about combat, and a new in-game potion that lets you respec all your skill points. I stalled out about halfway through (when I started playing Wolverine), but I’m planning to jump back in this weekend.

Oh, and you can pet dogs and cats now. Maybe I should have led with that.

Peak On Consoles

Marcus Stewart

Multiplayer physics mountain-climbing game Peak became one of the most viral co-op experiences of 2025 (I refuse to use the term friendslop), but only PC players have enjoyed its wacky shenanigans. That changed this week as Peak is now available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Switch 2. Either alone or, preferably, alongside up to three friends, you’ll try to ascend procedurally generated, absurdly unrealistic mountains riddled with dangers. Working together is key, a tricky prospect thanks to the in-game proximity chat that necessitates sticking together, but griefing each other, intentionally or otherwise, is just as entertaining – maddeningly frustrating at times, but entertaining. Peak on consoles includes all post-launch content and, best of all, supports crossplay for all platforms.

Tabletop Pick – Azul Kids

Matt Miller

The original Azul remains one of my all-time favorite games even after many years, but it just misses the bar with its strategic complexity to be one I’d pull out to play with the kids. That why I was especially delighted to find that Azul Kids is one of those rare “adapted for children” projects that turned out extremely well.

Players take on the roll of creative young artists building mosaic displays with various colored tiles. The concept remains simple enough to work for even very young players of age five or six, but the whole family should have fun with the approachable strategy implications of choosing tiles and completing your masterpiece.

This week on The Game Informer Show, special guest Brian Altano joins us to talk about his new venture with two former colleagues, X Button! 

Then, we discuss Switch Sports Resort’s thumb wrestling prowess, the best new horror games to dip into this fall, and mourn the closure of BioWare by Electronic Arts. Grab a cold, or even warm, beverage and settle in. 

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 “BioWare’s Closure Is A Loss For The Whole Industry” on Spreaker.

Follow our hosts and special guests on social media:

• Brian Altano (@brianaltano)
• Alex Van Aken (@itsvanaken)
• Marcus Stewart (@marcusstewart7)
• Charles Harte (@chuckduck365)
• Eric Van Allen (@seamoosi)

Jump around using these timestamps:

• 00:00 – Intro 
• 10:05 – Switch Sports Resort 
• 27:40 – Horror Games 
• 1:15:36 – BioWare Is No More

Please allow the first sentence here to warn you that this interview discusses a portion of Control Resonant that takes place near the end of the game and is arguably the most unexpected and surprising sequence. I encourage you to experience it without spoilers. So if you haven’t beaten the game yet, please do, and then come back to this page.

However, if you have beaten the game, or curiosity has driven you to learn what game has been redacted from the headline and why (it’s the 1995 Super Nintendo RPG, EarthBound, by the way), then please read on.

FULL SPOILERS AHEAD

In the late-game of Control Resonant – basically right before you tackle the final confrontation – the game suddenly shifts timeframe and genre to become a 16-bit RPG. The nostalgic lens turns the game into something that feels like 1995’s EarthBound, complete with turn-based battles, in order to explain the trauma that Jesse and Dylan went through at a young age after they came across an object of power: the slide projector. The whole sequence is funny, heartbreaking, weird, and importantly effective at making you feel you are seeing a part of their past. It was particularly effective on me as I have fond memories of playing EarthBound and games like it when I was young. To see and experience Dylan and Jesse’s childhood this way felt accurate, as absurd as that sounds.

I reached out to Remedy to specifically discuss that portion of the game. You can find the full e-mail interview below with the team members who contributed to its creation.

The big RPG backstory sequence for Jesse and Dylan – why approach the storytelling that way?

Lead level designer, Anne-Marie Grönroos: The basis for the whole sequence is that the Hedron attacks Dylan’s mind, breaks his reality apart, and he has to rebuild himself. We wanted the reality-breaking part to affect the game itself and have the player feel some of the confusion Dylan is feeling by breaking the fourth wall.

Who pitched that sequence, how did they pitch it, and was it difficult to sell to the larger team?

Grönroos: At Remedy, ideas rarely come from a single person or team, and we rarely do formal pitches, but rather discuss and workshop ideas cross-craft until they start taking the shape of something we like. The initial idea from the writer was for this to be a text-based adventure, to return to a very early form of a video game to show that the Patterning is devolving him, but an Alan Wake 2 DLC had already done that, and we wanted to find something else.

Independently, some months ago a level designer had suggested a sidequest with JRPG pixel graphics, but that had gone nowhere. I remembered that and suggested doing an old Final Fantasy-style JRPG here, which also felt more fitting since that’s the type of game Dylan and Jesse would have played in their childhood, and not a text-based adventure. People got excited about that, and after some concerns about feasibility, we went forth with it. It helped that the level designer who had originally wanted to do the JRPG side quest is a big fan of these types of games and has made them before. I wouldn’t have dropped something this crazy on someone who wasn’t passionate about it and ready to figure out how to do it with our engine that’s not built for anything like this.

Young Jesse and Dylan as they appear in the sequence

Is EarthBound (Mother in Japan) the primary inspiration for that sequence? Are there big fans of those games at Remedy?

Senior level designer in charge of the JRPG quest, Arhi Makkonen:
The whole Quest was born from that childhood feeling I had when playing old JRPGs – Final Fantasy, Breath of Fire, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Bahamut Lagoon, and yes, Mother. The most important thing for me was capturing that feeling of a time when games felt like magic. I think many people can relate to that nostalgia, and now Jesse and Dylan share that feeling in the game.

Visually, Mother was a major inspiration of course. Juuso Anttila is the concept artist who did all the splendid pixel art for Rebuild quest. Mother’s style fits the mysterious Americana small town vibe perfectly. We also couldn’t pass up the pun about a story revolving around “Not-Mother” that was made in the style of Mother.

Was it difficult to implement the sequence into the game? Did Remedy’s Northlight Engine need significant work to account for the sequence?

Makkonen: The Northlight engine was designed to work perfectly for third-person action games. Well, Rebuild Quest is pretty much the opposite of that. Northlight is a specialized tool rather than a general-purpose one, so we had to come up with some rather creative solutions to create a 2D JRPG.

First of all, we’re faking the 2D look. In reality, the entire JRPG Ordinary exists within a 3D world that the camera simply views from directly overhead. It occupies a tiny patch in a remote corner of the game world—a space where 3D Dylan would barely have room to stand. The entire game-within-a-game is written in Lua; our incredibly versatile game designer, Tommi Saalasti, created the underlying system, upon which I was then able to build the story.

Since we didn’t really have the tools to create a game like this, I had to hand-code every single detail. Dylan takes one step up, Dylan turns left (where Jesse hopefully is at that moment), text box 1, text box 2. The Lua script for the Rebuild quest alone probably contains as many lines of code as all the other quests in the game combined. And then there were things like animations were restricted to a maximum of two frames, and some UI elements were created using static particle effects.

So yes, we faced all sorts of challenges and compromises, but at the heart of it all was a wonderful story – simply told in a somewhat unconventional way. We trusted that the narrative would make up for some of the imperfections.

Everyone’s favorite FBC janitor Ahti has a cameo appearance in the sequence

Remedy has a reputation for big unexpected and often crazy singular moments. What are the conversations like around delivering those? In pre-production, are there conversations like, “What is the big moment for this one?” Or do they happen pretty naturally?

Grönroos: They both happen naturally and we also have conversations about what the big moments should be. Sometimes we like a section so much that we decide to put even more resources and importance to it, even if it wasn’t supposed to be all that important from the get-go. The Into the Sinkhole quest, for instance, is a quest that wasn’t planned to be a “tentpole moment” from the start, but we kept putting more effort into it when it was shaping up to be something very special.

But most setpieces in the game were planned to be such from the early stages of pre-production. In Resonant, we wanted to have multiple standout moments instead of a single sequence like the Ashtray Maze overshadowing everything else, and I’m happy to see that players have different favorites.

And a different approach from Control is that several of these memorable moments (Sinkhole, Underpass Fault, the JRPG section) are more emotional and subdued instead of bombastic action (although we also have big action setpieces), which was an interesting challenge itself.

Was there a fear that the visuals would limit the emotional impact of the sequence?

Grönroos: Yes, but we decided to trust the writing. Several other games have managed to deliver a similar emotional impact despite pixel graphics (and sometimes because of them, since the level [of] abstraction can make characters more relatable and up to the player’s interpretation), so we weren’t too concerned.

Was there a fear that action game fans would be frustrated by the RPG sequence?

Grönroos: Yes, this was the main concern about the sequence. It was a very polarizing sequence in the playtests: people either loved or hated it. We did discuss shortening it significantly, but in the end decided to keep it as it is but added some fast travel options and make some parts skippable. There were more fans than haters, and we didn’t want to sacrifice something we really enjoyed.

How concerned were you about the actual RPG mechanics of that sequence?

Makkonen: Since Rebuild doesn’t feature a vast number of battles, we didn’t need to build particularly deep RPG or progression systems. The combat served as an additional storytelling tool – illustrating how bullies torment Dylan, showing his first fight (against rats, naturally), and depicting his eventual abduction by the FBC.

Refining the combat to be simple, yet offer the player meaningful choices required a few iterations. In addition to standard attacks, the children can occasionally use special abilities: Dylan delivers a heavy blow to a single enemy, while Jesse fires at everyone. Enemies deal enough damage that defending becomes necessary when multiple foes target the same character.

The lightbulbs in The Underpass mission goes in similarly unexpected, animated directions. How did that mission come about? What was the pitch like for that one?

Grönroos: That one started with the idea of doing something comically mundane, switching lightbulbs, and adding a paranatural twist to it. The cartoon man wasn’t in the initial version, but instead we were going to do live action videos and have Dylan get stuck in that video as the end twist. They were supposed to be old-fashioned “work safety” videos explaining how to change lightbulbs, and as the quest went on, it became more and more obvious that the maintenance guy in the videos was too aware of what Dylan was doing. This all came out from a one-hour workshop.

There wasn’t really a pitch, but rather a back-and-forth like “could we do a quest about Dylan changing lightbulbs in a ritualistic way? We could have these sentient work safety videos explain how to do it and “Dylan could get trapped inside the video.” Much later, when the live action turned out to be a no-go, we pivoted to the current cartoon instead, and that was even funnier than our initial idea.

To read Game Informer‘s review of Control Resonant, follow the link.

EA shut down legendary RPG developer BioWare this week, canceling its in-development fifth Mass Effect game as a result. Despite the closure, Amazon Prime’s upcoming Mass Effect streaming series will proceed as planned, according to a report by IGN.

Amazon MGM Studios began developing a Mass Effect series in 2024. At the time, Mass Effect series executive producer Mike Gamble confirmed the show isn’t a retelling of the video games, saying, “The show will explore a brand-new story within the universe’s timeline, and will be set after the original trilogy. It won’t be a retread of Commander Shepard’s story – because after all… that’s YOUR story, isn’t it?” 

With BioWare’s closure, one would think the series would go up in smoke, but sources within Prime Video speaking to IGN confirmed that it remains in development. Furthermore, all of the creatives involved remain so. This includes showrunners Doug Jung (The Cloverfield Paradox, Star Trek Beyond) and Daniel Casey (F9: The Fast Saga, Wardriver), former Marvel Studios head Avi Arad, and Jessica Jones executive producer Karim Zreik. Mike Gamble was also involved, and this report suggests he still is, but it remains to be seen how his position on the project has changed with BioWare’s demise, given he served as a guiding voice from the studio. The Mass Effect series has no release window. 

The Mass Effect series joins other video game adaptations Amazon has in the works, which include a third season of Fallout (with Aaron Paul joining the cast), a live-action God of War series starring Dave Bautista, a live-action Tomb Raider series starring Sophie Turner, as well as series based on Life is Strange and Wolfenstein. 

For more on Mass Effect, check out our review of the Legendary Edition and our recently republished Oral History of BioWare from 2016. 

[Source: IGN]