Month: September 2026

Ace Attorney fans have been hoping for the announcement of a new entry for many years now, but today, we got a surprise instead. Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies VR is a virtual reality version of the fifth mainline game in Capcom’s lawyer-themed adventure series, and it’s coming to Meta platforms next year. You can watch the reveal trailer below.

This port gives Dual Destinies a more hands-on approach, allowing players to pick up evidence to inspect, examine environments for clues in first person, and use gestures and voice commands during cross-examinations: You can literally yell “Objection!” to object to a witness’ contradiction. You don’t physically inhabit the protagonist 100% of the time, however – dialogue during trials still involves seeing characters in third person, meaning you’ll still get to see Apollo, Phoenix, and Athena’s over-the-top animations. 

According to the game’s store page, it will come to Meta Quest 3S, Meta Quest 3, Meta Quest Pro, Meta Quest 2, and Meta Quest, though developer Amata K.K.’s description of the game omits the original Meta Quest from that lineup. It drops sometime in 2027.

 

Personally, I find this to be an odd move for the series. Capcom has been generous and thorough with its HD collections of the older Ace Attorney titles. After the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection dropped in 2024, the only remaining Phoenix Wright adventure you couldn’t play on modern platforms was his crossover with Professor Layton. As such, it seemed like the only next step was a brand new entry, so a VR adaptation is particularly surprising. 

Ace Attorney also isn’t a series that needs to be a VR title. As fun as it might be to yell “Objection” every couple of minutes during a cross-examination, the vast majority of gameplay is non-voiced dialogue. Unlike the highest quality VR games, which work best in short bursts, Ace Attorney games are long, and wearing a headset just to mostly read text for a few hours doesn’t sound appealing. 

Finally, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies is my least favorite Ace Attorney game, but I understand why it was their pick here. It’s the series’ fifth entry, but it was the first foray into 3D, so it’s the earliest release that could be reasonably set in VR. You can play it without playing prior titles, but I’d always recommend the original trilogy’s HD collection over this one.

The best game to get the VR adaptation would have been The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, as it’s a better standalone adventure and it’s been longer since that game’s release (2021) compared to the HD re-release of Dual Destinies, which dropped in 2024’s Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy. But even though The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles is a better game, Dual Destinies is shorter and has more of the series’ iconic characters, so it’s a more reasonable first project.

The silver lining is that Capcom is neither developing nor publishing this game (that’s all being done by Amata K.K.), so there’s a decent chance Ace Attorney 7 is still in the works – the development team won’t be preoccupied with finishing this VR title first. Maybe this VR version will drastically change my opinion of Dual Destinies, but it’s unlikely. I’ll find out when the game drops sometime next year. 

Control Resonant launches today, and the game’s first update will address one of its biggest pre-release criticisms: its enemies take too long to defeat, and protagonist Dylan Faden feels too weak. While early access players and reviewers, including us, had to endure a much harder game in the weeks before release, the wider player base will likely have a smoother ride thanks to this hotfix.

Developer Remedy Entertainment has announced in a blog post that after reading reviews (which have overall been very positive despite the combat critiques), and early player impressions, “we have decided to deploy a hotfix (1.3.3) at launch to address a few specific things: enemy health pools feeling too high, requiring too many hits to Falter (stun) enemies for executions, and Dylan’s overall combat strength early on in the game not feeling powerful enough (even if the man just woke up from a coma).”

To improve the combat flow and overall experience, the launch update will do the following:

• Reduce the base health and required Falter (stun) level of most enemies, as well as the Dancer and Deserter bosses
• Increase maximum Aberrant Strength and maximum Ability Strength
• These strength increases follow a curve, with progressively larger increases towards the end. The more upgrades you have, the more damage you deal.

The patch will also lower the cost of respeccing the ability tree, and vendors will also carry more stock of the special resource required to respec. A UI text update aims to better explain Build Power and Aberrant (Dylan’s primary weapon) strength. This will take the following forms;

• Aberrant Strength: “Multiplier X%” will now be: “Damage and Falter X%”.
• Build Power: “Calculated based on equipped Weapon Forms, Talents and Core Upgrades.” will now be: “From unlocked Combat Abilities, Aberrant forms/upgrades, Talents, and Core Upgrades.”

Remedy promises to continue working on other known issues in Control Resonant as players begin diving into the sequel today. Overall, despite some combat headaches, we enjoyed Control Resonant quite a bit, scoring it an 8.5 out of 10. Be sure to read our full review. 

The release of Sonic Mania in 2017 signaled to many fans that Sega and the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise were listening to fans. Announced as part of the series’ 25th anniversary in 2016, the title was developed as a collaboration between Sonic Team and a group of independent developers led by designer Christian Whitehead. Following the release and subsequent overwhelming acclaim of Sonic Mania and its upgraded version, Sonic Mania Plus, Sonic Team entered into conversations with Evening Star, the studio founded by Whitehead and several other members of the Sonic Mania dev team in 2018, but despite getting into the prototyping phase, that sequel never happened. 

In 2023, a Sonic Mania sequel felt like a distant hope, as Evening Star announced its own platformer, Penny’s Big Breakaway, while Sega released its next 2D Sonic game, Sonic Superstars, which was developed in collaboration with Sonic co-creator Naoto Ohshima’s studio, Arzest. When I broached the Sonic Mania 2 topic with Iizuka a few years ago, he confirmed that those initial conversations occurred with Evening Star. “There was a period after the development of Sonic Mania when we worked with them to consider concepts for the next generation of Classic Sonic,” Iizuka said in 2023. “It’s too bad that it didn’t become a finished game. Still, I’m pleased that the next generation of Classic Sonic that we talked about with them has been achieved with Superstars.”

Sonic Superstars

Iizuka mentions that he wanted to go a different route with Mania’s successor, instead relying on 3D models instead of pixel-art graphics to appeal to a wider audience. Whitehead, for his part, backed up Iizuka’s retelling of the events. “When we started Evening Star, it was always our goal to move beyond 2D pixel art into 3D games, and develop all-new, original IP,” he says. “Evening Star did work with Sega to explore possible directions Classic Sonic could go after the success of Sonic Mania. Sonic Mania 2 was never in development, though, because we actually agreed early on that we should try to make something fresh, like hand-drawn 2D or 2.5D. At the same time, Evening Star was developing our new Star Engine, so we also ended up making a cool Sonic prototype that played with depth in 2.5D, and some other gameplay ideas. As Iizuka-san said, though, [Evening Star] did not continue to full production on the game, at which point Arzest took the helm and made Superstars alongside Sonic Team. We moved forward with our plans to develop an original 3D title, which is, of course, Penny’s Big Breakaway!”

Now, three years following that conversation, Sonic Team is collaborating with TecoPark for Sonic Pico Park, releasing this November. When I ask Iizuka what he looks for when selecting a development partner, he says studios and developers that can fill gaps where Sonic Team isn’t as skilled or experienced are an important factor. “Sonic Team is really proficient at making action games; they make action game after action game,” Iizuka says. “The Pico Park team, they’re really good at making that action-puzzle format. That’s something Sonic Team has never made before, so I wouldn’t want to say, ‘Hey, Sonic Team! Go make an action-puzzle game.’ But the Pico Park team, they’re really good at doing it.”

Sonic Mania

With Sonic Mania perhaps the strongest example of a project Sonic Team worked on collaboratively, it was natural to steer the conversation toward an update on the potential of Sonic Mania 2. While it isn’t planned at the moment, Iizuka doesn’t think the door is completely shut. “We’re still really close with them,” he says. “We’ve gone out eating and drinking with them because relationships are important to us. They also have a lot of projects that they’re working on for what they want to do and what their business needs are. We don’t have anything to talk about now, but there’s definitely a desire to want to work with them again, and we think they could make a great game. It’s not off the books yet, but it’s not something that’s moving forward currently.”

I reached out to Evening Star chief technology officer Hunter Bridges to ask his reaction to the quote. To my surprise, he had already seen the quote from Iizuka when he read it in the latest issue of Game Informer. After reading it, he emailed Iizuka with the subject line “Eating and Drinking” (referring to his quote) to try to set up some time to do just that while Iizuka was in town for Tokyo Game Show 2026. Unfortunately, the timing didn’t work out for Bridges and Iizuka to meet up in Tokyo this month.

“It’s as he says, though, we have a good relationship with Sega and keep in touch,” Bridges tells me. “We are working on something exciting right now, but it’s not Sonic this time. But if the right opportunity lines up on both sides, we’d be happy to make another great Sonic game. Whether that would be Mania 2 is up for debate; we are an ambitious team!” 

Sonic Mania released in 2017 to widespread critical acclaim, earning an 86 on reviews aggregator Metacritic, including an 8.5 from Game Informer. Neither Sonic Superstars nor Penny’s Big Breakaway reached the same level of acclaim, earning a 73 and 74, respectively, including a 7.5 for Superstars and a 7 for Penny’s Big Breakaway from Game Informer. Neither Sonic Team nor Evening Star has publicly announced their next project, though Iizuka recently told 4Gamer that he wants to continue evolving both the 2D and 3D sides of Sonic.

Platform:

Publisher:
Bloober Team

Developer:
Broken Mirror Games

Rating:
Teen

Bloober Team has been on a hot streak lately, bringing Silent Hill back into the positive-convo zeitgeist with its Silent Hill 2 remake in 2024, followed by another survival-horror hit last year, Cronos: The New Dawn (which is getting an action-focused DLC called Lazarus this year, too). All of this is on the heels of other Bloober games like The Medium and the team’s original Layers of Fear series. Regardless of how you feel about the Poland-based studio’s horror output, you can’t deny it stays busy, so it came as no surprise to see yet another new Bloober game revealed during a Nintendo Direct earlier this month. 

Dubbed Onyx: The Dark Grip, this 2.5D “dark adventure” game is launching exclusively on Nintendo Switch 2 sometime next year. After speaking with Bloober’s senior brand manager Dawid Podgorski, I’m convinced this is one of the most Nintendo-sounding games hitting the console in 2027, and that’s courtesy of a suite of console-specific gestures and mechanics that remind me of the Wii and DS era.  

Bloober Team CEO Piotr Babieno started selling Nintendo games at a local game shop 15 to 20 years ago, becoming one of the first to do so in Poland, where Nintendo hardware and software had barely entered the market. Babieno even organized the first Nintendo fan convention in Poland during the GameCube era, “so we’ve always had an idea to make something specifically for Nintendo,” Podgorski tells me, explaining Bloober’s Nintendo history. 

Podgorski works for Bloober, but Onyx: The Dark Grip is actually in development at the studio’s subsidiary Broken Mirror Games, which Podgorski says Bloober uses to “make a game we cannot make on our own.” Broken Mirror Games consists of Bloober specialists and external devs – it’s also behind the upcoming 3v1 asymmetrical horror game Saw: Genesis. Onyx: The Dark Grip could only exist as a Switch 2 exclusive, Podgorski explains, and that much is very clear after my quick 20-minute meeting. 

“Survive as the Vessel, Intervene as the Player” is the slideshow pitch for Onyx: The Dark Grip, and that’s because you possess Holden, a “regular guy” human whom you, as a god-like creature, need to find something. Onyx: The Dark Grip is set in a small, isolated town gripped by a relentless winter, based on Poland’s real-world Bieruń. However, curiously, Holden doesn’t know he’s possessed – he only feels that he needs to keep going (to where you drive him to) but has no idea why. 

The game has been in development for three years and is an homage to classic Nintendo consoles and experiences found on the Wii and DS and other consoles like the PlayStation Vita, all of which uniquely took advantage of what the consoles could do. As the Vessel – Holden – you will explore the town, solve puzzles, and fight using melee and ranged attacks. Podgorski stops short of calling it a full-on horror game, instead calling it a “dark adventure” experience, but the reveal trailer suggests Onyx: The Dark Grip will, at the very least, be spooky. As the god, you will manipulate reality to accomplish what you need using Holden, and that’s where all the Nintendo-sounding things happen.

Players will use god-like powers to move things in Holden’s world, allowing him to progress forward; you will touch the screen with both thumbs to act as an electrical conductor for the generator Holden is interacting with in the game; you will have to whistle and blow into the microphone to make Holden warmer when he gets cold; and when Holden’s mental health is afflicted by terror and fear, moths will cover the screen, and you will need to swipe those away to clear the screen and Holden’s headspace. 

You can even read NPC minds as a god and put your own thoughts into their brains. Plus, you can use what is essentially a “Talk With The Dead” spell to learn key information from corpses in the town, and you can also swipe the screen to throw fireballs and start fires with sparks. Podgorski says your “Void” ability also lets you crush enemies emerging from beyond by tilting the Switch 2 back and forth using the built-in gyroscope. 

Podgorski emphasizes that you are not playing as the character on the screen, but as yourself too – the god of Holden’s world. And, like you with a Switch 2 in hand, Onyx: The Dark Grip’s god, as it were, will play with Holden’s world like a handheld game device, metaphorically. “Everything happening there is there, and you can intervene, but you are not there,” Podgorski tells me about Holden’s world. 

Inspirations for Onyx: The Dark Grip include Eternal Darkness (horror that breaks the fourth wall), Silent Hill (psychological instability and perception horror), Inside (2.5D cinematic clarity and restraint), Resident Evil 2 (pressure and pacing), and True Detective: Night Country (winter isolation and grounded dread). Polish composer and multi-instrumentalist Jan Borysewicz will back the adventure with a score recorded with the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. 

That’s a lot to be excited about for Onyx: The Dark Grip, but I didn’t get to see the game in action; I only learned these things from Bloober’s senior brand manager (a point Podgorski acknowledged). That said, the premise is enough to keep it on my radar as we head into 2027. The more games that remind me of the Vita, Wii, and DS era, the better, and Onyx: The Dark Grip seems set on doing just that. 

Reviewed on:
PlayStation 5

Platform:
PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC, Mac

Publisher:
Remedy Entertainment

Developer:
Remedy Entertainment

Release:
September 24, 2026

The more things change in Control Resonant, the more of it retains the best traits of its predecessor, Control. An endearing new protagonist, Dylan Faden, joins several of the memorable allies that assisted his older sister, Jesse, in her 2019 adventure. Every new high-flying melee battle is complemented by the same fascinatingly bizarre stories centered around supernatural mundane objects, interdimensional entities, and the FBC’s strange bureaucracy that made the first game such a fun world to unravel. And like the game before it, Control Resonant’s storytelling highs are sometimes dampened by some design headaches. But even when Control Resonant stumbles (and at times frustrates), its world and story drew me back in, further cementing it as one of my favorite universes in gaming.

Seven years after FBC director Jesse Faden sealed the Hiss – along with herself, her allies, and many FBC employees – within the bureau’s headquarters, the Oldest House, a new, more devastating paranatural occurrence has bled beyond its walls. Manhattan has been distorted into a mind-bending version of itself that threatens the very fabric of reality. That the Hiss has escaped into the city and possessed many citizens who weren’t lucky enough to evacuate doesn’t help. Jesse has mysteriously left the FBC, leaving her supernaturally gifted and long-imprisoned brother, Dylan, to pick up the pieces. Thankfully, for a guy who spent years in a coma, he does a great job walking in his sister’s sizable shoes.

After he played the role of the possessed and tortured damsel in distress in Control, I’m impressed by how likable Dylan is in Resonant. His awkward, socially inept earnestness and drive to atone for past sins make him a softer and sympathetic lead – a nice juxtaposition of his power that causes many to vilify him as a monster – and I especially love his dynamic with his charismatic FBC handler Zoe De Veras. The duo’s entertaining choice-driven banter adds weight, levity, and humor to a wild story. I also enjoyed being reacquainted with returning favorites such as obsessed scientist Emily Pope and altered item supervisor Frederick Langston. I always looked forward to receiving a new message from someone or visiting them to learn details about the seven-year lockdown, Jesse’s hypothetical fate, and the evolving state of New York.

Cool moments, including surprising and even heartbreaking revelations, plus a few left-field mechanical and visual twists, prop up an overall strong narrative. Fascinating, often meaty sidequests also make good use of Resonant’s premise: ordinary citizens experiencing the paranatural for the first time. I was delightfully surprised by the variety of stories and gameplay in missions involving singing along with a malevolent karaoke machine, escaping a taxi-filled pocket dimension by solving “spot the difference” visual puzzles, or chasing down an FBC employee’s temperamental supernatural pet.

Exploring Manhattan’s open hubs for longer mission strings, such as uncovering a secret organization’s activities and completing abandoned FBC experiments, made me excited to bust into every identically designed laundromat, apartment building, and cafe. Unfortunately, these quests are accompanied by lesser, repetitive tasks like escorting trapped rangers or fending off enemy waves to protect assets. In a game with such well-crafted missions, these paper-thin tasks feel out of place and like obligatory additions to pad out the world. Thankfully, you can ignore these lesser jobs to little consequence, but you shouldn’t overlook every optional diversion, and not just because they’re largely good.  

Control Resonant doesn’t politely suggest you complete its quests; it sternly demands compliance. Doing so strengthens you enough to survive the often overwhelming character-action-style melee combat encounters. Dylan wields a transforming weapon called the Aberrant, a fun upgradable tool that can morph into a one-handed axe, dual sword-like weapons, or a two-handed scythe. Each is entertaining in its own way and is accompanied by less fun, semi-useful sidearms, like a heavy axe or a weirdly sluggish whip. While the side weapons don’t feel as good or as powerful to handle, combo finishers add nice exclamation points to the otherwise basic attack combos. I like rocking foes with a barrage of reinforced punches, slicing them with a hovering spinning blade, or knocking them back using a giant glaive-like weapon. The unexpected star of combat may be Dylan’s swift perfect dodge, which always feels great to execute and chain into an attack.

Combat begins basic and repetitive but becomes more mechanically interesting and strategic as you unlock new supernatural abilities. Igniting foes with explosive fire attacks, poisoning them using rapid-fire mold spores, summoning abstract entities to fight alongside Dylan, or simply force-pushing enemies into hazards and off ledges helps spice up the basic attack strings. Mastering these tools matters because Control Resonant can be an infuriatingly challenging game. Enemies often level alongside you, meaning you rarely overpower them. Unfortunately, this often means chipping away at sturdy health bars in large, wave-based battles that usually last longer than necessary. I’m also lukewarm on Resonant’s system of killing big enemies to win fights, as smaller foes respawn non-stop until their larger counterparts fall. While it adds enjoyable intensity at times, it can also make more challenging battles feel like lengthy wars of attrition. As powerful as Dylan is, I wish Control Resonant’s balancing eased up more often so I could fully experience the power fantasy it tries to present.

Boss battles against disturbingly distorted humans called Resonants offer entertaining, more evenly designed tests. I also appreciate how Remedy shook up encounters by introducing enemy types besides just variations of the Hiss, such as mold monsters and another faction I won’t spoil. While battles still eventually fall into repetitive territory due to how often you fight bands of baddies roaming Manhattan, at least there’s a deeper enemy pool to wade through.

 

Despite being set in an open Manhattan, its structure resembles the Oldest House in the first game in that you must learn abilities and gain keys to access areas and expedite travel. The path to an objective isn’t always obvious, requiring careful observation to find obscure openings, but fun abilities like warping to rooftops or hovering across large distances make getting around a blast. Mind-bending imagery makes Manhattan feel like a surrealist painting in some spots and a sci-fi novel’s cover art in others, adding nice visual variety beyond standard cityscapes. However, navigating visually trippier areas that you can approach from multiple angles can be a tricky, headache-inducing proposition.

Despite my annoyances, they always faded as I bolted toward the next story mission or mysterious question mark on the map. Depending on how much you engage with Control Resonant’s offerings, it will either be an oppressive action game with great narrative beats and presentation or just a pretty tough action game with all the worldbuilding fixins. Remedy mostly nails its first attempt at stylish action, but the misses are apparent and disappointing. The remaining package has me eager to uncover every remaining secret even after rolling credits. As someone most excited to be awash in Control’s lore again, I’m glad that aspect of this sequel resonates most effectively.

Score:
8.5

About Game Informer’s review system

One of the bigger additions to Square Enix’s Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy in the upcoming finale, Revelation, is the FITS system. This Function-Integrated Tactical Suitwear system allows players to spec Cloud and friends into four different “types,” which are basically jobs. There’s Warrior, Knight, Black Mage, and Summoner. The feature adds additional customization to Revelation’s already feature-packed combat (which also adds two new party members with Cid Highwind and Vincent Valentine), but it also changes how a party member is dressed. After going hands-on with Final Fantasy VII Revelation’s first chapter during Tokyo Game Show last week – read my preview here – I asked director Naoki Hamaguchi if players can still wear the team’s classic outfits. 

While I enjoy different costumes and outfits in games, if there is a canon outfit, I always prefer to wear it during big story moments. When fighting Sephiroth, I want Cloud wearing his classic Soldier gear – not the flowing dress outfit associated with a FITS type like the Black Mage, for example. Hamaguchi quickly quells my fears, telling me, “That was really important for us to keep.” 

“There are, of course, players who want to use all these different classes, but still want to keep Cloud and his signature look,” Hamaguchi says, explaining that this option will be available from the jump. 

It’s not quite clear whether it’s an official transmog system or just an option to turn FITS looks on/off, but it’s still great to hear I can take a Black Mage Cloud into a fight against Sephiroth while still wearing Cloud’s trademark Soldier gear. 

Final Fantasy VII Revelation hits PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, and PC next year on April 8. 

In the meantime, read my Final Fantasy VII Revelation – Chapter 4 preview, and then check out my Final Fantasy VII Revelation – Chapter 1 preview. After that, read about how Final Fantasy VII Revelation will have four different performance modes on PS5 Pro. 

I got hands-on with Final Fantasy VII Revelation at Tokyo Game Show last week, playing about 25 minutes of the game’s first chapter. You can read more about my experience during that preview here, including what’s happening narratively and my thoughts on the game’s FITS system, but I also spoke with Revelation director Naoki Hamaguchi about the PlayStation 5 Pro’s graphics settings available in this build. Before hopping into the game, I paged through the visual settings and noticed “Quality,” “Performance – Sharp,” and “Performance – Soft.” 

It’s clear Quality mode aims for the highest resolution and might run at a locked 30 FPS (though I couldn’t confirm that during my preview). The Performance – Sharp and Performance – Soft return from post-launch Final Fantasy VII Rebirth support, giving players options for how they want to experience 60 FPS gameplay on PS5 Pro. Similar to Rebirth, Revelation’s Performance – Smooth features a 60 FPS framerate with smoother, or softer, image quality, while Performance – Sharp features a 60 FPS framerate with sharper image quality. As for what that will look like in the final game, more testing beyond a 25-minute demo is needed, but the game was beautiful when I played it and ran at a consistent 60 FPS. 

Hamaguchi tells me players will see differences between these modes in things like hair, environmental detailing, shading, and more, however. 

On X during TGS, Hamaguchi posted that the PS5 Pro will leverage PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) to deliver a mode that features both 4K image quality and 60 FPS gameplay, though he didn’t say what it’s called. Unfortunately, I can’t recall seeing this option in the game’s settings – blame it on TGS memory or perhaps it wasn’t available in this preview build.

I should note that, because this build was playable on PS5 Pro, there’s no word on which of these modes, if any, will be available on base PS5, but if it’s like Rebirth, all three, sans the PSSR mode, will be playable. 

Final Fantasy VII Revelation launches on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, and PC on April 8, 2027. 

Platform:
PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC

Publisher:
Square Enix

Developer:
Square Enix

Release:
April 8, 2027

I played roughly 45 minutes of Final Fantasy VII Revelation during Gamescom 2026 back in August, and though the remake series’ prior two entries kept my excitement alive, I walked away from that demo disappointed. Set during Revelation’s fourth chapter, it was overwhelming, aimless, and lacking the moments that made Final Fantasy VII Remake and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth so thrilling, all while doubling down on the latter’s worst aspect: an overwhelming amount of content. I’m all for open-world games stuffed to the brim with things to do, especially in an economy where being a gamer is more expensive than ever, but I was hoping my first taste with Revelation would feature some of the stakes, mystery, and “Hey, the world is ending very soon” combat urgency I expect of this impending finale. While the Chapter 4 Gamescom demo didn’t, I’m happy to report that my second go at playing Revelation, this time during Tokyo Game Show last week, is exactly what I was looking for. 

I check into the incredible Final Fantasy VII Revelation booth, complete with multiple photo opps, including one that allows you to embrace your true Aerith, moments away from a certain backstab (my rendition is below – and don’t worry, it will haunt me forever that I got my hands wrong for the photo). I follow a Square Enix representative into a closed-off area buzzing with PlayStation 5 Pro consoles enclosed within walls featuring anti-Shinra posters celebrating the cast of Revelation. I’m given a Red Bull, Tifa’s drink of choice, I imagine, and a 25-minute timer is placed beside me. It begins counting down without warning, so I put a headset on, grab the DualSense, and jump in. 

This demo takes place in Chapter 1, which sees Cloud, Tifa, Barret, Red XIII (or Nanaki as he’s now called), Yuffie, Cait Sith, Cid, and Vincent Valentine exploring the mysterious Northern Crater. This crater is where a meteor crashed into the planet thousands of years ago. The series’ trademark green spiritual energy swirls about, knocking the party around and bringing various black-robed figures walking about to their knees. Everyone is confused, especially Cloud, who is suffering from debilitating migraines that bring his progress to a halt; he’s also seeing visions of Sephiroth asking him for his Soldier number, which should be on Cloud’s bicep/shoulder but isn’t for… reasons. Of the party, Tifa recognizes that something is seriously wrong with Cloud but hopes that advancing to the crater’s core could make things right. There are some other story implications here, but I’ll keep those to myself for now; if you know, you know. 

Specifically, the party is working its way through the Whirlwind Maze section of the Northern Crater, where Sephiroth awaits their arrival. 

“The point of the two demos [the Gamescom Chapter 4 demo and the Tokyo Game Show Chapter 1 demo] is very different,” Revelation director Naoki Hamaguchi tells me on the show floor, as we’re tucked not far from a public bathroom to avoid the loud chaos of the event hall. “So with the last demo, we really drop you into the halfway point, and there’s just so much to do. And rather than focus on one specific thing, it was this idea that you have so much to do, and so much to fill your time with. People say it was sort of difficult to figure out what to do, but that’s almost the point of it, really. For this demo, it’s just 20 minutes; it’s solid; it’s focused; it’s about the story; it’s very focused on its purpose.” 

Beyond these narrative elements, this 25-minute Chapter 1 demo gives me a feel for Revelation’s combat and the new FITS (Function-Integrated Tactical Suitwear) system, which lets party members spec into different classes. There are four specializations overall: Warrior, Knight, Black Mage, and Summoner. In this demo, for example, Cloud uses the Summoner fit, which lets me summon Ifrit, Titan, and more. Meanwhile, Tifa is a Black Mage, so instead of the usual fist-throwing, I’m using heavy-damage spells to take down enemies made up of creatures that call the Whirlwind Maze home, like serpents, quadruped animals, and more. I dabble in combat with Cloud and Tifa before settling into Vincent’s kit, and after roughly 15 minutes playing as everyone’s favorite vampire, I struggle to see myself not relying on him heavily in Revelation. 

As regular ol’ Vincent, you use guns and a bunch of flips to damage enemies, and it feels great. It’s like a mix of Barret and Yuffie, but he can also freely transform into a monster by pressing R1. In this form, charging around the arena is easy and powerful, and this beast form emphasizes quick stagger abilities, a blessing in Revelation’s crowded battlefields. You can technically stay in this form as long as you’d like, but Vincent’s Chaos level rises the longer he does, reducing his HP. This creates a nice risk-vs.-reward tradeoff between beastly power and HP that I enjoy strategizing around. 

My demo closes with a fight against Jenova Death, a massive, twisted creature of flames, tentacles, pustulation, and chaos. It’s a huge boss fight, but before I can lay waste to it for good, my timer goes off, and the demo is over. 

Unlike my time playing Revelation at Gamescom, which left me exhausted after just 30 minutes, I leave this Tokyo Game Show reinvigorated by Square Enix’s vision for this remake trilogy. With Revelation launching April 8, there’s not much time left, but I look forward to the team further pulling back the curtain on what awaits Cloud and Co. in this finale. 

The Sonic the Hedgehog franchise turned 35 years old this past summer, and to mark the occasion, iam8bit is hosting a special 35 Years of Speed: The Sonic Art Exhibit across Seattle and Los Angeles this month. While the Seattle edition occurred earlier this month, it arrives in Los Angeles at ARK/8 this weekend. To mark the occasion, we sat down with longtime character artist and director for the Sonic series, Kazuyuki Hoshino, to discuss the exhibit and Sonic’s evolution over the years.

The event, set to take place in Los Angeles this weekend, features original art from more than 30 artists and aims to create a “fan-built visual compilation of the Sonic Universe” by telling Sonic’s story through key scenes reimagined by the artists. The artist submissions were selected via criteria that equally weighed theme adherence, creativity and originality, technique and execution, and visual and emotional impact. 

“Everybody knows that it’s Sonic’s 35th anniversary, and because of that, there are various histories of Sonic, and a lot of people throughout the ages who have enjoyed Sonic,” Hoshino says. “This gallery is our way of showcasing his history and everything. There’s a lot of obvious Sonic fandom and there are a myriad of talented creators that I’ve worked with in the past, so this gallery is to showcase the various arts by all of these creators and artists to celebrate Sonic.”

Kazuyuki Hoshino

Hoshino joined Sega in 1991, right as the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise was taking off as not only Sega’s new mascot, but also one of the most recognizable faces in entertainment. The Blue Blur and the company behind him were in the midst of challenging Nintendo for the gaming throne, and Hoshino’s first Sonic-related project was meant to widen the gap in the technology Sega was using. Though released after Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (developed by Sega Technical Institute), Sonic CD was more of a successor to the first Sonic game. Hoshino, for his part, designed Amy Rose and Metal Sonic, two characters who still appear in Sonic games to this day. 

In 2027, those two characters will take another big leap forward, joining Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Shadow (who Hoshino also designed) on the silver screen. And though he becomes slightly cagey when I mutter the words “Sonic the Hedgehog 4” – and not even in relation to the poorly received 2010 and 2012 games – Hoshino clearly brims with pride when discussing seeing his creations on the silver screen. “I’m just super excited, and there’s nothing more happy and more pleasing for me than seeing them on a Hollywood big screen,” he says. “The voiceover for Shadow was done by Keanu Reeves, one of my favorite actors, so to be able to have Keanu voice a character that I created… I couldn’t be a luckier man to be a part of that and have him voiced by somebody like Keanu. For the next movie, you’ll see Amy and Metal Sonic on the screen, and obviously not only will you have fans watching the movie because they love the game, but I’m assuming there will be people watching the movie even though they’ve never played a Sonic game before. […] And so, if anybody who’s never even touched or known about these games sees the movie and says, ‘Hey, I love this character now,’ and to see them love my characters from that, that’s something that… it’s a priceless thing to know.”

And speaking of Shadow the Hedgehog, Hoshino collaborated with Takashi Iizuka, the head and creative officer of Sonic Team, to create the character. Iizuka joined Sega around when Hoshino did, with his first work on the Sonic franchise coming through quality-assurance work near the end of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 development, which took place largely in the United States. When Iizuka returned to Japan, they started putting the pieces in place for the earliest version of what we now know as Sonic Team. But with a relationship stretching back that far, I was curious how Hoshino’s collaboration with Iizuka has evolved through the years, particularly as they both rose to prominent roles within the Sonic development team.

“I worked on Sonic CD while Iizuka-san worked on Sonic 2, and when Iizuka-san came back to Japan, we created this whole new Japan team to create a new Sonic Team, and our entire motivation was, ‘Let’s make Sonic a force for Sega that would be a great success,'” Hoshino recalls. “While our positions are different as a game designer versus a character artist, as the years went by, our positions as we both went up the ladder in our careers, you know, becoming directors in our respective titles, we both also started to take on leadership roles, and so there were a lot of changes and evolutions on that. I’ve had a lot of fun working with him this entire time, and one of the things that was the difference during the 2D age was that the project members, or the number of staff for the 2D games was very small. We had small teams, so the contribution or influence of each individual person was big. It was kind of like a band, if I were to make an example: It’s like a band where we have a new guitarist and, ‘Whoa, that’s going to totally change the sound of this band!’ So everybody’s contribution was significant.”

But as times changed and gaming technology evolved, Sonic Team also changed and evolved, leading to less frequent direct interactions between Hoshino and Iizuka. “When it became the 3D age, it became more of a mass production, but we had more members of the team, and so Iizuka-san and I both had a group on our team to lead,” Hoshino continues. “So, yes, we did work together, but we had to lead our own teams separately. So, as our careers went up, we still continue to work together, but kind of separately on everything. And yet, I believe I know what Iizuka-san is thinking because of our history working together. We’re both part of the Sonic family, and I believe that Iizuka-san is a reliable leader who, despite what the higher-ups may say to go in a certain direction for Sonic, our motivation is to make something that is fun and what we want to make for Sonic that is appealing to the fans. I know because of our history together and how long we’ve worked together what he’s thinking. ‘Maybe he’s feeling a little down right now,’ ‘Oh, he’s excited about something!’ I kind of basically know what he’s feeling because of our big history together. It’s such a great collaboration working with Iizuka-san.”

And that transition from the 2D age to the 3D age shifted in more ways than just the team size and composition. While Sonic Team had a notoriously challenging transition from 2D to 3D over the long term (read more about that struggle here), thanks in large part to the sheer size of the areas that needed to be created and unnecessarily tight deadlines, the artist and character designers faced very unique challenges, as they were required to rethink how to depict iconic characters. “Sonic’s a really fast character, so we spent all this time making this huge, long, elaborate map, and then we’d run through it in like 10 or 15 seconds,” Iizuka told me in 2016.

“2D to 3D was definitely a big transition,” Hoshino says. “When it was 2D, you could basically see Sonic’s side, the characters’ sides, and you can basically see their front and whenever they have an expressions, you saw their expression. But once we transitioned to 3D, there was depth, so you see different angles of this character. You see the backside of Sonic when he’s running away from the camera. Sonic has a big head, and in the original 2D, his hands and feet were disproportionate, and so [in 3D] his hands and feet sometimes would be hidden because of his big head. So one of the big things we had to do was to change Sonic’s proportions to make his limbs a little longer and his hands and feet a little longer so they show up. And then, any actions that he does in the 3D would still be dynamic and awesome and cool-looking.”

But the leap to 3D also meant more intensive work for the art team as they transposed their art from 2D to 3D through the new polygonal assets. “In 2D, it was in dot-pixels and all you had to do was just color in the pigments and you have a picture; when it became 3D, it became polygons, so we had to use new technology and new equipment to create these characters,” he says. “So we had to create different dimensions and different angles of these characters that we’ve never seen or had to create before when it was during the pixel days. Because of that, there were a lot of talented designers who were only used to the 2D designs. We had to have an overhaul of the designers to keep up with this new design and new art form, to keep up with the new technology.”

Today, Hoshino is creative director at Sonic Team, overseeing several endeavors in parallel. Though his role has evolved through his decades-long tenure at Sega, the art of Sonic has remained very close to his heart. And now, fans can witness art from across Sonic’s many eras, including art contributed by fans. “I always check social media every day to see what the fandom does and how they feel about Sonic,” Hoshino says. “I feel very excited to know that the fandom enjoys everything that is Sonic, and then see how that gets applied for their own content creations.”

This brand initiative is a part of Sega’s larger celebration of Sonic’s 35th anniversary, which has included various brand collaborations, special anniversary-themed cartridges of Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 (another part of Sega’s partnership with iam8bit), the release of Sonic Frontiers: Definitive Edition, a Chaos Hunt real-life scavenger hunt, and new dates for the official Sonic the Hedgehog music tour, Sonic Live in Concert. 

The iam8bit 35 Years of Speed: The Sonic Art Exhibit opens on September 26 and runs through September 27. It is free, but attendees should register through Eventbrite.

Earlier this year, Xbox performed a massive wave of layoffs, eliminating 1,600 roles and sharing that more cuts would come soon. Today, those cuts have come: Xbox has announced it is laying off 268 roles across its first-party studios, XGS management, and central functions layer. Halo Studios in particular has been significantly impacted, and today’s announcement states that Activision will take over development for the next Halo title.

The news broke via an Xbox Wire post called “Continuing Our Reset,” by Xbox executive vice president and chief content officer Matt Booty. It makes three major points. First, it lays out the layoffs and says the company is “roughly three-quarters of the way through previously announced restructuring.”

Next, he announces some internal studio restructuring. Activision will expand its remit to World’s Edge (known for Age of Empires) and Rare (known for Sea of Thieves), and a new team will be created within Activision to develop the next Halo title. Meanwhile, a “small team at Halo Studios will continue supporting the Halo community and games in-market.” This last part is huge news – the makers of Call of Duty are now also in charge of Halo. It’s perhaps the clearest example of how massive studio mergers can ultimately stifle competition – the two series hailed as the pillars of the first-person shooter are now being made under the same roof.

Other studios are also getting shuffled around. You can read Booty’s breakdown verbatim below:

• Bethesda will expand its remit to include Obsidian, which will continue its current projects, including Grounded, as well as the new Fallout project made in collaboration with Bethesda Game Studios.

• King will expand its remit to include Microsoft Casual Games, uniting our two global leaders in casual game design and live operations.

• Playground and Turn 10 will come together as one studio focused on the Forza and Fable franchises. These two studios have been creative and franchise partners for over a decade, and today’s changes will formally move their work into one team.

The final note details Xbox’s studio divestitures, which it announced a few months back. Compulsion and Double Fine have officially spun off to run independently, and Undead Labs has a deal with a new publisher, but will still release State of Decay 3 on Game Pass when it launches next year. On the other hand, “two separate agreements for Ninja Theory fell through,” and Xbox will begin consultations on a proposed closure. Arkane is in a similar position, though Booty says those consultations are expected to last “through the end of the year.”

The news is unfortunate across the board, but the cuts to the Halo team are especially impactful. Halo: Campaign Evolved was one of our most recent cover stories, and we enjoyed the final product at launch, but it seems to have done little to hold off Xbox’s all-encompassing waves of cuts. Meanwhile, Halo’s original creators at Bungie also laid off “most of” the Destiny 2 team, though Bungie also recently announced plans to bring back vaulted Destiny 2 content.