In 2010, Heavenly Sword and Enslaved: Odyssey to the West developer Ninja Theory took on the tall task of rebooting Capcom’s beloved Devil May Cry franchise. With Capcom encouraging the team to create a radically bold reinvention, Ninja Theory introduced fans to new versions of Dante, Vergil, and the series’ lore in its 2013 action game DmC Devil May Cry.
The game’s dramatic change in direction enraged some fans at the time, with much of that anger specifically aimed at its redesign of Dante, who sported jet-black hair instead of the character’s signature white hair. Despite the pre-release negativity, DmC Devil May Cry garnered a largely positive reception from critics and fans, with some even hailing it as one of the series’ best entries. How does it hold up 13 years later? Let’s find out.
Join editors Marcus Stewart and Charles Harte today live on Twitch and YouTube starting at 12 p.m. PT/3 p.m. ET as they revisit the often misunderstood, black-haired stepchild of the Devil May Cry franchise.
Stardew Valley is coming to Magic: The Gathering later this month with a limited Secret Lair drop, and we have our first look at the cards. Revealed during today’s MagicCon: Amsterdam panel, Wizards of the Coast says these three Secret Lair x Stardew Valley drops are part of the Superdrop of the Moonlight Jellies and will highlight the many sides of life in the game, including farming, making friends, fighting through mines, and more.
This drop also introduces a brand new card for Magic: The Gathering called “Stardew Valley.” It features art from Stardew Valley creator ConcernedApe and is inspired by the game’s “daily rituals of food, favors, and finding the right gift at the right time,” according to a press release. The Life In Pelican Town drop “celebrates the familiar stops that make the valley feel alive.” The Flicker In The Deep drop “heads below the cozy surface of the valley, where every glint in the dark could be treasure, trouble, or both,” and the Welcome to Stardew Valley drop “captures the rhythm of starting fresh in the valley, where crops, friends, recipes, and wizard-related problems can all fit into the same day.” The new “Stardew Valley” card is part of this set.
Here are the cards you can find in each set:
Welcome to Stardew Valley: Stardew Valley, Wedding Rings as “Mermaid’s Pendant,” Dawn’s Truce as “Pierre’s Truce,” Swords to Plowshares, Rites of Flourishing, Kynaois and Tiro of Meletis as “The Welcoming Committee,” Sol Ring, and Food Token
Life in Pelican Town: Crop Rotation, Fountainport as “Community Center,” Homeward Path as “Pelican Town,” Command Tower as “Tower of Rasmodius,” and Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth as “Valley Farmstead.”
A Flicker in the Deep: Atsushi, Blazing Sky as “Royal Serpent,” Miotic Slime as “Big Slime,” Arcane Signet, Sword of Forge and Frontier as “Galaxy Sword,” Treasure Vault, Ooze Token, and Treasure Token
Check out the cards in the gallery below:
These limited-quantity Secret Lair drops will go on sale later this month, at 9 a.m. PT/Noon ET on July 27. The foil sets will run you $39.99, and the non-foil ones will cost $29.99.
Wizards of the Coast also revealed many other Secret Lair drops coming this year, as reported by games media freelancer Jason Fanelli, who was in attendance at the panel in Amsterdam. The drops are as follows:
Bethesda Game Studios has penned a lengthy studio letter on the developer’s project pipeline for the next several years. Among the updates are confirmation of multiple Fallout projects, including Fallout 5, and notes about The Elder Scrolls VI and Starfield.
Bethesda details the future of Fallout, confirming that Fallout 5 is currently in preproduction, saying it “remains our long-range destination.” This echoes a similar statement he made in 2022, when he said Fallout 5 would arrive after The Elder Scrolls VI, which will likely still be the case. The game is being developed using Creation Engine 3, Bethesda’s next-generation game engine that will also power The Elder Scrolls VI.
Additionally, multiple other Fallout projects are in the works. Bethesda confirms it is developing remasters of Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, the former of which was leaked in court documents back in 2023. There are no release windows for these remasters, however.
Fallout 76 will receive its next major expansion in 2027 called Raven Rock, a prequel story to Fallout 3. Fallout Shelter will receive new seasons while Bethesda teases the unscripted TV adaptation of the mobile game that’s currently in development at Amazon. Bethesda also confirms there will be no Fallout Day broadcast this year because it is planning to celebrate the franchise’s 30th anniversary in 2027 with a live celebration in Washington, D.C.
In the last Fallout-related update, Bethesda confirmed it is working with Obsidian Entertainment on a new Fallout game, corroborating an earlier report that Obsidian had been mandated to pivot to this project, canceling an Avowed sequel in the process.
Bethesda’s next big project is The Elder Scrolls VI, a project it describes as “our primary development focus today, with the majority of our team currently working on the next chapter of the franchise.”
“The next chapter is on the way. We’re where we planned to be, loving how it looks, and playing it every day,” Bethesda writes.
Bethesda is also promoting closer collaborations between its teams. ZeniMax Online Studios, the team behind The Elder Scrolls Online, will also “partner closely” with Bethesda on the Elder Scrolls franchise in addition to making new updates for ESO. “By aligning more directly across the franchise, we can create even better experiences for players,” writes Bethesda.
As for Bethesda’s newest IP, Starfield, the team is not done with that universe. He states that Year 3 of the game will bring new stories, further gameplay improvements, and more as Bethesda prepares to launch new Starborn content in 2027.
Bethesda’s updates come in the wake of an ongoing massive restructuring of Xbox’s game division initiated by CEO Asha Sharma as a “reset” of the brand, which saw 1,600 employees laid off across its entire game division (with id Software and Obsidian hit particularly hard), with 1,600 more cuts to come over the next several months. Xbox also divested itself of five of its development studios, with Bethesda’s parent company, ZeniMax, losing its subsidiary, Arkane Studios.
We got our first look at Ryan Hurst and Callum Vinson as Kratos and Atreus in Amazon Prime’s God of War TV series adaptation back in February, and though the response to it was mixed at best, the studio’s track record with other video game properties, like Fallout, kept us optimistic. The show has been significantly set back, however, due to a serious injury Hurst sustained on set, which led Amazon, reportedly, to recast the role of Kratos.
Deadlinereports that Hurst, who gained 40 pounds of muscle in anticipation of this role, tore a bicep while performing a stunt on set in late June. He has since undergone surgery and is in recovery, and the TV set’s production has been paused and remains on hiatus today. With Hurst likely needing four to six months to recover from this injury and unable to continue the strength training needed to keep up with the stature of his Kratos, Amazon has opted to recast the role rather than wait until probably 2027 to continue shooting with Hurst.
Before this injury, Deadline‘s sources report that Amazon and the crew had already shot four entire episodes.
The publication reports that following this recasting of the titular God of War, preparations are expected to begin in August, with production and shooting set to resume in October.
God of War has already received a two-season order, with both seasons expected to be shot back-to-back; that remains the plan, according to Deadline. In case you missed it, here’s the rest of the announced cast:
A few weeks ago, I traveled to Paris to play three hours of Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse, and while there, I had the chance to speak with some of the developers who worked on the game. The project is an indie developer’s dream come true, since developer Evil Empire originally worked on Dead Cells, a game heavily inspired by Castlevania, and now it’s getting a chance to make the first new Castlevania entry in years. I asked Konami producer Tsutomu Taniguchi, Evil Empire marketing director Bérenger Dupré, and Evil Empire creative director Emmanuel Nouaille how Evil Empire’s initial pitch to Konami went. According to them, there wasn’t one; Konami was the one that asked them, not the other way around.
Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse
“They actually approach us with a DLC for Dead Cells,” Taniguchi told us via a translator. “And it kind of [became] a little negotiation, because they pitched us DLC, and then we said, ‘Well, you can do that, but can we create a new Castlevania game with you?’ And so, it was our suggestion. And then we started collaborating and discussing and creating the game together, which is what made Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse.”
The Evil Empire developers supported this series of events. “It’s actually a more tricky question than it sounds, because it’s like there was no pitching stage, and it was more discussion,” Dupré said. “We felt like we could be a good fit together to make this game, because we have this experience with 2D combat, and so we just discussed together. I think we didn’t officially pitch it. It was more like a common brainstorm.”
Nouaille added that the studios both went through with it because the Castlevania DLC was such a hit. “It was logical to discuss together to find the right project to continue to work,” Nouaille said. He then adds, with a touch of sarcasm, “It was very difficult to refuse a proposition.”
Dead Cells: Return to Castlevania
From the information I gathered from past interviews with Evil Empire, this must have come as an even bigger shock than this duo lets on. In a 2022 interview about Dead Cells: Return to Castlevania (featured on page 16 of Game Informer issue 354, which you can read for free), Evil Empire co-founder Benjamin Laulan told me about how he approached Konami at BitSummit, a Japanese game conference, to ask them to create a retail version of Dead Cells in Japan. Laulan said, “I had this crazy idea that if we worked with Konami, maybe they would let us make an Alucard skin or a weapon that we could include in the game as a bonus for Japanese players.” Konami was so receptive, Evil Empire decided to shoot for the moon and mocked up a whole Castlevania-themed expansion.
“[Konami] said yes, straight away, without even looking at the presentation,” Laulan told me in 2022. “They said, ‘Yeah, we’ve been waiting for you guys to ask us.’ They were actually Dead Cells fans.”
To extend the timeline of events to today, this means the simple request for Alucard’s sword became a years-long collaboration, resulting in the first new Castlevania game in years. Pretty wild!
We were recently invited out to Paris, France to play three hours of Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse, and while we were there, we got to speak to the development team about how the game was made. In addition to behind-the-scenes details on the relationship between developers Evil Empire and Konami (which you can read more about here), we specifically wanted to know whether the game was made with any generative AI tools and whether the developers had any hard stances about its use. In short, it sounds like neither studio used it.
In Paris, I was able to interview three developers at once: producer Tsutomu Taniguchi from Konami as well as Evil Empire marketing director Bérenger Dupré and Evil Empire creative director Emmanuel Nouaille. After asking whether developers on Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse used AI, the question was translated for Taniguchi, who responded first.
“From Konami’s point, you know, we haven’t used AI. And we don’t know what’s going to happen next, but we don’t really have a stance on it,” Taniguchi told us through a translator.
Then, marketing director Dupré (who is French, for context) followed up with a joke, saying, “I must confess, I do use AI to correct my sentences in English.” After some laughter from the room, Nouaille gave the most in-depth response.
“To answer the question of the game, no AI,” Nouaille said. “It was very important to respect this direction for the team, for the fans, for the industry. For the moment, what is important is to have a real creation. To have our soul in the game. So, I don’t have any problem with AI, but in our job, in this game, there is no AI.”
We’ll have more details about Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse, including exclusive art and hands-on impressions from three hours of gameplay, in the next issue of Game Informer, which is set to launch Tuesday, July 21. Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse comes to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, and PC on October 15.
Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls, the superhero-themed fighter from Arc System Works, is still a few weeks away from its release on PlayStation 5 and PC, but if you want to jump into the action early, you’ll get a chance next week. From July 24 to July 26, the open beta will be available to play for free on PC and PS5. You can check out the details for yourself in the image below (or by reading the paragraph that follows it).
The action begins at 12 a.m. PDT, 7 a.m. UTC, and 4 p.m. JST. Once it’s live, it will run for 72 hours. You also don’t need to register – you can simply head to the digital store and download the game, according to the PlayStation Blog. You also won’t need a PlayStation Plus account to play, but you will need an internet connection and a PlayStation account to access the game on both PS5 and PC.
The beta includes 15 of Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls’ 20-character launch roster: Captain America, Iron Man, Black Panther, Storm, Magik, Wolverine, Danger, Spider-Man, Ms. Marvel, Star-Lord, Peni Parker, Ghost Rider, Blade, Doctor Doom, and Magneto. You’ll also be able to play on six stages: Marvel’s New York (day and night versions). Savage Land, X-Mansion, Knowhere, and Wakanda. The open beta will have ranked and casual matches, as well as a practice mode, an explorable open lobby, and three episodes of the Amazing Guardian story campaign.
A new cinematic trailer for Marvel’s Wolverine trades gameplay for an action-packed look at another villain closely tied to the titular mutant: Lady Deathstrike. The deadly assassin is the latest villain confirmed for Insomniac’s next Marvel action game.
The video is a cinematic montage of Wolverine taking on enemies across rainy city streets, atop a train, and in a snowy wilderness (where we also see his chief rival, Sabretooth). Towards the end of the video, we see Wolverine seemingly in Japan facing off against ninjas led by Lady Deathstrike, an assassin/mercenary who, like Logan, has the indestructible metal adamantium bonded to her skeleton, allowing her to slice apart foes using the long metal claws at each of her fingertips. We don’t get to see her and Wolverine battle head-on in the video, but it’s a nice tease of what’s (hopefully) to come.
In addition to Lady Deathstrike and Sabretooth, other confirmed characters for Marvel’s Wolverine are Omega Red, Mystique, and, on the X-Men side, Jean Grey. Though not a character, per se, we’ve also seen Sentinels as a threat.
Marvel’s Wolverine launches on September 15 for PlayStation 5. You can watch the game’s first gameplay trailer here, and Game Informer subscribers can read our preview of the game from issue 379 here.
I enjoy dying in Heave Ho 2. I’m not doing it on purpose, but it’s usually because I miscalculated a swing, was accidentally dropped off a cliff by my brother, or, most often of all, tried to make a comically long jump I had no chance of landing. The act of playing is so ridiculous and fun, and setbacks are so minimal, that I simply don’t mind. I don’t love every level, and the Showdown mode is largely forgettable, but this sequel from developer Le Cartel Studio is a great way to spend a few afternoons with family and friends.
In Heave Ho 2, each player controls a head with two arms, and each hand can grab nearby items or surfaces by pressing a button. The act of moving across a stage is easier said than done, especially at the start, and even once you get the hang of it, you always look and feel hilariously ridiculous. Since the game is multiplayer-only, most levels require you to work together (though others can be completed by progressing forward one at a time), either by linking your arms to make one long chain of hands or by collaborating to accomplish a goal. Regardless, it always looks silly, which never gets old, and as chaotic as it looks, the game controls really well.
While many levels in the co-op campaign task players with getting from one side of the map to the other, some worlds have different objectives or add twists to complicate your progress. I really appreciate how those goals shift across the eight worlds. Flying High has you navigate ski lifts, gondolas, and icy mountains to reach your goal, but levels in Manor Mysteries hide keys to unlock the exit, and Spacebound Squad has you navigating zero-gravity, sometimes teaming up to pilot a spaceship. Each time you boot the game up, you’re in for something new.
Not every world is a winner, though. Chef’s Orders, a world where you stack ingredients on a plate, is consistently frustrating. Heave Ho 2 is built for movement or carrying small items, but my group of players did not enjoy moving the much larger items. Similarly, Medieval Travels has several levels where you transport a king on his throne without tipping him over, and we found it so unintuitive that we accepted help from the game’s cat drone, which appears after you’ve spent a long time struggling and probably need a cop out to move on. I admire, however, that Le Cartel took risks on these unique levels, even if they didn’t always land.
The campaign has about 60 levels, each with two to three optional objectives, like finishing within a certain time frame, finding mysterious hands to grab, or fitting into hidden silhouettes. There’s also an equippable camera that you can bring across the game to complete even more objectives, capturing photos of the party doing specific, often silly tasks. While I beat Heave Ho 2 across roughly eight hours of gameplay, we spent a while getting distracted by side objectives, and I’m confident we could spend plenty more if we wanted to 100% the game. The robust list of achievements is a smart way to make the most out of the game’s modest amount of content, adding significant replay value.
Each objective makes progress towards a series of unlocks. Some are cosmetic, like the game’s roster of crossover skins from other video games (I’ve unlocked everything from an Among Us Crewmate to Henry from Kingdom Come: Deliverance II), but others add mechanical value by giving players items to equip going into stages. The Ima Rock freezes you in the air, allowing a friend to use you as a platform, while the arm spray extends an ally’s arms, making distant platforms easier to grab. The items add great complexity to the game, and I love that most of them are geared around aiding teammates, rather than oneself, but I wish they were unlocked faster. I only unlocked an umbrella (used for Mary Poppins-style floating) after going back to replay old stages, and I would’ve loved to have it when I was playing through the first time.
The game’s other mode, Showdown, is a fine side mode to experiment with once or twice, but it’s far shallower than the co-op levels. Players go head-to-head in a rotating playlist of maps and one of three objectives: a race, a challenge to see who survives longest, or a dash to see who can grab a handle first (which is also just a race, to be honest). The first player or team to get five wins comes out on top. Showdown is briefly entertaining, but that’s the only ruleset it has, and it doesn’t reward repeated play the way the main levels do, so I don’t expect most to spend much time with it.
I have a soft spot for goofy physics-based co-op games in general, but Heave Ho 2 was a hit no matter who I put it in front of. Its wacky exterior is supported by a solid core of great controls and smart level design. Not all of its gambles pay off, but I’m fine accepting a little jank in an otherwise jolly experience.
A new update for Crimson Desert adds cross-save today. This means that if you own the RPG on multiple platforms, you can now transfer save data between those versions.
Naturally, using cross-save requires players to own two or more versions of Crimson Desert on the following platforms: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, or PC via Steam or the Epic Games Store. You’ll need to have a Pearl Abyss ID for each owned copy of the game, and you’ll need to link these accounts to initiate cross-save. A new cross-save icon now appears in Crimson Desert’s in-game save data menu, which will begin the setup process as detailed in an FAQ. Crimson Desert is also available on Mac, but developer Pearl Abyss states that this version will not receive cross-save support until a future update.
The addition of cross-saves is one of many major overhauls Pearl Abyss has planned for Crimson Desert as part of its post-launch update roadmap. One of the biggest changes will be to the game’s often-criticized narrative. You can read more about all of the updates coming to the game here. Be sure also to check out our Crimson Desert review.
