“Greetings Soldiers, September has become absolutely stacked with incredible looking games,” One More Level’s statement on the delay reads. “We knew this was a possibility, but when you’re in a Partner Showcase as we were, dates get locked in weeks in advance. We want to give Valor Mortis (and your wallet) some room to breathe. Therefore, we’ve decided to move our release date to October 13.
“In the meantime, we just launched our demo on Steam and have been getting loads of feedback. This new date also gives us even more time to improve the game. Try it out, let us know what you think, and we’ll see you in October.”
If you aren’t aware, September has become quite obviously stacked as a result of Fall releases trying to avoid the launch of Grand Theft Auto VI on November 19 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. In wanting to avoid November, many studios have found themselves launching their games in the massively crowded September, and though Valor Mortis is the first game delayed because of this, we suspect it won’t be the last.
Valor Mortis hits PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on October 13.
“Greetings Soldiers, September has become absolutely stacked with incredible looking games,” One More Level’s statement on the delay reads. “We knew this was a possibility, but when you’re in a Partner Showcase as we were, dates get locked in weeks in advance. We want to give Valor Mortis (and your wallet) some room to breathe. Therefore, we’ve decided to move our release date to October 13.
“In the meantime, we just launched our demo on Steam and have been getting loads of feedback. This new date also gives us even more time to improve the game. Try it out, let us know what you think, and we’ll see you in October.”
If you aren’t aware, September has become quite obviously stacked as a result of Fall releases trying to avoid the launch of Grand Theft Auto VI on November 19 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. In wanting to avoid November, many studios have found themselves launching their games in the massively crowded September, and though Valor Mortis is the first game delayed because of this, we suspect it won’t be the last.
Valor Mortis hits PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on October 13.
Stranger Than Heaven has long been one of the most anticipated games on the horizon. After all, it’s a new action game from one of the preeminent action-game studios, Ryu Ga Gotoku, the developer behind the Like a Dragon/Yakuza franchise. However, during the Summer Game Fest 2026 Showcase, the game raised more than a few eyebrows when it revealed the cast. Among Snoop Dogg and several other known actors, the studio unveiled that Tupac Shakur, the legendary rapper who was murdered 30 years ago, would also be a part of the cast. I sat down with RGG Studio head Masayoshi Yokoyama to learn how the team is approaching its depiction of Tupac.
As with all great stories, it all started with Snoop Dogg. Inspired by Snoop Dogg’s real-life relationships, Yokoyama began brainstorming with his team how to play off of that concept for his character.
“Snoop Dogg plays the character Orpheus, who’s a pretty important character to the game,” Yokoyama says. “There’s actually a lot of characters who have a relationship to Snoop in the game that we haven’t announced. There’s a lot of people in this world who, in terms of Japan, are outsiders or foreigners or people who have come from another country. But why Tupac specifically would be that when we cast Snoop as Orpheus, we thought, ‘We have Snoop Dogg, he’s such an incredible person who has all these really interesting relationships in the real world as well. We wanted to bring on these people with relationships for a lot of different roles, and those are the kind of people who we were just talking about before. But we thought – and we discussed this with Snoop, as well – ‘What if we had a person who had a relationship in the game and outside of the game that maybe mirrors it in some sense.”
RGG Studio head Masayoshi Yokoyama
The way Yokoyama describes it, Tupac’s name rose to the surface after bringing the idea to Snoop Dogg. “Initially, we talked to Snoop and we said, ‘We have this character, we need to fill this role. Who do you think would be a good role for that?” Yokoyama says. “Then, Tupac’s name came out from Snoop’s side, but it was kind of playing back and forth. It wasn’t just his name, it was a bunch of different people. There were even people at our studio who said, ‘Well, if Snoop Dogg and Tupac have this relationship in the game together, you’d probably cry about that because it’s so cool!’ There were definitely people on both sides who really appreciated the idea, but obviously that wasn’t possible to achieve, right? The next step for us was we had to talk to both his family and his estate and negotiated and got everyone’s approval, so once we were clear, we were able to move forward with it.”
When I bring up the ongoing battle between Tupac’s family and music executive Tom Whalley, who owns Tupac’s likeness rights, Yokoyama clarifies that he pursued approval from the likeness holder, as well as Tupac’s surviving family. “Of course, we wanted to have the family involved in every step along the way to make sure this is respectful to his legacy and honors who he was,” Yokoyama says. “But at the same time, we wanted to not kind of recreate who Tupac was when he passed away. We wanted to try to envision who Tupac might be now, and we did this with the full approval step by step. Going through the family to make sure that everything met it. We wanted to say, ‘Okay, if he was still alive now, thirty years later, how would he act? How would he express himself in that way? That’s what we’re trying to not going into his past, but rather his potential future.”
Though this clarifies some of the questions people had, and the family’s inclusion in the approval process likely makes this a more palatable decision, the inclusion of Tupac Shakur 30 years after he was gunned down is sure to continue to be a controversial decision. Stranger Than Heaven arrives on January 15.
Stranger Than Heaven has long been one of the most anticipated games on the horizon. After all, it’s a new action game from one of the preeminent action-game studios, Ryu Ga Gotoku, the developer behind the Like a Dragon/Yakuza franchise. However, during the Summer Game Fest 2026 Showcase, the game raised more than a few eyebrows when it revealed the cast. Among Snoop Dogg and several other known actors, the studio unveiled that Tupac Shakur, the legendary rapper who was murdered 30 years ago, would also be a part of the cast. I sat down with RGG Studio head Masayoshi Yokoyama to learn how the team is approaching its depiction of Tupac.
As with all great stories, it all started with Snoop Dogg. Inspired by Snoop Dogg’s real-life relationships, Yokoyama began brainstorming with his team how to play off of that concept for his character.
“Snoop Dogg plays the character Orpheus, who’s a pretty important character to the game,” Yokoyama says. “There’s actually a lot of characters who have a relationship to Snoop in the game that we haven’t announced. There’s a lot of people in this world who, in terms of Japan, are outsiders or foreigners or people who have come from another country. But why Tupac specifically would be that when we cast Snoop as Orpheus, we thought, ‘We have Snoop Dogg, he’s such an incredible person who has all these really interesting relationships in the real world as well. We wanted to bring on these people with relationships for a lot of different roles, and those are the kind of people who we were just talking about before. But we thought – and we discussed this with Snoop, as well – ‘What if we had a person who had a relationship in the game and outside of the game that maybe mirrors it in some sense.”
RGG Studio head Masayoshi Yokoyama
The way Yokoyama describes it, Tupac’s name rose to the surface after bringing the idea to Snoop Dogg. “Initially, we talked to Snoop and we said, ‘We have this character, we need to fill this role. Who do you think would be a good role for that?” Yokoyama says. “Then, Tupac’s name came out from Snoop’s side, but it was kind of playing back and forth. It wasn’t just his name, it was a bunch of different people. There were even people at our studio who said, ‘Well, if Snoop Dogg and Tupac have this relationship in the game together, you’d probably cry about that because it’s so cool!’ There were definitely people on both sides who really appreciated the idea, but obviously that wasn’t possible to achieve, right? The next step for us was we had to talk to both his family and his estate and negotiated and got everyone’s approval, so once we were clear, we were able to move forward with it.”
When I bring up the ongoing battle between Tupac’s family and music executive Tom Whalley, who owns Tupac’s likeness rights, Yokoyama clarifies that he pursued approval from the likeness holder, as well as Tupac’s surviving family. “Of course, we wanted to have the family involved in every step along the way to make sure this is respectful to his legacy and honors who he was,” Yokoyama says. “But at the same time, we wanted to not kind of recreate who Tupac was when he passed away. We wanted to try to envision who Tupac might be now, and we did this with the full approval step by step. Going through the family to make sure that everything met it. We wanted to say, ‘Okay, if he was still alive now, thirty years later, how would he act? How would he express himself in that way? That’s what we’re trying to not going into his past, but rather his potential future.”
Though this clarifies some of the questions people had, and the family’s inclusion in the approval process likely makes this a more palatable decision, the inclusion of Tupac Shakur 30 years after he was gunned down is sure to continue to be a controversial decision. Stranger Than Heaven arrives on January 15.
During Summer Game Fest 2026 media play days, we had a chance to play Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis – read our hands-on preview thoughts here – and interview Crystal Dynamics about the game. During this interview, Game Informer senior video editor Alex Van Aken asked Crystal Dynamics’ experience director for the game, Jeff Adams, about the use of generative AI. Here’s what he had to say:
“At Crystal Dynamics, we see AI as a tool that can help our team get to right answers faster. So, let me give you an example of what that looks like. So, say in early level development, we have an idea for an object, but we’re not sure whether or not we want to take the dev time to build it. We can use a generative AI tool to help us visualize that object in the world. And if it works, we’ll then move it to our traditional pipeline. From there, the team will concept it, they’ll build it, and we’ll make sure that all the finished content in the final game is human-crafted. It’s really important for us that our team has the tools to make the highest quality experience possible. Our fans deserve nothing less than that.”
We followed up, asking, “And so when you drag that generative piece into the engine, does it have scripts attached to it? Or is it an environmental art tool in that procedure? What’s that look like?”
At this point, a PR representative stepped in to say, “I think what I’d probably say is I think we’ve said all we want to say about it now. Once the game comes out and everyone can see how amazing it is, we’d probably be more comfortable. I think in this early moment, I just wouldn’t want us to like start talking about that.”
Adams concludes, “We just want to make it as easy as possible for us to make high-quality game experiences. That’s really the important thing.”
In the days since that announcement, a lot of confusion has arisen from the decision. The Verge reporter Tom Warren and Bloomberghave reported that sources tell them Gears of War: E-Day was, in fact, going to come to PS5, but in a somewhat last-minute decision (the timing of which has been the subject of great debate), Xbox CEO Asha Sharma decided to make the game an Xbox console exclusive. Vice president of Xbox games marketing Aaron Greenberg responded to Warren on X, stating, “Hey Tom, I can confirm this [the last-minute decision] is not true. We just limited the knowledge of this news to a very small internal group. Intention was to share this news first with our players and everyone watching showcase.”
In that same X discussion, Warren references an official Xbox podcast with the Gears of War: E-Day key art and the PS5 logo visible at the bottom, suggesting it was perhaps set to launch on the competitor platform, as noted by Eurogamer. You can see it in the image from Warren below:
There’s also the PEGI rating for Gears of War: E-Day on PS5 that went live before the showcase, as caught by Eurogamer (though the PEGI ratings board has since updated it to reflect just Xbox Series X/S and PC), as well as a Walmart listing for a PS5 version of the game, as reported by IGN. Of course, PEGI and Walmart are not part of Xbox, so these listings could have just been mistakes or guesses.
In a new interview with Eurogamer, however, studio heads at Gears of War: E-Day developer The Coalition indicate that the team never publicly discussed releasing the game on PlayStation 5. “We never talked about it going to PS5,” studio creative director Matt Searcy told the publication. Studio brand director Nicole Fawcette added, “It was never changed.” Searcy continued, “I would say that Gears as an exclusive makes a ton of sense. It’s kind of an honor, and exciting, to be one of the Xbox flagship titles.”
So today, it’s a bit of he-said, she-said. Some evidence points to a PS5 version of the game, including Giant Bomb president and co-owner Jeff Grubb saying on Bluesky, “So yeah, there’s a basically finished version of Gears for PlayStation sitting on a drive.” But official Xbox messaging indicates otherwise. Nonetheless, Gears of War: E-Day will launch as an Xbox console exclusive on Xbox Series X/S and PC on October 6.
In the days since that announcement, a lot of confusion has arisen from the decision. The Verge reporter Tom Warren and Bloomberghave reported that sources tell them Gears of War: E-Day was, in fact, going to come to PS5, but in a somewhat last-minute decision (the timing of which has been the subject of great debate), Xbox CEO Asha Sharma decided to make the game an Xbox console exclusive. Vice president of Xbox games marketing Aaron Greenberg responded to Warren on X, stating, “Hey Tom, I can confirm this [the last-minute decision] is not true. We just limited the knowledge of this news to a very small internal group. Intention was to share this news first with our players and everyone watching showcase.”
In that same X discussion, Warren references an official Xbox podcast with the Gears of War: E-Day key art and the PS5 logo visible at the bottom, suggesting it was perhaps set to launch on the competitor platform, as noted by Eurogamer. You can see it in the image from Warren below:
There’s also the PEGI rating for Gears of War: E-Day on PS5 that went live before the showcase, as caught by Eurogamer (though the PEGI ratings board has since updated it to reflect just Xbox Series X/S and PC), as well as a Walmart listing for a PS5 version of the game, as reported by IGN. Of course, PEGI and Walmart are not part of Xbox, so these listings could have just been mistakes or guesses.
In a new interview with Eurogamer, however, studio heads at Gears of War: E-Day developer The Coalition indicate that the team never publicly discussed releasing the game on PlayStation 5. “We never talked about it going to PS5,” studio creative director Matt Searcy told the publication. Studio brand director Nicole Fawcette added, “It was never changed.” Searcy continued, “I would say that Gears as an exclusive makes a ton of sense. It’s kind of an honor, and exciting, to be one of the Xbox flagship titles.”
So today, it’s a bit of he-said, she-said. Some evidence points to a PS5 version of the game, including Giant Bomb president and co-owner Jeff Grubb saying on Bluesky, “So yeah, there’s a basically finished version of Gears for PlayStation sitting on a drive.” But official Xbox messaging indicates otherwise. Nonetheless, Gears of War: E-Day will launch as an Xbox console exclusive on Xbox Series X/S and PC on October 6.
Microsoft has laid off thousands of workers over the past few years to correct its financial spreadsheets, but “significant layoffs” are on the way for Xbox as part of new CEO Asha Sharma’s “Xbox Reset,” according to a new report from Bloomberg. In a new Xbox Wire blog post that is a copy-paste of an email sent to Xbox employees globally, Sharma and Xbox chief content officer Matt Booty discuss problems facing Xbox’s future and plans to course-correct. Though she doesn’t mention layoffs, the messaging in this joint post seems to signal the layoffs Bloomberg reports are incoming, according to its sources within the company.
Bloomberg reports that, though the exact scale of the layoffs is unclear, they are expected to occur after the close of Microsoft’s fiscal year on June 30, alongside significantly slashed budgets for marketing and other areas of the Xbox business. Sharma and Booty say the company will end its fiscal year “at about a 3% accountability margin, down year-over-year,” with an annual revenue decline of nearly half a billion during that time alongside a $20 billion spend in ongoing investments in “content, platform, and hardware subsidy,” excluding Activision Blizzard King. Critically, a 3% accountability margin means that for every $100 Xbox makes, it keeps $3 as profit, as noted by Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier over on Bluesky. Sharma and Booty’s email reads, “Going forward, this cannot continue.”
In that same email-now-Xbox-Wire-blog-post, Sharma and Booty indicate that Xbox overextended itself during its acquisition spree this generation, potentially hinting at studio closures to course-correct. “We expanded our studio system when we needed a pipeline of content to meet multiple strategies across subscription, streaming, and devices [editor’s note: Xbox has made clear it is pivoting away from recent “This is an Xbox” marking to return to exclusivity and a focus on Xbox-developed hardware],” it reads. “In the process, we have found ourselves overextended as we executed on changing strategies in a landscape of more readily available content. We are the fortunate stewards of industry-defining franchises that have enormous potential and player demand, but we have not adequately funded them to compete and win. At the same time, as we saw this past weekend at [the 2026 Summer Xbox Games Showcase], a reliable pipeline of first-and third-party exclusives and new IP is critical to our success. We need to reassess the balance between these and our investment priorities for the next 5 years.”
The Vergereports that its sources suggest the planned layoffs and budget slashes could include a studio closure.
Elsewhere in the post, Sharma and Booty write about the cost of console storage components, which has risen to five times their cost two years ago, and how Xbox needs a new business model and partnerships for hardware, “as we remain committed to [Project Helix].” The two also write that Xbox’s current platform infrastructure “is not built for the battle ahead,” with systems too complex and reliant on vendor dependencies to be as efficient as they feel the company needs to be.
“Now we start the next 100 days. It is important to have both optimism and realism as we work to reset the business,” the blog post reads. In its final paragraphs, Sharma and Booty write, “For some of you, these realities will be surprising and even frustrating to discover. We won’t succeed by hiding hard truths, nor will we succeed by doing the same thing and expecting results. Like the ‘everyday wins’ mentality from the first 100 days, we will sprint to make progress against hardware, content, experience, and services together.”
RGG Studios made a name for itself through the narrative action games in the Like a Dragon series. At a cursory glance, Stranger Than Heaven may look like it is simply using the core tenets of RGG’s most famous franchise to deliver the tale of Makoto Daito across multiple eras and cities in Japan. However, after getting my hands on it and speaking with studio head and Stranger Than Heaven executive director Masayoshi Yokoyama, it’s clear RGG is swinging bigger.
In 1915, Makoto arrives in Japan aboard a smuggler ship in Kokura, Fukuoka, one of the world’s largest metalworking hubs. However, it’s also a hub for seedy activities. As the story progresses and Makoto establishes himself in Japan, the locations and eras also progress. The story leading to Tokyo in the ’60s is inevitable, as Stranger Than Heaven tells the tale of the founding of the Tojo Clan, as it will appear later in the Like a Dragon franchise.
Though this is a major connection to RGG’s flagship franchise, the team didn’t go out of its way to add nods to the series of games that it leads into. Similarly, just because this exists in the same world and carries a similar aesthetic doesn’t mean combat feels the same. Instead, Stranger Than Heaven adds a much more intentional style of fighting that primarily utilizes the shoulder and trigger buttons; the right and left shoulder buttons are mapped to control Makoto’s right and left arms, respectively, while the triggers control his corresponding legs. You can also dodge and block directionally to land brutal counterattacks, or squeeze both triggers to grab or tackle opponents.
It sounds complex, but I played through three encounters across three eras, and by the time I finished the fights, the mechanics were singing. The first fight saw Makoto unarmed against a group of standard men in Kokura in 1915, while subsequent encounters took me to 1929 Kure and 1943 Osaka with weapons in tow. Using a large crowbar for crowd control was enthralling, and my final challenge was a one-on-one knife fight against a brutal swordsman. Though the earlier battles allowed me some degree of brute-force success, the Osaka fight against the swordsman required me to be patient and precise with my parries; one false move could cost me the vast majority of my health bar. In fact, it took me seven tries before I successfully ended his reign of terror in the streets of Osaka.
Seeing RGG develop various combat systems in parallel – two distinct Like a Dragon fighting systems, the directional combat in Stranger Than Heaven, and fighting-game mechanics in the recently unveiled Virtua Fighter Crossroads – is impressive. Not unlike its protagonists, this studio can master varied fighting styles. “It’s not really about the systems; it’s about the experiences,” Yokoyama says. “You’re able to customize the experience to fit the story, like it’s an extension to accentuate it in the best possible way. That’s why, for example, in Like A Dragon 7, we went for the turn-based system, because until then, we were having these stories where it’s single-character fights, but for Ichiban Kasuga, his story was that of fighting with friends to achieve a goal. So for that, a turn-based, party-based system just felt right. It’s the same thing for Stranger Than Heaven: having the system we chose of really tense, visceral battles really just fit the character and fit the story.”
RGG Studios’ reveals at Summer Game Fest gave new meaning to the word “Stranger,” as the cast was revealed to include not only Snoop Dogg, but also the late Tupac Shakur, who has been dead for almost 30 years. The reaction in the gaming community was mixed, with many questioning how respectful it was to include the legendary rap artist in the role, and if the likeness would be handled with care. After Snoop Dogg was cast in the role of Orpheus, Makoto’s best friend, the hip-hop artist recommended Tupac’s likeness for the role of Amaru. RGG worked closely with Snoop, Shakur’s likeness owner, Amaru Entertainment, and Shakur’s family and intend for his depiction to honor the rapper without disrespecting him.
I did not get to see Amaru in my gameplay, but it does assuage initial worries that the studio didn’t involve anyone from the late rapper’s family. We won’t know for sure until Stranger Than Heaven is out early next year, but Yokoyama’s caution on the topic gives me hope. by Brian Shea
Rhythm Heaven has been one of the more underserved Nintendo franchises over the last decade and a half. Excluding the compilation-style 3DS release in 2015, the last all-new entry in the franchise arrived in 2011 on Wii, meaning it’s been around two and a half full console generations since we last played a brand-new game in the series. That changes soon with Rhythm Heaven Groove on Switch, and we had the chance to get our hands on the franchise-reviving entry.
Rhythm Heaven Groove features the largest collection of rhythm-based minigames in franchise history, with more than 80 solo games and more than 30 multiplayer games across cooperative and competitive modes. On top of that, players can unlock access to a mini rhythm-based RPG called Beatspell.
In the single-player mode, the sheer variety of games on offer is impressive. Yes, they’re all rhythm-driven, but each brings a different gameplay mechanic, and perhaps more importantly, a new earworm with which to play along. Hoop Trundling puts you at the end of a line, tasking you with following the rhythm of those in front of you as you jump through incoming hoops. Brolly Good Show adds some complexity by having you open and close your umbrella in time with those next to you. Disc Dog was one of the more challenging ones, as you needed to jump to catch a frisbee seven beats following a toss. The final challenge in the first collection is Feeding The Beast, where you control a dinosaur-like creature eating plants to the beat.
Once you complete all games in a collection, you unlock the Remix, which combines the preceding games into one song. Unified by the song’s beat, I enjoyed how it kept me on my toes, even in the first collection. I can’t wait to see how it ramps up in difficulty and chaos as the games themselves become more involved.
Each minigame provides a familiar yet unique challenge, and ends with an assessment of how you did. If you do well enough to earn the “Amazing” rating, you get a medal. I made it my personal goal to get medals for every rhythm game I was able to play, and sadly, I only fell just shy in the second part of my single-player gameplay when we jumped ahead to the third collection of games. There, I played two games: Slice N Dice and Hop, Stop N Roll. Slice N Dice put me in control of a woman chopping veggies in her kitchen, while Hop, Stop N Roll turned me into a lucky cat figure hopping and rolling in time with other cats. Both were more demanding than the games in the first collection, which meant more fun for me.
In multiplayer, I played two games with a group of four players. Cake Wait is a competitive game where a timer counts down from 10 and everyone needs to press a button as close to when the clock hits 0 as possible. This resulted in some tense moments between players, because the clock disappears as the seconds tick away, serving as a strong test of timing. Then, in Ninja Bodyguard, the four of us worked together to protect a carriage from archers. This experience was less tense but delivered the same rhythmic fun as the other games, but with an added layer of camaraderie.
My gameplay session ended with Beatspell, the unlockable RPG-style mode built into Rhythm Heaven Groove. After earning a certain number of medals, new chapters of Beatspell become available. I played through the first two chapters. As encounters progress, you tap different commands as the beat progresses around a diamond chart. Each command casts a different spell. For example, tapping B on one corner, then A on the next, casts the flame spell to deal damage to the enemy you’re facing. However, if you add down on the d-pad on the half-beat between them, it instead casts Cure on yourself.
After taking down two monsters from a group called The Four Fears, my session ended. I have always enjoyed Rhythm Heaven, and I’m beyond happy that the Switch’s popularity has enabled Nintendo to take more chances on dormant franchises. I’m excited to see how the single-player offerings play out as you get deeper into them, and I look forward to busting this game out at future friend gatherings.
