Cronos: The New Dawn, Bloober Team’s latest original survival horror game, launched last September, but it seems the studio isn’t done with the game yet. The upcoming (and newly announced) Lazarus DLC will put players in the boots of the Warden from the base game, shifting the experience from a slower survival horror game to a fast-paced action game, sometime this Fall.
It sounds like Lazarus will be a prequel to the base story of Cronos: The New Dawn, as it will allow players to control the Warden, following his journey in his prime from pathfinder to the character we know today. His character will feature a unique set of skills, including decoys that allow you to move quickly through danger, giving Lazarus a different game feel than Cronos: The New Dawn, according to Bloober Team.
Check it out in the Cronos: Lazarus DLC reveal trailer below:
Bloober Team describes Cronos: The New Dawn as a slower survival horror game, but says playing as the Warden will turn the experience into “a faster, more aggressive take on Cronos’ survival horror formula, with combat defined by speed, pressure, and constant danger.” You’ll be up against the Tracker, a persistent new threat whose only objective is to hunt you down and kill you. The story is one of rebellion, inner conflict, and the cost of defying the Collective, according to the team.
“Cronos: The New Dawn is our original IP – an ambitious risk that allows us to create something truly unique,” Bloober Team CEO Piotr Babieno writes in a press release. “We’re thrilled to expand the Cronos universe with Cronos: Lazarus. The Warden has resonated strongly with audiences, and we’re excited to see Alan Turkington return to this iconic role.”
Cronos: Lazarus is scheduled to launch sometime this Fall on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC.
Developer Pipeworks Studios and publisher Atari have revealed Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered, and it’s launching on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC on November 3. As the name implies, it’s a remaster of the original 2002 kaiju brawler hit (at least in my living room), Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee.
When it launches this November, the remaster will bring enhanced visuals, an improved unlock system, quality-of-life improvements, and more to the original experience. It will also include the addition of online multiplayer, allowing you to duke it out in Versus or Melee modes, both online and via local couch co-op.
Check it out in the Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered reveal trailer below:
Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered will feature 12 monsters to unlock and choose from, including, of course, the big man himself, Godzilla, alongside King Ghidorah, Mechagodzilla, Rodan, and plenty more.
If you’re interested in a physical edition of the game, Atari is publishing one for PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch 2. The game will be available on November 3 digitally on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC.
Did you play this back in the early 2000s? Let us know in the comments below!
I didn’t think I would be the ideal audience for Among Us, the new show that dropped yesterday on Paramount+. I’ve played the game but don’t have a strong attachment to the brand, and I’ve always perceived it as intended for a middle school audience. Regardless of whether that’s true for the game, it’s certainly not true for the show, and I found a lot to love as someone only passively aware of Among Us’ cultural significance. The show is fun, not obsessed with game references, and makes a far more earnest attempt at depicting drama and death than I could have guessed. Put simply, Among Us works.
First, a quick warning: this show probably isn’t suitable for young kids. Among Us the game has permeated the PCs, consoles, and phones of people of all ages, but Among Us is aimed a little older; despite being rated TV-PG, it feels more like it’s right over the cusp of PG-13. There’s mild swearing, copious cartoon gore, and a pretty bleak tone in the later episodes as the body count begins to stack up.
The show’s premise is roughly identical to that of the game. A spaceship is on the way to deliver a shipment of “Ore+” to the Mira corporation, and it’s staffed by crewmates: round, human-like creatures each donning a different colored spacesuit, which is also their name. However, one of them is an imposter, a shapeshifting alien a la John Carpenter’s The Thing, and that monster is thirsty for blood. Despite its silly, sometimes childlike tone in the opening episodes, the show is a murder mystery, and as the number of victims increases, the mood adjusts accordingly, which I appreciated. It resists the urge to make jokes about the drama and treats the stakes sincerely, which kept me invested.
A party in episode one. I’m using it as a pseudo group shot, because nobody has died yet at this point.
If you’re not coming to the show as a fan of the game, you’re probably coming for the star-studded cast, which is generally utilized well. Ashley Johnson (known for Critical Role and The Last of Us) gives a standout performance as Purple, a skeptical security guard who’s also the most grounded crewmate. Meanwhile, Elijah Wood (known for The Lord of the Rings), Yvette Nicole Brown (known for Community), and Patton Oswalt (known for Ratatouille) are also highlights as Green, Orange, and White, respectively. That said, some characters don’t get as much of a chance to shine as I’d hoped, either getting buried in the ensemble or dying too early in the show. Because of this, the latter episodes are generally stronger; by the time the crew has diminished, we’ve gotten to know each character well enough to fully understand their motivations and to really mourn them when they die.
While Among Us (the game) doesn’t have prewritten dialogue or a traditional narrative, I’d argue that its structure creates a story every time you play, and the Among Us show adapts this well. The loop from tension to murder to trial to verdict is effective; the show’s best scenes are also my favorite parts of the game, when crewmates debate whom to accuse and eject from the ship. If you’re a fan of the games, you’ll find it well-represented here, but if you’re unfamiliar, you don’t need to do any catching up.
A shot in the show’s intro, where Red is playing a video game. The video game parody changes every episode.
I especially appreciate how distinct each character looks and acts, considering they all have roughly identical bodies. The outfits and personalities are distinct, and I’m amazed at how much personality the show’s team of artists can imbue in a simple visor. Closer looks at the imposter are also very well done, with a disturbing, Cronenberg-like design. There are also plenty of visual nods to both Among Us and other video games, but they’re unobtrusive side jokes, and you won’t miss anything if you don’t catch them. One of my favorite touches is that the intro sequence changes every episode to reflect who’s alive and who’s dead (and also changes the video game reference on Red’s monitor).
I am satisfied with Among Us, and left the season finale glad that Infinity Train’s Owen Dennis was the one to create the adaptation. While it’s not necessarily groundbreaking storytelling, I enjoyed its various twists, animation style, and balance of respect for the source material and the medium of television. Most of all, it nails a distinct tone of drama, comedy, and light horror that defines the experience when playing the game. Among Us takes its source material seriously and succeeds because of it.
Bloober Team, the studio behind Silent Hill 2 Remake and last year’s Cronos: The New Dawn, and Paramount Games Studio, which recently revealed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin is being developed by Platinum Games, have unveiled Star Trek: Shadow Frontier, a psychological horror game launching next year. Revealed during IGN Live, Shadow Frontier puts players in control of Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Ro Laren after she crash-lands on a mysterious planet to answer a distress call when it launches in 2027 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
Michelle Forbes, who played the character in The Next Generation, returns to play the character in Shadow Frontier, and though she only appeared in just a handful of episodes across the series’ seven seasons, she made an impact on Trekkies, making her reappearance in the first-ever Star Trek horror game an exciting one. “The planet [Ro Laren lands on] is a spaceship graveyard where nothing is as it seems,” a press release reads. “As she explores the planet’s corrupted surface and crosses paths with other survivors, she must face twisted creatures, a hostile ecosystem, and an entity that seeks to envelop her body and mind.”
Check it out in the Star Trek: Shadow Frontiers trailer below:
Bloober Team CEO Piotr Babieno says many at the studio are lifelong Star Trek fans, and that the team looks forward to “combining that passion with what we do best, horror.”
“[We’ve] partnered with Paramount to create something truly unique: a new adventure set in a beloved universe, enriched with our own signature layer of dark, psychological thriller,” Babieno writes in a press release. “We’re genuinely excited about this journey, and our hope is to honor the legacy of Star Trek in a way that feels both respectful yet refreshingly different.”
Star Trek: Shadow Frontier doesn’t have an exact release date, but Bloober Team and Paramount Games say it’s due out next year on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
What do you think of this reveal? Let us know in the comments below!
For anyone following the video game business closely, the saga of development behind 1666: Amsterdam is an intriguing one, and that’s before we even get down to understanding the game itself. After being re-revealed at this year’s Summer Game Fest show, there’s a good bit to unpack about the project and why it’s going to be one to watch closely in the coming months.
Patrice Désilets was instrumental in bringing to life Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2003), but he deserves credit as one of the foundational originators of Assassin’s Creed, bringing the idea to life back in 2007 and setting it on a course to be one of the most popular and influential game series of the last two decades.
After laying the groundwork for the series and first sequels, Désilets had a complicated breakup with Ubisoft. Subsequently, he started work at THQ Montreal on 1666: Amsterdam around 2011 and 2012, before that studio went bankrupt, Ubisoft purchased the studio (and its properties) at auction, and Désilets was promptly let go again – without rights to his project. By 2016, Désilets regained rights to the project, and work once again began in earnest to develop the project at his new studio, Panache Digital Games.
Having worked with Désilets and covered his work on Assassin’s Creed, I can speak to his imagination and drive to create. In conversation, he is one of those developers who loves the craft and is interested in exploring its potential. When he left Ubisoft, he had been brimming with ideas to bring to that franchise, and it’s safe to say that many aspects of the Assassin’s Creed franchise moved in different directions after his departure. As a developer, Désilets seems especially drawn to history, mysticism, the power of ritual, and the ties between the past and present – all of which are directly relevant to what is coming together with 1666: Amsterdam.
A Game Of Three Time Periods
Not unlike the unique modern-day/past split in Assassin’s Creed, 1666: Amsterdam is a game that explicitly explores different time periods, and the prelude demo includes a glimpse at three of them.
The core of the historical game’s action is set in Amsterdam, beginning in December of 1665, as a young woman transforms from her unassuming self into an ethereal, red-garbed witch named Noa, on her way to a “commencement” ritual for a clandestine group called the Zaindaris Tribe. There, around a sacred tree, she selects a companion familiar from among several distinct cats, and the selected feline jumps toward her arms.
A sudden jump takes us to a second time period in the modern day, playing as a different young woman named Clio, who is investigating an enigmatic letter left behind by her ailing father. She visits an old professor friend of that father in a university library. The letter includes an indecipherable section that seems obscured by magic.
After investigating and finding more clues, Clio (and Professor Lucas) can interpret the letter, which gives the young woman a vision that rockets her into yet another time period in 1999, and the story told by her father that appears to be (at first hearing) a retelling of how Clio was likely conceived. As in, it’s a story told by her father, Aaron, about a sex ritual he was pulled into with a woman who is (presumably) Clio’s mother.
The amorous encounter culminates in Aaron awakening as a cat, traveling back in time to December 1665, and leaping into the arms of Noa, creating a tidy narrative loop to wrap up the story intro.
A Mix Of Gameplay Styles
The public demo is notable for its absence of action sequences, but several brief sizzle scenes offer a glimpse of what players might expect. Once again, in keeping with Désilets’ prior work on Assassin’s Creed, we see Noa navigating the historical landscape of busy city streets in Amsterdam, engaging in magic-fueled third-person action combat with her foes.
But the demo does hint at other important elements of play, including a focus on investigating one’s environment. At any time, the characters in the demo can pause and look around, focus on objects, and learn about them, often leading to new interactive objects or prompts. As Noa, players also have access to seemingly magical capabilities, drawing a substance called Lux from dead things and utilizing a dark energy called Nux to enchant, ignite, or otherwise affect objects around her.
The other fascinating twist on gameplay is the cat, who we’re led to believe is actually the time-traveled embodiment of Aaron from centuries later, moving with Noa through Amsterdam. When Noa selects a cat companion, she is given the choice between several individual named creatures, including The Dreamer, Hermit, Spirit, Knight, Page, Child, Alchemist, Guardian, or Wildling. Each has described traits that seem to indicate different potential specialties, almost like cat classes. While much of the game is clearly navigated from the perspective of Noa, you’ll also have sequences played as the cat, able to jump to high places, infiltrate small spaces, and more.
An Intriguing Mystery, A Familiar Playstyle
Nothing about 1666: Amsterdam feels like it’s fundamentally the same game as Assassin’s Creed. But once you make the creative connection, there’s no denying the lines of inspiration that connect Désilets’ new project to his earlier brainchild.
According to in-demo summaries and early details revealed by the developers, Noa moves through Amsterdam, identifying entities known as the Originals, who have lived for centuries, and Noa is the Collector sent to take that power back from them. Amsterdam is lively and active during the day, but reveals new secrets at night, and Noa is able to track and confront in multiple ways, depending on player preference. If this sounds familiar (especially to players of the early Assassin’s Creed games), it’s because both are rooted in similar gameplay fantasies, and separated by setting, characters, and an increased focus on witchcraft and magic here in 1666.
After playing the prologue (which is billed as the opening of the game), it’s clear that Désilets and his team have done a fine job of establishing an intriguing setup and some gorgeous (often disquieting) visual frameworks. We’re also treated to the hints of a haunting musical score by the Canadian cellist and composer Jorane.
With those atmospheric, audio, and visual elements established, a great deal of 1666: Amsterdam’s potential hinges on the action, urban exploration, and infiltration experience that Désilets and his team are crafting, and which have yet to be detailed or played in the hours that presumably follow the revealed story opening.
If those features compare favorably to some of the fun we experienced in the early days of Assassin’s Creed, I suspect there may be an audience hungry for a return to the mystery, historical reverence, and surprise that Panache Digital seems to be shooting for here.
If you’re a fan of co-op platformers like It Takes Two and Split Fiction, Out of Words should absolutely be on your radar. This 2D platformer stars two teenagers, Kurt and Karla, whose friendship becomes strained when one of them is moving away. Somehow, they’re transported to a bizarrely idyllic but dangerous fantasy world with their mouths erased. I played 30 minutes of the game’s second chapter during Summer Game Fest Play Days, and while the game’s stop-motion aesthetic drew me in, the clever cooperative platforming mechanics kept me hooked.
It’s appropriate that my demo session with the game’s creative director was in relative silence. That winds up being an endorsement of the game’s design because, despite not communicating much, we intuitively tackled the game’s entertaining cooperative physics challenges. The sequence begins as my partner and I sprint and leap across beautiful grassy plains as strange, furry creatures follow and imitate our actions, like jumping, and it ends with us diving into the ocean.
This underwater segment shows off the first of the game’s co-op mechanics. To avoid drowning while navigating raging currents, we have to stick close together to allow an air bubble to surround us; swim too far apart, and the bubble breaks. One tricky section later in the chapter became my favorite, as it called on both of us to separately explore mossy terrain on the ground, the ceiling, and the walls, by passing a blue, stingray-like creature back and forth that allowed the holder to defy gravity. Switching between platforms above and below by passing the creature like a baton at the right times is a challenging yet entertaining test of our trust and coordination. I got the biggest kick out of overcoming a lengthy gap by repeatedly passing the vital critter to keep each other from falling to our deaths. It’s probably the best (and least painful) trust fall exercise I’ve ever experienced.
Out of Words is also an artistic juggernaut thanks to its hand-crafted aesthetic and animation, which is brought to life using traditional stop-motion techniques. I even got to meet and take a photo with an in-game model for one of the game’s creatures (posted above). Seeing the detailed sculpture in person certainly raised my appreciation for the insane artistry and work that’s gone into bringing Out of Words to life. That respect, combined with the fun gameplay, makes me excited to phone up a buddy to see how Kurt and Karla escape their strange predicament when the game launches early next year.
Each June, Summer Game Fest, much like E3 before it, plays host to the latest and greatest upcoming and ongoing games. With Los Angeles, California, as the backdrop, Game Informer meets with hundreds of developers over the course of the weekend, checking out the most exciting games on the horizon and interviewing those who bring them to life. While we will have plenty of coverage across GameInformer.com and our YouTube channel, this page is the place where you can find a concentrated blast of our favorite games we played and saw while on the ground at Summer Game Fest 2026.
If you’re coming to this article in the beginning of the weekend, be sure to come back throughout the next few days, as we will be updating this page with more games as we see and play them!
End of Abyss
Developer: Section 9 – Release Date: October 1
I’ve read the praises for End of Abyss from fellow editors Charles Harte and Kyle Hilliard, but after spending 30 minutes checking out this moody twin-stick shooter, I’m on the bandwagon. Developed by ex-Little Nightmares developers, that series’ trademark moody vibes and unsettling enemy design are fully present in this sci-fi Metroid-inspired adventure. As a survival horror fan, I enjoyed managing precious gun ammo to drop mutated humans and using limited items such as flares to distract threats or grenades to blow them apart. I especially loved scanning environments to gather intel, marking locked doors (which is then labeled on the maze-like maps for easy reference while backtracking), and revealing enemy weaknesses. I’m going to spend an embarrassing amount of time obsessively scanning, especially since Section 9 confirmed there’s an achievement for recording everything. End of Abyss’ creepy vibes, survival horror design, and tense gameplay make it a great way to kick off the spookiest month of the year. – Marcus Stewart
Slap Out Of It!
Developer: Turbo Button – Release Date: 2027
Slap Out Of It is a delightfully funny game in which you’re a new employee at PUZZL, an enigmatic, very unserious corporation with many rooms and floors. I assisted customer service with increasingly odd tasks: lubing someone’s digits with butter to help unfasten them from a finger trap, frosting a cop’s donut with a fire extinguisher, and photocopying paper currency to bypass pesky safeguards. You can pick up objects, slap people and things, and generally interact with the environment with both hands to solve involved-but-lighthearted situations. Later in the demo, I infiltrated a nightclub to steal a fog machine by rotating a room to get a pair of sunglasses (it’s a long story), which allowed me to reveal and rearrange the lasers blocking my access to the box holding one of the two bones. As for acquiring the second bone? You’ll have to solve that puzzle yourself! – Alex Van Aken
Platform:
PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Quest 3, Quest 2, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, PC, iOS, Android
Publisher:
Poncle
Developer:
Poncle
Release:
(PC),
(Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One),
(iOS, Android),
(Switch),
(PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4),
(Quest 2, Quest 3)
Rating:
Teen
You probably know Exodus as the Matthew McConaughey game, as the actor’s involvement was the pillar on which the game was promoted when it was revealed in 2023. McConaughey plays C.C. Orlev in Exodus, but his role seems ultimately minor in the larger universe and story (though we could be wrong – time will tell). The arguably more interesting and affecting involved party in the game is James Ohlen. Ohlen worked at BioWare for more than two decades, had his hand on every franchise BioWare worked on and created, and was the developer’s senior creative director at the time when he left to lead Archetype Entertainment with Wizards of the Coast and help build the universe of Exodus. Ohlen was later joined by additional former BioWare members, including Drew Karpyshyn, a writer on many BioWare projects, and Chad Robertson, who worked on BioWare’s live-service efforts.
Alongside seeing extended gameplay for Exodus, we also received a presentation from Karpyshyn, Robertson, and the game’s director, Chris King. I was impressed by the overall effort to create something grand in scale, even beyond the game. There are already two Exodus prequel novels from author Peter F. Hamilton, an animated short film on Amazon’s Secret Level show, a tabletop game, and more on the way. Wizards of the Coast is putting a lot of effort into the fiction, and, thankfully, the game, which feels like it is being billed as the culmination of all this table-setting, looks solid.
Considering the lineage, it’s no surprise that Exodus looks a whole lot like Mass Effect, which I offer as a compliment. Exodus is a sci-fi third-person RPG shooter with affecting narrative choices, mortality mechanics, and deep lore. You play as Jun Aslan (who can be male or female) about 40,000 years in the future. They are a Traveler who explores myriad planets and ships while making choices about who they fight with, against, and who they romance. Jun is special because they can interact with ancient celestial technology, which, hopefully, can help save your home planet – which isn’t Earth, by the way – as it suffered environmental collapse millennia ago.
There are reminders of our world, though, beyond the human beings that persist. Familiar animals also appear, and they can talk. An elephant shopkeeper jokes about their bad memory, a giant wolf hangs out with the protagonist, there is a party member who is an octopus in a gigantic mech suit, and Karpyshyn teased a “very interesting raccoon” as being one of his favorite awakened animals.
The other major lore element of Exodus is time dilation, in which traveling to certain planets can make time move faster back home. In the story, maybe only a few hours have passed, but back home, it might be years.
Gameplay is of the cover shooter variety, but an impressive amount of tools are on display in one encounter shown. Jun grapple-swings between platforms and turns temporarily invisible to sprint between safe cover points and sneak up on enemies for stealth kills. Jun can also use hacking tools, but we haven’t see much of that yet. Along with standard guns, Jun can also throw a thruster grenade that rockets through the air to take out a powerful turret.
Seeing Exodus in action, it’s hard not to recall Mass Effect. The BioWare lineage aids that association, and it’s a third-person RPG shooter in space with narrative choices. I am sure we can all be forgiven for reaching for that comparison, but my hope is that when we get to play the game next year, it will be able to separate itself from BioWare’s landmark quadrilogy and develop an identity of its own. I look forward to giving it that chance.
Blasphemous 2, a great indie game fueled by inspiration from Castlevania and Bloodborne, came out almost three years ago, but its developers at The Game Kitchen aren’t finished with it quite yet. Revealed at today’s Future Games Show, the gothic platformer is getting free DLC, and it’s out right now.
Dubbed “The Third Sin,” this content adds a new area to the map to explore and battle through, along with a new weapon, outfits, music, and more. The following excerpt, shared via a press release, has a full breakdown of what to expect:
Blasphemous II: The Third Sin challenges players to explore and overcome a part of Cvstodia that once served as a refuge for the nobles, until The Miracle wrought devastation within the castle walls. Set across the fortress’s meandering halls, twisting towers, cavernous library, and dank crypt, the expansion also features a gallery allowing players to replay previous bosses, and introduces a new gameplay experience in the form of three Familiars – magical entities that accompany The Penitent One, supporting them in both combat and exploration.
Added to the player’s armoury is a new weapon, a blade-tipped whip, enhancing The Penitent One’s move set with a series of standard and special attacks to vanquish foes into dust. Blasphemous II: The Third Sin also includes new prayers, unlockable outfits, five new achievements/trophies, and an additional six music tracks by series composer Carlos Viola to further immerse players into the castle’s uneasy ambience.
For more Blasphemous 2, check out our review of the game, where we said, “Blasphemous 2 takes inspiration from those that came before it, but by intertwining a gorgeous art style, enticing exploration, and rewarding combat, it rises above the horde of Castlevania-inspired action titles.” For more Summer Game Fest, check out Game Informer’s SGF coverage hub.
Cairn was one of 2026’s first sleeper hits. While we were expecting to like it, even our reviewer was pleasantly surprised by how hard it hit, and it’s one of Metacritic’s top 20 highest rated games of the year at the time of writing. Naturally, DLC for a game like that would be an easy sell, but in this case, it’s not a “sell” at all – On The Trail: Deep Water, Cairn’s first DLC pack, is dropping for free on August 13. Check out the release date trailer below.
“On the Trail brings climbers to new climbing locations and challenges,” the DLC’s reveal trailer description reads. “Find your route freely, solve fresh climbing problems and explore new iconic locations as you follow the trail of a legendary climber.”
Cairn is available now on PC and PS5, and the new content will be added on August 13. For more on the game, check out our review, where we said, “Cairn is more than a remarkably gripping mountain-climbing game. It’s also a deeply affecting narrative of anguish, loss, and the steep cost of obsession.” For more summer news, head to our Summer Game Fest announcements hub.
