The Best, Worst, and Weirdest Terminator Games

Depending on who you ask, Terminator 2: Judgment Day is either one of the best action movies ever, one of the best movies in any genre, period, or just the best movie of all time, full stop. But regardless of how you rank it, there’s no debate that this film lends itself to games — robots, lasers, explosions, chase sequences, boss fights, and a whole lot of guns — so naturally, it’s gotten its share of adaptations. Some have tried to translate the Terminator franchise’s most explosive moments into an interactive experience, some have woven original lore into the series’ tangled rat’s nest of a timeline, and some aren’t actually related to James Cameron’s creation whatsoever, but figured it couldn’t hurt to throw a killer robot or two into the mix.

Alas, there’s never been a definitive T2 video game, but this year, Terminator 2D: No Fate is attempting to change that. Much like an advanced cybernetic organism sent back in time to alter the future, a group of game developers is using cutting-edge technology from the year 2025 to make the Judgment Day game we’ve wanted ever since the movie was released back in 1991. So, come with me if you want to learn… about the best, worst, and weirdest Terminator video games ever made… in this timeline, anyway. But please, remain clothed. This isn’t that kind of time travel.

Terminator 2 Console Games

One of the best things about Terminator 2 is the sheer variety of its action scenes. It’s got multiple chase sequences with cars, bikes, trucks, and a chopper. In between chases, it’s got shootouts that make use of a whole arsenal of distinctive weapons, and it pits a nearly unkillable protagonist against an even less killable villain. Oh, and if that wasn’t enough, there’s a nice glimpse of future warfare full of flying laser robots and cyber tanks and chrome-plated skeleton men. Now imagine you’re tasked with combining all those things into an interactive experience that’s as fun to play as it was to watch on the big screen, while also making sure it fits on a floppy disk. Add to it that you’re on a tight deadline to get it shipped while the movie is still fresh in people’s minds. Oh, and one last thing: you haven’t actually seen the movie yourself.

Well, that was the case for several of the Terminator 2 video games that gradually trickled out in the two years following its theatrical release. Before hitting theaters, T2 was a closely guarded secret, so while the developers were allowed to read a draft of the script and see relevant reference materials, they had to fill in a lot of blanks, figuring out how the finished product would look. So while they weren’t quite flying blind, they were definitely gunning it down the freeway full speed with their headlights off, and it shows in those earlier games.

The T2 game that suffered the worst from these circumstances was Ocean Software’s officially licensed cash-grab, released exclusively in PAL territory in time for the film’s European theatrical release. This one is such a bizarre mess that IGN’s sister-site Eurogamer produced a whole video about it, titled “The Terminator 2 Game That’s Very Weird,” and while that’s an apt appraisal of that game in particular, there are quite a few others that fit the same description and were developed under equally challenging conditions.

Stateside, one of the first T2 games to market was for the Game Boy, released in time for the holiday shopping season of ‘91. It did an admirable job compressing the explosive events depicted on the big screen onto a monochromatic chartreuse display the size of a sugar packet. Like Ocean’s version, it too featured a mix of sidescrolling run-and-gun platforming levels and on-rails driving sequences. In between, there were multiple circuit puzzles in which you had to reprogram the Terminator – just like the unforgettable scene in the film where John and Sarah Connor void the T-800’s warranty by tinkering with its CPU. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to the developers as they scrambled to make a game based on a movie they hadn’t seen yet, that scene would be cut for the theatrical release, so those levels probably seemed especially tacked on to players at the time.

It’s funny to think about a movie studio splitting hairs about actors’ likenesses on a screen with such low fidelity, but it was genuinely a bone of contention. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s likeness couldn’t be used for the T-800 in-game (something that’s still the case for Terminator 2D), so there are no close-up images of him. It’s possible that’s why his character sprite looks more like Sigourney Weaver in Aliens than it does Arnold in T2, but that’s more likely a byproduct of it being twenty pixels tall.

Monochromatic low-res renditions of John and Sarah Connor do appear briefly to explain the story, and apparently, Linda Hamilton’s portrait in particular was the cause of some confusion. In an interview years later, it was revealed that UK-based developer Bits received feedback from T2’s production company that Sarah Conner’s bangs weren’t big enough. They were referring to the hair covering her forehead, which is referred to as fringe in the UK, but the developers briefly thought this was American slang for breasts. Thankfully, based on the finished product, this mix-up eventually got sorted out.

In 1992, a similarly shaped Terminator 2 game made its way onto the NES before getting ported to the Sega Master System and Game Gear. Like the Game Boy version, this broke up the movie into side-scrolling platforming levels and driving sequences, but thankfully scrapped the circuitry puzzles – suggesting that the developers of this version were actually able to see the film they were making a game about. While it’s a fairly boilerplate video game tie-in for the era, there is one rather ingenious wrinkle. Just like in the movie, John Conner gives his pet Terminator a scolding for terminating too many people, and this is reflected in-game by requiring the player to complete the mental hospital level non-lethally. Shooting human enemies while standing will result in a mission failure, so the player is forced to crouch and shoot them in the legs instead. Infuriating! But clever.

In December 1993, Terminator 2 games finally arrived on the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis. These versions benefited from the more powerful hardware and extra development time, but they didn’t exactly strike while the steel was still molten. By the time they were released, time-traveling robots from the future had become obsolete, and genetically resuscitated dinosaurs ruled the world, following Jurassic Park’s box office success that summer.

Despite featuring larger, more varied environments and side objectives like collecting scattered future tech, the 16-bit T2 was not received well. Aside from frustrating players mechanically, it underwhelmed visually, especially when compared to other console games on store shelves at the time, like Ecco the Dolphin and Star Fox, or ports of arcade hits like Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat. Though, bonus points for the authenticity of starting the first level with a butt-naked Terminator walking into a biker bar.

Terminator 2 Arcade Games

Considering that T2 shows the future savior of humanity gleefully burning through tokens in Afterburner and Missile Defense at his local arcade, it’s only fitting that the film got an arcade game of its own, which started appearing in arcades in 1991, before the movie had left cinemas. Compared to the scattershot attempt the console games made at distilling the film’s action setpieces to an interactive format, the original arcade game was more of a straight shooter, as in, all you did was shoot stuff, straight in front of you.

An on-rails shooting gallery played with cabinet-mounted light guns, T2: The Arcade Game let up to two players take on the role of the T-800. The score screen would refer to each player as an individual terminator, though it makes more sense canonically to pretend each player is controlling one of the T-800’s arms. After all, in the movies, he cocks a shotgun one-handed and dual-wields assault rifles, and sending twin T-800s back in time would just be silly. In fact, you can even play this game while dual-wielding, poorly, so if you have a couple of rolls of quarters you need to get rid of quickly, that’s one option.

The first five levels of the arcade game take place in 2029 — the near-future hellscape ravaged by the Skynet and resistance war depicted at the start of Judgment Day — with players blasting wave after wave of endoskeletons, including higher-level gold-plated ones, before eventually getting sent back in time to shoot stuff in the 1990s. The first ‘90s level takes place in the Cyberdyne offices, where the primary objective is “destroy everything,” which includes dozens of Cyberdyne Systems staff members in hazmat suits inexplicably hurling Erlenmeyer flasks full of chemicals at you. Why do they even have chemistry stuff here? Isn’t this a robotics company?One of the big selling points of the arcade game is that it used the digitized likenesses of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Edward Furlong, and Robert Patrick, as well as authentic audio clips from the movie. Of course, the context in which they’re used is less authentic. When the T-1000 finally shows up at the end of the Cyberdyne level, he delivers this chilling one-liner: “Are you John Conner?” Which is extremely funny, as it suggests that he’s still not 100% certain this child he’s come all this way to kill is in fact the guy he’s after.

Like the movie, the final showdown takes place in a steel mill, and the T-1000 must be doused with liquid nitrogen, shattered, and ultimately knocked into a vat of molten metal. However, unlike the movie, in between those sequences, the T-800 must protect John Conner from a bunch of gun-toting steel mill workers who come in rappelling from the ceiling, who are apparently really not happy about this robot fight interrupting their smelting of ingots or rebar or whatever.

T2: The Arcade game isn’t perfect, but it could’ve been a lot worse: it could’ve been about rescuing Aerosmith by launching CDs at stormtroopers dressed like MC Hammer… which is the premise of Revolution X, another Acclaim game that was sold as a conversion kit for the T2 cabinet. I would love to say I have fond memories of playing the original T2 arcade game, but for whatever reason, the proprietor of my local movie theater decided a game about Aerosmith made more sense in a multiplex lobby than a game about one of the most successful motion pictures of all time, but couldn’t be bothered to replace the cabinet art. So, I have very fond memories of the T2 cabinet, just not playing the game it advertised.

Terminator 2 PC Games

While arcades and home consoles were thriving in the early 1990s, PC gaming was evolving at an almost geometric rate. Alongside Terminator 2, a brand new Terminator game arrived for personal computers in July 1991, but it wasn’t actually based on the sequel. Rather than scramble to gamify all of T2’s massive setpieces, one studio had the bright idea to tackle something smaller: the first film, which hadn’t gotten a game at that point.

The Terminator was released in 1984, a year after the entire video game industry crashed, and when it was still in rough shape. Even if that hadn’t been the case, nobody was about to greenlight a game based on a low-budget horror flick from the director of Piranha II: The Spawning. But, as James Cameron would demonstrate, from humble beginnings come great things. Meanwhile, the studio behind this ambitious Terminator PC game hadn’t done much besides a handful of sports games, but that would change. The studio’s name? Bethesda Softworks.
These days, Bethesda is known for making massively ambitious games set in sprawling open worlds, and in many ways, The Terminator was the studio’s first step toward developing genre-defining RPGs like Fallout 3 and Skyrim. Upon loading up The Terminator, players have the option to play as Kyle Reese or the Terminator. Playing as the former meant protecting Sarah Connor, while the latter was tasked with the titular termination. In either case, the scope of how and where players accomplished this was ridiculously ambitious for the time. The game took place in an almost 1:1 recreation of central Los Angeles that was roughly ten miles across. For comparison, Skyrim is only around 4 miles from Markarth to Riften.

Like in so many sandbox games that would follow in its stead, the player would have free rein to run or drive around, buy or steal weapons and other items, and avoid the police. That said, this was 1991, so it wasn’t exactly easy on the eyes, looking like somewhere between Duck Hunt and a Dire Straits video. It also wasn’t easy on the fingers. Later games of this ilk would let players commit grand theft auto with the press of a button, but vehicular theft in Bethesda’s first outing was only slightly less complex than hotwiring an actual car and then operating a stickshift to get it moving.

Bear in mind, this was 1991. Wolfenstein 3D was a year away, and the idea of a game where players fired a gun from a first-person perspective in a three-dimensional space was far from a surefire game mechanic, never mind doing it in a three-dimensional space the size of Los Angeles. Bethesda’s Terminator game did well enough to warrant a sequel, but rather than follow The Terminator with a game based on T2, the developers sidestepped the film’s many narrative and technical moving parts and set the game post-Judgment Day during the war against the machines.

Released only a year after the first game, Terminator 2029 shows noticeable graphical improvements, which were likely one benefit of its substantially narrower scope. Rather than attempt another open world, 2029 was broken up into levels. Instead of making players pick between a human or machine protagonist, 2029 gave them the best of both worlds: a member of the human resistance, outfitted with a cybernetic exoskeleton that could be outfitted with an arsenal of high-tech weaponry and futuristic gadgets.

A year later, Bethesda followed 2029 with The Terminator: Rampage, which further narrowed the scope and scale of the experience to a more conventional corridor-based shooter. Set entirely within a Cyberdyne Systems facility in the year 1984, players controlled a commando sent back in time by John Connor to destroy a computer that itself had been sent back in time and had begun manufacturing terminators. Rampage was released in December 1993, arriving on store shelves just in time for the holidays. Unfortunately, anyone with a PC and an interest in shooting stuff was likely preoccupied with DOOM, which was not only a much better game; iD launched it by releasing the first chapter for free online, under the correct assumption that players would eagerly pay for the rest of it.

Rampage might not have been the smash hit that Bethesda was hoping for, but its lead designer Vijay Lakschman’s next project for the company would more than make up for it: a little fantasy RPG called The Elder Scrolls: Arena. The Elder Scrolls would go on to become Bethesda’s most successful property, largely thanks to the ambitious vision of game designer Todd Howard, who’s since become a household name – at least, a household name in homes that own multiple swords. But long before venturing off to Tamriel, Howard would carve out his corner of the Terminator timeline.

Howard’s first producer credit at Bethesda was on The Terminator: Future Shock, which was released in 1995, but improved on the studio’s previous efforts tremendously. For one, it featured an unprecedented amount of 3D assets at a time when most shooters were still mostly 2D sprites in a three-dimensional space. Even more revolutionarily, Future Shock is the first PC game that used the mouse to look around – something Todd Howard makes no secret about.

And before you say Bungie did it first with Marathon, that was technically released on Mac, not PC. An expansion pack was planned for Future Shock, but it eventually grew into a standalone game titled Skynet. Skynet lived up to its supercomputer namesake by iterating upon its predecessor to a shocking degree, adding a multiplayer mode and refining the visuals. Okay, so maybe the FMV cutscenes haven’t aged great, but for the time, it was pretty nuts: Skynet’s complex indoor environments and large outdoor areas could be explored on foot or by vehicle, giving it a sense of scale that wasn’t quite as commonplace in games back in 1996.

There’s no saying what the state of Terminator games would’ve been like had Bethesda continued to develop them, but Skynet would be the studio’s last use of the license. Todd Howard would shift his focus from future wars to high fantasy, acting as project lead for The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard – one of the most hated entries in the series – before following that up with Morrowind, which would become one of the most beloved RPGs of all time. No fate but what we make for ourselves!

From T-1000s to T-Viruses

For the late 90s and early 2000s, the Terminator franchise was largely in standby mode. However, a little survival horror series had begun to infect the gaming space: Resident Evil. While Capcom’s long-running series is clearly its own thing, we’d be remiss not to mention how much it owes to James Cameron’s work.

At face value, Resident Evil is mainly about horror of an organic variety – or at least, biological – so a series about shiny metal robots isn’t the first thing to come to mind. But the devs at Capcom took some major cues from the team at Cyberdyne Systems: For instance, in the original Terminator, the T-800 shows up looking like a big, scary human man who pursues the heroes relentlessly until he’s revealed to be something decidedly not human and eventually defeated. In Resident Evil 2, Mr. X has a similar trajectory, shedding his human disguise eventually to reveal his more monstrous Tyrant form. When developing Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, producer Shinji Mikami specifically credits the T-1000 as the inspiration for the titular bioweapon.

Much like Cameron did with T2, as well as Aliens, the Resident Evil series has also had great success by pivoting from horror to action, with things heating up in RE3 before exploding into the nigh-perfect action-horror masterpiece that is Resident Evil 4 – and then perhaps getting a bit too action-packed in subsequent games. But hey, making sequels to nigh-perfect pieces of media is not easy – as the Terminator franchise would soon show us, repeatedly.

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines Games

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines hit theaters in 2003, a decade and change after its predecessor. T2 is an impossibly tough act to follow, and T3 ultimately didn’t need to exist, but the fact that it emerged from a decade and change in development hell due to convoluted rights issues, it’s kind of a miracle that it’s as decent as it is. For context, the Terminator 3 Wikipedia page spends 600 words summarizing the plot of the movie, which isn’t exactly straightforward, and more than 4000 words describing the amount of back and forth that took place before filming even began.

Since T2, the gaming landscape had changed a fair amount, and console games were beginning to be taken more seriously as a form of entertainment for mature, discerning consumers. This may have had something to do with Arnold finally allowing his likeness to be used in the first Terminator 3 game, and based on the trailer, that was one of its biggest selling points: “For the first time ever, fight as Arnold Schwarzenegger!”.

Unfortunately, star power in a video game isn’t enough to carry it when the rest of the experience sucks. When the Rise of the Machines video game arrived alongside the film’s home video release, it got torn apart by reviewers and fans alike for its subpar graphics, loads of bugs, and AI so stupid that it kind of undermined the premise of the movie it was based on.

PC players didn’t have it any better – they got Terminator 3: War of the Machines, a team-based multiplayer experience vaguely reminiscent of Battlefield 1942, but set in the post-judgment day wasteland. One widespread complaint was the half-baked animations, with one reviewer noting it made sense for a Terminator to die by rigidly falling over like a wobbly store mannequin, but it was less convincing when a human did it, which, bafflingly, was still showcased in the official trailer.

In 2003, developers of console and PC games might have been targeting a more discerning crowd of gamers, but for hastily produced shovelware based on any license that wasn’t bolted down, the Game Boy Advance was the wild west. But, ironically, the GBA version of Rise of the Machines was the least worst adaptation. An isometric action game, it followed a similar structure to T2 games. Players took control of the T-850 and fought robots in the future for several levels before traveling back in time to get shot at by the LAPD instead. One really cool detail is when the T-850 takes damage, it’s reflected by his sprite’s appearance in-game – the lower his health, the more his metal endoskeleton is visible. However, picking up healthpacks makes his skin and clothing grow back, which makes absolutely zero sense… if you somehow forgot we’re talking about a Game Boy game.

A year after Rise of the Machines, Terminator 3: The Redemption was released for consoles and PC – and its title seemed more self-aware than Skynet on Judgment Day, especially after how the previous two games were received. Redemption began development around the same time as Rise and War, but was given extra development time due to its larger scope, which it benefited from greatly. When it was released in 2004, many critics lauded it as “The best Terminator game yet!” Unfortunately, that’s not really a high bar, and a bunch of 7 out of 10s didn’t quite redeem the franchise as a viable basis for more video games without a new movie to attach themselves to.

Terminator Salvation Games

Fast forward through several more years of legal tug of war, and it was announced in 2007 that The Halcyon Company was the proud new owner of the Terminator Franchise and had plans to produce a fourth film, which was intended to kick off a whole new trilogy. Shortly after that news, Halcyon announced the formation of Halcyon Games, which would handle the official video game tie-in in-house, ensuring it arrived alongside the film in 2009.

In some ways, the Terminator Salvation video game is a lot like its movie counterpart: it’s got decent visuals, lots of explosions, almost as many robots, a somewhat forgettable story, but the overall experience could be hell of a lot worse. In other ways, the game is nothing like the movie: John Conner looks and sounds nothing like Christian Bale, as the actor didn’t lend his likeness or voice to the project. The game takes place two years before the events of the film, so it could’ve had a totally original protagonist, and it narratively wouldn’t have made much of a difference. The console versions received pretty mediocre reviews, but the mobile game fared slightly better, largely thanks to its impressive scope compared to the average iOS and Android games of the time.

What’s most interesting about Terminator: Salvation is that it marks a major sea change in Hollywood’s approach to making games based on movies. Video games were starting to be seen as a lucrative entertainment medium of their own, rather than just another form of merchandise. The results of Terminator Salvation’s approach might have been middling, but it’s a substantial improvement from, say, farming out the license to the highest bidder who would then turn it over to a studio that hadn’t even seen the movie they were supposed to make into a game. Unfortunately, The Halcyon Company’s halcyon days were short-lived, and they declared bankruptcy two years after Salvation’s release.

Terminator Genisys Games

Several more years were spent wrestling over the franchise, and soon enough, Terminator Genisys rose from the ashes with lofty ambitions of rebooting the whole space-time continuum and, yes, also kicking off a whole new trilogy. But, no plans were made to return the video game space, and it’s not hard to see why: By 2015, the amount of time and money required to develop and market a AAA video game had begun to regularly eclipse that of your average Hollywood blockbuster. The closest thing we got to a new Terminator game in 2015 was a mode in GTA Online inspired by the film, where players driving semi trucks had to run down bike-riding opponents in an aqueduct.
Okay, so full disclosure: I consider myself a pretty huge Terminator fan… and I never got around to watching Genisys, and based on everything I’ve seen and heard since it was released, I don’t feel like I’m missing out. From the jump, it looked like a cross between one of those fan-made trailers cut together from other movies, and a really expensive Super Bowl ad for a free-to-play mobile game…

So, it’s fitting that two years after Genisys hit theaters, Terminator Genisys Future War was announced for mobile devices with an explosive, extremely polished CGI trailer… which, like many mobile game trailers, may have oversold the actual gameplay just a tad. Awkwardly enough, by the time this Genisys mobile game was released, it had been announced months earlier that the next Terminator movie was in development.

Terminator: Dark Fate Games

Terminator: Dark Fate arrived in 2019, acting as a reboot-sequel hybrid that planned to pick up where T2 left off, ignore the events of all the movies released since then, and – yes, once again – kick off a whole new movie trilogy. James Cameron was actually involved this time around, and Linda Hamilton was back – so it seemed promising enough. Anyway, yet again, it didn’t get an official video game, at least not until Terminator: Dark Fate Defiance, which was an RTS that was rather unstrategically released almost five years after everyone had done their best to pretend this film never existed. However, leading up to its release, Dark Fate did align itself with gaming.

At E3 2019, the T-800 crashed two press conferences. On the Xbox stage, it was revealed that the pre-order bonus for Gears of War 5 would be a whole Terminator: Dark Fate character pack, allowing players to run around as lancer-wielding T-800 endoskeletons or turn Sarah Connor loose in horde mode. Meanwhile, Ubisoft hyped up Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint by teasing plans for Terminator DLC coming post-launch, which would introduce a whole mode that let players rage against the machines.

Mortal Kombat 11, another of 2019’s biggest games, also got Terminator DLC, with the T-800 added to the roster weeks before Dark Fate hit theaters, featuring a fully fleshed-out moveset and the requisite fatalities. This was received so well that Mortal Kombat 11’s sequel, Mortal Kombat 1, would later add the T-1000 to its roster. Given Mortal Kombat’s inscrutably tangled timeline and irreparably mangled spinal columns, it stands to reason that a couple of time-traveling murder robots would make a good fit.

In the years since Dark Fate, not to promote any movie in particular, Terminator characters have made guest appearances in Fortnite and Call of Duty, where they fit in a lot better than plenty of DLC crossovers that have popped up since. Dark Fate’s director, Tim Miller, got his start producing video game trailers with Blur Studios, and it’s likely he was fully in support of this kind of brand synergy, if not partially responsible for how heavily his film aligned itself with gaming. Sadly, Dark Fate’s title turned out to be as prophetic as the frantic warnings of a naked man from the future, and it bombed at the box office, vaporizing any chance of a sequel anytime soon.

Post Dark Fate Games

Weirdly enough, a substantial Terminator game WAS released alongside Dark Fate, but it had nothing to do with that movie, presumably for boring legal reasons. If there’s one thing more convoluted than the Terminator continuity, it’s who owns the rights to it at any given time. My understanding is that a publisher named Reef Entertainment secured the rights to make games based on Terminator and Terminator 2 way back in 2013, but not any of the other films – and by the way, they’re also who are publishing Terminator 2D: No Fate, the game that’s the whole reason we decided to make this video in the first place.

Anyway, Terminator: Resistance was announced in September 2019 with a November 2019 release date. Generally, this short of a turnaround between the announcement and launch of a game is cause for skepticism, and that goes double when it’s based on a movie license that’s had as many bad games as this one has. Now, tack on that it was developed by Teyon, the studio behind the infamous Rambo: The Video Game, and you can see why gamers might’ve steered clear. If you’re unfamiliar, Rambo is one of the worst-reviewed games of 2014: on Metacritic, out of hundreds of games, it’s the 7th lowest scored by critics, and 5th lowest based on user reviews.

Upon launch, Terminator Resistance was slightly better received, generally being lauded as mediocre, in some cases flat out bad (Let the record show that I did not review that game for IGN) but you can’t say it wasn’t trying: in addition to having a clear respect for the source material, this little AA game was juggling more complex systems than anyone was likely expecting. In addition to shooting robots, it’s got crafting, stealth, sidequests, and multiple romance options, with sex scenes. Is it a little janky? Yes! Low budget? Definitely! Surprisingly horny? You betcha! But you know what else was? The original 1984 film that kicked off this entire franchise. Since Resistance was first released, the team at Teyon dropped an enhanced version and a handful of DLC, and have since amassed quite a following of players evangelizing all the stuff this game does right.

As a follow-up, Teyon tackled yet another beloved 80s cyberpunk cult classic with Robocop Rogue City. No one was expecting much, but Rogue City improves considerably on what Resistance was attempting, while still maintaining that same palpable appreciation for the source material – it’s a little bit janky, but it also kicks ass and is expecdtly funny – just like Robocop. Like you can throw dudes through walls, but there’s also a sidequest where Robocop has to stand behind a desk in the police station and respond to outlandish citizen complaints to uphold the public trust. These guys understood the assignment. So, whatever 80s movie Teyon announces they’re turning into a game next, keep an eye on it

Anyway, speaking of Robocop as I’m prone to do, that’s the perfect excuse to talk about Robocop Vs. The Terminator! Which I should’ve talked about sooner, but this franchise isn’t chronological, so why should this video be? Released in 1993 for almost all the handhelds and consoles on the market at the time, this delightful crossover was based on the Dark Horse comics miniseries written by Frank Miller, who, fun fact, also wrote Robocop 2 and 3. Anyway, there’s not much in the way of story in the video beyond Robocop shooting a bunch of T-800s and gold T-800s and then a really big T-800, but the music absolutely slaps, and periodically just says “TERMINATOR” for no reason. Also, when you start the game up on SEGA, Robocop says, “EXCELLENT.”

Man, how cool would a modern RoboCop Versus The Terminator be? Oh, if only there were some studio that had experience making Terminator AND Robocop games, and had a bunch of screen-accurate assets lying around just waiting to be mashed together.

After all, there have been weirder combinations. Like say, Terminator and CHESS. Yup, they did that in 1993 too with Terminator 2: Chess Wars, which was probably pretty exciting when it came out, since chess computers were some of the most terrifyingly smart AI in existence back then. Don’t fact-check me on that.

If you prefer PE to math class, you might prefer Terminator and WRESTLING! Yeah, that was also a whole thing in WWE 2K16. Despite not wanting his likeness used in dozens of Terminator games based on Terminator movies he was in, Schwarzenegger not only signed off on it appearing here, he also agreed to recreate the whole opening bar scene of T2, where he walks naked into the biker bar, but this time, they had WWE superstars playing all the bikers. They must’ve paid Arnold the big bucks for that. Hey, speaking of big bucks, did you know there’s a Terminator mode in BIG BUCK HUNTER? Yup, that’s right! You shoot Terminators. You probably could have put that together.

What does the future hold? Well, it may involve us banding together to scrounge for resources and fight for our lives in a scorched wasteland wrought by artificial intelligence. Worst case scenario, we’re doing that in real life, but more optimistically, we’re doing it in the open-world game Terminator Survivors, which was announced way back in 2024, but which keeps getting kicked down the road – so who knows when or if we’ll ever get to see it in action. There you have it, MOST of the games based on the Terminator films, featuring Terminator characters, or somehow loosely connected to this storied franchise. I skipped over a few. The future is not written.

Max Scoville is a senior writer, host and producer for IGN covering video games, movies, toys and collectibles. He has 15 years of experience in pop-culture media, previously writing for and/or appearing on Current TV, Destructoid, Revision3 and StarWars.com. He has been involved with several podcasts, including The Comedy Button, Weird Heat, Podtoid and you can currently find him hosting IGN’s weekly PlayStation show, Beyond.

Japanese Charts: Well, Look At Who’s Snuck Back Into First Place

Kart in the right place.

The latest Japanese charts are in from Famitsu, and while we really thought Kirby fever would grip the nation for a little while longer, Mario had other plans.

Yes, despite Kirby Air Riders smashing the competition last week, this time, Mario Kart World has drifted back into first place, with an additional ~50,000 units to its name. Air Riders follows in second with a little over 46,000 weekly units, but damn, there really is no stopping Mario, huh?

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Crafting a Relatable Sci-Fi Horror World in Routine, Out Today on Xbox

Crafting a Relatable Sci-Fi Horror World in Routine, Out Today on Xbox

Routine

Summary

  • Routine is out now on Xbox on PC, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and Xbox Cloud, with Xbox Game Pass.
  • It takes place on an abandoned lunar base, designed to feel believable and relatable.
  • Limited UI and subtle player guidance is used to fully immerse players into its distinctive world.
  • Watch a brand-new launch trailer, featuring a glimpse of the horrors that await you.

Out today on Xbox, Routine is a sci-fi horror game built around a 1980s vision of the future that takes place on our moon. Routine was made with a particular kind of game experience in mind for players, so we’d love to take this opportunity to talk about a few key elements that form the foundation of its art and design.

Relatable Science Fiction

When we started making Routine, we realised that creating a sci-fi world can sometimes conflict with immersion and horror. That is mainly because it is surprisingly easy to fall into the trap of building fantastical environments that end up losing a sense of relatability.

We didn’t let that stop us from exploring more creative ideas, but it did force us to think carefully about what actually needed to be redesigned, and what didn’t.

A chair is still a chair; it doesn’t need to look “sci-fi” if its purpose is straightforward. And unless it’s specifically meant to be visually appealing, it should be cost-effective to produce and probably durable before anything else.

Because of that approach, you will often see familiar, relatable objects throughout our more sci-fi spaces. These touches help ground the environment in a believable way — one we hope players will get completely lost in.

1980s Vision of the Future

As a child of the ‘80s and ‘90s, I grew up tinkering with all kinds of analogue equipment: cameras, VCRs, CRTs, and more. Their tactility, weight, smell, and even the way dirt collects in the recesses of their chunky designs all carry a sense of character and time.

Modern technology is sleek, lightweight, clean, and unobtrusive. It’s convenient and pleasant to use, but as an artist, it can start to feel like it lacks character and soul. However, it usually doesn’t tell much of a story to me and I really miss that aspect.

That’s one reason why we wanted to build a world inspired by that era. Another came from our desire to imagine how people from the 1980s might envision a believable moon base.

And naturally, it would include a holiday resort, with a mall, of course.

Immersive Game Design

There are many aspects of Routine’s design that we could talk about, but I want to highlight one that doesn’t get as much attention as the others, which is our deliberate lack of UI and waypoint markers that guide the player.

We wanted Routine to feel genuinely immersive, and part of that meant stripping away UI elements that distract you from the environment you’re standing in.

This was a challenging design choice, because many players have grown comfortable with strong guidance in modern games. And while that approach works well for many titles, with Routine we wanted players to find their own way forward.

There is still plenty of environmental storytelling and subtle design guidance, but we often encourage players to take their time, not rush, and pay attention to the world around them. By doing so, you will usually find that the path ahead is actually more straightforward than initially thought.

You’ll also have access to a PDA (Personal Data Assistant) when you encounter Wireless Access Points throughout the world. The PDA stores various types of information, including Tasks, which help keep you on track with your current goals.

On paper, this direction might seem like a small part of the overall design, but in practice it fundamentally changes how you navigate each area, something we had to refine through many, many playtests.

New Horrors Await

Routine doesn’t rely on jump scares. Instead, we focus on gradually building tension and subverting expectations to keep players on edge.

While the robotic threat from our previous trailers is ever present, there is something darker and creepier, something that we’ve only hinted at before. If you watch our new launch trailer you will see a small glimpse of what you will encounter, if you persevere long enough.

Available Now

From grounding our world in a familiar, tactile design, to imagining an ‘80s vision of our future on the moon, while also stripping away common UI elements to make exploration really immersive — every art and design pillar of Routine was formed by our desire to create a believable and atmospheric horror experience.  And from today you can experience it for yourselves on Xbox, including Xbox Game Pass. We can’t wait for you to explore the halls of Routine’s moon base and lose yourself in the immersive world we’ve crafted.

Xbox Play Anywhere

ROUTINE

Raw Fury

█ ROUTINE is a First Person Sci-Fi Horror title set on an abandoned lunar base designed around an 80s vision of the future.

Curious exploration turns into a need for survival when a lunar base goes completely quiet. Searching for answers puts you face to face with an enemy who is certain the main threat is you. Discoveries lead to deeper unknowns and the only way to go is forward.

EXPLORE: Roam through contrasting sectors of the lunar base, from abandoned malls to deteriorating Living Quarters.

OBSERVE: Investigate your surroundings and uncover crucial information to progress and piece together the events that unfolded before your arrival. ▌

IMMERSE: Full body awareness, diegetic audio, and a minimal UI help create a gripping and atmospheric experience.

OPERATE: Your Cosmonaut Assistance Tool (C.A.T.) is vital. Use it to access critical terminals, navigate the environment and identify clues.

SURVIVE: Run, hide, or attempt to defend yourself against unknown threats using the C.A.T. as a last resort.

The post Crafting a Relatable Sci-Fi Horror World in Routine, Out Today on Xbox appeared first on Xbox Wire.

Romancing SaGa creator discusses the fantasy RPG’s legacy, music, art, and more

The gods created man, and man created stories.

In the beginning there was Romancing SaGa, the first entry in a classic 16-bit RPG trilogy. The beloved adventure was later remade on PS2, titled Romancing SaGa -Minstrel Song-. On December 9, Red Art Games will release an enhanced version of the PS2 game on PS5 and PS4, titled Romancing SaGa -Minstrel Song- Remastered International.

This new International version is the most comprehensive, featuring new characters, tougher challenges, as well as numerous QoL improvements including French, Italian, German and Spanish localization, the ability to switch between English and Japanese voices and more, making it perfect for longtime fans and first-time SaGa players.

Before we head back into the world of Mardias, I was honored to have the opportunity to interview Akitoshi Kawazu, the original creator of the SaGa series and both producer and director of the 2005 version. Kawazu-san was kind enough to answer a few questions we had about the game, the SaGa series’ grand 36-year history, and his personal thoughts in the process.

Could you tell us how the idea of the first Romancing SaGa title came into being? 

I had always wanted to make a grand fantasy RPG in the style of The Lord of the Rings. With our previous experience and the new hardware available, I knew that now was the time to take on that challenge.

And then came Romancing SaGa -Minstrel Song-. What were the challenges associated with the development of the 2005 version for PlayStation 2 ?

The biggest challenge was figuring out the limits to which we could push the PS2’s expression capabilities. New team members wanted different expressions than those found in the original version, but if we strayed too far it wouldn’t be faithful to the original. Development was all about striking a balance.

In the PS2 version, the original 2D pixel art was completely remade into a full 3D game. In terms of battles, new systems such as BP management and combos were introduced, adding greater strategy and drama to each encounter. The music, composed by Kenji Ito, was also boldly rearranged, giving players a fresh and powerful listening experience even if they were familiar with the original. In addition, features such as the class system and proficiencies were added, reflecting the trends of the time and making the game more accessible and comfortable to play.

It must be something special to see the game brought back to life in the PS5 version. What was it like to be in the room when Square Enix was discussing remastering the game? What was at the forefront of your minds then?

Another full remake would be required to fully use the capabilities of the PS5, and that wasn’t the goal of this project. That said, we knew that we didn’t want to waste the potential of its high specs, so we tried various approaches to see what was possible. We also discussed what kinds of additional elements we wanted to include.

In the remastered version, several new elements and improvements have been introduced to further enhance the player experience. New playable characters have been added, along with high-difficulty bosses designed to challenge even veteran players. A newly written scenario by Akitoshi Kawazu expands the story and world of the original, while Kenji Ito’s music has been boldly rearranged, offering a fresh and dynamic listening experience. In addition, various quality-of-life features—such as improved UI, a battle speed-up option, and post-clear data carryover—make the game more accessible and enjoyable for both new and returning players.

Romancing SaGa has a long history. Over 30 years and counting! What makes the game such a reference in the JRPG genre that it even now remains so fun to revisit?

I think it’s because we highly prioritized giving the player a large degree of freedom. Games are enjoyable because they operate under a certain set of rules, but those rules aren’t fun if they’re there only to suit the designers’ whims. A big part of the game’s appeal is in getting the player to remember their playing experience long after they’ve finished.

How does Romancing SaGa -Minstrel Song- Remastered International’s story differ from the original Romancing SaGa’s?

The basic premise and story flow remain the same, but we added multiple elements reminiscent of short fantasy stories so that players would be able to enjoy the world’s lore a little more.

In this remastered version, numerous new events have been added that were not present in the original 1992 release. New storylines include the introduction of the Volunteer Brigade, which guides players through basic game systems and progression, as well as additional episodes that further develop certain characters — such as Marina and Flammar, who are now playable. There are also special events that can only be experienced on a second playthrough or later, offering players more depth and replay value.

Among the many protagonists of Minstrel Song, who’s your favorite? Can you explain why?

I think the most protagonist-like of them all is Albert, a young man battered about by the whims of fate.

One of the most striking elements of this title is its artistic direction by Tomomi Kobayashi. Could you tell us why you chose to feature her art in the game?

We went with Tomomi Kobayashi because her use of delicate lines and bright colors inspire the player to use their imagination. I would go so far to say as the development team—myself included—were even more stimulated than the players. The reason the characters come to life can be directly linked back to Kobayashi-san’s designs.

Regarding the “Minstrel” mentioned in the title. In the Romancing SaGa series, a Bard always appears in each installment. What would you say is the role of the Minstrel?

The minstrel is there to provide an objective view of the world. While he does empathize with the protagonists, he is someone who loves everything about the world, including the fiends that reside there. I don’t like it when a story overemphasizes the protagonists’ emotions to the exclusion of other aspects of the world, so I make a concerted effort to include characters who are able to provide a more universal outlook.

Regarding the music in this title — the remaster seems to have further enhanced its presence, elevating the overall gameplay experience. In the PlayStation 2 version of Romancing SaGa -Minstrel Song-, many tracks were boldly rearranged from the original Romancing SaGa, and new compositions were also created. Could you share any particular stories or memories about the process of arranging or composing these new pieces?

We rearranged the music in order to take better advantage of the PS2’s breadth of sound and music capabilities. Kenji Ito, who composed the original, did a lot of work on the overall project, with his fresh arrangements and new songs often bringing our sound engineers to tears.

For a long time, the Romancing SaGa series has mainly been developed with Japanese players in mind. How do you feel about Red Art Games’ overseas release of Romancing SaGa -Minstrel Song- Remastered International, which now includes additional localizations in four European languages?

My decisions at the time meant that the original didn’t make it overseas for a very long time. I am incredibly pleased that this work can now be enjoyed in the land where the fantasy genre got its origins in the  languages of the people who live there.

​​

How would you like to see the SaGa series develop in the future? Are there any new directions or challenges you would like to explore?

I would like to continue bringing fantasy RPGs with a modern flair to audiences, including by remaking previous titles.

Thank you so much for your time, Mr. Kawazu!

And thank you, dear reader, for coming this far! The game will be available December 9 on PlayStation Store for PS4 and PS5.

Fallout Season 2 Takes the ‘Fog of War Approach’ to Avoid Making Any New Vegas Ending Canon, Creators Say

The creators of the Fallout TV show have confirmed Season 2 avoids making any New Vegas ending canon by taking what they call “the fog of war approach.”

Fans of the Fallout video games had wondered how Season 2 might reflect the endings of Obsidian’s much-loved Fallout New Vegas, given the show is canon and is set 15 years after the game.

A quick reminder of where we’re at in the Fallout timeline: the Fallout TV show is set in 2296, nine years after the events of Fallout 4 and 15 years after the events of Fallout: New Vegas. We’ve already seen a debate about which Fallout 4 ending should be considered canon, if any. Based on already released trailers, we know Mr. House is in Season 2, so does that suggest a canon ending is being used?

Depending on the choices the player, aka The Courier, makes throughout the course of the game, New Vegas can end with victory for the player during the Battle of Hoover Dam, which drives out all factions including Mr. House himself, a victory for Mr. House in which he remains in control of New Vegas and takes over Hoover Dam, a victory for Caesar’s Legion, or a victory for the New California Republic.

There are variations within these endings, but given Mr. House is in Season 2 in a post-war setting, and is alive (sort of) when the main characters turn up at New Vegas, it seems he survived the events of New Vegas the video game.

But does Season 2 make a decision on who won Fallout New Vegas? It does not, executive producer, creator, and showrunner Geneva Robertson-Dworet and executive producer Jonathan Nolan told IGN in an interview.

Nolan said Geneva Robertson-Dworet and co-showrunner Graham Wagner took “the fog of war approach,” which he called “an absolutely brilliant way to make a bit of an end run around that whole question.”

“This was a really early decision that Graham and Jonah, and I made together,” Robertson-Dworet added, “was that we wanted to try, as much as possible in our show, to honor all gamers’ experiences and all the choices they might make as they play the game. So we always wanted to avoid trying to make one canonical ending the ending that led to the events of the show.”

In Season 2, all the various factions at play think they won the events of the New Vegas video game. “We had the delicious idea that at the end of a conflict, 15 years down the line, every faction might think they won, which I think has a bit of a poetic quality to it,” Nolan said.

“It’s like, the story of history depends on who you ask,” Robertson-Dworet added. “That was the idea.”

There is one fan-favorite minor faction in New Vegas who very much did not win: the Kings. In the video game, the Kings are a street gang made up of people who discovered an Elvis impersonation school and decided to live their lives according to the King’s ideals. But in Fallout Season 2, we see they have become ghouls.

“It hasn’t worked out very well for the Kings, at least some of them,” Nolan teased, confirming the Elvis ghouls we see in the show are indeed the Kings characters from the game.

Nolan continued: “One of the fun ideas is that, with all the factions, whether it’s the Legion, or the NCR, or the Kings, is that in any version of the ending, there’d be some rebuilding to be done, right? Whoever won, whoever lost, all these factions would be in rebuilding mode, and the sort of sanctity of Vegas, this place that House very carefully protected, has been, for reasons we’ll come to understand in the season, has been removed or violated, which means that the folks who were in the game, safe and sound, have had some hard times.”

Still, there is much about Season 2’s New Vegas that fans of the video game will find familiar. Robertson-Dworet described the Strip, for example, as “a very sacred kind of location.”

“You really feel like you’re almost going into the heart of the game when you reach the Strip. And so it was really unbelievable to see what our production designer, Howard Cummings, pulled off. We took over an abandoned shopping mall and built there, and the scale of it was just phenomenal. So that was really exciting to see come to life. Freeside was also unbelievable, also because it’s shot on the same street that Westworld was shot on and Deadwood. So just seeing that transformed at a place that’s had so much TV history, for me, as a fan, as well as now making a show there, was really, really exciting.”

Fallout Season 2 kicks off December 17.

Image credit: Lorenzo Sisti/Prime.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Greedfall 2: The Dying World Is an Old-School RPG That Harkens Back to KOTOR and Dragon Age 1

The golden age of the BioWare RPG may be past, but there are still developers willing to go the distance with a genre that begs for good fantasy worldbuilding, good game mechanics, and interesting well-written stories all in one. Spiders is one of them, and Greedfall 2: The Dying World is their sequel to the colonial fantasy RPG that was a very welcome and pleasant surprise back in 2022. That said, there are a few big changes to how it plays that might put some people off the trail—but after a few hours with advanced portions of the game’s storyline I saw the makings of another success.

Kicking it Old School

Greedfall 2 takes cues from the early-2000s era of roleplaying games. It’s more like Dragon Age: Origins or Knights of the Old Republic than anything released recently, for better and for worse. I distinctly got the feeling that Greedfall 2 is specifically harkening back to this era of games for a reason: This is a style of game that the developers at Spiders want to emulate and keep alive because they prefer it—at least for their own games.

Whether or not you enjoy that style of real-time-with-pause combat and emphasis on character arcs, dialogues, and analyzing the environments for plot options will probably determine whether or not Greedfall 2 is interesting to you. At least based on what I played.

Fantasy Island

As with the first Greedfall game, the fantasy world is the real selling point here. Based on the ideas of the European Age of Discovery, or the Spanish golden age, with a dash of the 18th century, and delving into the fascinating clash between cultures in a world that is approaching what we’d consider modern. Except, you know, with the backdrop of magic, monsters, gods, and other fantastical things. Technically a prequel to the first game, I really got the feeling it’s narratively designed so that you can pick it up and play only knowing the most basic premise—which is helped along by the part where you’re a native of far-flung island Teer Fradee with little knowledge of the continent at the other edge of the ocean.

As with the first Greedfall game, the fantasy world is the real selling point here.

What’s cool is that whereas the first game took place entirely on the island, in Greedfall 2 you get to travel to the continental cities only loosely described in Greedfall. They’re delightful culture shock and a welcome change of pace: Winding streets of crowded buildings, huge port complexes of tall ships, including your own ship as a base of operations, and sprawling palatial estates for the wealthiest.

It also continues Greedfall’s tradition of including some absurd, wonderful, and downright dapper riffs on early modern clothing. Including an array of some absolutely wonderful hats. Seriously, someone’s going to play this just for the silly hats and helmets. Like I’m ready to do a second preview, right now, just talking to the Spiders art department about some of these hats.

On the Nose

Your character is Vridan Gerr, which means “Short Roots” in your own language, an up-and-coming initiate of your tribe’s combined magical tradition and religion. The character creation was pretty robust, introduced in the first scene with a cute little dialogue involving a foreign artist making depictions of the natives to send home. It had all the features you’d expect, and more besides—seven different sliders for the nose alone, for example. I’m sure some people will be able to make art with it, while others will make monsters.

There were a good amount of classes to play with. Across the three segments I explored I tried out a tank-focused Protector, a greatsword-and-magic-wielding Living Blade, and a stylish swashbuckling rapier-and-pistol-wielding class with a sideline in party buffing skills. Because, to be clear, when a game offers you an opportunity to arm yourself and behave like one of The Three Musketeers, well, you take it.

KOTOR Combat

Combat is much-changed from the first game, focusing on a real-time-with-pause combat where you control or automate your entire party rather than just your main character. It’s a pretty big tonal shift if what you loved from the first game was the action style, but it’s a familiar form if you grew up on Knights of the Old Republic or Dragon Age Origins.

I’ll admit that I wasn’t completely sold on the combat. Real-time-with-pause does sometimes feel like a dated way to play games, a halfway compromise between simultaneous resolution and turn-based combat. You’re often just using your best abilities in the order that it seems good to use them, or setting up and executing the same combo on enemies content to stand there and take it rather than react in unexpected ways or use surprising abilities. That said, it’s combat that’s playable in three forms.

There’s Tactical Mode that has a free-moving camera, has you control your entire team, and do lots of pausing to queue up moves. There’s a Hybrid mode that has more automated options for your companion team and fewer pauses. There’s also Focused mode, which defaults to your character’s point of view and has you really only controlling their moves in detail, with very limited pausing. I tried all three modes and found myself only really loving the Tactical mode, but even though I’m a tactics junkie I saw the genuine appeal of the Focused mode if what you really care for is the story and want to turn the difficulty down so the combat is there as flavorful excitement for the narrative.

Story Time

Greedfall 2’s story looks like it’s shaping up to be just as much epic fantasy as the first game’s. The stakes are high, the heroes are heroic, and the villains are properly awful. That said, I got the impression that more characters in Greedfall 2 were just stuck in the middle—morally grey, stuck between two worlds, powerless, or just playing politics. That really plays out in the opening, which sees your character and their friends abducted as the introduction to a rollicking adventure… the goal of which seems like to get back home. But the things you discover along the way mean that you’ll need to return to the mainland and play hero to ensure your peoples’ survival—whether you like it or not.

Greedfall 2’s story looks like it’s shaping up to be just as much epic fantasy as the first game’s.

Along for the ride on your adventure are some really choice companions across an array of cool archetypes—at least from what I saw. Each of the companions has their own preferred fighting style and unique skill tree, as does the main character, which really helped to sell me on these being different people and not just a possible player character class palette-swapped to a new body.

In true RPG style, these companions will also inject themselves into conversations you have during your travels. The veteran warrior Till, for example, busted out his sergeant’s bluster and pulled rank on some harbor guards when they confronted the party about permits for travel. The best example I saw, however, was older explorer Safia, whose years of wisdom and maternal character showed as she’d often admonish others for behaving in dishonorable ways, or ways that reflected poorly on their shared nationality.

I also quite liked Fausta, an exiled religious wizard from a theocratic state whose loyalties to the hero’s party were conflicted at best. Not only was her light-based magic interesting in combat, but her stance as yet another fish out of water alongside the player character made for interesting conversations.

Final Thoughts

It’s good that the companions are at least interesting from the about three hours of preview I played, but it’s better that those slices of storyline from different parts of the game all seemed pretty immediately compelling. There’s clear stakes, plots, and interesting things to do at every point I played, and all of it was written well enough that I stayed interested even when I was tossed into a situation and hadn’t fully played the few dozen hours of story that came before it—something that’s just not always true for RPG previews.

That said, there was a sense that the story was big and epic just for the sake of it, because the more compelling parts of the plot were the places where characters were interacting with each other amid the larger historical forces they had no power over. Upon finally returning to your home island, for example, you might find your village destroyed and your people missing. What of your loved ones? Your mother? Those stories were really compelling and could have carried the game on their own, to be honest—but I think that epic fantasy fans want something big and magical to happen and they’ll be pretty interested in what Greedfall 2 has cooking. It’s a twist on the exciting big reveals from the possible endings of Greedfall, and an obvious outgrowth of setting this game on the continent rather than entirely in the new lands.

Either way, this is definitely looking to be Spiders at the top of their game. I hope that bears out when it releases in 2026.

Xbox Isn’t Making a New Banjo-Kazooie, But PlayStation Fans Can Now Play The Impressive-Looking Banjo-Kazooie: Mumbomania Via Dreams

Xbox might not be making a new Banjo-Kazooie, but there’s a brand new game featuring everyone’s favorite bird and bear available now via Dreams on PS4 and PS5.

Banjo-Kazooie: Mumbomania is an impressive-looking platformer made for Sony’s game creation platform that looks good enough to have been made by Rare itself.

A trailer released via social media this week shows the kind of classic Banjo-Kazooie gameplay fans love, and have long called out for more of. In a level that looks straight out of the series’ history, Banjo the bear jumps, glides, rolls and gets shot out of a cannon as he explores and hunts down collectibles.

Perhaps most impressive is the range of transformations on offer, with Banjo turned into a hulking rock golem, cutlass-wielding pirate, and more.

Originally launched on the N64 in the late ’90s, Banjo-Kazooie eventually arrived for Xbox 360 in 2008 following Microsoft’s acquisition of developer Rare. But despite earning a legion of fans, the franchise has not seen an all-new entry in 17 years, since Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts released for Xbox 360, also back in 2008.

Despite repeated calls from fans for a new Banjo-Kazooie to be made, Xbox has made no suggestion that a fresh title is in development — and Rare now seems singularly focused on making fresh content for Sea of Theives.

“You’ve seen from our history that we haven’t touched every franchise that people would love us to touch — Banjo fans, I hear you,” Microsoft’s gaming boss Phil Spencer said back in 2023. “But it is true that, when we find the right team, and the right opportunity, I love going back to revisit stories and characters that we’ve seen previously.”

Outside of being playable in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Banjo and Kazooie now feel largely forgotten. Still, fans of the duo have still had the spiritual successor Yooka-Laylee to enjoy. Developed by various members of the original Banjo-Kazooie team, the game recently got a polished-up re-release in the shape of Yooka-Laylee: Replayee, which arrived in October of this year.

Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social

Hytale won’t be on Steam right away, as its devs want to avoid “overindexing on negative reviews” from players who “aren’t as well-informed yet”

Revived Minecrafty survivabuilder Hytale got a fresh early access release date of January 13th the other week. However, the team behind it how now confirmed you shouldn’t expect to see it hit Steam at that point, with the game’s executive director not seeing the need to knock on Valve’s pipe-laden door yet and keen to avoid an early access spent drowning in negative reviews.

Read more

Nintendo Reveals New Line Of Metroid Merch, And We Want It All

Cooler than Phendrana Drifts.

Metroid has rarely been able to play with the Nintendo big boys as far as sales are concerned, so it’s no surprise that Samus merch drops have been a fair bit rarer than those seen for Zelda and Mario. But, with Metroid Prime 4: Beyond finally here, Nintendo is changing that… in Japan, at least.

Yes, a new wave of Metroid merch is now available exclusively at the Nintendo Stores in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Fukuoka and the Okinawa pop-up. Just to really rub salt in the wound, it’s also available on the My Nintendo Store, exclusively in Japan. *sigh* Back to looking longingly at plane tickets, it is.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Kickstart Your Magic Collection With the Avatar Beginner Box, Now Under $23 For a Limited Time Only

Magic: The Gathering has grown in the last few years, no doubt in part due to its Universes Beyond crossovers, and the current set, Avatar: The Last Airbender, has been well-received.

If you’re a fan of Avatar and want to get in on the ground floor, the Beginner Box is a great way to do just that – and it’s now down to $22.99 at WOOT, marking a 34% discount.

Get Started With MTG For Under $25

As we covered in our preview of the product, the contents are very similar to the same Beginner Box released in 2024 for Foundations, only with an Avatar focus instead.

Inside, you’ll find 2 play boards, and two pre-built half decks with one for Aang and one for Zuko, as well as a tutorial booklet to help you do battle between them.

Once you’ve played through the guided game, there are eight other half-decks, so you can put any two together to build an instant deck, with multiple combinations based around Fire, Earth, Water, Air and features like big creatures, spells, and more.

It’s a great way to get started learning how to play, and it gives you plenty of cards to start your collection with and learn how Avatar-centric mechanics like elemental bending work within the confines of Magic: The Gathering.

Believe it or not, there are still MTG Black Friday deals knocking around. You can still pick up a Tarkir: Dragonstorm Play Booster Box for just $99.99, which includes 30 packs of the dragon-themed sets, while if you’re looking to try Commander, it’s never been easier.

The format’s Starter Decks are in stock at a good price for the first time we’ve seen in a while.

Lloyd Coombes is an experienced freelancer in tech, gaming and fitness seen at Polygon, Eurogamer, Macworld, TechRadar and many more. He’s a big fan of Magic: The Gathering and other collectible card games, much to his wife’s dismay.