If, on a random Wednesday afternoon, you were considering picking up or replaying Braid on your Switch,then we’ve got good news for you. Braid: Anniversary Edition has received a Nintendo Switch 2 Edition, and it’s out today.
Spotted by Nintendo Everything, at the time of writing, the game is available on the Japanese eShop, with other territories surely following suit very soon. It costs 3,169 yen for the game, or 475 yen to upgrade, so expect to pay a little extra for the Switch 2 magic when it hits the eShop in your region.
2025 was an incredible year for gaming and, before we run full-tilt into 2026, we wanted to take a moment to celebrate the titles that Xbox players made a part of their year, across all devices – from console, to PC, to handheld, to cloud. Today, we’re announcing the recipients of the 2025 Xbox Excellence Awards.
Introduced last year, the Xbox Excellence Awards celebrate games – and the teams behind them – based on how you engaged with Xbox over the last year. As such, we’ve picked out four key categories, which represent players’ enthusiasm, passion, engagement, and love. Those four categories are:
Store Rating: The highest-rated content across our stores released in 2025, with a minimum of 500 ratings.
Player Engagement: The games with the highest average hours per-player within the first six weeks of release.
Daily Active Users: Games, expansions, or major updates with the highest single-day active users in 2025. You may notice games that weren’t released in 2025 in this list – that’s because they got a significant update last year.
Units Sold: Top-selling content across Xbox and Microsoft stores.
The final list represents a diverse collection of titles produced by studios of wildly varying sizes. You’ll find 55 total games, with 16 currently available through Xbox Game Pass. It features 48 unique developers hailing from 13 countries, and brought to you by 24 publishers, alongside 19 self-published titles. Taken as a whole, it’s an encapsulation of development on Xbox – we want gaming to reach you wherever you are, and for the teams making those games to find you from wherever they are. You can find the titles for each category – listed alphabetically – below.
Tarsier Studios is no stranger to invading our dreams. Its Little Nightmares series scared up some wonderfully disturbing gameplay that has lived long in memory, and now its spiritual sibling Reanimal is ready to pull us into another intense co-op platforming experience.
I was given access to the full game ahead of its February 13 release to feel first-hand the many delightful horrors that await.
A dark, dreamlike opening
Reanimal doesn’t waste any time, with a disconcerting intro to its protagonists. I started as The Boy, floating alone in a boat adrift in a sea of darkness. A press of R2 drove me towards a single red light bobbing on the horizon. That light led to another. And then another. Until eventually I stopped to haul a masked figure out of the sea…who immediately tried to strangle The Boy, my DualSense controller shuddering in the attempt.
It turns out this was The Boy’s sister, their reunion a sharp tone-setter for the brutal world ahead and an indication of how vital their collaboration is to survive.
Varied environments keep you guessing
While Reanimal starts off in bobbing waters, the setting changes and evolves in your search for the siblings’ friends Hood, Bucket, and Bandage. Your adventure across a fragmented island pushes you to an abandoned factory, an unsettling forest, a sinkhole-plagued city, and a waterlogged workshop, just for starters, before things vastly open up for more non-linear exploration.
Each area demonstrates that Tarsier can make practically anything creepy, with derelict gas stations, a bank of rattling washing machines and even playground animals feeling like an unspoken threat.
A focus on visual storytelling
As with the Little Nightmares series, Reanimal relies on minimal dialogue to convey its story. The characters speak in places, but many of its narrative beats are told through body language and smart use of camera angles to convey claustrophobia, tension, and direction. Not to mention the level design, which always provides a clue to your next objective or where to go, albeit often subtly. Speaking of design…
Sounds to make you quiver
Great audio design is essential to any horror game, and Tarsier leans into its genre experience with a creeping aural dread that can lurch into a full-blown jump scare. Music is used sparingly, leaving the sound effects to deliver the shivers and the DualSense wireless controller’s haptic feedback to accentuate the shudders. A particular favourite of mine was the distant jingle of an ice cream van which foreshadowed…well, let’s just say I definitely screamed for ice cream.
Teamwork is essential
If you don’t have a human partner to survive with, Reanimal’s co-op artificial intelligence is more than capable of keeping you company. In my playthrough, The Girl followed quickly when needed, swiftly responding to a press of the Triangle button when we needed to give each other a boost to out-of-reach platforms.
Alternatively, a tap of L1 gets her to interact with certain elements in the environment. For example, one puzzle required me to walk across a giant metal drum which was spinning too fast to traverse. The Girl was prompted to flip a switch to temporarily stop the drum from rotating, long enough for me to get across it and create a platform for her to follow.
The co-op AI even occasionally performed acts that pushed me into action. During a particularly tense sequence involving the inside of a runaway van, a giant smashed through a window in an attempt to grab the masked siblings. Given the game’s general avoidance of direct combat, my first instinct was to hide, but my partner leapt up to strike the brute, making me realise I had a weapon to join in the attack.
Chilling set pieces are never far away
You’ll be doing a lot of sneaking, running, and hiding in the many haunting scenarios that make up Reanimal, with cinematic chases and rooms full of strange, slithering skin. One of my personal highlights was preceded by a crackling night-time movie theatre, with awkwardly posed bodies and shadowy flickers which made for a deeply unsettling experience. And while I died many times in some of the trickier areas, the quick respawn points were never far from where I made my mortal errors.
It’s not just about primal survival
Environmental puzzles play a big part of the game, ranging from simply finding wheels for a pump trolley, to more elaborate tasks. One had me in a forest of cut trees, where a solitary saw embedded in one trunk hinted at what my next action should be. Another had the siblings’ use a car for a battering ram, take a complex detour to rescue Hood, then have to find and fill a gas canister to refuel the car to escape an increasingly hostile situation.
There are many secrets in the shadows
Hidden away in the dark corners of the game are collectibles such as masks and concept art to find, some requiring steely nerves, keen eyes or just the twisted desire to dive into areas which go squelch in the night.
Better bring a flashlight – you’ll see how dark things can get when Reanimal launches on PS5 February 13.
February 27 is Pokémon’s big 30th anniversary of its original launch in Japan, and while details are slowly trickling in on how Nintendo and Game Freak plan to celebrate, TIME Magazine is already getting into the spirit.
The 96-page special edition issue of the magazine is coming out with three different covers, each featuring iconic pocket monsters from over the year – one cover depicts Mega Charizard X, one has Lugia and Ho-Oh, while the third shows off Rayquaza. You can purchase any of the three covers for $14.99 each on Amazon now.
The special oversized issue of TIME Magazine takes readers on a deep dive through Pokémon’s history, analyzing its rise to iconic status, how it’s garnered such staying power, and even gives a few tricks and tips on how to get better at playing Pokémon GO.
It doesn’t just focus on the video games, either; you’ll get a detailed retrospective of the Pokémon anime and its many spin-offs, as well as education on the Pokémon trading card game and how to navigate the secondary market.
With Pokémon celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, fans are expecting big things. We got a special video during Super Bowl LX, with celebrities like Lady Gaga gushing about their favorite Pokémon.
With Pokémon Legends: Z-A being as big of a hit as it was on the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 and Pokémon Pokopia launching in just a few short weeks, fans still have plenty to do until the inevitable Pokémon Presents comes out, detailing what we can expect for the rest of the year and beyond.
Personally, I’d love to see the original Game Boy games onto the Nintendo Switch Online subscription service. Those games desperately need better accessibility.
ARRGGHHH! WHAAAA! HUHHHH! Replaced, the long-in-development dystopian platformer from Sad Cat Studios, keeps shouting my last name at me. It might because the game’s main character, a jacketed gap jumper and baddie shooter, is called Warren. It might also because I did plenty of falling and accidentally got shot by a robo-sniper in Replaced’s demo, which is now live ahead of the full thing’s release next month.
A lengthy, 60-plus minutes Sony State of Play is heading our way this Thursday, February 12, and promises new looks at “third-party and indie games headed to PS5, along with the latest from teams at PlayStation Studios.” So, what upcoming games can we expect to see fresh reveals for and gameplay of? Well, here’s what we think is likely to show up, as well as a few out-there guesses.
Exclusives
Seeing as it’s shaping up to be PlayStation’s biggest game of 2026, you’d perhaps have expected Wolverine to show up in Thursday’s stream. Well, a late spanner has been thrown into the works via Insomniac’s official X account, which claims that we won’t be seeing any more of its latest Marvel game until “Spring 2026”. Last time I checked, February was in Winter, so maybe we’ll have to wait a little longer.
At the last State of Play, back in September 2025, Insomniac Games gave us a first look at Marvel’s Wolverine in action. As one of Sony’s tentpole releases for this year, it certainly wouldn’t be a shock to see some more X-Men gameplay, as well as perhaps a release date for Logan’s latest adventure. Could we also catch a glimpse of Daredevil, who has been teased to be making an appearance, too?
PlayStation Studio’s first big exclusive of the year comes in the shape of Marathon, Bungie’s extraction shooter, which will be looking to emulate the success of last year’s Arc Raiders. It’s been a bumpy road for the Destiny developer, such as a plagiarism scandal and poor reception to its alpha, but this week’s State of Play will be one of the last chances for it to convince players to hop into its world on March 5.
Later in Spring, we have Saros, Housemarque’s follow-up to Returnal, which will be dropping on April 30. We’ve seen it pop up regularly on recent State of Play streams, and it would make perfect sense to see it here, too, seeing as we’re only 10 weeks away from launch.
Another PS5 console exclusive is Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls, the upcoming superhero fighting game from Guilty Gear Strive developer Arc System Works. Due for release this year, the flashy-looking fighter suffered from an unfortunate leak earlier this week that revealed a few key details about the game, such as the size of its roster. It would not be a shock to see some of this information officially confirmed as fact on Thursday.
PS5 console exclusive Phantom Blade Zero is a hotly anticipated wuxia action RPG coming from Chinese developer S-Game. The lead character is called Soul, so you can probably guess what genre this project borrows heavily from, too. It’s all looking very impressive, and maybe we’ll get yet another look at it in action this week ahead of its September 9 launch.
Then there’s the freshly revealed Horizon Hunters Gathering, yet another spin-off of the mechanical monster-hunting series created by Guerrilla Games. A 3-player live-service co-op action game, it’s getting its first playtest at the end of this month, so, again, it wouldn’t be a surprise if we were to get a further look at some gameplay in this State of Play.
Unveiled at The Game Awards, 4:Loop is a PS5 and PC exclusive that appears to infuse some roguelike elements with the co-op shooting of games like Helldivers and Left 4 Dead. That makes more sense when you consider that Left 4 Dead creator Mike Booth is behind the project, working with Bad Robot Games, the video game wing of film director J.J. Abrams’ production company. No release date has been given yet, but playtesting will start soon, with maybe a timing for that revealed at this State of Play.
One exclusive that we don’t think is coming this year, but would certainly love to see more of, is Naughty Dog’s Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. The Last of Us and Uncharted studio’s upcoming sci-fi action-adventure has gone very quiet since its initial reveal back at the 2024 Game Awards. So, is it time for a deeper look into what this new world has to offer? Let’s hope so.
As for what the other PlayStation Studios are up to, your guess is as good as mine, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t expect one or two surprise reveals or updates. This State of Play stream is over an hour long, after all, so surely there’s something brand-new in there? Perhaps a look at the next project from God of War developer Sony Santa Monica, or a look into the world of Ghost of Yotei: Legends from Sucker Punch? Maybe the time is right for a first sighting of Gran Turismo 8, or an update on the development of Haven Studios’ Fairgames — if we don’t see this one soon, we’ll really start to get worried about it. Then there are two of Sony’s most creative studios, Media Molecule and Team Asobi. We’ve certainly been waiting a lot longer for a follow-up to Dreams than we have Astro Bot, but you never know what’s been going on behind those doors…
Multiplatform
Will we see GTA 6 at this Sony State of Play? No. I will eat my whole fist if we do.
There are a fair few other exciting games that we wouldn’t put body parts on the line for in terms of their likelihood, though. Resident Evil Requiem is imminent, so now seems like as good a time as any to show us one last slice of Leon Kennedy action before the big day on February 27. Sticking with survival horror, Konami has curiously announced a Silent Hill stream will be taking place just two hours after the State of Play. Is this a signal that a more in-depth look at a new Silent Hill game will be at that show, following its reveal just minutes prior as part of PlayStation’s stream? Perhaps this week is when we’ll see Bloober Team’s remake of the original in the series, or – more likely – our first proper look at the Annapurna-published Silent Hill: Townfall, which was first announced in 2022 and has been MIA since.
Back at Capcom briefly, and you can likely expect to see something from one of, if not both, Pragmata and Onimusha: Way of the Sword. Final Fantasy 7 remake director, Naoki Hamaguchi, recently teased that Square Enix will “share more updates than ever before” about the project this year. Does that mean a potential reveal of the third part in the modernised RPG trilogy will happen at this State of Play? Or could we get an Intergrade-style bridging chapter as DLC for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth?
But, before we get too sidetracked, let’s stick with games closer on the horizon, such as Hitman developer IO Interactive’s 007 First Light, and Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight from Warner Bros. Games. Both are coming this May, and their respective developers could share further info on Thursday. Before those, though, March will bring with it Crimson Desert, Pearl Abyss’ ambitious open-world action-adventure that looks set to push the PS5 to its limits. No stranger to a trailer, we can likely expect it to turn up here, too.
As for later in the year, Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra recently shifted out of its original window of early 2026 to “beyond early 2026”, so your guess is as good as mine as to when we’ll be playing Amy Hennig’s Captain America and Black Panther in World War 2 story. Legendary PlayStation hero Lara Croft will be returning in a “reimagining” of her original game, titled Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, and Finnish developer Remedy is back with another entry in its connected universe, Control: Resonant. Also announced at The Game Awards was the pleasantly surprising Star Wars: Galactic Racer from the makers of Burnout and Need For Speed that is scheduled to drop in 2026. All of these are possibilities.
As for indies, outside of the announcement of a PS5 version of Hades 2, there are a few destined for PlayStation that I’d personally love to see more of on Thursday. Namely, Beethoven & Dinosaur’s coming of age story Mixtape, old-school cartoon-inspired shooter Mouse P.I. For Hire, and Japanese convenience store sim inKONBINI: One Store. Many Stories.
What game are you most looking forward to seeing more of at this week’s Sony State of Play? Let us know in the comments!
Simon Cardy is a Senior Editor at IGN who can mainly be found skulking around open world games, indulging in Korean cinema, or despairing at the state of Tottenham Hotspur and the New York Jets. Follow him on Bluesky at @cardy.bsky.social.
Romeo is a Dead Man, Grasshopper Manufacture’s eccentric new hack ‘n’ slash, is out today. I quite like it. I especially like its main menu screen, a strangely hypnotic fish tank in which captive planets float alongside a coral ballet trophy, and the menu’s text strings try to escape when you’re not looking. There is, precisely, one fish.
Last week, Square Enix had us all scrambling to wrap up Remake as quickly as we could, as it announced that it’ll be bringing Final Fantasy VII Rebirth to Switch 2 in just a few months on 3rd June.
We only caught a brief glimpse at how the ambitious follow-up will fare on Nintendo hardware in the Partner Direct, but it was more than enough footage for the tech experts over at Digital Foundry to take a look and suss out what we can expect from a performance perspective.
Crafting Speed: The Technology, Creativity, and Art Behind Ride 6’s Track Design
Paolo Bertoni, Game Director, Ride 6
Hello to all bikers out there! The wait is finally over: Ride 6 is out tomorrow, and it’s time to rev up and start a new adventure. Over the past two years, we’ve poured our hearts into creating an experience that celebrates every aspect of motorcycle culture. Today, we’re excited to pull back the curtain on one of the pillars of this new chapter: how we brought over 40 tracks to life in the game.
As you know, Ride 6 features both real-world and fictional tracks, each crafted with utmost care. Our teams worked hard to recreate iconic locations that have shaped motorcycling history, while also designing completely original tracks that are just as memorable and fun to ride.
For real tracks, the process starts on location. We map the entire circuit from above using drones, capturing anywhere from 2,000 to 2,500 photos depending on the size and complexity of the track.
Before flying, we set up 20–25 Ground Control Points (GCPs). These are PVC panels marked with an “X”, and we record their exact positions with high-precision GPS antennas. Once the photos are taken, we link each GCP to every image it appears in, attaching the corresponding GPS coordinates. This method allows us to generate point clouds with an impressive margin of error of just 2.5 cm.
A recreation of Mugello Circuit, a real motorsport race track in Florence, Italy.
The resulting point clouds don’t just capture the asphalt, curbs, and paddock; they map everything inside and around the track. This detail is crucial for faithfully recreating vegetation, run-off areas, asphalt, and structures like grandstands. Once the point cloud is ready, it’s handed to the Art Team, who use it as the foundation for building the 3D model.
Creating fictional tracks is a whole different story. Here, imagination takes center stage. The design process begins with the experience we want to deliver and the type of bike that suits the track best. The Design Team works closely with the Physics Team to ensure each track highlights the bikes’ strengths while also challenging riders in the right ways, striking the perfect balance between fun and skill.
Some tracks are designed to be fast and flowing, ideal for newer players eager to unleash the full power of their bikes. Usually, these tracks feature long straights, wide corners, and generous lanes to help players get comfortable with the gameplay. In this sense, the Kapadokya Rally is a great example: a gift to off-road enthusiasts, offering a nearly rally-like experience.
Other tracks are tighter, more technical, and aimed at experienced players. The environment we choose plays a key role in this sense, as it strongly affects the overall feel of the track. A circuit winding through a dense forest, for example, gives a far stronger sense of speed than the same layout in an open area. This is something we consider from the very beginning of the design process.
Once the design is finalized, we move on to practical testing. This is a unique phase: the Gameplay Team rides on a completely empty environment, a strip of asphalt floating in space with no reference points. The goal is to give the Design Team feedback on how to refine the layout and make the track as enjoyable as possible. Reference points like a house, a road sign, or a curb are now added to help players find racing lines, learn braking points, and fully immerse themselves in the ride. From here, the Art Team takes over to bring the track to life in 3D.
Thanks for stopping by. I hope you learned something interesting. See you on the track when Ride 6 launches February 12!
Hop on your bike and pre-order RIDE 6 now. You will get the full game and the Made in Japan Bikes Pack, with two bikes from the most iconic Japanese manufacturers.
Live the RIDE
RIDE 6 isn’t just about riding – it’s about who you become on your bike. It’s where passion turns into identity, and every race becomes a statement. It’s time to prove what it really means to be a rider – to yourself and to the world.
Beyond the asphalt
Collect and ride 250+ bikes from various categories, including Baggers and Enduro. Leave the asphalt behind and feel the thrill of the dirt on new off-road tracks for an even more complete riding experience.
Join RIDE Fest
Celebrate your passion for two wheels: start your career in the atmosphere of a motorcycle festival, choose your path, and challenge 10 legendary champions, from Casey Stoner to Guy Martin. Each will push your skills to the limit, testing you across different disciplines, bikes, and tracks.
Do you have what it takes to claim your place among those legends?
Ride your way
Whether you want to master the basics or you’re looking for the ultimate challenge, RIDE 6 adapts to your gaming style. The Arcade Experience gives you the thrills of instant riding, while the Pro Experience delivers full control and simulation depth. And with the new Bridgestone Riding School, you’ll be ready to face every challenge at your best!
Online, no limits
Race online in full cross-play, claim your spot at the top of the leaderboard, and show off your custom bikes, suits, and helmets.
Last year was a big year for No Man’s Sky. Even we struggle to know how we pulled off so many large updates last year – Worlds Part II and Voyagers were both transformational and released in the same year, interspersed with smaller but significant updates in Relics, Beacon and Breach. As we head into our 10th year post release, our small team is excited for our first update of the year.
Our new update is called Remnant and it introduces something that we’ve been wanting to give players since the very beginning – a gravity gun!
The Gravitino Coil is a powerful new anti-gravity module for your multi-tool. It turns No Man’s Sky into a physics playground. Allowing you to grab large objects and fling, toss or carefully carry them around the world.
Salvage and debris that could always be found on planets can now be collected and recycled for rare and highly prized resources. New trucks, tipping flatbeds and haulers can be constructed, to transport resources back to industrial yards for reclamation. You can work alone or join a salvage crew with friends.
It creates this really fun and tactile new loop of searching for wrecks, loading trucks full of cargo and hauling across the alien landscape to industrial yards to gain new loot and rewards.
Sorting and depositing materials in these all-new Waste Processing Plants will reap great rewards. Some of the scrap is highly volatile though and must be transported extremely carefully. It’s hard to resist over-stacking your truck, finding one more piece you think you can cram in, and then trying desperately to transport this house of cards on the back of your flatbed.
Our gravity gun is an industrial tool, but it can also be used as a ballistic weapon, grabbing sentinels or fling heavy objects, turning them into projectiles.
Vehicles can be hugely customised, to create bespoke trucks and haulers for your needs. Build your own brightly coloured incinerators, spider legged sci-fi explorer or heavily armed military vehicles with tank tracks.
The Remnant Update comes with a limited-time community expedition. It brings travellers together in convoys to clean up and reclaim a planet covered in wrecks and salvage. Perhaps you’ll be a hauler, or the gravity gun wielding ground crew or maybe a scary yard operator.
There are beautiful rewards, including dozens of new vehicle parts, and an all-new beautifully crafted armour set, with plush, padded fabrics and ornate steam punk detailing.
2026 represents 10 years since we launched on PlayStation and I couldn’t be prouder. For any game to reach such a milestone is a privilege. It wouldn’t be possible without your continued support and we genuinely appreciate it.
