Category: IGN

The boss of Black Myth: Wukong developer Game Science has pointed the finger at the Xbox Series S over the lack of an Xbox version of the game.

In a post on Chinese social media website Weibo, Game Science co-founder and CEO Feng Ji celebrated PC and PlayStation 5 action game Black Myth: Wukong’s Game of the Year win at the 2024 Steam awards, and in doing so lamented the lack of an Xbox version of the game, which he blamed on optimization trouble with the Xbox Series S.

“The only thing missing is the Xbox,” he said, per machine learning translation, “which somehow feels a bit wrong, but that 10GB of shared memory — without years of optimisation experience — is really hard to make work.”

That’s a reference to the Xbox Series S’ power relative to the Xbox Series X. The Series S has 4TF of GPU compute compared to the Xbox Series X’s 12.2TF, but the killer is the drop in memory allocation, from 16GB down to 10GB.

Microsoft’s Xbox release policy means publishers and developers must release their games across Xbox Series X and S. They are unable to release a game for Xbox Series X only, for example. This has caused difficulty for some studios in the past, perhaps most notably Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian. Baldur’s Gate 3 was originally released on PC and PS5 only, with the Xbox version delayed due to issues with the Xbox Series S specifically struggling to perform splitscreen co-op. In the past, Xbox had committed to parity between Xbox Series S and X for all games, but it ultimately made an exception for Baldur’s Gate 3 so the game could launch later in 2023.

In 2023, Remedy communications director Thomas Puha talked openly about the challenge the studio faced getting Alan Wake 2 running well on the Xbox Series S, saying the console’s GPU “is an issue” and “having less memory is a pretty big problem.” Before then, a VFX artist who had worked on an Xbox Series X and S game said in a now-deleted tweet that “many developers have been sitting in meetings for the past year desperately trying to get Series S launch requirements dropped”.

“Studios have been through one development cycle where Series S turned out to be an albatross around the neck of production, and now that games are firmly being developed with new consoles in mind, teams do not want to repeat the process,” the developer said.

In interviews with press including IGN, Xbox boss Phil Spencer has deflected questions about whether Xbox Series S is holding developers back, and rejected calls for developers to be allowed to release their games on Xbox Series X only. In an interview with Eurogamer, Spencer said: “Having an entry-level price point for a sub-$300 console is a good thing for the industry. I think it’s important. The Switch has been able to do that, in terms of kind of the traditional plug-into-my-television consoles. I think it’s important. So, we’re committed.”

The situation with Black Myth: Wukong, however, is further muddled by Microsoft’s insistence that the game’s delay on Xbox has nothing to do with development issues. In a number of statements issued to IGN, Microsoft has suggested an exclusivity deal with Sony was the cause of the delay.

“As we have said before, we’re excited for the launch of Black Myth Wukong on Xbox Series X and S and are working with Game Science to bring the game to our platforms,” Microsoft has told IGN.

“We’d prefer not to comment on the deals made by our partners with other platform holders but we can confirm that the delay is not due to Xbox platform limitations that have been raised to us.”

Black Myth: Wukong launched on August 19 and sold an eye-watering 18 million copies in just two weeks across PC and PS5, reportedly making over $700 million in revenue in the process. That was enough to put Black Myth: Wukong up there with Grand Theft Auto 5 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 as one of the fastest-selling games of all time, and is an astonishing return for a game that had a reported budget of $70 million over six years of development. It did so well that Sony pointed to Black Myth: Wukong as making a significant contribution to revenue during its last financial quarter, making up for the Concord disaster.

DLC is set to follow. In September, Game Science investor Hero Games confirmed plans to release an Elden Ring-style expansion for Black Myth: Wukong ahead of any sequel.

IGN’s Black Myth: Wukong review returned an 8/10. We said: “Despite some frustrating technical issues, Black Myth: Wukong is a great action game with fantastic combat, exciting bosses, tantalizing secrets, and a beautiful world.”

While you’re here, IGN has plenty more Black Myth: Wukong guides to help you out, including Essential Tips and Tricks, Things Black Myth: Wukong Doesn’t Tell You, and our Boss List and Guides.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

In 2017, Brendan Greene (aka “PlayerUnknown”) pioneered the Battle Royale genre of games with the early access release of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. The game has since gone on to become a massive hit, spawning countless more games like it, including some of the most successful games of all time.

Next year, 2025, Greene wants to pioneer something new. He wants to make a metaverse. No, not the one you’re thinking of. Greene doesn’t think those count as actual metaverses.

“I hesitate to talk about this, because it’s just such a dirty word, but I want to build a metaverse because I don’t think anyone else is,” he tells IGN. “I think everyone’s building IP bubbles that might talk to each other at some stage in the future, maybe if we’re lucky, but it’s not the metaverse. See, the Metaverse is a 3D internet. You should be able to create your own worlds and just have them all operating on the same protocol, like HTTP. So a world is a page, and that’s what I’m trying to do with Artemis.”

Artemis, aka Greene’s metaverse, is actually the third of three games he’s currently cooking up at his studio, PlayerUnknown Productions. The first two are testing grounds for the technology Greene eventually wants to use to build his metaverse. They’ll each be games in their own right, but their real purpose is to work out the kinks in Greene’s most ambitious ideas before they hit primetime in Artemis.

Final Chapter Prologue

The first game, Prologue, is already being tested by players in Greene’s Discord (in an early format Greene refers to as “Preface”) and is planned for a wider release in 2025. It’s a fairly basic survival game, Greene says, with a simple loop of trying to reach an objective while dealing with typical survival mechanics. There’s weather, hunger, crafting, discoverable loot, and other such elements to deal with, but the real meat of Prologue is its terrain generation tech. That’s what Prologue is really about: testing high-tech terrain generation at a small scale, before implementing it more broadly in Artemis.

Greene calls the terrain generation tech used by his studio “Melba,” and it’s basically a world generation machine. Melba uses machine learning, and is trained on NASA data of real-world Earth terrain. With that information, Melba is able to spit out entire maps, or even worlds, that have realistic geological features, and is able to do so either randomly or based on instructions, such as a request for a world with tons of mountains. These worlds are then filled with textures, assets, and other elements designed by actual artists, and are able to be customized in a similar fashion to have more forests, rivers, or whatever other elements are desired.

“There’s a new terrain every time you press play,” Greene explains. “The seed system gives us, I think 4.2 billion possible maps, but maybe millions of those would be interesting, I’m not sure yet…But this kind of tech is really cool because we’re seeing it shaped day to day with the artists. They’re going, ‘Let’s try this, let’s update the masks we use for the river to this so we generate that slightly differently.’ And they’re learning how to use this tech along with us, which is just great to see.

“It’s more an emergent space to test our terrain tech, and we’re going to work with the community to try to figure out: how can we make this test interesting? How can we make this game mode fun? What can we add to it that’s systemic, and then will help us moving forward going into game two, and three, and building these bigger systems using the foundations we built in Prologue?”

Building the World Machine

Prologue is just game one. Game two, which is currently unnamed, will come once the terrain tech is solidified. For Game Two, Greene wants a world that’s “500 million square kilometers, earth scale” to test a different sort of tech ahead of the release of Artemis: gameplay with a whole awful lot of characters all in one space together.

Greene won’t say much about this one. He tells me about his end goal for Artemis, which is to fit not thousands, but millions of players in a space together and have everything still work. In Game Two, Greene will test that via both multiplayer gameplay as well as AI character interaction. “You’ll be controlling an army, basically,” is all I can really get out of him. Game Two will focus on multiplayer while “controlling lots of assets”…which, when combined with Melba, will lead to the massive, multiplayer metaverse that Greene is dreaming up for Artemis.

“The metaverse has to have millions of people, and server client-side, you’ll never get that. You’ll maybe get a few thousand, maybe 10,000 if you’re lucky, but it’s attacking the problem at the wrong end, which is to solve the simulation locally, which we’ve done with Preface and then you can scale to hundreds of thousands, millions of people, hopefully.”

As for what all those millions of people will be doing in Greene’s metaverse…that’s largely up to them, he says. He compares it at one point to a Star Trek Holodeck, and then later to Minecraft Survival. In the tradition of the latter, Artemis will have a sort of basic game experience everyone can play, but then those users will be able to go off and make their own worlds, freely mod them, share them with others, and essentially treat them like “3D webpages” and experiment, build, and create totally new things within these spaces. He says he’s already seeing some of the beginnings of that within his Discord community as they tool around with and mod the early release of Prologue.

“The internet was empty when it first started, and it was just the way of sharing data, and I look at this the same,” he says. “This is probably going to be empty for the first few years, but then eventually you’ll start to see the possibility of what you can do with this kind of world generator that it’s like a multiverse of worlds.”

Critically, Greene wants Artemis to eventually be like the open internet in the sense that no one can really control what’s on it, not even him. I ask him how content moderation will work in that case, and while Greene believes Artemis will need moderation, he wants that power to stay in the hands of the users.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about this and what I want to do within this multiverse of digital spaces, you give the power to the community, that if someone acts like an asshole then they’re locked out of spaces. And it comes down to identity. We have to solve the identity problem because anonymity online kind of breaks the social construct. But if on our network or on our system, it’s tough for you to reenter it or to create an identity twice, you could still be anonymous, but at least there will be consequence to action.”

Greene also suggests that instead of outright banning people who cause issues, one path might be to turn miscreants into “ghosts” that can’t interact with anyone. They can see everything happening and browse the world, but they are incapable of speaking or otherwise engaging with anything in it. “If you look at Covid, there were 12 people that generated something like 96% of the misinformation that was online. [Author’s note: The actual number was 65% of disinformation posts on Facebook, and 72% of all anti-vaccine content.]…If you shut out this small group of people that really actively try to upset the information space and deliver propaganda, then you’ve solved the problem kind of holistically…I think that the future will be local. Everything will be local. You will have your identity locally and you will share it as you see fit, and it won’t be stored by people across the world. At least I hope.”

I press Greene on this – what if people are doing illegal things in this metaverse? What about copyright violations, or worse, everything Roblox has been accused of? At what point does he become responsible? Greene admits he doesn’t have an answer yet.

“That’s where we’re going to have to figure it out. As I said, I want to build games with the community, rather than for them, and I think with their help and finding out what tools they need to better do this, then we can figure out how to do this in a way better way for everyone. Thankfully we have good AI regulation in the EU as well so there are checks and balances there already, at least this side of the planet to help with this, right? I mean, let’s see how long they last, but at least there are people smarter than me thinking about it already. So I’m happy to follow guidance, and work with the community to figure this out because it’s important to get right.”

Long Road Ahead

Greene’s vision is incredibly technically complex, and he mentions several times that he doesn’t expect we’ll see its final form – Artemis – for ten, maybe even 15 years. He’s already highlighted a number of the challenges ahead of the team, but I ask him about another one he hasn’t yet mentioned: is Artemis going to be PC-only? No, he says. It’ll be on everything, eventually.

“It has to. I mean, the device is just an access point to the world. It has to be. Kids in Africa on their mobile phones have to be able to access it the same as gaming PCs on the West Coast. The experience of the world might be slightly different, but because it’s not a game, that’s okay. It just has to run on every device.”

And there’s another technological issue I need to raise with Greene: NFTs. Previously, it’s been reported that Artemis will implement them, but Greene says that was a misunderstanding stemming from an interview he did with Hit Points back in 2022.

“[Nathan Brown] asked me about blockchain because it was the hype thing at the time,” Greene says. “And I explained that blockchain, I thought, was an interesting financial instrument, as a layer within a digital world. But that was it. I said maybe some future iteration of blockchain or hashgraph or that tech is interesting. Ultimately it’s a digital ledger and if we can use a digital ledger, we’ll find the best one and use it. But that’s really it. The next day after I did that interview, [headlines were] ‘PUBG Guy Making Blockchain Game’, and that’s not what I said. It’s an interesting tech and I think it can be used if it’s useful, but otherwise we’ll use what is the best at the time.”

So he’s not currently thinking about NFTs in Artemis, then?

“No, not even thinking about it. Our concern is about getting the engine to a state that we can make things in it and then as I said, Game Two, we’ll test ideas then, but really now not even thought about it. More just getting some fun games made.”

Between the length of time Greene needs to build Artemis and the sheer amount of questions still looming about its final form, Greene and his studio have a difficult road ahead. He’ll need time and personpower, which also means money, and the games industry is currently going through a funding drought amid layoffs, closures, and project cancellations. Greene says his project is fine, having gotten funding for Prologue early on and used it thoughtfully thus far. But that doesn’t mean Artemis is guaranteed. He says they’ll still need people to buy Prologue so they can sustain development long-term.

Still, Greene isn’t daunted by the fact that he’s basically claiming he wants to build an entire second internet in a time of mass game and tech instability. In the same way that PUBG started out as a fairly barebones game but became a smash hit that launched a genre, he believes his new vision can grow to something massive with the help of a creative community. And maybe, he suggests, a successful Artemis could even help prevent the current games industry situation from happening again.

“Games are driven a lot by data points on Excel spreadsheets rather than making fun games and it’s a little depressing,” he says. “So that’s why I want to stick to my vision because I think we need a platform like this. We need a platform where people can just create and not worry that you’ve got an exec team shooting it.

“I want to find the next PlayerUnknown. I was really lucky to have been given this chance and providing people with a platform that can help do that, why wouldn’t I do that? And yes, it’s a big vision, but I’ve got a good team of industry professionals and they don’t think it’s that crazy. So yeah, I’m filled with confidence.”

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Sony has announced the PlayStation Plus monthly games for January 2025 will be Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, Need for Speed Hot Pursuit Remastered, and The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe.

As detailed on PlayStation.Blog, all three of these games will be available on January 7 for PlayStation Plus members, with Suicide Squad arriving on PS5, Need for Speed racing to PS4, and Stanley Parable dropping on PS5 and PS4.

The big addition here is Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, especially after developer Rocksteady just recently confirmed it will be pulling the plug on new content after Season 4 arrives this month. Despite that, there is a lot to look forward to, including a playable Deathstroke, an offline mode, and all the previous seasonal content.

In our Suicide Squad; Kill the Justice League review, we said it is “a repetitive and bland looter-shooter that, despite an engaging story, never stays fun for long enough.”

Need for Speed Hot Pursuit Remastered is the updated 2020 version of the game that was first released in 2010. This remastered edition has enhanced visuals, cross-platform multiplayer, asynchronous competition powered by Autolog, all the DLC, and more.

In our Need for Speed Hot Pursuit Remastered review, we said that, while it isn’t the “most exciting remaster,” Need for Speed Hot Pursuit Remastered is “still one of the best modern arcade racers around – and now it looks even better.”

Lastly, The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe is the “expanded re-imagining” of 2013’s The Stanley Parable, complete with new content, choices, and secrets. There is also improved visuals, accessibility features, and much more.

In our The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe review, we said, “The Stanley Parable still holds up a decade later, and the Ultra Deluxe version essentially adds a whole new game’s worth of additional content to stumble upon.”

For more, check out December’s PlayStation Plus monthly games before they go away on January 6 and why Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League was one of our biggest disappointments of 2024.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a writer for IGN. You can follow him on X/Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on TikTok.

Happy new year! Welcome to 2025, and congratulations for living through yet another complete rotation around the giant firey gas ball we call the sun. The start of a new year is as good a time as any to take a look at what games are currently on the horizon, so here are the biggest game releases of 2025 that we know about right now!

January 2025

We are only hours away from 2025, so now is the time to score some last-minute holiday deals. Here are the best deals for Tuesday, December 31.

Reynatis Deluxe Edition for $40.80

With 2025 and the New Year quickly approaching, now is the time to score some last-minute holiday deals. Here are the best deals for Monday, December 30.

Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection for $24.96

I’m starting to feel like Charlie Brown from The Peanuts comics, and Microsoft is the Lucy who keeps pulling the football away right as I go to kick it. Every year I write this feature, and every year I say that this looks like The Year™ where everything comes together for Xbox. Last year, in fact, I specifically said, “Looking ahead to 2024, that positive momentum looks set to continue and, with any luck, snowball.” Microsoft arguably didn’t live up to that for the first 10.5 months of the year, with only the visually-full-but-gameplay-empty Hellblade 2 dropping in May after many years of waiting. But to the big-spending publisher’s credit, it did end the year extremely strong, dropping three exclusive bangers in a row: STALKER 2, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, and my personal vote for Game of the Year in 2024 and the game that I think is the best Xbox exclusive in years, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.

So, can Microsoft keep that positive end-of-2024 momentum going into 2025? Call me Charlie Brown if you must, but yes, I genuinely believe that 2025 could be Xbox’s strongest and most bountiful year since at least 2021, when it dropped Forza Horizon 5, Halo Infinite, and Psychonauts 2. Let’s dig into why I’m optimistic…

A Fountain of Fantasy and Firearms

Xbox’s 2025 kicks off rather quickly and, from everything we can tell, rather impressively with Obsidian’s first-person fantasy RPG Avowed, due to be released on February 18. This “Skyrim Lite” is set in the studio’s established and well-loved Pillars of Eternity universe, it’s supposed to be around the same meaty-but-not-gargantuan 25-40 hours long as Obsidian’s most recent first-person RPG The Outer Worlds, and it’s impressed us more and more every single time we’ve played it, including quite recently.

Next, while it doesn’t have a firm release date yet, id Software’s unexpected zag of a prequel, Doom: The Dark Ages, is almost a lock for 2025. In fact, I’d wager an In-N-Out Burger lunch that it drops in the first half of the year for two reasons: 1) Doom Eternal shipped in March of 2020, meaning that in just a few months, it will have been a full half-decade since the last Doom (which itself followed four years after Doom [2016]). In other words, it’s time! Particularly since the idTech engine is already firmly in place despite the jump to a new console generation. And 2) I’d bet another In-N-Out lunch that the long- and eagerly anticipated reboot of Fable being cooked up at Playground Games – which, remember, got tagged with a 2025 release window in its Xbox Showcase 2024 trailer – is going to be Xbox’s big Fall/holiday game at the end of the year. That means Doom probably ships before the holidays. But whenever it does – and remember that it’s already confirmed to be a multiplatform release on day one – it’s probably going to kick some serious ass for Xbox next year, judging by how good id Software’s last two Doom games have been.

Back to Fable: in my opinion, the revival of Fable has higher potential – both critically and commercially – than almost anything else in Xbox’s portfolio short of Call of Duty, The Elder Scrolls, and Fallout. We’ve seen Playground’s take on the British-charm-tinged action-adventure-RPG a few times now, and each time it’s been crystal clear that not only does Playground “get” Fable (it’s British itself, which no doubt helps), but that the game looks absolutely incredible as well. Who knew that the ForzaTech engine could render a jaw-droppingly beautiful fantasy forest just as well as a racetrack?

There’s one other huge reason to be optimistic about Fable, and that’s Playground’s track record. Simply put, this studio has not only never missed, it’s never made anything less than a consensus 9 out of 10. Its last game, the aforementioned Forza Horizon 5, was IGN’s 2021 Game of the Year. And it clearly is being given plenty of time to cook, as Fable was formally announced in 2020 with work having already been done prior to that. Microsoft knows it can’t fumble Fable a second time, and I couldn’t be more excited about what has been shown so far.

Next, while it certainly isn’t nearly as big a name as Fable, we can’t forget about South of Midnight, the third-person action-adventure from We Happy Few developer Compulsion Games that’s leaning heavy into the folklore of the bayous of the Deep South. This one’s nothing like the developer’s past games, which is admittedly riskier but also more intriguing. Microsoft has tabbed this one for 2025, so consider South of Midnight as something of a wild card for next year.

Another smaller-name Xbox exclusive that I think everyone will be talking about if it comes together when it finally ships in 2025 is Replaced. It’s a pixel-art, cyberpunk-styled side-scrolling action-adventure game that oozes style and, as I discovered when I played it over the summer, is much deeper than I expected. Replaced has the potential to join the long list of legendary Xbox-exclusive indies that includes games like Limbo, Braid, and Inside.

Finally, don’t forget about Xbox’s actual biggest franchise (since they now own it), Call of Duty. It’ll stay on PlayStation, of course, but Xbox fans will get it day one on Game Pass. The 2025 Call of Duty is rumored to be a future-set Black Ops 2 sequel, so perhaps Treyarch is handling the campaign on this one after Raven Software did a stellar job on this year’s Black Ops 6 campaign. And the other, much quieter juggernaut in the Xbox portfolio, Minecraft, will probably get some kind of big in-game content, what with the Minecraft movie on the way.

What About Hardware?

Barring a 180 from Xbox boss Phil Spencer’s previous comments, Microsoft won’t be pushing a mid-gen upgrade to the Xbox Series X (an Xbox Series XX, if you will) in 2025, if ever. And though a handheld Xbox is in development, we’re unlikely to play it or even see it in the coming year.

So should we expect any new hardware in 2025? Probably not – at least in terms of raw horsepower. The Xbox Series S got a storage upgrade in 2024, as did the Series X. And we’ll no doubt see a bevy of new special-edition controllers and maybe even that upgraded controller codenamed Sebile mentioned in the FTC leaks from over a year ago, but 2025 does not appear to be the year for Xbox to drop any new silicon.

Anything Else?

Rare’s Everwild appears to be in limbo and/or development hell, as we haven’t seen or heard from it in years. Might it reemerge in 2025? Maybe, but I’m not holding my breath. Meanwhile, Halo is being reset at the studio level, which in my opinion means the next Halo game is likely to either be a reboot of the franchise altogether or a remake of Halo: Combat Evolved. Either way, it’s going to be built in Unreal Engine 5, and it’s probably going to take a while. InXile’s steampunk RPG Clockwork Revolution was announced in 2023 with a release window of “coming in due time.” The Outer Worlds 2 has been revealed, and we now know it is coming in 2025, so that means Obsidian plans to ship two first-person RPGs in the same year.

And speaking of first-person RPGs, will that rumored Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion remaster actually happen? How about Contraband, from Just Cause developer Avalanche Studios, which was in the 2021 Xbox Showcase and hasn’t been seen or heard from since? All we know is that it’s “a co-op smugglers’ paradise set in the fictional world of 1970s Bayan.” Should it reemerge in 2025, it’s unlikely that it also ships next year as well, given the usual PR/marketing cycles on big-budget games.

The wild card for 2025 is Double Fine, the endlessly creative and versatile studio headed by game design legend Tim Schafer that is coming off of 2021 Game Awards Game of the Year nominee Psychonauts 2. I’d expect Schafer and the studio to announce their new project soon, but as to whether it actually comes out in the next 12 months is anybody’s guess.

Finally, anything from this year’s Xbox Showcase that didn’t have a release year at the end of the trailer can safely be assumed to be a 2026 (or later) release. That means I’m not reasonably expecting to play Gears of War: E-Day, Perfect Dark, or State of Decay 3 in the next year. And that’s OK! It finally feels like Xbox is starting to pump out not just a steady stream of first-party games, but a consistently good stream of them. This is what Xbox has been building towards since they first started acquiring studios in 2018 to try and fix their first-party games problem, and dammit I think this is the year they finally do it. Please don’t pull that football away from me again, Lucy-Microsoft.

2024 was a bit of a bumpy road for PlayStation. Things started out well with the surprise success of Helldivers 2, the critically acclaimed Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, and the slick action duo of Stellar Blade and Black Myth: Wukong. But things took a downward turn in the summer thanks to Concord’s (failure to) launch. The doomed hero shooter and subsequent closing of developer Firewalk Studios was certainly a low point for Sony, even if a delightful little robot did his best to brighten the mood in the fantastic Astro Bot. Since then we’ve seen the arrival of the PS5 Pro, an even more powerful PlayStation 5 console that comes at an eye-wateringly premium price and has been met with a mixed reception. But with time ticking away, there’s barely time left in 2024 to dwell on PlayStation’s past. It already feels like time to look ahead to 2025.

So what does the upcoming year have in store for PlayStation? With almost all of its first-party studios keeping cards close to chests, you may be mistaken for thinking things are looking quiet. But let’s delve in deeper to see exactly what games to expect for the PS5 in 2025, as well as make a few hopeful guesses of our own.

The Games We Know Are Coming

Firstly, let’s look at what is scheduled to come from those all-important PlayStation Studios. Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Yotei is certainly looking like the headline attraction, and it’s coming to the PS5 in 2025. The sequel to 2020’s open-world samurai adventure, Ghost of Tsushima, is set to be a stunner as we’re introduced to both a new hero and Northern Japanese location. Let’s hope for some gameplay trailers early next year or in the summer, ahead of a winter release.

There’s also Fairgames, the debut game from Haven Studios. It’s a multiplayer heist shooter, and so it will certainly be fascinating to see what lessons PlayStation has learned from the live-service disaster of Concord. First revealed in 2023, we’re yet to see any gameplay, but hopefully that doesn’t mean it won’t hit its target of a 2025 release date.

And… those are the only PlayStation Studios games we currently know are slated for a 2025 release. And with no actual release dates locked in yet, we can barely plot out what to expect in each part of the year. But that isn’t to say there won’t be more big games coming to the PS5 next year, though, and we can certainly theorise at what else we might see from some of Sony’s first-party stable.

We now know that Naughty Dog’s next adventure will take us to the stars in Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. We don’t expect to be playing this in 2025, though, but we’ll happily eat up any more info Neil Druckmann and the team wants to share about it – especially if that includes some of that laser blade gameplay.

Marathon has a lot of weight resting on its shoulders, not only because it will be Bungie’s first full release since it was acquired by Sony, but alongside Fairgames, it will be PlayStation’s first big new live-service shooter to follow in the quickly fading footsteps of Concord. The Destiny developers have as strong a shooter pedigree as anyone in the business, so it will certainly be interesting to see the result of its work as it aims to revive its long-dormant 90s series as a multiplayer extraction shooter.

Could 2025 be the year that Death Stranding 2: On the Beach emerges from its oily cocoon? Hideo Kojima was at The Game Awards but didn’t bring a new trailer with him. Unacceptable behaviour, if you ask me. Are we any closer to knowing what it’s all about? Who’s to say, but we certainly want to play it. And the sooner we can, the sooner Kojima can move on to working on Physint, the upcoming stealth-action PlayStation exclusive from the Metal Gear master.

As for third-party exclusives, there’s a fair few to look forward to – especially if you’re into big swords. Phantom Blade Zero looks set to be a flashy hack-and-slash action RPG from Chinese studio S-Game. A semi-open world samurai bloodfest with soulslike elements, it certainly doesn’t look to be lacking in style. No release date has been given as yet, but let’s hope for next year.

Speaking of blades, Where Winds Meet is a PS5 console-exclusive RPG set in ancient China. Taking place during the Ten Kingdoms Era, you step into the shoes of a warrior who wields influence over warring dynasties, shaping history with the point of your sword, as well as mystical and magical abilities. Originally set for a 2024 release before being delayed to add even more content to its packed, mammoth open world, it wouldn’t be a shock to see it finally arrive within the next 12 months.

But wait, there are more swords and even bigger blades in Ballad of Antara, a free-to-play co-op action RPG packed with multiple protagonists and intertwining stories coming to the PS5 in 2025. We’ll get a better look at it soon, with a beta promised to be on the way.

Think we’re done with swords? Think again. This next game even has one in the title: Sword of the Sea. You don’t use this one to fight with, though; instead, you’ll be plonking your feet on it and riding around at speed, Tony Hawk and Metaphor: ReFantazio style. From Abzû and The Pathless studio Giant Squid, the reveal trailer couldn’t help but remind us of Journey, as a mysterious cloaked character hoverswords around vast desert ruins.

Another relatively fresh announcement, having only been revealed at September’s State of Play, The Midnight Walk is the next game from Lost in Random developer Moonhood Studios. An adventure handcrafted from clay, it’s set to be one of the most visually striking games of 2025. Plus, it’s even coming out on PS VR2. At least someone is helping out that long-forgotten little guy.

The last PS5 console exclusive we’re going to highlight is a game we wrote about exactly this time last year in our 2024 PlayStation look-ahead. Hopefully 2025 will be the year we finally get to clumsily bumble our way through the world of Baby Steps. A PS5 console-exclusive, the team up from the developers behind Getting Over It and Ape Out looks equal parts agonising as it does hilarious.

That may be it for exclusives, but there are plenty more multiplatform games coming out in 2025 that are set to make it a bumper year for PlayStation players. Alongside the arrival of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle onto PS5, there’s Elden Ring Nightreign, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Monster Hunter Wilds, Mafia: The Old Country, Judas, Borderlands 4, Doom: The Dark Ages, and Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater to name but a few. Oh, and a little game called Grand Theft Auto 6. Could be good. Who knows.

Hopes and Dreams

Now for the fun part: the section where we get to cross our fingers and conjure up games that don’t exist yet, but maybe will appear before our eyes in 2025.

Insomniac has had a relatively quiet year – for a studio that puts out new releases with such regularity, that is – but understandable considering it continues to recover from the data breach suffered at the end of 2023. We know that Wolverine is in the works but don’t yet know exactly when it will be in our hands. And, if rumours are to be believed, a Venom game is scheduled to arrive before it. While it may be unlikely that we’ll be playing either of these superhero stories within the next 12 months, we might get a clearer picture of what is coming next from the Spidey studio.

The same can be said for Santa Monica Studio. What’s next for the God of War developer is a mystery, although we do know Cory Barlog – game director of 2018’s God of War – moved on to helm a new project in 2021 after leaving Eric Williams to fill Ragnarok’s director seat. Could we see what Barlog’s game is in 2025?

As for other studios, can we expect yet more delves into the world of Horizon from Guerrilla Games, with an online multiplayer game reportedly in development at the Amsterdam developers? And it’s been a long time since Bend released Days Gone – almost six whole years, in fact – and the studio has hinted that it’s making another open-world adventure. Little is known apart from that, but it’s safe to say we’d like to learn more.

The truth is, we know very little about what is in the pipeline from many of Sony’s first-party studios, so don’t be surprised if the PS5 is in for another relatively quiet year in 2025. We’d be more than happy to be wrong about that, though, and be pleasantly surprised by a flurry of reveals and releases.

Finally, could Sony’s interest in acquiring the massive Kadokawa company (which, alongside a huge anime portfolio, also owns FromSoftware) finally result in a Bloodborne remaster or sequel? I know we said these are hopes and dreams… but don’t be silly.

Hardware and Tech

In terms of hardware, Sony has been very busy over the past couple of years with the PS VR2, PlayStation Portal, and PS5 Pro all released to varying levels of success. As a result, we expect things to be quieter on the hardware front when it comes to 2025. However, it may be the year that we see the PS5 Pro justify itself further as an expensive upgrade if games like Ghost of Yotei and GTA 6 start to push the base PlayStation 5 to its limit. It will certainly be interesting to see how developers embrace this new tech over the next year or so, and if we start to see genuinely impressive comparisons between the original PS5 and Pro.

But while we expect actual hardware releases to be quiet, we’ve heard whispers that there may be some news to share of fresh PlayStation tech in 2025. Could we see Sony take another stab at the handheld market? Just stick some internal storage into the Portal. I have no qualifications when it comes to hardware engineering, but how hard can it be, lads? In all seriousness, though, if recent reports are to be believed, then maybe we could actually see a successor to the PSP and PS Vita in the coming year, or at least an announcement of one.

Let’s be honest, it’s all guesswork isn’t it? Got your own theories and hopes for what we’ll see from PlayStation in 2025? Let us know in the comments below, as well as what you’re most excited to play.

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Soon it will be 2025, also known as the year Nintendo finally pulls back the curtain on its next console. After 2024 was filled with shaky rumors, alleged leaks, and nonstop speculation about the Nintendo Switch successor, we know for a fact Nintendo will share more about the next generation in less than 100 days. If that’s not exciting enough for you, the Nintendo Switch still has a few cards up its sleeve and 2025 will finally see the launch of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, eight years after its initial announcement. And, as always, there will surely be some surprises along the way, with some possibly tied to a certain plumber’s 40th anniversary. Here’s what to expect from Nintendo in 2025.

Nintendo in 2025: What’s Already On the Books

Before we get into Switch 2, let’s recap what we already know is coming to Switch in 2025. Nintendo has been incredibly consistent at publishing a Switch game most months for the last two years, and while I’m not sure they’ll keep up that pace to the same degree in 2025, we already know about a fair number of games coming in the next few months.

January 16 marks the release of Donkey Kong Country Returns HD, a remaster of the 2010 Wii platformer that includes the extra levels from the 2013 3DS port. That’s right, this is the third time Nintendo is selling us Country Returns and it’s now been more than a decade since the last original Donkey Kong Country game with Tropical Freeze’s launch on Wii U. Hopefully Donkey Kong’s recent inclusion in Nintendo’s movies and theme parks will eventually result in a brand new video game, but for now you’re getting Country Returns again, and you better like it. As someone who’s bought and played both previous versions, it really is a fantastic platformer and one worth trying if you’ve never played it before.

We’re getting another HD remaster on March 20, but this one is much more exciting. After years of fan demand, Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition is finally landing on Switch, meaning the entire Xenoblade Chronicles series will be available in one place. Xenoblade Chronicles X is the odd one out in the series: It’s not directly tied to the trilogy and it was doomed to originally release on Wii U back in 2015, so this second chance at life will be many players’ first chance to dive into this enormous open world RPG. The visually enhanced Definitive Edition also adds brand new story content longtime fans will surely dissect and theorize about for years to come.

Right now, those are the only firm release dates we have for Nintendo in 2025, but there are a few huge games coming sometime in the coming months. That includes Pokémon Legends: Z-A, Game Freak’s return to the Legends subseries after Arceus successfully shook things up back in 2022. We still know very little about what Legends: Z-A will entail, other than it centers around an “urban redevelopment plan” in the Kalos Region’s Lumiose City from Pokémon X & Y, and that Generation VI’s Mega Evolution is set to return in some way. Pokémon took a much needed year off in 2024 so it’s exciting to see what Legends: Z-A will look like after taking a bit more time in the oven.

One big third-party Nintendo Switch exclusive worth shouting out is Professor Layton and the New World of Steam, which is scheduled for release sometime in 2025. It’s the big return of Professor Layton and his assistant Luke after more than a decade out of the spotlight. I’m hopeful it will actually make it out on time – Level-5 has been a bit too eager to announce release windows before games are actually ready, but whenever this finally comes out it will be an exciting return for a series that’s always been heavily associated with Nintendo.

The final TBA 2025 game on Nintendo’s calendar right now is the long-awaited Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. First announced at E3 2017, Prime 4 was MIA for years before its re-reveal at June’s Nintendo Direct. Prime 4 is coming from Retro Studios, developers of the original Metroid Prime trilogy, and it features the return of Sylux, a villain first introduced in the Nintendo DS spinoff Metroid Prime Hunters. The most recent trailer is absolutely gorgeous and I can’t wait to see how the full adventure shapes up later this year.

We’ll Know More About Switch 2 in Less Than Three Months

Enough messing around, let’s get into what you’re all here for: the Nintendo Switch successor. Last May, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa revealed that Nintendo would make an announcement about the Nintendo Switch successor “within this fiscal year.” Nintendo’s fiscal year ends on March 31, meaning that we’re expecting an official unveiling sometime within the next 90 days or so. Other than Nintendo’s recent confirmation that Nintendo Switch software will also be playable on the Switch 2, the company has been very quiet about what the console will actually be like.

However, March might not be the end of the story. It’s possible we will get a quick teaser trailer before the end of this fiscal year, similar to the Switch’s reveal trailer in October 2016, followed by a full presentation ahead of the official launch. Or Nintendo might tell us everything we want to know right away, which is the best-case scenario. Either way, I’m confident we’ll get a big presentation at some point this year with all the answers we’re looking for.

Last time Nintendo held a big in-person event in Japan to properly unveil the Switch, which was broadcast live around the world. I’m expecting a slightly different strategy this time as I think Nintendo will stick to its prerecorded Nintendo Direct-style presentation to show the successor off. But I think the information presented will be largely the same, where Nintendo will likely share information on the following:

• Name
• Release Date
• Price
• Launch day/window game lineup
• Specifications
• Unique features

As for what these console details will actually be, your guess is as good as mine. But I can almost guarantee the Switch successor will launch before the end of 2025 as I don’t see a world where Nintendo announces it as early as March and waits until 2026 to release it. And I’m personally expecting the Switch successor to be very iterative of Nintendo Switch, maintaining the hybrid design that made it such a global success.

A new console means new games and Nintendo is definitely cooking up a big lineup for the next console’s first year. Not counting projects it was a co-developer on, Nintendo’s internal development teams only put out one game last year: Splatoon 3’s Side Order DLC. It’s clearly been full steam ahead on Switch 2 games for a while and I’m expecting some heavy hitters at launch and in the first year of Switch 2.

We are well overdue for a new 3D Mario because it’s been nearly eight years since Super Mario Odyssey. That was the last brand new 3D Mario apart from Bowser’s Fury, which was a bite-sized expansion added onto 3D World’s Switch release in 2021. I’m confident Nintendo is setting up the next 3D Mario to be the Switch successor’s must-have game at launch, to get all of the hardcore Nintendo fans snap up the new console right away. And it just so happens that 2025 is the 40th anniversary of Super Mario Bros., and given how big Nintendo went for the 35th anniversary in 2020, I think it’s a safe bet that Mario will be front and center at the next console launch.

But what about Mario Kart? We’re even more overdue for a brand new Mario Kart entry given that it’s been 11 years now since Mario Kart 8’s original release. Yes, we got Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Tour, and the Booster Course Pass in the time since, but it’s still been way too long since a wholly original home console Mario Kart. I go back and forth between thinking 3D Mario or Mario Kart is the big launch game, but either way I think we get both before the console’s first holiday season. Right now, I’m feeling a 3D Mario at launch as the big single-player showcase game, with Mario Kart coming just a bit later to get families interested in picking the console up over the holidays.

As much as everyone loves Mario though, Nintendo will want to diversify its launch lineup beyond its most iconic character. I could see some sort of Zelda remake or remaster in the cards to get that franchise represented as soon as possible on the next hardware, with the two most likely candidates feeling like an Ocarina of Time HD remake or a Breath of the Wild remaster that runs at a solid 60 fps.

I’m also expecting Nintendo to unveil some sort of brand new IP to hit the console at launch or shortly after. The Wii had Wii Sports, Wii U had Nintendoland, and Switch had 1-2-Switch, so there will likely be some sort of casual, family-friendly experience to show off what the new hardware can do.

I’m also hopeful we might get a glimpse of Super Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai’s new mystery game at some point in 2025. Sakurai dropped one of the biggest plot twists of 2024 when he revealed that he prepped his entire YouTube channel in advance and has been secretly working on a new video game since early 2022. It’s been in development for three years now so it’s not out of the realm of possibility that a reveal is planned for sometime this year. It’s most likely the next Smash Bros., but I would love to see Sakurai’s take on a more niche Nintendo series like Star Fox or F-Zero.

Speaking of F-Zero, I wouldn’t be surprised if Switch 2 is home to a remaster of F-Zero GX or an entirely new game in the series. Nintendo has been building up hype for the F-Zero series for the last year now, first with the release and continued updates in F-Zero 99, followed by the addition of nearly every game in the series to the Nintendo Switch Online game catalog. I feel like it’s accelerating toward something big for the series and there’s almost no better way to show off new, powerful hardware than a gorgeous, futuristic racing game running at a perfect framerate.

Switch 1 Support Will Continue

All eyes will definitely be on Switch 2 in 2025 but Nintendo will continue to support its 140 million-plus Switch 1 install base with new games. We already discussed the Switch games we know are coming in 2025 but there will certainly be more reveals as the year goes on. I’m expecting Kirby to show up on Switch 1 in some way – it’s been two years since Return to Dreamland Deluxe – either through a remaster of a fan favorite like Kirby Planet Robobot or an entirely new game. I also think it could be time for Nintendo to wheel out some of its smaller series and I’ve got a feeling in my bad knee that Rhythm Heaven could finally make its Switch debut this year in a similar fashion to Rhythm Heaven Megamix showing up on 3DS after the Switch was already out.

Could Next Level Games Show Up?

Luigi’s Mansion 3 developers Next Level Games have put out a new game every three years since 2013. The studio’s last full game was Mario Strikers: Battle League in 2022, meaning 2025 is the year for its next project if this development cycle pattern is to continue. It could be time for Luigi’s Mansion 4 on the Switch successor but given how much Mario I already think is in the cards for 2025, I could also see this game getting unveiled at some point for a release sometime in 2026. While I definitely think some studios will continue developing games for the older Switch hardware, I firmly expect to see Next Level Games’ new project on the next console and wouldn’t be shocked if we get a glimpse of it in 2025.

Nintendo’s Entertainment Endeavors Continue

Finally, Nintendo is much more than a video game company at this point and it has some solid entertainment plans lined up for 2025. Super Nintendo World is set to open in Florida this May and it includes the Donkey Kong Country expansion that’s currently exclusive to Universal Studios Japan. And Nintendo is opening its second stateside retail store when Nintendo San Francisco opens at Union Square sometime this year. scheduled to hit theaters in April 2026 so I’m guessing we’ll get the first trailer for the sequel sometime before the year is up too.

And that’s everything we expect from Nintendo in 2025. Are you ready for the Switch 2 or are you still excited about the Switch 1 games we know about? Let us know in the comments. And for everything else Nintendo, switch with IGN.