All the while, MindsEye’s troubled launch saw the developer cancel sponsored streams, and reports of players securing refunds, even from the normally stubborn Sony.
Hotfix #1 is out now on PC (5.7GB) and PS5 (2GB), with Xbox Series X and S (4GB) to follow, Build A Rocket Boy said in a post on Discord that also included patch notes.
“Today we’ve deployed Hotfix #1 tasked on an expedited timeline as the first in a series of patches aimed at addressing your feedback and enhancing the game experience,” it said.
Across all platforms, the hotfix aims to implement CPU and GPU performance improvements and memory optimizations. It also reduces the difficulty for the CPR mini-game, adds a new setting to disable or modify Depth of Field, and fixes missing controls in the MineHunter and Run Dungeon mini-games.
On PC, there are new pop-up warnings for PCs that have Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling disabled, and PCs with CPUs that have potential crash issues.
Build A Rocket Boy said this patch also fixes the memory leak issue that had been causing most crashes reported by players. “Performance optimisation is our number one focus and an ongoing commitment that will take further time,” it added.
“We will continue to provide frequent and transparent updates. Our team is committed to do everything possible to urgently action your feedback,” Build A Rocket Boy said.
Build A Rocket Boy has said that by the end of June, players can expect ongoing performance and stability improvements, a rebalanced ‘hard’ difficulty setting, animation fixes, and AI improvements.
The question is whether the developer, which was founded by former Rockstar North chief Leslie Benzies, can turn MindsEye around. On Steam, which does not paint the whole picture of MindsEye’s current popularity, the game hit a peak concurrent player count of 3,302 on launch, but had a 24-hour peak of just 786 players. At the time of this article’s publication, 435 people were playing on Steam, with a ‘mixed’ user review rating.
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.
MindsEye may look like an exciting, GTA-adjacent action-adventure in short clips and GIFs, but actually playing it through to the end of its story has revealed an unfinished, overly ambitious project that’s plagued with performance problems, makes precious little use of its open world, and is crippled by unconvincing combat and dull mission design.
While it’s natural to draw comparisons with GTA, in basic terms MindsEye is more akin to the Mafia series. That is, it’s a tightly linear, single-player story where the open world largely exists as a backdrop for you to drive from mission to mission. That doesn’t end up serving it very well. Mafia is great. MindsEye is not.
You are Jacob Diaz, a former soldier and drone operator who has been railroaded out of the military after a botched mission, albeit with an extremely rare piece of tech still embedded in his neck. He’s a pretty thinly drawn amnesiac hero overall, with no especially memorable characteristics beyond his ability to follow instructions. After securing a security job at mega-company Silva Corp in the Las Vegas-inspired city of Redrock, Diaz is quickly embroiled in an AI-gone-bad, robots-gone-wild adventure that starts slow, gets a little more intriguing a few hours in, and then ends like someone’s yanked the plug out of the wall.
MindsEye does have style, and its near-future setting is accomplished and credible.
Credit where it’s due, MindsEye does have style, and its near-future setting is accomplished and credible. It fuses locations like normal homes and strip malls that wouldn’t look out of place in the present day with the proliferation of high-tech robotics and drones. The result is a world that appears appropriately futuristic, but doesn’t feel alien or unrecognisable. From an aesthetic perspective, it really does appear a few years from now in a well-executed way.
It also includes a genuinely impressive fleet of vehicles – and there’s a practicality to them that makes them look like real cars from, say, five to 10 years in the future. It basically takes modern trends – like today’s massive, chunkily-accented pick-up trucks, teardrop-shaped electric sedans, and battery-powered retromods – and successfully projects a decade of tweaks onto them. More importantly, the handling is actually genuinely good in a way open-world action games rarely manage. The cars you actually get to drive are weighty and really love to be whipped into high-speed handbrake turns through the realistically thick traffic. There’s none of that stickiness that’s typical of GTA clones like Sleeping Dogs (which I love regardless) or Saints Row (which I do not). You know, the kind of superficial handling that feels like you’re turning the world under the car, rather than the car itself.
Unfortunately, this is largely where the praise stops.
Mind Over Matter
The very first mission is a short drive into the desert to shoot four robots who barely have the vigour to fire back, and the second requires you to track a slow-moving thief by monitoring a security console and… switching cameras. It’s not exactly an explosive opening stanza, but things don’t get that much better when the bullets really start flying. It’s around 10 hours of the most boringly straightforward missions from the past decades of open-world action games.
Combat against the handful of bot types and human soldiers is mostly just plain, and dud enemy AI doesn’t make for particularly satisfying shootouts. Humans are the least sensible. Sometimes they take cover; sometimes they just walk towards you waiting to get shot. Run out to meet them and they’re confusingly slow to react (not that this is a particularly strong tactic, as there is no melee attack).
Dud enemy AI doesn’t make for particularly satisfying shootouts.
It’s just janky. On the one hand, you can actually shoot individual pieces – including weapons – off the bots. That’s nice. On the other, put a round into a human standing behind some scenery and they’ll often blink back into cover with no linking animation whatsoever. That’s shoddy.
It’s not due to a lack of firepower, because MindsEye does feature plenty of guns, although it mostly just chucks them into your arsenal with so little fanfare I usually didn’t notice. I’d just spot something new in my weapon wheel, like another assault rifle, or some kind of energy blaster. It’s rarely clear about what you should be using at any given moment, and it doesn’t seem to matter much.
The action does improve towards the back end of the story, as Diaz gets access to all his partner drone’s special perks. The ability to zap an enemy robot and turn it into an instant ally gives the action some zest that it absolutely lacks out of the gate. Your drone’s grenade ability is also neat for a while, but it’s probably a bit too effective at clearing out enemies ahead. I spent most of the late game missions as my drone, dropping endless grenades on soldiers and robots from high above. It made what turned out to be the penultimate battle into one of the easiest because the bad guys just have no defense against this.
The primary problem I had with MindsEye, though, was its drastically uneven performance on my high-end PC (RTX 4080, Intel Core Ultra 9 185H). While the auto settings placed the bulk of the configurable options at ‘High’ – and capped the frame rate at 60fps – my playthrough was rife with issues. It’s regularly blurry and choppy when panning, and the frame rate would flutter and sometimes hang. During one car chase performance chugged to a crawl and was only barely playable. Sometimes even the cutscenes would stutter and display ghosting. Experimenting with lowering the settings hasn’t yielded much in the way of positive results. It’s in really rough shape technically.
To be fair, there are definitely moments in MindsEye when it looks quite stunning. Explosions are excellent. The sunlight piercing through Redrock’s glitzy hotels is seriously snazzy. I liked the sheer scale and complexity of the Silva factory’s rocket loader, and at one point the metallic sheen of a parked jet in the desert glare stopped me in my tracks. When it runs well and looks good, it looks very good. But six months ago I played through Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on this machine and it performed fabulously. MindsEye does not. It’s like Steven Seagal circa 1990: Looks cool – just doesn’t know how to run properly.
It’s like Steven Seagal circa 1990: Looks cool – just doesn’t know how to run properly.
Performance optimisation won’t solve MindsEye’s myriad other issues, though. A lot of these are really just baked into how it’s designed. Too often, the missions are simply restrictive and dull. All you can do is drive a pre-assigned vehicle to a marker. That triggers a cutscene. Then you shoot everything. Then drive somewhere else. It’s all so rigid and leaves no room for the kind of goofing around or antics you can get into in comparable games, and there’s certainly none of the emergent fun you constantly get in something like GTA. MindsEye rarely trusts us to even park at a mission marker; it generally just splutters into a cutscene when you get close enough.
It doesn’t help that there are no radio stations or songs to listen to as you’re commuting between missions. Travel time from A to B mostly seems to exist to feed you phone calls to prod the story along a little further. Exploration is actively disencouraged, and you’ll be constantly scolded for not heading directly to your destination, or failed out. There’s no reason to explore anyhow, as it isn’t the sort of living world you might have expected. Police don’t even respond to Diaz’s crimes, so what’s even the point?
And there’s not really anything out there to find. Hunting for a cool vehicle to use? Don’t bother. Other vehicles are off-limits. Wreck the car you were assigned? That’s a mission fail. You won’t even be able to get out of it if it’s burning. It’s a baffling choice for a game like this – the entire genre is built around stealing cars.
MindsEye has some good ideas. An effective stealth mission mid-way is a positive change of pace, and there are some unexpected puzzles late in the piece that gave me a break from blasting. But it relegates the rest of them to its roughly two hours of cutscenes and wastes their potential. At one point a squad of robots are set sprinting after my car at highway speeds. While I was preparing myself for a potentially thrilling chase, the robots caught the car and destroyed it before the cinematic finished. This kind of thing is a real rug pull in a game that, a few hours earlier, made me play through a frustrating, one-off CPR minigame that could’ve just been a cutscene.
Even apparent bosses die in cutscenes. And in an unforgivable transgression, if there’s a way to skip them (even when replaying missions and watching them a second time), I couldn’t find it.
Bots on Your Mind
The kicker is, even if you get swept up in the sunk-cost fallacy of finishing this 10-hour campaign just to see how the story pans out, the ending itself is a colossal anticlimax. I’ll obviously refrain from spilling the specifics of the final moment, but it’s impossible to complete any assessment of MindsEye’s defects without explaining how deeply and desperately unsatisfying I found it. Story threads are left dangling and reams of questions remain unanswered. It’s not an artistic cliffhanger; it’s just vague and unearned. It’s an ending that feels like the writer was out of fresh paper and this was the only thing that would fit on the last line of the script’s final page. Picture Ghostbusters crashing to credits a few seconds after they cross the streams and you’re about there. There’s a PS after the unskippable credits, but it only makes things worse.
Well, until what happens after the finale, that is. After the story wrapped I was simply tossed back into the open world as… some random weirdo in a crop top. He has some kind of… base? With things in it I can interact with that do… nothing? There’s no explanation of how anything works, no direction, and no purpose.
Confused, I left the building in search of a vehicle, but even here you can’t carjack civilians, and you can’t steal parked cars. I got in the only one that would allow me to enter and drove to an icon that looked like the Hamburglar stealing a car. There was another car there, glowing, but I couldn’t enter it. I shot at the bystanders, and I shot at the soldiers. The soldiers popped out of their 4X4s like waffles from an overzealous toaster. Nothing else happened. No armed response.
I got back in the small hatchback I arrived in, which remained the only vehicle I could interact with. I drove to an icon that looked like a chess piece. The performance took another significant nosedive as I arrived. There were some soldiers there, spread throughout a multi-story parking lot. I shot at them until I got bored, which happened almost instantly because the action is restricted to basic third-person blasting. Chubby crop top man has none of the entertaining drone attacks that Diaz has.
This, it appears, is MindsEye’s free-roaming mode. It’s separate from the main campaign, but I have no idea what we’re intended to do in it. It’s pointless, scrappy, and a complete waste of time in this state. It just isn’t remotely close to finished.
While running around in a match of Elden Ring Nightreign, it’s not exactly easy to stop and carefully think about numbers and details. In fact, the leveling system for the characters in Nightreign is streamlined compared to the more-freeform point-system of Elden Ring. So what do they all mean, and what numbers are worth chasing over others?
YouTuber Zullie the Witch recently dove into the behind-the-scenes numbers to figure that out. While Nightreign simplifies progression down to level-ups, these pre-assigned values can be looked at and charted, as Zullie has done in their video.
One fascinating detail they found was that the jump from level 1 to level 2 adds “far more” than any other level up, making that first Site of Grace a big one. On the other hand, levels 13 through 15 apparently add fewer attributes for most characters, imposing a “softcap” around level 12. You’ll get more stats, but they won’t be as drastic as those early levels.
They also note statistics seem to have different scales between the different properties. Duchess, for example, has a B in Dexterity and A in Intelligence, but her point values across the levels end up fairly even. Also, strangely, no one gains points in Arcane across their levels.
If you’re curious, the highest total level character if one were to build them in Elden Ring would be Recluse. Per Zullie, this is due to the Recluse having the same stat growth for both Intelligence and Faith; her points cap out at 51 on both values, at level 15.
There’s some actionable advice here for build-crafting. Zullie found that each point of Vigor always adds exactly 20 HP at any level. Additionally, it looks like Relics that raise attack statistics will seem stronger at lower levels, but get outpaced by “other damage bonuses” as the game goes on.
It’s some fascinating datamining that’s sure to help with build-crafting, as you put together your Relics and aim for different rewards in the field. If anything, just remember: that first level-up is big, so don’t delay it. And if you’re curious about other details, it’s worth looking into Zullie’s videos about what lies behind the mask of the Nightfarers and other videos, which you can find on their YouTube channel here.
The Switch 2 might pack much better hardware than the original, but a game I’m still surprised to see running at all (much less pretty well) on a Nintendo system is Cyberpunk 2077. I spent a few days with CD Projekt Red’s latest port to get a feel for how it runs, how it holds up, and how the Switch 2’s fancy new mouse controls work when applied to a high-octane FPS. The answer across the board is impressive, and if you haven’t had the pleasure of exploring Night City before, this seems like a solid way to do so.
But first, let’s look back at what I said in my review of Cyberpunk 2077 when it first launched in 2020.
Of course, that was just for the PC version, and the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions were such a notorious mess that we had to go back and do a separate review with a much lower score once we got our hands on it at launch. (And don’t forget we also reviewed its excellent Phantom Liberty DLC in 2023, which is included in the Switch 2 version.) Thankfully, the Switch 2 port is nowhere near the disaster it was on the old console generation – in fact, it’s pretty dang great.
Cyberpunk 2077 looks pretty great on Nintendo Switch 2
All it takes is a quick glance to see that Cyberpunk 2077 still looks very good on Nintendo’s new console. The distinct neon glows and dirty streets of Night City all come through alive and well here, even if they aren’t quite as crisp and clean as you’d find on PC, PS5, or Xbox Series X. This isn’t exactly the “definitive” way to play this game, but it’s more than good enough from a practical standpoint. This isn’t like the Switch 1 port of The Witcher 3, which felt like an “I guess we can make this function” sort of last resort way to play more than anything else.
The framerate is decent but not jaw-dropping
You can check out the technical specs in our story about how CD Projekt managed to get Cyberpunk 2077 running on the Switch 2 – in short, it’s running at 1080p when docked, and 1080p or 720p in handheld, depending on if you’re playing in Quality or Performance mode, and it maxes out at 40fps. Your mileage may vary here, because despite my PC gaming background, I am not a huge performance snob and I have no issue playing at less than 60fps. So to my eye, Cyberpunk 2077 runs fairly well in docked mode, even if far from perfect. It has some dropped frames in parts and doesn’t run as buttery smooth as the Switch 2 Editions of Tears of the Kingdom or Breath of the Wild, but nothing is so distracting that it actively harmed my time with it in this context. If you can’t stand anything below a solid 60fps, this might be one you need to skip – anyone who is used to playing games entirely on the original Switch, however, should be comfortable enough here.
Switch 2 mouse controls work surprisingly well
One of the biggest draws of the Switch 2 for me was its ability to mimic mouse control with a sideways Joy-Con, potentially giving you greater accuracy in a first-person game like this. I am happy to say that’s exactly the case, as it was super easy for me to jump from my PC to this control option and get far more headshots than I would have with a regular gamepad. It’s not at the same level as a high-DPS gaming mouse or anything, but it’s absolutely my preferred way to play this game whenever I sat down to do so, and that’s a huge win. That said…
The Joy-Con mouse isn’t great for long sessions
You see, the problem with the Switch 2’s mouse mode isn’t actually the quality of the mouse control itself, but the physical feel of using it. The Joy-Con is tiny compared to a normal mouse, and my hand was cramping up trying to get a good grip on it after long play sessions – even when I used a 3D-printed shell to make it feel better. That’s because there’s nowhere to comfortably put your thumb while still being able to press the right stick, Y button, and A button, all of which are required for various actions as you jump between combat, conversations, and menu management. So while the mouse is better than I expected, I’m worried this awkward grip is going to stop me from consistently using it in the future.
Cyberpunk 2077’s motion assist options aren’t great
That said, the mouse controls are at least better than using motions to shortcut certain actions. The usual method of aiming with the right stick primarily and then fine-tuning that aim with motion controls is available and works just as well here as it does in stuff like Zelda, but the motion assist options are pretty useless beyond that. You can swing your Joy-Con to use your melee weapon in a way that gave me unflattering flashbacks to early Wii games, or twist and flail it to do actions like reload or heal, but doing so almost always made my camera wobble about at the same time. It may hurt my hand, but I’ll take mouse controls over this any day.
This is still an awesome RPG worth playing
Finally, revisiting Night City reminded me just how great this game is, especially after all the improvements after launch. The world is moody and dangerous, and it does a great job of dropping you in and immediately making you feel like a part of the culture. I also maintain it stages its quest conversations better than any RPG I’ve ever seen, giving simple chats a cinematic quality without ever taking you out of the driver seat. If you’ve never played Cyberpunk 2077, I can absolutely recommend you check it out here.
Among Us developer Innersloth has found a reference to its game in the new chapters of Deltarune, sparking a little bit of friendly back-and-forth between Innersloth and Deltarune developer Toby Fox on social media.
Warning! No major plot spoilers will be discussed in this article, but if you don’t want to know anything about anything that happens in Deltarune Chapter 4, maybe this article isn’t for you!
The reference can be found at the start of Chapter 4, when Kris, Susie, and Noelle are exploring Noelle’s house. Kris can lead the gang into a closet full of empty gift boxes, and if Kris chooses to examine several of the boxes, Noelle will ask Kris what they’re doing.
To this, Susie reponds, “I mean… gotta admit this room is kinda sus… especially that vent.” Noelle then replies, “Haha, nice reference, Susie!” …though Susie doesn’t seem to know what Noelle is talking about (“Huh? …reference?”)
Susie was, of course, accidentally calling to mind Among Us, both by using the word “sus” and referencing vents, which Among Us players frequently hide in. This has seemingly thrilled the Innersloth social media person, who took to X / Twitter to say, “AHHHHH AMONG US REFERENCE IN DELTARUNE SKDJDSLSLX;LSKDK IMMA CRASH OUT” followed by “thanks king @tobyfox”
He posted a fake screenshot of Deltarune patch notes, which read:
We are releasing a hotfix for PC & Mac to remedy some issues occurring in the game. You can confirm the version number on the bottom right of the file select screen.
Changelist
Ch4 v.0.0.088 8
Removed among us
Innersloth replied with “RESPECT.” If it’s not apparent, Fox didn’t actually remove the reference; he’s just goofing around. Funnily enough, this gag is also a silly way to note that Fox has been playing around with version numbers: the 2021 release of chapters 1 and 2 was marked as version 1.0, but instead of chapters 3 and 4 being 2.0, the new release was v.0.0.087.
Deltarune chapters 3 and 4 launched last week to immediate skyrocketing popularity on Steam, and our own reviewer gave the full game a 9/10, saying that even though the story’s only halfway done, “Deltarune’s incredible story is already bursting with hilarious charm, unforgettable characters, and an iconic soundtrack that make it worth investing your time in.”
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.
It’s been a busy year for Wizards of the Coast’s limited-time mini-sets, and while the company sold out of all three Final Fantasy drops in record time (leaving many disappointed), you can still get them via third-party sellers… if you’re willing to pay the inflated costs, that is.
Every Final Fantasy Secret Lair Drop and Where to Buy Them
Before we start, it’s worth pointing out that you won’t find Secret Lair drops at the same price as you’d find them directly from Wizards of the Coast (standard $30 nonfoil, $40 rainbow foil), with most being listed anywhere between $80-$150 or above.
This is a huge markup, so if you’re looking to buy, be sure you’re 100% informed of what you’re paying for. You can buy them from eBay, but we’ve always found TCGPlayer, while still eBay-owned, to be the most secure and trustworthy way to nab Secret Lair drops post-release.
There are a trio of Final Fantasy Secret Lair sets, Weapons, Grimoire, and Game Over, each offering unique art and names for Magic: The Gathering cards. Everything is available in standard and foil, alongside the Japanese variants as well.
Here’s how you can grab each, what’s included, and all the key info you need to help you decide whether you still want these to add to your collection via third party seller listings selling at a premium.
Weapons
Focused on, well, weaponry from the long-running RPG franchise, the Weapons drop offers the following:
Yuna’s Sending Staff (Staff of the Storyteller) – Final Fantasy 10
Clive’s Invictus Blade (Blade of Selves) – Final Fantasy 16
Cloud’s Buster Sword (Umezawa’s Jitte) – Final Fantasy 7
Gaia’s Dark Hammer (Colossus Hammer) – Final Fantasy 14
Tidus’s Brotherhood Sword (Sword of Truth and Justice) – Final Fantasy 10
Grimoire
Grimoire is all about spells and the characters casting them. Here are the five cards included:
Yuna’s Holy Magic (Prismatic Ending) – Final Fantasy 10
Hope’s Aero Magic (Cyclonic Rift) – Final Fantasy 13
Noctis’s Death Magic (Damn) – Final Fantasy 15
Vivi’s Thunder Magic (Lightning Bolt) – Final Fantasy 9
Aerith’s Curaga Magic (Heroic Intervention) – Final Fantasy 7
Game Over
Final Fantasy would be nothing without its iconic villains, and this set gives them a chance to shine.
Spira’s Punishment (Day of Judgment) – Final Fantasy 10
Absorb into Time (Temporal Extortion) – Final Fantasy 8
Merciless Poisoning (Toxic Deluge) – Final Fantasy 6
Unseat the Usurper (Praetor’s Grasp) – Final Fantasy 15
Meteorfall (Star of Extinction) – Final Fantasy 7
Lloyd Coombes is Gaming Editor @ Daily Star. He’s a big fan of Magic: The Gathering and other collectible card games, much to his wife’s dismay. He’s also a tech, gaming, and fitness freelancer seen at Polygon, Eurogamer, Macworld, TechRadar, Tom’s Guide, IGN, and more.
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 has sold a huge 7 million copies in less than a year, publisher Focus Entertainment has announced.
The Saber Interactive-developed Space Marine 2 launched in early September 2024, which means it hit the 7 million copies sold mark in just over nine months.
Focus and Saber surprised some Space Marine 2 fans when it announced Space Marine 3 was in development back in March, half a year after the game came out. But given the huge sales you can see why the project was greenlit so soon.
“Space Marine 2 has proven to be a transformative game for Saber,” Matthew Karch, CEO of Saber Interactive, said at the time.
“It is the culmination of everything we have learned about game development in our 25 years in the business. We are now starting to develop Space Marine 3, a game that carries with it tremendous expectations from our rapidly expanding fanbase. While we will continue to support and grow the Space Marine 2 universe over the coming years, we will take all our learnings and apply them to an even bigger and more spectacular game for the third installment. We view this as an opportunity to create a true love letter to the Warhammer 40.000 universe.”
Still, Focus and Saber had to put out a statement reassuring players of its commitment to Space Marine 2, which is still working through its year one roadmap of content.
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.
Dune: Awakening is back online after patch 1.1.0.13 was rolled out.
The patch — which sought to implement a “number of backend changes to improve client and server stability” — was deployed after servers were taken offline for a couple of hours earlier today.
Players should also expect some “minor fixes,” the details of which are listed below. (If you don’t see the latest patch, Funcom recommends you restart your Steam client).
The update comes as Dune: Awakening deals with an influx of new players. Although Head Starters have been visiting Arrakis since June 5, Dune: Awakening released for all players on June 10. And within hours of going live, Funcom’s survival MMO had clocked up over 142,000 concurrent players on Steam: 142,050 to be precise.
Dune: Awakening – 1.1.0.13 Patch Notes
CHANGES
Made several backend changes to improve the client and server stability.
The option to betray Jocasta Cleo in the “Impact of Ecology” contract has been temporarily removed due to reports of players being unable to retake the contract after betraying her.
Updated dialogue lines of the “Planetologist: Advanced: the Search for Kynes” contract to reflect the fixed issue where the players who defected from the Atreides faction couldn’t progress if they picked it up before defecting.
FIXES
Fixed an issue where players couldn’t change the description of their guild, the name of the sub-fief console, or a base blueprints.
Fixed an issue where the “Limit CPU Usage” graphics option would not apply to all quality presets.
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
Gears of War is officially making its way to PlayStation. Yep, you read that correctly. Gears of War: Reloaded is a remaster of the first Gears of War game, featuring 4K resolution, up to 120 FPS in multiplayer, and cross-play. It’s now available to preorder in a physical format for PS5. Unfortunately there’s no physical release for Xbox, but you can preorder a digital copy of it right now which we’ve listed below. Both the physical edition of Gears of War: Reloaded for PS5 and the digital versions for PS5 and Xbox are listed for $39.99. It’s set to release this year on August 26, so head to the links below to secure your copy before it drops.
If you want a physical copy of Gears of War: Reloaded, I hope you have a PS5. For some reason, no physical Xbox version is available for preorder. If that changes in the future, I’ll add it in here.
For those who opt to preorder a digital copy of the game instead, you get a little bit extra to go with the preorder bonuses above. By preordering a digital version of Gears of War: Reloaded, you’ll get access to the Exclusive Multiplayer Beta alongside the character skins above. To learn more about when the multiplayer beta is taking place, Xbox Wire has a helpful post up with everything you need to know
Gears of War: Reloaded Will Be on Game Pass
Gears of War: Reloaded is also expected to drop on Xbox Game Pass at launch. If you’re not a Game Pass member, you can give the Ultimate membership a test run with the one-month membership option above when the game releases.
Gears of War: Reloaded Is Free for GoW: Ultimate Edition Owners
It’s also worth noting that Gears of War: Reloaded will be “a free upgrade for players who purchased the digital version of Gears of War: Ultimate Edition,” before the remaster was announced, per Xbox Wire. That’s a wonderful little bonus for long-time Gears fans.
Gears of War: Reloaded Preoder Bonus
This physical release comes with a nifty little preorder bonus as well. By preordering Gears of War: Reloaded for PS5, you’ll get two character skins, Adam Fenix and Anya Stroud, to use in multiplayer.
What Is Gears of War: Reloaded?
Gears of War: Reloaded is a new, upgraded version of the original game, which launched for Xbox 360 in 2006. Below you can find a list of all the upgrades brought to Gears of War: Reloaded as well, from that same Xbox Wire post:
4K resolution
60 FPS in Campaign
120 FPS in Multiplayer
High Dynamic Range (HDR)
Dolby Vision & Dolby Atmos
7.1 3D Spatial Audio
Variable Refresh Rate (VRR)
4K assets and remastered textures
Enhanced post-processing visual effects
Improved shadows and reflections
Super resolution with improved anti-aliasing
Zero loading screens during Campaign
It’s been a very busy kickoff to summer, between new game announcements and the release of the Switch 2. If you’re still trying to keep up with everything, have a look through our breakdowns of everything announced at the Xbox Games Showcase, Sony State of Play, and Summer Game Fest to see what’s coming down the pipeline.
More Preorder Guides
Hannah Hoolihan is a freelancer who writes with the guides and commerce teams here at IGN.
During Summer Game Fest last week, you’d be forgiven for having overlooked Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree. It’s a brand new rogue-like that got a very, very brief trailer and little in the way of other information or fanfare. But its unusual development story may make Towa one of the most interesting games that appeared during the show.
I spoke with Daisuke Nagaoka, producer at Bandai Namco on Towa, and Shuhei Yamashita, game director at developer Brownies, following the announcement of the game and some hands-on playtime, which you can read here. The two started by catching me up on the history of Brownies, a studio with a fascinating pedigree.
Brownies evolved out of Nintendo-owned Brownie Brown Inc, a Tokyo-based company founded by Mana series veterans Shinichi Kameoka and Kouji Tsuda. As Brownie Brown, the developer co-developed a number of beloved games such as Sword of Mana, Heroes of Mana, Super Mario 3D Land, and Fantasy Life. But then, in 2012, the company announced that it would officially become a Nintendo support studio, and change its name to 1-Up Studio. When this happened, Kameoka departed, and with other former Brownie Brown developers formed Brownies.
Ever since, Brownies has made a name for itself with games like Fantasy Life Link!, the Egglia series, and co-development on Doraemon Story of Seasons, which Bandai Namco published. Nagaoka explains that this existing relationship had gone well, so as the teams were finishing up Doraemon, Bandai decided it wanted to work with Brownies again. “Their creativity was so wonderful as such, that we wanted to create something original and we decided to work together.”
But Bandai Namco didn’t end up getting exactly what it ordered. Yamashita explains that Bandai Namco originally came to Brownies asking for an original RPG “with a Japanese flair, Japanese taste.” It’s a sensible request, given Brownies’ past work. But Yamashita, who was a big fan of roguelites and roguelites, had a different idea. He counter-pitched Bandai Namco on a genre of game the company had never published before.
So why did Bandai Namco say yes?
“There are three things,” Nagaoka says. “First is this roguelite genre, when you look at the worldwide market, there is a big customer base. So from the business perspective, that is a good direction. And secondly, Bandai Namco, we thought this is worth a challenge, because we haven’t done anything like this before. So we were ready to take on this challenge.
Bandai Namco, we thought this is worth a challenge, because we haven’t done anything like this before.
“And the third point is that RPGs are based on good stories, but there aren’t that many roguelite games that have a solid storyline. So we wanted to create something that has a good storyline with the roguelite, and by doing that, we thought we could differentiate ourselves.”
There was one roguelite, however, that did have the kind of story and elements Brownies and Bandai Namco were looking for: Hades.
“That’s a game that’s really comfortable to play,” Yamashita says. “The playability is good. So that was something I wanted to achieve with this game as well.”
Bandai Namco did get its way, however, in that Towa is certainly a game with a “Japanese flair.” It’s inspired heavily by Japanese and more broadly Eastern motifs, says Yamashita, even though he adds that there’s no specific piece of folklore or myth that’s directly retold in the game. The characters, for instance, all cover a different motif, such as a shiba, a koi, and a samurai. Brownies originally came up with 24 different characters, all with unique silhouettes and personalities, and an internal competition narrowed the field down to just eight.
But this is where Towa differs from Hades and other games of the genre. Instead of playing one character at a time, players control two: one carrying a sword, and another in a support role carrying a staff. Each character has different abilities depending on which role they’re playing, and both can be controlled independently using the left and right sticks and different buttons. It’s a configuration that took some getting used to (as I wrote in my preview), but ultimately proved to be an interesting twist on what I was used to from games like Hades.
“There are two benefits to having these two characters,” Yamashita says. “Initially… Well, in 3D games the right stick is for maneuvering the camera. So this type of game, when you’re looking down, I thought that this mechanism would allow being able to operate or to maneuver having two characters. So that was our thought.
“And then secondly, having two characters from the story point of view, having the relationships or the connections between these characters and having conversations, that would give more depth to it. So we thought that there would be a benefit to have these two characters.”
Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree is out on September 19, 2025 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series consoles, PC via Steam, and Nintendo Switch. You can catch up on our brief experience hands-on with the game here.
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.
