Is that a grey hair we spot?
Pokémon‘s fifth generation kicked off 15 years ago today with the release of Pokémon Black & White in Japan.
On 18th September 2010, the world first stepped foot into Unova, a brand new Pokémon region based on North America, specifically New York City’s metropolitan area, with a mix of landmarks inspired by the area and other part of the whole country.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
A long, long time ago, in a faraway land, a group of indie developers from El Salvador landed in Spain with great excitement in their luggage. After making connections and overcoming hardships, they finally managed to settle in Barcelona and begin their adventure to “Turn nostalgic games into beautiful experiences!”
With this in mind, HyperThreeStudio team formed by brothers Isaac and Abraham got to work. Their condition as twins became the inspiration for the main theme of their game, where the player will have to “spot the differences” between two almost identical 3D dioramas.
With the theme decided, the team could start working, although there were still many critical points to settle first, such as the game’s core gameplay, the style to use, the type of rewards for the player, and countless other details they gradually worked their way through.
The process of creating new levels is slow and requires a great deal of attention, as all the models used in the different 3D dioramas are unique and are manually created by Abraham, the main person responsible for bringing the models to life.
With the game taking shape and the “No Penalty” concept in mind, they were certain that the game’s mechanics and levels had to be pleasant and relaxing. With BigRicePiano’s talent at the melody, combined with the beautiful 3D dioramas, the team achieved the calming atmosphere they were aiming for. From there, it was just a matter of continuing to create more models and levels featuring tiny people, tuned controls for both gamepad and mouse, adding snow and wind particle effects, ambient sounds of seagulls, many other small but cozy details so the player only has to sit back and enjoy.
The team wanted to offer a complete game, packed with levels and differences, with a personal charm and also affordable for everyone and guess what? Their formula was a success! Tiny Lands was released on Steam in January 2021 and boasts 92% “Very Positive” reviews, which led the team to fully commit to creating more levels and DLCs for their community.
In this way, over the following years, HyperThreeStudio kept creating and adding levels to the game, which already had 100 levels in its base version. After releasing the DLCs Expansion Pack 1, Expansion Pack 2, Expansion Pack 3, and The Final Challenge, the game reached a total of 200 levels, every single one handcrafted and with no repeated models!
And that’s how we arrive at the release of Tiny Lands: Deluxe Edition on Xbox, offering the entire collection of levels in a single product, with no additional purchases or annoying installations. Just relaxation, peace, and plenty of differences! Will you be able to find them all?
The HyperThreeStudio team is currently working on the game’s sequel, applying all the feedback and experience gained from the first version. Stay tuned in their socials for more information, and pick up Tiny Lands Deluxe Edition on Xbox today!
Hidden Trap
Tiny Lands – Deluxe Edition includes all DLC worlds:
– Desert mysteries
– City lifestyle
– Warmy christmas
– Traditional food
– Cozy interiors
– Fairy tales
– Fish tanks
– Amusement park
– Pirates
This also includes the “Final Challenge” special world for those who are ready for the ultimate Tiny Lands experience.
Over 100 additional handcrafted dioramas are waiting for you!
The post Tiny Lands Deluxe Edition from Beginning to End appeared first on Xbox Wire.
For over 35 years, the Final Fantasy franchise has captivated fans with its anthology storytelling, keeping things fresh in its magical fantasy world by continuously introducing new characters and stories. The Final Fantasy games are mostly standalone, meaning you can jump into them in any order because they each have a fresh story. In general, Final Fantasy games tend to be set somewhere between the past and the future, staying connected with the same overarching, universal themes: a group of young heroes gathering to fight a great evil threatening their world while exploring their internal struggles and relationships with each other.
If you’re new and want to get into the Final Fantasy series, there are technically 16 numbered games, a few direct sequels, and a prequel to the first game. Each numbered game has its own stories, characters, and world to dive into, though a number of remakes and remasters can make things confusing at a glance. It sounds like a lot, but we’re here to help you make the journey a little smoother.
Jump to:
Looking at the Final Fantasy franchise as a whole can be overwhelming as most of them have hundreds of hours of content to play through. If you want to ease yourself into the franchise, we recommend starting with Final Fantasy VII. This game left an indelible mark on the game industry for having the easiest gameplay and combat systems to get the hang of, especially with the Limit Break system, and giving us the most memorable characters, like Cloud, Tifa, Aerith, and Sephiroth. Its popularity inspired Square to create Kingdom Hearts in collaboration with Disney so that some of its characters could interact with Disney characters. If you want the OG experience, FFVII is available on Steam and has been re-released for most consoles, including Nintendo Switch.
Square Enix is in the process of remastering Final Fantasy VII in three separate parts: Final Fantasy VII Remake hit consoles back in 2020, while Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth just launched on PC following its console release in 2024. A third and final part to the remastered trilogy is currently in development. Gorgeous graphics, endless minigames, and awe-inspiring motion capture performances make these Game of the Year-nominated remakes our recommendation of where to start with Final Fantasy in 2025.
If you want to do a deep dive into the Final Fantasy franchise and play all of them in chronological order, here’s the full list. That said, there is no direct continuity between the Final Fantasy games, so I’d recommend trying out the game with the story that seems most interesting to you.
Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin takes place in the kingdom of Cornelia, a dark fantasy world version of the setting of the original Final Fantasy game. Jack Garland and his companions and fellow Warriors of Light, Ash, Jed, Neon and Sophia — each carrying a darkened crystal representing earth, wind, fire and water — set out to find Chaos and destroy him, restoring light to the world. Despite what the prophecy foretold about the heroes, each Warrior grows skeptical about their role.
You can change characters’ jobs on the fly, but with Jack as the player character you can only switch between two positions. No matter his job title, Jack has a decisive finishing move that crystallizes enemies and shatters them to restore a portion of his magic meter once the enemy’s break gauge is depleted.
Read our review of Strangers of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin.
Centuries after the events of Stranger of Paradise, Final Fantasy introduces four new young Warriors of Light, each of them carrying an orb representing the four elements that have been darkened by the four Elemental Fiends. At first, they’re tasked by the King of Cornelia to rescue Princess Sarah from the evil knight Garland, but their journey expands to defeating the fiends and restoring the orbs to their former glory, thus saving the world from eternal darkness.
Final Fantasy gets its name from series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi’s threat to leave the games industry and go back to university if it didn’t sell well, and Square Enix dealing with the notion of the game being its very last due to the threat of bankruptcy. Ultimately, the game sold over 1.3 million copies worldwide and grossed over $21 million, saving both the company and Sakaguchi’s career.
Read our review of Final Fantasy.
In Final Fantasy II, Firion, Guy, Maria, and Leon become orphans after the Palamecian Empire destroys their hometown and kills their parents, rendering them orphans. They join the Wild Rose Rebellion and, under the guidance of Princess Hilda, who initially deemed them too young to join the army, journey to stop Emperor Mateus’ plans to take over the world with his hellspawn.
Unlike the first Final Fantasy, the sequel had no character creation or job system because Square wanted the game to be more story-driven rather than filled with heavy gameplay mechanics. This game is notable for introducing a couple of staples that would forever define the series: chocobos and the recurring inventor character Cid.
Read our review of Final Fantasy II.
Another group of four orphaned teens — Arc, Refia, Luneth, and Ingus — are drawn to a crystal of light in the Altar Cave after an earthquake hits the village of Ur. The crystals grants the youth a portion of its power, their first set of jobs, and instructs them to restore balance to the world.
Final Fantasy III is the first numbered game in the series to feature the job-change system, allowing players to change how the characters would battle monsters throughout the game. Instead of staying in one job or class, they could explore other job options and see which one suits each character. The 2006 Nintendo DS remake retained the elements of the original game, but gave the characters more well-rounded personalities.
Read our review of Final Fantasy III.
Final Fantasy IV centers on Red Wings captain Cecil Harvey, who questions the King of Baron’s motives after he and his knights steal the Water Crystal in a raid on Mysidia. After the king strips him of his title as punishment for disloyalty, Cecil sets out on a quest with Kain Highwind and the allies they meet along the way to stop the sorcerer Golbez from seizing the other crystals in order to save the world.
This game introduced the Active Time Battle (ATB) system, which allows characters to perform a move when their gauge is full. Whereas a party is limited to four people in the previous games, Final Fantasy IV allowed a party of five characters.
Read our review of Final Fantasy IV.
Adventurer Bartz Klauser comes across a fallen meteor and finds four strangers, including King Tycoon’s daughter Lenna, and set off on an adventure to save the Crystals from falling apart, a phenomenon caused by Exdeath, an entity trying to free himself from imprisonment and gain the power of the Void. The group becomes Warriors of Light and focuses their attention on defeating Exdeath and stopping the Void’s energies from plunging their world into darkness.
Final Fantasy V expanded on the job system, giving players more than 21 jobs to choose from. To make the job system even more interesting, you can combine a skill you learn from a certain job with a different skill from another job in order to defeat challenging dungeons and bosses.
Read our review of Final Fantasy V.
Set in a steampunk-style world filled with technology resembling that of the Second Industrial Revolution, Final Fantasy VI centers on a rebel faction known as the Returners fighting the Gesthalian Empire, which gained the power to take over the world by experimenting on magical creatures known as Espers. The Returners, including amnesiac former imperial soldier Terra Branford, work to free the regions under Gesthalian control using the magic they seek out and put a stop to the empire’s reign.
Final Fantasy VI, which was released as Final Fantasy III in North America and heavily censored due to Nintendo of America’s policies at the time, has 14 playable characters to choose from throughout the story, making it the largest cast in the series’ history. It also deals with mature themes of immoral military dictatorship, use of chemical weapons in warfare, the pursuit of a magical arms race, personal redemption, and the renewal of hope and life. This is also the first Final Fantasy game to not be directed by Sakaguchi, who handed the reins over to Yoshinori Kitase.
Read our review of Final Fantasy VI.
Set in Midgar seven years before the events of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII centers on fresh-faced SOLDIER Zack Fair, who is assigned to look for missing SOLDIER and defector Genesis Rhapsodos, who went off on a rampage for reasons unknown. During his search, he discovers Genesis’ origin, Project G (or the Jenova project) and how it’s connected to the two aforementioned high-ranking SOLDIERs, and eventually battles him and other products of the project, which involves injecting Jenova DNA into them.
Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII was notable for exploring the sensitive side of Sephiroth, the most successful SOLDIER beloved by everyone before he went insane after discovering the unnatural circumstances of his creation and quickly fell from grace, as well as some of Cloud Strife’s life as a SOLDIER before leaving Shinra Electric Power Company. It was originally a PSP-exclusive title, but managed to get remastered as Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch in honor of the 25th anniversary of Final Fantasy VII.
Read our review of Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII.
In one of the most iconic games of the series, ex-SOLDIER turned mercenary Cloud Strife joins Avalance (led by Barett Wallace) in the fight to stop Shinra from lining the company’s pockets by mining all the mako from the planet to use as an energy source. Cloud initially fought for personal gain and to keep a promise he made to Tifa Lockhart when they were kids, but eventually developed friendships with other members of Avalanche, including Aerith Gainsborough, and works with them to save Midgar from both Shinra and Sephiroth, who was hellbent on destroying the planet in order to be reborn as a demigod.
Afters its original release in 1997, Final Fantasy VII grew so popular that most of its characters appeared in the Kingdom Hearts series and spawned the CGI sequel film, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. It also spawned the full-blown and critically reclaimed remaster, Final Fantasy VII Remake, which will be released in three parts. The first Final Fantasy VII Remake was released in 2020, while Final Fantasy VII Rebirth came out on Leap Day 2024. Little is known about when we can expect the third and final game in the trilogy.
Read our review our reviews of the original Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake, and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
In this contentious follow-up to Final Fantasy VII, a group of young SeeD mercenaries led by Squall Leonhart (or Leon, as he’s known in the Kingdom Hearts series) help out a group known as the Forest Owls, an endeavor that escalates into a conflict by Sorceress Edea, who has seized control of a powerful military state and intend to destroy time itself. As they fight to stop Edea, Squall struggles with his role and falls in love with Forest Owls leader Rinoa Heartilly.
Final Fantasy VIII still incorporates ATB as part of its gameplay, but it overhauled the character leveling system. As far as spell-casting goes, the game threw out the Magic Points-based system, making characters collect, draw, and create magic from items to power themselves up using the junction system instead. This is also the first game to incorporate a vocal theme into its soundtrack with “Eyes On Me” by Hong Kong pop star Faye Wong.
Read our review of Final Fantasy VII.
In the first Final Fantasy game of the millennium, a thief named Zidane Tribal is tasked with kidnapping the Princess of Alexandria, Garnet Til Alexandros XVII, as a part of a war wage against the neighboring nation of Lindblum. His thief troupe ends up becoming the princess’ guardians, and Zidane teams up with Garnet to defeat her mother, Queen Brahne, who started the war.
Despite Final Fantasy IX being released in 2000, when most game franchises transitioned from 2D to 3D graphics by then, Square Enix designed the game to look like a retro-style RPG. However, it still managed to render CGI graphics for the characters and everything else in the world of Gaia.
Read our review of Final Fantasy IX.
Final Fantasy X is one of the most beloved games in the series next to Final Fantasy VII — and we’re not just saying that because it’s the first Final Fantasy game for the PS2. The story revolves around star blitzball player named Tidus, who is taken to Spira — a world inspired by the South Pacific, Thailand, and Japan — by Auron after his hometown of Zanarkand is destroyed by a colossal monster named Sin. He joins summoner Yuna and her guardians on a quest to defeat Sin and bring about the Calm after learning its true identity is Tidus’ missing father Jecht.
This game replaced ATB with the Conditional Turned-Based Battle system that uses an Act List in which characters’ turns are determined by their stats. It also introduced a new leveling system called the Sphere Grid, which sets characters down a specific path with stats and abilities and allows them to unlock all their abilities once it opens up.
Read our review of Final Fantasy X HD Remasters.
In the follow-up to Final Fantasy X, Yuna becomes a sphere hunter and a member of the Gullwings, comprising Rikku and Paine. She sets out to find Tidus — or at least, a mysterious man who looks like Tidus — but gets caught in a political conflict that the Gullwings must resolve before it escalates to a war involving a secret weapon that was built to destroy Spira.
In addition to being the first game in the series to be an official game sequel, Final Fantasy X is also the first to feature an all-female cast and have multiple possible endings. It brought back ATB, but enhanced it to allow characters to interrupt enemies while preparing to attack. It also introduced dresspheres and the Garment Grid, which allow characters to change their character class mid-battle to alter the course of the battle.
Square Enix took a page out of World of Warcraft and made Final Fantasy XI an MMORPG instead of a regular console game. Players could customize their characters and make it into one of many races of being roaming the land of Vana’diel — Humes, Elvaan, Tarutaru, Mithra, Galka, etc. The plot revolves around defeating a demonic leader called the Shadow Lord, who rose from the ashes of the Crystal War and sent his beastmen armies off to terrorize the land, albeit in a less organized fashion.
Support for the PS2 and Xbox 360 versions of Final Fantasy XI ended in 2016, but fans can still play it on PC. Rumors circulated last year that the game would shut down, given that it’s over 20 years old, but director Yuji Fujito stated that that was not the case. In other words, it’s still alive and well and beloved by many retro Final Fantasy fans.
Read our review of Final Fantasy XI.
Final Fantasy XII is set in the kingdom of Ivalice, where the Archadia and Rozarria empires are fighting an endless war with each other. When Dalmasca is annexed by the former nation, Princess Ashe forms a resistance movement and meets Vaan, who dreams of becoming a sky pirate, teaming up with him to rally against the tyranny of the Archadian Empire.
Final Fantasy XII took three years for Square Enix to develop after Final Fantasy X-2 was released, and it paid off. It won several Game of the Year awards and spawned the Nintendo DS sequel, Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings, in 2007. Over a decade later, the remastered version of the game, Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age, released on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Windows.
Read our review of Final Fantasy XII.
Lightning, the series’s first female protagonist aside from Yuna in Final Fantasy X-2, is a former soldier living in the floating world of Cocoon whose sister Serah goes missing after she’s branded an enemy of Cocoon by the government, Sanctum, for coming in contact with a god-like creature from Pulse. As Lightning searches for her sister, she’s joined by a band of allies to rally against Sanctum for authorizing a purge on citizens who also came into contact with Pulse, leaving the fate of the world at risk.
This game wasn’t received well not because it had a female lead, but rather because it had confusing battle systems — Command Synergy Battle and Paradigm Shift — and linear maps. Even so, it was well-received and spawned two more direct sequels.
Read our review of Final Fantasy XIII.
Three years after the events of Final Fantasy XIII, Serah takes the lead and teams up with Noel Kreiss, a young man from the distant future, to travel across time and space to find Lightning. Meanwhile, Lightning finds herself in Valhalla, a realm between death and chaos at the edge of time in the distant future, ruled by the goddess Etro, who she protects as a knight during a war with Caius.
Final Fantasy XIII-2 retained the Command Synergy Battle and Paradigm Shift systems, but they were improved upon to make battles flow better. Mog Clock was added to the mix, which prompts players to attack monsters on the field before time runs out to gain the upper hand in battle.
Read our review of Final Fantasy XIII-2.
In the last installment of the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy, Lightning awakens from her 500-year hibernation to discover that the world is about to end in 13 days. She is chosen by the god Bhunivelze to save everyone, but along the way she learns the truth about the world’s fate and Bhunivelze’s real motives.
Players slammed this game because it featured a ticking clock that signifies how long you had until the game was over, putting a strict time limit on missions and side quests. Its saving grace was the heavily modified version of the Command Synergy Battle system, which employed real-time features, like freely taking control of Lightning’s movements and attacks.
Read our review of Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII.
Final Fantasy XIV has several storylines, but the main one involves the player character traveling five years into the future to escape the destruction of Eorzea at the hands of the primal dragon Bahamut. They enter Eorzea in the Age of Calm and work to rebuild the land, but must deal with the threat of invasion by the Garlean Empire.
The circumstances surrounding Final Fantasy XIV’s development were pretty complicated — especially since it’s the second MMORPG title in the series. The original 2010 game was embroiled in controversy because it was released in an unfinished state, although its servers remained active until November 2012. The next year, Square Enix released Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn with favorable acclaim.
Of course, Square Enix hasn’t forgotten about its MMORPG. Dawntrail, the fifth expansion for Final Fantasy: XIV Online, launched this past July, and more expansions and updates are sure to come in the future.
Read our review of Final Fantasy XIV.
The previous installment revolves around Noctis, a prince from the kingdom of Lucis is set to marry his childhood friend Lunafreya when he goes on a quest to rescue the Crystal from Niflheim, who stole it during an attack on the Lucian capital of Insomnia, killing his father in the process, on the eve of peace negotiations between the two empires. During his journey, he learns of his destiny to use the Crystal’s powers to save the realm of Eos from eternal darkness.
Final Fantasy XV received critical acclaim for its stunning visuals, gameplay — like driving around the world in the Regalia and the Active Cross Battle system — and its visceral soundtrack, including a rendition of “Stand By Me” by Florence + The Machine used as the game’s theme song as well as a few contributions from Afrojack. The game spawned a few spin-off games, the anime series called Brotherhood: Final Fantasy XV, and a feature film Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV.
Read our review of Final Fantasy XV.
The latest Final Fantasy game in the franchise has arrived, and it has essentially redefined the series. With a third-person action style and fast, reflexive combat, there are a lot of new things to love about Final Fantasy 16.
If you’re wondering whether or not you can hop right into the series with this game, the answer is a definitive yes. While the gameplay may be quite different than previous titles, the characters and story fulfill that core Final Fantasy feeling.
Read our review of Final Fantasy 16.
If you want to play the Final Fantasy games in the order in which they came out, here’s the list of games by release date. Keep in mind that most titles were released in Japan first, followed by the U.S. at a later date. The first six games are remastered for the Nintendo Switch in Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster.
While this longstanding saga isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, we’ll probably have to wait a couple more years for word on Final Fantasy 17. Square Enix has admitted that FFXVI and FFVII Rebirth both underperformed in terms of sales, though Part 3 of the remake is still in the works and tentatively targeting a 2027 release window.
Going forward, it’s pretty likely we’ll see more remakes, especially as Square Enix pushes for a multiplatform strategy. The most recent Nintendo Direct confirmed that Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade will be making its way to Switch 2 and Xbox on January 22, 2026.
We’re also getting a new remake from the Tactics sub-series, titled Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles. The remake comes with new content in addition to a number of enhancements, including full voice acting, for the original PS1 game. The Ivalice Chronicles is set to release on Switch 2, Xbox, PS5, and PC on September 30.
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Gearbox have released another Borderlands 4 update for technical problems on PC, with a particular focus on game stability and crashes, though they’ve also fixed a progression blocker or two in the process. Unlike that other Borderlands 4 patch from earlier this week, this one has an actual changelog. Gosh, wait till Mark hears of this! Oh nuts, he’s already gone on holiday, presumably in sheer consternation over the shortage of bullet points. Look what you did, Randy Pitchford. Look what you did.
Magic: The Gathering has seen some big leaps in popularity, but this next one across the New York skyline, courtesy of a crossover with Marvel’s Spider-Man, might just be one of the biggest.
The new set (which will be standard legal, by the way), officially debuts on September 26, but you can play it earlier at a prerelease event if you can find a participating location near you.
Here’s all you need to know about what it is, when you can play, and what to expect.
Prerelease events are a way in which players can go hands-on with a new set, usually the week before launch.
They use cards from the upcoming set (in this instance, Spider-Man), and allow you to get a bunch of cards, hopefully find some synergies, and maybe even make new friends.
The nuts and bolts may vary depending on where you’re playing (contact your local game store to see if they’re holding an event), but with Magic The Gathering the basics are as follows:
A prerelease box for Marvel’s Spider-Man contains the following:
While Wizards of the Coast has a handy page that offers a few deckbuilding strategies for prerelease, I have one extra piece of advice: Bring sleeves.
The included deckbox is handy, sure, but it’s a good idea to carry a few sleeves in case you end up finding a potentially valuable card that you want to add to your collection or sell later.
Prerelease for the Spider-Man set kicks off on Friday, September 19 – one week before the set launches in full.
It runs throughout the week, so be sure to check for events right up until September 25.
I can’t speak for every store, of course, but only WPN (Wizards Play Network) stores can sell Magic products for the new set on prerelease weekend.
Everyone else, including stores like Amazon, will need to wait another week.
Lloyd Coombes is an experienced freelancer in tech, gaming and fitness seen at Polygon, Eurogamer, Macworld, TechRadar and many more. He’s a big fan of Magic: The Gathering and other collectible card games, much to his wife’s dismay.
This afternoon, a choice of two raging videogame lawsuits to report on. Firstly, a snippet from the on-going courtroom scrap between former Unknown Worlds executives and Krafton over the state of Subnautica 2‘s development, in which the former accuse the latter of changing their story about why the executives were fired.
I’ve decided not to write that one up because it feels like we are entering the realm of potshots over minutiae, rather than learning anything genuinely new about Subnautica 2 or its creators, but if you’re interested, GamesIndustry.biz has your back. The parallel Tencent/Sony bust-up has the virtue of relative novelty. It gives me a whole different kind of headache. What’s going on with this one, then?
Z-A? What’s *that*?
I rarely expect big Pokémon news during Nintendo Directs. Maybe an NSO drop (pffft), perhaps some details on the already-announced game coming out. I certainly did not anticipate my dream of becoming a Ditto who can transform into a human being to come true during the latest showcase.
Okay, that’s obviously not what I’ve spent my many years growing up with Pokémon thinking about, but it is the spark that sets in motion my actual, long-desired Pokémon spin-off, Pokémon Pokopia: a life sim.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
With many intuitive solutions carried over from the original Frostpunk’s console UI and control scheme, one might assume that porting its sequel to Xbox Series X|S would be a simpler task. After all, the groundwork was already there – a society survival city-builder adapted for gamepad and big-screen play instead of traditional mouse and keyboard.
But Frostpunk 2 is a significantly different game. Leaning further into grand strategy, with more interconnected systems demanding player attention, it quickly became clear that the control scheme needed to evolve into something more robust. Many of the core UI structures – including the radial menu system – still served as a reliable foundation. Circles are practically sacred in Frostpunk’s design language. In the original game, the city was built in rings around the Generator, nestled within a crater, with survival radiating outward from its warmth.
But “settlement” may no longer be the right word. In Frostpunk 2, set 30 years after the Great Storm that concluded the first game’s story, players guide the fate of a growing city – one less focused on day-to-day survival and more on shaping the ideological future of humanity. With nature somewhat constrained, human nature becomes the greater threat. Political conflict, ideological division, and competing visions for the future define the challenge ahead.
A new UI feature – the Command Radial – serves as the top layer of interaction. Activated by pressing the left trigger, it presents a three-option wheel for navigating the Idea Tree, Frostland Exploration, and the Council.
The Command Radial is designed to be fast and responsive. It temporarily hides most HUD elements with a blurred background, focusing the player’s attention. It also displays progress indicators for active research, council recesses, and ongoing exploration missions.
But Frostpunk 2 demanded more than one radial. The team introduced a Quick Radial, accessed with the right trigger, for contextual interactions. Hover over frozen terrain, and you’ll see the Frostbreaking option. Highlight a buildable area, and you can go directly to the District menu. Trigger it on an existing district, and you’ll see options related to Special Buildings or Hubs. While active, the Quick Radial also color-codes districts, aiding orientation and quick decision-making.
Both radial menus pause time automatically. Players can also pause or adjust game speed using the D-pad. The Extended City View (accessed with X) also freezes time, and allows players to scroll through HUD icons using the up/down buttons, giving deeper insight into the city’s condition.
From a visual standpoint, the UI was crafted to match Frostpunk 2’s aesthetic. The art team leaned into industrial textures: thick-lined, mechanical wheels, worn-out surfaces, and some use of gold – a color from the game’s original visual pitch that stands in contrast to the grimness of oil, a new and thematically vital resource in the sequel.
Frostpunk 2 is out now on Xbox Series X|S, and available with Xbox Game Pass.
11 bit studios
Frostpunk 2 elevates the city-survival genre to a new level. Take the role of a Steward and lead your city through a cascade of calamities taking place in a postapocalyptic, snowy setting. Build large city districts with their string of endless needs and demands. Navigate through conflicting interests of factions that populate your metropolis. As the needs of the city grow and factional power at its core rises, only you can steer the society towards an uncertain future.
The city grows
The world is overtaken by an ever present winter, which makes expansion of the city the only way for the survival of mankind. In order to grow, the metropolis needs resources like coal and oil, just like its citizens require food and warmth. In Frostpunk 2, it’s your job to tackle this never ending circle of supply and demand.
City districts
Your city is divided into zones serving different purposes, such as housing or extraction. It’s up to you to build new ones and make sure that those already existing work in perfect unison.
Special buildings
In time, you will have to build places like City Hall or Research Institute. Inside these buildings, you will put forth laws and projects to ensure that your city develops in the proper direction.
Colonies
To ensure that your city growth will not falter, you have to venture into the frostland. There, you can build extensive colonies that will provide all the necessary resources.
Perlis of human nature
The number of your citizens steadily grows, making the task of governing them and satisfying their demands all the more challenging. As the Steward you will have to maneuver carefully across the interests of many groups inhabiting the city.
New Londoners
Your citizens can form communities and factions, each with different ideas for the city’s future. In the Council Hall you’ll put forth laws and negotiate them with the faction’s delegates.
Council Hall
Support of every faction inside the Council Hall costs dearly, as one’s faction ascension breeds discontent among others. That means you have to carefully think through every alliance.
Towards progress
The Research Institute is where you forge the city’s future. Each new project must be entrusted to a faction, forcing you to maneuver and form strategic alliances.
Factions
People of your city want to have a voice in how you run things. Each faction has its own ideology and ideas for the future, yet they also have one thing in common – insatiable thirst for power. Choose your allies in the Council Hall wisely.
Story Mode and Utopia Builder
The story of Frostpunk 2 introduces a multi-chapter saga set in the frozen wastes. Spanning across the life of the Steward this campaign lets you feel the burden of leadership as you take the responsibility for thousands of lives. At the same time, the sandbox mode called Utopia Builder with infinite play time leaves you room for boundless social and infrastructural experiments.
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When setting out on my fourth journey of leaping across rooftops while slicing zombies in twain via the Dying Light series, I’d wondered if I’d feel any less joy from this violent survival horror-parkour this time. But after another 40+ hours of tucking and rolling I’m pleasantly surprised to say it’s still loads of fun, despite the basics not having changed much at all since 2022’s Dying Light 2: Stay Human. This trip through undead Eurasian cities and countrysides does up the ante somewhat by having you play as a human infused with a monster’s DNA, giving you the ability to rip people’s heads off with your bare hands. That’s as satisfying as it is unsettling, and it’s still absolutely horrifying to get caught out at night and get swarmed by Volatiles you’ve no hope of defeating. The only major disappointment is that The Beast doesn’t add a whole lot aside from its hulking out mechanics, and after a decade of games with few innovations, that hasn’t left room for a ton of surprises. Still, there’s something to be said for a reliably entertaining series, and I happily dug my fingernails through every side quest and climbing puzzle I could find.
This sequel continues the story of the first game’s protagonist, Kyle Crane, who through a series of quite gruesome events he’s been transformed into a half-man, half-beast monstrosity capable of leaping 50 feet in the air and screaming so loud it makes the undead take psychic damage… so, still very weird. There’s not much more than that to the paper-thin plot, which has you squaring off against the world’s most generic Bond villain and mad scientist on a revenge quest that goes down exactly like you think it does, but it’s at least a good enough excuse to hunt down bosses and engage with the side quests that are usually better written and sometimes downright silly. Plus, even though the story is about as minimum effort as it gets, the characters you meet and befriend along the way are at least memorable enough that I didn’t feel like skipping the lengthy conversations where you get to know them.
As you sprint toward your final confrontation (which took my completionist self about 40 hours, but could pretty easily be done in under 20), you power yourself up by hunting dangerous, genetically modified zombies with super powers called Chimeras and injecting yourself with their blood. This is where the main new mechanics of The Beast comes into play, like the ability to shoulder-charge through a crowd of zombies without breaking a sweat and really silly ones like one where you can change directions in mid air by yanking on your grapple hook with obscene force. Turning yourself into a Hulk-like abomination in the pursuit of revenge makes for a neat twist to an already awesome framework, and being able to throw down your machete and punch 20 zombies to death in the span of 10 seconds is quite satisfying.
That said, even this is a fairly small tweak to the established Dying Light blueprint, as you only get to go full werewolf every so often after you’ve charged up your rage meter from taking and dealing damage. For the rest of the time you’re still swinging lead pipes and running away from Volatiles per usual, so if you’ve played a Dying Light game before the vast majority of your playtime will feel quite familiar. That’s by no means a bad thing since it’s a reminder of some good times, but it does seem like a bit of a run/jump/slide down memory lane.
One other thing that makes The Beast distinct from its predecessors is the boss fights against souped-up infected that unlock your new abilities. The first time you come across each of these encounters it introduces a new type of baddie that then starts showing up in the wild, like a fast-moving skeletal zombie that leaps through the air, dances on top of lesser undead, and tackles you with sharp claws in the blink of an eye; or another where a muscular, brutish ghoul gains the ability to turn invisible, leaving you frantically looking over your shoulder and listening for growls in the dark. They’re cool the first time, but by the end of the campaign it feels a bit like they ran out of steam because they start rolling out variations of the same bosses you fought prior, like a muscular, brutish zombie whose only differentiated by his gas mask and weakness to poison. Still, they’re always at least entertaining highlights along the way – I mean, who doesn’t love a boss fight?
The open-world valley of Castor Woods is the new setting you’ll spend all your time in while seeking your revenge, and it combines time-worn elements we’ve seen in other Dying Light games into a cozy little package. It’s got spacious rural areas reminiscent of the original’s The Following expansion, as well as a city area with plenty of stone structures to scramble up. Castor Woods is fairly small compared to the sprawling maps of Dying Light and its first sequel, and you can definitely see the roots of The Beast being originally conceived as an expansion to Dying Light 2 when you run into the mountains that box you into a circular area that can be crossed by car in a couple minutes, but that’s not such a bad thing since they make good use of the space they’ve got without large expanses of emptiness padding it out.
It also includes what any good Dying Light game needs: When in the major urban area I was reminded of the virtues of sticking to the rooftops and leaping from place to place to avoid the hordes below, and while stepping out into the woods and swamps that make up the majority of the map I tried my best to make use of cars to bash my way to my destination and avoid getting caught out in the open. Like a lot of The Beast, everything about Castor Woods is perfectly acceptable while also not doing a whole lot to stand out, but I still made plenty of new memories while leaving a terrifying path of destruction in my wake.
Finally, I do have to hand it to Techland for making The Beast the most technically sound Dying Light game yet – I was able to get through without major or consistent bugs along the way. I played on my high-end PC, so likely got just about the best experience one could hope for, but it’s notable that aside from one crash and a bit of pop-in here and there, it was a pretty smooth ride throughout – and that’s with me having mostly played before the day-one patch, too. There were a few annoying moments where I got stuck in a vent due to some buggy geometry and couldn’t progress through the area until I’d jiggled my character around for a couple of minutes, and a few times where my character got stuck in the environment at the worst possible time and jeopardized my mission, but these were rare enough situations that they didn’t make me want to hulk out and throw things at the screen.
Something Hollow Knight: Silksong-related has happened at an Australian museum again. This time, rather than the game being confirmed for an appearance back when it was still infinitely mysterious and sans release date, it’s Team Cherry devs addressing just how difficult their creation is, following plenty of post-release discourse on the subject.
This follows the metroidvania‘s first patch making a couple of its early bosses a bit easier to tackle, amid debate as to whether it’s just good and hard, or pushes into unnecessarily annoying slog territory via the likes of bench placement and hazards being able to deal out two masks of damage. As with every FromSoft game since time itself began with the release of Demon’s Souls, where you stand on that bickering will likely depend on how prepared you are to spend hours battling one foe over and over again.
