As a life-long lover of sci-fi battle scenes, it is always a joy to order a fleet of dozens of starships of all shapes and sizes to hyper-jump to a neighboring planet, then zoom in and watch as they burst into existence on the other side, bearing down on the entrenched enemy as they scramble fighters and bring their guns to bear. It’s something we’ve seen play out many times in Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, and more, though few games let you control warfare between interstellar powers on the scale of Sins of a Solar Empire 2. It often takes hours of slow and steady management across layers of intimidatingly complex grand strategy systems to build up to those major confrontations, but the payoff is spectacular.

The important thing to know going in is that while this is a bewilderingly complicated real-time strategy/4X hybrid that lets you zoom from a view of an entire solar system down to an individual spaceship in a fleet of hundreds, you do not need to know everything about it to have a good time with it, or even win. I should know – after a few dozen hours playing largely against Unfair (the setting above hard) AI opponents, mostly in four-way free-for-alls, I’ve won more than I’ve lost even though I still have a lot to learn about the many, many differences both large and subtle between the six playable factions and how their fleets, structures, and upgrades interact. Unless you’re in this to mostly play at a high level against human opponents who’ve optimized their build orders and mastered the mechanics, once you get your head around the basics of building your economy, research, and fleet management, I’ve found that you can lean into the aspects that you enjoy most and all but ignore things you aren’t interested in, and still enjoy building your empire and crushing enemies.

Fundamentally, all six of Sins 2’s playable factions operate in a fairly similar way in that they all colonize planets, extract resources, build orbital structures for research and production, and have similar lineups of corvettes, frigates, cruisers, and capital ships, but beyond that their differences are significant and complex as hell. The two human TEC factions both generate money in part by setting up networks of trading outposts, but they come with different upgrades and bonuses that makes Enclave better suited for a defensive playstyle and Primacy more aggressive – among them, the Novalith Cannon superweapon that can bombard planets from across the solar system and the ability to earn money by sending in raiders. The Vasari Alliance, meanwhile, have no use for the TEC’s money at all and are focused on diplomacy with minor factions that let them periodically call in favors like reinforcements or upgrades, while their Exodus counterparts are the only faction that can completely destroy planets as they strip them for resources. The Advent Reborn and Wrath are big on resurrecting destroyed ships and mind-controlling enemies, respectively. All of that is a gross oversimplification, of course, but in the interest of avoiding turning this review into a mirror of the massive guides to each faction on the official site, rest assured that they’re pretty distinct. The list of unique technologies and items they all have access to means there’s a lot of replayability here just from trying out each one.

If you played the classic 2008 Sins of a Solar Empire (or its half-step sequel Rebellion) Sins 2 may seem a bit unambitious when you first begin – at least, after you’ve stopped gawking at how much better and shinier all the ships look in an updated game engine that can handle cool things like all the rotating, target-tracking turrets you could ask for. It really does look spectacular when major battles are joined and the lasers and missiles start flying, but it takes a while to get to that point. The early hours of Sins 2 play very similarly to its 17-year-old predecessor: the routine of starting from a single world, exploring the map around you with automated scouts, and racing to colonize every planet and asteroid you can clear of local defenses with your chosen starting flagship and small fleet (as you research the technologies required to inhabit each planet type) is for the most part indistinguishable.

The main new wrinkle is presented by an exotic materials system that limits how quickly you can ramp up high-powered military assets like capital ships and starbases, but later on this becomes kind of irrelevant. At first they’re hard to come by, and you have to either unearth random ones from planets and asteroids you colonize or destroy enemy capital ships and salvage them – and because most major ships and starbases require a specific material, you may have to improvise with what’s available rather than go with your favorite ships out of the gate, which adds some variety from game to game. Eventually, though, you can research the ability to build refineries that slowly produce exotics out of the standard resources of metal and crystal you’ve extracted, and then you can build whatever you like – it’ll even auto-research the technologies and then produce the materials if you have the resources available, so all exotics really do after that point is add to build times.

When you reach the midgame, Sins 2 really starts showing off what makes it different from the original by layering on so many different systems that I had to play multiple, hours-long games before I came close to engaging with them all. Even having gone through an in-depth series of tutorials (there’s no traditional RTS story campaign in which to learn the ropes) and after over more than 40 hours of practice, it’s an overwhelming amount of things to keep track of: two parallel research trees with multiple paths, numerous planetary upgrades, buildable items you can equip on your individual capital ships and worlds, simple diplomacy with both player-controlled factions and independent worlds, culture expansion, resource management, pirate raids, other faction-specific mechanics like trade routes and castable powers, and unique Titan superships, among others. With the default settings, planets will even slowly orbit the sun in the center of the map at different rates, which sounds interesting but can be annoying if you forget to check the movement preview for a while and suddenly one of your worlds has drifted to the middle of enemy territory and is cut off from reinforcements. (It is, however, very funny when this happens to someone else.)

For that matter, everything in Sins 2 appears to be moving slowly when you’re watching a fleet glide across a planet’s gravity well before jumping to the next or a progress bar for research or construction fill up, but it’s deceptive in that there’s virtually always something you can be doing to improve your empire. Once you figure out which menus to peruse to manage equipment on individual planets, capital ships, and starbases, view and expand available build slots on your planets, search for which of the dozens of technologies to research next, keep tabs on your economy growth, and more, it can feel like things are moving too quickly to do all of that and build fleets to send on lengthy journeys to where they’re needed to defend or attack. It’s workable because the tools for organizing fleets are simple and mostly intuitive, with improvements such as letting you build reinforcements directly from a fleet’s menu instead of seeking out a shipyard, but I’m still glad that I’m allowed to pause time (in single-player) to figure things out.

It’s also a good thing that you don’t really have to micromanage your ships in combat if you don’t want to. You’ll certainly get more out of your battleships if you’re zooming in to manually do things like send out swarms of nanites to do damage over time, restore allies’ shields, or launch a massive missile salvo at a particularly bothersome enemy ship, but they’ll also auto-cast those abilities for you by default (as long as you’ve taken the time to choose which ones to unlock when a ship levels up). Similarly, precise positioning certainly matters because you can do things like keep your vulnerable ships outside the firing range of a starbase or stationary defensive turrets, and it’s always wise to try to save your experienced capital ships to fight another day by withdrawing from a fight before they’re destroyed (you’ll get frequent notifications when their shields are down or their hull is crippled, so it’s hard to miss those opportunities).

But those maneuvers matter most when you’re fighting an equally matched opponent, and the key to victory is to never do that if you don’t have to: wars are won on a logistical level by making sure your fleet is well supplied and fully upgraded, and has a good composition of light frigates and heavy cruisers along with speedy fighters, corvettes, and long-range support craft all backing up your capital ships. All the micromanagement in the world can only take you so far when you’re outnumbered two to one because your enemy had more shipyards and a more powerful economy.

Granted, part of the reason I’ve been able to win most of my games without making full use of every tool at my disposal is because the rival empires’ AI tends to drop the ball in the late game. I’ve played multiple matches where enemy fleets would gang up on me by attacking on two fronts simultaneously and push me back to my core worlds, but then they’d back off while I still held enough territory to be able to rebuild my fleet. Eventually I was able to regroup and then steamroll them, even though they beat me to building the massive Titan warships at the very top of each faction’s tech tree.

It’s entirely possible that in these cases my opponents were too busy fighting each other to deal with me while I rebuilt my fleets, but the fact that neither took the time to deliver a killing blow to my home world and seize my territory when they had the chance seemed a little silly. Until that point, though, the AI puts up a good fight, with lots of opportunities for skirmishes and trading blows around border worlds.

In theory, Sins of a Solar Empire 2 works best as a multiplayer game because humans would have no such trouble going for the jugular. However, in practice I’ve never been able to actually finish a multiplayer game because of how long and involved they are. Even a “small” game of Sins 2 with two players on one of the pre-built or randomly generated maps is sprawling, involving dozens of planets and other heavenly bodies to fight over, which can take hours against an opponent who knows better than to leave his homeworld undefended; a large one can actually have multiple solar systems you can jump between and up to 10 players, so it’s quite a commitment for a group to see one through. To its credit, Sins 2 does allow for players to easily jump in and out, with AI taking over control of a faction until a human returns to pick up the reins again so you won’t be left unfulfilled if your opponents have other obligations to attend to.

All of this is before you get to the modding scene, which is busily churning out conversions that let you add Star Destroyers, Battlestars, and Romulan Warbirds (among many others) to the mix using the built-in mod manager. If the original Sins of a Solar Empire is anything to go by, that community will keep giving us new fan-pleasing toys to play with for a very long time – maybe even decades – to come.

One of the lost arts in the fighting game genre is a good, meaty single-player mode that’s there in addition to your standard arcade runthrough or story mode. And no, Street Fighter 6’s “We have Yakuza at home” World Tour doesn’t count. Think Soul Calibur’s excellent Weapon Master or Guilty Gear’s absolutely bonkers M.O.M. The art isn’t gone – Tekken 8’s awesome Arcade Quest is right there – but it’s on life support. I got the chance to sit down with My Hero Academia: All’s Justice at Tokyo Game Show, and what I played of its Team-Up Missions just might be the shot in the arm fighting games need – at least when it comes to single-player modes.

VR but Not VR

What makes All Justice’s spin on this unique is that the whole thing is an original story developed in conjunction with the creators of the manga and the anime. The other interesting thing here is that it all takes place inside a virtual reality program. But All’s Justice isn’t just doing its best Metal Gear Solid 2 impression, and this isn’t just a string of fights. You’ll be exploring the virtual world of All’s Justice, too. In fact, I found running around, doing side quests, and just enjoying The Vibe to be as compelling as My Hero Academia’s brawls. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s load up my VR tour from the start.

My journey began with Izuku “Deku” Midoriya and Toshinori “All Might” Yagi exploring the VR world of the Team-Up Missions when they get a call from Mei Hatsume, who needs your help to fix a Nomu whose programming has gone haywire. Sounds like a job for a superhero, so off I go. After a quick battle against the Nomu that serves as a very basic tutorial, the rest of Class 1-A shows up to back Deku up. From there, I was cut loose for a couple more missions and allowed to explore the world.

The coolest thing about All’s Justice is that you’re not just running from one map marker to the another looking for The Next Thing. In fact, Deku and I quickly got sidetracked. We were supposed to be training with All Might when Ochaco “Uravity” Uraraka called and asked for my help, so I whipped my way over to her. See, you can use each hero’s Quirks (If you’re unfamiliar with My Hero Academia, a Quirk is a person’s superpower) to navigate the world. That means that when you’re Deku, you’re swinging around like some kind of Legally Distinct Spider-Man. When I arrived, I found that Uraraka was helping a little girl look for her lost cat. All right, My Hero Academia. I’m immediately charmed. We saw the cat up on the roof; the only problem was getting there. While Deku’s Definitely Not Web-Slinging is great for getting around, it’s not really ideal for leaping a tall building in a single bound and rescuing a lost kitty.

Good thing we’re playing Team-Up Missions, huh? A quick switch to Uravity and one use of anti-gravity powers later, and I was up, up, and away and soon reuniting a very happy little girl with her adorable cat. Producer Aoba Miyazaki told me that this stuff was key to nailing the feeling of My Hero Academia. Battles are important, yeah, but the series is also about high school students learning to be heroes, and that means being in that world and interacting with those people was just as important.

Friendly Neighborhood Superteam

Cat saved, it was time to train with All Might. We were essentially playing Hide and Seek: we’d complete tasks assigned by Pro Heroes and get the clues we needed to find All Might. Turn us loose on the world, All Justice’s. We’re ready. And if the whole saving the cat thing wasn’t a clue, not everything’s going to be a fight.

Don’t get me wrong: All Justice’s is still an arena fighter, and if you’ve played one, you know what to expect. You’ve got your basic combos, unblockable attacks, special moves that vary between characters, a super-powered mode known as Rising, and your Plus Ultra ultimate attacks. You can also tag in your partners mid-combo when you absolutely, positively have to rearrange someone’s face. It’s great fun, even if you’re just scraping by while Endeavor is pummelling you and you’re trying to remember the controls. I was yelling “It’s fine!” a lot during the fights when it was most assuredly not fine, but I clutched them out.

But there was other stuff, too. One time, I had to race to the top of a building before time ran out, but Ochaco couldn’t just float up to it. We had to find buildings we could use as stepping stones to get us where we needed to be. And everyone has their own different traversal options. Froppy can climb up buildings because she’s essentially a frog. Bakugo can use his explosions to boost himself to higher places. Koda can speak to animals, and that can help you out, too. I didn’t get to see that one in action, but I bet it’s great for finding cats.

There are also lots of side missions, both with other heroes and regular citizens. At one point, I was walking down an alley when a random villain pulled up, looking to throw down. Let me tell you, that dude came to the wrong neighborhood. I sent him flying through like an entire rack full of bikes, which became kind of a running theme. Deku and his friends are heroes, but if you own a bicycle, these dudes are a menace. Well, at least when I’m piloting him.

Superhero Around Town

There are also buildings to heal up your team between battles, but Miyazaki told me that there are also challenge gyms if you’re looking for something tougher. In addition, the map for the main story and the Team-Up Missions are connected, so you can transfer from one mode to the other by just running around. She also told me that completing the Team-Up Missions unlocks two other modes: Archives mode and Hero Diaries. You can play out iconic fights from the series in the former, and the latter lets you see what the Class 1-A crew is up to outside of the anime, just like the Team-Up Missions. What I played of the Team-Up Missions was already charming, but it’s great that there’s more to unlock if you complete them all.

We did eventually track down All Might, and then we had to fight him. You can have up to three characters on your team at any one time, but for this battle, I just had Deku and Uravity. Against All Might, the Big Bad Booty Daddy of My Hero Academia himself. Things started… badly. I almost got happy birthday’d when I made a bad tag and All Might caught both Ochaco and Izuku at the same time, draining about two-thirds of my health with a single combo. I popped Rising mode immediately to try to stay alive, and whittled him down until, at low health, I landed the perfect hit, turned that into a tag combo, and ended with a Plus Ultra that finished All Might off on the very last hit. It was a blast, and a great way to end my time with All’s Justice.

I left My Hero Academia: All’s Justice impressed with the fisticuffs, but also its dedication to building a world where you’re actively being a hero, not just punching something. Like fighting games themselves, being a superhero isn’t just about fights; the stuff between brawls matters, too. My Hero Academia’s cast isn’t just a bunch of Quirked-up pugilists; they’re learning how to be heroes, and that means helping people. Sometimes, saving the cat is the most heroic thing you can do.

The Mortal Kombat series has been kicking around (and pulling out gory human insides) for several decades now. It spans over two dozen entries and numerous gaming platforms. It’s a cultural behemoth. To celebrate the history of this over-the-top violent fighting game franchise, Insight Editions is set to release a new book on October 21. It’s called Mortal Kombat: Flawless Victory – A Visual History of the Iconic Series, by Ian Flynn, and it’s available to preorder now (see it at Amazon).

As a Yakuza fan, I’ve recommended the series from Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, otherwise known as RGG, to plenty of people, but it has long come with one big caveat: Yakuza 3. It’s not that there is anything necessarily wrong with it, but with high-quality remakes of the first games in the series, and the more modern and refined graphics and gameplay of the newer entries, it has stood out a bit as a bit of an odd duck, looking and playing worse than the games before and after. However, with the just-announced Yakuza Kiwami 3 and Dark Ties, a twin pack combining a remade Yakuza 3 alongside a brand-new companion game, that might all be about to change. I had a chance to play both at Tokyo Game Show 2025, and I came away impressed by how much RGG Studio is trying to improve and expand on the original.

Yakuza Kiwami 3

Yakuza Kiwami 3 isn’t just an up-rezzed port; it’s a full remake. Everything is rebuilt, from the graphics to the combat to the new cut scenes and voice acting – including some modern motion capture to better bring the characters to life. While it will still follow the story of Yakuza 3, some scenes will play out differently or expand. It’s an ambitious agenda, but probably the right one to bring the now 16-year-old game to modern audiences.

My hands-on begins with Kazuma Kiryu chopping wood outside the Morning Glory Orphanage, where he was raised and now runs, in Okinawa. The modern graphics look great as he swings his axe, his sweat glistening in crisp 4K (for those that are into that sort of thing). After the events of Yakuza 2, he’s moved on from being a Yakuza and is trying to live a peaceful life running the orphanage. An eviction notice arrives, and Kiryu heads into town to confront the head of the Ryudo family, the owners of the land on which the orphanage is built. He runs into Rikiya Shimabukuro, a member of the Ryudo clan and, naturally, a brawl ensues, giving us our first taste of the updated battle system.

Kiriyu has two fighting styles to employ. The first is Dragon of Dojima, his classic brawling style, mixing punches, kicks, throws, and environmental weapons like street signs, traffic cones, and even the odd bicycle when the opportunity presents itself. It’s as flashy as ever, and charging Kiriyu’s Heat Gauge to execute brutal finishers like smashing a chair on an opponent’s (in this case, Rikiya’s) head never gets old. The real magic comes when I switch to his brand new Ryukyu style, however. This style is rooted in Okinawan culture, and while using it, Kiryu combos through eight different weapons, like a pair of tonfa, a weighted chain, or, my personal favorite, a boat oar. I put away my opponent with a mix of all of the above, which was enough to convince Rikiya to direct me towards where to find his boss.

This opened up an opportunity for a bit of open-world exploration, which I took full advantage of, exploring a nearby street market, beating up some ruffians with a crowbar, and taking in a quick round of a golf mini-game. Okinawa looks great on the modern engine, and getting around was a breeze thanks to the new Street Surfer Mk. 0, a Segway-like rideable that Kiryu seems to be able to summon out of thin air for some quick joyriding. Zooming around on that, hopping off to beat the snot out of some goons with my tiny shield (also part of the Ryukyu set), then making a speedy getaway was so Yakuza in the best way.

Finally, I turned my attention back to the main story. As Rikiya escorts me to his headquarters, we are interrupted by a commotion as a rival family trashes a local market, taking the shop owner hostage. Kiriyu, sweet guy that he is, agrees to help, leading to a massive nine-vs-two melee, as he and Rikiya take on the boss and his lackeys. This really showcased how much more refined the combat is, as I was able to take advantage of the smooth movement and dodging, creating windows to bash the bad guys and escape, with a slick double-team KO of one poor crony eating a massive kick to the face from Kiryi while restrained by Rikiya.

My time in Yakuza Kiwami 3 ended there, but I barely scratched the surface of everything new coming to it. There will be more personal moments with supporting characters, time dedicated to running the daily operations at the orphanage and taking care of the kids, even a new team battle mode where you build your own biker gang to fight for turf with others.

Dark Ties

The bigger surprise of the Yakuza Kiwami 3 announcement was the reveal of Dark Ties, an all-new companion story to the main game. This places you in the role of Yoshitaka Mine, the antagonist of Yakuza 3. Dark Ties covers Mine’s rise from a disgraced businessman, driven from his own tech startup, to the underworld boss that acts as Kazuma’s foil in Yakuza 3.

His story begins with Mine reflecting on his life and the loneliness that drove him to pursue wealth and influence. By happenstance, he witnesses a deadly fight between rival Yakuza families, and seeing the bond of men willing to die for their boss, Daigo Dojima, acts as a catalyst, and he sets out to see if he can find that same loyalty in the criminal underworld.

My demo takes place early in the game, with Mine tracking down Tsuyoshi Kanda, an infamous Yakuza just released from prison. Mine hopes Kanda will be his entry point to begin his own rise, though as is Yakuza tradition, you don’t go more than a few early steps before some punks decide to pick a fight. Apparently, Mine’s suitcase looks expensive, and they want whatever is inside. A bad decision.

The core battle system is roughly the same as Yakuza 3, but with a few significant twists. Mine’s fighting style is very different from Kiryu’s, relying heavily on quick boxing combos, technical wrestling moves, and new aerial attacks. He can jump and plant a foot on the chest of one enemy, then leap to another, dishing out damage all around as he delivers an array of flying moves, like springboard jump kicks or mid-air tackles. They look very cool, and make for a fun bit of planning ahead as you scope out which enemies to latch onto and jump towards.

In addition to the standard Heat Gauge that fills up to enable special moves, Mine has three chained hearts that fill up as he lands attacks. Once at least one is full, he can activate a powerful buffed mode called Dark Awakening. This functions like a new fighting style, with a different moveset unleashing extremely powerful attacks. More than one chained heart can be activated at once, increasing the potency of Dark Awakening. It’s a neat twist to make Mine’s gameplay more distinct, and tapping into the rage behind his calm exterior fits his character well.

It quickly became clear these punks picked the wrong suitcase to try to snatch, as I knocked them senseless to the cheers of onlookers who witnessed the attempted robbery. With the ruffians handled, I’m given the option to head to the prison to track down Kanda or kill some time exploring the city. This sorry mission seems important, so naturally I… immediately go find a karaoke bar to sing a song. Hey, it is Yakuza after all. I rent the room, and Mine pours his heart and soul into his solo performance, which is really funny given his normally extremely stoic nature. I nail rhythm on my button presses, delivering a perfect performance befitting a man of Mine’s talents.

Buoyed by my outstanding singing, I decide it’s time to get down to business and try to hail a cab to the prison where Kanda is being released. One more group of punks tries to stop me (nothing a fireman’s carry followed by a quick kick to the face couldn’t solve), and I find myself outside of the prison as Kanda takes out his frustration on his paltry, two-man welcoming committee. Kanda is penniless, his branch of the Yakuza family disgraced. As Mine tails him through the streets of Kamurocho, my hands-on time ends just as he rounds a corner to meet his future right-hand man for the first time.

As a sucker for a good organized crime story, I’m definitely intrigued to see how much we get to witness Mine channel his inner Vito Corleone and build his criminal empire from the ground up, especially if it means some proper bromance time with Mine and Diago. The fact that it comes as part of the package with Yakuza Kiwami 3 is great, and I’m excited to see how it all turns out when Yakuza Kiwami 3 and Dark Ties release on February 12, 2026.