Mafia: The Old Country Trailer Leak Reveals Summer 2025 Release Window

A new trailer for Mafia: The Old Country has leaked alongside a summer 2025 release window, ahead of a presentation at The Game Awards later today, December 12.

X/Twitter user @DJari2020 posted a brief snippet of the trailer, below, which seemingly appeared as a YouTube ad. It offers a first look at the gameplay, characters, and narrative of Mafia: The Old Country, promised to be a gritty mob story set in 1900s Sicily.

The trailer closes with a vague summer 2025 release window, but this is still a touch more clear than the previously announced general 2025 date. That’s potentially running close to GTA 6’s fall 2025 release window, should Rockstar’s game resist a delay in 2026. Mafia: The Old Country was revealed at gamescom in August with a brief teaser trailer that confirmed the setting but little else.

“Uncover the origins of organized crime in Mafia: The Old Country, a gritty mob story set in the brutal underworld of 1900s Sicily,” reads the official synopsis. “Fight to survive in this dangerous and unforgiving era, with action brought to life by the authentic realism and rich storytelling that the critically acclaimed Mafia series is known for.”

Debuting more than two decades ago with 2002’s Mafia, the series continued slowly but surely with a sequel in 2010 and third game in 2016, though has otherwise been quiet since. Given the great stretches of time between each release, however, Mafia: The Old Country is practically right on schedule.

The Game Awards begins at 4:30pm Pacific / 7:30pm Eastern / 12:30am UK and is expected to last roughly three hours. IGN’s pre-show begins 30 minutes prior and we’ll have a post-show afterwards too, with these and the show itself all available to watch on the IGN homepage, IGN YouTube, IGN Twitch, and more.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.

Band Of Crusaders is a dark fantasy party RPG with heady overtones of XCOM and Diablo

If Space Marine 2‘s wanton devil-mulching left you hungry for more fantastical depictions of medieval zealotry, maybe take a look at Band Of Crusaders, an open-world party-based RPG in which you are the Grandmaster of a knightly order, trying to keep a bunch of wily Archdemons out of Europe. It seems to play a bit like XCOM, with an oppressive world map that is slowly encroached upon as you travel around recruiting soldiers, interacting with settlements, and picking real-time fights with hellfiends “inspired by biblical descriptions and European folklore”. Naturally, parallels with real-life xenophobia and sectarian hatred abound. Here’s the trailer.

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Assassin’s Creed Shadows Has a ‘Canon Mode’ That Makes Every Dialogue Decision For You

Assassin’s Creed Shadows features a Canon Mode that makes every dialogue decision for the player instead of having them choose, Ubisoft has revealed.

Creative director Jonathan Dumont was asked by a fan on Reddit how much weight player choices have in Assassin’s Creed Shadows. “Choices come more into play when recruiting allies and romancing some of the characters,” Dumont said, before revealing the ability to remove these choices altogether.

“Since the fanbase is divided on branching dialogues, we have incorporated an option called Canon Mode which allows you to play the game with choices already made for you, to give you a choice free experience,” he added. “Hope this makes it fun for everyone.”

Role-playing games have long included dialogue options that allow players to shape the story, but Assassin’s Creed picked up branching dialogue when it shifted to a full-on RPG series with Assassin’s Creed Origins. Clearly, some fans preferred more concrete stories like that of Ezio’s in Assassin’s Creed 2.

Ubisoft will therefore hope fans of both options will pick up Assassin’s Creed Shadows, which could be the most important entry in the franchise’s history. Not only does it have a lot riding on it as the long-awaited Feudal Japan-set entry and the first full Assassin’s Creed since 2020, but a struggling Ubisoft needs it to perform well following recent flops.

It’s not enjoyed a particularly positive promotional period so far, however. Issues began as some fans expressed frustration with inaccuracies in the game’s depiction of Japan, leading the development team to issue an apology and say the game is not intended to be a factual representation of history but instead “a compelling, historical fiction.” This comes despite art director Thierry Dansereau telling IGN that Ubisoft looked to make Shadows as “authentic as possible to match historical events” just two months prior.

Concern was also raised when the developer used a flag from a Japanese historical re-enactment group in artwork for Assassin’s Creed Shadows without permission. Ubisoft apologized for doing so but refused to remove the artwork from the aforementioned and presumably already printed artbook available in the Collector’s Edition. The historical re-enactment group said this was not good enough, but Ubisoft hasn’t publicly acknowledged it since.

Yet another controversy came as collectible figure maker PureArts removed an Assassin’s Creed Shadows statue from sale over its “insensitive” design.

Fans are also frustrated by the delay to the game, as Assassin’s Creed Shadows, which was originally due out in November before being pushed to February 14. This puts Assassin’s Creed Shadows in more direct competition with PlayStation’s Ghost of Tsushima sequel, Ghost of Yotei, another 2025 open-world action adventure game set in Feudal Japan.

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot maintained confidence, however. “There’s a lot of space for very high-quality games, and those two games can sell very well,” he said in the company’s latest earnings call. “The focus is to really make sure that we deliver a fantastic experience with this dual protagonist approach and two different and complimentary gameplays.”

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.

Sonic, Tails And Knuckles Get The Stop-Motion Treatment In This New Festive Movie Promo

Five gold RINGS.

We’re almost halfway through December, so you know what’s almost upon us? That’s right, it’s nearly time for Christmas Day Sonic the Hedgehog 3‘s theatrical release!

Before the blue blur arrives on the big screen for the third time on 20th December, Paramount Pictures is filling the holiday season with festive tie-ins, including the above promo, ‘A Very Sonic Christmas’.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 Dataminers Are Having a Field Day, Uncover Information Up to Season 9

With the release of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 Patch 5, dataminers have uncovered information on cosmetics set to hit the game up to Season 9.

The Year 1 roadmap for Space Marine 2 includes new content up to Season 4, which is set to kick off at some point in 2025 (we’re currently in Season 2).

Space Marine 2 publisher Focus Entertainment and developer Saber Interactive are releasing new Champion skins for specific classes with each season. The game launched in September with an Ultramarines Champion skin for the Heavy class, and this week’s game-changing Patch 5 added the Dark Angels Champion skin for the Bulwark class.

Now, based on fresh datamines, that cadence looks set to continue with each season up to Season 9.

Warning! Warhammer 40,000 spoilers for upcoming cosmetics follows!

Redditor agentduckman12 uncovered information revealing the cosmetic DLC, reproduced below.

  • Season 3: Raven Guard
  • Season 4: Salamander
  • Season 5: Space Wolves
  • Season 6: Chaos Pack
  • Season 7: Imperial Fist
  • Season 8: White Scars
  • Season 9: Blood Angels

What fans don’t know yet is which class is set for each Chapter Champion skin, although agentduckman12 also leaked a Salamander Sniper Champion Pack skin render, below, so we know the Sniper class is set for a Salamander Champion skin.

The Assault, Tactical, and Vanguard are classes are therefore still up for grabs. Obviously there are enough Chapters here for each class to get more than one Champion skin, unless Saber plans to release new classes in the future of course.

The only other question is when these seasons will roll out. If we’re looking at year one including four seasons, then we could be waiting until 2026 for Season 9 and the Blood Angels skin. IGN has asked Focus Entertainment for comment.

Speaking of unannounced DLC, IGN has reported on the availability in-game of what looks like a Battle Barge expansion set to hit Space Marine 2 with Season 3.

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

A minor tweak to Steam will soon let you change the way you download that monstrous 250GB update

If your PC has ever started randomly roaring, and you check Steam only to find Space Marine 2 is panic-installing a 9 billion gigabyte update, then perhaps Valve’s new upcoming feature is for you. For most of us, Steam simply slurps down fresh gigs of installed games automatically when a new update is released (and sometimes schedules the updates according to its own capricious whims). But the platform is testing a new option in the beta client, which lets you set download behaviour to git new gigs only when you actually launch a game. This would be a terrible curse, for reasons I will explain, but it’s only going to be an option – not the new default.

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Untitled Goose Game and Thank Goodness You’re Here! publishers are doing a thing and I’m not sure what the thing is but it seems like a cool thing

I have to write at least 250 words for a news post. Rock Paper Shotgun’s CMS (content management system) even has a built-in widget that shouts at me if I don’t write at least 250 words. “Page 1 body content is quite short” it says if I go under. How cute is that “quite”? I love being fooled into getting charmed by automated systems via colloquial British understatement. Anyway, I bring this up because I honestly don’t have anything to add about Blippo+. I just wanted to inform you all of its existence. It’s a “casual” “FMV” “Cinematic” “Pixel Graphics” “1980s” digital product from developers also named Blippo+, as well as publishers Panic, who’ve previously unleashed the horrible goose and Thank Goodness You’re Here! on the world. Have a visual orientation:

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Sonic-Style Platformer ‘Freedom Planet 2’ Scores Limited Run Physical Switch Release

Pre-orders open next week.

In some surprising news, the excellent Sonic-style platformer Freedom Planet 2 will be getting a Limited Run Games physical release for the Switch.

This game originally launched on the eShop earlier this year and received a 9 out of 10 from us here at Nintendo Life. The physical launch will include a standard edition for $39.99 USD (or your regional equivalent) and a deluxe edition for $69.99 USD.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP Is Getting A Sweet Photo Mode Update

Smile, Juliet.

The Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP developer Dragami Games has not only continued to address various issues with multiple patches but it’s also adding additional content to the game.

With this in mind, Dragami Games company CEO Yoshima Yasuda has now announced the team will be adding a photo mode “soon”. Nothing else was detailed, but typically these modes allow you to take shots of the main character and sometimes even change the outfits and camera settings.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com