I’ve only dipped my distal index fingerbone in The Necromancer’s Tale, a just-released historical fantasy tactics RPG from Psychic Software, but I can at least report back that the character creator is a gentle joy, to the point that I was disappointed to reach the end of it. True to the promise/threat of “400,000 words of hand-written narrative and lore”, it’s a hearty choose-your-own-adventure prologue that follows the protagonist’s infancy and early adulthood. Each choice you make skews the stats on the left. Might sound unremarkable of concept. Here’s why it’s stuck with me.
Square Enix has announced it will end Windows 10 support for its MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV this October.
The publisher confirmed in a statement that support will end on October 14, 2025, coinciding with Microsoft’s own end-date for security updates and support.
“You will likely be able to play FINAL FANTASY XIV on Windows® 10 systems even after the end of support,” the company said. “However, after we discontinue support, we will as a general rule no longer be able to provide support for problems arising as a result of the operating system.”
Square Enix said it may responded to requests for technical support regarding Windows 10 issues after the end of support, but this will be limited, on a case-by-case basis, and not guaranteed.
Additionally, the OS and CPU requirements for the Windows version of Final Fantasy XIV will also be updated on October 14. Alongside a shift from Windows 10 64-bit to Windows 11 64-bit, CPU requirements will also bump up.
For Minimum System Requirements, the recommended Intel Core i7-7700 (or higher) will shift to an Intel Core i5-8400 (or higher). The Recommended System Requirements are holding steady on the Intel Core i7-9700 benchmark, though.
Currently, Final Fantasy XIV is building up to its 7.3 patch, The Promise of Tomorrow, due to arrive in early August. Following on from the Dawntrail expansion, patch 7.3 will introduce a new slew of Main Scenario Quests following the aftermath of the expansion and the strange things afoot in Solution Nine.
Additionally, the next leg of Final Fantasy XIV’s Final Fantasy XI crossover raid series Echoes of Vana’diel will arrive, with San d’Oria: The Second Walk. Longtime Final Fantasy XI players (who could even still be playing to this day) will likely find some neat easter eggs and references littered throughout the new series of fights.
As for Windows 10 users, the operating system shift still seems to be an inevitable reality. If you’re still on Win10, now might be a good time to start considering your options as its end-of-support looms in the distance.
If you’re sick of being tag-teamed by Gaping Jaw & Darkdrift Knight, then I bring good news. Elden Ring Nightreign‘s next wave of enhanced bosses have now successfully RSVPed to the big darkness party. They’ll be arriving when the next cycle begins on July 31st.
Sure, that was the most logical point for a fresh rotation, given it’s when the established lot of Everdark Nightlord duos were set to disappear. Though, for whatever reason, FromSoft haven’t fully committed to a date until now. One can only assume the Equilibrious Beast was busy polishing its horns.
Remedy has outlined what’s next for its multiplayer Control spin-off, FBC: Firebreak, promising big changes.
It comes after Remedy posted a candid statement last month acknowledging “not everything had gone well” following FBC: Firebreak’s mid-June release.
FBC: Firebreak launched on June 17 as a paid game as well as straight into Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus. Calling the launch an “exciting and nerve-wracking time,” Remedy told players it had heard feedback “loudly and clearly,” and admitted “it’s clear there are features that need to improve, and they will improve.”
Since launch, the studio has released “four patches that improve the game and partly address [player] feedback. Now that the game is live, our community plays a big part in shaping the future of the experience. This is just the start.”
Remedy then warned that the speed at which it releases patches and updates will likely slow down now as it “puts more of our development focus on the first Major Update arriving in late September.”
“We’ve seen many players come into the game and leave within the first hour. And that’s because our first hour can be frustrating; you feel ineffective and confused as to what to do. This needs to be improved,” it added in an update posted to Steam.
“For many of you already playing FBC: Firebreak, us focusing on the opening experience may seem less exciting, but to keep the game healthy (and your matchmaking fast), we need to bring in more people with a better first-time experience than before.”
For this, Remedy is working on helping new players understand the Control universe and your place in it, and balancing that between players who have played Control and those who have not. Remedy thinks better “narrative onboarding” will be achieved by playing an introductory video. From there, there’ll be better tutorials to teach you core mechanics and features — as well as leaving some secrets to find unaided — and pop up tips will be introduced in the playable tutorial.
Next is gunplay – “our current upgrades can make guns feel weak early on” — so the plan is to “drop all generic upgrades from equipment and start players with a playable and powerful version of everything a Firebreak needs from the beginning.” To do this, Remedy is developing a mod system to let you tweak your weapons — expect more as we get closer to September. There’s also a big shake up for Jobs, and the content of them, on the way.
“To accomplish this, we are replacing Clearance and Corruption Levels with pre-made, exciting (you’ll have to take our word for that for now) variations of Job experiences that can still be short or long or filled with Corrupted Items, but also a whole lot more,” the team explained.
“We are weeding out our least fun experiences, focusing on our best experiences, and adding brand new modes with plans for adding even more in the future. As part of this change, we’re also reevaluating our matchmaking flow, making it clearer and segmenting player pools more effectively, to ensure more and better matches.” We should expect the placement of items like keys and ammo stations to get mixed up, too, to better keep us on our toes.
“As we hope has become clear, we are pushing a lot of improvements and changes into the game for our first Major Update,” Remedy concluded. “Some of these ideas were improvements that we weren’t able to add before launch, but all were decided on and developed based on what we heard from you (listening to feedback) and seen from you (looking at data).
“We are extremely excited about these changes and about delivering even more than we’d originally been planning, but changes now also mean changes later. We need to see what’s working for you and to hear from you again before we can be certain that we’re prioritizing the right things. So, while we are still planning on the next Major Update in the winter, and the next one after that, the specific focuses and features are a lot more nebulous. There are a variety of topics that we are discussing and researching, but for now, we are heads down working on the first Major Update.”
Despite the launch hiccups, FBC: Firebreak topped 1 million players. “FBC: Firebreak is a compelling co-op shooter that, despite its good looks, doesn’t have the depth to keep things interesting long-term,” we wrote in IGN’s FBC: Firebreak review, awarding it 6/10.
Remedy recently confirmed its plans for ongoing support post-launch, including two new Jobs (missions) coming in 2025. More updates will arrive in 2026, the developer said. All playable content released post launch, such as Jobs, will be free to all players. Players have the option to buy cosmetics, but none of these items will affect gameplay, and there will be no limited-time rotations or daily log-ins, Remedy insisted.
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.
“I’m not a perfectionist,” says the guy who makes niche puzzle games that turn me into a gibbering wreck obsessed with efficiency. And I feel a wave of comical fury. If like me you’ve been whirring and clicking your way through very good engineering puzzle game Kaizen: A Factory Story, you’re probably a fan of previous work from the same developers. The creators of Opus Magnum and Infinifactory may have dissolved their old studio Zachtronics and chemically regenerated as Coincidence Games, but there are still large traces of a Zach present. I caught up with designer Zach Barth to ask about perfectionism, the Factorio-like automation game he gave up on out of boredom, and how the team managed to make a story about factories in 1980s Japan feel human.
Cast your minds back to the year of our lord 2017, and you may remember we reported on how a certain Mr. Shigeru Miyamoto liked to play a pre-release version of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild by climbing up and down trees repeatedly for treats that the devs would leave for him. No, this isn’t a wind-up, and he can do what he wants. He created the series. Jeez.
Now, as revealed in The Guardian‘s interview with Bananza’s producer, Kenta Motokura, (thanks, GamesRadar), it seems “Shiggy” has an equally unique and stylish way of playing Donkey Kong Bananza, which involved simply smashing and digging instead of doing anything that would further the campaign along whilst playing a pre-release version of the game.
Welcome to Next Week on Xbox! In this weekly feature we cover all the games coming soon to Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Xbox PC, and Game Pass! Get more details on these upcoming games below and click their profiles for further info (release dates subject to change). Let’s jump in!
Set sail for adventure in Monument Valley 3, a brand-new story in the award-winning Monument Valley series. Guide Noor, an apprentice lightkeeper, through impossible monuments, shifting landscapes, and tranquil seascapes to uncover the Sacred Light and save her home.
Wheel World – July 23 Game Pass / Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Xbox Play Anywhere
Available on day one with Game Pass! You are Kat, a young cyclist with one mission: save Wheel World from total collapse. Explore a stunning open world filled with impressive vistas, hidden secrets, and races that will test your skills. Customize your bike with an endless array of parts, from sleek speedsters to off-road beasts — there’s no limit to how you can ride.
Available on day one with Game Pass! Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is a Souls-like action RPG set in the dark final days of the Ming Dynasty. Play as Wuchang, a pirate warrior battling memory loss and a deadly curse, as you master brutal combat, evolve your skills, and uncover the truth behind a world consumed by chaos.
A survival crafting experience for one to six players set in the depths of an underground research facility. Caught between paranormal containment failure, a military crusade, and chaos from a dozen realms, the world’s greatest minds must survive against the universe’s biggest threats.
Smash. Collect. Escape. In Cubey: Blockbyte, every jump counts. Crush blocks beneath you, grab every last coin, and unlock the gate to freedom. Miss a coin? The exit stays shut. Plan your jumps, move fast, and don’t leave anything behind.
This is a story about death. Luto is a psychological horror experience where you take on the role of someone unable to leave their home. Every attempt to escape will lead you deeper into the unknown, where nothing is as it seems and everything will test your senses.
Blast off into high-stakes spaceship battles and intense first-person shootouts, where no two matches are ever the same. If you want to claim the ultimate prize — the mysterious and priceless Artifact — you’ll need to improvise on the fly, whether it’s chasing down rival crews and stealing their gear, repairing your damaged ship, or scanning for precious resources.
Develop your thinking, tactics and visual memory with the most popular game on the planet. Strategize and lead your army to victory – improve your chess skills and unlock your inner grandmaster!
Get ready to sneak into the city’s most overprotected museum… all for food! In Rogue Raccoon, you play as a fast and cheeky raccoon on a clear mission: clean out the food court, one hidden snack at a time.
Find the hidden kitties around the office! Secret Paws – Cozy Offices is an isometric hidden object game themed around cats and colorful workspaces. Explore unique, adorably decorated cube-shaped rooms as you search for dozens of cleverly obscured felines lying around each stage.
This new and improved version of Hatsune Miku Logic Paint S includes a variety of new features! Work alongside Miku and other Piapro characters to solve these unique puzzles! In addition to the Normal Puzzles and all-new illustration-based Special Puzzles, you can also update the appearance of each Piapro character and even customize your room to your liking.
Gather people across the city and crush your opponents with your overwhelming leadership. The more people you run into, the bigger your crowd becomes! Beware! If other group has more members, yours will be taken completely and you will have to start from scratch… Try out a variety of funny skins and play on different maps.
There was a good thing that had once been and a horse man who was now years removed from it, but still clung on to the idea that the magic was still there. I’ll not stray into spoiler territory, but that clinging generally didn’t go too well for old BoJack. He was a bitter, selfish, washed-up star who so often looked back, rather than looking forwards. It was to his detriment.
Valve co-founder and boss Gabe Newell has offered a rare insight into his life, talking about his days living, working, and enjoying life on a “boat.”
In conversation with a YouTuber called Zalkar Saliev, who had just 19 subscribers at the time the interview clips went live (they’ve since acquired several hundred more), the 62-year-old Newell said he worked seven days a week from his bedroom on his superyacht, because it’s “fun” and he still “likes working.”
Asked to describe his daily routine in an interview Valve has confirmed to PC Gamer is real, Newell said: “I get up, I work, I go scuba diving, work some more. I either go on a second scuba dive or I go to the gym and work out. Then I work. I live on a boat, so I just hang out with everybody on the boat.”
“I work seven days a week,” he added. “I’m working from my bedroom, as you can tell. I like working. It’s fun. To me, it doesn’t feel like work. The kinds of things that I get to do every day are super awesome. I’ve said it before, but when you retire, you want to stop doing your horrible job and then go do what is most fun and entertaining. And so in that sense, I’ve been retired for a long time.”
Expanding on the types of work that keep him busy these days, Newell said: “Getting to work with Drew and Jeremy on AI stuff or Chris on Steam stuff… In one of the companies, we’re working on an aerosol pathogen detection device so you can see all the pathogens that are in the air. Brain computer interfaces are incredibly cool, and all of the associated neuroscience is incredibly cool. So, I just work all the time.
“But it’s not like, ‘Oh my God, I’m up late at night slaving away on stuff.’ It’s more like I can’t go to sleep because I’m having fun, you know?”
Valve, the studio behind seminal hits like Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, Dota 2, and Counter-Strike, is also the company behind the industry-leading Steam online game platform, plus the acclaimed Steam Deck handheld system. As of 2021, it employed 336 people across its hardware, Steam, and development divisions.
Newell previously worked at Microsoft, where he helped create the first versions of the Windows operating system, but left in 1996 to found Valve with Mike Harrington and develop the studio’s first game, Half-Life.
Photo by Olly Curtis/Future Publishing via Getty Images.
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.
Helldivers 2 developers Arrowhead have made clear that they’re still very much all-in on the game right now, with adding more stuff to the good shootery thing they’ve got going being the main focus. That said, the studio’s bigwigs have provided a couple of hints at what the future might hold for them, with the latest being that Helldivers 3 is “hopefully many years away”.
