Rockstar wants people to love GTA 6's Jason and Lucia just as much as they did with Red Dead Redemption 2 protagonist Arthur Morgan.

Red Dead Redemption 2's Arthur Morgan is one of the most beloved video game protagonists of all-time. Even as someone who did not completely love it as a game at times – I often describe it as the game I love that I hate the most – Arthur was a character that really stuck with me and remains one of my all-time favorites years later. And while Rockstar has done great characters in the past like Niko Bellic and John Marston, Arthur is on a whole other level.

So after a protagonist as acclaimed as Arthur, following up on that is likely a point of stress for the developers, and speaking to TroisCouleurs, Rockstar North co-studio head Rob Nelson explains: "We wanted to take the depth that we were able to add into the world of Red Dead Redemption 2 and the ability to interact with the world in a much more significant way, but then also this sort of emotional connection that people end up having with Arthur."

Nelson continues: "We knew we wanted to come back and continue playing with the idea of multiple protagonists," and that, with a couple, the studio could make the protagonists' actions a bit more impactful than what we saw with GTA 5's trio. The interviewer cites moments shown, like Lucia and Jason getting ready to go out, with a level of intimacy between the characters, unlike the GTA 5 protagonists, who tolerated each other at best.

Nelson says these quieter moments are intentional, as they make the intense bits even more impactful, explaining, "when you see her get thrown down the stairs and then you switch to him, and you can’t hear her, it’s the feeling of concern."

Nelson adds, the quieter moments "were some of the most compelling aspects of Red Dead Redemption 2 and we wanted to see if we could bring some of those elements into GTA 6."

GTA 6 wasn't "fully formed" when Trailer 1 released, Rockstar boss says, but the Tom Petty song it used was a "mission statement" of where it was going

A former BioWare lead says Mass Effect's development was built on a ton of impossible goals and massive ambition.

Speaking to FRVR, Mass Effect cinematic designer Armando Troisi spoke about game director Casey Hudson, recounting, "He would put these impossible goals in front of us," adding, "He was just like, 'okay, this is what we need to do, right?'" He adds that around the studio, Hudson was known as the "troublemaker in chief," an approach that clearly worked, as the game was ultimately lauded for its cinematic presentation.

Troisi says the cinematic team at BioWare was "hacking the engine to try to make things work." He adds, "We would throw on things like The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, and it would be playing in the background. And we would look at the cinematography, and we would look at it like, how is this working, and how could we emulate that?"

"It was weird because it’s a game I feel should have never been made," Troisi explains. “It was a new engine, a new IP, a new console. It was a triple threat trying to get that to all [work]. Trying to get the streaming to work and getting it all to go." And despite being a console exclusive for the Xbox 360 for around half a year, Troisi adds, "the story behind that is we didn’t have it working on console until the very end of development," which resulted in the game releasing in the glitchy state it was.

Mass Effect "really pushed the limits of what is possible in real-time rendering," Troisi explains, but there was a significant trade-off to get there, as he recalls the developers going through "21 days on, one day off kind of crunch to get this thing out the door."

However, despite all of that, it was worth it in Troisi's eyes, with the developer saying, "It’s a level of ambition that I think was just unheard of at the time," he said. "It’s not just an interactive narrative; it’s an interactive film. And delivering that to our audience in such a profound way, I guess, and wrapping it in such a great story and a great fantasy was just something that we were just so proud of, and I’m still proud of. It’s one of the things I look back on in my life and go: 'wow, that was really really hard, but really worth it.'"

Mass Effect 5 will be great as long as executives "get out of the way," says former designer: "We're all beholden to companies"

The Final Fantasy 7 Revelation team had to have an "emergency meeting" to rebuild Knights of the Round and turn the iconic summon into a boss battle worthy of their legacy. Square Enix's first pass apparently didn't kick enough butt.

Final Fantasy 7's Knights of the Round materia is legendary - it's easily one of the series' most powerful summons and merely unlocking them is the 1997 game's toughest, most convoluted challenge. No, I don't want to spend hours taming and breeding chocobos, please.

While we haven't seen Revelation's Knights of the Round yet, we do know they're definitely showing up in the trilogy's grand finale. And like some of the other summons across the FF7 Remake trilogy, you'll need to fight the 13 massive Arthurian knights before becoming their pal.

"Summoning Knights of the Round will be in Final Fantasy 7 Revelation," game director Naoki Hamaguchi reiterated in an interview with MinnMax. "Given how powerful the materia was in the original, we're making it a very formidable enemy." Scary.

But translating the epic summon into an equally epic boss battle is easier said than done. Even the original game's summon animation was so long and so grand, players eventually found a glitch to skip it. During development, combat director Teruki Endo decided the team's first iteration wasn't tough enough: "We need to make them stronger."

"So we had an emergency meeting among all the directors, like the art director, motion director, and I had to explain to everyone [that] Endo wants to make this boss entity stronger, so we gotta start from scratch again," Hamaguchi said with a smile on his face.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation launches next April across all consoles and PC.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation's physical disc still requires a download because Square Enix "didn't want to make any compromises"

BlizzCon 2026 is well underway, but some of the show's biggest announcements aren't due to come out for years. StarCraft's debut trailer ended with a 2030 release window attached. Diablo 5's reveal similarly included a 2029 promise - a strange move for a publisher as big as Blizzard Entertainment.

Big game announcements nowadays don't specify a release year unless the project is close to the finish line, usually, since game production can be complicated and unpredictable. Promising fans a release year this far ahead sounds like a recipe for possible disappointment, especially for Blizzard, a company that sometimes takes more than a decade between mainline entries in its biggest franchises. Any number of problems might pop up between now and 2030, after all. So, what's different this time?

Bloomberg spoke to Blizzard Entertainment president Johanna Faries ahead of this weekend's convention and she seemed quite positive about StarCraft and Diablo 5's faraway launches. "We want to convey confidence in some of our biggest bets coming forward," Faries told the outlet.

Possibly shooting down fears that StarCraft and Diablo 5 might miss their dates, Faries continued: "We're a Blizzard that's going to ship, and ship big, and ship on time, and all hands on deck to set those projects up for success."

It's a sentiment echoed by StarCraft project lead Dan Hay, who told GamesRadar+ that 2030 is "a date we feel really confident about." He also confirmed the StarCraft team has been "working on this for a little bit" and "feel good about it, and so it's important that we share."

The topic of Microsoft and Xbox's sweeping job cuts also came up in the Bloomberg interview, and while Faries didn't comment on how those layoffs might affect Blizzard, she did say that preserving the storied company's culture "has been my ultimate focus" in recent times. "The unique special sauce that is Blizzard both culturally and creatively. And to the extent that we can perform well for Microsoft, I think that should be seen as a mutual win," she added. Blizzard recently became Xbox's best-performing studio, so things seem to be going well. At least, from an outside perspective.

Diablo 5's first confirmed classes are the Demon Hunter, Monk, and the all-new Plague Knight: Blizzard says the sequel has "more classes than ever before"

After it was memed from the moment the game was announced, Final Fantasy 7 Revelation director Naoki Hamaguchi has confirmed that jumping out of the Highwind Fortnite-style was indeed inspired by Fortnite, though only partly.

The Highwind is set to be the central mechanic of Final Fantasy 7 Revelation. The massive airship that transports the party around was a big part of the original RPG, but in the era of realism and immersion, you can't simply drop to the ground and teleport out of the ship as you did on the PS1 when you arrived.

So when Final Fantasy 7 Revelation got its first showing earlier this year, we were treated to a look at how the Highwind is going to work in the third and final entry in the remake trilogy. You'll be able to fly all around the world and choose which area you're going to pop off into, which is pretty in line with what the PS1 original had. Except this time, your party launches themselves off the side of the ship, and skydives down to the map below.

Naturally, when everyone saw this, we all made the same joke, with a ton of memes of Cloud Strife asking "where we droppin'" emerging in the immediate aftermath. However, when asked about this connection by GamesRadar's Fortnite correspondent James Daly (following the Final Fantasy 7 Revelation hands-on preview), Hamaguchi did admit, "We did get a bit of inspiration from Fortnite, [we] won't lie about that."

It's funny, however, that Fortnite is the inspiration here, when Final Fantasy 7 is one of the only things left on earth that Fortnite hasn't collaborated with, as opposed to, say, Apex Legends, which had a big Final Fantasy 7 crossover and also features the squad dropping out of the sky, or the now-dead Final Fantasy 7: The First Soldier battle royale game.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation boss is "so sorry" for what happens to Aerith in Rebirth, but if you're still upset, "you may change your opinion" by the end of the remake trilogy

All the rumors were true - well, some of them were. StarCraft is finally making a return, but this time as an open-world shooter led by a developer who knows a thing or two about the genre. Former Far Cry boss Dan Hay is in charge of the project, and he told us he's taking the "honor" of bringing back the series "very seriously."

"It is an honor," Hay says in an interview with GamesRadar+ at BlizzCon 2026. "We take that very seriously. It's an honor. You get a chance to work on something that so many people love and care deeply about. We take that very seriously, and you can hear it in my voice. We won the cosmic lottery. We get to work on StarCraft. We get to pick up the baton that really great people made. We get to hear about it. We get to think about it. We get to stew on it, and then we get to make something new, but that feels familiar, and that's powerful."

The original StarCraft RTS gems were some of the defining games of Blizzard Entertainment's early years. Not only has it been a decade since the last proper game in the series came out, Blizzard itself has been trying to turn StarCraft into a shooter since at least the early 2000s. (See: StarCraft Ghost.) It's no surprise Hay is so excited about finally turning that ambition into a reality, then.

Not too much is known about the upcoming game, simply called StarCraft. We have a typically gorgeous animated mood trailer (embedded above), we know it's set 70 years after Legacy of the Void, and Blizzard's slapped a 2030 release window on top. Hay told us that putting a release year on StarCraft this far out is proof "we're serious" and "confident."

Diablo 5's first confirmed classes are the Demon Hunter, Monk, and the all-new Plague Knight: Blizzard says the sequel has "more classes than ever before"

With Diablo 5 on the horizon, Blizzard Entertainment doesn't have plans for any new Diablo 4 expansions.

Last night's BlizzCon 2026 Opening Ceremony brought rare good news for the permanently dark and dour world of Diablo. The fantasy series is officially getting an animated Netflix show, Diablo himself is finally coming to Diablo 4, and - surprise - Diablo 5 is set to come out sometime in 2029.

But with so much going on in the world of Sanctuary, don't expect any new expansions for Diablo 4. Speaking to PC Gamer, game director Brent Gibson explained the team are now "all focused on [Diablo 4] seasons and getting to Diablo 5."

"We feel like we told the Story of Hatred," Gibson continues. "We had a great conclusion with Lord of Hatred with what we have with Mephisto, and we are moving towards telling the Story of Terror."

While Blizzard doesn't have plans for a new Diablo 4 expansion in the foreseeable future, never say never. Diablo 2 got a new class and paid expansion after a 25-year break, after all - so long as people play Diablo 4, it'll receive some kind of support, according to Gibson.

Diablo 5's story is also set 100 years after Diablo 4, in a hellish world where "Sanctuary has fallen, and Diablo has won." In the meantime, Diablo 4 seasons will need to bridge the gap between the sort of horrifying world we're in now and the even more horrifying world we'll be entering in 2029.

The 100-year time jump "gives us a lot of room to kind of still ride the wave with all the fans on where the story can go as we make our way there," Gibson told PC Gamer. "So continuity is something that we're really excited about, but we don't necessarily have a perfect picture on exactly where that's going to go because we want to see how fans are reacting season to season."

Diablo 5's first confirmed classes are the Demon Hunter, Monk, and the all-new Plague Knight: Blizzard says the sequel has "more classes than ever before"

Well, folks, there's a new StarCraft on the way. We've had an inkling about there being a new entry in the series thanks to rumors that have been circulating for weeks now, but during BlizzCon 2026's Opening Ceremony, the project was confirmed. It's an open-world shooter, former Far Cry boss Dan Hay is in charge alongside associate director AnaLee Haertling, and it's coming out in 2030. Yes, 2030.

I had the chance to sit down with Hay and Haertling after the announcement, and one of the first things I asked them was whether now was the right time to announce the new StarCraft considering it's still so early in development. "Absolutely," Hay said, defiantly.

"We've been working on this thing for a little bit. We're super proud of it. We feel good about it, and so it's important that we share," Hay says. "We think about the community. The community has been waiting for a long time, and we think about them. We think about what they want to say. So we said to ourselves, 'Is now the right time to start to show just an inkling of this story?' And the answer is absolutely."

A lot of StarCraft players, even diehard fans, are bristling at an announcement for a game that's still four long years away. With so much time between now and then, what are the odds that release window sticks as game development obstacles inevitably pop up? But in Hay's view, announcing the date so early is simply proof of the team's commitment to getting the job done on time.

"That shows that we're serious. That shows everyone that that's a date that we feel really confident about," Hay says. "And what I like about the team, I think we take that number and we put it on the wall. And somebody goes, 'so when is this thing going to ship?'" he adds, gesturing dramatically to a nearby wall for emphasis.

I do have to admire the new StarCraft team's gusto here. Surely, no one can be 100% confident that a project will ship on time so far in advance, but it's hard to deny the confidence. After all, the media-trained Hay could've easily deflected the question in a non-committal way that leaves open the possibility of a delay without outright admitting anything, but instead he chose to strongly double down, which should be somewhat encouraging for fans despite the disappointing wait.

Diablo is getting an animated Netflix series as Blizzard teases Overwatch and Warcraft adaptations

Blizzard has unveiled the first officially confirmed Diablo 5 classes, and they include a brand new class that's never been included in a Diablo game before: the Plague Knight, which sounds deliciously morbid in a way that's definitively Diablo.

ICYMI, Diablo 5! Yes, Diablo 5 was revealed in a surprise announcement during BlizzCon 2026. Although the game is still early in development and isn't due out until 2029, Blizzard dropped a surprising amount of details about the upcoming action RPG in a follow-up panel attended by GamesRadar+. One of those key details are confirmed classes, which include the returning Demon Hunter and Monk, as well as the aforementioned Plague Knight, which is new for the series.

Game Director Joe Shely said during the panel that the Plague Knight is a "heavily armored class" and a "walking death" that roams around the world "spreading disease and consuming it for power," which is about as dark as it gets and, I have to say, not very knightly. You're telling me this guy gives people the plague and then absorbs their death energy for his own power? That makes necromancers look downright friendly, but that's exactly what you want in a new Diablo game, and one I'll note already looks and sounds bleaker than any to come before it.

Not much is known about Diablo 5's story so far, but Blizzard confirmed during the initial announcement that it takes place in a world in which Diablo has won the battle against humanity, and "Sanctuary has fallen" to his evil will. That means there are no more towns or safe zones to take haven in, and that you're never truly safe.

Shely also announced that "Diablo 5 is going to launch with more classes than ever before," and clarified that, "I don't just mean more classes than another Diablo game at ship.

"I mean more classes total. And the thing about Diablo classes is that they're approachable. You can jump in; you can immediately have an exciting time playing them. But there's also deep ARPG mastery there, and a multitude of builds to explore."

Diablo 4 is finally getting its big final boss next week, new Amazon class coming 2027

After more than three years, Diablo 4 is finally getting its big, bad, final boss: Diablo himself is coming to the game next week in season 15, alongside familiar characters, locations, and items inspired by all eras of the APRG's history.

Diablo was a huge focus of this year's BlizzCon 2026, mostly headlined by the announcement of Diablo 5. Blizzard managed to keep the lid on Diablo 5 ahead of the event, so its reveal was quite the surprise indeed, but the studio made it very clear that it's not ready to abandon Diablo 4.

The game's next season brings everything full circle for the series' 30th anniversary with the long-awaited addition of Diablo, as well as the other two Prime Evils, Mephisto and Baal, as well as the iconic friendly character, Deckard Cain, and new Legendary items inspired by the series' past. Basically, it's one big Diablo birthday party, and it's all kicking off next week with the Season of Hell's Legacy, which launches on September 15.

Still haven't had enough? We also got the announcement of Diablo 4's next new class, the Amazon, which is of course a fan-favorite from Diablo 2 that I can't wait to see return in D4 in "the first half of 2027." The Amazon class wields a bow, naturally, but will also bring an entirely new weapon, the Javelin, which you can see being put to deadly use in the below gameplay footage:

Here are the best RPGs we recommend playing in 2026.

For months, World of Warcraft fans have been speculating that something is about to happen to WoW Classic. Blizzard Entertainment has now put those theories to bed and announced World of Warcraft: Forever - an all-new version of the MMORPG that lives alongside Classic and Vanilla. The best part? It comes out in seven weeks, on November 4.

Executive producer Holly Longdale revealed the game at tonight's BlizzCon 2026 Opening Ceremony presentation, describing it as "a new beginning that never ends" and is set around the same time as WoW's Year One. Longdale even called it Classic Plus casually, if that makes it easier to understand.

A World of Warcraft: Forever beta begins this Thursday, September 17. The game is apparently "friendly [and] familiar" for both newcomers and oldheads alike, and it's aiming to return to what made WoW so iconic two decades ago. "There's no rush here," according to Longdale. "It's the journey that counts."

The upcoming MMO sounds seriously huge, so let's quickly list off everything it's promising. Four new zones including Mount Hyjal and Zephras Isle, which is intended to be a starting area of sorts. Zones from the original game that have now been expanded. New dungeons and new raids that accommodate 10-players or 20-players. New skills and talents, a new playable race called the Skyborne, over 1,000 quests, toggles for SD and HD character models, updated visuals, and so much more. Phew!

World of Warcraft fans were eating good even before the company got around to announcing Forever. BlizzCon's Opening Ceremony also revealed that WoW: The Last Titan is coming out next year, with Midnight: Eclipse giving us enough to chew on until then.

Blizzard takes rare World of Warcraft mount from players as the MMO's latest crack down on real-money transactions continues

The Worldsoul Saga comes to an end with World of Warcraft: The Last Titan, the MMO's next expansion that's heading our way in 2027. Blizzard Entertainment finally pulled the curtain back on The Last Titan at tonight's BlizzCon 2026 Opening Ceremony stream, unveiling both a release window and a short teaser.

Blizzard first announced World of Warcraft: The Last Titan three years ago, alongside the two other expansions that make up The Worldsoul Saga's overarching trilogy - The World Within (2024) and Midnight (2026).

Senior game director Ion Hazzikostas told the crowd next year's expansion not only concludes The Worldsoul Saga, but it serves as "the culmination of over two decades of World of Warcraft." Don't expect The Last Titan to wrap up every storyline in a neat bow, though - Hazzikostas also explains it'll be "laying the groundwork for what comes next."

Well before we get our hands on The Last Titan expansion, the team will also be closing out its current storyline with Midnight: Eclipse, also known as patch 12.2. Eclipse will supposedly lead right into The Last Titan and follows antagonist Xal'atath as she stands before "her ultimate objective." Very ominous. Eclipse is the last major story beat of the Midnight era, and will introduce a standalone game mode, too.

The World of Warcraft: What's Next BlizzCon panel should dish out more info about next year's Remix later today, alongside whatever that standalone mode is. Big things happening across Azeroth, then.

Elsewhere during the ceremony, Blizzard Entertainment announced World of Warcraft: Forever, a new game that'll sit alongside both Vanilla and Classic. Diablo 5 is also coming in 2029.

WoW Classic players gang up to ban infamous PvP slayer on Twitch, immediately regret it after realizing they no longer know where in the MMO he's hiding

Diablo 5 is coming in spring 2029, Blizzard has announced.

Blizzard blew the lid off of BlizzCon 2026 with the surprise announcement that Diablo 4 is officially getting a full-blown sequel. It was widely expected that we'd see a new hero revealed alongside a new expansion, and we did see that, but Diablo 5 was truly unexpected. Naturally, we're still in the early development stages at this point, but we did get a brief cinematic trailer teasing a horrifying world where "Sanctuary has fallen, and Diablo has won."

"For the first time, you won't be fighting to stop Diablo from taking Sanctuary, you'll be entering a world where he already has," says Blizzard. "There are no towns or safe places to protect you."

It's particularly surprising to hear a new Diablo game is coming because Diablo 4, the most recent entry in the series, is only three years old, having released in May 2023. That said, there have been rumors and reports for a while now indicating Xbox is pushing its first-party studios to pick up the pace of new releases in beloved franchises, so this certainly seems to be evidence corroborating those claims. If it does release in 2029 as planned, that would be only six years between mainline entries, compared to the 11 years it took between Diablo 3 and Diablo 4.

A little while after the initial announcement, Blizzard unveiled Diablo 5's very first confirmed classes, and they include the Monk, Demon Hunter, and a first for the series, the new Plague Doctor, which sounds deliciously dark.

Diablo is getting an animated Netflix series as Blizzard teases Overwatch and Warcraft adaptations

BlizzCon 2026 brings big news for reigning hero shooter champ Overwatch. Season 5 will introduce a new "cool vampire" hero called Doctrine, it'll finally rework Roadhog to become less annoying, and in a very surprising turn, Sombra will become a support hero.

First things first, Doctrine. Game director Aaron Keller introduced the crowd to the game's upcoming support hero with an animated trailer that shows him joining forces with bad guy Doomfist and his entourage. He can apparently heal and dish out damage with a sceptre, rush across maps "shrouded in darkness," and utilize drones to buff allies. Keller also made mention of mechanized bats. Very cool...

BlizzCon attendees can try out Doctrine on the show floor, while players at home should have access to his 'Hero Trial' in-game that'll stay live through September 14. He'll properly end his slumber and stalk into the roster next month when Season 5 goes live.

As for next season's reworked heroes - or re-reworks, I should say - Roadhog will become much less annoying from here on. The developers say his signature hook and one-shot kill combo will be retired, and the chunky tank will finally be able to help out his team in a more meaningful capacity.

Overwatch's other super divisive hero, the sometimes invisible hacker Sombra, is getting an even bigger revamp. The DPS hero will become a support hero starting next season, rather surprisingly. Both heroes' new skill kits are under wraps, but we should see more as BlizzCon 2026 chugs on throughout the weekend.

Overwatch's huge "battle pass revamp" is out tomorrow and makes things a lot more complicated but, seemingly, better

After multiple credible rumors and a glitched out website, Blizzard Entertainment has finally revealed the return of StarCraft. The next game in the legendary sci-fi series is coming sometime in 2030, and unlike the strategy hits that made StarCraft a household name, this one's an open-world shooter.

Announced at BlizzCon 2026's Opening Ceremony, details on the new StarCraft game are light. It's called StarCraft, it's an open-world shooter, and it's being led by former Far Cry executive producer Dan Hay - but we did get a gorgeous, tone-setting debut trailer for the Blizzard project. Check it out below.

"We are here to make StarCraft, and it's about damn time," Hay said on stage.

StarCraft (2030) is the beloved series' first game since 2017's StarCraft Remastered and the first all-new experience since 2016's single-player DLC, StarCraft: Nova Covert Ops.

This isn't Blizzard Entertainment's first attempt at turning its traditionally strategy-based series into a shooter, however. The infamous StarCraft: Ghost was in development decades ago for PS2, OG Xbox and GameCube consoles and was set to be a stealth-shooter, but it was quietly canned. More recent reports indicate that publisher Nexon might be working on a different entry in the series, which seemingly separate from this upcoming StarCraft.

There's not much more information about StarCraft (2030), but you'll be able to stay updated over on the official website. The big news is simply that StarCraft is back, baby, and it's back in a huge way - if Far Cry is any indication, a really huge way. Despite years collecting dust, Blizzard's hoping it can return in style.

Blizzard suddenly remembers StarCraft exists, but only long enough to squeeze some Diablo 4 cosmetics out of it

Blizzard has announced a Diablo animated TV series coming to Netflix, and it's teasing similar adaptations for Overwatch and Warcraft as well.

Blizzard president Johanna Faries took the stage at BlizzCon 2026 and revealed the Diablo TV show as one of the big opening announcements, putting the emphasis on Blizzard Entertainment. The only confirmed TV show so far is Diablo, but Faries very explicitly said to watch out for news on adaptations of Overwatch and Warcraft as well.

"As a big Diablo player myself, and as someone who loves the indulgent darkness of Sanctuary, I am very excited to see this project come to life," Faries said.

Virtually nothing is known about the Diablo Netflix series other than the simple fact that it's happening, but there's no denying there's been a huge resurgence of video game adaptations for film and TV in recent years. For years, the stench of atrocious video game movies from the '90s (not naming names) seemed to have scared off Hollywood from wanting anything to do with gaming properties, but with massive success like Sonic, Mario, and Uncharted, it seems nearly everything's on the table these days. Genuinely, it's harder to parse which major video game IPs haven't been tapped for some sort of adaptation than it is to identify all of the ones that are being adapted.

Don't know what the heck I'm talking about? Just check out our exhaustive guide to the best video game movies you can watch and not hate yourself for having watched.

Saber Interactive had a breakout hit in the form of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, and you can attribute at least part of its success to the fact that it was not made in North America. The company's chief creative officer, Tim Willits, says it's been dramatically scaling down its operations in the region.

In fact, Saber has "no real development in North America any more," as Willits tells GamesIndustry.biz. The company is headquartered in Florida, and a handful of its subsidiaries are based in the US, but the vast majority of its development wings are spread across Europe.

Why the move? Well, it's gosh-darned expensive to make games in North America, where industry salaries are driven up by their placement in cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles. Make a game in countries where salary expectations are substantially lower, and the cost of development goes down dramatically.

"The problem is stuff like this: big North American development studios, they run about $2 million+ in burn rate a month," Willits says. "A month. SnowRunner, which has made hundreds of millions of dollars, costs us $6 million to make. That's literally three months of development time in California. So just run the math on that. If it takes [a big studio] five years to make a game, that's 60 months, that's $120 million just in salaries."

Cheaper game development means that publishers are free to take more risks, too. Back in 2024, Willits lamented that there are AAA projects that can't even break even if they don't sell five million copies. Saber seems more keen on building games for (relatively) smaller niches that might actually appreciate them.

"Sometimes I play these games – I won't mention the game – and I can just see the wasted money," Willits continues in the new interview. "I can see dollars falling out of the monitor. But I can tell you that the development cost for [Warhammer 40,000] Space Marine 2 was a third of a major game that just released not too many months ago from a big North American studio. It was a third, and it sold 11 million more copies. You don't need to spend $150 million to make a billion."

Unfortunately, Saber's business bets also include a big emphasis on AI, which came to a head when the publisher finally added an AI disclosure to Rideshare Stimulator amid CEO Matt Karch's public feud with a former writer who claims she was replaced by ChatGPT. Karch is further convinced that "Half-Life 2 of AI" will someday come along change everybody's minds about the tech. Me? I'll be happy if we just get more human hands making games like SnowRunner and Space Marine 2.

The Witcher 4 dev is "still predominantly using people" over AI in development, says CEO, but "everybody has to make those judgments on their own."

Take a deep breath, because Touhou Koumakyou: New Classic - the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil came to Steam on September 9, some 24 years after its original Japanese release. In the days since, it's amassed an impressive 2,958 user reviews sitting at 98% positive, making New Classic (as I'm calling it) one of the highest-rated Steam releases of the entire year. It's also available on PS5, Nintendo Switch, and Switch 2.

The original Embodiment of Scarlet Devil was actually the sixth game in the Touhou Project series by creator ZUN, but it was the first one made for Windows after a string of PC-98 releases. It put in a lot of work turning Touhou into an icon of underground doujin games, quickly becoming the series' best-seller and cementing it as a pillar of Japanese shoot-'em-ups and bullet hell.

New Classic is exactly what it sounds like: a more polished version of the original game. Alliance Arts has worked to preserve the original as much as possible – so much so that New Classic "can only be purchased as part of a bundle" on Steam.

"The price is the same, and the Classic version is included," the studio clarifies. Classic doesn't actually have English support on Steam, but it's still a fascinating, fairly navigable trip through time. The base bundle is $17.99 for both games, and the pricier $24.63 bundle also includes the New Classic soundtrack.

The Steam blurb for New Classic reads: "Dodge the barrage, defeat the enemies, and brave the Scarlet Mist Incident. The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil returns with fresh music and graphics. Control the shrine maiden Reimu and the magician Marisa, weaving between bullets that fill up the screen. The soundtrack has been fully remade by ZUN."

Touhou overall is a bit tougher to explain. The layman's evaluation isn't far off: a bunch of magical girls, or anime girls who'd pass as magical girls, fend off supernatural incidents in Gensokyo, sort of a mythological mirror to the real world.

For our purposes, the important thing to know is that Touhou has spawned a bunch of kickass games, several of which are also on Steam. I especially recommend Touhou Luna Nights, a 2D bullet hell Metroidvania from the immaculate Team Ladybug and in the same vein as Rabi-Ribi. I'm less familiar with it, but I believe Touhou Mystia's Izakaya, a cute restaurant sim, is the highest-rated Touhou game on modern platforms (and is only $6 at base on Steam).

Aggregate tools like Steam250 put New Classic among the top seven best-reviewed Steam releases for the past month, and (rapidly rising) in the top 50 for all of 2026. If your company is a modern classic like Valheim (a lovely Viking survival game fresh off its 1.0 update) and a surprise hit like How to Fish (a very normal game about fishing), you're doing pretty well.

Here are the biggest new games of 2026 and beyond.

Every day, another generative AI provider discovers that pretending something you stole was always yours to begin with is an idea that is fundamentally incompatible with many copyright laws. That's too bad for those generative AI providers, but, in this case, great news for Genshin Impact developer HoYoverse, which has just been awarded approximately $112,000 in a Shanghai court.

Automaton reports an unnamed "AI service provider" likewise located in Shanghai must now cough up 750,000 Chinese Yuan after wrongfully reproducing 63 Genshin Impact characters' voices. The provider was ruled to have sold AI voice packs with "nearly identical characteristics" to those gacha game characters, and it used modified images of those anime babes and boyfriends to promote its already copyright-flouting packs.

Therefore, the Pudong New Area People's Court of Shanghai decided the AI company was not only infringing on HoYoverse's in-game content, but also on its character designs. It's unjust competition, the court ordered, even though its voice packs seemed to have a much more intimate purpose than the average Genshin session – they appear to have presented slightly changed versions of Genshin characters as chatty virtual avatars.

In any case, HoYoverse has triumphed over delinquent generative AI this time around. However, its $112,000 reward is a much smaller payday than it was hoping for. The company behind Honkai: Star Rail and other anime wonders originally sued the AI company for 5 million Chinese Yuan, which totals to about $745,000, and it wanted an immediate injunction.

HoYoverse ended up with a smaller version of that punishment, but the People's Court of Shanghai also demanded the AI company immediately stop its infringing behaviors.

Recently, the AI company withdrew its appeal on this judgement, making its $112,000 payment inevitable. Hopefully Grok can explain to it what went wrong.

Why so many game developers don't want to use generative AI.