"We want players to explore the world in a freeform way, and Free Ride turns it into an expansive hub where you'll find and access various Challenges by travelling around, unlocking Hitching Posts, and meeting contacts. Challenges are instanced and accessed via these contacts, and doing so will place you into a combat location or special world state," the game's associate design director Josh Zammit said.
Doom: The Dark Ages, which just launched this summer, is down to $50.39 (was $70) as part of Amazon's Black Friday 2025 deals--which is one of the better price drops we've seen this year. The brutal shooter earned high marks from critics, and if you haven't yet checked out the latest entry in the storied franchise, it's an easy recommendation at this new price.
If Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 flew under your radar in 2025, or you just haven't gotten around to playing it yet, now is the perfect time to jump into the sprawling medieval RPG thanks to an early Black Friday deal at Amazon that drops the Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 standard edition to just $40 (was $60) and the Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 Gold Edition to $70 (was $90).
The lore-YouTuber-to-book-publisher pipeline is alive and well. Borderlands 4 has another busted exploit, and fired Rockstar devs aren't going quietly. Welcome to the latest edition of Morning Checkpoint, Kotaku's daily roundup of gaming news and culture. According to a handful of Polymarket weirdos, Half-Life 3 has a 56 percent chance of being announced before 2027 but only a 7 percent chance of arriving before the end of 2025. Fans are getting ready either way.
Linux has been a perfectly viable desktop OS for ages. But gaming on Linux is now viable, too. Valve's hard work getting Windows games to run well on the Linux-based Steam Deck has lifted all boats. Gaming handhelds that ship with Windows run better and have higher frame rates on Bazzite, a Fedora-based distro, than they do with Windows. And after reading about the upcoming Steam Machine and Antonio's experience running Bazzite on the Framework Desktop, I want to try it.
In August, reports emerged that Microsoft had paused development on Contraband, a co-op smuggler game from Just Cause developer Avalanche. At the time, some sources noted that Microsoft put a "hold" on production rather than a full cancellation. But now, Contraband's fate appears to be sealed as mass layoffs at Avalanche have resulted in the closure of its Liverpool studio.
At first glance, it appears to be a fairly traditional NG+, allowing you to start the game over once you've completed it, but this time with all the equipment and skills you picked up on the way. That comes with new difficulty levels that'll let you boost the challenge to accompany your greater abilities (although c'mon, you know it's fun to wait a bit before turning those on and just enjoy being ludicrously over-powered for a little while first),
Bethesda Softworks is an influential American video game publisher best known for shaping modern role-playing and open-world gaming. Founded in 1986, the company rose to prominence through iconic franchises like The Elder Scrolls and Fallout, celebrated for their expansive worlds, deep storytelling, and player freedom. Now part of ZeniMax Media, which was acquired by Microsoft's Xbox Game Studios in 2021, Bethesda continues to play a major role in the industry through both its publishing arm and its internal development studio,
Veteran RPG developer and Fallout co-creator Tim Cain argues that modern games have forgotten some lessons of history--a point he made in a recent YouTube video--you can watch the full video below--responding to a viewer's question about whether older titles contain any supposed lost wisdom. Cain's answer--"Yes, there is. Good question." Looking back at his own early years in the industry, he describes an era with only programmers and some artists, but no narrative designers, and far fewer competing priorities.
Earlier this week, the official nominations for The Game Awards 2025 were unveiled. The biggest category is always Game of the Year, with six games up for the coveted award. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has to be the frontrunner at this point since the RPG has 12 nominations in total. That makes it the most-nominated game ever at The Game Awards.
Once again, Activision has reimagined one of Call of Duty's most iconic maps, Nuketown, and it's launching on November 20 for Black Ops 7. Now, Activision has released a new trailer dedicated to the map, which shows off its new look. The new version is called Nuketown 2025, and as you can see in the trailer, the map appears to be based on the same Nuketown 2025 from Black Ops 2. This makes sense as Black Ops 7 is a sequel to Black Ops 2.
"The decision to offer a premium content update for F1® 25 is part of a strategic reset for the F1® Franchise," says a new update on the EA website. "In 2027, a new game will be released that looks, feels, and plays differently, delivering more gameplay choices." This will mark the first time Codemasters has not released a new F1 game each year since 2009, when it first started producing F1 games.
The Tales Series Remastered Project isn't wasting any time getting to its next game, even with Tales of Xillia Remastered releasing just a few weeks ago. And while it's a choice that makes sense, it might be disappointing to fans hoping that Bandai Namco would dig further into the history of its long-running RPG franchise. Tales of Berseria Remastered will arrive in February 2026, making it the third PlayStation 3 remaster in a row.
DLC is just a few weeks away, and it's bringing a handful of new Mega Evolutions, a roguelike mode, and additional story to the RPG. Today, Game Freak announced that Zeraora, one of the rare mythical Pokémon from Generation VI, is getting its own Mega Evolution in the DLC with a new trailer, and it sure does sound like the Pokémon Legends: Z-A 's Mega Dimension datamined list of new Megas is legitimate.
And while Gambit is undeniably one of the most stylish Marvel characters, it also turns out that he's one of the most dynamic to play as. His inclusion has made me finally accept a truth about Rivals - healers are, by far, the most well-designed characters in the game. I'd even argue that they're the most fun to play, and as someone who usually avoids healing like the plague, that's a tremendous surprise.
The Finals will close on PS4 when Season 10 starts on March 18, 2026. This is being done so Embark can focus on current-generation hardware, the studio said, and anyone who wants to keep playing on PS4 will have to migrate to a different, newer console platform, or PC. All progress and purchases are connected to Embark ID accounts and will thus transfer to whatever platform people may migrate to.
You can pick up either the PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X versions for $40, saving you $20 off the original price of $60. This version includes the base game, all the post-launch story DLC expansions, and a selection of bonus digital content. Alan Wake 2 was the sequel over 10 years in the making. When it finally released in 2023, it was one of the year's best games, earning a coveted 10 out of 10 from GameSpot's Mark Delaney in his review.
Holiday gift giving is all about bringing joy to the people we love, and truly, what better way than with a brand-new toy or game to get excited about? If you're looking for the best toys and games to gift this December, we've got you covered. Prepare for yells of laughter and screams of delight when they unwrap these sticky
Nowadays you'd be forgiven for thinking that the Nintendo Entertainment System was the only console available in the mid-to-late 1980s. If you were brought up in Nintendo's target markets of Japan and North America, this chunky contraption essentially was the only game in town the company had Mario after all, and its vice-like hold on third-party developers created a monopoly for major titles of the era.
As Kotaku reports, the three cofounders of the video game developer Unknown Worlds, which is behind the popular "Subnautica" franchise, sued the game's publisher, Krafton, after being abruptly fired in July. It was a dramatic ousting that shook the gaming industry, raising questions over the franchise's hotly anticipated sequel, whose release date was pushed back to 2026 at the time. (The game is currently the most wishlisted upcoming game on digital distribution service Steam's charts.)
It's been a year of massively anticipated indie sequels, from Citizen Sleeper 2 in January to Hades II and Hollow Knight: Silksong in September. Sneaking in before the end of the year, Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault is only entering Steam Early Access, but so far, it's building on the original Moonlighter in ways that have me captivated far more than I expected.
Few RPG scenarios are as alluring--or enduring--as the classic dungeon crawl. Ever since video games could emulate the pen-and-paper experience, there's been an endless gauntlet of shadowy mazes filled with loot and danger for gamers to explore. With big dungeon-focused releases like Diablo IV, Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection, and Remnant 2 launching over the last few months, this feels like the perfect time to assemble a list of our favorite dungeon crawlers.
