Indeed, you could become your own worst enemy, and a credible threat to your allies if the forces you’re up against manage to pervade your mind, and trusting even yourself becomes a costly mistake your squad might not recover from. That’s as horror-focused a premise as any, and we’re expecting this one to be a morbid kind of hoot when it drops on current-gen systems. Excellent enemy designs and an appropriately creepy vibe have us interested, but be sure to keep a light on when experiencing them.

For more details on what the island has to offer, check out this gameplay overview. We’re kind of dreading that release date a little more than we’d like to admit, but in terms of co-op shenanigans, The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu could fill a decent space ahead of this Fall’s biggest releases.

A Lovecraft-Inspired, Co-op PvE Extraction Shooter

Drawing inspiration from H.P. Lovecraft’s novella of the same name, The Mound plunges you deep into uncharted jungle with up to three fellow explorers in search of artefacts and riches. Except, there’s unknowable danger lurking beneath the canopy. While the extraction genre’s familiar nuts-and-bolts drive the action here – loadout stations, deploying to hostile lands, scavenging loot, and surviving long enough to hightail it outta there – The Mound leans into Lovecraftian cosmic horror to warp the very fabric of reality, testing the trust of your team.

Each Expedition is a Descent Into Madness

Replicating a key theme in Lovecraft’s novella, in The Mound the further you trek into the forest, the more susceptible you become to madness, paranoia, and hallucination. The game presents traps and distractions, making you question what you see and hear. From sensory illusions – footsteps unknown in the undergrowth, to shifting colours and distortion – to unpredictable threats like imaginary trinkets materialising over spike-filled pits, laying invisible to your gaze. Each player perceives reality differently too, so whilst you’re unaware of the doom in front of you, your teammates can step in.

Communication is Crucial

And this brings us neatly onto the next thing you need to know: in The Mound, communication with your teammates is crucial to survival. The game uses spatialised voice chat, where the volume and direction of your comrade’s voice adjusts depending on their proximity to you. This isn’t just for realism and immersion, but deep inside the jungle there will be times when the figure you’re seeing may-or-may-not be your ally. In these moments, detecting their location through sound might be the only lifeline you’ve got.

Gameplay Follows Established Extraction Formula

Once your expedition begins in earnest, the gameplay loop involves scavenging for riches, food, weapons, and other resources, including mysterious metal ephemera that signals the location of high-value loot with a clang. You’ll also encounter indigenous stragglers and marooned survivors, the latter you may be asked to rescue. Abandoned forts of failed expeditions yield valuable intel, while an overarching objective is to locate the titular Mound. Here, as Lovecraft’s novella explains, is the gateway to a subterranean underworld filled with striking architecture, and abhorrent monsters. Whether the game treads the same narrative path remains to be seen, but the sentiment is that the Mound is an epicentre for wealth and prosperity – hence, your captain and overseer demands you find it.

Your Captain Outfits Your Squad Before Each Run

Before embarking on a treasure hunt, however, you’ll spend time aboard the Tempestad, your home galleon which serves as a base of operations. Across its creaking decks, and amongst its dimly-lit enclaves, you can speak to the ship’s cook who’ll advise on the best foodstuffs to retrieve on-land, request a tune from the resident lute player, and pet the ship’s sleepy dog. As far as hubworlds go, the Tempestad is rife with noxious atmosphere, but it’s the Captain whom you’ll need to address before departing for the coast. He’ll offer a pre-run contract for you to sign, usually revolving around finding specific items or locations, and returning with a minimum loot value. In exchange for your services, he provides weapons, gear, and resources.

Inventory Space is Limited

From the outset at least, you’ll have just six slots in your inventory. That’s room for a flintlock pistol, a machete, some gunpowder, perhaps an item of food, and two spare for whatever you pick up on the mainland. There is, however, an ox cart which trails your expedition’s progress, and there is room in its trunk for collected items plus anything surplus on deck. But, here’s the thing: that pistol? The machete? The Captain doesn’t give you one each. Together with your team, you’ll need to strategise before setting off, deciding who takes the rifle and who gets the sailor’s knife.

Guns Don’t Work in the Rain

And, actually, it rains quite a lot in the jungle. So, if you’ve got a flintlock or matchlock firearm, be prepared for it to malfunction once the heavens open. Balancing firepower with blunt force teamwide is set to be the dominant strategy then, not least because ammo and gunpowder are scarce. What’s more, intense moisture and condensation makes oil lamps flicker nervously, making it harder to see structures through the dense mire. If it wasn’t clear by now, this jungle is not your friend.

Excess Noise Can Wake the Forest

Here’s the other problem with guns: they’re loud. Popping the head off some eldritch stalker might seem like the fastest way to clear the forest’s immediate threat, but it’s a surefire way to cause more trouble for yourself and your team. See, the jungle doesn’t want you there, but the intimation is that it lies dormant unless disturbed. If it’s awoken, a gauntlet of hostile enemies will converge on your location. And, it isn’t just firearms: the clink of sprinting armour, the splash of a river crossing, the echoing horn of a lost ox-cart, these are trade-offs you’ll need to assess moment-to-moment. Sometimes, sneaky, stealthy approaches are the most viable strategies.

The Jungle is a Character

If it wasn’t clear by now, The Mound’s jungle is as fleshed out of an assailant as any of its tentacled zombies. Heck, it’s arguably more characterful than the archetypes you choose to command back on the Tempestad – more on those four next. See, ACE Team has leaned heavily into art direction, atmosphere, and sound design: mist blankets, envelops, and evolves; the rot of mushroom-sprouting wood moans in the breeze; birdcall specific to the region of Chile you’re exploring pierces through the inky-black night. You could go as far to say that the jungle’s aesthetic design grows into mechanical resistance; it has a personality of its own.

Four Character Archetypes

Yep, there are four distinct archetypes which you can choose before entering the fray: Alonso de la Torre is a pacifistic, somewhat nihilistic former soldier who is unmoved by war or riches – he sees wealth, simply, as freedom. Leonor is a fugitive, having fled Spain after a remorseless murder. Don Rodrigo de Medina is a nobleman jaded by war like Alonso. He seeks honour in truth. How their stories pan out remains to be seen, but one thing you need to know is that these archetypes are cosmetic only. They don’t have unique skills or abilities.

Progression Earned is Shared

Completing the Captain’s contract objectives yields currency of your own, plus XP for levelling up, and story progression, and it’s this latter element that is confirmed to be shared across each player across the team. The jungle forces you to work together regardless, but advancing the story together too further incentivises teamwork.

Can Be Played Solo

The Mound can be played solo, with computer-controlled allies joining you on your expeditions. However, ACE Team has deliberately designed the game around co-op, thus venturing into the wilds on your own isn’t just inadvisable but grows increasingly unviable long-term. Contracts reflect the number of human players, though, so if you must set forth solo you’ll be rewarded accordingly.

Release Date, Platforms, and Price

The Mound is scheduled for release on July 15th, with PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam the confirmed platforms. Pricewise, you’re looking at $29.99 for the standard Digital Edition, and $39.99 for the Deluxe. For console players, there is currently a 10% pre-order discount running until launch date. If you’re on PC and fancy giving the game a go before committing to a purchase, there is a free demo available on the game’s Steam page.

Deluxe Edition Overview

Alongside the base game and the Lost Explorers’ Sword Pack, The Mound’s Deluxe Edition includes the Abyssal Gear Pack and Fortune Hunters Character Pack. That’s extra cosmetics, two-more characters, and a dangerous new area to explore for a tenner more.

PC Requirements

As detailed on the game’s Steam page, to run The Mound at a minimum your PC needs to be outfitted with an Intel Core i7-8700k or AMD Ryzen 5 1600x CPU. Graphics-wise, you’ll need a GTX 1660 SUPER 6GB, and AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT 6GB, or Intel Arc A7700 16GB. Recommended settings list an Intel Core i7-11700k or AMD Ryzen 5 5500 CPU, and an RTX 3070 8GB or AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT 12GB GPU. 16GB RAM is the baseline memory whatever your hardware. Also, as noted on the Steam page, this information is subject to change – it’ll be worth keeping your eye on the details in the lead up to launch.

There are those Lovecraftian horrors to deal with, for starters. They’re nasty and surprisingly nimble, given their deformities. They’re also quite intelligent, responding to any sounds you make with fear-inducing ferocity. This one leaves little room for error, we’d say.

However, those errors seem to be inevitable, as it isn’t just monsters that are stalking you. Cthulhu looms large in the background, messing with your senses as you venture deeper into the forest. Your friends are going to be of little comfort if they happen to die at your hand, which is a very strong possibility given that you can’t trust your own eyes once the jungle’s corrupting influence takes hold.

This one could be one hell of a party if you’re into horror titles that make your hair stand on end. But we’re going to make sure we play in a brightly lit room when The Mount: Omen of Cthulhu launches on July 15th for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC.

You’re tasked with exploring in search of treasure that you must collect and bring back to your galleon. If only it were that simple, though. The jungle houses many horrors, and you’re going to have to really try and keep your wits about you as you navigate and try to resist its reality-warping properties.

Cooperating with your teammates is definitely a good idea, but it might be easier said than done in a world where you’re going to have to fight for every advantage you can muster. You can bring firearms along, but you might want to think twice about using them lest you wake up more horrifying terrors with the noise. Caution and a rational approach are ways to survive, but can you sustain them well enough to ensure you come out alive?

You won’t have to wait too long to find out, as The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu launches on July 15th for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC. Stay tuned for even more details and gameplay, or rewatch the showcase with the lights on. We won’t tell anyone.

The teaser includes a host of games made by studios owned by Nacon, including The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu, Edge of Memories, Endurance Motorsport Series, and Hunter: The Reckoning – Deathwish. The showcase will bring with it a host of new trailers, and many titles will also likely get release dates.

A couple of month after the showcase, The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu will be coming out on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S on July 15th. Hunter: The Reckoning – Deathwish is slated for a Summer 2027 release, however, and is unlikely to get a solid release date just yet. The title was unveiled last month with a trailer.

In February, Nacon had announced that it was filing for insolvency, leading to the trading of its shares on the Euronext Paris markets being suspended. The company said in a press release that it needed a “rapid implementation of a financial restructuring,” and noted that it didn’t have enough available assets that could be used to pay its debts off in a timely manner.

Following the announcement, a report indicated that the company had put a pause on paying employees working at Cyanide Studios, Spiders, and Kylotonn. An estimated 320 employees had been seemingly affected by this decision.

This, in turn, had led to the French game industry union—Syndicat des Travailleureuses du Jeu Video—to call the company out for making decisions that would lead to its studios also needing to file for insolvency.

“Years of mismanagement and strategic nothingness, both at the group and company levels, have blocked studios from modernizing, organizing, and developing themselves,” said the union in a statement. “Today, even after completely emptying its studios’ coffers – dozens of millions of euros which should have ensured studio stability and safe jobs! – Nacon comes out with a deficit.”

“Makeshift solutions like canceling all recruitments and raises for more than a year, or snake oil solutions like ‘AI,’ which Nacon is gradually forcing on its studios without even knowing what for, will not save money and clean up the company accounts. The deterioration of working conditions in the last years, and the creation of new studios with the barely hidden goal of sabotaging existing ones, were already convoluted ways of reducing headcount, and they only made matters worse.”

Syndicat des Travailleureuses du Jeu Video went as far as to call for the removal of Nacon’s executive team from their leadership positions. The union has also demanded better working conditions, a policy put in place to prevent more talent drain across studios, and updated tools and processes to aid developers with their work.

Chief among the affected studios has been Spiders, which recently released its RPG GreedFall: The Dying World. In March, Nacon had announced that it was looking to sell Spiders and that the studio had been told that a bidding process for its acquisition had begun.

The trailer shows off many of the more horrifying features of The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu, like the elaborate hallucinations that players can suffer from. Among these are seeing an ally being completely covered by thousands of small tentacles, and the sudden appearance of strange creatures like a gigantic millipede. Regular enemies will also seemingly come in all shapes and sizes, from simple zombies and skeletons, to more fearsome foes like one that can seemingly make use of long tentacles to disable players.

Along with the release date, ACE Team has also revealed more details about the title, including its story setup and the motivations for players to explore the horrifying island. The players have a simple goal: gather as much wealth as they can get their hands on from the island. Along the way, they will also have to find a missing person and locate an ancient fort. However, from the moment players set foot on the shores of the island, a vague feeling of dread starts creeping in.

In gameplay terms, players will get to choose a contract to complete before setting off for the island. However, they will also need to ensure that the objectives are completed as soon as possible, since staying on the island for longer will also lead to more horrifying things showing up. Inventory space is also limited, and the combat system revolves more around defending oneself rather than being aggressive when enemies show up.

The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu also has a sanity system. Players facing too many horrifying things will start feeling their mind chip away. Effects of lowered sanity start out in simple ways, like hallucinations. However, these effects can escalate, with players seeing their allies as enemy monstrosities, or seeing solid ground that, in reality, is a deadly pit.

The title features a gameplay loop similar to extraction-styled games like ARC Raiders, with players needing to make their way back to their boat to successfully turn in all the treasure they found during their excursion. As you would expect, this also means that players will lose anything they were carrying if their return trip wasn’t successful.

The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu is based on H.P. Lovecraft’s novella The Mound, which revolves around a haunted mound that leads the protagonist into an entirely new, horrifying subterranean world filled with ancient inhabitants.

The game was first unveiled back in November 2025 during an Xbox Partner Showcase. It was revealed with a trailer giving us our first look at its gameplay and world. The title seemingly taps into the sense of dread that many of Lovecraft’s stories are famous for, with powerful hallucinations that can bend a player’s reality.

That includes gameplay for not one but two cosmic horror titles – Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss and The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu. There’s also Edge of Memories, a new action RPG from the team behind Edge of Eternity, and Endurance Motorsport Series from KT Racing, which is all about long, grueling races in a professional setting.

Of course, the publisher also says there are “game announcements,” so there may be even more to see beyond the current slate. We may see more details for GreedFall: The Dying World, which exits early access on March 12th for PC alongside Xbox Series X/S and PS5. While its base version didn’t exactly set our world on fire, the RPG has seen numerous updates and improvements.

Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss is the next big release, arriving on April 16th for the same platforms. Set in 2053, the story focuses on Noah, who ventures into the underwater city of R’lyeh to search for some missing miners. As you’d expect, he discovers something that will test the limits of his sanity.

The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu has players start out on their galleon where they must pick the right weapons and equipment to prepare for missions. They then set off into a cursed jungle where, the further you go inland, the stranger and creepier things get. Ultimately, players will get to see the entrance to a legendary underground world filled with unimaginable riches.

As its title implies, The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu is inspired by the works of horror author H.P. Lovecraft. Tapping into the classic horror stories, the title is able to instill a sense of dread and oppression on players thanks to supernatural forces that can even bend the player’s reality. As shown in the trailer, this could extend as far as to make you think that an allied player is actually a cursed demon.

The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu doesn’t yet have a release date aside from a 2026 window. It is being developed for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S, and will be an Xbox Play Anywhere title.

"The level editor is robust enough that the complete single-player campaign was developed with this tool."

Can you talk about how extensive the creation tools in Rock of Ages 3’s level editor are going to be?

The level editor is robust enough that the complete single-player campaign was developed with this tool, so it will support creation of many different game modes in a variety of themes. In the previous installments all the levels had been crafted through traditional means, so achieving this through a specially designed tool was quite an undertaking.

How much variety can players expect from the designs of the levels that will be found in the game’s arcade modes?

Because the game features more different game modes, this is surely the most varied Rock of Ages game yet. All the previous game types are returning and the flexibility of the level editor allowed us to produce and iterate levels much faster than in the previous titles, so the campaign is also pretty longer than the campaign in Rock of Ages 1 & 2. In the previous games all the game modes were played in the same level layouts that needed to be compatible with these modes. In this case we have made levels that are specifically tailored for each game mode, so we think this will keep things fresh.

The idea of altered objectives acting as modifiers sounds like an interesting one, and seems to have the potential to introduce variety in the moment-to-moment action. Can you talk about these a bit more and how exactly they will function during gameplay?

This was also true in the previous games, only that there was too little of it. For the most part when you were going through the story campaign in Rock of Ages 1 & 2 you were mostly playing ‘War’, which has been the game’s signature mode. In this game we wanted to make sure the player was constantly changing how to face challenges, so we balanced out the world so that there is a more even distribution of game modes you need to overcome. Every sub-period still culminates in a War match, but in between we’ve mixed things quite a bit.

"In this game we wanted to make sure the player was constantly changing how to face challenges, so we balanced out the world so that there is a more even distribution of game modes you need to overcome."

Have there been any pieces of feedback for Rock of Ages 2 that you’ve looked at in particular for the purposes of Rock of Ages 3’s development?

Yes, absolutely. There were things that never left the drawing board in Rock of Ages 2 and are finally here. The biggest thing was the level editor. We actually had considered making a much lighter level editor for Rock of Ages 2, but realized it was huge undertaking. This was one of the main reasons we decided to make Rock of Ages 3.

What are your plans for Rock of Ages 3’s post-launch support, by way of updates or new content?

We’ve always supported all our titles with new content and of course a lot of post-launch stuff. I don’t think it will be any different when we release this game. Just as an example in Rock of Ages 2 Skee-Boulder was added as a bonus after launch. We’re still not sure what we’ll be doing after Make & Break is out (we’re mostly focused now on finishing the game), but we do have a lot of cool ideas that could eventually make it in to the game.

With Rock of Ages also launching on Stadia, what are your thoughts on how the state of the service, in terms of how it’s proceeded since launch and what Google are promising for the future?

The Stadia version of the game is being developed by our partner studio Giant Monkey Robot, who also worked alongside ACE Team to make this game. We have not really been involved in the Stadia efforts so I could not share any significant information about this system at this moment.

Roughly how long will an average playthrough of Rock of Ages 3 be?

It really depends what you are expecting from the game. Many people get Rock of Ages for the story campaign, others for the online multiplayer, and this time around we hope we will have players that delve in to creating community levels. So, it is really hard to say how much hours you can squeeze from the game. If you are a creator, the sky is the limit. The campaign alone should take twice or three times the length of the campaign in Rock of Ages 2, because of amount of levels in this game.

"There were things that never left the drawing board in Rock of Ages 2 and are finally here. The biggest thing was the level editor."

Will the game will feature Xbox One X and PS4 Pro-specific enhancements? Is 4K/60 FPS on the cards?

Nothing specific for those systems, though we are looking to add RTX support on PC, but only after launch.

How is the game running on the original Xbox One and PS4, in terms of frame rate and resolution?

I would say it is pretty comparable to Rock of Ages 2. We are still working on optimizations so there is still room for improvements.

What are the docked and undocked resolution and frame rate of the Switch version?

It’s 720p on both setups. The game makes significant use of physics with a lot of particle simulations, split screen couch play and dozens of units on screen. In addition, we really cannot anticipate how complex the custom community levels can get, so we needed to make sure the game could perform with all these factors taken in to account.

With next gen approaching, have you given any thought to releasing Rock of Ages 3 for the PS5 and Xbox Series X as well?

I think that will mostly depend on what happens after the release. This game is already coming out on so many systems that just thinking of adding two more platforms is a little overwhelming right now. When we’ve had a moment to take a breather, I guess we could consider it.

Since the reveal of the PS5 and Xbox Series X’s specs, a lot of comparisons have been made between the GPU speeds of the two consoles’ GPUs, with the PS5 at 10.28 TFLOPS and the Xbox Series X at 12 TFLOPS- but how much of an impact on development do you think that difference will have?

It is hard to tell without having actually worked on those systems yet. Extra horsepower is always obviously welcome, but it is fairly easy to gobble up all the CPU/GPU on any system if you don’t design and implement your title with performance in mind. In my experience the amount of work you invest in optimizations and the competences of your team are much more important factors than raw power when it comes to achieving great results. You can look back at games that really looked as if they were not meant to exist on certain platforms, like when Resident Evil 4 debuted on the Nintendo Gamecube. The quality of that game had everything to do with how the devs at Capcom made smart decisions to maximize the limited resources.

"If you are a creator, the sky is the limit. The campaign alone should take twice or three times the length of the campaign in Rock of Ages 2, because of amount of levels in this game."

The PS5 features an incredibly fast SSD with 5.5GB/s read bandwidth. This is faster than anything that is available out there. How can developers can take advantage of this and what will it result in, and how does this compare to Series X’s 2.4GB/s read bandwidth?

I couldn’t say how the hardware will compare without having worked on those systems, but getting rid of virtually all loading times can be a very important tool when developing a title, so it is surely something that we will need to take in to account when designing our next games.

Sega’s newest upcoming title has been announced and it’s rather unconventional. Developed by Ace Team (Rock of Ages, Zeno Clash), SolSeraph is a platformer/strategy mix. It’s out on July 10^th for Xbox One, PS4 and PC, and seems to take cues from Quintet’s ActRaiser series. Check out the trailer below.

SolSeraph focuses on Helios, a Knight of the Dawn and angel who’s descended to help humanity. One part of the game is all about platforming and fighting enemies. The other focuses on building settlements and defenses for humans while fending off monsters. It’s an interesting combination and could be a decent successor to ActRaiser‘s gameplay.

Considering the bizarre nature of Rock of Ages and even Zeno Clash, Ace Team might be the best developer for the job. It also doesn’t hurt to have The Talos Principle writer Jonas Kyrazes on the narrative and ActRaiser composer Yuzo Koshiro to create the opening theme. Stay tuned for more details on SolSeraph in the coming weeks.