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.

Atlus and ACE Team will be launching Rock of Ages 2: Bigger & Boulder in Fall this year. The new game promises to be a significant improvement on the first one, and it will have an emphasis on chaotic new 2-vs-2 multiplayer, new time periods, and improved graphics, physics, and destructibility powered by Unreal Engine 4.

Like the original game, the new game will have levels which will have their looks based on periods in art history- but the improvements will be more than skin deep, as it will also have destructible environments, new defensive units, new kinds of boulders, upgraded physics systems, and, the showcase of the entire package, a brand new ‘chaotic’ new 2v2 multiplayer mode. Essentially, anybody who liked the first game should positively love this new one.

As of right now, Rock of Ages 2: Bigger & Boulder is only listed for PC- really, the only reason we know this game exists is because of the Steam page for it. But maybe other platforms will be announced when the game gets a formal announcement as well.

You may not be overly familiar with ACE Team but the Chilean developer helped bring out the bizarrely unique first person brawler Xeno Clash. It’s back again with its newest release Abyss Odyssey, which is available for the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3. Check out the launch trailer above.

Abyss Odyssey is essentially a side-scrolling, hack and slash platformer with several different characters to choose from. The game really starts to take off though when you can possess the abilities of your enemies. This lends even more strategy to the gameplay as you try to figure out which monster’s skills work the best with your character. The combat system is also fairly interesting as it takes cues from fighting games in terms of combos and special attacks.

Abyss Odyssey also features randomly generated levels that are never the same twice. Given the relative dearth of big name releases, Abyss Odyssey may be worth a look.

Chilean developer Ace Team, who are known for their Zeno Clash franchise, have announced that they are working on a new franchise called Abyss Odyssey.

The developers haven’t released much information on the game yet. We know that it is an action adventure title that will borrow from the Roguelike game genre. The developer also says the game is inspired by “the things that excite us, the culture that surrounds us and all the stuff we deeply care about.” Ace Team will release regular updates on the game and release information steadily on its official website and its Facebook page.

Ace Team has promised that it will be releasing gameplay footage for Abyss Odyssey very soon, so we have that to look forward to to judge just what the game will be about exactly. They have, however, released a couple of screens. They’re given bellow, take a look.

Stay tuned for more updates.

As the sequel to the original Zeno Clash, there’s still plenty of punching and pure fist pushing and other analogies for hitting some one in the head with balled flesh and bone. As such, the critical response is a little average on just how good it does it.

Zeno Clash 2 is now available for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and also features a multiplayer mode by which one can punch their friends (in the virtual world of course). Head over to Steam to pick up the game today for just $19.99 and indulge in the ultra-violence.

Zeno Clash 2 is set to include 40+ original tracks. These will be available separately as an OST for the Special Edition of the game that will arrive on PC via Steam. The game is already available for pre-order on Steam, so interested gamers can head over there and book a copy of the Special Edition to ensure they receive the soundtrack.

Releasing on April 30th, Zeno Clash 2 will also be available on Xbox 360 and PS3 via Xbox Live Arcade and PSN respectively at some point, with dates to be decided. The game’s odd story sees the protagonist struggling to retrieve his/her (“its”?) father-mother figure by beating the tar out of monsters and making said beatings hurt. Sounds legit.