According to the developer’s Steam Community post, the demo will allow players to “experiment with a selection of weapons, upgrades, and abilities as you face demonic horrors hellbent on your destruction.” The hook of “Fight, die, revive, and try again to find your favorite lethal combinations” fits with the game’s rogue-like structure, and while the overall length is unknown, there is a boss fight against The Monument at the end.

Of course, those who want to potentially access the demo early can sign up through FirstLook. The playtest starts on February 20th at 10 AM PST, and invitees may also be brought on to try out the full game ahead of launch.

As for everyone else, the demo will be available until March 2nd. Compared to its past efforts, including the action RPG Godfall or competitive CCG Duelyst, Armatus is a more grounded third-person shooter. Players essentially run through the demon-infested streets of Paris, fighting for their lives while obtaining enhancements, unique celestial skills and weapons such as SMGs and shotguns.

Armatus will launch for Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2, PS5, and PC later this year. Stay tuned for more details on a concrete release date – and potentially another demo – in the coming months.

For those of you unfamiliar with it, Beast of Reincarnation puts you in the shoes of Emma, a Sealer who must find and destroy the Hush, a mysterious creature that has devastated Japan in 2046. Emma is quite the capable fighter, manipulating the fauna around her to attack, defend, grapple, and generally cause mayhem in her effort to fulfill her mission.

She’s accompanied by her dog Koo, who might just be our pick for the best supporting character of the year, given how helpful he is in a pinch. The combat system looks sublime, with enemies that unleash flurries of strikes that you can parry to gain the upper hand, while Koo can take a chunk out of particularly troublesome foes if things aren’t going your way.

This is an adventure we’re itching to begin when it drops on August 4, 2026, for the PS5, PC, and Xbox Series X|S.

Among these is the fact that Beast of Reincarnation will offer difficulty options. With the stated goal of being welcoming even to players unfamiliar with action games, Game Freak’s upcoming title will allow lower difficulty playthroughs. The skill tree will also allow its own ways to mitigate some of the trickier parts.

“We’re trying to make it so that even people who aren’t good at action games can enjoy it,” said Furushima (via machine translation). “You can also choose the difficulty level, so if you’re unsure, I think it’s best to lower the difficulty level. Personally, I’d be happy if people could enjoy the game by taking an approach that actually lowers the difficulty level, by devising the skill tree system and Koo’s support.”

This doesn’t mean that Beast of Reincarnation will be a piece of cake, however, and Furushima wants to encourage players to experiment with different fighting styles and combat abilities. Protagonist Emma and her wolf-like companion Koo will each have three different skill trees, offering choices that range from melee combat to more stealth options, and even long-range abilities.

“I think there will be times when you get defeated, and I want players to enjoy trial and error, trying different fighting styles next time, or changing Kuu’s skills,” he explained. “However, I don’t intend for players to never be able to clear the game on their first try, or to have to retry dozens or hundreds of times, so I hope that players will pick it up without being too scared.”

Previously, Furushima had also revealed that the team at Game Freak working on Beast of Reincarnation is a small one, with partner companies contributing to its development. Counting everyone working on the game, however, he noted that the team size is “quite large”.

“The team is quite large, as you can imagine, but I will note that it’s not all folks internally here at Game Freak,” he said. “We managed to seek out a lot of partner companies to work with us, companies, studios that can realize the vision of this game in the way that we wanted to make it, so we’re lucky to have a lot of people working on it externally as well.”

He also described how the concept of Beast of Reincarnation came to life thanks to an internal competition at Game Freak encouraging employees to come up with new IP.

“I wanted to try something completely different and new, unlike other stuff we’ve made. And it just so happened that internally, here at Game Freak, we have a program we call the Gear Project, which is sort of an internal contest run by our president, Satoshi Tajiri, to make original IP within the company. So, I entered my design doc into that contest, and I was able to get permission to start working on a project,” he revealed

Beast of Reincarnation is being developed for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, and is slated for release this Summer.

The central motif of Beast of Reincarnation will be plants. It’s on full display with the world having been ravaged by a parasitic species, known as the Blight, as well as Emma’s own connection to plants that seem to be more benevolent. The main enemies that Emma and Koo will face off against are creatures taken over by the aforementioned parasitic plants, which have also seemingly increased their aggression while receiving new and dangerous abilities. Alongside corrupted animals, players will also face mechanical enemies known as Golems, whose souls have been described as having deteriorated.

Owing to her connection with the Blight, Emma also has access to several special abilities for combat. Among the examples showcased was Emma summoning a spider lily above her that she can grapple onto and pull off a follow-up aerial attack.

The story of Beast of Reincarnation will take place in the year 4062 AD. While Emma was born with her connection to the Blight, her wolf companion Koo is a Blight-afflicted creature known as a Malefact. Coupled with the fact that Emma works as a Sealer responsible for hunting Malefacts down, this results in a unique relationship between the two.

Beast of Reincarnation is coming to PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S in Summer 2026. It will also be available on Game Pass from day one of its release.

The company is seemingly comprised of former Annapurna Interactive staff members, along with a few former employees of Private Division. Bloomberg’s Jason Schrier has also commented on the development, confirming that the new publisher is made up largely of former Annapurna Interactive employees.

Currently, along with Beast of Reincarnation, Fictions also lists LEGO Party among the titles it is publishing. Beast of Reincarnation was unveiled back in June with a trailer. The title, being developed by Pokemon developer Game freak, will revolve around themes of the creation of life, and how it comes into conflict with the march of technology. It is slated for release on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S in 2026.

Reports of ex-Annapurna Interactive staff members wanting to take over ownership of Private Division along with Take-Two Interactive wanting to sell it off first came about all the way back in January. At the time, Private Division was believed to have been bought by Texas-based equity firm Haveli Investments, who then hired ex-Annapurna staff members to run the publishing label.

Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick had referred to the sale of Private Division to Haveli Investment as a strategic decision that would allow the company to focus more resources on its upcoming projects. Zelnick also spoke about how the company’s main focus was better served with the AAA market rather than the indie scene.

“We made this strategic decision so that we could focus all of our resources on growing our core and mobile businesses for the long term,” said Zelnick in November. “We’re really best at these big AAA experiences. We have the biggest intellectual properties in the interactive entertainment business and some of the biggest intellectual properties in the overall entertainment business, and to make sequels to existing beloved franchises, as well as create new hit intellectual properties, is our mission.”

When it was active, Private Division had released quite a few games since its founding in 2017, with one of the more popular titles from its catalogue being Obsidian’s RPG The Outer Worlds. The publisher also helped with the release of other indie games, including OlliOlli World, and even Rollerdrome. It was also the publisher for Kerbal Space Program 2. However, the ambitious sequel to the space program simulator Kerbal Space Program has since been largely abandoned.