“It’s February 2012. A former factory in Warsaw. Red brick, wooden folding chairs, the smell of an old building that has been a hundred things before. Around 80 of us, the team that just shipped The Witcher 2,” he wrote.

“The lights dim. Game director and executive producer speak briefly about new game we are going to make. Few sentences change the air in the room. The next game will be an open world. At the end, they show one image on the screen – it’s Geralt, but older, with a beard.”

Throughout the post, Sasko wrote about the many challenges he faced when designing some of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt‘s most iconic quests, like Family Matters, which involved the Bloody Baron. It took him quite a few attempts to nail the finer details of the story, including the Slavic folktale-inspired Botchling. However, he faced bigger pushback when he proposed that (spoilers if you haven’t completed the base game, turn back now before it’s too late)…

…That Vesemir, who served as as father figure to Geralt, should die.

“Then comes Battle of Kaer Morhen,” he wrote. “The story outline is just two paragraphs. In a meeting, I propose that Vesemir dies. First reaction is wide eyes and silence. The weight of it is exactly what the act needs. Ciri’s outburst, the moment she throws the Wild Hunt back, requires that the floor fall out from under her first. I prototype meteors, rifts opening in the forest, Wild Hunt pouring out of them, the ride back to the keep on horseback. So much of it does not work. Technical issues. The quest flow is unclear. Review feedback I get is negative, so I rebuild. Pieces start to hold. I begin to see why something works and why the thing next to it does not. Through repetition I truly start understanding the craft.”

Sasko also wrote about how it took the team nine months to write out the main storyline of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, with all the other development teams eagerly waiting for the writing to be finished so that they could start building the rest of the game.

“For the first nine months all of us write the main story quests, because every other department is eagerly waiting,” Sasko wrote. “Level has not even grass yet. RED Engine 3 is still finding its shape. But we keep moving. I write much more than then we need for the game, because we pick only the best. Priscilla’s concert in Novigrad is next. Then the The Last Wish. Some of it is designed last minute.”

He caps off the post by celebrating the fact that it has been 11 years since The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was originally released on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. The fact that he once more brings up the Bloody Baron quest line indicates that he is quite proud of the story.

“Today it has been 11 years. Over 60 million copies. A Polish village monster from a threshold burial lives now in the imagination of players on six continents. A Bloody Baron most of those players chose to forgive. A female bard’s concert in a tavern that players adapt and recreate,” he wrote.

In the meantime, CD Projekt RED is hard at work on a number of projects, including The Witcher 4 and a sequel to Cyberpunk 2077.

PS4 owners who want to pick up a copy of Darksiders Warmastered Edition will be able to continue to do so at its $19.99 price tag. PS5 players who don’t already own the game can grab it for $29.99. Unfortunately, while the upgrade from the Xbox One to the Xbox Series X/S version of the title is free, the price of the Xbox One version as a whole is going up to $29.99.

The trailer focuses on a conversation that the protagonist, War, is having with one of the many demons he faces throughout the game, asking him a simple question: “Would you serve in heaven? Or rule in hell?” War responds to this by saying, “I choose what once the cowards did not.” The conversation is broken up by a medley of the action-packed gameplay of Darksiders Warmastered Edition, including many of its boss fights across its various dungeons.

The upgrades brought along in Darksiders Warmastered Edition include stable 60 FPS gameplay, native 4K rendering, as well as support for a Photo Mode to make use of the visuals.

Darksiders was originally released in 2010 on PC, PS3, and Xbox 360. The Warmastered Edition served as a major remaster of the title in 2016, coming to PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Wii U. It is worth noting that the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S upgrades for the title don’t really bring in any additional content over the original release.

The story of the original Darksiders revolves around the trials and tribulations of one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse – War – who survives a legendary war between heaven and hell. Accused of having prematurely started the war with his sheer arrival, War has to set off on a quest to prove his innocence in the eyes of the Charred Council, and in the process, hunt down those actually responsible for breaking the Seven Seals.

In the aftermath of this major war between heaven and hell, Earth has been left as a ruined apocalypse, with most of humanity having died off long ago. Instead, various places across the planet are now the domains of angels and demons that War must confront to get to the bottom of the mysteries.

In gameplay terms, Darksiders took quite a few cues from the classic God of War games, as well as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Along with engaging in brutal combat, players also have to solve environmental puzzles by making use of new equipment that they can find throughout the world.

In the meantime, Gunfire Games has officially confirmed that it is working on Darksiders 4 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.

Average PC players per day in the past year reached 461,000 (with almost half on tModLoader), peaking at 1.4 million. Your average fan has put in 101 hours and 18 minutes on the platform, but mod enjoyers are just as enthusiastic, with 89 hours and 52 minutes on average.

While update 1.4.6 is on the way, Re-Logic seems well and truly done with proclaiming its next update as the last, with even more support to come. “How that will work and what those entail will be shared as we go along. You will want to stay tuned for that!” it said on Steam.

“Beyond that, we have other plans and ideas that we will share when the time is right, but suffice to say that the world of Terraria remains and will remain vibrant and alive for as long as we have anything to say about it! Here’s to 15 more years… and beyond!”

If you’re thinking about diving back in, or perhaps trying it out for the first time, you’ll be pleased to know that a physical 15th Anniversary Collector’s Edition is on the way, with pre-orders likely to open up in June and a release date next year. The included items remain to be properly revealed, but a model of the player’s heart and a figure of what could be the infamous Moon Lord are seemingly included.

A new trailer (showcased below) has just dropped, announcing the addition of two new DLC characters who you’re definitely going to want to add to your collection. First off is Cyclops, the X-Men’s fearless leader, who makes use of his optic blasts to control the space around him quite efficiently. He comes highly recommended as a viable option against enemies who like to attack from above.

Joining Cyclops is The Thing, the former pilot and current tank for the Fantastic Four. His imposing size belies his agility, and he’s quite dangerous up close with grappling moves that can devastate opponents if you play your cards right. A versatile pairing, you can see how well he works with She-Hulk in the trailer. We’re already thinking about all the synergies we could dig up with characters from the base game.

Cyclops and The Thing are part of a new $3.99 DLC bundle that’s available now. Tribute Games also announced that it would add two more playable characters this year, alongside a brand new game mode. Stay tuned for more details on when they’ll drop.

We can’t say we’re surprised, though, as this one didn’t leave enough of a mark on us when we reviewed it nearly three years ago. It did come with a charming vibe and a visually striking world with great driving mechanics, but its AI was too choppy to make it feel like a legit racer, although the Story Mode didn’t do it any favors either.

Nevertheless, it has had its takers over the years, and we’re sure that some of you are going to rush to grab a copy before it’s lost to the annals of gaming history. Of course, multiplayer support will continue until May 31st, 2027, before the servers go offline. You’re still going to have access to all offline content once that window expires, and you will continue to be able to download and play the game as long as you own a copy, so there’s that.

It’s always sad to see a good game let down by its systems not coming together well enough, and we wish this one did better.

It translates the two previously released stories of Quill, a heroic mouse who ventures through a land in which nature is slowly but surely reclaiming ground lost to an ancient kingdom. Of course, that premise translates well into gameplay challenges as Quill explores a crumbling castle home to some unique threats.

It helps that he can only communicate with the player via sign language, which remains a very intriguing twist. While the original game and its 2022 sequel were VR experiences, The Forgotten Relic is a reimagining of those titles, bringing the entire story into a single experience.

Expect improved cutscenes and a handcrafted world that draws you in with its charm and offers loads of secrets, lore, hidden areas, and so much more to uncover, especially if you like to stray off the main path more often than you care to admit. The announcement trailer is below and should give you a solid idea of what to expect when Moss: The Forgotten Relic launches this Summer.

In what’s shaping up to be a fine addition to an extensive list of PC mods available for the title, a tweet from modder Afevis Solmunko, whom you might know as the one behind MGSHDFix, a popular presence in the modding community, has unlocked a feature that might change the way you play Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.

It unlocks a true third-person camera for a previously unprecedented amount of freedom in how you approach levels, and could be quite useful. The best part is that it’s been right there in the game’s files, and Solmunko stumbled upon it by accident.

Far be it from Kojima to keep something like this hidden for decades, it’s seemingly a holdover from Bluepoint Games’ Metal Gear Solid HD Collection. Though the studio ultimately didn’t add true third-person to Metal Gear Solid 2, the code remained. Solmunko even notes, “Everything related to it is labeled BP/Bluepoint.”

Well, we’re going to dive in for a fresh playthrough. It should certainly help while we wait for the second volume of the collection to drop in August this year.

https://x.com/Afevis/status/2054392640154836994

https://x.com/Afevis/status/2054402109240688684

Software sales also reached 10.78 million, with games like Pokémon Pokopia selling over four million copies. Despite all this, Nintendo believes that Switch 2 sales will decline in fiscal year 2027, with net sales and ordinary profit dropping by 11.4 percent and 20.7 percent.

“For Nintendo Switch 2, sales were more concentrated in the launch year in comparison to previous hardware systems. Reflecting strong launch-year sales and price revisions, we expect FY27 sales units to decline year-on-year. Even so, we believe this represents a solid level of adoption for Nintendo Switch 2 in its second year after launch.”

The Nintendo Switch hit 155.92 million lifetime units with 550,000 units sold in the quarter. Software sales remained strong at 27.98 million units sold during those three months.

As for the Switch 2 price increases, the Japanese-Language System will go from ¥49,980 to ¥59,980 on May 25th. The United States, Canada and Europe will have a larger window, with the console costing $499.99/$679.99 CAD/€499.99 from September 1st onwards. It’s not the biggest consolation, but at least it’s more time than Xbox and PlayStation have offered with their respective price increases. Stay tuned for more updates in the meantime.

From September 1st, the Switch 2 will cost $499.99/$679.99 CAD/€499.99 in the United States, Canada and Europe, up from $449.99/$629.99 CAD/€469.99. In Japan, the Switch 2 Japanese-Language System will go from ¥49,980 to ¥59,980 on May 25th, while the Multi-Language Model is unchanged.

The Switch (OLED Model) will cost ¥47,980 (up from ¥37,980), while the regular Switch will retail for ¥43,980 (from ¥32,978), and the Switch Lite will be ¥29,980 (from ¥21,978). Finally, Nintendo Switch Online Individual Membership will cost ¥400 monthly, ¥1000 for three months and ¥3000 for a year from July 1st – it currently retails for ¥306/¥815/¥2,400. The Family Membership plan will go from ¥4500 to ¥5800.

As for Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack, it will cost ¥5,900 (up from ¥4,900) for Individuals and ¥9,900 (from ¥8,900) for Families.

Whether this will help relieve reported pressure from investors at the company remains to be seen. At the very least, customers across Japan, the US, Europe and Canada have received a significant heads-up before the price bumps go live. The real question is whether these will be the last.

For the developers behind the beloved Shovel Knight, it’s been a long time coming. While meant to launch on October 31st, it was delayed to an unknown date for polish. Yacht Club assured at the time that this wasn’t a “major” delay, but your mileage may vary on that in retrospect.

Of course, the extra time is understandable since the studio needs this to be a success. An interview with Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier revealed that it laid off staff and even paused development on a 3D Shovel Knight title to ensure Mina the Hollower gets the time it needs.

Whether it becomes a megahit or not remains to be seen. However, there’s no denying that the project has grown beyond the initial 2022 Kickstarter into something truly massive with an overworld and other RPG elements. The true scale of the adventure remains to be unraveled, but odds are it could end up even bigger than Shovel Knight. Stay tuned for updates in the meantime.