“Receiving the green light from Project Cloud Games to launch The Relic on Nintendo Switch 2 is an ambitious, technical milestone for the title, and we’re excited to be able to finally share the news…We wanted to get the game into the hands of Switch 2 players, as we know the Nintendo Switch 2 community has a deep passion for challenging RPGs. We’re looking forward to revealing more in the future.”

If you didn’t hear of this one before, it’s a Soulslike that blends a fast, aggressive combat loop with a massive world for your character to explore in what’s shaping up to be a viable hybrid of two of the best available. You’re going to explore Arsiltus, a land that’s been devastated by the destruction of its sacred relics, which call to your character from the ruins of a glorious past long gone.

Each Relic brings a host of benefits to your gameplay and combat, and you’re given full control over the kind of Guardian you want to become in your mission to save the world (perhaps also restoring it to its former glory). You’ll need every advantage you can get in a combat system that ditches a stamina bar for a fast-paced, stylish approach that relies on parries and a lot of aggression to get by.

While there’s no official release date for the game’s Switch 2 version, The Relic: The First Guardian drops on May 26 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S. You can check out its trailer below and find out more on its Steam page.

The folktale is “a tale of a woman who could never forget the sky”. Traces of her life can still be found in the home of the woodcutter, found deep in the forest. Among these are bloody shackles and a cage, among other things. “The day she could no longer look to the sky, she lost herself,” explains the narrator, before the trailer shows off a seeming boss fight against a twisted version of the woman. “It was neither a curse nor a punishment,” the narrator continues. “It was the story of someone who lost the sky.”

The spectre of this woman that players will get to fight in The Relic: First Guardian is quite twisted, complete with unnatural speed and stilted attack animations that indicate that she is some kind of undead enemy. Her visual design also indicates that she was tortured at some point by the woodcutter.

Project Cloud Games had showcased quite a bit of gameplay through a pair of trailers released in September 2025. While the first of these trailers offered a quick look at combat, the second dives deeper into one of the earlier environments from the game.

Going by the longer showcase, The Relic: First Guardian will seemingly take a few cues from the Soulslike genre, with an emphasis on long attack animations that will need players to commit to them, punishing mistimed moves. We also get a look at a faster moveset thanks to a pair of short blades capable of quick combos.

While the video starts in a burning village, things start escalating thanks to a boss fight: Branko, the Bloodstained Shield. Continuing further, the level also seems to offer a fair bit of variety, with the protagonist needing to head underground to rescue survivors from leftover invaders.

The Relic: First Guardian was announced back in 2021, and since then, Project Cloud Games has been maintaining a slow trickle of reveals leading up to its upcoming launch. It will take place in the land of Arsiltus, and much of the story is inspired by Korean folktales. The main aim is to save Arsiltus after the void fractures it, which requires assembling the eponymous great relic, shattered under mysterious circumstances.

The action RPG will feature 70 different bosses, known in-game as Brutals. To take them on, players will have access to a variety of weapons, along with a posture and parry system inspired by titles like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.

The Relic: First Guardian is being developed for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, and is slated for launch on May 26. The release date was announced in December with a trailer.

First announced in July 2021, the action RPG takes inspiration from Korean folktales and legends. Set in the land of Arsiltus, you’re essentially the last hope for the continent after the void fractures it. Doing this requires assembling pieces of the great relic, which was mysteriously shattered.

However, as always, it’s easier said than done as players confront 70 different bosses known as Brutals. The usual Souls-like combat loop follows with dodging and stamina management, though the latest gameplay also showcases Sekiro-like deflection. Each Brutal slain adds to your power and arsenal as the story progresses.

Of course, there are plenty of other weapons and armor to discover by roaming the land, provided you’re brave enough. Check out some more gameplay for The Relic: First Guardian here, and stay tuned for more details ahead of release.

The combat gameplay trailer gives us a look at some of the epic fights that players will get to experience in The Relic: First Guardian, while also showcasing how the action RPG will focus on heavy attacks with long animations that players and enemies alike will have to commit to. It features the protagonist using different kinds of weapons, shows us how these attacks can be anticipated and how their damage can be avoided with various defensive options, like blocking, parrying, and even dodging.

The newest gameplay showcase video gives us a much more in-depth look at the overall gameplay. The protagonist makes use of a pair of short blades capable of quick combos with multiple hits, and the combat showcases this moveset to its full extent against slower enemies. Things are kicked off with the protagonist fighting off enemy forces in a burning village before eventually coming face-to-face with a boss fight – Branko, the Bloodstained Shield. The gameplay showcase caps things off by having the protagonist go underground in order to find some survivors and rescue them from leftover invaders.

Development on The Relic: First Guardian has been going slow but steady, with the title having first been announced all the way back in 2021. Earlier this year, it got another trailer that gave us a look at some of the different weapon types, as well as a general idea of how its level-less progression system will work, which places a greater emphasis on crafting and gear.

The story of The Relic: First Guardian revolves around a realm of Arsiltus having been ravaged by a massive catastrophe in the form of a void emerging out of nowhere and warping the world around it. The player takes on the role of the eponymous First Guardian as they travel the lands to find pieces of the great relic in order to undo the devastation and chaos brought about by the encroachment of the void.

The title has seen a number of gameplay trailers having been released since its announcements, with one having come out during 2024’s Future Games Show Summer Showcase. The trailer released at the time introduced some of the enemy types from The Relic: First Guardian, including a few that could even be considered mini-bosses. The weapon types showcased in the trailer ranged from the simple sword and shield, to slower-but-heavier 2-handed weapons.

The Relic: First Guardian is slated for release in early 2026, and is coming to PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

Developed by Project Cloud Games and published by Perp Games, The Relic: First Guardian involves the realm of Arsiltus, or rather, what’s left of it. Thanks to the emergence of a void, it’s been warped horribly. Your job is to find the pieces of the great relic whose shattering caused this calamity and set things right, traversing a semi-open world.

There are five weapon types, each possessing different skills. While the combat resembles other 3D Souls-likes, there is no leveling, with the player relying on crafting, items, and runes to become stronger. Dungeons and bosses also await, and while they can help “grow your character to the greatest potential,” the exact details are fuzzy.

Announced in 2021, The Relic: First Guardian launches in 2025 for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC. Stay tuned for a release date in the coming months.

The trailer, clocking in at a minute, gives us a look at some of the different types of enemies that players will face off against, including a few enemies that could seemingly be mini-bosses. The trailer also showcases a host of different weapon types, ranging from the simple sword and shield, to the slower but heavier two-handed weapons, and even the use of punches and kicks for a flurry of fast attacks.

The trailer for The Relic: First Guardian also gives us a look at some of the different biomes that players will be able to explore and fight across, from gloomy forests, to ruins of villages, and even what looks to be a dungeon deep within a castle.

The Relic: First Guardian doesn’t have a solid release date yet, but it will be coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S at some point in 2025.

Withering Rooms makes use of a Victorian-era mansion known as the Mostyn House as its primary setting, with its levels and environments being procedurally generated. The mansion’s layout changes each night that the player spends time there.

As players explore the Mostyn House, they will be able to find weapons, items that can be used for distractions, magical artifacts, keys, and crafting materials. These items will have to be used against a large cast of monsters and bosses in the game that range from regular undead to invisible ghosts and axe-wielding madmen.

Alongside its release on PC and consoles, Withering Rooms has also been developed with the Steam Deck in mind. According to the developer, the game can be played on the Steam Deck from start to finish and meets all of Valve’s compatibility guidelines for the Steam Deck.

For more details about Withering Rooms, check out our interview with the solo developer behind the game, Troy West.

Greyhill Incident puts you in the shoes and tinfoil hat of a local named Ryan in the rural town of Greyhill. Immediately, strange occurrences begin happening around your home late one night. Upon investigation, you meet Bob, the town’s very own alien conspiracy expert and the two of you witness a flying saucer descend into a cornfield and several slender alien figures disembark. Before long, the aliens begin abducting people and causing havoc around town. It’s up to Ryan to sneak around the streets, bushes, and cornfields of Greyhill to find and save his friends.

"The most maddening element of the game is its focus on stealth, mostly because the stealth mechanics at play are frustrating beyond belief."

In theory, that sounds like a thrilling and horrific adventure. But you’d be horribly mistaken, at least as far as Greyhill Incident is concerned. While the game is being released on multiple platforms, this review is focused on the “Abducted Edition” PS5 version of the game. Let’s start with the gameplay. Like other walking simulator-style horror adventures, you move around the world from the first-person perspective. You collect a wind-up flashlight that is mostly no good to you as it near-instantly alerts aliens to your presence, and you find a policeman’s revolver as a method of self-defense. Only finding ammo for it is like pulling teeth. Bullets are few and far between and they’re hard to spot. You’ll never find a full box of ammunition. You’ll be lucky if you find two tiny rounds lying on a table in a house. They don’t glow or do anything to help draw your attention, they literally blend in with all the other dark objects in a home. The other primary method of defense is a baseball bat. Apparently, Ryan enjoys the sport and this seemingly Signs-inspired weapon is put to use. Though it’s woefully ineffective.

Perhaps, the most maddening element of the game is its focus on stealth, mostly because the stealth mechanics at play are frustrating beyond belief. Aliens will spot you with ease, they walk faster than you do. If you sprint, your stamina runs low. You might be able to get away or hide. Most often, however, the aliens would pluck me out of my hiding spot in a garbage can or an outhouse. But if you attempt to hit an alien with the bat, the action timed with the controller response lags. You need to time your swing a bit before the alien even reaches you and attempts to abduct you. Swinging the bat is slow, it takes nearly 8 seconds to swing the bat three times – the number needed to temporarily knock an alien to the ground.

"Greyhill is shrouded in a fog, making everything painfully hard to see. The flashlight would come in handy if you weren’t afraid of attracting alien attention."

While waiting for your second and third swing to land, you have to dance around the spaceman like a lunatic so he won’t try to grab you. Swinging the bat very slowly three times apparently makes Ryan winded as his stamina drops drastically. Sprinting after knocking an alien to the ground isn’t in the cards and the alien often gets right back up and power walks back over to you to do the whole dance all over again. When an alien does grab you, the game literally tells you to “spam R2” in order to get away. If an alien grabs you too many times in quick succession, then it’s instant game over. If you’re lucky and have at least two bullets on you, two shots to the bulbous noggin of any of these creatures will kill them.

Coming to tutorialization, the game takes a vastly minimal approach here. While you get an idea of what you’re supposed to do based on the dialogue, there’s no directional indicators or cues that help guide you. If you pause the game, very vague instructions appear on screen. “Go to Brandon’s house,” one instruction might say. Great, where’s Brandon’s house? It’s not at all helpful. You might find yourself wandering a bit and trying to fend off the frustrating alien assaults simply attempting to find which way to go. To make matters worse, Greyhill is shrouded in a fog, making everything painfully hard to see. The flashlight would come in handy if you weren’t afraid of attracting alien attention.

As an indie title, it’s easy to forgive the lackluster visual presentation, rigid character models, poor animation, and campy voice acting. But the dialogue and narrative at play are cringe-inducing at best. All of the NPCs are cliché cutouts of what you might expect from any classic alien invasion film. From the town’s eccentric conspiracy theorist camping out in an RV with a tinfoil hat to the NPC whose entire house is adorned in accolades, it’s all quite stereotypical and ridiculously campy. And what are the aliens doing with humans you might ask? Well, they’re experimenting on them, of course, through the classic butt-probing technique. That’s right, you’ll find plenty of bloody probes and hear the terror of humans who are being subjected to such throughout. The entire affair is so embedded in classic alien invasion tropes and character cutouts it’s laughable. That’s no joke. I found myself laughing throughout most of the experience instead of being terrified as the game intends.

"You’ll find plenty of bloody probes and hear the terror of humans who are being subjected to such throughout. The entire affair is so embedded in classic alien invasion tropes and character cutouts it’s laughable. That’s no joke. I found myself laughing throughout most of the experience instead of being terrified."

By the end of the game, you maybe start to care about Ryan and his mission to save a few different people. But the closer to this story is completely unsatisfying and leaves every thread dangling in the air with no resolution. It’s almost like a sequel game was planned – as strange as that might sound. Speaking of the ending, despite the game’s frustratingly slow, robotic, and aimless gameplay, I managed to see the credits roll after a mere two hours. Perhaps, that might be the game’s only saving grace – that it ends prematurely. Still, for the price of this game, the offering is meager – even more minuscule than most add-on, DLC, or expansion content in other games. It’s impossible to justify the $30 price tag for a completely unsatisfying slog that only lasts two hours.

Greyhill Incident truly feels like a lackluster attempt to mimic classic films like Close Encounters of the Third Kind. While the idea isn’t at all preposterous or bad, this particular offering suffers from frustrating, underdeveloped gameplay, poor character, and story creation, and painfully dark and muddy visuals. You’re better off making your own tin foil hat and watching UFO documentaries.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.

"With Greyhill Incident, we’re not only having an indie survival horror game which covers the unique and classic alien/UFO topic, but also having one which isn’t a fully stealth, run & hide game."

Survival horror games are obviously big right now, but we don’t see an awful lot of them where you’re straight up crossing paths with aliens as the primary enemies. What led to that creative decision, and how would you say that sets Greyhill Incident apart from others in the genre?

Yeah, there are a lot of survival horror games with zombies and so on but there aren’t any which cover aliens. It’s a shame that there weren’t any survival horror games which cover aliens before. Many gamers, especially alien/UFO fans, including us, waited years for something within this topic. With Greyhill Incident, we’re not only having an indie survival horror game which covers the unique and classic alien/UFO topic, but also having one which isn’t a fully stealth, run & hide game. In Greyhill, players are able to defend themselves using weapons.

How will Greyhill Incident approach combat? We know that players will be starting out with a baseball bat and a pistol, but will there be addition weapons to pick up later on in the game?

Combat isn’t the main focus of Greyhill and we wanted to keep the player’s resources very limited. The revolver and the baseball bat are the only weapons Ryan has and they should only be used if there isn’t any other way out.

What can you tell us about Greyhill Incident’s stealth mechanics? How much freedom will players have during encounters with enemies in how they want to approach situations between combat and stealth?

The player has to manage the ammo as it’s very limited. So the player will have to use it wisely. But of course, it’s up to the player, they could use it balanced over the game or save the ammo in the beginning to play more offensive later in the game.

"With Greyhill Incident we’re telling an invasion story which focuses on the Greys who invade an outlying village."

Given the fact that the primary enemies in Greyhill Incident will be aliens, what should players expect from the game in terms of enemy variety, and the unique threats they will pose and how players will have to deal with them?

Greyhill Incident focuses on the “Greys”, the kind of aliens most “abductees” described after their encounter. With Greyhill Incident we’re telling an invasion story which focuses on the Greys who invade an outlying village.

How much of an emphasis will the game place on exploration? Will levels be large enough to provide players with plenty of opportunities on that front?

Exploring is a big part of Greyhill. It’s not an open world game, but the open areas of Greyhill are big enough to let the players approach plenty of ways to solve the tasks.

Roughly how long will an average playthrough of the game be?

An average playthrough will take the player roughly four and a half hours.

"Exploring is a big part of Greyhill. It’s not an open world game, but the open areas of Greyhill are big enough to let the players approach plenty of ways to solve the tasks."

What frame rate and resolution will the game target on the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S?

Between 50 and 60 FPS.

Along with announcing the PlayStation VR2 release date for Afterlife VR, the trailer also gives us a glimpse at some of the title’s gameplay, which will involve the player having to explore the seemingly-haunted Black Rose mental asylum as they avoid or fight off various spooky enemies.

Players will have to make use of the environments and different weapons to fight off against insane inmates and staff members of the Black Rose mental hospital, as well as go around solving puzzles to be able to explore more of the hospital.

Players are put in the shoes of rookie police officer Adam Bernhard who gets a call to investigate the Black Rose mental hospital on a night patrol. The protagonist has a personal stake in the investigation, since his younger sister, Allison, was also sent to the mental hospital recently.