This time around, Jun Aslan and their fellow companions descend to the fiery depths of an underground volcanic ruin, where Eruption, a new gauntlet ability, proves to be quite handy at navigating and avoiding all of the nasty magma. It has quite a range of useful functions, allowing you to build bridges out of limestone deposits, redirect magma flows, and clear a path when there’s debris in your way, but this may only be a taste of things to come.

The new trailer joins last week’s look at a journey to a frosty planet where alien ruins loomed large before we were abruptly cut off from learning more about them. Nevertheless, Exodus looks to be an ambitious title that aims to keep you as immersed as it can in a universe filled with some incredible biome variety, combat and terrifyingly powerful threats like the Mara-Yama.

It arrives next year for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC, and despite everything else that’s coming up, the time can’t pass fast enough. Stay tuned for updates in the meantime, including a date for that extended showcase.

We’re beginning to suspect that there are more of these on the way before Archetype comes out with a more elaborate gameplay showcase that gives us a proper look. The footage in this latest snippet showcases protagonist Jun Aslan and a couple of allies exploring a frozen planet with mysterious alien structures off in the distance, which they’re seemingly preparing to explore. Sadly, the footage cuts off well before they even begin their expedition or try to make their way to it.

We would have liked to see a bit of traversal, but it is what it is. We’re confident that all of these glimpses will be expanded upon in the Summer showcase, complete with commentary on how the game’s many systems work together. Even the side content promises to push us into engaging with it for the sake of its impact on the larger narrative.

Exodus is currently scheduled to release in 2027 for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC. It has some strong competition in the form of The Expanse: Osiris Reborn, but so far, both games look to scratch that Mass Effect itch.

It’s only 46 seconds long, but that’s more than enough for the studio to show off the Shredder, which does some serious damage to a bunch of vicious Ghosts that are hellbent on preventing your entry into Khonsu. We presume it’s going to be an important part of a story that blends sci-fi shooting action with political intrigue to create an experience that’s looking more interesting with every showcase.

Like the first gameplay trailer it showcased a few days ago, Archetype’s latest peek at the game once again carries the promise of an extended look at how its systems are going to come together this summer. If the gameplay we’ve seen so far is any indication, that one’s going to be a doozy, and we’re hoping to see some of the side content and how it fits in with the main narrative in some form.

If you’re curious to see the Shredder in action for yourself, the trailer is showcased below. Exodus releases sometime in 2027 for the PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.

Although we have less than two minutes of footage, things are looking pretty good for the studio’s pilot project, with some excellently polished visuals across the three short glimpses of what life will be like when we join the Travelers in their search for Remnants. In the combat clip, Jun Aslan teams with Elise to attack enemies, and the weapon variety was among the first things to catch our eye. Different firearms with specific functions are used to neutralize threats with brutal precision.

The following clip focuses on platforming with a very handy grappling gun, and a fascinating place called the Sankhara Glyph Shrine, with some very fancy, high-tech stuff powering the world around you. It’s all fascinating, although we’ll have to wait until this Summer to see more of the game. But this first look is a solid start, if you ask us.

For those of you who haven’t been keeping up with this one, it’s a title whose makers wear their love for Mass Effect on their sleeves, while they’re keen on making its side content as compelling as the politically fraught main narrative that could test your moral code once you dive in.

Exodus is in development for PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC, and launches in 2027.

Coinciding with Bitta’s hiring, James Ohlen, co-founder of Exodus developer Archetype Entertainment, will be stepping aside from his position. Hasbro’s vice president of corporate communications Abby Hodes said in a statement that Ohlen’s work felt complete, and that he stepped aside so he could hand off the leadership position to the rest of the team. She also noted that Ohlen had “asked to shift his creative focus” on the tabletop RPG products at Wizards of the Coast, namely Dungeons & Dragons.

“At this stage, James felt his work on the game was complete and that the polishing and tuning were in great hands with the team,” said Hodes.

Hasbro has been hoping to push further into the video games industry following the massive success of 2023’s Baldur’s Gate 3. While there had been plenty of games based on the properties of Wizards of the Coast in the past, Baldur’s Gate 3 had hit sales milestones that hadn’t previously been seen by games based on Dungeons & Dragons. Since then, the company has announced many deals with various developers to work on brand new titles.

While some of these titles are slated to be part of the Dungeons & Dragons universe, which includes the recently-announced Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons as well as the unnamed project in the works at Stig Asmussen’s studio Giant Skull, Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro have also been casting a wider net. One of the bigger games in development right now has nothing to do with Dungeons & Dragons or Magic: The Gathering—Exodus.

Exodus has been in the works for quite some time, and got a brand new trailer during The Game Awards 2025. The sci-fi RPG’s developers have spoken about all of the different games they were inspired by, which includes the Mass Effect series, as well as Guerrilla Games’ Horizon franchise and even Nintendo’s Metroid Prime.

As for Giant Skull’s title, Hight had confirmed back in August that, while there might be a new Baldur’s Gate game made in the future, Asmussen’s team is working on a different project.

“Baldur’s Gate is an incredible game,” said Hight. “And of course, we’re going to do a successor. This is not the successor to that game. We go to Stig [Asmussen] and his team to tell an incredible story and bring D&D to a very broad audience. Ideally, the game will appeal to D&D players because it will help them realise their imagination. But it’s also going to hopefully appeal to people that love playing action games, that love the Jedi games, that love God of War games.”

“D&D, as Stig said, it’s a playground and it really is for everyone. Hundreds of millions of people have either played D&D or been aware of D&D, and we want to perpetuate that for the next 50 years.”

Developed by Montreal-based Invoke Studios, the game casts players as Kaatri, a veteran warrior who enters into a dangerous pact to wield otherworldly magic against encroaching dark powers. The character is brought to life through full performance capture by actor Tricia Helfer, known for role in Battlestar Galactica.

Magic sits at the core of Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons’ design. Every spell is pitched as a tool for both exploration and combat, unlocking new paths across a beautiful yet unsettling world, while also combining with melee attacks to create encounters that are meant to feel both tactical and visceral.

Invoke general manager Dominic Guay says the partnership with Wizards of the Coast and the richness of the D&D brand have allowed the studio to pursue an ambitious open-world experience. “Working with our colleagues at Wizards of the Coast on a brand as rich as D&D has given the team the creative freedom and support to build a new ambitious open-world experience for players. We’re excited to finally announce Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons and looking forward to sharing gameplay details in the future,” said Guay.

Wizards of the Coast president John Hight highlights the double-edged nature of warlock magic, framing the game’s world as one of “dangerous wonder” where Kaatri’s growing power always comes with a cost.

Further details, including the first gameplay reveal, are planned for summer 2026, with Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons targeting a full launch in 2027 .

Set in a future where humanity is establishing colonies in star systems light-years away, the story focuses on humanity’s struggle for survival with different factions vying for control of a fragile society that’s also contending with the effects of time dilation.

Indeed, time may be of the essence as player agency, and the potential for multiple endings is slated to work with mechanics that could have you smiling fondly at memories of Interstellar, a sense of nostalgia made even better by the presence of Matthew McConaughey in the game’s cast.

However, you might want to pace out your excitement for this one, as it currently does not have a release date aside from an early 2027 window. That’s a long wait before you get to dive into this one on PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5.

In a press release, CEO Adolf Kristjansson said, “This was a difficult but necessary decision. Our strategy is clear: Payday is one of the most iconic IPs in gaming, with unmatched reach and potential. By focusing our investment and talent here, we can accelerate delivery, engage players with more content, and reinforce Starbreeze’s position as the clear leader in the heisting genre. This is about sharpening our focus to create the strongest long-term value for our players, our people, and our shareholders.”

Alongside a non-cash impairment of SEK 255 million (roughly $27.2 million), Starbreeze is redeploying Project Baxter team members to other projects, “most prominently within Payday.” However, it also confirmed layoffs for about 44 contractors and employees to GameDeveloper, though since the following weeks will see union negotiations, the “exact number” couldn’t be specified.

In development on Unreal Engine 5, Project Baxter hadn’t received a gameplay reveal or official title. It would have been another games-as-a-service title, and then-CEO Tobias Sjogren said it was “hard to imagine a better pairing than Dungeons and Dragons and Starbreeze.”

As for what this means for Payday 3, which has floundered since its launch in September 2023, despite multiple updates and improvements. Starbreeze also faced fresh controversy with its new DLC subscription model and price hike on the Infamous Collection for Payday 2. Stay tuned for updates, as always.

In the interview, Hight spoke about how the universe of Dungeons & Dragons is vast, allowing players and developers to come up with plenty of stories on their own. In that vein, the project that Giant Skull is working on is slated to have a broad appeal, including Dungeons & Dragons players as well as those that aren’t already involved with the tabletop RPG hobby.

“Baldur’s Gate is an incredible game,” said Hight. “And of course, we’re going to do a successor. This is not the successor to that game. We go to Stig and his team to tell an incredible story and bring D&D to a very broad audience. Ideally, the game will appeal to D&D players because it will help them realise their imagination. But it’s also going to hopefully appeal to people that love playing action games, that love the Jedi games, that love God of War games.”

“D&D, as Stig said, it’s a playground and it really is for everyone. Hundreds of millions of people have either played D&D or been aware of D&D, and we want to perpetuate that for the next 50 years.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Hight also spoke about how Wizards of the Coast is looking to team up with all sorts of studios, and not just those run by industry veterans. Rather, the company wants to bet on up-and-coming studios as well.

“You don’t find folks like Stig every day,” explained Hight. “So, we’re going to have to make some bets on up-and-coming talent, and maybe do smaller games and give them a shot at building up teams and learning along the way. We’re going to do some experimental stuff.”

Giant Skull’s collaboration with Wizards of the Coast for a Dungeons & Dragons title has been going on for a while now. Back in June, Asmussen had spoken about how Giant Skull’s experience with third-person melee combat will help with the development of the new game.

“We’re experts at melee combat, so that’s something that John [Hight] got to see and it translates very well to D&D,” said Asmussen. “There’s probably still legacy debt that’s in the Jedi games from bad decisions that we made early on. Some of those bad decisions were based on momentum because we don’t get stuck. We just want to keep on moving forward.”

Asmussen also confirmed that the new project is being developed using a vanilla version of Unreal Engine 5 rather than one that has been filled to the rim with custom enhancements. This, he noted, allows the studio a “clean slate” to build the project very quickly on.

“We’re experts at melee combat, so that’s something that John got to see and it translates very well to D&D,” said Asmussen, referring to Wizards of the Coast president John Hight who previously worked with him on God of War 3. “There’s probably still legacy debt that’s in the Jedi games from bad decisions that we made early on. Some of those bad decisions were based on momentum because we don’t get stuck. We just want to keep on moving forward.”

It is worth noting that Asmussen’s team at Respawn Entertainment had worked on Unreal Engine 4 to develop Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and its sequel Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. In this interview, he spoke about how Giant Skull is trying to avoid tech debt by making sure that it doesn’t bring over any of the bad decisions that were made with the Jedi games by starting with “vanilla Unreal”. Ultimately, this clean slate allowed the studio to make a “motion model” that ends up being much faster and smoother than what we saw in the two Star Wars Jedi titles.

“When we started Giant Skull and we started with vanilla Unreal, we couldn’t take what we did with the Jedi games over to a new company. So, all of those mistakes that we had made before weren’t there. We had a clean slate and we were able to build very quickly based on all of our learnings over the years before. That’s allowed us to create a motion model that’s so much faster now, so much more fluid. And it doesn’t have points where you get blocked because you don’t understand how to fix jank. It’s buttery smooth.”

While no other details about this Dungeons & Dragons title developed by Giant Skull have been revealed so far, this emphasis on having high-quality animations for melee combat would indicate that it will be a hack-and-slash game. When the title was announced, some of the words used to describe it were “immersive storytelling”, “heroic combat”, and “exhilarating traversal”. Asmussen noted in the interview that traversal would be a major part of the upcoming title’s gameplay.

“Traversal is really important to us,” he explained. “Giving the player a suite of different ways to probe and interact with the environment, and eventually build their character up to a point where they’re dominating the environment. It all has to feel silky smooth.”

The new title is being developed using Unreal Engine 5, and will likely come to PC and modern consoles.