That’s because Virtuos, which worked on Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered, and more, says that the title sold over five million copies on PS5 last year. It also claimed it to be “one of the best-selling titles” on the platform for that period.

What’s interesting is that we never really heard too much about the studio’s involvement (Panic Button, Turn 10 Studios and Playground were credited for the PS5 port). However, it not only worked on environmental assets, unique characters, and a Performance Mode introduced in Forza Horizon 5 and brought over to the sequel, but also apparently created “roughly 90 percent of the photo-realistic vehicles featured in the game, including DLC.”

Regardless, we’ve heard reports about Forza Horizon 5’s success on PlayStation, with Alinea Analytics estimating five million-plus sold around last January. This is just the first time that a developer has shared these figures, but take them with a grain of salt, especially with how guarded Microsoft tends to be with sales numbers.

As for Forza Horizon 6, it’s out on May 19th and has reportedly sold over 500,000 copies on Steam alone before launch.

Atomic Heart: Blood on Crystal picks up where the story last left off, with our ragtag group of heroes regrouping on a beach before they decide on their next move. In case you might have forgotten certain plot elements, thankfully, there’s even a recap video at the very beginning that provides a broad strokes-styled summary of the entire plot leading up to this moment. The DLC also assumes that P3 has been through all of the previous content after wrapping up the base game’s story, which also means that he’s at his most confident, and his allies are at their strongest when we start out.

"There isn’t much new happening there either, and the big betrayal is telegraphed so heavily from the opening cutscenes that I found myself yawning by the time the story finally pulled the trigger."

The story makes its intentions clear right from the start. P3 has just about had it with primary antagonist CHAR-les and has decided to shut down his operations once and for all. Before we can head to his base for one final assault, however, the beach where our heroes are regrouping comes under siege, forcing them to retreat.

Blood on Crystal’s pacing immediately slows to a crawl after this, with characters taking their sweet time to discuss the next steps of a plan that largely revolves around destroying things, while protagonist P3 is given a new companion in the form of NORA, now installed in his glove. This also sets up an eventual betrayal that is far too obvious. After being rescued from an ambush by Granny Zina, our heroes decide on a plan of action, which revolves around taking the fight to CHAR-les directly, right down to his secret Crystal Complex.

There isn’t much new happening there either, and the big betrayal is telegraphed so heavily from the opening cutscenes that I found myself yawning by the time the story finally pulled the trigger. Thankfully, not every aspect of the DLC is dull. It has some of the best boss fights of the entire game, with your final encounter against CHAR-les being especially noteworthy. Similarly, some of the environments can also look quite impressive at times, especially as you get further into the story.

Ultimately, Blood on Crystal’s story is held back by the same issue that has long made much of Atomic Heart’s narrative feel dull. Sure, there are a few characters that can be quite interesting, and the voice acting is often phenomenal.

However, the characters also have the tendency to not really take things seriously enough at times, which can lead to mid-combat dialogue that often feels ripped right out of a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie in all of the worst ways. Those attempts at humor also undercut the DLC’s few moments of genuine pathos, because scenes that are meant to be emotional can only go so far when one of the central characters is an AI living inside a weapon vending machine.

"The entire DLC would have benefited from removing respawning enemies entirely"

This emphasis on wrapping up the main story also means that, outside of its story content and new levels, there isn’t much that feels fresh in Blood on Crystal. Sure, there are a few new enemy types here and there, but during the roughly four hours it takes to finish the DLC, you’ll still spend most of your time fighting the same bland robots with the same weapons you’ve been using since the start of Atomic Heart. Being stripped of your inventory at the start of the DLC was another point of frustration for me; you’ll spend a considerable amount of time with just your hammer and the Secateur, which also has the side effect of making early fights quite boring and forgettable. Getting your arsenal back to where it likely was by the end of the previous DLCs would require plenty of grinding and scrounging for crafting materials.

The poor pacing doesn’t just affect the story either; the level design can also feel sluggish, with simple puzzles often forcing you to backtrack just to make sure you haven’t missed anything. If that weren’t enough, Blood on Crystal also has the tendency to trigger enemy respawns a bit too often. Now, I get it: long stretches of simply walking through a game can be dull. However, the combat encounters you are often forced to fight through repeatedly aren’t particularly interesting. Rather, they act as little more than a way to drain you of your resources. The entire DLC would have benefited from removing respawning enemies entirely and instead adding fresh encounters to those otherwise long, drawn-out traversal sequences.

Overall, the gameplay feels dull, due in no small part to how repetitive the fights become. Sure, there are some theoretically good ideas here and there, like some of your powers being more effective against certain enemies. However, you can make your way through the entire DLC without having to think too much about any of it. The idea of CHANCE modules sounds great in theory. However, in practice, it never quite feels fluid enough to bother with.

"Blood on Crystal’s story is held back by the same issue that has long made much of Atomic Heart’s narrative feel dull."

There weren’t many performance issues to speak of. On my mid-range PC with an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU, a Radeon RX 7800 XT GPU, and 32 GB of RAM, I was able to crank up all the visual settings to the max, minus the ray tracing, and could still stay above 60 FPS at 2560×1440. While the early parts of the DLC, especially the opening ambush, did raise some concern, with frame rates dipping to around 50 FPS at times, the rest of the experience was smooth sailing, with performance staying well above 70 FPS.

Unfortunately, Blood on Crystal is an entirely skippable DLC. While it does wrap up the main narrative threads left dangling by Atomic Heart and pave the way for future games, there’s little reason to actually play the DLC. The story is largely just fine, and while the boss fights can be pretty great, the rest of the DLC feels like a chore to play through. The lack of many new things to play around with like powers or weapons also doesn’t help, and the poor pacing extends well beyond just the awkwardly-timed dialogue, with the core gameplay being negatively affected thanks to the presence of respawning enemies.

Blood on Crystal’s one saving grace is its relatively short runtime. While I was able to wrap it up in around 4 hours, depending on your play style and your desire to hunt down collectibles and Trophies/Achievements, that figure could vary by about an hour either way. Despite this short time-to-beat, however, there also isn’t much of a reason to revisit the DLC once you’ve wrapped it up. All in all, the DLC is incredibly difficult to recommend for anyone who isn’t already a massive fan of Atomic Heart to begin with.

This game was reviewed on PC.

“We think Lord of Hatred is the best Diablo 4 has ever been — we think of it as the ultimate expression of the game,” said Haroutunian. Finer spoke about how the expansion was a labor of love for the development team, and how many of its features are essentially love letters to fans of the franchise.

“One hundred percent,” said Finer when asked about Lord of Hatred being Diablo 4 at its best. “So many of the features are a love letter to Diablo and its players. It’s been a huge labor of love from the team. We’ve been playing the game constantly internally; it’s been so easy to lose yourself in the flow state of grinding War Plans, using the map overlay to efficiently navigate every level, and using the loot filter to make ultra-endgame items pop.”

While Lord of Hatred is bringing quite a bit of content with it, like the returning Horadric Cube, the expansion will also introduce refinements to pre-existing systems, like Diablo 4‘s runes. On the subject, Finer spoke about how there were some runes that were just too powerful for the game. This has led to the removal of some of the stronger ones from the game.

“In general, we found that there were extreme outliers (both too weak and way too powerful) that were dominating the system and shrinking the build diversity too much,” explained Finer. “Additionally, with the Cube, we’ve made it easier than ever to hunt for the runes you’re looking for. So we’re attacking this problem from both sides: editing down the list with build variety in mind, and giving you more options to obtain the runes you want. Long-term, runes are a place we want to continue to evolve, especially with the Cube now in the mix.”

As for the Cube itself, he also noted that it can be used with recipes as many times as the player might want, as long as they have the required materials. In general, the Horadric Cube was meant to introduce more depth to Diablo 4‘s crafting system. This also means that there are a few high-risk recipes in the game.

“However, there are a few higher-risk recipes — like Transfiguration — which have incredible outcomes, but also terrible ones,” he said. “Have a mediocre item with great potential? Transfigure it. You might even find that you’re able to transfigure it multiple times. Have a near-perfect item? Slot an Entropic Tuning Prism into the Transfigure recipe to minimize the risk — but also the reward.”

Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred will expand on the story of Mephisto when it finally comes out on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. For more, take a look at the gameplay showcase, which features combat, a boss fight, and the region of Skovos. Also, check out our thoughts on how the expansion signifies a new approach to leveling.

It will also feature Nick Offerman (The Last of Us, Parks and Recreation) and Peter Serafinowicz (Guardians of the Galaxy). Check out the full cast list below. It is worth noting that, while we now know the actors involved with the film project, we still don’t know which characters they will be playing.

The film adaptation of Elden Ring was officially announced in May last year, with A24 handling production work and Alex Garland serving as director and writer. The project will also feature the involvement of A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin as producer alongside Vince Geradis, Peter Rice, Andrew Macdonald, and Allon Reich.

Garland has revealed himself to be a fan of the game and discussed the fact that Malenia, Blade of Miquella, was the hardest boss fight in Elden Ring in an interview.

“It’s Malenia who’s the tough one. I’m now on my seventh playthrough of that game. I’ve leveled up, I’ve got lots of juice, and a cool sword, and stuff like that, and I just throw myself at them again, and again, and again, and again. That was the technique I learned with Dark Souls,” he said. “It’s not that you get better, it’s more like monkeys and typewriters. You just keep doing it, and eventually, one day they’re dead.”

He had also revealed that his main pitch for the Elden Ring film adaptation involved an “epic” 160-page draft, which included 40 pages of images.

Earlier this month, a fan had seemingly figured out one of the filming locations and, since it was close to their home, decided to record a couple of videos. While we didn’t get too many details about the Elden Ring film from these videos, the remains of a Church of Marika were clearly visible.

In the meantime, Elden Ring remains available to play on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. A Nintendo Switch 2 release of the base game and its Shadow of the Erdtree expansion is planned, with pre-orders having recently popped up on Amazon for $79.99.

Elden Ring film adaptation full cast:

• Kit Connor (Warfare, Heartstopper)
• Ben Whishaw (Peter Hujar’s Day, This is going to Hurt)
• Cailee Spaeny (Alien: Romulus, Civil War)
• Tom Burke (Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Black Bag)
• Havana Rose Liu (Tuner, Bottoms)
• Sonoya Mizuno (Ex Machina)
• Jonathan Pryce (The Two Popes, The Crown)
• Ruby Cruz (Bottoms, The Threesome)
• Nick Offerman (The Last of Us, Margo’s Got Money Troubles)
• John Hodgkinson (Dear England, Napoleon)
• Jefferson Hall (House of the Dragon, Oppenheimer)
• Emma Laird (28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, A Haunting in Venice)
• Peter Serafinowicz (Guardians of the Galaxy, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace)

While the former two are available for Premium subscribers, the latter launches on day one for Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass. On April 23rd, Double Fine Productions’ chaotic arts-and-crafts-meets-competitive-multiplayer title Kiln will be available on the same tiers for Xbox Series X/S and PC. Of course, it’s also coming to PS5 with cross-platform play available.

Aphelion, the latest narrative adventure from DON’T NOD, is available on April 28th for Ultimate and PC Game Pass. Meanwhile, Trepang2 is playable on April 29th for Premium, Ultimate and PC tiers, in case you were missing some F.E.A.R.-style combat in your life.

After an initial delay, Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era will launch on April 30th via Game Preview, with Ultimate and PC subscribers receiving access. It’s accompanied by Sledding Game, a relaxing snow-sports title that’s meant for friends (and even offers proximity voice chat), and TerraTech Legion, a “bullet heaven builder” where you fight off waves of robots by creating an increasingly powerful block-based vehicle.

If that wasn’t enough, next month kicks off with the addition of Final Fantasy 5 on May 5th. It won’t be long before the entire franchise is officially available on Game Pass, which is incentive enough to sign up.

Check out all the games leaving on April 30th. It’s a fairly long list, so either dive into them today or pick them up for 20 percent off:

• Citizen Sleeper (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Creatures of Ava (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Endless Legend 2 (PC)
• Goat Simulator (Cloud and Console)
• Goat Simulator Remastered (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Hunt Showdown 1896 (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• NHL 24 (EA Play) (Cloud and Console)
• Revenge of the Savage Planet (Cloud, Console, and PC)

Throughout the video, we get a look at the original combat system, which revolved around counter-attacks, and how it evolved and got refined with 2009’s Assassin’s Creed 2, 2010’s Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, and 2011’s Assassin’s Creed Revelations. 2012 would bring a major change in the system with the release of Assassin’s Creed 3, which gave protagonist Connor more weapon variety to fight with, as well as a bow. Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag would bring in another shift in 2013 with the inclusion of guns as part of Edward’s arsenal.

While much of the same combat system would be seen in 2014’s Assassin’s Creed Rogue, the year also saw another shake-up with Assassin’s Creed Unity, which made combat slower-paced and raised the difficulty. In 2015, the same system would be further refined in Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, which placed quite a bit of emphasis on brawling with its two protagonists—Jacob and Evie Frye.

While the series would see a bit of a break after Syndicate, just a couple of years later, it would see its biggest shift in combat mechanics with the release of Assassin’s Creed Origins. The 2017 title introduced deeper RPG-styled mechanics, with weapons and armors having their own distinct stats and special effects, which could be used by Bayek in his quest to hunt down the Order of the Ancients. The same system would get expanded with the release of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey in 2018, which brought in even more weapon types as well as deeper RPG mechanics. The last game where we would see this system, at least for now, would be 2020’s Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, which introduced a posture system for its enemies.

In 2023, the series would go back to some of its older styles of combat with Assassin’s Creed Mirage, with players taking on the role of Basim and fighting foes in the streets of Baghdad. Most recently, the franchise introduced further refinements to its combat systems with Assassin’s Creed Shadows, which provided two distinct styles of play thanks to its deuteragonists—the action-oriented Yasuke and the stealth-focused Naoe.

While Ubisoft hasn’t recently made any major new announcements for the Assassin’s Creed franchise, rumors have been flying around of a remake for Black Flag, which is believed to be titled Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced. The overall themes of synchronization in the video would indicate that there might be a deeper connection between it and the much-awaited announcement. The company had confirmed that such a remake was in the works last month.

In the meantime, Assassin’s Creed Shadows has continued to get updates a year after its release, with the most recent one bringing in support for PSSR 2 on PS5 Pro, and mouse and keyboard controls on Nintendo Switch 2. Check out our review of Assassin’s Creed Shadows and its Claws of Awaji expansion for more details.

“If you look back at the beginning of Elder Scrolls, beginning of Fallout, they’re a little bit the same,” said Howard. “And then, you find an audience that loves that. So, I think it’s true that Fallout 76 and Starfield clearly – they’re creatively different than what we had done [before].”

“And we really wanted to do that. When you’re doing a certain type of thing for, in my case, 20 years, we want to try some other things and learn from that. We have ideas that we want to get out there.”

Ultimately, Howard said that he is glad that Fallout and The Elder Scrolls managed to garner massive audiences, which in turn has allowed Bethesda to take more creative risks with its other projects, like Fallout 76, and most recently, Starfield. He said, “We’re fortunate those games have found, in the scheme of things, giant audiences that let us keep doing things in them.”

Referring to Fallout 76 and Starfield, Howard said, “even though they’re a bit off the core path of the single-player games that we have been doing, we’re just fortunate to have the success that we’ve had with them.”

When it comes to Fallout, it is worth noting that Bethesda only bought up the franchise back in 2004. Before this, the franchise was developed by Interplay Entertainment. Bethesda’s work on the series started with Fallout 3, which came out on PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 in 2008. At the time, it offered a massive shift away from what the series was known for, switching from turn-based combat with an isometric view to a first-person RPG with shooter-adjacent gameplay. At this point, however, Bethesda has been in charge of the Fallout IP for longer than Interplay ever was.

Recently, Howard also revealed some details about the unique Unity ending of Starfield, and how it leads directly into New Game+ mode. Originally, players who picked the ending would get thrown into a new universe with all of their power and progression, but without any of their gear or items. With the Free Lanes update, players now have the chance to create an item that allows them to take up to 50 items along with them in their New Game+ run after the Unity ending.

“The Unity was our way of doing New Game+,” Howard explained. “It was us asking you this weird, deep question that I actually think got lost on a lot of people. It asks if you are just this power gamer who wants to get everything, or are you willing to leave this world behind? How do you feel about your own life choices – would you leave that all behind and start over? Some of that pain – having to give up all of your stuff, Sarah Morgan not loving you anymore, and so on – is supposed to make you feel all of that.”

Starfield is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. For more details, check out our review of its recent PS5 release. In the meantime, Bethesda is also working on The Elder Scrolls 6.

Each title retails for $29.99 and contains adventures that are just as sizable as the original. Gothic 2 Complete Classic, for example, promises 500+ NPCs, more than 100 missions, and over 200 weapons and spells. Gothic 3 Classic only contains more than 50 spells and 100 weapons, but it packs in a massive world with “virtually no boundaries” to explore and “countless side quests.”

Of course, for those who want a more contemporary experience, visually and gameplay-wise, Gothic Remake is out on June 5th, retailing for $59.99 on Xbox Series X/S and PS5, and for $49.99 on PC. Developed on Unreal Engine 5, it promises to retain the feel of the 2001 cult classic (right down to its various factions, dynamic world, and more) while improving the combat. Head here for more details on the improvements to character models and learn more about the art-style changes here.

“Last September, we posted a video explaining that the entire team’s focus was on 1.0 and that we’d be going quiet until it’s ready,” he wrote on social media platform X. “I know you gamers want 1.0 ASAP, but it’s still in the oven!” Buckley wrote this message as a public response to a DM he got asking him, “Are you guys even working on Palworld anymore? Where is 1.0, bro?!” In replies to the post, Buckley went on to say that, “We’ll crack the oven open a little when it’s nearly done so you’ll smell it.”

On the subject of staying quiet about the update until the studio is ready to share, Buckley noted that players levelled similar criticisms against Pocketpair when it came to updates like Feybreak.

“It’s great how enthusiastic everyone is for 1.0, but when it comes to how to actually market and promote our game…I think we have a pretty good grasp on what to do,” he wrote.

The fact that Palworld‘s 1.0 update is taking so long and the studio isn’t quite ready to announce a release date should come as no surprise, since the update is slated to bring in a lot of new content to the game. During GDC 2026 last month, Buckley had spoken about how it will include “something for everyone.”

“Survival crafting is a very unique genre. It’s a very Steam genre, for all its woes and highs,” he said. “There’s so many incredible, incredible survival crafting games, but I think every survival crafting gamer has their like ideal version of what survival crafting should be, and we hope Palworld 1.0 will be that kind of something for everyone, lose yourself in this world, survival crafting game.” He went on to say that, “Palworld is going to be the survival crafting game everyone always wanted.”

As for more details about what 1.0 might include, he went on to say that “It’s still quite top secret.”

“There’s gonna be things that surprise people. I think people will be shocked by what we’ve been able to achieve for 1.0. 1.0 is going to fall at kind of a weird point for players. You can jump into 1.0 with your existing character if you want to. We’re not force wiping anyone. You can jump in. But we are going to kind of softly recommend you start from scratch, because kind of everything is going to change from the beginning to the end – It’s all going to change.”

On the subject of whether or not Palworld will continue to get new content updates after its 1.0 release, Buckley had previously brought up a comparison with No Man’s Sky, noting that Pocketpair isn’t likely to go the same route.

“A lot of our hardcore fans and players would love for Palworld to be this No Man’s Sky situation where it’s like a decade of continuous, massive updates,” he said. “But realistically, that’s probably not on the cards for Palworld, not only because of engine limitations, but also, it’s a survival crafting game. I think there’s only so many times you can add five levels, add 10 levels, until it gets to this massive bloat point.”

In the meantime, Palworld continues to be available on PC, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S in its Early Access form.