Director Naoki Hamaguchi more or less reiterated the same to Comicbook.com, but once again assured that everything is going according to plan. “I’m unable to share concrete details at this time. What I can say is that development itself is proceeding on time and on schedule. We believe it’ll become a title we can deliver with confidence as the culmination of the trilogy.”

Thankfully, he also acknowledged the fervor among fans for new information. “We know many fans are eagerly waiting, and preparations toward the announcement are steadily underway. Please look forward to it just a little longer.”

That part about “steadily underway” likely refers to Hamaguchi’s stating last February that the team planned to “share more updates on the Final Fantasy 7 Remake Project than ever before” in 2026. Of course, we go back to the classic question of “When?”

On the bright side, there have been other details revealed about Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 3 over the last two-plus years. It features a “more powered-up version” of the popular card game Queen’s Blood, and sticks to Unreal Engine 4 rather than moving to Unreal Engine 5. Hamaguchi also confirmed it’s in a playable state, though there’s obviously plenty of work left when it comes to polishing massive projects like this.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 3 is coming to PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC, and Nintendo Switch 2. As always, stay tuned for more details.

“Evil run. Generally speaking, you can kill off the majority of NPCs,” he said during a Q&A, which you can check out below. “Maybe not every single one; there are specific cases where, for narrative cohesion, we had to limit that. But we tried to make sure you can kill off most NPCs if you want to, and the main story handles it: you get different outcomes, different endings for different plot lines. It was actually a big point of discussion in the studio: ‘Is this true to Coen? Would he do these things?'”

“But it’s always this tug of war between player agency and narrative cohesion of the character. We believe we managed to satisfy both, but because of our narrative sandbox approach, we leaned more toward player agency most of the time. I really want to see evil Coen playthroughs and see how people react.”

Tomaszkiewicz had confirmed the ability to kill important NPCs in The Blood of Dawnwalker back in February 2025. He noted that, since studio Rebel Wolves wants to give players a sandbox with an emphasis on player agency, being able to kill NPCs is an important aspect of the RPG.

“It’s a sandbox, meaning we’re trying to maximize the options of your choice in the game,” Tomaszkiewicz said. “But it isn’t purely focused on gameplay. We were trying to play to our strengths, because our past projects were very focused on narrative, on good storytelling, interesting characters, and a lot of lore to find.”

This ties into the studio’s larger ambitions to offer a “narrative sandbox” with The Blood of Dawnwalker. Tomaszkiewicz discussed this in January 2025, where he explained that players should have the ability to affect the story by interacting with the in-game world.

“So narrative sandbox refers to the way we craft our content,” he explained. “It’s how we allow you, the player, to interact with it. So the core of it is maximising players’ agency and freedom of choice, while, at the same time delivering the high-quality narratives that we are known for crafting in the past. Dawnwalker is not going to be a game where it’s a pure sandbox, where you’re just focusing on the gameplay. We do want you to experience these moments with the world of the characters, and the emotions that these situations can evoke, and so on, and so forth. But, at the same time you are looking for ways of maximising freedom as you do.”

The Blood of Dawnwalker is coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S on September 3rd. For more details, check out its PC specifications, which reveal that players will need an RTX 5090 if they want to play at 4K/60 FPS.

What’s the catch? According to studio CEO Paul Neurath (also renowned for his work on the old-school Thief games) in a press release, “Releasing this introductory campaign gets players into the world of Thick As Thieves and gives them a meaty taste of a world worth returning to.”

To that end, you can expect the campaign to last “at least four hours.” There are two dynamic maps with 16 missions to complete and six gear pieces to unlock. Thick As Thieves offers randomly generated circumstances with each mission, including different guard routines and layouts, so there’s definitely some replay value beyond the initial completion.

Megabit Publishing also weighed in on the decision, noting that it “reflects the team’s desire to bring players into the world sooner, and to give the team the flexibility to develop additional content informed by how players engage with the game.” Of course, it’s looking to expand on the premise beyond the initial campaign, including with “future content,” though in what shape and form remains to be seen.

For more details on Thick As Thieves, including how missions play out and the different gadgets you’ll use, check out the latest developer walkthrough below. Set in an alternative-history 1910s city where players seek to work their way up from regular thief to a legendary figure.

Alongside Neurath, Warren Spector of Deus Ex fame is involved, so it’s well worth looking into when it launches next month. Thick As Thieves is also coming to Xbox Series X/S and PS5, though a release window has yet to be announced.

“Sometimes traumatic experiences can bring people closer, right?” said Wilson. “But people… they’re embarrassed about it. People don’t want to talk about it. They don’t want to say that they were part of the project or worked there.”

Wilson’s comments were joined by those of former lead games analyst Ben Newborn, who revealed that the staff at Build A Rocket Boy had already been suffering from a culture of crunch before the release of MindsEye. This, he noted, led to “horrific mental and even physical illness.”

“Even before the disastrous launch of MindsEye, staff had suffered months of crunch, resulting in some horrific mental and even physical illnesses, beyond the typical widespread burnout,” he said.

Wilson also discussed how Build A Rocket Boy handled crunch, noting that it went on for quite a bit of time. The cinematics team, for instance, had been in crunch from June “until a good few months later” without being appropriately paid for the work.

“It was hard for a lot of people. It did go on for a considerable amount of time[…] Some teams were on crunch for quite some time. In cinematics, we were probably in crunch from June until a good few months later…no overtime pay or anything like that.”

“Eight hours was the minimum requirement, but people were doing way more for sure,” Wilson said. “I was doing way over an additional eight hours a week…there were people who were certainly not appreciative of having to work those extra hours, but a lot of people just had to bite the bullet. I think Cinematics were crunching for somewhere between six to nine months. Some people racked up a lot of extra hours, and that’s outside of the general day-to-day stuff. People were already doing extra hours, and then they introduced the crunch as well.”

When asked about his decision to speak out against the studio’s policy publicly, Wilson said that the leadership’s use of Teramind monitoring software, along with its lack of respect for the development team, ended up being the proverbial straws that broke the camel’s back.

“Basically, the Teramind monitoring and the blatant lack of respect for the staff, where they were not being honest about the reasons for the monitoring, why they started it, when they started it—that was like finding that nail in the coffin for me,” he said.

MindsEye is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. For more, check out our review. Also, take a look at the lawsuit filed by the studio’s employees about leadership violating their privacy by making use of Teramind.

“Consumers pay for the value that you bring to them, and our job is to charge way way way less of the value delivery,” Zelnick said. “How you feel about something you buy is the intersection of the thing itself and what you pay for. Consumers need to feel like the thing itself is amazing and the price they were charged was fair for what they got.”

Zelnick also brought up the fact that, taking inflation into account, games have gotten cheaper when looked at from a wider lens, since just about everything else has gotten more expensive. Most major releases tend to be priced at $60 or $70 – a price point that has largely remained stable for quite some time.

“If you look at it through that lens, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. But that isn’t the lens through which we look. Instead, we look at… how do we deliver something amazing, and how do we make sure that what people pay for it feels very reasonable,” he said.

Measuring the success of Grand Theft Auto 6, however, is a complicated subject for Zelnick. Calling it “the most spectacular piece of entertainment on Earth, in history,” he said that the current focus of the game’s development team is to make sure that the game is enjoyable.

“What we think about is making the most spectacular piece of entertainment on Earth, in history – and it’s a pretty daunting challenge. If we do that, and if we’re of service to our customers, then the upside will take care of itself.”

Speaking about the release date of Grand Theft Auto 6, Zelnick went on to joke that “a lot of people will be calling in sick on November 19.”

While Rockstar Games continues working on the title, a report from last month has indicated that the money needed to make it might exceed $2 billion. According to public records in the UK, Rockstar North has already spent £1.6 billion ($2.11 billion) on Grand Theft Auto 6 so far. These costs include employee salaries going all the way back to March 2019.

A former programmer who has worked on Grand Theft Auto 6 has also revealed through an update on their LinkedIn profile that the game will feature “next-generation procedural breakable glass.” They went on to describe their responsibilities, which included “designing tools for production to capture in-game footage with extra details from our rendering system,” during their tenure at the studio between February 2020 and April 2023.

Grand Theft Auto 6 is coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. There is currently no confirmation of a PC release.

So, whilst there’s lots to cover on what you see and hear, here’s fourteen of the biggest differences Forza Horizon 6 brings over its predecessor, from progression, to exploration and customisation.

Introducing Japan

Forza Horizon 6 is swapping Mexico for the Land of the Rising Sun. Gone are volcanic trackways, winding tropicalia, and sunbaked beaches; in are mountain-road switchbacks, sweeping blossom-lined coastlines, winding neon streets, and more. FH6’s Japan is undeniably more diverse, but it’s notably larger than its predecessor too. Playground Games claims that Tokyo – the game’s largest urban district – is five-times the size of FH5’s equivalent Guanajuato. Despite bringing less unique biomes – nine (excluding Legend Island) for FH6, eleven in FH5 – Playground has once-again pushed the boundaries outward.

Biomes are Denser

Playground isn’t just bringing scale and diversity to Forza Horizon 6’s layout. Compared to Mexico, Japan is denser in detail too. As numerous previews report, instead of sensing the map’s larger size, you feel the change in its authenticity. Through tree photogrammetry, scanned tarmac, Japanese sky timelapses, and the way fallen cherry blossoms disperse in a supercar’s wake, it’s clear Playground has focused their ambition on showcasing the world’s character, more so than earlier games in the series.

Seasons Introduce Dramatic Contrast

Japan is a land of contrasts, where calm tradition meets bright modernity, and Forza Horizon 6 doesn’t just show this in its mix of rural and urban environments. No, seasons are set to bring dramatic change, more than was logically possible for Mexico’s steadier climate: Spring colour and parched Summer, golden Fall and frozen Winter. What’s more, a first for Horizon, snow is present year-round in FH6’s northern-most Alpine biome. Even more striking, Playground has embedded specific soundscapes and audio to support the feel of each season, with real-life field recordings making their way into the finished game.

Audio Gets a Tune-Up

Every Forza Horizon game comes with tuned up audio, and the results are oftentimes minimal. Forza Horizon 6 arrives with the same pledge: new engine recordings, upgraded turbo and backfire sounds, remastered audio, and more detailed surface interaction ring the game’s audio updates. From official footage, everything sounds lifelike, but is it enough to detect a clear, audible difference from Forza Horizon 5? There is, however, new audio tech that’s making its way into FH6: Triton Acoustics, an object-based, spatial reverb system which emulates the acoustics of real-world spaces. This should complement the tangible feel the game’s dense, detailed environments are establishing.

Car Proximity Radar Boosts Spatial Awareness

Forza Horizon 6 brings the all-new Car Proximity Radar as a selectable setting. When enabled, coloured, directional indicators will visualise your on-road location to nearby cars, which will prove especially useful if you race from cockpit or hood perspectives. The idea isn’t just to minimise the friction whilst driving from those more immersive vantage points, but to improve spatial awareness, avoid unintentional collisions, and promote clean, wheel-to-wheel racing.

Rebalanced Vehicle Classes

In Forza Horizon 5, high horsepower, all-wheel-drive setups generally yielded higher performance than vehicles tuned for handling. This became a pain-point for many players, with competitiveness being pigeonholed into specific builds. To address this, Playground has fully overhauled Forza Horizon 6’s entire roster to bring more consistent, competitive balance across every class of vehicle. That said, if you want a track-focused setup, the game also introduces a new “R Class”; a specific, high-performance race car category.

More Grounded Car Physics

Each Horizon refines its signature “sim-cade” car feel, where approachable arcade racing meets realistic suspension modeling and tirewear simulation. The thing is, the physics systems used in Forza Horizon 5 felt like they applied the same ruleset to every vehicle, no matter its individual characteristics. Forza Horizon 6, instead, is set to individualise weight transfer, surface interaction, and balance across the entire roster spectrum. If implemented well, it should bring more grounded physics, which might interest steering wheel users the most as steering wheel optimisation has been completely rebuilt.

Car Meets are Seamlessly Integrated

Throughout Japan’s shared open world, you’ll come across numerous locations to meet up with other car enthusiasts. Meets are significant in JDM car culture, and Playground has seamlessly integrated it into Forza Horizon 6’s open world. The studio name-drops Yokohama’s Daikoku Parking Area as a location you can visit in-game, and beyond showing off your cars, you can convoy toward Time Attack Circuits and overhauled Drag Races, all with no loading or matchmaking. There’s emphasis on real-world, social interaction in FH6 which simply wasn’t present in earlier titles.

Horizon Rush is a New Event

Horizon Rush is an all-new event type focusing on hi-octane, time-based obstacle courses. Navigating through Tokyo’s City Docks, an Alpine ski run, and more, you’ll negotiate jumps, moving obstacles, and smashable objects, aiming to finish as rapidly as possible. Playable solo, in co-op, or competitive multiplayer, these events are linked to the returning wristband system, where completion contributes toward your festival progression.

The Estate is a Space to Decorate

Forza Horizon 6 brings new ways to reshape the world beyond any of the series’ earlier entries. The Estate, for instance, is a large plot of land which acts as a space to build, expand, and personalise with out-buildings, garages, showrooms, and even your own racetrack. You can invite your friends over, but whilst The Estate is a solo endeavour only, up to twelve of you can build whatever you want in Japan’s open world via Horizon CoLab.

Customisation Overhaul Extends to Cars

Forza Horizon has always placed great emphasis on the ability to tweak the look and performance of your vehicles, and Horizon 5 was no different. This time around, some of the new things you can do include painting liveries over windows, and accessing a colossal stock of wheel rims and aftermarket bodykits. Forza Aero has been overhauled too, with customisable aero parts that are tailor-made to fit the lines and contours of your vehicle. Before this, Forza Aero lacked visual appeal; in other words, it made cars ugly. Let’s hope this remodel complements your car’s overall aesthetic beyond increasing downforce.

Greater Emphasis on “Complete” Aftermarket Cars

Aftermarket cars aren’t a new feature for Forza Horizon 6. However, in previous entries they were usually locked to specific car parts and kits which you could acquire and fix to your vehicles yourself. Parked across Japan, however, are plenty of “complete” aftermarket cars – pre-tuned and bodykitted – so it’s as simple as driving up to them, taking them for a test drive (if you wish) and hitting the buy button.

Casual Progression is Reframed

And, on the subject of exploration, Forza Horizon 6 brings a “Discover Japan” mode which is, ostensibly, a casual-leaning progression mode to encourage you to take a spin away from the festival’s events and embrace the Japanese landscape at your own pace. Underpinning this experience is collecting stamps – another real-world inspiration where stamps are collected in Japan from tourist spots. Activities like taking photos and completing deliveries will unlock stamps for your Collection Journal. As these activities lie away from the curated festival schedule, there are less restrictions on the class of car you can drive. If you want to participate in an unguided road trip in one of the game’s hottest supercars – one not currently available to you in festival events – then you can.

Auto-Drive Has a Cinematic Mode

Whilst Forza Horizon 5 had an auto-drive feature, it was built as an accessibility feature more so than an entryway into deeper immersion. So, in Forza Horizon 6, the returning auto-drive now includes a cinematic option which, once enabled, removes the UI, and treats your voyage like a cinematic road movie. You can relax on the way to events, or perhaps leave it running for a while as a visually engaging screensaver.

"The Career offers the meatiest piece of gameplay, as usual, and has a handful of refinements that make it a smoother and more efficient experience."

MotoGP has historically been one of their titles with the most gravitas, running for more than two decades with its official license with MotoGP, but as with most annual sports or racing franchises, new releases have varied in their balance between adding new modes or content and simply updating rosters or licenses. While still gorgeous and smooth to play, MotoGP 26 falls more on the latter side of the balance, offering what is largely a mirror of last year’s game with some physics tweaking and minor expansions on the Arcade gameplay style and specialized Race Off modes. It remains the definitive MotoGP experience with a wide range of tracks, race types, and accessibility options, but MotoGP 26 doesn’t transform the formula for anyone who’s played it in recent years.

As with past MotoGP games, MotoGP 26 focuses on getting you on the track as quickly as possible. There are no major new modes this year, nor is there much of a story in the Career mode, as the core single player and multiplayer modes remain largely in tact from previous entries. There are your traditional single player and online modes, including the expansion of online lobbies to 22, though we were not able to test the online experience during the review period.

There’s also an introduction of a new card pack collection mode in the visual vein of an Ultimate Team experience, but fortunately these are costless and purely collectible, offering just another reason to keep playing and fill your collection.

The Career offers the meatiest piece of gameplay, as usual, and has a handful of refinements that make it a smoother and more efficient experience. You can create a character as always, but you can now also play as any of the real-life MotoGP riders and step into their shoes throughout the season and beyond, even if you choose to start your career at Moto3.

There is also more definitive week-to-week intrigue, as you are more able to directly respond in press conferences about who your rivals are and what parts of your bike you want to continue developing, and these directly impact the key opponents you have on the track and the way in which your bike improves over the season.

Beyond those updates, though, the Career mode is largely unchanged from previous entries. You play through the full season of Moto3, Moto2, or MotoGP as your selected or created driver, and each grand prix consists of the full weekend of practices, qualifying events, and races, including sprint races when you make your way to MotoGP weekends.

"The Arcade mode significantly pulls back the realism in favor of accessibility and ease of use."

Your ultimate goal, of course, is to collect as many points as possible throughout the races to win the championship by the end of the season, and in the meantime there are also weekly goals and multi-week rival challenges that pit you against another rider of your choosing to score more points than them in the coming weeks.

All of this is in service of keeping you on the track as much as possible while shaking up the week-to-week marathon of the season, and the on-track experience is another incremental step forward for the franchise. MotoGP’s gameplay has always been among its strongest features because it highlights the strong balance needed in this sport between high speeds and cornering, and the updates this year do nothing to disrupt that balance.

Bikes certainly feel more unique from one another than they have in the past, as some slower bikes would allow me to turn a corner easily while others struggle to turn but outpace other riders on straightaways, and there is something immensely satisfying about figuring out your bike’s tendencies and being able to perfectly make a tight turn and zoom past your opponents.

On the other hand, it can be immensely frustrating when you feel like you have no control over your bike, but the game fortunately offers a host of accessibility options to adjust to both your play style and your skill level, including returning its two main racing experiences: Sim, the pure simulation at the core of the MotoGP franchise, and Arcade, the more forgiving experience introduced last year. The Sim experience offers the most in-depth control over your bike and your team that you can have, down to tire compression and pit stop strategy, while also imposing the most realistic rules and riding physics the game offers.

The Arcade mode significantly pulls back the realism in favor of accessibility and ease of use. It’s much more difficult to wipe out, penalties are enforced at a much slower pace, and you can more easily recover from bouncing off of other drivers or running off track. It’s much easier to play in Arcade mode, but the Sim offers much more granular control and higher potential for your bike.

"Sound design is also a standout, as crowds roar over engines firing to recreate the feeling of being in high-pressure moments and reward the effort to reach the pinnacle of the sport."

These two racing experiences highlight the range that MotoGP’s gameplay can have from a difficulty and flexibility perspective. You can take either of those experiences at their default settings, or at any time you can change any number of rules around penalties, computer assistance, or AI difficulty, which can also be set to adapt to your own skill level. At their extremes, these could be either far too lenient or far too stringent for any individual player, but the ability to change the experience so drastically creates accessibility for hardcore and non-hardcore MotoGP fans alike.

There’s also an expansion of the different types of races that you can enter with the expansion of the Race Off mode, which has a variety of different bike types and tracks away from the spectacle of a full grand prix. The new production bikes, for example, add to the roster of flat bikes and minibikes that can be taken out for shorter races, and these handle completely differently from traditional bikes. These are fun to race, particularly when they show up as interlude weeks within the course of a Career season, but they certainly don’t have the depth that the classic on-track experience offers.

From a technical perspective, even for a MotoGP game, this game is gorgeous and runs incredibly smoothly. Each track is beautifully rendered and can look completely different depending on time of day and weather conditions, in addition to the impact those have on the racing itself. I had no technical hiccups throughout my time with the game, and while the off-track visuals are lower-quality, the overall visual style is beautiful and realistic.

Sound design is also a standout, as crowds roar over engines firing to recreate the feeling of being in high-pressure moments and reward the effort to reach the pinnacle of the sport, complementing strong and responsive controls that effectively use the controller’s haptic feedback.

"With its limited improvements, MotoGP 26 doesn’t move the needle from past entries in the franchise, but it remains the definitive experience for MotoGP fans."

Developer Milestone continues to up its game each year with the MotoGP franchise. While changes year-in and year-out aren’t always the most expansive, this franchise continues to cobble together the most refined and expansive MotoGP experience on the market. With that said, MotoGP 26 is one of the entries with fewer upgrades and more incremental changes.

The game continues to take steps in visual and auditory fidelity and offers a wide range of accessibility options that open the door to fans of all experience levels, but this year’s game largely feels like a slight update over last year. With its limited improvements, MotoGP 26 doesn’t move the needle from past entries in the franchise, but it remains the definitive experience for MotoGP fans.

This game was reviewed on PlayStation 5.

Krossplay is supported in Quick Play and Online Arcade modes. In the latter, all players can join a hosted room regardless of whether they are on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, or Nintendo Switch. The code system, which was brought in with the previous update, will remain available, making it easier for players to find rooms hosted by their friends, for example.

Another major change in the update is that 2-on-2 matches, available in some of the games part of the Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection, can now also be played online. Previously, the modes were available only for offline play. The games with the mode are Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (Arcade), Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (SNES), Mortal Kombat Trilogy (PS1), and Mortal Kombat 4 (Arcade).

PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch 2 players can now also enable variable refresh rate. While switched off by default, enabling it allows players to experience some of the older games that were meant to be played at different frame rates. This includes non-standard frame rates for the original arcade games, which were made to be played at around 53 Hz.

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection was released on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and Nintendo Switch 2 back in October 2025. For more details, check out our review of its launch version, where we gave it a score of 7 out of 10. For more, also take a look at 15 major details about the game that shouldn’t be ignored.

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection Krossplay update patch notes:

• Krossplay now enables players across all platforms to play online with other MK fans. PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, and PC gamers can now meet and play in the same online lobbies or Quick Play sessions. (Note: Due to technical limitations, Mortal Kombat Trilogy is not available for online Krossplay matches when playing on original Switch consoles.)
• The 2-on-2 modes featured in Ultimate MK3 (Arcade), Ultimate MK3 (SNES), Mortal Kombat Trilogy (PS1) and Mortal Kombat 4 (Arcade) are now available for online play. These modes are designated with the words “2 on 2” when they are played in online rooms.
• In all supported games, players can select their level before an online match.
• Variable refresh rates (VRR) are now supported for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One X, Xbox One S, Nintendo Switch 2 (handheld mode) and PC.
• Fixed an issue where the minimum connection strength option for rooms was not always working properly.
• Fixed an issue with Kombat Kard where replays could be accidentally erased if unfavorited.
• Updated localization for various languages.
• Added various bug fixes and small improvements.

The narrative of Railway to Golmud revolves around the two sides—NATO and Pax Armata—fighting for control over the ruins of a village along massive rolling landscapes and valleys. A mixture of different terrain types will allow for long-range battles as well as close-quarters combat, with an extra wrench thrown in thanks to a moving railway that is also one of the map’s control points.

Explaining the decision to remake the map, level designer Luka Grepl-Malmgren has noted that the leaps we have made in technology since the release of Battlefield 4 have opened up new doors for the developers of Battlefield 6. It also helps that two of the original level artists for the map are still at DICE and had a hand in creating the remade map.

“We have better technology than we did 13 years ago,” Luka Grepl-Malmgren said. “Two of the original level artists of Golmud Railway are still here at DICE, so we all worked together to not only recreate their work, but also understand what was not possible in Battlefield 4 and bring those ideas to life in Battlefield 6.”

Battlefield Studios has noted that the remade Railway to Golmud will preserve much of what made the map special when it first came out in Battlefield 4, with the moving train being the focal point of Conquest mode and tactical game modes revolving around the village. Among the improvements is that the train now has more options for cover and parkour, thanks to the addition of more carts, as well as double the engines, so that it can move towards the enemy HQ just as well as your own HQ, depending on who has captured it.

“We made this change because in most Battlefield 4 matches, the train mainly remained on one side of the map and did not get any gameplay,” Grepl-Malmgren explained. “So, in this version, the train is now easier to capture back, but also the team holding the objective now has a strategic place to spawn and capture the flag closest to their enemy’s HQ. In playtests, we’re already seeing players ride the train much more than in the original Golmud Railway.”

Railway to Golmud has also seen a shift in geography. While the original Golmud Railway map from Battlefield 4 was supposed to be set in China, the Battlefield 6 version is instead set in Tajikistan so that the developers could “entrench it within the story between NATO and Pax Armata.” The total playable area in Railway to Golmud has also been improved for all players, be it infantry or jet pilots.

“Jet players can now go around the closest mountain peaks and have dogfights in the valleys and glaciers,” Grepl-Malmgren said. “I felt it was important to give the jet players space to line up new creative attack rotations through the map, and we can’t wait to see how they use this new space.”

Just about every aspect of Railway to Golmud has been redesigned to better fit the gameplay systems in Battlefield 6, from the Construction Site and Village to the VIP Compound, and even other points of interest, like the Warehouse, which better facilitates infantry play. Vehicle players will also be glad to find more asphalt roads that make traveling easier.

The studio has also noted that the map saw many changes throughout its time being tested through Battlefield Labs. Among other things, the anti-air system saw fine-tuning to protect players and vehicle spawns without its area of effect being more than 95 metres from the turret.

Battlefield 6 is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.

Nakanishi brought up comparisons with 2017’s Resident Evil 7, which also featured a chapter that was cut from the game before its release. “Up to now, I’ve talked in interviews about how Resident Evil 7 had a ‘phantom Chapter 2’ that got cut during development,” he said (via machine translation). “It was supposed to be the section where you move from the guest house to the main house.”

A similar “phantom chapter” in Resident Evil Requiem was cut when, during the process of development, the studio decided to tighten up the game’s overall structure. “Actually, Resident Evil Requiem had its own ‘phantom Chapter 2’ as well,” he explained. “As we lock down the structure of the game, we go through a pretty intense process of deciding things like, ‘Let’s push this scene further back,’ ‘Let’s just cut this entirely,’ or ‘Let’s add something different here.'”

“It’s not like we suddenly remove things at the very end of development, of course. More often, we build a rough version early on and keep revising it over and over. And in that process, it’s actually pretty common for an entire chapter to get cut.”

As one might expect, cutting out entire scenes or chapters might lead to some of the game’s developers getting upset, since they would have worked hard on those parts. However, according to Nakanishi, “as long as the result is good, everyone is satisfied.”

Where this “phantom Chapter 2” would have fallen in the Resident Evil Requiem timeline is difficult to nail down, since the title features pretty solid pacing from start to end. The survival horror game puts players in the shoes of two distinct protagonists—the returning Leon S. Kennedy and newcomer Grace Ashcroft. While the latter’s sequences involve survival horror elements similar to the earlier titles in the Resident Evil franchise, the latter focuses more on action in the vein of Resident Evil 4 Remake. The game has also been structured to allow players to explore many environments with both characters, with one often experiencing the aftermath of the other having passed through.

Nakanishi has also spoken about the minigame that Capcom has been working on for Resident Evil Requiem, noting that it will be single-player and “based on the battles in the main game.” He described it as being made “for those who have cleared the main story and are thinking, ‘I still haven’t had enough fun!’, I think you’ll be able to enjoy this and go ‘Whoa!!’, so sharpen your tomahawk and wait.”

Resident Evil Requiem is available on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch 2. For more details, check out our review. Also, take a look at its recent sales milestone, which led Capcom to revise its revenue forecast for the financial year ending on March 31st.