In an interview with The Verge during a recent episode of The Vergecast, Yoshida spoke about how another game might match up to Grand Theft Auto 6’s hype. However, he also acknowledged that it might just end up being Rockstar again when it eventually decides to develop Grand Theft Auto 7.

“After 15 years, maybe GTA 7, we’ll see,” he said when asked whether GTA 6’s success and hype will ever be matched by another game. “Or any of these companies from China, they might try to emulate or compete, because there will be [a] 15-year gap after GTA 6. So, no one should underestimate the power of these Chinese companies.”

Interestingly, Rockstar Games itself hasn’t shied away from discussing how much pressure it is facing for Grand Theft Auto 6. In an interview with Game Informer, co-studio head of Rockstar North, Aaron Garbut, spoke about the subject, noting that the team is working its hardest to deliver the best product.

“As the pressure for us on this project is huge, we dealt with that by doing our best to over-deliver. Normally you compromise scale for detail or detail for interaction, but with this project we went the other way – everything is dialed up – detail, scope, breadth, scale, interaction, and density. I don’t think we have ever created anything close to this before.”

For an example of just how highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto 6 is leading up to its November 19th release on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, last month’s Extended Look showcase – released as a timed exclusive on Netflix – was seemingly a massive success for the streaming giant. Analysts have estimated that it attracted more than 100,000 new sign-ups in the US, making it the third-highest subscriber acquisition for Netflix this year.

Netflix itself had confirmed that the Extended Look for Grand Theft Auto 6 garnered 31.1 million views in its first week, topping the English film charts for the streaming service in 87 of the 93 countries where this data is tracked.

The Grand Theft Auto 6 Extended Look showcase was around 27 minutes in length and featured plenty of in-engine gameplay footage that showcased a variety of missions, cutscenes, activities, and conversations. While more details about the title will likely be revealed leading up to its release, CEO of Rockstar Games’ parent company Take-Two Interactive, Strauss Zelnick, has referred to the Extended Look as being “one of the hors d’oevres” in the game’s overall marketing plans.

“There’s appetizers, main course and dessert to follow,” Zelnick said before going on to call Netflix “a great marketing partner for us, and distribution partner.” He also revealed that the partnership for the Extended Look came together thanks to “a groundbreaking partnership that Rockstar arranged.”

For more on Grand Theft Auto 6, check out what the studio has said about its world and its two protagonists.

Going further, the YouTuber believes that Sledgehammer Games – the studio behind Call of Duty titles like WW2, Vanguard, and 2023’s Modern Warfare 3 – had already made a prototype that showcased both of the projects’ gameplay mechanics.

“Please keep in mind that Activision’s Halo project is in early development, so things can change. According to the source who told me that Activision was working on a Halo game before its official announcement, Activision originally proposed two separate games: a free-to-play multiplayer game and a campaign-only game.

“I’m told Sledgehammer Games conceptualized and prototyped basic gameplay mechanics for both the proposed campaign and multiplayer projects, such as player movement.”

Reiterating a report by Insider Gaming from earlier this week, RebsGaming also mentioned that the campaign game would be a “soft reboot” of the Halo franchise that entirely skips the events of Halo Infinite. However, other parts of the Halo series would remain canon, including older games. Ultimately, the company made the decision to scrap the two disparate projects and instead decided to go with a “full package Halo game”. Activision is now seemingly considering a full reboot of the franchise for this singular project.

“My source says it is too early for things to be completely set in stone, but they have heard that Activision is currently considering a full reboot of Halo focusing on Master Chief’s origin story.”

While a reboot of the Halo franchise would be far from the obvious choice, especially after the relatively recent release of Halo: Campaign Evolved, it wouldn’t be as improbable as some might think. The stewardship of the franchise being taken over by Activision would certainly lead to the company wanting to leave its own mark on the franchise and making it its own, and a reboot might offer a way to do so while also introducing the franchise to a massive new audience.

The Halo project at Activision is likely still too early to have any details set in stone, however. The only thing that Activision president Rob Kostich had to say about it for now has been that the company wants to “make the greatest Halo game ever.”

“For Halo, our goal is clear: make the greatest Halo game ever, worthy of its universe and legacy, while staying true to what made players love it in the first place. It is a bold ambition, one that this franchise deserves. We have already begun assembling a purpose-built team, unique in capability and talent, ready and excited to deliver this next chapter with the community.

In the meantime, Halo: Campaign Evolved is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. Check out our review for more details.

Grand Theft Auto 6 occupies a strange space in gaming, since it is shaping up to essentially be one of the biggest media releases of all time. As such, Rockstar had the freedom to go for a higher price tag than the industry standard of $70. This could be seen when pre-orders started back in June, with the base edition of the title being priced at $80, and an Ultimate Edition being available for $100.

Speaking about his own interest in Grand Theft Auto 6, Klíma said in an interview with PCGamer that it “doesn’t appeal to me at all”.

“I am not going to be playing GTA 6 unless I’m somehow forced to. And the reason why it is so popular—it beats me. It’s something which I just fail to understand.”

Despite this, however, Klíma has said that he hopes that Grand Theft Auto 6 is successful. “It’s really good that somebody is making these games that are really technologically marvels,” he said, since it might embolden more companies to pursue the higher price points for their games. In the current state of the market, however, Klíma believes that “The last thing you can do is to increase the unit price.”

“That would help a lot, but everybody’s scared to death about it. Now, hopefully, GTA will blaze the trail, and it will allow us to increase the cost.”

On the other hand, he noted that Take-Two Interactive and Rockstar Games are two of the companies “who can afford, or who can dare, to increase the price of games, which I think is long overdue and also necessary for this business to survive. So, I wish them all the luck.”

Interestingly, Klíma’s thoughts echo the words of DFC Intelligence analyst David Cole, who spoke about how Nintendo and Rockstar Games might be paving the path for more companies to pursue the $80 price point. Others, however, have disagreed. NYU Stern School of Business professor and industry researcher Joost van Dreunen believes that this price tag is “reserved for only a select few titles and franchises”.

“Gaming is increasingly becoming a luxury category,” van Dreunen explained. “Its economics have historically centered around a winner-takes-most model, and GTA 6 raises the bar again. Publishers who can clear it will pull further ahead, and those who cannot will have to compete on distribution instead, finding new channels, bundles, and pricing models to reach players the blockbusters don’t.”

Grand Theft Auto 6 is coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S on November 19th, and its impending release seems to have already led to console shortages in some regions. According to a report from last month, pre-orders for the game had caused a 33 percent jump in the sales of PS5 consoles in the UK, and a 34 percent jump for Xbox Series X/S.

Starting on October 8th at 9 AM UTC and ending on October 12th at 8 AM UTC, players can experience the full game. Of course, not everything will be available immediately. Buried City, the second map, is available after completing six matches, while Riven Tides unlocks after 20 matches. Stella Montis should be immediately available, but time will tell.

And for those concerned about cheaters, Embark has recently announced a new, harsher stance. While it’s improving its anti-cheat, it will now permanently ban accounts that use cheats. “No warnings, no second chances.”

As for Frozen Trail, it brings some of the most exciting content to the shooter yet, starting with the new map, Pendola Pass. You’ll also face new ARC Threats, new weapons, the Weapon Amplification system to power up older guns, the ARC Frigate, which can be boarded, Raider Outposts, and the Rewards Pass, which replaces Raider Decks. Head here for all the latest details. There’s even a new PvE toggle being tested from October 13th to 20th.

Well, if you’re wondering about how it’s going to perform on your platform of choice, we can tell you that things are looking, and feeling, real good this time around. There’s a major visual leap that merits further discussion, but not before we get into what’s on offer on each playable platform and how the game makes use of what it’s got with each configuration.

To that end, it’s a good idea to begin with the Xbox Series X and how Marcus’ early days are brought to life on it.

 A Range Of Options On The Series X

It’s the usual round of offerings on the Series X, with Quality, Balanced, and Performance being your options, something that’s become a sort of standard for the beefier versions of current-gen hardware.

The Quality Mode sets things at 30fps in exchange for “higher visual fidelity”; Performance goes for 60fps to ensure “smooth motion and responsiveness”, while Balanced targets 40fps while bridging the gap between the other two modes on the visual front, although it does need a 120Hz display. If you’re planning on hosting 3-4 player co-op in the Campaign, it’s worth knowing that even Performance is going to target 30 fps.

We’ve got a few general observations to go over before tackling how each mode performs and which one is our pick for this particular experience. Gears of War: E-Day is a busy game, and there’s an astounding amount of stuff happening on your screen, whether it’s right in front of you or in the background, with the lighting working hard to illuminate each scene with aplomb, while the sound design really sells the action alongside some great voice acting. It looks stunning at night, with atmospheric lighting and rich global illumination bringing Kalona’s devastated streets to life.

Kalona is a city under attack, and the balance between its proud structures that are still untouched by the locust conflict and desolate areas where that fight has already unfolded helps showcase a level of detail that deserves all the praise we can give it. The presentation here definitely lends itself well to the Quality Mode’s visuals, but is that FPS nerf something we could live with in a game like this?

Let’s begin with buildings around Kalona that are still intact. Look at a glass panel on one of them when you’re playing on Quality, and you’re going to see reflections that shift with your own perspective, the light behaving exactly as it would if you were actually there. The gentle glow of the sun serves to better underline the suffocating darkness of the shadows if you’re out in the city at night, chasing down whatever new objective prevents Fenix and his Squad from getting a well-deserved break.

Textures and volumetric effects, of which smoke and fog do occur quite often as you’d expect from a city-turned-warzone, are all very immersive touches that help sell the impression that you’re trying to save a city under siege. Every firefight comes with explosions, particle effects, environmental destruction that happens in real time, and, of course, gunplay that’s quite responsive in the hands while it looks and feels very satisfying to execute on screen.

Of course, the Performance Mode is where that gunplay is really going to shine, and it was the option we defaulted to for most of our playtime. It simply is the best way to enjoy this one’s combat, and while it does achieve that by sacrificing reflections and a bit of visual flair, it isn’t inferior by any means, and looks good enough to make it easy to recommend.

There is the Balanced Option for those of you who can take that dip in frame rates for improved visuals, but it’s going to come down to personal taste. We do recommend trying each one out for yourself since they’re all worthy options to experience a game whose visual polish is a noteworthy upgrade from the last appearance in the franchise.

But it is worth mentioning that performance on the Series X was excellent across the board, with nary any stuttering or dropped frames to dispel the immersion and engagement that comes so easily once E-Day gets some momentum going.

An Absolute Beast On PC

You’re probably thinking that the console version getting as much praise as it has spells good news for those of you playing this one on PC. You’re certainly correct, although there are minor concerns.

Our test machine had an RTX 3080 Ti, Ryzen 9 5900X, and 32 GB RAM, running every setting from High to Ultra for different test scenarios, with 4K output and DLSS set to Ultra Performance. A brief rundown on PC settings options is needed here. There are also a lot of ways to tweak the experience to your liking, with sliders for the effects, reflections, ray tracing geometry, post-processing, motion blur, animation, and cosmetic quality, a bunch of settings around ray tracing, and so many more to allow you to make changes and get the best out of the game on your machine.

Note that E-Day is an extremely demanding game, so our frame rates were hovering around 30 to 50 fps during particularly chaotic combat moments. As expected, these visual improvements create a distinct divide from the console release, solidifying this as the definitive platform for the game.

While the Series X did put up a surprisingly good fight, it cannot hope to match the superior detailing and lighting that add a lot of immersion to the often chaotic scenes you’re going to experience throughout the game. The reflections are more detailed, while a cleaner overall image is sustained very well across the chaos that unfolds, often abruptly enough that we’d have allowed the game a slight margin of error to catch up.

It doesn’t need it, though, as we saw a very stable image no matter how intense things were getting on screen. We’ve mentioned how things can get very busy, but allow us to paint you a picture of a set piece that occurs relatively early in the story. You’re looking down on the city with the barrel of a machine gun in front of you, and the Locust forces are not very happy with your aerial assault.

There are ground troops and explosive cans to take them out with, seeders launching projectiles that you must shoot down almost constantly, Locust soldiers moving around to try and get around your sightlines, the environmental destruction that stems from explosions along with particle effects, all against the backdrop of a city whose crumbling splendor is on proud display.

Those reflections in the glass panels on buildings? They’re noticeably better on PC, as are the ones in puddles that you step in from time to time. Rays of light aren’t just from the sun or lamps, but from Marcus’s armor and the world around him, all of them lighting up the world with a glow that’s very welcome in narrative moments where things are tense, and the shadows feature deep black levels that enhance contrast and highlight the ruined state of Kalona’s infrastructure.

The shadows and volumetrics are another highlight, along with excellent detailing and brilliant visual design that really help sell the setting of a city facing a siege against an enemy that is able to brush aside its defences with relative ease. Of course, getting into a battle is as smooth as it can get, and the new cover mechanics and movement systems really come to life with the improved visual fidelity on PC.

Even so, with so much happening during heavy action, noticeable performance drops occur from time to time. We wouldn’t call those game-breaking, but they were momentary lapses that stood out given how well the rest of the experience was presented and polished.

All in all, it’s very impressive that E-Day has been able to present such a level of visual quality on our PC while sustaining performance consistently enough, with only minor issues to break the spell Kalona casts on you.

Taking Gears Into The Future

You might be wondering about how well E-Day stacks up against Gears 5, especially after the latter received that upgrade for the Series X that made it quite the looker. However, The Coalition’s latest offering benefits from being an exclusively current-gen title, with improved detailing on the world and character models marking a tangible upgrade over its predecessor.

That’s quite a compliment given how Gears 5 was already so darn good at bringing the franchise’s signature blend of chaos and melancholic beauty to life. That chaos is another difference, and the sheer amount of environmental detail that shifts alongside the tide of battle is something you’re going to notice quite quickly in E-Day.

Of course, the new movement, animations, cover system, and the general quality of gunplay are also upgrades that are going to stand out. When you consider all of that against better textures, lighting systems, and the overall polish on the presentation, E-Day is definitely a step forward for the franchise’s design language, and is sure to contribute to everything we see from the franchise after it.

Kalona’s a big part of that, and is a design choice that allows The Coalition to retain enough creative control over what unfolds in front of you while allowing for a bit of player agency alongside levels designed to sustain the intensity of each fight no matter how long it lasts. Its architecture boasts of a time when humanity’s peaceful era led to some real progress, all of it now put at risk by the events of The Emergence.

As ground zero for the events of the franchise that follow its demise, Kalona City is the perfect stage for E-Day to tell its story. It’s how the game manages to present a sense of scale and spectacle while also managing to sell each fight as a desperate struggle for control of an area. It crumbles around you as the action unfolds, a constant reminder of the stakes for which you’re fighting. It’s the facilitator of a generational leap for the franchise, and a great one at that.

Know that we don’t say that lightly. Gears of War: E-Day is a game that comes together very well, bringing the excellence of individual technical systems to a canvas that makes even a fight that unfolds organically feel like it’s been scripted. It’s Gears as you know it, but graphically dialed up to make that familiar experience push forward into a future where further innovations now feel like they’re an inevitability.

Those performance drops on PC didn’t bother us, but they are an area where the game could use a bit of fine-tuning. Of course, there’s always the possibility that they melt away with more powerful hardware or at a lower resolution, but despite those minor flaws, across every supported platform, this game represents a clear evolution.

Finding the right balance between graphical fidelity and smooth performance is straightforward on Xbox Series X, thanks to its versatile display options, while its PC version shows you what it can do when you really push it to its limits.

No matter which one you’re playing, Gears of War: E-Day is a great tech showcase and is quite clearly one of the best-looking games of this generation.

Control Resonant currently holds an 83 Metascore based on 75 reviews. On Steam, it holds a 91 percent “Very Positive” rating based on 5,209 user reviews. Remedy Entertainment has yet to announce sales, however.

As a follow-up to 2019’s Control, the sequel follows Dylan Faden, who wakes from a seven-year coma and embarks on a mission to find his sister, Jesse, and stop the paranatural horrors running havoc through Manhattan. You can check out our review for more details – we scored it a nine out of ten, praising the combat, storytelling, and presentation.

Of course, Remedy hasn’t sat on its laurels since launch. A release hotfix adjusted the health and stun level of most enemies, and two of the Resonants that players will face. However, a larger update brought significant polish to the entire game while adding New Game++ and quality-of-life improvements, including viewing pinned resources at vendors directly from the map.

They’re giant open worlds that are designed to have you exploring every available square inch of land you can find, with interesting rewards and intriguing stories just waiting for you to stumble upon them. They feature gruff-voiced protagonists who carry the weight of the world on their shoulders and often add the burdens of others to the load.

Both games feature fighting systems that can have you feeling untouchable once you master their unique rhythms, while allowing for a surprising amount of nuanced customizability to the experience. But if you’re somebody who’s played both, you know that they’re also worlds apart.

With all of the improvements that have now been implemented in both Pywel and The Continent, we thought it would be a more interesting comparison if we looked at how both worlds have evolved since we first embarked on the respective journeys that they take us on. Let’s get right to it!

A Feast For Your Eyes

We felt the visuals in both worlds are a good place to start, as it’s an area where we believe both games are now evenly matched. However, Crimson Desert Enhanced does benefit from being a game that’s been made with modern technology, while Remastered is bringing modern features to a game that might not have been made to accommodate them.

However, it’s important to remember that CDPR’s 2015 title was quite ahead of its time when it was released, and the studio had already given the world a visual bump with that next-gen update from a few years ago. The remaster brings path tracing and improvements to existing ray tracing mechanics, alongside improvements to textures and assets to give us a very immersive and visually splendid world.

And yet, an open window in a room sometimes forgets to let rays of light in, forcing you to pull out a torch whose glow behaves exactly as it should with the new system governing it. Geralt’s hair often gets black when he’s in dark places, which can be quite jarring for those of us who know him as the White Wolf.

You see the game’s visuals working very well for the most part, until something out of place reminds you of The Continent’s age. It’s something that Pywel doesn’t have to struggle with, although that one did have its fair share of problems on the visual front.

However, the developer has worked to polish the visuals on offer over the course of the year, and Crimson Desert Enhanced is now a version of the game where every scene it presents comes with visual splendor and beauty to match The Continent, and perhaps even surpass it thanks to the benefits of being developed with more modern tech from the get-go.

But how does it feel to engage with the worlds themselves? That’s a facet of the experience that an open world lives or dies by, and it’s also interesting to see how both games have evolved their worlds over the years. It might look like Pywel and The Continent are similar in the ways in which you get to engage with them, but we’d say it’s more about what those activities encourage instead of what you do with each one.

The Continent’s a place that’s reeling from events in the past and present; its war-torn desolation forms a perfect backdrop for Geralt’s cynical examinations of the world around him. The things you do as a Witcher, when viewed through that lens, aren’t necessarily nudging you toward a more altruistic point of view, but challenge you to see the world as it is.

When you translate that into gameplay, you get choices that come with consequences you have to live with, and the potential for stories that feel personal when you play through them. Yes, the game has its minor share of generic open-world stuff, but given that Monster Nests, Hidden Treasures, and so many other activities directly feed into your role as a Witcher, the risk of monotony is somewhat offset by what you get to do with the rewards that come.

Kliff’s role as a Greymane is a little different, coming with more altruistic connotations and political intrigue that make Pywel a melting pot of different factions, cultures, and perspectives. That automatically lends a certain unique flavor to nearly every enemy you come across in a land where distinct biomes help maintain that variety.

Moreover, the spread of activities on offer is similarly aligned with making Kliff rise to his destiny while solving the mysteries of The Abyss. That means exploring the world makes you a better Greymane, while also showing off so many mysteries, quests both interesting and mundane, and a lot of things to distract you from the main story, no matter how determined you are to begin its next chapter.

Which one you’d prefer is sure to come down to personal tastes, but Remastered is the finest version of a world where the very writing forms an undercurrent of quality to it. In terms of nuance, The Continent edges ahead of Pywel despite being equally matched on visual quality in terms of how its world can not only pull you in, but also have you thinking about it even when you’re not actively exploring it, even if Pywel manages to have more scope in this regard.

But the world’s visuals and exploration are only parts of what make great RPGs.

A Challenge For Your Hands and Minds

The combat systems on offer, as well as the ways in which Geralt and Kliff are able to get around quickly in maps that span vast distances, are equally important in crafting a cohesive experience.

Let’s begin with the combat, and how Geralt’s abilities as a Witcher lend themselves to the illusion of a fighter with whom most opponents would rather avoid a direct confrontation. He’s got magic, his swords, his superhuman speed, and of course, potions, oils, and bombs, all of which are options in a fight.

He’s got the knowledge of Kaer Morhen guiding his preparations for fights against deadly monsters, while human enemies are going to be hard-pressed to even hold a candle to his prowess with a steel blade. He’s formidable, but not entirely infallible, and Remastered has done well to improve on his movements and animations, making them more fluid and quicker to give combat a much-needed boost.

But the enemy AI on offer is also important, given how Remastered has made enemies more coordinated, forcing you to switch out the original game’s pattern of “attack, attack, dodge/parry, cast sign, attack again”, instead making you pay attention to where attacks are coming from and respond accordingly. The dynamic camera is another nice touch and makes each fight all the more immersive.

However, from a progression standpoint, we’d argue that the new skill tree makes getting to your comfort zone so much easier if you’re coming back to the game after a previous playthrough. It’s so easy that you risk staying there and not taking advantage of how it now facilitates builds in a way that makes sense, something that a more casual player is going to miss out on, given how many other systems are competing for their attention.

Crimson Desert’s combat and progression mechanics are more woven into the gameplay, as are traversal mechanics. Geralt’s ability to swim, sail, and ride across The Continent matches in comparison to Kliff’s ability to fly, summon wyverns or Dragons, or use his own Abyss-powered abilities to cross even the most imposing natural obstacles with relative ease.

It helps that Pywel is designed to make you use those abilities intelligently, and to demonstrate that same cunning in a fight. Where Remastered brings Geralt into fights where he’s outnumbered by a group, Pywel pits Kliff against literal armies. It’s also relevant to remember that most of his main abilities have been refined, enhanced, and even added to over the course of this year to make Crimson Desert feel like a whole new game while retaining what was already working in these areas.

They’re vastly different experiences, to be sure, but we’d have to say that as far as combat, traversal, and progression go, it’s a tie.

Stories For Your Hearts and Souls

Ah, the main narrative. The reason why many of us end up spending several hours engaging with worlds like Pywel and The Continent. Be it the ever-present threat to reality that stems from misuse of the Abyss in Crimson Desert, or the devastating effects of the Conjunction of the Spheres and the desolation of a war-torn land in The Continent, it’s clear that both games have very interesting stories to tell.

It’s also clear that while those narratives are very effective at lending context and structure to worlds that would otherwise languish in irrelevance without them, Kliff’s time in Pywel can feel too disjointed, and perhaps even too slanted towards being a good guy to give you the same sense of agency you can get from Remastered.

The search for Ciri, and the people it puts you in contact with, present opportunities for you to put your stamp on the world, leaving it better or worse than you found it when you first arrived. The Bloody Baron and the manner in which your choices can influence his family long after his role in the main narrative is over is a great example.

That he isn’t the only character in The Continent whose life you can impact in such a fashion, and that every single such questline comes with so much nuance and depth that you might need a break just to process it all, is something that didn’t need any improving in Remastered, as it continues to be a very potent storytelling formula that has since lent itself to Night City with excellent results.

Crimson Desert Enhanced has done well to try and make its story more cohesive, but Kliff’s fight against the forces looking to destabilize his world isn’t going to measure up against a story that has so much to offer. Yes, there are highs such as the moment you bring Myurdin down, and lows like Damiane’s discovery of her mentor’s fate, all of which can give you memories to cherish.

But The Continent makes you think like a Witcher and allows you to inject a bit of your personality into its eventual fate. That your decisions carry as much weight as they do is something that allows Remastered to steal the win away from Crimson Desert despite the latest update’s effort to bridge the narrative gaps the original game came with.

We’d say it’s more interesting to be a Witcher than a Greymane as far as the story each role presents you with is concerned.

A Common Thread

There you have it. Crimson Desert Enhanced comes with better controls, combat, and traversal mechanics, but The Witcher 3 Remastered is the definitive version of an open world that continues to remain amongst the most legendary ones there are.

The Continent’s overarching story, and the world it thrusts you into, are simply too nuanced and well-written for Pywel’s relatively tamer take on destiny to compare to. However, if you look at how both games have evolved from their original releases, things get a little more interesting.

You see, The Witcher 3 has been beloved not only by its players, but also by its makers, and has thus seen two incredible expansions and two substantial updates over the years, with another one and a whole sequel on the way. Geralt and Ciri have also managed tos tay in the spotlight due to the franchise’s presence in other media, giving Remastered the benefit of a constant spotlight. It’s an improvement that brings new tech to an already great game, with noticeable improvements to the underlying systems that made it special in the first place.

Crimson Desert, on the other hand, has had to claw its way up from a rather lackluster release response, using every improvement it has made to earn back goodwill from its audiences, and as such, makes for a more impressive upgrade. Enhanced is the culmination of a journey that might have taken another studio a very long time to complete, and it now exists mere months after the original release and has already laid the groundwork for an expansion; it is something we can’t scoff at.

As a complete game, we’d have to hand the win to The Witcher 3 Remastered, but as an evolution of the game that came before it, Crimson Desert Enhanced is the more impressive upgrade.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

“It needs to wash over you when you’re sprinting down the busiest street in the city, hearing snatches of a hundred different conversations as you go. If you shift your focus onto something new, it’s going to fill the frame, and it’s going to push back,” he said in a snippet posted by the publication on Instagram.

One example provided is Amborsia, where you’ll see voting signs, hear radio commercials, or see a “political talk show working itself into the state.” But it’s all satirical in the way that Grand Theft Auto is known for. “There is a big focus on not just holding up a mirror,” says Rupert Humphries, senior VP of narrative, “But on making everything satirical, larger than life, and more grotesque.” That may be why the team “ran with” things like “conspiracy theories, the strange ways the public reacts to everyday occurrences,” and so on. Truth is stranger than fiction, after all.

However, as much as Rockstar has been a proponent of realism, from how you steal cars to new criminal profiles that police can build on the characters, it’s seeking a healthy balance. “Sometimes you need things to feel realistic to help with immersion, and conversely, sometimes you need to forego realism in favor of what’s convenient for the player.”

Grand Theft Auto 6 is out on Xbox Series X/S and PS5, and if it wasn’t obvious enough already, this may be the biggest video game launch in years. Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick called pre-orders “unprecedented and astonishing.” He later revealed, unsurprisingly, that the $100 Ultimate Edition is more popular.

It’s no surprise, then, that Star Wars, as versatile as it is as an IP, lends itself so well to racing games- to the point where it’s almost surprising we haven’t had way more of them over the years than we have. Fuse Games’ Star Wars: Galactic Racer zooms onto the scene to fill exactly that void, and does so with flying colours, delivering a thrilling, adrenaline-fueled, wildly addictive racing game that can stand toe to toe with the best arcade racers out there.

"Star Wars: Galactic Racer lets you zip through its courses in one of four different types of vehicles"

Coming from a studio that was created by former Criterion Games talent that worked on the likes of Burnout and Need for Speed, that shouldn’t come as a surprise. Star Wars: Galactic Racer controls like an absolute dream, boasts an incredible sense of speed, and touts unmatched moment to moment game feel.

Moving through courses at constant breakneck speeds never stops being thrilling, and every successful drift around a tight corner comes with a spike of dopamine. There’s nothing quite like zipping and weaving your way through a series of tight, claustrophobic, winding paths fraught with hazards and opportunities to crash, before bursting out onto open land and boosting away at awe-striking speeds. Galactic Racer captures that feeling again and again and again, even after dozens of hours of playtime.

The variety on offer in vehicle types certainly complements those strengths. Star Wars: Galactic Racer lets you zip through its courses in one of four different types of vehicles (or repulsocraft, as the game calls them)- landspeeders, speeder bikes, skim speeders, and of course, podracers. They all handle differently, and especially differ in their individual drifting mechanics, though each is an absolute joy to control.

My personal favourites turned out to be skim speeders, which allow for incredibly tight and high speed, high risk cornering and turning- once you get to grips with them, at least. I would, however, have liked greater granular variety of vehicle options within each individual vehicle class, because right now, the options feel a little limited- even though that is offset by the impressive customization mechanics on offer in the campaign (more on that in a bit).

Meanwhile, Galactic Racer also puts its own interesting spin on boosting- on top of regular boosting, unless you’re in a podracer, you can also use their repulsocraft’s ramjet engine. Once primed, you can activate the ramjet to supercharge your engine and hit even higher speeds for sustained windows- but make sure you turn it off before your engine overheats, lest you literally explode. It’s an excellent risk versus reward mechanic that greatly adds to the high-speed thrills the game already delivers in spades.

Just as fun and satisfying as the act of driving your repulsocraft is the act of sabotaging your opponents. You can, of course, do so through brute force, with high-speed nudges, crashes, or whatever suits your play style (such as different types of offensive and defensive abilities), and predictably enough, that never quite gets boring. There’s always something incredibly satisfying about ramming into an opponent and watching them explode in cinematic cutaways as they crash into an obstacle- the game very much does feel like Star Wars x Burnout in those moments (and there’s no shortage of them).

"Just as fun and satisfying as the act of driving your repulsocraft is the act of sabotaging your opponents."

Given how well it plays, Galactic Racer would have been a salivating prospect for racing fans as is, but what makes the game even more interesting is how its campaign is structured. The game is set in the wake of the Empire’s fall in Return of the Jedi, and you play as Shade, a former pilot who joins the Galactic League, an underground racing competition for all professional and aspiring intergalactic speed freaks. What’s particularly interesting about the campaign, however, is that it adopts a roguelite structure- which ends up working remarkably well in more ways than one.

Each run begins with selecting a vehicle, and adopts the overarching structure of a branching objective map that takes you from event to event. Objectives range between regular races, time trial events, and eliminators, which are longer races where the racer in last place is knocked out at regular intervals until one competitor emerges victorious.

Meanwhile, at times, you can also choose to not participate in an event, and instead meet with one of several different characters who might offer you different kinds of deals that could benefit you (or not) in several ways. Personally, I was hoping for a little more variety as far as race event types are concerned- as fun as each event usually tends to be thanks to the game’s core gameplay strengths, repetition can sometimes set in due to the lack of variety in the race event types on offer.

Structurally, however, Galactic Racer’s campaign’s branching objective map works quite well. You always have a choice between multiple events, which makes you can make things significantly more or less difficult for yourself through those choices- though there’s always a lot to consider. For instance, picking the easier option of a time trial where there’s no danger of crashing out of your run can be an alluring prospect, but at the same time, eliminators or races where there’s much greater risk of prematurely failing your run yield much greater and more valuable rewards.

Meanwhile, it’s also important to consider more than just the next event – that low stakes option might look attractive on its own, but there’s always the chance that the event after that is more than you bargained for. Planning ahead becomes important, then, adding further to how well the campaign’s structure captures risk versus reward decision-making.

"Planning ahead becomes important"

Other than time trial events, each race lets you crash a limited number of times, at which point you’re out of the race, losing you a league token. Each run also gives you limited league tokens (and initially, only one), and once you run out of those, your run is over, and you have to start again from the beginning. That, of course, means you don’t have to win every race to progress, though the better you perform, the better rewards you earn, in turn increasing your chances of progressing. The rewards you earn at the end of each race, meanwhile, range from weapon parts, credits that you can use to buy new parts or repair existing ones that have adopted malfunctions, or upgrades that you can use to enhance your repulsocraft’s various stats.

This being a roguelite though, when you fail a run, you lose all of the progress you have made over its course, including upgrades and customizations made to your vehicle- though there are ways to make some permanent upgrades nonetheless- such as adding new auto parts to the pool that you buy from in the middle of a run.

Additionally, you can also use upgrade points accumulated over the course of each run to permanently enhance vehicle’s stats, allowing you to kick off runs from progressively stronger starting points as you pump more points into your craft. There’s an impressive range of upgrade and customization options available- though I will admit to being disappointed by the fairly limited cosmetic customization options available for repulsocraft.

By and large, however, thanks in large part to the level of strategy involved on both micro and macro scales, progression in Galactic Racer feels consistently rewarding, and only serves to make the game that much more addictive- yes, this is very much a “one more run” game that will keep you glued to the screen unreasonably late into the night.

Each run sees players moving from one location to another, and successfully completing a run advances you further in the story- and yes, Galactic Racer does have a story. It’s definitely (and unsurprisingly) not the highlight of the experience, but Shade’s quest to climb the ranks of the Galactic League and dethrone the villainous reigning champion Kestar Bool does still serve as a solid, fun framing device for the campaign. The story feels right at home in the fringes of the Star Wars universe, and even manages to rope in some fun appearances and cameos from characters that fans of the movies will recognize in ways that feel organic.

It’s also remarkable just how well the story – and really, the game as a whole – captures the vibe, tone, and atmosphere of the Star Wars universe. From the environments and the vehicles to the characters and more, everything looks and sounds perfectly Star Wars, right down to the details in the repulsocraft’s elaborate dashboards, or the pre-race engine prep you do before the countdown for each race.

"Each run sees players moving from one location to another, and successfully completing a run advances you further in the story"

There’s impressive environmental variety on offer, which not only sets each locatoiapart from the others in how they look, but also has gameplay repercussions. For instance, the frozen wastes of Ando Prime impact things such as handling, but long stretches of ice on the track also keep your vehicles’ temperatures low, allowing you to use your ramjet for much longer without the risk of overheating.

On the other hand, the lava pools found on Sentinel I will do the opposite, and quickly heat your vehicle up, which means avoiding them is usually key. Meanwhile, each location also comes with multiple different courses, each of which is excellently designed, with a fine balance of large, expansive spaces that let you fly at breathtaking speeds, and tight, winding sections that challenge you to skillfully thread around dangerous obstacles. Without a doubt, track design is one of Star Wars: Galactic Racer’s bigger strengths.

Beyond all that, the campaign does plenty else to keep things varied and interesting for players, which only adds to how addictive it is. For instance, each run allows you to play with one of several different racing styles, with more unlocked as you play more and accomplish various tasks and challenges. Each racing style comes with unique perks and advantages, such as allowing you more crashes per race, or rewarding more aggressive gameplay focused on takedowns, among many others.

Meanwhile, not long into the campaign, you also get the ability to pick between several different backers who provide you with additional boosts and rewards based on your performances, while there are also various favours to earn from characters that you meet throughout the campaign that provide different boosts and bonuses, and more, adding another layer of planning, strategy, and replayability, all of which enhance the campaign’s roguelite structure that much more.

The campaign is easily the star of the show in Star Wars: Galactic Racer then – which is a good thing, because outside of the campaign, the game offers less than I was anticipating. That doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a lack of content. No, on the contrary, across its Scenarios and Arcade modes, Galactic Racer has a solid amount of races and time trial events for players to tackle.

That said, I would definitely have liked more ways to play the game. For instance, I would have loved a longform mode that allowed for more traditional ways to play with the game’s impressive customization toolset, without the campaign’s roguelite trappings, for those looking for a more conventionally structured experience. Or, at the very least, an option to create custom tournaments- hopefully that’s something that gets added in the future.

"The campaign is easily the star of the show in Star Wars: Galactic Racer"

On the multiplayer side of things, I struggled to find many races in the multiplayer sessions held during the review period. I was only able to play a couple of races, which were expectedly fun, but I’m hoping to sink my teeth into that side of the experience in a much more meaningful fashion post-launch, one there’s a larger pool of players online.

From what I have seen so far, Galactic Racer seems to be launching with a decent suite of multiplayer offerings. There’s quick races, quick podracing, and more longform tours that use the campaign’s roguelite structure. Whether Fuse Games and publisher Secret Mode plan to add more multiplayer modes remains to be seen. The developer has promised post-launch content, but details are yet sparse on exactly what that content will entail.

Meanwhile, from a tech and audio-visual perspective, Galactic Racer is an impressive game in more ways than one. For starters, it looks absolutely gorgeous. The vehicles look excellent, the environments are gorgeous and obsessively detailed, and the lighting system on display in particular as absolutely stunning.

Audio design is also absolutely top notch here. Every repulsocraft sounds spectacular, and the sounds accompanying each action in different environments add massively to the experience. Most importantly, the game also runs almost perfectly, which is crucial for an arcade racer. In all my time with it so far, I have hardly encountered any major frame rate drops.

Star Wars: Galactic Racer is an excellent game. It boasts tight, thrilling, action packed racing that not only captures the Star Wars racing vibe perfectly, but also delivers an experience that comes absurdly close to the highs of the Burnout franchise. Meanwhile, the roguelite structure lends itself perfectly to the campaign, making for an immensely addictive and replayable experience. Though the game could do with a little more variety in the content on offer here and there, by and large, this is one of the most enjoyable Star Wars games in recent years, and absolutely unmissable for all fans of arcade racers.

This game was reviewed on PlayStation 5.