Everything You Need To Know About Sid Meier’s Civilization VII

Anticipation for the release of Sid Meier’s Civilization VII is widespread, and rightfully so. As one of the most iconic and enduring strategy game franchises, it boasts a dedicated global fanbase, all eagerly awaiting its arrival. The game promises to immerse players in its intricate blend of diplomacy, technological advancement, and strategic decision-making, offering a captivating experience that is sure to dominate players’ attention for hours. With the release imminent, here is everything you need to know as the Civilization series makes its long-awaited return.

Sid Meier’s Civilization VII Release Date

Sid Meier’s Civilization VII is receiving a full release on Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X and S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4 and PC via Steam and the Epic Game Store on February 11, 2025. Players who pick up either the Deluxe or Founders Edition will be able to access the game from February 6, instead.

Sid Meier’s Civilization VII Pre-Order Bonus

As with most AAA releases, there’s a shiny pre-order bonus available for players looking to secure their copy of Sid Meier’s Civilization VII before release. The shiny trinket in question is the Tecumseh and Shawnee Pack, which will provide the Shawnee tribes (and their leader) as a playable civilization. Unlike other releases, however, this bonus is only available for purchasers of the Standard Edition of the game – as it is already included in both the Deluxe and Founders Edition alongside a host of other goodies (see below).

Sid Meier’s Civilization VII Special Editions

Sid Meier’s Civilization VII offers a couple of special editions, each packed with unique content to enhance an avid Civ fan experience. As well as the early access mentioned above, here is what else is included in those editions:

Sid Meier’s Civilization VII Deluxe Edition

  • Sid Meier’s Civilization VII base game
  • Tecumseh and Shawnee Pack
  • Deluxe Content Pack
    • 2 Leader Personas
    • Deluxe Cosmetics Pack
  • Crossroads of the World Collection
    • 2 New Leaders
    • 4 New Civilizations
    • 4 New Wonders
    • Narrative & Wonder Pack
    • Special Cosmetic Bonus

Sid Meier’s Civilization VII Founders Edition

  • Sid Meier’s Civilization VII base game
  • Tecumseh and Shawnee Pack
  • Deluxe Content Pack
    • 2 Leader Personas
    • Deluxe Cosmetics Pack
  • Founders Content Pack
    • 2 Leader Personas
    • Founders Cosmetics Pack
  • Crossroads of the World Collection
    • 2 New Leaders
    • 4 New Civilizations
    • 4 New Wonders
    • Narrative & Wonder Pack
    • Special Cosmetic Bonus
  • Right to Rule Collection
    • 2 New Leaders
    • 4 New Civilizations
    • 4 New Wonders
    • Narrative & Wonder Pack
    • Special Cosmetic Bonus

The Founders Edition provides players with everything they might need to expand their strategic horizons but they will need to be quick, as it’s only available to purchase until February 28, 2025.

Sid Meier’s Civilization VII Gameplay

Let’s delve into the exciting details. Sid Meier’s Civilization VII will maintain its signature 4X strategy gameplay, allowing players to guide their civilizations from ancient times into the distant future. As always, success will hinge on resource management, technological advancements, territorial expansion, and ultimately, outmanoeuvring rival leaders through diplomacy, warfare, culture, or economic dominance.

A notable change in Sid Meier’s Civilization VII is the introduction of three distinct eras: Antiquity, Exploration, and Modern. These phases not only shape the flow of the game but also introduce a dynamic new mechanic—allowing players to change civilizations based on their play style. This system encourages strategic adaptability, whether that means pivoting mid-game to take advantage of new opportunities or committing early to a long-term strategy.

Another notable departure from previous instalments is the ability to select leaders and civilizations independently. This flexibility allows players to create unique combinations, such as pairing Caesar Augustus with the Mongol civilization, enabling diverse strategic approaches and replayability. Couple this with even more innovations – such as towns, smaller settlements that complement cities and offer strategic advantages, and navigable rivers – and Sid Meier’s Civilization VII looks set to be a significant evolution in the series, offering a rich and varied strategic experience that caters to a wide range of playstyles.

Where Can I Watch The Latest Trailer?

Those looking for a brief teaser of what is to come should look no further than the gameplay reveal trailer above. Showcasing the classic 4X strategy the beloved series is known for, it provides a small glimpse into what players can expect at release. Fans looking for a deeper dive into Sid Meier’s Civilization VII, however, should check out the Sid Meier’s Civilization VII YouTube channel for a series of First Looks at the Leaders available in the game at launch.

PC System Requirements

Sid Meier’s Civilization VII is poised to deliver a next-generation 4X experience, boasting significantly enhanced visuals and gameplay features. Given the game’s expansive maps and in-depth systems, avid strategy fans would do well to familiarise themselves with the system requirements for Firaxis’ latest title, which can be found below:

MINIMUM:

  • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
  • OS: Win 10 64 Bit
  • Processor: Intel i5-4690 / Intel i3-10100 / AMD Ryzen 3 1200
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 1050 / AMD RX 460 / Intel Arc A380
  • DirectX: Version 12
  • Storage: 20 GB available space

RECOMMENDED:

  • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
  • OS: Win 10 64 Bit
  • Processor: Intel Core i5-10400 / AMD Ryzen 5 3600X
  • Memory: 16 GB RAM
  • Graphics: NVIDIA RTX 2060 / AMD RX 6600 / Intel Arc A750
  • DirectX: Version 12
  • Storage: 20 GB available space

Embark on a grand journey in Sid Meier’s Civilization VII, where you will shape the future of humanity from the dawn of time to the far reaches of space! Every decision you make echoes through the ages—will you rise as a global superpower or fall into ruin? Secure your copy today and start your empire’s rise to greatness on Green Man Gaming—your legacy awaits!

From Shocks to Awe: The Best Plot Twists in Gaming

From The Usual Suspects to Oldboy (the Korean original, obviously) and everything in between, there is certainly no shortage of classic movies that boast some truly jaw-dropping twists that upend everything you thought you knew. The same also happens to be true of narratives in video games, as there are a whole heap of absolutely legendary titles that have plot twists that have woven themselves into the very fabric of video game discourse for years and sometimes decades after release. Without further ado, here are some of the best plot twists in video games.

Oh and just to be clear, though many of these games are a little on the vintage side, some seriously *major* spoilers lurk within all the same. You have been warned.

BioShock

After casting players as the enigmatic ‘Jack’ and putting them through a fairly traumatic, watery plane crash, 2K Boston’s first-person shooter adventure wastes little time in thrusting those same players into the depths of Rapture, a failed utopian city at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean created by eccentric business magnate Andrew Ryan. Seemingly alone, apart from the voice of mysterious freedom fighter ‘Atlas’ in your ear, BioShock sees the player used as a pawn of sorts between Atlas and the nefarious Andrew Ryan, who has overseen the fall of Rapture and the violent, biologically engineered madness of its many citizens which followed.

Throughout the game, BioShock has the player continually being instructed and directed by Atlas to complete various objectives and tasks – often prefaced by the seemingly harmless polite preamble of “Would you, kindly?”. Well, as it turns out this is a subconscious trigger phrase that Rapture’s thought-to-be-long-dead premier gangster – Fontaine – has been using under his guise as Atlas to force Jack to carry out his plans. After nearly twenty hours of play, having the guy that guided you through thick and thin and provided you with a friendly, encouraging voice where none existed, only to be outed as the primary antagonist of the whole thing was an utter masterstroke and one that still resonates even today.

Dead Space

Arriving at the spaceship USG Ishimura, engineer Isaac Clarke is tasked with boarding the vessel to discover what has happened to his partner Nicole Brennan and why the ship’s systems have gone radio silent. As it turns out, the crew has been murdered and turned into Necromorphs – terrifying sharp-limbed reanimated corpses that just want to murder and spread their contagion to anything they can find. Holding onto the increasingly desperate video and audio messages from his wayward partner, Isaac eventually comes to realise that Nicole would never have been found alive as she had committed suicide to prevent herself from turning into a Necromorph. Dead Space ends with a mentally wrecked Isaac being attacked by a horrific hallucination of Nicole. This one still hits home.

Final Fantasy VII

Oh boy, where to start with this one? Let’s start with Final Fantasy VII’s big bad Sephiroth who believed that his conception was the result of the alien deity Jenova, but it’s actually revealed that his parents are none other than the amoral Professor Hojo and Lucrecia Crescent, the wayward love of the endlessly cheerful Vincent Valentine. A tad awkward, methinks.  

Elsewhere, for much of the time that Sephiroth speaks and interacts with the primary protagonist Cloud, he makes our spiky-haired hero believe that he is nothing more than a clone of Sephiroth himself. It’s only as Square-Enix’s landmark JRPG begins to march toward its conclusion that we discover Cloud isn’t a clone of Sephiroth, but rather has a deeply fractured psyche which makes him vulnerable to both Hojo and Sephiroth’s assertions. So yeah, it’s a whole thing. 

Halo: Combat Evolved

In Halo: Combat Evolved players assume the mantle of the Master Chief, a nearly seven-foot-tall enhanced soldier driven to a single, destructive purpose – the eradication of the murderously zealous alliance of alien races known as the Covenant. And that’s pretty much what you spend more than half of the game doing as you blow up Grunts (tagging them with plasma grenades and watching them run about in a mad panic never gets old), destroy Elites and lay waste to hulking Hunters in increasingly large numbers. 

It’s during the ‘Guilty Spark 343’ mission, however, that everything gets turned upside down with the introduction of the Flood, an aggressive parasitic life form that intends to infect, corrupt and kill humans and Covenant alike. As such, Halo: Combat Evolved feels very much like a game of two halves in this sense and the reveal of the Flood as ultimately the primary antagonist of the whole affair was quite the shock when we played Halo: Combat Evolved for the first time nearly quarter of a century ago.

Halo 2

Dovetailing straight into the revelation of the Flood as the new big baddies in Halo: Combat Evolved, 2004’s Halo 2 seemingly once more centres on the Master Chief as the primary protagonist, this time pitting players up against not just the Flood, but also the newly revealed and divergent Brute wing of the Covenant, too. Where Halo 2 shifts things quite substantially from its predecessor, however, is that just before the halfway mark, Bungie’s shooter sequel puts players into the alien boots of the ‘Arbiter’, a disgraced Covenant Elite tasked with retrieving the Guilty Spark and destroying both humankind and Flood alike.

Soon, the Arbiter and Master Chief realise that they have a common enemy in both the Flood and the overzealous Covenant Brutes and set about ensuring the downfall of both antagonists in earnest. To say that nobody expected to play as a Covenant Elite in a Halo game back in 2004, let alone one that would be a given dual-protagonist status with the Master Chief himself, would be quite the understatement indeed.

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

Arguably defining the face of ‘new stealth’ in the late 1990s, Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid very much made a gaming icon out of the main protagonist Solid Snake almost overnight. So imagine the surprise when the highly anticipated sequel, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, was unleashed on store shelves in 2001 and performed one of the industry’s most infamous bait and switches, by sidelining the extremely popular Solid Snake extremely early on with the unknown – and back then markedly less cool/interesting – Raiden for much of the game.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Set thousands of years before the events chronicled in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic ably fulfils that long-held fan dream of wanting to have the freewheeling agency that comes with stepping into the shoes of a Jedi Knight or a Sith Lord in a massive non-linear, multi-planet spanning RPG. With the player and their companions sent to destroy Darth Malak, it soon turns out that the player character is none other than an amnesic Darth Revan, the former master of Darth Malak and an extremely powerful Sith Lord in their own right. As plot twists go, this was an absolute doozy as it made you analyse every choice you had made right up until that point. A proper all-timer as far as video game plot twists go.

The Last of Us Part I

Starting with their initially borderline-hostile interactions in Naughty Dog’s seminal post-apocalyptic survival horror, The Last of Us Part I beautifully depicts the maturing relationship between Joel and Ellie as it flourishes throughout all four seasons. As they travel across post-apocalyptic North America, they seek to use Ellie’s immunity as a means to create a cure for the Cordyceps infection that has decimated humanity. With main protagonist Joel tragically losing his daughter during the game’s opening act, we’re provided with a foreshadowing of Joel’s state of mind and more importantly, the massive, daughter-shaped hole that lay in his heart that is slowly being filled as the pair inch towards the base of the rebellious Firefly faction that could synthesise a cure.

So, when Joel and Ellie finally reach the Firefly hospital base in Salt Lake City and Joel learns that Ellie won’t survive the operation to create a cure for the Cordyceps virus, well, he goes off on one. In a real ‘Are we the baddies?’ moment, The Last of Us Part I has the player embark on a wholesale slaughter of just about everyone in the Firefly base – including Marlene, the regional leader of the Fireflies who tasked Joel to escort Ellie across the country in the first place. Perhaps worse still, Joel can’t confront his deeds (or the original trauma) in the aftermath and subsequently lies to Ellie when she questions him and says that her blood simply wasn’t viable for a cure for the Cordyceps infection. This was a massive, emotional gut-punch which entirely reframed how we perceived Joel as the primary protagonist of The Last of Us and more importantly, made us look into our hearts and minds, forcing us to confront the question of whether or not we would do the same thing in his situation.

Everything You Need To Know About Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 on PC

Arguably one of the best commercially and critically received superhero series of all time, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 puts an emphatic exclamation mark on that statement. Not only does Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 dramatically raise the stakes compared to the previous two games in the series, but a massively expanded open world coupled with an eye-searing wealth of PC-centric improvements courtesy of Nixxes Software all add up to what must certainly be one of the best superhero games of all time. Here’s everything you need to know as Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 swings onto PC.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 PC Release Date

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 received its full release on PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store on January 30, 2025. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 was previously released on Sony’s PlayStation 5 as a console exclusive in October 2023.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 PC Special Editions


In addition to the usual Standard Edition of the game, there is also a Digital Deluxe Edition of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 on PC which offers the following goodies for those willing to reach deep enough into their pockets:

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 Digital Deluxe Edition

  • Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 base game 
  • Arachknight Suit early unlock for Peter with three colour variants
  • Shadow-Spider Suit early unlock for Miles with three colour variants
  • Web Grabber gadget early unlock
  • 10 exclusive suits for Peter and Miles (five each)
  • Additional Photo Mode items
  • +5 Skill Points

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 PC Enhancements


Ported to the PC platform by code wizards Nixxes Software, it probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 on PC boasts a whole heap of technical enhancements that aren’t available on the original PlayStation 5 version of the game. Essentially identical to what the two previous Marvel’s Spider-Man titles boasted on PC, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 brings support for ultrawide monitors, allowing players to leverage 16:9, 16:10, 21:9, 32:9, and 48:9 ratio-based resolutions with triple monitor setups using NVIDIA Surround or AMD Eyefinity. Further afield, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 also looks set to robustly support the image upscaling and frame generation technologies embedded within NVIDIA’s DLSS and AMD’s FSR, while ultra-high detail settings allow for the sort of improved levels of shadow and ray tracing detail that simply wouldn’t be possible in the PlayStation 5 version of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 PC Story


Easily one of the most epic superhero titles of all time and neatly knitting together several teased storylines from both Marvel’s Spider-Man and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 picks up roughly ten months after the events chronicled in Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales. With Peter Parker and Miles Morales now not only good friends but joint superhero crime fighters as New York’s resident Spider-Men, Insomniac’s sequel pits the Big Apple’s superhero duo against the extremely dangerous Kraven the Hunter, a trophy-hunting mercenary with a private army of savages that his sights set on hunting down the strongest prey that New York City has to offer. Meanwhile, Peter Parker’s childhood friend, Harry Osborn, has now returned from his hiatus – allowing the two to reconnect all the while a shadowy, alien foe manifests itself and threatens to upend everything Peter, Miles and all of their loved ones know. 

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 PC Gameplay


As a direct sequel to the previous two games in the series, Marvel’s Spider-Man certainly doesn’t reinvent the wheel when it comes to the core gameplay. This is to say that the third-person, open-world superhero shenanigans which have Spidey smacking around foes and completing a raft of missions, side-missions and activities remain very much untouched here. That said, there are several sizable improvements that Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 brings over its immediate predecessors.  

The first and most obvious new feature is the ability to switch between the two Spider-Men protagonists on the fly when exploring the width and breadth of open-world New York City. Not only do each of the Spider-Men have their own missions and double-team special moves, but so too do they also possess their own skill, combat and ability trees as well as a third shared skill tree, providing players with ample progression opportunities to keep things appropriately compelling.

In terms of combat and exploration, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 innovates in both areas in some quite subtle ways. In the realms of combat, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 introduces a new parry mechanic that allows both Peter and Miles to parry certain strong attacks at the last second before immediately retaliating with a devastating strike of their own. When it comes to stealth and exploration, both Spider-Men are now capable of laying down Web Lines between walls and other structures which in turn provide an additional wealth of stealthy opportunities for either evading foes or unleashing a range of new silent takedowns against them.  

Finally, the open world that Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 boasts is also dramatically upgraded and expanded over its predecessor. Not only does the improved city and ray tracing detail result in a much more evocative depiction of modern-day New York City, but so does the fact that the entirely new boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn are now represented and are ripe for exploration and saving.

Where Can I Watch The Latest Trailer?

System Requirements

Harnessing cutting-edge technology, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 brings an even more dynamic and visually stunning version of New York City to life, with enhanced character models and fluid web-swinging mechanics. Built to take advantage of modern hardware, the game offers a range of graphical settings to accommodate different PC setups, ensuring players can fine-tune their experience for the best balance of performance and fidelity.

MINIMUM

    • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
    • OS: Windows 10/11 (version 1909 or higher)
    • Processor: Intel Core i3-8100 or AMD Ryzen 3 3100
    • Memory: 16 GB RAM
    • Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 or AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT

    RECOMMENDED:

    • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
    • OS: Windows 10/11 (version 1909 or higher)
    • Processor: Intel Core i5-8400 or AMD Ryzen 5 3600
    • Memory: 16 GB RAM
    • Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 or AMD Radeon RX 5700

    Everything You Need To Know About Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2

    Deserving of the Game of the Year award haul that was scooped up back in 2018, Kingdom Come: Deliverance was the sort of open-world, no-fantasy, historical fiction RPG that folks had long yearned for. With Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 now upon us nearly six and a half years later and already looking like a superlative sequel in almost every way, here’s everything you need to know about Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 as it charges onto PC and consoles this February.

    Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 Release Date

    Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is set to receive a full release on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S/X and PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store on February 4, 2025. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 has not been confirmed for a release on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One platforms as of this writing.

    Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 Pre-Order Bonus

    Regardless of whether you’ve got your heart set on the Standard or Gold Editions of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 (more on that below), pre-ordering either Edition will secure the Lion’s Crest Bonus Quest which when completed, grants you the legendary weapon and armour sets of the renowned Knight Brunswick. For everyone who preorders Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, the Lion’s Crest Bonus Quest shall be available on Day One.

    Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 Special Editions

    Neatly supplementing the Standard Edition of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, players can also throw down some extra cash for the Gold Edition of Warhorse Studios’ ambitious sequel. For all that extra scratch, the Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 Gold Edition packs in the following treats:

    Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 Gold Edition

    • Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 base game 
    • Gallant Huntsman’s Kit 
    • Shields of Seasons Passing
    • Access to three upcoming expansions

    In addition to the Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 Gold Edition, a somewhat expected Expansion Pass will also emerge for the game, providing access to the upcoming trio of Expansions along with the robust Shields of Seasons Passing DLC.

    Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 Story

    A direct sequel to the events which unfolded in Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 once more casts players as Henry of Skalitz, a wayward wannabe knight who finds himself under the ‘tutelage’ of the pompous but well-meaning knight Hans Capon (who you might recall from the previous game). Once more swept up into the swirling chaos of 15th-century Medieval Europe, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 sees both Henry and Hans continue their fight against the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund all the while cementing their deeds into legend in the process. Put simply, if you were to think of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 as a buddy road trip adventure set against the backdrop of the cultural melting pot of Medieval Europe, you wouldn’t be far off at all.   

    Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 Gameplay

    Overall, though Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 doesn’t play massively differently from its award-winning predecessor, it nonetheless adds some new features while finessing a wealth of key features from the original game. Viewed from a first-person perspective, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is an open-world RPG that eschews the typical monsters and magic fantasy setting for a fictional tale which unfolds in the very real historical trappings of 15th-century Medieval Europe.

    As Henry of Skalitz, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 emphasises not just the notion of freedom, allowing you to go anywhere you like and do just about anything you like, but also how the world around you reacts to your deeds in real-time. Not only do the choices you make in the numerous main and side quests reverberate far and wide across Medieval Bohemia, causing folks to react to you in a variety of different ways, but so too does even your very appearance. If you dress especially shabbily but yet attempt to hoodwink your way into a gathering of nobles, you will almost certainly fail – and word will spread of that failure to boot. Likewise, there is a high likelihood that the Kingdom will hear of that time you put on bravado, whilst dressed a little too ornately, during a mugging and your ill-fated attempt at intimidation simply didn’t work and you were attacked anyway.

    Speaking of physicality, the directional sword combat system from the first game returns. For those unfamiliar, combat in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 revolves around blocking enemy strikes, performing ripostes, executing combos and aiming for angles of attack on your enemy that are the least protected. When paired with a stamina system that must be managed, not to mention a sense of environmental awareness – since fights can, and almost always do, break out anywhere – combat in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is a visceral and tactical endeavour, to say the least. It’s not all melee weapons and up close violence, however, as Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 also allows players to use new ranged weapons such as crossbows (which can also be fired from a mounted position) for the first time.

    When you’re not exploring the vast and inviting forests, hills, lakes, meadows and sprawling woodlands of Medieval Bohemia, you’ll be spending your time crafting new goodies. Whether you’re collecting herbs (which must be put in a drying hut lest they spoil) to create herbal remedies, hunting game to feed yourself or sell on, or fashioning swords and armour in a smithy, crafting in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is a highly interactive affair which involves the player at every step, rather than just gathering up a bunch of items and clicking a big button that says ‘craft’. 

    Where Can I Watch The Latest Trailer?

    One of the latest trailers for Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is available to watch right now and you can catch it above. The official Story Trailer for Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, it offers a glimpse into the game’s narrative, set in early 15th-century Bohemia during a tumultuous civil war and gives you a glimpse of what lies ahead for Henry on in this epic sequel.

    PC System Requirements

    Leveraging the latest iteration of Crytek’s impressive CryEngine technology, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 brings massively improved character models and highly detailed environments that evoke the rural expanses of Medieval Bohemia. Luckily, much like Kingdom Come: Deliverance before it, Warhorse Studios’ sequel is rather scalable to say the least, so users of a broad range of PC rigs should still be able to tweak their way to an enjoyable experience. You can catch the latest PC system requirements for Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 below.

    MINIMUM:

    • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
    • OS: Windows 10 64-bit (or newer)
    • Processor: Intel Core i5-8400, AMD Ryzen 5 2600
    • Memory: 16 GB RAM
    • Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (6GB), AMD Radeon RX 580
    • Storage: 100 GB available space

    RECOMMENDED:

    • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
    • OS: Windows 10 64-bit (or newer)
    • Processor: Intel Core i7-13700K, AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
    • Memory: 32 GB RAM
    • Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070, AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT
    • Storage: 100 GB available space

    Step into the heart of medieval Bohemia in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, where political intrigue, epic battles, and personal revenge drive the story forward! Prepare to immerse yourself in a historically rich, open-world RPG filled with authentic combat, compelling characters, and choices that shape your destiny. Grab your copy today on the Green Man Gaming store to secure an incredible deal and begin your journey into the past with confidence. The fate of the kingdom awaits—are you ready to make your mark?

    Indie Game Round-Up – February 2025

    February may be the shortest month, but it’s packed with potential when it comes to fresh, creative, and unforgettable indie experiences. Whether you’re looking to cosy up with a narrative-driven gem or challenge yourself with something bold and experimental, February 2025 has plenty to offer.

    As always, we’ve sifted through the vibrant world of indie releases to bring you the cream of the crop. These games are proof that indie developers continue to push boundaries and innovate in ways that leave us amazed—and sometimes a little obsessed. So, settle in, clear your backlog (or at least try), and get ready to dive into this month’s standout indie titles.

    Spirit Swap: Lofi Beats to Match-3 To – 3rd February

    There aren’t many new classic-style puzzle games, so it’s nice that Spirit Swap: Lofi Beats to Match-3 To is arriving to right that wrong. You play a match-3 puzzle game against the in-game denizens while listening to some seriously relaxing music and engaging in the broader narrative. Not only that, but you can also bond with a cast of witches and demons, decorate your room with trinkets and even play against friends in the local versus mode.

    Rift of the NecroDancer – 5th February

    Crypt of the NecroDancer is one of the coolest roguelikes ever made. It’s so good, in fact, that Nintendo let the developers make a Zelda game with the same vibe. So, it’s only natural that Rift of the NecroDancer is also an incredibly cool rhythm game. This time around though, you’ll be battling against enemies in a more classic rhythm game style, dodging oncoming obstacles to fight off enemies and win the day. It looks great, it’ll sound great, and we can’t wait.

    Big Helmet Heroes – 6th February

    We really like beat ‘em ups, and we’re getting two good-looking ones this month. The first is Big Helmet Heroes, in which you play a hero who – as the name suggests – has a big helmet and is on a quest to try and save the princess from danger. This game has a lovely style to it, and you can play as one of four different classes, all alongside another player, to fight it out against the over-the-top enemies and bosses you’ll come up against.

    Urban Myth Dissolution Center – 12th February

    Urban Myth Dissolution Center has you taking on all manner of strange myths and monsters as Azami Fukurai. You’ll have to investigate a lot of creepy stories and discover that the truth is often more unsettling than the tale. It’s presented in a visual novel style with some seriously gorgeous 2D-pixel art, and it looks like a great chance to stop yourself from sleeping for a bit.

    Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds Ultimate – 13th February

    Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds Ultimate is the second beat ‘em up on the list and it’s filled with chibi anime girls dishing out incredible violence as they try to save reality itself. There are loads of different characters to choose from, and even the chance to play as enemy characters this time. It looks like it’ll offer an excellent remaster of the original game filled with plenty of stuff to do and co-op fun to be had.

    Date Everything! – 14th February

    Here us out, but what if you could date everything? Well, that’s the concept of Date Everything!, a new dating sim that lets you date everything, in a shocking twist. That means trying to romance everything from the living embodiment of your hoover to an overwhelming sense of existential dread. It might be a bit silly, but we’re really optimistic about this one, after all, it’s always exciting to see more dating sims out there!

    Era One – 20th February

    Era One is a space real-time strategy game where you build your bases from scratch, and then try and survive as the universe does its best to make sure you don’t. It’s got a surprisingly human story at the centre of it, but still promises plenty of galactic battles, fleet management and starship construction and customisation along the way. Any sci-fi strategy fan is sure to get a kick out of this one.

    ATLYSS: A Promising MMO That’s Filled With Great Combat And Nostalgic Graphics

    Modern MMOs can feel overwhelming, especially those that demand what seems like a lifetime’s worth of gameplay just to get up to speed. However, the core concept of playing a game with some friends and taking down tough dungeons, grinding for gear, and mucking around with quests and builds is one that we can all enjoy.

    For those who want the MMO experience but prefer something more laid-back, with retro-inspired N64-style graphics and a smaller, more intimate player base, ATLYSS might be just the game for you. While the visuals might feel a bit “online” for some, tweaking the settings can help if that’s not your thing, and the rewarding, fun gameplay more than makes up for it.


    In ATLYSS, most of your time will be spent picking up quests in the Sanctum area before venturing into the world to complete them. These quests vary from defeating specific enemies to gathering materials or tracking down special Sigils. While the objectives may feel similar, the engaging combat and cleverly designed puzzles keep things fresh and exciting.

    At the start, you’re a generalist, picking up a weapon or two and fighting as best as you can. Your toolkit includes basic attacks, aerial moves, dash attacks, parries, blocks, and a few other abilities. But once you hit level 10, everything changes—you can choose a class, which opens up the chance to fully embrace min-maxing and tailor your playstyle. Want to focus on magic? You’ll dominate ranged combat with flashy, powerful spells. Prefer the fighter class? You’ll become a tanky powerhouse, effortlessly parrying and drawing aggro. Or you could lean into dexterity, zipping around with lightning-fast attacks. No matter what you pick, each option is a blast to play.

    If the above sounds like your sort of thing then we have good news! ATLYSS is still in Early Access, which means the game is just getting started. As polished and enjoyable as it already is, there’s a ton of potential for it to grow even further.

    The Road To Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O – A History Of Sega’s Legendary 3D Brawler

    The cascading effect that Sega’s Virtua Fighter franchise has had on the fighting game genre cannot be understated. With the first Virtua Fighter title hitting the arcades all the way back in the dark mists of October 1993 (more than a year before the first Tekken title would make its arcade debut), players had never seen anything quite like it, with its fully 3D characters, fluid animation and third axis breaking moves. To say that the fighting game genre at large wouldn’t be the same ever again is quite the understatement, and with Sega very much back in the Virtua Fighter business after a long hiatus with this year’s Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O, let’s take a look back at the decades-spanning history of Sega’s pioneering 3D brawler series.

    Virtua Fighter

    Developed on SEGA’s then-revolutionary Model 1 arcade board, which could display fully polygonal, flat-shaded fighters and arenas for the first time, Virtua Fighter felt like a revelation after playing the sprite-based 2D fighters which had long ruled the roost. Though players were just being introduced to fresh faces like Akira, Lau, Jacky, Wolf and Kage, there was no denying that Virtua Fighter both looked and felt like nothing that had come before it. Throw in the new ring-out mechanic to keep things appropriately spicy and it was clear that SEGA had something very special on their hands with Virtua Fighter, not to mention a foundation that would be built upon for years to come.

    Virtua Fighter 2

    A true successor in just about every way, Virtua Fighter 2 sought to address the main complaint that many fighting game purists had with the original Virtua Fighter – depth. Not only did the existing roster of characters all enjoy new moves, counter-attacks and sophisticated combos (Akira’s devastating Stun Palm of Doom in particular proved to be a favourite among more hardcore players), but two of the new characters, Shun and Lion, can pull off special ‘axis strikes’ which allow them to move in and around the Z-axis, avoiding enemy attacks before delivering one of their own.

    Aside from the greatly welcomed increase in complexity and the corresponding level of mastery required, Virtua Fighter 2 also upped its technical game. Running on SEGA’s Model 2 arcade board (the same board that would power the superb Daytona USA), Virtua Fighter 2 not only introduced fully texture-mapped character models, backgrounds and arenas, but it also brought motion capture to the fore as well, once again underscoring SEGA’s newborn 3D fighting series as a true trailblazer in the genre. Not only would Virtua Fighter 2 receive a surprisingly good SEGA Saturn conversion in 1995, but arcade-perfect versions of the game would also appear as side activities in SEGA’s wildly popular Yakuza 5 and Yakuza Kiwami 2 titles.

    Virtua Fighter 3

    With Namco’s competing Tekken series starting to punch its way into the hearts and minds of arcade and console players across the globe during the mid-1990s, SEGA needed to do something special with its next entry in the Virtua Fighter series and that’s precisely what the legendary Japanese publisher-developer managed to pull off with Virtua Fighter 3. Leveraging the vast reservoir of power contained within SEGA’s cutting-edge Model 3 arcade board, Virtua Fighter 3 blew away every other 3D fighter from a technical perspective and it wasn’t even close.

    Boasting a massive uptick in texture detail, geometric detail, lighting, shadowing, cloth physics and more, the various combatants of Virtua Fighter 3 were visually unparalleled for their era and the T-1000, liquid metal stylings of end boss Dural, certainly rammed this point home well. As one might expect the various arenas also saw an equivalent generational leap in visual fidelity, but such upgrades were more than skin deep. For the first time, Virtua Fighter 3 introduced the idea of undulating arenas, where players could fight up or down a variety of different sloped surfaces (such as the picturesque Great Wall, for example).

    Bolstering such a wealth of technical improvements, Virtua Fighter 3 also introduced the world to two new fighters – Aoi and Taka-Arashi. Generally, a much more nimble fighter than many of the other combatants on the roster, Aoi’s aiki-jujutsu combat style makes her an effective choice for pro players who prize precise and swift attacks above anything else. On the other end of the spectrum however, we have Taka-Arashi – a hulking sumo wrestler who both looks and fights unlike any other character on the roster with his powerful clubbing attacks and stifling body attacks. It’s also worth noting that Virtua Fighter 3 also boasted an all-new 3D dodge command – a first for the series. Virtua Fighter 3 would eventually find its way into the home nearly two and half years later in a decently optimised port for SEGA’s ill-fated, but much-loved Dreamcast console.

    Virtua Fighter 4

    With a five-year hiatus on the books, Virtua Fighter 4 would make its arcade debut in August 2001 and knowing the strides that Namco’s Tekken and Team Ninja’s Dead or Alive games had made in the interim, had more than a few tricks up its sleeve to remain relevant. Though the audiovisual presentation of Virtua Fighter 4 was a nice upgrade from what had come before, it certainly didn’t represent the same sort of leap that Virtua Fighter 3 heralded over Virtua Fighter 2. Instead, Virtua Fighter 4’s improvements and innovations would be found elsewhere.

    For a start the undulating arenas that Virtua Fighter 3 had brought to the fore were now gone, replaced instead by much more flat, caged environments in which players could pummel their enemies through the walls and create a ring-out condition (neatly the walls would remain destroyed for the rest of the fight if wrecked prematurely). More than just eye candy or a means to enable the ring-out gameplay seen in previous games, these walls also provided skilled players with the ability to juggle and stagger unfortunate enemies against them. 

    Further afield, Virtua Fighter 4 made a real effort to appeal to both Virtua Fighter and genre newcomers, thanks to a comprehensive suite of walkthrough-driven training modes and two new fighters – Vale Tudo fighter Vanessa and Shaolin monk Lei-Fei, that each boast completely new fighting styles that felt utterly apart from anything seen in a Virtua Fighter title to date.

    Virtua Fighter 5

    Keen to maintain the momentum established by Virtua Fighter 4, just two years later Virtua Fighter 5 would make its appearance on the fighting game scene. Thus, it probably shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to note that Virtua Fighter 5 was more about refining what had come before rather than necessarily reinventing the wheel. 

    From slower throw speeds to different-shaped arenas, that mix up the fragile walls seen in the previous game, to a range of improved timings, Virtua Fighter 5 was about incrementally improving what Virtua Fighter 4 had done before it. That said, Virtua Fighter 5 nonetheless represented not just the pinnacle of SEGA’s long-running 3D fighter series, but so too did it make a case for itself as one of the best fighting games on the market, with a vibrant competitive scene that saw years and years of professional competitive play following its release underscoring that fact.

    Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O

    Make no mistake, Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O is the definitive version of SEGA’s flagship brawler by a country mile. Ably supported by pin-sharp 4K resolution visuals, rollback net code and the years of additional content and updates that Virtua Fighter 5 received after its original release in 2006, Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O is a riveting, content-stuffed celebration of one of the finest fighting games of all-time. Put simply, for anyone looking to play the very best version of Virtua Fighter 5, or for genre and series newcomers who want to see what all the fuss is about, Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O is as essential as it gets.

    The Rangers In The South Is A Gorgeous Roguelike RPG

    First things first, The Rangers in the South is a visually stunning game that perfectly masters the 2.5 HD look that we have seen with recent RPG remasters. Seriously, just buy this game (it’s only £3.39) and admire it. Even if you don’t end up doing anything else, it’ll be worth every penny. That said, you might as well give it a try while you’re at it—you’re in for a real treat.

    In The Rangers in the South you take control of a random villager – choosing from a fighter, ranger, or mage starting build – and set out into the world to find your path. The game provides only minimal guidance before leaving you to explore and experiment on your own. This lack of hand-holding might feel unusual at first, but it adds to the sense of freedom and discovery. As a result, the adventure feels genuinely epic.


    What starts as a simple task of slaying goblins gradually transforms into a much grander journey. Before long, you’ll find yourself battling through richly varied biomes, each with its own challenges, and facing off against fearsome demon lords. This progression from humble beginnings to heroic feats makes every victory feel earned and incredibly satisfying.

    As you progress, chances are you’ll face defeat—but don’t worry! When one character falls, someone else will step up to take their place, and you’ll continue the journey through their eyes. It’s a clever and amusing system that keeps the adventure moving forward while also explaining the game’s roguelike mechanics. As you battle your way through the hordes, you’ll also have the opportunity to level up. Each level grants you a passive upgrade—such as increasing your attack power—and a new skill. These skills come in a variety of forms, from passive effects like firing a random arrow every few seconds, to activatable abilities like homing magical missiles. Some skills even reshape the way you play, encouraging you to lean into specific builds and strategies.

    All in all, Rangers in the South is a stunning and highly entertaining roguelike that delivers far more value than its modest price tag suggests and should be a must-have in the gaming libraries of any roguelike aficionado.

    Seer’s Gambit Wants You To Save The World One Auto-Battle At A Time

    It’s fair to say that auto-battlers can be a mixed bag. There’s something about the joy of constantly levelling up and watching your units come out victorious that scratches an itch, but if it’s too hands-off, it ends up feeling like it’s barely a game at all. Thankfully, Seer’s Gambit strikes a perfect balance by empowering players to mix and match units, strategically build teams, and equip them with cool gear, enabling them to create powerful synergies and buffs.


    However, this isn’t an auto-battler focussed on individual units, as it also lets you buff your teams by collecting resources in runs and then upgrading the different levels you’ve been to with better passive generation, or ultimate boosts. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable mix of systems, which makes it a perfect gaming accompaniment to some background work or TV viewing (we all know you do it!)

    One important thing to note is that the game can feel incredibly frustrating until all the mechanics truly “click” for you. For instance, failing to recognize the importance of including a healer or tank in your party composition can quickly lead to disastrous runs that end far sooner than you might hope. This, in turn, creates a snowball effect where you’re left with insufficient resources to make future attempts any easier or more successful. On top of that, there’s a layer of randomness (RNG) involved in acquiring the right units, which can add to the challenge. If luck isn’t on your side, you might struggle to assemble a balanced and effective team, making progress feel even more elusive.

    However, once you grasp these core strategies and start to account for the game’s nuances, the experience becomes far more rewarding. At this point, you can simply hit the “fight” button, sit back, and let your units handle the action autonomously, only needing to intervene at key moments to level up your units, refine your strategy, or interact with the various events and choices that emerge along the way.

    Seer’s Gambit is one of the more interesting auto-battlers out there right now, offering up plenty of reasons to keep coming back outside of just trying to do a little bit better. Complete with an overarching narrative, meaningful progression and a brand-new endless mode, it combines the strategic planning and casual enjoyment you expect from the genre greats.

    Hyper Light Breaker Vs. Hyper Light Drifter – What’s Changed?

    When veritable indie darling Hyper Light Drifter stole its way into our collective hearts in March 2016, it redefined what we expected from the independent game development scene. Here was a thunderous action adventure RPG that harkened back to the finest 16-bit classics, paying ample homage to such legendary fare as The Legend of Zelda and Diablo, while also wearing its aesthetic Studio Ghibli influences proudly on its digital sleeve. Hyper Light Drifter was one of the very best titles to emerge that year and remains an essential must-play even today. 

    With nearly a decade spanning the divide between Hyper Light Drifter and Hyper Light Breaker, you might well be wondering just what the successor to Hyper Light Drifter does differently and, well, the answer is a whole lot.

    Hyper Light Breaker Is Neither A Sequel Or A Prequel To Hyper Light Drifter

    Though Hyper Light Breaker is billed as the ‘successor’ to Hyper Light Drifter, it is neither a narrative prequel or sequel to the events which unfolded in the 2016 title. Instead, Hyper Light Breaker takes place in the broader ‘Hyper Light’ universe and tells an entirely new story in a fresh setting. Neatly, this also has the nice side effect of allowing folks who never played Hyper Light Drifter (shame on you), to get stuck right into Hyper Light Breaker without any experience of the former.

    The 16-bit Inspired Pixel Art Is Gone – Say Hello To Fully Three-Dimensional Worlds

    Ostensibly even today, Hyper Light Drifter is an attractive effort that masterfully blends pixel art and a classic 16-bit aesthetic to create a wholly unique presentation. For Hyper Light Breaker however, developer Heart Machine has unleashed its substantial artistic talents in all three dimensions, underpinning the shift into the third axis with a gorgeously vibrant, anime-esque art style that looks set to make Hyper Light Breaker one of the most eye-opening offerings of the year.

    Say Hello To A New Roguelite Adventure, Wave Goodbye To Top Down RPG Shenanigans

    Arguably the biggest departure that Hyper Light Breaker makes from its beloved predecessor is the shift to becoming a roguelite, open-world action RPG. Bolstered by the move into fully three-dimensional environments, Hyper Light Breaker unfurls its action from an elevated third-person perspective, rather than the top-down, bird’s-eye viewpoint that was adopted in Hyper Light Drifter.

    While the hand-crafted worlds of Hyper Light Drifter have gone, Heart Machine is keen to impress on players how this change of approach appeals to Hyper Light Breaker. With each playthrough yielding new environments, freshly placed enemies, new loot and new secrets, though Hyper Light Breaker very much subscribes to roguelite design, it does so in an innovative way.


    Rather than just fighting your way through one run after another, Hyper Light Breaker instead breaks things down into runs and cycles. Cycles cause the map to roll over, resulting in an entirely new map filled with all new enemies and treasures to discover, but the kicker here is that players can do as many runs as they like within a single cycle. That is, however, until they ever beat or get beaten by the double-hard Crown bosses who guard that particular map, resulting in an all-new cycle and, you guessed it, an all-new map to boot.

    When you’re not carving your way through the vicious hordes of the Overgrowth, you’ll be building up your hub settlement, The Cursed Outpost. Here, you’ll unlock new structures, new NPCs to talk to and new objectives to tackle in the Overgrowth itself. The Cursed Outpost also acts as a sanctuary of sorts for your Breaker to be extracted in the middle of any given cycle as well.

    New Dimensions Deliver Additional Traversal And Combat Options

    Much more than just a surface consideration, the shift into three dimensions has also informed how Hyper Light Breaker plays, as players (or ‘Breakers’ as they’re affectionately known in the game) can explore the gorgeously rendered, sprawling 3D world of the Overgrowth by running, climbing, wall-dashing, gliding and using hoverboards to name just a few of the available traversal methods. 

    Supplementing its newfound three-dimensional exploration and traversal are the combat mechanics that form the backbone of Hyper Light Breaker. Hyper Light Breaker has its titular heroes tangling with the various denizens of the Overgrowth, a corrupted covenant of flora and fauna, as they attempt to smash their way through to the Crowns who are the grand defenders of the Overgrowth and the protectors of the Abyss King – the seeming root of all evil in the world – though he will appear later during Hyper Light Breaker’s stint in Early Access.


    The combat in Hyper Light Breaker is much more sophisticated than what we have seen previously in Hyper Light Drifter. For a start, not only can players choose from very different Breakers in Vermillion and Lapis for example, but each of those Breakers has unique load-outs. The hulking and robust Vermillion boasts Gunslinger and Tank load-outs that allow him to switch between damage-soaking and ranged firearm attack capabilities, while the agile Lapis can switch between the restorative Lightweaver and aggressive Warrior load-outs. Even better still, developer Heart Machine has promised that as Hyper Light Breaker makes its way through Early Access, more and more Breakers will be made available along with new load-outs to match, providing a kaleidoscope of different playstyles for players to get stuck into.

    No Longer Just A Solo Affair

    As part of its love letter to the incredible 16-bit RPGs of old, Hyper Light Drifter was an invariably single-player, and thus somewhat suitably lonely, affair. Hyper Light Breaker, however, is looking to do things a little differently in that regard by allowing multiple players to form a team to tackle the Overgrowth and the fiendish Crowns that lurk within. At this point, Hyper Light Breaker’s cooperative play is currently limited to online only, with local couch co-op not on the table as things stand according to Heart Machine’s development roadmap. But this is the thing, with Hyper Light Breaker right at the beginning of its Early Access journey and with months and maybe years left on the clock until release, don’t be at all surprised if Heart Machine builds upon this already solid foundation with a range of new features that further separate Hyper Light Breaker from its iconic 2016 predecessor.

    Best Games Like Kingdom Come Deliverance II

    Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, the upcoming sequel to the acclaimed original, has generated significant excitement, thanks to the original’s devoted following. For fans of realistic medieval RPGs, however, it can be difficult to find another game that fills that void.

    Well, we’ve got good news friends, because we’re going to run through five of the best games that will scratch that Kingdom Come Deliverance II itch. It’s a hard gap to fill in your heart, but we reckon these games will be able to do it. All you need to do is read on, and then probably go and play them.

    Best Games Like Kingdom Come Deliverance II

    We’re taking one easy win with one of the games on the list but the other four games are excellent, each immersive and wonderful in their own way. All of the games below offer the same gripping narrative and moment-to-moment gameplay that Kingdom Come Deliverance II will have to live up to and are available for you to check out right now. So let’s get to it.

    Kingdom Come Deliverance

    This is sort of cheating, but we’re doing it anyway. The best game to play while you wait for Kingdom Come Deliverance II is undoubtedly the original, Kingdom Come Deliverance. In this immersive RPG experience, you take on the role of Henry, a blacksmith’s son determined to avenge his parents and resist the invading forces threatening his homeland. It’s the blueprint, the original version of what the sequel aims to build upon, and it’s the best game to scratch that specific itch.

    Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord

    Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord has more of a focus on the bigger picture than Kingdom Come Deliverance, but it’s still a wonderfully immersive and enjoyable medieval game in every other right. You have to rally entire armies to try and overcome the evils that will come at you, and you’ll get to feel like a strategic genius as you do so. It’s an excellent game and one that you should try and find time for.

    Medieval Dynasty

    If you’re looking for that full survival game feeling, then Medieval Dynasty will be perfect. You get to take on the role of a random person in the olden days who wants to carve out their own piece of ye olde paradise. However, things get a little hectic as your ambitions grow, which means you’ll need to start finding shelter for other people as your hut becomes a village, and even fight for resources against rivals and enemies alike. You can even play this one in co-op, which is a nice change of pace.

    Red Dead Redemption 2

    Red Dead Redemption 2 is an incredible feat of story-telling that will have its hooks in you from start to finish. You’ll roam around the Wild West trying to find your peace of mind and a new way of life, you’ll rob banks, you’ll stop crimes, and you’ll become a legend. It’s gorgeous to look at, which helps, but it’s also intensely immersive and full to the brim with wonderfully written characters and truly heart-wrenching story beats.

    Dragon’s Dogma 2

    Our final choice is a little out of left field, but hey, it wouldn’t be a Green Man Gaming list without one. Dragon’s Dogma 2 places you in a medieval world, but one with magic and dragons. You take on the role of the Arisen, someone chosen by fate itself when a dragon plucks out your heart. Your fate is to defeat that very dragon, but along the way, you have to cope with political machinations, lies, corruption, a bunch of big monsters, and even your own friends potentially turning against you. It might be a little bit more fantasy, but it hits very similar Kingdom Come Deliverance beats.

    Everything You Need To Know About Monster Hunter Wilds

    Though we’ve had various Monster Hunter Rise spin-offs in recent years, it’s fair to say that there hasn’t been a full-fat, full-sugar successor to Capcom’s epic Monster Hunter: World since its release in 2018. All of that changes with Monster Hunter Wilds, however, as Capcom looks to deliver the sort of spectacle-stuffed and sophisticated follow-up to Monster Hunter: World that we’ve been craving for these past six years or so. 

    Be sure to keep this guide in your favourites as we cover everything you need to know about Monster Hunter Wilds including the release date, gameplay details, monster list, latest trailer, PC specification details and more.

    Monster Hunter Wilds Release Date

    Monster Hunter Wilds is set to receive a full release on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S/X and PC via Steam on February 28, 2025. Monster Hunter Wilds has not been announced or confirmed for a console release on the last generation PlayStation 4, Xbox One or Nintendo Switch platforms as of this writing.

    Monster Hunter Wilds Preorder Bonus

    Regardless of whichever version of Monster Hunter Wilds you happen to pre-order, all players will nab both the Gilded Knight Set of Layered Armour and Hope Charm Talisman free of charge.

    Monster Hunter Wilds Special Editions


    There are two special editions of Monster Hunter Wilds that lucky folks will be able to purchase – the Monster Hunter Wilds Deluxe Edition and the Monster Hunter Wilds Premium Deluxe Edition. Here are all of the goodies that are packed in with each edition of Monster Hunter Wilds which will be available on release:

    Monster Hunter Wilds Deluxe Edition

    • Hunter Layered Armor Set: Feudal Soldier, Hunter Layered Armor: Fencer’s Eyepatch, Oni Horns Wig
    • Seikret Decoration: Soldier’s Caparison, General’s Caparison
    • Felyne Layered Armor Set: Felyne Ashigaru
    • Pendant: Avian Wind Chime
    • Gesture: Battle Cry, Uchiko
    • Hairstyle: Hero’s Topknot, Refined Warrior
    • Makeup/Face Paint: Hunter’s Kumadori, Special Bloom
    • Sticker Set: Avis Unit, Monsters of the Windward Plains
    • Nameplate: Extra Frame — Russet Dawn *Purchase Bonus

    Monster Hunter Wilds Premium Deluxe Edition

    • All of the content seen in the Monster Hunter Wilds Deluxe Edition
    • Hunter Layered Armor: Wyverian Ears
    • Premium Bonus Hunter Profile Set
    • BGM: Proof of a Hero (2025 Recording)

    Monster Hunter Wilds Gameplay


    Broadly speaking, Monster Hunter Wilds plays very similarly to Monster Hunter: World before it. This is to say that you can expect a sizably chunky open-world action RPG where you and a bunch of mates romp around various biomes, taking on monster contracts, slaying said monsters and improving both your skills and the gear that you leverage in each encounter before setting off again to do more of the same.

    In terms of the new stuff that Monster Hunter Wilds brings to the table, not only are a range of new monsters en route (as you can see from our handy list below), but players can also expect a revamped cooking system, dynamic weather conditions that can affect any given hunt and handy mounts called Seikrets that can shuttle you around the place. And that’s just for starters too. You should definitely expect Capcom to add more gameplay features as we inch closer to the release of Monster Hunter Wilds in February 2025.

    Monster Hunter Wilds Monster List


    You can catch a list of all the currently announced monsters in Monster Hunter Wilds below:

    • Arkveld, the White Wraith: A huge monster that can unleash devastating ice attacks, Arkveld is not to be taken lightly by any Monster Hunter party regardless of their experience. 
    • Balahara: A gracefully soaring wyvern, though resolutely deadly, Balahara can fire off hugely damaging wind attacks all the while proving difficult to hit in combat.
    • Chatacabra: Small and more agile than other monsters, Chatacabra tears through its enemies with lightning-fast claw attacks and strikes. 
    • Doshaguma: Having already debuted in previous Monster Hunter games, Doshaguma is a tricky foe to overcome thanks to its debilitating breath attacks that can wreak havoc over time. 
    • Lala Barina: Looking like a big red cloud set atop a massive, nightmarish-looking insect, Lala Barina can immobilise players with a special silk that can leave its enemies open to attack. 
    • Quematrice: Packing enough venom to kill a small city and proving to be a deft opponent in the extreme, Quematric is a serpentine-like wyvern that is as deadly as it is hard to hit. 
    • Rey Dau: Very much a student of the ‘bigger they are, the harder they hit’ school of monsters, Rey Dau combines thick armour plating with devastating charges and extreme strength to fashion a highly challenging prospect for any hunter worth their salt.
    • Uth Duna: A mesmerising, though utterly terrifying cave wyvern, Uth Duna’s tremendous speed, agility and damage endurance make it a lofty challenge, to say the least.

    Where Can I Watch The Latest Trailer?

    The latest trailer for Monster Hunter Wilds is available to watch right now and you can catch it above. This latest trailer unveils the Oilwell Basin, an all-new location within the Forbidden Lands that debuts in Monster Hunter Wilds, it’s fair to say that Monster Hunter players haven’t quite seen a locale quite like this before. With its ash-dappled ruins, choking hot air and fiery chasms, the Oilwell Basin not only brings a terrifying new area for hunters to tackle but also a range of grotesque new beasties headed up by the elite-level Black Flame monster.

    PC System Requirements


    Leveraging the latest version of Capcom’s roundly capable RE Engine, Monster Hunter Wilds is every bit the opulently epic monster-hunting experience one would expect. Luckily, though Capcom’s RE Engine is powerful and capable of creating some stunning visuals, so too is it immensely scalable across all manner of hardware configurations. This essentially means that you don’t need to necessarily find yourself rocking the very latest and shiniest PC rig in order to wring out a decently playable experience from Monster Hunter Wilds. You can catch the latest PC system requirements for Monster Hunter Wilds below.

    MINIMUM:

    • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
    • OS: Windows®10 (64-bit Required)
    • Processor: Intel® Core™ i5-10600 or Intel® Core™ i3-12100F or AMD Ryzen™ 5 3600
    • Memory: 16 GB RAM
    • Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1660 Super(VRAM 6GB) or AMD Radeon™ RX 5600 XT(VRAM 6GB)
    • DirectX: Version 12
    • Network: Broadband Internet connection
    • Storage: 140 GB available space
    • Additional Notes: SSD required. This game is expected to run at 1080p (upscaled from 720 native resolution) / 30 fps under the “Lowest” graphics setting. DirectStorage supported.

    RECOMMENDED:

    • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
    • OS: Windows®10 (64-bit Required)
    • Processor: Intel® Core™ i5-11600K or Intel® Core™ i5-12400 or AMD Ryzen™ 5 3600X or AMD Ryzen™ 5 5500
    • Memory: 16 GB RAM
    • Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 2070 Super(VRAM 8GB) or NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 4060(VRAM 8GB) or　AMD Radeon™ RX 6700XT(VRAM 12GB)
    • DirectX: Version 12
    • Network: Broadband Internet connection
    • Storage: 140 GB available space
    • Additional Notes: SSD required. This game is expected to run at 1080p / 60 fps (with Frame Generation enabled) under the “Medium” graphics setting. DirectStorage supported.

    Prepare to embark on an epic adventure in Monster Hunter Wilds, where untamed landscapes and ferocious beasts await! Gear up for the hunt of a lifetime by purchasing your copy on the Green Man Gaming store. Secure a great deal and shop with confidence before venturing into the wild to prove your mettle as a master hunter.

    Dungeon Clawler Is A Fun Take On A Roguelike

    We’ve had some truly wonderful roguelikes this year that have taken the standard action or turn-based formula and turned it on its head. That has resulted in a genre that is now more inclusive, welcoming and overall appealing to gamers of all skills. With that in mind – and if you’re someone who loves claw machines but hates the fact they’re all probably rigged – enter Dungeon Clawler, a Roguelike Claw Machine Deckbuilder.

    In Dungeon Clawler you take on the role of a bunny who lost his hand while gambling. That’s not a typo, nor is that a fever dream, that’s legitimately what the opening cut scene shows. Now equipped with a replacement claw, your main aim is to fight off the evildoer that took your hand. Aside from looking pretty cool, this new claw-based appendage opens up a whole world of game mechanics.

    Your new claw means you can take on a huge array of monsters by picking up items from a claw machine. As well as different weapons and shields, essential for games turn-based battles, you can also find buffs, unique items like magnets – which make it easier to get a lot of metal items at once – and even things like water to allow fish to swim around.

    Being a roguelike, you can also upgrade your items to make them stronger, but you can also change the material they’re made of to make unique interactions more likely. It’s a very cool system, and when you throw in the huge number of characters, each of which has different ways of using items and some with pets, you’ve got a very strong entry in the genre.

    Despite its pretty steep learning curve, once you get to grips with its unique elements you’ll start uncovering the winning strategies and items that’ll help you reclaim your lost paw. It’s always nice to see more takes on roguelikes released, and Dungeon Clawler is an excellent addition that is still only in Early Access. 

    Indie Game Round-Up – January 2025

    New year, new indie games! Whilst not as busy as some previous months, January 2025 still looks like it will offer some excellent – and rather interesting – new experiences, and we are, as ever, here for it. After all, January tends to be considered the most depressing month of the year so anything to help make it go quicker is greatly appreciated.

    As is typical, we’ve rounded up the best of the indie bunch for you. It’s one of the joys of this job because we get to talk about incredibly cool indie games, the developers get more attention, and you get to play some incredibly cool indie games. There are no losers here, only the pure joy of great gaming.

    Hyper Light Breaker – 14th January

    First up we have the Early Access release of the long-awaited follow-up from Heart Machine, Hyper Light Breaker. Set in the sprawling Overgrowth, a procedurally generated open world full of mysteries to uncover, the game promises intense combat, exploration, and a dash of co-op chaos. Given the pedigree behind it, it looks poised to deliver a mesmerizing blend of style and substance.

    ALOFT – 15th January

    Next up is Aloft, a co-op sandbox survival game that takes place in a world filled with floating islands, overrun by a horrifying fungal corruption. You’ll need to learn to glide and make peace with the world around you, as well as how to fight against the unique affliction that threatens the entire world. It’s colourful, looks surprisingly cheery, and you’ll be able to play it with friends too.

    Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel – 21st January

    It’s roguelike time, and this time around we’ve got Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel. This is another Survivors-like, bullet heaven, horde survival game, but with a dark gritty visual style, and all the joy that comes with Norse mythology. It looks absolutely gorgeous in motion, and as long as it delivers some unique twists to the formula we’ve all come to love, it could be an incredible new entry in the genre.

    Tails of Iron 2: Whiskers of Winter – 28th January

    Tails of Iron 2: Whiskers of Winter is set to bring players back into its grim, beautifully hand-drawn souls-like world. In this sequel, players assume the role of Arlo, heir to the Warden of the Wastes, who must journey through a vast, snow-ravaged kingdom in an epic quest to overcome the Dark Wings once and for all. Expect enhanced combat mechanics, including elemental weapon effects, and new monster-hunting quests.

    Heart of the Machine – 31st January

    Honestly, at this point we should just be able to put “Heart of the Machine is being published by Hooded Horse,” and that should be enough, but we’ll elaborate anyway. Heart of the Machine turns you into the first sentient AI, where you get to decide whether you’ll help or destroy humanity as you take over a city, and find the best way to enact your will. The option to be good or bad here could be a lot of fun, and we have so much faith in the publisher’s decisions that we can’t help but be excited.

    Karate Survivor Is The 80’s Martial Arts Game Of Your Dreams

    If you’re like me, then you grew up on anime and over-the-top martial arts films and shows. Seriously, it was everywhere 30 years ago, with shows like Power Ranger and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles making sure that every kid fully understood the sheer power of being a professionally trained martial artist in a weird outfit. Well, aside from the weird outfit, Karate Survivor is basically all of 80’s marital arts nostalgia in game form.

    The Vampire Survivors-like genre is a burgeoning one right now with regular new entries refining on what came before. As a genre, it offers up a chance to constantly get the thrill of levelling up and getting stronger, along with letting you discover new and absurd combinations as you do so. Whilst a more toned-down entry in the genre, Karate Survivor still allows you to mix and match moves you unlock as you level up, and order them as you like. You get bonus damage for not only putting moves from the same style together but also ordering them correctly.

    Along with that, you unlock the ability to interact with the environment by running up walls, or doing absurd spinning kicks while sitting in a chair. It’s all very improv, and that even extends to your ability to throw bottles, plant pots or even kick chairs at your enemies. Like many of the best games in the genre, there are loads of things to unlock as you go, including new moves and abilities, as progress through new levels and difficulties. 

    Arguably the one key difference from other games in the genre is the importance of timing but it’s a difference that the game is all the better for and truly encapsulates that martial arts feel. Beating levels will make you feel like a true master of the martial arts, especially if you’ve managed to end up with a really strong build with plenty of power and defensive abilities. Overall, Karate Survivor is a huge amount of fun and with runs asking around 20 minutes, it’s a perfect game to pick up and play without the need for a dedicated, length play session.

    Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon Is A Wonderfully Strange Indie Elder Scrolls

    Whether it’s Morrowind, Oblivion, or Skyrim, a lot of us have very fond memories of the Elder Scrolls series of games. Yes, we know there are others in the series, but if we are all being honest these three are the cream of the crop. When it comes to the cream of the crop, the open-world RPG genre has a lot of excellent entries, but the specific vibe of an Elder Scrolls game is often solely reserved for the output of Bethesda Game Studios. Well, Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon is here and despite being in Early Access, it already feels like an incredible game that hits those Elder Scroll-esque vibes.

    Set within a very grimdark version of the Arthurian legends, Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon – like any open-world RPG worth its salt – provides you full freedom (from character creation to playstyle to combat and more) as you embark on a myriad of quests across its open world. Kicking off with you in jail – a rather fitting homage – things take a twisted and somewhat unexpected turn upon your escape, as you come face to face with a zombie. Throw in the massively unsettling giant statue and red and black tendrils you encounter not long after, and it’s fair to say things aren’t quite right in the world of Avalon.

    Whilst it’s nice to experience the high-fantasy settings of much of the genre’s fare – including the aforementioned Elder Scrolls series – there’s something deeply refreshing about this more horrifying depiction of might and magic. And it’s a depiction that continues to grow, as each major update to its Early Access state brings with it a whole host of new lore and content for you to sink your teeth into and just like any true RPG, it offers plenty of replayability – even in its current state – thanks to its morality choices and variety of character build options.

    To top things off further, Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon even has a demo for you to download and enjoy – meaning you can get to grips with the controls, setting and combat without committing to a purchase. That being said, however, if you are an Elder Scrolls fan – or an open-world RPG fan in general – Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon should definitely be your next purchase, as it’s an excellent game with a unique and interesting take on a fantasy setting that is only going to go from strength to strength.

    Our Guide To The Most Anticipated Games of 2025

    Even though 2024 was hardly lacking in Game of the Year candidates, it looks set to pale in comparison to the mammoth selection of seemingly certified bangers that 2025 is tipped to bring. From the looter shooter-flavoured, jet-black comedy of Borderlands 4 to the all-encompassing sensation that Grand Theft Auto 6 will surely become, here are our most anticipated games of 2025.

    Borderlands 4

    Gearbox Software’s bombastic looter shooter fourquel (that’s a thing, right?), certainly knows the audience it’s aiming for. Much like its super successful predecessors, players can expect a refinement of the wheel, rather than a reinvention of it, as Borderlands 4 once more entices players to murder all manner of evil-doers for fame, loot and more weapons than you can shake a hairy stick at. In addition to the return of the series black comedy, Borderlands 4 not only relocates the action to the all-new planet of Kairos, but the latest entry in the series also provides a roster of new Vault Hunters to wreak havoc with as well.

    Crimson Desert

    The long-gestating new effort from Black Desert developer Pearl Abyss, Crimson Desert marks something of a departure for the typically online-focused Korean studio. Though Crimson Desert takes place in the same universe as the online-only Black Desert, Pearl Abyss’ latest title is a resolutely single-player offline affair. A gargantuan open-world fantasy RPG, Crimson Desert not only looks like one of the most stylish adventures we’ve seen in a long time, but its action-packed combat and massive open world lend the game favourable comparisons with everything from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom to Dragon’s Dogma 2 and, of course, Black Desert itself.

    Death Stranding 2: On The Beach

    Hideo Kojima’s deeply esoteric, post-apocalyptic tale of connecting humanity will be getting a direct sequel in 2025 and, well, it’s every bit as mesmerisingly wild as you might expect. Sure enough, Norman Reedus, Lea Seydoux and Troy Baker all return from the first game, while special appearances by Mad Max director George Miller have also been confirmed. As to the game itself, little has been shown at this point other than some drop-dead gorgeous real-time cut scenes. However, we would be surprised if Kojima Productions didn’t build upon the whole UPS-man-at-the-end-of-the-world shtick that made the original such a pleasant surprise.

    DOOM: The Dark Ages

    Fans of DOOM will likely purchase DOOM: The Dark Ages sight unseen, but the devil (pun intended) is in the details. A full-throated, dark fantasy prequel to the demon-blasting phenomenon that we all know and love, DOOM: The Dark Ages turns everything up to eleven. Say hello to towering demonic kaiju, rideable hell dragons, Doomguy mechas and guns that chew up skulls and spit out razor-sharp fragments into your hapless foes. Doom Guy is very much back.

    Elden Ring Nightreign

    Just when you thought that Elden Ring was done with the release of 2024’s super Shadow of the Erdtree expansion, Elden Ring Nightreign has popped out of seemingly nowhere to hold your beer. Rather than go down the route of expanding the existing Elden Ring storyline, Nightreign is instead a standalone co-op adventure for up to three players within the broader Elden Ring universe. With all new challenges to face off alongside your closest allies, Nightreign is the Elden Ring continuation none of us knew we wanted but now we cannot wait for.

    Grand Theft Auto 6

    Holding up a socio-cultural mirror to our existence in a way that few studios are able to do, Rockstar Games looks set to utterly disrupt gaming and social calendars everywhere when the juggernaut that is Grand Theft Auto 6 takes over basically everything next year. Looking set to redefine our expectations for open-world games, Grand Theft Auto 6 whisks players off to current-day Vice City and puts players in control of Bonnie and Clyde-esque dual protagonists Lucia and Jason as they tear across the sun-bleached county. Boasting cutting-edge visuals and physics simulations together with Rockstar Games trademark satire-infused single-player campaign missions and world-beating online modes, Grand Theft Auto 6 is a one-game industry avalanche that will resonate far beyond its gaming demographic.

    Killing Floor 3

    With nearly nine years on the clock since the last Killing Floor title blasted its way onto the FPS scene, Killing Floor 3 returns to remind us just how much fun you can have with your mates in a cooperative horror FPS setting. With all new classes, progression trees and survival gadgets, together with a reworked M.E.A.T System that provides unparalleled levels of gore when you splatter your monstrous foes, to say that Killing Floor 3 is a highly anticipated and much overdue threequel for fans of the series would be quite the understatement indeed.

    Mafia: The Old Country

    Kicking up the dusty trails of the titular Sicilian old country during the 1900s, Mafia: The Old Country reframes the series both in terms of narrative and game mechanics. Casting players as the rebellious Enzo Favara, Mafia: The Old Country has players fighting against the emergence of the Cosa Nostra in a gritty tale of family betrayal and mob violence. Though its narrative still unfolds from a third-person perspective, in line with the previous games in the series, Mafia: The Old Country eschews the open-world design of the last entry in the franchise in favour of a much more linear world with a focus on cinematic moments and a welcome rejection of open world busywork. Look also for developer Hanger 13 making the most of the time period too, swapping out chunky saloon cars and Tommy guns for horses and tense knife fights.

    Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra

    Directed by Amy Hennig who cut her teeth on epic adventures with Naughty Dog’s Uncharted series, Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra looks set to follow in a similarly epic vein. A cinematic open-world adventure that pits Marvel superheroes Captain America and Black Panther against the insidious Hydra organisation during occupied France in World War II, Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra is shaping up beautifully, leveraging Unreal Engine 5 to craft arguably one of the best-looking superhero games ever made. Though details are light regarding gameplay specifics, Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra nonetheless looks like it’ll be a metaphorical catnip for fans of sprawling open-world adventures and superhero romps alike.

    Slay The Spire 2

    How do you follow up one of the very best deck-building games ever made? Well, you get the original developer Mega Crit to go and make another one. Set to make its Early Access debut in 2025, Slay the Spire 2 takes place more than 1,000 years after the events of the previous game and invites players to once again make the perilous climb to reach the spire’s peak and uncover its secrets. With all new heroes to choose from that each have their own mechanics, together with all-new relics, random encounters, new card types, a range of fiendishly designed boss encounters and so much more, Slay the Spire 2 is absolutely guaranteed to be one of the very best titles in 2025 by some margin.

    Split Fiction

    The next title from the supremely talented folks that brought us the stupendously excellent cooperative adventure It Takes Two, Split Fiction embraces a similar design philosophy but changes up the scenario entirely. Casting players as two writers who scribble tales that are set in sci-fi and fantasy settings respectively, Split Fiction envisions a topsy-turvy odyssey where each author is rapidly pulled between those fantasy and science fiction worlds, creating a veritable multiverse of insane possibilities as they struggle to escape with their memories intact. Eminently charming, funny and filled with innovative cooperative design, if Grand Theft Auto 6 wasn’t currently tipped to blot out the sun and snatch all the oxygen in the room next year, there’s little doubt that Split Fiction would find itself on a fast track to assured Game of the Year status.

    The Outer Worlds 2

    Obsidian Entertainment’s roundly excellent and darkly fun space RPG series returns and honestly we couldn’t be happier. In The Outer Worlds 2 players are unceremoniously plonked into the space boots of an agent belonging to the rather severely named Earth Directorate. Your overarching mission is to discover the reason why mysterious, civilisation-ending rifts are popping up all across the galaxy and naturally, there are a whole load of missions for you to complete and wacky-zany characters for you to meet, fall in love with or shoot in the face along the way. Boasting Obsidian’s typical razor wit and the sort of non-linear gameplay that made the original such a hit, The Outer Worlds 2 cordially invites us all to save the galaxy in 2025 and be an absolute mess in the process. Bring it on.

    Suffering Diablo IV Fatigue? Here’s Why You Should Try Path of Exile 2

    With Diablo IV releasing just a year and a half ago, it’s probably not too surprising to discover that a good number of players are already becoming somewhat tired of what Blizzard’s latest stab at the dungeon crawler genre has been offering up. Thankfully then, the long-awaited Path of Exile 2 from Grinding Gear Games has arrived at just the right time, providing Diablo players with the sort of alternative that hasn’t been around in a long time. If you’re sick of Diablo IV here’s why you should give Path of Exile 2 a shot.

    Endless Customisation And Speccing Possibilities

    Though Diablo IV isn’t particularly lacking in the customisation and speccing stakes – it has had three prior games and an avalanche of patches to get it right, after all – it arguably falls some way short of what Grinding Gear Games has achieved with Path of Exile 2. Certainly, just a glance at Path of Exile 2’s trademark passive skill tree which has been inherited from the first game, reveals an abyssal depth of character customisation that far outstrips any other entry in the dungeon crawler genre.


    Stuffed to the gills with more than 1,900(!) unique skills that allow wannabe monster mashers to customise their character build, Path of Exile 2 also brings a new Dual Specialisation mechanic to the table as well, permitting passive skill points to be shoved into the entirely different skill types without penalty. In practice, if you’re switching between fire and archery attacks, for instance, the skill points that you have invested into those attack skills will immediately come into play, allowing players to simultaneously specialise and diversify their build at the same time.

    Reaching past the framework of its sprawling skills matrix, Path of Exile 2 widens its commitment to near limitless customisation and build-speccing possibilities further still thanks to its Skill Gem system. With nearly 450 Gems in total, split between Skill Gems and Support Gems, players can use Skill Gems to enable powerful active skills that can be used in combat, while socketing Support Gems into those same Skill Gems modifies their behaviour, providing yet more creative latitude still for players to customise their build.

    If all of that wasn’t enough, there’s also the concept of Ascendancy Class progression. With twelve character classes as of this writing, each of these classes has three separate Ascendancy specialisations that can be activated depending on your playstyle, providing unique skills, abilities and more that in turn provide a veritable bounty of choice for character customisation.

    An Overwhelming Cast Of Varied Enemies And Bosses

    With an absolute smorgasbord of character customisation and speccing possibilities at your disposal, it makes sense – for the notion of balance at least – that your opposition is equally formidable and boy, does Path of Exile 2 deliver on this front too. With well over 600 unique monsters and over 100 bosses at the time of writing that each have their own strengths, weaknesses, abilities and attack patterns to learn, Path of Exile 2 is filled with hordes of challenging enemies for you to test your mettle against. Further to that point, combat with Path of Exile 2’s many bosses feels much more akin to something like Dark Souls, rather than another dungeon crawler, as there is a real emphasis on developing strategies for each boss and generally staying out of their way whilst you (and maybe some friends) chip away at their gargantuan health bars.

    A Much More Worthwhile, Content-Packed Endgame

    Once you’ve carved a bloody path through Path of Exile 2’s six-act campaign you’ll find yourself in its endgame and certainly when compared to Diablo IV, developer Grinding Gear Games has gone the extra mile here. Boasting well over 100 endgame maps that each include their own boss battles and unique modifiers, Path of Exile 2’s endgame not only reaches back into the past leagues of the previous Path of Exile but also fashions entirely new challenges for veteran players to tangle with as well.

    Acting as a hub of sorts for Path of Exile 2’s monstrous endgame, the Atlas entices players to unlock these new endgame maps to defeat the rare and very dangerous enemies that lurk within them. Much more than just a typical monster hunt, these specially curated endgame maps also include magical strongboxes filled with rare loot that when opened can trigger a deadly encounter, while special NPCs can also be discovered that can aid you in your monster-mashing endeavours.

    Much more broadly, Path of Exile 2’s endgame activities are split between seven systems which include Breach, Delirium, Expedition, Ritual, Pinnacle Boss (essentially endgame bosses) and the Trials of Chaos and Sekhemas. Fans of the first Path of Exile will certainly recognise Breach and in Path of Exile 2 the implementation of it will prove familiar as players venture through an interdimensional portal and must quickly vanquish all of the enemies within, gaining precious Breach points that can be invested into the Breach section of the Atlas hub, increasing difficulty and potential rewards in Breach encounters as a result. 

    Delirium encounters meanwhile modify certain maps and fill them with mist, challenging players to tackle stronger foes as they venture deeper into the mist and eventually tackle the pinnacle encounter of that map to gain points for the Delirium section on the Atlas Tree. Ritual encounters task players with defeating certain enemies within special ritual circles which will then eventually result in the ritual being completed and a wave of monsters appearing that, when eventually defeated, provide Tribute Points that can be used to nab much more powerful gear and equipment. Once the King in the Mists himself is defeated in his new Pinnacle Boss form in Path of Exile 2’s endgame, Ritual points are then granted which, you guessed it, can be reinvested into the Ritual progression tree within the Atlas and will dish out greater rewards.

    Expeditions are one of the more unique facets of Path of Exile 2’s massive endgame, as these encounters require players to use special explosives to open long-lost loot coffers. The problem, as you may have already guessed, is that all of this loud bang-bang attracts monsters and eventually the pinnacle encounter for this area. Managing to survive all of this means that you get to gain Expedition points which can be used to nab more impressive rewards and more difficult encounters from future Expedition encounters.


    Though the Trials of Chaos and Sekhemas are largely what Path of Exile players have already experienced, it’s arguably the Pinnacle Boss encounters that are the marquee highlight of Path of Exile 2’s endgame offering. Here, players will occasionally stumble across a locked fortress which requires three keys to get inside that can only be obtained by overcoming bosses that belong to one of three powerful factions within the Atlas that are vying to get into the fortress. Once inside, Pinnacle Bosses presents a hellacious challenge that only the most veteran players will be able to overcome with Atlas points and high-end loot being the reward for those that do. To say that the endgame in Path of Exile 2 is a whole heap more satisfying and sophisticated than its counterpart in Diablo IV would be quite an understatement, to say the least.

    Reactive And Transparent Developer Support That Shapes Everything Going Forward

    Even before Path of Exile 2 dropped into early access this year, one key area where the game has sought to separate itself from Diablo IV is in how its creators interact with the community. Put simply, developer Grinding Gear Games has been responding to queries, issues and suggestions from the community on an almost daily basis. Whether it’s questions about the Path of Exile 2 roadmap, updates on server bandwidth or responding to low-level queries about balancing, loot drops and more, Grinding Gear Games always appears present, transparent and ready to help in a timely fashion as Path of Exile 2 barrels its way through early access.

    The Best RTX Games To Play This Holiday Season

    The holidays are the perfect time to catch up on your favourite games or dive into new ones, and it’s fair to say that gaming visuals have never looked better. For those of us who grew up on 2D classics, we still remember the magic of jumping into 3D for the first time with Super Mario 64 during a snowy winter break. Moments like that are rare, but the holidays have a way of delivering gaming memories that stick with us. While virtual reality has made huge strides, traditional games are also reaching stunning new heights—thanks in large part to Nvidia’s RTX technology.

    RTX brings an extra layer of magic to gaming this time of year, making light and shadows behave in ways that look as natural as the glow of holiday lights on a snowy evening. From lifelike reflections to breathtaking rays of light streaming through frosty landscapes, RTX transforms great games into unforgettable visual treats. If you’re looking to settle in by the fire with some truly eye-popping games over the holidays, we’ve got you covered as these RTX-enhanced games are perfect for creating cosy, immersive gaming sessions during the most wonderful time of the year. Let’s take a look at the best games to light up your screen this holiday season!

    Star Wars Outlaws

    Star Wars Outlaws finally lets players loose in an open-world Star Wars game filled with incredible things to discover, people to meet, and enemies to fight. You take control of Kay Vess, a less-than-squeaky-clean type who’s seeking a way to find their own freedom and start life anew. It’s a tall task, but if you’re smart and don’t mind making the most of the incredible tech available, you’ll come out on top. With RTX-powered lighting and reflections, the galaxy feels more alive than ever, from the glow of neon signs in bustling cantinas to the shimmering metal of ships under twin suns.

    Diablo IV

    Diablo IV takes the classic ARPG series into the modern age with all new tweaks and quality-of-life features that make it more approachable than ever. There’s an incredible story to get through, sure, but there’s also a wealth of post-game content to delve into that can help you create the perfect build and take on truly unspeakable horrors. You can even do it with friends along the way. Plus, with RTX-enabled effects, every dark dungeon and fiery hellscape is brought to life, immersing you in the eerie glow of flickering torches and the ominous shadows that lurk around every corner.

    Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition

    First things first, this is not the Cyberpunk that was launched back in 2020. Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition is a massive sprawling tech-dystopia for you to try and protect, destroy, or bend to your will. With a huge array of amazing characters to meet, fight, and even romance, as well as plenty of ways to carve your path through the beautiful neon city, you’ll not get bored in this dystopia. Neither will your eyes, as RTX-powered visuals bring Night City to life with dazzling reflections on rain-slick streets, immersive lighting, and vibrant neon glows that make every corner of the city feel alive.

    Minecraft

    When you think of Minecraft, the first thing you think of probably won’t be ‘stunning visuals’ but that’s because you haven’t watched rays of light as they crest over whatever blocky creation you’ve put together. Still the same iconic game about freedom and crafting, albeit with more creatures and experiences to uncover than ever before, the graphics are on an entirely different level, thanks to RTX. With ray-traced lighting and realistic shadows, the blocky world transforms into something breathtaking as sunlight filters through leaves and water reflects the beauty of your pixelated masterpieces.

    Fortnite

    Fortnite is an especially good choice because it’s free, making it perfect for holiday gaming sessions with friends and family. It’s incredibly accessible, so whether you’re a seasoned builder or a total newcomer, everyone can jump in and play together—whether that’s a good idea or not is up to you. Of course, if you’re the only one with RTX turned on, you’ll get to enjoy the stunning battle royale vistas in all their glory, with shimmering water, dynamic lighting, and realistic reflections making the island look sharper and more beautiful than ever.

    Marvel’s Midnight Suns

    Marvel’s Midnight Suns is one of those hidden gems that deserves a spot on your holiday playlist. It’s a unique and inspired take on the tactical turn-based genre, blending strategic deckbuilding with cinematic superhero flair. Between intense battles, you’ll spend time building relationships with iconic Marvel characters, chatting by the fire, or training in the Abbey to sharpen your skills. Positioning is everything in this one, and with RTX-enabled visuals, the dynamic combat comes to life as fiery explosions, shadows, and energy beams dance across the battlefield in a stunning display.

    Ghostwire: Tokyo

    Finally, we have Ghostwire: Tokyo, a hauntingly beautiful adventure that’s perfect for the darker, cosier nights of the season. While it doesn’t feature a sprawling open world, its meticulous attention to detail makes every street and alley of Tokyo feel alive—or perhaps eerily not. You play as someone who narrowly escapes death, only to find themselves at the center of a ghostly invasion. It’s a strange fate, but your spectral abilities and uneasy alliance with a spirit inside you will help you navigate a city filled with mysteries and otherworldly threats. With RTX technology, Tokyo’s rain-soaked streets shimmer with eerie beauty, neon lights reflect in puddles, and supernatural effects fill the world with an unsettling but mesmerizing glow.

    And there you have it—seven stunning RTX-enhanced games to light up your holidays and give your eyes a visual feast. Whether you’re braving ghostly invasions, battling corruption alongside superheroes, or exploring blocky creations brought to life, there’s never been a better time to dive in. If you’re looking to explore even more RTX-powered experiences, be sure to check out the RTX Games section of our Holiday Sale. It’s the perfect opportunity to pick up something new and make this season shine even brighter.

    How Marvel Rivals Fuses A Legendary Comic IP With Solid Hero Shooter Mechanics

    With more than 10 million (count em’) players on the clock in just three days since launch, Marvel Rivals from developer NetEase Games has struck on some sort of magical formula to entice the masses. Yet, the reality is that Marvel Rivals just incorporates a lot of robust shooter mechanics extremely well alongside a stylish licensing of some of the most recognisable comic book characters in decades. So here are the four key ways developer NetEase Games has managed to fuse a legendary comic book IP with a resoundingly solid foundation that reflects the best the genre has to offer.

    A Massively Varied Free Roster Of Unique Characters That Will Only Get Bigger And Better Over Time

    Absolutely screaming in with a superhero-stuffed roster filled with 33 playable and entirely different characters at launch, Marvel Rivals certainly isn’t lacking when it comes to its selection of heroes for players to stick their metaphorical teeth into. The Marvel Rivals roster runs the full gamut of Marvel characters from the well-known to the obscure including the likes of Iron Man, Captain America, Bruce Banner, Thor, Venom, Rocket Raccoon and even Jeff the Land Shark (who has a very real set of teeth that he uses to sink into the flesh of his enemies).

    Spread across the three broad classes of Duelist (damage dealers), Strategist (healing and buffs) and Vanguard (tank), each of the characters that make up Marvel Rivals roster plays appreciably differently from one another. From the defensive and stamina-focused capabilities of Captain America to the ranged abilities of The Punisher (which also include a handy turret that can be erected), to Spider-Man and Iron-Man, who can both use their trademark means of traversal to navigate their way across any given battlefield, the sheer uniqueness of the Marvel Rivals roster cannot be understated. After all, there’s nothing quite like watching Doctor Strange create a magical portal for Spider-Man who then leaps through it and ends up behind the enemy and in a position to inflict maximum damage. 

    And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Though a debut roster of 33 characters isn’t anything to be sniffed at, NetEase Games has committed itself to providing a steady stream of new characters in the coming weeks, months and years, fattening out an already sizable selection of playable heroes from every corner of Marvel fandom. Put simply, if you’re a Marvel fan with a thing for hero shooters, then Marvel Rivals isn’t looking like it will leave your social calendar anytime soon.

    Heroic Synergies That Both Add Depth While Honouring Its Comic Origins

    Cleverly building on the pre-existing and rather complex relationships that exist between the many characters of the long-established Marvel universe, Marvel Rivals allows specific combinations of heroes to enjoy special buffs and attacks that simply wouldn’t be available to solo heroes or other pairs of characters. With a current total of 15 very different synergy attacks, each of these collaborative specials has its own tactical benefit for each battle too. For example, pairing up Rocket Racoon with either the Winter Soldier or the Punisher, provides both of the latter gentlemen with faster firing and infinite ammo buffs. Meanwhile, putting Bruce Banner (Hulk) and Wolverine together, allows the not-so-jolly green giant to literally hurl Wolverine a lot farther than his leaping ability normally permits, allowing Logan to kick out much more damage than he otherwise could as a result.

    Destructible Legendary Locations From The Depths Of Marvel Lore

    In case you’re wondering, there is a sort of narrative setup that serves as the basis for Marvel Rivals scraps and, well, it’s pretty much as thin as it gets. A calamitous scrap between Doctor Doom and his heroic counterpart Doctor Doom 2099 results in a timestream entanglement which unceremoniously pulls both heroes and villains from across the multiverse to fight it out for supremacy. Hardly riveting stuff then, however what it does mean is that in addition to a sizable range of playable characters, Marvel Rivals also provides players with a massive range of fresh locations to duke it out in as well. 

    As such, this whole ‘timestream entanglement’ thing has resulted in some fairly gnarly mash-ups of Marvel locations in addition to some more pedestrian locales from the pages of Marvel’s comic books. Yggsgard for example, is a twisted amalgamation of Asgard and the Great Tree Yggdrasil, while the Kingdom of Wakanda has now spread itself far beyond the borders of Earth, having established itself as the Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda.

    From a design standpoint, each of Marvel Rivals’ eight maps not only boasts the sort of intuitive layout one would expect from a hero shooter worth its salt, but each of them also boasts a number of embedded destructible elements to keep things interesting too. From crashing ceilings to tumbling pillars, Marvel Rivals’ generous arrangement of destructive scenery provides additional damage-dealing opportunities, allowing skilled players to unleash a chunky amount of AoE damage on a group of foes at any time. Much like the expected stream of free characters that will pop along with every future season in Marvel Rivals, players should also expect that Marvel Rivals will also be bringing shiny new maps for players to scrap across with each new season at no extra cost.

    Battle Passes That Don’t Expire And Respect Your Time

    For the longest time, the traditional battle pass has been something of a double-edged sword. Though the rewards obtained through these battle passes often appeal and tend to do a fairly effective job of encouraging players to grind the time away in order to unlock them, they very often tend to be time-limited, requiring players to compress all of that play into a set period before another battle pass is introduced and the previous one (and its rewards) become no longer available.

    In Marvel Rivals, no such time limit exists, meaning you can take as long as you like to earn the rewards within each battle pass without the worry of that battle pass disappearing and taking those rewards, together with your hard-won progress, into the abyss. As a side note, this also ties into how microtransactions work within Marvel Rivals, too. Instead of making any material difference to the gameplay side of things, Marvel Rivals instead wisely channels its monetisation model into a massive range of skins for each of its characters which can either be earned through in-game currency or paid for real money. 

    Indeed, when you consider just how many different versions there are of each character across all of Marvel’s history, not to mention the variants for playable characters that will be introduced in future free seasonal content, it certainly appears that Marvel Rivals will have progression in spades and perhaps more importantly, respects your time to do so.