News and Reviews

If you like your retro first-person shooters to be colorful, gory, and feature extravagant, larger-than-life characters, then Captain Wayne - Vacation Desperation could be exactly the game you're looking for. Released earlier this month exclusively on Steam, the "fast-action" shooter has previously been described by its creators as "half game, half cartoon" and features detailed hand-drawn graphics, gallons of blood, and a charismatic "cigar-huffing", "hot pink-wearing" ship captain as its lead. It is the creation of a small studio, called Ciaran Games, and was built using GZDoom, a fork of the ZDoom source port of the original Doom games. As you'll see, though, from look…

Fireproof Games, the British studio behind the acclaimed puzzle series The Room, is soon to release its latest title on PSVR2. It's called Ghost Town, and it's set for release on Sony's virtual reality hardware on 1st December 2025: You play as Edith Penrose, a witch who turns her talents to ghost hunting in this supernatural thriller. You'll use her magical abilities to solve puzzles and track down clues to the whereabouts of her missing brother. Here's the Steam version's launch trailer to put you in the mood: The Room series is held in high regard, so there's every reason to be hopeful about this new title. Ghost Town was very well received when it launched for PC VR f…

Two legendary developers have joined forces once again, and it's a game that's a teensy bit outside what they're best known for. From Steve Ellis and David Doak, two of the minds behind renowned shooters GoldenEye 007 and TimeSplitters, comes Beyond Words, a strategic, roguelike word game. Coming to PS5 in early 2026, the easiest way to describe Beyond Words is that it's a combination of Scrabble and Balatro. You'll be spelling out words in a similar vein to the legendary board game, and it seems combos, alongside hundreds of gameplay modifiers, will help you reach enormous scores. Each board will challenge you in different ways, and there are even bosses, seeded runs, ti…

Techland has unveiled update 1.4 for Dying Light: The Beast, an enormous update for the action title that incorporates brand new features and hundreds of improvements. Largely based on feedback from the community, update 1.4 brings fixes, improvements, and features requested by players. Here's a quick rundown of all the major additions in the update: New Game + mode: New Game + is added to the game, meaning you can replay the adventure while keeping all your gear, weapons, and character progression from your first playthrough. Each time you start New Game +, the level of challenge increases, but so does the power and rarity of the weapons you find. Legend Levels: This is …

PS5 console sales in Japan have skyrocketed in the past week, as the new model designed specifically for the country enters the market. Accounting for around two to three days' worth of sales, there were exactly 23,381 purchases of the PS5 Digital Edition in Japan through until 23rd November. In comparison, PS5 sales the week before slumped to just 5,855. This means that the Japan-specific PS5 model, which has launched at a lower price and is essentially region-locked to Japan, has resulted in roughly four times as many sales upon its first few days on the market. The Switch 2 is still very comfortably outselling it, with 126,000+ purchases recorded between 17th and 23rd …

It's been a few months now since Dying Light: The Beast launched on Xbox and other platforms, and the game has just received its biggest update since release today - perfect timing considering it's part of the Xbox Black Friday Sale 2025! This update adds a New Game+ mode, ray tracing on PC, three new finishers and Legend Levels that provide you with the "classic Dying Light end-game progression system". Here's a bit more on the main two features on Xbox: In addition to all this, there are over 400 improvements as mentioned above, spanning the likes of environmental & navigational fixes, gameplay fixes, graphical improvements and much more. If you're interested, th…

Fancy topping up your Microsoft Rewards earnings over the next week? Well, there's a new promotion on the Microsoft Rewards dashboard that's allowing you to "double your points" until early December through Bing searches, which you can do on PC, mobile or through the Microsoft Edge browser on Xbox. To find it, you just need to head to the Microsoft Rewards dashboard and look for the relevant banner and "activate now" button that'll hopefully show up in your region. Here's what it looks like: After this, you'll get a brief explanation of what "double your points" means: For me personally, I can see that the cap of earning 90 Microsoft Rewards points through Bing searches…

As far as micro consoles go, The C64 Mini has been a resounding success, and, according to its manufacturer, is the best-selling 'mini computer' yet released. I can certainly believe that – The C64 Mini was one of the first devices of its kind to hit the market, and the allure of the Commodore name carries significant weight among retro gamers. Now, Retro Games Ltd. is back with a new variant of the system that sports a new colour scheme and a totally new selection of pre-loaded games. While the original beige model came with 64 titles that included the likes of Attack of the Mutant Camels, Boulder Dash, Impossible Mission, Monty Mole and Speedball 2, this new variant shi…

When people rank their favorite Mega Man X games, the PS1 title Mega Man X6 usually winds up appearing towards the bottom of the list. Released in 2001 (or 2002 if you live in Europe), the sixth entry in the Mega Man sub-series is often viewed by many fans online as a bit of a rush job, with the game coming out a mere 12 months after Mega Man X5, which was originally envisioned by series producer Keiji Inafune to be the end of the story. Because of this tight production timeline, it ultimately ended up featuring a lot of rough edges and ideas that didn't necessarily come together (like the Nightmare System), making it one of the more challenging games to recommend to newc…

Well, well, well... How the tables turn. For a long time now, Atlus, and by extension, parent company SEGA, have dabbled in re-releasing their games. Typically, these re-releases feature expanded and / or improved content, and are often labelled as 'definitive' versions of the original title. Generally speaking, potential buyers have become more and more critical of this practice over the years. An increased focus on expansions, DLC, and updates has largely painted re-releases as an anti-consumer approach, as they're essentially asking fans to pay up for two versions of the same game. And according to SEGA, this once fairly common strategy could now be having a negative i…

It's actually mad to look back on the beginnings of Cyberpunk 2077 and compare that time to where the game is now. It's taken basically five solid years of updates — along with one hell of an expansion — to turn things around, but the open world RPG is now a colossal commercial success, with developer CD Projekt Red confirming that it's topped 35 million sales in its latest business briefing. That's a ridiculous achievement for any title, but in Cyberpunk's case, it just goes to show how things can (eventually) turn around. At this point it's worth mentioning that we're fast approaching the game's fifth anniversary. It first launched for PS4 on the 10th December, 2020. An…

Our good friends over at Digital Foundry have delivered their tech review of Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition, which shadow dropped onto Switch 1 and 2 last week, and it's something of a mixed bag. Starting on a positive note, the Switch 2 version of the game sets out to hit 60fps, and it does so consistently. DF's Thomas Morgan notes that he noticed "barely any drops" when playing in either handheld or docked modes, so that's a big bonus for fans of smoothness. What's more, the Switch/Switch 2 'Definitive Edition' boasts many of the re-release 'pros' over the PS3 original — upgraded textures, foliage placement, colour grading, etc. — and renders at 1920x1080p resolution i…

An early indie hit this year was Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders, and it's taken the best part of a year to finally slalom its way onto PS5. The game finally has a release date on Sony's system; it arrives on 3rd December, which is near-perfect timing for some cosy Christmas chill time. Here's its initial release date trailer from January to get you in the mood: Despite its name, Snow Riders features co-op, allowing you to ski down the slopes with friends. The PS5 release will include all the previously added content, and the Highlanders DLC will also be available for separate purchase. As big fans of the previous game, we're quite looking forward to zipping down the mounta…

Opinions will always be split on the best iteration of Final Fantasy, and so it's interesting to hear that living industry legend and Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii has shared his own thoughts on the franchise. Once upon a time, Dragon Quest was in direct competition with Final Fantasy; the two properties vying for the RPG crown back in the 80s and 90s. Of course, this was before Square and Enix merged to form Square Enix, causing the two titans of the genre to fall under the same publishing umbrella. But apparently, Horii didn't actually view Final Fantasy as a threat to his creation. He explains to Game Informer: "I was definitely paying attention to it because it was …

We're big fans of TimeSplitters here at Pure Xbox, and we've enjoyed playing TimeSplitters 2 and 3 via backwards compatibility in recent years, but we've also been craving some kind of brand-new project for over a decade now. TimeSplitters Rewind isn't actually new — it's been in development for over a decade — but it's suddenly released for free in early access on PC this week, containing a full remake of TimeSplitters 1's campaign (playable both offline and online), along with a full multiplayer suite that includes some hectic online shootouts. It's been a long time coming, and there's a lot of excitement from the community right now: Of course, this is only a PC game a…

It's been a while since we last saw a new free-to-play (or just entirely "free") game release on the Xbox Store, but that's all changed today with the arrival of Card Storm Idle - a game that actually has three separate versions to try. That makes it extremely lucrative for achievement hunters, as there's a potential 3000G worth of achievements up for grabs here across the Xbox One (1000G), Xbox Series X|S (1000G) and Windows PC (1000G) versions. It's really simple to complete as well, described as an "incremental experience" in which you can get all the achievements in around 10-20 minutes. You can see how it looks in the video up above. Of course, a situation like this…

At this point, we know about the awards that will be present at The Game Awards 2025, but the new game reveals are what most folks tune in for, and our first inclusion has now been locked in ahead of the event next month. Action-adventure RPG Exodus will feature during The Game Awards showcase, as confirmed by Archetype Entertainment and Wizards of the Coast. Exodus was first unveiled at TGA 2023, and will be returning this year with a brand-new trailer. In the run up to the live event on December 11th, we expect host Geoff Keighley to announce even more games that will be present at the showcase. Typically, these teases are for already announced titles with new trailers,…

Remember Nintendo's short film, Close to You? The adorable baby animation with which the company kept us on tenterhooks for three days straight as it drip-fed us information about its context? Well, it looks like it'll be cropping up again, this time in an upcoming Pikmin Bloom event. As of tomorrow (27th November), anyone logging into Pikmin Bloom will receive a Gold Seedling, which promises a special Decor Pikmin inside. And this isn't any old Decor Pikmin either, oh no, this is a Seedling that "seems to have a connection to the short movie Pikmin Close to You". At least, that's how the Pikmin Bloom blog post puts it. We don't know the exact form that this Seedling will…

Neowiz and Round8 Studio created one of the best-loved Souls-likes outside of FromSoftware with Lies of P, and it sounds like the team isn't resting on its laurels. Speaking to GamesRadar following Overture's Best Game Expansion win at the Golden Joysticks, director Choi Ji-Won sounds confident about the upcoming work from the studio. Via an interpreter, he says fans "can expect the most fun that we can achieve within the game", not specifying exactly which project he's talking about. He also asks fans to "please stay tuned for it; we are working really hard, and I will not disappoint you at all." Neowiz recently announced several games it has in the pipeline, one of whic…

There seems to be at least a couple of people at Ubisoft still working on Beyond Good & Evil 2, in amongst its Prince of Persia and Assassin's Creed remakes. A new job listing for a Technical Sound Designer was posted online by the French publisher within the last 24 hours, and the position is tied directly to the long-in-development project. Part of the Montpellier team, the successful applicant will "provide technical solutions for integrating and implementing audio systems to ensure that the audio assets created by the team work as intended, in line with the Audio Director’s vision". Whoever gets the job will begin work on Beyond Good & Evil 2 "as soon as possi…

Bafflingly buried within the questions and answers section of SEGA's Japanese website, the publisher finally confirms that Yakuza Kiwami 2 will run at 60 frames-per-second on PS5. The fantastic remake is being re-released for Sony's current-gen system on the 8th December, and it'll be a free upgrade for those who already own the PS4 version digitally. However, up until now, we've had no mention of any technical improvements, leading fans to question the point of even having a PS5 version to begin with. But 60fps performance is exactly what Kiwami 2 needs. The game's locked at 30fps on PS4, and it never received any kind of performance-boosting patch for PS5 when played vi…

Developer Grasshopper Manufacture has announced its third ever Grasshopper Direct, this time with a focus on its upcoming madcap action game, Romeo Is a Dead Man. Announced during a State of Play earlier this year, Romeo Is a Dead Man is a hyper-violent action title we've not seen a huge amount of yet, but our next glimpse at the game is coming very soon. On 5th December, the next Grasshopper Direct will go live on the studio's YouTube channel at 10am JST (that's 1am GMT, 2am CET; Thursday 4th December, 5pm PST, 8pm EST). "Among brand-new updates to pour over, next week’s Grasshopper Direct will showcase more of the studio’s upcoming, absolutely crazy, sci-fi action game,…

SEGA has confirmed that those who own Yakuza 0, Yakuza Kiwami, or Yakuza Kiwami 2 on PS4 can take advantage of discounted upgrade paths when buying the new versions on PS5. All three PS5 re-releases are due to launch on the 8th December, but there is a catch in that these upgrade paths only apply to the digital versions of the PS4 games — and any games claimed through PS Plus subscriptions unfortunately don't count either. Here's a quick summary of the upgrade pricing, which differs between games: Yakuza 0 (PS4) upgraded to Yakuza 0 Director's Cut (PS5) - $14.99 / £11.99 / €14.99 Yakuza Kiwami (PS4) upgraded to Yakuza Kiwami (PS5) - $1.99 / £1.70 / €1.99 Yakuza Kiwami 2 (…

A few years ago, around the same time that Xbox's Activision deal was going through, Embracer Group went on a bit of a spending spree of its own, scooping up loads of studios from Square Enix and more. Major downsizing has happened since though, as Embracer struggled to handle so many different teams - and now two more studios have been sold off. Announced in a press release today, Arc Games (the publisher behind the Remnant series) and Cryptic Studios (the developer of Neverwinter and Star Trek Online) have been divested in the latest Embracer restructure. Embracer Group will retain the rights to Remnant, which will be published by spin-off organization THQ Nordic in fut…

An intriguing leak has cropped up on the Tomb Raider subreddit this week that hints at some major DLC coming to 2024's Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered in the near future. A set of Steam achievements have leaked for the Apsyr collection that are all tagged with the heading 'TRX:CR'. The achievements themselves talk about levels, time limits and gameplay modifiers - and some folks in the Reddit thread are speculating that 'CR' could stand for Challenge Run here; some kind of potential bonus mode for Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered? The development teams at Aspyr and Crystal Dynamic haven't officially announced this update/DLC yet, but these leaked achievements certainly suggest it ex…