Rockstar

To celebrate the recent launch of Kirby Air Riders on the Switch 2, Nintendo has announced a new event for its Switch Online battle royale game Tetris 99. This event will take place between 4th December and 8th December 2025, and allows players to unlock a special design inspired by Kirby's new game. This also happens to mark the 50th Maximus Cup event! In some other Switch Online news, Nintendo has also released some new Animal Crossing: New Horizons icons for Switch Online members this week.

Nightdive is still rolling out regular updates for its Switch eShop versions of Turok and Turok 2, and to kick off December, it has released two new patches. In Turok, you can expect all sorts of enhancements and improvements as well as a Switch-specific update. And in Turok 2, the team has added a bunch of improvements including cross-play multiplayer. It also shared some details about issues it's aware of in Turok 2. Here are the full details courtesy of the Nightdive website: Turok (2015) Patch 3 - 1st December 2025Turok has been updated on all platforms! PATCH NOTES Added Atari intro video. Updated KEX and Nightdive videos. Removed Acclaim intro cutscene. Save menu will now update the save slot text when all save slots are used. Fixed cheat text localization when entering in a cheat code. Added a much-requested gameplay option to toggle respawning enemies off. Added a gameplay option for enemies to always drop items no matter what the difficulty is set to. Crosshair now scales with the size of the screen. Trails: are smoother, no longer disappear when the enemies change animations, and their performance has been improved. When firing the Rocket Launcher the trails no longer stop spawning smoke particles. Crawling now uses the weapons walk animation instead of the run animation. Particles now fade in correctly with the intended alpha values. Sounds pause and resume when opening and closing menus. Lowered volume of explosion sounds during the end game escape cutscene. Maximum active sounds increased from 64 to 128. When the music changes there’s a quick fade out. Fixed issues with some enemies showing the wrong blood colors. Sandworms can no longer be shot when they have died and are under the floor. Knife makes metal impact sounds when hitting metal enemies. The arrow head on the Bow now flashes briefly for a better indicator of the Bow’s super shot timing. After beating the Longhunter and the dam opens, water sounds now play. Removed shadow flags on 2 of the dam doors. Removed unused switch sectors from beta version only seen on the automap. In Level 5 a shortcut from the beta version was added in, going from the outside area with the key to back inside to the catacomb hallways. The unique model used for the shortcut entrance was never correctly modeled, and it has now been fixed up. Added in the missing startup elevator sound for tech platforms. Sky speed now changes based on the sector properties. In Level 7, for example, the sky moves a little faster than the other levels. Fixed walk speed value when moving diagonally. Fixed enemies not respawning when they’re in water. Interpolation fixes. Minor model geometry fixes. (Switch) You can now select up to an FOV of 120 on Nintendo Switch. (PC) Rendering fixes when window focuses/unfocuses. (PC) Using mods no longer prevents achievements which was the original remaster behavior. (PC) Modding additions and improvements. Turok 2: Seeds of Evil - Patch 2.2Turok 2: Seeds of Evil has been updated on all platforms! Improvements: Updated KEX engine version for latest support and features. Updated rendering defaults. Smoother shadows, optimized light scattering, and improved ambient occlusion. Extended singleplayer weapon models for ultrawide resolutions. Improved localization across the game. Added subtitles for all cinematics. Cross-play multiplayer is now functional. Current Issues: We are currently aware that some players are encountering graphical and visual glitches in the Turok 2: Seeds of Evil “Next-Gen” update. We are currently working on these issues and will be addressing them in a future update slated for release before the end of the year. We want to ensure that this release is simultaneous on all platforms, so we ask to please wait a little longer for these updates to go live. Thank you for understanding.

IO Interactive has confirmed that it's hosting a gameplay-focused livestream later this week, where it will share more on its upcoming PS5 title 007 First Light. Having been the star of a recent State of Play showcase, the James Bond game will next appear in a Beyond the Light livestream this Wednesday, 3rd December 2025. Gameplay director Andreas Krogh and senior level designer Thomas Pulluelo will "pull back the curtain on all things gameplay" from 8am PT / 11am ET / 4pm GMT on Wednesday. It'll be livestreamed on Twitch. One of the biggest releases for the first half of 2026, the game is slated to arrive for PS5 on 27th March. Will you be tuning in to the show, or have you already seen enough? Let us know in the comments below.

Developer IO Interactive is currently all-in on its upcoming action adventure, 007 First Light, but it sounds like Hitman fans needn't worry about the franchise's future. In an interview with Variety, CEO Hakan Abrak is very clear about the status of the Hitman series. "So of course there will be more Hitman," Abrak says, saying that the team is first focusing on bringing co-op to the existing game, calling it a "really, really good extension to the universe". After that, though, Abrak says IO will "be talking about the next Hitman — because, of course, there’s going to be a next Hitman." Exactly what form a future Hitman game will take is unclear, but Hitman 3 — now known as World of Assassination — will be a tough act to follow. Incorporating the campaigns from Hitman 1 and 2, various additional modes, and a seemingly never-ending supply of Elusive Target missions and special events, World of Assassination is about as content-rich a game as you'll find in 2025. IO's excellent post-launch support continues throughout December with an Elusive Target that sees Eminem hiring Agent 47 to kill Slim Shady. Hitman 4 could simply be a whole new campaign added to the existing package, or perhaps it'll be a fresh start for the series. It's all speculation for now; we expect a new Hitman will take a while to materialise given the studio's other work. Still, confirmation of a "next" Hitman is quite exciting, isn't it? Are you looking forward to more Agent 47 in future? Tell us in the comments section below.

It sounds like Dispatch developer AdHoc Studio knew it was taking a risk by adopting an episodic release schedule — but the decision paid off in the end. The interactive superhero drama dropped its first two episodes — of eight total — on the 22nd October, and then proceeded to launch two new episodes every following week. In years gone by, Telltale Games had all but driven the episodic model into the ground with its numerous licensed adventure titles. And AdHoc apparently had to navigate that lasting negativity when considering its approach for Dispatch. "Everyone was telling us not to do it," admits executive producer and CEO Michael Choung, in an interview with Knowledge. "[It's] an insane thing to do," he adds. "From every metric, from a production perspective, no one should do this. If you think episodic alone is going to be the thing that dictates success for you, then good luck." Essentially, Choung says that Dispatch's success was partly down to its episodic nature, but he certainly doesn't recommend that other developers follow suit — unless the narrative hook is already abundantly present in the actual game. "The spine of this whole thing is the creative. If the creative is strong, you can cut it up however you like, and it probably is going to make it through, even if it's a poor decision," he explains. "If you go episodic with a not-so-great story, you're flirting with people that aren't attracted to you whatsoever." Indeed, Dispatch has been (in our opinion, rightly) praised for its endearing cast of characters and comedy-tinged storyline. There's more than enough quality there to keep people coming back. While it's entirely possible to play through all eight episodes in one or two sittings, it's clear that the episodic structure helped spread positive impressions; Choung says that player counts hit new heights every time fresh episodes were made available. "Again, conventional wisdom says: whatever you guys do in the first week, the second week is going to be half that number. It was literally the opposite. Those things, we anticipated. I don't think we anticipated the scale of it," Choung reveals. Of course, we think it probably helps that Dispatch was always completely transparent with its schedule right from the start. One of Telltale's biggest problems was how uneven its releases were, with delays often sapping the hype as the studio scrambled across multiple projects. Do you think there's still room for episodic releases in gaming? Did you play Dispatch week by week, or did you binge the whole thing in one go? Ponder Season 2 in the comments section below.

Paramount has revealed some of its future movie plans, but for us, the biggest draw is that Sonic the Hedgehog will be getting a brand new spin-off movie in 2028. Variety reports that this upcoming spin-off is currently untitled, but it's being referred to to as the "Sonic Universe Event Film". It will launch in cinemas on 22nd December 2028. More than three years away! Note that this isn't the planned Sonic the Hedgehog 4 movie, which is coming out in March 2027. We have no other details right now, but there are a lot of opportunities to branch out in the Sonic universe, with tons of untapped characters and other video games the movies can draw from. Plus, it seems like a no-brainer to expand the Sonic movie universe — the first three films have all received warm critical reception, particularly Sonic the Hedgehog 3, and fans seem to absolutely love them. Collectively, the franchise has made over $1 billion at the box office and spawned a TV show focusing on Knuckles the Echidna, so more movies surely means more money. We at least have some idea of who will feature in the Sonic 4 movie, so we'll have to excitedly wait and see on what the Sonic Universe movie will bring.

Cyanide Studio has revealed the third instalment in the Styx stealth series, Styx: Blades of Greed, has been delayed out of 2025, and will now release for PS5 on 19th February 2026. From the perspective of Styx himself, the following was posted to the game's Steam page: "Yeah, yeah, I know, waiting isn’t your favorite thing. Mine either. (Unless I’m waiting in the dark to stab someone, of course). The devs are taking a few extra months to polish everything up, tweak the bits that need tweaking, and make sure my grand return is as glorious (and chaotic) as it deserves to be." Blades of Greed follows on from Master of Shadows and Shards of Darkness, with a third entry almost nine years after the latter released. Decent enough stealth experiences, this new title "refines the proven formula of the first two games by making freedom and creativity central to the experience. Explore vast vertical environments and master new tools and powers." It'll now come to PS5 on 19th February 2026. Are you interested? Let us know in the comments below.

Ghost of Yotei's latest update — patch 1.1 — has resulted in some pretty significant performance boosts. Analysed by our friends over at Digital Foundry, the update's introduction of VRR support is a win for all players, but it's an especially big deal on PS5 Pro. Just to recap, version 1.1 was headlined by the addition of New Game+ when it launched last week, but developer Sucker Punch also snuck in some juicy new graphical settings. A new 'Balanced' mode targets 40 frames-per-second, but really, it's the ability to uncap the game's frame rate that yields the most impressive results. The aforementioned Balanced mode, with ray tracing, manages to hover between its intended 40fps and a smooth 60fps on PS5 Pro, with the uncap toggle enabled. But even more impressive, the title's already excellent RT Pro mode jumps from 60fps to anywhere between 70 and 90fps, giving Atsu's adventure a seriously silky feel. Digital Foundry describes the jump as "incredible", given how well the open worlder performed to begin with. Meanwhile, if you decide to switch ray tracing off and just dive into the standard Performance, Balanced, and Quality modes with the frame rate uncapped, you'll be treated to a roughly 33% fps increase across the board. Oh, and on the base PS5, it's worth mentioning that Balanced can give you a very similar boost to what's available on PS5 Pro — as long as you're playing on a VRR-compatible 120Hz display. Uncapped, the frame rate can hit 60fps. Have you given Ghost of Yotei a shot since Update 1.1? Behold those beautiful frames in the comments section below.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is looking like the weakest-performing game in the series in quite some time, and new data from the European market sees that story continue. As reported by Chris Dring on The Game Business, citing digital and physical sales data from GSD, Black Ops 7 has been replaced at the top of the chart by EA Sports FC 26. This means a decline in sales for the first-person shooter, though it should be noted that this is fairly typical for the games market. Flanking it is Battlefield 6, which moves up a position from fourth to third, indicating an upward trend in sales. While raw numbers for the sales of Black Ops 7 have yet to be disclosed, this is just one more indication that things aren't going completely to plan for Activision's big FPS. Elsewhere on the chart, the top 10 sees It Takes Two return at number seven, and Red Dead Redemption 2 moves up to fifth, just above GTA 5. In terms of revenue rather than unit sales, EA Sports FC 26 is top dog there as well, while Sony games Marvel's Spider-Man 2 and Ghost of Yotei show up in eighth and ninth respectively. European Top 10 Unit Sales (Week Ending 23rd November)EA Sports FC 26 (EA) Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 (Activision) Battlefield 6 (EA) Hogwarts Legacy (Warner Bros) Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar) Grand Theft Auto 5 (Rockstar) It Takes Two (EA) Anno 117: Pax Romana (Ubisoft) NBA 2K26 (2K Games) Pokémon Legends: Z-A (Nintendo)* European Top Ten Revenue (Week Ending 23rd November)EA Sports FC 26 (EA) Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 (Activision) Battlefield 6 (EA) Anno 117: Pax Romana (Ubisoft) Pokémon Legends: Z-A (Nintendo)* NBA 2K26 (2K Games) F1 25 (EA) Spider-Man 2 (Sony) Ghost of Yotei (Sony) Kirby Air Riders (Nintendo)* *Digital sales data not available

One of the games you probably glossed over in our "games coming to Xbox next week" roundup over the weekend was Sleep Awake, which is a psychedelic horror game that's being developed by a brand-new studio. That studio is called "Eyes Out", and it's led by Spec Ops: The Line director Cory Davis, as well as the Nine Inch Nails guitarist (!) Robin Finck. If you haven't played it, Spec Ops: The Line is a very interesting shooter from the Xbox 360 era. Sleep Awake is a totally different genre to that game, of course, taking the form of an "immersive first-person psychedelic horror narrative experience that explores the realm between sleep and death". It looks suitably creepy and packed with puzzles, and the few previews that we've seen ahead of launch have seemed positive. Here's an example from PC Gamer: This sounds like one to keep an eye on, then! If you're interested, Sleep Awake releases on Tuesday, December 2nd for Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, but it doesn't look like pre-orders will be live on the Xbox Store ahead of time. We'll throw some more details about the game along with screenshots below.

The Yakuza / Like A Dragon series has been one of the biggest surprises of the Switch 2 generation, with three games — 0, Kiwami 1, and Kiwami 2 — available on the platform already. In February next year, it'll be joined by the brand new Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties which is much more than a remake of Yakuza 3, says RGG Studio director Yokoyama Masayoshi. In an interview with GameWatch (translated by Automaton), Masayoshi-san has said that this remake "contains some major hints about the future direction of the series." "We haven't officially announce anything related to that yet," Masayoshi continues "But once you play it, I think you’ll get an idea, or rather, a pretty solid sense of what we intend to do with the series going forward.” Well, considering there are five more mainline games (not including spin-offs such as Judgment or Gaiden) set after Yakuza 3, that's a little surprising! Dark Ties is the major new content, but other changes may well be coming — Image: SEGA None of those are on Switch consoles either, and with Yakuza: Like A Dragon and Infinite Wealth both starring a different protagonist (though Kiryu does pop up, because of course he does), it certainly leaves us with some questions. Masayoshi also insists that the new story starring Yoshitaka Mine, Dark Ties, is "extremely shocking", stating that it's one of the "darkest" stories in the series' history: "if you think Yakuza Kiwami 3 is just a remake, you’d be hugely mistaken." Well, even without that little hint, it certainly sounds like a lot more than a rehash of the original PS3 release.

Between the brilliant TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind, retro beat-‘em-ups are enjoying a bit of renaissance. Marvel Cosmic Invasion is perhaps the highest profile effort yet, a sublimely presented four-player pixel art tribute to the arcade glory years, when smoky pool halls were ruled by the likes of Capcom’s The Punisher and, perhaps more pertinently here, Konami’s X-Men. In that sense, this outing harbors few surprises: you select from a roster of 15 superheroes and punch your way through 15 stages, each inspired by locations from across the larger Marvel Universe. Your ultimate objective? To take down insectoid Annihilus and his Cosmic Control Rod, in a plot that’s partly based on the Annihilation Wave storyline from the comic books. While the gameplay remains fairly familiar for the genre, its biggest twist is how it requires each player to select two superheroes, adding tag mechanics to the traditional button mashing mix. You can toggle freely between your characters at any time, or trigger team-ups which allow you to really lay the smackdown on your foes. This means, in a full four-player setup, there can be as many as eight superheroes on the screen. To support this, dev Tribute Games has prepared a fairly stacked launch day roster, which blends familiar faces like Spider-Man and Wolverine with lesser-known additions like Beta-Ray Bill and Cosmic Ghost Rider. While all of the characters ultimately have access to the same basic set of abilities, they handle pretty differently. She-Hulk is slower and more powerful than some of her peers, for example, while Storm and Silver Surfer have more potent aerial abilities. Each character has his or her own special moves, like Black Panther who can lob Vibranium spears at his opponents or Rocket Raccoon who wields an arsenal of explosives. You also build up Focus through landing attacks, which allows you to trigger a screen-clearing super move. Again, each of these is unique, like Captain America throwing his shield in a 360-degree circle or Phoenix filling the screen with flames. The animation work on some of the characters is exceptional, with Venom’s symbiote transformations particularly standing out, occasionally revealing a glimpse of conduit Eddie Brock behind his suit. And many of the levels are filled with Easter Eggs, whether it’s New York City and its various references to the Daily Bugle or the Savage Land with its pre-historic backdrops. We don’t want to spoil too much, but this is a whistle-stop tour through the Marvel universe, and there are some brilliant cameos which even the most casual of fans will appreciate. While the game is perfectly enjoyable in single player, it is built around online and local multiplayer first and foremost. Fortunately, in all formats it’s a drop-in/drop-out experience, so your friends and family can dip in and out as they please. Playing in a pre-release environment we haven’t been able to test out the online just yet, but we did spend time in local co-op and found the action more intense and over-the-top in this format. There are definite difficulty spikes in single player which you should be aware of, and while they’re not insurmountable, the whole game becomes much more manageable when you’ve got two or three partners by your side. We should also mention that you will also level up your superheroes the more you use them in the main campaign mode, and this adds additional HP and various other abilities and passives to their arsenal. In some instances, we found we were being punished for experimenting with new characters we hadn’t levelled up, but the game absolutely encourages replayability and its difficulty isn’t so high that you can’t beat levels with superheroes you’ve never tried before. Our biggest criticism of the game is how depth perception – a common issue for side-scrolling brawlers – is made more difficult by the increased emphasis on enemies who can fly here. Without referring to shadows – which can be difficult to pay attention to given the chaotic nature of what’s happening on the screen – we often found we would whiff on aerial attacks because we were either too shallow or deep into the stage. It’s not a major issue, but it can become frustrating when you air ball an enemy you thought you were perfectly lined up alongside, and it happened to us a lot across almost all of the game’s stages. Still, it’ll take you roughly three hours to beat the campaign on your first playthrough, but you are encouraged to replay all of the levels to fulfil challenge requirements which encourage you to use specific characters or play in a particular way. Once you’ve done this, you can invest any resources you’ve earned into the NAME HERE to unlock various character bios, color palette swaps, and even arcade modifiers. And yes, the latter pertains to a more traditional arcade mode, which actually condenses the runtime and sees you selecting between stages at key moments on your path towards the final face off with Annihilus. ConclusionMarvel Cosmic Invasion does little to surprise, but it executes excellently on its retro beat-‘em-up ambitions. Depth perception can be a problem, but we like how the tag-team format gives the game a bit more of a chaotic feel, especially during local and online co-op sessions. And we also appreciate how each superhero handles slightly differently, adding a lot of replay value to a brawler that already has a relatively robust content offering.

Yakuza Kiwami 3 will apparently feature "major hints" about where the Like a Dragon series is heading, despite being a PS5 and PS4 remake of a PS3 title. This is according to RGG Studio director Masayoshi Yokoyama, who isn't a stranger to saying stuff that'll make Yakuza fans sit up and take notice. "It contains some major hints about the future direction of the series," Yokoyama told GameWatch (as translated by Automaton). He continues: "We haven’t officially announced anything related to that yet. But once you play it, I think you’ll get an idea, or rather, a pretty solid sense of what we intend to do with the series going forward." Honestly, it's one hell of a quote, and it immediately makes us wonder if there's much more to Yakuza Kiwami 3 than meets the eye. Indeed, Yokoyama almost seems to double down on just how important Kiwami 3 is to the franchise, stating: "If you think Yakuza Kiwami 3 is just a remake, you’d be hugely mistaken." Now, again, Yokoyama has a bit of a history when it comes to hyping things up — it is part of his job as both a director and an executive producer, after all — but we don't think he'd be going this hard if there wasn't something more to Kiwami 3. We also need to remember that the remake bundles in a whole new expansion-like story called Dark Ties, where you play as Yakuza 3 antagonist Yoshitaka Mine. Yokoyama could, to some extent, be referring to Dark Ties' inclusion. So, could Kiwami 3 have new plot bits and pieces that tie into future games? Or maybe Yokoyama's on about gameplay-related mechanics and systems? It's impossible to say at this point, but the man clearly knows how to stir up interest. Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties is still set to release on the 12th February, but will you be booking a trip to Okinawa? Wear your best holiday shirt in the comments section below.