Indholdsfortegnelse for July 2025 i Edge

In creating the original DS, Nintendo’s designers stared down the obvious challenge of working out what a next-generation portable game console should be able to do. Its eventual solution wasn’t a typically elegant Nintendo one, and involved throwing the kitchen sink at it, cramming in as many features as would be achievable at a massmarket price point. Sony’s PSP team, on the other hand, seemed to say: “Well, how about a really big, vibrant screen? Wouldn’t that be nice?” One console, together with associated successors it spawned over the following years, would go on to clock up sales of over 150 million units. The other would not. Evidently, brute-forcing your way to success can work, but it’s not as clever as coming up with something consumers don’t even realise they…

For many of us, videogames represent an escape. But that’s rarely as true as it has been for the developer of Quantum Witch, who grew up in a religious cult in northeast England. NikkiJay (who chooses not to use her real name because she doesn’t want her abusive father to find her) describes the cult as being obsessed with the end of the world, and discouraging questioning or criticism of its doctrines. “I remember sitting in sermons where they said how great it would be when all the lesbians are dead,” she recalls. The cult was also against certain medical procedures, which made for a terrifying conversation when NikkiJay was ten and needed her tonsils removed. “My parents took me aside and said, ‘You have to be prepared to die’.”…

You might remember that in E410 I sang the praises of freezing momentary experiences into something crystalline – a photograph or a video or some other souvenir that can be taken away and revisited at any time. Well, shortly after submitting that column, I picked up the thing I had earmarked for the next instalment, only to discover that it takes pretty much that exact idea and literalises it into a game mechanic. This is Lushfoil Photography Sim, the latest, and perhaps strangest, release from Annapurna Interactive. It consists of nine chunks of real-world geography, recreated in Unreal Engine 5, and a fully simulated DSLR camera with which to shoot them. You line up the viewfinder, fiddle with all the settings – playing that resource-management game photography enthusiasts know as…

Developer River End Games Publisher Nordcurrent Format PC, PS5, Xbox Series Origin Sweden Release 2025 One thing that makes stealth a little easier in Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream is that the patrolling guards don’t always get on well. Hiding behind a stack of boxes, vulnerable protagonist Hanna is on the run from an authoritarian police force, and three of its members block the path ahead. But one, an officer, bullies the others for a cigarette then tells them to get lost so he can enjoy his smoke in peace. That’s better: Hanna can incapacitate the lone individual and pull his unconscious frame into a quiet alcove. And when his disgruntled colleagues come looking for him, they won’t look very hard. “We wanted this curated experience where the guards are characters…

Developer/publisher TomorrowHead Studio Format PC, PS5, Xbox Series Origin US Release 2025 Set foot on the breathtaking Nordic isles of Will: Follow The Light with any preconceptions and you’re in for a surprise – at least if those preconceptions are formed thanks to the game’s own trailers or its Steam page, where a handful of firstperson screenshots are coupled with a deliberately cryptic synopsis. The expansive, desolate vistas and the main character’s propensity for inner monologue seem pretty conclusive. As we fidget with the winches, manually hoist the sails and gently nudge the tiller to steer our wave-battered yacht through a procession of flashing buoys at exhilarating speed, though, we can’t help wondering: is TomorrowHead’s debut really a walking sim? Tellingly, director and studio founder Roman Novikov cites none of the…

Developer/publisher Far From Home Format PC (tested), PS5, Xbox Series Release Out now From its opening planetary descent to the nearidentical voice of its virtual assistant, Forever Skies frequently evokes memories of Subnautica to propel its survival experience. It’s not a bad model to imitate. Subnautica remains one of the best survival games, fusing the genre’s crafting and resource gathering with a dazzling aquatic world, a thrilling mystery, and a trio of delightful underwater vehicles. Far From Home hopes to conjure a similar experience, but swaps the ocean for the troposphere, and Subnautica’s submarine for a zeppelin that you pilot over a post-apocalyptic Earth. Yet while Forever Skies has sturdy foundations, it lacks the wonder of Unknown Worlds’ undersea adventure. You play a space-dwelling survivor of a pandemic (or…

Developer/publisher Don’t Nod Format PC, PS5 (tested), Xbox Series Release Out now They say the camera never lies; the implied corollary being, presumably, that memory does. It’s a notion essential to both the plot and themes of Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, though this doesn’t really become apparent until a good way through the second of its two ‘Tapes’. Initially, all you know is that it’s 2022 and you’re making your first trip since the pandemic. You’re returning to your Michigan hometown, specifically a bar, to meet a group of friends you haven’t seen since your teens, that one summer back in the mid-’90s. Naturally, old memories bubble up. At first, these are confined to unexplained flashes of the past. A shot of two hands being clutched together – a…

Developer Slipgate Ironworks Publisher 3D Realms, Knights Peak Format PC Release Out now Declaring your game an esport is like giving yourself a nickname: unless the designation comes from elsewhere, it’s never likely to catch on. Perhaps it was fixating on StarCraft’s pro scene, instead of catering to the bigger audience of armchair generals who just wanted to tank-rush their mates, blast through story missions and watch Tim Curry chew scenery, that spelled the RTS genre’s downfall over the past two decades. Slipgate Ironworks understands this. Tempest Rising may turn out to have the fine balance and depth to sustain a pro-aspiring community, but the campy cutscenes and rollicking campaigns are placed at the front of the shop window. Is it a retro revival piece? Not entirely. That’s despite the…

Developer/publisher Fireproof Games Format Quest (2, 3, Pro) Release Out now Fireproof Games’ step outside of The Room retains many of the features that made those games sing. Once again you’re presented with a series of puzzleboxes, the purposes of their various cranks, dials and cogs deciphered through physical experimentation. The original mobile games were built for touchscreen, before 2020’s A Dark Matter shifted to VR and motion controls; Ghost Town retains both plus that game’s expanded ambitions, pushing them further still. It’s telling that, while Ghost Town defaults to the old VR teleport navigation, there’s an option for analoguestick control. It’s one we’d advise taking, since you’ll be doing a lot more walking and exploring here. In contrast to the confines of The Room, here you move between a…

Dialogue Send your views, using ‘Dialogue’ as the subject line, to edge@futurenet.com. Our letter of the month wins an exclusive Edge T-shirt Not feeling Blue Like apparently quite a lot of Edge readers these days, I am a parent. I was quite prepared for what having kids would do to my leisure time, and it was a bit of a challenge early on, but now that my son and daughter have got a bit older they want to spend lots of time playing videogames together as a family. The latest version of Mario Kart has proved just as entertaining for us as it did for me and my friends playing the original Super Mario Kart together at college. It is amazing to me that we’re still playing what is really…

#411 Walking the walk Building on a path laid by Death Stranding, Baby Steps does something that feels both obvious and inspired with the term ‘walking simulator’ – it takes it literally. ‘You want walking to be simulated?’ it asks. ‘Try this.’ Now the act of putting one foot in front of the other without toppling over becomes a challenge in itself, the kind that toddlers have to navigate until their brains acclimatise to a life of upright mobility. One of the minds behind Baby Steps, Bennett Foddy, has previous for breaking simple actions down into constituent motions, with fascinating results. But body parts aren’t the only things that can benefit from this meticulous treatment, as proved by Will: Follow The Light – another game upon which Death Stranding has…

Developer Gabe Cuzzillo, Maxi Boch, Bennett Foddy Publisher Devolver Digital Format PC, PS5 Origin US Release 2025 There are things in videogames we take for granted; elements that have become T so ingrained in the fabric of the medium that we seldom stop to think about them. How do you walk in a thirdperson videogame? Well, you push the analogue stick forward, obviously. With the camera sitting behind your avatar’s back, it’s so intuitive that even those who haven’t picked up a controller before understand it instinctively. This method of moving has been a cornerstone of just about every thirdperson game since Super Mario 64 effectively codified 3D movement. So when Baby Steps’ opening cinematic ends and we’re granted control over protagonist Nate, we do what comes naturally. And we…

Developer/publisher Draknek & Friends Format PC Origin UK Release October The music you hear upon completing a level in the latest puzzler from Draknek T & Friends might well be a new classic of the form. Tasked with plotting a route for a skull-shaped locomotive to ferry vampires, zombies and humans around a haunted theme park – delivering them to coffins, grave pits and the exit respectively – we’re rewarded with what’s best described as an animated die-o-rama. As we watch our solution play out on a loop (which would be hypnotic even without audio accompaniment), Priscilla Snow’s irresistible theme delivers a dash of Scooby Doo and a whack of dopamine. Their fine work isn’t limited to the music, either. Pick up the walking dead, and you’ll hear a groan:…

Developer Sandfall Interactive Publisher Kepler Interactive Format PC, PS5 (tested), Xbox Series Release Out now Like so many games, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is about conflict, depicting factions and schools of thought that seem irreconcilable. But then also, somehow, it reveals a potential for harmony in those deep oppositions. And while this applies to the game’s narrative themes, and its characters’ inner turmoil, it’s felt most immediately in its game’s combat system. Historically, in RPG battles, realtime and turn-based have been the poles of a dichotomy. Sure, twitch mechanics have guested in turn-based play since Super Mario RPG, and Final Fantasy VII Remake linked ATB to frenetic action. Here, though, is a truer blend. According to conventional logic, success in turn based combat should come from build choices, party synergies,…

Developer Blendo Games Publisher Annapurna Interactive Format PC Release Out now The ventilation shaft has an oddly prominent role in pop culture, or at least two particular strands of it. On one hand, we have Bruce Willis flicking a cigarette lighter and quipping about TV dinners as he crawls through a metal duct; on the other, JC Denton and Adam Jensen running laps behind the walls of apparently impregnable blacksites. Skin Deep takes Die Hard and Deus Ex as sacred texts, and that means taking its vents very seriously indeed. It’s not just that its spaceship levels are so comprehensively tunnelled through, but that so much thought has clearly gone into working out what those tunnels might be used for. A handy shortcut, yes, for circumventing a locked door or…

Developer Mureena, Psychoflow Publisher Kepler Interactive Format PC, PS5 (tested) Release Out now Checkpoints are always welcome. Knowing that a challenging stretch is now behind you, an anchor point firmly embedded in the rock, provides much-needed relief in any game. But it can be a little suspect when they’re too frequent, inserted into the middle of an already short sequence, say, making you wonder if it might be compensation for some bumpy design. In Bionic Bay, an inventive and taxing physics-based platformer, that hypothesis proves correct. At the fore here is the spirit of the eccentric inventor with no time to explain. An opening cutscene wastes mere seconds before dropping you into a marathon of scientific oddity. Most likely referencing Another World, you are a physicist propelled into another dimension…

Developer Nitroplus Publisher SoFun Format PC (tested), PS5, Switch Release Out now For Takaya Kuroda, the voice of Kazuma Kiryu, a grumpy, middle-aged rabbit seems an unlikely role for his post-Yakuza career. Here is a concept that imagines Sylvanian Family-type creatures in an action-platforming Metroidvania against a dystopian industrial backdrop. Equally, the game is a strange turn for Nitroplus, better known for making visual novels of a darker and often more adult nature – which may also explain the rather workmanlike execution here. Piloting a bipedal mech named Junkster, our leporine hero, Stamp, is hunting for his estranged daughter in Smokestack Mountain, comprising a series of maze-like levels. Little effort has been taken to make the layouts and biomes cohere – areas are linked by teleporters – but different environments…

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Utsav is the Sanskrit/Hindi term for celebration, and also the term that Avichal Singh and Akshat Rathee have decided should apply to India’s indie gaming scene. As a developer, Singh understands the challenges of producing and selling an indie game in India: the co-founder of Nodding Heads Games achieved a rare breakout hit in 2020 with Raji: An Ancient Epic. From there, in 2021 he began working with Rathee on a Steam festival showcasing Indian games. But with Rathee as CEO of Nodwin Gaming, an esports company that acquired Comic Con India in 2024, there was scope to do more. “A few months ago, I texted Akshat,” Singh says. “‘Hey, I want to benefit indies – bring all of them under one umbrella’. Akshat said, ‘Let’s get into Comic Con’,…

“Why should IP creators keep working for you? Film and TV, which is grotesque at the best of times, still own the need to note the importance of credit. Why won’t you?”Narrative specialist Kim MacAskill asks Sony why the Until Dawn movie doesn’t give specific credit to the story team from the original videogame “In theory, it’s amazing… However, what they showed was like… oh.”Shuhei Yoshida is yet to be convinced by the thirdparty games coming to Switch 2 “It’s basically alien technology at this point and should be studied.”The Games Fund’s Ilia Eremeev is in awe of what Sandfall has achieved with Expedition 33 “I didn’t want the Meta CTO job – I just wanted to be ‘VR dictator’ where I knew the problem space intimately and was confident…

The extramission theory of vision was once all the rage. Plato argued that we are able to see the world around us because beams shoot out of our eyes. The gods, he has Socrates explain in the Timaeus, caused “the pure fire within us, which is akin to that of day, to flow through the eyes in a smooth and dense stream”; when this eye fire meets daylight it coalesces into a visible substance along the beam-path. We can’t see at night, obviously, because our eye-beams do not meet a similar phenomenon (sunlight) with which they can combine. Unfortunately, advances in anatomy and optics by Isaac Newton et al eventually proved this poetic idea wrong in its particulars. But a more abstract version of it lived on in philosophical idealism,…

Developer/Publisher Keepsake Games Format PC Origin Sweden Release TBA Before takeoff, a short meeting. We’re one of a group of four astronauts, pondering a circuit board that covers a wall of our ship’s engine room. There isn’t space on it for a lot of components (engines, weapons, sensors), only what we can fit on the board’s marked green squares. It’s a little like packing a briefcase in Resident Evil 4. Anyone can fiddle with it – there’s no designated engineer here. As Jump Ship rookies, though, we leave the decision about what to take to our senior crew members, who include game director Filip Coulianos and Keepsake CEO Daniel Kaplan. Coulianos, previously a co-founder of Hazelight, started Jump Ship as a side project in 2012, under the name Hyperspace: Pirates…

The games made by Hollow Ponds and Richard Hogg are hard to talk about – much harder than their appearances might suggest. Their latest, Wilmot Works It Out, could be described as a game about making jigsaw puzzles, for example. But that would fail to capture what makes it work: the way an idea that starts in one jigsaw is developed in another, or the manner in which a picaresque narrative is filled in through regular visits from the postie. Likewise, 2020’s I Am Dead is almost a hidden-object game – but one where the objects you’re seeking are often hidden inside others, and the manner of their discovery encourages you to consider the relationship between the living and the ghosts of old friends that surround them. You might file…

How many games with fantasy settings will be released this year? And for how many of those will the notion of ‘fantasy’ look a lot like Middle-earth or the realms of Dungeons & Dragons? Of course, those mythologies offer game makers plenty to work with – Baldur’s Gate 3 being the most compelling example of the scope of characters and scenarios waiting to be mined from the lore of D&D. Yet that doesn’t alter that many games opt for similar kinds of fantasy worlds, as if ‘fantasy’, as a genre term, defined certain specifics – cultures inspired by Europe’s Middle Ages, magic spells, realms of darkness or chaos, non-human races such as elves and dwarves (or equivalents), and, of course, dragons. Last month, The First Berserker: Khazan stuck largely to…

Developer/publisher SNK Format PC (tested), PS5, Xbox Series Release Out now This long-awaited sequel is like the age-worn fighting champ coming out of retirement. Twenty-five years in the making, it marks SNK’s return to Fatal Fury after 1999’s acclaimed Garou: Mark Of The Wolves, bringing with it a legacy that mounts expectation. Stepping into the ring today, it’s squaring up against a new, golden generation of combatants with all manner of fresh tricks and techniques. One thing’s for sure, it certainly looks in good shape. This is far and away the smartest-looking fighting game SNK has turned out since The King Of Fighters XIII. Steering away from realism and centring on a comicinspired art style works wonders – not least when it comes to the showstopping flourishes of each character’s…

Developer Red Soul Games Publisher Raw Fury Format PC (tested), PS5, Xbox Series Release Out now Things begin with a gunshot. Barrel to temple, a flash, darkness again, a flicker of every death yet to come. This is the starting pistol for a story whose haunted spaces are suffused with languid dread. Mixing darkness, bitterness and warmth, it’s a good, if sinister, companion on a bleak night. Or maybe we should say it’s the restarting pistol. As the latest in a lineage that stretches from Alone In The Dark to Signalis, the mysteries here are familiar, the debts mere homages. Post Trauma might haunt you for an evening or a week, but its impact fades like a flash of gunfire. Anyone who’s played Silent Hill (or one of the innumerable…

Developer Llamasoft Publisher Atari Format PC (version tested), PS4, PS5, PSVR2, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series Release Out now Despite being the first arcade game to offer realtime flat-shaded polygon graphics, and despite coming from Tempest creator Dave Theurer, I, Robot was a flop when it was released in 1984. Now, with a new version created by Jeff Minter available, it’s not hard to see why. I, Robot’s blend of maze-running and blasting makes for a game that’s fiddly to get to grips with and slow to ingratiate itself, and that’s before you get to the fact that if your character jumps while the giant glowing eye in the background of each level is wide open, you’ll be destroyed instantly. But as‘maze-running and blasting’ and‘giant glowing eye’ might suggest, with…

Developer/publisher Wadjet Eye Games Format PC (tested), Switch Release Out now Wadjet Eye Games certainly knows its way around point-and-click adventures, having steadily built a portfolio that’s helped to prevent the genre fading from public consciousness. And that’s especially apt when it comes to Old Skies, as we take on the role of Fia Quinn, a time-travelling operative for ChronoZen corporation, which gives its (moneyed) clients a chance to visit the past. While Fia is ‘chrono-locked’, meaning any butterfly effects from her travels don’t affect her, the rest of the world has a habit of altering without warning, even causing people she knows to have never existed. Time-tinkering in this dystopian 2062 is at least regulated, with a complex set of rules for Fia to follow while accompanying clients to…